Music to Murder Boys to - Chapter 1
Ash is driving through our sleepy little town like a bat out of hell. I’m pretending to enjoy myself by smiling and forcing a fake shrill laugh out of my throat. Truthfully, I’m terrified which is rare, because with Ash I always feel safe. But something’s different in the air tonight. She has an ominous look in her brown eyes that’s not matching the brightness of her smile. When I asked her why she was tapping on my window at 2 a.m. all she responded with was, “I have to get out of the house.”
Of course I got out of bed. It’s Ashley.
The roof is down allowing the cool night air to slap me in the face, tackling my braids. I’m almost envious of her pixie cut until I remember my face is too round for one. We are headed to the woods that frame the town of Everglade Mills as if it’s some masterpiece.
The bone-chilling sound of a guy begging for his dear life ripples through the quiet, startling the hell out of me.
“Jesus, Ash,” I say. “When are you going to change that ringtone? Halloween was two weeks ago.”
She smirks and answers the phone. “Yeah, T. We’re pulling up now.”
We ease off the highway and park on the field of grass that leads to the woods. The ‘Welcome to Everglade Mills’ sign, a billboard with a Norman Rockwell-esque painting of a little white girl holding a golden retriever, towers overhead.
Ash turns off the engine and doesn’t say anything for a while. She stares out at the woods. The sound of crickets, cicada’s, and an owl howling off in the distance fill the silence.
At the surface, Ashley is one of those cool girl next door types. She looks like she’s fallen off the set of a 90’s movie with her baggy jeans and tee-shirt that’s conveniently a size too small. Honestly, I never questioned my sexuality until I met her. She has a magnetic force that pulls you in. She becomes a planet and you orbit around her.
She comes off as naive, ditzy at times, but underneath the act, there’s something much deeper. Sometimes I’ll vent about my worries and the facade will crack. Something wise will fall from her lips as if she’s not just a ditzy seventeen-year-old girl.
Everyone at school thought it was weird when Ash and her family moved to town. No one picks up a map and says ‘I want to move to Everglade Mills.’ A town with 4 thousand helpless souls. The only people that move here are the ones who try leaving, but their roots are too deep in the soil that no matter how big they grow, their feet can't be uprooted.
“It feels amazing,” Ashley says, leaning back in the seat.
She’s definitely on something. Her pupils are drowning out the brown of her eyes.
“What feels amazing?” I ask.
“The moon,” she says, eyes darting up at the bright ball in the sky. “It’s light is sinking into my skin.”
“What are you on right now?” I blurt.
She leans across the seat and grabs the backpack by my feet. She pulls out a pink canister with my name written on it. “Drink,” she says.
I take it hesitantly. It’s probably laced with whatever it is that’s making her feel the moon. Whatever that means. “What’s in it?”
“Just drink.”
Part of me wants to say no but I’m pulled by the magnets that are her eyes.
It tastes like someone mixed dirt and sugar together, forming this thick grainy concoction that sticks to my tongue. “What’s in this-”
She pushes the canister against my lips forcing it to waterfall down my throat.
I cough. “What the hell, Ash?”
She smiles. “You’ll thank me later.”
Jordan’s jeep pulls up next to us and my heart plummets to my stomach.
“Don’t be mad. I invited him,” she says as if I couldn’t see.
“Why the hell would I ever want to be around him? What’s wrong with you, girl,” I snap.
My nails dig into my thigh as he sashays out of the vehicle. He has on his usual get up; a wife-beater accompanied by skinny jeans. His pants sag below his waist as if belts don’t exist. A head full of dreads curtain his face, but between those stringy locs I can see his grilled smile twinkling in the moonlight.
Like clockwork, I think about that night.