Lon Chaney Has Nothing On You

Chapter 3

In the days following the carnival, which was now dubbed "The Incident: Part Two," the boys were particularly nice to Eleanor. They listened to what she wanted to do, laughed at all her jokes, and never made fun of her when she did something dorky. Of course, everyone still hated them, but because David still had bruises and scars all over him, everyone gave them a wide berth.

On Thursday, Eleanor slid into her first class, a little late. No one had needed rides today, but then again, no one was there. Eleanor pulled her phone out discreetly, shooting everybody a text.

GROUP NAME: Hunter's stable of hoes

ELEANOR: Hey, where are you guys? Are you not coming to school?

She stashed her phone quickly and turned her attention back to class. First period passed quietly, considering she had no one to talk to. Usually, she has Hunter in the next class, but no one's texted her back, so Eleanor has no idea if any one's coming.

It's the middle of second period when her phone buzzed.

GROUP NAME: Hunter's stable of hoes

ROB: Hey, me and Rich are at school, but Hunter's not coming, he got sick.

ELEANOR: Okay! Hope you feel better Hunter!

No one answers after that, so Eleanor shoved her phone back in her pocket. The next few periods pass in silence, but Rob is one of her classes so it's mostly okay. Unfortunately, they have a test that day, so Eleanor didn't get to ask about Hunter and why they were late.

Finally, during lunch, she got to see the guys. Eleanor settled at their usual table, tray in front of her. She smiled at the guys when they got there, and was given tired smiles in return.

"Hey! So what happened? Where were you guys this morning?" she asked. Rob and Rich exchanged unsure looks.

"We... got held up?" It came out like a question, making Rich wince.

"Held up doing what?" Rich and Rob shared looks again.

"We were just doing some research, for an English project we have," Rob explained. "It's sort of an extra credit thing."

"Oh, okay. What happened to Hunter? Did he get sick?" Rich shrugged at that.

"Yeah, probably, we were hanging out last night and he looked pretty awful," he said. He dug into his lunch, stuffing his face. Eleanor frowned, but stayed silent.

Weird.

00000

Friday was normal, no one missing at least, but the group glossed over any questions Eleanor had, not matter how innocent they were.

Whatever, she thought, it doesn't matter. If it did, they'd tell her. The weekend passed pretty normally, with everybody getting together to watch one of many "classic" horror movies Eleanor had never seen.

Sunday night, however, something truly odd happened. She was over at the Sands house, helping Hunter with the homework he'd missed during the week. They'd finished up, and Eleanor shot a text to her mother letting her know that she was headed back. It went unanswered, of course, but it wasn't like Eleanor expected anything else.

Hunter walked her outside, helping carry her books, which was odd in itself, but not the point.

"Hey, so listen, I think I dropped my flash drive somewhere in your car when you took me home on Friday," Hunter started, pulling open her car door. He dumped the books onto the seat. "You haven't seen it, have you? It has all the pictures of the carnival on it."