Christie saw Jack’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. Never a good one for hiding his tension.
“Good to hear. Nice and safe town. Great.”
The man nodded. “But I got to tell you. You seem like nice people. So, a bit of advice. Stuff they didn’t tell you when you left the big highway. The towns here, they’re safe. The people make them safe. But in between, like when you leave Dingman’s… and head on to Scooter’s Mill?”
“The next town?”
A nod.
“Don’t stop.”
The man was looking right at Kate as if she was the special of the evening at the local greasy spoon.
“Don’t stop,” he repeated. “Keep your windows up.” Back to Jack. “Eyes on the road. Look out for anything peculiar.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Jack didn’t sound too sincere.
Perhaps the man picked up on that.
“Paterville, hm? Hear it’s nice. And pricey. Musta set you back a bundle.”
Jack clenched his hands tighter on the steering wheel. He’s just about to hit his limit, Christie guessed.
“Yeah. Saved a long time.” A breath. “Look, we’ve been traveling all day.”
The man backed up.
“Sure, sure. You wanna get going. Just remember what I said, hm? You seem like nice folk. Wanna see you coming back this way, next week, whenever your vacation is done.”
“Thanks.”
Some of the other men began to move the sawhorse, opening up a lane and a way past this checkpoint and into the town of Dingman’s Falls.
Once again, the man made a rolling motion with his hand.
Jack hit a button and the window went up as he slowly cruised past the volunteer guards.
Christie watched the town roll by, dotted with people. A lone boy on a bike. Two men outside a shuttered hardware store, talking, taking due notice as Jack drove by.
“Dingman’s Falls,” Jack said to her as they left the town.
“Have to make sure we come back real soon, y’hear?”
“Absolutely. Maybe buy a little vacation condo.”
Christie laughed. “You could join the local border patrol.”
“Get me some trophies.”
But somehow, the last thing Jack said didn’t sound funny.
Trophies. What the hell kind of trophies would they have?
Outside the town, things turned even more surreal. Motel cabins with holes in the roofs, paint flaking off in giant clumps, the color barely holding on, doors smashed in.
Lots of bears on the signs. The Sportsmen’s Lodge. The Nite Owl. The Emerald Inn. All those happy bears on the decrepit signs.
The area looked as if it had been hit by bombs, turned into a war zone.
Christie stole a quick glance at the kids, sitting in the back, barely taking notice.
Then to Jack. She had asked to drive. But he kept saying he was fine. A typical male.
No, I can do it. I can handle it.
Eight, nine hours of driving.
He had to be tired.
They rolled past more desolation. A neon martini glass that would never again glow an iridescent blue. Carved wooden deer with their limbs chopped off, probably for firewood.
Then just as quickly, another town, another barrier.
If nothing else, now they were closer.
Soon, the road trip would be done. They could get out of the car.
They could actually begin their vacation.
They had begun climbing now as well, winding past dry stream beds that had no sparkling water rippling over the rocks.
The road then began weaving between smaller mountains, and soon some of the high Adirondack peaks were no longer so far away.
Massive, ancient sentinels of stone, eerie with both dead and live trees encircling them.
She said to Jack: “It’s beautiful here.”
“It is. I almost thought—”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Almost thought places like this had vanished.”
She didn’t respond to that.
Christie saw an area to pull off the road and park. A sign indicated a trail leading up to one of the nearby mountains. Once probably filled with day hikers.
Now the trail had to be empty. The trail deserted. Nobody would do that these days.
“Here we go,” Jack said. “Up ahead.”
She turned back to the front.
And saw the sign.
She turned back to the kids.
“Simon, Kate… almost there.”
Everyone looked out the windows, ready to enter the camp.
WELCOME TO PATERVILLE CAMP
16. Greetings
Jack turned onto the small dirt road to the right that led to the camp.
More signs.
WELCOME!
And—
GUESTS—PLEASE PROCEED TO THE WELCOME CENTER JUST AHEAD.
Then, in case anyone forgot why they were here…
PATERVILLE FAMILY CAMP—WHERE FAMILIES CAN BE FAMILIES!
The two-lane dirt road was well-maintained, no big ruts or boulders. Any brush at the sides was cut well back.
“I’m excited,” Christie said.
“Me, too,” Jack said.
He was getting good at saying things he didn’t quite believe.
If only I could ease the hell up.
What happened at the rest stop could have happened anywhere.
That’s what he told himself.
Then, through the thick stands of pine and dead deciduous trees, Jack saw the outer fence of the camp.
No small fence either. Twelve feet, maybe more. Certainly bigger than the one that girded their complex at home. And two turrets, looking less forbidding than those on the highway, painted a dark cocoa brown with a dark pine green roof.
More like little elf cottages than security turrets.
Did they color-coordinate the nice people with their guns inside the elf cottages?
Jack imagined that by now their arrival had been picked up by the camp’s cameras and whatever motion-detection systems it had in place. Maybe a license check had already been run.
The turret elves reporting their progress.
“Is this it?” Simon said, leaning forward.
The road curved to the right, then the left.
A sign indicated a speed bump, then another, in the traditional Adirondack colors of brown and green. PREPARE TO SLOW DOWN.
Jack eased off the gas.
“Wow,” Simon said.
Wow at what? Jack wondered. The giant fence, the elf turrets, the big sign where log chunks spelled out PATERVILLE FAMILY CAMP, with deer antlers on either side?
Antlers? Don’t tell me they have deer here.
Weren’t deer a thing of the past?
Probably extinct.
A gate opened and, passing the fence, Jack saw a smiling man waiting inside a small booth meters ahead. Only a small candy-cane-striped barrier blocked their way.
Jack stopped the car.
The man’s grin broadened as he walked over.
The gate closed behind Jack.
He glanced back quickly at that.
“Go on,” Christie said. “Say ‘hi.’ Find out where we’re supposed to go.”
Right, Jack thought.
The gate forgotten, he opened his window.
“Welcome to Paterville Camp, folks. And you must be… the Murphy family?”
The man radiated his smile evenly over the four of them in the car. Jack smiled back. “That would be us.”
“Great. We’ve been expecting you. Now”—the man leaned close with some papers in his hand—“here’s your car tag. Just put that on the dash. And your cabin number. And a map of the Paterville grounds. Your cabin’s right here.”