by Joey Comeau
“It’s just a horror movie,” the kid said. “I can do better. I’m going to do better. My mom has another audition lined up for me next week.” He sounded defensive. Martin’s mother just tried to focus on applying the blood. What kind of messed up priorities did this kids’ parents give him, where he felt bad about being in a horror movie?
A black cat came over and nuzzled against Jim’s leg, mewing softly. It looked up at Martin’s mother and then its eyeball popped out with a sick wet sound, splattering her face with blood. The eyeball hung from the socket by a thin thread of purple red veins and muscle. The cat let out a terrified yowl and took off running.
It had taken hours to set up that eyeball effect and now she would have to do it again.
* * *
Mitchell Hemsworth sat on the edge of the washing machine. He had blonde hair and blue, blue eyes and right now they were rimmed in red. He wanted to accept Jesus into his heart. He did. But he didn’t know what that felt like. He felt normal. He didn’t feel filled with light or saved.
“No, it’s not like that,” Tony, the head counsellor said. “You let Jesus into your heart by having faith in him. Those other feelings, they come over time. It’s not like flicking a switch, son. Nothing in this life is as easy as that.”
Mitchell wiped his nose on the back of his hand and looked out the window where the other campers were running around and shrieking with laughter. He had followed the crowd yesterday when everyone went into the other room for cake. Tony had stood up and asked them if they’d accepted Jesus into their hearts and Mitchell hadn’t known. He wanted to let Jesus into his heart. But everyone else went into the next room like they were sure and Mitchell followed.
And then this morning his counsellor had found Mitchell crying in bed, with the Bible under his pillow, and he’d taken him down to see Tony. Mitchell had worries. If he did accept Jesus into his heart, he would be saved, he would live forever in Heaven, but would his dad? His dad was an atheist and Tony had said that there was nothing Mitchell could do to save his dad from Hell.
“But it won’t bother you,” Tony said. He put his hand on the boy’s head and tousled his hair. “You’ll be in a better place. You won’t even notice that your dad isn’t with you.” Tony smiled. “Here, I have something for you.” He reached up behind Mitchell to the shelf above the laundry machines. He took down a folding barber’s razor and opened it. “Have you ever seen one of these before? This was how men shaved when I was growing up. None of these silly fifteen blade razors with plastic handles and ridiculous names. Just cold steel.”
Mitchell nodded, wiping his eyes. He didn’t understand what the razor had to do with anything.
“This is for you,” Tony said, still smiling. He took Mitchell’s hair in his fist and pulled the boy’s head back. With his other hand he slid the blade of the razor into Mitchell’s windpipe. It was perfectly quiet, at first. Mitchell didn’t struggle or try to make a sound. He just looked at Tony with those wide eyes still red from crying, while blood drooled down from the slit across his throat. And then, a quiet gurgling.
Tony pushed the blade in deeper, holding the boy tightly in case he did start to struggle. Then he reached up for one of the darker towels and wiped the blade clean.
The body in his arms stopped twitching. Tony wrapped the towel around the neck and head, then folded his razor closed. It wasn’t Mitchell anymore. Mitchell was gone. He folded the boy up and put him into one of the big laundry bags. He pulled the drawstring tight and slung the bag over his shoulder. In the hallway he smiled at one of the girl campers and tipped his head at her politely.
7.
“There’s something not quite Christian about it,” Tony said. He sat back in his chair and looked up to where his Bible sat on the shelf. “I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but it doesn’t seem right for a couple of young ladies to be out there in the middle of the night, obsessing over their telescopes.”
Melissa didn’t say anything, but she squeezed Joan’s hand a bit. The two of them watched Courtney nervously. Courtney didn’t like that word, obsessing. They could see her back straighten a bit and that was a bad sign. Cindy, their cabin’s counsellor, nodded in agreement with Tony and patted Courtney’s shoulder.
“Besides,” Cindy said, “if we let you girls do this after lights out, then everyone would want special treatment. I told them no already,” she said to Tony, “but they insisted on asking you.” She turned back to the girls. “I told you Tony would say the same thing. This is camping! We’re supposed to leave all our gadgets behind. No cell phones or video games! Just good times with friends out in the woods.”
“This comet has been brightening,” Courtney said, “and soon it might even be visible to the naked eye. It’s so perfect out here in the middle of nowhere. There’s no ambient light. These are really good conditions for observation. And we can’t watch it because of a rule that doesn’t even make sense.” She realized how loud her voice had gotten and tried to bring herself under control. “Even just an hour. Just one hour a night would be enough.”
“God made comets,” Joan said quietly. “He made stars and galaxies and he made comets. And he made them beautiful. Why would he have made them so beautiful if he didn’t want us to enjoy them?”
“You aren’t wrong,” Tony said to Joan after a moment. “That’s very well put. Very well put. What was your name again?”
“Joan,” she said.
“I wish I could say yes, Joan,” Tony said, “and you do make a very good point. But there are practical considerations here, too. We don’t have enough counsellors to spare. We need Cindy to stay with the campers in her cabin, and we can’t very well have you three girls out wandering the night by yourselves. It’s important that we know where everyone is at all times.” He smiled. “We have a responsibility to your parents, after all.”
* * *
Margaret turned ten years old just three weeks ago, but she looked older. She was tall and skinny. She looked almost twelve. Her mother lied to get Margaret into the older kid camp. The under ten camp ran later in the summer. It was just better timing. This way her mother and father could align their vacations. They could get away together for the first time in years.
Margaret was used to her cell phone. She never had to remember anyone’s number, because their names and numbers were right there, programmed into the small blue phone. It was easy. But there were no cell phones allowed at camp. So her mother had written down her number for Margaret in the front of a little notebook.
“You can call me whenever you like,” she said. And then she had driven away.
Like her mother, Margaret had dark, straight hair that constantly fell over her eyes. As she walked across the campground with the notebook clutched in her hand, she was glad to have the hair over her eyes. She was trying not to cry. She knew what was going on. Her mother had told her about menstruation. That’s all this was. She was having her first period. It was early but she knew that it was fine and she knew how she was supposed to deal with it. Seeing the blood had been a shock, though. She just wanted to hear her mother’s voice. She just wanted to hear her mother say that everything was okay, even if it was just on the phone.
* * *
Martin’s mother sent him an email with a picture of the cat with its eyeball dangling out. She had captioned it: “Eye miss you, Martin.” In the email she told him she was having fun, and Martin wrote back to tell her about Melissa and Courtney and Joan, and to let her know that things were going good.
“Today we went swimming in the ocean,” Martin wrote. “And the salt water tastes so strange. I told Courtney about your tattoo. The beach was covered with huge hopping insects, which Joan said were sand fleas.” Martin’s mother hated insects. “And I swam! I could even float on my back, which I could never do. Maybe it was only because salt water was more buoyant, but it didn’t matter! I swam! I have friends and the summer is going to be good. Eye miss you too.”
* * *
; Mitchell’s brother was named John Dee Hemsworth. Sometimes their father called him John, or JD, but he preferred to be called by both first names. He wore all black, usually. It made things easier. Everything went with everything else. And it was harder to get the clothes dirty.
And, to be honest, it had a slimming effect. Not a lot, but every bit helped.
Mitchell still wasn’t back and the boredom was getting intolerable. He had even begun flipping through the small red New Testament that his grandmother had given him. But enough was enough. John Dee went into the other room and found Chip writing something in his log book.
“Why hasn’t Mitchell come back yet?” John Dee said. “It’s been hours now. I thought you said that he was going to talk to Tony.” He had heard his brother crying that morning, even before Chip had, but he had done nothing. He’d kept his eyes closed and just tried to ignore him. Mitchell was always crying about something. He was the “sensitive one” their father told people. He was a pussy, was what he was. But pussy or not, it sucked being stuck in this cabin by himself.
“I don’t know,” Chip said. He looked at his watch. “You want to run over to the main building and see if you can find him? You know where Tony’s office is, right? It’s on the top floor, at the end of the hall. See if you can get our evening schedule, too, while you’re over there.”
John Dee jumped down the few wooden steps from the front door of the cabin to the dirt path. Ricky was out there, standing by himself and staring at three girls and that quiet kid Martin, who were all over by the Flying Fox. When John Dee got closer, Ricky spun on him, startled.
“What’re you looking at?” Ricky said.
John Dee said nothing, and Ricky pulled his fist back quickly like he was going to punch, then laughed when John Dee flinched. What a charmer. John Dee kept walking. The girls and Martin were taking turns sliding down the wire. They made it look fun. Mitchell had tried to convince him to try it yesterday. Maybe he’d been too quick to laugh it off as a stupid kid’s toy.
In the main building, John Dee went past the kitchen and the showers and the laundry room and climbed the curving wooden steps up to the second floor. There was nobody around up here and it was dim inside the building. The shades were pulled on the windows upstairs and all of the doors were closed along the hallway. He could hear the other campers laughing and having fun outside. Meanwhile John Dee was stuck here looking for his pussy older brother.
He knocked on the door to Tony’s office. No answer. He knocked again, louder, and there was a muffled sound from inside. Had someone said, “Come in?” John Dee tried the doorknob and it was unlocked. He pushed the door open and went inside.
“Tony?” he said. “Mitchell?” The office was brighter than the hallway. The windows here were open and the sun shone in. But the room was empty. John Dee stood in the doorway with his hand still on the knob, then sighed. Why was everything so difficult with Mitchell?
He stepped back out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him.
In the office, Tony kept his hand clamped over Margaret’s mouth. Her eyes were wild. She tried to twist out from under him, but she wasn’t strong enough. He had her on her back behind the couch, with his knee pressed into her chest. Her shirt lay torn on the floor next to them, split from neck to waist where Tony had cut with the razor. The notebook with her mother’s telephone number lay beside the torn shirt.
“Shhh,” Tony whispered, holding the razor to his lips like a single finger. “It’s okay.” Then he reached down and pushed her hair off her face. “Shhh,” he said again. They stayed like that, listening to John Dee creak his way back down the hallway, and then he smiled. “Okay,” he said. He pushed his knee into her chest harder, shifting his weight until he felt her sternum break with a soft pop. His knee sank a bit deeper into her. Then he took his hand off her mouth and she drew a long, shallow breath, trying to fill her lungs. “Breathe,” Tony said. He smiled encouragingly. She was reaching out for her notebook. “That’s it,” he said. “You’re doing good. Breathe.”
8.
The sky was still orange and bright, but soon it would be dark enough. Joan set her telescope up on the edge of the playing field and knelt down to examine the dials. Melissa and Courtney had gone to find Cindy, to argue with her again about letting them out late, but Joan knew better than to get her hopes up. There was no sense arguing with adults. No, Joan had decided to make the best of things. Eventually Melissa and Courtney would realize they weren’t getting anywhere, that they weren’t going to get anywhere, either, and then they’d be out here with her.
“Help me,” a voice said behind her. “Please you have to help me.” Joan turned to see Ricky stumbling toward her with mud streaked on his cheek. “I think there’s a dead body in the woods,” Ricky said. “I think there’s a dead body in the woods. You have to help me.” And he turned back to the woods before Joan could say anything.
“Wait,” she called, but Ricky was running back toward the tree line. The camp was the other way. Was he retarded? If there was a dead body, they should go for help. They should find a phone. She took a few steps after him and stopped. “Wait, Ricky!” she yelled. But he kept running, and was halfway to the trees now. If she went after him, she was every bit as stupid as Ricky. She looked down the hill toward where the road to the camp disappeared into the trees. If she didn’t stop him, though, he could be in danger. She started running after Ricky as fast as she could.
He was not a very good runner, but he had a head start. Joan ran hard, she was catching up, but he hit the tree line before she caught him. He went crashing into the brush. Joan pulled up short, stopping before she got to the ditch that ran along the tree line. She tried to catch her breath.
“Come on,” she called. “We’ll go get help and then come back. It’ll be safer that way.” There was no answer, not at first, but then the bushes shook a little. She could see Ricky now, standing with his back to her, looking down at something. He wasn’t very far into the trees.
“It’s okay, Joan,” Ricky said, and his voice didn’t sound scared anymore. She took a step down into the ditch, then stopped. She couldn’t see anyone else. So she climbed up into the bushes and pushed through until she was standing beside Ricky. There was no body on the ground. There was nothing here.
Ricky pushed Joan up against the tree and squeezed her shoulder with one hand. He kissed her face hard, his lips closed but his eyes open. She could feel the mud on his face against hers. With his other hand he grabbed at her chest, squeezing blindly. He pinched her skin through the shirt and then tried to grab between her legs. Joan twisted away and kicked him in the shin. She shoved him backward. Ricky stumbled back into the bushes and fell.
Joan ran.
* * *
John Dee found Tony standing in front of the tuck shop. Mitchell wasn’t with him, though. The head counsellor was laughing and talking with the woman who sold the chocolate bars and candy and drinks. His brown uniform was crisp and ironed. John Dee stood quietly, waiting for them to finish rather than interrupting them.
“Can I help you?” the tuck shop woman said, but John Dee shook his head and looked at the head counsellor.
“Have you seen my brother Mitchell?” he said, and Tony patted his hand on the tuck shop counter as a goodbye to the woman. The he motioned for John Dee to follow and headed up toward the cabins.
“I have indeed seen Mitchell,” he said. “You’re John? I just sent someone looking for you. Your brother’s up at the main building. He’s been there since this morning. I tried to calm him down, but there’s only so much I can do. I don’t think that camp life agrees with him. Fair enough, I suppose,” Tony put his hand on John Dee’s shoulder. “Not everyone is cut out for the outdoors, John. Personally, I think modern life has made people too delicate. We don’t get out and appreciate God’s work as often as we should any more. Look at how beautiful this is.” He gestured at the trees and the flowers and the sun and wind. At nature. “God’s handiwork, J
ohn, and we view it as a nuisance.”
“He’s at the main building?” John Dee said. “I was just up there, I didn’t see him.”
“I let him use the phone in the janitor’s office, in the basement,” Tony said. “He was upset. I thought maybe it would be embarrassing for him if the other campers saw him crying. I think he stayed down there to wait for your father.”
“Oh,” John Dee nodded. Of course he’d called their father. Fucking Mitchell. “So he’s going home?” He was going to be stuck here by himself now, while Mitchell went home to video games and air conditioning and internet.
“You both are,” Tony said. “Your father thought it would be best. Do you think you could fetch your bags, and Mitchell’s, from your cabin, and bring them up to the main building? It’s getting dark,” He smiled. “Your dad’ll be here soon. I’ll meet you up there.”
* * *
Martin waited while Melissa and Joan argued behind their cabin, Melissa insisting they had to tell their counsellor, Cindy, about Ricky grabbing Joan. Joan didn’t want to tell. They went back and forth, first about what would happen to Ricky, and then about whether he was just an idiot or if he was dangerous. Martin didn’t say anything. He listened and waited to see if there was anything he could do to help. In the end they asked Martin to tell Ricky to stay the fuck away from them.
“Tell him I will stab him in the face if he even comes near us again,” Melissa said.
“I appreciate it, Martin,” Joan said. She turned to Courtney. “Will you come with me to get my telescope?”
“Of course,” Courtney said. “What time is it? We have chapel soon, don’t we?”
“I just don’t want to argue any more,” Joan said. This conversation was more than Martin had heard Joan say the whole time he had known her.
Martin found Ricky sitting under the Flying Fox, drawing something in the dirt. He looked like he had been crying. Martin didn’t want to be angry. He wanted to be calm so that he could talk to Ricky. So he could explain why Ricky was wrong. Being angry got in the way of talking. But Ricky only had one response to Martin’s attempt to reason with him.
