Published in Dark Reveries Magazine, Feb. 2007 (electronic) and Twisted Tongue Magazine, Issue 7, August 2007. (print/electronic)

AC/DC

For three days we don’t leave the swamp. Mud spackles Garrett’s pants, his over-played Guns N Roses tape, his ripped paperback copy of some Stephen King book. There are three of us: Garret, Marbs, and me. I have a shrunken head doll Garrett won at a fair and gave me when we were twelve. I keep it in my pocket. Marbs smokes. That was what he does the most, anyway. His hair is grayish brown, even though he’s only sixteen. It reaches down past his shoulder blades. His dad smokes a lot too, and he’s had an AC/DC shirt on all three days so far, and it’s the same shirt he always wears. Before, when we were still normal kids going to school, we’d sit at the back of the bus and I’d talk about firecrackers and porno and the teachers we hated and that kid who died from eating pop rocks and the awesome tapes we wanted to get. He didn’t really have much to say, I guess. He’s the kind of guy you think you’re having a conversation with, but its really just you talking and him making grunts while he looks out the window or burns the seat in front of him with his lighter.

Marbs. Smoking, smoking, smoking. Has grease on his hands all the time from trying to fix his dad’s truck, and these three days in the swamp have just made him dirtier. He calls to us, his friends, from about ten feet away, near the sleeping bags, and says, “Listen.”

Garrett stops tapping his foot, clicks stop on the walk man and we listen. At first we don’t hear anything, just the normal swamp sounds we’d pretty much gotten used to and then, there it is, a low buzzing. Far away. Then it stops. We wait. It starts again. Garret looks at me. He has long hair like Marbs, but it’s dirty blond. A kid with a neutral, unweathered look, even for a sixteen-year old. “It’s a buzz saw.” he says.

Now, we’ve been living here all our lives and we still don’t know this woods well, but we know it’s called Maker’s forest and this here is Maker’s swamp, and all around the edges are people who might cut down trees for whatever reason, no one cares much what anyone else does. So I turn back to my muddy seat and swat at flies. Only Marbs and Garrett still stand there and listen. Something burns dimly in their eyes.

I start to get a fire going. We’re down to five cans of beans, five of tuna. We’ve been drinking Coke, and that’s getting low too. We have to find a way to get more food.

“Someone’s gotta’ go into town.” I say to no one in particular. “We got, like, two more days of food.”

“Shut up.” Marbs hisses. The sound of the buzz saw. “It’s closer,” he whispers.

Garrett looks alert now, almost worried. They both look to me.

“What?” I say.

“We gotta’ move.” says Marbs, already starting to dismantle the tent.

Garrett and I register this and by the time I can say anything, the tent is half-way down.

Garrett starts to stuff his book and walkman in his bag, he rolls up his sleeping bag. Meanwhile, I’m looking at the fire I just got going and feeling mad it’ll be a waste.

“Where are we going to go?” I argue. “The whole point of going to the swamp is that no one will ever come here looking for us. We can’t just…”

“Shhh,” Marbs hushes me angrily again. We wait. The buzzing starts again, nearer this time.

Garrett and Marbs, in a panic now, get all the stakes pulled up and the rods bagged and the bags shouldered and all that’s left for me to do is put out the fire and grab my sack. I want to keep arguing, but even I am a little scared now. No one ever comes this deep into Maker’s woods and whether they’re here to cut timber or something else, we don’t want to be found.

“We’ll find some place to hide, somewhere with lots of trees, the swamp is too open.” Garrett is leading and Marbs and I are following, and I notice how dirty we all are. I’m kind of glad to be retreating back into the forest surrounding the swamp. We go east, away from the sound. We have cuts on our hands from pushing away the underbrush but they’re nothing compared to the gash on Marbs’ wrist. It’s red and black and yellow. Looks infected. And I think there might be little pink sparkles of nail polish still in it. I wonder if I should bring it up.

After a couple minutes we listen again. This time the sound is far away, quite far. But not as far as it should be. That means whoever it is has gotten closer to the swamp, they might even be almost there. “Did you scatter the ashes and the wood?” Garrett asks me as he forges ahead, not without a certain amount of disdain.

“Of course.”

Marbs’ eyes flicker towards me. He knows I didn’t. Garret continues: “Because someone finds that, they’ll know someone’s been camping there.”

Marbs pushes ahead of me to let me know he’s pissed. This isn’t fun anymore. I roll my eyes at the whole thing, but really I start to feel my stomach drop. We have no homes, no money, only each other. Suddenly I want to undo what I’ve done, take a long hot shower, sleep in my bed. But only for a half a minute do I entertain this. A cold, dark feeling takes its place. I have no home, I left for a reason. There guys are my family now. No going back.

After a while we are sweating, I can see pit stains under Garrett’s arms and I think about when we were eight and used to play tag. I was better, Garrett didn’t have the agility he has now. These guys I find myself with, one a friend since childhood, the other a recent acquisition, someone who has, up ‘til now, at least seemed to like me, aren’t the kind of guys who usually engage in pissing contests. We were pretty cool with each other, no alpha-male stuff going on. But ever since we ran away, it’s been getting more intense, words seem to be weighed heavier and the power to make decisions doesn’t really feel like it’s made through reason, but through force. I think about a book we read in English class “The Lord of the Flies” and laugh at myself. I’m being overdramatic.

“Let’s stop here.” Garrett throws down his bag, the tent, and turns to us. He looks directly at me and I realize he is waiting for me to argue. I look around, it’s just trees and more trees. No place in this forest is going to be significantly better or worse than any other for hiding, so I don’t say anything.

We crouch down to rest and maybe to keep low, and Marbs lights up a Marb and I think about the kids at school who call him a psycho. He isn’t. He has a tattoo of a skull on his inner forearm. It’s crap, was done by one of his father’s motorcycle friends. Marbs has never ridden one, but his dad used to ride with the Hell’s Angels, he says. I find it hard to believe, considering his dad is scrawny, even if he is mean-looking. Crouched like this with Garrett and Marbs, I can see how their shoulders span about the same width and the each have the same texture of hair, through one is light and one is dark. They even seem to be breathing at the same rate. They have the same type of shirt on: Garrett with his faded green GNR shirt and Marbs with his faded gray AC/DC shirt, smelling even worse now after the run. I try to imagine how I look to them. My hair is shorter, only a little past my ears and I have a blue Izod t-shirt, the kind with an little alligator stitched in. And I’m a little bit smaller, only slightly, and thicker. I do better with girls, too. I also do better at school. But I’m no prep. I’m the kid who called in a bomb threat to school, who slashed the bus’ tires in the middle of the night when I was fourteen. Every kid in that school can thank me for a free day off. And I’m the one who can talk a girl into thinking Garrett is a catch, I’ve done it for him more than once. And I always stand up for Marbs when people call him psycho. The problem is, no one at school knows the cool shit I do. I keep it that way for my own protection. So when I defend Marbs, they just think I’m his loser friend. And that’s what they call me: a loser.

Garrett is the only one out of us who gets left alone by the popular preppy assholes at our school, and that’s because he’s one of those guys who is kind of unnoticeable. He doesn’t piss anyone off, but he also doesn’t get any attention either. I think sometimes that he’s afraid, he’s just a pussy. But here we are, the psycho, the tire slasher, and the pussy is one leading us around. I laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Garrett is still crouching across from me, his tone is annoyed.

“Nothing. But what’s your big plan now, oh mighty leader?”

“Shut-up. I’m not the leader.” He looks to Marbs and I bet it’s because we both know that whoever declares himself the official leader will bear the wrath of Marbs. Marbs doesn’t like to be bossed around.

But Marbs is looking at me, doubled over by the run. He must have the lungs of a forty-year old. “Stop trying to start stuff, Boomer.” I study his expression. Is he still angry about the campfire? Is he going to tell Garrett? It really doesn’t matter now, except that the farther away we get from it, the more it looms in my mind as an inerasable X marking our spot.

I suddenly feel heavy, really heavy and hot. “We need a plan.” I say. “We can’t stay in this woods forever, running whenever we hear someone.”

Garrett rocks back from his crouch and sits directly on the ground. From his pocket, he takes his Swiss Army knife and begins to sharpen it against a rock. He seems to be contemplating something deeply. “The plan was to live in these woods from now on. We’d get food from the houses around the forest when we needed it. We covered our tracks, made it seem like we’d left town. That was the plan.”

The late afternoon sun glints off his knife. I reach into my pocket for my shrunken head doll and open the stomach where I cut a hole to stash my weed. I much prefer dust, but haven’t had any in three days. Right now I just want to get out of my head. Smoking weed at stressful times is like playing Russian Roulette with your peace of mind but I pick out the small pipe I keep in the doll’s stomach and pack it anyway.

There is an etiquette to smoking weed around others. To smoke without offering is almost unforgivable. My stash is low and I kind of hate both of these people right now but I know if I offer them weed things might smooth over. If I don’t, it’ll only get worse. So we all partake and after a while we’re all hungry and I offer to make another campfire so we can eat the beans. That’s when we hear it again, the chainsaw.

“Holy shit.” The words drop from Marbs’ mouth. We freeze like small animals. It has gotten closer, much closer. It must have crossed the swamp into our side of the woods.

Who the hell would take a chainsaw over such a far distance? It doesn’t make sense. If you want lumber, you get some trees and go, you don’t check out the entire forest, you don’t take one tree per 500 feet. Jesus Christ.

This time, no one has to say anything. We grab our gear and keep going. I look behind me, the branches swing back the way they were, the brush isn’t trampled. I sure as hell ain’t leaving a trail of cookie crumbs. How are we being tracked?

The first time I met Garret he was standing at my bus stop. 3^rd grade, and he looked like someone I would want to be friends with. He had a brown leather jacket one of his older brothers had given him and he was nice to me when we were alone. He told me he had moved from the next town over, that his dad was a policeman, that he wanted to be a policeman some day, to get bad guys. When the older kids came to the bus stop they stood apart from us. Almost every day they’d make fun of me: my clothes, my hair, they called me a faggot. God, I was only nine. He’d laugh with them, never stick up for me.

As the years passed and the mean kids went on to high school, we became best friends, though he betrayed me more than once. He was the kind of kid to make fun of someone, get you to agree, then tell that person what you said and turn them against you, all the while staying on both your good sides. And I, I guess I was weak, too, because I always let it go. See, the thing is, we had a lot of really good times. We rode the bus together, ate dinner at each other’s houses, smoked our first cigarettes together, got drunk on his dad’s stash of liquor in seventh grade, smoked weed in my backyard in ninth and tenth. We talked about girls and fucking and our parents and cars and bikes and movies and all that crap you talk about when you have nothing else to do and no money to spend. And though he wasn’t the most loyal or trustworthy of friends, I knew it was his own weakness, and I silently forgave him for it. Actually, it wasn’t that noble. I was lonely and I took what I could get.

Now he’s fallen back, made Marbs take the lead without saying anything. We’re sweating pretty hard now and I keep staring at Garrett’s pit stains in front of me, which is why I’m thinking so much about him. Every couple of minutes we stop and listen. The forest is silent. Real silent, not even birds. I take some cheese out of my pocket, it’s been wrapped tight for three days, but without refrigeration, I’m guessing it doesn’t have much time left.

“Stop.” I huff. They stop and turn around. Garrett looks less hostile than before, Marbs more.

“Do you guys want some?” I hold out the cheese.

Garrett does, Marbs doesn’t. Garrett complains of munchies and tiredness from the weed. Marbs doesn’t say a word. As soon as Garrett mentions munchies, I remember that we had just gotten high and realize I’d been in deep thought for most of the hike since then. And it’d made me feel better. It looks like it did the opposite for Marbs.

“If we keep going this way, we’re gonna’ end up too close to town.” I say this directly to Marbs.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Man, we can’t just run around this woods forever. Let’s wait a little while, see if we hear anything.”

“Then what?”

Is he sneering at me?

“If we’re okay, we set up here for a day, then return to the swamp. This is just too close to houses, not safe.”

“And if we hear that guy again?”

“Then we get out of these woods. If we’re being tracked, we have no choice, he’s gonna’ find us.”

Garrett looks up. He has been using his knife to cut away slices of cheese. “We can’t. How would we get out of town without being seen? This is the smallest fucking town ever. Everyone knows my dad. And he’ll put us in jail just after he beats the hell out of all of us for what we did to Janey.”

“Your dad can’t touch me.” (I had a feeling Marbs would have something to say to that.) “And you’re a pussy if you let your dad scare you like that.”

“I’m not scared, I’m just realistic. Man, to him, family is the one thing you don’t fuck with.” Garrett is calm and keeps slowly slicing cheese. As the block gets smaller, he starts handing most of the slices to me. It’s a thoughtful gesture, and might be because he has his knife already out, or it might be because he needs something to do. I accept the pieces and wonder what Marbs is thinking right now. His mom lives in Tennessee or some bumfuck state like that. He moved here when his parents split up. I don’t think they’re even divorced, just never plan on seeing each other again. His dad is always complaining about money, wants Marbs to get a job. It’s no secret that he and his dad have it out at least twice a week and that Marbs doesn’t quite win, but he doesn’t quite lose either. They both have some scars to prove it, and I bet he’s banking on Garrett believing that’s where the gash came from. This reminds me:

“You need some first aid for your wrist, man?” He glares at me in return.

After five minutes of waiting, Marbs sits down. Evidently, we’ll stay here. We haven’t heard the chain saw in forty minutes.

Marbs smokes, Garrett lies on his bag and looks at the trees overhead. He isn’t the kind of guy to contemplate nature, he has something else on his mind. I watch him, and feel warmer in my heart, knowing the group dynamics have somewhat changed, and at least those two aren’t conspiring against me.

Finally, I say it. “What do you think that noise was?”

Marbs gets up. “Did you hear something?”

“No. But what was it? “

Garrett, still squinting at the trees says, “I think it was just a weird coincidence. Some dumbass playing in the woods with his chainsaw.”

Marbs is still standing, and starts to pace back and forth in a four-foot area, which looks kind of funny. “I don’t know. He followed our path for two hours.”

“Hour and a half.” I look at my watch.

“Shut up.” he snaps.

“You shut up.”

Garrett says, “No way anyone knows we’re here. We haven’t left any tracks for them to follow.”

Marbs stops his pacing and smiles a sarcastic smile at me, “Boomer left the camp fire.”

Garret turns to me in mock disbelief. “You lied?”

I throw my hands up in frustration, “I put the fire out! No, I didn’t scatter the wood and ashes, but I didn’t know that anyone would make it all the way out to the swamp. No one ever goes there. That’s why we were hiding there.”

I make a good case, but I know I’ve pissed him off. He probably wants to yell at me for lying, but won’t. It’s part of our unspoken pact. I let him slide with his brand of disloyalty, he lets me slide with mine. I continue.

“But, really, do you think someone’s out here looking for us?”
“You’d better hope not.” Marbs smashes his cigarette under his foot. And stands back, observing the tall trees around us. “I’m gonna climb this tree, see if I can see anything.” My eyes remain transfixed on his cigarette.

Once Marbs gets out of range, I say, “Garrett, does our dear friend always leave his cigarettes on the forest floor?”

“Stop talking like a faggot.”

“Listen, ass, listen to me. I might have fucked up at the swamp, but I just realized Marb’s fucked up way worse. He left a trail a smoke…

His eyes get a little bigger as he stares at the cigarette from which a little thin smoke spirits away. I lean over and smudge it out completely.

“Holy shit.”

“He was smoking the whole time…the smell really hangs in the air.”

“I didn’t even think about it.” Garrett’s tone to me is thoughtful, respectful. We are alone. His voice softens even more. “You know, people call him a psycho.”

“I know. I always defend him.”

“I don’t.”

I want to say, “What a shock,” but I don’t. I’m just happy to not be on the outs anymore. “He’s not a psycho. But he is a dick.”

“He’s paranoid. The weed.”

“Listen man, how are you doing?”

Garrett looks me in the eye. “What do you mean?”

“About your sister.”

It sees to me often that I am the only person who tries to say what is actually going on. We need a plan. Marbs left a trail of smoke. Some crazy shit just went down. Things like that.

He doesn’t respond.

“She’s a bitch. She deserved a little scare. Don’t sweat it.”

“Yeah, but, while we have a second alone, I want you to know something about Marbs.”

“What?”

“He did something. If we get caught, it’ll be really bad. Worse than you think.”

“We’re not going to get caught. Don’t worry.”

But I know he had been. “Can we at least talk about what will happen if we get caught?”

He raises his eyes to a tree about ten feet away. My eyes follow his and I see Marbs perched up as high as you can go, facing west, scanning the forest.

“Shouldn’t he be looking east?” I say. “That’s where the noise is coming from.”

As if on cue, Marbs starts climbing down the tree.

When he’s jumped down and dusted off, Garrett asks if he’s seen anything.

He shakes his head. We decide to set up the tent and have one person keep guard at a time. But it’s hot as hell, so we all stay outside the tent as the sun sets against the canopy, casting golden light into Makers forest. I let the conversation go.

We’re pretty quiet for most of it. Garrett doesn’t put his headphones back on, but opens up his book and lays back on his sleeping bag to read. Marbs continues to smoke and generally do nothing. I borrow Garrett’s Swiss Army knife and work at carving faces into fallen branches. We don’t dare start a fire, so we eat cold beans and smoke a little more weed. Marbs lets us bum some cigarettes and we’ve all become kind of outwardly peaceful, lying back against trees in our little grove. My mind has been drifting and then called back to attention by tuggings of fear. I whittle a little harder. I am sixteen. I say to myself. And I am really living. No more school, no more asshole parents, no more conformity, no more bullshit job. Just living, surviving, doing what I want. Then in my mind flashes a picture of Garrett’s sister. I cut deep and long across the branch tip.

Garrett knew we were going to go it, didn’t he? He must have known she’d recognize us, he must have known, knowing what a bitch she was, that she’d make things difficult. But why should I be surprised? Not a loyal bone in his body. I sure as hell wouldn’t have sold out my sister if I had one. I whittle the other side of the tip, shaping the point. I feel kind of bad it had to be someone we knew, but that was how we got the tip off that she’d be alone closing up the gas station that night. But I don’t think, no, I know he doesn’t know what Marbs did to her. Garrett thinks we were following the plan, but we didn’t. And what he did, and what I did after, I can still hardly believe.

I look over at Marbs, silent and solitary against the tree, smoking, smoking, smoking. His face betrays preoccupation and he keeps looking west, straining his neck. I whittle one to a particularly damn sharp point. I hold it up to admire it. And that’s when it all hits me…

“Hey, Marbsy.” He eyes me with contempt. He hates nicknames for his nickname.

“Guess what they do to you in prison.”

It takes him a moment to register.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just guess.”

“Fuck off.”

“Well, see, it’s not being behind bars that’s so bad. It’s not even the guards, although they let it happen. It’s the other prisoners. And I don’t mean getting your ass kicked. The worst is what they do to your ass after. What they make you do.”

Garrett puts down his book and looks at me, a mixture of fear and incredulity. “Boomer, what are you doing?”

But I won’t stop, not now. I can see dear old Marbs lean in, his face somewhere between fear and curiosity.

“I know about prison. Everyone does.”

“Yes, but do you really know about it? Do you really know what it’s like to have someone pound you and then shove a dick into your mouth and say, “Suck it or die?”

With the words “suck it or die” his body, which was slowly contorting to a pounce motion, stops. Everything stops. He doesn’t dare look at Garrett.

“But that’s the easy part.” I continue. “Then there’s just gettin’ plain old raped. You know, I don’t think it’s quite like raping a girl, not that I’d know. But when you rape a girl, so I’ve heard, her pussy gets really tight and really dry and that’s why it’s hard to fuck when a girl doesn’t want it, but when you really get in there, all that tightness feels so fucking good. But an ass, well, I can only believe that’s way, way tighter. And just like a girl who don’t want to get raped, a man who don’t want to get fucked up the ass is going to fight, because worse than how disgusting it is, worse than just not wanting to be fucked by another man, even worse than the humiliation of being someone’s bitch, is the pain of having that big dick thrust in your ass, tearing it apart. But that fighting back just makes it all the nicer for him.”

By now Marbs doesn’t know what to do. His face tells me to stop, to shut up, but he doesn’t dare say it. Garrett looks nervously at Marbs, then me, and says, “None of us are going to prison. The worse they can do is throw us in juvy for stealing.”

“Your sister recognized us.” I’ve turned to Garrett. “Even with the ski masks over our heads, she recognized Marbs dumb-ass t-shirt that he wears all the time. She told us she wouldn’t give us the money, that she knew who we were and was going to tell our parents. Can you believe that? Our parents.”

Garrett moves to scratch his face. He’s taking it in. But I’ve said a lot already, and I have to play this perfectly. The two guys exchange glances, and something seems to be communicated. What? Garrett should be more shocked by all this.

“But you had guns. She must have been a little scared.”

“She knew we didn’t have bullets.”

Garrett is quiet. Then says, “How did she know?”

“I don’t know, man, we tried to bluff her but she just knew.”

“So, how did you get the money from the cash register?”

“I think Marbs can tell you that.”

“Hey man, fuck you.” He stands up, it looks scary, but it’s just a pretense. He’s getting ready to run.

“What did you do to my sister?” Garrett stands up now and I find that in my fervor I have gotten to my feet as well.

“Well, I wouldn’t have said anything, my old friend, but it’s just that I think our friend here has another friend, and they want our money.” I grab Marbs from behind and hold the whittled stick up to his throat. It feels really good to be in control finally. He struggles, but he’s still high and exhausted. I, on the other hand, can hold my weed. “Do you know where we are, Garrett? About 300 feet from a crappy old house by the edge of the woods. Do you know whose house that is?”

“No.”

“Garret, think.”

“Marbs’ house?”
“And Garrett, I’m going to make this fast, because we have, like, no time, but I want you to know, we’re not being tracked.”

Garrett looks helplessly at Marbs, who struggles against me.

I finish. “We’re being pushed, driven, corralled. We’ve been duped. And this fucker and his father are going to take the money. His father’s been scaring us with the chainsaw, we’ve been running East like sheep from a sheep dog. And this asshole, this head sheep, he’s been leaving a trail of smoke so his dad knows he’s on the right trail.”

“That’s bullshit,” yells Marbs.

“Grab the bags, Garrett. Stash all the money in one. We got to get the fuck out of here.”

But the dumbass doesn’t move. He looks at Marbs, who keeps cursing and struggling, then back at me. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because, man, we know he could do it, all the evidence is there.”

Now Marbs’ face is turning red, a little blood has appeared on his neck where the point of the stick is breaking the skin. “It’s not true, it’s not true.” He’s just repeating himself.

“Admit it!” I scream against his ear. “Admit it or I’ll tell him what you did to Janey.”

My arms are starting to tire, and he’s scrapping hard, but I have sheer bulk over him. Garrett is waiting for what going to happen next, sweating down the sides of his face. Time’s running out.

“When’s your dad getting here, Marby? Did he get your signal when you climbed that tree?”

Garrett looks behind him, scanning the woods.

“Listen, Garrett, any minute now Marbs’ dad is going to show up and then we won’t be able to fight him off. Then, you’ll know we were set up, but it’ll be too late. We gotta’ tie Marbs up or something and get out of here. I have some rope in my bag. Use that.”

“Why should I believe you?” Garrett is crying out now, desperation cracks in his voice.

“Admit it, Marbs!” I scream again.

When he still says nothing, I shout, “He raped your sister, Garrett, I couldn’t stop him.”

“You’re a fucking liar!” screams Marbs.

He struggles but I dig the point of the stick deeper into his skin.

Silence.

Garrett slowly starts to collect all the money into one bag.

Breathing.

As I hold smelly, sinewy Marbs in my arms I feel compelled to taste the sweat on his neck.

“But I’m still intrigued, Marbs. Why did it take three days for your plan to go into effect?”

“I didn’t rape her,” he moans out but Garrett is on my side, as I knew he would be eventually. He ties Marbs’ hands together, only briefly mentioning, “Boomer, why do you have rope?” then lets it go. I push Marbs to the ground and feel really good about it. I kick his stomach and head. I pull a handgun out of my sack and use the butt to crack against his skull. I notice there is already dried blood on it, and it glimmers in the last rays of daylight. Garrett watches me until I finish.

We leave Marbs in the clearing, grab all the food, tent, everything and run like mad south through Maker’s forest. But it’s barely pitch black and we’re racing through bush and getting scraped and cut and we’re wild with the insanity of the situation, I guess, and so I “whoop” a little and Garrett just looks distraught and determined. We don’t stop moving for close to an hour, until we’re at no more than a limping jog and catching our breaths. This forest is huge. Darkness covers every step.

The extra weight bears on us but we know there isn’t anything else for us to do now but get out of these woods. “At the south end of the forest,” I say “we come out at some fields and then backyards, but if we can make it through without being seen, it’s the quickest way to the road. We’ll have to walk to the bus station. No, we’ll have to hitchhike, and we’ll have to be pretty far out of town cause everyone around here knows us.”

“Boomer,” Garrett pants, “How did you know all that stuff?”

“I was there.”

He says nothing. I continue. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your sister. I couldn’t stop him. Then, I figured we had to keep it cool, keep the camaraderie together or whatever.”

Garrett doesn’t say anything.

I say, “Will you let me lead from now on?”

“Yes.” The edge of the forest is only about ten minutes away.

“How is she?” Garrett asks.

“She looked pretty bad. I’m so sorry man.”

“It was just supposed to be anonymous. Get the mask, get the guns, wave them around, have her empty the till and get out. No bullets. No one gets hurt.”

I can see her, as if in front of me still, on the floor bleeding. I don’t say anything.

“I still don’t know how she knew there were no bullets. Damn, if she had only done what we said…”

“Why did you kill her, Boomer?” Garrett asks.

“What?” I say, choking.

“I know.”

Suddenly white explodes across my eyes. There is pain in Garrett’s expression and blood on his green Guns ‘N Roses shirt. I look down. Four inches of a Swiss Army knife is in my stomach. I fall to my knees.

He descends with me.

“Boomer, you ever hear the saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? See, you’re smart enough to see that Marbs had a plan, but you’re too stupid to see the whole thing, so you might as well have kept just shut up about it.”

But the shock and pain have knocked me to the ground and Garrett pulls out the knife only to stick in somewhere higher. I instinctively grope for my bag, the stash of pointy sticks, but I can hardly think or move.

“Marbs told her to ‘suck or die?’ Was that it? Was that it? Or did he really rape her? Either way, it was you who killed her. I would accuse you of rape, but we all know you’re a fucking faggot.”

I struggle against Marbs and his pathetic knife, but he’s got me pinned to the ground and some fury in him I’ve never seen before.

“I had to.” I am fading. “She would have told.”

Again and again sharp searing heat appears in my chest and stomach. Garrett is now sobbing and furious.

“So what if she would have told? She was going to tell anyway. That’s why I told her, before, that there would be no bullets, but that we were going to come and pretend to hold her up, then give her a cut of the take.”

“It’s your fault…she recognized us?”
“I didn’t want her to get hurt or too scared.” He sobbing now. “I didn’t know Marbs would go psycho and…do what he did. And I didn’t in a million years think you were who you are. I never would have thought you could do it, until I saw you hurt Marbs. I saw your gun, you did it the same way you did her.”

“I….Marbs and his dad…”

“His dad? Marbs was trying to get us to his house so we could contain you. He knew you had the gun. He knew it, Boomer. We were scared of you. But what I don’t understand is why you had to kill her. You the fuck do you think you are?”

“…tired…of…letting things go.”

“What? Explain to me why you did it!”

Garrett is beside me, but now he is a child, wild with words I can’t hear. I’m cold, can’t think, a vacuum starts to open up. Garrett pulls me toward him, but something stronger and darker pulls me into the forest forever.