The road leading toward the outskirts of Hacklebarney State Park was nothing more unusual than a two-lane byway that once benefited from a fresh shell of asphalt back in the 70’s. Kip and Bruce hiked most of the five-mile jaunt without encountering a single vehicle or pedestrian footprint. By mid-morning they arrived at the conspicuous road sign partially visible along the verdant tree line. Just beneath this marker, Kip spotted a narrower dirt trail moderately overgrown by weeds and wild flowers. He rechecked the map to make sure he had followed the course as Mark intended.
“Before we go any farther, I just want to see if I have my bearings straight.”
“If you want a Bering Straight, go to Alaska,” Bruce remarked. “This is the right place. Can’t you see the big “X” on that sign? I feel like I’ve seen this Provine before.”
“You mean province,” Kip said. “A ‘province’ is a place.”
“When did you become an pedagogue, Ichabod? Stop correcting everybody. It’s annoying as bleep. And for the record, I didn’t misspeak. Sometimes you don’t know as much as you think you know.”
Kip might’ve argued his point of view, but they both had more essential matters to discern. For instance, the map neglected to account for the emergence of a boy who couldn’t have been older than six. He pedaled a red and white tricycle along the dusty path, seemingly oblivious to the solitude around him. Kip checked the roadway in both directions. He couldn’t see a parent or guardian anywhere near the child. Furthermore, there wasn’t a house or visible structure within a mile from any perspective. The boy rode in a random pattern along the trail but never deviated from its surface.
“Who’s the tyke on the trike?” Bruce asked ponderously.
“Looks like a little boy,” Kip mused. “Do you think he’s lost?”
The beagle eyed the boy with more scrutiny before he said, “Either that his mother dropped him off on the wrong street corner.” As Kip and Bruce edged closer, the boy still didn’t acknowledge their presence. He continued to pedal erratically up and down the path, and then in circles as if he had no apparent destination.
“Holy harbinger,” Bruce woofed. “Did you get a gander at that kid’s outfit? He’s wearing a black tie, hat, and short pants.”
“So?”
“C’mon, throw me a bone here, Kip. Don’t you see it? He’s dressed just like that demonic kid from The Omen.”
“You’re insane,” Kip said. “This is real life, Bruce. Not everything relates to a movie or a television show.”
“Then why do I hear Goldsmith’s devil theme music in my head right now?”
“Because you’re warped between your floppy ears. I can’t do this much longer. Maybe W.C. Fields gave some good advice when warned people to never work with animals or children.”
“Well, it’s too late for you, my little Kipadee, because you weren’t banking on depositing two dicks, were ya?”
“Did you just say ‘dicks’? Isn’t that a curse word? I thought your chip bleeped out all the bad words?”
“Contextually, you’re right,” Bruce explained, “but since ‘dick’ can also be a moniker for the name ‘Richard’ or a private investigator, the chip doesn’t pick it up all the time.”
“That’s shrewd on your part, Bruce.”
“What can I say? I’m a tricky dick.”
Kip decided to nix that which he couldn’t control; in this case the beagle’s overactive obsession almost had him losing his mind. Even still, he approached the child a bit more cautiously than he would have done so otherwise.
“Hello,” Kip called out to the kid. The boy lifted his pale, oval head, hurling a glare in their direction as piercing as a javelin. “Whoa,” Kip said to Bruce. “He doesn’t look very sociable.”
“If your mother was a jackal, you’d be a tad unfriendly, too, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m sure he’s just frightened and confused. This is no place for a boy his age to be riding his tricycle.”
“I agree. I bet he’d much rather cycle across hardwood floors on a banister-lined corridor.”
“Don’t be so judgmental. The boy is here all by himself.”
“You’re right. I’m sure he’s a good son, and his parents just left him home alone. So what if he’s eyes are blacker than liquorish-flavored jelly beans?”
“I thought you were gonna say his eyes are black like a doll’s eyes.”
“Why would I?”
“Ah, never mind.”
Kip showed his graciousness by stepping in front of the path. The boy continued to zoom toward him on the tricycle, showing no indication of braking. Bruce had enough common sense to jump into a patch of weeds and wild herbs growing beside the trail, but Kip maintained his stance and held out his hand to grab the tricycle’s handlebar. The boy still pedaled his feet furiously, but his progress stalled abruptly.
“Can you slow down for a minute?” Kip asked the boy. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”
“Check behind his ears,” Bruce advised from the underbrush. “If you see anything that resembles three 6’s, I’ll meet you at the next available church, sans Gregory Peck.”
The boy looked startled, but Kip wasn’t sure if the kid heard the beagle talk or not. He decided to adopt a gentler approach with the child. “Are you okay? Where are your parents?” The rebellious boy refused to answer or offer any suggestion to what his purpose was on this particular trail. Because he was conditioned to do so, Kip glanced at the child’s hands to make sure he hadn’t been chipped. He couldn’t distinguish any visible wound. “Where do you live?” Kip asked him.
The boy merely shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure it’s at the Bramford,” Bruce cried from a rosemary bush. “When he gets back home, tell him to give Yoko the finger for me.” Kip pretended not to hear the beagle, and it was a prudent choice indeed.
“Are you lost?” Kip questioned the lad again, showing resilience that surprised Bruce and maybe even himself. The boy shook his head from side to side. “Why are you riding your bike out here on this road all by yourself?”
“It’s not a bike,” the little one said bluntly. “Bikes have two wheels. Mine has three.”
“Ah, so you can speak after all,” Kip said.
“And count, too,” Bruce added. “He’s just being a little thorn in your side.”
The boy’s attention eventually transferred from Kip to the camouflage where Bruce remained unconvincingly hidden. “How did you teach your dog to talk?” the boy asked Kip.
“Oh, that’s a long story, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Bruce felt secure enough to scuttle from the weeds, but he still refused to venture too near the child. He sniffed at the air in a bid to assess the boy’s scent, but couldn’t yet determine what kind of vibe this child threw off.
“What are you sniffing at?” the boy asked the beagle.
“Step away from the trike,” Bruce demanded.
“You’re acting like a policeman who can’t act,” said the boy.
“Just checking for tannis root. We don’t need any fungus among us,” Bruce said.
“Tannis isn’t even a real root, you know,” the boy said eruditely.
“Whoopee, neither were the roots in Andre Agassi’s hair. Thanks for your viewpoint,” Bruce returned.
“You’re a very mean dog,” the boy remarked.
“Did your mother ever take you to the zoo, kid?” Bruce questioned.
“Once.”
“What’s your name? And it better not start with the letter “D”.
“Harvey.”
“Really? I was gonna say you look like a Spencer or a Stephen, but Harvey suits you nearly as well as your funeral suit.”
“That’s enough, Bruce,” Kip said before addressing the boy again. “Don’t take what my dog says personally. He’s very ill-tempered, and probably constipated.”
“It’s okay. I also have a dog that’s sort of weird,” Harvey said.
“And a domineering nanny, too, I bet,” Bruce gibed.
r />
“Look,” Kip continued, “we didn’t mean to stop you from riding your bike...I mean trike. I suppose we just weren’t expecting to see anyone your age out here all by himself.”
“I’m usually by myself,” Harvey confessed.
“Why? Don’t you have any friends?” Kip asked.
“Spawns of Satan don’t usually get too many hits on Facebook,” Bruce noted.
“Bruce, please!” Kip scolded. “Doesn’t your chip come with any social filters?”
“Nada. I’m like a Camel cigarette. Smoke and choke on me, baby.”
Before Kip pivoted his attention back to the child, the boy dismounted his tricycle and toddled over to the nearest stick on the trail. Kip and Bruce watched in silence as the boy picked up the stick scrawled a message into the dirt pathway with its shredded tip. After he finished, Harvey returned to his tricycle and sat back on its padded seat. Without uttering another word, the boy started to pedal away. In true form, he offered one last closed-mouth smile before departing. Bruce heard the chorus from Goldsmith’s “Ave Satani” in his head again.
“Hey, Harvey,” Kip shouted. “Where are you going?”
“Back to his crypt, where do you think?” Bruce said. “Either there or a military academy where he can hone his craft.” Bruce then shouted his own parting shot to the fleeing child. “Say hello to Bugenhagen for me!”
“Who’s Bugenhagen?” Kip asked.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s been underground for a long time now.”
Kip paced over to the path where the boy had written words in all capital letters in the dirt. The message read: “BE I ALONE TO SAVE HIM.” Kip read the words aloud several times before turning back toward Bruce for some clarity. When one consulted with a beagle for logic, things were beyond a bit strange.
“What does that message mean, Bruce?”
“Beats the bleep out of me,” Bruce responded. “But the kid must be Yoda’s lovechild. His syntax is horrific.”
“Seriously, this must mean something important. It’s not everyday that a random boy on a trike scratches a cryptic phrase in the dirt with a stick.”
“Granted, this would be a first for such an occurrence,” Bruce agreed.
“Well, what do you think it means?”
“Mama Mia! Do I look like Robert Langdon to you? How am I supposed to figure it out? Let’s not forget whose the master and the dog in this exchange, okay?”
“Sorry. I just thought you were smarter than me for a minute. What was I thinking?”
“As usual, you weren’t.”
Kip was roaming in front of the pathway now, almost as if he rode a trike from hell himself. “Are you insinuating that I’m a bad spy?”
“Let me just put it this way. Unless you represented George Lazenby in the late 60’s, you’re not worst agent in history. But you’re not exactly Brian Epstein either. Now stop beetling around and look at the words and try to make something out of them.”
Kip concentrated on the phrase again, reciting the words repeatedly in his thoughts like a defective voice recorder. “Who is the “I” and “Him” in this scenario? And which one of us is supposed to be alone?”
“Good questions. But you’re still thinking in one direction. That’s trendy if you’re in a British boy band, but otherwise you’ll be as clueless as Professor Plum without Parker Brothers.”
“I can’t help it. I think in linear form. What should I do?”
“Try mixing up a few letters and making new words. My aunt and gram used to do that.”
“You knew your relatives?”
“Noppers. That’s what we call a joke here in the land of the living, Kip. Can’t a dog have a little fun with puns?”
It wasn’t because of a lack of effort that Kip failed in his endeavor to decipher the phrase’s meaning. But Kip didn’t need to channel Mick Jagger to know that time wasn’t on his side. Brue had grown impatient with the delay, and he suspected that they were in a precarious situation by standing idle reading esoteric passages in the dirt.
“I hate to break up your little tabula rasa,” Bruce indicated, “but we still got a play date to make at a bunker with a broad.”
“I know, but I can’t help but to think that this is a sign,” Kip insisted.
“What does Shyamalan got to do with any of this? He nuked the fridge years before Indy ever dodged the bomb.”
“Not Signs—a sign. Stop being so asinine on purpose.”
“Hey, watch your mouth, or I’ll give Mel Gibson your phone number.”
“Look, Bruce, maybe you had the right idea about that kid. I mean he just appeared out of nowhere. Maybe he really is a bad seed.”
“You’re right. He’s kind of like a made-for-TV sequel. Omen IV still makes me regurgitate in my own mouth every time I think of it.”
“Do you think Harvey really wanted us to stay off this path? Maybe we should find another route.”
“Why don’t we just stick to the plan and the trail Mark mapped out?
“How hard could it be to find an alternate way to the bunker? All we have to do is keep traveling north.”
“Trust me, Kip, you don’t want to venture too far north,” Bruce advised.
“Why not?”
“Because there’s nowhere left to go but south after that. Just ask Rob Reiner.”
“Alright,” Kip said reluctantly. “But why should I trust you?”
“Because unlike some aforementioned directors, I got a six sense for recognizing crappy ideas after the Six Sense.”
“As you wish. But you don’t have to talk to me like I’m the village idiot, you know.”
“How about if I just talk to you like you were cast in The Village? Same difference.”
“You really gotta work on being a little more considerate, Bruce.”
“Sorry. I flunked sensitivity training in obedience school. If you want to drift into emotional platitudes, go sit on Dr. Phil’s couch, because this dog don’t hunt that way.”
With little ado and nothing else but to do, Kip and Bruce resumed their hike down a dirt trail that followed the Black River deep into New Jersey’s woodlands. By now, both of them wished that the final conflict of this day was past, but they weren’t big believers in fairy tales or trilogies. The crux of their journey still resided somewhere in the future.
Chapter 24