Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. As you might have guessed, Rex and Leif are based on us as teenagers and Bleak Creek is loosely based on our hometown of Buies Creek. And Ben is a tribute to a very close friend. Otherwise, the rest of the book is strictly a result of our wild imaginings. If there is any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or undead), events, or locales, it is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2019 by Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln Link Neal III

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McLaughlin, Rhett, author. | Neal, Link, author. | Rubin, Lance, author.

Title: The lost causes of Bleak Creek: a novel / Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal with Lance Rubin.

Description: New York: Crown, 2019.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019017895| ISBN 9781984822130 (hardback) | ISBN9781984822147 (trade paperback)

Subjects: | CYAC: Humorous fiction. gsafd | BISAC: FICTION / Humorous. |

FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

Classification: LCC PS3613.C576 L67 2019 | DDC 813/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017895

ISBN9781984822130

Ebook ISBN9781984822154

Book design by Debbie Glasserman, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Nil Ultra

Images: Mr.adisorn khiaopo/Shutterstock (hand); MagicDogWorkshop/Shutterstock and misa.karaffoav/Shutterstock (textures); Umberto Shtanzman/Shutterstock and Komsan Loonprom/Shutterstock (bubbles)

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CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Also by Rhett Mclaughlin & Link Neal

About the Authors

Excerpt from Rhett & Links Book of Mythicality

PROLOGUE

THE BOY RACED through the woods, blood streaming from his hand.

He was growing faint.

Cant pass out. Just gotta make it to the fence.

He heard his pursuers yelling. They sounded as panicked as he felt.

He didnt know if the dizziness was due to blood loss or the shock of what had just happened.

They were gonna kill me.

Hed known this place was twisted from day one, when theyd stripped him of everything, including his own name. But even with all the vile things hed seen, he had still assumed that the brutal punishments were designed to intimidate. Not exterminate. Thats why hed been so calm, willingly letting them guide him along blindfolded and gagged, right up until the moment theyd sliced his palm.

What if this particular test was no different? Maybe he was doing exactly what they wanted him to, running through the trees like a trophy animal. They had only cut his hand. No arteries. Plus, hed somehow gotten away from the two men holding him, one of them enormous, much bigger than any of the other adults hed seen there. Had they purposely let him go? No, he shouldnt sell himself short. Hed fought like hell.

The boy felt a flash of pride. All those hours of memorizing Jean-Claude Van Dammes moves had been worth it.

Cant wait to rewatch Kickboxer.

He struggled to move at a full clip, as branches, rocks, and logs snuck up on him in the sparse moonlight. He dodged the obstacles, hoping he was heading in a straight line.

Wheres the damn fence?

He saw it just before he collided with it, the grass of the pasture on the other side of the chain links glowing a dull gray under the night sky. He started to climb without thinking, pain exploding as the metal wire slipped into his open wound. He stifled a scream, hoping to conceal his exact point of escape. While clenching his jaw, summoning the resolve to hoist himself up the ten-foot barrier, he saw it: a cut section of fence not five steps away.

Lucky.

As he pushed his way through the flap and stood in the pasture, he heard the roar of an engine to his left. A pickup truck was hurtling across the pasture in his direction.

They were trying to head him off.

He broke into a sprint toward the cover of trees bordering the pasture, his shadow sprawling in front of him as the headlights shined on his back. He was confident in his speed. Ninety-ninth percentile in the Presidents Challenge Shuttle Run. Hed timed himself.

But they were closing the distance, fast.

Get to the tree line.

He knew thered be a barbed-wire cow fence at the edge of the field. Hed have to clear it in stride.

In only a matter of seconds, they would be upon him.

He was steps from the trees.

The headlights lit up the short fence, helping him judge his distance. He stutter-stepped to set up his leap, then threw his lead leg in the air.

A clean jump.

He heard the truck skid to a stop on the wet grass behind him, the doors opening. Men screaming.

He knew this stretch of forest well; there was barely a patch of nature around town he hadnt explored. Another hundred feet or so and hed make it to the clearing.

He broke into the lane cut through the forest, a grassy corridor that followed the sewage line along its lazy descent to the water treatment plant. He heard the chasers clumsily moving through the woods, crashing into branches and grumbling to themselves.

Morons.

Randomly choosing a direction, he dashed down the clearing, reaching a manhole in less than fifty steps. He grabbed a nearby stick and jammed it into the notch on the cover, just as hed done a thousand times before, no longer thinking about his throbbing hand. The weighty metal disk lifted, releasing an acrid smell. He raised the lid on its edge and swiftly descended into the rank darkness below, skittering down the iron rungs as fast as he could.

The disheveled men popped out of the trees no more than ten seconds after hed dropped the manhole cover in place.

The boy listened as their cursing voices passed him.

He waited in stinking silence for another five minutes.

Thrusting open the cover, he emerged into the damp air.

The boy fled deeper into the woods.

1

THOUGH REX MCCLENDON knew that he and his best friends were about to attempt something audacious, he never could have anticipated the category-five suckstorm that would spin out from the next hour of his life.

As he scanned the crowd for Leif and Alicia, his dads camcorder heavy in his backpack, the muggy August day hit its first sour note as Rex realized hed forgotten to put on deodorant. He stuck his nose under the collar of his No Fear T-shirt to get a sense of exactly how dire things were.

It was awful. Almost horselike.

Stop smelling yourself in public, sweetie, Martha McClendon whispered. People are staring.

Rex pulled his nose out of his shirt. If his mom thought this was bad, she was going to hate his plans for the afternoon, which hinged entirely upon people doing just that: staring.

Lets see if we can find your father. Rexs mom led him through the masses gathered in the parking lot of the sole strip mall in Bleak Creek, North Carolina, pragmatically named the Shopping Center. It was home to a majority of the local economic powerhouses: Piggly Wiggly, C.B.s Auto Parts, the Fish Fry, Thomble and Sons Hardware, Morris Coin Laundry, and the living testament to Bleak Creekians year-round appetite for celebrating Jesus birthday, Cates Christmas Cave.