James does not lose his cool. Things don’t shake him up like they do most people. He’s so logical he could be a modern-day Mr. Spock. Some day he’ll be good at a job where it takes a calm head, and never panic.
I wouldn’t say he’d lost it then, but I’ve known James most of our lives and I could tell he was more than a little shook up. None of us pressed him to say anything until he was ready. He kept walking and didn’t stop until we were back across Mr. Nelson’s pasture. He ducked between the wires of the fence then suddenly dropped to the ground on the other side.
“What is going on with you, dude?” Max said between gasps for air after climbing through the fence. James had gone at a pretty good clip and we were all breathing a little heavy.
“You’re acting just like Patrick did when he found the . . . Oh, my gosh!” Max’s knees buckled out from under him and he plopped down on the ground a couple feet from James. His freckles were popping even through the clown makeup. His red hair stood out in all directions. Actually, his hair usually stood out in all directions; it just looked weirder than normal with all the makeup on his face.
I sat next to James. He looked at me and said, “Patrick, I really don’t know what to say. How to explain.”
“What!” Max squeaked, panic in his voice. Max always panics. “You’re really acting weird, James. And, remember, Patrick said there wasn’t going to be anything weird.” He looked at me. “You promised.”
“Hey, buddy,” I said, holding my hands in front of me like a sign of surrender. “I don’t know any more than the rest of you. Give him a minute. I’m sure James is going to tell us what’s going on.”
Brendan and Jeremy were still standing and I asked James, “You want to go back to my house, get out of this stuff,” I said, pulling at my clothes, tilting my “Indie” hat back on my head. “We’ll get cleaned up, go to my room—”
“No.”
“Okay, then.” He really was serious. What could have happened? “Want to at least go sit around the cul-de-sac?”
James shook his head and wouldn’t look at anyone. After a while he said, “Let’s just stay here for a few minutes. Okay?”
We agreed that if that’s what James wanted, it was fine with the rest of us. Brendan and Jeremy sat down. A cow waddled over and looked at us like she was checking to see if we might be trying to go after some of her grass or something. I tossed a handful of dirt and twigs at her to shoo her away.
James looked at the camera in his hands. He took a deep breath, held it for a second then let it out, looking up at us. “Okay, this is it,” he started. “When we set up the shot . . . you remember the mound was in the background? And I shot a few frames of Brendan and Max then some with Patrick and Jeremy?”
James eyes fixed on a spot in front of him as he described the scene, like he was living through it all again. “So . . . we start the scene, the vampire aliens walking toward the heroes, guns blazing. I pan over to the heroes, they draw their sidearms and return fire. I pan back to the aliens to get the blood packs exploding.”
He stopped and looked up at Brendan and Max. This time he was grinning. “That was great, by the way. The blood packs worked really good.”
Max and Brendan slapped a high five.
“Anyway,” James went on, looking around at us as he talked, “I call ‘cut,’ but just before I push the off button, something caught my eye.” James looked down and turned the camera over and over in his hands. “I looked up really quick, to where I thought I’d seen something and . . .” He stopped and shook his head. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Oh, c’mon, James,” Max blurted out before James could finish. “You’re just pulling our leg. If you think you’re scaring me, then you’re not. Quit fooling around.”
James wasn’t fooling around. He was dead serious. I knew him well enough to know that there was more to this story and I could tell he was having a hard time figuring out how to say it. He gave Max a hard steady stare.
“So, what did you see, huh?” Max said, baiting James, trying to give him a hard time. “Some big old scary Indian? Huh?” He snorted and looked around at us like he thought he was being really funny. He was not.
James stared at Max for what seemed like forever then said, “Not exactly.”
Max gulped.
Now he was starting to freak me out. “Uh, James . . .”
He turned to me and said, “Patrick, I told you I didn’t know how to explain.”
James was my best friend and he was asking me for help. I shrugged. “Just say it.”
“All right, then.” He nodded and took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’d called ‘cut,’ but just as I was pushing the off button, I thought I saw something . . . or someone, I don’t know . . . running out of the woods.”
Even Max’s freckles turned pale at that.
“I looked away from the lens, out over the camera real quick, but there was nothing there.”
Brendan cleared his throat and Jeremy looked down and plucked at some grass by his feet. Max just sat there staring at James, eyes bugged, mouth hanging open.
“Patrick,” James whispered as he leaned toward me, “I know this sounds like something Max would dream up. But, seriously—”
“I heard that!” Max blurted out.
“Well, listen to this, then.” James cut Max off before he could say anything else. All eyes and ears were on him. “Okay, so I looked down at the camera and noticed it was still on. I guess I didn’t push the off button, I don’t know. But somehow the camera was still running. While you guys were coming over, I hit Rewind . . . just on the chance . . .”
James turned the display screen toward us and pushed the on button. We watched as Jeremy and I blazed away at our attackers. Those blood packs worked perfectly, busting out of Brendan’s and Max’s chests, blood gushing everywhere. When they fell into the tall grass, just as we’d hoped, they seemed to have disintegrated, disappeared.
But something appeared in their place. In the distance, some thing seemed to be running out of the woods. It sort of looked like what had been in that bright flash in the pictures taken from the rocket. This time, though, whatever it was looked like it was heading straight for us, with waving arms. Then in the blink of an eye, it was gone. Just like the aliens, it disappeared, gone.
The screen went blank and James pushed the off button.
Max jumped to his feet. “I told you! That’s what I thought I saw when we found the tombstones, but from the back. And it disappeared just the same way.” He threw his arms out wide. “Poof!”
While Max was bouncing around being all dramatic and theatrical, the rest of us were taking another look at the video.
“Hey!” Max stopped moving. “And that could be what we saw in those pictures the rocket camera took.” He stopped and whirled around, pointing his finger at Brendan. “Aha! I’ll bet that’s what it was. So, whaddaya think about my theory now? Huh?”
Brendan handed the camera back to James and squinted up at Max. “Well, like I said when we found that crap in the culvert and you were so sure it was a ghost who did it. Ghosts don’t crap. And that stuff was real. Which is exactly what we found out. I don’t know what you saw in the graveyard, or what was in the picture, or what that was coming out of the woods. All I know is, I think there is a perfectly good explanation just like there was about the culvert crap.”
Ha! It had been a while since I’d heard ‘culvert crap.’ But it brought back memories of how I’d stumbled up on this huge pile of the stuff in the culvert with no explanation of what it was exactly. Even when I thought I’d figured out for sure what it was, there was no logical way it could have gotten in there. As it turned out, the answer wasn’t logical, but we did get an answer.
I had to admit this whole thing gave me the chilly-willies, but I was sure there had to be an answer here too. And right then there was no way I would rest until I figured it out.
“But what about the grave, the stone with the name Feurey on it?” Max was really working himself into a first-class rant. “What about what I saw, and what we all saw in the pictures?” He pointed at the camera and said, “And that? How do you explain that?”
“Max, there’s no reason to believe any of that, or this, has to connect together,” I said.
“I agree,” James said. “But I would like to find out what’s going on over there. Wouldn’t you?” He looked around at us, ignoring Max because he knew Max wasn’t ready to give up on his crazy Indian idea. And he’d been so close, so close.
“I’d like to know,” Jeremy said. “But before we go diving into this right now, what do you say we head back to Patrick’s? You ready, James?”
“Sure,” James said. He stood up and dusted his hands and the back of his pants, then slung his pack over one shoulder and he and Jeremy took off.
Following their lead, we headed back to my house. My stomach was growling anyway. I sure hoped we’d find something to eat when we got there.
On the walk back, James got in step with me, Jeremy and Brendan on either side of us. Max was out in front. Jeremy put his hand on my arm and pointed his chin toward Max. “Slow down a bit, okay?”
What was he up to? Obviously, he didn’t want Max to hear. Then I knew why when he told us what was on his mind. “Listen, guys, now’s not the best time to get into this, but I noticed something when we were looking at the video. Guys, I think our friend—whatever—was waving something over his head.”
“Like what?” Brendan asked.
“You’re not going to tell me you think it was a spear or bow and arrow, are you? Please tell me you’re not.” I didn’t want to think what we’d be in for if Jeremy went over to the Max side of thinking.
“Nothing like that, Patrick. I promise.” he said, laughing. “But, whatever it was, I noticed there was a short reflection before it was gone.”
“What kind of reflection?” Brendan asked. “Like that glare in the rocket pictures?”
“No . . . I don’t know, but like when the sun bounces off something. What if it was the stock of a rifle?”
I stopped in my tracks. “You’re kidding, right?”
Jeremy motioned me to start walking again. If Max saw us stop he’d want to know what we were talking about and for sure go nutzo if we told him. It wasn’t like we were keeping secrets from him, it would just be best to let him in on things a little bit at a time. Like when we had more details, whenever that was.
“You’re really serious?” Brendan asked. When Jeremy gave him a nod, he said, “Then we have to get another look at that video.
“Yes, but we should wait until . . .” James looked up ahead. Max was slowing down and we were gaining on him. “Just later, okay?”
A few more minutes and we were home. We went into the garage and peeled off the layers of clothes that had been our uniforms. We ditched Max and Brendan’s blood-soaked shirts in the garbage—we could always find more old shirts when we needed them—and packed the rest of the clothes back in the box we’d taken them from and I stowed it on a shelf before we went into the house.
I cannot tell you how happy I was when we went into the kitchen to rustle up some grub. My mom already had a stack of sandwiches, chips and soda waiting for us on the counter. What a mom! We attacked that food like we hadn’t eaten in a week.