That afternoon, as I’m watching television because I don’t have much else to do, I hear a knock on my door. It startles me. I can’t help it.
I see someone peering through the window. Newt’s big glasses are easy to recognize.
Newt’s an odd kid, but he’s one of the few people at Harrington High who seems to get how awful things are in Solitary. He’s also one of the few people I trust.
It can’t be good that he’s standing at your doorstep, since he’s never come by before.
I open the door. “What is it?”
He glances down the stairs behind him before he quickly moves by me to get inside. Once inside, he locks the front door.
I used to think his silly fears were a bit extreme, but I don’t anymore.
“How’d you get here?” I ask.
“Rode my bike. Did you hear?”
“About Oli?”
“Who told you?” His eyes seem to keep getting bigger, like someone blowing up a balloon.
“The sheriff.”
Newt’s bangs are sweaty, and his face is flushed. I ask him if he’s okay, if he wants to sit and have something to drink.
“Oli was the most athletic guy in our school,” he says, ignoring my questions. “He didn’t drown. There is no way he drowned.”
He doesn’t have to tell me this.
“How did you hear?” I ask.
“Word’s getting around school. I saw it on Facebook.”
I nod. I haven’t been online for a while, much less on Facebook.
“I heard about what happened with Oli and Gus and you in the art room,” Newt says.
“I’m sure a lot of people have.”
“Don’t you think it has something to do with that?”
I shrug. “I’ve stopped thinking.”
The beady eyes look at me as if they’re trying to comprehend what I just said.
“I’m tired of playing detective,” I tell Newt.
He shakes his head.
“What?”
“You can’t just—”
“I can’t just what?” I ask. “Stop? Stop asking questions? You’re the one who always said I should be careful.”
“But that was before—”
“Before what? Before Oli died? Before they got to Jocelyn? Before they made Poe leave?”
“No. It was before—before I saw what they did to you.”
I don’t get what he’s talking about. “What do you mean, what they did to me? Who are you talking about? And what’d they do?”
“Nothing,” he says. “They didn’t do anything.”
I’m still not following.
Newt sighs and looks back at the door.
“Nobody’s coming, man,” I say. “There’s no boogeyman listening to us.”
He looks at me, his eyes flitting around.
“What?”
“See this?” Newt points to the red streak on his face.
I nod.
“You want to know how I got this? And the one on my arm?”
“Yeah.”
“Stuart Algiers. The kid who disappeared before you moved here. That’s how.”
“He did that to you?”
“No,” he says in frustration. “It was after he went missing. After the rumors really started getting crazy. I started looking into it.”
“You did?”
He nods. “Stuart was always nice to me. He stuck up for me when others didn’t. He was—he was kinda like you. And after he disappeared during Christmas break, I knew something bad must have happened to him. So I started looking around. Asking questions. Playing detective. And that’s when this happened.”
“What happened?”
“I was walking home from the park when a couple guys wearing ski masks jumped out of a van and grabbed me, then knocked me out. I woke up somewhere dark with a whole group of them standing around me, threatening me. They took something hot and sharp—like a knife left in a fire—and they did this.”
I can’t help but wince, looking at the scar.
Now you know, Chris.
“They said the only reason they didn’t kill me was that I was going to be a lesson. They wanted me to walk around with this, to warn other students not to mess around. Not to ask questions. To go about their lives being quiet and not curious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So then you come in and start hanging around with Jocelyn and asking questions and snooping around. That’s why I’ve been careful. Why I act this way.”
“I’ve been warned too,” I tell him.
“Yes, but—Chris, for some reason you’re different. I don’t know. You just—you are.”
“Why?”
“Because people are looking out for you. And because—because they haven’t gotten to you.”
“Says who?”
He just looks at me, the eyes behind the spectacles, the scar on his cheek, the flustered face.
He is the picture of a warning sign.
“They got to Oli just like they got to Stuart. Or to Jocelyn. Or to others. But not you, Chris. You’re different.”
I shake my head. I don’t believe it. “So—what’s that have to do with anything?”
“So you can’t stop,” Newt says with as much strength as his little form and feeble voice can muster. “Not after everything. That’s what they want you to do. You have to keep going.”
“Keep going? Keep going where?”
I think of the pictures I found of Jocelyn dead and bloody. I think of Pastor Marsh, of the blade I thrust into his chest, of the realization that I’d killed a man in cold blood.
But you didn’t. He’s still around, still preaching some kind of message on Sunday mornings, still smiling his creepy smile.
As if everything that happened to us in the woods was just a dream. Or a nightmare.
Is there a difference?
I think of the following days and nights where I walked around as if a ghost or a goblin might grab me at any moment. Where I tried to make sense of it all.
I still can’t. It doesn’t make any.
“There’s nowhere left to go,” I say.
“Chris—”
“Newt, no. Enough.”
“You just can’t—stop.”
I laugh. It’s probably a little bit too loud and too crazy, because Newt suddenly looks scared.
“This is not my problem. I’m—I’m sorry to hear about Oli. Really. But I didn’t have anything to do with it. And this—all of this—I didn’t sign up for this. I’m done. With all of it.”