The Answers Are In The Forest Page 4
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“You look like crap,” Olive said, walking into class and taking the seat next to me. A few others in class looked up and glanced in my direction. Olive smiled. It seemed she was almost pleased that I looked like poop. Due to my lack of sleep, my eyes were bloodshot, and I put in no effort when I got dressed.
I leaned over the side of my chair and said quietly, “I didn’t sleep well. There was a zombie rabbit in my basement last night.” And then I sighed. Hearing my words out loud, it totally sounded like I was making things up.
Olive processed what I said and bit her lip, smiling. “Ah, it was probably one of those poor bunnies who got hit by a car or something. There are decrepit bunnies all over this town.”
Olive’s response sounded quite rational. I nodded. Her answer helped calm me some, even though my shivering gut told me what she said was not true.
“Hey, do you know where Rusck Almeida’s locker is?”
“Bunny Boy?”
“Yeah.”
“First floor down near the swimming pool, I think. I saw you talking to him at the bowling alley. Do you have a thing for Bunny Boy?”
I shrugged. “I just wanted to ask him a question.”
“And that is?”
“You’re nosy. You know that?”
“Yes, I do. So?”
“Uh, just if he knows about the woods behind my house. Like I said, I think he lives near me.”
Olive smiled. “You’re just looking for an excuse to talk to him.”
Mrs. Hardwick walked into the classroom, carrying an armful of file folders and notebooks and wearing a billowy blouse and coordinating lilac pants. She dropped her pile of stuff on top of the metal teacher’s desk and glared in my direction.
Olive snickered. “I bet she put you on the list.”
“Huh?”
“I think what you said the other day threw up red flags. Supposedly, there’s a list of kids who should be monitored, like who might be a threat to the student body in the future.”
“That’s kind of unsettling that they have a whole list of students.”
Olive stuck a finger out at me. “It doesn’t bother you that you’re probably on it?”
I shrugged. The seats in the classroom filled up with other students, and the school day dragged on.
Chapter Six
When the last bell rang, I rushed through the hall, dodging stalled students, meandering teachers, and those lost in their own thoughts. I hopped around locker doors, scooted in between some backpacks, and came upon the hallway where Rusck’s locker supposedly was. I slowed my stride, tucked my hair behind my ear, and tried to look casual like maybe I just happened to wander by. Hopefully, he stopped by his locker before he went home.
I walked past a few more classrooms and saw Rusck partially squatted down, looking up into his locker. He wore a gray sweater, and his messenger bag lay on the ground next to him.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Roach.”
“In your locker?”
“Yeah, big one,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
“Oh, gross.”
He stood, looking at me. “Extermination services?”
“That would be a no.”
He scratched his head and glanced at me from underneath the hair that fell into his eyes.
“I wanted to ask you a question,” I said, bobbing my head.
He stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”
“Uh,” I started, taking a moment to formulate my words. “Is there any way I can talk with your brother?” I bit the tip of my pointer finger. “Because I don’t think I’ve seen him in school.”
His face went totally blank, which quickly turned into the scowl he seemed to be known for. He took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and looked at the ground. He then looked back up at me. “Is this some kinda joke? It’s not funny at all.” He turned his back on me and pulled his blazer and hoodie out of his locker, slipping them on. I noticed his arms were a little too long for the corduroy blazer; the bottom of his hoodie sleeves stuck out the bottom of the arm openings. He grabbed his orange bag from the floor and slammed his locker door. I jumped a little.
“No, no, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to upset you, but I’m serious.”
“Why on Earth would you want to talk to my brother?” He drew down his eyebrows, pursing his lips together.
I took a deep breath. “There was this rabbit in my basement last night and—” I stopped talking when I saw his face. He shook his head and licked his lips.
“You have problems.” He stormed off, slipping his bag over his head.
I chased him down the hall. His legs were a lot longer than mine, and he quickly got away. “Wait,” I yelled after him.
He disappeared out some doors at the end of the hall. I ran after him outside.
“Seriously, stop,” I screamed, seeing him cross the lawn. He walked a few more feet then stopped. Some kids running for the bus looked over at me. I zipped up my jacket as a chilly wind slapped me and ran over to Rusck. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and glared at me.
“What do you really want, Gabby? I don’t get it.” He blinked and ran a hand through his hair. He looked like he needed a hug, but it was so not the time for me to give him one.
“Listen…” I paused for a second and let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. There’s something going on with my house, and maybe he can tell me what. Maybe he was on to something.” I once again bit the tip of my finger.
Rusck huffed. “He probably won’t talk to you. He barely talks to me, and I’m the one he talks to the most. He’s still dealing with a lot of shit.”
“Oh.” I looked around at the school lawn, watching everybody dash home or head to the parking lot or off to some sort of practice, whatever everybody besides me did after school.
“What do you think it was that he was on to?” Rusck asked with a slight tip of the head.
“Okay, you know about those toys, right? And I thought somebody was in my basement. Well, last night I heard something again, and then I saw a shadow, and I swear it was of a little kid, and then there was this rabbit. Oh god, I don’t know.”
“What?” He stepped closer.
“I don’t think it was alive. It was moving and stuff, but it was all gross and mangled, and it opened its mouth, I swear as if to say something, and then I ran upstairs.” My stomach flipped just talking about it.
Rusck didn’t respond at first. He studied his feet and scratched the back of his neck. “I’ll see how he’s doing. I don’t want to trigger anything.”
I nodded.
“If my parents find out we were talking about rabbits and dead kids again, they’ll flip.”
I suddenly felt quite ashamed. I didn’t even think about him. I was just thinking about myself and what was probably an overactive imagination.
“Look, I’m sorry.”
“Um, you can come home with me,” he said, hooking his thumb under the strap to his messenger bag.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
We went and grabbed my bike and walked to his house, which was only about a block from school. His house was a colonial with blue siding and a white-railed front porch. I leaned my bike up against the porch, and Rusck let us in. We walked into a foyer with a living room off to the right and a dining room to the left. I followed him through the foyer past a set of stairs and into the back where the kitchen and family room were. He threw his bag on the island in the kitchen.
“Hey, baby.” A head popped out of a doorway in the back corner of the family room.
“Hey, Mom.”
His mom came across the family room, looking at me with a light smile on her face. She was a short woman with her black hair cut in a bob, and she had the same light-brown skin tone as Rusck. “Who do we have here?” She put her hands on her hips and waited for a reply.
“This is Gab
by. Gabby, this is my mom.”
I gave a little wave. “Hi.”
She pulled out a stool that sat around the island and patted the seat. Rusck shook his head. I walked over and sat down.
“Do you go to school with my Ruscky? Here, have some cassava cake.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking a piece from the plate she held out to me. “Yeah, I just moved here.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Where from?” Before I could answer, she turned to Rusck. “You have to pick up the lechon for tonight. Remember?”
“Yeah, Ma.”
“Your lola and lolo will be here soon.”
“We’re just doing some homework.”
“I’ll be gone soon enough,” I said.
“You can stay. Have some good Filipino food,” his mom said, starting to put away some dishes from the drying rack.
“I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Can we go now? I promise I’ll get the food,” Rusck said, shifting from foot to foot.
His mom waved at him. “Go.”
Rusck jerked his head to the side.
“Nice meeting you,” I said, slipping off the stool.
“Don’t study too hard,” she said, walking up to Rusck and patting his cheek.
I followed him out of the kitchen and shoved the rest of the cassava cake into my mouth.
“Just gonna throw this in my room. C’mon.”
“What’s lechon?” I asked as we went up a carpeted set of stairs with a light oak railing. His room was to the left of the landing.
“Pork,” he said, shoving open his door, tossing his bag in without looking. I squeezed past him into his room. “It’s my lolo’s birthday.”
“Cool. Who’s your lolo?”
“Grandpa. My grandma is my lola.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I can come back. Family stuff is important.”
Rusck closed the door. Once the door clicked shut, his mom yelled something. He opened the door, shaking his head. “I might’ve forgotten, and if somehow you can help Creed remember something, that would be good. We still know so little. But you probably should know a couple of things.”
“Okay,” I said, sitting in an orange plastic desk chair, glancing around his room. The walls were a light tan and covered in various band posters. Clothes, paper, and shoes lay strewn about on the floor. He had an unmade, wood-framed twin bed with a matching dresser. Pretty standard room stuff.
“I’m still not sure exactly what you want to find out, but I know there are still so many pieces missing from the puzzle.” He frowned and blinked.
“So, do you think there’s something to it?”
“I don’t know. I used to. I wanted to believe there was a rabbit somewhere that held the key. And it sounds so morbid, but a body, anything.” He sat on his bed. “Where he went when he was missing, what went on.” He looked down at his bed, picked up the edge of his comforter, and then put it back down with a sigh.
“I bet it’s pretty tough on you?”
He shrugged and flopped back, his eyes on the ceiling. “I feel so bad about it all, and it’s like nobody wants to bother to figure out what he was talking about. The doctors said it was a story his brain thought up to try to cope with what really happened. And now all everyone wants is for me and Creed to get past it. I almost wish I could, but he’s my twin brother, you know? And even if I wanted to move past it all, nobody at school would ever let me, anyway.”
“Well, maybe I can help you figure it out, because I’m pretty sure there is something going on with those rabbits.”
“It’s just all so fricking bizarre.”
“Yeah,” was all I could think of as a response.
“Goddamn stupid rabbits.” He sat up, and our eyes met, his staring into mine as if searching, like perhaps I already held the answer. “Let me go check on him.”
“Is he okay? What happened afterward?”
“He was so scared to leave the house at first. He does now, on occasion, but he doesn’t like to, and he’s so anxious now, and this sadness pours out of him.”
“That sucks. Does he ever talk about what happened?”
“Not anymore. Not that he knows much. Our parents started to think maybe it wasn’t a story to deal with his pain, that maybe he was hearing voices, seeing things, so he stopped. Never mentioned a dead body again.”
“Nobody knows who took him or anything?” I got up and sat next to Rusck on his bed.
“We don’t know where he went. All we know is something bad happened. At first, everyone thought maybe he just ran away, but then he was found. The doctors said his injuries were ones of someone who was bound and fought back.”
“Oh god.”
“His wrists were all bruised and bloody. He tried so hard to get away. He had a skull fracture.” Rusck touched the top of his wrist with two fingers.
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t even remember most of the week before that.”
“Repressed?”
“Traumatic brain injury, pretty major concussion. His brain started to swell.”
“Maybe I should just let him be. You mentioned triggering. I don’t want that to happen, for him to have to relive any of that.”
Rusck sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe finding answers will bring him some kind of peace.”
“That would be a good thing for him, like closure, maybe. And maybe he knows something but just doesn’t know it’s something. If that makes any sense.”
“He could use some sort of closure, something, anything. He’s just so scared of life now, going out there.”
“That’s understandable. Poor guy. That sucks.”
“So let me go see if he’s up and would like to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
I sat on the edge of Rusck’s bed, wringing my hands together until he came back about a minute later.
“Should I just go home?” Sitting there, thinking about it, why would some guy who didn’t know me agree to talk to me about rabbits? Rusck was right. It was all so bizarre.
“His room is right across the hall.”
“Okay.” I got up and followed Rusck. He pushed open his brother’s bedroom door and stepped aside to let me in. Sitting in a chair with his knees pulled up and arms wrapped around them sat someone who looked just like Rusck except with glasses and shorter hair pushed back off his face.
“My brother, Creed,” Rusck said.
“Um, hi,” I said with a wave.
Creed bit the corner of his lip and looked at me, blinking.
“I’m Gabby.”
Creed studied me for a moment. “Hi.”
You could’ve cut the awkwardness with giant garden shears.
“You sure you’re okay with the questions?” Rusck asked.
“Dude, I’m not a porcelain doll.”
“Creed…”
“I know. God. I know,” Creed said, letting go of his legs, leaning forward in his chair and clasping his hands together.
The two of them looked at each other, and neither said a word, but somehow, it eased the tension in the air. Twin magic, I guessed.
Creed nodded, glancing at me.
“So, rabbits,” I said, my eyes darting from Creed to Rusck and back to Creed.
Creed’s eyes went wide, and he took a sharp intake of air.
I cringed. “Sorry.”
He blinked and scratched his head. “It’s just…no. It’s okay.”
“Can you tell me what you know?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing around his room. It was much neater and more organized than Rusck’s. He had a couple of bookshelves with books arranged by color, his bed was made, textbooks stacked next to his computer on the desk.
“They were there, and they had something to say.”
“Did they talk to you?” I asked.
“I want to say yes, but honestly, I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand
over his face and sighed.
“Okay.”
Creed sat up straight, his shoulders drawn back a bit. He cocked his head. “You have to talk to them. Listen,” he said in a flat tone.
“Listen?” I asked.
Creed slumped back down in his chair and licked his lips, rubbing his hand over his mouth.
“You all right?” Rusck asked his brother.
Creed drew in deep breaths through his nose, closed his eyes, and slowly let them out.
“Creed?” Rusck touched his brother’s shoulder.
“What happened?” Creed asked, opening his eyes.
“You told me to listen to the rabbits, talk to them,” I said.
Creed scrunched up his nose. “I did?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s…” Creed put his hand on his chest and drew in some more deep breaths.
“Need a minute?” Rusck asked his brother.
Creed nodded, and the two of us got up to go. “Bunny,” Creed said. We stopped and turned back around.
“What did you call me?” Rusck asked.
“Bunny Boy,” Creed whispered.
“Where did you hear that?”
Creed got up from his chair and stood there staring at us. He blinked and shook his head and climbed into his bed. Rusck tugged on my wrist, and we went back to his room.
“I never told him that,” Rusck said softly.
“He must’ve overheard you at some point.”
“Never once have I said those words in this house.”
“Maybe your parents?” I asked, shaking my shoulders, a shiver running down my spine.
“No. That was…he’s never acted like that before.”
“Is he going to be okay? Was me coming here a bad idea?”
“He probably needs to rest. When he gets anxious, he likes to sleep, and he’s not having the best week. His depression is hitting him pretty hard these past few days, so maybe that’s it.”
“He told me to talk to them.”