“Hey Heather,” called Ben. Heather sat up, shaded her eyes, and squinted.
“Ben Palmer? What are you doing here?” asked Heather.
“Me? I’m just hanging out with Jack.” Ben cocked his thumb over his shoulder. “You know Jack Randolph? He lives down the street.
Heather glanced past Ben to Jack who was just struggling out of the woods and starting across the yard. Jack had a vine stuck in his hair and was trying to untangle himself.
“Never met him,” said Heather and turned back to Ben. “You guys shouldn’t be sneaking around through those woods. My dad gets pretty mad when he sees boys trespassing back there.”
“Hey, who’s trespassing? We’re just going to the store,” said Ben. “Besides, Jack’s dad owns all of these woods behind here.”
“I seriously doubt that,” said Heather. “I have to go in now. I have gymnastics in an hour.”
Heather turned away and strode back to the patio doors on the back of her house. Ben turned and intercepted Jack just as he was catching up. When they had taken a few steps back towards the woods Ben leaned in and whispered to Jack: “Isn’t she hot?”
“Who? The mean one?” asked Jack.
Ben punched Jack lightly on this shoulder.
“Ow—watch that shit!”
They looked at each other, laughed, and trotted off back into the woods.
**********
After spending most of the afternoon meandering through the neighborhood, Ben and Jack finally reached Christy’s, a convenience store about a mile away from Jack’s house. Jack hadn't been there on his own in a while, since before Gabe had disappeared. Back then, Christy's marked the limit of how far Jack could travel alone.
Back before Jack and Ben were toddlers, Christy's was also a gas station. It still had an island, but no longer had pumps. The boys arrived from the back and hopped the low fence. Inside, they found the typical convenience store offerings: chips, soda, beer, small boxes and cans of this and that. Everything was more expensive than the IGA down in Thomkinsville, but not as bad as the chain stores that specialized in lottery tickets and cigarettes. A string of Christmas bells announced their arrival.
A fifty-ish woman behind the counter greeted them as they entered: “Hi boys!”
“Hi,” said Jack. He and Ben turned left and headed back to the refrigerator cases along the back of the store.
“Hey, we forgot money,” hissed Jack.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Ben as he pointed to his back pocket. “I got it covered.”
Jack wrinkled his brow and paused. Ben always had better toys and clothes, but Jack usually brought the cash.
“What about these?” Ben was holding up a box of Twinkies.
“Yuck! You know I can’t stand those things.”
“They’re good for you—put hair on your chest,” taunted Ben.
“You can keep it,” shrugged Jack. “We better get stuff for tomorrow morning too.”
The boys collected everything they would need for their campground dinner and breakfast and headed up to the front of the store loaded with supplies.
“Wow, stocking up?” asked the woman behind the counter. She recognized Jack from being from the neighborhood. Her name tag identified her as “Sally.”
“We’re running away,” smiled Ben.
“Oh! In that case, you’re not going to get very far,” she said.
“We’ll be back when we get hungry again.” Ben was never afraid to banter with adults, Jack looked on with admiration. He had always been shy around Sally.
Sally finished ringing them up—“Today is going to cost you fifteen-sixty-seven, we’ll see about tomorrow.”
Ben reached for his wallet and carefully fished out a bill. He slid a one hundred dollar bill across the counter. Jack looked on with wide eyes. Sally reached for it and paused with her hand in mid-air.
“You got anything smaller, big spender?” her tone was no longer as jovial.
Ben turned red and hastily drew back the bill.
“Um, yeah, I think so.”
A few seconds later he pushed a twenty across the counter.
“Sorry.”
“No harm done,” replied Sally. “If you need to break that hundred, Bill is here until noon. He doesn’t like me to take anything above a fifty.”
“Thanks, Sally,” said Ben, still looking down.
Sally gave Ben his change and he shoved it into his front pocket. She collected the groceries and handed each of them a bag.
“Enjoy those burgers,” said Sally as they headed out the door.
As they walked through the parking lot, Jack looked sideways at Ben, wondering if he should ask about the money. Ben seemed to know what he wanted to ask.
“My dad only had hundreds,” said Ben and then paused. “I wanted to break it so I would have smaller bills. My mom only gave me one twenty.”
**********
“I hereby dub this the first official hamburger of the summer!” Ben said as he pulled a charred lump of beef from his stick.
Jack clapped his right hand against his leg with approval: “Bravo! Well done, well done! Here, take a bun for that.”
"Burgers are awesome over a fire. They should always cook them like this," said Ben.
Jack hunched down a little and squinted through the bushes so he could spy at the house. Their campsite was on the edge of the woods, just about thirty yards from the back door. They had a tall maple and some thick bushes to give their campsite some privacy.
"Looks like my parents are having chicken again," said Jack.
"You can't see that from there," said Ben.
Jack laughed. He balanced his burger on his knee so he could get some chips and poke the fire with his stick.
“So what do you want to do tomorrow?” Jack asked through a mouthful of chips.
“Whatever the day brings, Jacky,” replied Ben. “Oh, I know—we should go hunting.”
“Nothing’s in season. Besides, you’ve never killed anything.”
“Man… It was just an idea. You don’t have to freak out about it,” replied Ben. He tied a plastic grocery bag on the end of his hamburger stick and waved it over the flames, until it caught. “What about fishing then?”
"You're burning that bag," said Jack. "I like mine rare."
"You're just pissed because I thought of it first," said Ben. "First official garbage torch!" he exclaimed, waving the stick over his head.
The boys laughed.
"Seriously," said Ben. "What about fishing?"
“We’re not going to catch anything around here,” said Jack. “We could hike over to the old quarry. There’s no fish there, but it’s only a couple miles, and we can go swimming.”
“I’ll go over there, but I don’t know about swimming. It’s probably still pretty cold,” said Ben. He smiled—“Maybe we should drop by Heather’s on the way.”
“What’s with you and that girl?” asked Jack. “She’s barely hot, and she’s a total bitch.”
“Whatever. Someday you’ll understand.”
“Yeah. You know? That’s true,” said Jack as he looked up to night sky. “Eventually, I’ll grow up. But you know what? You’ll still be mostly retarded.”
A piece of meat bounced off of Jack’s forehead. “Hey!” yelled Jack. “Don’t waste it.”
Jack stood up and started collecting trash while he was still chewing on his last bite of hamburger.
The boys finished their dinner, cleaned up their site, and hoisted the cooler with the remaining food up into a tree. They built up the fire and stretched out as close as they could comfortably get. The night was damp and cool for June, and the warmth was welcome.
At the edge of the neighborhood, the house was isolated enough that the boys had very little sound or light pollution to contend with. The woods at their back began to come alive with the sounds of the night. They were both accustomed to camping and paid no attention to the routine noises. They didn’t last long in the warmth of the fire before they began to fall asleep.
**********
Jack awoke in the night and held himself perfectly still. He felt there was something right outside the tent and he didn’t want it to know he was awake. He remained clenched in fear for several minutes before he began to speculate as to why he had woken up. Still convinced that he was being scrutinized, he began to think about Gabe Vigue. He wondered how long a little kid could have survived alone in the woods. Was it possible that Gabe was outside his tent? Jack’s eyes were well adjusted to the dim moonlight filtering through the tent, and he could see that Ben was deep asleep.
Jack slowly reached out with his foot until it hit Ben’s sleeping bag. He nudged Ben’s leg. No response. Jack pushed harder—right into Ben’s kneecap. Something brushed the front of the tent. Jack pulled back and gave Ben a swift kick.
“Hey—what are you doing?” slurred Ben.
“Shh,” said Jack in a barely audible whisper. “There’s something out there.”
Ben sat up, rubbed his eyes, and then sat very still for several seconds. “Nothing,” Ben said as he flopped back down. Ben appeared to be back asleep within moments.
Jack waited and waited. He could barely let himself breathe as he listened for any sound. Jack’s head was still, but his eyes darted around the tent, looking for any shadow. He began to feel eyes on his back. As noiselessly as he could muster, Jack turned his head around to see the wall of the tent behind him. As he guessed, there was the outline of a small person silhouetted on the side of the tent.
Jack wanted to whisper to Ben, but he couldn’t seem to figure out how to make any sounds with his useless mouth. Finally the shape moved and brushed lightly on the side of the tent again. When he couldn’t follow the shape anymore, Jack turned back to Ben. He was surprised to see Ben’s eyes wide open, although he was still breathing deep and slow, as if he were asleep.
“Did you see that?” whispered Jack.
Ben nodded and mouthed “Yes.”
They sat looking at each other without speaking for an eternity.
**********
In the morning, Jack didn’t even think about the night’s visitor until he exited the tent. The cooler of food they had carefully lifted into the tree was lying on it’s side a dozen yards from the tent. What remained of their food was strewn about their site. Jack followed the rope from the cooler back to the big maple tree. The rope ended with a frayed end, as if it had been gnawed through. Jack picked up the garbage while Ben remained asleep in the tent.
Jack took the bag of trash into the garage, and met his mom on his way to the bathroom.
“How is roughing it treating you?” she asked.
“Great! Everything is perfect,” he replied.
“Your dad wanted me to remind you that you had an agreement about keeping a clean campground,” she chided. “He said there was a bit of a mess this morning?”
“I’m sorry. It’s all cleaned up now. Don’t worry—it won’t happen again. I guess we were just a little excited last night.”
His mom studied his face. Jack looked away and then continued to the bathroom.
“Don’t forget about dinner on Friday, and you have to take a shower at least every other day.”
“Okay. I remember,” Jack called as he walked away.
**********
The boys ate a quick meal of Pop Tarts and half a carton of chocolate milk. The milk had a puncture in its side and leaked as they drank. They organized their site, put on their hiking gear, and decided to head for the quarry. They talked only of the mechanics of the trip—no idle conversation, or discussion of the previous night’s events.
Jack was able to navigate them out of the neighborhood through vacant lots and undeveloped strips of woods. Although they passed close to several houses, they ignored the buildings and pretended they were in the wilderness—far away from civilization. Where the path was ill-defined, they took time to cut back brush and make it passable. They dragged thick branches to lay across the creek to make rudimentary bridges where they needed to cross. In places where the path split, they back-tracked and stomped down the wrong path to throw off imagined stalkers.