Scenes From the Secret History (The Secret History of the World)

by F. Paul Wilson

  And just as clear, someone else had come by with a bunch of dead branches and used them to tap the trigger plates, springing the traps and making them harmless. In some cases the steel jaws had snapped right through the dead wood; in others it had only dented it, leaving the branch upright.

  “Got to be at least a couple dozen along here,” Jack said.

  “Not anymore.”

  She bent, grabbed one of the trap chains, and started working its anchor loose from the sand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watch.”

  As the coiled anchor came free, Weezy grabbed it and the trap itself, then hurled the whole assembly into the spong. The two ends swung around on their chain like a boomerang before splashing into the shallow water and disappearing beneath the surface.

  She turned to him, brushing the sand from her hands.

  “Come on, Jack. We’ve got work to do.”

  He stared at her, surprised by the wild look in her eyes…

  “But–”

  “These rats don’t check their traps for three or four days at a time.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I read, Jack.”

  “So do I.”

  “Yeah, but you read fifty-year-old magazines. I read about what’s really going on in the world.” She pointed to a trap. “Three days in one of those. Think about it.”

  He did, imagining himself a fox or possum or raccoon with a broken leg caught in the steel jaws, hungry and thirsty, with water just a couple of dozen feet away but unable to get to it. It made his gut crawl.

  Without a word, he bent and worked an anchor free of the ground, then followed Weezy’s example and tossed the trap into the water.

  “Two down. How many more to go?”

  He found her staring at him with a strange light in her eyes.

  “About thirty.”

  “Then we’re gonna need help.” He turned and waved to Eddie. “Over here! You gotta see this!”

  As Eddie made his way toward them, Jack and Weezy bent again to the task of ripping out the traps and hurling them into the drink.

  Eddie arrived and gawked at what they were doing. “Are you guys crazy? You can’t do that!”

  Jack held up a trap. “Really? Watch.”

  He tossed it into the water.

  Eddie slapped his hands against the side of his head. “What if Old Man Foster comes along and catches us?”

  Weezy said, “Well, his signs do say, ‘No Trapping.’ We’re just helping him out.”

  “That means no trapping by anybody else. We could be in hellacious big trouble.”

  Jack doubted that. Old Man Foster was just a name. No one had ever seen the guy. Everyone knew he owned this big piece of the Barrens and that was about it. Though nobody saw them go up, fresh No Trespassing signs appeared every year. Sometimes poachers would take them down, but before you knew it they’d be back up again.

  Another mystery of the Pine Barrens. A very minor one.

  As for Eddie, Jack wasn’t sure if he was acting as the voice of good sense, or trying to duck the work of pulling out the traps. He hated anything more strenuous than working a joystick.

  “Look,” Jack told him. “The sooner we get this done and get on our way, the less chance we’ll have of being caught. So come on. Get to it.”

  Eddie obeyed, but not without his trademarked grumbling.

  “Okay, okay. But I don’t have to ask whose idea this was. It’s got my crazy sister written all over it.”

  In a flash Weezy was in his face. “What did you say?”

  Eddie gave her a sheepish look. “Nothing.”

  “You did! I heard you! Hasn’t this been talked about a million times?” Eddie nodded without looking at her. “Right,” she said. “So you keep your mouth shut or someone’s going to hear about this.”

  Eddie sighed. “Okay, okay,” and returned to working on a trap.

  Baffled, Jack caught Weezy’s eye as she turned from her brother. “What–?”

  “Family matter, Jack.” She turned away. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jack wasn’t worried. But he couldn’t help but wonder. He’d known these two all his life. What was this all about?

  2

  “Okay,” Weezy said, stopping her bike. “Here we are.”

  After sinking all the traps, they’d pedaled like mad away from the spong. Along the way, Jack had wished for a few clouds to hide the sun and cool the air, but the sky ignored him. At least now they’d arrived at their original destination.

  Jack followed her gaze. “It’s just some burned-out patch.”

  Fires were common in the Barrens during the summer. Tourists and nature lovers came to camp and sometimes got careless with their campfires or Coleman stoves or cigarettes. Same with poachers. And many times nature herself took the blame, setting a tree ablaze with a bolt of lightning.

  Usually a ranger in a fire tower, like the one on Apple Pie Hill, would spot the smoke and send out an alarm. Then the local and county volunteer fire companies would go racing to the scene along the fire trails. But the smaller fires started during a storm often would burn only an acre or two before being doused by the rain.

  “Not just any burnt-out patch.” She motioned Jack and Eddie to follow. “Come on. I’m going to show you something no one else – except for me – has seen in a long, long time.”

  Eddie said, “Aw, come on, Smurfette–”

  She stopped and turned to him. “And you can cut the Smurfette bit. Unless you like ‘Pugsley.’ ”

  “Okay, okay. But what about the firemen who put out the fire? They must have seen it.”

  “No firemen for this one.”

  Eddie snorted. “You psychic now?”

  “Check it out.” She gestured around them. “What’s missing?”

  Eddie and Jack did full turns.

  “Green trees?” Jack said.

  Weezy shook her head. “Litter. There’s no litter. Firefighters always leave coffee cups, candy wrappers, Coke cans, Gatorade bottles, all sorts of stuff. But not here. Ergo…”

  Jack knew from his father that ergo was Latin for “therefore,” but a glance at Eddie showed he hadn’t a clue.

  He checked the ground again. Not even a gum wrapper. Weezy didn’t miss a trick.

  As they followed her into the burned-out area, Jack noticed how the pine trunks had been charred coal black. The remaining needles high up were a dead brown, and the usual spindly little branches sticking out here and there lower down the trunks had been burned off. But the trees weren't dead. Every single trunk was sprouting new little branchlets, pushing them through the scorched crust of the bark and sporting baby needles of bright green. Everyone had heard of the Sears Diehard battery. These were nature’s die-hard trees.

  As she’d done all day, Weezy led the way, winding through the blackened trunks until she came to a break in the trees.

  “Here’s where the mound begins.”

  “Mound?” Eddie said. “Where?”

  But Jack saw what she meant. They stood at the tip of where two linear mounds, each a couple of feet high and maybe a yard wide, converged to a point. Both ran off at angles between the blackened trees.

  “Like some giant gopher,” Eddie said.

  Weezy shook her head. “Except look how smooth they are. And how straight. Nobody knows it’s here, and I never would have noticed it if the fire hadn’t cleared all the undergrowth. I haven’t explored the whole thing, so I–”

  “You were out here alone?” Jack said.

  She nodded. “You know me. I like to explore. Who else is going to come along? You?”

  His two part-time jobs didn’t leave Jack much time to explore the Barrens, especially not to the extent Weezy did. She’d spend hours digging for arrowheads or other artifacts. The only reason he was out here today was because Mr. Rosen closed his store on Mondays.

  He smiled and shrugged. “Beautiful teenage girl alone in the woods… might meet a Big Bad
Wolf.”

  She grinned and punched him on the shoulder. “Get out! Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “Maybe a little, but you’ve got to be careful, Weez.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. But they’ve got to find me first.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I got a little spooked here before I could explore the rest of the mound, so that’s–”

  “You? Spooked?” Eddie laughed. “You are a spook. Nothing spooks you.”

  “Well, this place does.” She pointed along the lengths of the two ridges to where they faded into the trees. “See how nothing grows on the mounds? I mean, isn’t that weird?”

  Jack saw what she meant. Low-lying scrub – most of it scorched and blackened – crowded around the trees and spread across every square inch of sand between them. Everywhere except on the mounds.

  Yeah. Weird, all right. Sand was sand. What made the mounds different?

  Or was it a single mound, angling in different directions?

  “Feel it,” she said, patting the surface. “It’s still sand, but it’s hard. Like it hasn’t been disturbed for so long it’s formed some kind of crust.”

  Jack ran his fingers along the surface, then pressed. The sand wouldn’t yield. But something else… an unpleasant tingle in his fingertips. He pulled them away and looked at them. The tingling stopped. He glanced at Weezy and found her staring at him.

  “So it isn’t just me. You feel it too.”

  “Feel what?” Eddie said, rubbing his hands over the hard surface. “I don’t feel anything.”

  Weezy was still staring at Jack. “Now you know what spooked me.”

  She reached around to a rear pocket and pulled out the small spiral notebook and pencil she never went anywhere without.

  “I’ll bet somebody designed this in a special shape. Let’s see if we can figure it out.”

  “What do you mean, ‘special shape’?”

  “A lot of these mounds are ancient – thousands of years old.”

  “You mean, like, burial mounds?”

  Jack had heard of those. The Lenape Indians used to inhabit the pines.

  Weezy shook her head. “Some of the most mysterious have nothing to do with burials. Take the Serpent Mound in Ohio. It curves back and forth like a snake for over a quarter mile. And get this – nobody knows how old it is. This could be something like that.” Her face brightened as she smiled. “And I discovered it. I’ve got to get this diagrammed.”

  Wondering how she knew all this stuff, Jack watched her draw a few lines on her pad, then move off, weaving through the trees as she followed the mound to the right. Jack and Eddie followed close behind through air heavy with the smell of burned wood. This was Weezy’s show, but Jack was getting into it. Something about these mounds and the way nothing grew on them gave him a funny feeling in his gut, but he had to admit he was fascinated.

  “Oh, look at this,” she said after she’d gone maybe twenty feet. “Another mound crosses here.” She drew some more lines. “This is getting confusing.”

  “Hey,” Eddie said.

  Jack turned and saw him standing atop the mound with his arms spread.

  “Eddie–” Weezy began

  “You want to map these mounds, right? Well, instead of ducking through all those trees, doesn’t it make more sense to follow the mounds themselves? It’ll be a lot less boracious.”

  Jack turned to Weezy. “You know, that’s a great idea.”

  Weezy hesitated, then shrugged. “I guess everybody has a good idea in them,” she muttered. “Even Eddie.”

  Jack bowed and made a flourish toward the mound. “Ladies first.”

  She smiled and faked a curtsy. “Why, thank you, kind sir.”

  As the three of them began walking the mound, the sky darkened. Jack looked up and saw a menacing pile of clouds scudding in from the west, blotting out the sun. Weezy shaded her eyes as she stared skyward.

  “Shoot. We’ve got trouble.”

  “Looks like a thunderhead,” Eddie said.

  She nodded. “Cumulonimbus – piled high. Going to be a bad one.”

  “‘Cumulonimbus’?” Jack had to laugh. Weezy never ceased to amaze him. “How do you know this stuff?”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you sit down and memorize everything you read?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have to. If I read something once, it’s there. I never forget it. Ever. At least not so far.”

  No wonder she got straight A’s. Jack would give anything – anything – for that power.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Hurry,” she said. “I want to get this done before the downpour.”

  She started quick-walking along the mound until she came to another intersection. As she stopped to mark in her notebook, Jack looked around for Eddie and spotted him a couple of dozen feet back. He was down on one knee, fiddling with his sneaker lace.

  “Come on, Eddie. Don’t want the Jersey Devil to catch you.”

  He grinned. “You kidding? I have JD sausages for breakfast every morning."

  He jumped up and started trotting toward them. When he neared he jumped and landed inches in front of Jack.

  “Boo!”

  More thunder then, but another sound too. As Eddie’s feet thumped onto the surface of the mound, they kept on going, breaking through the outer shell with a crunch.

  Jack looked down and saw Eddie’s sneakers sunk ankle deep in the softer sand within.

  “Jeez, man! What’d you do?”

  He heard Weezy hurry up behind him and gasp. “Oh, Eddie! How could you?”

  Eddie’s face reddened – whether with anger or embarrassment, Jack couldn’t tell.

  “Hey, I didn’t–”

  “You are the most unbelievable klutz! This mound’s sat here undisturbed for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and you’re here, what, ten minutes, and already you’ve desecrated it!”

  “It was a soft spot! How could I know?”

  Lightning flashed, followed quickly by a roar of thunder that rattled Jack’s fillings. He looked up at a sky completely lidded with dark clouds looking ready to burst. Jeez, this storm was coming fast.

  “Time to take cover, guys,” he said.

  He grabbed Weezy’s arm and started pulling her back toward the bikes. He knew if he didn’t she’d probably stay in the open, storm or no storm, drawing her diagram. She didn’t fight him. Eddie followed.

  Just as they reached the bikes, the sky opened like a bursting dam. They huddled in the center of a thick copse of young pines.

  “Under a tree,” Weezy said. “The worst place to be in a storm.”

  Jack knew that, but didn’t see as they had much choice. Even under the trees they were getting soaked.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Weez,” Jack said, “we’re in the middle of the Pine Barrens. If you know of a place without trees, I’m all ears.”

  Weezy said nothing more, just crouched on her haunches, her eyes closed and her fingers in her ears. Eddie too. They both jumped with every thunderclap.

  Jack didn’t get that. He loved thunderstorms – their fury, their unpredictability, their deafening light shows fascinated him. Same with his father. Many a summer night they’d sit together on the front porch and watch a storm approach, peak, and move on. Sometimes Dad would drive him over to Old Town where they’d park within sight of the Lightning Tree. For some reason no one could figure, the long-dead tree took a hit from every storm that passed overhead.

  The thunder grew louder, the lightning flashed brighter, the rain fell harder. The world funneled down to the copse and little else. Nothing was visible beyond their clump of trees. Water cascaded through the branches and swirled around their feet. Might as well have been in the shower – except Jack wished he could have cranked up the hot water handle.

  He felt his Converse All-Stars filling with water.

  Swell.

  3

  After a couple of forevers, t
he storm tapered off. When the rain finally stopped they stepped out of the copse and shook themselves off.

  Jack took off his T-shirt and wrung the water out of it. Eddie followed suit. Weezy didn’t have that luxury. Her Bauhaus shirt was plastered to her; she pulled it free of her skin as best she could. Her soaked hair looked almost black, her bangs were plastered to her forehead, and her ponytail had become a rat tail.

  “Look at us,” she said. “Three drowned mice.”

  “At least we didn’t get hit by lightning,” Eddie said. “Let’s get home. I need to dry off.”

  “But I haven’t mapped the mound yet.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding! You can come back any time–”

  “Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Come on, Eddie,” Jack said, nudging him with an elbow. “What difference is a few more minutes going to make?”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll stay with the bikes.”

  She pulled out her notepad and regarded it with dismay. “Soaked!”

  But that didn’t stop her. She hurried ahead, hopped on the mound, and began retracing her steps. The sun popped out as Jack followed. Now he welcomed it.

  Weezy stopped where Eddie had broken through the crust and pointed to the edges.

  “See this? I was so mad at him I didn’t notice before, but it’s really weird.”

  Jack saw what she meant. Eddie had shattered a four- or five-foot length of the crust into about a zillion irregular pieces, but the edges of the broken area – the near, the far, and both sides near ground level – were perfectly straight. Could have been cut by an electric saw.

  The rain had done a number on the soft sand within the mound, washing it out and fanning it around the break like a cloud. Jack didn’t know what kind of cloud it resembled, but he was sure Weezy could tell him.

  He kicked over a random shard of crust and spotted something shiny and black beneath it. Before he could react, Weezy was on her knees and all over it.

  “What’s this?”

  She started scooping away the surrounding wet sand, gradually revealing a black cube the size of a softball. Gently, cautiously, she wriggled her fingers beneath it.

  “Why don’t you just pick it up?” Jack said.