Jenn Neal

I’ve been listening to a lot of author interviews, because there is something so nice about hearing success stories that come after they had so many failures, so many books written and abandoned, or books that didn’t work. It keeps me hoping. In honor of receiving my 19th rejection for Vicious Miscreations yesterday (I know, that’s like a sprinkle of TicTacs in an ocean of possibility), I thought I would share the first chapter of a book I have put on hold. Will this whole book ever be written and see the light of day? I have no idea. But it was an idea I had for a spinoff of VM and I want to try sharing more of my own writing on here, but avoid spoilers.

I would love to hear what you think of this little nugget of a rough draft:

Take a dirt road far enough, you’re bound to find something unbelievable. The problem is, you have no control over what you find. I’m hoping today it isn’t whatever Owen ate for breakfast.

I cast a nervous glance at my best friend as we rumble down the road. Owen’s curled up against the door of my truck, sweat beading down his skin. Between us, Jack tries for a distraction. “Zombie apocalypse. What’s your weapon of choice? I say bow and arrows, all the way.”

A bump in the road jolts Jack into my shoulder. I try to take the next curve slower, but Owen still moans in protest.

“Nah,” I argue, shifting gears and speeding up on a smooth part of the road. My truck groans but obeys, and the knot at the back of my bikini digs into my back. “If there’s an apocalypse you want a cast iron frying pan. It’s multi-purpose. Kill zombies by day, cook dinner by night.” I think for a moment. “Though I’m not sure how I feel about eating off my zombie killing weapon. Isn’t that like, cross-contamination?”

“What about a sling shot? Easy to carry, easy to replace.” Jack grins, his damp black hair flops into his gray eyes.

“Nik, pull over,” Owen moans. The skin under his mop of brown hair is tinged with green. His hand presses to his mouth, chin quivering. White-knuckled fingers grip the door.

I sigh and pull off the road, tires grinding on gravel, grass hitting the bottom of my car like music. Owen grapples with the door handle and stumbles outside, hands on his knees, staring at the ground as he tries to gain control over his stomach.

I glance at Jack who’s settled in the middle seat, legs squeezed together. His finger runs under his leather bracelet, an impatient habit. He grimaces at me, raising is eyebrows. Any time we take a windy road, Owen needs a few stops along the way to empty his stomach. It’s something Jack and I have learned to live with.

“What is it today?” Jack asks, trying to make light of a disgusting situation. His gray t-shirt is littered with wet spots where his river-soaked hair leaked down his neck.

“Grits and eggs,” Owen says, his voice tight. He retches behind a tree.

I glance up through the windshield, shutting down the engine. The clouds are lit with the beginnings of sunset, turning the sky gold. I try not to listen to Owen evacuating his stomach, but it rips through the best distractions. Opening my door, I jump out and tromp down the road until the sound disappears, replaced by restless birds bedding down for the night and the breeze slipping across the grass, blowing pine needles into the dirt.

Jack pokes his head out of my truck. “Nik! Where you going?”
“Far from the vomit.”

I turn away and close my eyes. The forest here hums with magic. Not the sparkling, showy kind, but the magic of energy, perfection, that everything is exactly as it’s meant to be. Each imperfect rock and fallen tree is part of an ever-breathing, living magic. At least, that’s what my grandma used to say and I’ve just kind of carried on believing it. Just being surrounded by it makes everything else fall away.

Today we were at the creek trying to beat the dry July heat. On hot days the Montana air presses on our lungs, tinge of smoke burning our nostrils. We left the river less than a half hour ago and my hair is already almost dry. Only my t-shirt, mostly soaked through by my swimsuit, is still damp.

I glance back. Jack is watching me. Owen is still bent behind the tree, so I keep walking. It hurts to think they’re leaving for Canada in two days. Jealousy has been eating at me for weeks, so much that I’ve been hard-pressed to be excited for them. They invited me, but I told them I can’t get work off because it’s easier than admitting I can’t afford it. Just another place I’ll probably never see, because I’ll be stuck here when everyone else goes off to college.

My feet crunch in the dirt. A prickle spreads across the back of my neck. It’s the same feeling I get when we’re hiking in mountain lion country, the warning not to stop because something is there. My eyes rove the trees, searching. I step up onto a rock for a better look at the mountains that form the valley I call home. I sigh, wishing there was something other than work to look forward to tomorrow. My town may be beautiful, but nothing ever happens here.

As I turn to go back to my friends there’s a crack and I jump back as a boy appears. It’s as if the universe realized belatedly that he was supposed to exist. A bird shrieks and takes off from the trees. The boy stumbles and lands on all fours, head bowed a few feet in front of me.

I yell, a sound I didn’t even know I could make. He topples to his side. Something snaps as he flattens a mound of grass, blood running freely from a split in his lip. It takes me a moment to realize he has an arrow jutting from his shoulder, the fletching snapped off.

I’m at his side in a moment, trying to stem the bleeding from his arm. His head tilts weakly to the side and he mumbles something incoherent. 

“What did you say?” I slap his face, trying to bring him around. Panic wrenches my stomach as he gasps for air.

“Hey!” I cry. “Owen! Jack! Bring the truck over here.” I can hear the urgency in my own voice, the raw fear. They must have heard it too because Jack is already at my side when I hear Owen turn over the engine.

“Holy shit,” Jack mumbles, face white. “Did you see what happened?”

I can only shake my head, fumbling to make sure he isn’t bleeding out somewhere I can’t see. There’s a scream forming a lump in my throat. I’m pretty sure he’s dying and I have no idea how to stop it. There’s blood everywhere, soaking into the soil and covering my hands. I can feel it saturating my knees.

The boy can’t be much older than me, shaved black hair framing a well-proportioned face. His wrists are bloody, as if he’d been struggling against restraints. His mouth is bruised and one of his eyebrows is gushing blood, turning his skin the color of old wine. His eyes flutter open, long lashes framing turquoise eyes. My breath catches. It must be the way the light strikes them because his eyes are so bright, they nearly glow. They’re eerie against his bloody face.

I hear the truck rumble up next to us. Owen hops out and drops to his knees next to me, letting out a stream of curses. His face is calm but he’s sweating. I’m not sure whether it’s from his own adventures in vomiting or diaphanous terror. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

The boy’s eyes flicker open again. They seem to focus on me after a moment of struggling, his pupils dilating in and out. His bloody hand grabs my arm and he gasps, “No hospitals. Just—get me out of here.”

“Were you in a hunting accident?” Jack asks. But it isn’t hunting season and the boy isn’t dressed for it. He’s in a torn black t-shirt and a pair of patched pants. I know this wasn’t an accident. He has too many other injuries. He appeared out of the air. The boy doesn’t answer. His head drops to the side, no longer conscious.

“Could he have been kidnapped?” Jack looks around, as if searching for pursuers. But we’re alone in the forest.

My first instinct is to pull the arrow out of his shoulder, but Owen puts out a hand to stop me. “Don’t pull it out,” he hisses. “It’s keeping him from losing more blood.”

Owen is always full of random facts, finally here’s one that’s helpful. I grimace. “Help me get him in my truck.”

“What are we gonna do?” Jack’s eyes bulge making him look as horrified as I feel.

“Hospital. I don’t give a shit what he wants,” I say. “It won’t matter if he’s dead.”

I open the tailgate on my truck, the bed of which is currently empty. Owen and I grab his arms, while Jack goes for the feet. None of us are particularly strong athletes, but I do remember that I’m not supposed to lift with my back.

In the movies they make it look far easier to load a limp body into a car. It takes everything we have to haul the boy onto the bed of my truck. His head falls back, and his weight distributes every which way. It’s like trying to situate giant bag of water, except with extremities that keep trying to slip through your grip. All three of us are panting, smeared with blood and sweat. It’s exactly what they tell you not to do in health class.

As we lay the boy out on his back, I see his belt is an articulate collection of small pouches and several hunting knives. Even through the waves of panic and fear that I’m loading a soon-to-be-dead man into my truck, it strikes my curiosity. My fingers itch to sort through the pouches, searching for clues, anything to make sense of this afternoon.
I take one extra second to check his pulse, broken arrow jutting out of his shoulder, his hand resting on his chest. It’s there thudding quickly against my shaking fingers. I hop down, lock the tailgate and take one more fleeting glance at the boy in the back of my truck.

We wash our hands with my waterbottle and as I get behind the wheel, I’m suddenly aware of how my heart is trying to methodically pound its way out of my chest. My fingers are white because I’m gripping the steering wheel with all my strength. I take a deep breath and start the truck.

Driving brings me back to myself because you need to pay attention on these dirt roads. As we jolt around a pothole Jack’s fingers grip his curls with white knuckles. Owen keeps glancing in the back of the truck to make sure the nameless boy is still breathing.

“How did you know he was there?”

I don’t take my eyes off the road. I’m terrified that if I 
look at them they’ll be able to tell that I’m holding back. “I didn’t. I practically tripped over him.”

My mind feels foggy as it battles between what I saw and what I know to be possible. There was no explanation, nowhere he could have been hiding. It was like he’d been snapped into existence, wounded and mumbling. It feels like every fact and certainty in my world has been snuffed out.

“Am I the only one who’s freaking out?” Jack asks. Owen is staring straight again, lips pursed into a straight line. He shakes his head. I can’t form words to express how far I am beyond freaking out.

It seems like ages until we hit paved road. I’ve already been driving a faster than advisable speed, but now I really press on the gas. We’re all silent. Fear is palpable in the cab of my truck, the only sound is the engine and our ragged breaths.

Occasionally, I ask if he’s still breathing. Owen confirms and there’s another wave of relief. I’ve never seen someone die before, and I was planning to keep that streak going for a few more years. I can’t imagine dying in the back of a truck, alone, with no one tell you they love you. I wonder vaguely if he’d be angry we failed him and haunt me for the rest of eternity. The last thing my rusty truck needs is a ghost.

As I turn toward the hospital Jack whispers, “Why doesn’t he want to go to the hospital? You think he’s in trouble?”

“No,” Owen drawls, “I’m sure he looks like that ‘cause he got in an argument with a tree.”

I glare at the dashboard, impatiently waiting for the light to turn green.

“Maybe he was brainwashed by a cult and when he tried to leave they…” Owen mimed shooting an arrow from a bow. I snort. Owen is always the most level-headed of the group. Most of the information coming from his mouth is tinged with science. If he’s suggesting cults, this must have really thrown him off his game.

“Yeah,” Jack agrees with him. “That’s probably it.”

“There are no cults out here,” I say.

“That’s what they want you to think.”

I hit the gas, turning next to the park. Kids are playing on the swings and several exuberant tennis players are sweating on the courts. It seems impossible that people are still enjoying normal days after the dramatic turn our evening has taken. We’re back to stunned silence.

As I turn into the hospital and begin searching for the emergency entrance, Owen turns back and swears. “He’s gone.”
I slam on the breaks. Over my shoulder I can’t see him. We throw open our doors and come piling out. We stare at the empty bed. There’s a trail of blood where we dragged him into place and a set of bloody handprints on the tailgate. I look at my own hands, still maroon.

“Did he fall out?” Jack asks.

I stare at him hoping I look as scathing as I feel. I let Owen answer. “No, he didn’t fall out. He was horizontal in a truck bed with two-foot walls. Nik wasn’t driving that crazy. He must’ve jumped out.”

My mind is crawling with discomfort. A half-hour ago, a boy appeared in front of me. Now, he’s just disappeared again, as if existence decided it had a better idea. None of this seems possible. If Owen and Jack hadn’t seen him, I might have thought I was hallucinating.

I use the tire to jump into the back. There’s nothing there but blood and a small pendant on a broken chain. I slip it into my pocket to investigate later. I’m locked in indecision. I look between Jack and Owen. They may be my closest friends, but at that moment I don’t know what to say. No one will believe us if we call the police. Washing my truck feels like getting rid of evidence. I’m not sure if there’s any way this can come back on me. Most importantly, we just lost a dying teenage boy.

Instead, we spend the next hour searching for the mysterious boy. The sun has set, our stomachs rumble and we’re still in our swimsuits. The hour after that, we’re spraying congealed blood out of the bed of my truck in Jack’s driveway. He lives just enough out of town that the neighbors won’t see what we’re up to. We do most of this in silence, each of us deep in thought. It isn’t until I’m washing the blood out of my flip flops that Owen speaks.

“I think we should keep this to ourselves.” Owen’s arms glisten in the moonlight. I stare at my feet, focusing on the dark strap lines the sun has tanned into my skin. “This could be way bigger than we think.”

“I agree,” I say, adjusting my short black ponytail. I feel guilty just saying it.

“It just seems wrong,” Jack said. “I won’t say anything, but I don’t like it. I feel like we should be looking for him.”

“We retraced our steps. There’s not much more we can do.” Owen looks uncomfortable. I know we all feel dirty. I can see it. It’s strange to see their quick-to-laugh faces heavy with fear and guilt.

My fist clenches around the pendant in the pocket of my shorts. “It does. But I agree with Owen. I won’t say anything.”

I drop off Owen and say goodnight, but it’s quiet, hesitant, awkward. As he disappears into his house, I bite my lip. Just because I promised not to talk about today, doesn’t mean I’m letting it go. I know what I saw.

Woohoo! Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I know what you’re thinking…rough rough draft. And yes, it is. But I think it’s important to remember that rough drafts are just that. And most of the writing people allow us to read are probably 20 drafts deep. At least, that’s how I live with myself as I write. Anyway, as always, thank you for being here for my very slow publishing journey, because I am determined to share it all.