I Dare You

by Jeff Ross

  “That depends on what okay looks like to you, I’d say,” the male officer said. The female officer just glanced at me as she drove.

  “I mean, like, she’s going to live, right?”

  “She’ll live,” the male officer said. He turned to me, then looked at something on his nails. The cruiser was well lit from the computer and all the stuff on the dashboard. “What were you doing out there?”

  “Running,” I said, because I felt I had to dig in. And then that stuck in my head and swirled. You run, you’re a runner, run, run, run. I let that slide out of me in a stream of whistles and yelps, which turned the officer back around.

  They put me in a conference room to wait for my parents to arrive. I guess I was a bit of a problem. Like, what could they do with me? As far as I knew, the woman in the accident hadn’t spoken yet. I decided I had to lock on to my lie. It was a stupid lie and I knew it, but it was all I had. I could alter it a little if I had to. I could say I’d gone out there because it was where I thought the video had been filmed. But that would only be if the video ever came up. Or if the woman began talking and spoke about what she’d seen.

  I decided I’d try to keep myself flexible. Be ready to pivot, as they say in public relations.

  The two officers came into the conference room and sat down.

  “I don’t think we introduced ourselves before,” the woman said. “I’m Detective Carol Evans, and this is Officer Jeff Cain.” Officer Cain removed his hat and set it on the table.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “How old are you, Rainey?”

  “He’s sixteen,” Officer Cain said. He kind of winked at me. “He’s in my wife’s art class.”

  This left me feeling embarrassed. Because for sure he would tell Mrs. Cain. And on top of that, I suddenly thought, she might connect me to the fabric we’d put on Rowan. That’s the problem with living in a smallish town—everyone knows everyone else’s business.

  “Ahh, okay. Well, we cannot legally ask you any questions until your parents arrive. Would you like a drink or something to eat?”

  “I’d like to go home.”

  “And you will, soon enough.”

  “I’ll have a Sprite or whatever,” I said.

  They stood as one and left the room. The next time the door opened, my parents were standing there. And if I were to tell you I had no idea what disappointment looked like before that moment, you’d have to believe me. Mom looked like she was going to cry, and Dad, for the first time ever, looked like he might actually hit something.

  “What is this all about?” Dad asked. He and Mom stepped in, followed by Detective Evans and Officer Cain.

  “Would you like to take a seat?” Detective Evans said. My parents swung around the table and sat down on either side of me. You’d think that would have made me feel better, but it only made me feel worse. Like I’d done this stupid thing and now they’d been dragged into it.

  “I understand you don’t have a lot of information regarding what occurred this evening.”

  “We know our son is in the police station,” Dad said angrily.

  Mom whimpered.

  “There was an accident tonight on Clover Side Road. Do you know it?”

  “Sure,” Dad said.

  “A vehicle driven by a young woman rolled and crashed. There were no other vehicles involved. When first responders arrived, Rainey was attempting to help the woman.”

  “What was he doing out there?”

  “That’s the question we have as well.”

  And just like that, everyone was looking at me. And I had no idea what to say. So I stuck to my lie. Which was, of course, preceded by a ten-second tic fest. Everyone watched me go through this until I started talking.

  “I was out for a run.” This made Mom look even sadder.

  “I see,” Detective Evans said. “We do have some issues with that statement. First of all, you’re wearing jeans. Secondly, Clover Side Road is not near any other roads one might run on. In fact, it’s a dead end since the bridge washed out. And thirdly, it was dark out. None of these really add up to a good run.”

  I decided not to say anything.

  “Tell us the truth, Rainey,” Dad said. “What were you doing out there?”

  I looked at the table. I kept looking at it until Officer Cain said, “Well, we can’t keep him here. As far as we know, no crime has been committed. The woman in the accident was pretty banged up and is currently nonverbal. We’ll have to wait to see how she is.”

  “Are there going to be charges?” Mom asked, her voice totally falling apart in the process.

  “Right now,” Detective Evans said, leaning forward, “we have a single-car accident. That’s all. Your son’s presence at the scene is strange though. We’d like to know why he was there.”

  “Running,” I said. Totally locked in. “I was out running.”

  Bruh where are you?

  Seriously

  WTF

  Bruh?

  There were twenty of these messages on my phone when I finally looked at it. I’d felt it vibrating in my pocket but hadn’t wanted to pull it out. They were all from Jordan.

  I read through them twice and realized something—he hadn’t mentioned that we’d been together. I scanned through earlier texts, and there was nothing about the videos there either. Everything he and I had planned, we’d talked about in person.

  I didn’t know whether this was on purpose or not. It wasn’t from my end but could have been from his.

  I lay in my bed that night staring at the ceiling and convincing myself this would all go away soon enough. The woman would be fine but not remember anything. There’d be this hour-long blank in her memory, and she’d have no idea why she had crashed her car. Officer Cain wouldn’t talk to his wife about finding me out on that empty road. Because if he did, she would start to wonder why I was there. And then she’d start thinking about how strange it was that for the first time ever, Jordan, Rowan and I had been in her classroom after school hours. If I could have made that video go away, I would have. But it had caught some serious traction and been shared all over the world.

  I’d done too good a job.

  I decided not to answer Jordan. I’d see him at school the next day anyway. And although I found it hard to go to sleep, eventually I did.

  Chapter Nine

  “Dude, what the fuck?” Jordan grabbed me as I was walking into the school and swung me into the entryway to the maintenance room. “What happened?”

  “That woman was messed up,” I said.

  “Is she dead?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He let go of my shirt. “Why didn’t you leave with us?”

  “I had to see if she was okay,” I said. “I mean, we caused her to crash.”

  “No we didn’t,” Jordan said. “She was likely out there looking for the boogeyman.”

  “If so, then we’re to blame,” I said. Kids were looking at us as they walked down the hall. I’d had a horrible night and woken up certain I’d been part of ruining a woman’s life.

  “No, her being an idiot is to blame. A gullible moron.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “If she was out there looking for the triangle-headed man, then yeah, I do.”

  “What if she wasn’t? What if she was just driving out there?”

  “Then she made a choice to totally overreact and flip her car. Either way, none of this is on us.” He backed away. “You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

  “No,” I said. Because I figured it wouldn’t matter. What had happened had happened. I just hoped the woman was okay.

  “Good.”

  “I think I’m done with those kinds of videos though,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, for sure. Me too.” Jordan melded into the crowd of people heading to class. I straightened my shirt and did the same.

  Mrs. Cain looked at me oddly in art class. Or maybe I was just imagining it. Either way, I spent the entire time t
iccing out and leaving to “go to the bathroom.”

  At the end of class, Mrs. Cain stopped me.

  “Rainey, can I have a quick word?”

  I stood there as my classmates swept past. “Sure,” I said.

  “I heard what happened last night. Are you okay?”

  I nodded a whole bunch because my mind was telling me to keep nodding until I could twist my head to one side. Once I’d managed to do that, I stared at Mrs. Cain.

  “I have to ask, why were you out there?”

  “Running.”

  She gave me the saddest smile.

  “You’re not on the track team, are you?”

  “No.”

  “But you went running? In jeans?”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said. I was going to add to the lie, and I knew once I did, I had to keep track of this addition. “I was out for a walk and then this song came on on my phone and it made me want to run. So I ran.” I mentally put this information into a folder. Mrs. Cain was nodding at me. I could tell she didn’t believe it. But no one could prove it wasn’t true. So I’d hold on to it as truth.

  “My husband said you were pretty shaken up.”

  I shrugged. When I didn’t say anything else, she sighed and said, “Okay, Rainey. I just wanted to make certain you were okay.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Of course you can go.”

  I tossed my backpack over a shoulder and walked to the door.

  “Oh, Rainey, I forgot to ask.”

  I stopped.

  Turned.

  “Yeah?”

  “When you and Jordan and Rowan were in here the other day, you didn’t happen to borrow a length of black fabric, did you?”

  “We didn’t borrow anything,” I said. “We just helped Jordan with his project.”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.” I went into the hallway and finally moved my arms away from my body. I was drenched in sweat. My mind was telling me to do all kinds of things. Hum, whistle, twist, hum, whistle, twitch. I did them all. Luckily the halls were pretty empty, because I was an absolute mess of tics.

  I walked home alone, thinking about what an incredible liar I’d become. I wondered if I needed to be lying so much. I mean, what would it matter that we’d been out there filming when that woman crashed her car? We hadn’t made her do it. At home, Mom didn’t seem interested in talking to me. She said a quick hi, then disappeared to do yoga.

  I stayed in my room, looking at the videos we’d made. Then I got really paranoid about them, because what if the police could charge us with something and demand that I hand over my computer? I made a quick decision and deleted all of them.

  But that didn’t seem like enough.

  I went through my programs, made certain I had backups of everything I needed, then reformatted my computer.

  As Windows was reinstalling, Dad came in and sat on the bed. “I heard from Detective Evans,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “The woman in that accident is going to be okay. She had a couple of broken ribs and a concussion.”

  “Okay.”

  “She told the police she was out there because she believed she recognized the location of an online video.”

  I nodded. And kept nodding.

  “And she wanted to see if some triangle-headed thing lived in the woods there.”

  “Weird,” I said.

  “Son, I’m going to ask you this now and then I never will again. Did you have anything to do with that video?”

  I kept staring at the install screen. It was at 64 percent. Then 66 percent.

  “Son.”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  “I need you to answer me.”

  “I need more time. Please give me some more time.”

  “Son, what kind of trouble are you in?”

  “None,” I said, fairly certain that was true.

  “The woman would like to thank you for being there with her. She said it made her feel safer.” He stood from my bed and walked to the door. “You’ll feel better when you talk about this.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I will.”

  Dad left without another word. And I was left with no idea what I should do.

  Chapter Ten

  There was a new comment on the video the following day. It was long, and I knew as soon as I began to read it that it was written by the woman in the accident.

  I have seen this being in my dreams. I call him ChurChaw. I have always wondered if one of my “dreams” wasn’t a dream, and I’d actually seen him before and only later did he creep into my dreams. I think I have. I know I have. So when I saw this video, I knew I had to see him for myself. The thing was, the area looked immediately familiar.

  I’d seen those trees before, that bend in the road. I’d seen it a hundred times. It was in an area where my dad used to take us kids fishing in the summer. Then the other night I saw ChurChaw myself. I was so stunned by his presence that I rolled my car and have been in hospital since. My memories are coming back, though, and I feel blessed that I finally witnessed ChurChaw in reality. I now know he is not just a part of my dreams and I will continue to search for him. I know I am not alone with this. There was a boy out there looking for ChurChaw as well. Someone else who must have come face to face with this majestic beast. I would love to talk to you.

  I read this three times. ChurChaw! Where did that come from? And the fact that the woman claimed to have seen this thing in her dreams? It was too much to deal with.

  “She’s an idiot,” Jordan said at school later that morning. “I told you. A gullible moron.”

  “She thought it was some figure from her past. Something she needed to believe was real.”

  “Like a moron.” We were walking down the hall on our way to class. “It’s like I said, not our fault she was out there.”

  “But it kind of is. If we hadn’t made that video—”

  Jordan interrupted me. “If we’d never made the video and if she’d never seen it and if she hadn’t had messed-up dreams all her life that she believed were true and if she hadn’t spent hours figuring out that location and if we hadn’t happened to be there again and if she hadn’t freaked out and turned too hard and if her car hadn’t been going whatever speed it was and, and, and. How many of those things were in our control?”

  “I guess just the video.”

  “We made a video,” he said, stopping outside the door to his physics class. “That’s all we did. What people decide to do because of that video they decide to do.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder. “There’s nothing the police can charge us with. There’s nothing anyone can do. That woman made her choices. We were just there.” With that Jordan walked into his class, and I continued down the hall to mine.

  I spent the day thinking about this. How much were we to blame? What responsibility did we have when we made a video? It wasn’t like we’d given directions to drink bleach or something. It was a challenge, but not one that would hurt anyone. We’d only dared people to try to find the thing. That was all. It was just Rowan dressed up. It was just Jordan pulling a prank. It was just me working on my video and marketing skills.

  It was just that woman making a whole bunch of decisions because of what she’d seen and what she believed.

  But still.

  We’d been out there, and that woman would have driven by had Rowan not jumped out of the woods. I didn’t even know if he’d seen her car. We didn’t mean for anything to happen.

  That night I looked at the video a few times. It was well done. I knew how it had been made, so I was able to pick out the fake parts. But to the average viewer it would totally look legit. It was a good video, and it had moved around the entire earth. People in China had watched it. South Africa. New Zealand. There were theories about the figure. A whole lore had sprung up around it. The figure was being linked to folk tales in different countries. I could tell some people were writing to try to freak other people out. And there
were a ton of people who could tell it was fake and were trying to convince others of this. But that was what we’d set out to do. To create something people would debate. For Jordan it was to prove people are dumb. For Rowan it was because we’d dared him. But for me it’d been to film and distribute something in a way that made it go viral.

  It’d worked.

  I’d done my job.

  I just wished no one had gotten hurt.

  Chapter Eleven

  At the end of school the next day, Mrs. Cain held me after class again. She closed the door and sat at her desk, and I stood there before her.

  “I’ve put two and two together,” she said. “It really wasn’t that difficult. My husband has as well.”

  “I don’t—”

  She held a hand up toward me. “Please, don’t. I don’t mind most things, but I really hate being lied to. I understand why you feel you have to. But I still don’t want to hear it.”

  I said nothing. Mrs. Cain looked out the window, then back at me. “You’re going to regret it if you don’t go talk to that woman. She needs to know that what she saw out there was fake.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’ll keep searching for it. She’ll believe it was real and she’ll keep looking.”

  I thought, And how’s this my problem? But I didn’t say it.

  “You didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, but it did. It’s not your fault, but it’s your responsibility.”

  I looked away from her. I didn’t want to have to discuss any of this. It wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t think it was my responsibility either.

  “My husband, Jeff, is in the parking lot. He says he’ll happily take you to the hospital if you’d like to go.”

  “I don’t—”

  She interrupted again. “You might not think it’s important now, but you will eventually. And you might even regret not taking this opportunity. There’s nothing illegal about what happened, but that doesn’t mean you can’t apologize.”

  I thought about it a moment longer. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  “This is the right thing to do,” Officer Cain said as we pulled out of the parking lot. I had worried that he’d be in a cruiser and dressed in full uniform. But he was in a minivan with booster seats in the middle row.