“Tyler, it’s just like it was before—no bones, no blood, just … skin,” Brandon’s mom said.
Brandon tugged at his earlobe, tried not to disturb the scab that had formed there from the constant irritation of his pulling and tugging at it. He pushed himself deeper into the shadowy space under his bed. He heard his mother sigh. From his hiding spot, Brandon could see her feet stuffed into her ugly work shoes, the deep-brown skin of her ankles showing below her scrubs.
“Hang on a minute, Tyler,” Brandon’s mom said. She’d taken refuge in Brandon’s room, not knowing he was hiding under the bed, listening, holding his breath even as she called for him. She pulled the bedroom door open and yelled, “Wesley! Wesley, find your brother. I don’t have time for this! I have to be at the hospital in twenty minutes, and it takes me thirty to get there.”
Sometimes his mother’s voice was like the brakes on a train: screeching and hissing, unable to stop.
“He’s in the house somewhere, Ma,” Wesley yelled from downstairs. “Just go. I’ll find him.”
She shut the door to his room again and lowered her voice. “Everything straightened out? Everything good with the permits?”
There was a pause, and Brandon could hear a muffled voice on the other side of the phone. The words were impossible to make out.
“That’s good,” Brandon’s mother said. “I’d burn it to the ground if I thought I could get away with it. Yesterday a woman called the hospital asking if we had any John Does. Her son is missing. White male, thirty years old, tattoos on his right forearm. You want to guess the last place he was seen?”
Brandon heard a muffled yell from whoever was on the phone with his mother.
“Exactly,” his mother said. “And, Tyler, he was a developer, just like James.”
Brandon flinched at the sound of his father’s name. He hadn’t heard it said aloud in a long time. Behind closed doors and praying hands, sure. But just spoken aloud? Like his father might have come walking in at any moment? No. Brandon’s fingers found his earlobe again, feeling the rough surface of the scab under his thumbnail, a small comfort.
“Apparently this guy was out there measuring, taking pictures, planning on making a bid to buy it and turn it into a high-rise. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the county coroner paid us a visit, asking if anybody had come through the ER who fit the description of a John Doe they had on ice—Caucasian male, age indeterminate but probably under fifty. It was hard to get a description when the only thing left were a few scraps of skin. Some of the tattoos were intact, but not much else. Might be the same guy, but I’m not sure.”
Brandon’s stomach turned over. What did that even mean?
There was another long pause. “No,” his mom said. “You heard me right. They had him on ice—as in past tense.” Brandon’s mom sighed. “Tyler, the remains are gone.”
Indiscriminate shouting erupted from the phone again. Brandon heard a few curse words and not much else.
“I’ll call you later, and we can talk,” Brandon’s mom said, and after a brief pause, she walked out of Brandon’s room.
“There’s money for pizza on the kitchen counter,” she said, as she rushed down the stairs. “Love you, baby.”
“Love you too,” Wesley said.
The front door creaked open, then slammed shut, rattling the entire house. Brandon wriggled out from under his bed and poked his head into the hallway. Wesley was standing there, glaring at him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“Why don’t you answer her when she’s calling you?” Wesley asked, as he sauntered down the hall in his stockinged feet, the boards creaking under him.
Brandon looked down at the floor. “I dunno.”
“Do me a favor and speak up next time.” Wesley clapped a hand down on Brandon’s shoulder. “She’s already stressed. She doesn’t need to be worrying about you too.”
Brandon rolled his eyes and pulled away from his older brother. He knew Wesley was right. She was stressed, but so was Brandon. Losing a parent wasn’t something you just got over, especially not under the circumstances in which Wesley and Brandon had lost their father.
Their father had gone missing a year ago. Two weeks after he disappeared, some local kids found his body—or what was left of it—at McCannon’s Topiary Garden. Brandon was still numb. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact his dad wouldn’t be coming home ever again. There had been no goodbye. Brandon just assumed he would see his dad when he got home that evening, so he hadn’t bothered to say bye or I love you. The evening came and went, and Dad never came back.
They couldn’t even have the casket open for his funeral because of what had happened to him, which was—well, Brandon didn’t know. Nobody had any answers about what, exactly, had happened to him. But their mother knew. At least Brandon thought she did. She had to, right? He remembered when she’d gone to the hospital to confirm what they all hoped wasn’t true, and when she returned, she didn’t speak for three days. She just sat in her room and stared at the wall. Brandon was too afraid to press her about it. His father’s name was added to the long list of people who’d died under tragic, sometimes mysterious, circumstances at the now condemned topiary garden. They had all tried their best to move on, but Brandon felt like the sadness would cling to him forever. He could feel it. Like a heavy cold hand on his shoulder, weighing him down, always batting away happy memories and heaping grief on him until he felt like he was going to collapse in on himself.
Brandon went downstairs and sat on the couch. He flipped on the TV and scrolled through the channels, searching for something, anything, to distract him from the terrible ache in his chest.
“Anything good on?” Wesley asked, free-falling onto the couch, sending Brandon half a foot into the air.
“Nope. Same old shit.”
Wesley winced. “Watch your mouth.”
“Why? You don’t.” Brandon tried to scoot as far away from Wesley as he could, but Wesley reached out and pulled him close, then dug his knuckles into the crown of Brandon’s head.
“Ouch!” Brandon yelped. “Get off!”
Wesley sat back, a little smile on his lips. “You, sir, need a lineup. Damn.”
Brandon pulled at the back of his neck. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody cares anyway.”
Wesley sighed. “Listen,” he said softly. “I know you’re having a hard time. We all are. But the only way we get through this is together. Don’t start showin’ out. If you’re sad, you can cry. If you’re mad, you can say that. But don’t do that thing where you shut everybody out.”
“She never should’ve let him go out there,” Brandon said, as he pulled his ear until it hurt. He blamed his mother, even though he knew good and well it wasn’t really her fault. But he needed somebody to blame, otherwise his father had died for nothing, for no reason, and that just didn’t seem fair.
Wesley narrowed his eyes and sighed. “Let him go out there? Brandon, Dad wasn’t a kid. He made his own choices. You know how hardheaded he is—was.” Wesley swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “Mom didn’t know what would happen. She beats herself up about it enough as it is.”
Tears stung Brandon’s eyes, and he clenched his jaw until his temples ached.
Wesley softened his grip on Brandon. “We have each other, and that’s what matters.”
Brandon looked at Wesley, who flashed him that funny little smile, just the slightest gap between his two front teeth. He looked just like their dad—big brown eyes, dark brown skin, high cheekbones. Brandon looked more like their mother—toothy smile, square jaw, stout. He was glad. It hurt to look at Wesley, and Brandon couldn’t imagine having to look at himself in the mirror every day and feel that same hurt.
“And you should really watch your mouth.” Wesley flicked the back of Brandon’s ear. “You’re fourteen. You’re still a baby.”
Brandon gave him a half smile. He’d been practicing in the bathroom mirror; every time he found out about a new curse word, he’d put it in a sentence and say it until it rolled off his tongue, but never loud enough for his mother to hear. She would have lost her whole mind.
“Come on,” Wesley said, hoisting himself up out of the deep folds of the overstuffed couch. “Mom’s working a double shift again, so it’s just you and me till tomorrow.”
Brandon liked to give Wesley a hard time, but deep inside, Brandon knew he wouldn’t have made it all this time without his brother. Wesley could never replace their dad, but he tried to ease the pain of his loss by filling in where he could.
Brandon followed his brother into the kitchen of the old craftsman-style house his mom had inherited from his grandma after she died. It was a little run-down, needed a new coat of paint and new glass in the upstairs windows, but their dad had sworn he was going to fix it up one day. Brandon didn’t know who would fix it now.
“What sounds good? Fruity Pebbles? Pancakes?” Wesley asked, as he rifled through the cabinets.
“Oreos and milk?” Brandon asked.
“No way. Mom would kill me if I let you eat that for breakfast.”
“You’re no fun.” Brandon knitted his brows, and pressed his mouth into a tight line. “Aren’t older brothers supposed to help you get away with stuff?”
“Yeah, but Mom’s insurance doesn’t cover silver teeth, so no cookies for breakfast.”
They settled on orange juice and chocolate chip pancakes, which Wesley whipped up with the authority of a chef. Brandon gobbled up his stack and returned to his place on the couch.
Summers were the worst. The air was hot and sticky, and the house didn’t have air-conditioning. There were ceiling fans in every room, but all they did was push the heavy, moist air around the house in rolling waves. By midafternoon, Brandon’s shirt was clinging to his back, and he was ready to get out of the house.
“Wesley,” he called from the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s go to the park or somethin’. It’s hot as hell in here.”
“Watch your mouth, Brandon!” Wesley yelled back.
Brandon turned and sat on the last step.
Ding-dong!
Brandon jumped up as Wesley came bounding down the stairs and opened the front door. Three boys all but fell into the front entryway, talking among themselves. Brandon rolled his eyes so hard, he thought he was probably looking at the inside of his own skull.
“What’s good?” one of them asked, slapping hands with Wesley.
“Chillin’,” Wesley said.
Brandon sat back down on the step. The Harrison brothers, Kel and Teddy, had been friends with Wesley since elementary school. And Chris was one of Wesley’s friends from his job at the movie theater.
Of the three boys, Brandon hated Teddy the most. Teddy was the oldest of the Harrison brothers, same age as Wesley, seventeen, but Teddy was infinitely more annoying. He was tall, brown-skinned, and eternally ashy. Brandon couldn’t stand it when he palled around with Wesley.
“You babysittin’?” Teddy asked, staring at Brandon.
“Yeah,” Wesley said. Brandon caught the little bit of resentment in his tone.
“I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fourteen,” Brandon chimed in.
“Ohhhh shit!” Teddy said. “He’s a grown-ass man.” He reached for Brandon, like he was going to mush his forehead with his pointer finger, but Brandon slapped his hand away.
An angry scowl stretched across Teddy’s face.
“Listen,” Kel said, nudging Wesley’s shoulder. “Chris and I were thinking we should go out to McCannon’s.”
Brandon stiffened. Even hearing the name of the place where his father had died was still too much.
Chris yawned and stretched his arms high over his head, making his already-too-tight T-shirt come up over the brown skin of his stomach. He was a big, solid dude who played football for the local high school. He was a linebacker and looked like a whole-ass man, complete with a close-cropped beard.
“Are you on steroids?” Brandon asked. He was pissed at Chris for bringing up the topiary garden, so he figured now was as good a time as any to mess with him.
“No,” Chris said, like he was deeply offended. “This is all natural.” He flexed his biceps. “Why? Did somebody say I was taking something?”
Brandon scowled at him. “Maybe,” he lied.
Wesley playfully shoved Brandon back. “Chris, he’s joking. Relax.”
Chris eyed Brandon suspiciously, then turned his attention back to Wesley. “So? We going out to McCannon’s or what?”
Wesley looked like he wanted to throw up. “Why would you ever think I would want to go out there?”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “It’s finally getting torn down, and I got about fifty pounds of fireworks in my garage. I say we light the place up. Give it the send-off it deserves since it’s getting demolished anyway.”
“Wait. What?” Brandon asked, standing up. “What do you mean it’s getting demolished?”
“The city’s tearing it down,” said Kel. “After all the fucked-up stuff that happened out there, I think they just want to bulldoze it to the ground and start over. Sounds like a good idea to me. You don’t think so?”
Brandon and Wesley were silent. Brandon knew the park was permanently closed, but he didn’t remember hearing anything about it being torn down. It should be demolished, right? Brandon wished every day that the place would disappear off the face of the earth, but that wouldn’t bring his dad back, so did it even matter? He wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
“We’re not allowed to go out there,” Brandon said. The conversation he’d overheard his mother having stuck in his head. No bones, no blood, just … skin. Brandon shuddered. “Mom says we’re not supposed to go anywhere near that place.”
“Hey, who asked you?” Teddy snapped.
“Shut up, Teddy,” Kel said, rolling his eyes at his brother.
Kel wasn’t as bad as his older brother, but his beady brown eyes and the way his cornrows were never braided all the way down at the back of his head made Brandon uncomfortable.
Teddy shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, Wesley? You coming or not?”
Wesley hesitated, then turned to Brandon. “I know we’re not supposed to go, but if they’re tearing it down, we might not ever get the chance.”
“You want to go to the place where Dad died?” Brandon asked, confused. “Why?”
Wesley shrugged. “I just—I feel like I need to.” He sighed and put his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “We won’t be out there long. You said you wanted to get out of the house.”
“Who invited him?” Teddy asked, holding his hand up to block Brandon from going out the door. “No kids.”
Brandon tilted his head and looked at Teddy like he was small. “You’re only three years older than me. You’re still a kid too.”
Teddy rounded on Brandon, but Wesley stepped between them. “You walking all the way out to McCannon’s?” Wesley asked. “Last time I checked, I’m the one with the ride.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, giving them a little jingle in front of Teddy’s face. “Be nice, or you can take the bus.”
Teddy grumbled something under his breath and walked out onto the porch.
“What’s his problem anyway?” Wesley asked.
“Tracie broke up with him,” Chris said in a whisper.
“I broke up with her.” Teddy’s voice faltered, and he cleared his throat.
Brandon was sure Teddy was about to cry. He craned his neck to watch. Teddy caught sight of him and shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweat suit, a sweat suit with holes in the legs and a torn neckline. Brandon couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be like that or if he’d just been in a fight.
“Your girl left you, Teddy?” Brandon asked. “Is it because you spent all your money on that Yeezy tracksuit tryna impress her, but instead you look like Freddy Krueger whooped your ass?”
Kel and Chris laughed so hard, they had to jog away from Brandon to collect themselves.
Teddy spun around, his fists balled at his sides.
Wesley put his hands up in front of him. “Brandon comes with me, or I’m not going. He’s just a kid, Teddy. Ease up a little.”
“Tell him to keep his mouth shut about Tracie,” Teddy said through gritted teeth. “And about my outfit. Shit was expensive.”
Wesley shot Brandon a cautionary glance, and Brandon ran off to grab the pizza money and his shoes.
Brandon, Wesley, and the rest of the boys piled into the car—a black Plymouth Road Runner that was about to break down at any moment. Wesley had saved up for two years to buy that beater. The paint was chipped, and the interior smelled like a mixture of Black Ice Little Trees and the funk from Wesley’s gym bag, but Brandon knew Wesley loved his car almost more than he loved anything else. Brandon called shotgun but was overruled by Teddy, so he joined Chris and Kel in the back seat as Wesley slid in behind the wheel. The engine turned over, and they backed out of the driveway and sped off toward McCannon’s.
McCannon’s Topiary Garden and Recreational Area looked like a place people go to die. Tucked away in the rolling hills, it had once been a nature preserve, but the rich folks who lived close by in the ’70s wanted tennis courts and concrete fountains and softball fields. They pooled their considerable wealth and bribed a few members of the city council to open the area up to development. They got their members-only swimming pools and their racquetball courts. They even got a hedge maze, something one of Brandon’s teachers said was a giant waste of money because nobody was going to use it for anything good. That was how McCannon’s came into being, and from the jump, things had gone wrong.
Brandon had heard the rumors. Death haunted the place. People went in and came out in body bags, and there was always something weird about the deaths themselves. Overdoses shouldn’t have left people’s mortal remains unidentifiable. Accidents incurred by trespassers shouldn’t have had the coroner’s office struggling to confirm if the remains were even human. What kind of slip and fall makes your skin peel off? The only thing more broken than the bodies that came out of McCannon’s were the families left behind. Brandon knew that pain all too well.
The park was closed. Permanently. Had been for years. It was closed when Brandon’s father came out here—and it had still found a way to take him away. Brandon felt like the park was always taunting him, keeping the truth of what had happened to his father a secret.
Wesley swung the car around and skidded across the uneven pavement in the parking lot. There were cautionary signs posted on the chain-link fence warning trespassers to KEEP OUT. Bits of yellow police tape still clung to the fencing, and Brandon wondered who else’s broken and bloodied remains the local authorities had found inside.
Kel got out, then climbed up and over the fence, while Wesley and Brandon squeezed through the padlocked front gate. Teddy rummaged around in the trunk and took out the fireworks they’d picked up on the way over and two cases of beer. He passed them through the fence to Wesley.
“You can’t drink,” Brandon said.
“You can’t drink,” Teddy said, mimicking Brandon’s tone. He squeezed through the fence and took one of the cases from Wesley. “Shut up, Brandon.”
“Yo,” Wesley said. “You gotta chill. I already told you—he’s just a kid.”
Teddy huffed as he hoisted a case of beer onto his hip and walked away. Chris stood on the other side of the fence as the boys looked back at him.
“Come on, Chris,” said Wesley. “You want me to push the fence open for you?”
“No, it’s not that.” Chris stared past Brandon, into the shadowy park. “I just—you sure you wanna be here?” Chris suddenly sounded like he was having a change of heart and that made Brandon nervous.
Wesley glanced over his shoulder, staring into the park. “I mean, no. But I wanna fuck this place up. Come on.”
“I’ll go around,” Chris said.
“It’s two blocks’ worth of fence,” said Kel.
“I’ll jog,” Chris said.
“Whatever,” Brandon said, as he followed Wesley into the park. Brandon used to think the weird stories and rumors were just to keep kids from trespassing on the condemned grounds, but now he wasn’t so sure—not after what had happened to his father.
Brandon let his gaze sweep over the park. The once green fields were brown and overgrown. Many of the trees sported branches so long, their fingerlike offshoots scraped across the ground as a gentle breeze kicked up. The tennis courts were fractured, and all kinds of weeds had pushed their way into the cracks. Brandon hadn’t been in the park since his father’s death, but it seemed the only people who enjoyed the park now were vagrants and kids who snuck in beer and cigarettes, used too many curse words, and pretended to be grown.
They walked for a while before Teddy set down his case of beer on the ledge of a huge fountain that stood midway through the park. The fountain featured a giant Liberty-esque statue in the middle. The water had long since evaporated. Dirt and leaves and empty beer bottles littered the concrete basin at the foot of the statue. Teddy tore open the case of beer and popped the top on a can. He tossed a closed one to Wesley, and Wesley tossed it back.
“Oh, come on,” Teddy said, rolling his eyes. “Your brother’s got you wrapped around his little finger.”
“I have to drive us home, remember?” Wesley said.
Teddy grumbled something under his breath as Brandon took a seat on the edge of the fountain.
“Check this out,” Kel said, scaling the statue in the center to dangle from its extended arm.
Just then, a loud crack made Brandon jump, and Kel almost fell but caught himself at the last second. Chris emerged from behind the fountain on the opposite side, firecracker in hand, smoke still billowing from its spent core, his face ruddy and tight from laughter.
“You scared me!” Kel said, scampering down the marble statue and doubling over, clutching at his chest and panting like a dog. “I’m about to have a heart attack!”
“You should check your drawls,” Wesley said. He sat on the rim of the empty fountain, howling with laughter.
Kel swiped his hand at him as if to say, Shut up, and Teddy tossed Chris a beer.
Cloudy purple ribbons fanned out across the sky as the sun sank low. Teddy had a beer, then two more. Kel and Chris joined in, and they were through the case by the time the sun set. Wesley wasn’t drunk, but he was falling all over himself, laughing as his friends made fools of themselves. Brandon sat watching his older brother, who had held their family together after his father’s death, laughing from the gut for the first time in a long time. It was nice, but the fact he was doing it so close to where their dad’s remains had been found didn’t sit right with Brandon. He didn’t think that was disrespectful? He didn’t think it was weird?
“We should check in with Mom,” Brandon said.
Wesley glanced over at him. “I already texted her. Told her we’re at Chris’s house.”
Brandon huffed. He’d been hoping bringing up their mom would make Wesley cut their little field trip short, but it looked like he already had all the bases covered.
“I’m starving,” Brandon said, trying another excuse. “Mom’s gonna be pissed you didn’t feed me.”
“Calm down, little man,” Chris said, breathing hard into Brandon’s face. His breath smelled like tuna and beer, and Brandon tried not to breathe as Chris slung an arm around his shoulder. Chris shoved a pack of saltine crackers into Brandon’s hand and slapped him on the back.
“Why do you have a pocket full of crackers?” Brandon asked.
“You said you wanted a snack,” Chris said.
“Thanks,” Brandon said.
He opened the pulverized crackers and dumped the crumpled contents into his mouth. He leaned back and stared into the overgrowth of maple trees. Their branches intertwined with each other as their roots snaked out of the ground and broke the pavement apart. The wind rustled the leaves, and the trees seemed to shift. Brandon sat up straight and squinted into the dark. He thought he saw something move between the trunks.
No. It was just the trees themselves, and still …
Chris chucked a half-empty can of beer at Brandon, striking him in the shin.
“Hey! You’re wastin’ it!” Kel seemed like it caused him physical pain to see the beer spilling out into the empty fountain’s basin and mingling with the bits of trash and broken leaves.
“Tracie is everything,” Teddy said, as his words began to run together. “Everything—I’m telling you.”
“Nah. Kayla Malone,” Wesley said. “She’s everything.”
Wesley and Teddy slapped hands and laughed as Brandon rolled his eyes. He was sure Wesley didn’t even know Kayla Malone in a way that mattered. All he ever did was talk about her, but he was too shy to talk to her. Brandon hopped off the fountain’s wall and wandered away from the boys, who had decided to start a small bonfire in the low-lying brush. He added it to his mental checklist titled Things to Tell Mom.
Brandon walked down a gravel path and made a quick right, before descending a steep flight of stairs and stopping at a short wrought iron gate. A small sign hung on a crooked post.
McCannon Topiary Garden est. 1948.
A place to be at one with nature.
The inner gate was padlocked, so Brandon put his foot between the bars and hoisted himself up. He leaned his chest against the top bar and started to pull himself over when some movement in the garden caught his eye. He stopped.
In the dark, Brandon saw three hulking shapes. Breathing. No. Were they breathing? He shook his head and eased his feet back onto the ground. The shadowy shapes slowly came into focus as Brandon’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. They were hedge sculptures that looked as if they had once been trimmed to resemble human figures, their original forms long since lost to an overgrowth of foliage. Vines sprouted from misshapen arms and legs, trailing off like tentacles in the encroaching dark. And there was a rustling. Brandon craned his neck to see where it was coming from but couldn’t make it out. He took a step back as unease swallowed him whole. He pulled at his ear.
Just beyond the strange figures, Brandon spotted the entrance to the sprawling hedge maze. The opening was at least nine feet tall and looked like a giant doorway, with two paths snaking off—one to the left and one to the right. Brandon squinted, trying to see how deep the maze went. He couldn’t tell, but what he knew for sure was that somewhere in there was where his father had spent his last moments. He looked at the pavement under his sneakers. His dad must have walked over this exact spot.
A knot worked its way up Brandon’s throat. He turned away from the hedge maze and ran right into Teddy. He screamed, and Teddy clapped a sweaty hand over his mouth.
“Shhhh!” Teddy said, spewing a tunnel of fetid air into Brandon’s face.
Brandon pulled back. “You scared the shit out of me,” he said angrily.
Teddy threw his head back and laughed himself half to death.
Brandon started to walk away.
“Wait a minute. Were you … were you gonna go in there?” Teddy asked, peering down toward the maze.
“No.”
“Yeah, you were,” Teddy said. “You want to go in there? That’s where they found your pops—or what was left of him, right?”
Brandon clenched his jaw.
“What’s wrong?” Teddy taunted. “You scared?”
“No.” Brandon wanted to tell Teddy fuck off, but he could hear Wesley’s voice in his head telling him to watch his mouth.
Teddy mounted the fence and fell over the top. He fell hard on the pathway, and Brandon couldn’t help but smile. Teddy stood up and walked in a halting, jerky sort of way toward the entrance of the maze.
“What are you doing?” Brandon asked. A sudden chill ran up his back, and he felt his skin prickle. He looked at the once human-shaped hedge nearest to him. He seemed to remember it being in a slightly different position before. He blinked, trying to clear his head. Had it moved?
“Havin’ … some … some fun.” Teddy’s words ran together like his tongue was too big for his mouth, the alcohol clearly getting the better of him. “Don’t be … such a crybaby.”
Teddy disappeared into the maze.
Brandon waited for him to pop back up at any moment. He’s going to try and scare me. I know it.
Minutes passed in the dark. Brandon’s mind raced between wanting to go get Wesley and not wanting to be labeled a baby. He was the tagalong. Wesley didn’t seem to mind, but everyone else did. They liked scaring him, blowing ringlets of smoke in his face, and teasing him about whether he had even kissed a girl yet. He hadn’t. But that wasn’t the point.
I’m gonna go get Wesley.
Brandon turned to retreat up the path when there came a rustling from the garden. Everything inside him told him to run, but he didn’t. He turned and glanced over his shoulder. The hedges seemed closer than they had been before.
He stepped back.
He turned toward the path, and then, from behind him, there came another sound. This one more subtle, caught in the breeze. He almost missed it. Brandon cocked his head and turned his ear back to the maze. A whimper, like a dog begging to be let out to take a piss. The noise climbed in pitch and fervor until it became a wail, a moan of absolute anguish. Brandon heard a rush of footsteps, staggered and heavy. He craned his neck and peered down toward the maze entrance. He didn’t see Teddy, but he wondered why he was walking around in there like that—like his feet were made of lead, making all that noise. Brandon knew Teddy was drunk, but was he faded enough to be dragging his feet around?
Brandon’s heart began to gallop. The sound of blood rushing through his veins muffled the nighttime noises all around him. He turned and ran away from the garden, pumping his legs and arms as hard as he could. Something was following him. He heard a rustle in the grass that had, in some parts of the park, grown to waist height, and his heart lurched in his chest.
Brandon barreled into the opening where the fountain stood illuminated by the bonfire the other boys had stoked to a roaring blaze. He skidded to a stop in front of Wesley, Kel, and Chris.
“I don’t get what she sees in him, man.” Chris slurred his words, and Brandon saw a line of spit hanging from his chin.
“Tracie’s not the only girl out there, Chris,” Kel said. “You’ve gotta expand your horizons beyond your friend’s girl. It’s … weird.”
“It’s not! She’s beautiful!” Chris shouted.
“Okay, Chris. Okay,” Kel said.
“Wesley! You gotta come with me!” Brandon blurted out, trying to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong?” Wesley asked, concern coloring his voice.
“Teddy is messing around in the maze. He’s trying to scare me!”
Wesley chuckled, and Kel sat up.
“There’s a maze?” Kel asked.
Brandon was annoyed at his brother’s lack of urgency. He was just sitting there like an idiot. “Get up! Go tell him to stop!”
“Okay. Okay,” said Wesley, raising his hands in front of him and climbing to his feet.
“What’s-a-matter, Brandon? You scared, sweet little boy?” Kel said in the same condescending tone as his asshole brother.
“Shut up and come on,” Brandon snapped. “Teddy went into the maze, and then I heard…”
Kel seemed to come out of his drunken haze as he stared at Brandon. “You heard what?”
Wesley came close to Brandon, looking concerned. “What is it?”
Brandon looked up at Wesley, and, like big brothers so often do, Wesley gave Brandon a reassuring little smile.
“It was—like a whining noise,” Brandon said quietly, afraid to speak it aloud. “And then it sounded like Teddy was dragging his feet on the ground, like something was wrong with him.”
Concern spread across Wesley’s face. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check it out. Teddy’s probably just messing with you.”
Chris wiped his chin, and Kel huffed loudly and stood up. They all followed Brandon down the gravel path and down the concrete stairs to the little fence by the maze.
Wesley reached into his pocket, and his mouth turned down at the corners. “The flashlight on my phone is broken. I’m not gonna be able to see shit.” He glanced back up in the direction of the fountain, shrugged, and hopped the fence in one smooth motion.
“What are you doing?” Brandon asked. Something sank into his chest—a terrifying sort of primal fear that left him unable to move. “You—you can’t go in there. You can’t see! It’s dark!”
“You told me to make him stop. That’s what I’m doing,” said Wesley. “I should burn this damned place to the ground while I’m at it.”
Kel hopped the fence, and then Chris went over like a slug goes over a stick. They walked toward the hedge maze’s entrance that by now looked like a great black hole in the mountain of tightly packed foliage. Brandon watched the not-human hedges. They seemed to be in their original positions, and Brandon shook his head. Of course, they were. They weren’t moving on their own.
“Just stay put,” Wesley called.
Kel turned and went into the maze, taking the path on the right. Chris went left, and Wesley paused.
“Stay put. Five minutes, ten tops,” Wesley said.
“Ten. Tops,” Brandon called back as he pulled at his ear. The scab suddenly came loose, and Brandon could feel the sting of the open wound. Blood wet his fingertips, and he quickly wiped his hand on his shirt.
Wesley disappeared to the left, and Brandon pressed his waist into the metal gate. He didn’t want to go into the maze, but he didn’t want to be alone on the outside either.
There must have been owls nesting somewhere nearby, because their calls pinged back and forth. Brandon saw their shadowy shapes crisscrossing in the sky above him. They hooted and hollered … Why were they screaming? He’d never heard an owl cry out like that before, and he wondered if that was normal.
He watched them soar overhead. Screeching. They swooped low, disappeared into the hedge maze, then zoomed back toward the sky. The scream came again. Brandon whipped his head around and saw someone standing in the entrance of the maze. The scream was coming from that direction, from whoever was standing there.
Brandon tensed his body, his muscles preparing to explode into a run. The figure came forward, groaning and sputtering. It lurched forward just enough for Brandon to see its face.
Chris.
“Stop it!” Brandon yelled. “You’re scaring me!” He was done pretending to be brave.
Chris’s head snapped back, and he made a gurgling noise as if he were trying to speak through a mouth full of liquid. His body twisted in an unnatural way as a tangle of vines ensnared him, circling his midsection. It yanked him backward, and his back bent right in the middle with a loud snap.
“Chris!” Brandon shouted.
Chris was pulled back into the maze, to the right and out of sight.
Brandon put his trembling hands on the fence. “Wesley!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “Wesley, where are you? Get out of there!”
Another scream came from somewhere in the maze, and Brandon heard quick footsteps, a snarl like a wild animal, and the snap of branches—or maybe bones—breaking.
“Wesley! Kel! Chris! Please! I’m scared!”
At the entrance, another figure stumbled out. Brandon recognized him right away and heaved a sigh of relief. Wesley.
Wesley would take him away from this place. Wesley would protect him.
“Wesley! We gotta get out of here!” Brandon scaled the fence and stumbled toward his brother. Wesley turned toward him, and Brandon stopped.
A stream of warm piss rushed down his leg.
“Bran—don,” Wesley wheezed. His left arm was gone. The bloody stump was ragged and spurting. Wesley lumbered forward and Brandon reared back, falling hard onto the ground, unable to move or scream or blink.
Wesley staggered toward him. Small tendrils of vines squirmed in the hollow sockets of his eyes. The eyes that had once been so much like their father’s were gone. His skin had a wrinkled, loose appearance, and something beneath its surface undulated. The right side of Wesley’s face hung off the bones at an odd angle, like the flesh was draped over the skull because all the muscle beneath was gone. A gash in Wesley’s abdomen should have had his guts spilling out, but what hung from his body was a writhing mass of vines and bloodied leaves.
Brandon scrambled back. His heart cartwheeled in his chest, his mouth went dry, and his screams turned to pitiful whimpers. Wesley jerked upward, straightening his back. He tilted his head up and looked at the sky. In the glinting moonlight, Brandon watched in terror as a squirming mass of vines pushed their way out of Wesley’s gaping mouth. Smaller tendrils burst from his bare forearm and from the tips of the mangled fingers on his remaining hand. Wesley leveled his head, now held to his neck with a stitching of thorny stems, and lumbered toward Brandon.
Brandon could do nothing except look up at his brother as he loomed over him. “Wes—Wesley?” he stammered.
“Wesley.” The voice that came from his brother’s body was not Wesley’s. It sounded like the crunching of dead leaves and the slither of snakes all at once.
A white-hot pain ripped through Brandon’s leg, and when he looked down, he saw a barbed length of vine ripping the flesh from his bare legs, embedding itself beneath his skin, writhing through his veins. He tried to scream but managed only a high-pitched whistling sound as his throat was torn away. In the dark, something fell from Wesley’s torn pocket.
His phone. Their mother’s face lit up the screen as it vibrated on the ground. Brandon wanted to reach for it, but his body was not his own anymore.
Brandon, his big brother, Wesley, the Harrison brothers, and their sidekick Chris, were gone—and five new almost-human hedge sculptures stood just beyond the entrance of the hedge maze in McCannon’s Topiary Garden.
A place to be at one with nature.