Signs of the Jagged Edge

His bedroom door shuts with a groaning creak, trapping all the lingering light from the hallway behind it. Ashley counts the receding footsteps: one, two, three. The fourth would have his mom right outside her own bedroom.

It’s 7 pm on a Friday night, and this means three things: first, his dad’s stuck working a late shift at the only clinic in town (a lot of good it does, people still died anyhow); this also means his mother will shut herself in her bedroom all night, smoking up the house and drinking the whiskey equivalent of a flood. The third? Ashley is free.

The moment he hears the door to her room slam shut, Ashley bursts into motion, flinging sheets in his haste. His room is on the first floor, but there are ledges perched outside that are easy footholds. He creeps down the window, balanced on the ledge, and uses the trees close-by to climb to the ground.

There, easy.

His bike leans itself against the wood wall of the backyard shed. Ashley takes care not to jostle the chains too much and braces it against the night’s wind to stop it from banging against the wall. No measure of noise would rouse mom from her sky-high stupor, but a curfew was a curfew. If the patrol catches him roaming about the dark with a bike in hand, he’d find himself answering questions he’d rather not answer.

Ashley crosses into the main street that comprises the entire town (or most of it), slips on his bike and pedals hard.

The night is dark, but early enough there are people to be found milling about. Hollow-eyed, nervous creatures with sullen faces. They walk briskly, with motions that remind Ashley of cornered rats. Some turn to look at him as he passes, most don’t, too nervous not to mind their own business.

Not that he blames them. Too much has happened.

The stories, man, the stories. From what he’s heard, kids never even left their beds, they never woke up, never screamed for help, nothing. They’ve simply died in their sleep with their parents none the wiser. Moms and dads would wake up the next morning with nothing on their minds but thoughts of work and finances and adult things. And then they’d stumble half-asleep into their kid’s bedrooms and find bedsheets soaked with blood and remnants of organs and bits of flesh and flecks of bone. And then they’d scream, and here come the cops and the sheriff and they’re worth a whole lot of nothing because they get nothing done. A week and lots of crying later, another kid ends up the same way. Never awake again, a pool of blood and gore soaked into white sheets.

The cops have issued a curfew. Nobody outside past 9pm on most nights except Sundays (those were for night vigils at church). To Ashley, it boggles the mind. Kids died inside their houses—not outside.

He shakes away the threads of thought. They don’t matter.

‘Francine’s Ice-creams’ settles, abandoned and rickety, at the foot of a hill a thirty-minute walk away. By bike, he takes fifteen.

He finds her sitting curled in a ball, a smoking pipe between her lips, and leaning against the cracked wall of the ice cream shop.

Kelley—only Kelly because she hates her last name and the connections it made—Kelley comes only in two distinct flavours, none of them sweet. One flavour is docile and sad and sleeps all day. The second is loud, twitchy and prone to inadvisable deeds of misadventure. You never know which Kelley you have on what day.

Tonight, he’s got the second. She only smokes when she’s anxious.

“I’ve been waiting an hour,” she says as he approached. “You said you’d be here by 6.”

“Well, I was wrong,” Ashley says, walking past her. “Dad left later than usual—not my fault.”

“Whatever, man.”

She takes her sweet time getting off her ass and onto her bike. By the time we set off on the main road by the woods, my limbs are twitching in agitation.

Kelley is, to him, something like a friend of Robin’s rather than a friend of his. They’ve known each other for years and years and still don’t quite mix. And now that empty space has replaced Robin as their buffer, only awkward silence lives between them.

They turn off the highway and become free of the town.

Then they meet the woods. The enormous expanse surrounds them like a withered cocoon. Dead trees line the vestiges of a cobbled road that leads nowhere.

A signboard inclines on one side, barely standing; on its face, written in once white fonts, something covered in rust. On the other side, more woods. Trees stand with branched, empty fingers scratching at the sky.

An hour’s walk down that way, past the dried-up creek and next to the caverns, that’s where Robin went missing.

There isn’t a point in taking their bikes in there. They’ll walk the rest of the way.

“Come on,” Ashley said. “It’s getting late.”

The cold smell of rain and wet earth sweep into his face, and for minutes, they move silently through the dimly moonlit woods.

“You know,” she calls from behind him, “I’ve just now rethought this midnight hike thing we’re doing. It’s one of our dumber ideas, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean? You agreed to come.”

“Because you said you know where Robin is.”

“I do.”

“Sure, so he’s hanging out at the place he was last seen, just waiting for his knight in shining armour to rescue him, right?”

“Then why’d you even come?”

“I was high,” she says. “I’m still high.”

“Shut up. Just trust me,” he says, feeling an angry flush prickle the back of his neck.

“I mean, we’re wandering about in the dead of night with some freak on the loose,” she says. “What could go wrong?”

“I doubt it.”

Kelley laughs breathlessly. “What?”

“I doubt it’s anyone doing this. I don’t think it is.”

“So, what’re you thinking?” She breathesdeeply from her pipe. “Demons? Maybe they’ve crawled out of some unholy pit to punish kids for the sin of being annoying teenagers.”

He whirls about to face her. She has a playful glint in her eye while she speaks. “Thecops run around like idiots when we all know nobody in town did it. It’s all a big joke.”

You know what I think? I think it’s some sort of elaborate prank. I mean, really, it’s got to be some sort of cruel joke, no way else about it.”

Ashley stares at her, incredulous. “A prank?”

“Yes, a prank.”

“How’d you work that one out? They’re dead,”

“That’s what people say.”

“The cops confirmed it. This isn’t a rumour.”

“Yet their graves are empty.”

“Hard to bury bloodstains.”

“Yes, well,” she says, hoarsely, coughing lightly, “remember a month ago how Mr Peter whined about his pigs?”

Butchered pigs, torn apart by wild animals or something. Yes, he remembers. That marked the beginning of this whole thing; no one’s had a good night’s sleep since.

She continues, “They could have had something to do with that. Wouldn’t even be hard, too. Mr Peter’s blinder than my dead granny.”

“So, you think they walked into a farm and slaughtered some pigs for laughs?” Not to mention the other shit they’ve put the whole town through.

“You really think it’s beneath them?”

Ashley thinks about it for a split second before he dismisses it. “That’s completely unrelated. Cops tested the remains. They’re human, not pigs.”

She shrugs and exhales smoke from her nostrils, which has the annoying effect of going up his own.

“I don’t know, dude. One of the dead guys, Keith or whatever, his dad works with the forensics team. Who knows what they actually saw?”

A bark of laughter escapes him. “Bullshit.”

She pushes my face away from hers. “Fuck off, it’s a hell of a lot more plausible than whatever theory you’ve got cooking in your head.”

It’s a sentiment she’s voiced a few times before, and he knows she isn’t really serious, but he can’t help but feel surprised.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“I don’t know what I believe,” she says, her voice quivering. “It’s not like any of them are coming back either way.”

The words unspoken are, ‘Robin included.’

Ashley huffs, turns in place, and marches off. He feels her eyes boring into the back of his skull.

There is a sound, then, like mumbling, buzzing voices whispering from a distance. He shakes it off.

Despite how uncomfortable her words make him feel, they mean nothing. Robin isn’t like the others. He didn’t die helpless in his bed like a dog, and he wasn’t cruel. Ashley knows the kids who died, and some part of him feels like they deserved it, like they had it coming, anyway. They were bullies, cruel. Everyone hated them and nobody would miss them. The only ones who cried at their funerals were pretenders.

People do that; they like to pretend dead people are actually better than they were while they lived. It’s all such bullshit. Robin wasn’t like that.

“It’s getting really late.”

“You don’t say.”

“You’ve got us lost, haven’t you?”

“No, I haven’t.” He’s walked down this path several thousands of times, it feels like, years after Kelley decided, hanging around herebecame too undignified. No way he’s getting lost.

“When do you need to get home?” she asks.

“Dad gets in by midnight.” Ashley snorts. “Mum’s likely lying in a puddle of her throw up by now.” Ashley doesn’t bother asking her the same question. Both her parents are worse than his mum.

As they walk further, clouds darken in the black sky. A crack of thunder threatens rain, and in a flash of lightning, it delivers. They make haste to escape the sudden torrent, dashing madly in the muck and mud, dodging idle branches and spindly roots. Ashley falls once, and Kelley comes inches away from cracking her head in two.

The treehouse, Ashley thinks, as it becomes illuminated by a flash of lightning.

It’s not actually a treehouse, that’s just what the 3 of them call it for want of a better name. It’s a shallow dim hole in a rock where 3 small children could crawl around and pretend the world outside didn’t exist. An improvised door made of tightened vines and stacks of grimy wood cover its mouth.

Ashley pulls it open, and enters, hunched over because he’s no longer a child who can fit.

He’s soaking wet and covered in mud, so he pulls off his jacket and rubs his hands and arms to stave off the cold.

“So much for finding Robin,” Kelley says from behind him.

Heat boils in his chest. He turns away from her. “You act like you don’t even care.”

“I care. You’re pretending to see what isn’t there.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“Wake up, Ashley.”

And there is again the little babbling murmur of voice. He turns around to stare across to where Kelley ought to be in the darkness. The noise stops.

Thin slivers of light illuminate her hand as itmakes a beckoning motion. He complies, sits next to the warmth of her body, and leans himself against the rough walls.

Caught in the shade of the woods and the warmth of their tiny cave, it may as well be a little world of their own; the town became a vague apparition behind them. Here, the tangle of his thoughts slowly loose into neat threads, and placed in proper places. Here, he can think.

A touch against his hand jostles him from his thoughts, another at his knee. He’s known Kelley for years, since they were kids, and, yet, he still can’t get over the overfamiliarity of her little touches. She sidles up to him and leans her head against tense shoulder.

“You know, you haven’t even told me what happened to Robin.”

“I did.”

“You waltz into town, screaming about him dying, but nobody ever finds anything. Now, you’re saying he’s been hanging out here all along? I’m not sure what you’re telling.”

He shifts uncomfortably. The cosy warmth has turned to heat, and the cave is thickly dark enough he can’t see her face. He barely sees his own hands in front of him.

“I’ve always wanted to run away,” Ashley says, sucking at the pus on his broken lip. “It’s hard being the son of a druggie and a workaholic. I just wanted to get away. I thought he did too.”

There’s a small quiet. “So,” she says, “what happened?”

“Something—” he hesitates, “something got him. I couldn’t see. It got him and I just ran.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you—or anyone else.”

A scratching sound touches against the door, like something’s trying to claw into the cave. Before he thinks to move to see what, a knock comes at the frame and the warmth in the cave turns to ice.

There’s something knocking at the door, he thinks. The knocks turn to banging, and a sound comes over the wind and rain, like screeching.

He scrambles to put his weight against the door. He clutches Kelley’s hand tight in fear, so hard her bones dig into his palm.

They sit there, frozen and unable to speak as the crashes against the door come heavier and rise in pitch. Kelley’s hand trembles, or maybe it’s his own; he steadies it by grasping hers with both of his.

Little pats scratch at the wood, small seeking sounds.

“Open the door!” Kelley shrieks from outside. “Ashley, open the door.”

A giggle rises next to him, and a gurgling laugh, sending fingers of ice down his spine.

In a moment of fleeting sanity, he pulls away from the doorframe and pushes it open, scrambling in frantic motions. He sees Kelley’s shocked face as she falls back.

He doesn’t stop, he sinks into frenzied haste, flung into a sprint.

“Oh God,” he shouts, shuddering, glancing back to the empty cave. “Oh God, who was that? What was—”

His chest is heaving when he stops and he gasps like a dying man, wincing at the straining pain in his throat and ribs.

Kelley comes up behind him, equally winded.

Ashley shudders when he realises where they are. The clearing is still as it was that day. Perhaps it’s darker now, a patch of moonlit ground of rock and sand. Creepers still crawl over stone and cracked boulders, pieces of glass peer out of the uneven terrain. And there, a patch of earth is soaked with something dark and bits of grey and white stick out. He can see a finger.

“Ashley, what the hell?” Kelley screams. “What the fuck?”

He’s looking right at her, but he can’t see her. The force that moves his eyes towards that dark patch is magnetic. It’s blood, he thinks, and shivers in revulsion.

“You left me,” Kelley says. “I fell, and you left me.” Muffled sobs break from her throat. She grabs his face with both hands, not gently. “This is insane. We need to get out. Robin’s gone, and he’s not coming back. We need to get out of here.”

An unnatural silence grows. It’s still raining—he can see droplets crash against the earth and on her skin—but the world is silent, caught in a hush.

And into that silence, a choir of whispers, a sharp laugh.

In one blurred motion, an unseen force picks Kelley into the air and smashes her against the rocks. She bursts open like overripe fruit.

Panic subsumes him and he’s moving before he thinks to move. Branches scratch at him, the underbrush slice against his exposed ankles, pain wakes in every bite and the thing behind him comes silent on his trail. Its footsteps move in time with his own, a battle cry in the utter silence.

Kelley is dead. Dead—dead—dead. My fault, he thinks. This is all my fault.

Fatigue and pain slow him down.

From behind, gibbered mutterings reach him, a susurrus of noise.

His leg snags on a protruding root and he falls steeply down a sloping hill, rolling, tumbling. A rock catches against his eye, and he feels a sickening squelch. The pain is secondary. He barely notices as his eye dribbles down his cheek, thinks only of the half of the world now lost to him.

Blood stings into his one eye, vision poor; he flings himself into motion. And then he wonders what he’s running to. There’s nowhere to go.

He stops because what’s even the point of running?

Robin is gone and Kelley is dead and it’s his fault and there’s no reason to keep going.

So, he stops and faces the unseen force and screams in frustration and shivering panic, struggling to stand his mind on its last legs. He waits for the impending blow and the release of death.

It never comes.

A groaning sound fills the air like an angry grunt. The creature stops. Right in front of him. None of its movements are visible, but it occurs to him he’s aware of it in a way he can’t explain.

He knows it’s looking down at him. He takes a step back, and it moves itself forward. He shuffles forward, and it moves itself back.

Oh, he thinks helplessly.

Inside his head is a chorus of tittering, and thorns of thought stabbing into an already gaping wound.

He thinks of the body burst open with punishing force and the dark patch of earth in the forest and the bits of bone and flesh that stick out. He sinks to his knees, feeling as the creature also lowers itself like the crumbling of hills.

Now he knows. He understands.

My fault.