It’s not every morning you drink dead girl juice.

Wait. Let me explain.

It was the dog barking that woke me. Rox was our built-in security system, not that we had anything of real value to steal.

Technically, the five acres of rock and dirt that backed on to Gun Creek was owned by the State of Nevada. But in a dying town like ours, they didn’t exactly have a use for it.

The mayor of Gun Creek had been friends with my grandfather before he passed, and so he turned a blind eye to the double-wide and assorted makeshift dwellings that my family called home.

The fact that my mother also dabbled in meth production and small-time drug dealing made me realize, eventually, that the mayor’s eyes were being turned not with compassion, but with favors from mommy dearest.

I couldn’t think about that, though. My mother was a fuck-up who’d had too many kids to a somewhat questionable number of different daddies, but she was the only mother I had. I didn’t want to think about some greasy guy in a cheap suit putting his chubby hands on her.

“Rox!” I hissed at the dog through the narrow window, mindful not to wake my girlfriend.

Beside me, Cassie breathed long and even, her chest rising and falling in time. Her hair was covering her face, her expression weary even in sleep. I kept telling her she worked too much, but she just laughed and told me the more she worked, the faster we’d be out of this town. It was one of the reasons I loved her so much.

We’d both been raised to believe that we’d never get out of Gun Creek, but Cassie was smart. She had that spark inside her that matched mine. That’s how I knew, unequivocally, that we’d be the ones who got away.

It was peaceful inside my room. I’d built it myself when I was twelve from an old shipping container somebody had dumped on our property. It leaked in the winter and there were gaps where the corrugated steel sheets attached to the ground. I’d filled the gaps with expanding foam as best I could, but sometimes the mice still chewed through. My dog made quick meals of them if that happened. I didn’t mind the mice. They were less intrusive than my mother in her rotting double-wide up near the road.

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I walked as quietly as possible from my bedroom to the kitchen. Loose definitions for one long, narrow space that was separated by a hanging bed sheet.

I’d been having a dream when Rox’s bark woke me, but I couldn’t remember it. I just knew that I felt antsy, and I needed to go and shut the goddamned dog up before Ma came down and started yelling.

I went to the makeshift sink, a metal bowl with a hole cut in the bottom that I’d plumbed in myself. It drew water directly from our well, so I didn’t need to pump water manually to make it flow. I even had a shower with heating that I’d made from old PVC piping and plastic sheeting, lifted from the garage where I fixed cars after school for cash. That had come later when I’d decided that if Cassie were sleeping over, she should be able to wash up without having to go up to my mom’s trailer to do it.

I turned the tap on at the sink and filled up an old jam jar. My eyes itched - the pollen was off the charts and fucking brutal in the spring.

After setting the jar down, I splashed cool water on my face. The pipes inside the well made the water smell of metal sometimes, and today, especially so. Eyes itching considerably less, I turned off the water and reached for my jar.

I took an extra long drink of water. I can still taste it now, all these years later. Straight away I knew that something wasn’t right. The taste of rot and pennies filled my mouth, and I almost gagged.

What the …?

I held the clear jar up to the thin streak of sunlight coming through a crack in my homemade curtains. The water was a dirty rust color, still opaque, but stained like someone had taken a dropper of red ink and squeezed it into the liquid.

I looked at the small mirror I’d hung above the basin. My face looked kind of dirty, too. I grabbed an old T-shirt and wiped my face dry as best I could, Rox’s barking reaching fever pitch.

The fucking dog. The fucking well. Fucking all of it. I was so tired of living with shit that didn’t work properly, trash pieced together from more trash. When people looked at us, I know that’s what they saw — pieced together trash.

When I left Gun Creek, I was getting Cassie and I a real house. One with rooms and curtains and a real bathroom. A house without wheels underneath, without foam to seal up the fucking gaps. A house with a proper front door, painted her favorite color, blue.

Winter might have been months gone, but the mornings here still chilled your bones. I hopped into a pair of jeans and threw on a hoodie, unlocking and opening the door as quietly as I could. It creaked in response. I made a mental note to get oil for the hinges.

Rox wagged her tail, curling her body sideways as she made her way towards me, her head and her back end pointing at me as she did her dog version of an excited crab walk.

“Hey, girl,” I murmured, putting my palm out for her. She licked it, right in the center, and when she pulled her pink tongue away, the skin there turned cold.

“What’s up, Rox?” I asked quietly, scratching behind her ear. Rox was a mutt, motley-colored and missing one eye, but she was sharp as a tack. She whined a little, running off in the direction of the well.

I had to check the damned thing anyway. Might as well follow her lead. I backed up a few steps, slipping back inside to grab a flashlight from the ledge I’d built next to the door. Stupid well was always clogging up. That’s the thing about living illegally on land you don’t own — water isn’t exactly an automatic thing to come by, even when you live right near a creek.

I picked my way down the stony sand path that led to the well, the dirty taste still in my mouth. I zipped my hoodie up over my chilled skin as I walked, my feet complaining loudly. Should’ve worn my boots, I thought, but I was too lazy to turn back.

I was three steps away from the well when I heard a twig snap behind me. I jumped, turning quickly, gripping my Maglite tightly and bracing.

Oh. Damn. I saw Cass, shielding her eyes from the flashlight I was shining in her direction as she stood, bleary-eyed and wearing my old snow jacket over the oversized football jersey of mine she insisted on sleeping in. She’d slipped her feet into my boots, far too big for her, so when she walked she had to kind of drag her feet.

“Hey,” I said softly. Sometimes it made my chest hurt when I thought about how much I loved her. Especially in the morning, when she was tired and warm and bleary-eyed.

“Come back to bed,” she murmured, her voice still full of sleep.

She looked fucking adorable. I didn’t want to be out fixing the well. I wanted to be back in bed with her.

I walked over to her, Rox momentarily forgotten. “The well’s backed up again,” I said, planting a kiss on her cheek. She turned her face, going for the lips, but I leaned back, covering my mouth.

“No,” I said, jerking my thumb back toward the well. “I’m pretty sure I just drank dead mouse water.” I didn’t mention that it was probably something bigger than a mouse. Girls hate stuff like that.

“Eww,” Cass said, wrinkling her nose up. “Brush your teeth before you get the plague or something.”

I laughed, turning back to the well. Fifty feet or so and I was there, bracing myself and holding my breath as I lifted up the lid. The water had been fine the day before, so the dead thing must have been pretty recent.

I folded the heavy wooden lid back on its hinge and peered inside. The sides of the well were made from stone, and cold stale air rose up to greet my face. I shivered, my flashlight landing on something large and unmoving as Cass came to a standstill beside me.

Shit.

It wasn’t a mouse. It wasn’t a raccoon, either. It might be a fucking dog. A small calf. I thought of my younger brothers, little band of shitheads they could be, and wondered what accident they’d tried to hide in the well.

Course, when you were six or seven years old, you didn’t understand that by killing animals from neighboring farms, you were marking yourself as a potential serial killer. The triplets, we called them, because there were three of them. Matty was five, Richie was six, and Beau was seven. They loved to break shit, kill shit, steal shit, and then lie about it.

My mom excelled at breeding. She’d really hit her stride when she met the triplets’ father and banged out three in as many years before he OD’d in her bed and she left his corpse tangled in her bedsheets for three days thinking he was asleep.

My mom was fucking crazy.

Hence having my own makeshift room, as far away from her as I could get.

“It’s something big,” I said to Cass. Her cheery demeanor quieted a little. When we were talking about things stuck down wells, big was more serious than small.

“You think—”

I knew what she was thinking. Her mind always went to the worst possibility.

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “Definitely not. Not big enough. I bet you anything those little shitheads killed something and threw it down here.”

Cassie opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. “You can shower at my house?” she said, her tone trying to be helpful, as though we could just shut the well and be done with it.

I was the oldest. I was the man of the house. It was my responsibility.

“We need water,” I said. “They all need water.”

“You want me to try lowering you down?” she asked dubiously. I shook my head. We both knew she was too small to bear my weight.

“Get Pike,” I said, flicking the flashlight off. “I can climb down there okay, but he needs to hoist me back up.”

She nodded, standing on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. I remembered again that I’d washed my face with the dirty water. Gross. After I fixed this, I was going to run the water clear and have a scalding hot shower for like, three hours.

“Be careful,” Cass murmured. “You know what, just wait. I’ll get Pike and we can both lower you down with the rope. Last thing we need is you breaking an ankle before football finals.”

Cass was going to get out of Gun Creek based on her smarts, and I was going to get out based on my athletic abilities. Old Tanner Bentley may not have gifted my brother and I with money or any kind of upbringing. However, he had passed down to me his ability to smash anyone I was up against in football. Cass and I were scholarship bound, baby. We were on our way.

I stood there for a moment as I watched Cass disappear up to the main trailer. I was impatient, my major downfall in life. I never could wait around for anything the way I should.

I should have waited like she said, but I couldn’t be bothered. I’d climb down, bracing my bare feet against the rock walls like I’d done countless times as a kid. I’d fix the problem, save the day, and then they’d bring me back up in a few minutes. Hot showers for all. And after I was clean, after I’d scrubbed my skin and my teeth clean, I’d take Cassie into the shower with me.

I swung a leg over the lip of the well and got a good grip with my hands. Then I inched one leg down, the flashlight under one arm and my feet better than any rock climbing shoe as I shimmied down.

The problem wasn’t getting into the well because the rocks were relatively dry up top near the surface. It was getting out, because once you were down the bottom, the rocks became smooth and wet, and it was impossible to gain purchase against them.

Once you were in the well, you were in.

Still, how bad could it be? Whatever was down there smelled, so it was dead, and therefore it couldn’t hurt me. That was the logic I applied, anyway.

I gripped my feet against the rocks, my heart rate accelerating as I got closer to the dark lump of something in the bottom. Whatever it was, was against one wall, so I made my way down and winced as my feet touched freezing cold water. It came up to my ankles, sloshing about as I kept the flashlight gripped tightly under my arm. If I dropped it, I’d be screwed.

The smell down here wasn’t as bad for some reason. It was as if the water had absorbed some of the scent and the rest had risen, bilious gases searching for freedom outside the confines of the narrow stone walls. But despite the smell improving, the feeling in my stomach only got worse.

My skin crawled as I tried not to think about what was in the water, my teeth clenched tight as I braced my bare feet on the bottom of the well and took the flashlight in hand, aiming it at the mysterious lump.

For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. Dark hair. Blood. A dog? I’d been expecting a dog. Those fucking brothers of mine had killed a dog before, last summer, slit the poor Labrador’s throat and dumped it in the creek.

The thing in front of me wasn’t a dog.

It was a girl.

Or — half of a girl, cut from under one shoulder to over the other hip, the top half of her staring eternally forward with milky blue eyes as parts of things that had once been inside her seeped out of the spot where she’d been brutally split.

I screamed.

I dropped the fucking flashlight.

I kept screaming.

Not just because of the girl. Not just because she’d been butchered, her lower half nowhere to be seen. I wondered, briefly, if I was standing on the rest of her body parts. Her legs. Where the fuck were her legs?

I screamed until it felt like my throat would bleed. I screamed for Cassie, for Pike, for Jesus and for God. I didn’t believe in the last two, but my subconscious didn’t care about that minor detail.

JESUSCHRISTOHMYGODCASSIEPIKE

Over and over again.

I think I even called for my mother.

Cassie’s face appeared above me. She was so high up I could barely make out her expression. “What is it?” she called out. “Leo, what is it?”

Beside her, I saw Pike, lowering the rope down. Too slow. Too fucking slow and I was stuck next to the dead girl and I was still screaming.

I started to hyperventilate.

“Karen!” I screamed. “It’s fucking KAREN!”

I saw Pike speed up, heard Cassie gasp loudly.

Karen was a girl we went to school with.

Karen had been missing for almost a week.

Everybody thought Karen had run away or been swept up in a trucker’s rig, or just plain gone and died somewhere nobody knew about. The police were searching for her, but you could tell it was kind of a half-hearted thing.

Because girls like Karen went missing, but they weren’t always missed. Girls like Karen were trouble, and she had been in trouble. With drugs. With stealing.

Karen was the girl who’d given hand jobs to the entire male side of our class by the time she was thirteen.

Karen was the girl who’d already had three abortions.

Karen was trouble. Karen was in trouble.

But Karen wasn’t in trouble anymore.

Because Karen was fucking dead.

“Pike, get that fucking rope down here, man, hurry!” I begged.

I know I’d said the smell wasn’t so bad in the well, but that was before I’d seen what the smell was. Now, it crawled inside my nostrils. It laid a home on my tongue. It burrowed into my cheeks.

And then I remembered that I’d drank the water.

I’d drank dead Karen water. Dead girl juice.

I gagged violently, one hand up against the wall. I was terrified — of what, I’m not sure. She was already dead, after all. She was hardly going to hurt me.

Something brushed up against my face and I yelled again, jerking my head away from where the sensation had originated. My heart leaped when I saw the rope, a crudely fashioned bar attached to it to wrap your legs around while you got hoisted up or down.

I grabbed that rope for dear life. “Pull me up!” I yelled. The rope started to jerk almost immediately as Pike wound it up above. Relief flooded my body, right through to the marrow in my bones, and I closed my eyes momentarily as I took a proper breath.

But the rope was frayed, and I was heavy.

The rope snapped.

I fell.

The fall ended just as quickly as it had begun when I slammed face-first into what was left of Karen. I screamed without opening my mouth, my eyes level with hers, a tiny worm making a hole in her face to burrow into.

Her eyes had some kind of cloudy film over them, like my grandfather’s eyes when he’d developed cataracts, but it was still as if she were watching me through the dirty windows of the beyond. I pushed away, heaving my body up and sticking to the opposite wall.

I’d lost the flashlight in my fall. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark at the bottom of the well, Karen’s face coming into grainy focus. I stared at the milky blue-white of her dead eyes until the sheriff arrived and hoisted me out with a winch.

Something changed in me while I was down there. Some part of me died with Karen, sucked out of me and into her unseeing eyes. I still remember now, years later, the way I laughed at Cassie before I went over to the well. How light I felt. How easy it was to breathe.

I don’t laugh much anymore.

Once I was finally at the surface, I ran as far away from the well as I could get. Cass tried to touch me, but I pushed her away, pushed Pike away, falling to my hands and knees in the dirt. I leaned over, the sight of her on a constant loop inside my head. Karen. Dead. Her blood in the fucking water.

Her blood inside me.

I stuck a finger down my throat and gagged. Nothing came up. Fuck, no. I wasn’t going to go on until I had the water that I’d just drank OUT of my body.

I stuck two fingers down, further, and threw up all over the grass. That strange, metallic taste returned to my mouth, masked by bitter stomach acid.

Dead girl juice. It took me months before I stopped tasting her in my mouth.

A bunch of kids found the other half of her floating in Gun Creek a few hours later.

My friend, Chase Thomas, was one of the kids who saw her lower parts, wedged underneath a grille in the water intake pipe that fed the whole town, legs dancing lazily in the current.

For a long time afterward, people were talking about how strange it was that Chase and I had found a half of Karen each.

How convenient.

Almost like they thought we killed her.