The Quarry Boy

The bell for first period had rung twenty minutes ago, maybe more. I could hear it echo faintly through the hills like a church chime underwater... just barely there if you knew what to listen for. I lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, not from nerves, just the morning chill still caught in my bones. July heat hadn’t kicked in yet, though the air already felt like warm glue. I didn’t even pretend to head toward the school. Walked straight past the gas station, past the church with its peeling white paint, past the Dollar General where the old men sit out front like sunburnt gargoyles with their Mountain Dews and half-lidded stares. Nobody stopped me. Nobody ever did. Pinegate Hollow doesn’t ask questions. Not unless it’s got a knife behind its back. I kicked a rock down the middle of the cracked road. It bounced off a beer can and clattered into a ditch. My boots stuck to the pavement like they hated me. Half the town smelt like burnt tires this morning. The other half smelt like

I walked into school during second period like it was nothing. Head down. Hoodie up. Just another ghost in a hallway full of sleepwalkers. Mr Halpern didn’t even look up from his attendance sheet when I slipped into the back of history class. The lights buzzed like a hive above us, and the air smelt like pencil shavings and sweat. Someone had carved SUCK IT into the desk I landed in. Pretty sure it’d been there since ninth grade. I didn't look across the room. Not at first. But I felt him. Like static. Like a storm just outside the frame. Then I looked. He was there. Back row. Two desks from the window. Arm draped over his chair like he owned it, like he hadn’t disappeared from this town without a word four years ago and then reappeared like a damn fever dream. Eli McDowell. He wasn’t looking at me. Which meant he probably was. He had a pencil in his hand but wasn’t writing. Just tapping the eraser against his knee, slow and steady, like a clock ticking in reverse. His ey

Before school let out, the sky was this yellowish type of ill.This colour is before a storm. Like someone drowned the whole town in dishwater and dreams. The clouds hung low and heavy, and the wind smelt of metal and wet pavement.I didn't go home. I didn't want to walk into that house with its empty TV hum and my dad's sour breath filling the hall. I didn't want to pretend that I had homework. Or that anything there made sense.So I walked. Past the high school. Past the fire station. Down through the streets where the houses leaned sideways like tired old men.My boots thudded the pavement with no rhythm. I circled the long way.The long way through town always involved passing by the VFW, the shuttered movie theatre, and the now Sunday-only ice cream stand. It involved porch swing side glances and the sporadic "You skipping again, Thatcher?" from someone who didn't care anyway; I ignored them.The heat had not yet broken. It hung heavy with the weight of impending rain, heavy and

The minute I walked in, I knew.Not that anyone said anything.That's not the Pinegate way.It was in the quiet of the hall a beat too early. In the manner three kids near the lockers shifted their heads like they weren't shifting their heads. In the manner someone pretended to cough, just loud enough to cover a laugh.You get good at reading that kind of thing when you learn to disappear as a child.I kept walking. Kept my face blank. Shoulders down. Hands in the pocket of my hoodie like I wasn't noticing the static crawling up my spine.My boots echoed a bit too much on the floor.Locker doors crashed like punctuation marks.I didn't glance at anyone.Because I already knew.Someone had seen something.Or thought they had.Or wanted to.It didn't matter which.In Pinegate, rumor and reality aren't distinguishable once people begin looking.And they were looking.Not with curiosity.Not with interest.But with that knife-edged silence people use when they smell blood but haven't yet

The building smelt of floor cleaner and old paper when I pulled into the front doors.Too early for the brawl. Too early for the screaming and slamming of lockers. The building was vacant in a way that made every sound echo.My boots clicked on the tile, the echo off the lockers. The overhead fluorescent lights hummed... steady, cold, like they'd been running all night.I liked it this way. No group. No gaze.Only me and the thrum.I strolled down the hall, past posters of the previous month's football game, a torn-up promo for the talent show, and a "Be Kind" banner curled at the edges.My locker was directly ahead of me, the paint scraped close to the handle where I'd slammed it too hard once.At first glance, nothing was out of place.But I hadn't gotten close yet.It wasn't until I was actually standing right in front of it that I saw. The metal was scored deep, the scratches wide enough to catch the light. Letters carved in hard, sloppy lines, like whoever did it didn't care if