Page 71 of This is Why We Lied

He altered his trajectory, approaching Dave from the side. He saw the outline of a few bunkhouses. All one story, rough-hewn, raised two feet in the air on what looked like telephone poles. There were four houses clustered together in a half circle. Will peered into the windows, scanning the interiors to make sure Dave was alone. In the last bunkhouse, he saw a sleeping bag, some boxes of cereal, cartons of cigarettes and cases of beer. Dave had planned on being here for a while. Will wondered if that would help him build a case for premeditation. There was a difference between a spur of the moment murder and one where you carefully planned your escape ahead of time.

Will kept himself low as he carefully approached his target. The fire Dave had built wasn’t blazing, but it was generous enough to illuminate his immediate surroundings. He’d also done Will the courtesy of bringing a Coleman lantern that was giving off upwards to eight hundred lumens, the rough equivalent of a sixty-watt light bulb.

Dave had always been afraid of the dark.

The large, circular clearing wasn’t as overgrown as the rest of the grounds. Boulders cropped up around a fire pit. Stumps of trees had been placed for seating. There was a grilling rack that swung out over the pit. Will knew there were more clusters of bunkhouses, more fire pits, scattered around the campsite. Back at the children’s home, he had heard stories about nightly marshmallow roasts and impromptu singalongs and scary stories. Those days were long gone. There was an eerie feeling about the circle, more like a place of sacrifice than a place of joy.

Will found a spot behind a large water oak to crouch down. Dave was leaning against a felled log that was about four feet long and maybe eighteen inches in diameter. Will debated strategies. Surprise Dave from the rear? Jump him before he could think to act? Will needed more information.

He carefully moved forward, knees bent, muscles tensed in case Dave turned around. The smell of smoke thickened. The recent rain had made the wood smolder. As Will got closer, he caught a familiar metallic clicking sound. A thumb quickly rotating a friction wheel, the wheel meant to create a spark that ignites the gas from butane, the gas meant to feed a flame that lit the end of a cigarette.

He heard the metallic click again, then again, then again.

It was just like Dave to keep trying a lighter that was clearly empty. He kept flicking the wheel, hoping to pry out one more spark.

Finally, Dave gave up, mumbling, “Fuck, man.”

The fact that he had a fire source two feet in front of him didn’t give Dave any ideas. Even after he tossed the plastic lighter into the fire. The ensuing spit of flames made Dave throw up his hands to protect his face. Will took the distraction as his chance to close the distance between them. Dave slapped the melted plastic off his forearms. The pain didn’t seem to register. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out why.

Crushed beer cans littered the ground. Will stopped counting after ten. He didn’t bother cataloguing the spent joints and cigarette butts, which were all smoked down to the filters. A fishing pole was leaning against an overturned log. The grill had been swiveled out. Stray bits of charred meat were glued to the grate. Dave had used the surface of a tree stump to prepare the fish. Decapitated heads, tails and bones rotted in a pool of dark blood. A long, slender boning knife rested beside a six-pack of beer.

Will calculated that the curved seven-inch blade was easily within Dave’s reach. If the man heard a twig snap or the rustling of leaves or even got a bad feeling that someone was coming up behind him, all he had to do was reach out to the tree stump and he was armed with a lethal weapon.

The question was, did Will meet him with his own knife? Will had the element of surprise. He wasn’t drunk or stoned. Normally, Will could confidently predict that he could have Dave pinned to the ground before the man knew what hit him.

Normally, Will had two working hands.

“1979” faded into the blasting guitar of “Tales of a Scorched Earth”. Will took the opportunity to reposition himself again. He wasn’t going to sneak up on Dave. He was going to approach from the front like he’d followed the trail around the Shallows and ended up here. Hopefully, Dave was too wasted to realize that the meeting wasn’t a coincidence.

The time for being stealthy had passed. Will spotted a downed branch on the forest floor. He lifted his foot and stepped on it. The steel-toe boot sounded like an aluminum bat cracking open a gourd. For good measure, Will let out a loud curse. Then he tapped his phone to turn on the flashlight.

By the time Will looked back up, Dave already had the boning knife in his hand. He tapped his phone to pause the song. He stood slowly, scanning the forest with beady eyes.

Will took a few more noisy steps, waving around his phone like he was a caveman who didn’t understand how light worked.

“Who’s there?” Dave brandished the knife. He’d changed clothes since Will had seen him on the Loop Trail. His jeans were bleach-stained and torn. A bloody hand had swiped across his yellow T-shirt. He slashed the sharp blade through the air, demanding, “Show yourself.”

“Shit.” Will filled his tone with disgust. “What the fuck are you doing out here, Dave?”

Dave smirked, but he kept the knife raised. “What’re you doing here, Trashcan?”

“Looking for the campsite. Not that it’s your fucking business.”

Dave huffed a laugh. He finally lowered the knife. “You’re fucking pathetic, man.”

Will stepped into the clearing so that Dave could see him. “Just tell me how to get out of here and I’ll leave.”

“Go back the way you came, dumbass.”

“You think I didn’t try that already?” Will kept walking toward him. “I’ve been out in these goddam woods for over an hour.”

“You wouldn’t see me leaving that sexy little redhead alone.” Dave’s wet lips twisted into a smirk. “What was her name again?”

“If I ever hear you say it, I’ll punch it out of your mouth through the back of your skull.”

“Shit,” he said, but he backed down easily enough. “Just go left up to the rock circle, then hook a right around the lake, then left back up to the Loop Trail.”

Will was a second too late figuring out Dave hadn’t backed down at all. Telling a dyslexic to go left then right was the equivalent of telling him to go fuck himself.