TWENTY-FIVE
IT MAY BE THAT I WILL HAVE TO RETHINK THE POSSIBILITY OF a kind and caring Deity, because I did live through the night. This did not come without a price, however. Frank’s nearly endless list of the terrors of the wild had included dozens of lethal insects, and yet he had left out one of the most common—the mosquito. Perhaps upset at being left off the list, the mosquito hordes had gathered their vast army inside our tent, and they spent the night making sure that I would never forget them again. When I woke up, much too early, my face and hands, which had been exposed all night, were covered with bites, and as I sat up I was actually a little bit dizzy from the loss of blood.
Cody was in slightly better shape, since he had been so worried about rabid alligators and zombies with metal hooks that he had wiggled all the way down inside his sleeping bag and left only his nose sticking out. But the tip of his nose was crowded with red dots, as if the insects had held a competition to see how many bites they could fit onto the smallest area of exposed skin.
We crawled weakly out of the tent, scratching ourselves vigorously, and somehow staggered over to the fire circle without fainting. Frank already had a cooking fire goi
ng, and I perked up a little when I saw he had some water boiling in a kettle. But because the Universe was clearly set on punishing Dexter for all his real and imagined sins, no one had brought any kind of coffee, not even instant, and the boiling water was all used to make hot chocolate.
The morning crawled on through breakfast and into Organized Activities. Frank started the boys on a snipe hunt, which was mostly intended to humiliate the new Cubs who had not been camping with the pack before. Each of these Newbies was given a large paper bag and a stick and told to beat the bushes with the stick and yodel until the snipes ran out and jumped into the bag. Luckily, Cody was too suspicious to fall for this hoax, and he stood beside me and watched the hilarity with a puzzled frown, until a giggling Frank finally called off the game.
After that, everyone got out their nature booklets, and we all wandered into the Lethal Forest again to see how many different things from the booklet we could identify before one of them killed us. Cody and I did very well, finding many of the birds, and almost all the plants. I even discovered some poison ivy. Unfortunately, I found it in a very direct way. I saw what I thought was a black scorpion crawling away, and when I carefully pushed aside some foliage to show it to Cody, he pointed at the plant I was holding and held up his booklet.
“Poison ivy,” he said. He pointed to the illustration, and I nodded; it was a perfect match. I was actually holding poison ivy in my unprotected hands. Since they were already covered with mosquito bites, it seemed redundant, but clearly I was in for an epic itch. Now if only an endangered species of eagle would attack me and claw out my eyeballs, my Wilderness Adventure would be complete. I scrubbed with soap and water and even took an antihistamine, but my already itchy hands were throbbing and swelling up by the time we hiked back to our cars for the drive home.
Other campers who had not had such wonderful luck encountering Our Lethal Forest Friends milled around and called to each other happily, while I cradled my hands and waited for everyone to arrive in the parking lot and find their assigned vehicle. For some reason, possibly just one more mean trick on me by a positively cranky Fate, Doug Crowley’s group all arrived together, got into the beat-up old Cadillac, and drove away for home while Cody and I were still waiting for Mario. I watched the old car cruise past and head out of the parking lot and then turn right onto the highway. The car gave a funny lurch and backfired once, causing a strange rattling sound as the piston knocked at the same time the loose front bumper shook. Then the old Caddy accelerated and was gone down the road, and I turned away and leaned on my car, watching the trailhead for any sign of Mario.
Mario did not appear. A fly began to circle my head obsessively, searching for whatever it is that flies always want. I didn’t know what it was, but I was evidently full of it, because the fly found me overwhelmingly attractive. It circled, darted in toward my face, and circled some more, and it would not give up and go away. I swatted at the fly, but I couldn’t touch it, and my flailing didn’t seem to discourage it. I wondered whether the fly was poisonous, too. If not, I would certainly be allergic to it. I swatted again with no luck, maybe because my hands were swollen from the poison ivy and mosquito bites. Or maybe I was just getting old and slow. I probably was, just when I needed all my reflexes at peak ability to deal with the threats coming at me, known and unknown.
I thought about Hood and Doakes, and wondered what they had been doing to frame me while I was busy infecting myself with plant and insect venom. I hoped that the lawyer Rita was arranging would help, but I had a very bad feeling that he wouldn’t. I have been in and around the law my whole life, and it’s always seemed to me that when you need a lawyer it’s already too late.
Then I thought about my Shadow, and I wondered how and when he would come at me. It sounded so melodramatic, right out of an ancient comic book. The Shadow is coming. Mooo-hahaha. Goofy rather than dangerous, as far as the sound was concerned, but then sounds can be misleading. Like the sound of Crowley’s car backfiring—it sounded like the car was about to fall apart, but obviously the old thing made it here safely. And I had heard that sound before.
I blinked. Where had that thought come from?
I swatted at the fly again and missed. I was certain I had heard that distinctive clattering backfire not too long ago, but I couldn’t remember when. But so what? Not important. Just more clutter in my overloaded mental works. Funny sound, though, very singular, and I was sure I’d heard it before. Bang, rattle-rattle. But my brain stayed blank; perhaps the poor ravaged thing was collapsing into premature senility. Quite likely an inevitable side effect of the recent combination of peril and frustration and loss of blood from the mosquitoes. Even the one time I had slipped out for a little amusement had gone wrong; I played that evening back mentally, once again remembering the horrible surprise in the grubby little house. And it had started out with such a promising feel to it, from the dark and deserted street outside when I felt so eager, ready, unstoppable even, when I had been unexpectedly lit up by a passing car—
Without realizing what I was doing I found myself standing up straight and staring out at the highway. It was a stupid thing to do; Crowley’s car was long gone. I stared after it anyway, for a very long time, until I finally became aware that Cody was jerking on my arm and saying my name.
“Dexter. Dexter. Mario’s here. Dexter, let’s go,” he said, and I became aware that he had said it more than once, but it didn’t matter, because I was also aware of something much more important.
I knew when I had heard that backfire before.
Bang. Double rattle.
Dexter stands there bathed in the light of an old car’s high beams, holding his gym bag filled with party favors and blinking at the light. Just standing on the sidewalk, wrapped in the cool cocoon of my Need-filled disguise, and as the car turns the corner I am suddenly lit up like I am on center stage and singing the title song of a Broadway show—and whoever is in that car can see me as clearly as if it is a bright summer afternoon.
Just that one frozen moment of perfect illumination; then the car speeds up:
Bang. Double rattle.
And it hurries away, around the next corner and into the night and away from the grubby little house on the dark street, away from the neighborhood where Dexter has found his Witness’s Honda.
And Dexter thinks no more about it and goes on into the house, and is still staring at the Almost-familiar Thing on the table when the sirens begin to wind closer …
… because someone had known exactly when I went in, and timed their call to 911 perfectly …
… because he had seen me outside, lit up in his high beams, and when he was sure it was me he had put his foot down hard on the accelerator to get away and make his call—
Bang. Double rattle.
Away into the night while Dexter slipped inside for his gaping and drooling lesson.
And now he has told me he is coming Closer, to mock me, to punish me, to become me—
And he has come closer, all the way up to my face.
Doug Crowley is Bernie Elan; my Shadow.