The Year of the Storm

by John Mantooth

  To my surprise, he just laughed.

  This shook me some, but I knew once the blade was in him, he wouldn’t be laughing. I broke into a run, only to pull up suddenly when I saw what Ronnie was holding in his hand.

  The biggest, blackest gun I have ever seen. It seemed to swallow his hand whole, and the muzzle was aimed right at my head.

  “Drop the knife, Walter,” Ronnie said.

  I started to drop it, but just then the wind picked up. One of the boys’ hats flew off and got twisted up in the branches of a live oak. He cursed and a low rumble of thunder touched our ears. Rain began to fall. I kept looking at the gun, its single eye trained on me. Until you’ve actually had a gun pointed at you, it’s hard to imagine how breathtaking the experience is, how useless you feel.

  Seth stepped up beside me. “He’s not queer.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jake snapped back. “Nobody asked you.”

  Seth took another step until he was in front of me, his full attention turned on Ronnie. “I tried to kiss him, but he pushed me away. He’s not queer. I’m the only one. Let him go. Do whatever you have to do to me, Walter’s not queer.”

  Another roll of thunder. This one was louder, more insistent. The rain fell in big, cold pellets.

  Jake grinned. “Oh my God. This is true love, Ronnie. Just like you said. One of them is going to be the hero for the other one.” He turned to me. “You okay with a faggot taking up for you, Pike? Hell, I used to think you were all right, but this shit beats all.”

  Seth turned and looked at me. He shrugged as if to say he’d tried. When he turned back to face Ronnie, he said, “So what are you going to do with us?”

  I noticed that Ronnie’s hand was beginning to shake a little bit.

  Jake said, “We’ve got a plan, queerboys.”

  Ronnie let out a long breath.

  “You remember the plan, right?” Jake said. “It’s easy and nobody will know. We’re out here far enough that nobody will even hear the shots, Ronnie.”

  The gun wavered.

  “Jesus, Ronnie. You said you wanted this. You said you wanted this for your brother.”

  Suddenly, Ronnie spun around, aiming right at Jake. “Don’t you bring up my brother. Leave him out of this. You hear me? Do you goddamned hear me, Jake?”

  Jake held up his hands. “Yeah. Loud and clear. It’s just that you said, you know, you wanted to take out some queers because of what happened.”

  Ronnie’s eyes were wild, his whole body crooked beneath the weight of the gun.

  Jake kept his eyes on Ronnie. “It’s not me you want, Ronnie. It’s them. The queers.”

  Ronnie was still. He stopped shaking. After a long time, he nodded and turned back around toward us.

  At that moment, I firmly believed my life was about to end.

  “Go on,” Jake said. “Do it for Bob. Do it for the other kids that these two will buttfuck and kill when they get older. Being queer is a disease, man. Take it out.”

  His hand shook. His face was flush and slick with rain, and just before he pulled the trigger I could have sworn I saw regret in his eyes.

  I still don’t know which one happened first—the impossibly loud thomp of thunder or the gunshot. Maybe they happened at the same time. The sky cracked and out poured long strands of lightning, making everything flash like a strobe light.

  Several guys screamed. I’m sure I was one of them. Seth was not. He grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the trees. I still had the knife in my hand and I closed the blade as we ran, slipping it into my back pocket. Another shot followed us. This one flew so near to my face, it scorched my cheek with gunpowder. I screamed again but kept running.

  We didn’t go far before Seth was on the ground, flipping open the storm shelter door. He pushed me down the ladder despite my protests. I told him we would die inside the shelter, we needed to run. He just kept shoving until I half climbed, half fell inside. A second later, the shelter went dark and I felt his hand on my arm.

  “I’ve gotten better at it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We can stay this time. At least for a little while.”

  I felt confused. “Where are we going?” I said.

  “To the swamp, of course.”

  He pushed me toward the back wall.

  “What? How? There’s nothing here but solid concrete.”

  “We’re not going that way. We’re going through the slip.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  DANNY

  We stopped in a little clearing that I guessed wasn’t too far from his house. I was and am still amazed by the secret places that can be found in a forest. This one was beautiful, an almost perfect little meadow, surrounded on all sides by tall pines, its borders laced with sunburned kudzu and Spanish moss that seemed to drip from the sky.

  “There’s two shovels in the back of the truck,” Pike said as he climbed out and stretched himself. “Damn, I wish I had a cigarette.”

  I looked at Cliff. He shrugged and opened the door. Together, we went around to the tailgate and retrieved the shovels. Pike had wandered over to the tree line and seemed to be trying to pace something off, counting his steps and cursing to himself. After a few paces, he kicked at the dirt with a heavy boot. “Damn it. Damn it all.”

  I waited for him to offer some explanation of what he was angry about, but he didn’t look at me or Cliff. Instead, he went back to the tree line and started again.

  “I told you he was a nut,” Cliff said.

  I ignored him. Despite the heat, a cold chill had come over me. Was he doing what I thought he was? No, he couldn’t be. But what if Cliff was right? What if he was a nut? And what about Dad? Dad had said to stay clear.

  I know where your mother and sister are.

  Were we about to dig them up?

  It is hard for me to imagine now the kind of courage it must have taken to stand there and wait for this man to point at the place for us to dig. This is a kind of courage I can no longer comprehend, lost in the years of taking precautions and paying bills and getting old.

  “Here,” he said at last. “Right here. Dig.”

  “What are we digging?” Cliff said.

  Pike glared at me. His eyes seemed to be accusing me. I thought you said we could trust him.

  “Hello?” Cliff said. “What are we digging up?”

  Pike didn’t answer. Instead, he took the shovel from Cliff and began to dig.

  A few seconds later, I joined him.

  —

  I hit the box first. Instead of the pliable soil and the pleasing schluff I’d been used to for the last fifteen minutes, I felt a solid resistance and a thunk. Pike threw his shovel aside and knelt. I noticed for the first time that he was sweating profusely and his breathing was extremely labored.

  “Do you need your oxygen?” I said.

  He waved me away and reached into the hole we’d made. He grunted and heaved out a metal box about the size of a couple of boxes of cereal stacked on top of each other.

  I felt a twinge of relief. There was no way to fit a body in that.

  The box had a small lock on the side. Pike fished into his pocket and produced his keys. He quickly found a small silver one and inserted it into the keyhole. It popped open and Pike reached inside the box with one hand, touching whatever was inside. His eyes were full of wonder and light, and a deep fascination that sent a chill down my spine.

  “What is it?” Cliff said.

  Pike wiped at his eyes and tilted the box over, so that the contents slid out.

  “It’s proof.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was a moment—brief and panic filled—when I saw something that wasn’t there. I saw a skeleton, the bones long and white and gleaming in the sunlight. It rattled out of the box and hit the ground in a jumbled mess. I had already t
urned away and opened my mouth to scream when I heard Cliff.

  “This is what you wanted to show us?”

  I made myself look again, and what had at first been an intricate network of bones was now the white backs of photographs. They were old Polaroids. Pike picked them up and held them out for me.

  There were five in all. The quality wasn’t great, and the lighting in them even worse, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so fascinating.

  The first one was of a kid I didn’t recognize. He was standing in knee-deep water, grinning. Behind him was a collection of oaks so massive, they made the one in my front yard look like a joke. Moss hung from the branches, and above the branches a deep blue dusk lingered like a soulful kiss.

  The next photograph was the same kid, different angle. In this shot, the water he’s standing in stretches out for hundreds of yards before the trees begin. In this wider shot, a full moon was also visible in the background, illuminating the photo with a pallid beauty.

  The next three photos were the ones that took my breath away.

  A different kid, a different angle. A cabin in the background. I might have fixated on that detail if not for the expression on the kid’s face. He wore a sly grin I’d seen somewhere before. I recognized it instantly but couldn’t place it. At least not at first. Then it came to me, like a sudden blast of lightning. My body tingled with it.

  Pike. It was Pike as a young boy.

  I said nothing and slid the photo to the back of the pile, revealing the next one. Pike again, this time laughing.

  The last one was the best. Neither boy was in it. Instead, it was a close-up of the cabin. In every way, it might have been Pike’s cabin, except one. It was situated on the edge of the swamp, and it had a little ramshackle porch, barely wide enough to put a chair on.

  “Where were these taken?” I said.

  Pike cleared his throat. “Not far from where we are now.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  Pike looked at the sky. “I told you,” he said to someone only he could see.

  “Do you expect us to believe these were taken here? In these woods?”

  Pike focused on me again with his good eye. “I don’t expect you to believe anything. All I can tell you is the truth, and try to convince you to think rationally.”

  “Rationally?” Cliff said, taking the photos out of my hand. “You show us these photos of some place that’s obviously miles from these woods—” He paused to flip through them quickly. “I’d say by the looks of those trees, we’re talking at least a hundred miles south of here. This is the opposite of rational.”

  Pike shook his head. “Then explain how me and Seth got to this swamp a hundred miles from home. Seth’s family didn’t even own a car, and the one we had wouldn’t make it ten miles without overheating. We were poor. Hell, poorer than poor. We had to steal the damn camera from the school just to take the pictures.”

  I was sure he was crazy, but I didn’t want to give up. Not yet. Maybe I’d gone a little crazy myself. I said, “So if this place is in the woods, take us to it.”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Why? I’m ready to get them back.”

  “Don’t be too sure. You’re not going anywhere until I tell you my story.”

  “Damn the story,” I said, “I want to go now.”

  Pike smiled, showing his yellow teeth. The resemblance to the boy in the photos I’d just seen was striking. “Maybe you will do,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means my instincts were right about you. Just like they were right about Seth so many years ago.”

  “Seth?”

  “It’s part of the story I need to tell you.”

  “Well, tell it already.”

  He shook his head and reached for the photos. Cliff let him take them, and Pike placed them back in the box, which he locked and dropped back into the hole.

  “You’re burying them again?”

  “You always ask dumb questions?”

  He took the shovel and began covering the box with dirt.

  “None of this makes any sense,” Cliff said.

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Pike said, still shoveling the dirt back into the hole.

  “So what do you do?” Cliff asked. “When things don’t make sense.”

  Pike smirked. “You put those things in a box somewhere, bury them deep. Try not to think about them. It’s easier than you might imagine. It’s the remembering that’s the hard part.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  WALTER

  Slip.

  That was the only time I heard Seth give it a name. I’m not sure why he called it that, but later, when I had time to think on all the stuff that happened after I took his hand, it made sense. It fit.

  But at that moment, I didn’t know what to think.

  “Trust me,” he said. “It’s what friends do.”

  He grabbed my hand. I tried to pull away, remembering how he’d tried to kiss me, but he held on tight.

  “Just for a second,” he said.

  I relaxed. I might have closed my eyes. It’s hard to remember. I do remember being excited. I wanted to go back, to prove to myself that it had happened. If it hadn’t, we would both be in a world of hurt. I could hear the boys outside, the groaning of the hatch as somebody pulled it open. Then it got quiet, so quiet it almost seemed loud. That doesn’t make sense, does it? No, I suppose it doesn’t. Get used to it. From here on, forget sense. Toss it the hell out the window.

  One minute I heard them rattling the shelter door and the next I heard the slow lapping of water against an invisible bank, the call of a whippoorwill, the chittering of the cicadas at dusk.

  My heart jumped. It felt like I was going to fly apart into about a dozen pieces. Like riding one of those loop-de-loops at the state fair or one of those rides that drops you into a free fall. My lungs filled up to bursting. And hell if I didn’t feel like my body was being drawn and quartered. I was a beat away from death, a hiccup in my chest from falling into nothing and never coming back, and then I was falling again, spinning, the swamp flying up at me so fast it blurred my vision, made my eyes water. This time I did hit the swamp, and it was cold and dark and dirty. My nose filled up with it. I sucked that mess into my lungs. I thought I’d drown for sure. My eyes saw light—green and murky. It came from above me. I tried to flail upward.

  Then it was over.

  We were back in the storm shelter again.

  “It didn’t work,” I said, panic rising in my voice. Jake and Ronnie and Steve would be on us any second.

  Seth still held my hand. He squeezed it tightly. “It worked.”

  “No,” I said. “Look around. It’s the shelter still.”

  “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

  He led me over to the ladder. I let go of his hand and cringed as he started up. I’d heard them at the door. Maybe they weren’t inside yet, but they’d still be right there. I hissed at him. “No. Don’t—” He ignored me and opened the hatch.

  The light was different. I noticed that first. It was darker outside, almost like dusk. He climbed through the hatch. “Come on up, Walter.”

  Slowly, I climbed the ladder. When I reached the top, I saw the full moon first, hanging in a dusky sky. I pulled myself up and out, sure that suddenly I was in the midst of magic, not the hocus-pocus stuff you see in movies or that illusionary bullshit of light and shadow, but real magic. Somehow, Seth had brought me . . . where? I struggled to get my mind around it. Somewhere else. And this time we were really there. No fleeting glimpses that could so easily be dismissed. This time it was solid ground, dirty water, gorgeous sky, and a light misting rain. We’d slipped—that was Seth’s word—right out of our world into another one.

  It wasn’t until I stood up that I saw the cabin, its single light bur
ning inside.

  “Watch it,” he said, tugging me back toward the bank. A snake, as thick as my arm and twice as long, skimmed across the water.

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah, they’re everywhere.” He pointed at the sky, maybe the moon, maybe the stars beyond. In the west, I could see lingering strains of red.

  “Can we go in the cabin?” I asked.

  “We could, but I like to stay close to the hatch. It’s easier to find that way.”

  I turned around, thinking it would be right beside me, but it wasn’t. I was standing in water now, at least two feet of it. The hatch was gone.

  “Don’t worry. It should be around here somewhere. This place is easier to get to than to get out of, but I’ve had some practice.”

  I felt panic coming over me. “But it was here a second ago. How could it just move?”

  Seth laughed. “Listen to yourself, Walter. You want things to be so rational. The world we see may be rational, but the real one is not.”

  “The real one? What’s that mean?”

  “Just that this place doesn’t follow the ordinary rules.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Let’s go ahead and look for it. Might take us a while to find it, and I can tell it makes you anxious, not knowing a way out.”

  I nodded. He was right. Seth was nothing if not perceptive. It was uncanny, really.

  It seemed like an eternity, us slogging through the water, looking for the hatch. Of course, it was mostly Seth who was looking. I was too distracted by where I was—a swamp, an honest-to-God swamp—to be much help. While we looked, Seth told me about one time when he couldn’t find it.

  “What did you do?”

  “I freaked out a little. Started thinking about how I could live here. I realized it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, you know? It’s not like my life back in the real world is such great shakes.”

  I laughed at this. “True enough.”

  “But I still wanted to go home. After I gave up on finding the hatch, I started to explore the swamp because I figured there had to be more than one way out. I was right.”