The day before Mikey died, we were bowling.
It was a school night, and our parents didn’t expect us until seven that evening. A school project, we lied to their faces. Finals week was just around the corner, and with that much baggage bearing down at our prepubescent backs, we decided to sneak out and head to Andy’s.
Andy’s was what we called Anderson’s Entertainment Club. It had a fancy name, but that was all that was fancy about it. It was your run-of-the-mill spot for teenagers to avoid the whims of life, enjoying each other’s company and sometimes more. Though some of us were a few years shy of being thirteen, we loved it there. Nobody gave us so much as a glance, as long as you didn’t do anything stupid like ordering beers on the counter. Everyone had their own worlds. You just stuck to a lane and let the hours go by.
Drew was killing it. The night had gone on, and he already had a dozen strikes under his belt. Lance couldn’t care less, but he tried. Mikey copped a few strikes of his own, but that was it. Nevertheless, he was dead set on beating Drew. I was lucky to get a few good hits here and there, but at that point, I wasn’t paying attention to my score.
Mikey was hawking. That’s what we called it when his ego rose to the surface, which was commonplace enough for it to earn a special name. See, Mikey just had his braces done that summer, so whenever he got worked up, he would be quiet. When he reached a turning point, he’d explode, and so would his saliva. It was disgusting, but deeply entertaining.
“Again,” yelled Mikey as he picked up a bowling ball.
“No way,” Drew replied.
“‘No way’ you can’t do it or ‘no way’ you give up?”
“There’s no way you can catch up, dumbass.”
“Watch.”
It was at that stage where the protocol was to egg him on. It was an unspoken agreement and everyone knew about it. We weren’t trying to be mean or anything, but somewhere in our minds, it was funny watching Mikey turn into an absolute tool.
He hit the gutter. Mikey cursed and stomped back to his seat, spit flying in every direction. We laughed and laughed, and I remember almost crying. Our faces hurt from the smiles plastered on them and it was that way until we left an hour later.
It was somewhere between ten and midnight. We honestly didn’t know but truth be told, we didn’t care. Our bikes were parked a few blocks down because someone warned us months back that some asshole was out stealing them. I remember looking up and trying to find the moon because it was so dark. The streets were lit by the orange glow of streetlights, and almost unconsciously, we stuck to them. We were kids, and frankly, some of us were still afraid of the dark, even if we couldn’t admit it.
“Did you hear that?” Mikey had suddenly said.
“Lame. What are you, five?” I remember saying. I tried to be brave, but at that hour, when the shadows were long and every alleyway could hide a mugger or a crackhead, it was difficult. The only reason that kept me from running at that point was the instinctual feeling of safety being in a group.
“No, really, listen.”
And we did. We strained our ears, but all we could hear was the faint electric buzz of the streetlight ahead.
Lance shoved Mikey with an elbow, “You lost so now you’re trying to mess with us? Ethan’s right, that’s just lame.”
Mikey was adamant, “You guys didn’t hear that?”
We tried again, but at that point, we knew he was just trying to get back at us for humiliating him. It usually didn’t work, but this time, I wasn’t so sure.
“There.”
He had pointed towards a dark alley, sandwiched between two buildings that had been out of use for years. I hadn’t realized it, but we were in a bad part of town. We all looked and saw that the alley was covered by a large wooden fence. Some garbage was strewn across the ground and I swear I could have smelled roadkill from one of the black bags.
Drew spoke after a while, “This is stupid. Come on guys, my parents are going to kill me. Plus, I don’t wanna get mugged by some bum.”
Lance and I silently agreed and walked, leaving Mikey to his lonesome. We thought it would put some sense into him, leaving him there in the middle of the street. It was only a few paces when Mikey called out to us.
“Hey, there’s a hole here.”
“Don’t stick anything in there!” shouted Drew, the joke earning him a few chuckles from us. It was crass, but it helped ease the tension. We weren’t in any immediate danger, but even Drew could feel it. There was something horribly wrong about where we were. Though he smiled at his innuendo, I saw it fade away in seconds.
Whether it was out of curiosity or concern, I looked back. Mikey had walked closer towards the alley. I stopped, prompting the others to do the same.
“Let’s go,” I yelled. Lance and Drew called his name but he was unmoving, almost transfixed at whatever caught his attention. At that point, we were uncomfortable enough to contemplate dragging him across the street. It was Drew who had enough.
He ran towards Mikey, ready to grab him by the arm. Mikey was already by the wooden fence, but he stopped. Words were exchanged. I couldn’t hear anything, but at that distance, I felt like Drew was trying to talk him out of something.
That was when Mikey looked. He stooped down and looked through the hole. It was the size of a coin, and it was small enough for me to almost miss it, until he had pointed it out earlier. I watched as Drew stood behind him, waiting.
Mikey said something. Whatever it was, Drew stomped back towards us, yelling. “Just leave him.”
He strode past us. Lance and I looked at each other, both unsure of what to do next. But if it was staying here or leaving, the answer was obvious. We turned away and followed after Drew. Before we turned a corner, I looked back and saw Mikey.
He was still looking.
My dad chewed me out that night. He asked me where I was, or what I was doing, and I promised that it had nothing to do with drugs. I couldn’t tell him about Andy’s. Telling him would risk supplying him information about who I was with, which could lead to other parents knowing about what their children did. It was code. I wasn’t worried about it at all. Fortunately, he didn’t ground me, but instead took away my console for a week. Fine, I got off easy.
What I was really worried about was Mikey. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stared at my ceiling, and in its blank surface, I saw Mikey bending over, peering through the hole. Shadows surrounded him, and down the street, the lights flickered on and off. I tossed and turned in my bed, trying to get the smell of roadkill off of my mind.
I didn’t sleep. The next morning, my dad stopped me. He was just on the phone.
“Hey, Ethan, was Michael with you last night?”
My heart sank like a rock. Mikey hadn’t come home. I thought of lying. What about the code? We hadn’t told our parents that we were out with each other on the project. We loved to lie, but they were rarely elaborate.
“Ethan, is there something you’re not telling me?”
I told him everything.
The morning went on. My dad made calls, coordinating with the other parents. They were exchanging information, building up last night’s story. Bits here, pieces there, and soon they would have a clear picture of us leaving Mikey on his own. I stayed in my room stewing in my guilt, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was bad. My Dad’s voice was higher than usual, and he paced along the house. At one point, he shouted over the phone, saying how it wasn’t my fault.
Was it?
I left him there. I didn’t try hard enough. What happened?
The police came. I was called from my room and I saw two officers at our doorstep. They wanted to take a statement from me. I was nervous. But before they could ask me a question, I made the first one.
“Is Mikey okay?”
One of the officers replied, a tall guy with dark skin.
“We’re doing our best to find him, son. We need your help on that.”
I told them what I saw that night. I told them about where we were and what we did, and where I last saw Mikey. I hesitated telling them about the part where we left him there in the alley, staring through the hole.
“And was there anyone else there with you?”
“Just us.”
“Anyone besides your group, someone on the sidewalk, that sort of thing?”
I shook my head.
“Were there any cars around?”
I tried to recall, “No, there weren’t.”
He wrote that in his tiny notebook. After a while, they stood up, thanked us for our time, and left. I went to my room and waited.
It was 9 p.m. when they found him. Michael Dunning was found floating face down in a shallow river two miles outside of town. A truck driver saw his bike parked on the side of the road. Mikey, who sucked at bowling, was dead. Mikey, who wore braces and talked funny, was dead.
I was empty. I spent the entire night and the days after like a husk. Shock had done its job well, and shut me up good. Everywhere I looked, it reminded me of my friend, each memory a gut punch, knowing that they would be the only thing left of him.
At school, everyone looked at me like I did it. After all, we were the last ones to have seen him alive. I pretended that I couldn’t hear them, but I did. Only a few seriously thought that we were suspects, and most I heard was that they called us cursed.
I spoke to Lance about it during lunch. It had been days since we last saw each other. His eyes had a tired look about them, complete with sleepless rings. Drew hadn’t gone back to school yet.
“It’s stupid. They think we did it.”
“Just dumb rumors.”
“And did you hear them say how we’re somehow next?”
Lance had gone quiet.
“Wait, you believe that?”
He stood up from the table to leave, “You don’t know everything, man.”
“What don’t I know?” I said, a little bit too loud. Honestly, I was tired of being kept in the dark. My dad had done a good job of doing just that. But when I saw Lance’s eyes, my anger was snuffed out like a flame. There were tears in them, and fear.
“He was smiling.”
“What?”
“Mikey—they found him smiling in the river.”
“I’m going with or without you.”
I stood silent. Drew stared us down, me and Lance, as we begged him not to go.
“It’s too dangerous,” Lance said.
Drew turned towards his bike, “I have to know.”
I looked at Lance, and he was looking at me. We both had the same idea. As Drew took off, we hopped on our bikes and followed.
We were going to the peephole.
It was a half an hour ride across town to Andy’s. Ever since the incident, the place had been shut down for the time being. I remember that day being unbearably cold. The sun leeched across the gray sky, and a strong wind had picked up. It bore against our backs, pushing us as we cycled wordlessly through the streets, pushing us closer to what we hoped was the truth.
We almost didn’t recognize the place when it was empty. The double doors were barred, a sign that said “Closed” hanging inside. Each of us stashed our bikes next to a nearby dumpster before we began to retrace our steps.
As we walked through the silent streets of that part of town, it dawned on us that it wasn’t going to be easy. Though daylight had peeled back the darkness that scared us, it was also like being in a whole other world. We couldn’t remember the path we took, and it wasn’t long before we began to argue.
“I know where I’m going,” grunted Drew.
Lance shook his head, pointing in the opposite direction, “We missed a turn.”
“You’re both delusional. We turned right after the concrete building, not before,” I added.
We quickly fell into bickering, each of us sure of our own bearings. It was like that for a while, as we walked through the streets, pointing and yelling at each other like maniacs. However, the mood flipped like a switch when we realized that the sun had begun to set.
Lance turned towards where we came from, “It’s getting dark. We should go.”
I silently agreed. Drew, however, would not be easily deterred.
“You go ahead.”
“What?” yelled Lance, “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe it only comes out at night.”
Lance and I exchanged looks. The way he said it…he was so sure.
“Drew, come on. Those are just stupid rumors,” Lance begged.
Drew turned towards us, his face dark, “I have to know.”
Soon enough, we were once again enveloped in that cold darkness that held us the night before. We turned a few blocks and instantly, it seemed as if we were in another town altogether. With streets that we didn’t recognize, buildings that weren’t there before, it made us all disoriented. We didn’t argue about being lost this time. With what Drew said, it was as if we had to be lost to find what we were looking for. It felt like that, having to embrace the creeping despair in our bellies that crawled up in our throats. But nothing came out. We were quiet travelers in an unknown realm, terrified that the nothingness would be able to hear us and send something back.
“There,” Drew pointed.
Lance and I looked. It was an alleyway, sure enough, but it didn’t look like the one Mikey stood on. The garbage strewn across the ground was missing, replaced by an old and rusted newspaper storage box. The alleyway ran a few feet further in before a tall wooden fence stopped it. We approached the fence like it was a sleeping predator. The soles of our feet hovered only inches above the pavement as we glided slowly across the street towards it. I wasn’t so sure at first, but it was soon unmistakable.
There was the faint smell of roadkill in the air.
And there it was, staring at us, an iris of pure black. It was a tiny, perfect little hole, the lines of grain warping around it naturally, so we knew it wasn’t drilled or bored through. From a few feet away, we tried to see the other half of the alleyway that lay on the other side, but there was nothing.
Drew inched closer.
“Don’t do it.”
It was me that spoke, but it felt like another person. I was no longer that kid who raced down a busy Saturday street on a rickety bicycle, or that kid who would jump off of a cliff a hundred feet down to a quarry lake. I was no longer the kid who would sneak out with his friends for a night of bowling, damn the consequences.
I was terrified.
Drew whispered, his voice hollow, “I have to know.”
And then he looked.
We watched our friend, still and silent.
Lance asked him, “What do you see?”
I wasn’t sure if Lance saw it, but I did. I stood to the side, closer to Drew than he was. Though the alleyway was narrow, there was enough room for me to see his face.
He was whispering an endless string of words, but no sound came out. Drew’s lips moved almost imperceptibly, as if his breath had failed him.
“Drew?” I asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
Then I caught his words. He spoke to me.
“…they want you to see.”
And he smiled.
That night, I remember running. I ran blindly through the dark streets. It was cold and I was tired, but more than that, I was scared.
I was scared because I wanted to look too.
It took two weeks to find him. He was farther in the woods than Mikey, and a hunter had found him at the base of a cliff. Drew Jackson had plummeted a hundred and fifty feet to his death, despite the multiple signs and warnings placed at the top. He fell on top of sheared stone, so his body was shredded into pieces upon impact. But despite all the gruesome details that I eventually came to know, only one stood out to me, which terrified me for all the years to come.
He was still smiling.
It’s been almost thirty years since then. I haven’t slept well in all that time. Nights were often sleepless, and when they weren’t, I got nightmares of my friends drowning or falling off cliffs. I’d wake up, and like the fluorescent burn of a light on your eyes when you looked at it too long, I would see a perfectly black spot at the center of my vision. It stayed that way until the daylight snuffed it out.
I visited them this morning. I left them both their favorite drinks and cleaned up their headstones. I promised them that they wouldn’t have died in vain.
I’ve been driving for hours now. There’s only an hour left until dark. I want to see what they saw. I have to know what took my friends.
I have to know.