FORTY-THREE: SPIRALING ROUND …

THE FOUR OF US LEANED against the railing facing Test. The Maybe-Dickwad/-Hole and the other Buddy were inside presiding over the kids, who could tell something was wrong. We hunched against the wind Test had been out in for hours—his legs and face were red with windburn, but he took his gloves off and unzipped his coat when he talked to us.

Faisal stood between Matty and Michael, and I stood at the end.

“We found it in a tree on the north side of the grounds,” Test said when Matty asked where they found the hat. “It was ten, fifteen feet up a pine.”

“She was climbing,” I said. “She was probably climbing to get a better view.”

“A better view of what?” Michael said.

I shook my head. Leaning on the railing, I could almost see through the trees to the road where the lights ran in both directions. The clouds in the otherwise exceptionally clear sky were scattered enough that they threw down circles of darkness that sailed across the snow-covered gravel parking lot, and in every one of the shadow scenes I saw Lump. The light she moved in was moonlight: not the yellow sunlight, but pale moonlight that only existed in the spotlight circles piercing down through the day. It made sense to me that a half dozen Lumps were running around and playing and cartwheeling and rolling around with baby deer and leaning against the pillars of daytime moonshine because I was more asleep than not. The only response that made sense to me was to say, “She found us.”

“Moses?” the Lumps all said.

“—ses?”

I blinked and the cloud shadows were empty. “Sorry?”

“Pay attention,” Test said. Somewhere far away through the trees, something was making a wailing noise.

“Did you call the police?” Faisal asked.

“I called the Department of Natural Resources first,” he said loftily. “DNR’s got stations scattered for a hundred miles around here. Put an APD28 out on her.”

“What about her parents?” Matty asked, not realizing how much that family already had to deal with on an everyday basis.

The awful fucking wind kept assaulting us, blowing into, under, and through our clothes. All of us except Test hugged ourselves warm. The distant wailing noise picked up and it sounded like a trapped animal.

“They’re a couple hours away on account of thinking they had a vacation on their hands, but they’re on their way,” he said. But he was barely talking to us. The wind was too cold for this time of year, even the daylight hours felt all too frozen and lifeless. “When was the last time any of you slept?”

Nobody answered.

“You’ve been up all night and I need you all to be rested. We could have a long night in front of us.” He took the cordless phone he was carrying around out of his cargo pocket, pinched the bridge of his nose for moment, and dialed 911. He angled the phone away from his mouth and said, “Sleep, food, then back to it, okay? I need you guys t— Yes. Hi,” he said, bringing the phone back to his mouth.

We headed for the cabins while Test began explaining to the dispatcher that there was a child missing and when his voice died mid-sentence, we all turned and looked at him.

“Beg pardon?” The deep crease between his eyes went deeper. “What do you mean someone already called? Who called?”

The wailing animal came barreling toward the camp’s driveway.

Just beyond our sight line and the parking lot, swooping lights blasted through the snowy, late autumnal trees—all of the scarlet and lemon leaves weighed down under swaths of white—and turned the snow red and blue. The wailing sirens followed as two squad cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance came roaring down the small, winding driveway.

“Holy Christ,” Test said, cramming the phone into his pocket.

We ran toward the front of the building right as the first police car came to a slippery, snowy stop in front of us. Two officers spilled out, each with a hand on their belt, the driver saying something into her shoulder-mounted radio.

“Who called you?” Test said.

I looked at Test like he was a tired, bedraggled woodsperson in shorts who had just yelled semi-accusingly at the cops for showing up exactly when we needed them. The officer looked at him the same way.

“We got a distress call from a child. Sir, please step back,” the immense police officer said to Test, who couldn’t figure out what to say to whom or where to stand. “She told us the name of the camp and that she was lost before the call cut.”

The other vehicles came roaring down the path and packed themselves tightly around us.

“Wait,” I said. “She said that? ‘She’ like Lump? Lump called?”

“She’s okay,” Matty said to us while Test talked to the officers. “She’s still okay.”

The officer didn’t take her gloved hand off her holster when she spoke. “Dispatch got a distress call from a young girl,” she said. “Like I said, her phone died before she could tell us anything other than the name of the camp.” You could tell she was used to talking to panicked-looking people in the middle of the woods.

“But you traced it, right?” I said. “You traced the call here so you know where she is?”29

“To the camp, yes.”

“What else did she say?” Test asked. “Did she describe where she was, if she was hurt, if there were houses around?”

They bounced back and forth, sharing non-information while the EMTs drank coffee out of thermoses and talked with the other first responders, all of us alternating between vibrating with nervous adrenaline and settling into static because nobody knew the extent of the situation and maybe, just maybe, if Lump had called 911 not that long ago, we could find her soon.

Test suggested bloodhounds; the cop ignored him and spoke into her shoulder-mounted radio. “Dispatch, we have a 7002, possible 1001, requesting additional units.”

The tinny, crackly voice on the other side of the radio responded that they understood and would be sending more cars.

“So what do we do? Do we do an Amber Alert?” Michael asked.

The officers had relaxed out of their initial Full Alert Mode that cops are always in when they first show up.30

“No, that’s not how that works. Not if she’s just lost. If she’s lost then we find her. But we need to rule out other options.”

“What other options?” Test said. “One of my kids is missing and she needs to be found.” He talked with his hands, speaking with his fingers splayed out like he was chastising a child, which the officer didn’t appreciate. “No, tell me. What other options are we considering?”

But he knew the other options. He knew them the same as we all knew them, and if my guts hadn’t already been frozen through, they would have turned to water when the officer answered him:

“We have to rule out the possibility that someone took her.” I pictured all the Lumps in the radiant nighttime sunlight, smiling and playing until twisted, gnarled hands reached out of the dark and whisked them away, one at a time, into the woods.

“We don’t have time to consider that,” Test said, not trying to hide the tired anger in his voice.

“I need you to step over here and speak with me,” she said to Test. The officer looked over at her partner and nodded; the partner said something into his radio before turning to the EMTs. They all started moving.

Test and the officer talked about the possibility of abduction. They talked about the locals and the Buddies and the off chance that someone had stolen her away in the middle of the night, and after a while, the officer was convinced.

“We can assign Buddies to watch the campers this evening. A slumber party in the rec hall,” Test said. “I’ll get flashlights and whistles either way—get them to the rest of the faculty.” He power-walked to his office.

“We split up,” I said before anybody could ask what they thought we should do. “This isn’t a horror movie and there isn’t a killer on the loose, so a bunch of teenagers splitting up at camp in the woods to cover more ground is the best option.”

“Attractive teenagers too,” Faisal said, the humor in his voice reflecting the new energy we were all feeling.

“Just to be safe: no showering, no drugs, no skinny dipping, and no sex,” Michael said. He pointed at Matty. “Consider yourself cut off,” he said. “You too,” he said, pointing at Faisal.

“You’re not my type,” Faisal said.

“Bullshit I’m not.”

There was a trace of electricity in their voices that hadn’t been there since the night before. Something alive and resonating and reverberating, something coming back from the darkness.

Like volts to the heart.

Matty said, “We’ve got this,” as I thought it.

The tree line around us was a mix of mostly old pines and small birch trees with peeling bark, and if you looked high enough you couldn’t keep track of where one tree’s branches ended and the other’s began.

Michael went to squeeze Matty’s hand but she flinched back just noticeably enough that Faisal and I had to pretend we didn’t see anything. Michael smiled and nodded just as discreetly and said, “She’s okay, Matty. We’ll find her.”

She was almost smiling when her eyes went sharp as she saw Test jogging up behind us.

“All right, let’s do this,” he said, tossing small LED flashlights to each of us. He had more in a Meijer bag, which we knew because one of them was on and, when he moved, the bag would twist around like a searchlight hidden in a thin fog. It was just after one in the afternoon, but sun wasn’t going to last. I didn’t want to think about what those flashlights implied or that we might not find her until we really needed them. “I’ll round up the others. You all: go.”

We went.

I checked to make sure my flashlight worked, and after we agreed on our separate directions, we ran. In front of the rec hall there was an audience of monsters. All along the railing running the length of the building were the pumpkins we’d carved. I shot past them all; one at a time the monstrous faces beamed at me; the city-crushing giants wrecked cities despite me; and the audience of silent, purgatory-stricken faces smiled or snarled or glared or rolled their eyes, and at the end there was one soul made of an infinite winding loop that circled up into the stalk. Whether it was my momentum or the velocity of October, the last pumpkin spun on its axis so the wavy line blurred into one perfect continuous spiral like there was infinity waiting for the poor monsters too.

The plan was dispersal. The plan was to explode out and rain down numbers and safety on the only lost child we knew. Through the big windows of the rec hall, Test was tossing flashlights to Buddies and gesturing toward the wilderness. Through another window the remaining Buddies were setting up pillow forts and tents and lanterns for a makeshift camping adventure.

I ran for the petting zoo. I knew she would’ve started at the broken fence where the deer escaped. Everyone else was sticking to the roads and the paths and looking around the lake and they were all in a light different than my own. But I had to start from the beginning; I had to start where she would have started, in case we missed something.

My light was the barn light. The one that shone down on the broken fence where only a stupid kid with a hero complex would go. So I went.

I told myself to think like a kid.

Think like a hero child.

What would Charlie do?

I ran.

For hours and days and years I ran. I moved between trees and over frozen puddles and cold branches and around the voices calling her name; I moved with the wind; I moved always forward. All of the spots we’d already checked were checked again and again because now we knew she was close.31 The other voices ricocheting around the afternoon knew it too. The voices were fueled; they were unshakable beacons.

I sprinted down the trail toward the barn before bursting into the clearing where it sat against the tall, frozen grass. The barn was exactly how we’d left it but it was completely changed, just like everything else. Like the world was broadcasting through a high-definition filter of potential. Everything was radiant. Everything was a clue. All because of that one EKG beep—the one nobody is ever sure they hear. The one that cuts through all the noise in the world.

“Lump?” I yelled. I pressed my ear against the barn doors and listened. Inches away, the other baby deer were curled up warm and safe, surrounded by a cast of chickens, goats, and at least two teacup pigs. I pounded on the wooden door, rattling it against its old hinges.

One of the animals—probably one of the pigs—let out a startled crying sound and started making noises. I called her name again. I closed my eyes and tried to shut out all of my senses except for hearing. I waited to hear her say something back; I waited to hear her shush the animals; I waited to hear the metal click of the door’s lock being thrown open.

The only thing I could hear were the sounds of the search party off in the woods. I kept moving.

I cut through the snow.

I barreled through the cold.

Unlike Prufrock, I affected.

At some point it rained. The only time I stopped was when I checked my phone to see if anyone else had called with any new information and to catch my uncatchable breath. There were no messages, so I called her.

Voicemail.

I moved.

By five in the evening, the sun was beginning to sink behind the western trees while voices echoed across the woods, calling out to the missing child. The night sky was clawing its way up as the day disappeared.

October twentieth was unstoppable; the save had to be in the day, whatever was left of it.

She had to be found before the sun sank and declared her missing. Because survival rates plummet when more time passes. Getting to her before the sun disappeared meant defying the headlines that would read, “Local Girl Missing For Second Day.”

I told myself to think. To focus. To step back from it all to see the bigger picture. The last shreds of daylight were all but gone; the freezing rain had stopped but had settled into a glass coat over the world.

“Fuck you, asshole,” I said to myself. “Fuck you, think. Think.”

I thought of the rope wall; I ran.

The deeper I went, the darker the sky turned. The stars faded in a billion at a time and the world went further into pitch oil, stampeding through the remnants of the day. I chased the light and couldn’t stop the color bleeding from the sky.

The fence around the rope wall rattled in the crisp evening air because I kept rattling it and cursing at it. It was locked because we had made sure we locked it and it was covered in barbed wire to keep less resourceful youths than ourselves out.

I flung my coat over a section of the brownish barbed wire. Without my coat but still wearing a hoodie, a long-sleeved thermal undershirt, and a referee T-shirt, as well as a hat and gloves, the air still felt like a frozen hurricane hitting every inch of my body.

At the top I could see the world, but it was getting too dark. Lights were beginning to show up: light from the cabins clicking on, light from the dingy yellow utility bulbs, a lazy green light swooping in slow circles above the trees, flashlights through the pines, stars struggling against the night.

I focused on the laser dot in the center of my mind. The swirling nexus of a whirlpool. The cherry ember of a Winchester cigarette against an infinite blackness. I opened my eyes.

“Holy shit,” I said and looked above the trees at the dim, swooping light. The dead light from the airfield that hadn’t worked in ages. The one right next to the windsock Lump had seen that was still snapping back and forth.

I ran.