The Thicket

by Noelle W. Ihli

Norah wonders idly if the security guard in the tan uniform and hat she saw earlier has been trained to tell whether or not someone actually needs help. From where Norah sits, all the screaming sounds the same.

And when the first scream does tear through his throat, he knows it’s loud enough that everyone will hear it. But no one will come.

Norah doesn’t ask why. Because the look in the woman’s eyes tells her to cling to these last few minutes of not knowing like a life raft.

That’s the moment he loves most of all—even more than the blood. The moment of knowing. Knowing that something very bad is about to happen. And that it’s too late to stop it.

Sometimes, Norah feels like her family members are living in different dimensions. Or maybe different circles of hell. She doesn’t feel abandoned. Or resentful. She just accepts that they can’t reach each other right now.

Norah tries to find the sadness. The grief. Even the anger she felt when she was looking at the Facebook event earlier. But it’s like trying to pull a too-big anchor aboard a too-small boat. It will capsize her, where the ocean will swallow her whole.

But that feeling of staring into the dark and wondering if there’s danger lurking there, even just a little danger, will never get old. It’s the whole point of Halloween.

There had been more crazy than usual running through the Thicket this year, given what had happened—and that was really saying something. When you threw teenagers, sugar, and blood together, you had a legitimate nightmare on your hands under the best of circumstances. Someone was always tearing through something, screaming about something, peeing on something, taking their clothes off, or yelling at him about god-knew-what this time.