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Book One: The Boy In the Black Coat
Chapter 1: The Titan and the Newcomer| Chapter 2: The Problem with Kasira | Chapter 3: Coincidental Encounter?| Chapter 4: Shadows in the Trees | Chapter 5: John on the Spot | Chapter 6: Conspiracy Theories | Chapter 7: "The Arcade Incident" |
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By the time the final bell rang just after 3:00 p.m., the rain had dissipated and Zac made the unilateral decision to walk the forty-five minutes to his house and hope for the best. |
Throwing his hood up over his plume of hair and tucking his glasses into a shirt pocket, Ben followed him out the school’s side doors rather than exiting through the front. Although Zac didn’t explain this route, Ben understood that it was to avoid Kasira who held court in the student parking lot every day after school. She was the only person at Edgewater High School who considered socializing from the hood of her lavender-colored Toyota Matrix to be an extracurricular activity.
“I don’t know why you go to all this trouble,” Ben said as they walked. “I mean, I’m pretty sure she already knows where you live.”
“Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. I’m just not in the mood to deal with her any more today,” Zac replied wearily.
They quickly traversed the courtyard between The Commons and the Dionysus Theater and climbed the hill beyond. From this lofty vantage point, Edgewater High School was an unattractive but impressive complex of multi-storied buildings separated by neatly planted copses, great sweeps of asphalt and sprawling fields of green. An over-dependence on concrete and corrugated metal gave the school an industrial feel which the architect had tried unsuccessfully to soften through the use of light pine veneers and copious amounts of dark red and burnt orange paint. All of this was new construction, having replaced an antiquated but more picturesque school about ten years before. The original school — called “Old Edgewater” by most of the faculty and students — had dated back to the early 1920s and had sat on the same hill where the athletic fields were now located. At the time of its construction, “Old Edgewater” had a magnificent view of the Stitchwort River. In the 1930s however, a massive hydroelectric dam had been constructed upstream which both lowered the river’s flow and altered its course. Now the Stitchwort was located almost half a mile away but the present-day school was still called “Edgewater” even though the name was now incongruous.
“I don’t know why you go to all this trouble,” Ben said as they walked. “I mean, I’m pretty sure she already knows where you live.”
“Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. I’m just not in the mood to deal with her any more today,” Zac replied wearily.
They quickly traversed the courtyard between The Commons and the Dionysus Theater and climbed the hill beyond. From this lofty vantage point, Edgewater High School was an unattractive but impressive complex of multi-storied buildings separated by neatly planted copses, great sweeps of asphalt and sprawling fields of green. An over-dependence on concrete and corrugated metal gave the school an industrial feel which the architect had tried unsuccessfully to soften through the use of light pine veneers and copious amounts of dark red and burnt orange paint. All of this was new construction, having replaced an antiquated but more picturesque school about ten years before. The original school — called “Old Edgewater” by most of the faculty and students — had dated back to the early 1920s and had sat on the same hill where the athletic fields were now located. At the time of its construction, “Old Edgewater” had a magnificent view of the Stitchwort River. In the 1930s however, a massive hydroelectric dam had been constructed upstream which both lowered the river’s flow and altered its course. Now the Stitchwort was located almost half a mile away but the present-day school was still called “Edgewater” even though the name was now incongruous.
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Pausing to catch his breath at the top of the hill, Zac looked down on his school and felt a pang of regret that his only knowledge of “Old Edgewater” came from the captioned black-and-white photos hanging outside the principal’s office. He had always found its wide marble steps, faux classical columns and ornate facade carved with the Latin motto IPSA SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST — “Knowledge Itself Is Power” — to be much more intriguing than “new Edgewater.” |
A dense oak woodland had surrounded the school like a cocoon and a single bridge isolated it from the town on the other side of the river. All of this made “Old Edgewater” seem like the perfect backdrop for some gothic horror novel where boys in knickerbockers and girls in petticoats teamed up to solve mysteries or discover hidden treasure. Ben laughed whenever Zac had these hopelessly nostalgic thoughts about the school, the town, even the old house he shared with his father.
“It must be something in the Dryden genetic pool that’s fascinated with decay,” Ben would say. Perhaps it was true. Zac’s father was a highly regarded archaeologist who taught at the local university and had spent the better part of his adult life studying, cataloging and crawling through all kinds of decay. And though Zac didn’t share his father’s fascination with the ancient cultures of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, he could appreciate the exploration which accompanied it.
The boys cut diagonally across the baseball diamond and ended up on the edge of the Settler’s Woodland County Park, a swath of native forest which ran parallel to the Stitchwort River. Hiking through the park was a much longer route home of course, but the trees would provide them with ample cover from both the sporadic rain and Kasira’s ever-vigilant eyes. While they walked, Ben amused himself by fabricating different scenarios about how the girl would eventually trick, threaten or blackmail Zac into a relationship.
“Maybe she’ll just show up on your doorstep one day and tell your dad that you put a baby in her,” he suggested with salacious joy. “Your dad will make you marry her of course, because he’s a real honorable guy that way. Then Kasira will spend the next fifty years sucking you dry until your only escape is to put a shotgun in your mouth and blow the top of your skull all over the ceiling, thereby orphaning your six imbecilic children.”
Zac shuddered. “God, Ben, just shut the fuck up already.”
Ben immediately — and wisely — dropped the subject.
This weird game of cat-and-mouse between Zac and Kasira had begun their freshman year in Language Arts class. By the end of the first week of school, Kasira had made it clear that she intended to have him. For her, this was just logical: she was arguably the most beautiful girl at school, Zac was easily the best looking guy. Their union, whether it took the form of a serious relationship or something simply more carnal, should’ve been accomplished by now. But two years later, she was still trying, still plotting, still being rebuffed at every turn. The more Zac vexed her, the more determined she became to possess him. Or at least remind him that she wasn’t going to just disappear no matter how much he ignored her.
Zac knew Ben was probably correct when he said Kasira would lose interest if he actually caved to her demands. She was someone who enjoyed her possessions only briefly, constantly shopping for the next best thing and then casually discarding what she no longer wanted. But the truth was that no one had ever possessed Zac Dryden. Despite frequent offers and the general belief among his peers that he was getting more tail than the next three guys combined, he hadn’t dated much outside of the occasional school dance or late-night movie. Thus far, his virginity had been as impeccably maintained, a fact that baffled Ben because it seemed completely unnecessary.
Over the years, Zac and Ben had discussed, admired, coveted and lusted after females as much as any teen boys, but while girlfriends were a definite priority for Ben, Zac remained ambivalent. Ben finally decided that Zac’s more sentimental, dreamy-eyed qualities were compelling him to save himself for the perfect person and the perfect circumstances. There was no way of knowing if this theory was correct however, as Zac rarely discussed it and became irritated when pressed.
After twenty minutes of beating their way through the trees and underbrush, Zac and Ben emerged at the edge of the road which wended up the side of Sibyl’s Hill. Almost immediately the clouds began to spatter them with rain.
“Awwwww, man,” Ben moaned, tightly cinching down his hood. Though he’d been raised in the area, Ben had never liked the rain and became particularly annoyed when the weather threatened to soak his carefully coifed head of hair.
“Suck it up,” Zac enthused, slapping him on the back.
They continued to climb, pausing briefly in a small parking area which overlooked the river valley below. Clouds had settled over the town of Hidden Rock and from this altitude the community looked like a misty watercolor painting of iron bridges, narrow, tree-lined streets, quaint clapboard houses, churches with towering spires and, of course, the rambling Stitchwort River. The north end of town was dominated by the Grand Oaks University campus where Zac’s father worked. To the south was the historic downtown area which had been established by Chinese immigrants and where Kasira Vang’s family owned two restaurants and an Asian market. Beyond the edge of town were thousands of acres of forest, farmland, orchards and two small, kidney-shaped lakes known as “Cougar Pond” and “Dead Man’s Pond.”
“It must be something in the Dryden genetic pool that’s fascinated with decay,” Ben would say. Perhaps it was true. Zac’s father was a highly regarded archaeologist who taught at the local university and had spent the better part of his adult life studying, cataloging and crawling through all kinds of decay. And though Zac didn’t share his father’s fascination with the ancient cultures of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, he could appreciate the exploration which accompanied it.
The boys cut diagonally across the baseball diamond and ended up on the edge of the Settler’s Woodland County Park, a swath of native forest which ran parallel to the Stitchwort River. Hiking through the park was a much longer route home of course, but the trees would provide them with ample cover from both the sporadic rain and Kasira’s ever-vigilant eyes. While they walked, Ben amused himself by fabricating different scenarios about how the girl would eventually trick, threaten or blackmail Zac into a relationship.
“Maybe she’ll just show up on your doorstep one day and tell your dad that you put a baby in her,” he suggested with salacious joy. “Your dad will make you marry her of course, because he’s a real honorable guy that way. Then Kasira will spend the next fifty years sucking you dry until your only escape is to put a shotgun in your mouth and blow the top of your skull all over the ceiling, thereby orphaning your six imbecilic children.”
Zac shuddered. “God, Ben, just shut the fuck up already.”
Ben immediately — and wisely — dropped the subject.
This weird game of cat-and-mouse between Zac and Kasira had begun their freshman year in Language Arts class. By the end of the first week of school, Kasira had made it clear that she intended to have him. For her, this was just logical: she was arguably the most beautiful girl at school, Zac was easily the best looking guy. Their union, whether it took the form of a serious relationship or something simply more carnal, should’ve been accomplished by now. But two years later, she was still trying, still plotting, still being rebuffed at every turn. The more Zac vexed her, the more determined she became to possess him. Or at least remind him that she wasn’t going to just disappear no matter how much he ignored her.
Zac knew Ben was probably correct when he said Kasira would lose interest if he actually caved to her demands. She was someone who enjoyed her possessions only briefly, constantly shopping for the next best thing and then casually discarding what she no longer wanted. But the truth was that no one had ever possessed Zac Dryden. Despite frequent offers and the general belief among his peers that he was getting more tail than the next three guys combined, he hadn’t dated much outside of the occasional school dance or late-night movie. Thus far, his virginity had been as impeccably maintained, a fact that baffled Ben because it seemed completely unnecessary.
Over the years, Zac and Ben had discussed, admired, coveted and lusted after females as much as any teen boys, but while girlfriends were a definite priority for Ben, Zac remained ambivalent. Ben finally decided that Zac’s more sentimental, dreamy-eyed qualities were compelling him to save himself for the perfect person and the perfect circumstances. There was no way of knowing if this theory was correct however, as Zac rarely discussed it and became irritated when pressed.
After twenty minutes of beating their way through the trees and underbrush, Zac and Ben emerged at the edge of the road which wended up the side of Sibyl’s Hill. Almost immediately the clouds began to spatter them with rain.
“Awwwww, man,” Ben moaned, tightly cinching down his hood. Though he’d been raised in the area, Ben had never liked the rain and became particularly annoyed when the weather threatened to soak his carefully coifed head of hair.
“Suck it up,” Zac enthused, slapping him on the back.
They continued to climb, pausing briefly in a small parking area which overlooked the river valley below. Clouds had settled over the town of Hidden Rock and from this altitude the community looked like a misty watercolor painting of iron bridges, narrow, tree-lined streets, quaint clapboard houses, churches with towering spires and, of course, the rambling Stitchwort River. The north end of town was dominated by the Grand Oaks University campus where Zac’s father worked. To the south was the historic downtown area which had been established by Chinese immigrants and where Kasira Vang’s family owned two restaurants and an Asian market. Beyond the edge of town were thousands of acres of forest, farmland, orchards and two small, kidney-shaped lakes known as “Cougar Pond” and “Dead Man’s Pond.”
A few moments later, the tranquility of the spot was ruined by the roar of a car’s engine and the hiss of tires on wet pavement. A Mitsubishi Eclipse rumbled up the side of the hill toward them. Although easily ten years old, the vehicle was in remarkably good shape with a silky black skin, matching black rims and dark windows. It slowed as it passed, but Zac wasn’t sure if this was due to the bend in the road or something else. The intent became more obvious when the driver braked hard, put the car in reverse, and rolled backwards into the parking area where the boys were standing.
“Who the fuck’s this?” Ben squinted.
“I don’t know,” Zac mumbled. The car’s rear bumper was plastered with vinyl stickers depicting stylized sharks, frogmen and tropical beaches, but the largest was of the red-and-white SCUBA diving flag with the words DIVERS LOVE TO GO DOWN printed beneath it. Then Zac noticed the license plate. “Oh wait, maybe I do know who this is…” he laughed.
Ben growled. “Maybe? I don’t like maybes, Zac.”
The Eclipse rolled several more feet until the driver’s door was parallel with them. Although there was no danger of the car hitting them, Ben clamped his hand on Zac’s shoulder and pulled him back toward the low stone wall which separated the parking lot from the precipitous drop down the side of the hill.
Zac shook the hand off. “It’s fine, dude. I know who this is.”
Ben didn’t seem convinced and for a second he looked like he was going to make a run for it.
“For fuck’s sake, Ben. I promise no one will murder you.” Zac sighed.
The window rolled down. John Gervais was not smiling, but at least he didn’t look as hostile as he had in Ms. Pembroke’s class. Without knowing him better, Zac had to assume this was a positive development.
“Hey, John,” Zac smiled, “I thought it might be you.”
John’s brows knitted. “You did? How?”
He gestured toward the car’s rear bumper. “New Hampshire license plate.”
“Oh. Ha. Yea. I didn’t think of that.”
Zac took Ben by the elbow and yanked him forward. “This is my friend, Ben.”
“Hey,” Ben said dryly.
John quickly sized him up, didn’t appear impressed and nodded shallowly. “Where you guys headed?” he asked.
Zac answered, “My house. It’s like two miles up the road.”
“You want a ride?”
“Seriously? That would be awesome.”
Getting Ben into the back seat of the Eclipse took a combination of verbal persuasion and brute force, but once accomplished Zac slipped into the passenger’s seat and said, “Just keep heading up the hill and I’ll let you know when you’re getting close.”
John jerked the car into gear, the tires slipped then bit into the soft dirt of the shoulder and the Eclipse lurched onto the asphalt. Shortly, Zac directed him onto a steep dirt driveway which cut through a dense thicket. At the top of the drive sat a pastel yellow house with a sharply pitched roof and a porch which spanned nearly the entire front facade. John braked the car at the edge of the front steps.
Zac hesitated before opening the car door, turned and asked, “You wanna come in? We’re just gonna hang out, play some video games, maybe toss a pizza in the oven…”
“You guys wouldn’t mind?” asked John.
“Of course not. My dad’s working late so we can just chill. Just leave the car parked here if you want.”
“I don’t know,” Zac mumbled. The car’s rear bumper was plastered with vinyl stickers depicting stylized sharks, frogmen and tropical beaches, but the largest was of the red-and-white SCUBA diving flag with the words DIVERS LOVE TO GO DOWN printed beneath it. Then Zac noticed the license plate. “Oh wait, maybe I do know who this is…” he laughed.
Ben growled. “Maybe? I don’t like maybes, Zac.”
The Eclipse rolled several more feet until the driver’s door was parallel with them. Although there was no danger of the car hitting them, Ben clamped his hand on Zac’s shoulder and pulled him back toward the low stone wall which separated the parking lot from the precipitous drop down the side of the hill.
Zac shook the hand off. “It’s fine, dude. I know who this is.”
Ben didn’t seem convinced and for a second he looked like he was going to make a run for it.
“For fuck’s sake, Ben. I promise no one will murder you.” Zac sighed.
The window rolled down. John Gervais was not smiling, but at least he didn’t look as hostile as he had in Ms. Pembroke’s class. Without knowing him better, Zac had to assume this was a positive development.
“Hey, John,” Zac smiled, “I thought it might be you.”
John’s brows knitted. “You did? How?”
He gestured toward the car’s rear bumper. “New Hampshire license plate.”
“Oh. Ha. Yea. I didn’t think of that.”
Zac took Ben by the elbow and yanked him forward. “This is my friend, Ben.”
“Hey,” Ben said dryly.
John quickly sized him up, didn’t appear impressed and nodded shallowly. “Where you guys headed?” he asked.
Zac answered, “My house. It’s like two miles up the road.”
“You want a ride?”
“Seriously? That would be awesome.”
Getting Ben into the back seat of the Eclipse took a combination of verbal persuasion and brute force, but once accomplished Zac slipped into the passenger’s seat and said, “Just keep heading up the hill and I’ll let you know when you’re getting close.”
John jerked the car into gear, the tires slipped then bit into the soft dirt of the shoulder and the Eclipse lurched onto the asphalt. Shortly, Zac directed him onto a steep dirt driveway which cut through a dense thicket. At the top of the drive sat a pastel yellow house with a sharply pitched roof and a porch which spanned nearly the entire front facade. John braked the car at the edge of the front steps.
Zac hesitated before opening the car door, turned and asked, “You wanna come in? We’re just gonna hang out, play some video games, maybe toss a pizza in the oven…”
“You guys wouldn’t mind?” asked John.
“Of course not. My dad’s working late so we can just chill. Just leave the car parked here if you want.”
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The home Zac shared with his father was a masterwork of Queen Anne construction, a landmark with a brass plaque affixed next to the front door which proclaimed boldly: CASTLE ROCK REGISTRY OF HISTORICAL BUILDINGS THE WALCH HOUSE, 1910 Other than deducing they were the original owners, Zac knew nothing about the Walches, the house or its history and didn’t much care. But for his archaeologist father, the home’s pedigree was a definite bragging point. |
The size and grandeur of the place didn’t actually impact John until he stepped out of the car. “Holy shit,” he gaped.
“Like it?” Zac grinned.
“How many people live here?” asked John.
“Just me and my dad.”
John raised his eyebrows in surprise. Realistically, the house was too big for just two people, a fact Zac was reminded of every time his father came home late or was on another out-of-town trip. Robert Dryden had bought the property with Zac’s late mother, Jennifer, when it was still a local eyesore, a shuttered ruin on an overgrown hillside. Zac didn’t remember much from those first years except that the building creaked constantly, the warped floorboards left splinters in his feet, and the building was a labyrinth ripe for exploration. After his mother’s death however, the house became something altogether different. The large, mostly empty rooms became reminders of loss. The interior renovations his parents had begun together were never completed and large parts of the structure were still uninhabitable as a result. The home became both isolated and isolating.
To quell the loneliness Zac often felt there, he kept it filled with friends. Limited parental supervision and an abundance of space made it the perfect venue for this. When the weather was nice, he and his friends could hang out on the front porch. If they were hungry, the kitchen was always well stocked. If more privacy was desired, they could retreat to Zac’s large bedroom where even their voices couldn’t be heard from the ground floor. And if someone decided to spend the weekend, one of the guest bedrooms had been completed to the point where it was reasonably comfortable.
“C’mon in,” Zac said as he mounted the steps to the front door.
In the entry hall, Zac and Ben quickly slipped out of their wet coats and shoes, but John remained bundled up.
“You can remove a few hundred layers if you like,” Ben said with some sarcasm.
“I’m good,” replied John. “I get cold easily.”
“Well, then your shoes at least,” Ben replied. “Otherwise you’ll track mud around.”
John was clearly annoyed by this stranger giving him instructions, but he obediently slipped off his ratty canvas shoes and nudged them into a corner.
“Thanks,” Zac said pleasantly. “Muddy shoes are kind of a constant problem here.” He led them to the kitchen and extracted three cans of Pepsi from the refrigerator. “I saw the stickers on the back of your car,” he said, handing one to John. “Do you SCUBA dive?”
“For years,” John answered. “My father taught me.”
“Where at?”
“All over the world. Bahamas, New Zealand, Hawaii, Greece, the Red Sea. Tropical waters are good because you can see more and the fish are brighter.”
Ben shot Zac a look which clearly said “what a bunch of bullshit.” It was of course possible that John Gervais was lying. After all, his clothing, body language and attitude were more indicative of a introvert, not a globetrotting adventurer.
“How old are you?” Ben asked.
John looked perplexed. “Um, sixteen.”
“You must spend every spare minute diving to have been to all those places.”
“Summer breaks and sometimes during the holidays, too.”
“Sound expensive. Your parents rich or something?”
“I imagine you could dive off the coast of New Hampshire, too?” asked Zac quickly, mostly to interrupt Ben.
John shook his head. “We weren’t really close to the ocean. I actually dove more near my house because we
lived on a lake and it was pretty good for diving.”
“You’d go with your dad?” asked Zac.
“At first. My parents divorced about a year ago and my father moved to Chicago so he isn’t around to go with me anymore and you never dive alone so I haven’t actually done it in a while.”
“So a lake house, huh? Super awesome. What’s that like, then?” Ben asked.
“Boring,” answered John, either oblivious or unconcerned by Ben’s disdain.
“And does this lake have a name?”
“Lake Sheridan.”
Ben wrinkled his nose. “Big place? Lots of tourists, I bet?”
John’s narrowed his eyes. “Small place, actually. Less than a hundred people live there and a lot of them leave during the winter because the weather gets really bad.”
“How’d you end up in a place like that?” Ben persisted.
“It’s just where we lived. My mom got it in the divorce settlement but she sold it off so we could move here.” From his short and increasingly terse answers, it was clear that John both disliked talking about himself and was becoming with what was clearly an interrogation. He began drifting around the kitchen, scrutinizing it like a detective at a crime scene. His eyes skipped over the various restaurant delivery menus and family photographs on the front of the refrigerator, then darted to a stack of unopened mail on the counter. He picked up a cable bill and read the front of it.
“Your last name’s Dryden?” he asked Zac, though from his inflection it was obvious he already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Zac replied.
John flipped the envelope around so Zac could see the addressee. “Your father’s Robert Dryden, the author?”
“Uh, yes,” Zac answered uneasily. For him, Robert Dryden had always been The Father or The Authority Figure of The University Professor. Robert Dryden, The Author, was someone Zac still didn’t know particularly well. However, John seemed genuinely impressed.
“Your dad’s famous,” he exhaled loudly, which was as close to enthusiasm as Zac had yet seen. “He’s a very good writer.”
“You’ve read my dad’s books?” Zac stammered with astonishment.
John raised an eyebrow. “Is that weird or something?”
Zac shrugged. “I guess not. I’ve just not met anyone my age who even knew my dad was a writer. Or cared what he wrote about.”
“Have you read them?”
Sheepishly, Zac shook his head. He had always felt certain that his father’s published works were both brilliant and sleep-inducing, so he never bothered to learn much more about them.
“Oh, they’re very good,” John insisted, but stopped short of explaining further as Zac’s living space continued to distract him. He stepped back into the hallway and asked, “How many rooms does this house have?”
“Fifteen,” Zac replied, following him out with Ben in tow. “That’s a lot, I know, but my dad really likes this place. It’s kind of his hobby. He’s been fixing it up for years so just ignore the parts that look like shit because it’s a work in progress, okay?”
“It would take a long time to fix up a place this big,” John said without judgment.
“Here, follow me.”
Zac lead them to the semi-circular turret room in the house’s southeast corner. When the home was first built, this was the parlor where formal entertainment was provided to guests. Zac didn’t know exactly what constituted “formal entertainment” during the early twentieth century, but he presumed it included polite conversation about the weather over tea and tiny sandwiches. During most of the Drydens’ occupation of the house, the room had been used for storage but two years ago Robert had transformed it back into an impressive gathering area. Zac loved the parlor and always thought it was at its best on afternoons like this one, when the sun was finally breaking through the clouds and a soft amber light fell through the bay window and scattered across the parquet floor. The room’s centerpiece was a large pool table although it was mostly ignored in favor of the big screen television and video gaming systems. In one corner there was a stereo system and Robert’s rather dated collection of CDs; and in the other a knock-hockey table Zac had found at a school rummage sale. A jumble of overstuffed armchairs and couches were arranged in a lopsided circle in the center of the room and Ben immediately hurled himself onto one, as if to reinforce how much he felt at home here.
Although the parlor was most teen boys’ concept of paradise, John didn’t react other than to survey it as he had the kitchen. His demeanor was fixed somewhere between mild curiosity and vague disinterest.
“Who’s up for a little Grand Theft Auto?” Ben asked, booting up the Playstation.
Zac flopped on the couch next to him and propped his feet on an ottoman. He extended a controller to John. “Come join in. I have enough controllers for everyone.”
John accepted the device, rolled it over in this hands, and then clumsily imitated how the other boys were manipulating the controls.
“You don’t play video games?” Ben asked incredulously.
John shook his head. “We don’t have them at my house.”
“Well, welcome to your new addiction,” Zac laughed. He shoved Ben with his elbow to make room on the couch for John, but the boy chose to perch on the arm of a nearby chair instead.
For the next hour, Zac and Ben attempted to initiate John into the complexities of virtual urban violence with little success. Invariably his character ran into oncoming traffic, fell off bridges or was quickly gunned down by angry police officers. He finally discarded the controller on the floor and asked for directions to the bathroom. Zac became so engrossed with repeatedly shooting Ben’s toon in the head with a sniper rifle that it took him thirty minutes to notice that John had never returned.
“Dude, this guy’s sketchy as fuck,” Ben whispered as they paused the game and slipped quietly into the hallway.
Zac didn’t want to admit it, but it was increasingly difficult to dismiss John’s contradictory behaviors. One minute he seemed courteous, and the next he was wandering off into your house. To ensure John hadn’t actually left and not told them, Zac cracked open the front door and stuck his head out. The black Eclipse hadn’t moved from its spot in front of the porch. He and Ben stood for a long moment in the dimly lit hallway, heads cocked to one side as they listened for any sign of movement. There were no sounds other than the persistent creaking of the century old house and the sporadic patter of rain.
“Where the heck is he?” Zac whispered.
They finally found John in Robert’s study, an L-shaped room at the back of the house with floor-to-ceiling book shelves, slender windows and an antique mahogany desk. He didn’t appear to be hiding. Quite the opposite, he’d turned on all the lights and was sitting cross-legged and clearly visible in a large armchair with a book opened across his knees.
“Dude, what happened to you?” Zac said upon entering.
John seemed confounded by the interruption. He lifted the book from his lap. “Playground of the Gods,” he replied, showing them the cover. “I think this is your dad’s best work.”
“You know, dude,” Ben snapped, placing his hand on Zac’s shoulder, “when someone invites you into their house it’s generally not cool to start rummaging through their stuff.”
Zac patted the hand, which he meant to be calming but Ben took as condescension and immediately withdrew it. “It’s all right, dude,” he said reassuringly.
“It’s not all right, Zac. It’s kinda fucked up.”
John closed the book, rose and carefully replaced it on the shelf to his right. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m not very good at video games apparently and I like to read. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”
“It’s okay, man. Next time just ask, okay?” Zac smiled weakly. “We were kinda freaking out about where you went.”
John nodded and then quickly returned to the entry hall where he slipped back into his shoes.
Zac was distressed by this. “John,” he said urgently, “you don’t gotta leave. I’m not mad or anything. C’mon, stick around. I was just about to make a pizza.”
John shook his head. “I really can’t. I didn’t tell my mother I was coming over here and I’m a little amazed she hasn’t been sending me a thousand text messages wondering where I am. I better get home.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Thanks for including me.”
“Of course. Any time.”
As soon as the Eclipse had rumbled down the driveway and disappeared behind the trees, Ben let out a long growl. “There’s something seriously wrong with that guy,” he said.
Zac looked at him and frowned. “Why are you so bent out of shape?”
“You didn’t think that was fucked up?”
“It was thoughtless, probably not malicious.”
“You should be careful, Zac. He’s probably a sociopath or something.”
“Oh come on, you can’t make judgment calls like that based on a couple of hours with him.”
“Yes, I can,” Ben sniggered. “I absolutely can.”
They squabbled for a while more then reconciled over a pepperoni pizza and smoothies Zac whipped up from Greek yogurt, lime juice and a couple of bananas. Slightly after 6 p.m., Ben’s older and highly displeased step-sister appeared at the front door and shuttled him home in the Ford Fusion they were forced to share.
Zac watched from the bottom of the porch steps as they drove off and then turned his face upward. The rainclouds were gathering again but there were breaks where he could see stars flecking the deep indigo sky. He turned on the outside lights, partly for the convenience his father when he finally shambled home around 10, partly to comfort himself. It was during these late nights when Zac really wished he had a pet. A dog or a cat would be such welcome company, especially in a house whose sheer size and age produced a steady flow of strange noises and tricks of light.
After locking the front door, he moved upstairs and took a long shower until his small bathroom was completely filled with thick steam. Stepping out of the tub, he swiped the condensation from the mirror mounted on the back of the bathroom door with his towel and stepped backwards until the towel rack dug into the soft flesh below his shoulder blades. Despite the pain this produced, it was the only way he could see himself entirely in the mirror. At sixteen years of age, Zac had managed to avoid most of the puberty’s pitfalls. Zits had been few and far between and the pernicious body odor which had afflicted many of his friends had skipped over him altogether. He was constructed like an athlete even though he hardly ever exercised and he had thick brown hair that looked amazing even when he neglected it completely. But despite all of this, the sight of himself naked produced an involuntary shudder. He was, he thought, too pale and probably ten pounds too heavy. His legs seemed scrawny compared to the rest of him, but at least three years of compulsory physical education had given him excellent calf muscles. He turned to the right, steadied himself against the wall with his left hand, and strained to assess his backside in the mirror. According to comments overheard in the school hallways and the anonymous notes dropped into his locker, this was among his best features. His attempt to confirm this only hurt his neck however, so he gave up and finished toweling off.
The fact that Zac Dryden assessed himself in the mirror every evening and was disappointed by what he saw would’ve surprised anyone who knew him. To those on the outside looking in, his life seemed privileged if not downright charmed. He was handsome, popular, kind and intelligent. Only a handful knew that there was this other Zac Dryden — the one who never felt as special as others seemed to consider him. The one who, on most days, just felt ordinary and on other days felt downright inadequate. The one who still acutely felt the vacuum left by his mother’s death and wished that his father wouldn’t work so much but never actually said a thing about it.
Feeling deflated, he briefly rummaged around in his closet before finding some pajama bottoms and warm socks. He was just about to tumble into the bed when there was a flicker of movement outside the west window. His eyes narrowed, focused, strained… but only his slightly fuzzy reflection stared back, the diaphanous image of a striking young man stripped to the waist and wearing fleecy britches covered in cartoon monkeys. Moving to the window, he cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed them to the glass. The cold of the night radiated off the pane and gooseflesh rose along his bare chest and belly.
A narrow ribbon of golden light marked the edge of Hidden Rock and reduced the snarled and brushy trees surrounding the house to dark silhouettes. For an instant, Zac was certain he saw a human shape clinging to the top of an oak tree, backlit by the glow of the town. As startling as this was, his fear quickly succumbed to logic. After all, based on the slope of the hill and the height of the house, a person would have to climb sixty feet in the dark and drizzle to be level with Zac’s window. He doubted even a black bear could manage such a feat — or would want to. Soothed, he rolled into bed, clicked on his television, and lost himself in reality program about a pawn shop.
“Like it?” Zac grinned.
“How many people live here?” asked John.
“Just me and my dad.”
John raised his eyebrows in surprise. Realistically, the house was too big for just two people, a fact Zac was reminded of every time his father came home late or was on another out-of-town trip. Robert Dryden had bought the property with Zac’s late mother, Jennifer, when it was still a local eyesore, a shuttered ruin on an overgrown hillside. Zac didn’t remember much from those first years except that the building creaked constantly, the warped floorboards left splinters in his feet, and the building was a labyrinth ripe for exploration. After his mother’s death however, the house became something altogether different. The large, mostly empty rooms became reminders of loss. The interior renovations his parents had begun together were never completed and large parts of the structure were still uninhabitable as a result. The home became both isolated and isolating.
To quell the loneliness Zac often felt there, he kept it filled with friends. Limited parental supervision and an abundance of space made it the perfect venue for this. When the weather was nice, he and his friends could hang out on the front porch. If they were hungry, the kitchen was always well stocked. If more privacy was desired, they could retreat to Zac’s large bedroom where even their voices couldn’t be heard from the ground floor. And if someone decided to spend the weekend, one of the guest bedrooms had been completed to the point where it was reasonably comfortable.
“C’mon in,” Zac said as he mounted the steps to the front door.
In the entry hall, Zac and Ben quickly slipped out of their wet coats and shoes, but John remained bundled up.
“You can remove a few hundred layers if you like,” Ben said with some sarcasm.
“I’m good,” replied John. “I get cold easily.”
“Well, then your shoes at least,” Ben replied. “Otherwise you’ll track mud around.”
John was clearly annoyed by this stranger giving him instructions, but he obediently slipped off his ratty canvas shoes and nudged them into a corner.
“Thanks,” Zac said pleasantly. “Muddy shoes are kind of a constant problem here.” He led them to the kitchen and extracted three cans of Pepsi from the refrigerator. “I saw the stickers on the back of your car,” he said, handing one to John. “Do you SCUBA dive?”
“For years,” John answered. “My father taught me.”
“Where at?”
“All over the world. Bahamas, New Zealand, Hawaii, Greece, the Red Sea. Tropical waters are good because you can see more and the fish are brighter.”
Ben shot Zac a look which clearly said “what a bunch of bullshit.” It was of course possible that John Gervais was lying. After all, his clothing, body language and attitude were more indicative of a introvert, not a globetrotting adventurer.
“How old are you?” Ben asked.
John looked perplexed. “Um, sixteen.”
“You must spend every spare minute diving to have been to all those places.”
“Summer breaks and sometimes during the holidays, too.”
“Sound expensive. Your parents rich or something?”
“I imagine you could dive off the coast of New Hampshire, too?” asked Zac quickly, mostly to interrupt Ben.
John shook his head. “We weren’t really close to the ocean. I actually dove more near my house because we
lived on a lake and it was pretty good for diving.”
“You’d go with your dad?” asked Zac.
“At first. My parents divorced about a year ago and my father moved to Chicago so he isn’t around to go with me anymore and you never dive alone so I haven’t actually done it in a while.”
“So a lake house, huh? Super awesome. What’s that like, then?” Ben asked.
“Boring,” answered John, either oblivious or unconcerned by Ben’s disdain.
“And does this lake have a name?”
“Lake Sheridan.”
Ben wrinkled his nose. “Big place? Lots of tourists, I bet?”
John’s narrowed his eyes. “Small place, actually. Less than a hundred people live there and a lot of them leave during the winter because the weather gets really bad.”
“How’d you end up in a place like that?” Ben persisted.
“It’s just where we lived. My mom got it in the divorce settlement but she sold it off so we could move here.” From his short and increasingly terse answers, it was clear that John both disliked talking about himself and was becoming with what was clearly an interrogation. He began drifting around the kitchen, scrutinizing it like a detective at a crime scene. His eyes skipped over the various restaurant delivery menus and family photographs on the front of the refrigerator, then darted to a stack of unopened mail on the counter. He picked up a cable bill and read the front of it.
“Your last name’s Dryden?” he asked Zac, though from his inflection it was obvious he already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Zac replied.
John flipped the envelope around so Zac could see the addressee. “Your father’s Robert Dryden, the author?”
“Uh, yes,” Zac answered uneasily. For him, Robert Dryden had always been The Father or The Authority Figure of The University Professor. Robert Dryden, The Author, was someone Zac still didn’t know particularly well. However, John seemed genuinely impressed.
“Your dad’s famous,” he exhaled loudly, which was as close to enthusiasm as Zac had yet seen. “He’s a very good writer.”
“You’ve read my dad’s books?” Zac stammered with astonishment.
John raised an eyebrow. “Is that weird or something?”
Zac shrugged. “I guess not. I’ve just not met anyone my age who even knew my dad was a writer. Or cared what he wrote about.”
“Have you read them?”
Sheepishly, Zac shook his head. He had always felt certain that his father’s published works were both brilliant and sleep-inducing, so he never bothered to learn much more about them.
“Oh, they’re very good,” John insisted, but stopped short of explaining further as Zac’s living space continued to distract him. He stepped back into the hallway and asked, “How many rooms does this house have?”
“Fifteen,” Zac replied, following him out with Ben in tow. “That’s a lot, I know, but my dad really likes this place. It’s kind of his hobby. He’s been fixing it up for years so just ignore the parts that look like shit because it’s a work in progress, okay?”
“It would take a long time to fix up a place this big,” John said without judgment.
“Here, follow me.”
Zac lead them to the semi-circular turret room in the house’s southeast corner. When the home was first built, this was the parlor where formal entertainment was provided to guests. Zac didn’t know exactly what constituted “formal entertainment” during the early twentieth century, but he presumed it included polite conversation about the weather over tea and tiny sandwiches. During most of the Drydens’ occupation of the house, the room had been used for storage but two years ago Robert had transformed it back into an impressive gathering area. Zac loved the parlor and always thought it was at its best on afternoons like this one, when the sun was finally breaking through the clouds and a soft amber light fell through the bay window and scattered across the parquet floor. The room’s centerpiece was a large pool table although it was mostly ignored in favor of the big screen television and video gaming systems. In one corner there was a stereo system and Robert’s rather dated collection of CDs; and in the other a knock-hockey table Zac had found at a school rummage sale. A jumble of overstuffed armchairs and couches were arranged in a lopsided circle in the center of the room and Ben immediately hurled himself onto one, as if to reinforce how much he felt at home here.
Although the parlor was most teen boys’ concept of paradise, John didn’t react other than to survey it as he had the kitchen. His demeanor was fixed somewhere between mild curiosity and vague disinterest.
“Who’s up for a little Grand Theft Auto?” Ben asked, booting up the Playstation.
Zac flopped on the couch next to him and propped his feet on an ottoman. He extended a controller to John. “Come join in. I have enough controllers for everyone.”
John accepted the device, rolled it over in this hands, and then clumsily imitated how the other boys were manipulating the controls.
“You don’t play video games?” Ben asked incredulously.
John shook his head. “We don’t have them at my house.”
“Well, welcome to your new addiction,” Zac laughed. He shoved Ben with his elbow to make room on the couch for John, but the boy chose to perch on the arm of a nearby chair instead.
For the next hour, Zac and Ben attempted to initiate John into the complexities of virtual urban violence with little success. Invariably his character ran into oncoming traffic, fell off bridges or was quickly gunned down by angry police officers. He finally discarded the controller on the floor and asked for directions to the bathroom. Zac became so engrossed with repeatedly shooting Ben’s toon in the head with a sniper rifle that it took him thirty minutes to notice that John had never returned.
“Dude, this guy’s sketchy as fuck,” Ben whispered as they paused the game and slipped quietly into the hallway.
Zac didn’t want to admit it, but it was increasingly difficult to dismiss John’s contradictory behaviors. One minute he seemed courteous, and the next he was wandering off into your house. To ensure John hadn’t actually left and not told them, Zac cracked open the front door and stuck his head out. The black Eclipse hadn’t moved from its spot in front of the porch. He and Ben stood for a long moment in the dimly lit hallway, heads cocked to one side as they listened for any sign of movement. There were no sounds other than the persistent creaking of the century old house and the sporadic patter of rain.
“Where the heck is he?” Zac whispered.
They finally found John in Robert’s study, an L-shaped room at the back of the house with floor-to-ceiling book shelves, slender windows and an antique mahogany desk. He didn’t appear to be hiding. Quite the opposite, he’d turned on all the lights and was sitting cross-legged and clearly visible in a large armchair with a book opened across his knees.
“Dude, what happened to you?” Zac said upon entering.
John seemed confounded by the interruption. He lifted the book from his lap. “Playground of the Gods,” he replied, showing them the cover. “I think this is your dad’s best work.”
“You know, dude,” Ben snapped, placing his hand on Zac’s shoulder, “when someone invites you into their house it’s generally not cool to start rummaging through their stuff.”
Zac patted the hand, which he meant to be calming but Ben took as condescension and immediately withdrew it. “It’s all right, dude,” he said reassuringly.
“It’s not all right, Zac. It’s kinda fucked up.”
John closed the book, rose and carefully replaced it on the shelf to his right. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m not very good at video games apparently and I like to read. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”
“It’s okay, man. Next time just ask, okay?” Zac smiled weakly. “We were kinda freaking out about where you went.”
John nodded and then quickly returned to the entry hall where he slipped back into his shoes.
Zac was distressed by this. “John,” he said urgently, “you don’t gotta leave. I’m not mad or anything. C’mon, stick around. I was just about to make a pizza.”
John shook his head. “I really can’t. I didn’t tell my mother I was coming over here and I’m a little amazed she hasn’t been sending me a thousand text messages wondering where I am. I better get home.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Thanks for including me.”
“Of course. Any time.”
As soon as the Eclipse had rumbled down the driveway and disappeared behind the trees, Ben let out a long growl. “There’s something seriously wrong with that guy,” he said.
Zac looked at him and frowned. “Why are you so bent out of shape?”
“You didn’t think that was fucked up?”
“It was thoughtless, probably not malicious.”
“You should be careful, Zac. He’s probably a sociopath or something.”
“Oh come on, you can’t make judgment calls like that based on a couple of hours with him.”
“Yes, I can,” Ben sniggered. “I absolutely can.”
They squabbled for a while more then reconciled over a pepperoni pizza and smoothies Zac whipped up from Greek yogurt, lime juice and a couple of bananas. Slightly after 6 p.m., Ben’s older and highly displeased step-sister appeared at the front door and shuttled him home in the Ford Fusion they were forced to share.
Zac watched from the bottom of the porch steps as they drove off and then turned his face upward. The rainclouds were gathering again but there were breaks where he could see stars flecking the deep indigo sky. He turned on the outside lights, partly for the convenience his father when he finally shambled home around 10, partly to comfort himself. It was during these late nights when Zac really wished he had a pet. A dog or a cat would be such welcome company, especially in a house whose sheer size and age produced a steady flow of strange noises and tricks of light.
After locking the front door, he moved upstairs and took a long shower until his small bathroom was completely filled with thick steam. Stepping out of the tub, he swiped the condensation from the mirror mounted on the back of the bathroom door with his towel and stepped backwards until the towel rack dug into the soft flesh below his shoulder blades. Despite the pain this produced, it was the only way he could see himself entirely in the mirror. At sixteen years of age, Zac had managed to avoid most of the puberty’s pitfalls. Zits had been few and far between and the pernicious body odor which had afflicted many of his friends had skipped over him altogether. He was constructed like an athlete even though he hardly ever exercised and he had thick brown hair that looked amazing even when he neglected it completely. But despite all of this, the sight of himself naked produced an involuntary shudder. He was, he thought, too pale and probably ten pounds too heavy. His legs seemed scrawny compared to the rest of him, but at least three years of compulsory physical education had given him excellent calf muscles. He turned to the right, steadied himself against the wall with his left hand, and strained to assess his backside in the mirror. According to comments overheard in the school hallways and the anonymous notes dropped into his locker, this was among his best features. His attempt to confirm this only hurt his neck however, so he gave up and finished toweling off.
The fact that Zac Dryden assessed himself in the mirror every evening and was disappointed by what he saw would’ve surprised anyone who knew him. To those on the outside looking in, his life seemed privileged if not downright charmed. He was handsome, popular, kind and intelligent. Only a handful knew that there was this other Zac Dryden — the one who never felt as special as others seemed to consider him. The one who, on most days, just felt ordinary and on other days felt downright inadequate. The one who still acutely felt the vacuum left by his mother’s death and wished that his father wouldn’t work so much but never actually said a thing about it.
Feeling deflated, he briefly rummaged around in his closet before finding some pajama bottoms and warm socks. He was just about to tumble into the bed when there was a flicker of movement outside the west window. His eyes narrowed, focused, strained… but only his slightly fuzzy reflection stared back, the diaphanous image of a striking young man stripped to the waist and wearing fleecy britches covered in cartoon monkeys. Moving to the window, he cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed them to the glass. The cold of the night radiated off the pane and gooseflesh rose along his bare chest and belly.
A narrow ribbon of golden light marked the edge of Hidden Rock and reduced the snarled and brushy trees surrounding the house to dark silhouettes. For an instant, Zac was certain he saw a human shape clinging to the top of an oak tree, backlit by the glow of the town. As startling as this was, his fear quickly succumbed to logic. After all, based on the slope of the hill and the height of the house, a person would have to climb sixty feet in the dark and drizzle to be level with Zac’s window. He doubted even a black bear could manage such a feat — or would want to. Soothed, he rolled into bed, clicked on his television, and lost himself in reality program about a pawn shop.
