The Wildman (18 page)

It was dark outside, and a huge fire was roaring in the fireplace. All four of his friends were sitting in a semi-circle around the hearth. Flashes of bright firelight flickered across their faces and cast huge shadows on the wall.

Everyone looked cozy and peaceful as they talked softly to one another. Jeff hesitated to break the tranquility. He rolled over and, for a long while, lay there with his back to the fire and stared out the dining hall windows. It took him a few moments to realize that it was raining. Silvery rivulets of water were running down the window, and every now and then a gust of wind would rattle the panes of glass.

“
Shit,” he muttered.

“
You’re awake,” Tyler called out.

Jeff raised a hand and waved languidly, but that tiny motion sent a jolt of pain shooting between his shoulders.

“
You alive over there?” Evan asked.

“
Barely,” Jeff replied, groaning loudly when he tried to sit up. The muscles between his shoulders were like knotted ropes, and he collapsed back down. Rolling his head back and forth, he listened to the faint crackling sounds his neck made before giving it another try. This time he made it, and he forced himself to smile at his friends.

“
Not used to working so hard, I guess,” he said as he placed his right hand on the back of his neck and rubbed.

“
You want a massage?” Mike asked, starting to stand up and come over to him.

Jeff waved him off with a quick, “No thanks. I’ll be all right.” He sighed. “Just give me a second or two.”

“
We were waiting for you to wake up before we started supper,” Evan said. He stood up without any seeming difficulty, making Jeff think he must be in a lot better shape. He walked over to the stack of supplies he’d brought and, opening the lid of the large cooler, fumbled around inside for a few seconds. Then he raised his head and looked at them.

“
Okay, looks like we have a choice of hamburgers … hamburgers … or … ahh … yeah, hamburgers.”

“
As long as there’s beer involved, I’m good with ‘burgers,” Mike said as he grabbed a bottle of Sam Adams from his cooler. “Anyone else?”

Fred and Tyler each nodded and took a beer from him, but Jeff waved him off. Jeff wasn’t surprised he had conked out like he had, probably as much from the rum as the exertion, but he was grateful he’d gotten a short nap because … who knew how late he’d be up tonight?

He still was suspicious of Evan’s motives. Something was going on here that he still hadn’t figured out. No matter how much he wanted to believe it was just because he felt uncomfortable with these people who were really strangers, he had an undeniable feeling th
at
something
wa
sn’t quite right.

“
Yeah. I guess I’ll go with a hamburger,” Fred said.

“
You need help cooking?” Tyler asked, but Evan waved him off and said, “I got it covered.”

Jeff kept stretching, trying to work out some of the kinks in his shoulders and back before he tried to stand up. With his back to the fire, he luxuriated in the steady warmth, but he shivered when he looked at the rain-streaked windows.

He sure as hell didn’t feel like snooping around out there in the rain. Maybe this was just a shower, and it would pass. He knew the damp chill would only make his aches and pains worse.

“
Anyone got some Tylenol or something?” he asked.

Without a word, Evan opened one of his bags, fished around in it for a second, and then tossed a small plastic bottle to him. It rattled when he caught it.

“
Thanks,” Jeff said even though the motion of catching it hurt. He flipped off the cap, shook out three tablets, and swallowed them dry. The thought of washing them down with rum or beer made his stomach clench.

Moving stiffly, Jeff got up and started walking back and forth in front of the fireplace, all the while rotating his shoulders and twisting his neck from side to side.

“
This getting old shit really
sucks
,”
Fred said with an expression of genuine sympathy. Jeff nodded but wasn’t sure what to say in return.

“
We owe you—both you and Evan-for getting us out of that jam today,” Tyler said.

“
Amen, brother,” Mike said.

“
Hell, it wasn’t that bad,” Evan said with a sniff and a wave of the hand.

Jeff shrugged in spite of the pain and said, “Ahh … it was nothing.”

“
Yeah,” Mike said. “Nothing … except you can barely move.”

“
Like Fred said … this getting old shit is for the birds.”

“
Beats the hell out of the alternative,” Evan said tonelessly. He had an armful of meat packages, which he set down on the floor close to the fire. Then he got the frying pan he had used for eggs and bacon this morning and set to work, positioning it on the grate over the coals.

“
Anyone wants their buns toasted, they can do it themselves,” he said.

Jeff had caught the slight grimace Evan made when he lifted the heavy frying pan, so he knew rowing had taken its toll on him, too. But as always, Evan wasn’t going to let anyone catch him in a moment of weakness.

“
I dunno,” Fred said. “Hey, Mike. You want your buns toasted?”

The way he said it, everyone else caught what seemed like veiled innuendo. Jeff felt a surge of anger at Fred and thought it was uncharacteristic of him to tease or bait Mike like that, but Mike was the first to smile.

“
I dunno,” he said, lo
wering his voice and batting his eyelids. “But I’ll be only too
glad
to toast
yours.
”

That flustered Fred, and he looked as if he thought Mike was seriously propositioning him.

Was he so naïve he didn’t realize Mike was gay?

Fred smiled and, lowering his gaze, said mildly, “Thanks, ahh—but no.”

Evan was smiling as if enjoying a private joke as he broke the burgers out of the packages and slapped a few into the pan. As the sound and smell of sizzling meat filled the dining hall, the friends’ conversation ranged over a variety of topics—their work, their kids, where they went to college, what they planned for the future. In all of this, Jeff noticed that—like last night—Evan remained relatively aloof. It could be that he was preoccupied with preparing supper, but Jeff was thinking now was a good time for Evan to pitch his development, if that was his plan, but he worked silently.

When Tyler and Mike got into a heated discussion about how the Red Sox had choked again this year, Jeff started to feel alienated again. Excusing himself, he stepped outside, thinking he’d try to call Matt at college to see how he was doing. It would be nice just to hear a friendly voice.

When he first stepped out onto the porch, he realized the rain had let up if not stopped entirely. Huge drops still fell from the trees and plopped on the porch roof. When he looked at his phone, he saw only one signal bar, but when he stepped off the porch and moved away from the building, a second bar appeared. Heartened, he pressed the speed dial for Matt’s phone and held the cell to his ear. After the phone rang once, a loud beep sounded. He took the phone away from his ear and looked at the message on display.

NETWORK NOT AVAILABLE
.

“
No shit, Dick Tracey,” he muttered as he walked out from under the pines toward the beach. Maybe the signal would be better there.

The rain had, indeed, let up, and he wandered further away from the dining hall. Still, the signal bars never rose above two.

He figured the mountains were blocking the signal, or else there simply was no signal available out here.

With no cell service, what would they do if there was an emergency and they had to call for help?

One of the other guy’s phones might use a different service and pick up a better signal, but what if all of their cells were useless?

Had Evan planned ahead? Did he have a radio or a landline to call for help if they needed it?

The wind was picking up, and the moon had cleared the clouds; but off to the west, a thick bank of dark clouds was closing in, moving fast across the night sky. Leaving the shelter of the trees, Jeff walked along the shore, all too aware that—once again—he was heading toward where they had pulled Jimmy Foster out of the lake.

He hesitated and was about to turn around, but for some reason, he couldn’t change direction. He was still convinced something wasn’t quite right about
this weekend, and he didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with what had happened back then. In spite of his overactive imagination, he didn’t
really
think Jimmy Foster’s ghost haunted the beach where he had died.

No … It was something else … something he was either not seeing … or was forgetting.

Regardless, he was still convinced his friend hadn’t drowned.

He had been murdered.

That thought kept gnawing at Jeff’s mind and wouldn’t let go.

So if Jimmy was killed, who did it?

And why?

Why hadn’t anyone been arrested and convicted?

Has someone gotten away with murder and—even more frightening—might they still be alive?

And then a terrible thought occurred to him.

What if it’s one of the men in the dining room?

What if Evan or Tyler or Mike or Fred knows more about what had happened that day than they’ve admitted?

Is this why Evan seems to be acting so strange?

And what’s the deal with Fred?

He sure seems uptight about something?

Or what if Mike or Tyler know more than they’re letting on? What if their gregarious natures are a front to hide the terrible truth they know?

What if one of them knows exactly what had happened?

Even if they aren’t the killer, what if they saw or heard something and never told anyone?

Jeff glanced at the cell phone in his hand. The signal bar was back to one, but he tried Matt’s number anyway simply because he was desperate to hear a friendly voice.

It would help reassure him.

But the call failed again, and Jeff kept walking, his feet dragging in the wet sand, leaving long, scalloped tracks behind him. When he reached the end of the beach, he turned to start back. The stretch of beach before him was all but lost in the darkness. The white sand at his feet glowed with an eerie luminescence that looked like thick ground fog, not sand. Dark water lapped against the shore, sounding like a thirsty animal, drinking. Feeling the cold and knowing more rain or snow was on the way, Jeff started back, picking up his pace.

He was halfway to the dining hall when a thought hit him so hard it staggered him.

“
Holy shit,” he whispered.

His voice was whisked away by the wind. He imagined it was twisting and turning like ribbons as it
was carried away on the breeze.

What if
I
know?

His throat was raw and burning as he swallowed and looked around frantically at the night as it pressed in close around him.

What if
I
saw something … and I’ve blocked it out all this time?

Is that possible?

The idea unnerved him so much his body began to tremble. The ache in his shoulders got worse. The cold, sour nausea in his stomach was a memory of how he had felt that long-ago day when he had seen Jimmy’s pale white body lying on the stretcher.

He was gripped by the terror of realizing the pitifully small body was one of his friends … someone he had known for the last three or four summers … someone he had played baseball with and gone swimming with and goofed around in the tent with, and now he was dead and was never,
never
coming back again.

Jeff couldn’t be sure Jimmy had been murdered, but he was suddenly confronted by the thought that maybe he had seen it happen and had been so traumatized he had blocked it out of his mind entirely.

And then another even more frightening thought occurred to him. He let out a gasp loud enough to fill the night.

What if
I
did it?

A chill took hold of him and shook him.

“No … no,” Jeff muttered in a low, strangled voice as he staggered a few steps backwards. Raising his arms to protect himself, he shook his head violently back and forth in adamant denial.

No… This is insane,
he told himself and wanted to believe.

If he started thinking like th
is, he should be writing horror novels instead of selling real estate. He had no reason to hurt—much less
kill
—
Jimmy Foster.

If anything, over the years he felt guilty that he had never found out what really happened.

How was it possible, in a summer camp full of campers and staff, for a boy to wander down to the swimming area alone, dive into the water, hit his head on something under water, and drown?

How come not a single person had seen him and wondered where he was going, wandering
away from the baseball game?