The Night Will Find Us

by Matthew Lyons

  Chloe watched as Parker set down the beer cooler and crossed over to the far side of the clearing, drawing close to one of the trees, inspecting its trunk closely. He glanced back at the rest of the group from the tree line, and for a second, he looked like his same old self, as if the moody, angry kid that had replaced him over the past year was just a bad dream that had finally, thankfully evaporated.

  “This is it,” said Parker, truly smiling for the first time that day. “This is the place.”

  Everybody got to work setting their own tents up around the clearing. Since they were sharing a tent, Nicky and Josh finished theirs first, then climbed inside and zipped the front flap shut after them. After a moment, they started giggling and rustling around inside, eliciting raised eyebrows and shared, embarrassed smiles from all their friends.

  “You know those things aren’t soundproof, right?” Nate called out, pitching a pine cone at the side of the tent. Josh and Nicky quieted down some, but they didn’t come out or unzip the flap for a while afterward. Nobody much minded. The two of them had been waiting a while for some alone time—free of the watchful eyes of their parents—and nobody, not even Nate, seemed interested in taking that away from them.

  Chloe had brought one of her grandpa’s old tents. It wasn’t huge, but neither was she. Standing at only a little over five feet tall, she didn’t need a lot of space—just enough to curl up in, like a cat. She’d pulled her chestnut-brown hair off her slender shoulders into a messy ponytail, her big green eyes bright against the sunny afternoon. Across the dead firepit, she could see that Adam’s tent (all his gear, really) looked fresh off the shelves from REI, while Parker’s was shabby but well-cared for, no doubt formerly his dad’s.

  In the far corner, Nate dropped his stuff on the ground and sat down on one of the fallen trees, then cracked open a water bottle and poured its contents over his dusty, battered bare feet.

  “Fuckin’ flip-flops,” Nate grumbled. “Fuckin’ hiking. This is bullshit.”

  From her side of the clearing, Chloe watched him wipe his soles dry with the bottom of his shirt before pulling his duffel bag into his lap.

  “Okay, so, check it out,” he said, unzipping the bag and holding the top wide for them all to see. “Fully loaded, as requested.”

  The duffel was filled to the brim with fireworks: Black Cats, Saturn Missiles, sparklers, bottle rockets, Roman candles, a couple of fountains, even a big box of M-150 Salutes—those little half M-80s that you could still buy at roadside stands if you asked the guy behind the counter just right.

  “Oh, I brought something special too,” said Nate, digging in the bag down to his elbow. “Know I put it in here somewhere … maybe near the bottom … Ah, there we go.”

  From his duffel, Nate pulled a heavy gallon ziplock bag filled nearly to bursting with coarse black dust, holding it high for everyone to see.

  “Check it out,” he said. “Black powder. Thought we could really fuck some shit up with this.”

  Adam looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Uh, Nate, my dad uses that stuff to make bullets when he goes hunting. That’s like, real-ass gunpowder.”

  “Shit yeah, it is.” Nate beamed. “Like four pounds of it. Swiped a couple bags from my dad’s gun safe this morning. Old man still doesn’t know I know the combination. Like, holy shit, it’s Mom’s birthday. Real clever, Doug. Dickhead.”

  Nate glanced over at Parker, who was busy pounding stakes into the dirt through metal eyelets, securing his tent in place, keeping his head down.

  “Wait, should I not talk about dads right now, Parker? Is that still a touchy subject? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel left out.”

  Parker didn’t look up, but Chloe saw his hand tighten around the little camping hammer, squeezing until his fist was white and bloodless.

  Beside Nate, Adam’s face was grave. “No, listen. Black powder’s what those guys on the news make car bombs out of, the ones who live in shacks in the woods and write manifestos or whatever. That’s a serious explosive, man.”

  “So what? You said bring fireworks.”

  “Yeah, fireworks, not bomb-making supplies. What the hell are we even going to use that for?”

  Nate spat and grinned. “Hell if I know. Something really cool, though, right? Pow. Up in smoke.”

  “Come on, be smart about this,” Adam said. “Black powder’s not the kind of shit you play with, okay? It’s not a toy. Somebody could get hurt. You could start a fire with it or something.”

  “Yeah,” Nate said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s kind of the point, Dad. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  Adam’s shoulders fell. “Nobody asked you to bring that. We just wanted some fireworks. Sparklers or whatever.”

  “I’ve got sparklers,” Nate cried. “Sparklers and Black Cats and all that other stupid baby bullshit. You can have it, it’s yours. But I was trying to do something nice for you guys. For us. So if you grow your balls back and decide that you want to come play with the big kids, you let me know. I’ll be out in the woods, blowing shit up with my dick. Everybody else can fucking fuck themselves—you most of all,” he said, jabbing a finger at Parker.

  “Nate, I’m asking you nicely here. That shit is not to be played with. Just go pour it out in the fucking creek or something, please,” Adam implored.

  A smile crept along Nate’s thin lips.

  “Nah, I think I’m good.”

  “Seriously?”

  Nate just kept smiling at him. Chloe watched Adam swallow back his irritation and turn to walk away. A second later, Nate did the same, carting his bomb-bag into the trees. Soon they could all hear the machine-gun popping of firecrackers, accompanied by Nate’s loud whooping.

  Chloe let out a sigh and went to join her cousin, who seemed to be trying to make himself as small and invisible as possible as he drove stake after stake into the earth. She couldn’t blame him for that; Nate’s shit had gone from cute to cancerous real fast.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  “I guess,” said Parker. “I don’t know. Yeah.”

  Chloe jerked her head in the direction Nate had stormed off. There was another rolling crackle of fireworks, farther away now.

  “I just want you to know, we all know that it’s not you,” she told Parker. “He’s the one who’s starting shit. None of this is your fault.”

  Parker nodded curtly. “Sure.”

  “And it’s not okay, what he said to you before,” she told him. “When we were hiking, and just now, about your … yeah.”

  “I know.”

  There was a nervous quaver in his voice, the sound of too much emotion welling up in the pit of his throat. She knew that sound well; it always came just before he started to cry. She’d heard it a lot in the last year.

  “Hey, I’ve got a present for you,” said Chloe.

  Parker looked at her. “What … ?”

  “Hold on,” she said, forcing a smile. “Let me get it.”

  She crossed over to her own tent and went inside to get her backpack, returning to kneel down next to her cousin. From inside, she pulled out a black package with two walkie-talkies sealed inside, COBRA 32-MILE RADIO written across the top. She handed it to Parker with a grin.

  “Ta-daaa! Just like when we were kids, camping out in Grandpa’s backyard,” she said. For a moment, the ghost of a smile crept into the corners of Parker’s lips.

  They’d done it a lot back then, when they were littler and the whole family would get together on Friday or Saturday nights for family dinners. They used to beg their parents to let them sleep over at Grandpa’s so they could camp out. They’d set up the tents in opposite corners of the old man’s big backyard and spend the night looking up at the stars and telling scary stories and going inside for microwaved s’mores.

  Parker was the one who had found the old walkie-talkies in Grandpa’s basement, buried in a steamer trunk full of old toys from when their parents were kids. They needed a fresh se
t of batteries, but they still worked fine. Chloe had beamed when he brought them out to the backyard.

  “Now we can talk even after we go to bed,” he’d said, eager in the way that only nine-year-olds could be.

  After that first time, the radios became a crucial element of any backyard camping trip, as important as the tents or cans of Coke or comic books. They’d talk to each other all night, sometimes even going to their tents early to chat wirelessly until one or both of them fell asleep in the glow of their dollar-store flashlights. It was nice, having him there with her the whole night through. She used to get scared of the dark. That was why she’d learned about the stars and the constellations in the first place; knowing about them made the darkness seem less scary. The stories made her feel less alone.

  Parker made her feel less alone.

  Chloe tapped a finger against the plastic packaging, smiling at her cousin.

  “This way I won’t lose track of you,” said Chloe.

  Parker smiled again, and for a second, he looked just like the little kid she remembered from way back then—the one who helped her set up her tent and then would lay in the grass next to her, listening raptly while she told him all about the different constellations and the ancient stories behind them.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Chloe asked. “Open ’em up. Let’s see what we’re working with here.”

  He unfolded his pocket knife and used it to split the hard plastic at the top, then pulled both radios free from the package and passed one over to Chloe. Parker turned his radio over a few times in his hands, then switched it on, checking the battery before clipping it to his belt.

  Chloe held her radio to her lips and pressed the talk button, her voice erupting staticky and speaker-loud from Parker’s hip: “You think these’ll really work from thirty-two miles away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” said Parker. “But even if they can do only half that, it’ll still be pretty cool. Thank you for this, Chloe. Really.”

  She gave him a side hug. “You’re welcome, really. Keep it on, just in case I have something brilliant to say and you’re not like, right next to me, okay? Channel six.”

  Parker reached down and switched his walkie-talkie over to the sixth band. It squawked and then settled back into silence. A second later, Chloe did the same.

  “Okay. All set.”

  “Awesome.”

  Eventually Nate came back, barefoot and sweaty from blowing off steam out among the trees. He didn’t say anything to Adam or anyone else when he returned, instead going over to his spot to haphazardly putting his tent together, muttering curse words to himself. He got this way sometimes, all moody and shitty. They’d learned that it was just best to let him sulk it out; he’d get over himself eventually.

  “Ignore him,” Chloe advised Parker. “Okay?”

  “He’s hard to ignore.”

  “Then just try your best, okay? Eventually he’ll calm down. He always does,” Chloe said, trying to believe it.

  Parker merely nodded in response, almost to himself. As if she wasn’t even there.

  Everything was fine. Everything was going to be fine.

  Chloe didn’t see what started the whole thing off, but later, if anybody had asked her, she’d have guessed probably nothing and would have been basically right on the money. Nate had been spoiling for a fight all day, after all, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she heard him start snarling at Parker again.

  “Okay, seriously, what’s your problem? Huh?”

  Normally, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but there was something in Nate’s voice—a hard, mean edge—that made her sit up and pay attention. Parker was sitting on the ground next to his tent, whittling a stick with his pocket knife while Nate glared at him from across the clearing, his eyes wide with rage.

  “I said, what the fuck are you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” said Parker.

  “Really? Because it sure seemed like you were staring at me,” Nate accused. “Were you not just staring at me? Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Whatever.” Parker went back to his whittling, angling the knife down and swiping another thin scroll of wood from the stick.

  “Whatever,” Nate mocked.

  “Nate, just once can’t you just fucking back off?” Adam called to him from across the firepit. “You’re just starting shit to start shit. You know he wasn’t—”

  “You back off, Jarvis,” Nate snapped, eyes still locked on Parker. “Hey. Hey. Look at me, you big freak. Look right here, in my eyes. I asked you a question. Were you or were you not staring at me? Tell the truth.”

  “I guess I was,” Parker said, keeping his eyes on the stick.

  “What the hell for?”

  “For nothing,” Parker said. “I was just looking.”

  “Fuck you, just looking,” Nate snarled, whipping a handful of dirt Parker’s way. “What exactly were you just looking at?”

  “You.”

  “Why?”

  Parker raised his head to look over at Nate. Chloe could see a messy mix of exhaustion, sorrow, and barely restrained rage on his face.

  “Because you’re doing it wrong.”

  “Doing what wrong?”

  “The tent,” Parker said with a sigh. “You’re putting the tent together wrong.”

  “Who gives a shit? You’re not sleeping in it, are you?”

  Parker held his eyes firmly on Nate. “No.”

  “Then what do you care?”

  “I guess I don’t.”

  “Fuckin’ right,” Nate said, sneering. “You know, I gotta tell you, man, you’ve been a real drag all this year, and I’m so sick of it, I really am.”

  “I’m … sorry?”

  “Sorry doesn’t count for shit if you’re not changing shit. You know, I think I speak for everyone when I say that if you’re going to act this way all night, maybe you should do it somewhere else. Away from us.”

  “Nate, seriously, lay off already,” Nicky said from beside the firepit. Next to her, Josh was blushing and averting his eyes. Nate shot her a sour look.

  “Don’t act like it’s not true, Nicoletta. All of you know what I’m talking about, don’t pretend like you don’t. He’s been acting like a champion asshole all year. And what he did to Kyle Terletsky?” Nate shook his head in disgust. “Guy had his jaw wired shut. You remember what he looked like. He’s going to be in a fucking neck brace until the middle of senior year, and what for? So Parker could express some anger? Fuck. That. I don’t want to live my life around that kind of psycho shit, do any of you?”

  None of them said anything. Not a single one spoke out against him or contradicted what he was saying. Nate was an asshole, but he wasn’t all the way wrong, either. Still, it didn’t take a super-genius to see he was taking it too far. Nate always took shit too far.

  Chloe saw real hurt in her cousin’s eyes—hurt mixed with fury and hate and fear and loneliness.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Parker mumbled.

  “You got a real funny way of showing that. But the thing is, even after you did it, all of these guys stuck by you, for some stupid reason.”

  “I didn’t ask them to.”

  “No shit.”

  Parker looked around at his friends, his face gray and fractured. Only Chloe met his eyes, but even she could barely hold his horrible, sodden gaze for a second before looking away. It was too much. Her lips and cheeks felt hot and puffy, and tears blurred the outside corners of her eyes, smudging out the edges of the world.

  “Nate, don’t,” she sputtered. “You know Terletsky was the one who started it, and … it’s not like that, it’s, it’s not.”

  “It’s exactly like that,” said Nate.

  Adam took a step closer to them. “Nate—”

  “What’d I say to you?” Nate snarled. “Stay. The fuck. Out of this, Adam.”

  “It’s fine,” Parker said, rising to his feet. “I get it.
I’ll go.”

  “Good. We don’t want you here anymore,” Nate said, his voice cold and hard. “Just go. Get out of here.”

  Parker’s shoulders fell. He dropped to one knee and started gathering up his sleeping bag and the rest of his stuff, packing it by handfuls into his backpack.

  He was really going to go. “Parker, don’t. Please. It’s him. It’s not you. It’s him.” Chloe reached a hand out to her cousin, but he shook his head at her, pulling his bag onto his shoulders as he stood again, keeping his eyes on the ground.

  “It’s fine. I get it,” Parker said, that wretched tension climbing in his voice again. “I can go. I’ll go. It’s okay.”

  “That’s the most reasonable thing you’ve said all day,” Nate jeered. “See you later, you piece of shit no-dad asshole.”

  Parker looked up and zeroed in on Nate, and for the second time in her life, Chloe saw something in her cousin’s eyes that scared her. The sadness and the pain were still there, but they had been frozen over by an icy hate that she’d seen in his eyes only once before, in the back of the van after what he’d done at White Castle. But even that didn’t hold a candle to what she was seeing now. Chloe had never seen this kind of hate in anyone before. It was like Parker had completely unplugged from himself.

  “Wha-what … what …” Parker stammered. “What did I do to you, Nate?”

  “You were born,” snarled Nate.

  “Okay, let’s all fucking quit it,” Chloe barked, but she could see it was too late to stop Nate now. He’d gone full tilt, his eyes wide and mean, his lips drawn back to show off every crooked, yellow tooth in his head. It was easy to see that even though he was keeping his face serious, he was enjoying this. He was having fun jamming knife after knife into Parker’s hide. And up until this point, Parker had just stood there and taken it. But for that awful freeze in his eyes, Chloe would have thought he was doing it still.

  Nate prowled across the clearing to stand close to Parker, gesturing broadly toward the rest of their friends.

  “None of them give a shit about you or your problems, dick. Up until now, they’ve just been pretending, to keep you quiet. But now that you’re leaving, I suppose we don’t have to worry about that much longer, do we?”