Mantel wasn't afraid to walk up to her.
He knelt. His knees pressed into the soft and wet soil slowly engulfing her body. Ren watched, unsure where he should stand, unsure what to do with his hands, and unsure if he should being doing anything at all.
Mantel seemed to know what he was doing and Ren had no idea why he was still there. A part of him felt as if he should be questioning everything Mantel was doing. He was confident, unlike Ren, that it frightened Ren more than what happened to the girl. He could understand murder in a sense but confidence in this situation was alien.
Mantel didn't touch her. His eyes roamed over her body, taking in the large gash at her neck, and the bruises along her arms.
Ren couldn't look at her anymore. He was looking everywhere but at her. The forest was spinning, tilting back and forth, and he couldn't concentrate.
"We should call the police," he said. He wasn't sure if Mantel even heard him.
"We can't." Mantel stood and crossed the distance between them. "They're vampire marks."
Ren nodded. He didn't understand why they couldn't. "Then that's more reason to call."
"Listen to what I'm saying. If we call them and they find us with her, they'll convict us of her murder." Mantel looked back at her body. Ren looked on reflex.
His stomach churned.
"What then?" He was shaking. "We can't leave her here."
Mantel was right. No matter how Ren tried to look at the situation, he knew Mantel was right. Montis was small. Vampires were scarce. Though he wanted to believe truth would save him, no one cared about truth when it came to vampires.
One more gone was good enough.
Mantel moved back to her body and before Ren could say a thing, Mantel grabbed her arms and started pulling her toward a muddy area.
"What the fuck are you doing!" Ren ran, not thinking, and pushed him back from her.
Mantel pushed him back. The blood on his hands smeared Ren's shirt and skin. Her blood was on him.
He turned around and puked his stomach empty. There was nothing there, but he gagged until he was seeing black.
He's crazy. He's out of his mind.
Ren felt Mantel's hands on his shoulders. He wanted to move, to get away from his touch, but he was weak. His vision was hazy and he was still reeling from the episode. There was comfort, one that was fucked up, in Mantel's embrace and while Ren hated it, he was grateful Mantel didn't just let him fall.
"We'll bury the body. They won't find her if we do."
"You can't make me," Ren gasped out. "I'm not going to do it."
Mantel's grip tightened around him. He wouldn't let Ren fall, but he wouldn't let go of him either. His voice was clear and next to Ren's ear. "I can't risk you telling."
The break in his voice was pathetic. Ren closed his eyes, shaking though he didn't feel cold.
Everything about this was fucked up. He shouldn't have even been out in the forest. He should have fought harder against the buzzing. But he couldn't change what had already happened.
Mantel had this figured out. He had a plan and Ren didn't.
Mantel let him go and grabbed the girl's arms once again. Ren stood there, blank faced, staring at the leaves and dirt covered in her blood.
It was a memory he wasn't going to forget. The rising feeling of the buzzing, the ache in his stomach and throat, the glow of Mantel's red eyes, and the magnetic pull Ren felt toward Mantel.
He made his choice.
He grabbed the dead girl's legs.
They dragged her away from the spot. Ren winced as her body caught on sharp rocks and twigs. Her hair was a wavy blond mess that had become tangled in the brittle leaves.
"Here." Mantle dropped her arms.
Ren dropped his hold on her legs. It was a blur when Mantel went back to where she'd been found and covered the blood with dirt. It wasn't the best job, but it was all they could manage at the moment.
When he came back, Ren could only look at the ground. He had to force himself to blink.
They had nothing to dig the ground with except their hands.
Mantel was the first to sink his fingers into the soft dirt and toss a handful into a somewhat neat pile. Ren watched from the other side of the girl's body, crouched with his hands clenching his knees.
Mantel looked at him from where he was kneeling, red eyes burning into Ren's emotionless face. From where Ren crouched, the moonlight beamed down like a torch onto Mantel's face. His skin was porcelain.
He unclenched his fists. Slowly, he worked his hands into the dirt, scooping and scraping through it like it wasn't the start of someone's grave.
He tried not to think about it. In his head, he dreamed up a different scene. He wasn't digging to bury the dead. He was digging to plant.
He wasn't a garden person. He wasn't any type of person except for the kind that followed rules when it was best for him.
But he pretended there was a purpose for his actions. Once he was done with this hole, he'd plant a tree that would exist for hundreds of years, long after he was gone.
Mantel was faster than Ren was. Ren was locked in a stupor while Mantel didn't look like he cared about anything else besides digging that fucking hole. Mantel's eyes stared into the ground, his hands scooping and tossing. Ren didn't even notice the tears falling down his face until they started to burn.
He wiped them with the back of his hand. It only made it worse.
Blood and dirt was smeared over his face.
Hours passed since they started digging. Ren could feel the sun before it broke above the mountain. There wasn't a lot of time left for him to make it home if they didn't finish this now.
Lucky enough, they finished the hole with barely any room for the body. They hoisted her up and place her in. The motions were robotic.
Ren tossed dirt on her without thinking. Each scoop and toss cut a little deep into him. He didn't see her face anymore, not like he had before he was forced to bury her. She wasn't a person, not anything that was part of this world anymore.
He wanted to get out there. He didn't want to think about this anymore.
The last of the dirt covered her face. Mantel brushed her eyes closed before the dirt touched them and shut her mouth. Watching him made Ren feel ill.
The kind gesture he made didn't match his face and while Ren was out of his mind, too tired to function, he didn't know how to feel about him.
Mantel made him sick. His red eyes and pale skin. Everything about him made Ren want to wash his skin raw. And the revulsion made him want to close himself in his room. His hate made him dislike himself more than he already did.
Mantel did the finishing touches. The unsettled ground didn't look natural and he fixed it by spreading branches and leaves around. He'd done most of the work before they started to dig. The place he'd picked was by a bush and a large tree. Most of the ground was covered by them and gave cover for the grave.
And then it was done. The sun was minutes away from rising and Ren was out of time.
They didn't speak. Mantel didn't have to for Ren to know he'd come for him if he told anyone. Ren didn't plan to. His DNA was all over her and like Mantel said, vampires were few in this town. They'd either come for Ren or the Mantels.
He turned, his eyes looking down the path that led back home.
Mantel was already walking in the opposite direction.
The walk was a cold one and nothing he thought about changed it. He focused on the leaves, the cool air fanning his face, and what he'd do when he arrived home. Sleep deprived, he was a ghost walking through the forest and it was only going to get worse.
He was there, standing at the front door. He entered and noticed it wasn't locked.
Like the idiot he was, he left his mom alone in an unlocked house sleeping. Fucking idiot. It was the damn buzzing under his skin making him like this. He needed to get it together before he got her hurt.
The stairs flashed under his feet but not because he was walking fast. His eyes closed and opened. Black and then light. The sun had reached the horizon. His bed appeared and he started to climb into it.
"Ren?" There was a knock at his door. "Are you awake? It's seven o'clock."
He pulled his leg out from underneath the covers.
Right. No time to sleep.
***
The entire morning was a haze for him.
He brushed his teeth, changed his clothes, and tried to pretend like he'd slept at all the night before. Margret didn't notice and he knew it wasn't because she wasn't observant. If it had been any other day, she would have seen the dark circles under his eyes and the glossy look on his face.
Something was on her mind and he was too out of it to think much about it.
"Love you," she said and then kissed his cheek. "I'll see you after work."
Their farewell hadn't changed since he started school. He wondered if it was a formality or hope that made her say it. Maybe she thought she wouldn't see him one day.
It was too much for him to think about in his current state. He was having trouble just keeping his knees from buckling beneath him.
She was gone before he knew it. Out the door.
He was glad she was away from him.
The minute her car disappeared from the driveway, he fell to the couch, his face in his hands. The sobs were quiet but violent. They punched through him and he couldn't control them. He didn't have time to cry like he wanted to. He didn't have time to collect his thoughts or begin to unravel the mess he'd stumbled into.
He stared at his hands.
Blood was on them.
It had been washed away, but he could see it. Even if Mantel was the only one that knew, it didn't make him feel better. He knew about it and that was the worst of it all. He could lie to his mom, he could lie to the police, but he couldn't lie to himself.
There, in a place he couldn't quite call home anymore, he felt like the killer everyone had been making him out to be his entire life. The tears dried before he removed his hands. There was a decision to be made, but he didn't want to think about anything. School. That was what he was going to focus on. He would deal with all the rest when he had to.
The walk to school couldn't have been colder. He saw shadows that weren't there, things that were only figments of his mind. Last night had pushed him across a boundary he never thought he would cross. After he met Mantel, Ren was confused as to what he could do now.
Nothing had really changed in his life, nothing he could see so far. He had a huge secret now, one that if it ever got out could end his life and his mom's.
The plan was the same as always. He would graduate, get a job at the Mines, and send money back home. It was what he owed her after causing her so much trouble and after what he'd done.
He knew the kind of things people thought about her. They felt sorry for her, somehow sympathetic that she had to raise a demon. They thought she was too nice to abort him.
He thought so as well.
Even as he had murder on his mind and Mantel's face flashing in his head every few seconds, he thought if the world would be better off without him.
***
Montis High came into view. The brick mass hadn't changed since it was built. Ren had seen old photos. Time hadn't changed a single thing. Over time, a football field and a parking lot had been added. Besides those two things, the building looked like a small castle sitting in the center of a haunted forest.
But there was nothing special about Montis High. It was a school and that was it.
He was later than he liked to be. Kids started forming groups. They were a mixture of low and high ranks. These kids had been going to school together since elementary. They were raised almost like they were one big family.
He'd never been a part of it. He'd seen it and lived through it, but he'd never been the one on the inside.
He was fine with that. Nothing would have made him feel more at home than being included in a group only for entertainment. That's what he would have been. Comic relief.
They could be as close as they wanted to be. Sharing girlfriends or boyfriends and being so closely related in marriage that almost everyone showed up to the same family reunion. They traded one another like playing cards and that was okay. That was fine.
Despite how cold it was, he shrugged off his backpack and sat in his usual spot around the corner of the parking lot. There was no point in going inside unless he wanted to make himself more uncomfortable. He leaned against the brick wall, his arms crossed over his knees. It was colder than last night, colder than when he'd been digging through the dirt like a dog. If he'd known it would be this cold, he would have slipped a hoodie under his coat.
The groups slowly scattered and kids started entering the school. They broke off in ones and twos, yet somehow the structure of the main group didn't diminish. He watched them, waiting for the right moment to head in. Stragglers made it to the door and he stood up.
He turned the corner and at the same time, he saw the blur of someone running back out to the parking lot. He was knocked off his feet and he stumbled into the wall.
"Shit—I'm sorry!"
A kid with black hair and thin wire framed glasses grabbed him by the shoulders in an attempt to save him, but it only ended up crushing Ren between him and the wall.
The kid jerked back with his hands raised and a look of horror on his face.
At first, Ren was confused. The kid didn't look familiar, but he didn't look new at the same time. His face struck a chord within Ren, drawing up hazy memories of a kid that once went to his school but had moved away.
Ren didn't know his name nor did he really care, yet, not knowing made him agitated.
He was tall, almost towering a foot above Ren, and his glasses make him look younger, too young to be that tall. And it clashed with the stubble scattered on his upper lip.
Ren frowned.
"Hey, listen," he said, waving his hand currently holding a ring of keys. "I'm sorry about that, but I've got to—"
He didn't finish his sentence before he was sprinting across the parking lot. Ren watched him fly between the cars to the last line until the bell rang. Reluctantly, Ren turned to walk through the front doors. When he was inside, he glanced over his shoulder.
The kid was struggling to reach into the floorboard of what Ren assumed was his car. He couldn't watch for long.
He didn't like how he had to force himself to look away. There was something about the kid that caught his interest. Almost in the similar way Mantel had caught his attention. But this was a calmer reaction than what Ren was used to.
The encounter distracted him for only a second.
He walked down the halls and toward his first class. It felt foreign unlike all the other times he'd walked this path. It might be that he was dead on his feet or that he couldn't stop thinking about the night before. There was an itch of paranoia that someone would find out at the back of his mind. It was his secret to bare now and he couldn't let anyone know about it.
That should be easy. He didn't talk to anyone and no one tried to hold a conversation with him.
But the buzzing was just there. It was waiting for its chance to take over.
That was what he had to fear now. He had to worry about losing control of his body and doing something irrational. There might have been a killer loose in Montis, but he still had to worry about the rising bloodlust and monster lurking inside of him.
He adjusted his bag, trying to put distance between his mind and last night. It worked to a degree. The moment he walked into first period, English, he was too focused on blending into the background and keeping his head down, he began to forget about Mantel and the dead girl.
They weren't erased. He didn't think they ever would be, but they were almost ghosts.
They were easy to see right through.
***
Fourth period had started as normal with Ren sitting at his corner seat and his eyes downcast on his open notebook. The class chattered over upcoming football games and the start of the basketball season. He zoned out of those conversations, tuning in once in a while for his own amusement.
He was staring so long at his paper that the lines began to fade into one another. His eyes went cross-eyed.
And then the kid from before who'd almost ran into him in the parking lot walked into the room.
Interest peaked, Ren stiffened in his seat. He hoped it wasn't too obvious.
The kid was greeted by a couple of guys who raised their hands and high-fived him. Ren didn't understand it. They were talking to each other and he couldn't make out a single word.
The kid was new, but Ren knew now—by the way the guys were talking to him—he wasn't new to them. They smiled and laughed like they'd known each other for years.
It solidified Ren's first assumptions. He'd been here in elementary. Ren just couldn't recall his name.
He averted his eyes. The lines in his notebook blurred into a jumbled mess. Sleep kept crawling back to him, pulling him down harder each time. He pushed it away. The longer he resisted, the harder it tried to drag him under. He'd tried pinching his arm and after the first fifteen failed attempts, with dark blue bruises to prove it, he stopped trying. He didn't know how he was doing, but he feared he wasn't going to last after lunch.
His eyes slid closed. Just as he was about to fall under slumber's spell, the desk in front of him screeched froward.
His eyes shot open.
The kid was there. The kid from the parking lot with his wire-framed glasses and freakishly long legs was standing in front of him. He didn't look at Ren and he couldn't tell if the kid even noticed he was sitting right behind him. If he didn't then Ren knew he needed those glasses.
The stare he was shooting into the back of the kid's head as he unpacked his bag still didn't get his attention. He didn't know why he was doing it, but he couldn't pull his eyes away. It was emotionless, just something he was doing. He didn't give in to the painful burning in his eyes no matter how much it hurt.
The kid finally sat down with his textbook in front of him and a mechanical pencil tucked behind his ear. Ren held back the shaking need in his fingers to reach out to flick the annoying pencil across the room. The itch in his hand killed him to ignore. He picked at the corner of his notebook's cover to resist doing anything.
His eyes were closing once more. He could hear the soft turns of pages, the rustle of clothing, and the quiet murmurs of conversations around him. The world was no longer a part of him. He was detached from the things taking place.
He knew he could never find peace within the walls of the school or Montis for that matter. He'd come to terms that he would be forever alone, working until his hands could no longer hold their own weight. Slowly, his body would crumble and his mom would be long gone. He didn't know what he'd do then and it wasn't fair to torture himself with those useless thoughts. Looking into the future only damaged the present.
The desk in front squeaked. Ren could feel him turn around.
At first, he was committed to ignoring him. His eyes were looking over him, wandering like curious hands that wanted to know every detail.
His lips turned down and he lowered his head into his folded arms to cover his face. He took a chance to look out from his hiding spot.
He saw him. He was looking at Ren just as he thought.
"I'm Darrien." He did a little halfway, sheepish smile. Ren blinked and his frown deepened.
The way Darrien was looking at him, with his eyes downward and a look of awkwardness, was confusing. It was a different reaction he usually got.
His fingers curled around the frayed notebook, clutching it as if it was his lifeline. A slow ticking of time suspended the moment for way longer than he wanted. His throat seized as he struggled to find the words to say. All the while, the kid Darrien, never lost his smile.
"I'm, uh, Ren." It was like he didn't know his own name.
Ren took a good look at him. He looked younger than his age, but his height made up for it. If he was shorter, Ren would have thought he was a Freshman or maybe a Sophomore. His round glasses made it harder to pinpoint his age. They suited him in a weird way. They softened the sharp point of his chin.
He smiled. "I think I remember you. I went here in fourth grade."
He almost seemed pleased with himself. He grabbed onto the back of his chair. His eyes looked wider in those glasses and Ren was too tired to look away from them.
He was different in some way. Even when he'd run into him, there wasn't the gnawing fear he got from others. Most times he couldn't hide how he felt, how terrified he was that one of them, anyone, would lash out. They could do anything they liked and he couldn't fight back. It was a battle between what he wanted to be.
Either he was a vicious monster or he was the wimp that would take any beating as if he deserved it.
He rubbed his eyes. A yawn broke through and he covered his mouth.
"Yeah, I thought you looked familiar," Ren said. The conversation was dying. He could feel it when they did. The whole small talk thing never worked with him. He was surprised he'd carried on this well enough so far.
But Darrien was still there, staring at Ren now instead of looking. He hated that. He knew he did it to others, but he still hated it.
He was such a fucking hypocrite.