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Caleb shrugs. “He wasn’t listening to any of us. I don’t think the dogs are going to bother with him anyway. They … Well, they have … You know.”

They have their dinner. Except it’s not wild dogs out there, is it?

Henry and I exchange a look, and I can tell he’s thinking of going after the man, so I do something spectacularly shitty. I lean in and whisper, “If you go, I go,” and that settles it. He’s not leaving.

“Still offering that drink?” Henry says to the bartender.

“I am offering all the drinks tonight. Pick your poison.”

TWENTYRAYMOND

Apparently that old adage is right. You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle. He’s doing fine, and he can’t even remember the last time he’s been on one.

No, wait. It was about ten years ago, on a date with a guy who thought it’d be fun to rent city bikes in Chicago.

It had not been fun. Not when you’re a goddamned adult dressed to impress on a first date. Raymond had ruined his trousers with grease and lost his suit jacket, which he’d fastened onto his bike. A two-thousand-dollar suit ruined, and the guy had laughed. Oh, it’d been amused laughter, not mocking, and he’d definitely been up for continuing the date back at Raymond’s hotel, but yeah, Raymond wasn’t exactly in the mood after that.

These trousers are probably also ruined, and while he’s still wearing his suit jacket, he’s pretty sure he’d heard the seam under the arm rip. He doesn’t care. It’s all about the gesture, and this is a fucking gesture.

What’s better than driving along a deserted road in a storm? Biking along a deserted road in a storm. Ruining his suit. Getting soaking wet. All right, the rain has stopped, but that only means Raymond is very aware of the mud spraying up his back from the tire.

Bryce is going to eat this shit up, even more because it’s so out of character for Raymond. He’s abandoning his precious dignity to get to Bryce before he returns to England.

Forget worrying whether he can convince Bryce to stay. That boy is going to be his for months after this, ready to do anything Raymond wants.

Raymond lifts his watch. The face flashes on and shows him he’s been riding for … ten minutes? That has to be wrong. He’s been gone thirty minutes at least. At that very second, his watch vibrates, asking whether he wants to turn on the cycling workout. He grunts and slows to hit yes, and then checks the stats.

Nine minutes of riding. One and a half miles covered.

What the fuck? Obviously that’s wrong. It must be the lack of signal, screwing up his watch.

Any second now, he’s going to see the lights of a town.

So far, though, he hasn’t seen lights at all. Even deep in the trees. Of course, he hasn’t really been looking either. He isn’t planning to show up on someone’s doorstep at two in the morning. But since he’s not seeing a town—or even a gas station—maybe it’s time to consider all possibilities.

He’d been in a five-car pileup. With an old man who might be dead. And that woman hadn’t looked too good either, the one with the braid. She’d been hurt. Yes, this qualifies as an emergency and therefore, he can justify knocking on a door—

What the hell is that?

He just passed something standing on the edge of the forest.

No, someone standing there.

Shit!

Raymond brakes so fast the bike skids, and he half falls off, one foot sliding through the mud. He gets the bike balanced and turns. The figure is coming his way.

He exhales in relief and waves. “Hello! I’ve been in a…”

He trails off as his stomach clenches. What … is that? It looks like a man, but he seems too tall, too thin, hands dangling to his knees. Raymond’s fingers clench the handlebar grips, every instinct telling him to get back on and ride—ride as fast and as far as he can.

When Raymond was ten, his dad took him hunting. Time to make a man of his son, which had never been a concern before, but now the neighbor said she’d caught Raymond following her twelve-year-old son around, and she said it was creepy. She would not have said that if Raymond was a ten-year-old girl mooning over her son.

His father figured out what it meant—had probably long suspected—and so off they went on a hunting trip. They’d been gone half the day, and his dad forgot to bring food or water because truth was, his dad had no fucking idea how to hunt and borrowed the guns from a friend. After Raymond complained about being thirsty, his dad stomped off, telling Raymond to “grow a pair,” which apparently required being left alone in the forest as night fell.

That’s when Raymond had seen the thing. The thing that looked like a person dressed in raggedy clothing. He’d been terrified, certain it was a wild man of the woods coming to kill and eat him. Then he’d seen the face. The blank space where there should have been a face.

“OMG, you saw Slender Man,” Bryce had said when Raymond told him, and yes, he actually said OMG.