The Wildman

Chapter FOUR

Hobomock





Logs crackled, and firelight cast a warm orange glow that filled the dining hall all the way up to the shadowed rafters where thick, dark cobwebs hung down like splashes of black ink. The shadows shifted crazily, and as Jeff eased back on his sleeping bag with drink in hand, he couldn’t help but wonder how many bats or mice or something else were up there, scuttling around to avoid the light.

There was no electrical service on the island yet. It had been cut off years ago and hadn’t been restored. Evan said he had to get the power back on in the spring, once construction started. Other than a handful of candles he had brought and the flashlights they all remembered to pack, the fire in the fireplace was their only source of light through the night. Evan promised, once the development got going, there would be cable TV and a microwave tower for cell phone service. It wouldn’t be long before Sheep’s Head Island and Camp Tapiola had all the amenities of civilization.

“Do we have a working toilet?” Jeff asked.

“A two-seater,” Evan said.

There was a bathroom at the end of the short hallway, but it had obviously been out of order for decades. Jeff had poked his head in just long enough to determine that the room was off limits for the duration.

“There’s a Port-a-Potty just outside the side door,” Evan said. He sounded a bit defensive, as if he didn’t like Jeff or anyone criticizing his accommodations. “What more do you want?”

“How about a place to take a dump without freezing my goddamned ass off?” Jeff said. He and everyone else except Evan laughed at that. For now, though, the men would have to make do with the primitive resources they had.

And make do they did.

After Jeff was settled and everyone was plying a drink, the men cobbled together a more than passable supper of hot dogs, baked beans, brown bread, and fresh salad, which Fred had brought. The only refrigeration they had was the coolers they brought, but as long as there was beer and wine ... plenty of beer and wine … they’d be set. Mike had brought a box of twenty Cuban cigars just for the occasion, and everyone except Evan lit up after supper. Dense clouds of blue smoke rose into the darkness above them as they eased back and talked. After thirty-five years, there was plenty to catch up on.

Jeff already knew that Evan was married, had two kids, and lived in Medford, Mass., but he didn’t learn a whole lot more about Evan’s real estate development business. Truth was, he was grateful Evan didn’t try any more hard sell on them, but he was sure the pitch to invest would come before the weekend was out. Evan had to be using this weekend as a tax write-off.

Jeff learned that Fred had been married and divorced twice and was no longer looking for a woman to be a part of his life. After Jeff dropped his line about if he buying a woman he hated a house and car, he let Fred tell them about his job as manager of the water filtration plant in the small town in Vermont. Jeff noticed that Fred didn’t talk much about his personal life, but that was fine with him. He remembered Fred as being—maybe not shy, but at least reluctant to talk about his feelings.

Mike let everyone know that he had never gotten married and was still single, living with his aging mother to help her out. After Tyler expressed surprise that Mike had never found the right person, Jeff was convinced that the suspicion he’d had about Mike back when they were campers might be correct. Mike was gay, and he was doing a damned good job of covering it up.

Of course a lot of the conversation centered on Tyler and the work he did in Hollywood, representing movie stars as well as producers and directors and some screenwriters. Although he professed not to have all that important a client list and that he really shouldn’t even mention any of his clients because of confidentiality issues, he let drop a few names Jeff definitely had heard of. Frankly, he was impressed that one of their little group appeared to be quite successful in the world. He started thinking his job selling real estate in southern Maine wasn’t all that much of an achievement.

“Ahh … It’s nothing, really,” Tyler said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “They’re just people like you and me, you know?”

“People like you and me with a shit-load of money, you mean” Fred said, laughing before he tilted his head back and drained his fifth or sixth beer of the evening.

No wonder you’ve got a weight problem, Jeff thought … and maybe a drinking problem, too. Fred had been knocking them back hard ever since supper, and he didn’t look like he was going to be slowing down any time soon.

Maybe he’s got a good reason to drink.

“So tell us,” Evan said, leaning forward with a lascivious leer. “You f*cking any famous Hollywood stars?”

Jeff was taken aback that Evan would ask such a crude and personal question.

Maybe he wasn’t used to drinking like this, and the few beers he’d had were going to his head faster than expected. Jeff remembered Evan as always being somewhat aloof … someone who didn’t engage in the typical gross-out horseplay the others did, even as kids.

Maybe he said what he said so he could fit in a little better.

Or maybe he had a genuine prurient interested in Tyler’s sex life.

In any event, Tyler smiled and shook his head as he glanced down at the floor, clasped his hands, and said, “Can’t say that I have.”

“Can’t say is not the same as saying you never did,” Evan said.

Tyler paused and took a sip of beer, then added, “Although I have to admit there are a few I wouldn’t mind putting the ole’ wood to, if you catch my drift.”

“But you’re married,” Fred said.

“I am. And happily, believe it or not,” Tyler said, but he made a poking motion with his fist that made everyone burst out in gales of laughter … everyone, that is, except Evan, who looked a little bit pissed because Tyler had made light of his question and not given him a straight answer.

“Hey you guys,” Jeff said. “Remember those stories Mark used to tell us?” He was hoping to take the pressure off Tyler to reveal things he obviously didn’t want to talk about.

“Don’t get started about Hobomock,” Fred said. He folded his arms across his chest and made an exaggerated motion like he was shivering. “F*ckin-A, those stories used to scare the shit out of me.”

“Scarred him for life … as you can plainly see,” Tyler said with a smirking grin.

“No. Seriously.” Fred hunched forward and turned to face the fire. “There were times when we’d be out on an overnight camping trip or whatever, and Mark would tell us one of them stories just before we went to sleep, and I’d be up all night, worrying and waiting for some Indian demon or ghost or something to come and get me.”

“Do you remember any of the stories?” Evan asked in a hushed voice.

He had been sitting off to one side, as far away from the cigar smoke as he could get. Even now that the cigars were finished, he kept his distance. The orange firelight under-lit his face at an oblique angle, making his cheekbones and brow ridge stand out in sharp relief. Jeff thought his eyes appeared sunken, more deeply set than they did in daylight, as if they were sinking into his face. For the first time, he realized just how old Evan really looked. Time and worry had aged him like anyone else in the room, and in a dimly lit room like this, it really showed on him now that he was relaxed.

Jeff wasn’t the only one who had caught the odd note in Evan’s voice. Tyler shot him a questioning look and then glanced at Fred, whose face held an expression of increasing discomfort and maybe even fear.

Before anyone could say anything, a sudden gust of wind slammed against the dining hall, rattling the shutters on the windows and making the roof timbers creak and groan. Fine grit filtered down from the rafters, sprinkling them like pepper.

“Wind’s picking up,” Mike said. The hollow tone of his voice perfectly suited the mood.

“I told you,” Jeff said. “There’s a storm coming. This must be the front moving through.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be safe and warm in here,” Evan said. “A night like this is perfect for telling some of those old stories.” For some reason, when he said this, he looked squarely at Jeff. “Don’t you think?”

“I dunno.” Fred’s voice was low and tight. “I’m not sure I even want to remember any of them.” He sniffed with false laughter and shook his head.

“Ah, come on,” Evan said, leaning closer to Fred so the firelight bathed his face with a rich, orange glow. “You should remember them if they scared you so much.”

Jeff shifted where he was sitting. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. It was one thing to get together after so long and catch up, but there was something almost mean about the way he was talking to Fred. It was like he wanted to find his weak spot and go straight for it.

What would he have against Fred? Jeff wondered, and one again, he questioned Evan’s motives for getting all of them together out here.

Maybe it isn’t to try to sell us on his development.

Maybe he has something else … something more sinister in mind.

He didn’t know Evan or any of these guys. How could he know what any one of them was up to?

“I don’t think so,” Fred said, his voice strained and low. “All I remember is being scared shitless that there was something … this demon or evil spirit hiding in the woods who was gonna jump out and snatch me away.”

“That’s the whole point of telling ghost stories, for Christ’s sake,” Tyler said. “You’re supposed to get scared.”

“Yeah, but not so bad it scars you for life,” Fred said. “A couple of years ago, I researched it and found out Hobomock really was a Native American demon. Mark wasn’t making those stories up.”

“And did Hobomock catch people and eat them?” Evan asked, arching his eyebrows.

He still had an odd expression that Jeff couldn’t read, and he wondered what Evan was trying to accomplish here.

Was he trying to make himself feel better, more important by finding and picking at Fred’s obvious bad childhood memories?

Why do something like that?

Is it just to make himself feel more important?

Is this his way of establishing that he still is the one in charge … that he had been-and always would be—the Alpha male?

“I doubt it,” Jeff said, hoping to diffuse the awkward situation, “but if we’re gonna dredge up horrible memories, what say we raise a glass and toast the memory of Jimmy Foster?”

He had poured himself a tall glass of rum and raised it while lowering his gaze and saying, “To the memory of a good guy … Jimmy Foster … who should be here with us tonight.”

“Amen,” Mike said.

“Hear … hear,” Tyler said, and everyone raised whatever glass or beer can they were holding, clinked them, and took a sip. Jeff noticed Evan’s reluctance to join in, and he saw the cold, angry light that glowed in his eyes.

Jeff narrowed his eyes for a moment and let the rum burn its way down into his belly. Then he cleared his throat and said, “It’s just so f*cking weird to think how so much has happened since the last time we were all here together.”

He didn’t like to feel as though he was belaboring the obvious, but right now … at this particular moment in this particular place … he was almost overwhelmed by a sense of time past … of opportunities taken and lost … of lives that had intersected for one brief moment and then drifted apart for whatever reasons.

And now—here they all were—back together.

At least most of us, he thought, and in some strange way, it felt as though even Jimmy was sitting here with them.

Feeling the way he did, Jeff could just about convince himself nothing that had happened in any of their lives in the intervening years had meant anything. What difference had any of their lives made to the world? The darkness and the sound of the wind blowing against the old building and the faint, rhythmic sound of the waves against the shore all contributed to create a strange feeling of timelessness and how sad and pitiful and dispensable any one human life was.

Or maybe he felt this way because of the more than usual amount of rum he’d drunk tonight.

Whatever it was, he had a deep sense of contentment and well-being, as being here in this place with these people was where he really belonged.

“So …? No one remembers any of those stories Mark used to tell?” Mike asked.

Drawn from his reverie, Jeff opened his eyes and looked at his friend. His vision was blurry, but now that he thought about it, there was something about the expression on Evan’s face that he found irksome. It struck him as odd that he would suddenly be filled with anger at Mike.

Did he feel protective of Fred, who had already made it clear that he wanted no part of telling any of the stories that had given him nightmares as a child?

Or was it much simpler than that?

Maybe there was something about Evan he just didn’t like. Just because they’d been friends years ago didn’t mean he had to like him or Mike or Tyler or anyone now.

“I remember one story,” Evan said, “but it wasn’t one about Hobomock. It was about the guy with the hook for a hand. Remember that one?”

Everyone except Jeff grunted and nodded. Jeff still eyed Mike in the flickering firelight, trying to figure out why he’d had such a sudden, violent reaction to what was, in truth, a fairly innocent suggestion. All they were doing was reminiscing, and the stories their counselor used to tell was just a part of it.

What the hell was the big deal?

“I remember that one,” Fred said, his eyes glazing over as he stared at the flames. “They didn’t scare me anywhere near the way the Hobomock stories did.”

“So tell us that one if you remember it so well,” Evan said.

Jeff noticed that Evan had moved a bit closer to Fred, and, he felt protective of Fred. He tensed, wondering if Evan was suddenly going to attack Fred or something. He shouldn’t purposely be poking and prodding him like this. No one should.

Wondering why he was getting so paranoid, Jeff heaved himself up from the floor, stretched, and rolled his head to loosen the stiffness in his neck.

Maybe he just needed to move around some.

He’d been sitting in the same position for a couple of hours now. At his age, the floor wasn’t very comfortable.

“I’m glad you told me to bring one of them egg-shell sleeping pads,” Jeff said to Evan.

There was still some undefined tension in the air, and Jeff decided even if he was just imagining in, he had to do something to shift gears.

“I gotta take a whiz,” he said, shivering as he looked down the hallway that led to the side entrance they had never used as campers. They had always entered the dining hall using the lakeside door.

“Too bad the plumbing’s not working in the old crapper,” he said. “I’m not too keen about freezing my ass.”

Evan gave him an irritated look as he shook his head. “Be thankful you don’t have to shit in the woods like a bear.”

“Or the Pope,” Mike piped in, eliciting a few faint chuckles from the others.

“Help yourself to the rum while I’m gone,” Jeff said as he placed the half-empty bottle on the floor within easy reach.

With a stirring of trepidation, he walked down the hallway to the exit. The screens in the door were long gone, but Evan—probably in the last few days when he was out here getting things ready for them—had nailed a thin sheet of plywood across the gaps. The spring that drew the door shut was rusted a rich brick red. It twanged loudly when Jeff pushed the door open and stepped out onto the small, covered porch.

“Watch your step out there,” Evan called out. “The wood on the landing’s getting kinda punky.”

Kinda punky? Jeff thought as he walked carefully across the porch to the steps. The floorboards sank beneath his weight, and rusted nails made loud creaking sounds as they pulled from the rotting wood. The sound set his teeth on edge, and he felt much safer once he stepped down onto the ground. But as he looked around, a deeper chill grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

Other than the faint glow of firelight coming from inside the dining room, there was absolutely no light anywhere. The smell of wood smoke drifted in the air and was pleasant enough. The sound of waves breaking on the shore was so familiar and comforting he loosened his shoulders and relaxed a bit. Still, there was an unaccountable tension twisting inside him.

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 f*cking 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 something 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 was 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 f*cking 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 Jimmy hadn’t been 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 …

Jeff was walking at a fast pace, now, almost running. He weaved between the trees, trying not to trip or bump into anything. Again, he wished he’d brought his flashlight. He wanted to stop and turn around and face whatever he feared was behind him. Then he would see there was nothing there. All he was doing was letting his fears get the better of him, and maybe because of the rum he’d drunk, it was all spiraling out of control.

There’s nothing there … no Hobomock … no ghosts … no demon … nothing … unless …

… unless it’s Jimmy Foster!

The thought filled Jeff with blinding fear.

When he chanced a look back at the beach, now far behind him, he bumped into a tree hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Tiny white stars exploded across his vision, and he was lucky he didn’t drop, unconscious.

Jeff gasped, staggered to a stop, and leaned forward with both hands on his knees. He shook his head to clear it.

Is that what I’m afraid of? he asked himself as panic coursed through him.

Am I afraid Jimmy Foster’s ghost is still lingering where he died … that he’s been waiting here all these years … waiting for someone … for me … to come back?

Come back and do what?

Help him?

Jeff wanted desperately to believe there was nothing more he could do, either then or now.

He was just a kid at the time. Even if something bad had happened to Jimmy, even if he had been murdered, what could he have done about it? The police, his parents … nobody believed him when he told them what he had seen. They said Jimmy’s throat hadn’t been cut. He had drowned, and that was the end of it.

If none of the adults—not even his parents or the police—believed him, there was nothing more he could do about it.

He was panting heavily. In spite of the cold night air, sweat bathed his face. Jeff scanned the beach and surrounding forest. It was hard not to imagine a lost, lonely spirit haunting the darkness, waiting … alone … for something or someone who never came and would never come.

Jeff took a breath that turned into a barking sob. He realized he was crying, but as he wiped his tears on the sleeve of his jacket, he wanted to convince himself that the cold wind blowing into his face was making his eyes water. Squaring his shoulders, he took another deep breath and told himself to stop acting like a scared little kid.

There’s noting out here … no ghosts … no demons … nothing!

And he almost believed himself, but as he walked the rest of the way back to the dining hall, a cold tingling sensation danced between his shoulder blades. And as he stepped up onto the stairs leading to the porch, he was starting to feel a bit calmer … calm enough to face his friends, anyway, when a huge shape suddenly loomed out of the darkness and bumped into him.

The impact almost knocked him to the ground. As it was, he staggered back a few steps, feeling the floorboards yield beneath his weight.

Jeff clenched his fists and ducked into a defensive crouch, but an instant later, someone shouted, “Jesus! I didn’t hear you coming.”

It was Evan.

Even though relief flooded Jeff, he was suddenly angry at his friend.

”What the f*ck are you doing?”

“Same thing as you,” Evan said. “I came out to take a piss.”

“Off the edge of the porch?”

“What the f*ck?” Evan said. “I own this property, don’t I? So I can do whatever the hell I want.”

Jeff’s heart was still pounding heavily in his chest, but above it he could hear the sound of Evan’s stream of piss as it splashed on the ground beside the porch.

“Hope I didn’t ruin your aim,” he said with a tight laugh.

Evan chuckled, but in the darkness, without being able to see his face, Jeff caught a dull hollow tone in his friend’s laughter, as if he didn’t really mean it.

“Well—ahh, look,” Jeff said. “I, umm, feel kinda uncomfortable, talking to you knowing you have your dick in your hand.” Jeff still couldn’t see anything in the darkness under the porch roof. He raised his foot and placed it down carefully. The spongy wood sagged as he shifted his weight forward.

“See you inside then,” Evan said as the sound of splashing urine continued unabated.

“Sure,” Jeff said as he felt his way to the door, swung it open, and went inside. He couldn’t believe the relief he felt when he saw the roaring blaze in the fireplace and the smiling faces of his friends, who looked up as he approached.

“Took you long enough,” Tyler said, but Jeff simply nodded as he settled back down on his sleeping pad, basking in the warmth of the fire.