Dark Mountain (7 page)

“You creep!” Rose yelled, and hurled the stub of wood back at him.

Heather started to laugh. Everyone laughed except Rose and Alice. “Really juvenile,” Alice said, scowling.

“So,” Flash said, “what did you really find?”

“Nothing,” Nick told him. “We decided to leave the thing alone.”

“Poor Digby’s been through enough,” Julie explained.

“You didn’t find out what’s buried there?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” Nick said.

Julie nodded. “One of life’s unsolved mysteries.”

Flash looked at Scott and shook his head. “Our kids, I’m afraid, are a couple of chickens.”

Scott grinned at him. “As my pappy used to say, ‘Better a chicken than a ghoul.’”

“Must we?” Alice complained. “Why don’t we play cards instead? Do you play bridge, Karen?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid.”

“I want a story,” Rose protested.

“Me, too,” said Heather.

“You girls were frightened out of your wits last night.”

“It was
neat
.”

“Too windy for cards,” Arnold said. He broke a dead branch over his knee, and placed both pieces on the fire. “I’m for a story.”

Alice sighed. She didn’t want to be a stick in the mud. On the other hand, she certainly didn’t want a repeat of last night’s shenanigans. The story itself hadn’t bothered her. Not much anyway. But her idea of fun did not include being startled from a half sleep by the hysterical screams of her daughters. “It’s all right with me,” she said. She stared across the blazing fire at Nick. “No funny stuff to night. Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” he said.

“Who’s got a story?” Scott asked.

“A real scary one,” Benny added.

“Karen?” Arnold asked.

“Someone else’s turn. I did my damage.”

At least she had the good sense to realize she’d caused all the trouble.

Scott leaned toward the fire, grinning. “There is, of course, the true story of Digby Bolles.”

“Oh, Dad.” Julie smirked at him.

“Go on,” Alice urged. This story should be harmless enough.

“Is it scary?” Benny asked.

“Listen and find out. Digby came to the mountains, insane with grief, to look for his missing daughter, Doreen.”

“
The
Doreen?” Karen asked.

“The very Doreen who vanished with Audrey so mysteriously earlier that summer. Well, Digby wandered the trails and woods and the high, barren passes, looking everywhere. Soon, his food ran out. But he didn’t turn back. He kept searching. He lived on chipmunks and squirrels, which he ate raw.”

“Yuck,” Rose said.

“Squirrel tartare,” said Julie.

“October came, and a terrible blizzard hit. But Digby continued his search. He couldn’t find any more squirrels. He was starving to death. Then one night he saw the light of a campfire in the distance. He trudged through the knee-deep snow, and came upon a lone camper. He staggered up to the man, who was kind enough to offer him a bowl of stew. But Digby had lost his taste for stew. The man, who happened to be a surgeon on a fishing trip, looked very appetizing to Digby. And he tasted as good as he looked.” Scott leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and grinned.

“Is that all?” Benny asked.

“Great story, Pop,” Julie muttered, shaking her head:

“What happened next?” Rose demanded.

“Well, poor Digby eventually starved to death. He ran out of Dr. Scholl’s.”

“Boo,” Julie said.

“That’s awful,” Karen gasped as she laughed.

“Wasn’t even scary,” Benny complained.

“The best I could do on short notice.”

Heather looked up at Alice, frowning. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s all right, honey. It’s just as well.”

“He
ate
the guy, stupid,” Rose explained.

“I know that. What I mean is, if he ate up Dr. Scholl’s and then died, who buried him?”

“We’ll never know,” Scott said. “One of those great, unsolved mysteries of life.”

“It’s just a story,” Alice told the girls. “None of it really happened.”

“But we saw his grave,” Heather said.

“Don’t be a dork.”

Alice glared at Rose. “Watch your language, young lady.”

“I want a real story,” Benny said. “That wasn’t even scary. It was okay, but it was just a joke. I want a scary one.”

Nick suddenly sat up straight and slapped his knees. “I’ve got it! Let’s all get our flashlights and go on a Doreen and Audrey hunt!”

“Neat!” Benny blurted.

Julie looked eager. “They’ve gotta be around here someplace.”

“Can we, Mom?” Rose asked.

“Not me. I’m perfectly comfortable where I am.”

Arnold turned to Scott. “What do you think?”

“I’m all for letting the kids go, if that’s what they want.”

“Somebody might get hurt,” Alice said. She wanted to protest more strongly, but since Scott seemed to think it was all right…

“We’ll be real careful,” Nick told her.

“And no funny stuff. I don’t want you trying to scare the girls.”

He raised three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“Don’t go wandering off too far,” Arnold said. “We don’t want to lose you.”

“We’ll just circle the lake.”

“Maybe one of us should go with them,” Alice suggested. “Just in case.”

“Jeez, Mom, nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Nick’s old enough to take care of things,” Arnold said.

She sighed. “Well, be very careful. Somebody could fall and break a leg.”

“We’ll be careful,” Nick assured her.

A flashlight shined in Benny’s eyes as he hurried through the darkness. “What took you so long?” Julie asked.

“I couldn’t find my flashlight.” He shielded his eyes from the beam.

“Have you got it?”

“Yeah.”

Julie lowered her light. It made a pale disk on the ground at her feet.

“Okay,” Nick said. “Let’s stay close together.” Benny heard a slight tremor in the older boy’s voice.

He was shivering himself. It was partly the cold, but he felt shriveled and shaky inside. I’m not scared, he thought. Just excited.

“Now watch where you’re walking,” Nick said. “We’ll catch hell if someone gets hurt, and they won’t let us do it again.”

“Maybe we can do it
every
night,” Benny said, thrilled by the idea.

They started walking single file along a footpath near the shore. Nick was in the lead, with Julie close behind him. The twins followed Julie. With hoods up, their hair was out of sight, so Benny couldn’t tell which was which.

Looking over his shoulder toward the clearing, he saw the glow of the campfire. He wished Karen had come along. It would be a lot more fun with Karen, even if she was a grown-up.

He took his flashlight from a pocket of his parka, and turned it on. The beam lit up the red jeans and sneakers of the girl in front of him. He shined it into the trees to his left. The weird, lurching shadows made him nervous. He swung his light down across the path, over pale rocks along the shore, and onto the water. The surface of the lake was rough from the wind. He swept the beam back and forth
over the waves. He made curlicues. It was fun at first. Then he thought, What if a hand reaches up out of the water and nobody sees it but me? That’s stupid, he told himself. But the image of a dead pale hand rising out of the murky lake wouldn’t go away and he began to feel certain he would see it if he kept watching. His skin was prickly with goose bumps. He turned off the flashlight.

“Doreeeen,” Julie called in an eerie voice. “Audreeey! Come on, everybody.”

Nick took up the call. Then the high voices of the twins joined in. With a shrug, Benny started calling out, too. Their voices rose, mingling with the noise of the wind.

Somebody’ll hear, Benny thought. But he kept on shouting, unwilling to be the only silent one of the group. Besides, he told himself, there’s nobody around to hear us. Nobody we know about. He glanced over his shoulder, but saw only darkness behind him.

He began to wish he weren’t last in line. It’d get him first. Nobody would even know. He’d yell his head off, but with all the others calling for Doreen and Audrey, they wouldn’t even hear him. It’d drag him away and…

Benny jerked his foot back, but it was too late. The girl yelped and stumbled forward, leaving her sneaker behind. She crashed into the other twin, and they both fell sprawling. “Jeez, I’m sorry!” he blurted.

“Get off me!” snapped the one on the bottom, pushing at her sister.

Benny picked up the shoe.

“What happened?” Nick asked. “You okay?” He and Julie helped the girls to their feet.

“I tripped,” said the girl Benny had stepped on. She had to be Heather.

“I stepped on her,” Benny admitted.

“Four-eyes!” Rose snapped.

“You klutz!” Julie said. “Goddamn it!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Jesus, why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

His throat felt tight. He fought to keep himself from crying as he handed the shoe to Heather. “I’m awfully sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “It doesn’t hurt much.”

“Stupid jerk.”

“That’s enough, Rose,” Nick said. “It was just an accident. You both all right?”

The girls nodded. Heather put on her shoe.

“Okay, let’s get going.”

“Don’t walk so close,” Julie warned Benny.

“Maybe I’ll just go back to camp.”

“Good idea. Why don’t you?”

Turning away, he looked down the dark trail. They were near the end of the lake. There was no sign of the campsite.

Someone tugged the sleeve of his parka. “Come on,” said a girl’s voice. “It’s all right.” He looked around, and saw one of the twins behind him.

“I’m sorry I stepped on you,” he mumbled.

She smiled up at him. “That’s okay. Don’t go back, okay?”

“I guess not,” he said. “Thank you.”

They started walking again. Benny grimaced as he noticed that Heather was limping. He was careful to stay well behind her until the narrow path curved upward and vanished in the rocks at the lake’s end. There, he stepped up beside her. She looked at him and smiled. Side by side, they walked over the low slabs of granite near the shore.

With no trees to cast heavy shadows, the night seemed very bright. The lake still looked almost black, but the bare rock was pale, as if painted with milk. Benny was amazed that he could see so well. He saw Julie’s hair blowing in the wind, the pattern of Nick’s plaid jacket, even the three stripes on the side of Rose’s left sneaker. No colors, though. He couldn’t make out any colors. Even Heather’s jeans, which he knew were bright red, appeared to be a dark shade of gray. He wondered about that. You can see colors with a flashlight, but not by moonlight. It seemed strange.

Nick stopped and took hold of Julie’s arm. “Look,” he said, pointing high.

“What?” Julie asked.

“Way up there. Near the top.”

Benny scanned the pale slope. He saw patches of darkness, a few scrawny trees scattered about like solitary, watching men.

“Oh, yeah,” Julie said.

“I don’t see anything,” Heather muttered.

“I do,” Rose said. “Are they dogs?”

“Coyotes,” Nick explained.

Then Benny spotted a pair of lean, gray shapes strutting stiff-legged across a ledge high on the slope. They had long snouts, and tails as bushy as a squirrel’s.

“I still don’t…” Heather began.

Benny crouched to her level and pointed.

“Oh, gosh,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Benny told her. “They don’t hurt anyone.”

“Is that so?” Julie asked. “A coyote killed a four-year-old girl, last year, in her own backyard.”

“Where?” Nick asked.

“Back home, in L.A. One of those canyon areas. It just came down from the hills behind their yard and mauled her to death.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Heather whispered.

“It’s all right,” Nick said. “They’re way up there. Besides, they wouldn’t try anything with five of us.”

“Unless they’re hungry,” Julie added.

Nick laughed nervously, and started walking again. Soon, Benny saw the glow of the campfire on the other side of the lake. When they were directly across from it, he could see the tents and the adults sitting around the fire.

“Hello!” Julie called.

Nobody answered. The wind must be too loud, Benny thought.

They kept moving. Benny stayed close to Heather. She continued to limp slightly. Sometimes, when they had to climb over clusters of rock, Benny went first and gave her a hand. He liked helping her. She wasn’t a snot like her sister.
And she still seemed nervous about the coyotes. Every few steps, she looked back. “I don’t like it here,” she said after a while.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he told her.

She glanced behind her. “What’s
that
?”

Benny spun around, his heart thudding. “That? Just a bush.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure,” he said, but he kept staring at the dark, hunched shape. It was barely visible in the shadows of an outcropping no more than two yards away. It
was
a bush, wasn’t it? An icy feeling of dread crept up Benny’s back. “Come on,” he said. He took Heather’s hand and pulled her away. She sidestepped behind him, still looking back. They hurried to catch up with the others.

Benny was glad to see that they had almost reached the end of the lake. Just below an outcropping ahead, the forest would start again. They would merely have to pick up the trail there, follow it around a bend in the shoreline, and hike straight back to the camp.

Nick, in the lead, disappeared over the top of the outcropping. Julie followed. Rose waited for Benny and Heather, then started down.

Benny looked back. Nothing was approaching from the rear. He let Heather go ahead of him. As she climbed down, Nick, at the bottom, suddenly lurched backward and swung an arm against Julie. With a yelp, Rose whirled around and began to scurry up the rocks. “It’s
them!”
she cried out. “Doreen and Audrey!”

Heather twisted around. Benny saw terror on her moon-washed face. She lunged up and he grabbed her outstretched arm and yanked her to the top.

Julie pressed a hand to her thumping heart. “Christ, you scared the crap out of us.”

“We were…uh…getting a trifle nervous ourselves,” said the buxom girl in the sweatshirt.

“We heard you coming,” said the one in the cowboy hat. She had a husky, confident voice. Her face glowed as she sucked on a cigarette. “You from the campfire?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. Turning away, he called to the twins and Benny. “It’s all right! Come on down.”

“We didn’t know anyone was around,” Julie said. “Are you camped here?”

“Just off in the trees,” said the one in the hat.

“Don’t you have a fire?” Nick asked.

“I wanted one,” said the other.

“A fire just makes you colder. And it kills your night vision. And it lets everyone for ten miles know you’re there. Not real healthy when you’re three girls camping alone.”