Follow You Down

by Bradley, Michael;

  “Neil, calm down. We’ll figure this out.”

  He continued to pace back and forth, flailing his arms frantically. “Do you know what I did to him? On my last night in camp? Do you know?” He laughed. The kind of nervous, babbling laugh that one makes just before they snap. “I thought it’d be funny. You see, I’d found his diary. I knew his secrets. I told the whole camp. Breaking into the camp office was a cinch—the back window had never latched right. It was easy enough to disguise my voice. Then I announced over the camp PA that he was gay. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it certainly wasn’t that polite.”

  Halting in front of the sofa, Neil screwed his eyes closed, fighting to hold back tears. He wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the fear that was driving his emotions to the breaking point.

  Sammy said, “I remember that night. The camp owners were really upset about it. You know, I don’t think they ever figured out who did it. I had my suspicions, but you were gone the next day. I never had the chance to ask.”

  “It was all just a game to me.” As the tears began to flow freely down his cheeks, Neil returned to his place on the sofa. “Just a little bit of fun. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t realize how much he was suffering. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  Sammy placed her arm around his shoulder, pulling Neil closer. Her gentle touch was soothing. As she ran her hand through his hair, his head fell onto her shoulder. Unable to control his sobs any longer, he cried, the tears soaking into the cotton of her pale blue t-shirt. With her arms encircling him, she rocked gently, holding him tight.

  “Neil,” she said suddenly. “Did you read his whole diary?”

  The diary. That damn diary. If he hadn’t found it, maybe this could have all been avoided. “No, just the last few entries.” His sobs were beginning to subside. Being close to Sammy had a way of relieving his fears, comforting his tortured soul. “He had a crush on one of the other boy counselors. He never said who it was. But in the last entry, he said they’d kissed the night before.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  He sighed, trying to think back through the years. “I don’t know. Maybe I thought I was better than him.” As the tears dried up, Neil lifted his head, looking into her eyes. “I thought it’d be funny.”

  There was sadness in the hazel eyes that stared back at him. She looked almost heartbroken. Neil held her gaze for a moment before she turned her eyes away. He looked down, glancing at her smooth thighs clad in beige shorts. He couldn’t shake the thought that he’d seen those shorts before. Perhaps when he’d been here earlier in the day? His eyes drifted back up to her face, but he struggled to focus. His body ached, his mind was clouded. Sleep. He just needed sleep. He’d see things differently after a good sleep.

  Neil wasn’t sure how long they’d remained on the sofa, but he remembered hearing her speak through the increasing fog that filled his mind. “Come on, let’s go upstairs and get you cleaned up.”

  Feeling dazed, he rose from the sofa, his legs feeling a little unsteady. It must be the exhaustion finally catching up with him. He gazed down at the sofa, but it seemed so far away. If he could lay down for just a few minutes. Sammy leaned in close to kiss him. It felt different somehow, lacking the passion from the previous night. He felt her pull him toward the stairs.

  Every step seemed to become a challenge. His feet felt heavy, and Neil half-walked, half-shuffled across the floor. Sammy began to climb the stairs, leading him up each step with soft encouragement. He kept his head down, keeping a close eye on his feet. He felt as if he could no longer trust himself to walk without sharp scrutiny of each step. Catching sight of Sammy’s feet, he smiled when he saw the blue star within a circle on the back of her Converse high-top sneakers. Someone he knew had a pair just like that, but he couldn’t put his finger on the name.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Neil felt utterly exhausted. The sleepless night. The chase through the forest. It all must have taken its toll on him. If Sammy hadn’t been there, he’d probably have collapsed right there on the landing. But her compassionate urging kept him moving forward. The bedroom had a bed. He could lay down in there. His feet dragged along the hardwood floor as he followed her across the threshold.

  The bedroom somehow looked different. It had changed. And the figures in the corners. He couldn’t quite make them out. Sammy turned to face him, her mouth speaking but no sound seemed to be coming out. The door swung closed behind him, the hinges screamed for lubrication. Then another familiar sound. No, not a sound. A voice.

  “Hey, Brewster. Now you’re truly fucked!”

  Neil turned, catching sight of Jeremy’s fist as it raced toward his chin. He barely felt the pain of the impact. His head snapped back and everything went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The first thing Neil remembered was the shooting pain somewhere behind his eyes. It was a dull ache, until he tried to open his eyes. Then it became a sharp burning along the back of his head, just below the scalp. As his eyelids parted, he was startled to find Jeremy’s face inches from his own. The icy-blue eyes peered at him with a keen, hard stare.

  “He’s waking up,” said Jeremy.

  Neil said, “Do you mind getting out of my face?”

  Jeremy laughed and then stepped back. Head still sore and spinning, Neil glanced around, trying to pull together some semblance of where he was and what was happening. He was slouched in a hardback chair. Possibly one from the kitchen. His hands were bound behind his back. The cord was rough on his wrists, reminding him of the old rope from the dock by the lake. Neil gave his hands a quick twist but found that it did nothing more than cause him pain. The room wasn’t one he recognized. The walls were pine paneling, like that in Sammy’s bedroom. The knotty pine floor was the same as well. It wasn’t a stretch for him to assume that he was still in the caretaker’s cabin. But the rest of the room was unfamiliar.

  A twin bed stood along the wall to his right, the navy-blue comforter smooth and neat. Movie posters from Men in Black and Star Trek: First Contact were tacked to the wall above the head of the bed, the silver thumb tacks caught his eye as they shone in the light of the overhead ceiling fan. Sammy, with her back turned to him, was staring out of the room’s only window into the bright sunshine.

  “How long have I been out?” Neil asked.

  “About thirteen hours.” Steve’s voice came from somewhere behind Neil. “It’s about six-thirty.”

  Thirteen hours. Neil felt a rush of panic rise within him. Those thirteen hours were a blank. What’d happened? What’d they been doing with him for thirteen hours? He tried to remain calm, but the darting of his eyes was involuntary. He shifted his still sore jaw and said, “Didn’t think Jeremy’s punches packed that much wallop.”

  Without turning away from the window, Sammy said, “I spiked your whiskey.”

  Neil felt a jolt as someone smacked the back of the chair. “It’s good stuff,” Patrick said. “The same stuff we used on you the first night.”

  Neil tried to turn his body to glance at Patrick, but he was only able to catch a glimpse of him in the corner of his eye. “You drugged me.”

  “How do you think we got you out in the middle of the forest?”

  Neil laughed nervously. “Clever. The t-shirt in the tree was a nice touch.”

  “Adding the word ‘killer’ was my idea,” said Patrick.

  Neil glanced to his left, finding Rob leaning against a tall six-drawer dresser. There was a bandage around his thigh; a large crimson stain colored the white cloth. A small framed photograph and a clock were the only things on the dresser. It was an old-fashioned alarm clock with a round face and two silver bells on top, reminding him of Mickey Mouse. “How’d you know I’d come here?”

  “We made you come here. It was all about making you think this was your only safe option,” Steve said. “We knew you were in the bac
k of Rob’s truck. Did you really think hiding under that tarp would fool us? It was just a matter of making you think all other escapes were cut off.”

  “Face it, Neil. We’ve been fucking with you all weekend,” Jeremy said. “There hasn’t been a moment this weekend where you weren’t watched by at least one of us. We knew where you were and what you were doing the entire time. We just needed to nudge you in the direction we wanted you to go.”

  Neil shifted in his chair. The hard seat was uncomfortable. His shoulders burned from being pulled behind his back. He looked toward Sammy who still stood before the window, staring out. She was still wearing the beige shorts and pale blue t-shirt from earlier. Something crept out from the deepest recesses of his memory. A recurring image that finally answered a question that he’d been asking himself throughout the weekend.

  “It was you!” he exclaimed. “You were the one in the forest wearing the red ball cap. And the canoe! It was you in the canoe, wasn’t it?”

  No one said a word. Glances passed between Patrick and Jeremy. Jeremy simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. Sammy didn’t move or speak, only continued to stare out the window.

  Neil shook his head, as much in disgust as in understanding. The movement renewed the painful ache in his scalp. He gave the cords around his wrists another tug. They were snug, with no give at all. “You guys going to untie me now?”

  A hand fell on his shoulder, and he felt Steve lean over from behind. Turning his head, Neil saw the smiling face. “No, Neil,” Steve said. “We’re not done with you yet.”

  At the menacing edge in Steve’s words, Neil felt his chest tighten. After all that had happened, the thought of what else they might have in mind frightened him. He understood how his friends might find amusement in some of what they’d done early on, but they’d crossed that line, going from harmless diversion to alarming malice. He wondered if he’d ever crossed that line. Had his actions ever been just as alarmingly malicious? “This isn’t funny anymore. You’ve had your fun. I think it’s time you let me go.”

  Jeremy crossed to the bed, sitting down on the edge, the comforter rumpling beneath him. “Our fun’s just beginning.”

  “Look, I’m sorry for what I did. And sorry you guys were here when Stinky killed himself,” Neil said. “I can’t help that you all lived with that for eighteen years. That was out of my control.”

  Stepping out from behind the chair, Patrick turned to face him. “You still don’t get it, do you? You honestly don’t get it.”

  Neil was forced to admit that the statement was true. He couldn’t understand why they’d gone to this much trouble just to get even with him. It had been eighteen years and, to him, Camp Tenskwatawa had been ancient history. Had his friends clung to their anger and hatred all this time? He simply didn’t understand why.

  “That last night. That announcement you made. You thought you were just pulling another prank on Chris,” Patrick said. “But did you ever stop to think about the other counselor? About what your little prank did to him? What it did to me?”

  Neil’s eyes opened wide as Patrick’s words sank in. “You?”

  “Chris and I, we were a godsend to each other. We understood each other’s struggles, knew what the other was going through,” Patrick explained. “We never meant for things to get intimate, but they did. Then you had to come along and read his diary.”

  “You’re gay?”

  “Bravo, Sherlock!” Patrick said, raising his voice. “You’ve finally put all the pieces together.” Patrick paced the small space before Neil while the others watched on in silence. “Yes, I’m gay. Or, as you always used to say, a flaming faggot. You laughed at me because you thought I was ‘saving myself for marriage.’” He stopped pacing and leaned down into Neil’s face. “I didn’t know who I was . . . or what I wanted. And the only person who understood what I was going through was taken away from me . . . by you.”

  The dark malevolence in Patrick’s eyes gripped Neil’s soul, seeming to strangle it with fear. There was no mercy behind the cold stare, no sign that a reprieve would be forthcoming. He struggled against his bindings, squirming and pulling on the cords.

  Steve leaned over Neil’s shoulder. “Unlike you, we didn’t abandon each other after camp. If anything, sticking together was the only way we each survived.”

  Jeremy said, “Cinco Amigos became Cuatro Amigos.”

  “We didn’t know how to reach you at Harvard,” said Rob. “We left dozens of messages with your parents, but you never called any of us back.”

  Neil bowed his head. His parents had passed on every message. He had simply thrown them in the trash.

  “Patrick was a mess for years,” Steve said. “We rallied around him, helped him get through it. That’s what friends do.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”

  Neil shook his head. “I’m sorry. How was I to know Stinky was suicidal?”

  Patrick turned on him and, in a blur of rage, plowed his fist into Neil’s chin. The pain at the back of his skull went from a being a dull throb to a fiery burning in an instant. “His name was Chris!” he yelled.

  Neil tasted blood, realizing that the punch had split his lip. He tried to remain calm. It was futile to make any further attempt to get any of the guys to release him, Neil decided. They were hell-bent on revenge. That left him with only one other place to turn for help, one other person who might show him sympathy. “Sammy, how can you just stand there and let this happen?”

  Sammy remained silent, gazing out the window. She hadn’t said much during the whole exchange, and she had never turned to face him.

  “Come on, Sammy. After the other night? I thought we had something special.”

  “The other night? You have no idea. It took every fiber of my being to keep from vomiting the moment you touched me.”

  The spiteful words seemed extrinsic coming from her, leaving Neil struggling to believe that she’d just spoken them. “I don’t understand.”

  “I needed to get you to have sex with me to make our plan work,” she said. “So, I took one for the team. I’ll admit it wasn’t all that difficult of a task. At least you hadn’t changed in that regard.”

  “But why? What did all this have to do with you?” Neil asked.

  Sammy turned from the window and faced him. Her eyes were cold, emotionless. She wore no makeup, and her skin was pale. There was an apathetic expression on her face, like she was beyond caring. She seemed to have aged ten years in the past twenty-four hours. Neil was shocked at how prevalent the frown lines at the sides of her mouth had become. He didn’t remember seeing them before. A few rogue strands of Sammy’s auburn hair had come unraveled from her ponytail and fell across her left eye. She didn’t push it back, didn’t even seem to notice. Her frosty eyes locked on him, and she said, “Chris Bateman was my half brother.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Sammy remained silent while her words sank in. Neil’s gaping mouth and wide eyes told her that he hadn’t been prepared for her revelation. To her surprise, she found pleasure in his shock, a sadistic pleasure, but pleasure nonetheless. She decided to hold the silence for a few moments longer just for effect.

  “A little confused?” she said. “My father married Sylvia Bateman. She already had a one-year-old son named Chris. I was a honeymoon baby, as my father used to say.” She crossed to the bed, sitting down next to Jeremy. She paused, feeling a somber nostalgia that bordered on heartbreaking. She’d not planned on telling her life story, but the words flowed without thought or consideration. “Mom died when I was seven—breast cancer—they didn’t catch it in time. It hit Dad hard. Less than a year later, he was laid off from the refinery. Those two things alone nearly killed him.”

  She fell silent. Her gaze drifted to the floor. She couldn’t bear to look at Neil. She’d imagined this moment so many times, rehearsing t
he words that she would say. Her speech was going to be full of vindictive fury. Cold and emotionless. But she became lost in the past, recalling memories too painful to remember but too precious to forget. Jeremy placed his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close and giving her a gentle squeeze. His embrace brought her back to the present, providing the momentary comfort she needed to continue.

  “When they offered my father the caretaker job, he wasn’t going to take it. The pay wasn’t all that great. But it was Chris who convinced him otherwise,” she explained. “The three of us needed a fresh start, away from everything that reminded us of Mom. Yeah, there wasn’t much money in it, but the job came with this cabin.” She paused for a moment, and then added, “We were happy here.”

  “I had no idea . . .” Neil began to say. She heard his voice crack, and his words seemed to get stuck in his throat.

  “That’s how Chris wanted it. It was his idea not to tell anyone that Dad was his stepfather. He was afraid the other counselors wouldn’t accept him, that he wouldn’t fit in,” she said. “He never even told me he was gay. I didn’t find that out until your announcement, like everyone else.”

  The room fell silent for a moment; the only sound she heard came from the clock sitting on the dresser. It seemed so loud, louder than Sammy had ever noticed before. How many times had she sat in that room? How could she have never noticed how loud the clock was? She counted off the seconds with each tick, being reminded that each one passed so quickly—how lonely each one made her feel. There had never been so many people in this room before, yet it seemed so empty, so lonely. How many seconds had passed since Chris had died? Millions? Billions? Could she have sat here and counted them all?

  Sammy rose from the bed, crossing back to the window, and gazed out into the sunny morning.