Outside the rim of a panicking circle of people, Karaoke Bill lingers beside the Reverend, who looks more than ever like a death-scavenging raven. An omen of doom. Bill can’t tear his bloodshot eyes away from the boy as he and the Reverend mutter angry, rapid sentences at each other. But they’re too far—and there’s too much loud grief—to make out any details.

“This changes things,” Darcy says, arriving with Jack. Where Jack and Darcy are steely eyed and collected about this newest tragedy, the other campers shrink away by the entrance to the South Pacific Gulch: two Beginner girls hide inside the double-wide door frame, while Molly and Vance clutch each other on the porch, wide-eyed like actresses in an old horror movie. As for Marcos, after his emotional exit from lunch, he must have sought solitude near the mobile home. He was the only one already outside when Drew screamed for Briggs. Emerging from his hiding place in the jungle hollow, Marcos approaches like a passive observer. Like me, he numbly watches Drew sway gently in the air, as if this were happening on the news to somebody else.

“Y’all okay?” Marcos asks. Darcy and Jack shake their heads. “Dumb question.”

“No, you might as well ask how people are doing,” Darcy says, flicking her head toward Drew. “Can’t ask him any more questions.”

“I think I’ve bothered Drew enough,” I whisper, summoning the energy to speak. Grisly reality seeps in drop by drop, and with it, a tsunami of pins and needles invades my arms. I wish I could hold on to one of Marcos’s warm, soft-baked cookie hands—it might stop mine from shaking.

At the sound of a brittle branch snapping, Briggs successfully separates the rope and Drew plummets. The impact of his body against the Coral Road sends plumes of well-tread dirt toward the crowd, causing everyone to gasp and leap backward. Karaoke Bill covers his mouth with papery hands as the Reverend pats his back. Briggs descends the high perch; when he reaches the ladder’s broken mid-section, he jumps, landing nimbly on both feet.

“Drew…” Briggs repeats frantically as he rushes to the body. He opens the noose, unravels it from Drew’s neck, and sends it flying across the courtyard. “Get this thing off!” What follows is the most brutally quiet CPR I’ve ever witnessed. Briggs pumps Drew’s hollow chest for a heartbeat that won’t come. He blows stale, terrified breath through the boy’s cold lips.

Can’t he see Drew’s blank eyes? How long is the Reverend going to let this go on?

“What is WRONG with you?” Briggs shrieks at the body like some irritated spouse. “You’re supposed to breathe when I do this!”