𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐧 [s. harrington]

THE PINING

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(the flea and the acrobat)

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The church bells chimed as Beth sat against the fence with Nancy and Jonathan, peering intently over Nancy's shoulder at the newspaper Jonathan was holding in his hands.

"This is where we know for sure it's been, right?" He asked, pointing at Steve's house's location on the small town map that was always in the paper, which Beth had marked with an 'x' in pink highlighter.

"Yep, so that's Steve's house."

"And that's the woods where they found Will's bike," Jonathan's finger moved across the paper to the next mark, "and that's my house."

"It's all so close," Nancy said softly.

"Yeah, it is."

"I mean it's all within a mile or something," Jonathan said, looking at the two of them. "Whatever this thing is, it's not traveling far."

"You know how mountain lions have like territories where they hunt? What if it's the same for this thing? I mean it's just another predator," Beth chimed in. "We should go out there."

"We might not find anything," Jonathan shook his head.

"We found something last time," Nancy pointed out, eyes steely with determination, yet softened around the edges with fear. "And if we do see it, then what?"

"We follow it, and maybe it'll lead us back to where it took Barb and Will," Beth pointed to the center of the triangle the three points made on the map.

"No, we should kill it," Jonathan argued. "Like you said, this thing...it's a predator. Who's to say it'll lead us anywhere? And that it won't attack us? We need to put an end to this."

"If we kill it, we lose our only possible lead as to what happened to Will and Barb."

"Who's to say it's even a lead at all? It's a monster Beth, not a suspect in a murder case."

"Do you have any better options?"

"No, Beth, Jonathan's right," Nancy said. "We should kill it."

"I still think-"

"Listen Beth, Jonathan and I are going to put this thing in the ground," Nancy's voice was harsher than it had been before. "You are more than welcome to join us. I want you to. But if you're not going to help, then you need to leave. Go follow the monster or whatever by yourself. I'm putting that fucker in the ground."

Beth was shocked by her friend's harshness. She sat there, silently staring at the ground, thinking of the choice Nancy gave her. Either she betrays her entire idea, abandons any chance of having her theory about all of this to be proven, and sticks with her friends, or she goes off on her own towards certain death. In the end, it wasn't really a choice at all, unless Beth just decided to abandon the whole thing altogether, which was a loss on both ends.