by Sean Rodman
We leave the Swamp and walk over to Edward’s office in the main building, dry leaves swirling across the paths.
“Those drawings,” I say. “Are they all yours?”
“Sort of. I mean, they’re all copies of Golden Age heroes, not original ideas or anything. But basically I’m copying Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.” It’s the longest I’ve ever heard him speak, but it might as well be another language. He sees my confusion and mumbles, “Yeah, the drawings are mine.”
“You’re pretty good,” I say. “You could sell them.”
“I don’t think so,” Josh says. “They’re just for fun. But thanks.”
We come around the back of the main building. Wooden timbers frame the staff entrance, an old, ornate double door inlaid with carvings of moose, beavers and bears. Inside, the carpeted hallway has more wilderness stuff on the walls—a couple of oil paintings of forests, the head of a deer with massive antlers. The doors to the offices are all closed and locked except for Edward’s, which is half open. We pause at his door, unsure if we should enter.
“You’re late,” comes Edward’s voice from inside. “Please note that this will be the last time that you are late for me.” I push open the door, and we see Harvey in his big brown overalls, filling a chair across from Edward’s desk. We walk in and stand awkwardly in front of them. Edward’s office is pretty sparse. A few books on a shelf behind his big oak desk. There’s a worn bundle of cloth on the shelf as well. I recognize it as a knife roll, the kind chefs use to store their best knives. On the wall are some certificates and a few awards for cooking.
“Go easy on them,” says Harvey. “They were just getting settled.” Edward glares at Harvey, then stands behind the desk.
“Harvey, easy is not a word that is appropriate here,” he says. “Protecting this hotel against six months of winter is not an easy task. I expect all of you to work to your utmost. These will be long days, and there is much to do as the weather worsens. Harvey, what is the first order of business?”
Harvey checks a clipboard with a long list on it. He quickly describes a bunch of tasks. Installing storm shutters on all the cabin windows. Storing the floating docks in the boathouse. Painting. Sanding.
“That’s a lot to do in one week,” says Josh.
“Yeah,” Harvey agrees. “We’re gonna need to give’er. I’ll head down to the maintenance shed now and get the supplies ready for you. We’ve still got a couple hours of daylight today. We’ll get a good start on it.” He slaps me on the shoulder as he walks past. I turn to follow him, but Edward stops me.
“Wait,” says Edward. “Both of you. I want to clarify something.”
He walks slowly around his desk until he is in front of Josh, then stops. His eyes flit between Josh and me. Distantly, I hear the muffled thump of the heavy wooden door closing as Harvey leaves the building.
“Josh, look at me,” Edward says.
Josh lifts his eyes from the carpet to meet Edward’s glare, then looks away.
“I said, look at me,” Edward repeats firmly. “As far as I can tell, for the entire summer you were a shadow on the wall of this hotel. What did you do for us?”
“I washed dishes,” mumbles Josh.
“That’s right. You washed pots and pans. A monkey could do that job, Josh. So I’m quite unclear why Harvey allowed you to volunteer.”
“He worked as hard as anyone else,” I say. If anything, all Josh seemed to do was work. He never partied with the rest of the crew.
“I didn’t ask you, Dylan. But let’s find out if you are correct. Let us have some proof that Josh is worthy of working here. We’ll accomplish one special task before you go and see Harvey.”
Chapter Four
Edward leads us down to the resort dock and right to the end of the pier. The lake is flat and gray, a reflection of the clouds above. On the other side of the lake, some of the trees still have red and orange leaves on them, forming a bloody slash on the horizon. Small waves ripple across the surface of the lake as a cold wind blows across it. I’ve avoided coming down here all summer. Being close to the lake makes me nervous and tense, even though I know it’s not the same as the river in my dream.
“There,” says Edward, pointing at the raft. It’s a wooden platform, floating about a hundred and fifty feet offshore. “Swim out to the raft and untie it. I’ll bring the boat around, and we will pull it to shore.” Josh looks at the dark water. He doesn’t say anything.
“Why not just drive out together?” I say, and I point to the hotel boat, a little inflatable rubbing gently against the pier. “The water’s pretty cold.”
Edward spins to face me.
“Did I ask for your opinion? I said that I wanted proof. That Josh is willing to work hard. He needs to learn to do what it takes,” he says. “Perhaps you would care to join him in the water?” I look away from Edward and out across the lake. My stomach clenches. I shake my head.
“It’s okay, Dylan. I’ll go get my swimsuit,” says Josh. He starts to walk back toward the Swamp, but Edward puts a hand on his chest.
“No time. You heard Harvey. We have a great deal to do,” says Edward.
“In my clothes?” Josh looks to me, then back to Edward. He looks scared, confused. We both know that Edward has a reputation for being mean. For humiliating staff like this. But nobody objects because they don’t want to lose their job. Same with me. I don’t want to make myself a target. So I shut up.
“Quickly,” repeats Edward, his voice a little louder. “Now, Josh. Do as I say.”
Josh flinches, then pulls off his sweatshirt. He carefully takes off his glasses and puts them on top of the sweatshirt. Then he kicks off his shoes and, leaving his jeans on, clumsily leaps into the water. I hear him gasp as the cold water closes around him. For a moment, he hangs on to the side of the dock. He looks at me, blinking nearsightedly. I think about just reaching down and pulling him back up. Ending this. But then he starts to swim out to the raft.
A minute later, I can tell he’s in trouble. He’s obviously not a strong swimmer to begin with. The weight of his jeans, the temperature of the water—they’re both dragging him down. He’s maybe a third of the way to the raft when he goes under.
I wait for him to come back up. He’ll come back up. Josh said he could do this. He wouldn’t get in the water if he didn’t think he could do this. My heart is slamming in my chest. Josh’s dark hair rises up and breaks the surface of the water. I can see him gasping, thrashing. He turns to look back at the dock. At us.
And I swear, for a moment, I see Sammy in the water. Not Josh.
I blink and he’s gone again. There are only waves where he was a second ago.
I can’t let this happen again. But I can’t move my feet. I’m frozen in place, unsure. Terrified of getting in that cold, dark water.
I turn to Edward, shouting, “Go get him! Get the boat! Don’t you see? He’s in trouble!”
“In a moment,” says Edward quietly, staring steadily out at the lake. “This is a test of character.” I realize that he’s enjoying this. He’s got a weird look in his eyes, like he’s hungry. Like he can’t wait to see what happens. And I suddenly know that Edward wants to see Josh hurt. I don’t get why—I don’t get what sick game he’s playing. But if I don’t make a move, Josh might not make it.
It’s up to me.
Chapter Five
It’s as if that realization unlocks me. Unfreezes me. I rip off my sweatshirt and hit the water, massive strokes chewing up the water as I churn toward the raft. The water is so cold that it hurts to breathe. But I don’t stop. When I get to where I last saw Josh, I dive down. Everything goes silent and black. Except there’s a part of my brain yammering away, telling me I’m going to die. Telling me that I let Sammy die. That I’m going to screw up again. But I keep diving, hands flailing in the darkness, reaching out.
Nothing.
My lungs burn. I start to slow down, kicks getting weaker. I can’t do it. One more stroke with my arms, and t
hat’s it. I can’t resist as my body is pulled back toward the surface.
My fingers brush against something warm. Josh’s hand. I grab it, then his arm. Kick hard. A few seconds later, we both break the water, gasping, coughing. Josh’s eyes flicker open, but he’s too weak to swim. One arm across his chest, I slowly pull Josh back to the dock. Edward is still standing exactly where I left him. He doesn’t make a move to help as we haul ourselves onto the dock. We lie there, exhausted, just trying to breathe. Starting to shiver from the cold lake breeze.
“That was dramatic, Dylan,” says Edward, “but unnecessary. I’m sure Josh would have found his way back to the pier.” He starts to walk away from us, then turns back. “Remember to report to Harvey once you’ve dried off.”
Josh and I can’t speak. And I wouldn’t even know what to say. Finally, the cold wind starts to bite. We pull on our sweatshirts and leave the docks for the cabin. As we walk past the boat bobbing gently against the dock, I look down and stumble a little.
“What?” Josh asks.
“Nothing,” I say. I don’t want to freak him out more, so I just keep walking. I don’t tell him that there wasn’t even a gas tank in the boat.
I don’t think Edward ever planned to go and get him from the water.
Chapter Six
I don’t see Josh for the rest of the day. Harvey doesn’t know what happened, I guess, and I don’t know how to tell him. Don’t know if I should say anything. So Harvey just splits us up, and we go to work. I spend the afternoon hammering storm shutters onto guest-cabin windows. Three nails across the frame at the top, three at the bottom. Seven windows per cabin. I try just to focus on the job, lose myself in the repetitive action of hammering. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, it’s like there’s a bunch of snapshots waiting for me.
The bump of Josh’s head above the dark water, just as he goes under.
Edward staring out at Josh. Perfectly still, waiting. No, not just waiting—anticipating. Enjoying the struggle.
The pale glow of Josh’s skin through the murky water as I try to pull him up. Just like Sammy looked.
I smash the hammer down, again and again, pounding nails into the frames of the windows. The sound rings out across the empty hotel grounds and into the forest.
Around midafternoon, Josh’s voice crackles through my walkie-talkie, asking me to meet him in guest cabin three, Pineview. He sounds excited, so I jog down the looping path to meet up with him. When I get there, he’s out on the porch, kneeling in front of a metal box. It’s one of the live traps we use. In the middle of a park, you end up with a lot of wildlife coming through. We set up these traps inside the attics of the cabins to keep the squirrels from nesting up there. But there’s something bigger than a squirrel banging around inside this one.
“Check it out!” says Josh. “He’s pretty pissed.” I kneel down beside him and peer into the box. Two dark eyes surrounded by a mask of black look back at me. The raccoon hisses, and Josh and I both flinch.
“Whoa. How’d he squeeze into the trap?” I ask.
“I don’t care how he got in there. How are we going to get him out?” says Josh. He’s got a point. With squirrels, we throw the trap in the back of the pickup, drive down the road, then pop open the trap and watch them scamper away. Probably right back to the cabins, but whatever. A big, angry raccoon is a little different though. I don’t want to be the one to open the door of the trap, that’s for sure. I’d be liable to lose a finger. Or get rabies.
“Harvey’ll know what to do. I think he said he was going to be in the office. Grab one end.” Together, we gingerly carry the long steel box down the path toward the main building. The raccoon doesn’t appreciate the ride—there’s a lot of hissing and thrashing around. But we get to the rear entrance without any damage to him or us. We leave the box outside while we search for Harvey. No sign of him. Until we walk by the closed door to Edward’s office.
“Are they arguing?” whispers Josh.
“…standards. You need to be decent to them,” Harvey is saying. I can’t make out all the words through the heavy door.
“Standards are exactly the problem, Harvey. They need to meet my standards, or they go. I have always been very clear about this.”
“That’s one thing,” Harvey says. “But you’re starting to go beyond the line. You know that.” Edward says something, but it’s too muffled for us to make out. Josh motions for us to go, but I shake my head and knock on the door. The voices halt, then Edward opens the door. I can see Harvey slumped in the chair across from Edward’s desk, just like the last time we were here. He looks tired, worried.
“Can I help you?” says Edward. He stares impatiently at me as I start to explain about the raccoon. Then his expression changes a little. He interrupts me.
“Where is it?”
“Outside,” I say. “We didn’t know where to take it.”
“Fine. Leave it there. I’ll take care of it later.”
“You will?” says Harvey from his chair. Edward turns to face him.
“Yes, Harvey. I do have some skills beyond management, you know. You all have enough work to do. I’ll take care of it later.” I see Harvey’s eyebrows lift, but he doesn’t argue.
“Back to work, boys,” says Edward. He closes the door while we’re still standing there. Josh looks at me and shrugs. As we walk away from the main hall, I can faintly hear the raccoon rattling his steel cage. The sound of something trying to escape a trap. For some reason, the sound stays with me as I pick up my tools and get back to installing the storm shutters on the windows.
The sun sets early at this time of year. By five o’clock, the woods around the cabins have become nothing but shadows. Too dark to work. I pack up my tools and head for the Swamp, stomach grumbling. We’re responsible for making our own meals with a stock of supplies and a little campstove in the cabin. The main kitchen is locked up, shut down and off-limits. Or so I thought.
“Dylan, meet me at the kitchen loading dock,” Josh’s voice crackles through the walkie-talkie. Not sure what’s going on, I walk around the back of the main hall and stand outside the big metal rolling door of the loading dock. No sign of Josh. Then the door clatters up just enough for Josh to peek out. He smiles and motions for me to slip through.
It’s pitch-black inside, but Josh has set up a couple of flashlights for light. The huge space gleams with long polished stainless-steel counters and big copper pots hanging on the walls. At this time of day, when there are guests, the kitchen is filled with a dozen cooks. Now there’s just Josh, standing over two pans on the gas stove.
“How’d you get in here?” I ask.
“You work in the kitchen all summer, keys go missing. Sometimes I found them. And didn’t return them.”
“Nice. Won’t Edward figure out we’re in here though?”
“No. Keep the lights off, the noise down. Clean up afterward. He’ll never figure it out.”
I shrug. “That smells awesome. What are you making?”
“Just some pasta. I made enough for both of us. Hope that’s okay.” My stomach grumbles. Yeah, it’s more than okay. I was planning on cooking up my specialty—a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich. The mountain of spaghetti and fragrant sauce Josh serves up is way, way better. We eat at one of the counters on a couple of stools. After I’ve cleaned my plate, I let out a satisfied belch.
“Where’d you learn to cook like that?” I ask.
“I just watched the cooks in here. Couldn’t spend all my time focusing on scrubbing pots. I’d go crazy.”
“Maybe I was wrong about the artist thing—you should definitely be a chef.”
Josh smiles and shakes his head. Then I have a great idea for how to finish off the meal.
“Hey,” I say, “you want a beer?”
Chapter Seven
I snag the rest of the six-pack that Tom left for me from its hiding place under my bed. Then we head down to the Point. When the staff wanted to party and get away from it all, this wa
s the place. Back up the main road, then down a deer trail to the clearing. We use our headlamps to light our way, our breath making little clouds in the cooling air. By the time we get to the clearing, the moon has risen. It throws a white glow on the trees around us. Josh and I work together to build a fire in the pit. Pretty soon we’re slumped in a couple of broken-down chairs that Tom rescued from the maintenance shed. Beer in hand.
We don’t say much at first. Just watch the fire and check out the stars. Then there’s a flicker across the sky, and a wave of light. Then another. The aurora borealis, the northern lights, are coming out. I never saw them before I came up here—huge curtains of blue and white light that ripple across the sky.
“Better than TV,” I say.
Josh laughs. “I dunno. I’d be up for some channel surfing right now. I miss my cable.”
“So why did you stay up here?” I ask. “Edward clearly has a hate-on for you.”
“Yeah,” Josh says. He takes a big slug from his can. “I guess I thought he wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, I stayed under the radar during the season, watched him tear up other people. He fired, like, ten guys in the kitchen. I just kept my head down. Now he’s getting worse though.”
“So leave. Just walk away.”
“Naw. Then I’d have to go home. That’s worse.” Josh drains his beer, then crumples the can and drops it to the ground. Maybe Josh and I have more in common than I thought.
“What do you mean?” I stare at him, watching the firelight reflect in his round glasses.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Trust me—whatever Edward throws at me, it’s not worse than what I’ve put up with already.”
“I’m not sure about that. Out on the dock, I think he was enjoying watching you go under.”
Josh looks at me a little uncertainly. “I saw him do this sort of stuff with other guys,” he says. “Like he said, he likes to test people.”
“I’m just saying, maybe you need to stand up to him a little more. You need—”