Natural Instincts

by M. Raiya

  Chapter One

  I KNEW camping was a bad idea. I thought I might have trouble pitching the tent, but I thought at least I’d be able to find the damn campground. When I got close, though, all my GPS said was “Proceed off road to your destination.” It had a point. Twice the potholes were so bad I chose the ditch as a smoother option than the road.

  Long after I’d expected to arrive at Woodland Paradise, I spotted a little tin sign on a tree. It said Camping with an arrow. The rutted tracks I’d been following—the third set I’d tried—ended at a small, dilapidated building with a bare electric bulb hanging over a sign that read “After hours, choose your own site.”

  By now it was near midnight, pitch-black, and to my overwhelming joy, it began to rain. I sat there, looking through my mud-spattered windshield at the thick, dark forest I’d been driving through, and wondered what a guy like me was doing here. The road looked less passable beyond the building—I was going to have to go through a mud bogger’s dream before the road went up a steep hill that looked like something out of a motocross rider’s course. This place had no resemblance to its website’s images of happy little tents in a grassy field on the shore of a lake with maple trees in the background. The crowning image for me had been an artist’s rendition of a loon looking over its shoulder, perfectly feathered, its red eye burning, wild and mysterious and free. The campground looked like the perfect setting for an overworked financial analyst who’d never taken a vacation to relax, rejuvenate, and find himself.

  A man with perfect recall, but with so much he wished he could forget.

  Girding up my fortitude, hoping the website photo would unfold before me after I crested the hill, I shifted into low and gunned the engine as I’d seen people do in four-wheel drive commercials. I hit the mud wallow with a huge splash, and water went flying in all directions. I put the pedal to the floor and prayed. Holy shit! My poor abused car wallowed on the bottom, deciding whether to succumb to gravity and mud or boldly go where nothing without four-wheel drive had ever gone before. It finally chose the bold adventure and roared out of the quagmire with all thrusters firing, slewing up the motocross trail, spraying mud and debris behind like a comet. The hill was so vertical that the headlights shone right up into the sky, two laser beams cutting through the rain and fog.

  With a final lurch and bang of the undercarriage on something I didn’t want to think about, I reached the top and drew a huge breath of relief. I had so much adrenaline running through me that I felt like I’d just drunk a bottle of wine. I braked, my headlights panning down from the sky and illuminating the ground again.

  The first thing I saw was a statue. It was in the middle of a clearing, probably a picnic area, judging from a scattering of wooden tables. I suspected the place would be sunny and pleasant during the day, but tonight in the rain it looked eerie, with dark trees all around.

  The statue was of a man standing on top of a picnic table. For an instant it made me think of a historical site my parents had taken me to years ago on one of their outings meant to convince us all that we were a normal family. There had been a sculpture of several people in pioneer clothing sitting around a table. Real people could sit down around them and have their photos taken. My mother had made me sit on some stupid stone farmer’s lap, as though that would make me look like a happy, wholesome farm kid instead of the scrawny, miserable misfit I was. People had looked at me and smiled. I swore I’d never do that to my own kids, if I ever had any. Which I doubted.

  I was taller now, and “scrawny” had turned to what I liked to think of as “sensitive,” but I was still a miserable misfit.

  Whoa! As I came to a stop, I realized that families probably weren’t going to group around this sculpture. His pose wasn’t very inviting—his arms were raised to the sky, his head thrown back—and he was completely nude. He was built a lot like the David. Incredibly realistic. What was a sculpture this good doing on a wooden picnic table in a derelict campground in the wilds of Vermont? Completely baffled, I stared. It looked so real it could be breathing.

  Oh shit. It was breathing.

  The sculpture lowered its arms and looked at me.

  I froze, held motionless by a glare so intense I felt like I’d been turned to marble. Whoever he was, he was not happy that I’d interrupted whatever he was doing. Yoga, maybe? Naked, at midnight, in the rain? Whatever—I didn’t care. I was in no shape to judge anyone else’s behavior. But my heart started to pound so hard I could feel it in my temples. What should I do? The road led closer to him. There was no place to turn around. He looked furious enough that he might jump onto my hood and smash my windshield.

  Before I could do anything, there was a brilliant flash of lightning on top of a crash of thunder so loud I thought my ears were going to explode. As soon as the lightning was gone, I couldn’t see a thing. When my eyes adjusted again, the sculpture was gone.

  Instinctively I hit the door lock button. I couldn’t see him anywhere, but he had to be close. Any second I expected him to start pounding on my car. I would never forget his look of rage. No way was he going to let me drive away alive.

  Shit, shit, shit! I hated camping, I hated my stupid GPS, I hated Vermont, I hated my job, and I hated my parents for not having made me normal. But none of that mattered, because I was about to be murdered by the David.

  Where was he? Why didn’t he get on with it? Sitting here until my heart exploded on its own was even crueler than strangling me.

  Nothing happened.

  I’d been driving seven hours and gotten lost on roads that weren’t even roads. My nerves were shot, I was tired, hungry, and exhausted, and I had a brand-new tent that I’d never pitched as my only shelter from what was turning into a thunderstorm. I had every right to be totally frazzled. Why the fuck didn’t he show himself? Maybe he was looking for a boulder to brain me with. Expecting it to come flying out of the woods, I braced myself for pain.

  On the other hand, maybe he was long gone. He might be wicked embarrassed. God only knew what I’d caught him doing. Ancient star worship or something. Maybe Vermont was having a drought and he’d brought the rain. Or maybe he was Zeus and I was about to get a thunderbolt upside the head. Or maybe he’d been doing some sexual thing. After all, he’d looked a bit…. I felt myself flushing. My headlights had done a really good job lighting him up. All of him. And yeah, he’d been pretty unmistakably…. Yeah.

  I needed sleep. Badly.

  I couldn’t stand it. He had to be gone. And I really wanted to see a loon.

  Maybe he hadn’t even been there. I was that tired.

  Fuck this. I turned left and drove along the top of the hill for a minute or so, watching for the David to leap in front of me. Rain began to fall harder, though there was no more lightning. Soon the road dipped down through the trees, taking a much gentler descent than the motocross trail. After another few minutes, it widened and became gravel instead of mud, and I began to see what were obviously tent sites along both sides—pleasant, level clearings with brick fireplaces. Some were occupied by normal-looking tents with family-sized vehicles parked beside them. Through the trees I saw a light, and as I got closer, I realized it was coming from a discreet, dark brown bathhouse. A perfectly normal-looking mother and a little girl in pajamas, carrying umbrellas, turned in the doorway and waved as I drove past. Finally my headlights picked up the water of a lake.

  So the website hadn’t lied after all. I must have come in through a back entrance, a shortcut for people on ATVs, maybe. The statue might have been some local druggie, doing his thing away from people. Starting to feel better, I drove into the first empty site I came to, killed the engine, and turned off my lights.

  I became aware of rain on the roof and the soft wash of water against
the shore close by. Exhaustion hit me like a train. The tent thing was not happening tonight. I crawled between the front seats, flopped down in back, grabbed a sweatshirt and wadded it into a pillow, and curled up.

  From far out on the lake came a long, eerie, haunting call. A loon! Yes! I’d always wanted to hear one in real life. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.

  My therapist had said I’d never be able to forget the past, but I could work toward regulating it so it didn’t matter so much. One way to do that was to make new memories that would serve as a cushion, or a balance, to the old ones. Hence this trip.

  Hell, I owed the statue one. He’d completely distracted me for probably ten whole minutes.

  I fell asleep waiting for the loon’s mate to answer.

  I WOKE hot. Where was I? Sore, stiff, and confused, I tried to straighten and couldn’t. Familiar blind panic seized me, and I struggled against bonds that were no longer there. Hot, so hot!

  Then I recognized my own backseat. Foggy memory cleared and focused, though the image of the David looking down on me in fury lingered as I sat up. I’d left all the windows closed. The sun had risen, making the temperature inside the car skyrocket. I cracked open the door by my feet. Cool morning air flooded in, wonderfully fresh. It looked like a beautiful day.

  First order of business—visit the bathhouse. I grabbed my phone and staggered out to the campground road. Fortunately the small brown building wasn’t very far away, just up a little hill and to the left. Nobody else was stirring yet, except a robin singing his heart out in a maple. I could see the lake glinting in the sun, but I was a little too distracted to do more than send it a swift glance. I hadn’t peed since the last rest area I’d stopped at before leaving the interstate. No way had I been getting out of the car in the rain last night. Though today, in the sparkling sunshine, I couldn’t believe how freaked out I’d been by some naked nutcase on a table.

  The bathhouse was empty, which was good because I would have trampled anyone between me and the nearest stall. About fifteen minutes later, I came out in immense relief and washed my hands and face. I’d have liked a shower, but my soap and towel were still in the car. I’d probably get sweaty pitching the tent anyway. Once I got everything set up, I’d treat myself to a couple of quarters’ worth of hot water, then do absolutely nothing else for the rest of the day, except maybe find the beach and sack out with a book. And hopefully watch the loon swim around.

  As I dried my face on paper towels, I decided to add shaving to my list of priorities. In the mirror, I looked like a scruffy mess. My dark eyes were bloodshot, and my equally dark hair looked like I’d slept in the backseat of my car all night. I tried to smooth it down a little in case I met anyone on the way out, but it never smoothed in the best of times. Of course, if I had it cut, that might help a little, but the bit of wild youth left in me rebelled, even though I worked for a bank now. Nobody was going to fire me over my ponytail, not the way my brain worked. I could crunch numbers faster than most people could enter them into a calculator, I could remember almost everything I’d ever read or heard perfectly, and I had a knack even I couldn’t explain for knowing the best time to sell or buy investments. I’d made my boss and myself a lot of money, but none of that helped me find stupid campgrounds or figure out why someone would stand naked on a table in the rain at midnight. Damn it, why was I obsessing over that guy?

  Determinedly I went back outside. A family was coming my way, but they looked half-asleep and only nodded as we passed each other. A campground map was tacked to a notice board near the building, and I stopped to study it. Sure enough, I’d come in by what was classified as a trail. Once it had been the main entrance, but now a newer drive came in from the main road a mile or so after I’d turned. There was an office there, which I should probably visit to register soon. In the other direction, not far from my site, was the public beach, which had canoes, rowboats, and paddleboats available.

  Finally I took a close look at my surroundings. Everything looked as beautiful as the website had advertised. The pristine lake could have come out of a painting. The shoreline was undeveloped. The trees that had seemed so dark and foreboding last night were just old and comfortable in the daylight. They grew right down to the water’s edge in most places, and as I walked back toward my site, I could hear the gentle gurgling the waves made as they worked around roots and stones.

  I’d actually scored a really good site completely by accident. It was the last one along the lake before the road turned up the hill again, away from the water, so I wouldn’t have any neighbors on one side. The site next to me was empty, and even if someone did take it, there was a row of brush between us. From the picnic table, the view of the lake was perfect. I even had a little private beach. I paused and basked in the quiet peacefulness, then decided I’d better go get registered before I totally fell in love with the site, just in case somebody else had reserved it. The website had said they didn’t take reservations, which was why I hadn’t made one, but websites weren’t always up-to-date.

  According to the map, the office was only about a quarter of a mile away, so I decided to walk. I’d probably already disturbed my neighbors enough last night, driving in so late, without starting up my car again. Besides, after the drive up from Boston yesterday on top of a long day at work, I needed exercise. I headed up the road.

  I let myself concentrate on details—the patterns the fallen pine needles made on the packed gravel surface, arranged by the rain last night; the red berries on a low-lying plant; the chittering of a red squirrel as it made a dash along the trunk of a long-ago-fallen pine. I liked the nice, orderly logic of details.

  In a few more minutes, I came to the campground office. It was a low, rambling building that was part office, part store, and part house. Did the owner of the campground live here? A couple of cars were parked beside it, and the door next to an ice cooler was open. As I walked quietly up onto the porch, I pulled out my phone and swiftly typed a few lines into its notepad. I used to carry a real notebook around with me, but this was easier.

  A man behind the counter looked up as I entered through the screen door. He was dark, rugged, and dressed in khakis, blending in with the controlled clutter around him. He looked as capable of cutting down a tree as selling soda out of the cooler next to him. I quickly glanced at the shelves of camping supplies, displays of maps, and photos of spectacular sunsets across the lake, and then focused on the proprietor, who smiled pleasantly enough.

  “Hi, welcome,” he said. “I’m Hal. Bet you’re the guy in 7B who came in late last night? Saw your car when I did my quick drive around this morning. Didn’t want to pitch your tent in the rain, huh?”

  I nodded and held my phone across the counter so he could see the text.

  Hal looked a little confused as he focused on it, the way people usually did. Then he gave a nod of understanding. “Oh, okay,” he said. I noticed that he began to speak more carefully and loudly, assuming I was deaf. Everyone did that too. “You want to take 7B for five nights?”

  I nodded. He slid a registration form and a pen at me a little tentatively, as though unsure if I could fill it out. Most people, I’d found, assumed that if one thing was wrong with you, everything else was too. And he was too afraid to ask if I needed help, in case I flipped out at being thought incompetent. That was the problem with our society. People wanted to be kind and do the right thing around someone with a disability, but they just didn’t know how to.

  I filled in my name, address, license plate number, car make and model, and how long I wanted to stay. Hal stayed totally silent, which actually made sense if he assumed I was a lip-reader. As soon as I’d finished, I passed the form back, along with my credit card.

  “Okay,” he said, “it’s going to be one hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  He glanced quickly at my face to be sure I understood. He might also have been concerned that that was too much money, since many people also assumed folks with disabilities could only
handle minimum-wage jobs. I controlled a smile, thinking about how my boss had actually gone down on his knees to me one day a few years ago when I had told him to sell everything and sell now, hours before the bottom went out of the housing market.

  I just nodded.

  Hal swiped my card in his machine. Silence hung in the room when he’d normally, I figured, be talking about the weather and where I was from and how I’d heard about this campground and all the small talk people filled their days with. As soon as my credit was approved and my slip printed, he put it down before me and tapped where I was to sign. I signed my indecipherable scrawl. While he was filling out a tag for my car, I typed on my phone for a second. I might want to rent a canoe later, and I didn’t know if I had to come way back up here to pay for it.

  “Oh, there’s no charge,” he said quickly after reading.

  I frowned a little. I appreciated the gesture, but really!

  He searched my eyes, then flushed bright red. “No, I mean, there’s no charge for anybody. The boats are covered in the registration fee.”

  Now I felt embarrassed.

  “Just help yourself whenever you want. The paddles and life jackets are in a little shed down there.”

  I nodded understanding and typed for a second. May I at least buy some ice?

  He laughed awkwardly, trying to make the best of a bad situation. “Yeah, of course. Dollar twenty a bag. You can grab it out of the freezer on your way by—it’s unlocked.”

  I gave him exact change. As he was putting it in his cash register, I stuck my car tag and receipt in my pocket. I hesitated, then typed a little bit more. He waited, relaxing a little as he got used to my way of communicating. The next time I came, he’d be totally cool, I knew. It was only the first time that was so awkward.

  I held out my phone. I got lost last night and came in by the old entrance.

  “Oh gosh, I’m sorry about that!” He looked genuinely upset. “I’ve been meaning to block it off to cars, but I never get around to it. Once in a while, a GPS takes somebody around the long way, and they come to that entrance first. I hope your car is all right.”