The Way Out Is Through

By E. M. Holloway

When a young woman is found murdered on the property she used to own, her brother enlists Puck Schneider - the nosiest teenager in Arcadia Lake - to help him find out who killed her. It doesn't take Puck long to realize that he's getting way more than he bargained for, as he's drawn into a world of werewolves, monsters, and murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329671676

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The Way Out Is Through

The Way Out is Through

The Sum of its Parts: Book One

E. M. Holloway

to the hundreds of friends

who made this possible

also and especially my neechan

and my zucchini

Prologue

When Owen Henley leaves Puck trapped in the trunk of his car and walks away, he doesn’t say a word. The only thing Puck hears from the werewolf is a soft laugh. And then nothing. Not even footsteps.

Minutes trickle by, and he starts to shiver. While the car was running, some heat was seeping back into the trunk, but now it’s getting colder by the minute. He had been able to see his breath out in the parking lot, and he wasn’t exactly dressed for the weather. It’s so quiet that Puck can hear his own pulse. He wonders what time it is. He wonders all sorts of things, to be honest, his brain jumping from one topic to the next the way it always does whenever he hasn’t had his medication. His focus can be incredible, when it chooses to kick in, but right now his mind is just wandering.

There’s a sudden ‘pop’ noise, and he startles, almost hitting his head against the roof of the trunk. It’s the sound of a gunshot, not at all close but still unmistakable.

Several minutes, each one longer than the last, drag by.

There’s another gun shot. Then another. And then three in quick succession.

Then silence.

Figuring that now is as good a time as any, and at least someone is nearby, somewhere, Puck starts banging on the roof of the trunk and shouting for help. He stops every minute or so, being methodical, straining his ears for the sound of anyone approaching. But there’s nothing. He shouts until he’s hoarse and his voice gives out altogether, pounds on the roof and sides of the trunk with both fists until his hands ache.

He’s thirsty, now, in addition to being cold. He thinks about whether it would be better to freeze to death or to die of thirst. How cold is it going to get? Thirties? Or even lower? At what temperature do people start to freeze to death? He adds this to his never-ending, always-growing list of ‘things he should look up’, for whenever he gets out of this.

Or what about suffocation? The trunk seems pretty solid, but he supposes that he’s getting air flow from the rest of the car. He doubts it’s airtight; to construct it that way would just be too much trouble. He thinks about looking that up someday, too, although he supposes it could be awkward to Google ‘would someone suffocate in the trunk of a car’. Then again, he supposes he’s Googled worse things.

Now that he’s thinking about it, he thinks he read somewhere that in a lot of cars, the trunks have some sort of safety latch in case somebody gets stuck inside. He feels around for anything, takes care to be methodical, tugs and pushes on every lump and knob he can find. But there’s nothing. If there’s any sort of mechanism, he’s not finding it. So he does it again. And again. The repetition keeps him calm.

It’s been far too long. Owen still hasn’t come back.

His feet and hands are the coldest. He can tuck his hands into his armpits, but there isn’t much he can do about his feet. He wonders if maybe Owen wasn’t planning to come back, but intended to leave Puck in the trunk to rot. But that doesn’t make sense, not really. If Owen had wanted him dead, he would have just killed him. No, he had some sort of plan, either to make Puck suffer for insulting him, or some use for him that Puck didn’t know about. Either way, odds were very good that Owen had planned to come back for the car. But he still isn’t back, and Puck isn’t sure what that means. He thinks back to the gunshots, and wonders if Owen is dead. He wonders if all of them are dead.

Either way, he’ll be missed before long. When he doesn’t come home, his father will be looking for him, regardless of what the werewolves were doing. He might not worry until the next morning, teenaged boys being the way they are, but when he wakes up and Puck is still nowhere to be found, he’ll go looking for him. It’s only a matter of time. All he has to do is wait. He hopes that his father is okay. It’s just been the two of them since his mother died, and he doesn’t want to leave his father alone.

All of this goes through his mind while he continues to feel around for any sort of release mechanism. He still can’t find one, and slams his fist into the floor in frustration.

It’s his own fault he’s in the trunk of this car, and he’s starting to face that. Because even though getting involved with the Henleys had been coincidence, what happened after that wasn’t. He was the one who had decided to keep investigating. He was the one who couldn’t let it go. It’s probably going to go on his gravestone when they bury him next to his mother. ‘Here lies Puck Schneider, who couldn’t f*&#ing let things go’.

Curiosity killed the cat, he mumbles to himself, and begins to laugh hysterically, thinking of the look on his father’s face when he had countered with, ‘But satisfaction brought it back.’

Puck wonders what time it is, how long it’s been. He doesn’t have his phone, and hasn’t bothered to wear a watch in a long time. He breaks them too often, and there’s a clock in every classroom, so who cares? He tries counting the seconds, but his focus is nowhere near good enough for that at the moment.

Things start to take on strange shapes, and every tiny forest noise makes him twitch and jump. He’s not used to things being so black and so silent. Even in his room at night, he’ll leave a fan running so he’s got that hum of white noise in the background, and it’s hardly ever really dark. The cold is numbing him; he’s huddled up as small as possible and hopes that will be enough.

Some time later, he realizes with a jolt that he’s dozed off. That obviously won’t do. He needs to stay awake, in case somebody comes by, so he can make some noise and someone can get him out. His legs have gone almost completely numb, both from the cold and the fact that he can’t move. He shifts as much as he can, trying to shake feeling back into them. It doesn’t do much good.

He yawns despite himself and falls back to sleep.

It’s hunger that wakes him, hunger and thirst and an unfortunate need to empty his bladder. The latter is just embarrassing, but the three together give him the feeling that hours have passed. It might even be morning. And still Owen has not returned. At this point it seems fairly obvious that Owen is not going to return. Either he’s dead, or has had to abandon his old plan for some new one and has tossed Puck aside. No matter what’s happened, Puck knows he’s on his own.

But he also knows that there’s still an APB out for the car he’s currently trapped in. Of course, he still has no idea where the car is. If it’s parked on the side of some dirt road in the middle of the forest, as he suspects, it could be days or even weeks before anyone finds it.

Licking his cracked lips, he knows that he doesn’t have days or weeks.

It must be morning, he realizes. It’s not as cold. The sun must be beating down on the trunk of the car, warming the interior. It’s still freezing, but not quite as freezing. He makes a mental note about researching hypothermia and frostbite the next time he’s at a computer. Then he stares up at the darkness of the trunk, waiting for something to happen. The waiting is driving him mad. His mind, always ready to occupy itself with random junk, is spinning like tires stuck in mud. Nowhere to go, no traction to gain.

I do like you, Puck.

It’s Owen’s voice, loud and clear like he’s standing right there, and Puck startles and lets out a shout.

Was he dreaming again? He didn’t think he had been asleep. Hallucinating? Did hypothermia cause hallucinations? Did dehydration?

The panic is seizing him now, and he can’t break its momentum, can’t shake it, can’t stop it. He starts pounding on the roof of the trunk again, until his fists ache. He keeps thinking about Owen’s hand around Delaney’s throat, about Owen laughing before leaving him in the trunk of the car and walking away.

He screams and screams until his throat aches and he can taste blood in his mouth, and then he keeps screaming until exhaustion overtakes him.

He can’t move, his leg is seizing and twitching now, cramped with the worst Charley Horse he’s ever had. He tries to reach down and massage it out, but he can’t really reach his calf very well, and in doing so only manages to pull a muscle in his shoulder, so now that hurts too. He would have cried if there was still enough moisture in his body, and with a flush of embarrassment despite the fact that he’s alone, he realizes that he pissed his pants while he’d been panicking.

There are no atheists in foxholes, he’s heard, so he tries praying for a bit, and drifts in and out of consciousness, and the blackness gets blacker and the quiet gets quieter with every moment that trickles by. He can picture it now, like grains of sand slipping between his fingers. He’s starting to realize that he’s going to die, that Owen has left him somewhere that no one will find, that someday in the far future a boy goofing off in the forest like he always did will find this old broken down car with a skeleton in the trunk.

Puck closes his eyes and hopes that he’ll see his mother again soon.

~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter One

In the winter, it was common for Puck to go to the police station after school. Band rehearsal ran until four, and the police station was a lot closer to the school than home was. Puck had a car, an old VW Beetle that ran better than anyone would anticipate by looking at it, but in bad weather he loaned it to his best friend, Jason Castillo. Unlike Puck, Jason had an after school job, working at the city library. He didn’t have a car of his own, so he used Puck’s, and Puck walked to the station and hitched a ride home with his father at the end of his day.

When the door swung open to admit a cold blast of air and a man a few years older than Puck’s sixteen, he was sitting at the table in the break room, reading about Napoleon. He scooted his chair backwards a little to see if it was anyone interesting and caught a glimpse of auburn hair and a black leather jacket.

I need to file a missing persons report, the man said, and Puck practically fell over himself trying to crane around the corner and get a look at him. The chair creaked alarmingly and he flailed for balance. Of course, Sandy chose that moment to lead the man around the corner, and gave Puck a somewhat exasperated look.

Here, have a seat, Sandy said, gesturing to the chair next to Puck’s father’s desk. He emerged from the evidence room a moment later, and Sandy waved him over.

Deputy Tom Schneider, he said by way of introduction, shaking the younger man’s hand.

There was brief hesitation, and then the response came. Connor Henley, he said, and Puck craned backwards again. Connor Henley? The Connor Henley? One of only two survivors of the Henley House Explosion, an event that got capital letters in their one-and-a-half-horse town? Connor Henley, brother of Owen Henley, who had blown up his family’s house with his illicit meth lab, killing thirteen people? That Connor Henley?

He leaned too far and the chair overbalanced. He wound up sprawled on the floor. It gave him an excellent vantage point to see his father rolling his eyes like they’d come loose in their sockets.

Sandy said you needed to file a missing persons report? Tom said, ignoring his son’s antics with the ease of long practice.

Yes. My sister. Erin.

Didn’t think you two still lived around here, Tom said, fishing for the appropriate form.

We don’t, Connor said. We moved to the city. But a few days ago, Erin decided to come back to Arcadia Lake to visit some friends. I haven’t heard from her since then. She’s not answering her phone. It’s not like her.

Why don’t you just track her phone’s GPS? Puck asked from the floor.

Tom didn’t miss a beat. Why don’t you do your homework?

Puck made a face at his father and picked himself back up, looking over to see Connor glowering in his general direction. He hunched over his textbook and pretended that he was no longer listening. But it was impossible not to. The Henleys were a legend in their town. They were an odd clan to begin with, a huge extended family living on unincorporated land out in the woods, and there had always been rumors about them. They came to Arcadia Lake for elementary school but after that went away to some fancy boarding school. They were a cult, they were cannibals, they were inbred and crazy; there was no end to the rumors. But the explosion had killed all but two of them, Connor and Erin, and they hadn’t been seen in Arcadia Lake since.

Do you know what friends she was here to see? Tom asked.

Connor shook his head. She didn’t say. I was – He cleared his throat. I didn’t want her to come back here. So I didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell me.

Do you have her car information?

Yeah. It’s, uh, a Ford Thunderbird. 1965. Dark green. I don’t know the plate number but, uh, it was registered to her, so . . .

That’s a sweet ride, Puck chipped in, unable to help himself. Old muscle cars are amazing. Do you know what I drive? A VW Bug from the seventies. God’s lamest car.

Looking exasperated, Tom said, "If you’d prefer not to have access to a motor vehicle, just keep aiming for that C minus in history, Puck."

That grade isn’t my fault, Mr. Nealy is a – right, I’m studying, Puck said, burying his head back in his books. He forced himself not to eavesdrop for five minutes, so he didn’t look up again until his father shook Connor’s hand and told him that they’d be in touch. He watched his father over the edge of his textbook while he arranged to put out an APB for both Erin Henley and her car. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and just said, Are you going to track her phone?

Tom looked up with a sigh. You do know that I’m not the NSA, right? We’re lucky we have computers that work. Erin didn’t have any sort of GPS tracking installed on her phone, which means that unless she makes a phone call and I can see which tower it pings off of, I can’t just flip a switch and pinpoint her on a map.

Someone should get on inventing that, Puck said.

Tom shook his head a little. I’m going to have Sandy take you home, he said. It might be a late night.

But Dad –

Go home, Puck, Tom said, more firmly, and he stood up and walked back towards the front desk. Puck realized in that moment that Tom already thought that Erin was dead, that Tom was already expecting to find a body.

~ ~ ~ ~

Arcadia Lake was a small town, and like any small town, news traveled fast. Puck had barely been in school for an hour the next day before he found out that Erin’s body had been found at the half-built lodge on the Henley’s former property with her throat torn out. It didn’t do much for his ability to concentrate.

Everyone in town half believed that the Henley family’s land was haunted. Erin Henley had sold it to the city before leaving, and the city had in turn sold it to a developer. They decided to build a hunting lodge and restaurant out on the bulldozed remains of the old house. But the construction had been plagued by problems. Tools disappeared. Machines stopped working. Accidents happened and people were hurt.

After six months and thousands if not millions of lost dollars, the developer pulled out. The partially constructed lodge was still there, on the property. Kids would go there to party sometimes, even though fences had been put up. They would get drunk and then come back into town with stories about how they saw shadowy figures and heard moans or crying children.

Puck was never sure what to make of the rumors. He was one of the few people in town who had actually met some of the Henley adults, although he had never been out to their house. That only happened because, again, of how much time he had spent at the police station.

The thing is, Puck doesn’t remember a time that his mother wasn’t sick. She had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma the year after he was born, and every day after that had been a struggle. She would have weeks or even months when she was fine, when the chemotherapy was working and everything was going well. But like the proverbial cat, it always came back. And then it would be back to the hospital, bed rest, side effects.

When she was sick, he would go to the police station after school so he didn’t disturb her rest or just because nobody was at home to watch him. And that was where he had met Caitlin Henley, the family matriarch. She had stopped in on a rainy spring day when Puck was nine, to pay off a parking ticket. Puck had been sitting behind the desk, dejectedly playing with plastic army men, upset because his mother was in the hospital again.

Caitlin had paid the parking ticket, but then she had come back ten minutes later. Here, I brought you this, she had said, handing Puck a candy bar. You looked kind of down in the dumps, so I thought it might cheer you up!

Wow, thanks, Puck had said, and she had given him another smile before leaving. He remembered that later, when she had been killed along with the rest of her family.

~ ~ ~ ~

Looking back on it, Puck didn’t know whether or not it was really Connor’s dramatic appearance in his life that actually mattered. It wasn’t as if their investigation had gone much of anywhere. A few weeks before Erin’s body had been found, something that probably proved to be just as important happened: Jason got a date.

Specifically, Jason got a date with Sophie Durand. This was a monumental occurrence. Sophie was one of the queens of high school society. She was beautiful, with long, honey blonde hair and deep brown eyes. She was a talented athlete in gymnastics and track and field. She was in the top five percent, academically speaking. But despite all this, she was genuinely a nice person, kind and caring. Her popularity was only used for good.

Jason had been crushing on her for years, basically ever since they had started junior high and he had met her. And Jason was Sophie’s polar opposite. He was a band geek who played clarinet and maintained average grades and had been cut from virtually every sport he had ever tried out for. He was one of only a handful of Hispanic kids in their town and got picked on frequently. Although he wasn’t really overweight, he had the body of a Pillsbury Dough Boy, and his dark hair was too long and curly to be stylish. The only thing they seemed to have in common was that Jason, like Sophie, was nice.

This year was particularly excruciating for his crush because they had gym together. Jason’s athletic talent was nonexistent and Puck simply wasn’t a fan of physical exertion if it wasn’t necessary. Which was, paradoxically, how it all started. They were doing a mile run. Jason dropped towards the back of the class almost immediately and Puck stayed with him because briskly walking with Jason was a lot more fun than actually jogging, or God forbid, running.

When they finally finished, most of the class was just standing around, waiting and giggling. One of the jocks called out something uncomplimentary. Puck didn’t remember what it was later, only that he used the word ‘faggot’.

Puck gave exactly zero fucks about the comment, but Jason just turned and gave the jerk a winning smile. I’m honored that you would include me in the ranks of famous gay athletes like Michael Sam and Jason Collins. I’ll strive to live up to your praise.

Puck gave a snort of laughter and then noticed that while most of the classmates were either snickering behind their hands or giving him looks of eye-rolling disgust, Sophie Durand was smiling. An honest, happy smile. Puck elbowed Jason in the ribs. Go talk to Sophie, he hissed. She’s smiling. She thinks you’re funny.

Whaaaaat, Jason asked, his tanned cheeks tinged with a blush. He snuck a glance at her.

Go! This is your chance! Puck practically shoved him towards Sophie, because hey, a wingman’s gotta do what a wingman’s gotta do.

Um, hi, Jason said to Sophie.

Hi, she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

In a manner that did not even approach smooth, Jason blurted out, Hey-maybe-if-you-wanted-we-could-go-to-the-movies-this-weekend?

Now it was Sophie who blushed and said, Sure.

Whoa – really? Jason said, and Puck rolled his eyes.

Yeah, Sophie said, her smile turning a little shy. What do you want to see?

Oh, uh, Jason said, but rallied and came up with a few choices, and a few minutes later she had borrowed a pen from the gym teacher and was writing her phone number on his palm.

Call me, she said, smiling, and Jason flushed even darker.

What they only found out later was that Sophie Durand had two moms, so not only had Sophie been offended at the jock’s comment, but she found Jason’s retort particularly charming. They went to the movies that Friday and then she offered to help him study in English since his grade was a low C, and at the game the next weekend she came over to the stands to say hi while the band tootled away. Puck was there, because fourteen-year-old-him had thought playing the saxophone would get him girls, and he watched them smile and blush at each other.

Two days later, Jason had been invited to join