Chicken (22 page)

“But seriously, what the hell is that?”

“The old Pitcher place!”

I gaze up at the fence flashing by. “How’d that cougar even get in there?”

I tighten my grip on his waist, which feels weirdly reminiscent of Shetan’s neck, solid but graceful as he twists to give me an exasperated look. “It didn’t! Because it’s not real!”

He starts easing up on the gas after that, and a few minutes later we roll to a stop in the middle of the Ditch. It’s not quite dark—the sun’s probably still out on the other side of the mountain—but everything is painted shades of black and blue, like we’re deep inside a bruise. The woods thrum with cicadas, and a cloud of mosquitoes descends as soon as they catch wind of our tasty human breath. 

Real fireflies blink all the way up the mountainside, yellow American versions of the blue Will-o’-the-wisps from Brave. I feel a pang of guilt because Hannah took me to see that just a couple weeks ago, and anything that happens for the rest of the night is technically cheating. Eventually, Brant and I will have to talk about how I should handle that. But not yet.

Brant hoists the pack full of snacks onto his back and grabs the heavy flashlight. I reach for the bedding, but he shakes his head. “Just for show.”

I frown as I look around at a whole lot of nothing. “I’m not sleeping on the ground.”

“Hell no.” He slings his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side and planting a kiss on the side of my head like he did at the movies that night, but for real this time, or maybe it was real then too. “There’s a five star resort just up this hill.”

I turn my head and kiss his lips. They’re dry and rough and taste like the venison his mama fried for dinner, the last of a buck Brant shot last winter. I got mixed feelings picturing him in his orange vest and red flannel, slicing his knife up that poor deer’s belly, spilling its hot red blood onto frosty brown leaves. It’s disgusting, but for someone who lives on frozen food and box noodles, it’s also kind of sexy knowing I won’t go hungry when Hannah’s dystopian prophecies are fulfilled.

I only meant to kiss him for a second, but Brant shifts, and the hard, flat warmth of his dog tag presses into my chest. His hands cradle my head, rubbing the back of my neck. I touch his waist, his ribs, his hips—my fingers skittish as fireflies not knowing where to light. His hands travel down to my shoulders, calluses snagging on my shirt as his fingers dig out the knots of worry clustered around my bones.

“Casper.” He nuzzles my nose, gives me a little shake. “Relax.”

Moss crunches under my boots as I walk out on the humped, uneven surface of the stone outcropping. Pine needles lick the edges, still attached to the tops of their creaking trees. The forest drops off, blacker than the sky, a rumpled shroud around the mountain, that becomes a patchwork quilt when it meets the glowing gray fields. Streetlights shimmer like dewdrops on some unseen spider web stretched across the valley, thick in the heart of town, scattered around its edges, finally drifting off in delicate strings toward the mountains. A cool breeze ruffles my hair, runs a chill down my damp back. For the first time all summer, maybe in several summers, I feel like I can catch my breath.

Brant’s hand settles on my hip as he climbs up behind me. “They call it Pack Rock.”

“Who does? And why?”

He presses his lips to my ear and solemnly intones, “Everything the light touches—”

I elbow him in the ribs. “Stupid, it’s dark.”

His lips shift into a grin. “Not over here.”

His arm snakes around my waist, turning me away from the town, and with a flourish of his flashlight, he reveals a ramshackle cabin on the other side of the clearing. It’s somewhere between one and two stories, made of heavy logs and held together with ancient black pitch that drips from the seams. A wide front porch sits on several short piles of flat rectangular rocks, leaving plenty of room underneath for snakes, skunks, coyotes, even a mountain lion. And if that ain’t bad enough, off to the right, there’s two big cellar doors exactly like the kind on Belle’s house in Beauty and the Beast, so in other words, perfect for being locked up in. 

“No, Brant, I’m pretty sure that’s even darker.”

He grins and hops off the big rock, turns back to offer me his hand. I take it, not because I need help, but just because I can. Okay, and also because I am more than a little bit scared. As soon as my feet touch the dirt, Brant is dragging me toward the cabin, but I dig in my heels.

“Now wait a minute. Who calls this Pack Rock? The three witches who live here and eat the children you bring them?”

“Don’t be dumb. Witches ain’t real.” Brant whirls, flashlight pointed up at his chin, mouth lit up red as a Jack-o’-lantern’s. “This is the werewolf’s house.”

I snatch the flashlight, shine it at the cabin. “I ain’t taking another step ’til you tell me what’s in that death trap.”

He shrugs his arms out wide and falls backward into the poke salad and bitter weed that’ve overrun the yard. 

“Brant!”

The weeds thrash where he disappeared, and then part in a straight line traveling toward the cabin, just like that scene in The Lost World where the velociraptors stalk the hunters, and somehow I know that terrible things have happened in this place, that if Hickory Ditch has any ghosts at all, this is where they hang out on Fridays. 

“Brant! Get up!”

A shadow pops up on the porch. I aim the flashlight, and Brant shields his eyes with one arm, waving me over with the other.

“Don’t worry! Not a single puppet on the property!”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Grab the backpack!”

I shine the light around the base of the big rock and find the backpack in a clump of green leaves that better not be poison ivy. I hoist it over one shoulder, hugging the bulk of it to my chest. Chips crunch inside.

“Hurry up! There’s a mountain lion!”

I run six steps toward the cabin before I hear him laughing. It’s all I can do not to throw the flashlight at him.

“You’re burning moonlight! Get over here!”

I look at the jungle between us, thinking about all the snakes he might have stirred up.

Brant sighs. “They’re weeds, not water, Cas. No faith needed to walk on ‘em.”

“Okay, but one day you better take me to an actual five-star mountaintop resort.”

I train the flashlight on the ground in front of me, take a few tentative steps. I hear Brant’s boots thud across the wood and then the squeak of an old door. Light floods the yard. 

I look up and he’s leaning into the black rectangle of the door, fumbling along the wall until the window squares fill with light, warm and yellow like one of those Thomas Kincaide paintings that people love to turn into throw pillows. There’s even four rocking chairs on the far side of the porch—homemade by the looks of their rough, unpainted wood. Brant turns around, grips both sides of the open door frame, and flashes that lazy, dimpled grin. 

Just like that, I’m not afraid.

It’s no five-star, but with a little dusting and mouse poop removal, I’d rate the interior a solid three. There’s one main room, a sleeping alcove tucked behind the bathroom, and a cramped, curtained loft above the combined dining area and kitchen. The floor is raw pine, a little bouncy in spots because it’s the only thing keeping us out of the basement.  The living area consists of a dusty plaid couch, handmade coffee table, three tall bookshelves, and a flat screen TV hung on the stone chimney above the mantle. The kitchen is tiny with counters that look more like workbenches and avocado-green appliances from the seventies. The loft is absolutely off-limits, can’t even take a peek. The four-poster bed in the sleeping alcove is equally forbidden, which is somehow both a disappointment and a relief.

Brant won’t tell me who lives here or why they gave him a key, but he confesses that any time he’s supposed to have been camping and getting close to God, he was really up here watching movies and reading things his parents don’t want him watching or reading. And smoking and baking things they wouldn’t want him smoking or baking. 

The smell of weed clings to everything—the couch’s rough plaid, the curtains’ thin gingham, the DVD folder’s black vinyl. I flip through the pages, past Oscar-bait dramas and foreign art films, waiting for Brant to return from the basement. You can learn a lot about a person from the movies they buy, and whoever else uses this cabin is not your average Hickory Ditch guy. Aside from the highbrow stuff, the plastic sleeves contain entire seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, along with pretty much every cartoon Disney ever made, except for a couple I’m guessing are locked in the stupid Disney vault. But yeah, not exactly your typical Hollywood pot dealer. 

Aside from The Amazing Spider-man and the weird stuff they show us in Sunday School, Brant and I have never watched a movie together. He told me he’d watch anything I picked, so long as it was in English and didn’t involve old people having sex. I pick Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace because I know it’s his favorite and how many times in his life will someone volunteer to sit through it for him? But then I slip it back in its sleeve because I don’t want to jinx us, don’t want to do anything to acknowledge the fact that nights like this will be few and far between. If I save it, there has to be a next time.

I make my second choice and immediately second guess it so hard I slam the folder shut. He won’t get the symbolism. He’ll think I’m stupid. I lean back on the couch and pick up the remote, flip the TV on. There’s no cable this far out, so I find the blue screen and wait. I kick off my boots and prop my feet on the coffee table, pretending this is mine and Brant’s house, that we keep our clothes in the closet and our toothpaste by the sink, that Garth Vader Mitchell-Quinn is sleeping in the loft and—

CRASH

Brant hollers, and I’m on my socked feet, out the door, across the porch, tumbling into the poke salad and plunging through open the cellar doors.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Brant shouts, but I’m already on the steep stairs, hands pressed against the cold, packed-dirt walls so I don’t fall even though that’s pretty much what I’m doing anyway.

We collide at the bottom. He falls back, and I flip right over his head, landing spread-eagle, feet clunking against something plastic and heavy. 

“I told you to stay put.” Brant rubs his head, knuckles brushing my scalp. “Now he’s gonna eat me alive.”

I wiggle my toes to make sure I didn’t sever my spine. “Who is?” 

Brant doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t really need too. The smell that lingered upstairs is all that exists down here. Like a dozen skunks trying to freshen up by wearing necklaces made of those little car mirror Christmas trees. 

I open my eyes to a small, green jungle bathed in warm, orange light. “Jesus Christ.”

Brant grunts, getting up. “He ain’t allowed in here either.”

I sit up, rolling the pain out of my shoulders. Brant grabs me by my armpits, drags me toward the stairs. “Come on. You gotta get out. I’ve almost got what we need.”

I dig my heels into the dirt floor, wrench out of his grasp. “Are you stealing?”

“No!” He grabs me again, locking his arms around my chest and heaving me onto my feet. He spins me around so I’m pointed at the stairs. “Get out now.”

I brace my hand against the wall. “Then I just want to see. He’ll never know.”

“Believe me, he’s got ways.” He knocks my hand down, pushes me toward the stairs. “Please, just go. I’m almost done. I’ll be right there.”

I put one foot on the first wooden step, lean my body against his hands. “Why did you scream?”

 “I tripped and knocked some stuff over. That’s all. It’s fine. Just go.” His hands splay across my back, but I don’t budge.

“I thought something got you.”

Brant’s hands soften, his voice too. “I’m fine, Cas. Just wait upstairs. Please.”

I twist my head to see his face, but my eyes never make it that far. A massive snake is coiled against the back wall, basking under the hot lamps. It’s in the center of a large depression in the dirt floor, a half-circle with scalloped edges like a fancy dinner plate. 

My eyes suddenly focus in the eerie orange glow. Not scallops. Gouges. Not a snake. Chains. And the back wall isn’t packed dirt like the others. It’s a slab of concrete. The chains are bolted to it six feet apart but come together in the center of the depression, attached to some sort of leather harness.

“What the hell, Brant? What the actual hell?”

“He used to have a guard dog,” Brant says, pushing harder. “Pit bull. Nasty thing. Had to put it down.”

I twist out of his grip. “Is this some sort of weird sex thing?”

Brant glances at the contraption and chews on his lip. He gives a quick nod.

I take a step back, flailing one hand at the thing. “Do you—I mean, have you—?”

His mouth falls open. “What?! No! God, no! Just no! I’ve never—not anything! But Jesus—no, no, no.” He drags his fingers down face. “Please just go upstairs!”

“Come with me. Your five-star resort is giving me the creeps.”

He gestures at an overturned pot full of pot behind him. “I have to clean up.”

“I’ll help.” 

I move toward him, but he catches my elbows, his grip as desperate as his eyes. “Please, darlin’, go upstairs. Pick out our movie. I’ll be right there.”

“Calling me darlin’ for the first time right now was a cheap trick.”

His hands move to my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones as he pulls me in for a quick, firm kiss. I lay my hands on his wrists, feel the blood pulsing through his veins. After a moment, I pry him loose, twine my fingers through his and draw them to my lips, kissing a knuckle on each hand.

“Just promise me you’re not involved in whatever that is. Because I think—I mean, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think that’s something I’d need to know about before—anything.”

He closes his eyes and kisses both of my hands. “Casper Quinn, I promise you with all my heart that I am not involved in any weird sex shit.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Stop. We sound like Hannah and Lauren’s cancer kids.”