by Adam Dark
“Need a push?” John asked.
My mother said something but I didn’t catch it. I think she was more concerned with not allowing John to see that she was crying. He must have picked up on it and headed our way.
“Hey, boys. Want to help me get her going?” he asked.
I thought he meant my mother at first before he motioned to the engine. He climbed down to the swimming platform and pointed at the cord.
“Just give her a sharp pull,” John said.
Nico looked to me, so I grabbed the cord and yanked hard. The engine throttled then puttered out.
“Give it another yank,” John said.
I did, and the engine kicked on, then shut off again.
“One more time. Sometimes you have to wake them up,” John said.
The engine thrummed to life on the fourth pull. John patted me on the shoulder.
“Well, done,” he said. “You might have a future on the sea one day.”
The only people I knew who had jobs on the water were fishermen and I had no desire to fish. My friends and I went sometimes, but I never caught anything. I’d rather swim or run through the woods than sit with a pole and string in the water all day.
So I didn’t much have any interest in John’s prophesy over me. He shuffled toward the cockpit to check on my mother. He gave her instructions on how to man the controls and how to shut off the engine and turn it back on. Apparently, she’d only need to start it from the cockpit instead of by hand. After a few minutes of that, he hopped off.
He untied the ropes from the dock cleats and tossed the loose rope on the pontoon.
“Enjoy the water!” he said and gave us a shove out into the lake.
The engine thrummed. My mother revved the throttle. The water kicked up as the pontoon shot off. John waved as we departed then headed back to the shop. With the engine now on, Nico and I climbed into the stern sitting area. We cruised through the shallows until we got far enough away. My mother revved the engine to full power. A white, spiraling wake trailed behind us. A warm breeze kicked up through our hair as we zipped through the water toward the center of the lake.
8
Mother throttled the engine down to a slow crawl before cutting it off completely. She lowered the anchor and flipped the canopy open. Nico and I were already standing on the swimming platform, ready to jump in, by the time the anchor hit the bottom.
“Boys!” came my mother’s call from the cockpit.
Nico had to grab my arm and haul me in to keep me from tumbling into the water. My mother held two orange life vests in the air. I groaned.
“Do we have to?” I asked. “We’re right by the boat. It’s not like we don’t know how to swim.”
“Life vests or no swimming,” she said.
On any other day I might have negotiated further, but after what had transpired on the dock, my mother had little patience left. I grabbed the two orange fun-killers and handed one to Nico. We both strapped them around our shoulders and waist. Nico had his fastened first and lunged over the starboard side of the boat. He used the top of the seat cushion as a launch pad.
I followed two seconds later, nearly landing on his face as he popped to the surface. The water was cold and sucked the air from my lungs. We both bobbed on the top to catch our breath.
“The water is colder than I remember it,” Nico said.
“You’ve been to the lake before? When was that?” I asked.
“It was before you and I met,” he said.
“We’ve known each other our whole lives,” I said.
“Maybe it was another lake then,” Nico offered.
He swam back to the stern of the boat and climbed back on. I knew Nico had never been to any other lake. He just didn’t want to tell me he had gone swimming without me. I swam after him and climbed up the ladder. Water poured off our bodies as we bobbled on the swimming platform.
“You know it’s okay if you went to the lake without me,” I said.
“I know,” Nico said.
He jumped back in a second time. This time I didn’t follow right away. I looked to the bow of the boat. My mother was sitting next to Abigail, holding my sister’s hand. Both were crying. I lunged off the boat and stayed in the water.
Nico and I tossed all of our swim gear and toys into the water and spent a good four hours swimming, bobbing, and jumping off the boat before my mother had us climb up for lunch. She raised the anchor and pulled us in closer to shore.
“It’ll be nice to have a family picnic together on the shore,” she said.
I didn’t much care where we ate so long as food came soon. All of the swimming, pushing, shoving, and jumping had depleted my body. My stomach ached for sustenance even as my skin cried out for the sun to lap up the cold water that chilled it.
Nico and I were sitting in the stern, joking and talking about how cool it would be if we could bring all of the guys out here next time. As the pontoon neared the shoreline, Mother ebbed the engine down to a low hum. She cut the engine entirely and pulled the motor out of the water as we got closer. The bottom of the pontoon scraped along the pebbled sand beneath until it came to a halt. We were still a few yards from the shore, but the water was shallow enough for us to walk the rest of the way.
Nico and I handled the heavy lifting. The cooler splashed into the water as I was climbing in.
“You were supposed to hold onto it,” I said.
“It slipped,” Nico said.
He jumped into the water and helped me carry the cooler to the beach. Mother and Abigail followed shortly after with beach towels. My toes squeezed through the rocky sand. Nico and I dropped the cooler and caught our breath. It was heavier now that we were tired and hungry. It was crazy how much strength you could lose swimming for a few hours.
I was glad we had been wearing the life vests for the last hour. My arms felt like Jell-O. I scanned the shoreline. We were in some small nook somewhere. It was a tiny hideout off of the lake that joined with the tree line. The beach itself extended for only fifty or so yards before it dissolved into boulders and cliffs. The water splashed against the rocks with an incessant gush.
My eyes traced the pebbled sand up the rocks and into the trees. Tall oaks soared high and their trunks below were cluttered with smaller trees and thicket. The terrain gradually rose for about thirty feet before it shot up. I headed for the tree line, my sense of adventure taking hold. Nico followed.
“Where do you boys think you’re going?” came my mother’s call.
“Navigating the unknown for buried treasure,” I said.
“Not on empty stomachs you aren’t. Come sit down and have lunch with us, then you can go on your hunt,” my mother said.
My stomach moaned as if to affirm her instruction. Nico and I obliged without a fuss.
9
I was halfway up the cliff when Nico shouted from ten feet below.
“What are you trying to do? Kill me? We’re not excavators here!”
I shifted my right foot for a better holding and a wave of loose pebbles, dirt, and rock tumbled down. Nico covered his head with his arms as a shower of stones pelted him.
“Sorry!” I said.
“Try to be more careful, why don’t you! Some of us would like to keep our eyes and heads intact,” Nico said.
I grinned but slowed my ascent. He was right. If a stray stone were to catch him at the right angle, he’d be a goner. The last thing we wanted was for one of us to die before we managed to reach the apex of this cliff and investigate the small inlet further.
We had finished our sandwiches in a hurry. Mother finally relented after we stuffed down the second one and picked up our trash.
“Fifteen minutes,” she had said, “and then I want you two back here. We only have a couple more hours with the pontoon. I want to maximize our time together as a family.”
Nico and I had both rolled our eyes but made sure to hide this little slip from my mother. I knew why my mother had relented and allowed for us
to go on our little adventure. She wanted to use that time alone with Abigail to mend wounds.
That was the last place I wanted to be. If hell had teeth, it was certainly chomping down on my mother and sister. If they wanted to fight it out, then that was fine. Just count me out!
I adjusted my knee against the side of the rock outcropping and stretched my hand over my head. My fingers rummaged around the loose dirt until they snagged something solid. I latched my fingers around the root and heaved.
My feet slipped off the rock edge. A wave of lose pebbles rained down on Nico. His shouts of annoyance were lost to me as I struggled to haul myself up. My arms strained. Right about then I was wishing I had Nico’s broad shoulders. But I managed to pull myself up.
I collapsed on my back, panting. The underbellies of the treetops spun in crisscrossing patterns of brown, green, and black. Nico’s shouts cascaded over the lip of the cliff edge and into my ears.
I rolled to my stomach and crawled to the edge.
“I’m up!” I shouted.
“Alright, I’m coming up,” Nico said.
He made it up much more quickly than I did. I credited it to his larger stature and muscles. He heaved himself over the last lip and onto the flat surface where I was.
“That was steeper than I thought,” Nico said. “I’m glad we’re still alive.”
“Maybe next time we’ll go with my idea and walk around,” I said.
“By the time we did that, we’d have to turn around. You heard your mom. We only have fifteen minutes. We probably wasted ten of them while you dangled from the rocks,” Nico said.
“I’ll make sure to send down bigger chunks next time,” I said.
“Next time I’m going first,” Nico said.
“What? So your big feet can tear away all of the good holdings? I don’t think so.”
“Whatever. You’re just lucky I’m here,” Nico said.
“How’s that?”
“To look after you,” Nico said.
“I can look after myself,” I said.
I pushed off of the ground and dusted the dirt off of my pants.
“Just keep telling yourself that. I’ll remember that you said that the next time you come crying for help,” Nico said.
I ignored him. He was just trying to get a rise out of me. He would have had I not turned to see the dense woods around us and notice the eerie silence.
We addressed our surroundings like two special ops in the heat of battle, backs to each other, weapons at the ready to lay our lives down for our comrades.
The only different was they were probably all back home sitting on the couch watching cartoons or at the river.
“Where do you think we are?” he asked.
“Let’s find out!” I said, my spirit revived with the new anticipation of adventure.
We both ran through the trees like baby rabbits out of their den for the first time. The trees grew thick as we trekked further in. We had to slow to a crawl in some places to squeeze through.
“How do these trees survive growing all over each other like this?” Nico asked. “They’re like suffocating vines!”
“I see a clearing up ahead,” I said.
We squeezed through another fifty meters of thick underbrush and tall trees until we broke free into a cleared area. Patches of grass grew along the mud, but most of the clearing was dirt.
“Look over here!”
I swiveled in Nico’s direction. He had climbed inside an old car with no doors. The tires were removed too and only the metal bearings remained. I was surprised to see it still had its seat cushions. The green leather was tattered and torn through the center, but it was mostly intact.
“How do you think it got here?” Nico asked.
I scanned the trees around us.
“I don’t know. Maybe someone drove it out here,” I said.
“Yeah, right. How would they have managed that with all of these trees?” Nico asked.
I peeked my head through the shattered back window. The back seat was littered with leaves, dirt, and trash. I circled around the abandoned vehicle.
I spotted the metal fence twenty feet away. I almost missed it. Had there not been a gap in the interlocked chains, I would have glanced right over it. The forest had overtaken most of it with thick weeds and bushes.
“Over here,” I said.
Nico climbed out of the driver’s seat and followed me over to the opening in the fence. I gave it a yank. It rattled but did not budge.
“What’s on the other side?” Nico asked.
I had my head already through the gap, looking.
“Just more trees. Same as over here,” I said.
I retracted my head.
“This place is awesome!” Nico said. “This could be our new hangout spot.”
I traced the clearing with my eyes until they found the black soil in the center. I walked over, ignoring Nico’s idea. I knelt and ran my fingers through the dirt.
I pulled them away and rubbed my thumb and pointer finger together.
“It’s ash,” I said.
Nico’s sandals crunched on the loose branches next to me.
“A fire pit?” he asked.
“Looks like it.”
I glanced around for a second time.
“Who would come all the way out here just to make a fire?” Nico asked.
“Probably the same person who drove that thing here,” I said, motioning to the abandoned car.
I was about to stand when something caught my eye. I bent back down and used a broken stick to push the dirt aside. I fell back with a screech and back pedaled away from the burn pit.
“What is it?” Nico asked.
My teeth were chattering as I pointed at the pile of ash and bone. He got down on one knee and looked for himself.
“There are bones in here,” he said. He pushed his hands through the dirt to reveal more of the treasure that laid buried beneath. He picked up what looked like a small child’s femur.
“Think they’re human?” he asked.
“Put that thing down! You don’t know what kind of germs it has on it,” I said.
Nico flung it around in the air like a sword and stuck out his tongue as though he were going to lick it.
“You’re disgusting!” I said.
He gave the bone another twirl before tossing it into the ash.
“It’s probably just some wild animal that someone cooked when they were camping out here,” Nico said.
“Do you know of any animal that has the same bones as someone’s leg?” I asked. “Don’t you remember what we learned in Mrs. Alexander’s class?”
“I didn’t really pay attention during those lessons,” he said.
“You should have! That’s a human femur. And from the looks of it, it’s not an adult’s,” I said.
“No way!” Nico said. “This has got to be the bone of a deer or something.”
My heart had slowed by this point. I drew closer to the ash and retrieved another stick. This one much longer than the first. The last thing I wanted was to be touching some dead carcass with my fingers. Who knows what kind of diseases it might have. That might even be the reason it died!
There were more bones as we dug, a lot more. I counted no less than three pairs of femurs. Most of the bones were charred beyond recognition, but the tiny jawbone and the first femur bone were unmistakable. They were human.
And unless there were dwarfs wandering around these parts of the woods, they were definitely from kids our age. In that moment, the hairs on the back of my neck tingled. I could feel eyes staring at me.
“Nico…” I whispered.
He was busy trying to put the bones together like a puzzle.
“Nico!” I said a bit louder.
“What?” he asked, annoyed. I was distracting him from his masterpiece.
“I think someone’s watching us,” I said.
Nico glanced over my shoulder.
“You’re just being paranoid. Th
ere’s nothing out here,” he said.
“Then where did these bones come from? What about that car? And the fence?”
I watched as his brain computed the logic.
“Ok, you have a point, but that doesn’t mean anyone lives out here anymore,” he said. “Look at this place! It’s old.”
A twig snapped to my right. I flinched. My elbow landed against Nico’s chin.
“Come on, man! Don’t be such a wimp! You’re acting like Max,” he said.
“I thought I saw something,” I said.
“There’s nothing here,” Nico said.
“It was over there,” I said. “I heard something move.”
Nico followed my outstretched hand.
“It’s just the wind,” he said.
“I’m telling you, I saw something,” I said.
“If this is your way of trying to get back at me for last night, that’s pretty lame,” Nico said.
He went silent a moment later. His eyes shown bright as he looked at me.
“There’s something out there,” he said.
“I told you,” I whispered.
He picked up the femur bone and started walking toward where the sound had come from. I grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“If it’s someone trying to play a trick on us, then I’m going to go give them a piece of my mind,” Nico said.
He slammed the bone in his opposite hand. I was beyond caring what kind of bacteria were growing on its surface. If Nico contracted the plague, it was too late for me anyway. I was exposed.
For now, it served as a weapon. I searched the ground for my own and only came up with a three-foot stick. I doubted it would hold off much, but it made me feel better. I followed behind Nico as we crept toward the fence.
There was definitely someone or something on the other side in the woods. They weren’t trying to hide their presence either.
“What do you think it is?” Nico asked.
I shrugged and mouthed, “I don’t know, AND I don’t want to find out! Let’s go!”
“Wimp,” he mouthed back.
He shoved past me and stuck his head through the hole in the fence.
