Usually we went to the public state park, but from time to time a friend with land would let us camp out there. In those cases, we’d shoot the handful of guns that Dad owned. Sometimes we’d set up aluminum cans and pick them off with .22s, easing into the tiny kick, the sharp report, our eyes learning not to close as soon as we touched the triggers. Once in a while, Dad would buy a box of clay pigeons and we’d move up to shotguns. A twelve-gauge was a fast teacher. Keep the butt tight to your shoulder, or wear the bruise for a week. Hold it just so, careful to glance down the barrel, or get a black eye. I never did get comfy with a shotgun like Andy did, but I might have, given enough time.
I shot a squirrel when I was eight. I wasn’t crazy about the feel of it, knowing that, in an instant, it was dead because of me. I didn’t have one of those movie moments where I leaned over it, crying my eyes out. I just stared at the little hole under its eye, wondering how bad it hurt. It flailed for about half a minute, and that was that. Dad made me help skin it, clean it. He had a grill grate that he sat over the fire, propped up on a few rocks. Over and over, he kept turning each half of the squirrel, basting it with packets of barbecue sauce from McDonald’s. It was, without question, the best thing we ever ate out there.
In those days, Andy liked to stalk through the woods, gun in hand, and search for tracks, trails, signs of where a buck had bedded down the night before. He never actually shot a deer, but he did get really good at tracking them. We were, in a sense, learning about what the world might have been like before the power went on, and for both of us, it was a powerful lesson. Andy especially. As much as he lived for video games, he really seemed to find himself out there, to tap into some dormant, forgotten part of his humanity.
“I went through there,” I said.
Andy stood next to me, an old, rusted machete in his hand. He had found it behind our shed, buried under a stack of cordwood. I can still remember him swearing up and down that the red marks weren’t rust, but blood. Otherwise, why would anyone hide it? It was a pitiful weapon, likely to split in half the moment you hit anything with it, but it made him feel better just the same. I had dragged him out to the Trails, promising to retrace my steps with him, and even though it was the middle of the day, I felt the need to bring my pocketknife.
“And you had the bear with you?” he asked nervously.
“Yes,” I said in frustration. “I already told you.”
He ignored my tone and kept looking at the wild tangle of trees and ferns. It was dark overhead, the looming clouds threatening to soak us at any minute. The darkness gave the entire place an even more ominous look, as if the creature wouldn’t think twice about leaping from the shadowy thicket to rip us to shreds.
“You think… it’s in there?”
I shrugged, not wanting to answer either way. “Dunno. I don’t think so.”
It was true. I wasn’t just trying to convince myself. The way he responded to light, sound, people. He was skittish, the type of creature that would hide in a cellar, a mausoleum, maybe even a burrowed hole in the ground. Something dark, cool, and musty.
“You sure about that?” he asked, still staring at the horizon.
“I’m not sure about anything. I just know it hates people. There ain’t many here, but there are some.”
He nodded, clearly agreeing with me.
“I think we’re good. But I also think you’re right. It smelled your bear. It had to pass through here.”
He swung the machete nervously and said, “All right. Just wait here,” and he marched in.
“No,” I said, grabbing his shoulder. “We have to at least have some kind of plan or something.”
He brushed me off. “This is how we make a plan. We have to check things out first. See if we can track it. See if we can learn anything about it.”
“I know that,” I said, having to step in front of him to keep him from entering the Trails. “But we need… I don’t know… a method or whatever.”
He reached into his backpack and retrieved a giant grocery bag, which he shook just in front of my face. “See this?” he asked. “This is my plan.”
I peered in, squinting at the multicolored contents before frowning in confusion. “Jelly beans?”
He smiled.
“Yep. Dad’s Easter presents. Haven’t eaten them for probably three or four years. I kept throwing them in one of the drawers in my room. I’ve told Dad a couple times that I hate them, but he just forgets, I guess. Either that,” he snorted, “or they’re just the cheapest thing he can find.”
The frown on my face didn’t lighten in the slightest. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, he has to save money somehow, and I guess—”
“No,” I blurted out. “Not how expensive they are. I mean, the jelly beans. How the heck are jelly beans going to help?”
“Oh,” he said. “They’re markers. See…”
He took a few steps toward the Trails and dropped one. Then a few more steps, and another jelly bean, then another. Finally, I figured out what he was up to.
“It’s such a maze in there,” he said. “There has to be some way to mark where I’ve been. And these are pretty damn easy to see. Whenever I start down a trail, a few jelly beans here and there will let me know it’s good to go.”
“Sooo… we’re like Hansel and Gretel.”
“If that helps you,” he replied sarcastically. “And who’s we? I told you to stay out here.”
I glanced around the darkened field and the sky above, billowing with clouds that seemed to grow more impatient by the second.
“Nope,” I replied. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together.”
“Fine,” he said, his voice like a deflating tire. “Just stay close to me.”
The Trails were as tight, confusing, and awful as ever, and we made our way through the tangle slowly and methodically, stopping every few feet to drop a jelly bean. Luckily, Andy’s bag looked like it held hundreds, maybe even thousands, so we were never in much risk of running low. Before long, we were doubling back on ourselves, the ground lit by the multicolored markers. I’d been in the Trails plenty of times, but I’d never really studied them before that day. There was more to see than I ever realized or wanted to. We weren’t in the wild, not really, as the fields that surrounded the trails were no more than a quarter of a mile away from a home, an easy sprint for a kid. Still, it felt like a desert island, a place so very far removed from the world of authority that it could have been Mars.
One trail led us to an open grove where dozens of baby doll parts were strung from threads that dangled from the low-hanging branches. I gasped when we stepped into it, certain that this must be the entrance to the Toy Thief’s lair. Then we started seeing the pentagrams carved in the wood, and the truth became clear, though still frightful in its way. This was the work of teens, probably bored metal fans who thought this would be a funny way to scare one of their friends.
“It’s fine,” Andy said, poking at one of the dead-eyed faces with his machete. “Just wannabe devil worshippers.”
I wasn’t so convinced, and with one last glance at one of the eyeless heads, I ventured back into the brush. Once, we stumbled across someone’s stash, a hastily covered-up trove that consisted of a single, half-full bottle of brown liquor, a pack of Vantage 100s, and half a dozen Hustler magazines. I watched Andy’s reaction as he placed the cardboard and leaves back into place, and I was certain that he would make a trip back by himself whenever he had the chance.
“Shit,” Andy said as we rounded a corner, tripping on a loose root. I could see it coming, almost in slow motion – the bag of jelly beans tumbling out of his hands, followed by the inevitable shower of rainbow colors. I must have been laughing, based on the way he turned his red-cheeked face toward me, eyebrows arched.