Rattlebones (bxbxb)

Hemlock

The last road trip that I had been on was when I was ten. My moms had surprised me with a trip to the happiest place on Earth, a mosh pit at a Cannibal Corpse concert. But it was different going somewhere with parents than it was with friends.

There was no denying that I felt excited about going with Iggy and Eugene to the lake house. But I was also nervous because it would be just us for the weekend. What if I suddenly got horrible gas? What if they decided not to take me after all because I was too strange for them?

I finish showering, throw on some clothes and my favorite hat and start packing. Since it was October, the weather had been steadily getting colder outside, so I include my favorite hoodie and two sweaters, then drag my suitcase outside.

Eugene and Iggy are bickering in my driveway when I get outside.

"Just give it to him." Eugene is urging Iggy, "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Give me what?" I ask them, and I come down the steps, my suitcase hopping along behind me.

Iggy turns to me, his face as red as a lobster. "Oh, I--" He pulls a bouquet of flowers from behind his back. "Eugene and I wanted to say sorry about making you upset." He says, "So we got you flowers. It was mostly his idea."

The only flowers that I had planned on receiving were the ones on my death bed. But this was just as nice. "You got me flowers?" I ask them, and I take the flowers from Iggy, genuinely touched. "Hemlock's my favorite flower. How did you know? The leaves are highly toxic, and cause paralysis in the lungs so that you stop breathing and die a slow, agonizing death."

"I knew we should have gotten him the roses," Iggy groans, his arms crossed.

"No way." Eugene scowls. "My stepmom used to grow Hemlock in her garden before I died. They're like, the prettiest flowers ever."

"Seriously, guys. I love them, thank you." I insist. It was the most thoughtful thing I had ever received, and I hold onto the bouquet and admire it as I'm loading up and getting into the car with them.

I couldn't believe that we were finally going to be able to get away from it all. Just the guys going to the lake, both of which I wanted to lay my lifeless body next to in the grave when the end came.

Iggy drives us to the lake for the first two hours, and then Eugene the last. Between them, we listen to a variety of weird as hell music, including Juicy and Harry Styles songs. But it's the conversations that I really enjoy more than anything.

I didn't know much about Eugene or Iggy, except for what I had heard at school. Eugene's family owned a landfill and they lived out there in a trailer. His mom had died when he was young, but his dad had remarried right away.

"Do you remember the day you died, Wilder?" Iggy asks him and glances over at Eugene as he drives. "Did it hurt or anything?"

"Not really." Eugene shrugs a little and he looks away, out the window at the trees going by. "I remember bits and pieces." He admits. "I got up that morning. I don't remember what I had for breakfast. Toast, maybe. My motorcycle was freaking out, so my uncle drove me to school."

"We threw Ivan Chang into the dumpster after you got there," Iggy adds in, and he smiles at the thought.

"Oh man, totally forgot about that." Eugene chuckles, but it's not his usual laugh. "I started feeling funny, so I had you do it, but I figured it was because I was tired and spent the night playing games and shit."

"Maybe it was your heart giving out." I pipe up from the backseat. "That's probably why you were so tired."

"Yeah," Eugene looks out the window again, deep in thought now. "Maybe that's what it was."

The view outside is stunning, and we pass over a large river. The trees are this gorgeous shade of fiery reds and oranges, so it looks like a fantasy land. Small towns had always been my favorite thing to look at, because they reminded me of the eighteen-hundreds. Minus the rats, chamber pots, and filth tossed out into the street.

"We're going to need some gas," Iggy announces, about an hour before we make it to the lake. "Maybe we can pick up some food for the house while we're there."

"Oh, Igor!" I gasp from the backseat, and I wave my phone in between them. "There's a gas station ten minutes from us where a serial killer went on a murdering spree and was never caught. We can stop there and we can look at the graves."

"Bro, that legit sounds awesome." Eugene takes my phone and looks at it. "And they have a fried chicken place right next door. Score."

"Fine, whatever." Iggy rolls his eyes a little. "But we're getting take-out, and we can't spend more than ten minutes there. We still have a long way to go before we get to the lake."

What could be better than that? Fried chicken and death?