The Origin of Dracula (7 page)

Why hadn’t the crickets resumed chirping?

“Lee!” I called out.

“If he turned the tables,” Quincy said, “he’s not gonna answer.”

We stepped out of the woods and onto the precipice. Here, the fog was so thick that it turned our flashlight beams into glowing shields through which we couldn’t see. We both flicked off our flashlights. This was better, but we still couldn’t make out much—

Until the fog suddenly lifted, revealing Lee. He was standing way too close to the edge of the cliff, his back to us. And I thought I also saw a tall, thin man in front of him, though it could’ve been just a black hole in the mist. Before I could tell for sure, the fog once again engulfed Lee and filled the space between us.

“Lee!” I moved in his direction, and Quincy followed. But we both stopped after a few yards. In the fog, it was hard to tell just how close to the edge we were. And there was something else that stopped us. The fog now smelled foul—as if it carried the odor of rotting meat—and it had thickened. I felt like I’d been wrapped in a dank, moldy web.

A gust of wind suddenly swept across the precipice, sending the fog into a wild dance—a dance that cleared away just enough of the mist to reveal Lee again—

Lee pushed the tall, thin man over the cliff.

I was about to race forward and yell out, shocked that Lee had just sent a man to his death, but before the man disappeared over the edge, and before the fog danced back over the scene, I caught a glimpse of the man’s face. It was an unearthly, pallid color, not quite white, but not quite flesh-colored either. And even more odd was the expression on the man’s face.
Satisfaction
. Of course, I couldn’t be sure. I saw his ashen face for only a fraction of second.

The gust of wind died as suddenly as it had risen, and the fog settled back over the scene, obscuring it. A second later, I heard a hard and cruel thud, followed by a splash, as if a body had first struck that ledge below, then continued down into the river. My heart rate increased tenfold, sending blood rushing through my body with such force that my veins felt like they’d explode.

Lee stepped out from the mist. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I stood there, stunned, as Lee rushed by me into the woods.

Quincy took off after Lee. “What the hell, Lee?” he shouted.

I followed them both. Lee had flicked on his flashlight and was making his way through the forest back to the campsite.

“Lee!” Quincy shouted.

I was replaying what I’d just witnessed, and I was left with the same question Quincy had shouted out:
What the hell, Lee?
Why had Lee just killed that man?

While those questions roared through my head, I noticed the sudden change in my surroundings. The fog had lifted, and the chirping of crickets once again blanketed the woods.

I picked up my pace and heard the owls hooting and the raccoons, opossums, and squirrels rustling in the underbrush. The creepy, unnatural quality of the night had lifted. It no longer felt like I had crossed over into a world far from home. The wilderness was normal again.

When I made it to the campsite, I found Quincy face to face with Lee. A thin sheen of sweat covered Lee’s face, and he was breathing heavily. He had a panicked, wild look in his eyes.

“Why’d you push that guy over?” I said.

“He tried to kill me.”

“That’s a bunch of crap,” Quincy said.

From what I’d seen—which, granted, had been fragmented, hazy, and unreliable—the one thing I could say for sure was that the man hadn’t been trying to kill Lee.

“The guy was hunting me down,” Lee said, “and I couldn’t shake him.”

“So you cornered him and pushed him over?” Quincy wasn’t going to let Lee skate.

“The fucker had me by the throat!”

I shook my head. “He didn’t touch you.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. He would’ve killed us all.”

“We’ve got to go the ranger station.” I knew that was the only option. “Tell the ranger what happened. Maybe the man is still alive.” If cell phones had existed, I would’ve called the police right then and there, and that would’ve been the end of it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lee stepped closer to me. “We’re not gonna blab to a ranger.”

I moved past him, dipped into the tent, and grabbed my backpack. I stuffed my empty food containers inside, then zipped it up.

Lee popped into the tent. “What are you doing?”

“Going to the ranger station, then calling my dad and going home.” I grabbed my sleeping bag, brushed past Lee, and emerged from the tent.

“Are you coming with me?” I asked Quincy.

Before Quincy could answer, Lee burst out of the tent and grabbed my arm. “You’re not gonna talk to the ranger.”

I shook him off and stared Quincy down. “Are you coming with me or not?” Lee couldn’t stop both of us. “Maybe the man made it to shore and they can help him,” I said, trying to convince myself that the man had survived—that there’d been no murder.

Lee smirked and wiped the sweat from his face. “Can you believe this guy?” He was addressing Quincy.

Quincy took a step toward Lee. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Fuck you! I told you. He came after me.”

“Let’s see if we can help the guy,” I said.

Quincy glared at me. “News flash! We can’t! No way he survived!”

I headed toward the trail, but Lee lunged forward and grabbed my arm again. “You can go, but first we get our stories straight.”

I tried to shake him off again, but this time his grip was firm.

“If our stories are different,” he said, “it’s not gonna help any of us.”

“I’m not going to lie about this.”

“Neither am I,” Lee said.

“Great. Now get the fuck off of me.” I whipped my arm out of his grip and marched toward the trail. If he wanted to fight me, then that’s what he’d have to do.

“I’m telling them exactly what I saw,” Lee said. “
You
pushed that guy over the edge.”

I whipped around.

Lee was grinning. “You did it accidentally. You two were horsing around, but still…”

I looked over at Quincy for support. His mouth was agape—he, like me, couldn’t believe Lee would stoop so low. “Lee—this is real,” Quincy said. His tone had shifted—upset, not angry. “This isn’t like the trouble you usually get into.”

Lee didn’t even look at Quincy. He stared at me. “That’s why we’re sticking together. You got that?”

I got it all right. If I wasn’t willing to cover this up, he was going to pin the murder on me. And if I told the truth, it’d be his word against mine.
Except
there was Quincy’s word, too. His word would tip the balance.

“Quincy, you’ll tell them what really happened, right?” I said.

Quincy shifted uneasily. Then his body sagged as if the weight of the world had been dropped on his shoulders.

“Quincy doesn’t know what happened,” Lee said, “because he didn’t see anything. Right, Quincy?”

“Why the fuck did you do it in the first place?” Quincy shot back.

“I told you—the weird motherfucker attacked me!”

Quincy needed to stand up to Lee now more than ever, but he was more panicked than aggressive, which wasn’t going to help.

“I’m not going to cover it up,” I said, hoping this would give Quincy the courage to stand up to Lee—and head with me to the ranger station.

Lee reached out and thumped me hard in the chest. “It’s not up to you, buddy.”

I didn’t say a word, but I glared at him and stood my ground, which made him angrier than he already was.

“We could say it was an accident,” Quincy said. “That we saw the guy fall off the cliff. That he must’ve gotten lost in the fog.”

Lee’s face hardened. “We’re not gonna say anything.”

“If they find the body tomorrow, they’ll question us,” Quincy said. “But if we go to the ranger now, it’s not so suspicious.”

“If we go now, we’ll have to answer a ton of questions,” Lee said, his attention now solely on Quincy. “Let’s just camp tonight, like nothing happened, and go home in the morning.”

“It they find the body tomorrow, they’ll track us down and question us at home.” Quincy was pushing back hard. Of course, I didn’t really know if he was looking for a way to get to the ranger station in peace so he could tell the truth, or if he was negotiating a compromise.

“So what?” Lee said. “We tell them we don’t know anything and didn’t see anything.”

Quincy looked over at me as if he wanted my help. But I didn’t want to negotiate a compromise. A compromise was a cover-up. “You’re not going to back me up if I tell the truth?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer. Instead he looked into the woods in the direction of the Potomac. His eyes betrayed defeat and resignation.

“Quincy, you’re going to back me up, aren’t you?”
Had I lost him?

“I don’t know what I saw out there.”

“He admitted he pushed him over!” I blurted out.

“
And
he said the guy attacked him!”

“He’s lying.”

Quincy turned from the woods to me. “What did
you
see? Think about it. It was hard to see anything at all, wasn’t it? That’s the truth. And whatever you
did
see, it didn’t make sense, did it?”

I knew what he meant—the bizarre texture of the entire incident. Dank, wet, foul, misty—a distorted, creepy nightmare that didn’t quite seem real. And the man’s pallid face. The expression it bore. How was I going to explain any of this to anyone? No doubt Lee’s version, his lie—laying the blame on me—would be straightforward and easy to follow.

I needed Quincy to back me up, but it was becoming clear that he wouldn’t.

Lee seized the momentum. “So it’s a done deal. We keep our mouths shut.” Again, he was focused on Quincy. And so was I.

Quincy stared at me for a couple of beats, resigned, then looked at Lee. “… Okay,” he said, in almost a whisper.

I should’ve stood my ground, but I was fourteen, easily influenced, and trying to shake off a feeling of foreboding, which had returned with a vengeance. The horrific scene from the precipice—part hallucination, part nightmare, and part brutal reality—replayed itself in my head, unwanted. I just wanted to go home and forget about the entire night.

Lee laid down the law: if anyone asked us any questions tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even a year from now, we’d say we hadn’t seen anything or heard anything. And if no one ever came around to ask questions, we’d never bring it up,
ever
.

Quincy took it one step further. “We shouldn’t talk to each other again either.”

“About this?” Lee asked, but I knew what Quincy meant.

“About anything. After tonight, we go our separate ways.” Quincy was adamant, as if he was sure this was the way to make the murder go away.

Lee looked taken aback—he’d been in control, exerting his will, but now Quincy was making the rules. “Is that the way you want it?” he said.

Quincy nodded.

Lee didn’t ask me if that was the way
I
wanted it too.

“Then you got it,” he said, and stormed off into the tent.

“Quincy—” I said, but he cut me off before I could finish. He must’ve thought I was going to try to talk him into going to the ranger station.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said. “Let’s get through the night and get the hell out of here.”

And that’s what we did. Quincy and I unrolled our sleeping bags, outside the tent, crawled into them, and waited for dawn. We didn’t say a word to each other; we just stared at the crescent moon as it moved through the sky. There was no hint of fog the rest of the night.

Lee slept in the tent.

When dawn broke, Quincy was asleep. I quietly rolled up my sleeping bag, grabbed my backpack, and hiked the trail back. The entire way, I was reconsidering the deal we’d made the night before—the unholy pact. But only when I got to the parking lot and saw the ranger station did I make my decision.

Leaving the trail behind and stepping onto the parking lot’s blacktop was my reentry into a familiar world. That, plus the clear light of day, was more than enough to transform my chaotic, shrouded vision of a man tumbling to his death into a nightmare best forgotten. It was as if I’d awakened from a troubling sleep.

I went to the bank of pay phones, called my dad, and told him I was feeling sick and wanted to be picked up early. While I was on the phone, the ranger on duty stepped out of the ranger station. I’m sure I’d caught his attention because I was the only living soul around at that early hour.

I wanted to run, but I knew that would be suspicious, so I wrapped up my call in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. But when I hung up, I was positive the ranger could see the guilt on my face. Or worse: he already knew about the dead body and suspected me.

“Everything okay, son?” he said.

“I feel kind of sick, so I called my dad to pick me up.”

“What’s wrong?” He moved closer to me.

For a second I thought he was referring to my guilt, but I caught myself before I confessed. “It’s a stomachache,” I said. The words came out stilted because my throat was constricted with panic.

“You think you ate something bad?”

I shook my head, then realized I should’ve just said yes. Too late. “I think maybe it’s the flu,” I said.

“Any vomiting or fever?” He was doing his job, figuring out if I needed immediate medical attention.

I shook my head again, wanting him to just leave me alone. I couldn’t go on lying without giving myself away. I wasn’t built for it.

“Did anything happen while you were camping?” he said.

So he
did
know. My throat constricted even more, and I weighed whether to confess. Then Lee’s threat reared its ugly head—he’d pin the murder on me if I answered the ranger’s question with anything other than one simple word.

“No,” I said, shaking my head to emphasize it.

“You didn’t get bit by a raccoon or anything?”

With that question, I understood where he was going. He wasn’t trying to connect me to the dead body—he was just focused on my illness. “No,” I said.

“Good.”

Please leave me alone
, I thought, suddenly overcome with the fear that Lee was racing up the trail and would catch me talking to the ranger. His impatience would kick in, not to mention his anger, and he’d think I was spilling my guts. That would be enough for him to run up to the ranger and carry out his awful threat—blaming the murder on me.