HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Read Free Book Online

Witch’s Nest read as follows:
    tonight we’re gonna do it!! #awesome
    #mainstream #omfg #lampposttest
    Posted 10:23 a.m. by: Tyler Grant
    Obviously, no one in Black Spring read the entry that day. The five people who were aware of the website’s existence and who knew the password were all between sixteen and nineteen years of age, and would not in a million years think of visiting the OYE website via the town providers.
    The website’s welcome pop-up read as follows:
    OK, here’s a warning that you’re totally thinking you won’t read, just like the I-am-18-or-older bs you click away when you jack off. But this is different: this is a disclaimer you have to memorize word for word, better than the O’Neill Raiders fight song (for the heroes among us) or the Gettysburg Address (for the neonihilists). This warning is COMPLETE SECRECY and NEVER FUCKING EVER LOG IN IN BLACK SPRING , not even on your iPhone or tablet. Big-time 404 message if you do it anyway, but they can still trace the URL with their keylogger. Only discuss content IRL, not via Skype, not even if there’s a cow standing on the cable somewhere between you and HEX. To be clear: we have an Emergency Decree here in BS in which 1) keeping or distributing illegal images of Gramma K. will result in a one-way ticket to Doodletown and 2) leaks are regarded as “a serious threat to municipal public order” and have been dealt with since, like, the Middle Ages with total corporal punishment (“we-have-not-administered-such-punishment-since-1932,” LICGAS*). Take the hint: WHAT WE’RE DOING IS DANGEROUS . The only good thing about a town that gets off on indoctrinating the young is that you all know how to keep a secret. I’m trusting you guys. I don’t wanna bitch about it, but I check the statcounter every other day so I can see exactly who’s logging in and from where. Anyone who breaks the rules will get a lifetime ban from OYE without prior warning. And that’s before Colton & Co. start their freak show. STICK TO THE RULES . That’s our ultimate fuck-you to the system!
    * like I could give a shit
    They stuck to the rules, all right. OYE was probably the one online guerrilla movement that only operated in the full light of day: All its users lived in Black Spring and slept in their own beds at night.
    But not that night. That night they sneaked out of their rooms, climbing down drainpipes and gutters like warriors in occupied territory, and set off with shovels, rope, a black cloth, and a pair of wire cutters. They weren’t what you’d call close friends, not all of them. Of the five who went out that night, Tyler considered only Lawrence VanderMeer from next door and Burak Şayer his real friends—not just the kind you held textathons with until silly o’clock in the morning, but the kind you told stuff to, private stuff. Yet that wasn’t the whole story, not if you had no one else to depend on. Born in Black Spring, you knew each other from early on and feared the adults, not your allies.
    It was the first night that fall that it rained. Not a summer shower, but a real autumn rain, the kind that seems drowsy and endless. By the time they had completed their mission forty minutes later, they were soaked to the skin. They took each other’s hands and Tyler solemnly said, “For science, guys.”
    â€œFor science,” Lawrence echoed.
    â€œFor science,” Justin Walker and Burak said in chorus.
    Jaydon Holst shot them a glance dipped in liquid acid and said, “Up yours, faggots.”
    The next morning, with bags under their eyes that hung to their feet, they gathered on the patio of Sue’s Highland Diner on the town square—although “square” was probably giving it too much credit. It was more like a gathering of shops and restaurants on Lower Reservoir and Deep Hollow Road surrounding the Little Methodist Church—which they all