WHEN THE GATHERING IN THE CENTER OF TOWN DISBANDED, THE adults and the younger children all retired to their homes, to their television sets and bedrooms. To safety. To normality. But in the middle of the town, the teenagers, the ones who had come closest to the beast—they were awake.
They needed their own gathering, one that wasn’t powered by Jell-O salads and burgers and polite talk. The parents of Barlow Corners allowed them to go, but only in groups, and only if they promised not to leave the football field. Because if they did not let them go, they would find another way—they would sneak into the woods to talk. Better to let them go as a group, in the open seclusion of the field, where no one could sneak up on them.
So they gathered, coming from dozens of cars in the parking lot. Some arrived singly, and others in groups. Someone went into the school and switched some of the outside lights on, but these did not penetrate the middle of the field. All around, the dark curtain of the woods penned them in. Everyone knew what had happened—and yet no one knew
what had happened. Just enough information had leaked to make a mess of the facts. As the days wore on, the story had whipped around in ever-wider loops, taking on new and strange qualities with every pass. You could hear all these stories passing from one person to another:
“I heard all their fingers were cut off.”
“There was a message written in blood on a tree.”
“I heard they found Sabrina’s head in a McDonald’s bag.”
Patty Horne had come with three other girls. They had been dropped off by her friend Candice’s father, who leaned against the hood of his car and watched them. Because Patty had been close to the victims, she had pride of place at this strange gathering. She sat, the understood queen of a large circle of people who spoke quietly and looked respectfully in her direction.
“What about Shawn?” she heard someone say. “He was freaked out about Sabrina. I bet he did it. He’s not even here. . . .”
Was this how it was going to be? People talking about severed heads and fingers and guessing who may have done it?
Apparently.
Candice passed her a cigarette and she accepted it. She reached into her fringed purse for some matches. Look how normal it all was—sitting here in her flip-flops and her yellow halter top and white shorts, getting grass stains on her ass and mosquito bites on her arms, smoking and talking with everyone from Liberty High here in the dark. What was real, even?
Then she saw a figure approaching, one she had been
expecting. Greg Dempsey, her boyfriend. His dark shaggy hair was blown all over, which meant he had come on his motorcycle. He wore cutoffs and a beat-up Led Zeppelin T-shirt. That felt like a tribute to Diane, who’d loved the band with all her heart and soul.
Without a word, the group all shifted to make space for him next to Patty. He opened the bag he was carrying and pulled out a six-pack of Miller beer and cracked one open for himself, leaving the rest in the grass, an open invitation to Patty and really no one else.
“Your dad here?” he asked.
“No. He’s still working with the cops.”
“Doing what?”
“Patrolling or something.”
Patty’s father was a little older than most of her friends’ parents. He was one of the town’s illustrious war heroes. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew that Mr. Horne had been a spy or something. He wasn’t a cop, but he was the kind of heavy guy who could help out when you were looking for a murderer. The town had a posse now, rolling slowly through the streets, watching the darkness at the edge of the woods.
“You want to get out of here?” Greg said quietly.
“Not allowed,” she said, nodding to Candice’s father. “He’s watching, and he’s taking us home at eleven.”