What We Knew (2 page)

I shivered.

Adam rolled his eyes as Trent turned on his key-chain flashlight. Holding it under his chin, he laughed like a mad scientist, the yellow beam distorting his features.

“If this is some lame joke…” Lisa said.

“No joke,” Trent said. “You’ll see.”

Trent went first, pushing through the wall of brush. Lisa was next and then Adam. I don’t know why we followed. I guess we didn’t believe him. I waded into the tangle of vines and branches, clearing a path with my arms. I hate the woods. I’m not an outdoorsy kind of girl. I hate getting slapped by twigs, having my legs scratched. And as we trekked deeper into the darkness, I worried less about Banana Man and more about breaking an ankle or losing an eye. The ground felt soft and spongy. Adam told me to watch my step, but I couldn’t see my feet. I went down hard.

“Trent!” Adam shouted. “Wait!”

The tiny light quit bouncing. I brushed dirt from my stinging knees and kicked the stupid log.

“Lisa?” I called.

“I’m right here,” she said.

I looked back. Her voice seemed to come from behind, but behind me was nothing—just the blackness of closed eyelids. My internal compass was off. I tried to keep myself calm, believing if I walked left, I’d end up in the hospital overflow lot. Right, the park. Panic soured my stomach. The absolute quiet was worse than the darkness. It was a deafening silence. All the familiar static—the noises that remind you of your place in the world, that you aren’t alone—had faded. The only sound was our breathing. I bit my lip and followed Trent’s light.

“We’re almost there,” Trent said as Lisa hooked her finger through his belt loop. “This is the tricky part.” He aimed the beam at his feet, but there was nothing there. The ground just stopped, slipping away into blackness. We were eye level with the tops of the trees.

“Forget it,” I said. “I’m going back.”

“No. Wait,” Trent said. “Look.” He stepped off and didn’t plummet to his death. Stairs. In the middle of the woods. A wooden staircase like the one that goes down to the river behind my father’s apartment building.

If he still lived there—I hadn’t seen him in months.

“They’re rotten,” Trent said, taking Lisa’s hand. “So step where I step.”

“Gabe will never speak to you again if you get his girlfriend killed,” I said.

Lisa’s laugh—high and tight—betrayed her nerves. She slowly lowered one foot and then the other, sighing with relief when the groaning structure didn’t collapse. Gripping the splintered rail, the four of us descended silently. The stairs seemed to go on forever. The decaying wood smelled of mushrooms. The sweet, powdery smell of Lisa’s deodorant hit my nose. I was damp with sweat. The cold, sickly kind that comes from fear. I wanted to be home. I
needed
to be home. The alarm clock outside my mother’s bedroom was set for my curfew. If I was one second late, I’d be grounded. When we reached the bottom, I checked my phone. It didn’t seem possible. I asked Adam how long he thought we’d been in the woods.

“I don’t know. A while,” he said. “Why?”

“My phone says it’s still ten after ten.”

I looked up. No trees blocked the view straight above, but the sky was flat black. No stars. No moon. Not even the constant orange glow of light pollution. Unless there’s a blackout, there’s always light. It’s never truly dark. You can see it from outer space. It was as if someone had unplugged the universe.

I checked my phone again. No signal. I left it on. It was brighter than Trent’s stupid flashlight.

“It’s just over there,” Trent said. “See?”

“See what?” Adam said.

“I can’t see shit,” Lisa said.

My vision snapped into focus. A rambling maze of black tarp shelters. More lean-to than tent, but with four sides instead of three. Just like Scott used to put up in our backyard when he was a scout. But bigger. Much, much bigger.

“It’s probably some homeless guy,” I said.

Trent warned us against the ropes zigzagging between the trees. Anyone not paying attention would get clotheslined. We ducked beneath the webs and followed Trent around a rocky outcrop. A path lined with carpet scraps led to a makeshift porch. Trent pulled back a flap and stuck his head in.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Anybody home?”

Lisa punched his arm. Adam whipped his head around like he’d heard something. “This is stupid,” he said. “Really stupid. What if he’s got a gun?”

“Nobody’s here,” Trent said casually. “Trust me.”

“Wait,” I said, hooking his sleeve. “How is this any different from breaking into a house on Bradley or Parkwood?”

Trent shook me off. “Because it’s not an actual house,” he said. “And this is public property.”

“If I hear a chainsaw…” Lisa whispered, clutching my waist.

In my nightmares, Banana Man lived in an empty shack. But this wasn’t a shack. And it wasn’t empty. Trent swept the room with his flashlight. A shiver ran up my back. I don’t know what I’d expected to find. Maybe some crates and nasty bedding, with hypodermic needles scattered about. Certainly not a fully furnished living room. I spun around, taking it all in: sofa, armchair, coffee table, rocking chair. A bookcase without books. Picture frames without pictures. An upright piano. The fact that everything was so ordinary only made it creepier.

“How did he get all this here?” I whispered.

“People have been using the woods as a dump for years,” Trent said. “I swear that’s my grandmother’s old couch. I remember the stain.”

Adam scratched our initials into the piano with a key and then we moved on, following the carpet scraps to a kitchen. The glow from my phone skimmed over something that looked like an ancient washing machine. Lisa tripped over a step stool. We shuffled along in the near-dark, bumping into tables and chairs, the black walls sucking up the light, until Adam found a battery-powered lantern. He flicked the switch, flooding the next room—the bedroom—with harsh brightness. I counted four sleeping bags on a musty mattress. A cardboard dresser sagged in the corner and the carpet squished underfoot—the bedroom leaked.

“Maybe it’s a family,” I said sadly, thinking of that kid Lisa’s sister was friends with, the one who lived in a minivan with his dad and two sisters because the bank took their house.

“Think he’s got any booze?” Lisa asked.

“Already checked,” came Trent’s voice from the next room over, and then the sound of water. Lisa went to investigate.

“Nice, Trent,” she said.

“Are you peeing on the floor?” I asked, shining my phone at his backside. Sometimes I hated Trent. I thought of my brother and how different he was from my friends. Scott would’ve emptied his pockets for this guy, giving what little he had for someone who had less.

“There’s no toilet,” Trent smirked, zipping his fly.

Adam shook his head and moved on. In the kitchen, Lisa poked through boxes of crackers and oatmeal and pancake mix. “Maybe he’s got some cash stashed in one of these,” she said, dumping a jar of instant coffee in the dishpan. “Help me look, Trace. See what’s in that cooler.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. What if the place was booby-trapped? I wasn’t about to get my face blown off for a couple of bucks. I nudged the red chest with my toe and listened. Just water sloshing, so I carefully lifted the lid. My hand flew to my nose as if I’d been punched. A bulging milk jug, rancid hot dogs, a black peach, all floating in a gray slurry. I kicked the cooler and the lid slapped closed.

“Maybe he’s dead,” I said. “Maybe whoever was living here died.”

I still felt uncomfortable, but it wasn’t fear. More like pity, a gnawing sadness. I felt like a witness to something tragic. No one lived here, not anymore. It was in the air—the stench of hopelessness, loss. I know it sounds strange, but you can smell sorrow. The year before my parents divorced, scorched dinners and cologne and burning rubber permeated our house. I wanted out before the misery of the place took root, like an infection in my bones.

“Can we please go?” I asked Lisa. “This place is a downer.”

“In a minute,” she said, shining her phone inside a sugar bowl. “Check the bedroom again.”

I could hear Adam in the living room, banging on the piano. I put my phone on the dresser and pulled the top drawer, but the handles came off in my hands. The whole thing was waterlogged, the cardboard disintegrating into a mildewy pulp. I tore the front off and shone the light inside. Nothing. No letters, no photos, no newspaper clippings. I checked under the bed and then checked the bathroom. A bucket for a sink and a bar of white soap. A grimy towel on a crate. There was nothing personal anywhere. I felt suddenly trapped in a creepy diorama of a home. No story, no history, just stuff, junk. Even the homeless have their keepsakes. Who would care that Trent had peed on the floor? Who would care that Lisa had smashed all the plates? Who would care that Adam had carved up the piano?

Just as the knot in my stomach began to loosen, Trent made us all go into the last room, the one jutting off the back like an afterthought. The whole reason he’d brought us there, he said. Gray plastic barrels lined one wall, bald tires lined the other. The guy must’ve run out of carpet—the floor was pine needles. My light grazed a large rusty toolbox, a stool, and a workbench cluttered with cigar boxes. Adam picked one up and shook it. It sounded like marbles. He lifted the lid.

“What the f—”

Trent started laughing. “Is this guy a freak, or what?”

“It’s like that horror movie!” Lisa screeched. “The one with the brother and sister driving home from college. There’s that monster that plucks people’s eyes out.”

“Banana Man wasn’t a monster,” Adam said. “He was a child molester.”

Lisa shrugged. “Same thing.”

“They’re glass,” I said, rolling a blue one between my thumb and forefinger. “My grandfather had a glass eye.” I fished out another one. Green, flecked with gold. “Why would he need so many?” I asked. Trent didn’t care about the eyes. He wanted to know what was in the barrels. He tried using a screwdriver, but the lids wouldn’t budge. While Trent was off searching the other rooms for something resembling a crowbar, Adam found a six-pack hidden beneath some oily rags.

“Look what Trent missed,” he said. “Who’s thirsty?”

Lisa raised her hand.

Adam grabbed a can, but then dropped it like he’d burned his palm. As he stumbled back into one of the barrels, his face twisted in fear.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I whispered, frightened.

But Lisa was frozen, too. No one moved. We all just stood there, staring at the rising tarp wall. The pit of my stomach knew. I knew. A moaning shadow ducked beneath the plastic. Its long arms rose higher and higher, clawing the musty air. My knees buckled. Lisa grabbed my arm and cried out for Trent. The shadow lunged sideways, around the workbench, and then doubled over, howling at Lisa’s shrieking. Adam clutched his chest. “Goddamn it, Trent!” He hurled a beer can, but Trent, laughing, escaped between tarps.

Running wasn’t possible, not in the dark, with the trees and the rocks and the roots. We chased Trent out the back way, toward Parkwood instead of Bradley, avoiding the stairs. My chest was still swollen with panic. I couldn’t get enough air. Tripping, gasping, I clawed at Lisa’s heaving shoulders. I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying. We were moving fast. Too fast. Trent smacked his head on a tree limb. His glasses went flying. We stopped to find them, and that’s when Lisa realized she’d lost her necklace, the one from Gabe for their anniversary. She stumbled in circles, cursing and flailing, until something crashed behind us. A residual scream crawled up my throat, and then my phone rang.

“Go! Go! Go!” Adam shouted, pushing forward.

I glanced at the screen: MOM. I had a signal. A connection to reality. My mother waking me from a stupid nightmare. I was instantly safer. The spell was broken. Through the trees—finally,
finally
—blazed the lights from the grocery store where we shopped.

I could breathe again.

“Holy hell!” Lisa screamed, slapping at Trent. “I’m never going anywhere with you ever again! Never! Ever!” She stopped slapping when she noticed his forehead. “You’re bleeding,” she said. And then to her feet: “Ow.” She was missing a flip-flop. “I’m so telling Gabe about this,” she said, touching the spot on her collarbone where her necklace used to live.

“You should’ve seen your faces!” Trent howled. “It was just like the movies!”

Pulling a twig from my hair, I said, “Is this the part where we kill you?”

Adam poked Trent in the chest. “
I’m
gonna kill you.”

Trent snorted. He tried lighting a cigarette, but his hands were shaking. Above his eye an impressive bruise was forming. Lisa sacrificed one of her two tank tops to mop the blood streaming down his temple.

While Lisa played nurse, I bummed a smoke off Adam and wandered over to the employee picnic table to call my mother.

“You forgot your key,” she said.

I felt my pocket. She was right.

“I’ll leave the back door unlocked. Where are you?”

I watched a guy in a Day-Glo vest herd stray shopping carts into a corral, and said, “Trent’s.”

“Lisa with you?”

Lisa was perched on someone’s bumper, examining the sole of her foot.

“Yeah. I’ll be home in a few minutes. Don’t leave the door unlocked. Put the key where Scott used to hide it.”

“Are you okay?”

Lisa jumped on Trent’s back. Adam stole her surviving flip-flop and made for the Dumpster. I watched my friends joking, laughing, chasing each other around the parking lot, and said, “Yeah.”

But not really. My stomach churned with guilt and fear about what we’d done. You can’t just destroy someone’s home—even if it’s not a real home. There are always consequences. For everything. I was spooked, but nobody else seemed worried. Trent galloped over with Lisa, who stuck her foot in my face. “Kiss my boo-boo,” she said.

I flicked her big toe. “C’mon,” I said. “We’ve got to go.”

Adam tossed her flip-flop in the air and then fit it on her foot.

“Wait,” Lisa said, frowning down at me. “I left my bag at Trent’s.”