The Camp (Part Two)

Contain some coarse language and derogatory language

"I remember. Okay, Jake? I will count backwards from 10 and then say the words I remember. When I do, I want you to remember Jake. I want you to take us back to the night you sat around the campfire, at Cedar Creek, with the other boy scouts, and you told a ghost story about a boy who discovered his own body. When done, you ran into the bush and disappeared for nine months." Barry, the hypnotist, takes two steps back from Jake and surveys the faces in the room. There's the Detective with the rank breath; the Doctor with the nervous disposition; Jake's potty-mouthed mother, Carole; her lawyer, what's his name? And Wendy, the plain yet cheery policewoman he's asking out when they are done here today. "Is everyone ready?" Barry takes a sip of coffee and waits for someone to give him the green light.

The Detective, sitting, holding coffee, shoulders slouched, rouses himself from apathy and nods a yes. I have nothing left to lose, he thinks. Though only 10am, he feels the quench of a beer and wags his tongue. Once I’m done here. He sits behind Barry, the scrawny hypnotist in a faded Pink Floyd t-shirt. He glances up at Carole. She wears tight jeans and heels, leans against the padded wall of her son's room and fiddles with her phone. She's bleached her hair since they last met four days ago; her lips painted ruby red. Now her son is found, she seems more girlish. For an old sheila, the Detective sees she's a looker. She catches him staring.

“What?” She mouths.

“Are you ready?” He mouths back.

"Of course, but for the record, I want it known…" she says, loud enough for the room to hear. Each turns and looks, except Jake, whose head is held in a brace for his own protection and can only stare ahead.

“We know what you want known Ms Andrews.”

"Detective, it's time you called me Carole." Carole likes the Detective. His hygiene standards aren't the best, but the poor guy has been through the wringer; she's surprised he can still get out of bed and face this each day. She undresses him with her eyes, imagining a hairy chest where she lays her cheek, teasing his nipple with her tongue. "Seems we're going to be spending a lot of time together. It might as well be on first name terms. Don't you think, Detective?"

The Detective holds her stare and, with his eyes, unbuttons the pink blouse she wears, cups her breast in the palm of his hand and brings her nipple to his hungry mouth. "I've told you enough times, Ms Andrews, you are not bringing a film crew into this room."

“But it’s 60 Minutes.”

“I don’t care if it’s David bloody Attenborough. Until your son is in the clear, no television. Okay?”

Jake's mom pulls a face and sulks as she leans back against the wall and teasingly blows the Detective a kiss. He sees a spark of light that bounces off a silver stud that pierces her tongue. His ex-wife was not so bold. What does she do with that? He asks himself, crossing his fingers he finds out.

"Carole, I guess it is for the best," the Doctor weighs in. He, too, is disappointed. He is reaching retirement age and hopes to end his career with a bang; an interview on 60 Minutes. “Too much stress may push Jake over the edge.”

Carole rolls her eyes: “You sure he isn’t there already doc? Over-the-edge that is?”

“Listen everyone,” interrupts Barry. “We need to start. Jake is under and I don’t know how long he can stay that way for. Especially with the racket you lot are making. Now, if everyone is ready, I would like to start.”

"Go crazy," the Detective deadpans. Carole raises her phone and presses the record on the camera app. The Detective watches, says nothing and reaches for a cigarette. He offers one to Carole, who accepts and smiles.

The Doctor frowns, “really, do I have to say it?”

Carole inserts the smoke behind her ear; the Detective inserts his between his lips.

Barry clicks his fingers; “Here we go, 10, 9, 8…I remember.”

Jake opens his eyes.

The Detective slides his chair closer, turns and looks up at Detective Wendy, his partner. She stands, back a little, with a video recorder. She nods. Wendy hopes this is over soon. It's Saturday morning. She's meant to be playing netball.

“Jake, my name is Barry. How are you this morning?”

"My thumb is sore." Jake holds his left hand up to his face, sees that his thumb and forefinger are missing and thinks nothing of it.

“Yes. You’ve had an ordeal. Jake, do you know where you are?”

“In a hospital? Am I sick?”

“Jake you are in a psychiatric ward of a speciality unit.”

"He means a nut house Jake, you're in the asylum," the Detective's interruption irritates the others, not that anyone speaks, but he sees their expressions. He doesn't give a shit. Not anymore. Barry turns to him. "Detective, I ask you please to remain quiet."

“Let’s just get to the point where the fucking bodies are okay. I’ve got everyone from the fucking Prime Minister down to that nurse outside the door on my fucking back wanting to know where five missing boy scouts are, so excuse me if I sound a little fucking impatient. Let me remind you Barry, you're our last fucking shot at finding those kids." Flushed with frustration, the Detective takes another look at the hypnotist, his girth, his dumbass t-shirt and prays to a God he doesn't believe in. Please.

“Jake, do you remember the camp at Cedar Creek, sitting around the campfire, telling ghost stories.”

Jake stays silent. He is strapped into a wheelchair, IV drips attached to both arms, his head braced.

The Detective lights the cigarette and blows smoke into Jake’s face. “This should help you remember.”

“Detective!” From the chorus line of onlookers behind him.

“So Jake you are by the campfire.”

"Yes. I am telling a story about werewolves. I like to make up stories…."

"Bingo! The kid just admitted he makes things up. Case closed. What did you do with the bodies, Jake?

“Detective, please.”

He drops the cigarette and stubs it out with the sole of his shoe. Jake continues.

 "I tell the story where I’m in the mangroves and I stumble over my own mutilated body. I didn't make it up on the spot. I'm not that clever. I rehearsed it before camp. The twist at the end is a real gotcha moment, perfect for scaring the younger kids around a campfire.

“I told the story, screamed I was a ghost, and ran off into the bush, howling. It was hilarious. I reckon I got them all.”

Billy starts to laugh, a little too hysterically.

“Doctor, is he okay?” his mom asks, zooming the camera in on her son’s crazed face.

“He’s acting right?” the Detective stands.

“What?” Barry thinks the Detective is a buffoon.

“Him, his bloody mother there, rehearsing for their moment with Oprah Winfrey. Couldn’t they be cooking something up, make some money. Look at her.”

“Detective!”

“Detective, Jake is completely unaware of everything that is happening in this room.”

“Alright Barry, you’re the expert.”

“Thank-you. Jake, would you like to continue. You ran into the bush.”

“And into the darkness. It rained that afternoon, the grass is long, up to my ankles, and I can feel my pants getting wet. It’s funny. The grass shouldn’t be long. I’ve camped here before and usually there are cows everywhere. But there’s none to be seen and the grass is long. Odd right?”

“Barry, if he doesn’t know what’s happening in the room, then who is he talking to?” The Detective hears the strain in his own voice, the weariness. A beer will fix that, maybe two.

“Detective I’ll do my job and you do yours okay?” Barry turns to Jake and takes hold of his hand. “Jake, talk me through it, what happened when you ran into the dark.”

Jake shakes a little, enough to concern the Doctor, who steps forward with a small metallic dish bolding a syringe filled with an amber liquid. "Just in case," he turns to Carole and gives the camera a smile. He was glad he took special care of his hair this morning. 60 Minutes! He smiles.

“I only took three maybe four steps,” Jake continues. “I could not see anything through the darkness. I sensed the trees had me hemmed in. There was a growl before me, a sound like I had never heard before, and then two red gashes, a hand’s width apart, glowing in the night, the fierce eyes of a wild beast. I thought it was a dog, and I step backwards. Fear ripped through me, my knees tried to buckle, but I stayed steady on my feet. There was another low-pitched growl and I saw fangs. I began to fall and as I reached my hand out to balance myself the beast lurched forward, biting my hand; its teeth tearing at my skin. I tried to scream but a claw came from behind, covered my mouth and I felt a sharp pain pierce my lower back. I dropped the flashlight, I hear Lucas call my name, and the night swallows me…."

"That explains the scar on his lower back," remarks the Doctor, interrupting Jake, who continues to tell his story.

"I awake, in excruciating pain, blinded by bright burning light. I try to blink but my eyelids are held open. By what, I don't know. I try to scream, but there is a metallic tube running down my throat. I try to thrash my arms around, but they are restrained. I am horizontal, naked, and I see three…."

Jake's eyes roll, and he convulses in the chair, thrashing at the straps. Barry takes Jake's head between the palm of his hands and whispers, "Jake, it's okay. You are safe now."

Jake regains his composure and continues as if nothing happened. The Doctor slides a chair towards him and sits in easy reach.

“I have never seen anything so hideous in my life. All I wanted to do was die, rather than look at it. I was filled with so much terror that I thought my mind would snap. The Monsters, with their four arms and long waving antennas protruding from their grotesque heads covered in hundreds of small sharp tusks, like a crustacean, a giant shrimp. A glutinous slime dripped down from their mouths which were filled with row upon row of pointed teeth and their screech, if that’s what you call it, made by blood curdle. Five formed a ring of terror around me and in a horror-induced shock, I passed out.”

The Detective stands up. “This is bullshit, wake him up.”

Barry turns, his face pale and drained of blood, with fat beads of sweat sitting like swollen leeches on his brow. "Detective, you can't lie under hypnosis."

“You are a retard. Of course you can lie. I’ve been doing my homework. If he’s convinced himself that his lie is real then that is his truth and that is the story he will tell.”

Barry reaches for a small hand towel and dabs his forehead. He's been a forensic psychic for most of his 11-year career, and no one has sounded as convincing as Jake. "I must tell everyone I believe him."

Carole gasps. “Really?”

“Bullshit, the kid is lying.”

“Billy is here,” Jake yells out. Everyone shuts up and leans in. “What do you mean kiddo?” the Detective asks.

"I'm sorry," Barry says, "he can only hear my voice. Jake, what do you mean Billy is with you.

“I am vertical now. The Monsters, two of them, seem to be laughing at something. It’s Billy. My body is paralysed, and I am strapped onto a brace. He stands a few feet in front of the two. He is naked and shivering. There's blood on his face, his glasses are missing, and a puddle of pee is pooled between his feet. I scream out to him, but he can't hear me. The monsters turn and glare at me. I can't stand to look at them. Their eyes, there are so many, moving in different directions, all stop and stare at me. Like I'm the one who has done something wrong. They are so ugly a wave of nausea hits me, and I throw up, the vomit running down the front of my bare chest. I began to cry; I was terrified beyond belief.

"The monster turns back towards Billy. He stands under a light, trembling like a tree sapling in the wind. I realise he was in a tube, like someone had lowered a drinking glass over him, like how my mom catches cockroaches in the trailer. That's why he can't hear me. I call ' Billy, Billy,' spitting chunks of spew from my mouth.

"A monster, in one of his four hands, holds a small box, the size of a phone. It presses a button, and the glass dome rises. Suddenly, a dog-like creature with six legs runs at Billy; its jaw opens, leaps, and bites off Billy's head, sending blood spraying like water from a lawn sprinkler.

The monsters laugh. I know this sounds crazy, but they behave like us despite their appearance. The two laughed until a taller, perhaps older monster entered the room, and something was said in their blood-curdling screech. The two younger ones slouched and walked off. They had got in trouble for killing Billy."

There is a stiffening silence in the room. The Detective unloosens his tie, noticing his armpits stink as he does so. When was the last time I showered? When was the last time I got laid? He looks across Ms Andrews and smiles yet again. She looks away from the iPhone screen and returns the gesture.

“Detective?” Wendy speaks up from behind. “Maybe you should tell Barry some questions to ask, see what he says.“

“Ask him did he see any other kids.”

Barry wipes his brow again. "Jake, after Billy, did you see anyone else.

“Mike is next to me. This is later. I have no knowledge of time. I am in and out of consciousness. He’s alive but they have cut him open, splayed by steel clamps. I can see his heart beating as he smiles at me. He can’t feel a thing it seems but he is completely ripped open. The monster, I see now there are four adults and maybe six younger ones. A family perhaps. Or a patrol from an alien scout troop."

The Detective laughs out loud. "Oh, this is fucking priceless. Alien boy scouts now. Camping. This kid has some imagination. He's been living in that bush for nine months creating this story." The Detective reaches forward and taps Jake lightly on the head. "Kiddo, you had none months. Is this the best yarn you can come up with, alien boy scouts? Barry? Ask him how he escaped. This I am dying to hear."

“Jake. How did you manage to escape.”

“One of the younger monsters just let me go. He, she, just unstrapped me, knocked me out and I woke up in the bush.”

The Detective paces the room. Carole films him. “Kiddo, if they are aliens, then where is there bloody spaceship?”

“Jake,” Barry says. “Where were you this whole time?”

“I don’t know.”

“When they dragged you to the bush, how long did that take?”

“I don’t know.”

“What does this kid know?”

Jake starts to convulse again. Spit forms in his mouth and turns to froth which he blows bubbles through, trying to breathe. He shakes his chair like he's already strapped onto Old Sparky and getting executed for his crimes.

“Fuck me,” the Detective exclaims, “here we go again.”

The Doctor moves forward, needle in hand. How many times has he done this over the past 20 odd days? "I'm sorry everyone, showtime is over, it’s time to put him under again. Whatever happened has shocked him into insanity."

 Barry is upset, not that anyone notices. He was going to ask Wendy out. Not now. He believes every word Jake says. Carole's lawyer whispers something in her ear, opens the door and quickly makes an exit. Wendy, green around the gills, camera in hand, does the same. "Detective, I'll be outside, getting some air."

Jake shakes, froth spilling onto his gown. “God it’s like something from the Exorcist,” his mother sighs, taking hold of the Detective's forearm. “Fancy a beer?” she asks.

He thought she'd never ask. "Yes," he says, "Carole, your son is a mass murder okay?”

Carole shrugs, ”We’ll see.

“Sean!” Jake screams.

Startled, the Detective jumps. "How does he know my name?"

He knows my name?

Carole lifts her phone and resumes filming. “Jake hon’ it’s mom.”

“Sean, they are here, please, you have to find the others and stop them. They are here, do you understand me? The alien invasion has started. They are here, you have to stop them.”

Jake passes out.

Carole sighs, “Sean hey. Look, there’s a bar just down the street. You’re buying.”

Detective Sean Twist plans on buying a few.

To Be Continued