Ghost Hand (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 15, Someplace Safe

We were on Old Delarente Road, a dirt track about two miles south of town that ended at an ancient, abandoned lumber camp deep in the woods. I had been there before, once on a hike with my dad when he'd still been healthy, a second time to take photos when I'd done a sophomore social studies project on Greenfield history.

I shambled along behind Marcus like a pet zombie, a mindless creature no longer connected to my body. I was exhausted, but I didn't have the energy to admit it. I was just thinking about letting my knees bend, about how nice it would feel to curl into a ball in a pile of leaves and sleep, when an awful smell hit my nostrils, black and bitter and cloying. Marcus stopped in front of me, and I stopped too, just barely keeping myself from running into his back.

To our right, next to the road, two round, silver towers rose into the air, a pond of thick, putrid blackness pooling at their base. Under the moonlight, it was like something out of a dark fairy tale. In the light of day, I knew it was just two leaky oil tanks from the lumbering days, long forgotten. I'd written about them in my history paper. I'd even written a letter to the editor of the Greenfield Advocate, the town newspaper, demanding to know who was responsible for the land, and thus the clean-up of the spill. But they hadn't even printed my letter, which probably meant whoever owned the land also sponsored the newspaper. If this was Marcus's safe place, I wasn't impressed.

"This isn't it," he said, "but let's rest."

I limped to the base of an old tree, upwind from the oil pools, and sat in a pile of leaves just like I'd imagined. After removing several acorns from beneath my butt, I was actually comfortable, though painfully thirsty.

There was an old tin shed just off the road and Marcus walked over to it. I knew it was locked. And rusted shut. But I didn't want to waste my breath telling him.

Marcus reached out, pulled the door open, and disappeared into its little box of darkness. Before I could even grunt my surprise, he was back out, still carrying my bag of clothes with something else in his other hand. When he got closer, I could see it was a one of those hydration packs. He must have broken into the shed earlier and stashed it there.

"Here, have a drink," he said, handing me the pack and sitting down next to me. As I sipped luke-warm water from the plastic mouth piece, he removed several acorns of his own from under his backside and pitched them in the road.

"Leave some for me," he said, taking the tube. He didn't even wipe it off before sticking it in his mouth. He had nice teeth. Nice lips.

He gave me another turn to drink, and there was something intimate about it, me watching him sip, him watching me. He was staring at my lips now, his eyes dark and serious. I handed him the tube, but he didn't reach out to take it. He just kept staring at me, and I wanted him to slide his hand to the back of my neck, and pull me to him. I wanted his breath in my mouth. I wanted him to kiss me. And I was terrified he'd kiss me.

But then my stomach growled, and we both laughed, and the moment was gone.

He took the tube and clipped it onto the backpack.

"Got any food in there?" I asked, eyeing a zipper on the outside of the pack. My head was starting to buzz from hunger.

Marcus unzipped the pouch of the backpack, reached in, and handed me a handful of almonds.

My hunger trumped my sore throat, so I popped one in my mouth.

The buzzing was getting louder. Not my head then. Probably the blades.

The blades.

Which meant CAMFers.

Except I didn't have the blades anymore.