The Fort

by Aric Davis

  10

  Scott and Luke were already in the fort when Tim got there. He could tell even before he began to ascend the ladder, before he could hear them talking or try to see through the windows. That was because when the boys had first built the fort, they’d installed a security system, so that they would know if a stranger was up there waiting for them. The idea had been Scott’s stepdad’s on his lone trip to see the thing, and it was simple: All three boys were to keep a bottle cap in their pants pocket at all times. Scott had Coke, Tim had Budweiser, and Luke had Sprite. If they came alone, they were always to check at the base of the ladder that was farthest north, or closest to Tim’s house. No caps placed on the ground under the bottom rung, but noise coming from upstairs? That meant run home and get an adult.

  Today, Tim saw the Coke and Sprite caps right where they were supposed to be, and he flipped his Budweiser cap next to them out of habit, just as Scott’s stepdad had told them to. “You have to do it every time,” he’d said, “or it’ll be pointless and you could end up getting killed by some drifter anyway.” The boys had nodded at this passing of valuable knowledge, and all of them loved the ritual that felt almost like something James Bond would do.

  His cap in place, Tim slowly began to ascend the ladder. All three of them could do it quickly—Scott the fastest by far—but it was still pretty cool to go slowly and look at how the forest changed as you climbed. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see—the boys’ near-constant presence in the woods would’ve sent most local wildlife in search of a quieter locale—but there was still a lot to take in. Even the trees looked cooler the higher up Tim got, and no matter how many times he did it, the trip to the top never seemed to get boring.

  Tim arose from the hole in the floor, then transitioned from the last rungs of the ladder to the waiting safety of the fort. Luke grabbed his forearm as he came over the gap in the wood, and then Tim felt the faint sense of vertigo fade. Feet planted on semisolid ground, Tim thanked Luke for the hand and asked the other boys what they were doing.

  “Nothing,” said Luke. “Just trying to hit that target again, or at least we were.”

  “Yeah,” said Scott dejectedly. “Either our guns suck, or we suck. Probably both.”

  “Well, we’re not going to get better guns,” said Tim. “I had to bug my mom forever just to let me get this one. There’s no way she’s going to let me get a better one, not even if I got a paper route and saved my own money.”

  “Good luck getting a paper route around here,” said Luke. “The Bennetts have that locked up until they die.” This was an endlessly sore point for any cash-strapped neighborhood child old enough to have a bicycle. The Bennett brothers, a pair of alcoholics who lived in Luke’s trailer park, had miles’ and miles’ worth of paper routes, and had used them as a sole source of income for as long as anyone could remember. The worst part was that the Bennett brothers, drunks or not, did a great job with their thousands of deliveries and there was no way they were going to get fired anytime soon.

  “Yeah,” said Tim. “I know. It just sucks, is all. I know my dad would let me get a better gun, maybe even a .22 like I fired one time up north, but my mom won’t have a real gun in the house.”

  “Hey, did you guys hear about Molly Peterson?” Scott said, changing the subject. “Her mom and my mom are friends at work, and I guess Molly never came home last night. My mom said that, knowing Molly, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was shacked up with a sailor or something for a few days, but I guess her mom is totally freaking out.”

  “I heard about that,” said Tim. “Her mom called my mom this morning. Molly was out to the movies last night with my sister and…” Tim trailed off.

  “And what?” Luke asked him. “What happened at the movies?”

  “Well,” said Tim, “the thing is, I don’t know exactly. Also, my mom told me not to tell anyone about it. She said it was private family stuff, and that it was supposed to stay that way.”

  “Hey,” said Scott, “we’re not just friends, we’re blood brothers, remember?”

  Tim did. The three had sealed a pact in blood coaxed from their pinkies three years prior. Scott had a point, but Tim’s mother’s words still rang in his head. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But my mom was super serious about not telling anyone about what happened to Becca. She said it could be bad for her reputation, which made no sense. Like, how is some girl going missing bad for my sister’s reputation?”

  “You just don’t understand how reputations work for girls,” said Luke. “My sister Ashley has all kinds of rumors going around about her at school. You guys know exactly what I’m talking about.” They did. Rumor had it that Luke’s fifth-grade sister Ashley had been caught giving a classmate a hand job in the boys’ bathroom right before spring break earlier in the year. No one could confirm it, but the fact that both she and Todd had been suspended at the same time was fairly telling that something, even if no one knew exactly what, had happened. “Still,” Luke continued, “you can tell us. Besides, it’s summer. Even if we wanted to be jerks and blab to the whole school about what happened, there’s no one to tell.”

  “Not to mention,” said Scott, “if Molly really is gone, everyone is going to know exactly what happened anyways. If she’s really gone for more than a few days, it’ll be on the news, like last summer, when that kid from Kentwood wound up dead in that refrigerator.”

  “I still don’t get why anyone would hide in an old fridge,” said Tim, trying to deflect the thought of Becca being anything like Luke’s sisters. “You know it had to have smelled super bad in there. And you guys have a point. But you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone. If the whole town finds out my sister was frenching some dude at the drive-in, that’s fine, as long as they didn’t find out from me, or from you. Got it?”

  Scott and Luke did, both of their heads bobbling as Tim started to tell them what happened. “My sister wanted to go see a couple of movies at the drive-in, and—”

  “What movies?”

  “The Untouchables and Full Met—”

  “Wait,” said Scott. “Did she say if Full Metal Jacket was good? Carl and my mom saw it on Friday when it came out, and he said it was awesome. Seriously, you guys, my stepdad told me that movie would put hair on my balls. He said it was just like Nam, no Hollywood fucking around like Apocalypse Now or Platoon. I totally want to go, but Carl asked at the movie theater and they said no minors. I could tell it was good, ’cause my mom was freaking out, but—”

  “Let Tim tell us what happened,” said Luke. “Just give it a rest in general.”

  Scott sat down, looking pissed. Tim thought Luke was pretty harsh, calling him out like that—what about the blood-brothers business?—but went on with the story.

  “So my sister and some friends went to the drive-in, most likely to drink beer and hit on older guys. The usual stuff.”

  “Stupid stuff,” added Scott.

  “Yes, exactly, super-stupid stuff. Anyways, something happened, I’m pretty sure between my sister and one of the guys. Which is weird, because I know she is, like, in love with Tyler Cranston, but she says it wasn’t him, and even sounded sort of PO’d that someone would even think it was. So my theory is this: My sister and her dumb buddies go to the drive-in. Something happens that makes Becca pissed at Tyler, probably saw him kissing another girl or something, and she decides to try and make him jealous. Only the older guy that she hooks up with wants to do more than just kiss.”

  “Like have sex or something?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, something like that. Maybe he was trying to go all the way. Who knows? Anyways, my sister made it clear she didn’t want to do that, and something bad happened. When she came home her shirt was torn, and I could tell she was really upset. And not like how she gets upset when I call her Bacon and she’s feeling fat, but really upset, and really scared too.”

  “Did any of the other girls hook up with some of the older guys too?” Scott asked. “’Cause maybe they
did, and one of them took Molly. Maybe he’s some psycho killer or something, like that guy dumping bodies in the park, and her saying no wouldn’t have mattered at all.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Luke. “A psychopath kidnapping some high school chick from a drive-in movie theater? That might happen downtown, but not here. You need to lose the late-night horror flicks, Scotty.”

  “I don’t know, maybe Scott’s on to something,” said Tim. “After all, stuff like that always happens in places that seem pretty normal. That’s how dudes like that get away with it for so long, because nobody wants to suspect their neighbor.”

  “Jesus,” said Luke. “Both of you? You two need to soak your heads. Next thing you’ll be telling me you think the Russkies are really going to nuke us, and we need to dig bomb shelters. If you guys want to go play private eye, you can be my guest. Just so you know, though, I’ll be doing rad shit while you’re gone, and when you come back, I’ll be the one laughing. That girl is going to come home in a day or two with a broken heart and maybe a baby in her belly, and that’s going to be the end of it. Trust me, give it a couple days, she’ll come crawling back, and everyone except the high school kids will forget this ever happened.”

  Eager to change the subject, and feeling terrible for having shared the information in the first place, Tim said, “Anyways, the guns. You guys really want to give up on the target? I think it’s fun to at least try.”

  “Tim,” said Luke. “Let me level with you: Molly Peterson is a lot more likely to be really kidnapped than we are to hit that target with these shitty guns. I’ve got an hour left before I have to go home and make sure my idiot sisters remember to have lunch. You guys actually want to do anything, or just keep on yapping like old ladies?”

  11

  The three friends broke up the party fifteen minutes before Luke needed to be home to make lunch. If Luke was late, his sisters would tell on him. If he just skipped it, they wouldn’t eat, and they’d tell on him. It was ridiculous, they were just a year younger than he was, but it was what his mom wanted, so he tolerated it with a skin that was growing thicker by the day.

  Scott had invited Tim to come over to his house and eat—no one was home, Carl was working, and his mom had a week of doubles—but Tim declined. There was never anything exciting happening at home, and as bad as he felt for Becca, he did want to see if there were any new developments. Tim was smiling as he walked past the patio and into the front yard, but the sight of the unfamiliar car in the driveway changed that, mostly because the one behind it was a marked police car.

  With a lump in his throat, along with a powerfully burning curiosity, Tim walked through his yard and bounded up the driveway to the front door. When he walked in, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  Becca and his parents were sitting at the kitchen table with a man in a black suit, along with a uniformed police officer. Five sets of eyes turned to him as the door swung open, and Tim closed it behind him quietly. “Tim,” said his mom. “Go to your room and read a book. No one is in trouble, and we’ll explain in a little bit.”

  “OK, Mom,” he said, before gliding as silently as he was able through the dining room, the kitchen, and the hallway that led to his room, as though it were possible to offend the police officers by being noisy. The one in the uniform had looked just like any cop Tim had ever seen: he was tall, with a broad chest, and had a really cool-looking pistol on his right hip. The detective, though, if that’s what he was, had been different. Tim had been able to feel the man’s eyes on him as soon as he’d entered the room, and he’d known he was being analyzed, judged. He was as sure of it as he was of anything, as if the detective had used some sort of impossible brain scan on him to see if there were any useful information trapped in his mind. God, maybe Luke’s right. Too many scary movies. That wasn’t how it felt, though. The detective had been sizing him up, chewing on Tim as if he were a fatty piece of steak, and it was not a comfortable feeling.

  With the bedroom door closed behind him, Tim felt a lot better, as if that sort of barrier could possibly protect him from a detective with the ability to know exactly when and how a boy was lying. It was a weak barrier. Tim wanted to, in order: (1) tell those cops that he knew nothing, (2) play Nintendo in the family room—Zelda, always Zelda lately—and (3) go hang out with his friends. A soft knock on his door was a fair indicator that none of the above would be happening, and Tim exhaled softly as his dad entered the room following the light tap.

  “How are you doing, big guy?” Stan asked, and Tim searched his father’s face for information. There was nothing there. He looked like he always did, only maybe a little more tired than usual.

  “I’m OK. What are those cops doing here?”

  “They had to ask Becca some questions about last night.” Stan sighed. “Letting her go to that movie keeps becoming a worse and worse decision, unfortunately. One of the girls that she went with, Molly, didn’t come home last night, and her mom is really upset, really worried. Not that I blame her for that. If Becca hadn’t come home, your mom and I would be going nuts. I think any parent would. Anyways, Becca isn’t in trouble or anything, at least not with the police. They just had to ask her when she last saw Molly, who she was with, things like that.”

  “What did she say?”

  Stan took a deep breath. “She told them when she saw her last, and who she was with. Her description matched what some of the other girls had to say, and I think that made the cops happy that all their ducks were in a row.”

  “Is Molly going to be OK?”

  “I don’t know, buddy. I sure hope so, but I don’t think the guys your sister and her friends were hanging around with were very nice people. Now, that doesn’t mean that Molly won’t turn out to be just fine—that’s really the most likely thing. But it does make me worried for you guys, as a parent.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Dad. I don’t want to hang out with creepy older guys; plus, I never go to the drive-in, unless it’s with you and Mom.”

  Stan let out a bark of laughter, and then looked down at Tim again. “That’s good stuff. You get some lunch and go find something to do. It’s summer. You don’t want to be stuck up in your room all day. And remember, if you get bored, there’s lots of hard work to be done out back.”

  Luke made it home with three minutes to spare. When he walked into the trailer, he saw his sisters sitting on the living room floor, watching a soap opera. From the sound of things, someone had been caught having an affair. Luke ignored them, and they ignored Luke as he passed them and went to the kitchen. As usual, his mom was nowhere to be found.

  Luke took a jar of jelly from the refrigerator, and then a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. He opened both jars, then placed three plates on the counter, topping them with bread that he quickly checked for mold. After spreading the sandwiches with peanut butter and jelly—lots of both for him; light jelly, heavy peanut butter for Alisha; light peanut butter, heavy jelly for Ashley—Luke topped the jellied pieces with the peanut butter–covered ones, then added chips to all three plates.

  He carried his sisters’ food into the living room and placed it before them, getting no reaction from the girls. Ignoring them in return, Luke walked back to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of Coke from a two-liter bottle, then sat at the lone clean spot at the dining room table. The table was covered with bills and laundry, and not for the first time, Luke wondered if his mom chose for them to live in filth, or if she just didn’t know any other way. Deciding that was too depressing a thought to ponder, he began to imagine being screamed at by a drill instructor while he did push-ups. In the fantasy it was raining, he was knuckle deep in mud, and he was smiling. Someday.

  When Luke was done eating, he put his plate in the sink and walked to the living room. His sisters were where he had left them—one on the floor, one lying across the couch—and both of their plates were empty. The soap opera was still blaring from the TV as Luke passed in front of their glassy-eyed faces to col
lect the dishes, and once they were retrieved, he headed back to the kitchen. Luke set the plates in the sink with his, then turned on the water and laid a towel down upon the counter so that he would have space to let them dry. Mom doesn’t work but is almost never home. Where does she go? This thought, much like the one concerning the condition of their house, was almost too black to really put much energy into. Luke felt quite certain that no matter what his mom filled her days with, it was probably better not to know.

  When the dishes were done, Luke noticed a familiar smell coming from the other room. Drying his hands with the same towel he used as a drying rag, Luke walked into the living room, where he saw his sisters smoking cigarettes, flicking the ashes into their mom’s pilfered Arby’s ashtrays.

  “You guys can’t smoke in the house!” Luke bellowed. “If Mom finds out you guys were stealing her cigarettes, she’ll kill you, not to mention what she’ll do if she catches you smoking in the house.”

  “But she won’t catch us,” said Ashley, blowing a ring of far-too-practiced smoke from her lips. “Because we didn’t steal Mom’s cigarettes,” finished Alisha. “We told her that we smoked a few weeks ago, and she’s been buying them for us ever since.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” stammered Luke. “We’re broke. Why would Mom let you do that? Not to mention it’s terrible for you. Everybody knows that.”

  “We’re not smoking a lot,” said Alisha. “That’s why you haven’t seen us smoking before.” She exhaled another blast of nicotine and tar. “Besides, Mom told us it would help us keep our figures,” said Ashley. “I’m not going to get all fat and gross. Plus, guys like girls who smoke. Mom told us that too.”

  “I’m leaving,” said Luke quietly. “I’ll be back for dinner.”