First We Were IV

by Alexandra Sirowy

  Harry sputtered, practically writhing with anger. I took his hand and squeezed. “It’s the goat we needed for tonight, Har.” I spoke softly, imploring. “You know, to hang in the gazebo. Like they did with the dogs?” Confusion, understanding, and disappointment registered on Harry’s face in quick succession, marring his beautiful features.

  Graham went from covering his open mouth to nodding. “Oh yeah, thanks for procuring it for us.” He slapped Conner hard on the back, keeping his gray quizzical eyes on mine. He wondered why I hadn’t told him. I wouldn’t have an answer for him. “You saved us the trouble of killing him or having you kill him—but on purpose.”

  Viv was tellingly silent.

  “Wait,” Trent said, “we were going to kill the goat?”

  I busied myself with the supplies in Viv’s trunk as I said, “Yes.”

  “See,” Trent went on, “I didn’t ruin anything.”

  “Let’s stop wasting time,” I said. “Did everyone leave their cells at home?”

  “We’re going to need more than nods, people,” Graham said. “Us getting away with this requires that all cells are home. This isn’t graffiti tonight. There will be a full-blown investigation.”

  They gathered by the trunk, surveying the supplies. I’d confirmed three times that we had everything. Accelerant in a red plastic tank. My Polaroid camera. Coil of rope. Ten water bottles full of blood. One can of red spray paint. Flashlights. And a lighter.

  I pushed the goat and my deception out of my head. Now was the time to be calculating. Alert. “Gloves on,” I said.

  Harry withdrew a black beanie from his back pocket. “Masks on at all times. We don’t think there are cameras, but we don’t know for sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Graham said testily. “Keep them on in case there are witnesses, though.”

  “You.” Harry pointed to Conner. “Carry the goat. Izzie, do you have . . .” His voice trailed off as he noticed the rope coil. I wanted to pull him aside to defend myself. Seven Hills deserved this. They needed to see actual death. Flesh and bone and blood. Harry rolled the beanie down, cutting off his expression from me, turning. The moment gone.

  Water bottles of blood were distributed. I wore the rope over my shoulder. Graham took the spray paint. The accelerant, flashlights, and fire starters stayed behind for the tunnel.

  Graham checked the time on his wristwatch. “Three ten. Let’s move.”

  We jogged down Old Creek Road, its mild slope snatching our bodies forward. My muscles got looser, my gait light as a gazelle’s—no, a predator’s. Stealthy in the night. Prey hooked over the neck in front of me. I paused at the bottom of the slope, listened. Only the savage song of the sea.

  The others brushed past me, intent on the knoll. I grinned at the sound of their stampeding footfalls. I felt powerful. They were there for the Order I invented.

  Harry slowed to a stop a few yards from me. The square cut of his shoulders, tilt of his head, earnest eyes—obviously him. I shouldn’t have kept the goat from any of them or the camera up at the tunnel from Harry, or that Graham had been fast-forwarding through hours and hours of footage, scanning for a suspect. How could I admit all that to Harry? He was our moral compass. Never pushing. Never urging you over the line.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Asking Conner and Trent to bring the goat—it wasn’t a compliment. I told them to do it because I was too cowardly to do it myself. I would have seen all those goats in their field, kept driving.”

  He came closer. “Isadora,” he said and took my hand. “Don’t ever apologize for doing what you believe needs to be done.” Those words, they still rattle my heart in my chest.

  We reached the knoll. The lanterns along the square swung in the wind, shifting shadows. The others were phantoms stealing up the pathways that crisscrossed the grass. Halloween decorations were out: bales of hay; an old-timey wooden wagon overflowing with pumpkins and gourds; stuffed scarecrows on pikes in the dirt; the gazebo festooned in shimmery spiderwebs.

  They converged onto the gazebo. Leaped up its twin staircases. Climbed its banister that ran above the spindles. They tipped their water bottles against the posts at the roof and the blood seeped down. Harry and I stopped at the plaque affixed to the gazebo. SEVEN HILLS: FOUNDED IN 1898. Viscous red coated it from top to bottom.

  Conner dumped the goat on the blood-splattered deck of the gazebo. Harry crouched opposite me and together we wrapped the rope around its neck. Its dull, alien stare bore into me; those rectangular pupils, lifeless, knowing. I’d sent death seeking it.

  The rope slid through my hand as I pulled tight, burning my palm, biting through the bandage. I gripped it again, hauled it up. Harry threw one end of the rope over a rafter in the pagoda roof. He caught it as it fell on the other side. Hand over hand, he began to hoist it up.

  “Wait,” I said. I grasped the rope between his fists. “Together.” We pulled. The goat dangled at the end of the line, one foot above the deck, two, three, we stopped when its hind hooves were at eye level. Harry anchored the rope around a spindle.

  Viv darted from the gazebo to the wood wagon, stepped up its wheel, and rained blood onto the pumpkins. She’d wrapped herself up in the gauzy fake spiderwebs from the eaves. Wore them like a cloak. Queen of the night creatures. The others were blurs of mischief and blood. Jess gave some of the scarecrows slit throats. Campbell squirted others haphazardly. Amanda, short black jumper blowing up in the wind, painted the pyramid of hay bales.

  There were shambling footsteps on the roof above us that shook the gazebo. Harry and I jogged down the stairs and onto the grass. Graham stood over the finial of the roof, drizzling the blood from its center, rivulets running over shingles, water falling over its edge. He’d set the goat swinging. Back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. Counting down to when our sleepy town would wake.

  I whistled for Graham’s attention. Made a sign like I was spraying something in the air. He tossed down the spray paint.

  On the side of the wagon I wrote: One of you killed a girl. Across the wooden steps of the gazebo: IV is coming for you.

  Graham swung down from the roof; his sneakers balanced on the banister, set the goat swinging harder. The clock sped forward. Nearly four a.m.

  We gathered the initiates up and moved as a herd to the cars. Everyone piled into Viv’s SUV. I shared the front passenger seat with Harry as Viv drove up the hill, the cobwebs batting frantically in the wind off her shoulders. The windows were rolled down so we could listen for sirens. I stared into the rush of air, barely able to breathe, heart pounding against my ribs. Almost there. Almost done. With the car parked in the turnoff—on the asphalt, not the dirt, no chance for tire prints—we switched out the supplies in the trunk and I pulled on my backpack.

  Then: the spongy give of the pine needles under my sneakers, bolts of our flashlights swinging, the sloshing of the accelerant in its tank, my backpack jumping with each step, our breath drowning out the ocean as we reached the tunnel. We passed the tree where our camera was concealed, Graham and my little spy that hadn’t yielded any leads yet.

  The red IVs on its walls had darkened with moisture. I bounded over the charred remains of a bonfire. Gasps and whoops echoed around me as others followed.

  We came up on the train car fast. Its wood and metal walls were corroded and timeworn.

  “Will it even make the descent?” I asked.

  Graham patted the rust-mottled exterior. “Sure she will.”

  “Why do boys always call cars and boats and stuff ‘she?’ ” I said.

  “Harry named his car Einstein after he bought him,” Viv piped up.

  “I can’t believe you remember that,” Harry said, pleased.

  Graham was crouched at one of the train car’s four sets of wheels. “I know, I know, Harry is so much nicer and less pervy than Graham. Can we focus? Guys,” he snapped at Trent, Conner, and Campbell, who were standing back looking dazed and overwhelmed. “Remove the blocks from in front of the wheels
—the direction we’re taking him. Not the ones behind the wheels. Can’t risk it rolling the wrong way.”

  Viv and I knelt for one of the wooden blocks, crammed our fingers under its edges and lifted. They were heavy and solid, pinning the train car in place.

  Nine of us would push the train car. Graham would position himself outside the car, on the metal risers so he could reach the puddle of accelerant, and jump. The fire would catch inside the car. The rush of the wind as it moved would keep the flames from spreading too quickly. When the car reached its destination by the knoll, likely in a matter of minutes, it would ignite. Ideally. We hoped. There were a million things that could go wrong or end in serious injury, but none of those consequences occurred to me. What did: a girl was killed, someone got away with it, we had the right to punish Seven Hills, Graham was used to jumping.

  But first, leverage. “Amanda,” I said, “C’mere.” She trotted over, rosy cheeked.

  “This is cool as fuck,” she gushed.

  I thrust the red plastic tank into her arms. “Time for souvenirs,” I said. The ten of us filed inside the car. I fought to keep the memories at bay. The piece of glass that scarred my shoulder was probably still in there, discarded on the floor, a part of me that would soon go up in flames.

  “Amanda, Jess, all you guys there.”

  Viv, Graham, and Harry hovered in the rows of seats behind me. I took my Polaroid camera from my backpack. “Hold the tank above your head, Amanda. Yeah, yeah, you look so cute.” I peered through the viewfinder, made out their forms in the light of the flashlights. “Say ‘arson,’ ” I called.

  “Arson,” they giggled in unison. My camera flashed. Their crime was caught on film.

  I slipped the photo into the pocket of my backpack. “You take one of us?” I asked Jess.

  She obliged and Graham, Viv, Harry, and I posed by the door, arms linked. I took the camera from her quickly. “Here, I’ll keep it safe with the other pic.”

  Once everyone had exited the car, Graham made a pool of gasoline at the far end, and a thin stream that ran from it to the door.

  “Everyone but Graham at the rear,” Harry called outside in the tunnel, ignoring the dirty jokes Trent made loping over.

  I jumped from the bottom riser. Turned to look up at Graham. “You sure?” I asked under my breath.

  He braced against the railing and leaned over me. I tilted my head to meet his eyes. “Have I ever wussed out on a dare?”

  “This isn’t a dare, so it wouldn’t ruin your perfect record.”

  “Just get this thing rolling and stand back once it is.” He winked at me. “Don’t be a hero.”

  Eighteen gloved hands set against the train car. We heaved. Dug our toes into the ground. Levered our weight. The train car gave an inch. Another. A few more. It lurched forward. Rolled at a walking pace. I tried to push through the initiates who’d stopped dead in front of me, shoved Rachel to the side when she didn’t respond to “Excuse me.”

  Harry kept parallel with the front of the train car. No longer walking, jogging. My breath got louder in my ears as I gained on him. Viv yelled something I didn’t catch over the roar of the rolling car.

  My thighs burned closing the distance. “Why isn’t he jumping?” I shouted. “Harry, why isn’t he jumping?”

  Gravity was dragging the car down the gentle slope, faster. Faster.

  Harry’s head bobbed as he accelerated. “It won’t light,” he yelled.

  “It doesn’t matter. Tell him to jump. Graham. Jump!”

  I pushed myself harder. Ten feet behind Harry. Five feet. “He won’t,” Harry wheezed.

  For a split second, I was neck and neck with the front of the train car, the metal steps, the metal grate of the deck where Graham was supposed to be standing, and he wasn’t there.

  30

  The black, empty rectangle of the train car door seared into my eyes. Graham was inside a tinderbox. With the lighter and accelerant. The mouth of the tunnel was fifty yards and closing. I was slowing down, legs not cooperating.

  Over a dip in the tunnel and up a small summit, the train car’s speed eased just a little. A flash of black shot from its front. With his arms outstretched, Harry ran at it—at Graham—like he could stop him from colliding with the ground.

  I came up on both of them in a heap in the dirt, near enough to the tunnel’s mouth that they were bathed in the light of the three-quarter moon.

  The night whisked the car away. Gone. Its rumbling receding as I hit my knees by Graham. On his back, legs hooked over Harry’s midsection, eyes winced closed. Harry’s frame was juddering. Laughter coursed through Graham too.

  My arms went slack at my sides and I crumpled into them. “I’m going to vomit up my heart,” I managed to say.

  Viv was there then, tears striping her mascara, falling into me, elbows gouging my ribs. “I’m going to kill you, Teddy Graham. Kill you. Murder you. Leave you hanging with the goat,” she blathered.

  Finally, when it was apparent to everyone that Graham wasn’t hurt and that our train car had either reached our mark or derailed somewhere along the way, we escaped home.

  • • •

  The morning staff of Holy Bagels arrived at work at five a.m. Their ovens would be preheated and laden with bagel dough, including cinnamon raisin, my favorite, by five thirty. They never got that far. Fire trucks arrived on the scene fifteen minutes after the 9-1-1 call. Meanwhile Viv and I sat in my bedroom, dressed for school, in the dark.

  “And when he wasn’t jumping off the train, I thought, oh my god, we’ve killed Graham,” Viv said, barely a whisper, our heads sharing a pillow propped against the bedframe.

  “It was too risky having him set the car on fire while inside the car. Should have done it another way.”

  “Like he would have listened.” Her pinkie hooked mine. “He was dying to be the hero.”

  “And then Harry kept alongside the train, like he was going to try to jump on it or run it down.”

  “He wanted to play the hero too,” she said. “But it was you I worried would actually leap on to a moving train for Graham.”

  I laughed softly, remembering what the two boys had said about heroics and how they’d differed in opinion—Graham swearing that most liked their heroes to be a little bad and Harry disagreeing. I liked them both ways and in the same story.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked, bouncing off my bed and rushing to the open window. All of Seven Hills likely heard the wailing sirens.

  Fifteen minutes later, whirring helicopter propellers passed over Driftwood. We raced downstairs. I smelled a pot of fresh coffee. Dad must have been up already, but we didn’t see him as we slipped out. At the car, I said, “Will it look suspicious if we go down there?”

  Viv slapped the top of my car. “Sirens and a helicopter—there’ll be a crowd. If anyone asks, we’re getting bagels and working on a project before class starts.”

  The sky’s dark cloak was fading to gray. Still, it was night enough that the fog absorbed the fire, leaving downtown smudged with luminance.

  I pulled to a stop by a group of middle school–aged kids with their bikes on the sidewalk. They were slack-jawed and barely noticed us joining them. Across the street, the knoll was chaos. Four fire trucks idled, lights revolving on the storefronts. Black uniforms and badges gathered below the gazebo, staring up at the goat that was still swinging. Marking time until something else. The night before, I’d worn a mask. I’d been a different person. Standing before the fire, dawn riding up the horizon, I could see the act against the goat clearly for what it was. A vicious mistake. It was not merely dead but strung up like a prop.

  The train car had made it to the knoll. A mile hadn’t been enough room for it to slow, though, let alone stop. It appeared to have skidded off the tracks, flipped onto its side, and crashed into the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. It was reduced to a smoldering skeleton, only the metal frame and wheels surviving.

  The fire had spread to the tree trunk, th
e dry, peeling bark combustible fuel. The branches and clumps of leaves were still burning. The smell harsh and medicinal. Some branches laid dismembered, burned off by the flames, smoldering on the ground, runs of fire striking out from the eucalyptus to the bales of hay. Pure luck that it hadn’t spread to the gazebo or the wagon and ruined our spray-painted messages. I nauseated myself. No, it was pure luck the train car hadn’t plummeted into a storefront or killed someone. We’d set it loose thoughtlessly. Damned the collateral damage.

  “It’s a train,” one of the middle schoolers said dumbstruck to his buddy. “A train.”

  The kids took selfies with the fiery destruction in the background until the fire hoses started spewing water. Wind shifted and a cloud of mist came our way. Viv and I climbed back into my car.

  We weren’t the only civilians out there. A crowd had amassed under the awning of Holy Bagels, smaller clumps dotting the perimeter of the square. Almost everyone had their cell phones out.

  I’ll never forget Graham’s expression when he and Harry arrived at the knoll. He pulled up, swung out from behind the wheel, and just stood in the road. A commander stepping back to admire the carnage of the battlefield. It was absolute ego—ego like he’d had ego muffins and ego smoothie and ego spiked coffee for breakfast before styling his hair with ego and yanking ego on his feet rather than shoes. It was a light-year past bullshit.

  • • •

  Kids trickled in late to first period long after the bell rang.

  In third period Jess whispered into my ear, “The goat’s still up. Active crime scene.” My hands went slick with guilt.

  In fourth period an announcement came. The principal assured the student body there was nothing to fear. Urged anyone with information on the criminal identifying as IV to come forward. Said it was a miracle no one was injured. “Or really good planning,” Trent muttered under his breath. I shot him a withering scowl.

  At lunch Graham was zipped to his chin in a fleece, alternating between glaring at the hovering clouds and the additional school security officers who were patrolling the courtyard.