We got to school a bit early, so we had some free time on our hands. There were some basketball hoops, on the playground, and there wasn't a lot else to do, so we played a game of Horse. Charlie won, by a small margin, but my head was elsewhere, so I didn't care much.
We went inside, and sat on a lunch table. Soon after, we were joined by someone whom we both somewhat dreaded. It was Jeremy Maxwell. He was just an average kid, a year ahead of us in school, but, for whatever reason, he declared himself to be our personal enemy. We felt no animosity toward him, ourselves, but he just hated us. Or, he acted like it. We were never quite sure if it was real, or just an act. He didn't even really count as a bully; he was just insane. Scratch that. We weren't even sure of that.
Anyway, he sat down beside us, and turned to talk to me. The room's dim lighting made the dark circles under his eyes all the more disconcerting. They weren't the result of tiredness, or anything, either. As far as we knew, his eyes were just naturally like that. The stringy black hair, that haphazardly fell before his face, did not help matters, either. He looked like a child of Satan.
After a moment, he opened his mouth, and asked me, "Why are you so depressed?"
"What are you talking about?" I questioned.
"Don't even try to deny it." He said, "Have you seen yourself for the past couple of days? You look like you've been lost in a desert, and you escaped, just before the vultures picked the guts from your body. You haven't really talked much, either. What's wrong? Has Daddy been giving you the belt?"
We ignored him, and he was quiet for a time. Then, suddenly, he spoke again. "No," he said "That's not it. This is about those disappearances, isn't it; Tommy getting lost in the woods? Yeah, I know that you found him. I hear things. Ma's been keeping him at home, like a little lost puppy. And you... You saved him. You should be happy, but you're not. Whatever happened to him in there, it happened to you, too. Didn't it?" He smirked.
"What do you want?" Charlie cut in.
"I want information," he said, "And, if you two are looking into all of this, I want in."
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