All I Want for Christmas Is Nothing

Once upon a time there was a little boy who watched Little House on the Prairie. Sometimes, when it was over, he hurried to his bedroom so he could cry and not be seen. He wondered why the mother and father on the TV show were so nice to each other and their kids. He wondered why the kids on the show always treated each other respectfully, even when they disagreed. He wondered why he didn't have a father like Charles Ingalls who respected him, who loved him, who sacrificed for him. He wondered why he didn't have a mother who was interested in her children, why she was sad, distant, far away, who seemed to think her children were a cross to bear, a nuisance to be endured, not little humans to be cherished and treasured but little monsters who ate too much, fought too much and caused her too much suffering. 

He had a sense, watching that show, that something in his family was not right, but he didn't know what and didn't have the vocabulary to put this feeling, this vague unease, into words. What he learned was that some families are nice to each other, and love each other, and care about each other. And some families don't. So sometimes, when there were touching scenes on the show, he could not help but hurry away to a place of privacy so he could cry. He didn't know why he was crying, only that some emotion had gripped him, some sadness, some grief he couldn't understand.

This little boy began searching for family. He found it with a Catholic family who lived on the other side of the woods. He played happily with their children. He felt included, respected, wanted, even though he overstayed his welcome a great deal-indeed, he often spent the night with this family as if he were one of their own.

But then something happened. The little boy grew into a young teenager who realized he was gay. And this religious family, this Catholic family that treated him so nicely, had a thing about homosexuality. They didn't like it. Soon, although he tried hard to gain their approval, he found himself not welcomed by this foster family, who eventually moved away. No matter what he did, he could not make them love him again.

He was not sure what his own family would say if he told them about being gay, so he said nothing, but the gayness, the homosexuality, was a deeply bruising, shameful thing he carried with him and could not escape no matter how he tried, how fervent his prayers, who desperate his desire to be normal.

This young teenager grew into a young man who proved himself to be a damaged, unstable individual with emotional problems. He'd always been a sensitive boy, and the terrors of his childhood haunted him-his violent, drunken father, the sexual abuse he experienced, the death of his friend Tommy when he was eight, the death of his father when he was ten, the religious violence he experienced as a convert to a crazy Catholic cult, the harsh feelings of self-loathing and hatred over his homosexuality-oh, it was a toxic brew.

He was quite alone with these terrors. No one in his family seemed to understand him, to understand what was happening, what was wrong. He knew he was an unwanted burden, and when he chanced upon a risky way to escape, he took it. This involved accepting a plane ticket from a gay man in Las Vegas. He'd corresponded with the man, having found his address in the back of a gay magazine. How he found that magazine, he does not remember now. What he remembers is writing to some of the addresses in the personals column, and receiving offers of plane tickets from older gay men who said they would be happy to "help" him. So he accepted the plane ticket and made his escape. He arrived at the airport in Las Vegas feeling very satisfied with himself, that he was now on his own, that he was an adult, was going to survive and not be a burden on anyone anymore.

The man who met him at the airport seemed nice enough, but when they arrived at the man's house and he began to unpack his small suitcase, the man came into his bedroom, forced him to disrobe and proceeded to rape him.

Not knowing what else to do, he wrote to some of the other men he had been corresponding with. Eventually he found himself moving to LA with one of those men, where the scenes repeated themselves. And then one day he found himself thrown out onto the street.

He thought of calling his family and asking for help, but he knew two things: They would not understand. And they would not help. And he knew it was pointless to ask. So he began to walk the streets, looking for someone to help him. Various tribulations awaited him that he does not care to discuss now.

Eventually he met a young traditional Catholic man who promised to help him. He went to live with this young man and his Italian family in Kansas City. They helped him get a job and make a start in life. They loved him like he was one of their own, but he knew he must not divulge his secret. Should they learn of his homosexuality, they would ask him to leave, so he remained silent.

The Italian family tried very hard to love this young man, but he was shy, awkward, terrified of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. He wanted their love so much he could hardly breathe, and he lived in fear he would disappoint them or that they would discover his terrible secret and they would ask him to leave.

He especially loved his Italian mother. Yet he couldn't think what to say to her, what to talk about, how to express his feelings. And soon, because he was so awkward, so quiet, so nervous, so afraid, she concluded that he did not like her and she grew distant.

He then met another family who took him in. An Hispanic family. Because they were traditional Catholics, he tried very hard to be a traditional Catholic to please them even though he no longer believed in it. One day, when he could hold it in no longer, he told them he was gay. Very quickly their friendship ended and he found himself living alone.

In his quest for family, for people who would love him, he took in roommates. They were all young gay men like himself. They made a sort of family. They loved each other as best they could. But since they were all estranged from their own families and full of hurt and shame and confusion about themselves, they did not live happily ever after. They were all lost souls, wounded souls, hurting, prone to addictions and violence.

The years continued on and, in this quest for family, in his late twenties, he married a woman in the belief this would "cure" him of his shameful condition. It did not, and proved to be a terrible mistake. It was very unfair to the woman he married and the child they eventually had.

Knowing he had to divorce her, that she would better with her own family and people and country, he sold everything and moved to that country far, far away. He continued to live there until his child was eighteen.

A much older man now, he returned to his own country and settled down in a small town close to where one of his brothers lived. They were friendly. They did not argue. Yet there was distance between them. They were completely different now and seemed to no longer have any common ground.

His mother lived at some distance away and he finally decided to visit her. The years had cooled his anger, his disappointments, his hurts. He wanted her to know he was okay, he had survived, that he did not cling to the past. They made small talk over lunch. They did not speak about the past. They were basically strangers.

Having spent his life searching for a family of his own, for people who would love him, for people he could love in return, he finally understood this was not meant to be. It was not in the cards. Fate had decided otherwise. Or perhaps it had been homophobia and shame that had decided otherwise, that had kept him at a safe distance, excluded, apart from the normal course of affairs. Or perhaps the family he came from was broken, was composed of broken souls who could never be a proper family no matter how hard they tried. Perhaps they had never learned to love each other. Perhaps they had never learned to forgive, to talk, to work out problems. Perhaps no one had ever told them how important family was. Perhaps they were all disappointed in each other, for their own reasons, in their own ways, and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or perhaps he himself was to blame: perhaps he was still emotionally unstable, unwell, had unrealistic expectations. Perhaps he was not a very nice person. Perhaps he was an embarrassment who didn't know he was an embarrassment. Perhaps he was not the sort of person one enjoyed spending time with.

Recently, as the holidays once more approached, he began to wonder if he would receive an invitation from his brother to spend Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. In the past, he had invited himself on such occasions, but felt uncomfortable doing this. One year he tried cooking Thanksgiving dinner himself. He invited his brother, but his brother did not come.

Christmas was likewise problematic. He did not want to invite himself to houses where, he suspected, he was not really wanted. Yet previous experience had shown him Christmas would come and go and no invitation would be forthcoming.

Pondering these things, he decided to do nothing. He had learned, the hard way, that you could not force people to love you. It would either happen or it wouldn't. No amount of wishing and hoping would change that fact of life.

He knew also that people who love each other found ways to show it. There were phone calls, visits, cards, letters, Christmas presents, text messages. He looked back on the few calls and letters he had received from his family and realized that perhaps they had other priorities, other interests, that he should not fault them for this, but rather ... do nothing.

So this boy, who once cried while watching sentimental TV shows about nice families, who tried to force other families to adopt him and love him and heal him and include him, who ran far, far away from home looking for love, looking for someone who cared, who could help him make sense of his life—this boy, this unhappy child, this confused adult, this man whose life was marred by devastating self-doubts and self-loathing, this man who tried many times to kill himself because he could not stand the pain of being who he was, the pain of being so alone in the world—this man finally decided to let it go. And to do … nothing.

But before embarking on that path, he wanted to find a way to let people know why he no longer called, no longer visited, no longer seemed to care. He wanted them to know it wasn't their fault, that he realized he was broken in ways no one could fix and that he no longer blamed them for that.

Most of all, he wanted them to know he kept his distance because it was too painful to do otherwise. This, too, he had learned the hard way. There were some people in the world who were toxic poison. No matter how much he loved and cared for them, it was best to stay away if only for his own peace of mind. He had spent far too much time dealing with such people to believe that anything good could come from it. Just the opposite had shown itself to be true. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the dead bury the dead. He had learned those painful lessons very well.

With the holidays once again fast approaching, he resolved to address the matter once and for all. He sat down and wrote a short story. He addressed envelopes, mailed out copies. He hoped his story would be a way of saying what couldn't be said. He hoped the format of a story would convey more than ordinary words were capable of.

Mostly, he hoped the point of the story would be clear: There are things in the world that, once broken, can never be fixed. Things like children, men, women, yes, but also families and institutions and even foundational relationships like parent-child and brother-brother. Some things, once shattered, can never be put back together, can never again serve their original purpose. They can never again be what they were.

He hoped this understanding, this insight, would eventually comfort them as it had comforted him.

• Nick Wilgus is the bestselling author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER and many other novels and screenplays. 

A Letter to a Parish Priest: Obviously, You Don't Get It

Dear Father,

We need to talk.

You don't know me, and there's a reason for that: As a 50+ older gentleman who grew up in the Church, I learned long ago to steer clear of you. And I do. I don't attend the pot luck dinners. I don't hang around for coffee and donuts. I don't volunteer. I don't even shake your hand at the end of the infrequent masses I attend. I steer clear. In fact, I usually attend a different church denomination entirely.

I don't want to know you, and I don't want you to know me. Had you any clue what happened to me at the hands of people like you so many years ago when I was a child, you would understand.

I told my story once. I was dismissed as a liar. I was told that "men of God" could not possibly do the sorts of things that were done to me. I was told it would be gravely sinful to embarrass the Church by talking about what happened, that I should keep such things to myself "for the good of the Church." I was told to get over it, that I had brought it on myself. that it was a sin to besmirch the "good" reputations of priests and religious brothers, and that my pain was such a trivial matter I should be embarrassed to even mention it. I was laughed at, ridiculed, shunned.

So I will not repeat my story here. First of all, you've heard it before. A hundred times. A thousand times. Secondly, it has become increasingly obvious to me that you do not understand. That you - and your bishop and your cardinals and even the pope himself - have no clue what has happened to so many of us, your children. Perhaps you have an intellectual understanding of what sexual abuse does to a child. Perhaps you've counseled a lot of victims. Perhaps you have a heart of gold and really, really want to help. But .... you don't understand what's been done.

As the recently-released massive report on predator priests in Pennsylvania has made clear to me, the only people who actually DO understand are those of us who got hurt. In this report, I have read story after story of the difficulties victims face later in life, how the wounds don't heal, how the hurt goes on and on, how the shame endures, and how difficult the healing process is.

When victims talk about how their lives were destroyed, I get it. When they talk about how much it would mean to just get an apology or any sort of acknowledgement, I get it. When they talk about how they can't believe that something like this could happen to them at the hands of a priest they trusted and loved, I get it. When they talk about years of fractured relationships, addictions, a general failure to thrive, how their lives have been diminished, the deep shame they feel, the rage, the hurt, the inability to trust, the problems with authority figures, the sheer incomprehensibility of the whole thing -- I get it.

Years wasted. Years gone. Years spent in counseling. Relationships that failed. How they can't pray. How they can't believe God loves them. How they can't even believe God exists. I get it.

Do you?

The Church has inflicted a demonic horror on so many of its most vulnerable members. It has introduced a darkness into our lives, a sorrow in our souls, a cancer that rots in our bones. The price we've paid to be your victims has been tremendous. We carried your shame. We bore the weight of your sins. We paid the price for your iniquities. The most you have to worry about is being embarrassed while trying to figure out a way to keep your fellow priests from raping little kids. What we worry about is how to get through the day and how to have a relationship with a God who let this horror loose in our lives.

One of the things that most infuriates me about this report is the care and solicitude -- for the offending priests! How they continued to receive their medical insurance, their dental insurance, their vision insurance, their car insurance, their living stipends, how they spent months on end at "treatment centers," and never once had to worry about where their next meal would come from.

What did their victims get? In a few cases, there were settlements and some had their counseling paid for, but for the vast majority of us, we got the shaft. We were left to deal with the aftermath on our own.

This report has ripped open gaping wounds -- and perhaps that's a good thing. And perhaps we need to keep ripping open these wounds until you get it. Until you understand. That this must not be allowed to continue. That no church should ever be allowed to destroy so many lives.

Perhaps someday you will see me in the back of your church. I think you know who I am. I think you can see it in my eyes. Perhaps someday you will come up to me and say you're sorry about what happened. Perhaps you will realize that abuse not only destroys lives and potential and happiness, it destroys our faith. Our ability to believe that God loves us.

I want to close this letter by saying that I don't hate you. I believed in you. I loved you. I did what I was supposed to do, but you repaid my love with an unimaginable horror. If I don't show up for mass, if I don't shake your hand, if I don't have much use for you -- I hope you will understand.

The ball is in your court, not mine. I didn't break this relationship. You did. And I think you -- and every parish priest in the world -- need to understand that. The ball is in your court. This is something you did. This is on all of you. And now you need to find a way to fix it.

• Nick Wilgus is the best-selling author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER and several other novels.

The Gucci of Gruesome: DARK

As an Old Queen, my dating days are quite behind me and thus I find myself spending my evenings sipping Bailey's Irish Cream and wandering around places like Netflix in search of whatever solace us Old Queens can get in our old age, which is how I happened to stumble upon DARK.

This is not just a buffet of creepiness; it's an entire smorgasbord. It's the Gucci of gruesome, dear. I highly recommend you sit yourself down and enjoy it, dish by dreadful dish.

And oh, such dishes on offer! Never mind that it's a German production (the first for Netflix, actually). Never mind that it's been compared (rather unfairly, I think) to STRANGER THINGS. Sit yourself down and enjoy this tale of children going missing in a sleepy German town with a nuclear power plant in the distance. Nothing is really what it seems, and just to confuse matters, there is a bit of time travel and odd things that happen every thirty three years and questions about whether any of us are actually free to choose our actions or whether we are just repeating everything we've already done. What could be more dreadful than wearing last season over and over?

Mostly, it's about the evil that lurks in small towns and the very thin walls that separate us from the madness of others.

What I like most is that DARK never overplays its hand. It eases you into the story, teases you with delicious bits of horribleness, and you keep chewing because you have to find out how it ends -- and it's never certain how it will end. And when it does end, you will want to hit the rewind button (oh dear, I'm showing my age; they don't have rewind buttons anymore, do they?) and start all over.

The photography is gorgeous, muted, "dark," if you will. The entire production is understated. It has no need to dazzle with whiz bang shenanigans. It sucks you in because it's otherworldly and yet so real. It's like a door to a basement and you know you really ought not to open the door but a girl just can't help herself, can she?

I give DARK the highest honor of Five Tiaras. Any more, and we'd have a coronation on our hands.

* Nick Wilgus is the bestselling author of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE and numerous other novels. 

EXCERPT: The Depths of Evil

The following is an excerpt from my novel THE DEPTHS OF EVIL, published by Double Dragon.

***

“That’s odd,” Douglas said.

They had walked silently through the small town, looking at dusty, run-down cars, abundant

weeds, rickety porches, old, faded curtains hanging from rods on dark, dusty windows beyond which they could see nothing. They had gone into the gas station, looked around, had found nothing of interest.

Now they were searching the old general store, full of dry goods in old, crumbling boxes and rusting tins and cans. There were old coins and a few bills in the till – quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, most from the 1940s, 1950,1951.

“What’s odd?” Sheila asked.

“The cars,” Douglas said.

The cars they had seen were few and far between. They were old, with sleek lines, outsized

panels, running boards, massive fenders. Definitely old school. All sat on flattened tires, had broken windows, had been claimed by the jungle, as it were – weeds grew in them, out of them, around them. It had been fifty years, after all.

“What’s odd about the cars?” Sheila asked, exasperation evident in her voice. Douglas was in one of his thoughtful moods when he mumbled most of his words and did not seem to be aware of the presence of others.

He looked up sharply, roused by her tone.

“Some of them didn’t seem that old,” he said flatly.

John joined them, looked at Douglas expectantly.

“I didn’t want to frighten you,” Douglas said quietly. “But unless I’m very much mistaken,

there’s a Toyota Prius sitting out there, not more than five years old. I used to drive one, when the hybrid thing was all the rage. I’m quite certain there were no Toyotas on the roads fifty years ago, at least not in this part of the world.”

They considered this in silence.

John frowned as the implications sank in.

The dust in the place was oppressive, the air close and hot, all but suffocating. Sheila brushed away strands of orange hair from her forehead. “So what does that mean?” she asked at last, as if her mind was not willing to figure it out.

“It means other people came here, not so long ago ...” Douglas said carefully.

“And never left,” John finished. “Question is: Why?”

“Well,” Douglas said in a quiet voice, “I’ve been thinking it over. Maybe they thought this place was a free place to live or something. Or maybe the county dumps wrecked cars here to dispose of them. Who knows? There could be all sorts of explanations. But that isn’t what bothers me.”

Damn, but he was indirect.

“What bothers you?” John asked impatiently.

“Well, the cars ... they’re in good shape, really. Windows are broken, tires are flat – but nothing else. No structural damage, least none that I can see. They’re not wrecked cars, is what I’m saying. They’re not up on blocks, like they’re broken down or something. They look like they were ... just ... abandoned. Like this town was. Just left to sit there and rot. Why would you leave behind a perfectly good car?”

There was a long silence.

John looked out the general store window, saw a car half overgrown with weeds and clinging

vines. It seemed menacing, somehow, that car – just sitting there. Full of secrets. What would they discover if they opened the door, looked through the glove compartment, under the seats? The inside of such a car would be the perfect place for a writhing nest of snakes, like rattlers. Why would you walk away from a car like that in the first place? Why not use it to drive away, drive to safety? Why leave it behind, abandon it to the elements?

The land here is evil.

“There’s got to be a rational explanation,” Sheila insisted. “And we simply haven’t found out

what it is yet. Right?”

They agreed with her – reluctantly.

John glanced around, betraying his anxiety. The stillness, the quiet – it was unnerving. It was as though they had dropped off the map completely. It was a silence that one felt deep in one’s bones, a silence that screamed to be heard. There should have been the normal background chatter, normal background noises – the chirping of birds, the roar of a semi, the squeal of a motorbike, even just the distant rumbling of a tractor. There should have been the sounds of wood creaking, of trees moving, of fish jumping and splashing in the lake. The sounds of life. Yet there was nothing. Only the sound of their breathing, the sound of their shoes against the gravel and grass underfoot, the sound of the fabric of their shirts and pants as they moved.

You could go mad, John thought, in such silence. With nothing more than this silence. It would break you, eventually. It would crush you.

Overhead the buzzards continued to circle their eventual prey, whatever unfortunate animal that might be. John watched them. Did he hear their distant cries carried on the wind, or did he only imagine them?

In horror movies, he thought, there was always a moment when things start to go wrong – the center does not hold and things fall apart. Was this that moment? Should they pack up and leave, like sensible people would?

“Let’s take the canoe and go out on the lake,” Sheila suggested brightly. Bringing the canoe had been her idea. They were going to need shots of the famous Edward’s Lake – both the town and the body of water – after all.

“Maybe I can get some good shots from out there,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the dark waters.

“Yeah,” Douglas said. Then said no more.

John stared at the dark waters, gripped by uneasiness. The lake seemed dangerous, somehow. There were so many sheltered coves and inlets, so many weeping willows perched on its overgrown shores. Anything could be in that lake, he thought.

He thought of other lakes, of Michigan winters, of childhood, skating on cool, smooth ice with his brothers and sisters. He thought of the possibility that Joey had drowned in the river, his body washed downstream, never to be found. That it might still be lying somewhere. Bloated. Chewed by fishes, crabs. Dragged off into the woods by a bear. Now nothing but bones and a skull.

He had a thing about lakes. About water. Watery depths. Darkness. Things down there in the darkness. Clinging things. Things that bite, rip, tear.

“Sure,” he said, screwing up his courage. “Douglas and I can get it down from the SUV.”

Sheila followed as they walked back to the church and around to the side where the SUV was

parked. Tied across the top was a canoe that belonged to Douglas. Douglas had a thing about water, too: he loved it. They undid the ropes, got the canoe down – it was surprisingly light.

“Not really built for three, but she’ll manage, as long as Sheila doesn’t bring too much

equipment,” Douglas said with a smile.

John and Douglas carried the canoe on their heads down to the waterfront, less than a hundred yards from the village. An old, rotted dock stood there, many of the boards missing. It marched away into the dark water, ending abruptly in a collapse of boards and wooden pilings. The water was clear but murky. Lily pads clustered around the shore, spreading out into the lake, making it impossible to see how deep the water was.

“Canoes tip over rather easily,” Douglas said into the stillness. “John, you ever been on one?”

John had not.

“Sheila and I go out all the time, so why don’t you just sit in the middle and sit still? Don’t be

shifting your weight around or you’ll spill us.”

They put the canoe in the water. Sheila jumped in, cameras around her neck, walking on sure feet. She took up position in the very front.

“Now you,” Douglas said to John, pointing at the canoe.

Trying hard not to betray his misgivings, John got in the canoe, was immediately horrified at how easily it swayed this way and that. He sat in the middle, in the very center, and sat very still, gripping the sides with trembling hands.

Douglas got in gracefully. He paddled first on one side, then on the other, taking them straight out into the middle of the lake.

“Nothing to worry about, just keep your butt still,” Douglas said to John from behind, as if reading his mind. “And for God’s sake, don’t stand up – if anything will tip a canoe, that’s it.”

No need to worry about that, John thought. Don’t puke, would be more to the point. He stared at the sullen waters passing by on either side, wondered how deep the lake was and what was down there – then desperately tried to push such thoughts away.

They were so close to it, he thought – so close to the water. He could reach out and touch it, if he wanted to. What he couldn’t do was see down into its dark, watery depths.

The lake was not very big, the waters placid: Ten minutes of rowing would take them to the other side. It was clear of lily pads and the green slime of algae in the middle, but along its edges, it was positively choked as the lily pads and algae competed for space.

Douglas took them to the right, following the outgrowth of lily pads and the green of the algae blooms. Cattails stood out among the lily pads. The banks of the lake were tangled with undergrowth, weeping willows and old tree roots.

It was, John thought, not a very pretty lake. And there was no sign of life. No frogs calling,

jumping from one lily pad to the next. No fish. No minnows. No water spiders. No mosquitoes. No cranes standing near the shore, searching for prey. It was a dead lake. Like everything else in Edward’s Lake, there was not a sign of life to be seen. A lake like this should be full of life. There should be birds on the shore. Frogs on the lily pads. Fish and minnows. Hunters and the hunted. Predators and prey.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

The land here is evil.

Why had Joey said that? What did it mean? The land here was the same as any other land. Right? There was nothing inherently evil about land. Yet something must have driven off all the animals, the way a jungle goes suddenly silent when a lion appears. But what could possibly drive off all the animals, right down to the mosquitoes and spiders and worms?

Nothing natural could account for that.

Nothing natural.

“Guys,” Sheila said, putting down her camera for a moment. “Did you ever wonder why most

words that begin with ‘sl’ are negative words – like slut, slush, slam, sludge, slit, slave, slate, slay, slouch, slime ... didn’t you ever wonder?”

John and Douglas had to admit that they had not.

“What about slim?” Douglas asked. “Slender?”

“Not all words are bad,” Sheila admitted. “But most of them. Like sleaze, sleuth.”

“Sleuth is not a negative word,” Douglas protested.

“Tracking down a killer? That’s not negative? Or slippery. Or a slight. Slick. Slow. Slither.

Slitty-eyed. Slum. Slump. It’s like all those words are descended from some original word that was negative. Know what I mean?”

“Sleep,” Douglas said. “That’s not negative.

Sheila rolled her eyes. “You’re really sluggish sometimes, Douglas, I must say. Sluggish. Not to mention a bit of an intellectual slouch.”

Douglas merely grinned, dipping the paddle into one side, then the other, propelling them forward through the turgid waters. They left a slowly-twirling trail through the green algae.

“Can we go back now?” John asked. He was feeling decidedly faint and unwell. Perhaps it was the sun overhead, which was bright, hot, unpleasant. Or perhaps he’d had just about as much water as he could take for one day. He wanted to be back on the shore and the sooner the better.

“It’s lovely,” Douglas said dreamily. “I should have brought my paints.”

“It is lovely,” Sheila agreed. “So tranquil, so peaceful. The water is so calm. And these lily pads are simply gorgeous. They’ll make a lovely illustration to your story, Johnnie. I still have a lot of pictures to take.”

They approached a rocky outcropping on the far side of the lake.

“Do you smell it?” Sheila asked, turning to look at them.

John did. It was the smell of death. Of a dead animal.

“Let’s see what it is,” Sheila suggested.

John bit his lip and held his tongue. Let’s get the frickin' hell out of here, is what he wanted to say, but didn’t.

He was suddenly unnerved.

I’m in the state of sanctifying grace, he thought, rather frantically. I just went to confession. Not a sin on my soul. If anything happens ... That was childhood talking. Whenever you did something wrong, you ran to the priest and he forgave you and you were “clean” again. Otherwise, you were in the state of sin, and if you died in the state of sin, you would go straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Even though he knew that – knew it was just childhood talking – he felt a superstitious sense of relief. At least if something bad

happened ... 

The smell of death became heavier, undeniable. They drifted into an alcove, of sorts, formed by dark rock walls. The water continued straight into the rocks and there was an opening just high enough for them to pass under.

“Shall we go inside?” Sheila asked, turning to look at them.

John said nothing.

“Why not?” Douglas said. “Could be caves in there. You know how much I love caves.”

“John?” Sheila prompted, wanting his approval.

“Sure,” he said. He tried to smile.

Douglas steered their small craft toward the opening. They ducked down and disappeared underneath the rocky outcropping. Inside they found a large cave. The smell of death was all but sickening here, and they quickly discovered the reason why: a pile a carcasses lay on the rock floor at the water’s edge. Deer, mostly, John thought, judging by all the antlers. But bear, too, and other animals no longer recognizable. The animals themselves had not been eaten, as such. They had been bitten all over their bodies. But dragged in here and bitten by what?

“Oh shit,” Sheila said. She fiddled with her camera, began snapping away. The flash of her

camera lit up the scene in ghostly bursts.

“Guys, I don’t think we’re alone,” Douglas said very quietly. Too quietly. John glanced over his shoulder at the tall, gangly man, who lifted his eyes very slowly toward the ceiling.

John looked up – and froze. In the darkness, he could see eyes glinting, staring down. They

looked like the eyes of children. When Sheila’s flash went off, he saw that they were indeed children, perhaps a dozen of them, perched on the rocks above.

Douglas backed the canoe away very slowly.

“I’m not finished!” Sheila exclaimed angrily, turning to glare at them. What she saw on their

faces brought her up short. She looked at John. John looked up, almost imperceptibly, towards the children. She caught his meaning, raised her eyes casually. Quick as a flash, she brought her camera forward and started taking pictures.

There was angry hissing above.

“Don’t!” John exclaimed.

Sheila pressed the shutter again and again, ignoring him.

There was a weird screeching noise, the rustling of bare feet against rock.

The children vanished.

***

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