by Shawn Jolley
Stop! His mind raced, and he reminded himself he wasn't supposed to be listening to that conversation. He wished he hadn't heard his mom talking about his dad that way, behind his back. There had been something about rumors…. What did it matter?
He stiffly nodded his head and seemed to pop back into his body. He had stopped on the road and was holding his breath; he exhaled and started walking again.
The idea to run away came to him for the hundredth time but he dismissed it as usual. He didn't have the means to make it happen without getting caught. Ever since moving to Fracture, his mom had been watching his every move. Besides, with his dad in jail, he had no place to go.
On the off chance that he somehow could tell his dad about his idea, there was no way he would support the plan, and even if he did, there was no way he could help. And there was the feeling of guilt that would keep him from leaving his mom.
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and drops of sweat fell to the dirt road; his thoughts returned to the present, and he squinted at the sun. No matter how low it got in the sky, it refused to set, and the temperature didn't feel like it was going down at all. He blinked, his eyes stung, and his hatred for Fracture rose suddenly and fell sharply, extinguished and fueled at the same time by the heat.
His mom wanted him to make friends? Well, maybe she was right, but why had she sent him outside? Wouldn't he meet people at school the next day? He still doubted whether he would thank her one day. Thank her for what, exactly? She never said.
He stopped again for a moment, concentrating hard on something he couldn't see—everything he could feel—then started walking faster, partly hoping the trailer park had been blown away by a tornado in the middle of the night.
If anyone actually lived there, it would surprise him to see someone his own age, and even if he did, he wondered if he would get along with them. An unrealistically large tornado tore through the trailer park in his mind, and he laughed. Hadn't he seen a movie like that? People flew around and around, their bodies limp, some without limbs. Rifles and cows were in the mix too. He snorted again.
After another minute of walking, he decided his mom didn’t know what she was talking about (or that a tornado had come through) because he couldn’t see any houses, trailers, or tents for that matter. The field remained at his side, and there were still some wild trees in his line of sight, but he was almost to the bend in the road.
On the other side of the wild field he saw the ragged dirt edge running up against the ever encroaching woods; the woods which held Fracture on all sides like a lazy memory of what had once been there. Mankind had definitely not improved the area at all in his opinion.
He walked quickly now, and the blue house shrank behind him as he made his way to the bend in the road. He wondered why his grandfather had chosen to paint it blue. Part of him was frustrated that his mom might have been wrong in thinking people lived anywhere around here. The other smaller part of him wanted her to be right. Either way, he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't let him in when he returned, friends or not. Before too much longer, he would know.
He stopped short of coming to the last group of trees, having seen something, or thinking he had seen something, in front of him, and he was fairly certain if he had seen it, that it had been short, and skinny. Whoever, or whatever it was, had vanished into the group of trees and hadn't come out again. He wondered who they were, where they had come from, and where they were going.
The more Eden thought about it, the surer he was that it had been a boy. Going and looking around the trees to be certain was out of the question, though. He still didn't care to meet anyone.
Glancing back toward the big blue house, he thought about turning around, but he couldn't. His mom would be disappointed, so he continued walking forward. Reasons for not continuing kept on coming to him. What if the person ended up being dangerous? How did he know it had been a boy? What if there wasn't really anybody there and he had just imagined the whole thing?
He sped up despite himself when he didn’t see the person again and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants one at a time. When he got to the last of the trees, nobody was there and everything was silent. He looked farther down the road, which turned again, slightly to the right, and saw about ten trailers close together. The dirt road ended in the middle of the small tin neighborhood. His mom had been right after all.
The thought of knocking on trailer doors to try and make friends sickened him. He didn't know where to start as all of the trailers looked abandoned. Some even had boards covering the windows and entryways. He looked around one more time to make sure he was truly alone and started walking back to the blue house and his soft bed. His mom couldn't be mad. He had tried.
Something rustled behind him. He came to a halt and forgot about everything else. Was it an animal? What if it was the person from earlier? He turned around, but once again, there was nothing; the area was completely clear.
The whole situation seemed strange.
Had it all been in his head? He should've stayed in bed and not listened to his mom, but she had won, so here he was, and for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to leave until he figured out what was going on.
"Hello," he called out. His voice seemed deafening.
There wasn't an answer. What had he expected? He turned back around and started walking toward the blue house again. His blind hatred for Fracture now had a few reasons. One: the heat. Two: the emptiness. Three: the hallucinations. He didn't hear any more noises behind him this time, but that didn't stop him from looking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure he wasn't missing anything.
As he walked back, he felt ignored. The feeling came out of nowhere and had no basis. He was being stupid. How could he feel ignored when nobody had been there in the first place? He stopped, let go of the basketball, and watched it roll down the dirt road. He didn't bother wiping away the sweat which pooled near his temples.
Thinking hard, he tried to make sense of what he was feeling. One thought came after another. He wasn't into sports. Carrying the basketball was fake. He didn't want to live here. That was fake. Going outside to make friends: fake. Everything was fake. He was fake. The world was fake. Depressed and fake. The ball seemed to look up at him, knowing what he was thinking. His eyes stung, and he knew he couldn't pretend his tears were fake.
The basketball's shadow lengthened, and the sun officially hit the horizon. He didn't know what he was doing standing on a dirt road in the middle of Fracture so close to dark. Everything about his life seemed surreal at the moment.
He wanted to crawl into the ditch between the barbed wire fence and the dirt road. It looked surprisingly inviting. Once there, he could fall asleep, never wake up, and dream about a better life with parents who loved each other. Of course, that could never happen.
Something shined in Eden’s eyes from across the field. He blinked rapidly and scanned the tree line, but he didn’t see anything out of place. Unless he was hallucinating again, he was almost positive the shine had come from that direction.
He walked past his basketball, carefully stepped over the ditch, and stopped at the fence. The first breeze he had felt all day swept past his face. He squinted and panned his head back and forth but still couldn't see anything. His forehead and back felt cold now; his shirt clung in odd places.
He looked behind him to make sure the shine hadn’t come from somewhere else, but there was only the blue house at the end of the dirt road. The possibility remained that it could have been a car, but he hadn't seen or heard one of those all day. Only two or three cars typically drove down Ardburn Avenue within a twenty-four hour time period.
He looked down to where his basketball had been, but it wasn't there. Had he really dropped it in that spot? His confusion was interrupted by the shining light coming from across the field once more. He scrunched his eyebrows together and looked. This time, he saw something moving along the tree line. A person walked slowly along the field's edg
e.
Eden wondered what they were doing. They wore a black ball cap with a large bill, a camouflage hoodie, and dark blue jeans. Their shoes were out of sight in the weeds. Everything else about them was difficult to see. They could have been a hunter, but they didn't look like they were carrying a gun or bow.
If Eden hadn't known that the property belonged to his mom, he would have thought that they owned the field. Maybe in her absence, somebody had been using it without her knowledge.
They stopped. Why were they just standing there? They glanced from one side to the other, then back again. Did they always act that way? Maybe they were drunk and confused. Eden’s skin tightened. The lone breeze was gone, and the temperature seemed to plummet.
Eden crouched down behind one of the wooden fence posts, careful not to touch the rotting wood so he wouldn't get splinters. He wondered why the person didn’t want to be seen, and what anyone could be doing in an abandoned field, all alone, so close to dark, without any equipment. The sun's rays barely hit the top of the trees now.
The person glanced from side to side one final time, turned around, and walked into the woods. Where were they going now? Eden didn't lose sight of the spot where they had been standing, and he considered climbing over the fence and following to see where they were going.
A few minutes passed and the sun was now only half visible. Eden was about to walk into the field when the person came back into view. This time, they looked bigger than before, and Eden wasn't sure if it was the same person.
He squinted in the diminishing light and saw that whoever it was carrying something, but it was hard to tell what it was. Eden closed his eyes tight and looked again, recognizing a long, black, shiny garbage sack draped over the person’s shoulders.
Eden scrunched up his eyebrows and looked around the rest of the field half expecting to see a dumpster. There didn't appear to be anything of the sort in the area, which made him wonder once again what was going on.
He had a fleeting thought about compost and crops; being from the city, he didn't know a lot about farming and fields. But he dismissed the idea when he remembered crops were harvested in fall and planted in spring. He was sure he had heard that from a teacher at some point.
The person dropped the bag on the ground and stretched from side to side before walking back into the woods. Where could they be going now? Eden heard what sounded like a car door slamming shut. When the person emerged this time, they carried a shovel over their shoulder. Eden watched as they stepped up to the black bag and began digging next to it.
Eden thought the soil must’ve been soft because the dirt began to pile up quickly. Five minutes passed. When the shovel was disappearing halfway into the hole each time, they stepped to the side and began widening the hole into a long trench.
"Hey, what’re you doing?"
Eden whipped around, his heart pounding to burst from his chest as he bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep himself from screaming. A short, thin teenage boy with blond hair and gray eyes stared at him, a perplexed look on his face. He must have been the boy from the dirt road. Eden's basketball was under his arm, and he seemed oblivious to the person digging a hole in the field.
"You're jumpy, aren't you," said the boy.
Eden didn't know what the person in the field was doing, but he assumed whoever it was had ears and could probably hear. Eden grabbed the boy's arm and pulled him down behind the fence post before he had a chance to fight back and placed his hand over the boy's mouth. Eden thanked all the powers in the universe that he was bigger and stronger than his new-found rival. He shushed him and the boy stopped squirming.
Eden turned back toward the field and pointed. The boy watched the person standing in the field under the twilight sky for a moment. He didn't say anything, but from his expression, Eden figured he understood that something strange was going on.
The person had stopped digging and was looking at the side of the field where Eden and the boy were crouched. Shovel still in hand, he squatted down next to the garbage bag and continued looking toward the dirt road. Eden wasn't sure if the person could see him or not; he told himself they were just taking a short break from digging.
If the person hadn’t been suspicious to Eden before, they were now. He glanced over at the pale and sweaty boy who was barely breathing; he looked like he might throw up. Another reason to hate Fracture thought Eden. He'd never wanted to be somewhere else more.
Finally, the person lost interest in looking for something that they couldn’t see in the day's diminishing light. They looked back down at the ground and started working again. After several shovelfuls, they knelt down next to the garbage bag and held the shovel parallel to it. Eden thought it looked like they were measuring to make sure the bag would fit in the long, shallow trench.
The person then stood up and began extending the trench. They must’ve been nervous or anxious because the dirt had really started to fly. Before another minute had passed, the trench was complete. Eden struggled to see what the person was doing next, now that the sun had completely set.
They rolled the garbage bag into the trench, picked up the shovel, and began scooping dirt onto the bag frantically. The trench filled much faster with something inside it. They swatted the ground with the shovel a few times and glanced around before turning toward the woods.
The shovel drug behind them as they walked away. Eden heard the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming followed by the roar of an engine. The last tiny bit of light finally vanished, and night fully fell.
The sound of the engine faded. Eden didn’t know what to do with himself, so he stayed where he was and stared into the field, thinking about what the person had buried, and wondering why they had buried it. He knew of one way he could find out; he would need a shovel, though.
He stood up, stretched his sore legs, and turned around, jumping at the sight of the pale blond boy who he had completely forgotten about. The boy didn't move. He was still staring across the field. Eden cleared his throat to get his attention, but the boy still didn't move. He wondered if he should just leave. Becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the silence that followed, Eden kicked the boy’s heel. It worked. The boy jumped up and stared.
"Who are you?" asked Eden.
"Dustin." His voice was high and hoarse. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, looking down at the basketball in the ditch.
"I'm Eden. I live in that blue house over there." He glanced sideways at the field, not wanting to carry on a conversation that seemed doomed from the beginning. Something struck him as wrong to just let the bag sit out there unattended. He wanted to know what the person was trying to conceal.
No more than an hour and a half had gone by since Eden had left the house, so his mom wouldn’t be too worried, at least, not for a few more minutes. There might have been enough time to sneak into the field and dig up the bag to see what was inside.
"Do you know where I could get a shovel?"
"What? No. I mean. Why?" Dustin looked like he'd been asked for a kidney.
"Do you, or don't you?" Eden was surprised by how stern he sounded, and Dustin took a step backward. "Sorry. Do you?" A chorus of crickets started up from somewhere nearby.
"I think there's one back at my place." He leaned to the side and looked over Eden's shoulder toward the trailer park. "You're not serious, are you?"
"Maybe." Eden didn't care what Dustin thought, but he did care about getting a shovel. "So, can I borrow it? You know, if you really have one?"
Dustin didn't say anything.
"Forget it." Without another thought, he bent down and looked for a wide space in the barbed wire where he could slip through. He tugged on a little bit of wire, which slackened easily, but just as he lifted his foot to slip through, Dustin grabbed his arm.
Eden stopped, paralyzed by the touch of a stranger, and slowly put his foot down. Dustin crouched down, still holding Eden's arm. Eden let go of the barbed wire, crouched down as well, and stared at D
ustin. He released his arm, but he didn't return his gaze; he was looking at something else.
Eden followed Dustin's line of sight across the field and saw a small red pinpoint of light igniting in the darkness right at the spot where the person had left. Murky darkness covered the field, but one speck of red light, like fire, grew bright, then dim.
Puzzled, Eden glanced at Dustin with a questioning look. Dustin raised his hand up to his mouth and inhaled and exhaled slowly. Smoking. Eden nodded and looked back, but he couldn't see the light anymore. He scanned the tree line but there was nothing but darkness.
Dustin took a step back and Eden did likewise, then they were both running along the dirt road. Eden followed him toward the trailer park at lightning speed, not knowing if they were being followed or watched; he had no thought of going back to the blue house all by himself. The moon was black and didn't light the way, but they managed to make it to what Eden assumed to be Dustin’s home without tripping.
Eden’s tube socks and shoes were covered in weeds and mud, which was basically Dustin’s front yard: weeds and mud. An empty clothing line ran from the rain gutter to a small tree. The porch light was on and bugs crashed into it in a frenzy.
Eden couldn’t be sure if they were alone, but he began to relax, and he noticed an old splintered wood shovel lodged in some tall weeds nearer to the trailer. He walked over, bent down, and picked it up, bringing it back over to where Dustin stood.
Dustin looked at him with his eyebrows drawn down over his eyes. "What're you doing?" he asked.
"I'm swearing on this." He wasn't sure what made him say it, but it felt strangely right.
"What?"
Eden laid the shovel on a bare spot of dirt and motioned for Dustin to sit next to him, which he did. Eden ignored the you're-crazy look, and said, "I mean we place our right hands on this shovel and swear never to talk about what we saw today."
The look on Dustin's face changed ever so slightly and he absentmindedly nodded his head while placing his hand on the shovel. "I’ll start."
