The Wildman (15 page)

“
Holy shit! I can’t believe this!” he called out as he broke into a run, heading toward the building.

Jeff and Evan exchanged glances, and Jeff couldn’t help but wonder if it had been Evan he had seen out here last night. If it was, he wanted to know what he had been doing out here.

The others followed Mike, approaching the infirmary from the back. There were three windows on the back, but all of them were boarded over. The shingles on the roof, facing north, were curled up and carpeted with moss. The eaves were lined with numerous old mud wasp nests. The day was chilly, but two or three wasps were outside one of the nests, buzzing as they moved their wings to warm themselves.

As they got closer to the infirmary, Jeff noticed something else he hadn’t noticed last night. A powerful stench of sewage hung in the air. Maybe the wind had been strong enough to blow it away from him last night and they were downwind now, but as he came close to the building, the smell was so strong it gagged him.

“
Jesus! Did something crawl under there and die?” he asked as he waved his hand in front of his face.

“
Yeah,” Evan said, wrinkling his nose. “Let’s steer clear of this place. It smells like the cesspool backed up.”

“
Hold on,” Mike said as he went around to the front of the building with the others following. “I wanna take a look inside.”

“
Remember Mrs. Stott?” Fred said. He smirked as he held his hands up to his chest like he was cupping two large grapefruits. “Man, she had the rack, didn’t she?”

Mike turned to him with a frown. “You know, you’re one sick son of a bitch. She was—how old?”

“
No. Seriously,” Fred said. Jeff thought this was the first time all weekend Fred had shown even the least bit of animation. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember how big her tits were.”

“
Hell, no,” Mike said, still scowling. “She was an old lady back then. Probably old enough to be your goddamned grandmother.”

“
Yeah,” Jeff added. “And she’s probably dead by now, rest in peace.”

Fred shrugged, looking suddenly nervous, like he’d said or done something wrong. “I was— … I’m just saying …”

Without another word, Mike approached the small porch with the missing steps. The others were a few steps behind. Mike stopped short when he looked up and saw the padlock on the door. Jeff saw that, as he had suspected last night, the lock looked brand new. Mike pulled on it, then in frustration slammed it against the door.

“
Shit! Why would anyone lock this?” He turned to Evan. “You own this place. Did you lock this?”

“
Huh …? No, I … ah … I don’t know anything about this,” Evan said.

Jeff had the distinct impression he was lying.

“
Maybe—you know, the surveyors who were out here last summer to start locating the house sites left some equipment in there and locked it,” Evan said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think we should be messing around out here.”

“
Maybe I can see in one of the windows,” Mike said, ignoring what Evan had said. “I just wanna have a look inside.” He glanced at Jeff and said, “Remember that time you got poison ivy on your balls?”

“
I didn’t get it on
my
balls,
” Jeff
said.

“
The hell you didn’t. You were scratching your balls something fierce.”

“
Maybe in your dreams,” Jeff said. He cringed the instant he said it because he realized how obvious it was, to him, at least, that Mike was gay. He didn’t want to say or do anything to hurt his feelings or piss him off.
“I
never
had poison ivy on my
balls
,” he added weakly.

“
No. Just in your crotch,” Tyler said, obviously trying to lighten the mood, but Mike scowled at Jeff for a moment until he finally shook his head as if it wasn’t worth the effort to argue any more.

After inspecting the locked door again, he jumped down off the porch and walked over to the boarded up windows to the right of the front door. Standing on tiptoes, he peered between the cracks. Obviously frustrated, he wedged his fingers under the edge of one of the boards nailed over the window and tried to pry it back. In spite of the years, the planks were nailed down tightly, and they didn’t yield. Jeff walked up closer to the building and noticed that the nails in the wood—like the lock on the front door—looked new. They certainly hadn’t been out here rusting away for the last thirty-five years.

“
You haven’t even checked out what’s in here?” Jeff asked, turning to Evan.

Evan shook his head sharply as he stood back, keeping his distance from the building. His face was pinched as if he smelled or tasted something nauseating.

“
What’s the point?” he said feebly. “It’s all coming down in the spring, anyway.”

Jeff shrugged as if he could just about care, but something there was about this place that bothered him. Something strange was going on here that he just couldn’t figure out. Not knowing what it was irritated him no end, and he was more determined than ever to find out.

“
How ‘bout we take that boat ride now?” Evan said, his voice sounding suddenly bright and chipper. Jeff had the distinct impression he was trying to distract them in order to draw them away from the infirmary.

“
Is this where we get the sales pitch?” Tyler asked.

Evan shook his head in vigorous denial.

“
Absolutely not,” he said. “I promise not to mention the development at all. We’ll just cruise around a bit. I wish I told you guys to bring your fishing gear. Do any of you fish?”

“
My wife and I have a camp up in the Sierras,” Tyler said. “I drown a few worms now and again. I thought of bringing my gear but decided not to hassle with it on the plane.”

Looking like he was barely paying attention to any of them, Evan turned and started walking down the path that led to the dining hall. Tyler, Fred and Mike followed a few steps behind him, but Jeff, still unsatisfied, lagged behind. He wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of going out onto the lake … at least not now. The day was colder than he liked, and if the wind picked up once they were out of the shelter of the island, they’d freeze their butts off.

Besides, he had to find out what was going on in the old infirmary that
someone
felt needed to be locked up.

Was it j
ust his imagination, or could Evan be hiding something out here? He obviously didn’t want anyone to hang around out here.

And what was with that smell?

In front of the building, he could no longer smell it, but out back, for a second or two the stench of raw sewage had been almost too much to handle.

“
Hey! You coming?” Evan called out. He and the others were waiting at a bend in the trail.

Jeff considered for a moment, wishing he could lag behind a little longer, but if Evan was hiding something out here, he wouldn’t let him dally. He’d find some way to drag him away. With a sigh, Jeff started out after them, but when he was a few feet from the building, he heard something—a sound from inside.

It wasn’t much.

Just a single, loud thump like what he had heard last night, and it had definitely come from inside the building.

He stopped in his tracks and, turning, looked back at the old building. He was poised, waiting for the sound to be repeated, but all he could hear was the light breeze blowing through the pines around the building. Then Evan, now out of sight around the bend in the trail, called out.

“
Come on! Boat’s leaving with or without you.”

“
How about without me,” Jeff whispered, but he knew Evan wouldn’t leave without him. The one thing his friend didn’t want was to leave him here alone to his own devices.

He waited a few more seconds to see if the sound came again, but it didn’t. He didn’t know what might have caused it, but he was determined, one way or another, to find out.

Jeff looked longingly down the trail. His friends were long out of sight. He knew he wasn’t obligated to go wherever they went. He could take time for himself if he wanted. That was at least part of the point of being here. Let them take their damned boat ride. Once they were out on the water and out of sight, he wanted to come back and take a more careful look around.

Clenching his fists, he started jogging down the trail after his friends. The sun was warm on his face, and the cold air was bracing as it washed into and out of his lungs. As he ran, he thought about all the times when he was a kid and had run along this same trail. It was weird how familiar and yet so foreign it all felt.

Without his friends around, he played a game in his mind and, for a short while at least, he was a little boy once again, playing in the woods. He imagined he was a wild man—like Tarzan or an Indian brave—running through the primeval forest, tracking food … or enemies. A powerful feeling of primitive energy infused him, and he was disappointed when he rounded a turn in the trail and saw his friends up ahead. In an instant, the illusion of being someone he k
new he wasn’t evaporated.

No,
he thought, holding onto the image of a younger, stronger, more primitive version of himself.
These are enemies who have invaded my sacred land … and they must be stopped … They must die …

Jeff was amused to realize how, just below the su
rface, there was still a little boy inside him, but then he wondered—

Is it a little boy … or is it something else … is it something more primal?

Once again, he found himself thinking about the stories Mark used to tell them about Hobomock, the Indian demon who tricked enemies and friends alike, and caused their destruction. And as he ran to catch up with Evan and the others, he wondered if that might not be what was happening here.

He felt protective of this island and this camp and the memories of what it used to be.

Maybe the hostility or edge of agitation he was feeling about Evan was simply because he didn’t like what was going to happen out here.

Maybe he didn’t want civilization in the form of Evan’s development to come here and destroy the forest and beach and camp the way he remembered them.

Jeff was more winded than he thought he should be when he finally caught up with his friends. He signaled for them to stop as he leaned forward with both hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“
What took you so long?” Tyler asked.

“
Stop to take a crap in the woods?” Fred said.

Mike sniffed and, under his breath, said, “Hope you didn’t get poison ivy on your balls again.”

But Evan regarded Jeff with a long, steady stare that Jeff found bothersome … so much so he couldn’t look his friend in the eyes for long. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what he might see inside Evan; he didn’t want Evan to see what was inside of him.

“
No … I—ah …” It irritated him that he was still panting so heavily. “I thought I … heard something … in the infirmary, and … was just … checking it out.”

He looked up as he said this to see if he could read Evan’s reaction, but Evan regarded him steadily with a blank expression.

“
Probably a raccoon or skunk knocking around in there,” Evan said. “Haven’t you noticed? They’re all over the place.”

“
Yeah,” Jeff said. “Probably.” He hawked up a wad of mucous and spit into the dust at his feet.

Evan stretched out his left arm and glanced at his wristwatch.

“
It’s already almost noon. What say we rustle up some lunch before we take our boat ride.”

“
Sounds like a plan,” Tyler said.

“
Yeah. I could use a cold one,” Mike said.

Everyone else nodded their agreement … everyone, that is, except Jeff, who was still wondering how he was going to get away from everyone else so he could go back to the infirmary and check it out.

There was something inside there, and he wasn’t going to rest until he found out what it was.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Cruisin’

Lunch consisted of cold roast beef sandwiches, potato chips, pickles, and beer—lots of beer. After lunch, Jeff was feeling so bloated all he could think about was how nice it would be to take a short nap … especially after not sleeping much last night. He never saw an opportunity to tell Evan that he didn’t want to go for the boat ride, so the five of them headed down to the beach where the boat was moored. They were all wearing winter coats, hats, and gloves, but the cold wind cut like a knife into Jeff’s face. At the risk of being called a pussy, he suggested it was too cold, at least for him, and he’d just as soon sit this one out, but Evan and the others pressured him to go.

Throughout lunch, he’d kept watching Evan carefully, looking for some hint that he knew Jeff knew he was up to something, but Jeff had no idea what he was suspicious of. He couldn’t very well confront him and say he had a “bad feeling.” He wanted to figure it out, to get a handle on what was bothering him.

He needed something tangible.

Still, he couldn’t stop wondering why he was so suspicious. He told himself he should just relax and enjoy this time catching up with old friends. At the very least, he should try to get through the weekend with minimal upset. Come Sunday, they’d all go their separate ways, and if Evan or anyone else attempted to stay in touch, he could let e-mails and phone calls go unanswered until they finally stopped trying. Soon enough, he’d be back into his routine, and this weekend—like his time here as a camper—would be a fading memory.