Page 8 of The Bleeding Woods

A breeze nips my skin as I flood the car with gasoline.

Considering the layer of rust encrusted to the dilapidated structure, I’m surprised it has a supply buried beneath the aged concrete at my feet.

The area is deserted. I can’t imagine many people pass through in need.

Perhaps the gallons being pumped were dropped off when the cluster of buildings in the far distance were operational.

They are made from weather- and time-beaten limestone.

They are skeletal remains. A flimsy layer of barbed wire has been placed to deter unwelcome visitors.

My mind plays eagerly with images of who might be crazy enough to cut their jeans leaping over it.

It’s a welcome distraction to my musings of what transpired beyond.

I glance down at my phone, pulling up a map-devoted application.

On it, there is no indication of buildings nearby.

There’s no indication of the gas station either.

The sound of the gas flow sputtering to a halt pulls me from my thoughts before they can spiral.

I shove my phone back into my pocket, yank the nozzle from the tank, and tuck it back into its ancient socket.

Jade rolls down her window. “Want a cigarette?”

“Don’t do that in the car. It’s new. Also, you shouldn’t smoke at gas stations.”

She pulls out her lighter and lights up the stick hanging between her teeth. A plume of smoke pours into the air around us.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I know better than to pick another fight with her.

I’m lucky she came along, and she’s ensuring I know it.

Electing to keep quiet now and shampoo the seats later, I lean against the boxy edge of the Hummer.

Jade’s eyes meander to the faraway buildings, nonexistent to satellites but very existent to us.

“What are those?” She coughs.

“No idea.” I shrug. “They’re kind of weird, though.”

“We should drive over and check them out.”

Before I can counter, a coupe making every attempt to morph into a mirror pulls up to the gas pump opposite ours.

It produces a man wearing sunglasses too opaque to be functional and an ensemble too formal for anything up ahead.

He marches hastily into the convenient store, but not before crashing into Joey.

My brother is many things, but graceful is not one of them.

His face is overcome with a pallor that highlights the freckles flecked across his nose. In place of a flippant smirk, he wears a frown stiffened by unease and dismay.

“What happened, kid?” Jade puts out her cigarette. “All out of chocolate?”

He shakes his head. It’s rare for Joey to be quiet, and even rarer for him to appear on edge. I surmise bumping into someone unexpected spooked him, but even Jade recognizes the uncanniness of his silence. She meets his wordless response with a huff and starts unbuckling her seat belt.

“Tell me who I’m hitting,” she says between knuckle snaps.

He races to keep her door shut, which leaves a perplexed look on her face.

She quickly replaces it with a lighthearted smirk and a chuckle that fails to chase the shadows from his gaze.

“All right, I won’t pick a fight, I promise.

I’ll just have a little chat with whoever messed with you. ”

“No one messed with me, but . . . I’m worried he’ll mess with Clara,” he explains.

Jade turns to stone, and though she’d never admit to it, she looks a lot less likely to keep her promise now.

“What do you mean?” I ask, attempting to soothe both of them. In actuality, I can barely feel the air as it spirals down my windpipe. “Where’s Clara? Is she all right?”

“I don’t know,” Joey mumbles. His eyes dart through the dust-coated windows, narrow, nervous, and analytical. “I’ll just go get her. Wait here, and don’t let Jade out of the car.”

I lean my weight against Jade’s door, brows knotted. She rages against the handle with an orchestra of grumbles and grunts.

The windows lining the store are as murky as brackish water.

On top of that, rows of derelict signage block the sparse pockets of clarity.

From here, I see only silhouettes moving like bedsheets hung in the breeze.

Fine soot gives them outlines, like TV static crackling against a poor cable connection.

Try as I might, I cannot see Joey, Clara, or the gentleman who entered behind them.

Jade begins crawling over the central console. I race around to the driver’s side to stop her, climbing in to keep her from wedging herself between the front seats.

“I just want to talk to the guy,” she assures me in the least convincing way possible. “It’ll take me two minutes.”

“You’re going to get us arrested.”

“No, I’m not—but for the record, I’ve been arrested twice, and it’s not that bad. If things go sideways, your family can bail us out and you can blame the whole thing on me. They already hate me, don’t they?”

“No, they—” I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose the same way my father used to. “It’s complicated. Please, just stay in the car. I’ll go in and help Joey, but we can’t risk—”

Joey emerges with his hand clamped around Clara’s wrist. She stumbles behind him, her legs weaving into one another with each step.

“You handled it better than I would have,” he says, propping her door open.

“Handled what?” I ask, trying to keep my fervid worry under an appropriate amount of wraps.

Clara fidgets as she settles into her seat. The most delicate pink hue crawls over her cheeks, subtly moving through contractions on account of her rapid breathing.

“Clara just ensured she’d die alone by failing to flirt with the creepiest dude I’ve ever seen.”

The rest of their back-and-forth turns into high-pitched white noise.

As my foot slams onto the gas pedal, the car lurches forward with a thunderous thrum.

We leave the decaying gas station in a surge of dirt stirred up by the tires.

They emit a terrible screech, racing off the concrete and onto the asphalt.

In minutes, the structure is nothing but a mirage disappearing over the horizon, a speck on this anomalously straight road.

Sleep steals both Clara and Jade. Joey toys with the threads hanging from his sweater, knotting them in patterns.

It feels as though I’ve been driving for five hours and five seconds, five moments and five years.

There are too many trees, all of them lined up on a loop.

The sky doesn’t change, so still that it’s like a curated dome of overhead clouds.

I’m tired; I’m wired. I’m calm; I’m restless.

I could stay this course for a hundred years; I want to pull over and sleep forever.

“I never realized how . . . straight this road was,” Joey whispers. “I swore it had more turns. The last time we came up here with Dad, it felt like it had more turns.”

“Joey.” I swallow what I wanted to say. “What happened in the gas station?”

A small ball of tinfoil pelts the back of my head. It rolls beneath the collar of my shirt, imprisoning itself somewhere at the small of my back. I flash a tiny smirk in the rearview mirror. Despite our twelve-year age difference, Joey’s smirk is identical to mine.

“Why? Are you jealous?”

“Curious.”

“Yeah, right.” He chuckles. “The dramatic zoom away was real curious of you. If you must know, the guy running the gas station was hot, but in a weird, sinister kind of way. He wasn’t my type, but he was definitely Clara’s. I’ve never seen her like that before. She could barely speak.”

Once again, I swallow what I’d like to say, for my brother’s sake.

I filter the deluge of adrenaline in my veins through my hands, because if I let it fall to my driving foot, we’ll soar to ninety miles per hour.

Clara still sleeps soundly at my side, her head nestled in the crook of an arm she’s propped against the window.

Her eyelashes are blown about by the air conditioner.

I reach over to turn it away and brush a strand of hair from her forehead.

Joey’s smirk widens. “Sorry, Gray. We might have some golden genes, but trust me, he has you beat.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem. I’ll be here all week.” He grins, popping off another square of chocolate. “Want some? You seem to be in need of comfort food.”

I purse my lips, eyes focused on the strip of asphalt ahead. The tunnel of trees to our left and right is gradually closing in, narrowing the path. The double yellow line tapers off as the road itself shifts from vibrant, freshly paved black to fissured, sun-battered gray.

“What did he look like?”

“Tall. Chiseled. On the paler side, but without the adorable freckles we’ve got. It wasn’t just his looks, though. He mastered the ‘secretly-a-serial-killer-chic’ vibe, and Clara was totally into it.”

“Did they talk?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t stick around to spy on them. Like I said, he gave me the creeps.”

He waggles a piece of chocolate at me, nibbled to enhance the sharpness of its edges. I accept it with a sigh, though I can barely pull in enough air to fuel it. Whether I care to admit it or not, I’m in need of a lot more than comfort food. This will have to do.