Another time, we got back from a day kayaking and found that half our tents had collapsed. Someone had pulled out a load of the poles. Worse than that, one of the girls who shared with my friend Mary-Ellen—a cheerleader called Stacey—went to get in her sleeping bag and found it was soaking wet. I’ll never forget her screaming, “Someone’s peed in it!” She was totally hysterical. Of course, everyone thought it was hilarious, especially when Stacey tried to blame Brad, who had accused her of taking his candy.
I’m making out that it was funny and that we all coped in a typically teenage way, not taking anything seriously unless it directly affected us, but to tell the truth it was kind of scary. No, more than that. It was hard to get to sleep, especially after Mary-Ellen said that she’d been told by one of the rangers that the campground was haunted by a girl who’d drowned in the lake years ago. That rumor quickly morphed into one about a woman who’d been drowned in the lake hundreds of years ago, as part of the witch trials that went on around that time, and she had put a curse on the woods with her dying breath. Corey did a hilarious impression: “Anyone who—glub—treads upon—glub glub—this ground shall be—gargle—cursed to DIE!” which made everyone laugh until Mr. Daniels pointed out in his typical joy-killing way that there hadn’t been any witch trials in Maine.
Still, as more and more creepy stuff happened, the more the rumors of ghosts and curses spread. One night, we heard a scream coming from Stacey’s tent and Corey cracked a joke about how someone had peed in her sleeping bag again, but then Mary-Ellen screamed too and they both said they’d seen a figure standing in the woods, watching them.
“What were you doing out of your tent?” Mr. Daniels wanted to know, and everyone knew it was because they’d snuck out for a smoke. Mrs. Fredericks took a flashlight into the trees and came back reassuring everyone there was no one there and that we should calm down and go back to sleep. I thought they’d imagined it too, except Mary-Ellen—who wasn’t the kind of girl who gets spooked easily and who had described The Blair Witch Project, which a load of us had snuck into the theater to watch earlier that summer, as a dumb movie for scaredy-cat babies—had gone totally pale. When I asked her about it she said that they had definitely seen someone.
“Or something,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She shivered and hugged herself. “It wasn’t human,” she said.
But she wouldn’t say any more.
I stopped reading and glanced through the open door at my bedroom window. Not human. I forced a laugh and told myself not to be ridiculous. It was this place, that was all. The primal fear that dark woods bring out in all of us.
A long section was dedicated to the night Jake found the bodies. I read this with keen interest, trying to imagine what it must have felt like. How scary it must have been. The rest of the book was dedicated to Robineaux’s ‘philosophy of life’， a series of almost comically clichéd motivational statements – Live every day like it’s the most important of your life; You don’t need to chase a pot of gold—the rainbow is enough! – accompanied by his deep thoughts about the meaning of everything.
There were several quotes from Sally’s widowed, cuckolded husband too. Neal Fredericks. Robineaux had interviewed him for the book, and it seemed he’d been only too willing to talk, mostly about the inadequacies of the local police and their failure to find Everett Miller.
I was tempted to go searching those woods myself, with a shotgun, Neal Fredericks was quoted as saying. Mete out my own justice. It’s a disgrace that they let that kid get away. But I’ll tell you one thing. I don’t care if he’s a pagan or heathen or whatever the heck you call it, Everett Miller is going straight to Hell. And thanks to the Maine police, that’s the only time he’s going to face justice.
Neal Fredericks had been eager to speak to Jake. Maybe he’d be willing to talk to me too.
I put the book down with a heavy feeling in my gut. Jake Robineaux didn’t seem like he’d been suicidal when he wrote his book, but perhaps the inspirational slogans were his way of putting on a brave face – because according to what David and Connie had told me, Jake had killed himself a couple of years after the book’s publication. That was—
The front door of the cabin opened with a bang.
I almost jumped out of my chair. But it was just Frankie. She went straight into the kitchen and filled a glass of water, gulping it down.