Shadows

         I hated the walls.  I had never been to summer camp before, but the cabins didn’t seem to be built up to code.  At least that was my opinion.  The worn, wooden planks that made up the walls of the two-decade-old cabin had come to be in such disrepair that there were gaps between them, some big enough to squeeze my hand through.  I knew I should have packed a few extra blankets.  It was going to be cold at night. 

         The wind blew through the gaps like water passing through a sieve, and they hadn’t been painted in years.  The ugly green paint was chipping off outside and inside the cabin, covering the floors and bunk beds that lined the perimeter of the room.  There were nine rusty bunks in all, each one also chipping gaudy, green paint.  Hadn’t anyone thought about the dangers of lead poisoning?

         Unfortunately, the ‘ventilation’ in the cabin didn’t do much to relieve it of the almost intolerable stench of urine in the air.  Some of the old, torn mattresses seemed to be saturated with the yellow stains that marked the former presence of younger campers at Camp Rivercreek.  I never understood the name.  The nearest body of water was a lake ten miles away.  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 had done to deserve being sent to this place that could be described as no less than Hell.  I hadn’t done anything wrong.  My Dad just 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 camp was my psychiatrist’s idea.  I visited him twice a week.  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 on the paranoid, phobic, or neurotic side of sanity.  Okay, so I didn’t like to be in contact with anything that could possibly carry bacteria and always carried a can of Lysol and latex gloves in my backpack.  I liked to be prepared.  That didn’t make me crazy, did it?  Anyway, he’d heard about the camp from a colleague who sent his son there every summer.  “Turns boys into men,” he had 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 next to the bed and pulled out my gloves and a small face mask to cover my mouth and nose.  I sprayed a layer of disinfectant over the mattress before flipping it over and spraying the other side.  My parents tried to take the stuff from me before we left, but I had some already hidden in the car.  I pulled out a plastic bed liner and applied it to the mattress before adding my sheets and blankets.

         By this time, the other campers were arriving.  I had asked my parents to drop me off early.  They thought I was actually excited to be there.  I just wanted to sanitize it.  The campers arrived slowly.  Some were dropped off by their parents.  Others came in loud, old, buses that smelled of diesel fuel.  They were painted various shades of the repulsive green.  The camp’s name was written in large yellow letters on the sides.

         As I said before, this was my first visit to this camp, so I didn’t know anyone.  I saw a person or two that I went to school with, but I wasn’t much for socializing.  The rowdy campers jumped off the bus or out of their parents’ cars to meet their friends.  I stood in the doorway, watching them.  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,” one of them was saying as they entered.  They were about the same age as me.  One was a bit taller though, with dark brown hair.  The one who had been talking was shorter and a bit heftier with black hair and a darker complexion.  As I recall, I think he was part Hispanic.

         “What?” the taller kid asked incredulously, then added, “He always was a moron.”

         “Yep,” agreed the other, giddily waiting to finish his story.  He dropped his backpack next to the first bunk he saw and continued with a slight snicker, “So, anyway, he climbs the tree and finds the fattest branch, right?  Then, he walks out on it to get as close to the house as he can and starts to bounce on the branch like a diving board!”

         “Did he make it, Ray?” eagerly asked the other camper.  He had selected the bunk next to his friend.

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

         The thought sent shivers up my spine and about made me sick.  I decided then that I didn’t want to get to know any of these people.  I reached into my bag and pulled out the package of mouse traps I had purchased with my allowance before I arrived.  I opened it and began to set them under my bed.

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

         I glanced up, and then continued to set the traps.  I said, “What does it look like?  Rodents are carriers of rabies and Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis, you know.”

         They both just stared at me.  “Dude, you are weird,” Ray responded, stressing every word in the sentence.  Before he said anything else, he became distracted by the arrival of the remaining campers.

         The first couple of days went as good as I could have hoped, though I didn’t sleep well.  The wind howling through the gaps in the walls and the scratching movements of hidden mice scurrying through the room kept me awake.  On the third night, a vile rodent met his fate while trying to lick the peanut butter from one of the traps I had set.  I must have set them all too close together because every single trap I had set snapped, waking every camper in the cabin.  After a few minutes of arguing and insult throwing, they all went back to sleep after taking away my traps, leaving me awake in the night, without a single trap to protect me.

         I avoided them all after that night, and they pretty much left me alone.  No one wants to socialize with a psychopath.  Sadly, on the next morning, the entire camp was being loaded onto the buses to venture over to the nearby lake.  You can imagine my glee.  The thought of swimming in dirty, muddy, un-chlorinated water filled with filthy, stinking fish made me nauseous, but we all had to go.  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, tossing a beach ball 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.  I sat up front, away from everyone.

         “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 the typical summer camp counselor, childish, slightly overweight, and balding.

         The other campers on the bus yelled back in unison, “Yeah!!”

         The caravan of buses arrived at the lake fifteen minutes later.  It was larger than I thought, surrounded on three sides by a lush, evergreen forest with trees 30 feet high.  The water was a dull blue out near the center, but closer to shore it was a bit murkier.  The occasional ripple here and there signaled the presence of fish in the water.  All in all, it was a beautiful place, but even beautiful things can be dangerous.  I still wasn’t going in the water.  I sat at a picnic table, watching everybody splash around in the water.

         “Your name’s Wyatt, right?” Troy asked, sitting down next to me.

         “Yeah,” I agreed, scooting away a bit.  I watched the campers in the water splashing and generally having a good time.  Some were playing a game with the beach ball, while others were swinging out into the water from a rope dangling from a tree.

         Troy sat in silence for a bit.  He glanced over at me occasionally, as if he were trying to analyze me.  I was always being analyzed and I hated it.  “Don’t you want to go play in the water?” he asked at last.  “The other boys seem to be having fun.”  He looked at me hopefully.

         Yes, I wanted to have fun.  Although I was only fourteen, it had been a long time since I’d had any worry-free fun.  I didn’t reply immediately.  I just stared at the water.  The sand had been kicked up from the bottom, turning the water close to the shore brown.  I wanted to ignore all of the warnings coming from my brain, but I just couldn’t.  At least not then.

         “No,” I replied simply.  My voice was quiet.

         “Oh,” Troy made an effort to sound disappointed.  My psychiatrist did that occasionally, trying to guilt me into explaining myself.  Although it was an obvious ploy on the part of my camp counselor, it worked.

         “It’s just that I can’t,” I began, raising my voice slightly.  “The water’s too dirty.  You don’t know what’s floating around out there.  I mean, there’s probably Salmonella, or E. coli, or God knows what in the water.”

         “True,” Troy agreed.  Finally, there was a sane person to talk to.  “But just because there’s the possibility, doesn’t mean that you will get sick.  Come on, just come down to the shore.  You don’t have to get into the water if you don’t want to.”

         Against my better judgment, I agreed.  Troy led me down to the bank, and then went off to discipline some of the campers playing around the tree.  I removed my shoes and socks and stood in the mud.  Now, this is perfectly normal for most people.  I was terrified.

         “Hey look, Mouse-Boy’s comin’ in the water!” Ray mocked from the lake.  I backed away from the water as he approached the shore.  “Come on, wuss.  Why don’t you grow a spine and go for a swim?”

         “No!” I cried as Theo grabbed my arm.  I hadn’t seen him come up behind me.  “Let go!  Let go!!” I screamed, tears running down my face as they dragged me towards the water.

         “Oh, grow up!” Ray said, shoving me face first into the murky, brown, water.

         I came up for air as quickly as possible, hacking and coughing.  I had swallowed some of the water.  My clothes were muddy and soaked.  The thought of what just happened made me sick.  I threw up before I could leave the water.

         As Ray and his friends laughed, I ran to shore, grabbed my shoes, and ran to the bus.  I stripped off the nasty clothing and, still coughing and crying, wiped myself down with the disinfectant wipes I had packed.  I put on clean, dry clothes and grabbed my backpack.  I was leaving that Hell of a place as fast as I could.

         I ran into the forest.  Normally I wouldn’t go through the forest, but it was the only way to keep them from finding me.  I wouldn’t go back to that camp again.  The ground became more uneven as I ran deeper into the woods.  The evergreen trees were mainly on the outside edge.  Now I was finding a problem navigating around the roots that pushed out of the dirt, threatening to trip me.

         It was about midday when I stopped running.  I sat down on a large rock, removing my backpack to get a bottle of water.  I was guzzling down the clean, lukewarm water when I heard something rustling in the bushes.  I stopped drinking and listened intently, there was definitely something moving around.

         My adrenaline flowed, allowing me to forget my exhaustion.  I dropped the water, grabbed my backpack, and ran again.  Unfortunately, the strap of the bag got hooked on a tree branch, causing me to lose my balance.  I stumbled forward for a bit before crashing into the ground and striking my head on a rock.  Everything went black.

         I awoke some time later.  My watch said 6:30, but the forest was already dark.  A pale blue light filtered through the trees in eerie beams of light.  The temperature had dropped greatly and a gentle wind flowed through woods.  My breath was visible as I searched the dark forest for shelter.  Then, the sound or rustling leaves drew my attention.

                My head throbbed and a thin stream of blood ran down my cheek.  But I was too worried about the noise I was hearing to care about my cut.  It sounded like footsteps.  I looked around frantically.  I thought I saw a shadowy figure lurking around, but, in the twilight, it was hard to see.  A wolf’s howl sent me running again.

         The footsteps gave chase.  I looked back to see something hunting me.  Was it a man or an animal?  Or was it both?  I didn’t want to find out.  I charged through the dark forest, looking for someplace to hide.  I found a large pine tree 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.  I still heard the foot steps in the distance as I waited in uneasy silence.

         I suppose I eventually fell asleep, because the next thing I remember, I found myself in a small, dark cabin lit by a small oil lamp resting on a wooden table.  The cabin only had two rooms.  I was in the bedroom, which consisted of the bed I lay on, a table, and an old wooden dresser.

         “Awful late for a boy to be out in the forest alone,” an old, scratchy voice said in the darkness.  A man stood in the doorway that led to the other room.  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.  His light grey hair was long, about chin length, and was all matted together.  His face was long and tired-looking as he stared at me.  He rubbed the whiskers on his chin and said, “Come have some coffee.  You look cold.”

         I grabbed the worn blanket that had covered me and joined him in the other room.  The only furniture was a small woodstove, two chairs, and a table set for one person.  There was a stone fireplace at the opposite end of the room next to the stove.  The fire cast a warm, yellow glow over everything.  The man got me some coffee as I sat down.

         “What’s yer name, boy?” he asked, pouring the steaming, black liquid into a tin cup.

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

         “Like Wyatt Earp, huh?” he suggested, pleased by the connection.  He placed the cup on the table in front of me, and then 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 tasted disgusting, but it was warm.

         He nodded, as if he had expected the answer, “It means ‘brave in war.’  Names tell you a lot about a person.”  He sat back in his chair contemplatively.  “People think our parents choose our name, but our name chooses us.”

         I let out a dejected laugh, “Well, I think my name chose the wrong person.”  I drank the last of the coffee in my cup.

         “You think of yourself as a coward then?” he asked, giving me a meditating stare all the while.

         “Cowards are braver than I am,” I sat the empty cup down on the table.  “I won’t even go into a lake because there might be bacteria.”

         He stood again, picking up the cup.  Then he approached the stove to give me a refill.  “The funny thing about fear is that everyone has it,” he began as he poured a fresh cup of coffee.  “It clings to us all like our own shadow, as if what we feared was the sun itself.”  He returned the cup to me and sat again.  But, this time, he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, and he glared at me with his cool grey eyes.

         He continued, “We could run from the sun, but our shadow would always be leading the way.  If we hide from it, shadows consume us.  That’s what you’ve done, Wyatt.  You’ve hidden.  You’re capable of a lot more than you think, you know.”

         “What am I supposed to do?” I asked nervously.  I wasn’t scared by the tired, old man that sat before me, but I was scared by what he was about to say.  “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 we all must do is realize that we will always have a shadow, and put it behind us.”  He approached the dimming fire and stoked it.  “The only way to do that is to face the sun, Wyatt.”

         Something pounded on the door outside.  The sudden noise made me jump.  I heard footsteps and a low, barely audible scratching noise.  It was right outside.

         “What was that?” I asked nervously.

         “Don’t know,” he became suddenly focused on the dying fire.  “There are a lot of wild animals that hunt at night.”

         “When I was out there,” I explained, staring at the door as it shook again from another thud, “something was chasing me.  Something dark.  I couldn’t tell what it was.  I barely escaped.”

         “But, 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 outta here!” I said forcefully, rising from my chair.

         “Well, the only way out is through that door, kid,” he pointed with his thumb.  Whatever was outside scratched at the door.

         “But, I don’t know what’s out there!” I yelled.  My heart raced.

         “And you never will, if you don’t open that dang door!” he stood there, looking at me from in front of the fireplace.  I slowly approached the door.  My hand hovered over the doorknob.  A loud thud caused me to jump back.  “You have your name for a reason, Wyatt,” he said, “don’t forget.”

         The door was shaking violently now.  I grabbed the doorknob and held it tightly. It still shuddered in my hand.  My heart raced even faster.  I’d never faced my fear before.  But, whatever was on the other side was more dangerous than any microscopic bacteria.  My heart beat all the harder as I searched for the courage I needed.  I took a deep breath, and I opened the door.