Where Things Come Back: Chapters 1–5

Soon there was one more crying voice, and Gabriel and I sat up on my bed and listened through the wall as Aunt Julia rambled on and on about wanting to die.

If you look up, then you can avoid being pushed or running into someone or being the convenient target for some ass-hat standing by the water fountain waiting intently for innocent-looking freshmen to walk by with their heads down.

Only I can’t seem to keep that up for too long before my natural urge to idealize goes into effect.

The phone call at three that afternoon. The drive to Little Rock. And then the revelation of death. It was all too real.

Like most teenage boys, I, Cullen Witter, was in love with a beautiful girl who had a big, burly boyfriend...

You might think it sadistic to bet on an eighteen-year-old boy’s death or to talk about it like I wanted it to happen or something.

Dr. Webb also says that the only way of dealing with the close-minded nature of most southern-born, conservative-leaning people is to either completely ignore their ignorance or to perpetuate it by playing into the set of standards that they subconsciously hold for each particular bubble.

He walked down the hallway at school with his head down not because he wanted to avoid being seen or dissuade social predators or anything, but simply because he didn’t see any reason to lift up his head.

And one could only be left to sit back and witness this spectacle, waiting to see if anything brilliant or cathartic would come about.

When one is sitting in the passenger seat of his best friend’s car as an overly enthusiastic hillbilly is ranting in the backseat about being snubbed by a cheerleader at lunch, his mind begins to wander and think about zombies.

It is for this reason that I was imagining Russell Quitman and his friend Neil as zombies, wreaking havoc on Lily and killing men, women, and children.

Walking slowly and with much confidence, I approached the Quit Man and his minion with a shotgun in one hand and an ax in the other.

Ethiopia, he thought, would be the first place he could truly exert his faith.

Reverend Hughes shouted from the pulpit as the congregation took their seats once again and opened their Bibles.

Rameel, who had been converted some five years earlier, had taken it upon himself to contact Benton’s church and request help for his ministry, which consisted of traveling across the country to provide food, water, and limited medical attention to small villages with the underlying intention of converting as many people to Christianity as possible.

Rameel, who had been converted some five years earlier, had taken it upon himself to contact Benton’s church and request help for his ministry, which consisted of traveling across the country to provide food, water, and limited medical attention to small villages with the underlying intention of converting as many people to Christianity as possible.

It was on their first excursion to the west that Benton had a vision of God in a dream.

I could, especially when trying to ignore the sweat dripping into my eyes as I thrust a brush into the dark abyss.

For a second there was silence. That sort of extreme silence when sounds that you usually don’t notice start to quickly become more and more evident and obtrusive, like the buzzing of the freezer in the back of the store and the humming of the air conditioner.

“I hope so, Penny. I really do,” my mother said in that work-voice that only Gabriel and I knew was insincere.

When I told him that I wanted to write a book about zombies taking over our town, he suggested that I make myself the hero and said nonchalantly, “You could even have to kill me after I get bitten. Wouldn’t that be an awesome twist?”

That is not to say, however, that he was rude or outspoken or blunt in any way.

The next morning, in the churchyard, where I had rarely stood, there seemed to be a familiar feel to the wind brushing lightly against my face and the words being spoken as earnestly as they were eloquently by Reverend Wells.

The next morning, in the churchyard, where I had rarely stood, there seemed to be a familiar feel to the wind brushing lightly against my face and the words being spoken as earnestly as they were eloquently by Reverend Wells.

I lay there silent beside my brother, my best friend and his girlfriend wading in the water before me, and I knew that we were all just in the prelude to disappointment after disappointment.

“I think they’ll all be disappointed even if they do find it. Nothing’s gonna change this place,” he said, his tone changing from serious and reflective to that of a seasoned actor’s.

He lay awake at night, reading scriptures over and over, racking his brain for some meaning to words he’d been fed and had preached time and time again.

“It’s in Hebrews. It says, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”’

“Isadora’s family is very wealthy,” Rameel said with humility.

During dessert, a chocolate mousse that Benton did enjoy, Isadora began asking him questions about himself, his family, and his life as a missionary.

He talked mostly about himself and how he had decided a year before that he would come down to Arkansas to find the “elusive Lazarus woodpecker.”

Fulton Dumas, a tall, lanky, and disheveled sixteen-year-old, described John Barling as the most egotistical, maniacal, and power-hungry man he’d ever met.

Fulton Dumas, a tall, lanky, and disheveled sixteen-year-old, described John Barling as the most egotistical, maniacal, and power-hungry man he’d ever met.

I didn’t put too much stock in what Fulton said, given that the only man he had to compare anyone to was his slightly effeminate father.

I was especially cynical in groups, perhaps feeling that a witty cut-down about a stranger would earn me the respect and admiration of friends.

Its beady black eyes and long, white bill kept me from noticing that it stood a good two feet off the ground.

“Cullen, look at me,” Lucas said sternly.

Those two weeks were mostly uneventful save for the massive forty-man search party that the police department somehow coaxed into hiking through the woods all around Lily and canoeing down the river.

The monotony of it made me want to disappear too.

When I rolled over onto a sharp rock and yelled in pain, Alma Ember mistakenly thought that I was in the vocal throes of passion...