lostlake | D A Y 0 4

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ch 2

D A Y 0 4

CHAPTER 2

Nov 3rd | 63℉☁

▸ Due to last night's storms, a quarter of Blackwell is still without power. It seems a tree has fallen on a power line, which will be promptly inspected by BWI and fixed ASAP.

▸ The worst of that storm is now over, thank god. Weather reports cloudy days from here on out.

▸ Fairweather and Winters kids are still missing. Local authorities and volunteers are resuming their search in the immediate area. Please, if you have the time, go join the cause.

▸ In a sad turn of events, the remains of Kara Samson have been returned to the family not a week ago. Details surrounding her disappearance and cause of death have not yet been released.

▸ Rumors say that the county morgue outside of Elkins was broken into early this morning, but officials decline to comment on the matter.

▸ Today's news radio is brought to you by Black Lodge Bar! Head on down to Black Lodge for their all day Monday happy hour!

▸ And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

THE RISING IS NOT IN EFFECT

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[nobody reasonably expected hailey to be at school today. she could tell, because when she had showed up to class all eyes had been on her. halfway through the first class, she'd had enough and got out of there, walking through the desks and out the door without a word. it's the first time she's done anything like that and even now, thinking about it is making her heart pound. it's done now, though, she's here.

sits without swinging on the swingset, watching the empty pavilion. she'd had her 11th birthday party here. it'd pretty much just been her and her dad and bela. a couple other friends from school had come by, but nobody she remembers.

digs in the sand with the toe of her shoe.

she's been here about half an hour.]

[he doesn't even bother going to school much anymore, between the gawkers and the fact that he can't seem to get his head right enough to pay attention, so why bother at all. he's probably on the verge of academic probation, but with all of the commotion surrounding the new events in the samson case, and then the gage girl, no one seems compelled to pursue disciplinary action. he's not seeking her out when he sits next to her on the swings, but he's around and he sees her and he knows that look.]

Hey. [lamely. he mimics her toe digging like it's some kind of signal that they're murdered buddy buddies now or something, like sand-disturbing trauma solidarity]

[she can't just stop going to school. what would her dad say? oh god, what is her mom gonna say when she finds out hailey just left and drove down to blackwell? dad's gonna be disappointed, but mom's gonna be punitively disappointed.

startles a little when the kid next to her speaks up, like she hadn't seen him walk up and sit down next to her. she just hadn't expected anyone to try to talk to her.]

Hey. I'm not in your spot, am I?

[your swingset-moping spot? is this a private playground? it's supposed to be a joke, but comes out too flat.]

Yeah, it's reserved. But you look like you need it so I'll let you hang onto it.

[gives her a look of faux-reprimand as if to say "for now". he's seen hailey around and they've hung out once or twice, enough to make her dad give him the 'if you touch my daughter' eyes, but he doesn't blame her if she doesn't really remember him as anything other than the kid with the missing..well dead now girlfriend. it was a while ago and he's never made much of an impression.]

Sorry about....[makes a wavy hand. it's an attempt at sincerity]

Thanks for making an exception.

[all of a sudden who he is clicks and she shifts a little on the swing. oh, right. colby. no, she'd never hung out with him much, and definitely never without like five or six mutual acquaintances around. so normally, this would be kind of weird, but everything's been weird since friday. hanging out with one of the freaks from blackwell high is nothing. hailey's probably one of the freaks of elkins high by now.

drops her eyes again when he waves his condolences and nods.]

Yeah... Thanks. You too, I guess?

[or were you all mourned out before? was it like you'd lost her before or is it real now?

hailey hadn't gotten close enough to see bela. wasn't sure she'd wanted to.]

I went to the morgue.

[blurts out. well he has no fucking self preservation anymore so why not. he doesn't immediately regret it but it was probably stupid to say. can't take it back now]

To see her. I thought it'd help. [it didn't]

Jesus Christ.

[she can't help it, it just sort of slips out. plants her feet more firmly on the ground so as to have a strong base to stare at colby from. it's kind of like awe, and it's kind of grossed-out.]

Did they let you in–

[no. the radio, on the way over.]

Oh my God you're the one who broke in.

Edited 2014-11-08 06:44 (UTC)

Yeah but like days ago. [immediately dismissive. he's a hooligan not a creep ok don't look at him like that.] I didn't do anything. [JUST TO REINFORCE THE NOT A CREEP THING OK gives her a look to banish any thoughts of disgusting nature from her head]

The dead body chick found me as soon as I got in. I just wanted to see if it was really her, I guess.

Oh.

[so this was somebody else. makes a face at "didn't do anything." she hadn't, actually, been thinking that, but thanks for bringing it up. now she can't stop thinking about it.

her expression smooths back out into a kind of uncomfortable sympathy though, bu the end. it's not the. it's really just the corpse thing. is gross.]

I was at the party, but I didn't see her. I could've. I heard her. I heard the noise. I just couldn't move.

[it was her, though. there'd been no doubt in hailey's mind even before she'd been told officially. even before she saw what it'd done to mr. gage.

what she's saying is, she sort of understands, but she couldn't.]

[it's ok, he only sort of understands too. he can't even explain why he wanted to. he just did. he shifts on the swing, a tangle in the chain link dropping him down an inch and he digs his heel into the sand to brace]

You were there? [makes a little huh noise and looks ahead, feeling a little bad for ditching but also glad that he wasn't there. like he needed more dead bodies in his life.] That sucks. [have some teenage eloquence. it doesn't help that he kind of digs her and doesn't want to say something stupid and upset her again.]

Yeah. It was kind of a shitty party, too.

[bleakly. if you don't have sarcasm you don't have anything. works on unraveling the cuff of her hoodie with her thumbnail. it's very slow going but from the looks of her cuffs she's been at it a while.]

Do you still hang out with, you know, all them? I don't remember seeing you in a while.

Nah. [nonchalantly like it's no big. he chose to ditch them they didn't spurn him for being a total freak.]

You know Petre, that transfer? From like Spain or something. [what] He's actually pretty cool. [once you get past him yelling monkey at you. look we're not talking about bela so that you won't cry, he's a good friend. right.]

[well fuck those guys. half of the reason hailey's been so anxious since leaving is whether they're going to start talking about her like that. she knows that, as freakouts go, leaving without saying anything is pretty mild. she's just so used to keeping her head down she doesn't know why she did it.

looks back up at colby]

Petre? Oh, Petre. Yeah, I think I met him once. I thought he was Russian or Ukrainian or something. He goes to Blackwell, right?

Don't say Russian spy, whatever you do. They're really sensitive about it.

[a spy nearly ran him off the road. no joke. he grabs at the chain to lean over and catch her look]

But yeah he goes here. He's like really big into the church thing or something. [shrugs to emphasize his disinterest in his humble hobbies.] He doesn't care about all the bullshit though. [the dead people bullshit. he's never asked him about it or treated him like a spaz. i mean he nearly busted a guy's head in front of him and they're still cool. he won't say that part.] You'd probably like him.

[not like that though. don't like him like that. he's just saying. if she finds herself in the outcrowd now she has peepl]

Oh yeah?

[russian spies, huh? not likely. the only interesting that happens around here is the statistically improbably high disappearance rate. which isn't boring, but it's not russian spies.

still, it makes her smile. just a little.]

Maybe I'll come to Blackwell and hang out with you more often. You know how you can, like... Know a lot of people but you don't really know anybody?

[bela was one of the few outside of her family.]

[omg score.]

Kinda. [2deep hailey. squints at her like he's trying to look deep and he gets it but he doesn't. he never examined his relationships that closely. they're teenage friends they're supposed to be vapid and fleeting.] I mean you can know me if you want. Ask me anything. My middle name is Benedict. [pause for laughter.]

Benedict, are you serious?

[she laughs before she thinks better of it, and there's a moment of guilt there but it's a flash in the pan. hides the expression in her sleeve but she has to lower it to ask him again.]

Is it really Benedict? God, I'm sorry. Mine's Nora, but most people know that already. You probably knew that.

[are we facebook friends? we're probably facebook friends.]

[ yes you are. ]

[they are and he likes all her updates but they never actually talk. praise social media. pretends to be offended that she laughed and makes an ughh sound at her own in turn]

Nora. It sounds like an old cat lady. Yeah, I know the whole town's. You know Dr. Abernathy? His middle name is Dorothy.

[it's true he asked him himself. he didn't just make that up]

So now you know like, two people.

Hey, that's rude. I like Nora.

[she's not really offended, though, that'd be dumb. she does like haileynoravaughn though. it's way better than colbybenedictmoran. your parents really had it in for you.]

Really, Dorothy? I guess it'd be hard to find something worse than "Lester" to go in the middle of it, since there seems to be some kind of rule about middle names being the worst.

[well, her dad's is pretty normal. she doesn't think aunt alex or uncle ben have middle names.]

No, it's not really Dorothy. [pushes against the sand to swing a little, now that the conversation has taken a turn for the less mopey. he has a lot of stake in being able to not talk about the shit that's gone wrong, it's like the only thing he has to offer to anyone else]

You know him? [squeaky lazy swinging. his legs are too long to properly swing so he's kind of walk-swinging. he glances across at her with his eyebrows furrowed, he thought he had seen everyone who was a regular shrinkee at some point or another]

Well now how am I supposed to believe anything you tell me?

[if you'd lie about a serious thing like that. come on colbybenedict. shakes her head at colby's frowning. sorry friend.]

No, my aunt does. They're not friends or anything but she's mentioned him.

[she thinks he's weird, which is saying something, since aunt alex is pretty weird herself.]

Do you wanna go help look?

[he doesn't know her aunt or what she knows about his psychologist but it doesn't really concern him so he switches gears, looking up into the woods when he hears a distant shout of someone in the impromptu search party. well, he's not doing jack shit, and neither is she, and it might help to feel like they're doing something]

[also who is he kidding it's just alone time with her so that'd be rad]

Look?

[it's enough of a shift in mental gears that at first she's not sure what he means, but then she hears the same thing he does, the shout off in the woods. she nods and slides off of the swing, stomping a little to wake up a foot that's gone to sleep.]

Yeah. I mean, might as well, right? Did-do you know them at all?

[definitely not a quick enough recovery there from the use of past tense. oops]

...Nah.

[you tried. hops off the swing when it's at a high point, landing a few feet away from her with a stumble. dusts himself off and shrugs about it before resuming]

I mean they're in my grade, but I didn't know them. Seen them around. [he used to hang with colin, but they were never really friends. june was always kind of quiet and weird, so he never paid her attention. how the tables have turn. picks a direction and starts walking toward the treeline]

blackwell, west park, noon

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