by Lee Chambers
Mike turned in a circle getting his bearings. Tall pine trees towered over the clearing, and little sunlight peeked through. In the sparse light, Mike could see a derelict lean-to with a shanty-style corrugated roof and an old upturned canoe scattered to the left of the otherwise empty clearing. The ground was littered with brown and red leaves, dried to crisp fall perfection. The leaves crunched underfoot, and a breeze sent a few flying in a beautiful fall dance of life and death. “What is this place?” Mike asked, finding his voice again.
“Looks like a hunting camp,” Steve groaned as he lifted himself using a broken branch, dusting his jeans with his other hand.
“In Pineville?” Mike frowned.
“Or maybe one of those old hobo camps when the trains were running,” Steve suggested, pointing back up the embankment to the train tracks.
“Hobos had canoes?”
“They could have portaged,” Steve quipped.
Aaron laughed. “Portage? Where do you come up with that shit, Steve?”
Steve and Mike made a beeline for the canoe, as Aaron picked up a long stick, ideal for roasting marshmallows on a cold starry night, and he started poking around in the ashes. From absentminded jabbing, Aaron's mind trailed away and he drew a couple of matchstick men in the gray muck. He mumbled, partly as the words formed in his head, “I heard those guys yelling from over here when I saw the van. This must have been their hideout.”
“Do you think we can portage this all the way back, Steve?” Mike and Steve weren't listening. Too busy examining the discarded canoe shell.
“How about I portage your face?” Steve said, punching Mike in the arm.
Suddenly, Aaron's stick caught on something beneath the ash–he raised it out of the dust. A pair of wire-framed glasses. “Hey guys.” Mike turned around, followed by Steve, to see the mangled glasses dangling from the end of the stick. “Looks like they burned a body here.”
Mike looked horrified and was immediately on edge. “Seriously?!”
“There are some pieces of rags. or clothes, too.” Aaron continued to shake the stick through the fire pit, unearthing burnt pieces of clothing.
Steve elbowed Mike in the ribs. “Jeez, you're gullible. It's just a bunch of junk thrown onto a fire by a hobo,” Steve scoffed.
A crack of a gunshot obliterated their jovial mood. Steve's face dropped in an instant. Mike froze. Aaron dropped the stick back into the ashes. There was an echo around the clearing as the shot continued to ring out for a couple of seconds–it was from somewhere close.
“They're back!” Aaron hissed in a stage whisper.
Another gunshot, closer than before, succeeded by a crippling scream of pain. A man. Crying out in agony.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…” Mike broke into hysterics. He and Steve scrambled to the edge of the clearing, quickly looking for cover.
“Come on, Aaron. Let's go,” Steve barked at Aaron who seemed paralyzed, standing by the fire pit, listening for the next sound. An angry man's yell. Aaron snapped out of it, just as Steve and Mike ducked behind the bushes near the canoe.
Twigs were snapping under foot–someone or something was heading straight for the campsite. Aaron looked in all directions. Where was the noise coming from? Go the wrong way and run right into the thing making the noise. Aaron spun in a complete circle, his ears trying to penetrate the woods and differentiate from all the crunching and echoes.
Setting a course in his mind, Aaron decided to run to the far left; he crossed the clearing at a gallop, his heart racing–no, wrong move. The noise was getting louder. Someone was plowing through the brush, just a few steps away!
Aaron stopped short, and made a last ditch attempt to hide. Only one place. The canoe. He bolted for it and threw himself across the ground in a perfect slide for home plate. Safe.
The “someone” finally arrived in the clearing, just visible from Aaron's vantage point beneath the upside down canoe. It was the bearded man–Jake. He stumbled out of the brush, breathing heavily, and staggered toward the canoe.
Aaron almost let out an involuntary yelp, yet managed to stifle it. Jake's boots were now stomping over, within kicking distance of Aaron's face. After a sharp intake of breath, Aaron clamped his lips closed. Had to hold it shut. Don't make a sound.
Jake slumped over, using the canoe as a crutch, almost tipping it over. Oh God. Aaron squeezed his eyes tight, waiting to be uncovered and discovered. But, the canoe held steady. He almost sighed in relief, but daren't move a muscle. Not till these guys were long gone.
Then another burst of noise. Another someone had bounded from the bushes–so fast, Aaron didn't catch a glimpse of the figure, except for the steel gun brandished in his hand.
“Hold it right there!” a strong masculine voice called out. The sound echoed around inside the canoe. Muffled, but clear enough to Aaron that trouble had arrived.
“You… you don't have to do this,” Jake begged, in between labored breaths for air.
“Shut up,” the voice said, abruptly.
The fancy alligator skin cowboy boots of the figure stepped closer to the canoe, not far from Jake's cheap imitation leather boots. Aaron angled his neck slightly to see the figure's face, but wasn't about to press his luck.
Jake tried to plead his case. “We got in and out and nobody saw us. Why are you doing this?”
“I said shut up!”
Aaron risked a breath–a silent gasp–as Jake began to sniffle, loudly. Then, the gun cocked with a click.
“Stop crying.”
“It hurts, man. It frigging hurts,” Jake whimpered. A drip landed on the dirt, a few inches from Aaron's face. And again. And again. Blood. Dark ruby red blood, pooling on the ground.
“Where's the money? And the gun?” the voice interrogated in a harsh and harried tone.
“Please don't kill me… ”
“Have it your way.”
“Gordie has it!” Jake suddenly cried. No time to be loyal now. Last chance to save your skin. Flip on your friends. Your mother. Anyone to buy a few more seconds of life.
“That's funny, because Gordie said you had both backpacks,” the voice said with a playful sing-song to it, like a cat toying with a canary, right before he eats it.
“Gordie's lying.”
A strange crinkling sound cut through the thickening tension in the clearing. What the hell was that? Aaron cocked his head, curiosity getting the better of him. His eyes traveled up the figure's scaly boots, to the trouser legs, but that was all he could see; the canoe curbed his line of sight at the figure's waist.
“I think you are the one who's lying, amigo,” said the cold voice, sending Jake into a wailing fit of sobs and blubbers.
“Please, no, wait. Ask him again.”
“I wish I could, but he's…” BLAM!
Aaron almost jumped out of his skin. The shudder of fast-moving air around the muzzle sent a shockwave, before the sound ever hit Aaron's ears. That was when he knew that Jake was dead. Yet, his ears were ringing so loudly, everything seemed like it was vibrating. He hoped that he hadn't let out a scream when it happened. If he had, he never would've heard it. He didn't even hear Jake's body hit the ground–Jake simply fell into view, pale and flaccid; his cheek slamming against the ground right outside the canoe–mere inches from Aaron's terrified face.
Struggling to control the roll of his dying eyes, Jake looked up and made contact with Aaron. Jake's eyebrows rose, perhaps involuntarily, or maybe in surprise at seeing Aaron beneath the canoe. A wave of blood washed over Jake's brow and down his nose.
Aaron shook his head, trembling, as Jake stared now unblinking at him. Aaron raised a shaky finger to his lips–shhh, for God's sake, shhh.
Jake's tongue fought back against the blood in his throat. He gurgled, “Help me… he's a… ” A second bullet was fired, silencing Jake, snuffing out his last words. The flash of the gunfire illuminated Aaron, as he cringed, wishing this nightmare would end and he could just wake-up in his bed at the mansio
n. Just get me out of here.
The alligator boots crunched closer to the canoe, as the figure squatted down, checking Jake's pulse. Then came a husky whisper that sent a shiver down Aaron's spine: “It better be around here somewhere, that's all I can say.”
The tightness in Aaron's chest began to uncoil as the alligator boots stepped away from the canoe. The figure shuffled over to the fire pit. He picked up the stick, the same stick Aaron used to poke the ashes and, devil-may-care, started swishing the grass at the edge of the clearing.
Aaron's heart, already pounding faster than he ever thought possible, began pounding even louder, echoing in his ears. The man was not leaving anytime soon, and the longer Aaron stayed beneath the canoe, the more likely it was that he would be found.
Boom, boom. Boom, boom. His heart pounded and drowned out all possibility of reasonable thought. Then his leg started itching, maddeningly in tune with his beating heart. Boom, boom, itch. Boom, boom itch.
Aaron moved his leg slightly, trying to satisfy the itch by rubbing his leg against the ground. Something in his pant leg snagged at his skin instead. A leaf? A bug? Something had slipped in as he slid baseball-style under the canoe. And whatever it was now had the perfect position to tickle him and make him itch.
Boom, boom, tickle, itch. Boom, boom, tickle, itch. As his heartbeat got louder, the tickle became worse and the itch became unbearable. Aaron reached down to itch carefully, and he bumped the canoe with an almost imperceptible knock.
In that exact same instant, in a moment of madness, Steve and Mike made a run for it. They rushed out of their hiding place in the bushes, while the figure's back was turned on them, darting across the campsite.
Their footsteps weren't dainty or quiet. A couple of knuckleheads trampling like a herd of crazed buffalo. They might as well have screamed, “RUN!”, because the figure spun around, dropping the stick to the ground once more, and barreled after them, gun raised.
Steve and Mike hurdled the canoe with ease, but Aaron panicked, curling into a ball as the figure jumped the canoe, his foot catching on the lip. In a second, the canoe flipped right over, totally exposing Aaron in his fetal position.
Then another few seconds passed. A gunshot in the distance. Aaron opened his eyes. Nobody. They were all gone.
Aaron unfurled himself and slowly found the will to stand up. At his feet, Jake had bled out. Something then caught Aaron's eye, right out of the corner of his peripheral vision. Stuffed under the seat of the canoe. A green backpack.
nine
Aaron whipped through the long grass as fast as his legs would carry him. His eyes were filled with angst and adrenaline. He was still in shock. Not every day you see a dead man. Not every day you see that much money either–he glanced down at the backpack in his arms. Must–keep–running.
The deeper into the woods that he ran, the thicker the grass and trees got. Branches were lashing at Aaron's face and clothes. The tear in his jeans was just wide enough to allow random thistles and vines to make grazes and cuts on his already scraped knee.
Aaron was nearing the edge of the dense forest. Not much further now. He slowed down, beside a huge uprooted tree, throwing down the backpack, breathless. Looking ahead, there was the clearing leading to the stream, a direct route to the school. Almost home free. He hoped that Steve and Mike were far away from here. They'd all laugh about this later. Suddenly, a branch snapped. He wasn't out of the woods yet.
Aaron threw himself over the uprooted, felled tree and crouched behind the trunk. Suddenly, Aaron remembered the backpack, just out of reach. He periscoped his head to look over the top of the tree, but there was another loud crunch, somewhere in the impenetrable green-darkness of the forest. He ducked and cursed himself.
Another twig cracked into two pieces, beneath the force of the alligator skin boot. The figure's right foot, almost touching the discarded backpack, as it blended evenly with the green foliage.
“I know you're out here…” The figure pulled back the hammer with a telling click. Aaron squirmed uneasily and tried to push himself closer to the tree. Perhaps he could disappear into a hollowed out section, he thought. But, instead, there was nowhere to go. He was cornered.
“It's only a matter of -- aha!” the figure announced, finally finding his prey. Aaron felt a sickening tug in his stomach, like a rope had been attached to his intestines and pulled out through his mouth. With dismay, he rolled away from the tree. It was futile. He was spotted. Game Over.
BANG!
Aaron jolted, before realizing the bullet was not meant for him. Two times lucky.
“Come here, you little bastard…” the callous-voiced figure said, closing in on his target.
Carefully looking over the rotten log, Aaron gazed out into the clearing to see Steve, running across the field, looking over his shoulder. The figure pulled the trigger again.
Another gunshot rang out. Steve spun off balance and collapsed into the thick grass.
“Oh Jesus,” Aaron muttered in a state of shock. He turned on his heels, scooping up the backpack and took off in the opposite direction. Not looking back once. He kept replaying the moment in his mind's eye. The blast from the gun. Steve fell down. He didn't get up.
Over and over. Every time the same. Aaron was on autopilot as he splashed across the river, over a select set of stones, then clambered up the slippery slope, back to the train tracks.
Then, a far off gunshot. Aaron dropped the backpack onto one of the rails. Was he hearing things? His eardrums were still jangling from the fatal shot that killed the bearded man. No, it was real. Aaron winced, grabbed the backpack, and raced down the tracks.
By the time that he reached the school fields, Aaron was running out of steam. The backpack was heavier now. Its contents, and the burden of the bag itself, weighing down on him. He crossed the now empty field, lugging the backpack on his weary shoulders, with the Pineville High School tantalizingly close.
Only one car and a van left in the parking lot. Class was out for the day. Aaron glanced at the side of the van, his eyes stinging with sweat and tears. “Chuck's Environmental Cleaning Services: If You Got A Mess. I'll Clean It Up.”
Aaron reached the door and found it locked, with a notice taped over it. “DANGER: Asbestos Removal In Progress.”
With a desperate fist, he pounded on the doors. Blow after blow. No answer. He lowered his head. Defeated.
ten
Her eyes were one of her cutest features. She checked them out in the mirror and added a sweep of light brown to her left lid. Then, putting down the make-up brush, she closed the compact with a snap–just in time to catch a glimpse of something. A streak of color. Aaron sailing passed the wire-mesh-screened windows. Sweating and agitated.
Amanda frowned. Huh. Glanced at her watch.
“Come on, come on,” Aaron gasped, as he raced around the corner and found himself confronted by the door to the side entrance. Open! He yanked the handle and felt the cool breeze of the shady building–all too welcome after running for so long. But, it was no time to take a break. He had to find someone. Anyone.
The metal detectors sounded his arrival with a shrill 'beep' as he continued down the hall with the backpack. Aaron was breathless now, his voice low and raspy. “Help… someone… shot… ”
Every footstep was heavier than the last. The polished floors, which were so easily soiled by his muddy shoes before, suddenly seemed to have the upper hand over Aaron. They squeaked in triumph as he struggled to lift his weary legs. Their slippery surface even impeded his traction to the point that Aaron just wanted to keel over, press his face against the cold tiles, and succumb to sleep, numbness, exhaustion…
Yet, the throbbing pain emanating behind his eyeballs wouldn't let him quit. The shrieking muscles in his legs wouldn't let him quit. And most of all, the image of Steve falling down wouldn't let him quit. Just one person, he had to find a single soul, whom he could pass the baton to. Let them run with it. Get help. Save the day. Where the hell wa
s everyone? His sense of time had evaporated. End of the school day he quickly remembered. Classes over, but with cars in the lot someone must still be here.
Aaron arrived at the library. A collection of tools and materials were piled near the heavy wood double doors: rolls of plastic sheeting, a crowbar, scrubbing pads, hand tools, a water tank with a hose attached, and a portable folding-sign -“DANGER: Asbestos Dust. Do Not Enter”.
Thinking quickly about the cargo on his back, Aaron tucked the backpack behind the rolls of plastic sheeting, carefully stowing it out of sight. It wasn't a canoe, but it would have to do. For starters, it was bloody heavy. And for seconds, it wasn't the right time to explain what he was doing with all this money. His prime concern was the safety of his friends.
Aaron nodded, inhaled another deep breath, and scrambled down the hall. “Is anybody here?”
Aaron stepped into the reception area of the principal's office. The secretary's nameplate read “Penelope Whittaker,” but Penelope was nowhere to be found. Neither was the Principal. Aaron swiftly zipped out of the office and continued down the hall.
Inside the strictly organized and deathly dull confines of Principal Parker's office, the shrouded echoes of Aaron's heavy footsteps were unheard.
Dan Parker, a sixty-something with less than sixty strands of hair perfectly combed across the top of his chrome-domed head (a poor attempt at looking closer to a fifty-year-old loser with a comb-over), was presently pondering Chuck and the stitched name-tag on Chuck's overalls, which clarified beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was indeed ‘Chuck.’
Dan wheezed as he lifted himself out of his leather chair, strolled past his family portrait of his wife and 2.5 kids, and ushered Chuck out of his office into a smaller outer office with a desk, chair and an old-fashioned switchboard.
