The Wildman (10 page)

He’d brought a flashlight with him for the weekend and wished he had thought to take it with him now. Looking around, he remembered how, when he was a camper, there had been a row of lights lining the campgrounds. Granted, there were a few places that weren’t brightly lit, especially along some of the winding paths leading to the tents deep in the woods, but when he was a kid, he had never felt threatened or in any real danger when he walked around the camp at night. There might be skunks or raccoons in the woods, maybe even a deer or two that had swum out to the island or crossed over in winter when the lake was frozen. But there was nothing really
dangerous
out here.

Was there?

Nothing except for whoever or whatever killed Jimmy Foster.

A deeper shiver took hold of him and ran its cold hands over his body.

As he walked from the dining hall to the Port-a-Potty, the sounds of his friends, talking and laughing inside, grew steadily fainter until they all but faded away. He wended his way between the trees, glancing up at the night sky every now and then. Through the pines overhead, he could see the solid wall of dark sky with no stars. The clouds he had seen in the west on the boat ride over must have closed in while they were having supper and settling in.

Great … Just fucking great.

Things would only get worse if it rained later tonight. There’d be no way he’d be able to get comfortable and cozy curled up in a sleeping bag on a hardwood floor. He wasn’t twelve years old any more, and he definitely had lost his sense of adventure.

And what if it snows?

Jeff shivered at the thought.

This much further north from Portland, it was possible that any precipitation would come as snow. The hunters would love once hunting season started it because it would make tracking deer easier, but snow struck Jeff as just another inconvenience.

He wondered again why Evan had been so insistent about all of them coming out here now instead of waiting until spring. It just didn’t make sense to be so cold and miserable, for what …?

Jeff decided not to use the Port-a-Potty. Instead, he stood close to one of the pine trees, unzipped his pants, and pissed against it. He listened to the steady splatter of piss on the ground and wondered how many times as a camper he had taken a leak in the woods like this instead of going to latrine. A thrill of excitement mingled with rising fear took hold of him, and—just like he had when he was a kid—he imagined that somewhere, unseen in the woods, someone or
some
thing
was watching him … ready to pounce.

If there was anything out here, it was probably just a raccoon or skunk waiting for him to go away so it could go back to checking out all of these new scents and maybe do a little exploring in the garbage cans.

But what if it is Fred’s dreaded Hobomock?

What if a forest demon still lingers in these woods, a relic of a bygone age who guards his domain and is prepared to protect it from any and all intruders?

Jeff thought it was taking an unusually long time for him to empty his bladder. He’d noticed, as he got older, that the old water pressure wasn’t what it used to be, but this was getting ridiculous. The stream of urine was steady and strong, splattering loudly on the ground. Chuckling to himself, he started swinging his penis back and forth, spraying the area just to have some variation in the sound his stream of urine made as it hit the ground.

When he glanced over his shoulder at the dining hall, he wondered if his friends were getting concerned because he was taking so long.

When would they start to worry that something might have happened to him?

How long should he stay out here?

Maybe he should wander off so he could have some time to himself.

Maybe he could find someplace comfortable to hunker down for the night and think things though.

After all, there was a lot to think about. There was a lot to process. Seeing these guys after all these years, while not really upsetting, was certainly confusing. He wasn’t sure what he thought about any of them … especially Evan. Try as he might to think only good things, Jeff could tell that Evan had some kind of agenda. It might be as simple as setting them up to pitch them about investing in his resort development, but Jeff felt there was more involved.

“’
N I’ll figure it out, too, goddamnit,” he whispered, surprised at the sudden sound of his own voice intruding on the silence of the night.

Another, stronger shiver ran thorough him when he realized he had finished pissing. He zipped his pants back up and took another bracing breath of the cold night air, but he didn’t turn to go directly back to the dining hall. Through the trees on his right, he could hear the waves as they lapped against the shore. His body was tensed as he started toward the lake. He soon realized just how bad his night vision had gotten over the years because he kept stumbling over roots and rocks and fallen branches as he made his way slowly through the darkness down to the lake.

He remembered how, when he was young, it had been so easy to move through the darkest woods at night. He recalled feeling as though he could glide along as silently a shadow cast by the moonlight, but he knew he could easily be exaggerating his memories of how things were. It was all too likely that he was “mis-remembering,” as his son Matt used to say when he was little.

Pinecones and twigs snapped underfoot. They sounded like a small, crackling fire burning, unseen. As he got closer to the water, a faint rotting fish smell filled his nose and brought back even stronger memories. He had always associated that fishy smell with the lake. In fact, it had been one reason he was so reluctant to swim in the lake his first year here as a camper. He had always assumed the smell was a hot weather smell, and it surprised him how, even on a cold autumn night with a strong wind blowing, the smell was still there. He wondered if some dead fish had washed up onto the beach and were stinking up the place, but then another more frightening thought struck him. It with such power he drew to a halt and gasped out loud.

It’s the smell of death!

Without consciously knowing it or choosing it, he realized he had walked down to the shore and was at the exact spot where, thirty-five years ago, he had watched in mute horror as the emergency medical team and the local
firemen had taken Jimmy Foster’s body away on a police boat.

Is that what I smell? … Jimmy Foster’s rotting corpse?

The thought w
as unnerving enough to make him whimper out loud.

The pathway leading down to the beach was overgrown more than it had been back then, and the docks and floats that enclosed the swimming area were long gone, but there was a frightening familiarity to the place, as if the scene had been seared into his brain.

And no wonder.

It had been a traumatic experience to see one of his friends dead.

Jeff suddenly realized how vulnerable he was, walking around down here alone like this. The feeling that someone was watching him from the darkness hadn’t gone away. If anything, it was stronger and almost too intense to bear.

“
Don’t be a moron,” he whispered, trying to convince himself there was nothing to be afraid of.

He licked his lips and tried to whistle a tune, if only to bolster his courage, but all that talk about Hobomock and remembering how their counselor used to enjoy scaring then with spooky stories had unnerved him more than he realized.

Jeff wound his way through the trees until he reached the margin of the beach. If the sky hadn’t been overcast, he would have had a great view even if the moon hadn’t been up. As it was, he gazed at the stretch of sand that glowed eerily white in the darkness. The lake was lost in darkness. The sound of waves hissing on the beach and, a little further down, lapping against the rocky shore was soothing, but he couldn’t stop thinking back to that horrible day when they pulled Jimmy Foster out of the water.

Once his parents had picked him up and brought him home, Jeff had been so scared he never wanted or dared to try to find out what had really happened. Night after night, he cried himself to sleep, trying to convince himself that he hadn’t seen Jimmy Foster’s throat cut. He had told the police what he had seen, but they hadn’t taken him seriously. His mother and father told him time and again that he had been so frightened he had seen something that wasn’t really there. Regardless, that was the last he ever heard about it and, over the years, he had never dug any deeper into what had happened to Jimmy.

But Evan obviously had.

His memories of summer camp seemed to be a lot sharper than Jeff’s. Why else would he have taken the time to track down everyone from Tent 12?

Jeff felt bad about Ralph Curran, dying the way he had. It would have been great to see him again, too, to find out what kind of adult he had become. But all in all, it was … maybe not great, but certainly interesting to see how his childhood friends had turned out. He had to leave it at that and try to forget about the horrible thing he had witnessed.

But as he stared at the sandy beach and the churning, dark water beyond, Jeff was filled with an indescribable sadness. He couldn’t help but feel how tragic it was that Jimmy never had a chance to grow up, never got to live his life … never even got laid.

And no matter how hard he tried, Jeff just couldn’t help but feel as though there were still unresolved issues about his friend’s death. He wished he could push such dour thoughts aside and go back to the dining hall and have a merry old time with his friends, but he told him that feeling sad for Jimmy Foster was just as necessary a part of being back at Camp Tapiola as goofing around with his friends.

“
I miss yah, man,” he whispered as he picked up a stone from the beach and threw it out into the lake. He waited to hear the distant
plunk
and then turned to go back to the dining hall. If nothing else, his friends might be starting to worry about how long it was taking to go to the bathroom.

As he turned to leave, though, off to his left he caught a hint of motion in the darkness.

It wasn’t much.

Just a quick hint of …
something
darker than the night moving—fast—between him and the dining hall.
But it was enough to make Jeff freeze. It was gone in an instant, lost in the deep darkness of the woods, but he was convinced he had seen something.

It looked big enough to be a bear, but Jeff wasn’t sure if bears were nocturnal or not. Skunks and raccoons definitely were. They’d knocked over his trash cans enough times for him to know that. But what he had seen was a lot bigger than any skunk or raccoon.

Jeff resisted the impulse to run as fast as he could back to the dining hall. Suddenly, all of those fears of the dark he’d had when he was a kid came rushing back. He thought again about the ghost stories Mark had told him and the other guys in the tent and how afraid he had been—like Fred—after lights out.

Don’t be fucking ridiculous,
he
told himself, but that didn’t stop a ripple of goose bumps from running up his arms and neck. His scalp tightened as he cocked his head to one side and listened for a sound—any sound—above the rushing sound of waves and the hiss of wind in the pines overhead.

“
Jesus,” he whispered. “You’re acting like a goddamned baby.”

His shoulders hunched and his hands clenched into fists as he started toward the dining hall. The surrounding shadows looked much darker and deeper than before. Every time he shifted his eyes to one side or the other, he was positive he saw more figures, moving silently beside and behind him, tracking him as they slowly closed the distance between him and them.

Jeff fought back the sudden urge to run. It’d be just his luck to slam into a tree or something, and knock himself silly.

“
Christ on a cross,” he whispered as his fear steadily mounted.

His feet scuffed the hard-packed ground. The harsh, grating sound set his teeth on edge. Up ahead, the dark bulk of the dining hall—a huge, black rectangle—loomed against the night sky. Faintly, he saw the orange glow of firelight inside the building. When he inhaled, the smell of wood smoke filled his nose, reassuring him that friendship was close by. But that didn’t make the near blinding panic that had seized him subside. He imagined Hobomock or some other demon or ghost lurking in the darkness, tracking him down, waiting to claim him.

And then an even worse thought occurred to him.

What if Jimmy had been murdered? … And what if his killer’s still out here? … waiting for me … the only witness … so he can end it all?

Jeff told himself that was impossible, but he picked up his pace nonetheless.

Jeff wanted to believe that Jim
my
hadn’t
be
en murdered, that he had been so upset about his performance in the softball game he’d gone down to the swimming area to be alone and then … somehow … he had fallen into the lake … maybe he’d even gone for a swim … and there wasn’t a lifeguard on duty … and when he dove in, he had bumped his head on the dock … or a rock underwater … and if there really was a gash on his throat, it wasn’t from a knife or whatever someone had used to cut his throat … maybe he’d scrapped on a rusty nail … or a piece of broken glass on the lake bottom because some jerk had thrown a soda bottle into the water, and it had broken …