8.
The sky was still orange and bright, but soon it would be dark enough. Joan set her telescope up on the edge of the playing field and knelt down to examine the dials. Melissa and Courtney had gone to find Cindy, to argue with her again about letting them out late, but Joan knew better than to get her hopes up. There was no sense arguing with adults. No, Joan had decided to make the best of things. Eventually Melissa and Courtney would realize they weren’t getting anywhere, that they weren’t going to get anywhere, either, and then they’d be out here with her.
“Help me,” a voice said behind her. “Please you have to help me.” Joan turned to see Ricky stumbling toward her with mud streaked on his cheek. “I think there’s a dead body in the woods,” Ricky said. “I think there’s a dead body in the woods. You have to help me.” And he turned back to the woods before Joan could say anything.
“Wait,” she called, but Ricky was running back toward the tree line. The camp was the other way. Was he retarded? If there was a dead body, they should go for help. They should find a phone. She took a few steps after him and stopped. “Wait, Ricky!” she yelled. But he kept running, and was halfway to the trees now. If she went after him, she was every bit as stupid as Ricky. She looked down the hill toward where the road to the camp disappeared into the trees. If she didn’t stop him, though, he could be in danger. She started running after Ricky as fast as she could.
He was not a very good runner, but he had a head start. Joan ran hard, she was catching up, but he hit the tree line before she caught him. He went crashing into the brush. Joan pulled up short, stopping before she got to the ditch that ran along the tree line. She tried to catch her breath.
“Come on,” she called. “We’ll go get help and then come back. It’ll be safer that way.” There was no answer, not at first, but then the bushes shook a little. She could see Ricky now, standing with his back to her, looking down at something. He wasn’t very far into the trees.
“It’s okay, Joan,” Ricky said, and his voice didn’t sound scared anymore. She took a step down into the ditch, then stopped. She couldn’t see anyone else. So she climbed up into the bushes and pushed through until she was standing beside Ricky. There was no body on the ground. There was nothing here.
Ricky pushed Joan up against the tree and squeezed her shoulder with one hand. He kissed her face hard, his lips closed but his eyes open. She could feel the mud on his face against hers. With his other hand he grabbed at her chest, squeezing blindly. He pinched her skin through the shirt and then tried to grab between her legs. Joan twisted away and kicked him in the shin. She shoved him backward. Ricky stumbled back into the bushes and fell.
Joan ran.
* * *
John Dee found Tony standing in front of the tuck shop. Mitchell wasn’t with him, though. The head counsellor was laughing and talking with the woman who sold the chocolate bars and candy and drinks. His brown uniform was crisp and ironed. John Dee stood quietly, waiting for them to finish rather than interrupting them.
“Can I help you?” the tuck shop woman said, but John Dee shook his head and looked at the head counsellor.
“Have you seen my brother Mitchell?” he said, and Tony patted his hand on the tuck shop counter as a goodbye to the woman. The he motioned for John Dee to follow and headed up toward the cabins.
“I have indeed seen Mitchell,” he said. “You’re John? I just sent someone looking for you. Your brother’s up at the main building. He’s been there since this morning. I tried to calm him down, but there’s only so much I can do. I don’t think that camp life agrees with him. Fair enough, I suppose,” Tony put his hand on John Dee’s shoulder. “Not everyone is cut out for the outdoors, John. Personally, I think modern life has made people too delicate. We don’t get out and appreciate God’s work as often as we should any more. Look at how beautiful this is.” He gestured at the trees and the flowers and the sun and wind. At nature. “God’s handiwork, John, and we view it as a nuisance.”
“He’s at the main building?” John Dee said. “I was just up there, I didn’t see him.”
“I let him use the phone in the janitor’s office, in the basement,” Tony said. “He was upset. I thought maybe it would be embarrassing for him if the other campers saw him crying. I think he stayed down there to wait for your father.”
“Oh,” John Dee nodded. Of course he’d called their father. Fucking Mitchell. “So he’s going home?” He was going to be stuck here by himself now, while Mitchell went home to video games and air conditioning and internet.
“You both are,” Tony said. “Your father thought it would be best. Do you think you could fetch your bags, and Mitchell’s, from your cabin, and bring them up to the main building? It’s getting dark,” He smiled. “Your dad’ll be here soon. I’ll meet you up there.”
* * *
Martin waited while Melissa and Joan argued behind their cabin, Melissa insisting they had to tell their counsellor, Cindy, about Ricky grabbing Joan. Joan didn’t want to tell. They went back and forth, first about what would happen to Ricky, and then about whether he was just an idiot or if he was dangerous. Martin didn’t say anything. He listened and waited to see if there was anything he could do to help. In the end they asked Martin to tell Ricky to stay the fuck away from them.
“Tell him I will stab him in the face if he even comes near us again,” Melissa said.
“I appreciate it, Martin,” Joan said. She turned to Courtney. “Will you come with me to get my telescope?”
“Of course,” Courtney said. “What time is it? We have chapel soon, don’t we?”
“I just don’t want to argue any more,” Joan said. This conversation was more than Martin had heard Joan say the whole time he had known her.
Martin found Ricky sitting under the Flying Fox, drawing something in the dirt. He looked like he had been crying. Martin didn’t want to be angry. He wanted to be calm so that he could talk to Ricky. So he could explain why Ricky was wrong. Being angry got in the way of talking. But Ricky only had one response to Martin’s attempt to reason with him.
“What are you, a faggot?” Ricky said. He got up and shoved Martin hard. “You don’t like girls, faggot? You don’t think I should like girls, faggot?” He shoved Martin again, and Martin stumbled backward. “Faggot,” Ricky said, and that was the end of the discussion.
9.
John Dee set his suitcases beside Mitchell’s on the side steps of the main building. The parking lot was empty and the woods around the camp were dark. He wasn’t angry about going home anymore. At least at home, he would be able to watch TV. There were no mosquitoes in the city, either. And all his friends were there. Maybe Mitchell had done them both a favour.
He kicked Mitchell’s suitcase and looked around for his brother. Where was he? Was he still down in the basement crying? What a fucking sissy. It had been all day. Even Mitchell couldn’t cry this long, could he? Maybe there was a TV down there.
There was a sound from inside, like a chair being knocked over. John Dee looked up the steps at the screen door. Inside there was just darkness. Everyone else was down at the beach for a bonfire. He could hear them off in the distance. The only people in the building should be Mitchell and maybe Tony.
“Mitchell?” he called.
“Yes, it’s me,” a voice said from the darkness. It wasn’t Mitchell’s voice. It was high-pitched and too musical. It sounded like an adult pretending to be a child.
“What?” John Dee said. “Mitchell are you there?”
“Yes, it’s me, Mitchell,” the weird high-pitched voice said from inside. John Dee squinted his eyes, but he couldn’t see into the building more than a few feet.
It was definitely a man’s voice. Were Mitchell and Tony messing with him? This was too much. It was bad enough he had to sit out here with the suitcases all by himself. It was bad enough he had to wander this camp all day like an idiot, not knowing where his brother was. Before Tony explained things, John Dee had even been worried, at one point. He had been stupidly worried that his brother was hurt or that he’d been pulled out to sea by a strong current. Now his brother and Tony were in there, playing jokes. Making fun of him.
He stormed up the stairs and yanked the screen door open. It was silent inside. The light coming in through the windows only barely lit sections of the large main room.
“I swear to God, Mitchell,” John Dee started to say, but then Tony was there, stepping into view, already swinging the heavy sledgehammer through the air with both hands. It struck John Dee in the side of the head, just under his jaw and behind the ear. His head snapped to the side and the sledgehammer crushed bone somewhere in his neck. He staggered. If there was a sound, John Dee didn’t hear it.
Tony swung again. The sledgehammer hit him on the same side of the head, this time higher, on the ear. More bone broke, with a far away pulling feeling. John Dee tried to lift his hands to guard his face, but they wouldn’t move. Warm blood poured from his ear down his neck and under his shirt collar.
The lights came on in the main room and someone was standing just inside the door behind John Dee. It was one of the girls’ counsellors, Jackie. She was holding her nose, with her head tilted back, trying to stop her nosebleed. There was blood on her chin and her hands and down the front of her shirt. She stopped when she saw that she wasn’t alone.
It took her a second to figure out that something was wrong with the boy’s head. It was bent to the side, like he was trying to understand, but it was bent too far. Then he slumped to his knees, and forward, and Jackie could see the blood on the side of his face. Did he have a nosebleed, too? But then she looked at Tony, smiling at her, friendly as always, a bloody sledgehammer in his hands.
“Oh thank goodness you’re here,” he said. “I think this poor boy killed himself with a sledgehammer.”
* * *
“Didn’t there used to be more kids in your cabin?” Courtney said, gesturing with her roasted marshmallow on a stick to where Chip was trying to stop Ricky from whipping Adrian with his marshmallow stick. The only other kids here from the cabin were Gavin and William. Four kids. Five, counting Martin, out of ten.
“I think a couple of them went home today,” Martin said. He had seen John Dee packing his suitcase earlier. Martin had gone back to the cabin to make certain that his bed was made. “John Dee and Mitchell went home, for sure,” Martin said.
“Or DID THEY?” Melissa said in a spooky voice, holding the flashlight under her face.
* * *
Jackie struggled to get free, but she was tied to a chair. This was the basement of the main building, maybe. It was hard to know for sure. She’d never been down here and she was having a hard time thinking. Tony had dragged her down a flight of stairs. She knew that much.
The sledgehammer had broken her bottom front teeth. Some still had the roots, and those were jagged in her mouth, but some of the teeth were just gone. There was a wet kind of suction in the holes. It should hurt, shouldn’t it? But it didn’t feel like anything. Just that weird wet suction. She was in shock. She spat some blood on the floor.
Tony came into the room, dragging a body. It was too small to be an adult. Then Jackie remembered the boy. She had caught Tony killing a little boy. She struggled harder. He had crushed the kid’s head with a sledgehammer. Why? Why a little boy? Why was this happening? She could see other bodies now, pushed to the sides of the room against the wall. More dead kids? There were four bodies. No, five. Six, counting John Dee.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Tony said. “But I couldn’t leave that mess for someone else to clean up. That wouldn’t really be fair.”
“I, I,” Jackie said.
Tony reached up and took an axe off its hook on the wall. Then he turned back to the boy’s body, lifted the axe up, and brought it down hard. Jackie wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. He was chopping into the shoulder, pulling on the arm with his other hand, trying to separate it like a chicken drumstick. It took some work, but he finally got the arm off. It bent awkwardly at the elbow.
“Why?” Jackie said. “Why are you doing this?”
“I just always wanted to try it,” Tony said, standing up with the severed limb. He held it by the forearm, just above the small hand. “It probably won’t work,” he said, coming toward where Jackie was tied to the chair. He gripped the forearm with both hands like a baseball bat, and swung it so that the shoulder smashed Jackie in the face, mixing John Dee’s blood with her own. The blood got in her eyes, but she couldn’t wipe it out.
But John Dee’s shoulder didn’t do very much actual damage. It bloodied her face, it made a mess, and it gave a nice wet thunk every time Tony hit her, but it was not going to be enough.
“I was right,” he said. “It didn’t work.” He sighed and dropped the arm on the floor.
He wiped his hands on his pants, then he took the razor from his back pocket and folded it open. He cut Jackie’s throat as deeply as he could. He pushed the razor into her throat harder and harder, using her shoulder for leverage, until the blade scraped on bone.
10.
Cindy turned the shower knob toward the red just a bit more. It was sensitive. Even the slightest movement could turn the water from tepid to scalding in an instant, but she needed the water hot. It helped her calm down. The intensity of the heat on her skin cleared her mind.
She stood there, with her head against the shower wall, letting the scalding water turn her skin pink. She did not notice Ricky peering around the corner from the doorway. He could only see her from behind. Her blonde hair was dark with water.
Cindy sighed. The heat was working. She was calmer. After this, she could go back to her cabin and smile and laugh with the girls and she would try her best not to think about Chip and the things she would do to him later that night. She turned so that her back was against the wall tiles and she ran her hand down her stomach, and on down between her legs. She had small breasts and her nipples were at attention as she touched herself. Ricky drew his breath in sharply. He covered his mouth, but it was too late. Cindy was looking right at him.
Cindy saw Ricky watching, but she kept right on fingering herself. Let the little pervert watch. What did she care? Hell, maybe she should give him a show. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, opening her mouth and letting herself moan a bit more than she normally would. She used three fingers lightly, pushing and moving in a circle. Slow, then fast. She pulled at her nipple with her free hand.
It was too much. Ricky turned and ran. He stumbled out the front door and down the steps and right into Tony. The head counsellor looked puzzled at Ricky’s presence.
“I was,” Ricky said, backing away toward the cabins. “I was just going back to my cabin,” he said. He had gone into the wrong washrooms by mistake. That was all. Tony smiled and nodded. Ricky smiled back, then turned and ran toward his cabin, relieved to have gotten away with it. He hadn’t even noticed the axe in Tony’s hands.
Inside, under the hot jets of water, Cindy was getting more worked up. She let out another moan, even louder than before, then she heard a sound halfway across the room. Probably Ricky coming closer, trying to get a better look. Maybe building up the courage to try and touch her.
“Don’t push your luck, kid,” Cindy said. But she kept her eyes closed and did not stop touching herself. Being watched made her feel dirty. She was close to coming. So close.
With her eyes closed, she didn’t see Tony. He lifted the axe into the air, and then brought it down hard with both hands into the crook between her neck and shoulder. She thought the bright pain was an orgasm at first, but it was too bright and there was too much of an edge to it.
The axe cut deep and her feet slipped out from under her. She fell onto her ass. She opened her eyes, and looked up to watch as Tony put his foot against her chest, and tried to yank the axe out of the bone. It was stuck. Tony pushed his foot harder, working the axe up and down a bit while Cindy watched him. It finally came free and she felt that empty faraway sleepiness that she felt after she came. She could just curl up here on the tiles and sleep. She closed her eyes and laid her head on the tile floor, which felt soft and warm. Tony struck her again. Cindy didn’t notice.
The shower washed away the blood as it spilled out of her, running across her cheek and away down the drain. Tony turned the shower off, then knelt beside her. He ran his fingers through her hair.
“I would probably look good as a blonde,” he said. “Don’t you think?” She didn’t answer him, but there was a mirror on the far wall. He could see for himself. Tony pulled his razor out, then he started to carefully remove her scalp.
* * *
Ricky came running into the cabin, the screen door banging. He stopped when he saw Martin sitting and folding clothes. Martin didn’t look up. It was better if he ignored Ricky and Ricky ignored him. He wanted someone to hurt Ricky. He wanted Melissa and Courtney to beat the hell out of him. He deserved it for trying to hurt Joan. But there was nothing Martin could do himself. So it was better if they ignored each other.
Ricky turned and went into the other room. Martin listened to him stop, then come back to the front door.
“Where’s Adrian?” Ricky said, “Or Gavin?”
“Still down at the beach, maybe.” Martin said. “How should I know?” He still didn’t look at the other boy. There were always flies in the window, beating themselves against the glass. Martin watched them and waited for Ricky to leave. Or threaten him again.
“Well, where’s Chip?” Ricky said.
“He’s gone to the showers,” Martin told him. Ricky turned and walked out without another word. Good riddance. Martin liked it here in the cabin by himself. It was quiet and cool with no one around. There was a cool breeze on his legs. There never seemed to be a breeze when the other campers were here. It was always loud and suffocating.
Martin set his clothes for the next day on top of his suitcase, neatly folded. He still had half an hour before the computer room was off-limits in the main house. Tonight he would send his mother another email. Just something she would see when she woke up, to remind her that he loved her. A picture of him making a face or vomiting tomato juice fake blood with a bed sheet noose around his neck.
“Hey,” a voice called from outside. “Hey, Martin.” The door was still open, screen and all. Outside, Melissa and Courtney and Joan each had a telescope in their arms. It was Joan who had spoken. “Do you want to see a comet?” Joan said.
“I thought we weren’t allowed?” Martin said.
“Cindy’s busy off making out with Chip,” Melissa said. “And we’re supposed to just sit on our beds and wait? Fuck that.”
“So are you in?” Courtney said.
“Yes,” Martin said. “Yes, I am.”
* * *
Chip turned the shower up hotter. He liked it hot. It made him grimace and grimacing made him feel like the star of an old Western. When the water was too hot, it was something to endure. A challenge. He stood in the water, not washing himself or anything, just enduring the heat and grimacing. It was nice to have this time to himself without those fucking children around. Eventually he reached out and turned the water down to a more reasonable temperature so that he could wash. The warm water felt cool by comparison.
He stood facing the wall, rubbing the soap through his chest hair, then up and down each of his arms. He soaped the muscles on his upper arms and his shoulders. While he washed, he thought about soaping up Cindy’s body, running the bar over her breasts, circling her nipples. He imagined the suds on her body while her boyfriend stood watching them. Chip felt himself getting hard, and reached down to stroke his penis.
He didn’t notice Ricky, peeking around the corner into the shower, watching as Chip stroked himself. Chip put his free arm against the wall for support. He pictured Cindy on her knees in front of him, while her boyfriend watched, powerless to stop them, getting angry but also a bit turned on. After a while, Cindy’s boyfriend was stroking an erection through his pants while his girl sucked off another man.
The water was still a bit too hot. Chip grabbed the shower knob, making it cooler on his skin. The boyfriend thing wasn’t sexy enough. He needed something else. Chip turned and leaned back against the wall while he jerked off, imagining Cindy in a short skirt with no panties on underneath. She was climbing a ladder, just high enough that he could almost see her pussy. Then she stopped and came back down. She climbed up again, slower this time, a gentle breeze swishing the material of her skirt, promising him a view. But it never moved the material quite far enough.
He heard a small gasp and opened his eyes, startled back to reality. Ricky was watching him, peeking from the doorway. Chip stared at him for a second. Whatever. That was fine, Chip thought, let the little pervert watch. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. He pictured Cindy on the ladder again, this time holding a metre stick, like his elementary school teacher Mrs. North. Chip reached his other hand down to cup his balls. He pictured Cindy climbing up that ladder again. Oh, what a slut, he thought. Climb up. Higher. Higher. But never high enough.
Then one of the bathroom stalls kicked open from inside, the metal door slamming open with a clang. It was Tony. It looked like Tony, anyway. He was wearing a counsellor’s uniform and what looked like a wet blonde wig, strands of hair clinging to his forehead.
“Hi, Chip,” Tony said in a high-pitched falsetto. “It’s me, Cindy,” he said and drew the axe out from behind his back. Chip let go of his dick and raised his arms to cover his face. The axe went low, though, chopping into Chip’s knee from the side. He staggered, but stayed upright.
“Oh,” Chip said. He looked down at gash where the axe had struck him. He let his hands fall to his sides. Tony struck his knee again, the axe cutting further this time. This wasn’t right, Chip thought. He looked around for where he had left his underwear. This wasn’t supposed to happen with no clothes on. He put his hands over his dick, protecting himself as Tony pulled back for another blow. This time the axe made it most of the way through his knee. The join was split and the kneecap hung from the bottom part of his leg.
Ricky watched in horror from the doorway. Chip fell to the side and didn’t lift his hands to cushion his fall. He looked like a tree falling over in the forest, tearing free of its stump.
“Why?” Chip said. He was on his side now, looking up at Tony. “Why are you doing this?” His voice was weirdly calm. He sounded like he was asking an everyday question. What time is chapel tonight? Where did you get that watch? “Why are you doing this?” he said again.
“It’s not me,” Tony said, kneeling down beside him. Blood was pooling around Tony’s sneakers. Chip looked confused and pale. He was still covering himself. “It’s you, Chip,” Tony said. “You still don’t understand, do you?” Chip’s head was lolling a bit. “It’s been you all along! You went crazy and killed Cindy. You killed those children.”
“No,” Chip said. He couldn’t think properly. “I didn’t kill, I didn’t kill anyone, did I?” Tony poked him in the bloody knee with the axe. The lower half of Chip’s leg was barely attached any more, connected with some tendons. Chip screamed and Tony jumped to his feet with a laugh.
“I’m just kidding, Chip!” Tony said. “It was me!” And with that he stepped back and tilted his head at the naked man. Then he practice swung the axe, like a golf club, lining up his shot before his real swing, up into Chip’s face.
“Gah!” Ricky said, and then clamped his hand over his mouth. Tony looked over at him, and gave a small wave.
“Hi!” he said.
* * *
“Gaaaaaah!” Ricky burst out of the shower building, running toward where Adrian and Gavin were standing. The two were at the base of the Flying Fox zip line, waiting for William to come swinging down so they could have their turns. They heard Ricky but had no idea what the sound was, at first. It was Adrian who spotted him, running their way. Tony was right behind him, axe in hand.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Ricky said as he passed Adrian. He should tell them to run. But all he could think about was getting away. Into the woods. To the highway. How far was the highway? He kept running. They would run. They would see Tony and the axe and they would run. The woods were right there. And the highway couldn’t be that far, could it? Up to the road where the driveway broke off, and then down that road for how long? Oh God, how long had that dirt road been?
“What?” Adrian said, turning to watch Ricky run. “Ha ha, where’s the fire?” Adrian said, and then Tony was on him, bashing him in the back of the skull with the blunt side of the axe head, knocking Adrian facedown.
“What the fuck!” Gavin said. William was sliding toward them on the zip line now, lifting his feet and whooping. Tony brought the axe down on the back of Adrian’s neck, again and again, right where the spine met the head. He still had Cindy’s scalp on his head like a wig, it was slipping off with each swing of the axe. He swung so hard that Cindy’s scalp fell off his head, onto his shoulder, landing with the clammy inside of her skin facing up.
William landed beside them and stopped laughing when he saw Adrian on the ground. Tony hacked at Adrian’s body until he broke through the spine, and the dirt clung to the bloody axe blade like sand on wet bare feet. The body and head were separated.
Tony kicked the head. It rolled!
Gavin took off running after Ricky, but William just stood there, his mouth agape. Tony smiled at him and tried to catch his breath, leaning on the axe handle. He held his hands out to William, to show that he meant no harm. William looked at Adrian’s head in the dirt, the eyes open, the face smudged, and thought about his dog, Jeffy. Jeffy’s eyes had looked just like that when William had found him lying there in the snow. Tony walked over and patted William on the shoulder. The axe was gone.
“I am out of shape!” Tony said. “Hoo, boy!”
“I,” William said, but he never got to finish his sentence. Tony grabbed him by the back of his head, and flicked a straight razor open. He pushed William against the wooden post of the Flying Fox and held him by the jaw. William tried to struggle free, but Tony was already pushing the blade into his throat, and there wasn’t much struggle left in him after that.
“Ready or not,” Tony yelled in the direction of the two fleeing boys, “here I come!” He wiped his blade on William’s face to clean it and dropped the body in the dirt.