The woods behind the Pike’s house, labyrinthine and majestic, but dark and secluded, held a fascination for Alan and Daniel. After school, they made it their kingdom, since high school was anything but. Daniel Kinney, the burnout, eyes full of spiderweb veins, smoking out of a one-hitter under the bleachers, coughing through biology. Alan Pike, the transfer student junior year, when everyone had already formed their cliques, only the burnouts left to welcome him into their group if they were lucid enough to try. Daniel was too much of a burnout for the burnouts, so when Alan hid under the bleachers after an asshole lacrosse player jokingly promised he’d fist him good after gym, Daniel offered a toke of schwag and Alan spoke of the woods behind his parents’ property, which sounded better than finishing the day in hell.
The boys skipped their last period classes, and soon it became a ritual. Daniel was already flunking and his parents were too wrapped up in a cycle of lust and abuse to care, so missing a couple of classes each day didn’t matter. Alan wasn’t a bad student, maintaining good grades despite a few absences. His parents would never punish, feeling too guilty for moving across the country to Washington State after his father got a job as a manager for a logging company that kept him away into the night, while his mother drank wine and spent an unhealthy amount of time in the bathtub with a fistful of pills. So, a sort-of friendship formed, Daniel hanging out with anyone who’d smoke up, and Alan attracted to Daniel’s grungy allure, a mix of his idols Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder and a permanent corn chip smell, although Daniel was too clueless to notice.
One particularly blustery day in January, they brought a Discman with the new Pearl Jam album Vs. and traded headphones while singing “Animal.” Why would you want to hurt me, ahh they shouted to the cloud-covers, arms wrapped around one another, moshing with the wind. Daniel had eaten Cool Ranch Doritos, his breath spicy every time Alan leaned in and took a whiff, held it as a memory for a spank bank. When he got too close, Daniel pushed him down—Alan dipping a toe deeper into the lake of Daniel each time, gauging his new friend’s reaction. Alan came down hard on his tail bone, hitting something more than grass.
“Shit, man, sorry,” Daniel said, reaching out a hand and helping Alan up.
Alan tossed the wild hair from his eyes and peered at what hurt his back, a VHS tape with the words WATCH ME written in red.
Daniel swiped the tape. “Da fuck?”
Alan rubbed his sore. “I’ve never seen anyone out here. Like, there’s not another house for a mile.”
Daniel’s left eyebrow rose in an umbrella shape. “Maybe it’s porn.”
Alan’s body buzzed. While his mom sank in her bathtub, they could watch porn in the den, their legs touching ever-so-lightly. Daniel would lick his lips, signaling for Alan to make his move.
“Let’s watch it,” Alan said, way too excited.
Daniel shrugged. Nothing truly excited him, not the promise of porn, which in pre-internet times, was a find, not even life itself—something he met every morning with the same shrug.
Alan grabbed the tape, as if Daniel might change his mind about going inside. Daniel gave it over, so he could tap his one-hitter against his palm, put in another nugget and blaze.
Back at the Pike’s house, Alan’s mother had locked herself in the bathroom. A hum crept through the crack of the door, indicating her extended bliss that would last an hour. The boys found a Pringles can and a two liter of RC Cola, making their way to the den.
The Pike’s décor was hunting chic. A dead elk head greeted all who entered. Alan’s dad had transplanted this prize from their home in New Hampshire, along with his array of guns and knives displayed over the fireplace mantle in lieu of family photos. If there was a fire, Alan knew what his father would rush back inside to save.
Daniel, high out of his gourd, picked the elk’s nose while huh huh huhing.
Alan laughed because he laughed at anything Daniel did.
“What’s your porn preference?” Daniel asked. “I like big titted MILFs.”
“Yeah,” Alan said, his hand shaking. “I like that.”
Daniel leered. “Sure ya do.”
Alan ignored any implications. He turned on the TV and slid the tape in the VHS machine. Snow came on the screen as the boys sat on the couch, the leather slick. Daniel chugged the RC Cola from the bottle, let out a gigantic belch, and passed it to Alan, who luxuriated in his spit touching Daniel’s, as he took an indulgent swig.
On screen, the snow shifted to a shot of the woods in the same area where they found the tape. An enclosure with trees like octopuses reaching out to one another. Sun pierced through the clouds. It could’ve been from today, yesterday, or really anytime. Daniel dug into the Pringles can and chomped down on a stack of chips.
Two figures made their way into the enclosure wearing baggy jeans and hoodies covering their faces. Alan and Daniel glanced at one another, taking in their own baggy jeans and hoodies.
“Turn up the sound,” Daniel said, between chews.
Alan fiddled with the remote. “The volume’s at the max. I guess there is no sound.”
Daniel blew a raspberry. “Lousy porno.”
The figures on the screen removed the hoodies from their heads, revealing themselves to be Alan and Daniel. The hair on both boys’ arms watching stood at attention. They looked at each other, looked away, and then back again.
“What’s going on?” Daniel said, his voice solid and cutting through the haze of pot that usually made it slow.
“It’s us,” Alan said, because he didn’t know what to say. His eyes got wide as he watched with excitement and trepidation.
Daniel inched over from Alan on the couch, until it felt to Alan like he was miles away. “Someone filming us? Like what the fuck?”
Alan couldn’t respond, transfixed with the images on the screen. His mind zooming through other days when they hung out in the woods and wore those precise clothes.
Daniel stood up, more animated than Alan had ever seen him before. “What the fuck is going on? Did you do this?”
Alan’s voice got small. “N-no.”
Daniel took in the elk head monitoring them, got woozy, and had to sit back down. He put his head in his hands as they watched the film unfold. On screen, the boys seemed to get into an argument, expressing themselves by flailing their hands, shouting with venom. Watching it, they both wracked their brains to remember if they’d ever been so heated with one another, but came up empty. Their hangouts mostly uneventful, each time bleeding into the next with little difference.
“I wanna turn it off,” Alan said, hugging himself. The air thick and stale, his swallows audible. He got up, but Daniel held out his arm, sat him back down.
“I wanna see how it plays out,” Daniel said, not even glancing over, his eyes refusing to leave the television.
Their argument on screen accelerated, faces red and beating, spit flying from their mouths like dogs in a fight. They started to push one another, not playfully moshing like earlier, but with the intent to destroy, their grainy images locked in battle. And then, Alan removed a knife from his pocket, the blade gleaming in the sun. He charged at Daniel stabbing him in the gut, wrenching the blade out, and stabbing again and again in a fit of rage until blood like ketchup painted Daniel’s clothes. Daniel tripped over his feet, fell backwards, quivering on the ground, his hands begging for Alan to stop, his mouth screaming in silence for a reprieve, but Alan slit a smile into Daniel’s throat as the blood spurted out like a water fountain.
The screen went black.
{}
Snow reappeared on the TV, causing both boys to flinch. They could hear themselves swallowing in the thick silence. Daniel finally leaped up, pressed every button on the VCR until the tape spat out. He held it until his butterfingers dropped it to the ground.
WATCH ME, it said in red, teasing them.
“You have some explaining to do,” Daniel said, scared now. Alan had never seen him like this before, affected by something.
Alan couldn’t stop staring at the tape. “I-I don’t know.”
Daniel got in his face, towering over Alan. “Fuck you don’t. Is it like some special effects shit?”
“I wouldn’t even know how to do that.”
In his mind, Alan kept stabbing Daniel over and over. He blinked to make the vision go away.
“The way you look at me sometimes,” Daniel said, out of the corner of his mouth.
Alan got stiff, exposed. His body buzzed, like he had tiny wings. He went to speak, but Daniel pulled him up by his collar.
“You look like you wanna eat me up sometimes,” Daniel said, shaking him. “It’s creepy.”
“You’re my friend,” was all Alan could respond.
“I’d never…” Daniel chewed on his lip. “I’m not like that. Not like you.”
Now Alan felt stabbed, but he couldn’t deny the warmth of Daniel’s hands, even as they moved toward his throat with the intent to strangle. Alan wormed out of Daniel’s grip, caught his breath.
“I’d never want to hurt you,” Alan said, crying. He hadn’t cried in a long time.
Then came a knock at the door, as the boys both jumped. Alan’s mom stuck her head through the crack, her hair slicked back, smelling of floral essence. She was in her bathrobe, her pupils large.
“Boys, I can make ants on a log if you want,” she said, as she slowly smiled. “Daniel, are you staying for dinner?”
“I’m out of here,” Daniel said, pushing past them as Alan’s mom clutched her imaginary pearls.
Daniel headed down the long hallway, hearing footsteps behind. He turned around, the hallway dark without windows. He could make out Alan running close behind. Was there a knife in his hand? Something gleamed so bright it blinded him. He turned away, concentrated on one foot in front of the other until he swung open the front door, glad for the wind in his face. He took off at a run, a magnet pulling him back into the woods, since he could lose Alan easier there. But Alan was quick, caught up with him fast.
“Daniel, stop, just stop,” Alan squealed. Before they knew it, Alan tackled him to the ground. They rolled around in the leaves and the dirt. “Just listen.”
Daniel shook his head. “You led me here. To these woods. This was your plan all along.”
“I’d never seen that tape.”
They were shouting, their echoes tossed to the sky. Daniel rolled on top of Alan, pressing him down, their bodies close.
“Let me leave,” Daniel said, as a warning.
“No, you have to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I didn’t know. I swear. I’m just as scared as you.”
“From what? Who? Who filmed that video?” Daniel was roaring, wanting nothing but to slit Alan’s throat now, the only way he was guaranteed to save himself.
Alan shook his head, shooting tears. “I swear, I swear, I swear.”
Daniel held him close, since Alan was squirming. Out of Alan’s back pocket, a knife emerged, bathed in a strip of light shining through.
The wind told Daniel what to do, to pick up that knife. He swiped it and jumped to his feet, pointing the blade at Alan’s neck.
“I don’t know how the knife got there,” Alan said.
Daniel spit dirt from his lips. “Bullshit. It’s from your father’s collection. Up over the mantle. You grabbed it when I left the room.”
“No, I didn’t!”
Daniel cut through the air in frustration. “Then why do you have it?”
Alan touched his neck, displayed a drop of blood on his finger. He seemed so confused, like he didn’t even know what a finger was, like he’d stepped outside of himself. He let out a heavy breath.
“My mom came in, asked if we wanted ants on a log.”
The wind picked up strength, whipped around them in a frenzy.
“No! After that, after I left.”
Alan’s eyes pleaded. “I don’t remember.”
“You’re playing me,” Daniel said, nodding until he believed his words. “This is some prank. Some way to get me back.”
“I’d never want to get you back. I…”
“You what?”
But Alan didn’t have to say it for Daniel to know. Alan loved him. Stole glances every chance he could. Hung on Daniel’s every word. Laughed at his stupid jokes. Found a way to be as close to him as possible, something no one else had ever done. Not Daniel’s parents, who he couldn’t remember giving a hug or affection, or any of the girls in school, who joked that he smelled of pot and stumbled around when they made fun of him, or his teachers who regulated him to the back of the class as an afterthought. No one cared and no one ever would—Daniel had accepted this, and then Alan showed up, skinny and gawky, but funny and always up for whatever Daniel wanted to do. He didn’t love Alan in that way, never thought about it before, but he loved him in a different way, more than he’d ever felt for someone else in such a short amount of time.
“Please, Daniel,” Alan said, his palms out, the line of blood dripping down his neck. Alan had gotten to his feet now. Both boys glanced around, recognizing the same enclosure they were in earlier that day, the same area from the tape. “Put down the knife. It’s okay. I don’t know what is happening, but this doesn’t have to happen. Forget about the tape. Someone’s playing a cruel joke. I don’t know why and I don’t how, but they’ve always played cruel jokes on me, back in New Hampshire and here too. And I’m sorry if I…if I looked at you in a certain way. I think you’re just so cool. You don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks and I wish I could be like that, because I do, I care a lot, and people always let me down.”
Daniel wanted to say they let him down too.
“Maybe it was the pot?” Alan said. “And this is all in our imagination.”
“I smoke all the time.”
“But maybe this stuff was laced, like bad. And we were hallucinating. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Daniel lessened his grip on the knife handle, not wanting to hold it at all. He glanced down at his jeans, at his hoodie, Alan dressed the same. “I saw what was on that tape.”
“I know, I did too. But maybe we didn’t. Maybe we psyched ourselves up to think we saw what we saw. You’re my friend, that I know, when no one else was. That’s all I know.”
But the wind whispered the opposite in Daniel’s ear, told him the second he relented that Alan would attack, that the tape foretold the future of his body being stabbed, of his neck being slit. He closed his eyes for a moment, replied to the wind that he was hallucinating, just like Alan said, so he wouldn’t have to do what he needed to survive. In the darkness, he was at peace, a fugue state, what he always strived to attain, why he smoked so much, why he often checked out of reality.
When he opened his eyes, reality hurtled back. Alan growling, arms extended ready to claw. Daniel’s own arms detached from his body, swinging with fury, stabbing his friend over and over until blood oozed from his body. Daniel was painted in red too, as Alan fell to his knees.
The wind picked up and guided Daniel closer. The knife an alien in his hand that slit across Alan’s neck. Blood erupted, the wound like a fish mouth, the blood no longer red but black as Alan keeled over. Trembling, the knife slipped from Daniel’s hands. He threw up in the leaves, tar heaving from his soul. He stared at his sickness, watched it form with Alan’s blood, mix until it was hard to tell it apart, how much it fused. The wind howling like a church’s organ, shrieking in his ears. He covered them to stop the assault but it plagued even louder. He had to get out of there, run like an animal anywhere else. He saw Alan crumpled in the dirt, a shell, and his heart broke in two. He cried dark tears for his loss, for the life he knew, for his one friend. Crawling over Alan, he planted a kiss on Alan’s chapped lips, tasted Alan’s blood like fuel, its copper sting remaining forever, for when he lost every shred of who he used to be. He rose to his feet. He had to get out of there. He picked up the knife, wiping the blade off his hoodie and then tossed it beyond his sight. He removed his stained jeans and the hoodie, stuck them in the open mouth of a giant tree that beckoned, shivering shirtless in his boxers as he ran so fast, putting the woods in his rearview.
Alan lay in death, his frightened eyes staring straight ahead at the red blinking light of a video camera tucked beneath the foliage filming the scene. Its audio picked up a chilling scream in the distance, Alan’s mother as Daniel emerged from the woods—scraped, bloody, and nearly naked. She screeched for her son, the last few moments of peace she’d have before the truth of what happened would rain down.
The wind rushed, leaves spinning around Alan, the whir of the video camera documenting this fall, until the wind stopped the tape.
The video camera pitched forward, releasing a VHS tape that in red letters said
WATCH ME.