by Daka Hermon
“There has to be something we can do. Someone who can help us figure this out,” says Nia.
“Not Zee, clearly,” I mumble. “But this all started with him.”
“What do you mean?” Lyric asks.
“Zee was gone over a year. And we don’t know anything about what happened to him. And now other kids we know are disappearing. That can’t be a coincidence.” I glance back at Zee’s house. Yesterday I stood in almost this exact spot talking myself into attending Zee’s party. I wanted to support him, cheer him up. So much has changed in the last twenty-four hours.
I wish I could rewind time and change the past. All of it—keep Zee safe, take better care of my mom, be a better friend, son, brother. I can’t fix what’s already done, but maybe I can stop what could happen.
“We need to start from the beginning,” I say.
Nia frowns. “What do you mean?”
“We need to talk to Zee’s roommate from that art camp. Rodrigo. Remember, the news report said he was the last one to see Zee.”
“Yeah, but he already talked to the police,” Nia says. “They said they interviewed everyone from the camp.”
Lyric snorts. “That doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t tell them everything, especially if it sounded cray-cray. He could have been worried they’d think he did something to Zee. How do we find Rodrigo?”
“I got this.” Nia whips her phone out of her back pocket. “Did you know—”
Quincy drops his head in his hands. Lyric and I groan.
She continues like she didn’t hear us. “Approximately sixty-nine percent of eleven- to fourteen-year-olds have their own cell phones, which have internet, which means social media, which means I can probably find him easy, ’cause I’m good like that.”
“She’s your friend,” I jokingly say to Lyric.
Nia’s fingers fly across the phone keys.
“Hey, heads up,” Lyric says, staring over my shoulder.
I spin around as Mrs. Murphy pulls into her driveway. She parks and quickly climbs out of the car with a large grocery bag. “What’s going on? Everything okay?” Her clothes are wrinkled and her messy hair is half up, half down.
Nia hides the phone behind her back. “Uh, we stopped by to check on Zee—”
“I told them he was asleep and we shouldn’t bother him,” Lyric says. He’s so smooth even I buy the lie.
Mrs. Murphy hugs the bag close. “Maybe y’all can come back in a couple of days. I’m sure he’ll be better then.”
“Sure. No problem.” I feel bad. Bad that Zee is messed up and she can’t help him. Bad she has no idea what’s going on; heck, we don’t either. Bad she’s so worn out. Bad I can’t make it better like I wanted to do for my mom. Bad, bad, bad.
She walks up the front porch steps and hesitates at the door. “I really am sorry about what happened at the party. Zechariah’s not himself, but he’d never deliberately hurt anybody.”
“We know,” says Nia.
“Will you tell Carla I’m sorry if she was scared by his behavior?”
Out the corner of my eye, I see Quincy flinch.
“We will.” I lick my dry lips. There’s something else I need to figure out. “And we’ll tell Shae, too. That, uh, Zee’s sorry.” My heart thuds in my chest as I wait for Mrs. Murphy’s response.
“Shae Davidson? The little girl from around the corner? I heard she’s missing.” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes glaze over. “Her family must be heartbroken. I remember when Zechariah …” She falls silent and then focuses back on me. “Why would he apologize to Shae?”
I take a shaky step forward. “Didn’t you invite her to the party yesterday?”
Mrs. Murphy’s forehead creases. “No. Just you, Nia, Lyric, Carla, and Quincy.”
“Not Shae Davidson?” Nia asks slowly, coming to stand next to me.
“No. Why do you ask?” Mrs. Murphy shifts her bag, using her knee to lift it more securely in her arms.
“Just wondering,” I say with a weak smile.
There’s a loud crash, like glass shattering from inside the house. Mrs. Murphy jumps. “I need to go.” She rushes inside and closes the door.
“Bye, Mrs. Murphy,” I whisper. The words taste sour in my mouth. I’ve got a horrible feeling I might not see her for a while.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lyric says. “So Shae wasn’t even invited and she was supposedly somewhere else at the same time?”
“But … but … it was Shae,” says Quincy. “She looked pretty in her dance clothes.”
Shae doesn’t have a twin sister, but someone who looked, talked, and dressed like her came to Zee’s welcome home party.
“If that wasn’t the real Shae … ?” Nia bites her bottom lip.
Who or what was it?
Nia is scary good and found Rodrigo’s address. His neighborhood is three miles away, so after we retrieve our bikes we head out.
With each push on my pedals I question this decision. What if Rodrigo doesn’t know anything? This will be a wasted trip and we’ll still have no answers. What if Rodrigo does have information, but it’s bad? What do we do then? Can we stop whatever is happening before someone else disappears?
“Are we there yet?” Quincy says, leaning over his handlebars.
I glance over at him. He’s breathing loudly and working hard not to fall behind. He’s not the most athletic kid, but this short ride shouldn’t be affecting him so much. He looks drained. There are dark circles under his puffy eyes. His brown skin has a slightly grayish tint. Is it the stress? The fear? Is it the mark on his wrist? I’m on question overload. My brain is about to explode.
“We’re close,” Nia says.
Quincy groans. A while ago, I offered to carry his backpack but he refused. I’m not sure if there’s important stuff inside or if it’s his safety net, like my puzzle piece. I get needing to have something you can trust, something you can hold on to for comfort.
As we make the right turn into Rodrigo’s neighborhood a police car cruises by, then slows. The officer waves for us to stop. Great. What now?
“You kids aren’t from around here.” His thick mustache completely covers his top lip.
“What gave us away? The bikes?” Lyric asks.
I groan.
“Watch that attitude, kid.” Officer Moustache raises his sunglasses to rest on top of his bald head and stares down Lyric.
Lyric doesn’t even blink. Yeah, this could go bad fast.
“We’re visiting a friend,” Nia says quickly to diffuse the tense situation.
“His name is Rodrigo,” adds Quincy.
“Huh,” the officer says.
What does that mean? His eyes are hard, not cold and blank like Not-Shae, but still intense enough to make my heart stutter.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent disappearance,” Officer Moustache says.
Nia scoots her bike forward. “Yeah, about that, do you—”
Lyric grabs her arm and squeezes. She falls silent. No police, he silently reminds her with a stern look. She sheepishly nods.
“This is serious business.” Officer Moustache leans out his car window. “We don’t need you kids running around here. Y’all should stay close to your homes, stay out of trouble.”
A muscle clenches so tight in Lyric’s jaw, I’m worried it might snap. And Quincy looks like he’s ready to bolt.
“Ya hear?” Officer Moustache says.
“Yep. Yes, sir. We totally heard every word,” says Nia with a fake toothy smile.
“Good.” Turning forward in his seat, he tugs his sunglasses down to the bridge of his wide nose. He shifts the car into gear and cruises down the street. Once he turns the corner, my shoulders slump in relief.
“Did we just get pulled over on our bikes for no good reason?” Nia asks.
“Guess we look suspicious,” I say. Officer Moustache is gone but his warning lingers like a dark cloud.
“Told you! They only see what they want to. If Zee could explain himself, th
e cops would never believe him anyway. We can’t depend on the police. We can only depend on each other. Kids helping kids.” Lyric pedals angrily down the street, blowing past us.
We have to work hard to catch up with him. Quincy unsteadily follows as we ride past a brick sign with a plaque that reads “Meade Circle.” The houses are nicer than in our neighborhood—all two stories with chimneys, garages, and tree houses. The lawns are green and cut low—no graveled driveways or concrete steps.
2302 Meade Circle. We brake at the end of the long driveway. Quincy slides off his bike, hitting the ground with a thud. “Need. A. Minute. I’ll meet y’all up there,” he says, panting.
Lyric, Nia, and I park our bikes near the mailbox. Rodrigo’s house is brick with tall windows. A garden of colorful flowers surrounds the large porch. It’s the kind of place you’d find in a magazine or on one of those fancy home-renovation shows.
I glance from Lyric to Nia. Neither one makes a move to approach the house. I step forward, my feet feeling like they’re weighted with concrete. I’m halfway up the driveway and thinking about turning around when they join me.
I ring the doorbell. My hand shakes.
“I’ll get it, Mom!” a boy calls out from inside.
The front door opens and a boy stands before us. His brown skin is lighter than mine and his eyes are so dark they appear to be black. He’s about my height with hair gelled up in the front. He wears red-rimmed glasses that make him look cool and super smart.
“Rodrigo?” I ask.
“Yeah. Who are you?” He takes a step back and closes the door a little.
I point to myself. “I’m Justin. That’s Nia and Lyric.” I turn around. Quincy has made his way up to the porch. He still looks totally gassed. “And that’s Quincy.”
Rodrigo’s dark eyes bounce to each of us. “What do you want?”
“We’re friends of Zee,” says Nia.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Rodrigo white-knuckles the doorknob. “I already talked to the police and that other guy. I—I got nothing else to say.” He moves to shove the door closed.
Lyric surges forward and blocks it with his foot. “Wait. What other guy?”
“Let go or I’m gonna call my mom and dad!” Rodrigo pushes the door, but Lyric is stronger.
“Please. Just give us a few minutes,” Nia begs, her hands folded under her chin. “Two other kids from our neighborhood are missing and we could be next.”
Rodrigo squeezes his eyes shut. “No. Not again.”
My mouth is so dry I have to swallow repeatedly to speak. “Not what again?”
His eyes flutter open and the fear reflected causes my chest to tighten. He peeks over his shoulder, then hesitantly steps outside onto the “Welcome Home” mat, closing the door behind him. “I—I thought it was over when Zee came back.”
“What happened the day Zee disappeared?” Lyric asks. “You were the last one to see him, right?”
“They said I dreamed it. That I couldn’t have seen what I saw.” Rodrigo’s body trembles along with his voice.
The hairs on my neck stand up.
“Dreamed what?” Quincy swats at a bug flying around his head, bobbing and weaving as the insect hovers.
Rodrigo’s eyes glaze over. We wait and then wait some more. The world is silent around us. All of nature awaits his response.
Nia side-eyes me. Yeah, this is bad.
Lyric waves his hand in front of Rodrigo’s face. “Hello?”
He jerks out of his daze, blinking hard. “Zee and I decided to sneak out of our cabin,” he whispers. “He wanted to take some pictures, get some ideas for the art he was working on. We weren’t going far.”
“Camp. The woods. Getting late. Kids alone. That had bad idea written all over it,” Nia mumbles.
“We lost track of time,” Rodrigo says. His voice is hollow. It’s almost as if he’s talking only to himself. “It got dark and cold, but it had been ninety all day. Then the stars sorta, uh, flickered in and out like they were short-circuiting. And I thought …” He licks his lips. “I thought I heard something, a creepy voice, but maybe it was the wind. It was blowing hard.”
Lyric, Nia, Quincy, and I exchange a terrified look. It wasn’t the wind.
“We freaked and ran for camp. Zee was right behind me. He screamed. I turned around. I … I …” Rodrigo swallows loudly. “I could only see half of him, from the waist up. His legs were gone, like they had been sucked into a black hole.”
Oh man!
Nia’s hands fly up to cover her mouth, muffling her gasp.
Quincy sinks down on the steps and hugs his knees.
“It was like that magician trick where they saw someone in half. You know their legs are still there, but you can’t see them,” Rodrigo explains.
I shudder. No wonder Rodrigo is still shook and Zee is the way he is. How do you get past that?
Rodrigo extends his arm. “I grabbed Zee’s hand. I pulled so hard, but whatever had him was much stronger. I couldn’t see it, but it wouldn’t let go. Zee was screaming, and I heard laughing.” Rodrigo’s voice cracks and his arm falls to his side. “Then he was gone. Like he was never there. Sometimes I still hear him begging for my help, but I couldn’t do anything. It took him.”
It! It! My skin crawls as I pace back and forth across the porch. “Oh man! I can’t believe this.”
“What?” Lyric asks.
I rub my palm down my sweaty face. “It took him? Like it could be a thing, not a person. A m-m-monster.”
Quincy’s head jerks back like I decked him.
“Duuuuudeee. Did you just go supernatural?” Lyric asks.
“I know it sounds crazy, but what else could have taken Zee like that?” My lungs constrict, filling up with water. I’m drowning. “Think about those spooky drawings on Zee’s wall. And that mark is appearing out of nowhere. What else could do something like that?”
Lyric shoves both hands through his hair. “And our nightmares, the voices …”
“Monsters aren’t real,” cries Quincy. “They can’t be.”
Nia rubs her arms as if she’s cold. “People always say that until they have a creepy encounter.”
I look at Rodrigo. His face is a mask of terror and hopelessness. He wasn’t kidnapped, but a part of him vanished that night at camp, too.
“What happened next?” Lyric asks, his voice faint.
Rodrigo lets out a shaky sigh. “I ran for help. I must have fallen and hit my head because I woke up and it was morning. Some of the counselors were standing over me. I told them what I saw, but no one believed me. They thought I was making it up so I wouldn’t get into trouble for leaving camp.” He smiles weakly. “I almost convinced myself Zee did run away. It was easier to believe.”
Nia squeezes his shoulder and waits for him to look at her. “We believe you.”
Rodrigo looks her directly in the eyes. “Something took Zee.”
Quincy gulps loudly. “And it has my sister now. And Shae.”
“Why did it go after Zee and not you? Is there anything else you can tell us?” I ask.
The front door flies open. A tall woman with long brown hair and a large mole on her cheek stands in the doorway. She frowns. “Estás bien?”
Rodrigo adjusts his glasses and stands up straighter. “Yeah. It’s fine, Mom. I was just, uh, just talking to some friends from … the library.”
The library? Her dark eyes are probing as they look us over. I’m not sure she believes him, but she says, “Your lunch is ready. You know how I hate for hot food to get cold. And we’ll need to leave soon for your art and piano lessons.”
“Okay. I’ll be right in,” Rodrigo says with a forced smile.
She hesitates, then walks back inside and closes the door.
Rodrigo’s shoulders slump. “She’d be mad if she knew why you’re really here. She doesn’t like me talking about what happened at camp.”
“Did you tell her the truth?” Nia asks.
H
e snorts out a humorless laugh. “Tried to. I learned fast to keep it to myself. I didn’t wanna be that person—the strange kid who believes a monster kidnapped his friend by dragging him into a black hole. That kind of reputation would be impossible to shake.”
“I’m sorry,” says Nia.
“Look, I’m glad Zee’s back and I’m sorry stuff is happening, but …” Rodrigo wrings his hands. “I can’t—”
“Just a few more minutes, please,” I say. “Did anything else strange happen that day?”
“Not that I remember,” Rodrigo says. “We did normal camp stuff. There were different activities all day. Most of the time Zee did his thing and I did mine. He played games with some other kids, went swimming and stuff while I was hiking. We met up for dinner, then later … all that stuff happened like I said.”
“What about a mark or bruise? Did you see one on Zee?” Nia asks.
Rodrigo’s head tilts and his eyebrows crinkle as he thinks hard. “He had something on his wrist. He went to the nurse and she said it was just a bug bite.”
“Uh-oh,” Lyric says.
“Did it look like that?” I point to Quincy’s arm.
Rodrigo backs away and covers his mouth like he’s afraid Quincy is contagious. “E-e-exactly like that.”
“No! No! It’s gonna get me.” Quincy roughly scrubs at the mark on his wrist. “I want it off! I want it off!”
Nia turns at me. “You were right. The mark means you’re tagged. Are we all going to get one? Zee said ‘one by one.’ He drew a picture of everybody.”
“Wow, just wow.” Lyric falls back against the porch railing. “It really was a hit list. We’re on a timer.”
Rodrigo opens his door. “That’s all I know. I—I gotta go.” He hurriedly tries to enter his house.
My hand shoots out to block him. “Wait! One last thing. You said you talked to the police and another guy. Who did you mean?”
“Some ice cream guy came around here asking questions. I’d never seen him before. He had a long scar on his cheek,” Rodrigo says.
“An ice cream guy with a scar?” Nia looks at me with wide eyes. “Could that be Hyde?”
My heart somersaults in my chest.
Rodrigo tries to close the front door.
