Ashlight - 1. Full Story

We were supposed to be down at the creek with everyone else. Tyler brought beer in his backpack, and someone said there'd be a speaker. The first night, it felt like real fall. Breathe in the air. The creek runs under the road, and there's a flat place where the rocks make a little pool you can sit in. They call it the cold tub. People jump in and scream and then pretend it isn't cold. Mason and I walked with the group until the trees got tight and the ground turned to sand and old bottle caps. You could hear the music coming off somebody's phone, small and tinny, and voices bouncing off the dark water. Then he bumped my shoulder on purpose and said, "Let's go up."

He meant the tower. It sits on the ridge past the creek. An old firewatch spot from before drones and cameras were available. It's there like a dead thing on stilts. There's a rusty sign that says KEEP OUT because someone thinks signs change people.

"Yeah," I said.

"Let's go up."

Nobody noticed us peel away. Tyler saw us and lifted his beer at me, as if giving me permission I didn't need. The path to the tower is narrow and has roots that grab your shoes. We walked single file. Our flashlights chopped the dark into little pieces. The tower legs appeared before the top, four dark posts against the sky. The ladder is more like a long staircase. Someone spray-painted an eye on the bottom riser. Mason stopped and looked back toward the creek. You could see the glow of a phone down there, and once in a while, a shout. He made a face like he was deciding if he'd be missed. Then he started up. I followed. The wood creaked but didn't complain too much.

Halfway up, he said, "Ever think about just leaving? Like, really leaving? Not the way people say it. Like catching a bus and never texting anyone back."

"All the time," I said. "I think about picking a place by closing my eyes and putting my finger on a map."

"And if it landed on cornfields?"

"Then I'd learn to like cornfields."

He laughed, but it was a quiet laugh. The air smelled like dirt and the last of summer.

We got to the platform. It has a waist-high rail and a little hut with windows on three sides. The door to the hut hung crooked. One hinge broke a long time ago. The floorboards were scarred with initials, hearts, and a drawing of something with an inordinate number of teeth. We stood at the rail and looked out. Our town sat low and square, with a handful of streetlights, a strip mall featuring a peculiar purple sign for the nail place, and the water tower bearing the words "Wilbur Falls" stenciled on the side. If you leaned out, you could catch the faint hum of the main road. Everything else was trees and fields.

Mason leaned his elbows on the rail and said, "Jailbird."

"What?"

"This place. Like we were born in a jail with the door open."

He tapped the wood with his knuckles. "You can leave, but nobody does."

"Some do," I said.

"Name two who didn't come back for Homecoming like it was a funeral."

I didn't have two. I had one, and even he posted pictures of the diner sometimes with captions about missing the fries. We stood there. The wind moved through. The tower made a low, steady sound, as if it were breathing.

"Did you hear about Mr. Hall?" I said.

"The guy with the dented truck?"

"Yeah. He got into it at the bar. Like, actual fists. With Mr. Rivas. Then later, he drove his truck into Mr. Rivas's porch. Didn't hit the house, just the steps."

"I thought that was a rumor."

"It's on the Facebook page. My mom showed me, as if it were a sports score. Said, 'See? That's what whiskey does.'"

Mason snorted.

"That's what this town does."

He took his phone out. No bars. He set it face down on the rail and looked at me like he was going to say something else, and then he didn't. He popped his knuckles instead.

"Everything's going by so fast," he said. "We were just in middle school. Now it's like we're supposed to know what to do next. How to be."

"I don't," I said.

"Same."

We didn't look at each other when we said it. That felt easier. We stared at the town like it might answer for us. Down at the creek, someone yelled WOOO like a coyote. Mason smiled.

"Sometimes it's easier to stay out here," he said. "Out of everything."

"Yeah," I said.

"Like, if you don't go home, they can't ask you how it went. You know?"

I knew. Home turned everything into a test. Did you eat there? Who was there? Did you do your homework first? It was easier to talk to trees. We drifted into the hut. It was small, dusty, and it smelled like old plywood and dead bugs. There was a pegboard on one wall with a couple of hooks still in it. A cracked fire map was tacked up with thumbtacks. Someone had left a crushed water bottle on the floor and an empty pack of gum nearby. And on a nail, by the window facing town, hung a pair of binoculars with a strap gone stiff.

"Check it out," Mason said.

He lifted them and wiped the lenses with his shirt. He held them up to his eyes and leaned on the sill.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"The nail salon. The purple sign looks ugly from up here, too."

He lowered them. "You try."

I took them. They were heavier than I expected. Cold. I put them to my eyes. The view snapped closer. I saw the water tower's paint chipped around the letters. I saw the top of the grocery store where kids sometimes threw rocks to hear the clatter. I saw the street where our bus turns every morning. I scanned left, over the houses, the one little church, and the baseball field. At first, I thought the lens fogged. Everything shimmered. Then the shimmer thickened and turned black. Smoke. It rolled in wide ribbons across town. Light flickered beneath it in bright, rapid flashes.

"Mase," I said.

He looked at me. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. Something in my chest went empty and hot at the same time.

"What?" he said.

"Look."

I handed them over. He laughed first.

"What am I supposed to—" Then he didn't make any more sound.

He pressed the binoculars harder into his eyes. His mouth opened like he'd say something, but he didn't.

The town was on fire. You could see it as if it were a movie. Orange under the smoke, flares jumping up from rooftops. The baseball field lights popped and went dark. The grocery store roof glowed, then sagged. The water tower stood like a dumb giant with a cigarette held to its chest.

"I don't—" he said. "I don't smell—"

Then we both did. Smoke, faint at first, then steadier. It slid into the hut, thin and sharp, like a neighbor grilling two streets away, except it wasn't that. It got inside my throat. He lowered the binoculars fast.

"No," he said.

He looked out with his eyes. Our town sat there, fine. A few porch lights. No flames. No smoke. No sirens. The baseball field still lit up steadily, like someone had forgotten to turn them off after practice. We looked at each other. The smell didn't go away. It got into my shirt, into my hair. My palms were black where I'd held the metal grips of the binoculars. I wiped them on my jeans, leaving streaks on them.

"Maybe somebody's burning leaves," Mason said. His voice sounded like someone else's. Thin.

"Nobody burns leaves at night," I said.

We both knew that. We both kept staring at nothing, waiting for something to make sense.

"Okay," he said finally. "We go down there. We check. If it's nothing, then it's nothing."

I nodded because he needed me to.

We stepped out of the hut. The wind felt warmer than before. Not hot. Just not as clean. We headed for the steps and climbed down quickly, too quickly, hands on the rails, boots sliding a little on the smooth wood. When we got to the ground, the trees held the smell close, like a coat.

We could still hear the creek, but it was faint. Someone was singing off-key. It didn't sound real, like a recording. We started down the path. Every rustle made me think of fire, even though there wasn't any. The dark ahead of us looked thicker. When we came out where the path meets the ridge road, there's a turnout people use for looking out over town. That's what we did. The town sat closer from there, like it scooted up to the edge of its own seat. No smoke. No orange. The baseball lights were still up. A truck turned into the gas station, and the green sign lit up the cab.

Mason put his hands on his knees and laughed, but it wasn't funny. It sounded like it broke on the way out. He straightened. I stood beside him and watched the calm that had no right to be calm.

"Maybe the binoculars are screwed up," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Old glass. Warps stuff. Makes you see what you're scared of."

"What are you scared of?" I said.

He didn't answer. He didn't need to. I could feel the answer standing there in my own chest, heavy and quick. The smoke smell didn't leave. If anything, it crept up stronger. My shirt held it like a secret. I rubbed my sleeve between my fingers, and black dust came off like I'd been near a campfire.

He looked at me and then away. "Maybe this is one of those things," he said.

"What things?"

"Where you get a sign and you're supposed to do something about it." He kicked at the gravel with the toe of his shoe. "Or a warning. Like: this is what happens if you don't."

"If we don't what?"

He swallowed. His voice came quieter.

"If we don't say things."

I let the wind talk for a second. It moved through the scrub, and the sound could have been water if you hadn't looked.

"Maybe it's the opposite," I said. "Maybe it's what happens if we do."

He smiled, tired. "So, either way, we burn."

"Maybe," I said.

We stood without moving. Down below, a dog barked at nothing. It stopped again, as if it remembered the time.

"I like it up here," he said. "Feels like the clock slows down."

"It doesn't," I said. "It just feels like that."

"Good enough."

He stepped closer until our sleeves brushed. I didn't move away. He kept his eyes on the town, as if eye contact would break something. I was afraid to look at him for the same reason. My heart tried to hammer its way out of my ribs. The smoke smell wrapped around us until it felt like we were already inside the thing we were talking about.

He said, "Sometimes I think staying out is easier."

"Yeah."

"Out here, you don't have to pretend."

"Yeah."

The wind pushed hard once and then went back to normal. The sound from the creek was just a murmur now, like the party got swallowed by the dark.

"I didn't ask you up here for ghost stories," he said.

"I know."

"I just wanted—" He stopped and laughed once, short. "I don't know what I wanted. Air."

"Same."

He looked down at my hand like it was a decision. He didn't take it. He didn't need to. It was enough that we both knew where it was.

"Remember when Mr. Hall hit the porch?" he said. "My dad said, 'That's what happens when you hold on to the wrong thing too long.'"

"Your dad says that about everything."

"He might be right this time," he said.

He leaned into me a little, not a lot. Just enough to say it without saying it. I leaned back into him. It was a small click in a big machine. Somewhere behind us, a twig snapped. We both turned, as if we were guilty. Nothing was there. Just the tower up the road, the path, and the edge of the woods.

"I keep thinking if we do anything, it'll set the whole town on fire," he said. He smiled without humor. "Like those binoculars were telling on us."

"Maybe they were just showing us what we already knew."

"Which is what?"

"That it's going to hurt either way."

He nodded once. He looked down at the lights again and breathed in like he was going to dive. Then he stepped in and wrapped his arms around me. He did it too fast, as if he had asked permission, he'd lose his nerve. I froze for half a second and then put my arms around him too. We didn't say anything. We were warm where we touched and cold everywhere else. My face went into his shoulder. He smelled like laundry soap and smoke, and the smoke part made my chest feel weird, like I was proud of it or something. Like we'd been somewhere real.

The smell got stronger while we stood there. Not choking. Just thick. The air around us felt different, like dust right after someone runs through the gym. I felt his breath on my neck and then felt something else I couldn't name. A pressure. A hum. Static, almost. It ran over my skin like a hand. He pulled back a little and looked at me. His eyes were wide, like when you step off a curb you didn't see. He didn't let go. I felt a hiss against my ear, soft as a whisper, and saw a spark drift up between us. It was small, like the tip of a match when it catches, and then another one. They rose and winked out before they got higher than our chins.

"Do you see that?" he said.

"Yeah."

We both laughed quietly and stupidly. He wiped at his sleeve, as if he could brush the light away, and his fingers came back gray. He showed me, and I showed him mine. We shook our heads like we were in on a joke no one else knew.

"It's not real," he said.

"I don't care."

He nodded, and that felt like an answer to everything, not just this.

We turned back to the town. It sat like it always sat. A car moved down Oak Street and turned by the school. The baseball field lights clicked off all at once. The dark got thicker where they had been, and the stars showed up there like a curtain pulled back.

"You ever think," he said, "that we could just… not go back down there? To the creek. To them."

"Yeah," I said. "I think that a lot."

"Not forever," he said. "Just tonight."

"We're already not there," I said.

He laughed. "Then we're doing it."

We stood until the chills set in and our breath came out like smoke that belonged to us and not to any fire. He bumped my shoulder with his again and didn't move away.

"Okay," he said. "On three."

"For what?"

He looked at me, finally, like he was ready to fall and didn't care how far. "For whatever this is."

I could have said a lot. I didn't.

I counted, "One, two—" and then he leaned in and kissed me.

It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't practice. It was just our mouths and the little sound they made when we got the angle wrong and then right. My hands went to the back of his jacket. His hands were still gripping my sleeves like rails. The sparks appeared again around us, two or three small points that didn't generate heat, and the smoke smell filled the air like the room was getting smaller.

We broke apart at the same time. We were both smiling without trying. It felt stupid and perfect.

"I guess we didn't need saving," he said.

"Maybe we just needed to burn a little," I said.

He laughed, really this time, and the sound rolled down the hill and didn't come back. We stood there for another minute, as if we needed to make room for the moment to sit. Then he bumped me again, and we turned back toward the path. The tower waited in the dark like a witness. Down at the creek, the singing had stopped. Somebody whooped once and then nothing. We didn't hurry. We didn't speak. The smoke smell followed us, clinging to our clothes like a tangible reminder. If anyone asked later why our shirts smelled like a campfire, we'd say we were up on the ridge where kids sometimes go to be dumb. No one would check. No one ever checks. And if they did, they wouldn't see anything but a small town asleep at the base of a dead tower with a sign that says KEEP OUT.

We stepped into the trees. The dark took us back. The path knew our feet by then. When we reached the spot where the creek sounds started again, we stopped without speaking and listened for a moment. Then we kept going, not toward the voices, but along the ridge, where the town looked like a handful of coals that would never go out and never quite catch. We smelled like smoke and laughed again for no reason at all because our sort of love could set the world on fire.