Four Octobers

by Hautala, Rick

  “No way…I’m not gonna do it,” Danny said as he started backing away from the edge of the cliff.

  Glancing at Tommy again, he tried to gauge his friend’s reaction, but Tommy was shifting his jaw back and forth, and he looked like he was really thinking about doing it as he stared down at the water below.

  “Seriously,” Danny said, shaking his head from side to side. “Come on, Tom. There’s nothing that says we have to do it just because that idiot did.”

  Tommy turned and regarded Danny with narrowed eyes. Then, without saying a word, he yanked his T-shirt off over his head, tossed it to one side, kicked off his sneakers and jeans, and backed up to the edge of turf. Sucking in a quick breath, he bounced up and down on his toes a few times, and then he started running.

  “No!” Danny wailed, “Don’t!”

  But it was already too late.

  At the edge of the cliff, Tommy catapulted himself into the air. For an instant, he was just a dark brown silhouette of kicking legs and waving arms against the bright blue sky. Then, trailing a long, warbling scream like a scarf behind him, he dropped out of sight.

  Closing his eyes, Danny cringed as he waited to hear the sound of the splash from below when Tommy hit the water. When it came, it sounded in his ears like a sudden loud clap of thunder. The daylight stung his eyes when he opened them again and looked around.

  He was alone at the top of the cliff.

  Shivering wildly, he hugged himself. Very faintly, almost as though it was coming from the other side of the quarry, he heard two people laughing and splashing in the water below. He knew it was Tommy and Booger, swimming beneath the cliff and yucking it up, but for some reason, once again the sound of their laughter reminded him of what he had heard and seen that afternoon last September, when he had discovered his Uncle Bob out here with Alice the waitress.

  “Yo! Hey, chicken-shit! You gonna do it, or are you gonna go back and swim on the baby side?”

  Booger’s voice echoed from the side of the cliff with an odd reverberation as he started clucking again like a chicken.

  Leaning his head back, Danny stared up at the sky until his eyes began to sting and water.

  He couldn’t back down.

  Not now.

  Although Tommy might not tease him about it, he had no doubt that for the next several days or weeks Booger would be all over his case if he didn’t do it now. Sighing heavily, Danny slung his towel to the ground, bent over, and started to unlace his sneakers. He moved with a mechanical slowness, all the while fighting the feeling that he was watching someone else untie his sneaker. He was frantically turning thoughts over in his mind, trying to come up with a way out, and he cursed himself for following his friends out here today in the first place.

  He should have known it would come to this.

  Why hadn’t he just gone over to the other side of the quarry and waited? He could have made up some kind of excuse when Judy and Karen didn’t show up.

  But he was trapped, and he knew it.

  If he didn’t jump today, the next time Booger saw Karen, he was sure to say something about Danny being chicken-shit. And that, Danny was sure, would ruin any chances he had with Karen…forever!

  “Come on, chicken-shit! Bwack-bwack-bwack!”

  “Hold your butt,” Danny shouted, noticing the high-pitched trembling in his voice again. “My shoelace has a knot.”

  He wasn’t sure whether or not his friends could hear him, but he didn’t care. He was going to take his time with this. His breath came in sharp, burning gasps that felt like fire in his lungs as he slipped his sneakers and socks off, placed them carefully beside his towel, and then shucked off his jeans and T-shirt to expose his bathing suit underneath. Goose bumps stood out on his arms and legs. He looked down at his pile of clothes, trying not to think how he might never need to wear them ever again.

  Once he was stripped and ready to go, he straightened up and, flapping his hands at his sides, took a deep, shuddering breath. It did little to relieve the anxiety that was winding up inside him. He felt dizzy, and the cliff seemed to pitch suddenly forward as he tried to make his mind a perfect blank and not think about what he was about to do. Finally, he coiled back and then, with a belly-deep grunt, sprang forward.

  His bare feet slapped loudly against the granite ledge. He was moving fast by the time he reached the edge of the cliff and pushed himself off. In a blinding, terrifying instant, he found himself airborne, sailing high above the dark water. He flapped his arms wildly and, for a dizzying moment, felt like a bird with the wind whistling in his ears and tearing at his face. But he knew he didn’t have wings and that the thin air wouldn’t support him. A sickening emptiness filled his stomach when he felt himself begin to fall.

  His arms and legs windmilled wildly, and he was barely aware that he was screaming so loud that it hurt his throat as he dropped. The crazy momentum of his jump spun him around in a half-circle, so he was facing the red, angled side of the cliff as he plummeted down to the cold, dark water below.

  On his way down, for just a fleeting instant, he caught a glimpse of something wedged into one of the cracks on the shadowed red face of the cliff. By the time he hit the water and plunged under, pure, blinding terror had seized him.

  He never even felt the water on impact, and suddenly he found himself sinking like a stone. He snorted in a nose-full that stung his throat. Even as his brain commanded him to start swimming up to the surface, paralyzing fear took hold of him.

  Distantly, almost as though it was happening to someone else, he felt as though something had wrapped around his ankle and was pulling him down. He was too frightened to resist the downward tug, but after a moment when his mind went white with fear and just as his oxygen-starved lungs were starting to scream for air, he kicked hard, and the grip on his ankle released. He shot up to the shimmering surface.

  As soon as his face broke into the air, he sucked in a deep, roaring breath before letting out a long, whining squeal of terror. His arms slapped the water as he gave another hard kick, terrified for a moment that he was tangled up in some rope or underwater vines. It took a few seconds for his fear-stricken brain to register the bellowing laughter of his friends. Shaking the water that was running from his hair into his eyes, he looked around to see Tommy, treading water close beside him. Booger had already swam over to the shallow ledges under the cliff and was resting there with his hands on his hips as he tossed his head back and laughed.

  “I can’t believe it!” he shouted. “Chicken-shit actually did it!”

  “I said I was gonna,” Danny said.

  His body was wrung out from tension, but he shot Booger a smug smile of satisfaction as he tread water, struggling to keep his head above the surface. His eyes widened with terror as he tried to orient himself, but the sky and the glistening, flat surface of the water and the shadowed side of the cliff all spun around him in a blur of red, green, blue, and black. He kept trying to look up at the side of the cliff, hoping to see the thing he had glimpsed on his way down.

  “You don’t have to be such a jerk,” Tommy yelled, his face pinched with anger and pain. “You kicked me right in the gut.”

  “There was—something—” Danny gasped, then he had to spit out the water that had splashed into his mouth.

  “No shit, Sherlock! That was me!” Tommy said. “When you went underwater, I dove under and grabbed your leg.” He cupped his hand and swung it around so a fan of water shot into Danny’s face, making him sputter. “You didn’t have to kick me, for crying out loud.”

  “No—it wasn’t that,” Danny said, still gasping for breath as he finally got himself oriented and started swimming toward the shallow ledges. “There was something up there.” He paused and wiped away the water that was streaming down his face. “When I was…was falling down, I looked…over at the cliff and I—I saw…I saw something.”

  His voice choked off when another wave splashed against his face, and he took in another mouthful of water. He spi
t it out and looked back and forth between Tommy and Booger.

  “It looked like a—you aren’t gonna believe me, but when I was falling down, I saw a skull. There was a skull staring at me from the side of the cliff.”

  Part Two: The Climb

  It wasn’t until the first weekend of October that Danny and his friends finally made it back to Nickerson’s. The school year was well underway by then, so things like football practice and other after-school activities kept them from going back to the quarry to see if what Danny said he had seen really was there.

  In most situations, Tommy supported Danny, and this time he insisted that Danny must have seen something. Booger, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop teasing Danny whenever he mentioned it.

  As summer blended gradually into autumn, and the days shortened and nights got colder, Danny had tried many times to find the courage to come out to the quarry alone, but there was no way he was going to deal with what he thought was out there without someone for support. Tommy and Booger were the only two friends he thought he could trust fully, and sometimes he wasn’t so sure about Booger.

  “I think you’re crazy as hell,” Booger said. “There ain’t nothing there. You must’ve imagined it.”

  “That’s a double negative,” Tommy piped in, a wide smirk wrinkling his face.

  “What?” Booger said with a scowl.

  “‘Ain’t nothing there’ means there is something there. Miss Carlson in English said—”

  “Shut yer trap,” Booger snarled. “You know what I mean.”

  All three boys were kneeling as close as they dared to get to the edge of Blood Ledge. Looking down, they studied the inward slanting series of ledges that led like uneven stairs from the top of the cliff down to water level. Across the quarry, the water was deep blue and ruffled by the wind, but directly beneath the cliff, it looked oily and black.

  While one or the other held one of them by the belt, they each took turns leaning out over the edge, but the slant of the cliff was so steep they couldn’t see all of the face of red stone. Behind them, the sun was already lowering in the west. It cast the red granite into deep shadows that turned the stone a rich maroon. Underground springs dripped from small fissures in the rock.

  “Look, all I know is what I saw, okay?” Danny said.

  The last thing he wanted was for his two friends to start bickering about something as stupid as using double negatives, whatever the heck they were. This was serious business.

  “I mean, you guys are my best friends, right? So I can admit to you that I was really scared to jump off, okay?” He knew he was talking too fast and tried to slow himself down so they’d take him more seriously. He looked directly at Booger. “For one thing, I jumped, so you can’t go calling me names anymore. But I was so scared I didn’t close my eyes on the way down, and I…I know what I saw.”

  “Sure you do,” Booger said, curling his upper lip into a sneer. “You saw a skull stuck into the side of the cliff.” He chuckled and then spat. “I’ll bet you were so scared you pissed yourself on the way down, too. Hey, Tom? You notice any warm spots in the water when you were swimming next to Danny?”

  “Cut it out,” Danny said. “We have to check this out. What if there was, like, a murder or something?”

  “I think you imagined the whole thing,” Booger said. “You said you was scared. ’Sides, I thought we was gonna play football this afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” Tommy piped in after looking out over the sheer thirty-two foot drop for a second time. “And anyways, I don’t think we should even try to get down there. If there’s a skull or some bones or something, what can any of us can do about it? I mean… Ahh, screw it. I don’t know.” He shook his head and started gnawing feverishly at his lower lip.

  “There’s something down there. I know there is, and I have to see what it is.”

  “But how do you know you didn’t just imagine it?” Booger asked.

  “Because I know what I saw,” Danny said, using as firm a voice as he could muster. “I only caught a glimpse of it, but there was something there, and I swear to God it looked like a human skull wedged in between the rocks.”

  Booger straightened up and folded his arms across his chest. “So how come you’re the only one who’s ever seen it, and no one else has, huh?”

  Danny shrugged and, shaking his head, said, “I dunno. Maybe I only saw it because of the way I turned in the air just right or…I must’ve spun around just right so I was facing the cliff at just the right time.”

  “You’re fuckin’ crazy,” Booger snapped with a wave of his hand.

  “I don’t care what you think. I say we gotta check it out.”

  “And how are you gonna get down there?” Booger frowned deeply as he indicated the cliff edge with a quick snap of his head. “You sure as heck can’t climb down from here, and I doubt it’d be any easier climbing up from the water. ’Specially now that it’s so cold.”

  “We have to try,” Danny said, keeping his voice as steady as he could if only to mask his own nervousness. What he had seen on the cliff had been a lot scarier than jumping off any cliff.

  “It’s probably a dog or something, or maybe a deer,” Tommy said, still sounding like he would rather forget the whole thing and go down to the park for the football game.

  “Maybe if we get a long enough rope we can tie one end onto a tree up here and lower it down so we can climb up from below.”

  “You’re gonna go swimming now?” Booger said.

  “The water looks wicked cold,” Tommy added.

  Danny scanned the area and pointed to a pine tree on the edge of the woods. “That looks strong enough to hold,” he said, walking over to it. “We can tie one end here. We’ll need—what do you think? Maybe fifty feet or so.”

  “I suppose so,” Tommy said. He looked out over the water. Gusts of wind ruffled the surface, turning it a steely blue. “There’s no way you’re gonna get me to do it.” He whistled between his teeth and shook his head. “No way in hell! You fall from even halfway up, and you’ll land in the shallow water and break every damned bone in your body.”

  “Serve you right, too,” Booger added.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll do it,” Danny said, sucking in his breath and straightening his shoulders as he glanced at Booger. “If you’re chicken-shit, too…”

  “You’re the one who saw whatever it is down there,” Booger said, shooting Danny a cold, steady stare that almost weakened his resolve. “Last summer, we couldn’t even get you to jump off the cliff. Now you’re saying you’re gonna jump into the water and climb up?” He shook his head. “You’re crazy as a shithouse rat, you know that?”

  “I probably am,” Danny replied, dismissing Booger’s remark with a quick shrug. “But it’s the quickest way in. Quicker than swimming over from the other side.”

  Booger apparently didn’t want to leave well enough alone. “I’ve never heard of anyone climbing up Blood. Ever! How ’bout you, Tommy?”

  Eyes wide, Tommy shook his head quickly.

  Booger turned on Danny. “And why do you think that is?” Without waiting for an answer, Booger kept right on talking. “It’s because it can’t be done, that’s why. The cliff slants out too much. You wouldn’t even make it up ten feet before you fell.”

  “That’s why we get the rope,” Danny said.

  “Anyways, there’s nothing down there. What you saw was just a…a figment of your imagination.”

  “Or a pigment of your homogenation,” Tommy said, snuffing with laugher at his own joke.

  “Stop correcting me,” Booger snapped, glaring for a moment at Tommy. Then he looked at Danny again. “I’ll bet my left nut if all three of us jumped off right now and tried to see it, we wouldn’t see a damned thing.”

  Danny shrugged again, trying to look absolutely unfazed by his friend’s contrary arguments. “Maybe we wouldn’t,” he said evenly, “because you probably have to look at the exact right time and angle, but—look, I’m willing to do
it, so as long as I can trust you guys to stay up here to make sure nothing happens—”

  “Yeah, right,” Tommy said, shaking his head, “to be ready to run back home and call the ambulance when you fall down and break your back.” His deep frown communicated exactly what he thought about this whole endeavor.

  Danny was afraid he was going to start in with another argument for going to the football game at Pingree Park instead.

  “Come on,” he said, trying his best to keep the pleading tone out of his voice. “We’re just wasting time yapping about it. Let’s just get some rope and do it.”

  Booger’s house was closest to Nickerson’s, and he said he was pretty sure there was some old rope out in the barn with his grandfather’s tools, so without another word, all three boys took off down the path at a run. Danny wanted to get back as soon as they could, so he outdistanced the other boys.

  It was getting late, and the more the sun set, the colder it would be. Danny didn’t relish the idea of jumping off Blood Ledge again, but that was the easiest way, the only way he could think of to do it.

  They found three pieces of rope in the barn, and once they tied them together end to end, it was more than long enough. Satisfied, they headed back to the quarry and got there just as the sun was slanting down behind the trees on the far end of the quarry.

  “We should just wait ’till next summer when we can all jump off and look for it,” Booger said with a trace of nervousness in his voice.

  Keeping his lips pressed tightly shut, Danny shook his head.

  “No way. What if there’s really a person down there? We have to find out now.”

  “Why not just go to the cops?” Tommy asked. A gust of wind blew, ruffling his hair, and he shivered.

  Again, Danny shook his head. He was determined to settle this on his own terms, without help from anyone else, especially adults. It was too late now to wish they’d come out here while the weather was still warm.