The ticking of the old hand-me-down cat clock on the wall drilled into my brain with every mechanical swish of its tail. It was nine o’clock and I was late for a meet-up with my friends.

I had just gotten the twins down to bed. Bruce Jr. and Jayden, my two foster brothers, were passed out in their race car beds with ‘Finding Nemo’ playing softly in the background. It never ceased to amaze me how the two of them could sleep with that fucking annoying blue fish babbling incessantly.

My foster mother, Janice, on the other hand was still drunkenly yelling at ‘Chopped’ downstairs in the den. I hoped the Valium I slipped her earlier would have done the trick by now, but it would seem the woman had the tolerance of an elephant. However, her speech was becoming more slurred and the time between bouts of swearing was growing.

It wouldn’t be long.

I closed the door of my room, a no-no in Janice’s house and set about getting ready for my trek through Green Glen. Our house was on the outskirts in one of the many secluded little neighborhoods off the highway. It was set back far within the dense forest that made up most of Oregon.

I had to make my way through the idyllic little neighborhood and along about two miles of highway before I would hit the meeting spot, we had all agreed upon.

The door of my mirrored closet rumbled along its tracks as I searched for something to wear over my baggy red t-shirt. I swiped through my litany of Goodwill finds and settled on an oversized black and white plaid flannel shirt. It was my favorite to wear on nights like this, and I could hide my lack of boobs easier.

I closed the closet door carefully as to not wake up the boys. I didn’t want to have to bail on the group—especially tonight. I glanced at the reflection of my phone from the mirror and instantly felt anxious.

Earlier I had gotten a text from my good friend, Matthew Radanelli. Normally that wouldn’t have been cause for alarm, but Matty had gone missing two days ago, and the entire town had been searching for him ever since.

No one had heard from in for forty-eight hours until my phone buzzed while I had been helping Janice set the table for dinner.

One New Message from Matty.

After reading it I had texted the others an immediate S.O.S. and asked them to meet me at our spot—that it was about Matty. They all agreed to be there by seven-thirty.

I was an hour and fifteen minutes late already, but I couldn’t go anywhere until Janice was passed out.

The thick fuzzy fabric of the button up slid over my slender arms and shoulders obscuring my slight frame better than my t-shirt could have ever hoped to do.

I hated how shapeless my natural body was. My boobs were a small handful at best, and I had boy hips. Hourglass figure? What’s that? Puberty had utterly failed me.

Instead of trying to rock the ‘stick-covered-in-skin’ look, I decided to be shapeless on my own terms. I covered my body in shirts at least one size too big and layered that with flannels and over-shirts that would fit an adult, so I didn’t look like a slight breeze would blow me over.

The only tight article of clothing I ever wore were my jeans, and that was only because I loved the shape of my legs.

I’d been enrolled in some sort of dance class for the past five years. That long doing arabesques, leaps and countless hours of stretching had made my legs lean and shapely.

Now if only it’d do something for the rest of me.

Bzzzzt.

I jumped at the sudden sound of plastic vibrating on wood. The faint green glow of the screen made the bold black lettering of my boyfriend’s name pop.

He’s probably wondering where I am.

Ray Vena was a sweetheart, if not a bit overprotective and clingy. Even moths after getting together I could never understand why every waking second needed to be touching and grabbing. Normally I didn’t mind it, it showed he was interested which somewhat soothed one of my faults: thinking I was some sort of bet or something.

I never got why one of the most well-liked kids at Green Glen High School would be interested in me. At first, I thought it was shiny-new-toy syndrome…and sometimes I still sort of do.

One New Message from: Ray

Where are you, babe? Everything ok?

I headed to the door and craned my neck to try and hear downstairs. I could clearly hear Alton Brown’s voice but after a solid sixty seconds with no word from Janice, I figured I was in the clear.

Shuffling my socked feet through the olive shag carpet, I headed back to my vanity. Three cylindrical amber bottles with white caps caught my eye while I checked my makeup in my light up mirror.

Shit. I almost forgot.

I uncapped the bottles and shook a pill out of each. One small yellow circle, another slightly larger white circle, and a teal triangle. I popped the three pills into my mough, my face contorting at the acrid powdery taste and fumbled for one of my many half-full water bottles that littered nearly every surface of my room.

My grimace softened to a frown. I hated needing to take these. They were gross and made me feel sluggish all day. Worst of all, if I missed even one dose, my brain started firing off nerves in my body at random as punishment.

I moved the water bottle I just drank from in front of the pill bottles, obscuring them from view. I couldn’t look at them anymore. Very few people knew I was medicated. Only Janice, Ray, and Ray’s parents—Frank and Anita knew…and I wasn’t sure I was cool with them knowing.

I feel everyone that knows looks at me like I am some fragile woodland creature that must be approached with caution and handled with care. It’s a shitty feeling when all you want is to be normal.

I spun on my heel and moved silently from my room. I turned off the light as I passed the threshold just so Janice, if she did wake, would just think I was asleep. I popped my head in on the boys to make sure they were still softly snoring and crept down the stairs.

The French doors leading to the den were cracked open. I could see Janice’s severe ‘can-I-speak-to-your-manager’ haircut lolling over from the side of the couch.

The clock above the TV read ten after nine. Janice snored loudly and rolled onto her back. Her new position gave her a few extra chins.

I grinned to myself and slid my feet into my relaxed moto boots that sat waiting for me next to the front door. The keys on the hook above lightly ‘tink’d as I attempted to wrap my hands around them in a preemptive strike to stop a full-on jingle.

Double checking that I had my phone in my pocket, I opened the heavy oak door and prayed the hinges wouldn’t scream and point out my escape. A rush of cold air hit me in the face and blew my dark brown hair into my vision as my boots hit the worn welcome mat on the stoop.

The door shut as easily as it opened and I was off into the neighborhood, feet pounding the concrete as I jogged to get out and onto the main highway that would be the long part of my journey.

I passed through the dimly lit winding streets past the mixture of two-story ranch houses and the occasional restored Victorian. Before I knew it, I was past the cobblestone façade fence of my subdivision and out onto the dark that was the highway. If I kept running, I could make it by nine-twenty, but without a flashlight there was no way I was taking the uneven shoulder at more than a brisk walk.

Twenty minutes later I tramped through the pine needles and leaves of the forest floor. I had just veered off the highway that bisected the small town of Green Glen. My destination was the clearing where we usually stopped to chat on our way home from school.

The fir trees stood tall and ominous in the near pitch black of night. My only guiding light came from the full moon over head. I didn’t feel okay being out this late, especially with the curfew that Sheriff Doonan had instituted after they found my best friend, Kerrie Jeffers’, girlfriend dead on the highway between here and Salem. Everyone under the age of eighteen was to be indoors by seven p.m.

I checked the dim light of my old navy-blue Nokia brick phone for the time: nine-thirty.

Fuck we’re going to be so dead if we get caught.

I frowned and balled up my hands inside the sleeves of my over-shirt after my phone was safely back in the front pocket of my jeans. I could just imagine the Sheriff’s face—which usually looked like you caught her sucking on a lemon—cast in the eerie light of the red and blue lights of her stare issued SUV. That was something I didn’t want to run into tonight.

The faint glow of my friend’s cell phones and a flashlight or two up ahead let me physically relax. It helped to know I didn’t have far to go in the dark. As much as I had traveled these woods in my year or so of being here, I still never got over the feeling I was being watched…as stupid as that sounds.

Even when I headed home in the fading light of the afternoon, every flap of a bird’s wing or movement of a moth caused me to nearly jump out of my boots.

At night, though? Nope. I usually didn’t wander in the woods after the sun went down. Everything went so…wrong. It was hard not to suspect the woodland creature’s main mission went from ‘survival’ to ‘scare Sophia’. I was pretty sure I had already encountered at least two murderous rabbits and was being stalked by a squirrel.

“Sorry I’m late, guys,” I announced my presence as I broke through the trees into the clearing and was blinded by no less than two flashlights and a camera in return. My arm rose to shield my face from the blinding light just as I was tackled by a warm body in a windbreaker.

I stumbled off to my right trying to counter the mass that had attached itself to me as my eyes re-adjusted to the dark. Warm body, windbreaker; my hands felt around the top portion of the body and soon found their way to the grown-out buzz cut of none other than my boyfriend.

“Jesus Christ, babe! Take it down a notch!” The fuzzy hair on the back or Ray’s head tickled the tender skin under my nails as I ran them over his scalp. He hummed contentedly and nuzzled his face into my side.

“He was worried you got lost…you know, since it’s been two hours,” Kerrie’s sharp tongue jabbed from across the clearing. She was standing there, arms under a developed chest I would kill to have, looking severely annoyed at my late appearance.

We were fighting which was a first for us. It was stupid and my fault. At first, I was too scared to talk to her, or try and apologize but the longer it took me to talk to her, the more pissed she got. If there was one thing I could say about Kerrie Jeffers, it was that she always wore how she was feeling on her sleeve.

“Sorry,” I stressed the word, widening my stance to keep my balance. “I know I sent out a random S.O.S., and I would have been here sooner…but it took a while for the Valium I slipped Janice to knock her out. Then I had to put the boys to bed.”

The look on Kerrie’s face was priceless. Her nose did this thing where her nostrils widened and closed repeatedly like she was silently hyperventilating. That and her left eye twitched. She looked like Carrie White from that Steven King move after she had blood poured on her.

“You drugged your foster mom?” Kerrie raised one of her slender hands and combed her long dirty blonde locks from her view. She was lucky—she had thick luscious hair naturally. Something that took me hours in the bathroom to achieve.

“It’s not a habit,” Ray spoke from around my middle where he’d begun to lightly tickle my hip bone. I squirmed in his firm grip. “This is only what…the third time?”

“Well that makes it sound like a habit, babe,” I lightly tapped the back of his head and got a nibble on my side in response. I yelped and hopped back, finally slipping from his grasp and edged closer to Samuel Peppard who had spent the entire conversation leaning against a maple tree fucking around with his early birthday present: a digital camera.

“God you two are gross,” Kerrie groused and turned from the group to look the opposite direction.

“Jealousy is an ugly color on you,” Samuel piped in, his uncharacteristically sing-song tone brought a smile to my face. I love it when he let his guard down and joined in on our banter—especially lately since it tended to be at Kerrie’s expense.

“Get stuffed,” Kerrie threw up a middle finger at Samuel who didn’t even bother to look up from his camera. “I tried dating Ray a long time ago, remember? It didn’t work out.”

“You were in sixth grade Kerrie,” I could see Samuel’s deep blue eyes rolling in the bright light of the camera. “It doesn’t count.”

“Does so, we kissed…and shared fry boats,” I snored and rolled my eyes as well. It never bothered me that Kerrie and Ray had a past. In my mind it was expected in a town this small. A peck on the lips and sharing your lunches doesn’t make a real relationship, anyway.

“Well you haven’t tried dating Sophia, yet,” Samuel snickered, and Ray’s body went stiff.

Ray was always a little paranoid about my being so close to Kerrie after she came out as bisexual. He put me up on such a high pedestal that he thought everyone, and their mother wanted to date me. He wasn’t a jerk about it, just insecure. He needed occasional reassurance that I wasn’t going to switch teams or cheat on him like his last girlfriend did.

Kerrie’s face scrunched into a sneer. “You couldn’t pay me to date her—she’s not my type.”

Yeah, I’m not a total edge-lord.

“What about all those sleepovers you two have?” Samuel smirked mischievously.

“We’re talking about what idiots you guys are,” she snapped.

“She’s right,” I bobbed my head in agreement. “That’s pretty much the topic of discussion.”

“I don’t need your help,” she spat.

“Chill the fuck out, dude,” I held up my hand to ward off any further jousting.

“So,” Ray drew out the word and took a big step forward effectively blocking Kerrie and I from each other’s view. “What’s this text you got? Matty, right?”

A newly familiar pain in my chest surfaced at the sound of Matty’s name. my face dropped into a frown and my cold fingers fumbled to grab my phone from the small pocket it was kept in. the soft rubber of the ‘on’ switch gave way, and woke the device. I navigated the interface like a mad woman trying to find my last text from Matthew Radanelli:

Saved Message from Matty:

Sorry for running. Had enough. Needed a break. Meet me at old school. Need to talk.

“Doesn’t that sound weird? Like…not like Matty?”

“You sure it’s his number?” Ray reached an arm out and wound it around my waist. He pulled me tight against his side and back into Kerrie’s view. Furtively, I glanced at her, and hoped the PDA wouldn’t pull another petty remark from her.

I shouldn’t have ghosted her…she probably hates my guts.

“It showed up as ‘Matty’ in my contacts,” I looked up at Ray, frown deepening. “It has to be him, right?”

“Yeah,” Ray’s toasty hand rubbed my side brushing my flannel against the baggy shirt underneath. The fiction brought warmth I desperately needed. “Of course, it has to be.”

“Question is, is he going to be pissed at all of us for coming along?” Samuel kicked at a fallen branch on the ground as he meandered at random through the clearing. “None of us got a text, just Soph. It didn’t say to spread the word.”

Ray bristled and pulled me closer as he drew himself from a relaxed position to his full stature.

“Why would he get mad? We’re his friends.”

“Just sayin’, man,” Samuel shrugged. “She’s right—it does sound weird the way it’s written.”

A guest of wind sent a flurry of leaves into the small clearing, their jagged edges sticking to whatever and whomever they could find on their way through. The chill brought with it sent a monstrous shiver through me.

Why were we just standing in the dark talking through text meanings when we could get moving and help Matty?

“Well I wasn’t coming out in the woods at night by myself, so he’s getting what he’s getting.” My hand still wrapped in the sleeve of my over-shirt pointed in the direction of Old Green Glen High.

“You heard the lady. We’ve got about a mile hike down the trail.” Ray released his hold on my waist and waited instead to take one of my concealed hands. Begrudgingly, I released the grip on the cuff of my sleeve and slid my hand back out into the air. I shoved my small hand into his, hoping his ever-present warmth would keep my fingers from going completely numb.

“It’ll be fine, babe.” Ray’s slightly crooked teeth appeared as he grinned. “We’ll get him home.”

We were a little over halfway down the path but had yet to spot Matty. As much as I wanted to get my friend home, I was glad we hadn’t gotten to the old school yet.

The whole place was off-putting enough on its own, but the worst part was the giant chain link fence that the last Sheriff had put up back in the nineties to keep kids out. it was covered in signs and over the years had taken a beating from a near constant stream of kids climbing over it. There were some points where the fence was nearly bent in half. Now a days it served more as a hinderance to fleeing rather than something to keep us out.

Samuel took the front with a flashlight in one hand and his camera in the other. He swaggered down the trail lost in his own little world. Samuel was an interesting character. He dressed in button up sweaters that would be more at home on his grandmother Hattie. Yet, somehow, he managed to make out with almost every female underclassman at Green Glen High.

I’d seen him in action, and it was a sight to behold. The impish smile under shaggy hair. I could see why other girls would be attracted to him, but I just didn’t get how it seemed to be commonplace to let him stick his tongue down their throat. Everyone just seemed to expect to get with him at some point.

However, Samuel seemed to save the charisma just for his conquests. When he was with our friend group, he was quiet and withdrawn. He seemed to prefer to watch our interactions than get in on the conversations himself.

I could never quite figure him out.

Ray and I followed behind Samuel hand in hand, while Kerrie took up the rear. She was too pissed at both Samuel and I to walk next to either of us.

“You doing okay, babe?” Ray’s deeper voice cut through the night on its way to my ears.

“Yeah. I just…I feel bad like we weren’t there enough for Matty. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to run off if we were better friends.” I looked over my shoulder at Kerrie who was busy keeping her stony gaze on the trail. I focused back in on Ray’s baby blue eyes: “What if we could have stopped this? His dad’s been calling every day to see if he’s shown up at my place.”

“Yeah,” Ray squeezed my hand. “He’s been calling my house, too.”

“I just have run out of things to say to him.”

“Hey, hey—you don’t have to have all the answers,” Ray knocked into my hip with his own. I had to side-step to keep my balance but giggled all the same.

“Can you two save it for the janitor’s closet,” Kerrie’s sour tone hit me full force right in my last nerve. I spun on my heel in the loose dirt and jabbed a finger just a few inches from her face.

“Can you stop being such a bitch, Ker? Christ, if you want me to talk to you, don’t have such a shitty attitude.”

Kerrie smacked my hand out of the way violently, her chest heaved with anger. I pulled my stinging hand back to my own breast and looked up at her in disbelief.

“Don’t you dare, Sophia. You lost any friend privileges you had when you refused to answer your fucking phone!” Kerrie flinched as Samuel, who had doubled back at the first mention of someone being called a ‘bitch’, put a large hand on her shoulder to keep her in place.

Kerrie had about four inches on me and could’ve taken me down without breaking a sweat. I had to admit she was intimidating. Her hazel eyes narrowed to near slits behind strands of messy hair.

“What? The cops showed up at my house,” I hissed. “I’m in foster care—I’m practically one step from Janice telling me to pack a bag and get the fuck out because of your stupid—”

I stopped as I was about to tread into very dangerous territory. It was true I hadn’t answered any of Kerrie’s calls since the cops had shown up asking about Alys, but did I really want to be the person to bring the dead into school yard drama?

“My stupid what, Sophia? My stupid dead girlfriend?”

Kerrie lunged forward like she was going to hit me causing a flurry of motion all at once: Samuel grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away while Ray moved in front of me to take whatever hit managed to get through.

“Yeah, you know what—she was your ex-girlfriend, Ker. She dumped you for lying to her,” I yelled from behind Ray.

“Sophie, what’s the point of this?” Ray looked at me over his shoulder, his usually wide eyes slightly narrowed. “Is this really the time to get this out?”

“Yes, because she keeps making passive-aggressive comments about us. Why would I want to answer the phone when all I get is a shitty fucking attitude?”

“Because that’s what friends are supposed to do,” Kerrie calls out from beyond my line of sight, a tinge of sadness to her voice. “They’re supposed to help you when someone you love dies, and be there for you…but I guess you missed that when you were being kicked from house to house for being a horrible human being, Sophia!”

“You know why I’m here,” I screamed not caring if my voice carried all the way through town to the Sheriff’s station. “My foster dad had a stroke and they couldn’t keep me!”

“Or wouldn’t.” Kerrie sneered.

“Dude, Ker…harsh,” Samuel whistled lowly and shook his head at the two of us. “What happened to the two of you being best friends?”

“She left me hanging—haven’t you been listening?” Kerrie’s shrill tear-filled voice cut right through me, and I knew that as much as she was mad at me, she was more hurt.

“She was thinking about you, Ker. Fuck she talked about you the entire time, asking if you were okay and shit.” Ray’s shoulders rose and fell in a half-hearted shrug.

“Lot of good that did me and the thirty unanswered voicemails I left. She’s too busy with her hands down your pants to pick up the phone!”

Ray swatted the air between him and Kerrie dismissively. His feet ground in the dirt like he was deciding to keep being a human shield or if he was going to just move and let us work it out on our own.

“Don’t bring him into this, Kerrie. That’s not why I didn’t answer,” I sighed heavily and peeked my head around Ray’s bicep. “I just couldn’t handle my emotions and yours at the same time. I kind of shut down, and…and I should have said something.”

“You didn’t even know her,” Kerrie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and gave me a suspicious look.

It was true. I had only met Alys one time and that was on purpose. Not that she wasn’t a cool chick, but I didn’t feel like lying was the right way to start off a relationship. Still, Kerrie had insisted on keeping up the rouse of being out of high school, so I took myself out of the equation.

“I still met her. We all had lunch together. I know she had a dog named Zipper, and her older sister goes to Arizona State. I just kept thinking about her dog waiting for her to come home, and her sister missing her on Christmas.” I sniffed due to a combination of emotion and the cold numbing my nose.

“I could grieve for a person, Ker, but I couldn’t deal with it from the both of us. By the time I was ready to talk, you were already pissed, and well…you’re mildly terrifying.”

“I’m not that scary!”

“Tell that to my hand. It still stings.”

“You deserved that,” Kerrie stood her ground. I could tell I would have to full on apologize to fix this.

“I was selfish and a dick…and I’m sorry.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and stepped out from behind Ray, so I was in front of Kerrie. I was willing to take a hit if it meant this would blow over.

Queue me standing there for the longest minute of my life while the fate of my friendship with my best friend rode on a one sentence apology and a silent prayer that she took my dumb ass back. Her hazel eyes regarded my smaller form with intense scrutiny like she was looking for a shred of a lie to grasp onto.

“You were a dick,” she agreed quietly, her full bottom lip shaking slightly as she inhaled. “I’m still kind of mad…but I love you.”

Kerrie reached out one of her long slender arms and pulled me into a hug so tight that I could barely breathe as her tits suffocated me. My lungs ached as I struggled to draw in live-giving air, but I didn’t dare move. I was hugging my best friend—something I hadn’t done in far too long and I wasn’t ready for it to be over, yet.

“Are they going to make out, now?” Samuel’s excited whisper filled the silence that had fallen over the group. “Cause Matty’s going to be pissed if he misses that.”

“Fuck off, Sam,” Kerrie and I offhandedly replied in unison. We were used to the lesbian comments from him, so much so that it didn’t even phase us anymore.

“Uhmmmm…he does bring up a good point,” Ray sounded slightly uncomfortable. “We’re supposed to be meeting Matty, and while I’m glad you two aren’t yelling at each other anymore, it’s getting pretty late and I don’t want him to think we’re not coming.”

“You’re right,” I nod against Kerrie’s chest and give her one last tight squeeze before letting go and taking a large breath. Oxygen. Thank God. I smiled up at Ray once I was sure I wasn’t going to die and grabbed his hand. I walked a few paces and pulled to urge him forward to the old school.

We continued, this time in a pack now that unsaid tensions were behind us. The black woods on either side of the path gobbled up the beams from our flashlights hungrily as did the dark path before us.

There wasn’t much said as we went on. Ray was being unusually quiet, Kerrie was concentrating on the ground again, and Samuel never talked much, anyway.

The silence wasn’t all too uncomfortable, however and it did quicken our pace somewhat so that now we were more focused on moving instead of conversing. The only thing mildly distracting was the occasional flash from Samuel’s camera as he continued to document the night.

That had been a big hang-up of his since Alys was murdered. Like I said, he didn’t speak much, but when he did his words were carefully cultivated. He had gone on this long speech about ‘life being too short, might as well save the memories while you can’. As soon as his grandma had given him the damn thing, it was in his hands twenty-four-seven, and usually aimed at one of us.

“I see the fence,” Samuel called out after about ten minutes of walking.

A small ‘whoop’ of triumph rippled its way through the group as we all focused in on the bent eight-foot frame of the perimeter fence that glinted back at us.

“Now, to figure out where Matty’s at,” I murmured, let go of Ray’s hand and bounded forward so I was standing even with Samuel to start scanning the fence line. there was maybe only a fifty-foot curved span of fence that didn’t back directly up to trees, so I had hope that maybe Matty would be sitting in the dirt of the path off to the side.

“Maybe he left,” Samuel said from behind me.

He could be right—it had taken a hell of a long time to get over here and from the couple of passes I did over the open bit of fence; he wasn’t anywhere to be found. The only thing I did find was that the gate for the fence was unchained giving easy access to the parking lot of the school.

What I really hoped was that he’d gotten fed up with waiting and had finally gone home. However, knowing the climate of his home life, especially the past couple of months, it was more likely he was nearby off the beaten path, or close to the school.

“Could be,” I replied and squinted into the darkness. “I just want to be sure, first.” My eyes strained as I tried to pick out a human form in the black beyond the beam of light from Samuel’s flashlight.

As I paced on my way back, I pushed the gate open. The metal feet of the fence grated against the crumbling asphalt as the mouth of the gate widened. I could only see in so far and the parking lot of the old school was huge…there was no way I was going to spot Matty from here.

I was about to step through the gap in the fence when a swirling breeze carried a scent to my nostrils that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was tangy, metallic, and was something that I hoped to never be close enough to smell it that clearly again.

I spun in place as I tried to sus out where the odor was coming from. Hair whipped me in the face as I revolved, my eyes near slits as I tried to squint past the relative safety of the beam of light.

“Soph? What’s wrong?” Ray’s question cut through my haze of panic.

“I smell blood,” was all I could muster.

“What—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Very funny.”

I looked between Kerrie, Ray and Samuel helplessly. Of course, they wouldn’t believe me. it wasn’t a secret that the woods creeped me out, so it wouldn’t be too far of a jump that I’d freak myself out and star imagining things.

A step toward me by Ray brought my full attention back to him. I flinched and backed up. My thigh hit against the latch for the fence. The last thing I wanted was to be touched.

“I smell blood, and we’re supposed to meet Matty. Matty isn’t anywhere I can see.” My dainty hand balled itself into a fist, nails dug into the soft flesh of my palm. I needed to try and stay grounded. I was beginning to feel how I did when I was younger and had frequent panic attacks.

“You’re just scared, babe,” Ray’s voice was the definition of soothing, but I could see the way he side-eyed Samuel when he thought I wasn’t looking. He was having doubts as well.

“You’re freaking me out, Soph. If you’re trying to be funny, its not working.” Kerrie kicked at the rocks near her feet and wrapped her arms around her body. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep warm or console herself. Her usually angelic face was marred with unease and she kept glancing behind her like she was hearing something off in the forest.

Samuel, however, was stoic as ever. He circled around the back of the group slowly, his arms outstretched, camera in hand. A little red light on the front blinked on and off as he pointed the small lens at each of us in turn before going back to the woods.

“Sorry, but something is wrong here! …Are you recording this, Samuel?” I flapped my arms helplessly at him. I was unwilling to move from my spot between the group and the fence. If I took one step, now, I was worried I wouldn’t stop until I hit my doorstep.

“Call his phone.” Samuel’s broad shoulders shrugged underneath his cardigan. “If he’s here, we’ll hear it. Matty never puts his phone on silent. He gets it taken away at least once a week because it rings during class…if he’s not here then maybe he didn’t show. Maybe he got tired of waiting and fucked off to his house.”

“Man-whore has a point,” Kerrie’s face seemed strained as she tried to look optimistic. “Ninety-nine percent sure Matty’s at home watching ‘Lost’ or something.” Kerrie’s head bobbed along with her statement.

“Fine, then. Call him.” I folded my arms across my chest and looked at each of them in turn.

“You call him,” Samuels’ face screwed up in annoyance.

“I’m not doing it,” Kerrie muttered.

Ray sighed and hung his head for a moment. He looked up, caught my eye and gave me a look of sympathy: “He texted you, babe. You should call.”

“Traitor,” I mumbled and after a few seconds of frantic fumbling I managed to get my piece of shit brick phone out of my pocket and set off on doing my best to go through the menu on the tiny green and black screen with severely shaky hands. I was almost unable to read the words on the tiny screen due to the jagged uneven jumps my arms were making the closer I got to Matty’s name in my contact list.

“It’ll be okay,” Ray’s continuously soothing voice cocooned me, giving me that last little push I needed to hit the green phone button.

Quiet.

Everyone stopped making noise as the deceptively loud dial tone emanated from the tiny speaker. I craned my neck to the fence, listening for the standard Nokia ringtone that Matty never bothered to change. I hoped simultaneously that I would hear it, and that I wouldn’t.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

Fuck, he’s close.

“Matty,” I screamed and turned to my left to face the edge of the woods before the crumbled pavement of the parking lot began. The sound was coming from somewhere over there, but the trees carried and bounced sounds around so you could never quitetell where it was coming from. I clutched my phone in my hand, careful to not hit the red ‘hang up’ button. I turned to Samuel:

“Give me your flashlight,” I ordered and held out an impatient hand.

Samuel jumped into action and practically slammed the mag lite into my hand on his way past and through the fence.

“Matt!” His voice echoed off the charred walls of the school and the trees as he set off into the black parking lot.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

“Matty,” Kerrie called from her spot in the dead center of the pathway. “Matty! We’re here, man! Just come out!”

I flipped the flashlight over in my hand and pointed it in the direction of the woods where I was sure the ringtone was coming from.

“Matthew!” My scream bounced back at me as I searched above the shrubs and bushes for my friend.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

“Christ,” Ray stepped over to me and ran a hand through his short black hair. The pomade perfection he had made earlier in the day was marred by his fingers. “This is fucked up,” he whispered while the others desperately carried on calling for Matt.

“I just hope he’s not passed out or something…or you know, mauled by a bear…” I gulped trying to regain some moisture into my mouth after yelling into the cold night.

“Bears don’t come this close to—”

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

“Fuck!” Ray screamed. His usually calm and collected demeanor shattered by the maddening ring of Matty’s phone. He snatched the flashlight from me and stomped to the edge of the path, head high—scanning for movement as he went.

“Radanelli! Get your ass out here!”

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

Ray stomped up to the edge of the woods. He looked like he was going to head past into the trees when there was a loud resonating ‘snap’. Ray jumped back and pointed the flashlight down where he had stepped and gasped.

I headed up and around Ray to get a better look at what he was gaping at and stopped when I saw a small stream of crimson leaking slowly from underneath a full, glossy trash bag. I backed up next to Kerrie and shook my head.

“Samuel! Over here, now!” Ray’s order boomed through the woods. Kerrie and I flinched at the unusually harsh tone in Ray’s voice. We were used to him being soft spoken or using goofy voices. No, this was his ‘military’ voice—the one his dad used when things needed to be done around the house.

This is bad.

After a moment we heard Samuel’s sneakers squeak on the pavement as he neared, camera still in hand—light still blinking. His solid form filled the entrance to the parking lot as he stopped and stared at the black bag on the edge of the path.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

“The fuck is that?” He questioned, his strong eyebrows pinched together.

“I don’t know—but we’re going to find out.”

That was when Betty came out. Betty was Ray’s hunting knife. Something that his father had given him as a gift. She lived outside under his porch due to his mom’s stance on weapons. Ray loved Betty, though. She was his prized possession.

The flashlight was tossed back to Samuel, who’s usually impassive face was contorted into a wide-eyed look of terror as Betty gleamed.

“Please don’t.”

“Just get over here,” Ray pointed Betty at a spot on the ground to the right of the bag. Samuel gulped and studiously moved to the place Ray indicated, his movements unsure.

“You two, stay there.”

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

Even though he was carrying a knife with a blade the size of my forearm, I knew Ray too well to be intimidated by his false bravado. The sweat on his brow, despite the cold was proof he was just as scared as the rest of us. As much as I knew whatever was in the bag wasn’t going to be good—I didn’t want my friends to go through it alone, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be told what to do.

Plumes of loose dirt kicked up around my boots as I made my way over to the left of the bag leaving Kerrie in the center of the path by herself. Ray glared at me, but said nothing. He turned back to face the bag. His shoulders heaved as he psyched himself up to make his move.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

The ringing seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Ray headed straight for the bag, grabbed the top where it was tied together, and jammed Betty through the thin plastic. With one swift motion Ray brought the knife down and sliced the bag open. With its integrity lost, the contents of the bag spilled out over onto Ray’s boots and the ground.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

There it was, Matty’s phone. The scratched silver casing covered in a mass of red congealing blood as it vibrated on what seemed to be the mangled and bent corpse of Matthew Radanelli.

I sunk to my knees and watched the phone vibrate. It slid out of the broken contorted hand of my friend and down his body to the slowly expanding pool of guts in the bottom of the bag.

“Is this real?” I looked up at Samuel and Ray. I hoped one of them had the answer.

Samuel’s arms immediately dropped. His camera, still recording, hung limp at his side while he stared slack-jawed at the corpse of his best friend.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

“Aww, no,” Ray backpedaled a few steps. His boots took gooey trails of syrupy liquid with him before he turned off to the trail we had walked down. He braced his hands on his knees and barfed so violently his entire body spasmed. He painted the dirt of the forest floor with whatever he had eaten for dinner and continued to do so until there was nothing but the occasional chunk of half digested food among the bile.

Do do do DO, do do do DO, do do do do DOOOO.

I turned back to stare at the blank face of Matthew, half obscured by the plastic bag he was encased in, head tilted with my phone in my lap. I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that I would never get to speak with him again—that he wouldn’t be waiting for us when we met in our clearing after school. That he would never hug me again.

“Matty?” Kerrie questioned from her spot in the middle of the path, her voice sounded like a small child looking for their mother.

My brick phone stopped buzzing in my lap and a moment later I heard the soft voice of my friend come through the tiny speaker in my hand:

“Hey this is Matt. I can’t answer the phone. You know what to do.” Beep.

Oh God. Oh God, no.

I stared blankly at the spin art of bone, muscle and skin that used to be Matthew Radanelli. He was in pieces that showed more of his inner workings of the human body than I ever wanted to see. All the different colors under a wash of red would have been fascinating if it weren’t for Matty’s soulless eyes that were staring vacantly into the night.

A fly probably attracted by the overwhelming smell of blood and growing stench of death landed right on one of Matty’s deep green eyes. It rubbed its tiny front legs together like it was proud it’s plan had come to fruition.

I screamed.

I don’t know why the fly broke me. Maybe it was because for just a second I wondered: Why isn’t Matty blinking? There’s a fly on his fucking eyeball. As soon as I had finished the thought, though, his death that was staring me right in the face finally hit home.

There was nothing I could do. No way I could fix this. I was powerless and most importantly, I felt useless. So, without anything else I really could do—I screamed.

Nothing intelligible…just a primal cry of every single negative emotion I had in me. it felt amazing. Cathartic.

Then, as I screamed, my eyes shut I could feel the others staring at me. their eyes probably wide and tear filled as they watched the pool of blood that seeped from the broken bag ooze across the ground to my knees.

Then pain.

It was probably the desperate need for oxygen, but my head began to pound along with my quickened heart rate in an intensity I hadn’t felt before. I could have sworn someone must have come up behind me and beat me with a branch or something, because the pain resonated deep.

It was so bad my cries immediately ceased; my mouth open in a silent wail. My hands wound themselves into my windblown hair. I pulled at the deep brown strands in a bid to tear down to the crux of my agony.

I neared a new level of panic as I tried to figure out what was wrong. As far as I knew this wasn’t a normal response to death—but if this wasn’t that…then what? I didn’t get migraines, just the occasional headache. But this? It felt like my eyes were going to explode.

A light hand on my shoulder snapped me out of both my thoughts and my pain. Again, confusion washed over me. Pain like that couldn’t just disappear. While I was thankful for the reprieve, I was left with a hollow feeling and the sense something was off.

“Hey, babe,” the closeness of Ray’s voice and barf breath made me turn in mild surprise. He knelt next to me, his face a picture of concern. “You should take your meds. You have them, right?”

I nodded and croaked out a ‘yeah’ before delving into the pocket that held my travel pill case. The small round case clicked open to reveal the one lowly Xanax I kept on me at all times in case of a panic attack. They were becoming rarer over time, so I’d had this pill on me for a while. Still, I always kept it on me just in case.

The white bar was segmented to be easily broken apart based on how much you needed, but I wasn’t fucking with that tonight. My friend was dead—if there was ever an excuse for a full dose, this was it.

Not having a drink to wash it down was going to be the worst part. In an attempt to ease the process, I did my best to work up as much spit as possible before tilting my head back and dropped the benzo into my mouth.