Follow You Down Page 10

  “Turn that goddamn thing off!” Jeremy said.

  Patrick laughed and redirected his focus onto two girl counselors who were passing along the nearby trail. They were huddled together underneath a black umbrella, hurrying along in the direction of the rec hall.

  “Hey girls! Give us a smile for the camera!” Patrick shouted.

  Stacy, the older of the two girls, waved, and then tilted the umbrella slightly to conceal their faces from view. Neil heard them giggle as they continued past the cabin.

  “You’re not bringing that thing tonight, are you?” he asked Patrick.

  Lowering the camera, Patrick smiled. “Of course. Gotta capture everything for posterity.”

  Neil frowned. “Just keep those tapes safe. We don’t want anyone catching on to the shit we’ve been doing to Stinky. We could get into a lot of trouble.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Patrick, shrugging his shoulders and turning away. “You were happy to have me recording Bateman’s squeals when we cornered him in the archery range a couple weeks ago. You’ve made me replay that at least a dozen times.”

  “I’ll admit that was funny, but I just don’t want anyone of importance to see them, that’s all.”

  “As much as I like listening to you two love birds bicker, are we on for tonight?” said Jeremy.

  Neil glanced back out across the sodden forest. “I don’t see why not. He’ll probably get wet anyway.”

  “What time?” said Patrick.

  Running over the plan in his head, Neil calculated the time table for what would be his most audacious prank yet. Stinky Bateman’s cabin co-counselor had decided to go home for the weekend, providing them with an opportunity that didn’t come along very often—Bateman sleeping in his cabin, alone. It was the sort of thing Neil couldn’t pass up. He’d spent two days working out the details, and he’d shared the plan with his friends over lunch earlier in the day. He knew that, if successful, it would probably get them all fired, but, he reasoned, it would be worth it. “Meet me here at midnight.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The cold shower washed away the odor of vomit that lingered on Neil during the walk back to Sequoia Lodge and helped to push aside any remaining stupor that was keeping him from thinking straight. But it hadn’t helped reconcile the differences between his friends’ eyewitness statements and his own memory.

  The conversation during the walk had left him confused and frustrated. As the cold water from the shower poured over his body, he recalled the dialogue that’d passed between them. Despite everything that they said, he’d been adamant that the zipline had stopped.

  “I’m telling you, it got stuck! Maybe a third of the way down the line!” he’d said.

  Jeremy had been quick to contradict him. “You were in our sight for almost the entire ride. We would’ve seen if you got hung up.”

  “Almost? It must have been when you couldn’t see me.” He was grasping at straws, but the alternative meant that he might’ve hallucinated the whole thing in a panicked frenzy over his fear of heights. Neil wasn’t ready to accept that.

  Steve had been the next to chime in. “Neil, we only lost sight of you during the last few feet. If you got hung up there, you’d only have been ten feet off the ground, if that.”

  None of what they were saying aligned with his own memories. At least fifty feet, possibly more. That was what he remembered. “I don’t believe it!”

  “What? You calling us liars?” Rob asked. He stopped walking, turning to face Neil. His face was a mix of concern and irritation.

  “No! No! I don’t know what I’m saying,” Neil replied, and then suddenly asked, “What about the voices? You can’t tell me you didn’t hear the voices.”

  The silent stares that Neil observed provided their answer louder than any words could have. They’d heard nothing. Never in his life had he become so distressed over heights to hallucinate disembodied voices. And to experience a complete impairment of his memory? It made no sense. But he had to face the fact that he might have imagined the whole ordeal. It had seemed so real, so terrifying. His friends had no reason to lie to him. If this had been a joke, they’d have delivered the punchline by now.

  Finishing his shower, Neil returned to Sequoia Lodge to find Jeremy, Rob, and Steve huddled around the picnic table and Patrick lounging before the campfire circle. The hushed conversation at the table ceased as he approached, and three pairs of eyes turned in his direction, causing him to feel a little sheepish. Patrick was sprawled in a camp chair, his feet resting atop a rock. “They’re worried about you,” he said, not bothering to open his eyes and look in Neil’s direction.

  “It’s appreciated, but I’m fine,” he said. His words didn’t seem convincing. Perhaps he’d said them more to convince himself. Either way, it hadn’t worked.

  “You been afraid of heights for long?” Jeremy asked.

  Neil lowered himself onto the picnic table bench. “All my life.”

  Steve’s eyes opened wide. “Really? I never knew.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Never told anyone.” Staring down beneath the picnic table, Neil watched a column of ants as they marched across the sandy ground. One thrust of his foot would be all it would take to halt their column in its tracks. They seemed so vulnerable, so exposed. Like the ants in the sand, he felt naked and unprotected.

  “Acrophobia,” Rob said.

  Patrick turned his head toward them and opened his eyes. “What?”

  “The fear of heights—acrophobia,” Rob explained. “That’s what it’s called. It belongs to a specific category of phobias called space and motion discomfort.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud,” Patrick said, closing his eyes and turning his head away again.

  “Neil, what bothers you? All heights? Or just really high ones?” Jeremy asked.

  “It’s not so much the height that bothers me. It’s the falling.”

  “Falling?” asked Steve.

  “Yes, falling. I’m afraid of falling.”

  “Must make it a bitch to live in New York,” Jeremy said.

  “Not really. I’ve been up to the Empire State Building observation deck without any issue,” Neil explained. “Even been up to the top of the new World Trade Center building. I’m okay as long as there’s something between me and the void. Take away the barriers and the railings, then I’m in trouble.” He paused. “Look, can we just change the subject? I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Patrick laughed. “Brewster’s gettin’ uncomfortable. What’s wrong? Can’t the hotshot lawyer take a little cross examination?”

  He glared across at Patrick. “What’s your point?”

  Patrick shrugged and smiled. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Despite the fact that Neil’s stomach was still queasy from his earlier ordeal, he hungrily partook in lunch with his friends—meatball sandwiches with melted provolone cheese, Rob’s special recipe from his bar. With their appetites satiated, Steve suggested that a hike around Lake Friendship would give them a chance to see their old stomping ground. Jeremy, without giving anyone a chance to respond, announced that he thought it was an excellent idea and strode off, his long strides rapidly broadening the distance between himself and the others. It took five minutes for the other four to catch up.

  The hike took them around the north side of the lake, down by the boys’ cabins. Neil was surprised at how little the old structures had changed in eighteen years. Other than the darkening of the wood slatted walls from age and weather, the small, almost claustrophobic one-room cabins still felt like home when he stepped inside. Bunkbeds, six in all, were pressed against the two side walls, leaving a narrow aisle through which he paced. Dingy glass in the single window opposite the door was grimy, allowing only marginal light through. He brushed aside the thick cobwebs that reached between the bunkbeds. His feet kicked up a dust cloud from the
scuffed and dirty floor, leaving the air musty and stifling. He coughed, trying to clear his throat.

  Redwood Lodge had been his cabin for three summers. Neil smiled as he traced the letters he’d carved into the door frame. “Brewster was here,” it read. It all seemed puerile now. Just his own childish attempt to leave his mark for all eternity. He remembered carving the letters during his first summer at Camp Tenskwatawa. There were plenty more scattered around the camp, some not quite as harmless, but just as puerile.

  He moved to the bunk bed closest to the door, sitting down on the lower bunk. The mattress, with its vinyl covering and lumpy padding, sank under his weight, providing little support. Some things never change. A strong musty odor rose from the mattress, reminding him how old it really was. Memories from his childhood washed over him, making it impossible for Neil to not smile.

  For three summers, he shared this small cabin with another counselor and a rotating group of ten young boys, a new group arriving each week. Patrick had been his co-counselor during the first summer, and a kid named Jake had been in Redwood Lodge for the second. He remembered the first summer had been a ruckus from start to finish. Being together with Patrick in a single cabin meant there was never a concern about being ratted out by his co-counselor if things got a little out of hand. They could take turns slipping out at night to pull a prank, get into mischief, or meet up with the girl counselors to get laid. The second summer required Neil to tread more cautiously, never sure if Jake would report his nocturnal escapades to the camp owners.

  When memories from the third summer surfaced, his smile faded. Raymond, a high-school sophomore, had been his co-counselor. He’d seemed like a nice enough kid and more than willing to turn a blind eye to Neil’s extracurricular activities. But near the end of July, Raymond had abruptly left camp, his father having been diagnosed with cancer. His departure left Redwood Lodge a counselor short. The camp rules required two counselors per cabin, forcing the camp owners to quickly shuffle things around to maintain the status quo.

  Neil remembered the day clearly, down to the finest detail. He’d returned to Redwood Lodge to find his new co-counselor unrolling a sleeping bag on the bunk across from his. Recalling the pathetically sad eyes that greeted him, he’d swear that his new co-counselor was ready to cry. The irony couldn’t have been more perfect. If there had been a God, he couldn’t have been more gracious. Neil would spend his remaining three weeks at camp in the same cabin as Stinky Bateman.

  Staring across at the empty bunk, Neil could almost list every single thing that he and his friends had done to Bateman over three summers. Stealing Bateman’s clothes from the bathhouse while he showered had always been one of his favorites. Watching the scrawny kid run naked through the camp to get back to his cabin just got funnier every time. How many times did they get him with that? Four, maybe five? Then there was the night they ran Bateman’s underwear up the flag pole for all to see in the morning. The little bastard had seemed so timid and weak. An easy target. The kid had practically been asking for it just by being there.

  He rose from the bunk bed and crossed the cabin to the far corner. Running his hands along the wall near the floor, he felt a long-forgotten indentation in the wood. Using his fingers, Neil pried the board loose, leaving a dark gap in the wall. The cubbyhole between the joists of the cabin wall had become a safe of sorts, where he’d stashed things during his three summers in Redwood Lodge. He was surprised that no one had ever stumbled upon the loose board, and even more surprised to find that the cubbyhole still contained some of his stuff. His fingers wrapped around the rolled-up magazine first. He straightened the decaying, brittle pages, and smiled at the scantily clad woman posing on the cover. Playboy, October 1995. He opened to the center of the magazine and unfolded the faded and crinkled centerfold.

  Placing the magazine down, he reached into the cubbyhole once again, drawing out the diary. He’d almost forgotten that it was there. The narrow leather-bound book was covered with dust, and the page edges had yellowed with age. It was tied shut with a brown leather cord that matched the cover. Holding it in his hands, he stared at the diary, remembering the day he’d found it hidden inside Stinky Bateman’s mattress.

  It’d been the week before Neil left camp, maybe two. He never did read the whole thing, just the last few pages. It was just enough to provide him with the basis for what had become his last bit of tomfoolery before leaving. Opening the book, Neil flipped through the pages, glancing at the clean, carefully written script that looked more like a girl’s handwriting than a boy’s. The book had only been two-thirds full the last time he’d seen it. His eyes fell upon the last page. The last entry had been written the evening that he’d found the diary. The final words on the page held a long-forgotten puzzle, one that he’d probably never find an answer to. Who was Stinky Bateman meeting with that night?

  Reading the words on the page brought back memories of those final days in camp. As his eyes traced the lines of Bateman’s girlish scrawl, Neil thought, for a moment, that he heard the kid’s voice again.

  “Stop it, Neil!”

  It was just a faint, distant echo, but he felt as if it were in the room with him. Glancing around the cabin, Neil found nothing but empty bunk beds and musty mattresses. He was alone. It must be his imagination, still stunned by the incident on the zipline. Shoving the diary back into the cubbyhole, Neil placed the board back into place, and then, grasping the remnants of the old Playboy magazine, rose to his feet.

  “Whatcha got there?”

  The voice from behind him made Neil jump. He spun around to find Steve standing in the doorway. He hadn’t heard his friend enter. “You scared me.”

  Steve laughed. “Sorry. What’s that?”

  Neil held up the magazine. “An old Playboy from our camp days.”

  Steve crossed the room, taking the magazine from Neil and flipping through the pages. Stopping on the centerfold, Steve whistled. “Alicia Rickter. Damn. I remember her. Wasn’t she on one of the Baywatch shows? The one in Hawaii, I think.”

  “Yeah. I always thought she looked better without clothes.”

  Laughing, Steve handed the magazine back to Neil, who rolled it up and started toward the door. Before he stepped out of the cabin, Steve reached over and grasped his arm. “Neil, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “What? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  Steve released his hold on Neil’s arm and slid his hands into his pockets. “You’ve just not been yourself.”

  “Not myself?”

  Steve seemed uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet, shifting the dust on the floor. “Yeah, well . . . I’ve never known you to . . .”

  Neil knew where this conversation was going. He couldn’t blame Steve for bringing it up, but it didn’t make the discussion any easier. A momentary urge arose to lash out at his friend, but Neil decided to suppress it. “Hear things? See things?”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah. I’ve never known you to imagine things that weren’t there.”

  “Is that what you think it was? Just my imagination?”

  “Not sure what else it could be.”

  “I know what I heard, what I saw.” Neil folded his arms. It was better than giving in to his other urge: to throw a punch at his friend.

  “Look, I’m not saying that you didn’t hear those voices.” Steve shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just . . . I’m just worried about you, that’s all. Can’t I be concerned about an old friend?”

  Neil looked away for a moment, glancing around the claustrophobic cabin. He hated being on the receiving end of pity. It made him feel weak, placing him in the same category as those he frequently derided. “What’s there to be concerned about?”

  “Neil, don’t give me that bullshit. This is me you’re talking to. I’ve known you longer than the other guys.”

  “Look, I was just caught off guard with the news about Stinky Bateman. That�
��s all it is.” Neil turned his back on his friend. “It’s not every day that you hear that someone you knew committed suicide.”

  “You’re not bothered by it?”

  Neil turned back toward Steve. “Should I be?”

  “You did ride him pretty hard.”

  “We all did.” Neil pointed at Steve. “We were all in this together. Why am I the only one hearing his voice?”

  Steve shrugged his shoulder. “I don’t know. Guilt?”

  “What the hell do I have to be guilty about? I didn’t do anything to that kid that he didn’t have coming to him.”

  Steve didn’t respond, leaving Neil to wonder what his friend was thinking. All of them had, at one time or another, maligned Bateman. They’d each played their part in three summers’ worth of mockery of which Bateman had been the sole recipient. If guilt was to be laid before someone, it should be all of them, not just him. “Do you feel guilty?”

  Steve sighed. “I did, at first. But I’ve had eighteen years to deal with it.”

  “I’ve got nothing to deal with. I don’t feel guilty. Never have, never will.”

  They stood quietly for a moment until another voice broke through the silence.

  “Yo, Brewster! Where are you?” It was Jeremy, shouting from somewhere outside.

  Steve smiled, gesturing toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Grasping the remnants of the old Playboy magazine, Neil followed his friend to the door. With his hand on the bar latch, he paused, looking back in at the dingy cabin. Three summers worth of memories seemed to drift among the dust particles, causing him to smile. Good times, he had to admit. They were certainly good times. But just before pulling the door closed, he caught the faint echo of a voice.