A gust of wind rattled the windowpane above the dresser. The Home creaked on it’s foundation. A soft blue glow peeked out from behind a momentary gap in the clouds. 

The room was quiet apart from Chris’ restless turning. He had yet to fall asleep and didn’t seem to be making any progress. Quinn was across the room from him in the other bottom bunk. He was slowly building up the courage to get out of bed. He needed to get out of this house and if Chris noticed him leaving he might ask where he was going.

Chris finally turned back towards the wall. Forced air pumped through the vents, the metal ducts clunked between the walls. Quinn slipped out from under his covers.

He didn’t weigh enough for the floorboards to bother complaining. He held his breath. His jacket and shoes were by the door. All he had to do was grab them. 

He slid across the hardwood on socked feet. The heartbeat pounding in his ears made it hard to tell if he was actually moving quietly. The room darkened as the moon hid. The rough edge of a board snagged his sock.

Chris’s bunk rustled as he sat up. Quinn froze like a deer in headlights.

“Hey,” Chris whispered blindly into the darkness. 

Quinn’s mind went blank. He couldn’t remember how to respond. Words had disintegrated into letters and sounds devoid of meaning. His mouth wouldn’t open. 

“Be back before the sun’s up this time.” Chris laid back down.

Quinn fumbled for where his sneakers should have been among the other larger shoes. He shoved his feet into them and tucked in the laces. The door clicked open and shut. He shoved his arms into the jacket on his way down the stairs, pausing only to soundlessly gasp in air like a fish.

The amber lamp in the living room was always left on at night. Warm bounce light leaked into the hall from the archway. It was at the opposite end of the hall from the bottom of the stairs. The long dim corridor was probably supposed to be a deterrent to keep them from roaming the house after bedtime.

The night crew of one was probably finishing up paperwork in the office or doing rounds. Quinn had never seen them but had heard their shuffling footsteps from the top of the steps most nights. He didn't stick around long enough to find out what the schedule was for tonight. 

The door to the backyard loomed at the end of the hall. The glass panes reflected his shadow blocking the amber glow. The lock thunked into the door. He leaned into it and a gust of wind nearly tore it from his hands. 

Pale blues and deep blacks painted the backyard. The seats and chains of the swingset clattered against one another. Rain spit down in random bursts from spotty cloud cover. The clean scent of rain mixed with iron, mud, and pine.

Quinn let the door click shut behind him. He pulled up his hood, though it didn’t do much with his head tilted back. There were more stars in the sky here than in his hometown. An uncountable number of pinpoints flickered between clumps of undulating clouds.

It was alien and othering; cold and apathetic. Nothing about this Home was familiar, and he didn’t know if that bothered him or not. He supposed it should. Homesick was probably the right response to being moved to a new place in a foregin state with a different last name. 

But he felt nothing.

Soft muddy molehills squashed underfoot. His heels sunk into the earth with each step. The wet metal latch on the gate glinted under the full moon. The woods were at least reminiscent of the patch of trees at the back of his old apartment building. 

The tall scraggly pines would scratch at the windows during summer thunderstorms. Pounding rain veiled the brunt of intensifying arguments. The neighbor's TV was always on loud enough to be heard through his bedroom wall.

Oak leaves danced limply on the pulse of the breeze before joining the decay of the forest floor. Quinn slipped on slick grass as he followed the path down the hill and into the woods. Silhouettes of shifting shrubs greeted him as he passed.

There was less arguing here but the quiet wasn’t much better. It made his bones ache. He couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time. The nights were deathly still and he needed to move to remember that he was still alive.

The path through the woods was long. It stretched on through patches of ferns and thorny bushes that snagged his sweatpants. He had yet to find where it ended. The further he walked, the closer the trees grew together. Their half-naked branches filtered out increasingly scant patches of moonlight. They would creak and moan, warning him to turn back. On most nights he did.

The pounding in his chest made the hair on the back of his neck stand. He glanced behind himself. The roof of the Home was out of sight, lost to the twists and turns of the path. This was already further than he’d gone before.

It was the same feeling he got while sitting in Mr. Green’s office. Mr. Green would ask him if it was a good or bad feeling; positive or negative. He didn’t know. Sorting something so abstract into a fixed binary category didn’t make sense. Whenever he tried the sensation would vanish like smoke. He’d wonder if it had ever really been there at all or if he’d made the whole thing up.

Running water burbled nearby. The ferns danced between leadened raindrops and muted gusts of wind. The shimmery leaves left most of their shape up to interpretation. Among them, one seemed to stand. A metal bar swung at its side.

The ferns swished behind Quinn as he picked up speed. He jumped over gnarled roots and fallen limbs. His body ached in protest. It wasn’t ready to run.

The tire iron swung down. Searing pain bloomed in his shoulder and down his right arm. It radiated along the nerves into his neck and chest. Ink splattered the kitchen sink. Black puddles pooled on the carpet. Insects buzzed in his ears.

His legs strained against his own momentum. Thorny bushes crowded the path. Their spiny fingers tugged at his clothes and scratched his skin. He shielded his face behind his arms. His sneakers thumped against the damp earth. The path dissolved into a thick underbrush.

He chanced to look behind himself, expecting to see the hulking outline of his pursuer at the end of the hall. Instead, there was nothing; no figure, no footsteps, no hallway. Tall trees blotted out the streetlamp-moon. He wasn’t in his mom’s apartment.

Wheezing, he collapsed onto his hands and knees. His desperate panting fogged the air between choked raspy cries. Phantom pains pinged down his arm and spine. Ribs hung onto the memory of being broken and crushed. He bit down on his sleeve and screamed. He didn’t want to be loud. He didn’t want to wake up the neighbors.

What neighbors?

The brush surrounding him shivered with unseen movement. Twigs snapped in the clearing ahead. Chittering cat-sized animals spirited away. Their barking echoed off of the trees. 

Quinn sat back on his heels, his chest heaving. The barking turned into bleated shrieks and howls. He screamed with them, or maybe at them. He screamed so hard his throat ached.

Something plastic cracked under his weight. His knee crunched and rolled on the cylinder. He clawed it out of the mud, intending to throw it at the retreating cries.

In the moonlight, the empty pill bottle looked almost brown. He turned it over in his hands. The label had been worn down by rain, leaving the paper frayed and patchy. 

It was out of place. There wasn’t a lot of litter out here and there were no roads nearby. He shivered. Cold mud had soaked into his sweatpants. His jacket was heavy and damp.

The trees swayed with the unveiling of the full moon. It shone through the woods, peeling back layers of shadows. The hair on the back of his neck stood. 

Shreds of fabric dotted the clearing. A familiar, sickly sweet, smell hung in the air. The oak next to him was misshapen. Its trunk bulged to one side.

The figure was distorted by bloat. Its back was propped up by the tree. Its head had rolled forward, leaving its slack jaw open and the bulk of a swollen tongue exposed.

The skin had turned a strange hue of green. The lips and eyes were darker shades of black. Its stomach was distended past the limits of its shirt.

Parts of it had been picked away at. Mostly the legs. Ragged gouges ripped through muscle and fat. Bone reflected white like a neon sign.

Quinn froze. It was so close to him. If he reached out he could grab its hand.

Instinct screeched at him to run. His legs tensed. He was breathing so fast that it turned his stomach. 

The smell hit him again: sickly sweet, musty, and putrid. It smelled like thunderstorms and muffled arguing. It smelled like long quiet nights on the hallway carpet. He covered his mouth and nose with the sleeves of his jacket.

Quinn recognized the open backpack at its feet. It was plain and black. The zipper had been undone all of the way, leaving the insides exposed. The empty pill bottles had filled with rainwater.

“This feels bad,” Quinn whispered behind shaking hands.