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I AM A BLANK SLATE.
That is what I kept trying to tell myself on the way to school.
I was in the passenger seat, and Dad was driving.
But really I wasn’t. A blank slate, I mean. The truth of the matter was that most of my new classmates had probably already searched my name on the internet. I was the new kid. They would have wanted to know everything that they could about me. My best friend’s murder and the death of my step-dad had been all over the news.
The idea of strangers looking into my past made me even more anxious than I already had been. I tried to push all of those thoughts aside and focus on the here and now.
I understood that there was no sense in trying to hide what happened. I was just another kid with a messed up past. These days we’re a dime a dozen. The only thing that mattered was how I presented myself.
In my mind, I could fall into one of three categories.
One—I could be cool and collected.
Two—I could use my past as a great way to gain some sympathy. Maybe even from a girl.
Or three—I could be the quiet loner who may or may not be a head case because of the things that he had witnessed.
To simplify things even further, I could either fit in or I could be ostracized.
I had one chance to prove myself. First impressions mean a lot, especially when you’re seventeen.
“I’m proud of you, son.” Dad spoke up from behind the steering wheel. “There’s something about you that seems different today. It’s like you’re... normal.”
I turned my head to look at him. “What is that supposed to mean?” I pinched my eyebrows in confusion.
“I just mean you seem relaxed. It’s like you’re not even nervous.”
“I’m not,” I told him and shrugged my shoulders.
But really I was wearing a mask of confidence. Inside, I was a tightly wound ball of nerves.
And I wasn’t comfortable with the way I looked. I hadn’t had my hair cut since the spring, and it hung down over my ears in a shaggy, unkempt appearance. Recently, the acne on my face had gotten a hundred times worse.
Mrs. Reynolds said that people with social anxiety are afraid of others seeing their insecurities. I guess she’s right. She also told me that I should try not to worry about what other people thought of me. Instead, I should concentrate on genuinely getting to know them. Over the past few days I had been so nervous about starting school that I had gotten nausea-inducing headaches.
The truck had already made it all the way through town. Now, we were surrounded by freshly plowed fields. A barbed wire fence ran along the roadside.
“Blake, don’t get me wrong. It’s great that your being so positive and all, but...”
“Dad,” I stopped him. “If you don’t shut up I’m not going.”
“Okay. Okay.” He relented and let go of the steering wheel. He held both of his hands up in mock surrender.
The truck swerved and crossed over the yellow line in the middle of the road. There was a log truck coming our way.
“Dad,” I yelled.
His hands went back to the wheel, and he regained control of the truck, jerking it back into the right lane. He laughed, and the log truck barreled past us. The driver pressed down on the horn and flipped us off. “I’m just messing with you,” Dad said. “That wasn’t even close.”
“Why do you keep making jokes? It’s like you’re not even worried about me.”
“I’m just trying to treat you the way that I would want to be treated if I was in your situation,” he said.
Ahead, the school finally came into view.
Edgefield County High was surrounded by pines. Between the trees and the road, the twisted, pink branches of tall poke weeds reached into the fog-shrouded morning.
Dad steered the truck into the crowded parking lot and stopped.
“Good luck, Blake,” he said. “If things get to be too much, just give me a call, and I’ll be here in three shakes of a Billie goat’s tail.”
I got out of the truck and slammed the door. Behind me, I heard the truck pull away, finally leaving me on my own.
The building that loomed in front of me was a cinderblock structure that had turned gray with age and weather. A wrought-iron fence wrapped itself around the property.
I made my way down the paved walkway that led to the front door.
Inside, a banner was stretched across the hallway announcing next week’s homecoming and Spirit Week. Every day would have its own theme—Inside Out Day, Stoplight Day, Inclement Weather Day, Super Hero Day, and finally, Team Spirit Day.
I felt like all eyes were on me. And they were. It wasn’t my imagination. I was fresh meat. Everybody was judging me. Everywhere I looked were faces that held knowing expressions. I pushed through the crowd and made my way toward my first period classroom.
The door was open so I went inside. The teacher was standing behind her desk with her arms crossed. Besides her, I was the only other person there. I went to the desk at the back corner and sat down.
Soon, the rest of the senior class began to trickle in. After the bell rang, the teacher, Mrs. Steinman, wanted us to introduce ourselves. The idea of speaking in front of the group caused my stomach to twist and rumble.
By the time that it was my turn, my hands were wet with sweat. I was shaking with nerves. I didn’t want the sound of my voice to tremble when I talked. My eyes darted around the room. Everybody was looking at me. They were waiting. I was taking too long.
“Blake,” I said with a cracking voice. “My name is Blake Thomas.” I felt my face turning red.
I didn’t speak to anybody for the rest of the morning.
At lunch there were empty chairs at some of the tables in the cafeteria, but I couldn’t force myself to sit and talk with strangers.
Instead, I went outside to a gravel area that was behind the building. A pair of vacant picnic tables were standing side by side. I sat down at the one on the left and noticed that someone had scratched some type of diagram in the wood. To me, it just looked like a jumbled mess of letters and marks.
With the day already half over, I had so far failed in my intentions of making a friend. I could only imagine what everybody thought about me and what they were saying. I knew that, if I didn’t do something soon, I would likely be facing an entire year of torment and ridicule.
I was opening my paper lunch bag when I heard someone call my name. I turned around to look, but nobody was there. I pulled my sandwich out of the bag, and, just as I was about to bite into it, I heard it again.
This time, when I turned to look, I saw a thin trail of cigarette smoke coming from around the corner of the building. Then a face appeared. I recognized the guy from English class. He was wearing a ratty, black t-shirt, jeans, and a cap.
He dropped the cigarette butt to the walkway, crushed it underneath his work boot, and began walking toward me.
“Mind if I sit here?” He asked me.
I shook my head.
He straddled the bench so that he was facing me.
“My name’s Cade,” he said. “It’s your dad that owns the brewery?”
“Yes,” I told him.
He smiled and didn’t say anything in return. Instead, he bent over and picked up a small rock.
I changed the subject. “Do you always come out here by yourself?”
“Me and my friend, Tristan, used to eat lunch out here everyday, but he graduated last year. He’s going to Tech now. Looks like it might be just me and you this year.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Looks like it.”
Cade threw the rock and it skipped across the pavement of the sidewalk like it would have done on a pond.
For the rest of the week I had somebody to eat lunch with. We didn’t talk much, but I liked the company.
“What are you doing tonight?” Cade asked me on Friday.
“Nothing.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well, if you want to hang out...”
Then I had an idea. “I can get the key to the brewery. Just bring your own cups.”
––––––––
IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT, and I was standing in my room, facing the wall where the progress chart was hanging. I put a star next to step four.
A moment later, I stepped out of my room and looked toward the closed door at the end of the hall. It was Dad’s bedroom. Over the sound of the late-night news, I could hear him snoring.
I was careful to not make much noise as I made my way downstairs. I was holding both of my boots in my right hand.
Wolf was following me. Her nails clicked on the hardwood of the steps.
When we got to the front door, I reached into the front pocket of my jeans and pulled out five doggie treats. I knew that once the dog realized that I was leaving she would start to cry. It was a sound that would surely wake Dad. There was only one thing that would keep her quiet. Treats.
I let her take one of the morsels from my hand, and I tossed the others onto the floor.
While Wolf was preoccupied with collecting the scattered pieces of kibble, I slipped out the front door. The night air was muggy. I ran to the end of the driveway where I stopped to put on my boots.
Cade’s pickup truck was parked at the end of the road. As soon as I had both of my boots on, I started to make my way there. I noticed several hunting related decals on the back glass. I swung open the passenger side door.
“I thought you decided to bail on me.” Cade said and looked at his watch. “I was about to go break in there myself.”
I didn’t think what he said was funny, but I laughed anyway. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the key to the brewery, and handed it to him.
Cade took the key and threw it into the console’s cup holder. He put the truck in drive, and we started toward town. “I hope you like country,” he said and turned up the volume on the radio.
“It’s fine,” I told him. “I’ll listen to whatever.”
“Why is it that you don’t drive?” Cade asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I have a license, but no car.” I told him. Half of it was a lie. The truth was that I had a license, but I wasn’t supposed to start driving again until the panic attacks began to settle down. I had a truck that was currently in Dad’s backyard, covered with a blue tarp.
“So what are you into?” Cade asked. “Do you hunt?”
I shook my head. “No,” I told him. “I like to read, and I like movies.”
“What kind of movies do you like?”
“Werewolf ones, mostly.”
Neither Cade or I talked for the rest of the drive.
“Park in the back,” I told him. “That way nobody will see us.”
Cade followed my instructions and guided the truck around the square. He turned down a narrow alleyway that ran behind the buildings.
We weren’t alone. A vintage black truck was parked behind the brewery. I could see the shadowy image of a person inside.
“Crap, there’s somebody here. Don’t stop,” I said.
“Calm down,” Cade told me and parked next to the other truck. “That’s just Tristan.”
“I thought it was going to be just me and you.”
Cade put the gear shift into park and turned to look at me. “Blake,” he laughed and made a face like he just realized something. “You weren’t expecting any kind of funny business were you? Because...”
“No.” Then I realized what he was implying. “Hell no,” I added. The last thing I needed was for that kind of rumor to get started.
Cade opened his door and got out of the truck. I sat where I was and watched him and Tristan talk. Like Cade, Tristan was wearing a ball cap, t-shirt, jeans, and boots.
I was more comfortable being with one close friend instead of a group. I didn’t want to be there anymore.
Cade was unlocking the door when he turned around to look at me. He motioned for me to get out of the truck, and I did. I mean, what else was I supposed to do?
“Is there going to be an alarm?” He asked me as soon as I had my door open.
I told him that there wasn’t, and he pushed the door inward. With Cade in the lead, Tristan next, and me last, the three of us entered into a small hallway that had a door on each side. The tasting room was straight ahead. “I’ll get the lights,” I said.
Cade and Tristan continued on down the hall while I went through the door on the right. I was standing in the brewing area, the heart of the business. Like the rest of the building, the walls of the room were made of exposed brick. Moonlight came in through two large windows on the back wall and reflected off the stainless steel tanks and brewing equipment.
The tanks were so tall that there were ladders next to each of them that the brew master would have to climb so that he could stir the mash with a long wooden paddle. The beginnings of the beer, the mash, would then be siphoned out into a fermenting tank where it would sit for several weeks. And then it would go into the kegs that were lined along the back wall. The electrical box was next to a dry-erase board that had the dates and times of the current brew. I opened the door to the box, flipped the switch, and the lights came on. Dad hated the sickly glow of fluorescent bulbs, and, just like every room at his house, all of the light fixtures in the brewery held the amber-colored glow of halogen.
When I came around the corner into the tasting room, Cade was already behind the bar. He was filling a pint glass with beer from one of the taps that ran along the back wall.
The tasting room was the most well presented area of the entire place. The bar and the walls of the small room were made of clean, polished wood.
“I thought you were bringing your own cups,” I said.
“My bad. I forgot.” Cade placed the full pint in front of Tristan who was sitting across from him. Cade got another glass from underneath the bar. “I’ll clean them before we leave.”
“Just don’t break any,” I said. “Riley, the guy that works here, knows exactly how many of each style they have.”
“So he’s OCD?” It was a girl’s voice that came from behind me.
I spun around. “What?”
“OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” It was the girl from the scuppernong field. “People with OCD like to count things,” she said. “They do it all the time.”
I had no idea that she would be there. She must have come in when I had gone into the back to turn on the lights. She was standing in the corner where there were shelves of t-shirts and caps that all had the brewery’s logo printed on them. Like before, the girl had her hair braided in two pig-tails that came down past her shoulders.
“But it’s okay,” she continued. “Everybody has their issues. I know I do.”
Cade walked up beside me and handed the girl a full glass.
She shook her head. “Cade, you know I’d be strung up like a wild hog if my dad smelled that on me.”
Since the girl turned down the beer, Cade handed the glass to me. It was the first beer that I had ever tasted, but I tried to play it cool like it was something that I did all the time.
“My name’s Lisa, by the way.”
“Blake,” I told her.
Cade spoke up. “Lisa’s homeschooled, but I figured y’all already knew each other. Her old man works for your dad and Mr. Callaway. She’s going to Clemson in the fall.”
“Where are you going?” Lisa was looking at me.
“I haven’t decided.” The plan was that I would be going to USC and be rooming with Davey who’d gotten a full scholarship. All of that was thrown out the window.
“Don’t go to Tech,” Tristan spoke up and downed the rest of his beer. “It sucks.” I knew he was talking about Tech not the beer because he walked over to the taps and began to refill his glass. “We should party here after the homecoming dance,” he said.
“You have no business at a high school dance,” Lisa told him.
Tristan returned with a full glass. “Well, it just so happens that I have myself a little high school honey.”
Cade patted my shoulder. “Lisa, Blake is probably looking for a date.”
I felt myself turning red.
“Why don’t we play cards?” Tristan changed the subject, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a full deck.”
All four of us sat around one of the high-top tables. My mind wasn’t really in the game. I was uncomfortable with everything that was going on around me. My eyes began to wander around the brewery, and I noticed several framed art prints that hung on the wall. There was one in particular that caught my attention—a woman wearing a period dress and holding an axe.
Her name was Becky Cotton, the Murderess of Edgefield. Legend had it that, back in the 1700s, she killed her husband with an axe. They say she haunts the area surrounding Slade Lake.
It’s hard to explain, but as I recounted the legend in my mind, it was like I was seeing the murder as it took place. I could see the blood and hear the man screaming.
But it wasn’t that death that I was visualizing. It was Davey’s.
Thinking about all of that, in addition to the alcohol, made the room feel like it was spinning, and I was starting to feel dizzy. I was hot. “I’m going to step outside for some fresh air.”
The night air was cool. It was pleasant. The brewery had an impressive store front that had been constructed to look like an old porch. I leaned on the rail and faced the grassy square. Overhead, the moon was bright. Other than the talk and laughter that was coming from inside the brewery, the town was quiet. I bowed my head and took several deep breaths, and when I looked up again, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
I stood up straight to get a better look. Something was moving around the opposite side of the gazebo. Other than the moon and the streetlights, the area was dark, and it took me a second to comprehend what I was seeing.
There was a person standing in the center of the gazebo. The figure was wearing what looked like a black rain jacket. Underneath the hood, the face was marred by dark shadow. He, or she, or it was staring straight at me.
I took a step back and tripped over something that was on the floor. As I fell backward, my hands reached and grabbed at the empty air in front of me. When I landed, something cut into my shoulder, and the back of my head thudded against something solid. Everything waivered in and out of consciousness.
And next, there was darkness.