My eyes never left the briars after that day. Whenever I rode my bike, I always had a look out of the corner of my eye at the dark tangle of sticker bushes.
Two things. 1. I was scared shitless about the boys in the briars and what happened that day I went in there. 2.I wanted that girl who came and stole my bike to come out again.
She might have haunted me even more than the boys who attacked me.
Days went by and I didn’t see her. I did hear a sound radiate out from past the briars one day I had to investigate though.
I found a boy my age with shaggy sandy hair fishing by the side of the river and playing shitty rap music on a bluetooth speaker.
I could tell the second I saw the crooked-toothed bastard that he was one of those country kids the town had who was overly friendly and probably a burgeoning hoodlum.
This was all confirmed within about 30 seconds of meeting him, after he told me his name was Axel, but his nickname was “Lunch Money.” Why? I didn’t ask, but he volunteered because he got bullied as a little kid and other kids took his lunch money but then he eventually fought back then he became the lunch money taker or some futile shit like that.
He would be helpful though. I started questioning him about the briars. He bit instantly.
“Don’t ever go in there. Your grandma’s right,” Lunch Money exclaimed. “If you’re in there long enough you become one.”
“Become what?”
“The boys in the briars. Like wild things. They live in there. Dirty and crazy. Probably eating the worms in the dirt.”
“You said ‘boys in the briars,’ but I definitely saw a girl in there. Our age. Red hair.”
“I guess there must be girls in there too. They always stay hid though.”
“How does this work though? These people eat, sleep, and breathe in the briars, and all year round? Like in the Winter when it’s two degrees?” I asked.
I loved how nonchalant Lunch Money was when he talked about all this wild shit like it was perfectly normal. Keep in mind that this was rural Idaho. It’s a weird scene where you just get used to the unordinary - especially when your name is Lunch Money.
“There’s a buried church in there,” Lunch Money explained.
“A-Buried-Church?” I asked back at him.
“Yeah, so there was this cult church. Like that one in Texas that burned down. It was like religious but sexual and the head guy of it…this Dr. Berry guy. He had like child brides. Their church was here by the river, but then the feds and shit were getting close in on them,” Lunch Money explained.
Lunch Money offered me some chew. I accepted so he would be encouraged to keep spilling beans all over the riverside.
“So the leader of the church. He buried the church in the briars because apparently no one really owns that land. Plus I think some of the people at the county office were protecting them. They’ve lived there on their own for like the last 20 years. Word is they sneak out and steal expensive shit, mostly guns, and other stuff, and sell it at auctions. People are scared of them though. So they leave them alone,” Lunch Money said.
“Yeah, they stole my bike,” I lamented. “The girl I was talking about.”
“Probably one of those child brides. Don’t fall in love, bro,” Lunch Money reasoned. “The doctor guy. He gets them raised and I think like uses them and the boys but lets them go when they’re adults because you never see any grown ones in there. Or maybe he kills them. Or maybe they’re magical. There’s magic here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Why don’t people just call the cops when they steal stuff?” I asked.
“There’s this Tupac quote I like live by that sums up that, and how you’re all googly about this girl from the briars,” Lunch Money went on. “Love’s a mystery. Fuck the popo.”
I pitched Lunch Money on going into the briars to help me get my bike back, and to try and meet that girl again. He agreed because he thought they stole his sister’s guitar, and because he also wanted to see this girl.
We agreed to go into the briars that night even though he said it was the craziest thing he would ever do.
Then I threw up from the chew.
-
I had a raging headache when I met Lunch Money in the fields to get ready to go out into the briars that night.
We moved just by moonlight. Not wanting to tip off the churchgoers with flashlights.
We made it into the briars and moved through without a plan. Just blindly looking for my bike and his sister’s guitar. And that girl.
We found the roof of the church.
It was a patch of white wood sticking up out of the dirt. Unmistakable as a roof.
I followed Lunch Money into the building and we found ourselves moving around the interior of a candlelit church. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
We were only through a few mostly-empty rooms when I found my bike. It was racked up against a bunch of other bikes in the corner of a room.
I wasted no time in grabbing it and heading back in the direction from where we came.
“Hey, what about the guitar?” Lunch Money yelled at me.
I shushed Lunch Money. He didn’t see what I was seeing - a large, shadowy figure, moving through the adjacent room, looking for something.
“Hey!” Lunch Money yelled at me again.
The large figure clearly heard Lunch Money’s second outburst because the figure raced into the room after us.
I jumped up on my bike and started to race away.
It was too late for Lunch Money. I heard him scream out in pain. I didn’t look back.
Then I was knocked to the ground. I started to panic before I heard a soft, feminine voice whisper into my ear.
“I’m going to help you,” she said.
Whoever she was helped me to my feet and ushered me through a door in the corner of the room.
I found myself in a cramped little room. Almost completely dark. I could only see one lone sliver of light..
It was enough to illuminate the girl who had stolen my bike and the white nightgown she wore as she peered back out a hole in the room that let said light in.
I got a better look at her. She was tall, strong, tan, and covered in scratches and scabs. Her long red hair fell all the way to her waist and she held onto it as she kept her eye out that opening of the light.
She finally turned away from the light and slid next to me, our hips just barely touching.
She cupped her hand and spoke directly into my ear.
“Just be quiet. You should be okay.”
“Who are you?” I asked her as quietly as I possibly could.
She looked back out that hole in the wall and then looked into my eyes - the blue in her eyes softly visible in that shred of light.
“Hannah,” she muttered back.
Then she put her hand against my chest and held me back as we listened to…
Footsteps walk right outside the room.
The footsteps wandered by. Then they passed.
Hannah explained this was her secret place and we were safe for at least a while.
I was worried about Lunch Money, but not enough to protest. I sat there and looked at Hannah through the candlelight.
It hit a point where one of us should have said something, but I had nothing to say. I was on her turf. She seemed to be controlling everything.
Hannah put my hand into her’s. I suddenly felt like I didn’t have anything to say. I just let it rest there.
“What’s your name?” Hannah finally asked.
I had to think about the answer to that question for the first time in my life.
I looked at her in the light - saw the scarring and scabs on her, but it didn’t stop her skin from shining in that shallow light and her eyes from popping. She was effortlessly beautiful.
I told her my name, eventually, but then we didn’t say much to each other.
We just stayed there in the night. Touching each other.
I thought about it as we sat there and her words and the cadence of how she spoke was odd. I wondered if she had ever been out in the real world. Had she ever watched TV? She may have never left those briars. Should I have trusted her? Was this a way to lure me in? What was the number carved into the back of my neck about?
I moved my hand up onto the back of Hannah’s neck as soon as that thought came across my mind. I couldn’t feel anything, but it prompted me to ask.
“What is the number on the back of my neck?” I whispered to Hannah.
I didn’t like how long she took to respond.
“Research. They tag you. So they know who you are if they find you again.”
Those were the last words I got to hear before the door in front of us flew open and I looked out at the scratched faces of three of the briar boys - their bodies flexed and ready to fight.
I screamed. Hannah didn’t. She just squeezed my hand and moved backward - yanking me out of the room.
I watched the briar boys move at me as Hannah pulled me backward, the incident almost a blur until I heard the cold of night surround me and I felt myself falling through the air.
Then I landed hard on the ground. Hannah came down on top of me after that.
I couldn’t breathe. My entire body ached. I knew I had to keep moving though.
So did Hannah apparently. She grabbed my hand and started leading me through the briars.
I have no idea how Hannah led us through the trails in the briars. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, just followed her lead.
I could tell we were being followed - I could hear heavy breathing and pounding footsteps behind us. They weren’t far away.
We reached the edge of the briars in a breathless flash.
Hannah pushed me out into the outskirts of Grandma’s farm field. I turned around and looked into the entrance to the briars.
Hannah stood there looking at me and I got my first great look at her. She stood in the moonlight in a white nightgown - her hair blowing in the wind. She looked perfect to me.
“GO!” She yelled at me.
I had this odd twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach, begging me to go back into those briars with her.
“Why?” I asked back.
She looked nervous - threw a glance over her bare shoulder.
“You can’t stay there. The longer you stay there. The harder it is to leave,” Hannah explained. “Go home.”
“Why don’t they just go into my house and grab me?”
“They can’t go out. I can’t go out. They’ll kill us if we leave.”
“Who’s they?”
“Really, you have to go back.”
“So I can leave you to be a child bride?”
“You don’t know me.”
With that, Hannah was off, and I was alone in the dark field.
I did the walk of shame through the field and had a cold realization when I got back to the front door.
I lost the key to the house.
I crawled up the drainpipe to get into my bedroom through my open bedroom window.
I laid down in my bed, still in my dirty clothes like there was some kind of chance I would fall asleep that night.
I had been lying awake for a few hours when I heard a key turn in the front door downstairs.