This Was A Bad Idea

Chapter 10 - exuses

Elliot only gave me my phone back once he was sure that I wouldn't call the cops.

I click it on, swiping to my messages to see if there's anything from my parents. All I see is a text- not from my mom but from me.

A text that I didn't send, the timestamp reading 1:32pm. I was unconscious then.

I'll be home in a few hours. Don't worry, I'm okay.

Fear flickers through my brain. I'm sure either Xen or Elliot tapped out the message. Somehow one of them got into my phone.
My feet drag me the rest of the way out of the creek.

My brain weighs heavy in a silvery fog that obscures all corners of rational thought. I have to rely on the blinking red dot on my phone to guide me home. I scramble up the dirt slope, brush past the overgrown passage of trees. Break through the gnarled hole in the fence and walk down that lonely, faded street. I should feel relieved. I should feel happy that I even made it out of there. But I know, somehow, that this is only the beginning. I want to burn the whole place to the ground, to destroy it's very existence. I know, deep down, that I'm going back there. If only Sam was here, if only she hadn't brushed a tentative finger to the walls sprawling with evil. We could have left this place behind if she was here. Could have never told anyone what happened. There really is no escaping it. I'll have to go back. The thought chills me, sends spikes of phantom pain curling down my shoulders.

I pass the sagging house with the faded american flag dropping from the porch. There's a man sitting there, in a grungy red shirt and pair of shorts. His hands are curled around a beer can, the tarnished silver glinting in the thin sunlight.

"Hey there," he calls out, voice slurred and distorted from the liquid bubbling around his grotesque lips. I flinch, mind snapping like static at his words. I ignore him and keep on walking, not even bothering to look at the cold orbs of his hard eyes.

"Hey. you kids come from that creek down there?" He calls out again. My blood rushes in my ears but I don't say anything. My footsteps only quicken in his wake. I can hear his dry, raspy cackle as the laugh swirls around the mouthful of beer that he swallows. "What, you kill someone down there? Why such a hurry?" I pause, for a millisecond, almost stopping dead in my tracks. There's no way he knows. Just an old creep, eyes glued to the occasional passerby that seldom cross through his faded strip of a neighborhood.

My heartbeat slams in my chest, head pounding with a dry ache. It's not our fault. She's not dead. Panic swirls deep inside of me, a churning soup being stirred with a rusty knife blade. I can hear the man saying something unintelligible, letting out another hacking laugh.

At this point, I'm practically running, tripping over my worn converse as the last shreds of my sanity scream for me to just get the hell out. Sweat drips down my back, tracing paths down my neck. Feet pounding the pavement, a steady metronome that beat to the frantic rhythm of my heart.

The others left a while ago. They left before me, while I still sat in my hunched position in the halved pipe. I had said that I needed a few minutes to myself. They had all nodded and quietly accepted my delayed retreat. I didn't tell them that I needed the time to choke out the few sobs still caught in my chest, like hot sauce trapped in my lungs. I couldn't dissolve into a crumpled mess on the walk home. I needed to compose myself, right here, right now. Later in the night I could break down. But not here, not in broad daylight. As the dry heaving of my wheezing gasps finally subsided, I managed to pick myself up.

What the fuck have I done.

I practically launch myself through the threshold of the house, running upstairs. I jam myself into the tiny bathroom in the adjoining hallway, clicking the lock shut.

"Orion?" My dad calls out from downstairs. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, hear the movement of his shoes creaking up the old boards. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" I exclaim. I can hear him stop just outside the locked bathroom door. His hand tries the handle only to find it locked. I can practically feel his fear throbbing in his head, that his kid's been gone all day and comes home having a breakdown. "I just- changing my clothes!"

"Oh. alright, then. Your mom's been worried about where you were. You're in for a.....discussion with her." He calls out. At this point, a lecture about my whereabouts is nothing compared to rotting tunnels and missing girls.