The Summer Is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved

by Joey Comeau

  The kitchen had a long window that peeked out into the dining room. If they went in there, they could see out without worrying. Martin tapped Joan on the shoulder and pointed at the kitchen door. She nodded and tapped Melissa on the shoulder.

  In the kitchen, it was even darker. Martin couldn’t see anyone’s face. But he could hear the humming now even louder. It sounded so cheerful.

  They went as quietly as they could, creeping to the window that looked out into the dining room. There was definitely someone out there, humming away. Then a door opened at the far end of the room, and the light beyond the door switched on. It was Father Tony, standing at the top of a set of stairs that led down. The light from the door came into the dining room, and lit up a shape on the floor.

  But it wasn’t until Tony started to drag it toward the stairs that Martin realized it was a body. It was a kid’s body. It looked like Gabe.

  Joan ducked her head suddenly, and let go of Martin’s hand. She held her hand over her mouth, and he could hear small sounds that she was trying to keep in. Martin kept watching, though, and Tony dragged the body by its arm to the top of the stairs, and then down. He was still humming his cheerful tune as the body hit each step on the way down with a thump.

  “That’s a dead body,” Courtney whispered.

  Melissa hit her in the shoulder and held her finger to her lips again.

  “That’s a dead body,” Courtney said again, a bit louder this time. “Oh god, why does he have a dead body?”

  Melissa pulled Courtney into a crouch and covered her mouth. “We have to be quiet,” she whispered.

  Joan was still shaking on the floor, and Martin kneeled down beside her and pulled her into a hug.

  Melissa raised her head a little to look, and suddenly the light went out. The door closed and they listened as Tony walked back through the main room to the front door. It creaked when it opened, and then slammed shut. They could hear him outside now, humming as he walked away in the direction of the bonfire and the beach. His feet scraped on the gravel.

  “That was a dead body,” Courtney whispered again. “We have to get out of here,” she said.

  Melissa stood up, shaking her head. “We have to make sure. What if it was just a mannequin or something?”

  “It didn’t look like a mannequin,” Joan said. “Mannequins don’t have moveable arms like that. They stay in the same shape.”

  “Maybe it was a scarecrow, or a dummy of some kind,” Courtney said.

  But Martin knew it wasn’t. It had looked like a body. Tony had killed Gabe, and he was going to kill again. They had to escape. The longer they stayed here, the more likely they were to die. They had to just go, get out and run into the woods.

  “We have to know for sure,” Melissa said. “What are we going to do, go tell Sherri-Lynn that we saw Father Tony hiding a body in the basement? What if it is a dead body, and he’s a killer? If he’s a killer, how do we know they all aren’t killers?”

  “Oh god,” Courtney said.

  “Sherri-Lynn isn’t a killer,” Joan said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “What about the phone?” Martin said. “We could call 911. The police could come help us.”

  “We will,” Melissa said. “I say we go and make sure that it really is a dead body, and then we call the police. They’ll take us more seriously if we know for sure.”

  Nobody said anything to that. They all sat on the floor in the kitchen looking up at her.

  “I’ll go by myself if I have to,” she said.

  “No,” Martin said. He stood up, too. “We can’t split up. If we split up, he’ll get us one at a time. We have to stay together.”

  The other girls stood as well. This was exactly the kind of thing they shouldn’t be doing. They didn’t need more information. They needed to call the police. If they called, the worst-case scenario would be the police coming and finding out it was a big misunderstanding. But if they were right, then the police would help them. There was no downside to calling the police.

  But if they went downstairs now, Tony might get them. He might find them in the dark and hurt them before they had a chance to get to a phone. Martin opened his mouth to say something, but Melissa was already opening the door to the kitchen. She was dead set on checking out the basement. She would go, no matter what he said. And if they split up, it was even more dangerous. He grabbed Joan’s hand and followed them.

  Dear Martin,

  It just occurred to me that I didn’t give you a Bible to bring to camp with you. I’m sure they have one there, but it would have been the perfect time to pass on the family Bible. It’s been in our family for almost a whole generation now. The cover is thick red leather, with the words pressed in black ink. I found it at a small curio shop in Dartmouth. I was just drunkenly wandering with friends there when you were only small. You were at home fast asleep, and we were hollering and kicking over mailboxes. And then there it was, this small creepy shop with its lights on at three in the morning.

  The sign above the door said it was called “Frank’s Weird Shit.” And inside we met Frank. He was an ugly dude. You know when sometimes people are so ugly that you can’t look away? You know it’s impolite, but you just keep looking, because your brain wants to understand. It wants to solve the riddle of how a human being could look this way? It was like that, except in a weird shop in the middle of the night.

  “I have that Bible you ordered,” he said to me, spitting with half of the words. He reached under the counter for a package and handed it to me. “It took some doing, but I finally found it. It was in Iraq of all places. Well, I guess that’s not important.”

  And inside the package was this blood-red Bible with an upside-down cross on the cover in black. So, I want to say I was smart enough to not mess around with dark forces, Martin, but I wasn’t. We were already on a rampage of self-destruction, so we took the book down to the ferry terminal and sat on the boardwalk, looking at the Bible under a streetlamp. And we made some deals with the Devil.

  Did you know the Devil doesn’t always deal in souls, Martin? I was going to tell you this when you got older, but you used to have a sister. Martina. She was a nice girl and everything, but not very smart. She was like a dumber, taller version of you, so I did what the book said. I went home and I got her out of bed quietly so as not to wake you. Then I took her to a crossroads. I figured the paths that cross in the woods back by the frog pond were best, because I had to bury your sister. You can’t really bury someone in pavement.

  Anyway it turns out I couldn’t really bury someone in gravel, either. So I just had her lay down and I sort of piled some gravel on top of her. And I waited, like the book said. I waited until a big circus-strong-man-looking guy showed up and told me he was the Devil. He took my makeup kit from me and looked at it carefully. Then he started rearranging the shelves in it, moving the colours around, sorting the brushes by size.

  Finally he sat down on the gravel beside your darling sister, Martina, and he painted her face. He drew her eyes darker and darker, and white lines around her mouth, shaping grinning teeth. He made her into a death mask of a skull, and then the two of them stood up.

  “She’s perfect,” the Devil said in his quiet, feminine voice. “She’ll be happier now. She will be the Princess of Lost Children.”

  “And frogs?” Martina asked, looking up at him.

  “And frogs,” he assured her.

  She took his hand and smiled a creepy skull smile at me. Then the Devil handed me back my makeup kit, and they were gone. I traded your sister to the Devil in exchange for the ability to work makeup like Robert Johnson played the guitar, is what I’m saying Martin. Or, I guess it’s possible that I traded your sister to a crazy homeless man in exchange for messing with my makeup kit. But after that, nobody seemed to miss her. None of my friends seemed surprised that I only had one child now. And the government cheques for you kept coming, even thou
gh hers stopped.

  Anyway, I could have sent the Bible along with you. You probably have to read from it in chapel and sing the songs, and it would have been funny if you read from this one and sang the dark twisting incantations while everyone else sang hymns. The walls would have bled and the dead would have risen.

  It’s hard waking up and not seeing your dumb face every morning. I can’t wait ’til the movie’s over and I come home and read you bedtime stories. By which I mean watch horror movies with you on the couch. Maybe we’ll watch Blood Socket 2!

  For the next movie, I’ll bring you with me, even if I can’t afford it. You can work the streets in Toronto, hunting squirrels and selling them to the hot dog cart guys. Child labour builds character, son.

  I’ve attached a picture of your long-lost sister, Martina. It might look like somebody cut the head out of your class picture and stuck it on the photo of a teen beauty queen, but that’s what people always said when they met her. It’s just what she looked like.

  Thinking of you, (and your sister, who is now Princess of Lost Children and Frogs)

  Your Mother.

  They opened the door to the kitchen even slower this time, and it didn’t make a sound. In the dining room, they tried to go slowly, but the floor creaked no matter how careful they were. In the end they ran across the room, more afraid to be in the open than they were of the floor creaking. It was Melissa who pulled open the door to the basement.

  “The light?” she said.

  Courtney shook her head. “He’ll see us.”

  “I am not feeling around in a dark basement for a dead body,” Melissa said. “Who knows what I’ll put my hand in. And someone else might be down there. Turn on the light.”

  “No,” Courtney said. “He’ll see us! I told you he’ll see us.” There was an edge of panic in her voice. Martin wanted to pull her into a hug.

  “We can close the door once we’re inside,” Joan said. “And then turn on the light. Nobody will see that. Then we take a quick look around the basement, and we come back upstairs.”

  “Okay,” Melissa said.

  It was crowded at the top of the stairs, but nobody wanted to go down before the light was on. So they crowded at the top, and then they closed the door behind themselves. Melissa turned on the light without warning. It hurt Martin’s eyes, and he blinked against it for a few seconds.

  He knew he and Joan shouldn’t be there. This wasn’t the setting of a romance. This was what a horror movie looked like. The stairs were unfinished wood, and the walls were bare cement. There was nothing at the bottom of the steps. It was just a dirt floor. They had to go down further and look. Joan had his hand again, tighter this time.

  As soon as they got to the bottom, they saw the body. It was Gabe, mohawk and all, and someone had cut his throat. Gabe’s eyes were open but lifeless, and his throat was cut deep, but there was hardly any blood. Beside him, there was a bigger body in a counsellor’s uniform. Martin couldn’t tell who it was, though, because the head had been removed. It was just the top of a shirt with blood and bone sticking out.

  “Who is it?” Joan said, staring at the boy.

  “Gabe,” Martin said. “I don’t know who that is, though.”

  “What about these ones?” Melissa said. There were three more bodies around the corner. Two kids and another counsellor. This counsellor was unrecognizable, too. She had breasts, so it was a girl, but her face was bloody and bashed. Martin remembered Jackie holding her hand to her face, her nose broken and bleeding from the Flying Fox. Her hair was the same.

  “It’s Jackie,” he said.

  And that was John Dee, laid out on the dirt floor, with his arm beside his body, but separate. They stood there looking at the bodies in silence for a long time. Twice, Melissa took a step forward, like she was going to touch them to make sure, but both times she changed her mind and stepped back.

  John Dee had a mother somewhere, Martin thought, staring at the body. He had a mother somewhere, and she didn’t know what had happened. What was she going to do without him? Who was going to take care of her?

  Beside Martin, Courtney bent over and vomited on the floor. The sound was slow and retching. She spat the taste out of her mouth, and stood back up. But then she bent over again to vomit.

  “What is his mom going to do?” Martin said.

  Melissa gave him a look like he was crazy. “What are we going to do, is the real question,” she said.

  “We have to find the phone,” Courtney said, spitting again.

  “Should we close his eyes?” Joan said.

  That made everyone quiet again, but nobody moved forward to touch the body.

  “The phone,” Courtney said, backing up.

  As soon as she started moving, everyone did. They ran up the basement stairs and out into the dining room. It was Martin who remembered to turn the light off and close the door behind them. In the shadowy dining room, Melissa slammed into a table. She cried out.

  “Where’s the phone?” Courtney said. “Where do they have a phone?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Melissa said.

  “Is there one in the kitchen?” Martin said.

  “Maybe,” Melissa said. “I didn’t see one.” They went back into the kitchen, forgetting to open the door slowly. It swung too easily and opened so hard that it hit the wall with a bang.

  Father Tony was going to hear them. What if he was still just outside, standing on the steps, listening to them with a smile on his face? They had to get away from here. They would be safe outside, where the sun was shining.

  But first they had to call the police. The police would come with guns, and they would stop Tony from hurting anyone else. And Martin could call his mother. He felt along each of the walls in the dark, trying to find a phone. He couldn’t see anything, and the walls all felt smooth to his touch.

  “Oh god, oh god,” Courtney was saying. “There isn’t a phone in here. We have to go.” She was losing it, but she was right. There were no phones. He didn’t even find a cord. Joan was feeling along the countertop. She didn’t find a phone either, but she came back with a heavy-looking wooden block. A knife holder. She held it out toward them.

  “Take one,” she told Martin, and he pulled one of the knives out. It was thin and sharp-looking. A serrated steak knife. Melissa and Courtney took a knife each, too.

  “Just in case,” Joan said.

  Martin held the knife tightly in his fist and tried not to think about how certain he was that he wouldn’t be able to use it on anyone, even if he had to.

  The only phone they found was in Tony’s office, resting on top of his garbage can. The cord had been cut. Martin turned on the priest’s computer and sat down.

  “What are you doing?” Melissa said, “checking your email?”

  “We have to just leave,” Courtney said. “We can walk to the road and just leave.”

  “It was like an hour to get here from the highway,” Melissa said. “And that was driving.”

  “So what? It’ll take us a few hours instead of one. I’d rather be tired than have my head cut off,” Courtney said.

  Martin ignored them, and opened up his email. There were new messages from his mother, but he didn’t have time to read them. He hit reply, and sent her a short message.

  Mom,

  Someone has been killed. There is something wrong with the priest and I need help. Please help me. Velociraptor. Velociraptor. Velociraptor.

  I love you.

  Martin

  She would know what “velociraptor” meant. It was their panic word. He had never once used it as a joke. She would take it seriously. He knew she would.

  Courtney was making sense. They could go right now and walk through the woods until they got to the road. Then they could walk all night. If they were lucky, nobody would even know they were missing until morning, and by then they could find help. But ru
nning into the woods was exactly how the killer got you. You ran into the woods, and then he was suddenly in front of you with a chainsaw or an axe.

  “We can’t just leave,” Melissa said. “What about the other kids?”

  “We’ll send the police back to save them,” Courtney said. “The police can stop him. They have guns and dogs. What are we gonna do?”

  “We could tell them, and they could come with us,” Melissa said.

  Martin shook his head. “One of them won’t believe us,” he said. “One of them won’t believe us, and he’ll do something stupid, and Father Tony will know what’s going on. We’ll wind up getting everyone killed.”

  “Since when are you an expert on murderers?” Melissa said. “Do you have a better plan? Or do you just want to keep telling everyone else why their plans are dumb?”

  Martin looked to Joan for support, but she was waiting for his answer, too. What should they do?

  “He hid the bodies,” Martin said. “He could have just left them lying around and killed more people. He hid them because he’s trying to be sneaky. He doesn’t think anyone knows what he’s doing. He’s going to act like normal for as long as he can, so that he can kill as many people as possible.”

  “So what? We just go back to our cabins like nothing’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin said. But then he had an idea. “What if we tricked one of the other counsellors into helping us escape?”

  “How?” Melissa said.

  “Remember when he was talking about the girl with the jellyfish stings? He said an ambulance came to get her. What if we made it look like one of us got stung by jellyfish? They would have to call an ambulance, right? And then whoever had the fake stings could tell the ambulance driver to radio for the police. They have radios in ambulances, don’t they? And they could park in the woods and the rest of us could sneak off and meet them.”

  “What if they don’t call an ambulance?” Courtney said. “What if he just takes whoever it is down to the basement and murders them?”

  “Everyone will be there,” Martin said. “He can’t murder a whole camp. And we’ll have our knives with us just in case. But he’ll have to call the ambulance if everyone is watching.”