Evil Heights, Book III: Lost and Found

by Michael Swanson

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  Renaissance E Books

  www.renebooks.com

  Copyright ©

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  EVIL HEIGHTS

  BOOK III

  LOST AND FOUND

  By

  MICHAEL SWANSON

  A Renaissance E Books publication

  ISBN 1-58873-825-6

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2006 Michael Swanson

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

  For information:

  Publisher@renebooks.com

  PageTurner Editions/Futures-Past Horror

  FIRST BOOK EDITION

  THE EVIL HEIGHTS QUARTET

  BOOK I. THE MIDNIGHT FLIER

  BOOK II. MONSTER IN THE HOUSE

  BOOK III. LOST AND FOUND

  BOOK IV. IN THE PIT

  CHAPTER ONE: THE TREE HOUSE

  "Lee, wait up!” Ronnie was peddling as fast as he could, but his old 20” bike couldn't keep up.

  Half a block ahead Lee was the picture of pride astride the flashy 26” Schwinn. Right about now, there wasn't any question in his mind if all the work had been worth it.

  They had just left the last scraggling asphalt of Arbuckle Ave. behind. Passing the Willis place, the road degraded to just a trail that split and followed along the river in each direction. Lee slowed to turn to the left and head back towards Spit Creek. He was being careful now as he rode down the trail, and in a few minutes Ronnie was able to catch up.

  "Afraid you'll get some mud on that fancy new bike?” Ronnie jeered, his front wheel only inches behind Lee's rear tire.

  The trail was a bit wider through here as they were passing through an open sandy area without so much brush on either side.

  "Coming by on the left!” Ronnie yelled, as he squeezed by.

  Now the race was on. New bike or no new bike, Lee couldn't stand being passed.

  The trail was mostly short sections of sand with longer stretches of hard packed dirt laced with roots exposed through the eroded soil. The path followed along the river, rising up and down, twisting in spots and dropping away deeply as it crossed cuts in the riverbank. On foot it was just a long, hot walk. On a bike, if you could hang on, it became an unrestrained roller coaster ride.

  In short order Ronnie had managed to gain a good lead. Lee had to be careful to avoid any close brush and he had to slow and ride the edge of the trail to avoid any of the deep muddy stretches, which seemed to suddenly appear around any blind bend. Ronnie, on the other hand, couldn't care less about his bike, and he was free to plough through the mud and fall into the drops, where he might reach a top speed as fast as fifteen miles an hour, hanging on for the thrill of it as the trees and rocks whizzed by in a blur on either side.

  When Lee arrived at the bank of Spit Creek where it flowed into the Yalahalla below the falls, Ronnie was already waiting atop the other side.

  Ronnie cupped a hand to his mouth and hollered, “What'cha waitin’ for?"

  Lee looked down at his bike. The whitewalls on the tires were spattered and dirty, and the fenders and chain guard were splashed with mud despite his most careful efforts. Below him lay a steeply angled and well-rutted drop falling more than twenty feet down to a green slab of rock, the exposed bedrock of Spit Creek. The first big drop wasn't really a problem; Lee would just need to scoot way back off of the seat to absorb the jolts through the handlebars and to keep him self positioned so as not to plunge over the handle bars. There was only the normal few inches of sluggish water flowing through the creek bed so there was nothing to worry about there, as long as he didn't skid out on the slippery algae covering the rock. It was coming up on the other side that would be difficult. Lee would need to fall off the drop at full speed and peddle as hard as possible on the bottom and coming up to have the momentum to make it all the way back up the steep twenty-foot wall on the other side. If he didn't have enough speed to gain the top of the trail, or skidded out, he would fall backwards. And pitching over backwards down a dirt wall wasn't one of the best things to do on a new bike.

  "Why don't you just put it on your back and carry it over like a baby?” Ronnie taunted.

  That helped Lee make up his mind. He could always clean the bike later. He'd done this plenty of times before on his old bike and never even thought anything about it. Of course, his beautiful, new Schwinn wasn't his old bike.

  Looking down to gauge the best spot to keep straight and avoid slipping out on the creek bed, he scooted back a few feet, took a deep breath, and then stood up on the pedals. His les working furiously and pulling up on the handlebars at the last second as he went of the lip, Lee flew off the edge and went hurtling down the sloping creek bank. The myriad roots and jagged ruts caused the bike to buck, and the handlebars jerked with each impact jarring him to his teeth. If he lost his grip and the handlebars broke free, in a blur he'd end up face first in the bottom of the creek.

  Lee hit the bottom at full speed, hardly even seeing the silvery splash to each side as the tires cut the water. Immediately, he could feel how much speed had been lost to the water. This was do or die, to chicken out now was to wreck for sure. He stood up off the seat and gripping the handlebars for all he was worth, Lee peddled as hard and as fast as he could.

  In a blur the top of the far bank loomed up between heartbeats, appearing as a red and black wall of roots and ruts. Still, he had done this many times before. To fear was to die. Now was time for balls to the wall.

  The Schwinn rose up, drastically losing speed, but rapidly gaining height. Each root the front tire pounded in to, and every rut that jarred the bike worked with gravity in an attempt to pull the bike and its rider over backwards to total ruin below on the bed of Spit Creek.

  Leaning forward as he stood up with the handlebars under his stomach and straining with every muscle in his legs, the Schwinn flew up, gaining the top and carrying itself over the edge with enough remaining speed for Lee to pull up on the handlebars and effect a rear wheel landing right in front of Ronnie.

  "Oh, wow! Keen-O!” Ronnie whooped and yelled from his vantage to the side of the trail. “Shit fire, Lee!"

  Lee locked up the break and skidded to a stop. Elation couldn't even come close to describing his feelings. First thing though, he looked all around to inspect for any signs of damage.

  "Oh, man, oh man, Lee. You should have seen yourself. We could sell tickets!” Ronnie was perhaps even more excited than Lee. “I thought you wouldn't do it. I really did. I told myself, no way he's gonna do it on his new bike."

  Lee looked from wheel to wheel, but the bike was fine. In fact some of the creek's spray had washed off a few clumps of dirt that had previously been clinging to the chain guard and frame. Beaming himself, Lee took a breath, relieved that he hadn't been forced to resort to plan B in case he hadn't made it. Should he have fallen backwards, Lee had planned to go over on his back and let the bike slide down on top, using his body to protect the Schwinn. He figured he could heal much more quickly than he could pay for the parts to repair the bike.

  "Did you see how high you got?” Ronnie held his hand up to just above his waist. “You flew up at least this high. I'm not kidding. You must've been going a million miles an hour!"

  Lee looked at Ro
nnie's appraisal while taking a moment to catch his breath. “You think so? That high?"

  Ronnie raised his hand a little. “Maybe even this high."

  "Guess what?” Lee asked.

  Ronnie had brought his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. “What?"

  Lee jumped back on the pedals, and shouted out over his shoulder, “Who's in the lead now?"

  It was a little more than a hundred yards from Spit Creek to the tree house. All the way Lee kept the narrow trail blocked, not allowing Ronnie the opportunity to pass. From behind Ronnie kept up with a constant steam of insults and jeers. Lee enjoyed his advantage immensely even purposely slowing down. Listening to Ronnie yelling he was reminded of a saying his dad had told him the high school football coach had told him before a game: “Cussing at you heard from behind is the sweetest sound in the world."

  Out of breath and red faced more from hollering and laughing than riding hard, the two boys pulled up at the clearing. This was a great spot, a real natural hiding place, one of the best secret spots the boys knew, and Ronnie and Lee knew them all.

  The thick brush around the river couldn't grow well in the deep shade of this enormous tree, and so it formed a natural pocket, perfect for the boy's plans. They had known about the spot for a while, but it wasn't until last year Lee had come up with the idea to build a tree house here. Prior to that, they had just come back in here to poke around whenever they were fishing or just looking for junk that might have washed up above the falls. All around, the high weeds and river brush were choked with trash, some of it left over from high water and some of it just a natural accumulation that which could be found near any neglected riverbank where people were prone to dump things up river.

  Lee and Ronnie had done virtually all of the construction work by themselves, including scavenging the materials from the wrecked houses over on Seminole Road. At first, they had planned a Huck Finn type of summer adventure, centered around building a raft and floating the boards and stuff all the way down from the old neighborhood to the construction site. The raft they had fashioned, using four empty oil drums someone had dumped in the ditch near the train yard, had actually floated, though perhaps a little lopsidedly. With Ronnie paddling and fending off obstacles from the front, Lee had steered in the rear using a stout board as a rudder, repeating some of the moves he had seen a guide perform a couple of years back when he and his dad had gone rafting in the Smokey Mountains while on a family vacation. The boys had an incredible time throughout the whole adventure, whooping and hollering while riding the few mild rapids the low running Yalahalla had to offer. The only problem was, once they got the first load down to the tree, they couldn't think of a way to get the raft back upstream to the houses. It had taken two whole days to build the raft, which in itself had been a lot of fun, but there really wasn't any way possible to repeat the feat for each load. They finally ended up deciding to transport the rest of what they needed loaded into two old Radio Flyer wagons they pulled behind their bikes.

  Once the tree house was built, they managed to wrangle permission from their parents for a Saturday night camp out. Phil and Burl had been there, and even Art, who'd had to sneak out, as there was no way his overly protective mother would let him spend a night outdoors. They'd cooked hotdogs over a fire built on driftwood down by the riverbank, and stayed up all night swapping lies, mostly about girls, and picking on each other. In the morning, on a dare, Lee had floated the raft down to go over the falls. Unfortunately, the river was too low and he ended up catching the back barrels on the rocks and was forced to abandon ship and swim for it while everyone jeered at him from the bank. The raft had remained hopelessly pinned there in the center of the river for more than three months until following a big rain in late September it had finally disappeared.

  But the tree house was a huge success. Lee and Ronnie spent at least a little time most every day last July and August just hanging out there. The only drawback to the tree house was it really wasn't very much of a secret, and other kids used it as well. Whenever Ronnie and Lee arrived, they always wondered what they'd find inside left behind by the older teenagers who sometimes came here to drink beer and smoke cigarettes.

  Lee carefully put down his kickstand and stood his bike in the shade. There was a piece of an old t-shirt stuck in a bush, and for a moment he thought about pulling it out and giving the Schwinn a once over. Realizing he still had to ride home, and judging that the t-shirt might just make the bike dirtier, he opted to let it go for now.

  Ronnie just threw his bike over in the weeds and quickly began climbing up the rickety two by four ladder to the main platform fifteen feet up in the enormous, spreading boughs of this truly massive live oak. When the boys had first spotted this tree during a lazy summer float trip, there was no question that this was one of the most perfect trees ever for building a tree house since Tarzan had built his in the jungle in Africa.

  "Hey, there's been a bunch of assholes in here drinkin’ beer!” Ronnie called out, having climbed inside. “Watch out,” he hollered to Lee below, then began kicking out a dozen or so beer cans and a couple of spent bottles of wine. When he was done he stuck his head out. “I wish the jerks who trespass in our tree house would at least throw out their damn empties!"

  Lee was standing below, looking up. “You done cleaning and complaining, mom?” he called up.

  "Yeah,” Ronnie ignored the “mom” for now. “All clear up here! I'll let you come on up!"

  Lee put a first foot on the lower rung and looked up. “You're gonna let me? Gee, aren't I lucky?” He dodged quickly as a can came down right at his head.

  Ronnie was standing under the rolled up door flap and beaming down at Lee. “Sorry, daddy-o. I guess I missed one."

  "Missed one? Yeah, I bet,” Lee came back. “You're lucky you missed me.” He grabbed on to the side rails of the rickety ladder as he had long ago learned it was best to not have all his weight supported by just one rung at any given time. Boards could pull free or break without any warning. “Coming up!” he hollered out. “Any beer can that hits me once I'm on this ladder you're going to eat!"

  The tree house was built atop four large beams, which had been some of the first pieces to come down on the raft. A framework of six-inch wide joists spanned the gaps between two enormous parallel branches, each easily as thick around as the trunks of most normal trees. The four walls, not quite even and not quite straight, were constructed from sheets of plywood nailed over a stout frame of two by fours. The windows on each side were actually screened over, but didn't do much to help keep the river mosquitoes out as they couldn't keep a front door on the tree house. They had tried, at first, but people kept breaking in. Every time they replaced the hinges or put a locking hasp on the original piece of plywood that served for a door, when they returned, they found it all torn out. So finally, they had settled on a cloth flap cut from the loud, red paisley velveteen fabric of an abandoned sofa that had floated down the Yalahalla. Of course, they didn't have money for paint and the various pieces which had gone into the construction were of many colors, a brown panel here, a green piece over there. The roof, a real work of mosaic art, was composed of one-inch slats covered with real house shingles. It had been easy to scavenge the materials as a multitude of shingles, in various colors, were scattered all around the ruined neighborhood like so many leaves during the fall. The result was the roof was a clash of color. But, it did actually keep out the rain and had turned out as probably the best part of the whole structure.

  "Did you hear me? I'm comin’ up!” Lee called out looking up the ladder. Then hand-by-hand he made his way up. Once to the entry, he pulled one knee up and then the other, and as always he felt a wave of relief when he had safely climbed in.

  Lee scooted over a milk crate so that he could look out the window at the river passing along down below. From this vantage, seen framed by gaps in the oak's green leaves, the Yalahalla was a slowly moving sheet of calm green. If he was still and listened Lee could
hear it running, the slip and trickle of the water sliding around the rocks was one of the most relaxing sounds on God's green earth, and when mixed with the murmur of an occasional breeze passing through the branches an hour in the tree house could draw back to make the whole day seem like a long, lazy portion of Rip Van Winkle's dream. Maybe it was partially just an effect of perception but even on the hottest days, up here in the tree house, sheltered amid the heavy branches of the huge oak, it always seemed cooler and quieter than any other place Lee had ever known.

  "You want one?” Ronnie pulled a squashed package of Pall Malls from the pocket of his blue jeans.

  Lee only gave him a brief, tired look, then shook his head.

  Ronnie produced a flattened book of matches from his other pocket and fumbled with it trying to get one of the creased strips of paper to light.

  Lee, ignoring Ronnie's efforts as he cussed and flailed at the matches, stood looking out the window. The steady flow of the green water was hypnotic, and the cool breeze pushing through the screen was a relief from the sun and the heat on the trail coming in.

  Ronnie had to take a break from trying to spark a fire and sat down on a milk crate in the back corner facing the door and retied his shoelace. Then went back to trying to get a match to light, the mashed cigarette hanging from his lips. After wearing the sulfur off three or four, he finally got one to strike and burn by holding the tip down with his thumb as he passed it along the worn striker strip on the back of the pack of matches.

  At the instant the match lit Ronnie yelped and frantically waved his burnt thumb. Lee looked away from the river and couldn't help but give him a good laugh.

  Still, despite the burn, Ronnie had managed to expertly juggle the match to his other hand and keep it lit. Quickly, he put it to the end of the Z-shaped cigarette hanging from his lips. Taking a long drag, the cherry at the end glowed brightly, and Ronnie finally enjoyed the fruits of his efforts. With his first exhale he blew a cloud of smoke at Lee.