When GJ came back to consciousness, his head ached as did his arms. He realized after a moment, that he wasn’t lying on the floor, but he was standing. Actually, his knees were folded and he was dangling from the hook on that skinning post. A sharp slap in the face gave him clarity.
“You fucked with the wrong kid, vegan boy. I told you not to, but you got that counselor’s attention and then got me embarrassed. Well, that has consequences. That has punishment. See, I don’t like faggots, so I think you need to be taught a lesson.”
It was Roger. He was pacing back and forth, watching GJ as if he was prey.
“I’m not a faggot,” GJ managed.
“You are whatever I say you are.”
Roger yanked on the rope and it lifted GJ up until the balls of his feet barely reached the floor. He tied it off to a cleat that was bolted to one of the framing boards. Then he shoved a rag into GJ’s mouth and tied it in place with another.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be less stupid then.”
GJ’s eyes bulged as if they might roll out of his skull. He couldn’t believe he was going to be left there. Surely it was a joke. Some kind of initiation into Roger’s club. Where were Kota and Louis? Weren’t they supposed to come along at some point? He tried to shout, but a muffled grunt was all that escaped his gag. As the door closed and the crunching of footsteps in the dried leaves grew more faint, he began to cry.
*****
Roger walked for a while, then checked his watch. He smiled and started to run, jumping over fallen trees and ducking under low branches. When he reached the creek, he splashed water on his face, then ran along the creek bed all the way beyond the camp where he emerged from the eastern woods laughing.
“I win!” he shouted. “I win, I win, I win.”
A few of the other campers looked in his direction but mostly didn’t care. Kota cared. Kota smiled wide and hurried to his side. Louis followed.
“Where’s GJ?” Louis said.
“He’s coming. Couldn’t keep up with me is all.”
It was a perfect act. Roger looked back to the east as if GJ was actually going to pop out of the woods at any time and say, “Good race.”
The three waited, staring into the trees for a minute or more when Roger started to look nervous. The look was contagious and before long, Louis looked nervous too. Kota tried, but was not as convincing as his friend.
“He’s lost,” Roger said. “Holy shit, he got lost.”
His voice went up into a higher register, sounding for the first time like a child. “He’s lost!”
Counselor Mike rushed to see what the commotion was.
Roger acted upset, a bit frantic, and innocent. “I went into the woods…to the old dock on the east side…to show GJ. We raced back and he… he must’ve gotten lost. I was ahead of him, but not by that much. Maybe he fell?”
Mike nodded trying to take in all the information. “Wait, what were you doing at the old dock? That’s out of bounds.”
“I know, but I…I never thought this would happen.”
“Shit,” Mike said. “You never thought? Shit. That’s why we have out of bounds, Roger.”
“What is it, Mike?” Laura said.
“GJ’s out in the woods, somewhere on the east side of the lake. They were racing and I don’t know. Roger says he must’ve gotten lost on the way back,” Mike said.
“Why does trouble seem to follow you, Roger?” Laura said.
“We were just running, I promise. I know this place like the back of my hand. Been here every summer since I was six.”
Laura looked at him, searching for something in his face, a tell that he was lying, but at that moment, the boy looked as honest and pure as if he’d been lighting altar candles.
“You want me to go back and look for him?” Roger said.
“No,” Mike said. “We’ll get one of the rangers out here, maybe another counselor or two.”
“Should we call his parents?” Laura said.
“Not yet. Let’s give him a bit. He might show up on his own. Check the cabins, the dining hall and especially the bathrooms. I don’t want to cause an uproar until absolutely necessary.”
Louis sat on the steps of the cabin where he slept and watched in the woods for GJ to emerge as the park rangers and a pair of counselors showed up in a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee. The other campers stood around in groups and gossiped about what must have happened. Laura, the cute but round counselor held her hand to her mouth and looked as if she might cry.
GJ didn’t come running out of the woods, or walking out of the woods. They all stared to the east in anticipation. Roger and Kota stared as well.
“You put him in there?” Kota said.
“Safe and sound,” Roger said. “Well, I don’t know how safe he is.”
They both chuckled.
“Wicked,” Kota said.
As the sun was going down, the search party came back to the camp and Laura tried again to make contact with Mrs. Davis, and again, got no answer at the contact phone number. The park ranger called the local police where Mrs. Davis lived—about five hours away—and asked if they could track her down.
“Maybe she works nights,” she said.
The ranger nodded. “Maybe.”
“Not much out there. We’ve been from the old dock and back twice. Started fanning out, but the sun’s going down so there isn’t much more we can do tonight,” the other ranger said.
“What if something terrible happened? What are we going to do with the rest of these kids? Should we send them home? Close the camp until he’s found?” Mike said.
“Can’t,” Gavin replied. “Well, not all of them. Some of these kids’ parents are on vacation. It’d be at least a couple days before they could get here. We’ll have to do the best we can until then.”
“We should notify them all though, right?” Mike asked.
“Yeah. I guess we have to. This isn’t exactly a scraped knee or a bee sting,” Gavin said.
*****
GJ had stopped crying. He was working his hands against each other, trying to find a weakness in the dry-rotted rope. His calves were cramped from being on his tiptoes, but it was the only way he could get relief into his wrists and shoulders. He alternated hanging and trying to flex one leg at a time to give some relief, but there was little to be had. As the sun went down, he could feel the insects crawling on the sore lump on his head. He imagined them lapping at the drying crust of blood. He thought of other things when the biting flies and each mosquito sunk its proboscis into his flesh. It burned, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He wished Roger was in his place and he was a biting fly.
Day 3 Morning
Early that next morning, Mrs. Davis pulled into the camp and worried the rangers and a pair of sheriff’s deputies about the search. She smoked one cigarette after another and walked from one uniformed officer to the next. “Have you found anything?” She asked one. “What are we going to do next?” she asked another. “I should go look for him myself.”
“Mrs. Davis, we’re doing everything we can. The east side has been covered to the fenceline and back to the highway. We’ll start looking south and then west if we have to, and I have a team of divers on their way. We’ll bring in some dogs later if we don’t turn up anything,” the deputy said. “I can’t have you going out there. All I need is to have two inexperienced folks lost in these woods.”
“Divers? What for?” she asked.
The ranger frowned. “Well…to search the lake, ma’am.”
“Dear God. Do you think he’s drowned?”
“No ma’am, there’s nothing to indicate that. I just want to be as thorough as possible.”
She lit another cigarette and moved on to the other deputy. He replied in as kind a manner as he could. Some volunteers had joined the search party along with Mike and Gavin. The campers were left with Laura and a sheriff’s deputy named Alvin. Their job was to make sure the kids were fed
and accounted for. That made it much more difficult for Roger to do what he needed to do, but he had a plan.
“Laura, I feel sick,” he said. “I think I ate something bad.”
“Really?” she said. Her face showed signs of exhaustion as if she hadn’t slept the night before. “Why don’t you go lie down.” Then she looked at Kota.
“Yeah,” Kota said.
“Roger is sick. Get him back to your cabin and keep an eye on him for a little while, will ya?”
“Sure,” Kota said.
Roger put his hands over his belly and half-staggered back to the cabin. He climbed up the stairs and disappeared behind the door with Kota following.
“What are you doing?” Kota asked.
“Getting out of here. Cover for me, I’ll only be gone about an hour.”
“Sure. I’ll tell ‘em you got the shits or something.”
“That’s brilliant.”
Roger opened the back window of the cabin, climbed out and fell to the ground below. He looked toward the direction of the search party, then back where the police SUV was parked and saw the deputy talking to Mrs. Davis. Their backs were to him and it gave him the perfect opportunity to rush to the creek bed and disappear. He was out of sight and moving toward the hunter’s shack seconds.
*****
GJ moved his head in an attempt to fan away the flies, and they’d take to the air momentarily before landing again, little feet tickling that sensitive, throbbing lump on his head. He tasted iron in his saliva and smelled his own sweat. At some point during the night, he’d urinated on himself as well, and that ammonia smell of urine mingled with the rest.
When Roger walked in, it was almost a relief. GJ wanted to reason with him, to apologize if necessary. Anything to remove the gag and drink some water.
“Nice to see you again, faggot,” Roger said.
GJ mumbled help, but it was lost somewhere in that filthy rag.
“You had enough yet?”
GJ nodded. His permanent smile gone, replaced hours earlier with anger, then tears and now with exhaustion. His shoulders ached. His wrists stung, and the muscles in his feet and legs burned.
“You piss yourself? I hadn’t thought about that. That might draw the animals in. They aren’t vegan faggots like you. Nope. Bears, wolves, coyotes. They eat meat. Even the buzzards that are gonna show up once you’re mostly picked clean…they eat meat too. Funny, ain’t it? You’re gonna end up a pile of bird shit somewhere in these woods.”
GJ grimaced and a tear fell from his eye. He tried to plead, but even without the gag, it would only have come out as a hoarse, prolonged moan.
“You sorry for what you done to me?” Roger said.
GJ nodded. He didn’t know what he’d done. In fact, he hadn’t done anything. That counselor had seen Roger take his breakfast. It wasn’t GJ’s fault, but he didn’t care. He wanted relief.
“I didn’t hear you,” Roger said.
“Uh-huh,” GJ said through the gag.
He said it over and over until one of Roger’s fists connected with the left side of his nose and a fresh flash of light blinded him. He felt a new pain as the bolt of heat settled on the bridge of his nose and the flesh began to swell. Then another blast hit his right eye. Life became blurry.
“I’ll be back,” Roger said.
The last thing GJ remembered before he succumbed to the darkness was the sound and smell of Roger pissing on his feet.
*****
Laura walked over to Kota who was busy breaking twigs into little pieces and tossing them out into the grass.
“How’s he doing?” she said.
Kota looked over his shoulder and then back at her. “I just checked on him. He’s in the bathroom. Think something he ate gave him the squirts.”
“Oh,” Laura said. “That’s a disgusting way to put it, but I hope he feels better. Thanks for keeping an eye on him. With everything else that’s goin on…”
Kota interrupted her. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. Just gotta get it all out of his system I guess.”
“Right,” she said.
Laura walked back over to Mrs. Davis and hugged her, then led her to a table and asked her to have a seat. Mike brought over some coffee. Four men launched a boat into the lake. Three of them wore scuba gear. The lake only covered a few acres and wasn’t very deep. It would be a short exploration. Mrs. Davis burst into tears as she watched them head out into the water.
Roger climbed back into the same window and immediately went to the restroom where he washed his hands and face. After, he walked out onto the porch and sat next to Kota.
“Well?” Kota said.
“He’s still there.”
“Is he…”
“He ain’t dead,” Roger said.
“What are you gonna do with him?”
Roger pondered the question for a moment. “Hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I’ll let him go when I’m sure he’s scared enough. I beat him up pretty good.”
“You don’t think he’s scared enough now?” Kota said.
“I can’t let him go now. Not with all these people here.”
“You think they’re gonna leave while he’s still missing?”
Roger frowned. “I’ll go back and make sure he stays quiet.”
“How?”
Roger glared at Kota.
“I’m just worried he’ll talk?” Kota said.
“Maybe I should kill him then,” Roger said.
Kota’s face went pale. “What? Serious?”
“They’d never suspect me. I’m just a kid. Police would figure some maniac was loose in the woods and caught him before they’d suspect me,” Roger said.
“That sounds like a movie. Do you really think they’re that stupid? They’ll figure this all out. You’ve got to let him go,” Kota said. Then he stood up and started to walk off.
Roger grabbed his arm. “Where you going? I’m gonna need your help.”
“I don’t think so,” Kota said.
Roger’s face crumpled into something evil. “You aren’t thinking about telling the cops are you?”
Kota shook his head, his face still pale. He turned to leave, shaking off Roger’s grip just as Laura approached again.
“How you feeling, dude?” she said.
“Better,” Roger said.
“Yeah, like I told ya. The squirts. He just had to get empty,” Kota said. He took another look at Roger and then left to mingle amongst the rest of the campers.
*****
GJ woke late that evening to the sound of something pawing at the shack’s door. The noise alternated from sniffing to scratching and back. It could’ve been a dog or a coyote or a tyrannosaurus rex as far as he cared, he just didn’t want it to come inside.
His shoulders were on fire and his legs felt like pins and needles. He was having a hard time breathing. He was hungry, starving in fact and had never felt so thirsty in his life. Even the sweat had stopped rolling. His eyes itched and his tongue felt dry like cardboard.
Frustration was something he was familiar with, and it built up in his belly. He thought he might either shit his pants or vomit. What happened instead was a convulsive lurch that jerked one of his hands halfway through the knot. He stared up at the almost free hand with awe. GJ wiggled his fingers wondering if he’d broken any of them.
Day 4 Just Past Midnight
The search party kept moving through the woods with flashlights and lanterns. They’d covered the east and were starting on the southern section between the campground and the main highway. Another six foot chain-link fence lined the preserve at the highway and unless there was a reason GJ wanted out, no one planned on going beyond that fence just yet.
The dive team had come up empty but was continuing to look. Dogs were on their way from the local K-9 unit. Local being two hours away. In the cabin where Kota slept, where Louis lay and where GJ’s bed remained empty, Roger sat up. He was careful not to make any noise as he went to the bathroom. He
was careful as he came back to his bunk and grabbed his shoes and crept over to the rear window again.
Louis was watching. He’d been awake thinking about GJ and what it must be like to be lost in the woods. When Roger rolled out of the window, Louis followed. He picked up his own shoes and waited at the window until Roger was just out of sight and then climbed out the window himself. The moon was just past full, a waning gibbous that still cast plenty of light. Still, Louis lost sight of Roger and had to listen carefully for the crunching sounds of feet.
When his eyes adjusted, he saw fairly well and caught up just as Roger dropped down into the creek bed. Louis did the same, leaving enough distance between them to remain undetected. He snapped a couple twigs that he was sure Roger heard, but the boy pressed forward as if on a mission and when they approached the hunter’s shack, Roger started to chuckle.
Louis stayed outside, but listened at the old, broken window.
“They’re looking for you, vegan boy. They’re looking for you and I’ve got you,” Roger said.
Louis felt cold. He turned around and sprinted back to the camp. He was going to tell everyone. He was going to bring them back to that shack and he was going to save GJ.
*****
GJ worked the knot until his hand, raw from the rough twists of rope, slipped free. The relief that washed over him was great. It let him settle fully on one flat foot. His other hand was still somehow tied to the hook overhead, but with one loose, he could get the other. First, he pulled the gag free and spit out the ball of fabric. It filled him with hope, but just as he was about to start on the other hand, he heard the voice outside, and then the door creaked and opened. Roger stood there in the moonlight.
GJ let his hand drop limp to his side.
“My knots not tight enough? Doesn’t matter,” Roger said. “Nope it won’t matter a bit in a few minutes.”
GJ Groaned.
“Did you know there was a maniac loose at Camp Black Rock, vegan boy? A certified lunatic-sick-fuck-killer and he’s got you. There’s all sorts of folks looking for you right now. I hear they’re bringing in the dogs. That’s why I’ve got to hurry up. I don’t want them finding anything but a stinking corpse because I can’t trust you to keep your gay mouth shut.”