Chapter Thirty-Eight

The walk to the one-lane bridge wasn’t exactly great, but the walk back was absolutely brutal. The mud sucked at my shoes with each step. I hugged myself the whole way even though it did next to nothing to contain my shivering, and my left side was numb from the hip down. The prosthetic leg was not built for this kind of abuse, but then again, neither was the rest of me.

Before I left, I smeared the garbage bag in the puddle of Rita’s phosphorescent blood and tied it around my neck as a makeshift cloak of visibility. I kept my eyes down, focused on the footprints in the sand. At a certain point, one set of footprints became two. I didn’t understand how this could have happened unless someone followed me for a portion of my initial journey. But then I realized that some of the footprints were facing the wrong direction, and it occurred to me that—somehow—I had turned myself around and started walking back towards the one-lane bridge.

I finally got myself pointed the right way before the rain came. It quickly transformed into a thunderstorm. The glow-blood on my garbage poncho washed off, leaving me in true darkness. During cracks of lightning, I could see that all of the footprints were melting away, and I had little choice but to climb up the creek wall and take shelter in the forest.

I remembered one rule of survival, a piece of trivia from many years ago. If you ever get lost in the wild, the best thing to do is stay put. Eventually someone will find you. However, I didn’t think that advice was wise if nobody had any reason to look for you. So I made up a new survival plan: Pick a direction and plow forward until… (there was no second half of that plan—just until).

I walked into a few tree branches. And a few trees. I tripped and fell over a few logs and down a few hills. At one point, I landed on something furry, but rather than eat me, it just squealed and ran away. I took mental snapshots each time the lightning graced me, then hiked from memory until I was fumbling over logs and kissing branches again.

Eventually, the storm got bored and went home, and the cloud cover thinned enough for me to see. I even found a trail. Although I didn’t know where it led, I knew it had to lead somewhere, and somewhere was better than nowhere, so I carried on. I picked up a decent walking stick and walked for hours. I picked up a second walking stick and walked for hours. Once I came upon a garbage bag in the middle of the path, I realized that I’d dropped mine somewhere far behind me… I left it be. When I came upon another identical garbage bag in the middle of the path, I started to wonder just how many garbage bags were out here in these woods.

The hike turned into another kind of constant background noise. I allowed the autopilot to take over. My body had this down—one step in front of the other, try not to freeze to death. My mind went to other places. Theories, memories, explosive emotions, sometimes all three at once. Brother Riley sat next to me at Vanessa’s funeral… Did he orchestrate her death?!

A voice from the forest snapped me out of it and stopped me dead in my tracks.

“See?”

I gripped both of the walking sticks. They weren’t much for weapons, but if I had to, I could make whatever or whoever killed me regret it first. But as the seconds ticked away, I began to wonder if I imagined that voice altogether. I mean, who else would be out here at this time of night? Standing just off the trail, watching me? I almost convinced myself that it was nothing when another voice came from the other side of the trail.

“Oh!”

I dropped one of the sticks and gripped the other with both hands like a baseball bat. I was dealing with multiple enemies, and I couldn’t see them.

“Who’s there?” I yelled. “I have to warn you! I have a bazooka! And I know how to use it!”

“OKAY!” I couldn’t tell which voice called it out. But they were nearby. Maybe just a few feet beyond the path.

“Okay?” I repeated. “So we have an understanding? We aren’t going to fight?”

The next voice came from the forest on the opposite side of the path. It sounded like a war call. “AYEEEEE!!!”

I swung my stick in a futile attempt to appear intimidating.

“SEE?” The first voice. There were at least two of them out here. Two distinct callers, flanking me from either side of the path and drawing closer.

“Ohhhhhhh!” I couldn’t tell if I should run or keep swinging or try to dart up a tree.

“OKAY!” That voice was right behind me. Inches from my ear. I spun around to see nobody.

“AYEEEEE!!!” Right behind me again! I spun around. Same dance. Same result.

But then the voices were further away. And now they were speaking together, at the same time. “See? Oh! Okay! AYEEE!”

A figure emerged from the woods into the path. She stopped, raised herself up on one leg, did a twirl, then leapt into the forest on the other side.

“See? Oh! Okay! AYEEE!

A second later, her brother emerged, repeated the graceful dance maneuver, and followed her into the woods.

“See? Oh! Okay! AYEEE!”

And then she emerged again from the same side, like she’d somehow teleported back to her original starting line. This time, she was dance-twirling a giant flag. Emblazoned across the top was the emblem for the Goose Scouts of America. “See-oh-okay-ayee! That is how you spell ‘cookie’! This is a song for you and me, to celebrate the…”

Someone behind me clapped twice. I turned to see both of the cookie twins, standing together, screaming at me, “COOKIE!”

I tumbled backwards but missed the ground. My ass hit air and kept falling. The world whooshed past me as I lost all connection to the planet. Dancing silhouettes in the distance bounced in time with the cookie cheer. “C-o-ok-i-e! That is how you spell ‘Cookie’! This is a song for you and me, to celebrate the (Clap Clap) COOKIE!”

I landed on a giant pillow in the center of an ocean. I bounced and landed in a field of daisies in the center of a giant bowl of cereal. Morgan, the cookie brother, performed tricks on a unicycle while Elizabeth rested my head in her lap and smoothed my hair. I didn’t understand who was even singing still, but I was way beyond caring.

“Shush now,” said Elizabeth, her hair braids tickling my face as she leaned forward. “Sometimes life is like a raisin cookie. It looks like it’s going to be chocolate chip, and then you’re full of disappointment, but that’s only because you’re focusing on the raisin part and forgetting that the entire rest of the cookie is still made out of cookie. Quit focusing on the raisins, Jack. You need to eat. You need your energy.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said.

“Shhhhh,” she responded. “The first one is always free.”

Elizabeth proceeded to feed me cookies while Morgan danced around us, spinning a baton made of fire, and then, quite suddenly—

 

***

 

It was daytime.

I sat up and felt every bone in my body protest.

The path wasn’t there anymore. I’d been moved, and now I was leaning against a mossy tree. To my right, there was half of a baseball-sized white mushroom covered in teeth marks. To my left, there was a pile of fur surrounding a tiny animal’s foot (if I had to guess, I’d say it was the remnants of an unlucky chipmunk).

I hiccupped.

Then I forced myself up, found a walking stick, and continued straight ahead for about twenty feet before the forest ended and I emerged near the overflowing dumpster of the gas station. Rocco was sitting atop the garbage pile, gnawing on cardboard. When he saw me, he shook his head, as if to say, “Rough night, huh Jack?” I flipped him the bird, and he jumped down and raced back to his nest behind the grease trap.

I was so relieved to be back, that I almost didn’t notice how somebody had spray-painted the words “GO AWAY!” across the front of the gas station in my handwriting. That might not be great for business, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the fact that the front door was locked. I could have just crawled through the shattered glass, but somebody had nailed up a barricade of pallet wood on the other side. In an interesting twist, I was now trapped outside the gas station.

I circled the building twice. The back door was equally locked, and nobody had blown any new entrances into it since I left. I leaned against the dumpster and wracked my brain. How do I get inside?

There was an answer. I could feel it. It was right there, I just needed to work it out on my own. Spencer did it! Spencer used to get inside the locked gas station like he was walking through walls! What did Spencer do? Think Jack. Try and think like Spencer.

I turned the corner of the building and found the spot opposite the wall where we found him leaning against the cold drink case during the night of the Sagoth incident. There was something here. The grease trap. And then, I felt a sickness in my stomach, like someone punched me in the gut. All I could do was hate myself for being so slow.

We don’t sell any kind of fresh food. We sure as hell don’t fry anything. So why do we have a grease trap? If not grease, what the hell’s in there?

I put both hands on the black, metallic bin and pulled. It didn’t budge. I pushed and heard a click. Once I released, the rectangular bin separated from the wall and rolled to the side, revealing half-empty rows of canned sodas. I pushed, and the entire cold drink case door swung open. I was dealing with a genuine secret passageway. I crawled through, pulled the fake door shut behind me, then went to find Jerry’s head.

First, I found not-Guillermo, sticking a gold-colored pin inside the plastic explosive over the front door.

“Hey,” I said.

He spun around. “Jack?! What?! Are… are you a ghost?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh… Wow. I was not expecting… You know what, man? I need to make a phone call.”

While he dialed a number on his cell phone, I walked around the gas station to see that he’d spread the C-4 far and wide into every nook and corner like he was hiding Easter eggs.

“Hey, it’s me. I don’t know how to tell you this, but... Jack’s here… I know, right?! Me too… No, I asked. He says he’s not a ghost... Are we still going to… Okay… I’ll get on it.” He hung up, then said, “Well, shit.”

“What’s up, robo-hands?” He glared at me, and I regretted ever thinking I could wade into the nicknaming game.

“Boss says I gotta help you clean up.”

We spent the next hour prying off pallet boards and collecting plastic explosives. Then we rearranged the shelves, swept, mopped, changed the burned-out light bulbs, and bagged up all the debris. 

While we were at it, I found the ice chest where Roger’s man had left it in the walk-in cooler. He explained that the smell was starting to get to him, and swore to me that he didn’t look inside. I told him I didn’t care if he looked. It was just Jerry, and Jerry was never shy. But if he really smelled that bad, I needed to take action. I replaced the water with sawdust and coffee grinds all the way up to his eye holes.

Before Roger’s man left, I asked how sure he was that he didn’t forget any of the explosives. His hesitant answer of “pretty sure” inspired very little confidence.