I don’t talk about Bridgewater.
My parents divorced when I was twelve, which meant I basically made it through the first, awkward year of middle school, only to have to do it over again in another school as the new kid.
“Hey Asa,” I heard behind me. I knew it was Derek Grove, which meant it was a toss up whether I was about to get a suckerpunch or a cool handshake.
Today was a cool handshake. “So, new kid, you’ve really never had a Halloween in Bridgewater yet, huh.” Derek slung his backpack across one shoulder and fell into stride with me. We walked and we talked, we were twelve and that meant we had places to go after school finally set us loose.
“Uh, no, I just moved here in August.” I shot him a sideways glance, hoping he didn’t hear the slight condescension I couldn’t keep out of my voice. How he had the awareness enough that I was new, but was still shocked that I wasn’t here for something a full year back.
“Well,” and Derek slung an arm around me, “it’s your lucky day. You heard of the Cut and Run?”
I cocked an eyebrow at him, curious. “What, like causing trouble and ditching? Or like, cutting your losses and getting out of dodge?”
“Heh,” Derek chuckled, elbowing me in the ribs with approval. “Yeah, cuttin’ your losses sounds about right. You’re so lucky though, because me, Jeff, and Cecily are going to bring you in on what it’s really about. And, we’re gonna do it tonight.”
By this point, we were out of the school and in the leaf-paved path through the woods. “So it’s like a game? Any rules I should know about?”
“Just be ready. Maybe take a leak beforehand so if you get freaked, you don’t turn into a giant pissbaby.” Another shove to my ribs, but at least I was being included. And better, I was being included with Cecily. I had pretty much fell in love with her on my first day of classes.
Out of the trees and at our point of divergence, Derek called out, “I’ll come get you at 8 tonight. We’re bringing our bikes, but I think otherwise we’ve got everything else…thought if you wanna be on the safe side, we could probably do with an extra blade.”
He waggled his eyebrows at me, and we fully parted ways. Derek is hard to read. He’s a nice guy with a tendency to prove his tween masculinity in front of other cool kids, and a brain that isn’t book smart at all, but is creative as compensation. I could never get a proper read on him, but we were friends nonetheless. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich when I got home, kicked back on the couch with an MTV dating show on in the background, and started on my homework.
By the time it was dark, I’d already told my mom of my plans – how I was staying over Derek’s tonight, since it’s Halloween we’re going to watch a horror marathon. I’d always been such a good kid, she didn’t even bat an eye.
We hadn’t talked about costumes. I didn’t want Cecily to think I was a dork if I dressed up, but I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like Halloween when it was such a big deal in Bridgewater. I decided to wear all black, tell her I was a robber if she asked. It didn’t feel like much of a stretch, given that I was carrying a sack (for my mom’s benefit) and a Swiss army knife (for my…or Derek’s? Benefit). My stomach was doing gymnastics under my black sweater.
“Headin’ out, baby?” my mom called from the living room. I froze for a moment, then continued to the porch to put on my shoes.
“Yeah, I’m going to school right from Derek’s in the morning. His mom drives him in, and she’s making muffins,” I told her. Derek really does get a ride in sometimes, and I figured this would settle my mom’s nerves.
My whole bike ride over, I expected the boogeyman to jump out from any corner. I never knew what Derek really wanted, and him inviting me to be included definitely came with conditions.
But I showed up to his (rather nice) house around 8pm. Mrs. Grove opened the door, eyes a little red and hazy, and I saw a festive glass in her hand. “Oh, hi!” she tittered. “DEREK!” she screamed behind her, directed at the stairwell.
“God, what now?” I heard from the floor above. “WHAT, MOM?” Derek’s footsteps fell loudly on the ceiling above me.
“Oh, hey, Asa,” he grinned from the top of the staircase, seeing me standing awkwardly in his doorway. “Thanks, mom.” He dismissively said to his mother, who floated back toward the kitchen.
“So, you came,” Derek’s eyes twinkled. He honestly looked a little impressed, but it could’ve been my adolescent ego assuming he underestimated me and assumed I’d shirk tonight’s adventures.
“Yep, I told you I would,” I said, hopefully sounding nonchalant. “Where are the others?”
Derek put his shoes on and pulled me out the door. “Who, Cecily?” He asked. I felt the near-audible elbow nudge in his voice. So he knew.
“Uh yeah,” I said, shuffling slightly in the dirt. “And Jeff, you said?”
“Oh. Yeah. We’ll be meeting them on Cross Street.”
Cross Street was right by the woods – not the path that Derek and I took from school, but the deep woods that even the new kid knew to avoid. Especially at night. Especially on fucking Halloween.
God. I was so stupid.
“Cool.”
-
“You, uh, going to tell me the story?” I asked. We were in pitch blackness with our flashlights off in the deep forest. The four of us stood close together to keep warm, but not so close as to give away our fear.
“Derek tells it best,” Cecily said. She stood between him and myself. That meant he was next to her, but it also meant I was next to her. I was twelve, give me a break.
“Alright, Derek,” Jeff chuckled. “Tell the noob why we’re here.”
Derek flicked a lighter I didn’t know he had in front of his face. The red light threw his face into relief, looking nearly a caricature of his usual self.
“So you want to know why we do the cut and run on Halloween?” he asked ghoulishly.
“I’d settle for knowing what the cut and run is,” I muttered. Cecily giggled a little beside me. Point 1: Asa.
Derek reached across the circle and shoved me. I staggered but stayed on my feet, and reoriented myself in the circle. “We’ll get to it when I say so.”
He resumed his ghastly, fire-lit demeanor. “The cut and run is a tradition the kids of Bridgewater follow every Halloween. See, back in the 20s, a whacko escaped the psychiatric jail down the road on All Hallow’s Eve. He massacred every kid who came through this path in these woods. He waited and ambushed every single person who crossed his way that night. Except for one. He let one kid go to tell the grownups what happened to their children.”
“Derek, what the fuck? This is messed up –” I started.
“Shut up, you pissbaby. I’m not done. See, this freak, they called him by his last name Fernald, wouldn’t just slit the kids’ throat. He would get so worked up into a frenzy that he would cut them all over the place, cover them in non-fatal wounds but disfigure them. See, Asa, this is why I said to shut up. Because I didn’t even get to tell the part where the parents would have to try to identify their kids in the morgue, but couldn’t because they were so fucked up. Kids went unmourned and buried in anonymous graves. Tell me that kind of grief doesn’t leave a mark on a place.”
A heavy silence fell after Derek finished his story. His lighter flicked out and we stood in the dark.
A sudden, loud clap brought us to attention. “SO!” Derek shouted, laughing. “Oh god, you guys are such wimps. C’mon, why so serious! Let’s play, it’s tradition, after all.” He waggled his fingers at Cecily, who rolled her eyes but smirked. Point 2: Derek.
“Tell him the game, Derek,” Jeff said. Derek was a little annoyed at his interrupting attention from Cecily, but he really reveled being in the spotlight.
“You bring a knife, Asa?” Derek murmured conspiratorily. He leaned in and I just nodded. “Good. You’ll need it.”
He turned a flashlight on and focused it on himself. “The game is Cut and Run,” Derek announced. “In honor of Fernald, we’re here to play until midnight, which is when he ran off and was never seen again. We’re going to take out our knives, call for him, and shut off our lights. At midnight, the flashlights come on again. Last one standing wins. Just like the one kid who lived to tell the tale,” he grinned.
Last one standing? “Last one standing?” I asked. Cecily shuffled beside me: clearly, Derek hadn’t told her how to play this game either. I took a step closer to her in solidarity, and she didn’t move away. The score stands me: 2; Derek: 1. Not that I was counting, it’s fine.
Derek leered. “Yeah, that’s what I said,” he spat at me. Upon seeing Cecily’s discomfort, he softened. “Cec, it’s just a game. Nothing happens when the lights go out, we’ll just freak ourselves out.”
I looked at my watch. 10:45pm.
Derek spoke up before any further hesitation could arise. “C’mon,” he said. “We need to get ready.”
-
It was 10:59pm now, and we were standing off the hardly-beaten path in the deep woods off Cross Street. “Alright guys, take out your knives,” Derek demanded.
I was shocked to see Derek had brought a variety, but I kept it to myself. I was comfortable with my pocket knife – before I arrived in Bridgewater, I lived in a more rural area and my dad used to take me hunting and hiking. My Swiss army knife was like an extension of my hand, so when he jeered at me, I was able to shrug it off easily. Cecily’s hand shook when she held her slim bread knife, and Jeff was comfortable while doing tricks with his buck knife. Ultimately, Derek settled on a serrated blade that was absolutely all show and would buckle in real combat. Not that I was expecting combat.
And for the first while, there wasn’t any. There wasn’t anything. We squatted on the forest floor and chattered a little, but the edge of the anxiety had worn off. We were most way to midnight, and we were just preteen tools fiddling with knives in the dark, as promised. Derek was flirting quietly the whole time, and I stopped keeping score: surely, Cecily liked him better if she’s been listening to him babble for so long.
Snap.
“You guys hear that?” Jeff murmured. We fell quiet, like the silence would help us see in the pitch blackness.
“Yeah,” I breathed. I felt Cecily stiffen up, having clearly heard the sound and me having confirmed it wasn’t in her head. I think she knew I wouldn’t be involved in a prank like this.
The rest of the night happened in a blur. I couldn’t see, I just couldn’t see, and all I could hear were screams. Not squealing twelve-year-olds freaked out on Halloween night, but shrieks of absolute terror and agony. Hearing a newly deepened voice pierce the night, sounding like an infant, struck a new flavor of fear in my chest.
I could hear a guttural grunting sound, and it couldn’t come from one of my friends. It was low and feral, it sounded…thirsty.
I was hunched on the ground, taking up as little space as I could, covering my ears. A rough, wet hand grasped my arm and pulled it away from my ear. “You better fucking listen, boy,” the thirsty voice growled through clenched teeth. I heard a final, choked cry as a blade audibly cut through flesh. I know because I heard it clang off of bone. It’s a distinct noise. You don’t forget it.
Beep beep.
My watch lit up as midnight struck. It was just light enough for me to fumble for a close-by flashlight, and I hit the switch. Flickering to life, I saw a scene that was beyond appalling: I saw a mangled mess of bodies and soil saturated in blood. The ground was black from it.
I was completely frozen in place until my eyes were obscured by a hand. It was the voice I heard earlier, and visceral terror seared my stomach. “Run, boy,” it muttered in my ear.
And I never moved faster. The trees of the deep woods were thick, and vines and thin branches whipped at my face. I ran until my legs burned, and my chest heaved, and I vomited all down my front. I ran until my body didn’t hurt at all. And I made it to my house.
I broke a pane of glass in my door to unlock it for myself, not bothering to check the lock in the first place. My mom appeared at the top of the steps, and I blacked out.
-
I never recovered. I was a weird kid, always alone, even in a new town, even decades later. I was never okay. I struggled with self-injury, I struggled with drugs. So did Mr. Grove. So did my mom, after I started. Jeff’s dad left town. Cecily’s brother killed himself, slit his wrists with a slim little bread knife. I will never stop asking myself: why?
Why was I spared when my friends were not?
I don’t talk about Bridgewater. I will never go back.