Boys in the Valley(62)

“Auguste? The Frenchy? Jesus . . .”

I nod. “Byron clocked the one who jumped me with a meat hammer, might have killed him. The same kid who stabbed me in the shoulder.”

The wound hurt but, upon inspection by David, it proved to be superficial. Byron took a look and shrugged, noting only that it had likely been done with a table knife. The idea of being stabbed with cutlery made me numb with sick fear, but I tried my best to keep a brave face.

“Anyway,” I continue, “I didn’t get a good look at the others. But no one you mentioned was among them, which puts their numbers near ten, I guess. Plus, we know Jonah is on their side. That one was always plotting with . . .”

I stop, seeing a new light on all this. A black spark.

“What?” David asks, looking worried.

“. . . with Bartholomew,” I say.

It hits me then. It’s as if a key is turned in my head, unlocking something I somehow knew, deep in my heart, to be true.

I recall the strange events of that night. The violence, the screams, the laughter. The gunshot and then, moments later, the doors blasting open, as if a horde were bursting through.

The fallen cross.

Yes, I’m absolutely sure of it now. He is behind all of this.

The dead man.

Somehow, that man—his arrival, his bizarre death—is the root of everything that’s happened since: the strange gatherings, the personality changes. Rebellion.

Murder.

But there’s more. I recall David’s story of the dead grass. The sense of a pervading, continuing rot which the dead man left behind. A poison . . .

And now another name drifts into my head. The change in him the most dramatic of all. The quiet one, now the schemer. The silent one, now the voice.

One boy at the center of it all.

Bartholomew.

I need to talk to Andrew. I need to sort out what it all means.

David doesn’t seem to notice my distracted thoughts, but simply nods at my mention of the boy’s name. “What about him? I mean, I agree he’s likely involved, given how he was part of that group. But Peter, he was stuck in the hole the entire time we were fighting for our lives down there.”

“That’s what worries me,” I say. The wound on my back stings, and my stomach gurgles, empty and queasy. I feel lightheaded. I sit down on a nearby cot.

David sits next to me. “I don’t follow.”

“This whole time, he’s been in the hole . . . with Ben.”

I stand, shaking. Something inside of me stirs, then settles into place. As if some lost, inner piece of me, floating through the ether of my mind all these years, has only now found its destination. Locked into place like a final puzzle piece.

The mystery of who I am—who I really am—feels solved. The answer to a question I’ve been wrestling with my entire life, like Jacob and the Angel. With the realization comes a wonderful sense of peace. Of certainty. Resolve.

A strength I have never felt swells up from deep inside me. A hidden flower that now blooms, to replace my beating heart.

“I need to go,” I say, knowing what must be done. “I need to find Andrew.”

David looks at me as if I’ve gone mad. And perhaps I have.

“They’re still out there, Pete. Hell, for all you know, they’re waiting on the other side of that door.”

Obviously eavesdropping, Byron stands from his place at a nearby cot. “I’ll go with you.”

David eyes the mallet in Byron’s grip and shudders. “You’re both out of your minds.”

“I need to know what’s going on,” I say, determined. “We need help. Locking ourselves in here isn’t going to solve anything.”

After a moment of consideration, he finally relents. “All right,” he says. “But I’m going with you.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think so. Watch the others. Protect them.”

He looks to me, then Byron, his face conflicted. “Fine, I’ll play mother hen. But be careful, yeah? Try to remember, they’re just kids. They’re just like us.”

I offer a reassuring smile, even though I know, in my heart, that he’s wrong.

They’re not kids. They’re not orphans.

And they’re not the children we know.

Not anymore.





40


“THE SLUMBERING GIANT AWAKENS.”

Johnson is face-down in the dirt. His head feels foggy and his mouth is bleeding. He slides a hand to the cold earth where his head landed, feels a smooth hard stone the size of a baby’s skull. He spits blood into the dirt and pushes himself up off the ground. His fingers sink into the earth and for a moment his mind is flooded with grim imagery:

. . . screaming while being buried alive, clawing through the mud, seeking air, seeking light . . . In a coffin, dirt hitting the top as he yells out that I’M ALIVE, DAMN YOU, I’M ALIVE . . . Inside a closet, his mother talking to him through the door. “I can HEAR you. I hear you in there. That’s more time! More time for you, Teddy.” And he claws at the door but it’s not a door it’s dirt and it crumbles beneath his fingers because this is not a closet and this is not his childhood. This is a grave. He’s buried in the ground, trapped deep down where the sun doesn’t reach and the bugs and worms crawl into his hair, crawl over his digging hands, climb mercilessly into his eyes, his mouth, seeking life, seeking flesh.