Summer's End

by Joel A. Sutherland

  “Impressive, baby brother,” Hannah said.

  Hayden passed the ball to his sister. “You’re eight minutes older than me.”

  “And look how much I’ve made those eight minutes count.”

  “Younger, older …” Hayden shrugged. “I can beat you.”

  Hannah gave him a thumbs-up and said, “Okay.”

  “You’re not unbeatable. Do I need to remind you that you have an H?”

  “And you’re at H-O. What’s your point?”

  “My point is,” Hayden said, his voice rising, “you’ve missed shots before and you can miss shots again.”

  “Well, then, by all means, please be my guest and have the next shot.” Hannah loved to play the magnanimous sister. It was the most effective way of getting under her brother’s skin. As much as she loved him, she also loved to tease him. She passed the ball back to Hayden before he could refuse her offer.

  Although he didn’t look too thrilled with his sister’s slightly less than sincere show of comraderie, he walked to the corner of the court and shot the ball. It hit the outside of the rim and bounced away.

  “Aw, too bad,” Hannah said. She took a few steps and scooped up the ball. “I thought that was going in.”

  Ichiro sighed. “I wish they’d hurry up and end this so we can hit the beach already.”

  The beach sounded good, but the island was where Jacob really wanted to go. It was on his mind nearly constantly, as if it had hooked him on the end of a line and was slowly reeling him in like a fish. He went to bed thinking of Summer’s End and woke up dreaming of it. Odd dreams, dark dreams, dreams that thankfully faded away with the morning light. Jacob looked at Blake’s inert body. The older boy hadn’t moved or made a sound in a few minutes, and he was snoring lightly. Just in case, Jacob whispered. “Instead of the beach, I’d rather go to Summer’s End again. There’s still so much we haven’t seen, and I feel like we’re getting closer to the truth of what happened there.”

  Ichiro’s eyes went wide and he looked quickly from Blake to Jacob. Quietly, so low that Jacob could barely make out the words, he said, “Don’t let him hear you.”

  “He’s asleep,” Jacob whispered. “And even if he was awake, he wouldn’t know what Summer’s End is anyway.”

  “I’m not asleep,” Blake said, without bothering to sit up or open his eyes, “and I do know what Summer’s End is.”

  Ichiro threw his hands up in the air and glared at Jacob, who felt his spirit plummet. But then the impact of what Blake had said made him take pause. “You know Summer’s End?”

  “Yeah, I know that cursed house.”

  “Cursed house?” Ichiro said. “What do you mean by ‘cursed’?”

  “What do you think I mean?” Blake sat up and eyed them suspiciously. “How many times have you been there?”

  “Just twice,” Ichiro said quickly, as if he’d been caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t be doing.

  Blake rubbed his face and ran a hand over his scalp. “Twice, huh? That place has got its teeth in you now, that’s for sure.”

  Jacob laughed nervously. “C’mon, twice is hardly anything.”

  “That’s all it takes.”

  “What do you know about it?” Jacob asked. He struggled to keep an even tone. “How many times have you been?”

  Blake scoffed and looked offended. “I’ve never been,” he said. “My brother has.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yeah, Colin. He’s older, left town years ago. He moves around a lot. Anyway, back when he was in high school, he and some friends, they used to go out to that island every weekend during the summer. You know, use it as a place to get away and party. He said there was an old, abandoned house, a huge place called Summer’s End. He and his friends would dare each other to enter but no one was brave enough to take more than a couple steps inside. He loved going but he also kinda dreaded it at the same time. Colin compared the house and his body to a couple of magnets — hold them one way and invisible forces push them apart, but turn one over and they’re immediately drawn together.”

  Push and pull, Jacob thought. I had the same feeling.

  “Simple,” Hannah said to Hayden, her voice cutting through the heat. “Just a granny shot from centre court. You can’t miss.” She crouched and bowed her legs as if riding the world’s smallest invisible horse, then threw the ball underhand from between her legs. It soared high through the air and — swoosh — fell straight through the net without touching the hoop at all.

  Blake was looking through Hannah, through Hayden, through the basketball and the nets and the trees behind the court. “At first Colin wouldn’t stop telling me about those parties. I thought he was trying to show off, make me think he was cooler than he actually was. But the more he went the less he spoke of Summer’s End. Until one day his buddy Kent went in, alone. Colin said Kent was inside for less than five minutes but it felt like an hour. When he came out, Colin said Kent was all pale and sweaty. He didn’t say anything. He just walked straight to the boats. Wasn’t until they were almost home that he turned to my brother and told him what he’d seen.”

  Jacob and Ichiro sat silent, transfixed, as Blake shared his second-hand knowledge of Summer’s End. Hayden cheered loudly, having defied expectations by duplicating Hannah’s granny shot. It snapped Jacob out of his trance-like state.

  “What did Kent see?” he asked.

  Blake laughed, a nervous sound that said you’ll never believe me if I tell you, but he told them all the same. “Ghosts.”

  Neither Jacob nor Ichiro said anything for a few moments.

  “You don’t seem surprised by that,” said Blake. “Did you see ghosts there too?

  “Nah,” Jacob said. “We’ve just explored the island. We haven’t gone into the house yet.” The lie came quick and easy. He had no desire to take that particular walk down memory lane with Blake.

  “So Kent saw ghosts, eh?” Ichiro said, picking up where Blake had left off.

  Blake nodded. “Two of them. And he heard more than that, even.” He laughed again, but this time he sounded skeptical and perhaps, Jacob thought, a little fearful. “That’s what my brother said, anyway. I don’t know.”

  “Did he say anything else about the ghosts he saw?” Jacob asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah. The first one ran down the hallway at Kent. It was a woman. He thought she was a real person until she tried to grab his arm. Her hand passed right through.”

  Jacob shivered despite the heat. “What did she want?”

  “She just whispered, ‘James is coming. My husband, he’s after me. He will hurt you. Come with me to the basement. We can hide there. We can be safe there forever.’”

  “What happened next?” Ichiro asked.

  “Another ghost stepped into the hall. He was a big bearded guy in a white apron and he was carrying a leather case. He yelled, ‘Get out!’ and then he put his case on a table and unlatched the clasps.”

  Click! Jacob’s imagination provided the sound. Click! He felt like all the blood had drained out of his head. “What was in the case?”

  “Kent didn’t stick around to find out.”

  “What did he do?”

  “What do you think he did? He got out of there. Fast. Made a beeline for the boats. No one questioned his story despite how far-fetched it sounded. They all made a pact never to return to the island. After high school, they all moved away and never came back.”

  Jacob shook his head. The thought of parting ways with friends so willingly was foreign to him.

  “My brother never spoke about Summer’s End again,” Blake said. “Not a single word. I’m telling you guys: that house is cursed.” He chewed on his fingernails for a moment of nervous contemplation. “Listen, you can go there all you want. I don’t care. But I wouldn’t be caught dead on that island.”

  On the court, Hannah sat cross-legged on the asphalt two metres from the net and tossed the ball through the hoop with one hand.

&
nbsp; “Give me a break,” Hayden muttered. He grabbed the ball, sat down and yelled in pain. “The court’s red hot!” he shouted, and quickly threw the ball. It flew a metre wide of the net, but Hayden didn’t seem to care. He jumped to his feet and rubbed the backs of his burning thighs. “How did you manage to sit long enough to get off a decent shot?”

  “Guess I’m made of tougher stuff than you,” Hannah said. “You’re at H-O-R-S, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Thanks. I haven’t forgotten. You keep reminding me.”

  “You said Kent heard some ghosts,” Jacob said, “other than the two he saw, the husband and wife. What did he hear?”

  “Oh yeah, right.” Blake sighed. The skin on his face, once as red and splotchy as a bloodstain, had turned waxen and white. “He said that was the worst part. The part that nearly drove him crazy and haunted his nightmares for days after he left. When the big man appeared with his case, shortly after the woman tried to lead Kent into the basement, he heard voices from below. Whimpers, then screams.

  “They assumed the crying and screams were from the couple’s kids. Somebody must have died there, for sure. It adds up, doesn’t it? An old, abandoned house on a secluded island, which no one else has moved into for years. An angry husband. A scared wife. And kids hiding in the basement.”

  Jacob and Ichiro shared a silent look. Jacob’s stomach churned, threatening to return the water he had chugged after he had spelled out H-O-R-S-E.

  Hayden stood three metres behind the basketball net. He shot the ball in a high arc that sailed over the backboard and came close to the rim but missed by a few centimetres.

  “And that’s E for you, and the game for me,” Hannah said. She scooped a pile of change off a tree stump. “And, of course, my winnings.” She rattled the change in her fist and smiled. “This takes the sting out of the three-game baseball suspension the league served me. Think I’ll spend my newfound free time playing basketball and taking everybody’s money.”

  On a different day, Jacob would have regretted missing the winning shot that Hannah made from behind the net. But after Blake’s story, both the game and Hannah’s incredible performance seemed inconsequential. They were things that would have mattered a lot more to him before this summer. He felt like his childhood was slipping away.

  “And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go home, fill my bathtub with ice and sit in it for the rest of the afternoon. I might never get out again.” Blake stood to leave, but something crossed his mind and his expression darkened once more. “I almost forgot. Kent told Colin one more thing. As he ran out of Summer’s End he looked over his shoulder. The man’s apron had a tear in it, as if he’d been stabbed in the heart, and blood was spreading across his chest. The woman’s blouse was also soaked with blood, but she hadn’t been stabbed in the heart.” Blake ran a finger across his midsection. “She’d been disembowelled.”

  EIGHT

  July 31

  For more than a week, the dark corners of Jacob’s head were filled with horrors every time he closed his eyes. Long hair. Black eyes. Green skin. Claws. Scratching. Tangling. Cutting. Pulling him down, down, down, where he remained with crops of other drowned children forever.

  He tried to close his eyes as little as possible. But try as he might to stay awake, sleep always claimed him sooner or later.

  As his semi-conscious body slipped through the bed and fell down a long black tunnel, he dreamt of his mother singing him a bedtime song.

  Brahms’ Lullaby.

  Crackle, crackle.

  His mother morphed into Tresa. She looked down on Jacob like he was her own son.

  “Sleep now,” she said. “For when you wake, you will move mountains.”

  He fell deeper into his dream, farther down the black tunnel.

  His mother lay on an operating table. She turned her head slowly and stared at Jacob with wide, doll-like eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Jake,” she said, void of emotion. “I’ll be fine.”

  Brahms’ Lullaby continued to play in his head, although neither his mother nor Tresa sang the words.

  “You’ll be fine too, Jacob,” Tresa said. “Keep falling. Go deeper. We’ll be safe in the basement.”

  Down, down, down he tumbled.

  A surgeon with no face approached his mother, blocking her from Jacob’s view. He carried an old leather case, which he set down on the operating table.

  He opened one latch.

  CLICK!

  Then the other.

  CLICK!

  The case opened with a creak that sounded like a rusty scream. Strapped to the inner sides of the case was an assortment of knives and saws. Archaic surgical tools from the 1800s, rusted but still sharp and splattered in blood as bright and red as a cardinal’s wing.

  The surgeon pulled out a long knife.

  Crackle, crackle.

  He pulled out an artery hook.

  Crackle, crackle.

  He pulled out a large surgical saw with a handle.

  Crackle, crackle.

  The surgeon’s facial features slowly appeared. Jacob wasn’t surprised to see who it was.

  Dr. James Stockwell.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said to Jacob, his beard trembling with rage.

  And then the doctor turned and went to work on Jacob’s mother with his surgical tools, and Jacob couldn’t move, and he was forced to watch, and then he found himself on the surgical table in place of his mother, and she stood beside the table, and beside her stood Tresa, and the doctor raised the saw, and Tresa said, “We’ll be safe in the basement,” and his mother said, “Move mountains, Jake,” and Tresa said, “Forever in the basement,” and the doctor said, “Time to go,” and he lowered the saw, and he sawed, and he sawed, and he sawed …

  And Jacob stopped falling.

  NINE

  August 1

  Early that morning, long before the sun had risen, Jacob lay wide awake. He watched the tree branches outside the window sway in a breeze that provided little relief from the previous day’s pent-up heat.

  He’d had another nightmare, but this one was different. This one was worse. Earlier in the week, he’d dreamt of the Kalapik. Last night, he’d dreamt of James and Tresa, of his mother, of himself, and of a surgical saw …

  He didn’t want to think of it. He needed to be with his friends. He wanted to get away. And for some crazy reason, he wanted to go to the very place he’d dreamt of.

  He sent two short texts to Ichiro.

  wanna go to summers end today?

  we can take h&h. let me know and I’ll call them

  He put his phone on silent and set it on his bedside table, then rolled over and tried to get a little more sleep. As much as he didn’t want to dream, he was beyond exhausted. And he felt like he’d need to be clear-headed and alert when he returned to the island.

  * * *

  Jacob paused paddling the canoe for a moment to stifle a deep yawn.

  “You tired, Jacob?” Hayden asked from behind. “That’s the third time you’ve yawned in the past three seconds.”

  “Yawning three times in three seconds isn’t even possible,” Hannah said. She was seated behind her brother and steering the canoe as they glided across Passage Lake.

  “Well, he’s yawned a lot in a short period of time. Happy?”

  Hannah shrugged.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night,” Jacob said, downplaying how awful his sleep had been.

  They paddled for a while in silence.

  “Ichiro,” Hayden said, “tell me again why you named this canoe Scarlet Sails.”

  “Because it’s red,” Ichiro said flatly.

  “Uh-huh …”

  “And it sails.”

  “Sure,” Hayden said. “But technically it doesn’t.”

  “Maybe not, but I like alliteration,” Ichiro said.

  “Like skull and slap,” Hannah added cheerfully.

  “Skull and slap?” Hayden said. “That’s random.” />
  “Not really,” Hannah said, and slapped her brother gently across the back of his head.

  “Ow! Quit it.” Hayden put a hand to the back of his head.

  “Just trying to knock some sense into you,” Hannah said. “Literally.”

  “Yeah, well, literally quit it.” Hayden turned his back on his sister and started paddling again. “How much farther is this place?” he asked Jacob and Ichiro. “I’m ready to get out of Scarlet Sails.” He said the canoe’s name with a posh British accent.

  “Not much farther,” Jacob said. “You’ll know the island when you see it.”

  “How?”

  Jacob shook his head, knowing what he was about to say wouldn’t sound believable until Hayden had seen the island for himself. “It’ll call to you.”

  “Call to me? Like, on my cellphone? I just checked and the reception’s terrible out here.” Hayden laughed. He was the only one.

  Jacob didn’t respond.

  “And there’s a house on the island,” Hannah said, going over the few facts Jacob and Ichiro had shared. “Summer something.”

  “Summer’s End,” Ichiro said.

  “And you think it’s haunted by a psycho doctor and the wife and kids he killed a long time ago.”

  Ichiro and Jacob shared a sideways glance and then nodded.

  “It’s not too late to turn back,” Jacob said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Hannah said. “It sounds awesome!”

  “I didn’t think you believed in ghosts,” Hayden said.

  “I don’t, and I’m sure these two scaredy cats,” she pointed at Jacob and Ichiro, “have allowed their imaginations to get the better of them. But still … an abandoned house on an island, filled with weird stuff to explore? And no father—” She shook her head as if she’d misspoken. “No adults anywhere in sight to tell us don’t do this and don’t do that? Sounds like paradise.”

  Jacob held his tongue. He had felt the exact same way when he and Ichiro first discovered the island. Now he was beginning to wish they had never found it. But he was powerless to stay away, as if he were on a set of tracks that kept leading him back to Summer’s End. He was, he realized, past the point of no return, and the helpless feeling of being out of control terrified him almost as much as the ghost of Dr. Stockwell.