The Summer Is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved (5 page)

“What’s your name?” Melissa said.

“Martin.”

“Well, Martin, can we help you? Is there some reason you’re eavesdropping on our conversation?”

Martin thought about it for a second before answering. “Will you show me your telescope?” he said. “I’ve never seen one.” He smiled at Joan, who was looking up now.

She looked away quickly when he met her eyes, but he could see the hint of a smile on her lips.

“Maybe,” said Melissa. “What’s in it for us?”

“Yeah,” Courtney said. “What exactly are you bringing to the table here?”

Martin thought about it. He tried to imagine what he had to offer them. What were they interested in? Telescopes, yes, but he didn’t know anything about telescopes. Or stars. The only thing he really knew about was makeup, and none of them were even wearing makeup. But maybe they liked horror movies?

“My mom does special effects for horror movies,” Martin said. “She’s very good at it, and sometimes she lets me help. Like, picture that girl with jellyfishes all over her. The one Father Tony was talking about. Picture the long tendrils cutting into her skin and burning her. There’s a couple ways my mom could do that. She could just draw them on with a bright red, and then make the skin around the lines all flush like it was inflamed.”

The three girls were watching him and listening in silence. Courtney was the only one who moved, putting cookie after cookie into her mouth while Martin talked.

“Or she might use a bit of latex,” Martin said. “With the latex she could make thin lines of raised skin on her back, like long welts? And then she could make them red, with bits of blue and purple to make it look angrier. Blue and purple always made the wound look angrier. More infected. And maybe, if the scene needed it, she could even use a clear thick corn syrup, so that when the jellyfish peels off, it clings to the wound with slime, like flesh slime dripping off.”

He wished he had something to write this all down with. He would have to remember, so he could tell his mother later. Maybe she could use it in a movie.

“This is how you make friends with people?” Courtney said. “That is so gross!”

“‘Flesh slime dripping off!’” Melissa said. “How did you even get accepted to a Bible camp with a brain like that?”

“Well, he probably didn’t mention it on the application,” Courtney said.

Martin looked down at his own cookies. He shouldn’t have said anything. Not everyone understood that what his mother did was awesome. Some people just thought it was gross. And some people thought it was weird and stupid. He should have just been quiet. The only one of the girls who wasn’t talking was Joan. She was looking at him again, and this time she didn’t look away when he met her eyes. She pushed her glasses further up her nose and smiled.

“I like him,” Joan said. “I vote we keep him.”

The counsellor with the big muscled arms was standing on a chair in the middle of the cafeteria. He held up a tiny plastic orange juice glass and tapped a fork against it until everyone had quieted down and was looking at him. It was hard to dislike him. His smile was wide and genuine. Beside Martin, Melissa rolled her eyes.

“Here we go,” she said.

“Now don’t be like that,” Courtney said. “You’re always so negative. I’m sure this is a very important announcement.” She patted Melissa on the arm and grinned at Martin.

“Everyone,” the muscled counsellor said. “Everyone, I just need a minute here.” He looked around and smiled even wider. “I’ve met some of you already, but for those who I haven’t had a chance to say hello to, let me say: Hello! I’m Chip.”

“His name is Chip,” Courtney informed Martin in a whisper.

“Shhh,” Melissa said.

“I’m supposed to assign you to your cabins,” Chip said. “And I don’t want to take all day. We have a whole night of fun and games ahead of us. So I’m gonna read off your names, and when I do, I want you to go sit at the table I point at, okay?”

“Chip is going to assign us to our cabins,” Courtney said. “He’ll probably start by reading off our names, and telling us which table to go sit at. I have no idea what will happen next, though. I hope he tells us.”

“Well I hope he doesn’t take all day about it,” Martin whispered back. “We have a whole night of fun and games ahead of us.” Courtney laughed at that, and even Joan was smiling now.

Martin and Courtney must have laughed too loudly, because over at the next table Cindy gave them a warning look. She held a finger to her lips, and Martin blushed and turned to look attentively at Chip, but Courtney just waved at the scowling counsellor.

“She wants us to be quiet,” Courtney whispered to Martin. “Otherwise we might have trouble understanding the subtle nuances of Chip’s instructions.”

Joan was the first to have her name called, and she shrugged. She stood and Martin gave her a little wave. She didn’t wave back, but she half-smiled again. Martin wondered what she was thinking. She was quiet, and he liked people who were quiet. It was weird, and Martin liked weird.

“Good luck,” Courtney said as Joan walked away. “I think he wants you to go to that table over there. The one that he pointed at!”

Chip went on calling names, and Melissa was next. She was assigned to the same table as Joan, and she stood up slowly.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said to Courtney. “If they put you in a different cabin, we’ll figure something out.” She nodded at Martin. “Nice to meet you, Martin.” She turned and walked over to where Joan was sitting with a few other girls and Sherri-Lynn, the counsellor Martin had met earlier. Beside Martin, Courtney was quiet.

“I’m sure they’ll put you at the same table,” Martin said.

“Shhh,” Courtney said. She was looking at Chip now, waiting for him to announce the next cabin assignment. “What did he say?”

“Mitchell, I think,” Martin said.

Chip repeated the name again. “Has anyone seen Mitchell? We didn’t lose someone already, did we?”

“I think Father Tony’s talking to him,” Sherri-Lynn said from her table. “Just keep going.”

And then Chip called Martin’s name, and pointed to a table over by the door. Martin stood up, but didn’t move. He didn’t want to leave Courtney by herself any more than he wanted to go sit with a table full of strange boys.

“What do you think he wants me to do?” he said, and Courtney smiled. She touched his hand.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll see you outside in a bit. We’ll come find you.” Then she turned back to the front of the room.

The room was louder now, with everyone talking to their new cabin mates. It was getting harder to hear Chip calling out names.

There were already a few boys sitting at the table Chip had pointed at for Martin. They all seemed tanned and loud, laughing and slapping one another on the back already. Joan and Melissa were sitting side by side, watching Chip as intently as Courtney was, and Martin was stuck with strangers. It was stupid that boys and girls had to be in different cabins. It wasn’t like people were going to be walking around their cabins naked.

Martin was in Cabin Seven. Chip was their counsellor, and he showed them the way. The cabins were back against the tree line, half hidden in the woods, with their roofs peeking out from under the overhanging branches into the sunshine. Chip walked ahead of the Cabin Seven boys, but he kept turning around and walking backwards to talk to them.

“We’re going to be in one of the old cabins,” Chip said. “The girls all live in the new ones.” He pointed to the cabins closest to the main building. They didn’t look like cabins at all. They weren’t even a bit rustic, all made out of cement, bright lights inside.

“Air conditioning, plumbing, the works,” Chip said, still pointing to the girl’s cabins. “We just built them this year. There are plans to build more after the season’s over, but for now the boys have got the same cabins as always.” He winked at Martin and said, “That’s what camp is all about, if you ask me. Haunted cabins and having to run through the woods in the middle of the night to pee. You aren’t afraid of ghosts, are you?” Chip said, winking again.

Martin gritted his teeth. People look so stupid when they wink.

But Martin did like the old cabins better, wooden and broken-down-looking, set back in the woods. They blended in with the trees around them and looked like they really could be haunted. They were exactly the kind of cabins where a ghost would feel at home. Or a serial killer. They had big windows, the perfect size for a killer to throw a body through. Cabin Seven was the second-to-last cabin.

“Pick your bunks, guys,” Chip said, and Martin turned to the boy nearest to him.

“I think he wants us to each select a bunk,” Martin told him.

The guy nodded at Martin. “Yeah,” he said. “He just said that.”

He wasn’t off laughing or slapping the other boys on the back, either. Maybe he was okay. Martin gave him a closer look. The other boy had brown hair that hung down over his ears. He was skinny, too. And he had weird teeth.

“I’m Martin,” Martin said, offering his hand to shake.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m Ricky.”

The two boys shook hands and Chip grinned at them from the door. He gave them a thumbs up, and Martin could practically hear Chip’s thoughts. Camp was all about making friends.

“You can have any bunk you want,” Ricky said. “Except this one’s Adrian’s, and that one in the corner on the bottom is mine. You should take that other corner bunk so I don’t have to sleep near a weirdo. You get some weirdo kids at summer camp. They let anyone in.”

Martin walked to the other corner bunk and set his suitcase on the bed.

There was nowhere for him to unpack his clothes. His shirts were going to have to stay folded in the suitcase, which was unacceptable. There were no closets here, no drawers. Nowhere to hang a hanger. The glass in the window wasn’t just smudged, it was broken. There was a long crack down from the top to the bottom corner. Martin took a deep breath and let it out. This was where he was now. A cabin in the woods.

There weren’t supposed to be drawers in a cabin. The windows were meant to be broken and ragged. Get in the spirit, Martin told himself. Think of it like a horror movie. A haunted cabin, like Chip said. Don’t worry about your clothes. Worry about who’s going to die first. Who will find the body? Will it have all its limbs? Think about an axe cutting through the air.

This was an adventure. Martin closed his eyes and tried to think about axes and ghosts.

His shirts were going to get creases.

Outside, Ricky showed Martin the Flying Fox near the playground equipment. It was a wire tied between two poles. One of the poles was short so the wire was just above their heads, and the other pole was five feet higher and twenty feet away.

You climbed up a ladder to the higher pole and took hold of this metal bar. Then you jumped and held onto the bar like your life depended on it, and you went flying along the wire toward the shorter pole. At Martin’s school they just called this a zip-line. Here it was the Flying Fox.

“There was a kid, like, five years ago,” Ricky said, “who didn’t let go in time, and he bounced right off that short pole and landed on his head. Everyone could hear his neck snap. I know a kid who was here that year and he said he was over by the canteen and he still heard the kid’s neck snap. Everyone watching heard the weird grinding sound when the kid tried to get up again. Every single person said they couldn’t forget that sound even if they wanted to.”

Martin could tell Ricky had told the story before. He made little hand gestures the whole time. He had a whole routine worked out. Every time he said “snap,” he pretended to break a stick with his hands. Snap. Snap. After he said “grinding,” he made a sound in his throat that was not right.

“He didn’t die, either,” Ricky said. “That’s the sick part. He’s still alive out west somewhere. Somewhere where there’s no hills, because he has to be in a wheelchair. It’s probably one of those wheelchairs that people control with their tongues. I heard that every once in a while his head comes loose, and it rolls around on his neck because the bones aren’t connected anymore. Someone has to come and help him put it back in his plastic brace. Otherwise it just swings down and he has to look at his chest all day.”

Another pair of boys was coming toward the Flying Fox. The kid on the right was black, with his hair cut in a mohawk that stood up a few inches. He was wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and it was hard to read what it said because the font was so crazy. He noticed Martin staring at his shirt.

“It says, The Hospital Bombers,” he said. “But don’t tell anyone. When our counsellor, Matt, asked me, I told him it said ‘The Hospital Funders.’ That they played benefit shows for hospitals.”

“I like it,” Martin said.

The kid on the left was a bit chubby and he was wearing all black even though it was so hot out.

“I’m Martin,” Martin said. “And this is Ricky.”

Ricky was still looking up at the Flying Fox. He glanced back at the two new kids. Then proceeded to ignore them.

“I’m Gabe, and this is John Dee,” the kid with the mohawk said.

His friend offered a weak wave, and Ricky gave Martin a knowing look. He jerked his thumb at John Dee.

“What did I tell you?” he said. “Dressing all in black on a day like this. Man. Weirdo kids.”

Martin,

I don’t know when you’ll get this email. You probably haven’t even unpacked your bags yet. Mine are still in the middle of the floor where I dropped them. I’m in a hotel in downtown Toronto, with a window looking out over the city. Or part of the city. I can see the CN Tower off in the distance, like a postcard.

You haven’t been to Toronto so I will try to do my best at describing it, but it’s difficult. The pictures don’t really do it justice. The CN Tower, for instance, lights up different colours. It’s cute and all, but once every hour it turns blood red and lets out a scream like a dying animal. At least, I think it comes from the CN Tower. I was just getting off the plane on Toronto Island when I first heard it, and nobody else even flinched. There was this giant, glowing blood spire screaming in agony up above us, and they just kept that same bored, irritated look on their faces that Torontonians always seem to have.

It sounded like the creaking groan of bridges when the metal twists. Like something alive and not alive at the same time, and it occurred to me that every city must have a creature like this. Some guardian of cement and metal and glass that watches over its home. The bridges in Halifax, standing guard out in the fog and the wet. The CN tower looking down over Toronto.

A car met me at the airport, like in a movie. There was a man in a suit with a driver’s cap, holding a sign with my name on it! I was so excited, Martin. I’ve never been picked up from an airport like that before. He took my bags and carried them for me, and held the door open while everyone else was still lined up waiting for their taxis. He didn’t speak, or make small talk with me. It almost felt like being kidnapped. I sat in the back seat in silence, with no idea where we were going. He drove me to a party, so I could meet the director and the film’s stars. It was at the director’s apartment.

The director’s name is Robert and he seems really great. He told me about his favourite parts of
Undead Hungry Grandmother Birthday Party
, and I tried not to gush too stupidly about
Blood Socket
. All over his apartment he had posters for old horror movies.
The Haunting. Sleepaway Camp
! He even had a poster for
Black Christmas
, Martin. That alone bought him enough respect to keep me from making fun of the
Halloween
poster.

It was a lot like Halifax apartments, too. The only difference was the cockroaches. I’ve never really seen a cockroach in real life, but here they seemed to just be a fact of life, like fruit flies. They climbed in and over everything on the kitchen counter, scattering in terror whenever someone turned on the faucet. The biggest one was about the size of your fist, but Robert told me that they were mostly very friendly. They actually help keep the kitchen clean, and they control the population of house centipedes, which I’ve never heard of. I don’t think I ever want to meet one, though, if they make the man who directed
Blood Socket
nervous.

The main character of the movie is a kid about your age. Jim something or other is the actor’s name. I shook his hand and said hello to his mother, but both of them looked bored there at the party.

“This must be so great for you. My son Martin would kill to be in a horror movie.” I said, but the kid just shrugged his shoulders at me.

“It’s not even really acting,” he said. “It’s just a horror movie. I can do better. I’m going to do better. My mom has another audition lined up for me next week. Actual acting.”

He sounded defensive. Where did he think he was that he needed to be defensive about being in
Blood Socket 2
! The other guests were all laughing and enjoying the party. Even the other child actors seemed to be having fun, chasing the biggest cockroach back and forth under the kitchen table, trapping it under a glass.