Whenever your world starts crashing down
That's where you'll find me.
Logan noticed the difference in their town within days.
There was something in the air; a tense, terrifying feeling, something that could be seen and felt from miles away. A smile and conversation with a neighbor in the morning became a soft mumbled hello. No one walked the streets at night any more.
There was something there. Logan didn't know what it was, but he felt it, and that was enough.
x
"Are you gonna eat that?" Carlos asks him during lunch, through a mouthful of food.
Logan blinks to shake the thoughts away, then places the sandwich on the boy's tray. "No, here."
Carlos chews thoughtfully, staring at him. The cafeteria is never quiet and today is no different but Logan feels uneasy. It's like he can hear each specific conversation, because he knows what everyone is talking about.
"Did something happen?" Carlos asks, suddenly very serious. "Did something happen with -" he shifts, glancing around himself, but they're alone at their table. "You know?"
Sometimes Logan hates how Carlos can read him like a book. They've been best friends for as long as he can remember so this is not surprising, but it still manages to be frustrating.
Logan swallows, glancing around too before he answers. He can't help it, it's become a habit.
"Not to anyone I know personally," he responds and he can clearly see Carlos' shoulders relax.
"Okay? Well -"
"But," Logan pauses, still shaken up, "My neighbors said they saw something last night."
"What?" Carlos asks immediately, leaning forward with his hands on the table. "What did they see?"
Logan shushes him immediately and Carlos rolls his eyes. "No one is listening," he says, "and if something really did happen last night, everyone already knows about it."
Logan clenches his jaw, because it's true. It's no wonder he's been getting weird looks around the school.
"My neighbors.. they saw something walking around my house last night."
Carlos' eyes are huge now, and he's frozen in his seat. "Wh -"
"They said so. They told my mom, I heard them talking about it this morning," Logan explains, and Carlos doesn't let him finish.
"What did they say? What was it, a person? What -"
Carlos shuts up and just stares, waiting.
Logan doesn't know how else to phrase it, so he just kind of says it.
"They don't know what it was but.. They told my mom it didn't look human."
x
People kept disappearing.
It was terrifying to go to school and not know who would be missing next. They were always the quieter ones, the ones that probably wouldn't be noticed right away. But Logan did. He noticed every time.
He kept a notebook with the names of the teenagers who were missing. This was probably not the smartest thing to do considering the police were always on the lookout for new suspects, but it was for his own research purposes.
Logan tried to find connections between the people who were taken. Four girls, three boys. All different ages, none of them seniors. He stayed up for hours with his computer, researching, just trying to understand.
x
"Do you think they'll come back tonight?" Carlos asks later that night, splayed out on Logan's bed.
Logan had almost refused when Carlos had asked to sleep over that evening, but he can never say no to that boy. He knew Carlos' parents were usually gone during the weekends and he didn't like to be alone. Plus, everything was so terrifying now, Logan hated the thought of Carlos being away from him.
"I don't know, 'Los," he replies from the floor, sitting against the wall and playing with the pillow in his lap.
Carlos blinks his big eyes and watches him lazily. "What if they come back and we don't know it?"
"I don't want to know."
"That's such a lie," Carlos answers and he sits up, pillow in his lap. "I know you're just as curious as I am."
They're silent for a moment, Logan desperately trying to find something else for them to talk about, when Carlos asks, "Why would they even come here?"
"I don't know, Carlos," Logan snaps, clenching his fists. He calms down and begins to feel guilty when he sees how wide Carlos' eyes have gotten. He whispers, "I just don't know, okay?"
Carlos slithers off the bed and sits down next to him on the floor. Logan swallows hard, looking into his eyes.
"Hey," Carlos says softly, getting closer still, "It's okay to be scared, y'know?"
Logan nods his head, but he can feel himself blush. "I know, but I hate it. I want to find out what's happening, I want to be stronger than this so that I can do something about it."
Carlos touches his hand, a sweet gesture meant to comfort him but it makes Logan's heart jump. His stomach suddenly hurts.
"You can't fix everything, Logan," he says quietly.
But Logan wants. He wants to fix everything. His skin tingles where Carlos is still touching him and he feels nauseous, because this is what he wants. He doesn't care if whatever is out there ruins him, but he will never let it touch Carlos. The thought alone makes him want to scream. He wants to hug Carlos and keep him close and never let him go, protect him from the world. That is what he wants.
"I know, but I can try."
x
Logan is at his locker the following Monday when he hears about the next girl who has gone missing. People around him speak about it in hushed tones, as if it's some huge secret, as if this is completely unexpected.
This is the eighth disappearance, and the first one of this month. The girl's name is Jo, and Logan didn't know her very well but the rest of the school did. His stomach churns because this doesn't seem to be normal. Usually, the person missing is gone for days before anyone begins to notice. By the sound of it, there are search parties all over the county already, looking specifically for her.
Was this a mistake? Were they – whatever they were – beginning to lose focus? Or worse, was Jo never meant to be taken in the first place?
Logan slams his locker closed and ignores the weird looks coming his way as he heads to the library.
X
Logan likes to think of the library as a sanctuary. There are only a handful of kids that have the same study hall as him, so he always has the back corner table to himself. Usually there are books scattered all over the table, a mess of notes and scribbles.
But this time he was looking through his school's most recent yearbook.
Since it isn't his property, Logan refuses to write in it like everyone else. So instead he uses sticky notes. He presses a sticky note over Jo's pretty face and scribbles down everything he can think of on it.
Sophomore, fifth girl, only blonde, lots of friends?
He jumps when he hears the sudden a sound of a chair scraping against the floor, and then a lanky blonde kid is sitting across from him, a serious look on his face.
Logan doesn't know Kendall as well as he used to. They were closer when they were younger, during their middle school years. Now Logan just sees him every once in a while in the halls – always taking in his tired, intense eyes. Logan specifically remembers when Kendall had missed an entire week of school this year, and he had been so worried but unable to go looking for him. It would have been weird to pry into his life like that. But Logan still thought about Kendall from time to time, he couldn't help it.
Logan tries to close the yearbook in the smoothest way possible but Kendall already has his hand on it, taking it away from Logan before he even says a word.
"Uh? Hi -"
Kendall barely glances at the sticky note before his eyes lock on Logan's again. Logan would probably have flailed backwards in surprise if he wasn't sitting down.
"What do you know about all of this?" Kendall asks him.
Logan doesn't know how to respond without making it completely obvious that he knows a lot.
So instead he asks, "About what?"
Kendall stares at him, incredibly unimpressed. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."
Logan sighs and scratches at the back of his neck. "Okay, but what makes you think that I know anything?"
"Because I know you," Kendall answers without a beat. "I know that you worry about people you don't even know, and I know that you're always looking for new things to learn about. So why wouldn't this interest you?"
Logan swallows, already losing this fight. "Um -"
"I saw you check out four books on mythology last week," Kendall states and his eyebrows shoot up when Logan stares at him in disbelief.
"What, are you stalking me now?"
Kendall rolls his eyes. "We're always in the library together, all I had to do was glance over. Quit changing the subject."
"Why are you so interested?" Logan asks, taking the yearbook from Kendall's hands as if he owns it. He tenses when he realizes how strong Kendall's grip is and nearly slams his back on the chair when Kendall finally lets go.
Kendall stares at him, setting his hands down on the table gently and breathing in through his nose, trying to calm himself down. Logan is confused but very intrigued – he hasn't talked to Kendall in months, and this is the first thing that he brings up?
"I'm interested because I'm not as smart as you are," is what Kendall says and Logan is even more confused now. It must be obvious on his face though because Kendall continues.
"I want to know what's happening, and I don't have the skills that you have. You see things clearly, and you always know where to look for the answers. I'm dumb even when it comes to studying for finals, you know that."
"Yes, I know that," Logan admits and Kendall almost looks offended. "But -"
"Logan," Kendall says, soft but stern and it shuts Logan right up.
"Please."
And Logan sighs, because there's no point in trying to hide it anymore. He knows he can trust Kendall, and only good things can come out of telling someone. He hasn't even told Carlos, which is so odd to think about.
"Right now I'm trying to find a connection between all the missing people," he says, quietly, glancing around himself and Kendall stops him immediately.
"No one is listening. They're all studying. Talk to me."
Logan sighs and continues, louder this time. "Okay. So far, I haven't found any connection. They're all just young people that aren't usually noticed -"
"Except for Jo," Kendall adds and Logan nods.
"Yes, exactly."
"Do you think they got her by accident?"
Logan hesitates, then asks, "How do you know it's 'they'?"
Kendall leans forward on the table. His eyes are are a piercing green. "You tell me. You know where all the victims were right before they were taken, right?"
Logan nods. "Well, yeah. They were all within the border of the town, and none of them were near each other."
"And they happen in bunches," Kendall adds. "They took the last three about a month ago. Now Jo is gone, they're gathering their next batch."
Logan feels his hands begin to shake, the excitement of finally learning something new flowing into his veins. "So there's more than one, more than two, even?"
"I don't know exactly, but I know they're working together, they must be."
"What do you think they are?" Logan asks and that is the question Kendall has clearly been waiting for, because his entire demeanor changes. His eyes grow wider, it seems, his fingers clenching into fists. Logan can taste his curiosity.
"They're not human."
"I know, I know that," Logan answers, waving it off. It's terrifying that he's completely aware of that. "But they're definitely not puppies. They're smart, they know exactly what they're doing and how to get away with it."
"Do you think they're some sort of half human, half – something?" Kendall asks, nearly leaning over the table. His tone is hushed now and Logan wants to grin because they seem to be getting somewhere. Once they get past their disagreements, it's always smooth sailing in their conversations.
"I don't know, I think they could be," Logan replies, reaching into his bag and shuffling through papers as he speaks. "When the police reported the last crime over the scanner -"
"You own a police scanner?" Kendall asks, baffled.
" - They, yes, they talked about seeing some sort of prints on the ground where one of the disappearances took place," he explains, sliding over the sheet of paper he was looking for. On it is exactly what he heard over the radio, in his scrambled handwriting.
Kendall's eyes move over the sheet of paper within seconds. "They saw paw prints? Where? There's no snow to leave prints on."
Logan takes the sheet of paper, pointing at the words as he reads them out loud, "'Big, messy prints on the grass.' Which means they were strong enough to dig into the soil."
"Jesus Christ," Kendall mumbles, leaning back into his chair. He looks distressed and Logan sort of feels bad. "So that's why you took the mythology books?"
"Well, yeah," Logan says, flushing because it's probably stupid to look so deep into something so dumb, but Kendall is nodding, so he continues.
"That's probably why that part wasn't announced to the public," Logan explains, "It's not believable. He said they were messy and it's nearly impossible to find prints on grass -"
"So they're a pack," Kendall says, instantly, and Logan stops talking, so confused.
"A pack?"
"Christ," Kendall murmurs again and his eyes are wide, looking terrified and Logan is about to ask again when the bell rings and Kendall is up, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
"Kendall, a pack of what?" Logan demands, standing and going after him when he starts to leave.
"Look, Logan, I'll explain it to you soon, okay?" he says, turning to look at him. He spews the words out, like he has zero time to talk about this right now.
"I'll stop by your house later, and we'll talk," he finishes, in an extreme hurry and Logan is confused and furious, his jaw clenched. Kendall turns to run out then turns around again as he reaches the door of the library.
"And make sure Carlos is with you."