by Ian Dawson
“Man, it’s hotter than yesterday,” Kyle said as he crunched the empty water bottle in his hand. “Want to come over and hop in the pool when we get back?”
“I think my mom wants me to get ready so she can take a ton of pictures before we go tonight,” Daniel said. “But definitely tomorrow.”
Kyle nodded. “Well, let’s get moving. The pool is calling my name.”
Five minutes later, Daniel turned the corner onto Bradford Street where his family had lived for the past six years. Despite the heat, Daniel preferred living in a house instead of the apartment his family used to have in San Francisco.
“See you tonight,” Daniel said to Kyle as they split off and Daniel coasted his bike up the driveway to his house.
He opened the front door and was enveloped by the coldness of the air-conditioned living room. He breathed a sigh of relief as he took off his helmet. He looked at himself in the mirror mounted in the entryway. He was just as red as Kyle had been and his shirt was soaked front and back with both water and sweat.
“Daniel?” his mom, Shelly, said as she came into the living room from the hallway. Shelly was tall and slender. She had dark blonde hair that she kept in a ponytail, and she was dressed in a light blue shirt, white shorts, and leather sandals.
“Hey,” he said with a quick exhale. “Hot out there.”
“I see,” she said as she handed him a towel and moved past him to the kitchen. She grabbed a glass of lemonade from the fridge and handed it to him. “I was prepared,” she said with a wink.
Daniel chugged the glass of lemonade and could feel the cold surge through his body. It felt great.
“I talked to your dad today,” she said as he handed back the empty glass. “He wishes he could be here.”
“Me, too,” Daniel said.
“You better go get ready,” Daniel’s mom said.
It was only about four, but he knew that with the parking, crowds, and heat that the earlier they left for tonight, the better. He headed for his room, grabbed the essentials for his shower, walked down the hall, and closed the bathroom door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Even with the sun going down, the temperature seemed to remain at a cool 100-degrees as Daniel hopped out of his mom’s silver Dodge Dart. He could already feel his white dress shirt stick to his body and having his red graduation gown draped over one arm wasn’t helping matters.
He looked around the parking lot for Kyle but didn’t see him. He did see the Sacramento River, and the spire of the Sundial Bridge, which towered over the tree line near Turtle Bay Exploration Park. The surrounding area of trees and trails brought thoughts of the field into his mind.
“Let’s get inside where it’s cooler,” he mom said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He was glad his sister, April, had decided to stay at her friend Becky’s house instead of tagging along. Besides, she would probably get bored listening to hundreds of names being read followed by short bursts of applause.
They arrived at the foot of the stone and iron stairway that led up to the main auditorium at the convention center. To Daniel’s right was the Sacramento River. To his left were Viking Skate Country and the studios of KRCR News Channel Seven. As he took the first step upward, he saw Kyle cross by at the top of the stairs.
“Kyle!” he yelled. Kyle looked around, then down at him and smiled.
Daniel hurried up the stairs, Kyle hurried down and they met half way. “Here we are,” Kyle said.
“Yep, this is it,” Daniel said. Daniel hugged Kyle. “Too bad we can’t sit together.” The ceremony was done alphabetically, and Daniel Robinson and Kyle Hanson were pretty far apart. “You have anything planned?”
Kyle laughed. “Me? What, like mooning the girls or something?” Daniel saw Kyle’s eyes light up as if someone had just flicked on an idea switch.
“Keep it a little classy, Kyle,” Daniel said as he slapped his best friend on the back. “Don’t want to get Saturday School after you graduate.”
Daniel’s mom joined them along with Kyle’s parents as they all made their way into the auditorium. After a slew of photos, Daniel was released along with Kyle to go find their seats with the other graduates.
“See you after,” Daniel said.
“Of course,” Kyle said with a smile. “Hey, Daniel?”
Daniel turned back. “Yeah?”
“What if I just went up there with no pants?”
Daniel shook his head. “Pants on, diploma. Pants off, meeting with school and parents. Probably no diploma.”
“Gotcha, thanks,” Kyle said with a quick nod.
Daniel laughed to himself. Any excuse to be naked, he thought.
The ceremony was long and boring, as was expected based on Daniel’s experience with the rehearsal, but once they got through his name it seemed to drag even more. Kyle didn’t do anything silly, but he did get plenty of cheers from the girls in the graduation class and the crowd. Daniel got the polite applause and loud cheers from his mom, the Hansons, and Kyle. The bright lights and the flash from the graduation photographer’s camera made it impossible to see where everyone was.
After it was over, Daniel felt slightly different. Did he feel older? No. More mature? Definitely, no. But he did feel like something had changed inside of him as he was handed his diploma and shook the principal’s fleshy hand.
He stood out in the backyard alone that night. It was finally cooler outside; the smell of honeysuckle was in the air. He was on his way to high school, and then college, and then who knew where. The thought was a little overwhelming. He swallowed hard, then decided that all of that didn’t start to matter until the fall. All he wanted to do now was relax, to explore the field, and to hang out with his best friend Kyle.
He opened the sliding glass door and went back inside.
CHAPTER FIVE
Due to all the parties and other post-graduation events that took place over the weekend following the ceremony, Daniel wasn’t able to connect with Kyle about their field plans until the first Monday of summer vacation.
Daniel was in his garage looking at the map of the field he and Kyle had painstaking crafted over the past four years. The map was a combination of sheets of paper the two had pieced together that ranged from rough crayon sketches complete with misspelled words – “Klover Creak” instead of “Clover Creek” – and Kyle’s addition of computer-drawn map sections created last summer. It was tempting to do over the entire map on the computer, but Daniel felt there was a certain level of history attached to the map the way it was.
Today was the day that he and Kyle planned their first trek out to the field after spending almost a year away. Sure, the two had ventured out to the well-worn trails on their bikes during the school year, but the real excitement came when he and Kyle were in so deep they could no longer see the adjacent neighborhoods. That’s when Daniel felt that he and his best friend entered a whole other world.
In many ways, the field acted as a second home to Daniel, and he knew Kyle felt the same way. It’s where he spent hours exploring, playing, and doing things with Kyle they couldn’t do at home. Like cursing. Daniel had been the first to say a bad word, which had surprised him as much as it had Kyle.
As Daniel looked over the map, the memory of that day came rushing back.
The cursing incident had happened just last summer when Daniel had attempted to jump a small dirt hill on his bike only to lose traction and see the bike slip out from under him. He rolled into a patch of thorn-filled weeds and blurted out, “Shit!”
Kyle stood by wide-eyed. “What was that?” he said as he ran to help Daniel.
“I said ‘shit’ Kyle. Now get me the hell out of here.”
Kyle helped pull his friend out of the thorns. Daniel’s arms and legs were scratched all over; blood seeped from a few of the wounds.
“Man, that must hurt...like hell!” Kyle s
aid with a smile on his face as he shook his blonde hair from his eyes.
“Damn right it does. Son-of-a-bitch!” Daniel kicked his foot toward the thorny weeds, then both he and Kyle had started to laugh. From that moment on Daniel knew that the field had become a safe haven for him to say whatever he wanted.
A paper cut brought him back to reality as the paper sliced into the skin beside his thumbnail. The thin cut oozed a little bit of blood, and the sharp pain made him want to curse out loud right then and there. Instead he stuck his thumb in his mouth and cursed in his head.
“Does the wittle baby wanna bottle?” he heard Kyle say from outside the garage. He took his thumb out of his mouth.
“Funny,” he said. “Papercut.”
“Ouch. Are you okay? Should we call an ambulance? Maybe they’ll have to amputate.”
“Very funny.” Daniel looked at his thumb once more. The bleeding had stopped, but the sliver of sliced skin remained. I’ll grab a Band-Aid later, he thought to himself.
Kyle looked down at the map. “Jeesh, we’ve sure covered a lot of ground out there,” he said.
Daniel pointed to a drawing of the creek. “If we cross here, since there’s no water right now, we can head back this way and see what’s beyond this patch of trees.”
“Or,” said Kyle, whose mind was always full of crazy ideas, “we can cut across that wooden bridge, sneak onto the construction site, see if they have any new magazines, then head back your way. But only if you want to.”
Daniel remembered the moment they had discovered the magazines at the construction site the previous summer. It was quite a find, and, much like cursing, something that could only be part of being out in the field.
Daniel was the first to come across the magazines the previous summer. They’d been looking for scraps of wood when he spotted a pile of magazines inside a large concrete pipe. At first he’d thought they were just catalogues, until he picked one up and flipped through the glossy pages. He felt his face turn hot and a knot developed in his gut as he realized what the people in the magazine were wearing: nothing.
“Hey,” Kyle said coming up behind him. Daniel almost threw the magazine away from him but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the images on the page. “What did you find?”
“Just a magazine,” Daniel said as casually as possible.
Kyle reached around and snatched the magazine from Daniel’s sweaty hands. Daniel turned to see what Kyle’s reaction would be.
“I think we’re done exploring for today,” Kyle said without looking up from the magazine.
“Works for me!” Daniel said.
Daniel and Kyle spent the day inside the concrete pipes looking at the colorful adult-oriented images on each page. As the sun had begun to set, they had to figure out what to do with their new discovery.
“I can’t take ‘em home with me,” Daniel said. “What if my mom or sister found them?”
“My dad’s a pastor,” Kyle said. “You think I want him to find them and do some sort of exorcism on me?”
“What’s an exorcism?”
“It’s where they cast out demons from people. I learned about in Sunday school.”
Daniel looked around. “I have an idea,” he said.
Daniel decided to hide them under the rickety-wooden bridge they’d crossed to get to the construction site. He knew that he and Kyle would be back in the field the next day and could easily grab them. That had proven to be a great hiding spot for the entire summer.
As Daniel shifted the map around, his mom entered the garage from the house. “Daniel? Kyle? Want some lunch?”
“You bet,” Kyle said. His look at Daniel’s mom as she turned and went back inside lasted a little longer than Daniel liked. He snapped his fingers in Kyle’s face.
“What happened?” Kyle said.
“Nothing a cold shower wouldn’t fix,” Daniel said as he folded up the map. “Let’s go eat.”
Inside the coolness of the house, Daniel sat across from Kyle at the round, wooden dining room table. Daniel could smell the hot dogs that graced the table with their presence. It was a nice change of pace from the normal menu that his mom fed he and his sister. She usually only let them eat healthy food. Today it was hot dogs, Doritos – his favorite, nacho cheese flavored – and Pepsi.
Daniel’s sister, April, was sprawled out on the love seat under the ceiling fan watching The Little Mermaid. She was eight with strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, wearing a Wonder Woman shirt and jeans. And, only when she was forced to, did she wear anything on her feet. Today was not one of those days.
Daniel looked over at Kyle and noticed that he, too, was mesmerized by the adventures of Ariel playing out on their giant TV. He knew Kyle would never admit it, but Daniel knew that Kyle once cried at the end of Beauty and the Beast.
Daniel glanced over at his mom’s iPad on the table. The screen was on and the app for the Redding Record Searchlight, the city’s newspaper, was open. The headline of one of the top stories caught his attention: “Local Boy Still Missing After Three Days.”
As he took a bite of his hot dog, he pulled the tablet over and tapped on the headline. The story expanded, which included a picture of a smiling young kid standing beside a shiny red and black bike; a party hat on his head.
Daniel read the article:
The search continues for seven-year-old Colby Emerson who went missing near the Carter House Museum at Caldwell Park three days ago. His father, Jake Emerson, is certain that his son was abducted and did not just run away.
“He loved his bike, and when I found it and his helmet in the bushes, I knew something bad had happened to my son.”
Officers are asking anyone with any information to contact the Redding Police Department. A reward for information leading to Colby’s return is being offered.
Daniel looked at the photo once more and thought back to when he got his first bike. He had been the same way, even wanting to bring it in the house so he could sleep next to it. He had even slept in his bike helmet, which had proved to be a mistake when he woke up the next morning with a cramp in his neck.
Where was this poor kid? He wished there was some way he could help, but he didn’t know how.
“There’s my iPad,” his mom said. He looked up as she put a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies on the table. He slid the iPad back her direction, the article still open.
“Sorry,” he said as he took a cookie.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t sure where I had left it.” He watched as she picked up the iPad and paused to read the article. He could tell she was fixated on the photo of the young boy, Colby Emerson.
“These cookies are really good,” Kyle said, as he took a couple cookies from the plate.
“Thanks, mom,” Daniel said.
Daniel’s mom turned off the iPad’s screen and placed it back on the table. “You guys going out in the field today?”
“Yeah. Got some new places to explore.” Daniel took a big chug of his Pepsi then let out a loud belch.
His mom raised an eyebrow and frowned. “Really?” she said.
Kyle followed up with an even louder belch, which made Daniel’s little sister, April, laugh until she cried.
Shelly handed Daniel her iPhone. “Take this with you.”
“Mom. You know we have a rule in the field: no cell phones. And you can’t get a signal out there anyway.”
“I know, but...can you humor me and take it with you?”
Daniel looked at his mom’s iPhone with the pink Hello Kitty case. “Can I at least take the case off?”
“No. I don’t want you scratching up my phone out there. Just keep it in your backpack in case you need it. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“I love you,” she said and kissed him on the cheek.
“Aw, mom,” Daniel said with a grossed-ou
t look on his face. “Why you gotta get all mushy around Kyle?”
“Go. Have fun. Be safe.”
“Can I come with you?” April asked as she paused the movie.
“I don’t want to be responsible for you,” Daniel said as he placed his used napkin on his empty paper plate and got up from his chair. Kyle followed.
“Mom! I wanna go out in the field with them and they won’t let me!”
“You don’t have to yell, honey. I’m right here,” Shelly said with a smile. “Let’s see if Becky wants to come over. Come on.” Daniel’s mom walked down the hallway.
April jumped off the love seat and ran down the hall after her. “No. I want to go with Danny!”
“Quick,” said Daniel. “Let’s go before she comes back.”
The two were in the garage, had their helmets in place, backpacks strapped on, and were pedaling down the street on their bikes as fast as they could before April had a chance to stop them.
“I love you,” Kyle said as he sped past Daniel, mimicking Daniel’s mom and making kissing noises.
“Oh, you are so dead!” Daniel said pedaling faster to catch up with his best friend. A second later they turned the corner and made their way toward the field.
CHAPTER SIX
Austin Holt took aim at his best friend James Miller’s back from the safety of a thick tree trunk. They were playing paintball out in a section of field behind Austin’s uncle’s house. No helmets. No goggles. No protection of any kind. Just the way Austin liked it. Dangerous.
The area of the field he had chosen for their little game was thick with underbrush, dead leaves, and dried-out trees. It was all part of his uncle’s property, which made Austin’s love of secrecy and solitude easier to obtain than if he were in the middle of some suburban neighborhood like where James lived.
