by Shawn Jolley
"Am I in therapy?" asked Eden, looking around the room. "And where is Principal Bolt?" He looked back at Ms. Kozi; her expression had changed slightly. She looked less happy.
"Principal Bolt decided to move to another school closer to the city." She shifted her weight until she was sitting on the desk. "Your mom said she was worried about you. She said you had been seeing things. Is that right?"
Eden shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn't know where this conversation was going, but he didn't like it. "I haven’t been seeing things." He looked back at the closed door and a shiver went up his spine. "Why would I tell people I've been followed if it wasn't the truth?" He sat up straight trying to look older, more mature, and more authoritative than he felt.
Ms. Kozi looked down at the desk and started mindlessly pushing a piece of paper back and forth with her index finger. "So, what you're saying is that you haven't been followed?"
Eden didn’t know what to say. That's not what he had said at all. He continued to stare at Ms. Kozi with his mouth hanging open, his hands gripping the sides of his chair tightly.
Ms. Kozi looked directly at him and said, "Eden, you have an overactive imagination. Believe me. In a town this small, nothing strange happens. You haven’t been followed. Everything is normal. I don't want you spreading any more lies, or trying to rock the boat anymore." She leaned forward so that her face was inches from his. "Are we clear?"
Eden almost argued. Almost. He nodded his head, realizing that's what she wanted. He knew there was nothing he could say or do to change her mind. He was alone, and he would have to act alone if he wanted to find answers.
"Good. Well, this was short, but I think effective. I could keep talking to you, but I know you get the picture." She sat back up and nodded toward the door. "You can go. Oh! And, tell your mom, 'Hello,' for me."
Eden didn't get the picture, but he also didn't care. He stood up and hurried out of the room before she could think of a reason for him to stay. His mom was waiting for him on the couch. He purposefully forgot to tell her that Ms. Kozi said, "Hello."
She stood up and said, "How are you? Is everything better?" Her head was tilted to the side and her eyes were open wide. She looked like a bizarre stranger: a rendition of Eden's mom, but not the real thing.
"Yes," Eden lied. He was sick of arguing.
She smiled and her head tilted back up. "Good, now let’s go home and get on with our lives." She walked back to the entrance and Eden followed.
She might have been getting on with her life, but he knew he wouldn't be able to. He needed to find answers, and he needed to find Dustin. How he was going to do that, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to stop now.
10
Two more weeks went by and Eden was still grounded, which meant no going out without his mom's permission, and she never gave him permission to do anything other than homework.
He had managed to walk to school every day without her saying anything about it, but no matter how long he waited at the mailbox, Dustin never came up the muddy dirt road. There had been no more trips to see Sammy at the gas station, and he was afraid to ask his mom to take him, so he stayed in his room whenever he could.
It was the day before Thanksgiving and the town hall was being decorated for a party that was to be held later that night. According to everyone (because they wouldn't talk about anything else), it was the biggest party of the year. Eden's mom had driven him across town to help since there had been no school due to the holiday.
Unlucky as Eden felt, he wasn't entirely loathing the work; it kept his mind off of everything else going on in his life. His current job was to string strands of yellow lights from one side of the meeting hall to the other by using a ladder and some metal hooks. He looked down at the wobbling metal A-frame and thought that someone should be holding it.
A total of ten strands needed to be hung, and it took him over an hour to do it because he kept on dropping the hooks. When he had two more strands left to take care of, he noticed Ms. Kozi leave the room.
She had been stapling scraps of brown cardstock to the wall all day to make a giant turkey and had only just finished. She had also been religiously complaining about the fluctuating heater. Assuming she was finally going to check on the building’s boiler, he didn't think much of it.
Eden hung up the last two strands and folded up the metal ladder. An old man who he had never seen before walked into the meeting hall and cleared his throat rather loudly and obnoxiously until everyone was staring at him in complete silence. He smiled and looked around at each person, making eye contact as he did so. Once he had everyone's attention, he spoke.
"I just thought I'd take it upon myself to tell everyone that there is a severe storm warning for tonight. I for one think it’ll be a downright grisly blizzard. Worse than the year of the food shortage. We've had a mild winter so far; but, mark my words, it's coming to an end. I don't think anyone here remembers a real blizzard." His eyes flicked over to Eden. "They happened back before you were all born." The old man walked out of the room without another word or gesture.
Everyone talked quietly among themselves while Eden put the ladder away in the storage room next to the main lobby. Instead of going back into the meeting hall, he walked to the cleaning closet near the restrooms to hide from his mom and her long list of necessary decorating duties. The last time he had seen her she had been tying red and gold ribbons around all of the folding chairs.
After half an hour or so of sitting around, he went back and looked at the meeting hall to see how things were coming along. All of the smaller tables had been set up on the far side for eating.
Three long tables had been pushed up against the far wall and were now being piled with food. A few more decorations such as large paper pumpkins and ornaments were being placed at the foot of the walls.
Some guests had arrived early in anticipation of the party, and Eden thought they must have no lives. He chuckled to himself. It’s not like anybody in Fracture really had a life.
He was staring at a large red ornament by the main doors when he realized Ms. Kozi had never come back to finish setting up. The lobby was empty, and he couldn’t see anybody down the hallway, so he walked over to the building’s main doors and looked out into the parking lot. Ms. Kozi was standing next to the white truck with tinted windows. She was leaning against the body of the truck and talking to someone in the driver’s seat.
Eden silently stepped outside and crouched down behind one of the white lute pillars that held up part of the town hall's roof and tried to hear what Ms. Kozi was saying. The truck's idling engine drowned out everything she said. Her eyes moved rapidly from side to side as she talked, and her nostrils flared every few seconds.
"You're sure?" a gruff voice asked.
Ms. Kozi nodded and said something else. Eden thought one of the words might have been Eden's mom's name: "Felicia". Ms. Kozi stepped away from the window. Eden ducked farther behind the pillar.
The truck shifted into reverse and backed out. Eden tried to see who was driving but didn't get a good look because they had rolled the window back up. He watched Ms. Kozi look around the parking lot before she turned toward the main doors and walked back up the steps.
A surge of courage shot through Eden. He stepped out from behind the pillar and waited for her to notice him. She saw him and stopped near the top of the staircase, dropping her purse and quietly saying, "What?"
"Having fun talking to weirdos out here?" said Eden. "Who was that?" The question, which had had an obvious impact on Ms. Kozi made him feel powerful. He also felt terrified to know he could be in serious trouble at any moment.
"I don’t know what you're talking about. Where is your mother?" She stooped down to pick up her purse. Eden took a step forward, about to say something else when he stopped. A voice from behind him made his blood run cold.
"I'm right here."
The room his mom chose to be Eden's holding cell was about ten degrees colder than the
rest of the building due to it having a single-pane window. Only one of the two light bulbs worked. The room looked like it had been used as a makeshift office years ago, fully equipped with an old brown desk, a few dusty manila folders, and a hodgepodge of other office supplies. One of the staplers still worked, but the one thing that was missing was a chair.
Eden watched as the snow started to come down in a light drift; he thought of the old man and his ranting about bad winters and food shortages. Trees were in the way; otherwise, he would have been able to see the parking lot where the white truck had been.
Who had been driving it? The question was driving him crazy. There had to be some way for him to find that out without drawing too much attention from Ms. Kozi or anyone else. Whatever Eden's teacher had been saying to the stranger with the gruff voice had to do with Eden. He knew it in his gut.
He opened the door a crack and looked out into the lobby. His mom was standing by the meeting hall doors greeting people as they came in. The man who had helped heal Eden's leg walked through the lobby on his way to the party. Eden shut the door before his mom had a chance to notice he was watching her.
He went back to the window and saw that the snow was coming down even harder. Every few seconds he saw a car's headlights illuminate the bushes before being replaced once again by darkness. The weather wasn’t stopping people from coming to the party, that was for certain.
The door to the room opened and Eden turned around. His mom was standing there with her hands on her hips. "Don’t be a pain tonight," is all she said before going back into the lobby with some of the other guests. He left the room to escape the cold more than anything else. Parties weren't his thing, and he especially didn't enjoy them in a town where he knew almost nobody.
Eden watched the party develop from the darkest and most abandoned corner of the meeting hall. Halfway through the night, he realized Sammy might be one of the guests, and his hope of talking to him about Dustin drew him into the crowd, but he never found him. Ms. Kozi was nowhere to be seen either. When Tony and his dad entered the meeting hall Eden went back to his vacant corner. He watched the party begin to slowly die down.
The snow had really begun to fly outside. Wind passing over the roof caused the building to make a shuddering sound. Some of the guests talked about spending the night in the town hall and trying to drive home the next day when it was light outside. Eden hoped he wouldn't have to spend the night with a bunch of old people and Tony.
Just as the first few guests were getting ready to sleep on the thinly carpeted floor, a man who hadn't been there all night ran through the doors in a panic. He was dressed in a big black coat which was covered in snow. "Anna!" he shouted, silencing everyone. "Have you seen her?" he asked a chubby bearded man, and then a frail old lady.
Eden stared in disbelief. He had seen Anna sitting next to Tony in class the day before, and now she was missing. He doubted whether or not she would turn up again.
11
Eden had never spoken to Anna, but he knew Tony had been close to her. She was the only one who laughed at his jokes. When Eden had looked across the meeting hall at Tony, he had felt a strange pity overcome him. He imagined he knew how Tony was feeling; he felt the same way about Dustin on a daily basis.
Everyone had eventually fallen asleep in the meeting hall, including Anna's father. The search party the following morning found nothing and gave up after half a day to go enjoy the rest of their Thanksgiving. Most people assumed Anna had run away and would turn up sooner or later. Kids were always running away from small towns.
The day after Thanksgiving was warm enough that most of the snow melted before noon. Eden's mom never officially ungrounded him, but he knew he was free the second she left to go to the grocery store and didn’t ask him to come with her. Seeing as how the nearest place to buy food was over an hour away, he knew he had time to snoop around town and possibly talk to Sammy about Dustin. He went to the treehouse to gather a few things.
The treehouse was unchanged except for a fine layer of dust which covered the floor. Dustin's red cooler and board games were still next to the card table and lawn chairs. Eden grabbed his binoculars from the table and walked to the still-covered window. The blanket was rough and rigid from being beaten by the wind and snow.
Eden pointed the binoculars across the field to the spot where the figure had buried the body. He noticed large patches of snow in the field, but nothing out of the ordinary. He scanned the rest of the field, all the way to the tree line before putting the binoculars down. Without a clear plan in his head, he put on his coat and beanie and climbed down the rope ladder.
The silence around him was broken by a little piece of the city coming back. The wail of a siren carried down the road; he turned and saw the sheriff driving along Ardburn Avenue. Eden's heart hammered in his chest and he thought about running into the house, but he couldn't stop his curiosity from rooting him in place.
When the cruiser met up with where he stood, it turned sharply onto the dirt road and sped down it. Eden started running after the sheriff. He didn’t care about keeping his distance, especially when he saw the car pull in front of Dustin's small trailer.
"What's going on?" Eden shouted, still running toward the trailer. "They're on a trip! They're just on a trip!" What was he yelling? He didn't believe it even as he said it. The sheriff parked and stepped out of the car, his eyes went wide when he saw Eden.
"Get out of here!" yelled the sheriff. Eden ignored him and ran around to the back of the trailer and tried the door. When it didn't open, he kicked it hard. Something had come over him, and he needed to get inside. A spot of decaying wall next to the door fell to the ground as the wall shuddered.
Ignoring his now throbbing foot and the shouts coming from the side of the trailer, he reached down and ripped off more siding to make the hole bigger. He crawled inside and stopped. The sheriff had stopped shouting. A few seconds later, Eden heard the front door being opened.
The kitchen, where Eden stood, seemed empty. He continued through the adjoining living room that was also empty. In fact, not only was there nobody around, there was hardly any furniture or belongings either. Aside from a few dishes in the kitchen and a worn red sofa in the living room, there was nothing.
Eden dove behind the sofa when he heard heavy footsteps coming through the front entrance. Peering around the corner, Eden saw a second officer walk through the doorway on the opposite side of the living room. The sheriff's muffled voice came from farther inside the trailer.
Eden stood up and walked over to a doorway that had been just outside his view and looked inside. The sheriff was standing next to an officer; both their backs were to Eden. A body lay on the floor between them.
"Heather," whispered Eden.
The cops turned around, hands on their guns. They relaxed when they saw him. "I told you to get lost," said the sheriff. Eden wasn’t listening. He was staring at the dead woman he assumed to be Dustin's Aunt Heather. She was face down with her arms stretched outward. Her green dress had long, black stains on it.
"What happened?" he asked, looking up at the sheriff. He noticed a hint of a smile on the edge of the man's lips. He didn't look like he wanted to answer, but he did anyway, staring at Eden the whole time. His talked slowly and loudly.
"What does it look like? She's an addict."
Eden looked back down and noticed several syringes next to Heather's lifeless body. It was too perfect. His mind began to race faster and faster. If Heather was dead, she wasn't on vacation. "Where's Dustin?" he asked.
"Who?"
The word was answer enough.
He ran out the front door and back up the dirt road. The sheriff and officer didn’t bother following him. When he reached his house, he went through the back door and checked the garage to see if his mom had returned from shopping. The car wasn’t there. He walked back to the field and slid under the barbed wire fence. He was going to find a solid lead if it killed him.
The woo
ds were thick and dark even with the sun out. Luckily, there was a path through the trees that was wide enough for a car to fit through. That's where he needed to go. He walked around snow pile after snow pile, trying not to think about what he had seen in Dustin's trailer.
Then, he stopped, a thought having occurred to him. If Heather's body was in the trailer, maybe Dustin's was too. He shook the idea from his mind. It didn't feel right, and he was relying on his feelings more and more with each passing day.
After about half a mile, he could either go left or right, and a truck still would have fit; so, not having a better indicator to rely on besides his intuition, he decided to go left. He looked at the ground as he went, trying to see tire tracks or some other sign that a truck would have come down this way, but he didn't see anything of the kind.
The trees became thicker to the point where it would have been impossible for any kind of vehicle to drive through them. He turned around and started running toward the fork in the path. Once he was there, he looked up the path that he had skipped over. It was difficult to see where it led in the dimming sunlight.
He knew his mom would be home soon and that he needed to be there before she returned. Just as he turned to start back home, he heard a noise. It was the sound of an engine getting closer, and it was coming from the direction he hadn't gone.
He hid behind a tree and waited. The white truck came into view from farther up the path. The windows were still too tinted to see inside. He was tempted to jump out and confront the truck, but something held him back. A literal force, a kind of pressure, held him behind the tree. He tried to scream out, but he couldn't. The truck came to the fork in the path, feet away from him, then it turned back around and went back the way it had come.
The pressure which was holding Eden in place left, and he jumped into the clearing wanting to chase after the truck, but the light was now fading fast, and he still had to cross the field and make it inside his house before his mom noticed he was missing.
