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Harold: What’s up? How you holding up, my man?
BK: I’m fine, I think, although I appear to be getting a whole lot more than I bargained for when I first sat down. I’ve been trying to make sense of all the stories that I’ve been hearing, but nothing seems to be adding up. I’m a little disoriented if I’m being honest.
Harold: Relax, chief. Just sit back and enjoy the yarns. I’m sure it’ll all make sense once we all get to have our say. I’m Harold, by the way, but go ahead and call me Harry. I’ve never been much of a fan of my full name.
BK: Okay, Harry. Why don’t you like the name? It’s a rather dignified moniker if you ask me.
Harold: Nah, it makes me sound like an old fart, which probably isn’t surprising given that I’m named after some distant relative. It turns out my family was one of the first to put down roots here in Redfield, so I guess I’m supposed to feel honored at being named for a town legend. My last name has given me a little more pull in this neck of the woods than my first, so Harry it is, chief.
BK: Harry it shall be then. Why don’t we start out by talking about the song that you were singing? Do you like classic rock or are you just a fan of booze?
Harold: Both, although neither are my reason for belting that tune out. Given the story that I have to tell, it’s probably not the greatest song selection to make, yet it’s the one that always seems to call my name, despite the awful memories it conjures up.
BK: Are you okay with jumping right into the awful parts or would you rather ease into things a little more gently?
Harold: Let’s just chill a little before I rehash the awfulness, chief. Look, I saw how long you spent with the rest of the weirdos in this place, so I’d like a little slice of that chatting action if you don’t mind. Besides, we really don’t get very many visitors here, so it’d be nice to talk to someone other than the voices in my head.
BK: You hear voices in your head?
Harold: Just a figure of speech, chief. I mean, don’t we all have that little inner voice that chirps away day and night?
BK: Yes, I suppose we do, Harry. I spend a lot of time alone with my thoughts, but I suppose I’ve never really thought of it as voices in my head.
Harold: Maybe because yours is the only voice that you hear, chief. I hear all sorts up there, but don’t worry, they don’t tell me to do anything bad unless you think my singing voice is a little rough on the old ears. Ha-ha.
BK: You sounded just fine to me.
Harold: Ass kisser. You don’t need to blow smoke up my poop trumpet to get my story. I’m going to tell it to you whether you want to hear it or not.
BK: I’m not...
Harold: I kid, I kid. Relax, chief; I’m just trying to have a little fun. I was always known as the class clown, and that has never gone away. I’m a chain yanker. Always have been, always will be. You’re going to be begging for the lighthearted version of me once we get down to the nitty gritty here, but like I said, let’s just take a moment to chillax and get to know each other a little. You still haven’t told me your name.
BK: Oh, my apologies. It’s Brian, Brian Keane. I’m a writer here to do a piece about dive bars in Georgia. This joint wasn’t on my list, but I stumbled upon it by accident.
Harold: I’m not a big believer in accidents or coincidences, chief. We usually end up where we are for a reason, even if our internal GPS got all scrambled and took us somewhere unexpected. You should see your face, chief. Here I am talking about voices and sat-nav’s in my head and you just sitting there looking at me as though you just became a guest at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. I’m no more messed up than the average dude; I’m just not worried about appearances, which is why I say what’s on my mind and in the way I’m most comfortable saying it. You get me, chief?
BK: It’s not you, Harry, honestly. I’m feeling just a little out of sorts is all.
Harold: I get that. This place will do it to you, which is probably why visitors are so damned scarce. Why don’t we just move on so you can get back to asking your questions? How does that sound, chief?
BK: That would be good. Where is the best place for you to start your story?
Harold: Redfield High School is probably the best jumping off point, chief. That will give me a chance to introduce you to the other folks in my story. There were four of us involved, all told, but only one of us made it out. Since we are sitting here talking, it stands to reason that I am the sole survivor, right? Or maybe it was someone else, and you are talking to a ghost. BOO!!
BK: Jesus!!
Harold: Ha-ha. You are one easy to spook bunny, chief. You have got to relax, or you are never going to get through your time here in one piece.
BK: Maybe I should have a drink.
Harold: Good luck with that, chief. The service here is non-existent, and I think the booze bottles are all actually bone dry. You could get yourself a co-cola, but if you are looking to lace that bad boy with some liquid courage, you are going to need to get up and get back on the road that leads to liquor town. There used to be a dude in Redfield that made moonshine, but that all came to an end a while back when his pecker got in the way of business. Now, that one’s a good story, but not mine to tell. Bet you’re hearing that line a lot.
BK: I am. I guess I’ll just have to be patient and let everyone have their turn.
Harold: Now you’re getting it, chief. Sit back and go with the flow and you’ll end up feeling a whole lot more relaxed. I can’t say that you won’t still feel a little upside down and inside out, but good things come to those that wait. Isn’t that what they say?
BK: Indeed. Okay, Harry, I’ll take your advice. Let’s get back to your high school years, shall we?
Harold: Ha-ha. Thought you’d never ask. Now, I believe I said that our glorious home to education was called Redfield High School, but in fact, its full name was Redfield Harold Haskins Memorial High School, named after the same family member whose name I now carry around. Can you imagine how cuckoo it was to go to a high school that bore your name? I figured I'd be in for a bit of a ribbing because of it, so I took action to make sure that I got ahead of all that nonsense. On the first day of my first high school year, I showed up in a homemade crown and cape and demanded that everyone refer to me as King Harold of Redfield High. It was a move that could have backfired, but everyone got a kick out of it, even the seniors, so I was essentially left alone right from the start. The problem was that I was expected to keep the fun coming, which was why I slipped right into the role of the class clown.
BK: Maybe even the King of the class clowns, huh, Harry?
Harold: Ha-ha. Now you’re getting into the spirit, chief. I like that. Anyway, that move made me a bit of a minor celebrity in school, but given that I was a member of the Redfield Haskins clan, one of the founding families, I was also expected to be among the brightest and best. Yeah, I spent a lot of time mucking about in school and being a bit of a pain in the ass, but I also worked hard and got good grades. As long as I did that, the teachers, and more importantly, my parents left me alone and let me have my fun. I never did anything malicious or hurtful, so it really was all seen as being a bit of harmless hijinks. I ended up being the most popular kid in school by the time senior year rolled around, but I hung out with a very small group of friends.
BK: Who were those kids?
Harold: Craig Black was my best friend all through high school. You’ll have heard some terrible things about him already, and you are going to hear more in a few minutes, but when I first met him, he was a great kid. He was quiet, but he had a dark sense of humor that cracked me up. Best of all, he was more than willing to help me plan my pranks, playing straight man to my class clown. I know that after he went to work at the scrapyard, he used some of my best pranks on one of the guys that worked there, the dude that ended up with the stutter. I saw him change through high school, though, and I was starting to distance myself from him a little towards the end, but I never did get the chance to break free the way I wanted to.
The other two in my group were both girls. There was Mel, who was my girlfriend. She wasn’t any kind of beauty or anything, chief, but she was sweet and smart and a whole lot better looking than most of the other girls in Redfield, which didn’t take much, to be honest. The other girl was Kelly, who was Mel’s best friend. She was a little annoying, mostly because she spent most of her time in my presence asking whether Craig was interested in her, which he wasn’t. Yes, he slept with her a few times in our senior year, but it was more about busting a nut than having any kind of feelings for her. He was starting to slip off the deep end a little by that point, so no real surprise that he used Kelly that way.
BK: I hear he was interested in other girls in town.
Harold: That’s true enough, chief, but he always went after the ones who were the most unattainable. He had a rather unhealthy obsession with Susan, who you’ve met already, which almost ended with him getting a beating from her dad. The girl was pretty cute, but she was damn near a shut-in and had some serious daddy issues. He eventually took the hint when Susan’s dad got involved, but then he turned his eye to Ursula. I’m not sure what he was thinking since we all knew she was gay, but that didn’t stop him. I wasn’t there the night she went off on him, but I heard all about it on the night when he finally snapped.
BK: Wait, I’m confused. How did he end up in a bar fight with Ursula when he wasn’t old enough to be there? Twenty-one is the drinking age in Georgia, and you are talking about events happening right after high school.
Harold: That’s true, chief, but the bar most kids went to didn’t give a shit about your age. As long as you kept your nose clean and didn’t cause a fuss, the bar owners and the cops turned a blind eye. There was always trouble at that bar, but it was usually started by the miners who came in after a long shift. Craig did lose his underage drinking privileges that night with Ursula, though, which is why we ended up where we did.
BK: And where was that?
Harold: There’s an abandoned campground just outside of town that sits on a lake that is mostly nothing but a cesspool now. It’s not the most glamorous spot in the world, but there are fire pits there, as well as some huts that you can hunker down in if the weather takes a turn for the worse. It’s a popular drinking spot on the weekends, but it’s generally dead during the week. Anyway, after the incident at the bar, Craig calls and suggests that we get together for a drink or six. He sounded pretty buzzed when he called, so while I agreed to meet up the next night, I was certain that he would forget all about it once he sobered up. That proved not to be the case. He called again the next morning, telling me to bring Mel and Kelly along so that we could make a night of it. Craig said that he would take care of the beer and that I should pick up a bottle of liquor. I had just woken up when he called, so I couldn’t think of a valid excuse that would get me out of it. Long story short, I called the girls and told them to get ready for a little night out.
BK: How did they react to that?
Harold: Mel was always really easygoing and would essentially just roll along with whatever plan I came up with. Kelly was an even easier sell, as she was always game to spend some time with Craig. I hadn’t seen Craig in about a month, so I was actually pretty psyched to meet up and have a few brews. Sure, it was still in my head that he had been acting weird for a while, but with that time apart, it was easy to convince myself that I was probably imagining that things were worse than they really were.
BK: But you were wrong about that?
Harold: I was way wrong, chief, way wrong. Things started out normal enough, to the point where it felt as though we had rolled back time a little. We spoke about all the dumb shit that we did in high school, and Craig kept bowing and calling me His Highness when I would talk about the pranks I pulled. We were all having a good time, but while me and the girls seemed to mellow out with each passing drink, Craig started to laugh less and become a little more subdued the more he drank.
The conversation started to hit a lull, and it became clear to me that we had little in common anymore. All we had to talk about was the past, which was cool and all, but you could feel things start to get a little awkward and forced. Kelly was oblivious, though, and she kept getting friendlier and friendlier with Craig, making it obvious that she was game for a little outdoor fun. He wasn’t that interested in her at the start of the night, but he eventually caved, and they took off for one of the old huts.
BK: What did you and Mel do then?
Harold: We both started talking about calling it a night and heading home, but I said we should probably wait until the other two got back. I wasn’t sure how Craig got to the campground, so I wanted to make sure we could give Kelly a ride home. I told Mel I would drive, so she lifted the last beer out of the cooler and had one for the road. We didn’t have to wait very long. Craig and Kelly came back about 15 minutes or so after they had left for their romantic interlude. It was obvious that something was wrong.
BK: How so?
Harold: Craig looked pissed, man, I mean seriously angry. He had his fists clenched and was repeatedly punching himself in the leg. Kelly was trailing just a little way behind him and looked as white as a ghost. BOO! Okay, not funny this time. Anyway, Craig sits down by the fire pit, and I can hear him mumbling some incoherent shit. I say incoherent, but you could hear little bits of what he was saying, little nuggets about stuck-up bitches and fucked-up dudes. It was more than a little scary and Mel was digging her nails into my leg as he rambled on. It hurt like hell, but it gave me the clarity I needed to try and cool the tension that was building.
I put my hand on Craig’s shoulder and asked him what was wrong. He shrugged my hand off and told me not to touch him and that he hadn’t given me permission. He said it was people like me that made it impossible for him to get it up, whatever the hell that meant, chief. Kelly then tried to calm him down, telling him that everything was okay and that it was all her fault, at which time I put two and two together and realized that he was having some performance issues. He had drunk a lot that night, so it really wasn’t a total shocker. I mean, we’ve all be there, right, chief?
BK: Yes, of course.
Harold: Anyway, when Kelly said that, he wheeled on her and drew back like he was going to slug her. He never did, but he held his clenched fist up in the air for what seemed like an eternity before fishing in the cooler for a beer. It all turned to shit when that fishing trip came up empty. He picked up the cooler and tossed it into the woods, screaming in a total fit of rage and demanding to know who had taken his last beer. I was about to say that I had taken it when Mel piped up and admitted to drinking it. She was as cool as a cucumber, which struck me as odd given that I was close to shitting my pants. She told him that she was sorry and that we would take him into town and buy him a six-pack on the way home.
BK: How did he react to that?
Harold: For a moment, I thought that Mel’s voice of reason had done the trick because he went quiet and just stared at her. He seemed to relax for a moment, but then he just lost it. He was pointing at Mel and screaming that he was going to kill her, at which point Kelly jumped up and threw herself at him, hugging him and trying to calm him down. He shrugged her off as though she weighed nothing, and as she stumbled away from him, she fell back into the fire pit. Her hair went up like a Roman candle, but she just laid there and let it happen. To be fair, it took Mel and me a moment to react, but Craig beat us to it. Just as we were about to haul Kelly out of there, he stepped forward and put his foot on her chest, holding her down in the flames. I could see her try to scream then, but there was no sound coming from her save for some cracking and popping as her skin blistered and broke. Craig just stood there grinning at us, looking like the cat that got the cream, and he didn’t seem to notice that his boot was melting, and the bottom of his jeans were starting to catch fire. When he did, he let out a little yelp and took his foot off Kelly’s chest. I saw that as our chance to get the fuck out of Dodge, so I pulled on Mel and told her to run.
BK: What did Craig do then?
Harold: He very calmly informed us that we weren’t going anywhere because he wasn’t done with us yet. I chose to disagree, and I bolted, reaching for Mel as I went. She turned to follow but tripped and went down hard. The damsel in distress tripping and falling is perhaps the most clichéd scene in every horror movie, but now I know that shit is real. He was on her in a second, dragging her up by her hair. Mel had no fight in her, and it looked as though she had hit her head on the way down. Her eyes were all glassy, and there was blood streaming down the right side of her face.
Craig was smiling again, but he still looked far from happy, chief. He asked me where I was going and demanded to know why I allowed my woman to drink that last beer. By this point, I was screaming at him to let her go and promising that I would kill him if he hurt her. He seemed to take that as a dare because he pulled a shitty pocket knife out of his pants and jammed it into the side of her neck. My legs almost went out from under me, but I got myself together and took a run at him. He tossed Mel aside, that knife still wedged in there, and took a swing at me when I got close. I’m guessing the booze slowed him down because he never came close to making contact. I heard the air rush out of him as I tackled him to the ground. The impact seemed to take all the fight out of him, and he just looked at me with tears in his eyes, the sight of which took some of the fight out of me.
BK: Why was that?
Harold: He looked just like a little kid. Totally scared and totally alone. It was the smell of burning flesh and Mel’s moaning for help that snapped me out of it. I hit him hard a few times and then crawled over to Mel to try and help her. One look at Kelly and you could tell that there was nothing to be done. There was no phone service out in the woods, so I decided to carry Mel out and get her to the hospital. That was when Craig hit me from behind and started raving about killing us again. He took me by surprise because I thought I had put him out cold, so he quickly got the upper hand, straddling me and choking the life out of me. I remember weird black spots before my eyes and thinking that I was going to die when the pressure suddenly stopped. I’d had my eyes closed to try and block out those spots, and when I opened them, I saw Craig falling off me with the knife sticking out of his eye.
BK: Mel?
Harold: That’s right, chief, my Mel. She pulled that knife right out her neck and jabbed that fucker to save my life. She had her hand over the neck wound, but blood was spraying everywhere. All I could do was hold her and watch as she slipped away. It was only when I was losing her that I realized that she was the queen in my kingdom. I told her I loved her, over and over again, but I don’t know if she heard me. I like to think that she did because when the light went out of her eyes, she had the sweetest little smile on her face. I hated Craig, but I ended up feeling sympathetic towards him once I got to hear his story.
BK: What was that?
Harold: Oh, come on, chief. Surely you must know the rules by now. One person, one story. I’ve told mine, so now it’s time for someone else to take a turn.