“This is still dumb,” George said. He held the note-card up and squinted at it in the firelight. “I mean, it’s real dumb.”
Our campfire had started to burn low in the gathering dark, and embers swirled up and away in a sudden gust of autumn wind. I shivered and paused the camera long enough to pick up another log. “It’s okay, George,” I said. “I mean, we just want the money, right? We don’t morally censure.” Carol started to smile a bit at that, but Kayden pressed his lips together and she stopped.
George made a face and shifted his bulk in the camp chair. “Maybe.” He looked over at the clearing where the dead neighborhood crouched in the twilight : twelve ranch-style brick houses, all dark, all abandoned, some with collapsed roofs and rioting weeds boiling through empty windows.
No graffiti, though. The kids in the greater Rochester area had been oddly restrained in that regard.
When the trail through the woods had opened out into the forgotten cul-de-sac, George had driven his customized golf cart right down the street to the circle at the end. There were a couple of dilapidated iron street lamps positioned at strategic locations, none of which actually worked – the only light in the gloom was the glow of George’s headlights and the moon reflecting off of windows like empty eyes. One of the lamps towered over the end of the circle, and a long low car with the world’s most 1970s brown-on-gold paint job had crashed right into it – a long time ago, to judge from the weeds that poked up from the crumbling blacktop and twined around the hood ornament. George pulled the golf cart alongside and glared through the remains of the windshield.
Kayden had grinned big from the shotgun seat and let out a whoop. “This. Is. AWESOME! George, buddy, I take back everything I said. You got us here in style.” He clapped George on the shoulder and let out a woo-hoo that echoed back from the empty houses and the woods beyond. “O-kay. Let’s do this up. Babe, you get the chairs set up and start the fire going. Get your brother to help you, he likes carrying things. Julie, grab that camera and follow me. She wants footage, we’ll give her – ”
“Hold up,” said George, and climbed out of the driver’s seat. He walked over to the dead sedan, opened the passenger door, and fumbled around inside for a bit. For a moment he fell still, and all I could see were his legs around the side of the open door. The wind picked up and whistled through a dozen crumbling chimneys, and suddenly I didn’t want to be here anymore. Suddenly this all seemed very unwise, and George needed to get out of that car, and why wasn’t he moving, was something –
George backed out of the car, straightened up, and slammed the door shut. He tucked a book-shaped package under his coat and got back in the driver’s seat. “Okay,” he said, and swung the golf cart around in a tight circle.
“Hey!” yelled Kayden. “Where we going? I said we need to – ”
“Camp,” said George, and kept the pedal floored until we were back at the far end of the street where the trail opened out. “We’ll set up here. If you still want to do this.”
That was what we did.
Now the fire was lit, and the dark was almost here. Kayden grabbed the log off my lap and tossed it into the flames, sending up a shower of sparks and getting a small scream out of Carol. He grinned and patted her on the shoulder. Far away and deep in the woods, something big rustled and fell silent. “It’s all right, babe. It’s like Julie says : we just close our eyes and think of that sweet, sweet cash. Okay, big guy, you’re on. We rolling, Jules?”
We weren’t, but I got the camera going and pointed in George’s direction. He held the note card out with two fingers and wrinkled his nose at it. “The Priest of the Sun was – ” He sighed and turned the card around so I could see what our employer had written on it in her neat, feminine hand.
“Exultant,” I supplied.
“The Priest of the Sun was exultant,” George agreed. “‘If the blackness falls,’ he reasoned, ‘can yellow be far behind?’” He glared at the card a moment longer, then shoved it onto the back of the stack and handed it to me. “We get how much for this, again?”
“Five. Hundred. Each!” Kayden tasted each word, savored it like vintage port. He gave Carol’s arm a playful punch. “That’s a whole lotta costumes, amirite?” All Kayden’s thought was currently bent on funding the first-ever theatrical production of something called Nodens : A Comedy, which was written by Kayden and starred Carol and which I was definitely going to be forced to sit through at the end of the semester.
That finally got a smile out of Carol. “And a whole lot of sets,” she said. “Thanks for doing this, guys.”
Kayden grinned wider. “How about it, George? Gonna donate your take to the Arts? Help us breathe faint life into these gossamer strands of fragile creation?”
George reached down into his backpack, took out a beer, and cracked it open. “Nope.”
Kayden’s smile faltered just a bit. “Well – okay. You did bring the wheels, so – okay. Your turn, Jules.”
It was. I looked around first. Our little ring of light and warmth was very small against the night. Down the street, shadows leaped and flickered across the sagging brick walls of the dead houses. Six on each side and two at the end, like taxidermied soldiers standing guard over –
“There were only twelve,” Carol said.
I stood up slowly and looked harder. Six on each side and two at the end, the front rooms of the nearest ones caved in like toothless jaws. Leading up to each front door were cement steps covered in green astroturf that had gone faded and lumpy in the sun. How many had there been, when our golf cart burst through the trees and the headlights shone on the dark and the dust?
I gulped. “We must have miscounted.”
“Maybe,” Carol said. She bit her lip and turned toward the fire. “I’m not sure I like this place.”
“Babe.” Kayden was indignant. “Of course you don’t like this place. I mean, you heard her say why they shut it down, right?”
Carol nodded. “The soldiers that lived here, they went crazy – right? Fought each other. So the Army closed it all up.” She shivered. “I don’t think it’s that. It’s – ” The fire crackled and popped. “I don’t know. I just don’t like it.”
Kayden stood up and started tossing logs in the fire – one, two, three, right after the other. They smoked and blazed, and shadows danced across our faces as the wind blew harder. It smelled like rain and crackling leaves. “I know,” he said. “I know, babe. That’s why we get paid the big bucks, though, right? We’re telling these jokes on the very same street where Major McClarty made his final stand. We tell ‘em outside Chuck E Cheese’s instead, it lacks a certain cachet, you know? People are gonna know that Major McClarty holed up beside that fence – ”
“I dunno about that,” said George.
Kayden rounded on him. “Yeah? Look, Georgie, I know you’re not exactly a lifetime patron of the opera or anything, but you gotta see that if you take this place, this legend, and sprinkle in the dramatic tension of feckless teens yukking it up, it makes for – ”
George drank beer and sighed. “What legend is that? Major McClarty? Never heard of him. I – ”
Kayden threw up his hands. “The lady told us, George. Jules, are you still rolling? Make sure you keep this part for George in case he forgets again. The lady explained this back at the inn when she offered us the job, right? About Major McClarty and how this place has been hidden out here for years behind the camp because the Army – ”
“I know what she said.” George crumpled up his beer can and placed it lovingly into his backpack. “It didn’t fit. I’ve lived here all my life, and – ”
Kayden nodded gravely. “That’s what I love about you, George. What we all love about you. You’re constant.”
I gave him a look. “Keep it up,” I said, “and we’re going to have a problem.”
Carol blinked at me. Kayden put up his palms. “Okay, okay. Geesh, I didn’t know you were hot for him or whatever. All I’m saying – ”
George ignored us both. “All I’m saying is that I’ve never heard of it. Major McClarty? A bunch of soldiers blowing up their own street? They’d have told that in school five times every recess. We’d have ridden our bikes out here on weekends and had cap gun fights. But we didn’t. Know why?”
Kayden just looked.
“Cause it didn’t happen,” said George. “I went to the library after and asked around. The police station, too. Nobody knew about it. And they’d know.”
Kayden rubbed his hair. “But the lady said – ”
“I know she did,” said George. “I didn’t like her.”
I’d brought my heaviest parka, and it was working less effectively than might have been hoped. I leaned closer to the fire. “Maybe I should tell my joke.”
Carol gave me an encouraging smile. “Go for it, Julie. Let’s get this over with.”
I set the camera where it could see my face and picked up the next card. The neat words stared up at me, all loops and whorls and occasional flourishes. I cleared my throat. “Beneath the earth,” I read, “there lurked a house with windows the color of spilled oil and bruises. A man once walked into it, singing: ‘Things go in and out of my head, things go in and out of my head…’”
I paused. “Is that it?” Carol asked.
“No,” I said. “Sorry. It says to pause there. Then it says : He was more right than he knew.”
We all fell quiet a moment. The flames crackled and the shadows leaped. “Is that it?” George asked.
“That’s it.” I shrugged. “Honestly, I’m starting to feel like five hundred dollars is – ”
Kayden snorted. “Gesundheit,” I said.
“No, no.” He giggled and waved his hands at me. “It’s just – that one wasn’t too bad, I guess. It’s kinda – ” He looked over at the dead street, at the tall dark trees behind it, at the crashed car rusting beneath the darkened streetlight. I noticed for the first time that the garage of the house across from it was open, as if someone had driven the car out of it and straight into the light pole.
Kayden got up from his seat and did a little dance in front of the fire. “Things go in and outa my head, things go in and outa my head,” he sang. “Like, if the guy was in there – ” He waved a hand at the nearest house – “More right than he knew, amirite ladies?” He winked at Carol.
She didn’t wink back. “You’re scaring me, Kayden,” she said.
Kayden looked genuinely abashed. “Geez, I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to – man, it’s getting late, I guess. Let’s do this. Your turn, honey.” He sat down and tried his best to appear inoffensive, with partial success.
“How many of these do we have to do?” I asked him. “To get the five hundred.”
Kayden swallowed. “Just one. One each. I know there’s more cards in the stack, but – that was so you could pick one you liked, maybe do a couple of takes with different ones to see what worked best, you know. But we’re just supposed to tell one each and discuss, and that’s the job. I got the feeling she was doing a bunch of these with different groups, and then she’d edit them all together for the final film.”
“Two more, then.” I handed Carol the cards. “We can do this.”
“We can do this,” Carol agreed. She looked over at George. “Why – you said you didn’t like her.”
George nodded. “I didn’t. Back at the inn, you guys were arranging with her about everything, and I went outside to wrench on Mr. Armbruster’s truck. And then out she comes, all smiles, and I ask her what she’s going to call the movie. Bunch of kids telling jokes in front of a haunted street, what do you call that? She says she’s going to call it ‘Campfire Jokes’. And she smiles at me again.” He shook his head. “Didn’t like the smile. Didn’t like her.”
We all sat quietly then, and George extracted another beer from his backpack. A coyote howled somewhere close, and I jumped. Kayden, who had been looking increasingly scandalized, finally spoke up. “She spends two grand per scene on this thing,” he said, “and she’s going to call it ‘Campfire Jokes’?”
“Nope.” George took a sip of his beer. “Wouldn’t think so.”
Kayden looked at him, started to say something, and then stopped. George took out the book-shaped package he’d rescued from the dead sedan and started to leaf through it. “What’s that?” Kayden asked.
“Owner’s manual,” said George. “Got it out of the glovebox.” He held it up to the light. On the front, a shinier copy of the dead sedan danced in the firelight, ready for action. Chrysler Primadonna, it said. 1974 Operator’s Guide. “Ever heard of that make and model?” George asked.
We all considered that. “Noooo,” I said at last, “but I’m not really much of a car buff, George. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Nope,” said George. “Also, the front page says it’s published by the Chrysler-American Motors Corporation in Saurkash, Wisconsin. That’s wrong, too.”
We all considered that. The wind rustled in the trees and bent the heads of the tall weeds in the derelict gardens. Kayden rubbed his chin. “What – um. What exactly are you suggesting, George?”
George shrugged. “Not sure. But I do suggest we all tell our jokes and go home.”
Kayden grinned. “You never spoke a truer word. Darling? Your line, I believe.”
Carol straightened her back, and I could see her thinking of the praise which the theatre critic of the North Woodsman would lavish on the sumptuous sets and gracious costumes of Nodens : A Comedy. She drew a breath and looked at the next card.
“For a thousand years he drove,” she read, “and for a thousand more it rained. The rain came down, and the world rolled on.”
“Beer, anyone?” said George.
“Sorry, that wasn’t the end,” said Carol. “It’s another one of those pausing ones. The end is ‘And it turned into a puddle.’”
“HA!” roared Kayden.
“Nuts,” said George.
I started to giggle and turned it into a cough. “Okay,” I said, “I guess I sort of get that – it’s a bit dark, not really my – ” I giggled again. “Man, it is late. It’s just that the world – ”
“The WORLD was the puddle!” Kayden shouted. “BWAAAAA HA HA HA HA! I knew there was something about you, Jules, I knew there was a reason Carol liked you, I – I – ” He collapsed back into his camp chair, gasping for breath.
The moon was rising over the trees : a great orange harvest moon, large and close and pocked with craters. It lit the dead houses with a cheerless light the color of moldy cheese, threw Kayden’s laughing face into bilious relief. Carol shrank back into her seat, looked at Kayden with wide frightened eyes. I got up, wanting to comfort her, to shake Kayden out of it –
The world was the puddle! You’d have expected a bit more after a thousand years of driving, right? Only goes to show!
I was on my knees beside the fire, laughing, whooping, pounding my fists in the dirt. Carol’s lips were trembling; if I could just explain it to her, make her see there was nothing to be scared of, that one just happened to hit Kayden and I just right, it was only a bit of fun, really –
George’s arms were around me, picking me up off the ground, pressing a beer into my hand. “Drink this,” he said. “You’re okay. You’re okay, Julie. It’s time to go.” He guided me over to the golf cart, put me in the shotgun seat, went back for his sister. Carol was weeping openly now; George sat her down next to me and I hugged her.
Kayden had found the cards and was shuffling through them, still laughing. The moon wheeled overhead, and as it rose over the trees I could see that there were fifteen houses now : six on each side and three at the end. George had swept the camp chairs and the backpack into his arms and was lugging them over to the golf cart; he was too busy to notice Kayden stopping at one particular card and beaming at it with tears in his eyes.
“Kayden!” I screamed. “No! No more jokes!”
He looked at me but didn’t see me. “If I don’t,” he said, “it’s all for nothing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “We’ll get the money some other way. I’ll help. Mr. Armbruster always needs more hours down at the inn; you could – ”
Kayden was shaking his head. “You’re not tracking me, Jules. I understood all of that. I’ve got to – that can’t be for nothing. It’s too awful. That man in the house…” He trailed off, clenched a fist. “She owes me this, Jules. And I’m gonna collect. For all of us.”
“Time to go, buddy,” said George. He grabbed Kayden by the arm.
“NO!” shrieked Kayden. He shoved George into the fire ring and ran for the houses.
Carol and I were both screaming, I think. We piled out of the golf cart and ran for George, but he was already out of the ring and rolling around on the ground. We helped him up. “I’m fine,” he grunted. “That crazy idiot – get in the cart!”
We did. I grabbed the camera on the way, and George floored the pedal the second our butts hit the seat. The cart rocketed forward, silent and powerful, with Kayden a dark distant figure in the halogen beams. He made it to the circle and climbed up onto the roof of the dead sedan. We were racing past the houses now; empty doors gaped at us like missing teeth.
Kayden pounded his chest and threw out an arm. He spoke – I heard him speak – but the wind took the words and whipped them away. He was laughing, crying, a one-man sock-and-buskin atop the dead Chrysler Primadonna as the cart bumped and jounced toward him and I held onto Carol for dear life.
He finished his joke – or at least he stopped speaking – and turned away from us, toward the fifteenth house that crouched at the end of the cul-de-sac.
The light above its front door went on.
It was a dark, greasy light, yellow-orange like the moon, that did not warm and did not chase the shadows away. The dark seemed to welcome it, to reach toward it with eager tendrils, and Kayden leaped down from his perch on the roof and walked up the astroturf steps. Joke cards fell from his limp fingers and fluttered away in the breeze.
George slammed on the brake. The cart screeched to a stop. Fat raindrops began to pelt the roof : first one, then many. Leaves rattled through the empty yards and tumbled across the street.
Kayden stood in front of the door now, bathed in that sickly glow, and as we watched the front door swung open.
Inside was a darkness so vast and deep that it was scarcely dark at all. True, the open doorway was a perfect void, flat and dead : but behind it, what clutter! There stood the bone-white corpses of the great machines, yellowed to perfection such that to see and to touch them was to yellow as well; there, the bed with its sheet of dust, pulsing grey-orange in its terrible hunger. And beyond it all – just around the corner – a short, dark shape, bruised in countless squirming colors –
Kayden stepped across the threshold, his arms limp at his sides. The door snapped shut in perfect silence. And the light on the porch went out.
George shifted the cart into reverse. We backed away from that place, and only when we had passed out of the dead street and back into the trail beneath the trees did he stop long enough to turn us around. He drove us home, through the dark and the rain, while Carol screamed Kayden’s name and I held her and cried.
There’s not much more to tell.
George drove us straight to the police station and told them Kayden had gone missing during our camping trip. They sent out a search party, and when the search party didn’t find anything they sent out a helicopter. George and I went along to show them where we’d been. There were no houses in the woods, there or anywhere else.
Carol got better. George and I spent a lot of time with her that fall and winter, to help her forget and to show her we cared. She’s back at school now and doing all right.
One blustery evening in February, George and I had just finished up a delightful dinner date at the finest steakhouse in Manchester. He’d gone to get the car, and I was waiting outside under the awning watching the snow. “Pardon me, miss,” a contralto voice said, and I turned to find myself tete-a-tete with a dark-haired adventuress type in stylish fur boots.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, and moved aside to let her past.
She laughed a musical laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean ‘Pardon me, miss’, I meant ‘Pardon me, miss’. I’m not going in there; can’t stand the place. But I do have something that’s yours.” She pushed an envelope into my hand. “Two thousand dollars. And well-earned. The ending was incredible.”
I sputtered a bit. “I – you – who – I never sent you – ”
She waved it away. “No, no, I get that. But at this point I think we both know I never wanted it anyway.” Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled. “’Campfire Jokes’, amirite?”
The steakhouse door swung open and a very grim-looking maitre’d poked his head out. “Madam? Would you care to come back inside while you wait? There is a bitter wind blowing this evening; I should hate for you to be caught out in it.” He looked me straight in the eye as he spoke.
The adventuress turned the dimples on him. “All right, Reginald, I’m leaving. No need to get all in a twist about it; she’s quite safe.” She patted me on the shoulder. “That George really is a cutie; I’m happy for you. And seriously, enjoy the money. Maybe stay out of the woods for awhile, though. Take your next vacation at a spa, or something. Luck!” She turned and was gone into the snow.
George pulled up in his pickup then, and when we were warm and on the way home I told him what had happened. I didn’t know he knew all of those words.
Carol’s back at school, remember? That includes her theatre class. Once she was through the worst of it, she decided that Kayden’s great vision deserved to live. I’m not sure I totally agree, but George and I still put a bit of our money into the pot to make sure that Nodens : A Comedy could live its best life. We’re in our seats now, waiting for the curtain to go up.
Wish us lots and lots of luck.