She switched out her light, and after a moment, Stevie did the same.
For the first time in months, Stevie felt complete again. She was working a case. She was with her friends. Janelle was breathing gently in her sleep. The fan ticked away like a heartbeat.
For a few moments, her mind swirled with the faces of the victims of the Box in the Woods: Sabrina, Eric, Todd, and Diane. The raven-haired girl. The boy with the blond curls. The guy with the light-brown shag. The redhead with the long, straight hair and all the freckles. They had been here, all those years ago. Slept in this place. Whatever happened to them, the answer was here somewhere. She would find it. She would pin it down. She would . . .
She slipped into sleep with the images still flowing through her mind, blending with the sound of the rain. She stirred only to swipe away some insect that was trying to fly up her nose. The next thing she was aware of was Janelle yelling her name. Stevie blinked awake. It was a moist, almost sweaty dawn. A soft light came in from around the edges of the curtain, and Janelle was standing by the bed, gazing in Stevie’s direction in horror. Stevie pressed herself upright in a second to face her friend, her heart already racing.
“What? Are you okay? What?”
Janelle pointed at the wall above Stevie’s bed. Stevie craned around, then jumped up when she saw what Janelle was indicating.
About four feet above where Stevie had been sleeping was the word SURPRISE.
July 11, 1978
9:30 p.m.
WHEN THE GATHERING IN THE CENTER OF TOWN DISBANDED, THE adults and the younger children all retired to their homes, to their television sets and bedrooms. To safety. To normality. But in the middle of the town, the teenagers, the ones who had come closest to the beast—they were awake.
They needed their own gathering, one that wasn’t powered by Jell-O salads and burgers and polite talk. The parents of Barlow Corners allowed them to go, but only in groups, and only if they promised not to leave the football field. Because if they did not let them go, they would find another way—they would sneak into the woods to talk. Better to let them go as a group, in the open seclusion of the field, where no one could sneak up on them.
So they gathered, coming from dozens of cars in the parking lot. Some arrived singly, and others in groups. Someone went into the school and switched some of the outside lights on, but these did not penetrate the middle of the field. All around, the dark curtain of the woods penned them in. Everyone knew what had happened—and yet no one knew what had happened. Just enough information had leaked to make a mess of the facts. As the days wore on, the story had whipped around in ever-wider loops, taking on new and strange qualities with every pass. You could hear all these stories passing from one person to another:
“I heard all their fingers were cut off.”
“There was a message written in blood on a tree.”
“I heard they found Sabrina’s head in a McDonald’s bag.”
Patty Horne had come with three other girls. They had been dropped off by her friend Candice’s father, who leaned against the hood of his car and watched them. Because Patty had been close to the victims, she had pride of place at this strange gathering. She sat, the understood queen of a large circle of people who spoke quietly and looked respectfully in her direction.
“What about Shawn?” she heard someone say. “He was freaked out about Sabrina. I bet he did it. He’s not even here. . . .”
Was this how it was going to be? People talking about severed heads and fingers and guessing who may have done it?
Apparently.
Candice passed her a cigarette and she accepted it. She reached into her fringed purse for some matches. Look how normal it all was—sitting here in her flip-flops and her yellow halter top and white shorts, getting grass stains on her ass and mosquito bites on her arms, smoking and talking with everyone from Liberty High here in the dark. What was real, even?
Then she saw a figure approaching, one she had been expecting. Greg Dempsey, her boyfriend. His dark shaggy hair was blown all over, which meant he had come on his motorcycle. He wore cutoffs and a beat-up Led Zeppelin T-shirt. That felt like a tribute to Diane, who’d loved the band with all her heart and soul.
Without a word, the group all shifted to make space for him next to Patty. He opened the bag he was carrying and pulled out a six-pack of Miller beer and cracked one open for himself, leaving the rest in the grass, an open invitation to Patty and really no one else.
“Your dad here?” he asked.
“No. He’s still working with the cops.”
“Doing what?”
“Patrolling or something.”
Patty’s father was a little older than most of her friends’ parents. He was one of the town’s illustrious war heroes. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew that Mr. Horne had been a spy or something. He wasn’t a cop, but he was the kind of heavy guy who could help out when you were looking for a murderer. The town had a posse now, rolling slowly through the streets, watching the darkness at the edge of the woods.
“You want to get out of here?” Greg said quietly.
“Not allowed,” she said, nodding to Candice’s father. “He’s watching, and he’s taking us home at eleven.”
“Who cares? Let’s go.”
“Seriously,” she said.
Greg shook his head. He was almost nineteen now, and out of high school. He had never really answered to his parents before, and he definitely didn’t now. He shook his head and reached into his pocket, producing a handful of joints.
“Last ones,” he said. “Last of Diane’s rolls.”
Candice looked over at Greg as he lit one of the joints.
“They’re watching,” she said, indicating the cars and silent forms of the parents on the edge of the field.
“So? They can’t see. Looks like a cigarette.”
“What if they smell it?”
Greg took a long drag and passed it to Patty, who declined. Greg exhaled hard.
“So is this how it is now?” he said. “Who cares what they see?”
“If my dad saw me with a joint he wouldn’t pay for my college,” Candice replied.
He looked to Patty for an answer.
“You’re not going to college,” he said. “What’s your excuse?”
“Excuse? I live with him.”
“For now. Are you going to live with Daddy forever? Do what he says?”
“Until I get my own place.”
Greg let out a short laugh. “When are you going to get your own place?”
Patty looked down. She had no plan, really. It was possible that, yes, she would live with her father forever and do what he said. She hadn’t thought about what would happen to her life much beyond this summer, and now this summer, while not over, was forever changed. Life would be different now.
An uncomfortable silence fell as the joint made its way around the circle. Greg pounded the rest of the beer and opened a second.
“They think maybe it had to do with drugs,” Candice finally said. “That’s what we were talking about before. Whoever Eric was buying from must have done it.”
Greg said nothing.
“You were selling before Eric,” Candice said.
“Yeah?”