Shadows

I hated the walls.  I’d never been to summer camp before, but the cabins didn’t seem to be built to code.  The worn, wooden planks that made the walls of the two-decades-old cabin were in such disrepair there were gaps between them, some big enough to fit my hand.  The wind whistled through them like water through a sieve.  I knew I should have packed extra blankets.  It was going to be cold at night.

Worse still, they hadn’t been painted in years.  The ugly green paint—lead based with my luck—was chipping off both outside and in, covering the floors and bunk beds that lined the perimeter of the room with a sickening lime dandruff.  There were nine rusty bunks in all, each one also chipping gaudy paint the color of ripe penicillin.

Unfortunately, the “ventilation” in the cabin didn’t do much to relieve it of the intolerable stench of urine in the air.  Some of the old, torn mattresses were saturated with the overlapping yellow stains that marked the territories of previous young guests at Camp Rivercreek.  I never understood the name, by the way.  The nearest body of water was a lake ten miles away which, as you could guess, was neither a river nor a creek. 

As I hunted for the most sanitary bunk I could find, the aging, splintering floor boards creaked, threatening to cave in underfoot.  I wondered what I did to deserve being sent to this place that could, without much protest, be considered a new circle Hell.  I hadn’t done anything wrong, I remember that much.  My father felt I needed to learn how to be a man.  I was fourteen that summer.  It was late June when I arrived and I had no intentions of becoming a man until I was old enough to vote. 

Apparently, this camping trip was my psychiatrist’s idea.  I visited him twice a week after school at my mother’s insistence.  She never could accept how few friends I had and was certain there was something wrong with me.  I didn’t think I needed him, of course.  I felt I was simply being more reasonable than everybody else, but my parents, teachers, and practically everyone else I knew thought I was a bit too far on the paranoid and phobic side of sanity for their comfort. 

Okay, so I didn’t like to be in contact with anything that possibly carried harmful pathogens.  I may have also kept latex gloves and other cleaning supplies in my backpack at all times.  That didn’t make me crazy.  That meant I was prepared.

Anyway, my therapist heard about the camp from a colleague who sent his son there every summer.  “Turns boys into men,” he said.  Yippee for me.

I finally found a tolerable mattress—a bottom bunk on the left hand side of Cabin Five.  Sadly, there were eleven other cabins exactly like this one.  The bed still reeked of urine, but none of the springs were showing.  I dropped my backpack and pulled out my gloves and a dust mask to cover my mouth and nose.  Once protected, I sprayed a layer of disinfectant over the mattress before flipping it over to spray the other side.  Fortunately, the underside was cleaner—that is less stained—than the other.  I pulled out a plastic bed liner and applied it to the mattress before adding my sheets and blankets.

By this time, the other boys were starting to arrive.  I asked my parents to drop me off early after they confiscated my cleaning supplies.  Not realizing I already stashed a backup supply in the car, they thought I was actually excited to go camping.  I just wanted time to sanitize the place. 

The campers arrived slowly over the course of a couple hours.  Some were dropped off by their parents.  Others came in loud, old, buses that smelled of carcinogens and burnt oil.  They were painted various shades of the repulsive green.  The camp’s name was written in large yellow letters on the sides.

As I had never been to summer camp before, I didn’t really know anyone.  There was a person or two I recognized from school, but I was never one for socializing.  The rowdy campers bounded across the dusty parking lot to meet their friends in front of the meeting hall.  I stood in the doorway watching them as they divided into social groups.  Two of them came towards the cabin.  I went back to work.

“So, Tad got it into his head to jump from the tree in his back yard to his roof, right?” one of them was saying as they entered.  They were about the same age as me.  One was a bit taller though, with light brown hair.  The one talking was shorter and heftier with black hair.

“What?” the tall kid asked incredulously.  “Really?”

“I’m not joking!”  He dropped his duffel bag next to the first bunk he saw—without inspection—and continued with a slight snicker.  “So, he climbs the tree and finds the fattest branch, right?  Then, he walks out as close to the house as he can get and starts to bounce on the branch like a diving board!”

“Did he make it, Ray?”  The tall kid selected the bunk next to his friend—also without so much as a glance at the cotton-lined Petri dish he was going to sleep in that night.

“Do you see him here?”  Ray held his arms held out, sweeping the room.  “The branch snapped before he could even jump.”  They both laughed.  “He broke his leg when he hit the ground!” he spoke between breaths.  “Oh, you shoulda seen it, Theo!  He just lied there, cryin’ and bleedin’ in the dirt!”

“Did you see the bone?”

“Nah.  It was just bent funny.”

The thought sent shivers up my spine.  My breakfast threatened to make a second appearance.  I kept my composure and decided I didn’t want to get to know any of these people.  How I was the one everyone thought was crazy was beyond me. 

I pulled out the bulk package of mouse traps I purchased with my allowance the week before, opened it, and began to set them under my bed.  I didn’t bother with bait.  The goal was to defend, not attract.

“What are you doing?”  At first, I didn’t realize Theo was speaking to me.  “Hey, new guy!  What’re you doing?”

I continued to set the traps.  “What does it look like?  Rodents are carriers of rabies, Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis, and a host of other diseases—not the least of which was the plague.”  Another trap was gently set in place.

They both just stared at me.  “Dude, you are weird,” Ray responded, stressing every word.  Laughing all the while, he and Theo ran outside to greet a newly arrived bus delivering a fresh batch.  I set another trap.

The first couple of days went as well as I could have hoped, though I didn’t sleep well.  The wind howling through the walls and the scratching movements of hidden mice scurrying under the floorboards kept me as vigilant as a night watchman.  On the third night, one of those vile rodents met his fate scampering into one of my traps.  I must have set them all too close together because every single one was triggered in a wave like dominos, waking every camper in the cabin.  After a few minutes of arguing and insult throwing, they took my traps and went back to sleep, leaving me awake in the night without anything to protect me.

I avoided every one of them after that night.  It wasn’t difficult.  They pretty much left me alone, too.  No one wants to socialize with a so-called psychopath. 

The following Saturday morning, about a week into my stay, the entire camp loaded onto buses to venture over to the lake.  You can imagine my glee.  The thought of swimming in muddy, untreated water filled with filthy, stinking fish nauseated me.  I tried to protest, to feign illness, but was waved off by the camp staff at each attempt.  They already knew me too well.  I packed a change of clothes and some disinfectant wipes into my backpack and got onto the bus.

The other boys were all rowdy and excited, sitting towards the back.  They talked and laughed with each other.  A beach ball was tossed back and forth.  We hadn’t even gone anywhere and they were already enjoying themselves.  I admit there were times when I wished I could join them, but it was impossible.  God knows where that ball had been.  I sat up front, away from them, in counselor territory.

“You guys ready for some fun today?” Counselor Troy spoke loudly and with more enthusiasm than was necessary, which was how he spoke most of the time.  He was practically the model for a satirical summer camp counselor—childlike, slightly overweight, and balding.

Unified cheers rose from the back of the bus.

Troy squeezed into the driver’s seat and closed the door.  “Okay!  Here we go!”

The caravan arrived at the lake fifteen minutes later.  It was larger than I imagined, surrounded on three sides by a lush, evergreen forest with trees 30 feet high.  A row of identical condos, differing only slightly in color, dominated the opposite shore.  The water was a dull blue out near the center, but it was murkier closer to the beach.  The occasional ripple here and there signaled the presence of fish under the calm water.  As a photograph, even I would admit it was a beautiful place, but even beautiful things can be dangerous.  There was no way I was setting foot in the water.

The brakes hissed.  Troy pulled the lever to open the doors.  A stampede of children erupted from the bus and charged down the sandy embankment.  I emerged last, stepping quietly into the hot sun while I pulled my baseball cap tightly onto my head.  I sat at a picnic table midway up the beach, watching the others splash around while I applied my third coat of sun block.

“Your name’s Wyatt, right?”  Troy approached with his fists balled up like a toddler learning to walk.  He was attempting to be nonchalant.  My therapist was the same way when he wanted to talk about something he knew I wouldn’t like.  Neither of them was ever very good at it.  “May I sit down?”

“I guess.”  I shrugged, scooting away a bit.  The bench sagged under his weight and crackled pleas of mercy that would fall on deaf ears.

I continued my observation of the other campers.  They were generally having a good time.  Some played a game with the beach ball, though I couldn’t make out the rules.  They were probably making it up as they went along.  Others swung out into the water from a rope dangling from a tree.  I tried not to watch them.  My heart stopped every time someone released to take a dive.  Had anyone even bothered to check for shallows or submerged debris?  Doubtful.

Troy sat in silence for a bit.  He glanced over at me occasionally, trying to appear as if he wasn’t analyzing me—which, of course, he was.  I was always being analyzed and I hated it.

I hunted through my backpack for my can of insect repellent.  “I know you have a question.  Just ask it.”

He laughed at the transparency of his ruse.  “Don’t you want to go play in the water, too? The other boys seem to be having fun.”  He surveyed the shoreline abuzz with the swarm of them.

Yes.  I wanted to have fun.  Although I was only fourteen, I couldn’t remember the last time I did anything without worrying about the terrible consequences.  They were always there in my head—ways to get hurt or sick or dead.  Fun was always wrapped in a cold, wet blanket of doom. 

I didn’t reply immediately.  I just stared at the lake.  The sand kicked up under the heels of my fellow campers turned the water near the shore murky and brown.  I wanted to ignore the warnings coming from my brain, but I just couldn’t.  There was more than sand swirling in that haze.

“No.”  My voice was quiet.

“Oh.”  Troy knew I was lying and made an effort to sound disappointed.  My psychiatrist did that occasionally to guilt me into explaining myself.  Although it was an obvious ploy, I hate to admit it usually worked.

“It’s just that I can’t.”  My voice rose slightly.  I pointed to the dark cloud growing beneath the waves.  “The water’s too dirty.  You don’t know what’s floating around out there.  I mean, there’s probably Salmonella—or E. coli—not to mention it’s a glorified fish toilet.”

“True.”  Troy smiled.  Finally, there was a sane person who listened.  “But just because there’s the possibility, it doesn’t mean you will get sick.  Think about it.  You’ve been at camp for a week now.  Has anything really harmful happened to you yet?”

“I’ll answer that when the tests come back on those paint chips I’ve been breathing in at night.”  I wasn’t joking.  I’d mailed a sample to the EPA on the morning of my second day.

He chuckled and gave me a heavy slap on the back.  “Come on.  Just come down to the shore.  Why not start by getting your feet wet?  You don’t have to go any deeper if you don’t want to.”  The bench crackled in relief when he squeezed himself free.

Against my better judgment, I agreed.  Troy led me down to the bank, and then rushed off to discipline some campers playing around the tree, promising to return shortly.  I removed my shoes and socks and stood in the mud.  The cold muck pressed up between my toes.  Gentle waves, somehow colder still, crashed against my ankles.  My heart fluttered at each impact.  My breath shortened.  The question of fight or flight was being asked in the flashing red neon of adrenaline.

“Hey look, rat-catcher’s actually coming in the water!”  Ray pointed at me and his cohorts laughed.  I backed away as they approached the shore.  “Come on, wuss.  Let’s go for a swim.”

“No!”  I said when Theo grabbed my arm.  I hadn’t seen him come up behind me.  I writhed, but his grip was clad in iron.  “Let me go!”  More of them grabbed hold.  There were too many to resist!  The waves swelled up to my knees.  Tears ran down my face.  I cried out again.  They only laughed harder.  “Please, let me go!”  I kept struggling.  My feet were fighting to find traction.  They kept dragging.  The lake consumed my hips.  “Please, don’t!”

“Oh, grow up!”  Ray shoved my face into the murky, brown water.

I came up an instant later, hacking and coughing.  My clothes were muddy and soaked. Beyond the burning in my lungs, I only had one thought—I’d swallowed some.  I swallowed some of the water.  I became sick before they could release me.

“Gross!”  Ray and his friends laughed as they scattered to avoid my stomach contents being heaved into the lake.

I could barely hear Troy scolding them over the ringing in my ears, but I didn’t care.  I should’ve never listened to him.  He knew this would happen.  He knew!

My chest on fire, I ran to shore.  With my shoes and pack in tow, I clamored onto the bus.  I stripped off the nasty clothing and—still coughing and crying—wiped myself clean with the disinfectant wipes I packed. 

“Wyatt,” Troy called from outside, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just changing.”  Sniffling, I put on clean, dry clothes and hoisted my backpack.  I wasn’t staying with these people another minute.

“Are you sure?  You sound pretty upset.  I think we should talk about what happened.  Those boys had no—”

“I said I’m fine!  Just wait.  I’ll be out in a minute.”  Keeping low, I moved to the emergency exit at the rear.  Gently, I popped it open, peeking only slightly to ensure Troy hadn’t heard.  I climbed to the ground quietly.  Keeping the row of parked buses between me and the convening Rivercreek staff, I ran into the forest. 

Under normal circumstances, no force in nature could’ve compelled me to enter the woods, but it was the only way I could reach the condos on the other side of the lake without being seen.  If I could make it there, I could call my parents to take me away from this mess.  They would try to reason with me, but they would fail.  I wouldn’t go back to that camp again.  Not ever.

The ground became more uneven the deeper I ran.  The evergreens were mainly on the outside edge, giving way to molting birches and weeping maples farther from the shore.  I was finding a problem navigating around the roots that pushed out of the dirt like knobby fingers threatening to trip me.

It was a little after midday when I stopped running.  I was halfway through a bottle of lukewarm water when I heard something rustling in the bushes.  I froze and listened intently.  There was definitely something moving around, but I couldn’t see it clearly.  All I could make out was a vague shadow.  What it was, I couldn’t guess.  It had me paralyzed in its gaze.

My adrenaline flowed, allowing me to forget my exhaustion.  A twig snapped.  I dropped the water and fled.  The strap of my backpack snagged on a tree branch three steps later.  I stumbled forward before crashing into the ground, striking my head on a rock. 

Everything went black.

I awoke some time later with a throbbing head and dried blood on my cheek.  There was a tender welt the size of a golf ball on my forehead.  My watch said 6:30, but the forest was already dark.  Pale blue light filtered through the trees in eerie beams.  It was much colder here at night.  A gentle wind flowed through woods.  My breath was visible as I searched for my belongings.  There was a flashlight in my pack. 

The sound or rustling leaves diverted my attention.  It sounded like footsteps.  I tried to find the source, but my frantic movements only made me dizzy.  I thought I saw a figure lurking around a nearby tree.  It was difficult to make anything out in the twilight.  A wolf’s howl sent me running again.

The footsteps gave chase.  Was it a man or an animal?  I couldn’t bring myself to look back and see.  I charged through the dark forest.  The trees were bent and leaning at strange angles.  A thin, white mist coated the floor.  The knotted roots seemed all the more eager to reach up and capture me. 

I came upon a large pine and hid underneath its branches.  I stayed low to the ground, so I could see my pursuer if it came near.  The pine needles pricked my hands and knees.  The footsteps trounced through the underbrush in the distance.  I waited in uneasy silence for them to go away.

I must have fallen asleep.  The next thing I remember, I was in a dark bedroom lit by a small oil lamp resting on a wooden nightstand.  I sat up, rubbing my aching head.  A bandage had been applied to my forehead.  The welt had shrunk to a marble.

“Awful late for a boy to be out in the forest alone,” an old, scratchy voice said in the darkness. 

I jumped at the sound of it.

“Apologies.  I didn’t mean to startle you.”  A man stood in the doorway.  He wore a dingy, white long-sleeved shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks.  His worn, dirty jeans were held up by a pair of brown suspenders on the verge of failure.  His light grey hair was long, about chin length, and matted together.  He appeared very tired as he stared at me, rubbing the whiskers on his chin.  “Come have some coffee.  You look cold.”

I grabbed the blanket and joined him in the other room.  There was only the other room.  It was sparsely decorated with a small woodstove, two chairs, and a table set for one person.  I didn’t see artwork or family portraits anywhere.  There was a stone fireplace at the opposite end next to the stove.  The fire cast a warm, yellow glow over everything. 

The man poured the steaming, black coffee into a tin cup with one hand while directing me to sit at the table with the other.  “What’s yer name, boy?”

“Wyatt,” I replied meekly, not sure of what to expect from this strange hermit.

“Like Wyatt Earp, huh?”  He seemed pleased by the connection.  He placed the cup on the table in front of me and sat heavily in the other chair.  “It’s a strong name, Wyatt.  You know what it means?”

“No.”  I took a sip of the coffee.  It was bitter, but it was warm.  I tried to hide my revulsion as consumed it in larger gulps.

He nodded, as if he expected the answer.  “It means ‘brave in war.’  A name can tell you a lot about a person—about the quality their character.”  He sat back in his chair contemplatively.  “People think our name is chosen for us, but our name chooses us.  Long before you were ever born, you were already part of the proud lineage of your namesake.”

I let out a dejected laugh.  “Well, I think my name chose the wrong person.”  I finished my coffee.

“You think yourself a coward, then?” He gave me a meditating stare.

“Cowards are braver than I am.”  I placed the empty cup on the table.  “I couldn’t even go into a lake because there were bacteria.”

He approached the stove to give me a refill.  “The funny thing about fear is that everyone has it, though no one likes to admit it.”  He poured the coffee.  Steam rose in fragile curls around his calloused hand gripping the kettle.  “It clings to us like our own shadow—as if what we feared was the sun itself.” 

He returned the cup to me and sat again.  This time, he leaned forward.  His elbows rested on the table while he observed me with cool, grey eyes.

“We could run from the sun,” he continued, "but our shadow would always be leading the way.  If we hide from it, our shadow consumes us.  That’s what you’ve done, Wyatt.  Isn’t it?  You’ve hidden.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I tightened my grip on the cup.  I wasn’t frightened of the tired, old man, but I was afraid of what he was about to say.  I could feel it coming like a rumble on the tracks before a freight train.

“You’re capable of a lot more than you think.”

My eyes fell onto the cup in my hand.  A bubble popped in the dark froth.  “I can’t ignore the fear.  It’s too strong.”

“I’m not asking you to ignore it, boy!”  He stood, speaking loudly but without anger.  “What you must do—what we all must do—is realize we will always have a shadow and choose to put it behind us.”  He approached the dimming fire and stoked it.  His own shadow danced along with the flames across the floor.  “The only way to do that is to face the sun, Wyatt.”

Something struck the door leading outside.  I leapt back, my heart racing again.  The man returned a stray ember to the fire.  Footsteps paced back and forth followed by a soft scratching.

“What is that?” I asked, taking a step away.

“Don’t know.”  He placed another split log on the flames.  “There’re lots of wild animals that hunt at night.”

My eyes locked onto the door as it shook from another thud.  “When I was out there in the woods, something was chasing me—something dark.  I couldn’t tell what it was, but it wasn’t an animal.  I barely escaped.”

“You don’t know what it was?”  He gave me a sly look.  “Maybe it was your shadow trying to catch you.”

It struck the door again. 

“We have to get out of here!”  I raised my voice, backing further away.

“Well, the only way out is through that door.”  He pointed with his thumb.  Whatever was lurking outside scratched around the frame.

“I don’t know what’s out there!”  My breath grew short.  The ringing returned to my ears.

“And you never will if you don’t open that damn door!”  He stood there, looking at me from in front of the fireplace.  The reinvigorated flames gave him a ghastly glow in his eyes. 

I steadied my breath, slowly approaching the door.  My hand hovered over the doorknob.  A loud thud caused me to jump back.  “I can’t do it!”

“You can.  Your name chose you for a reason, Wyatt.  Don’t forget.”

The door was shaking violently now.  I held the doorknob tightly.  It still shuddered in my hand.  I had tried many times—and failed—to overcome the fears clouding my mind.  The lake earlier that day was only the most recent example.  By all accounts, this attempt wouldn’t turn out any better.  Whatever was on the other side was more dangerous than any microscopic bacteria.  My heart threatened to escape its cage while searched for the courage I needed. 

Of course, it’s not really courage that wards off fear.  It’s not blunt defiance that kept me attempting the same futile feat over and over.  Bravery’s real fuel is hope.  With that and a spark of will, I figured I could ignite my own sun.  Who needs a shadow anyway?

I took a deep breath and I opened the door.