Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Phil narrows his eyes. “What you got on you?”
I look from him to Faye, mildly confused. “Um...what do you mean?”
“Got anything sweet on you? I ain’t had nothing sweet in a long time. They never give us treats. Says it messes with our brain chemistry or something like that, but something sweet here and there ain’t gone kill us.” He scratches the scruff on his chin. “Wish I had a Snicker or something.”
Faye’s eyes swing to me, and she lifts her hands in the air, the gesture screaming I’ve got nothing.
“Um…” I bring my tote bag onto my lap and dig through it. To my luck, I find a watermelon Jolly Rancher and an Andes mint. Both have probably been in the bottom of my bag for months, but he won’t know that. I place them on the center of the table. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Phil’s eyes drop to the candies, then he glances at me before collecting them swiftly, hiking his shoulders, and peering around the room, like this is a drug-dealing situation. I can’t help looking at Faye again. Her eyes are wide and lips are pressed, and she’s probably thinking what I’m thinking: this may not have been a good idea.
“All right, so where do I start? Let me see…” He unravels the sticky wrapper of the Jolly Rancher and pops it into his mouth. “Mmm. Damn. I ain’t had one of these in years. It’s good.”
Caz steps closer. “Tell us what happened.”
“All right, all right. Hold on, man. Let me savor this shit. I just told you we ain’t allowed to have sugar in this place.”
Caz refrains from rolling his eyes.
“All right, so yeah, you read the blog posts, so you know the story about Marney. How is my blog doing anyway? Never mind. Look, I ain’t lying about it. She really did disappear out of nowhere. We were hiking, right? And it was mad early in the morning. She wanted to go to McAfee Knob to see the stars at four in the damn morning and then watch the sun rise, and I would’ve done anything for her, so I went. We were walking a trail that leads to the top of a hill and chilled for a second. Then the sun came up and we took pictures, ate a couple of sandwiches and snacks, but when we came back down, that’s when we saw it.” He leans in, ashy elbows on the table. “It didn’t look real at first. It was like blue glitter or something floating in the air. And Marney, man, she was nosy as hell. Always so damn adventurous and wanting to know everything, and I told her to leave it alone, ’cause I ain’t gone lie to you. I believe in aliens and shit. Like those motherfuckers are out there, probably watching us, and all I could think in that moment was that some alien was about to pop up and abduct our asses. But Marney, she kept going toward it, even though I kept yelling for her to come back.” He shakes his head, defeat washing over him. “She tried to touch it, and the next thing I know, she’s gone.” He spreads his fingers, eyes widening. “Just disappeared out of nowhere. And when she did, all that glitter disappeared too. Wasn’t even there no more. I looked all around that forest for her, spent hours calling her name, going back to that spot, trying to see if it would take me too, but nothing happened, and I didn’t know what to do, so I called the cops. But they didn’t buy my story. They kept interrogating me, asking if we argued, had a fight—crazy shit, you know? Always wanna assume a black man hurt his woman, but I never laid a finger on Marney, or any woman for that matter. I’m a good man.” He adds the last sentence with more gumption, like he needs us to believe it.
I nod, waiting for him to continue.
“Nobody could help me, and her family—man, she has this brother, Antoine, who always picked on me. He was an asshole, so you know he blamed me, started calling me all kinds of names, said he was gonna kill me because I did something to his sister. And I couldn’t sleep after what happened. I kept going back to McAfee, hoping I’d find her, but I never did. So, I started doing some research about what I saw, thinking maybe that would help me get some answers. And when I tell you I fell down a rabbit hole, I did. Did you know there are people out here selling organs they don’t need for two hundred dollars, sometimes less? And that some people worship jellyfish? I’m talking, capture the jellyfish, place them in a tank on an altar, and bow down to them. That’s crazy, right?”