J. B. Stamper - Midnight Hour 01, page 8
Ahead, in the next canoe, Pete was working hard to keep up with his older brother Phil. He didn’t want to look like a sissy in front of Phil — especially since he had persuaded Phil to take him and his friends on this canoe trip.
In the lead canoe, Jake paddled on with his smooth, strong strokes. Eric shared this canoe. Eric tried to do everything exactly as Jake did.
As their canoe glided within a few feet of the land, Jake leaped out into the water. Eric followed him a few seconds later. They guided the boat onto the shore and then pulled it out of the lake, watching for sharp rocks in the shallow water.
Several minutes later, Phil and Pete went through the same process. The four of them waited for Ty and rqu to come to shore. It wasn’t unusual for them to have to wait. Ty and Ron were always five to ten minutes behind,
“Get a move on it, you two,” Jake called out. “You’re slowing us down.” Jake liked to push on as fast as he could.
The canoe skimmed into the shoreline. Ron jumped out into the water to guide it in. In the back, Ty struggled awkwardly to leap out of the boat. He jumped into the water, and then lost his footing. While Ron pulled the boat up onto land, Ty floundered around in the water. Finally he waded out, totally drenched.
The others laughed at him. “You’ll make a good target for the mosquitoes,” Jake said. “At least you’re good for something.”
Eric laughed his high, whining laugh. He always laughed loudest at Jake’s jokes.
“Let’s go,” Phil said, hoisting their canoe on his shoulders. Jake and Ron carried the other two canoes. Pete, Eric, and Ty carried the supplies.
The portage was a long one. Jake said it would take over an hour. The six of them tramped through the spongy undergrowth of the woods. The water squished in their leather boots with each step. They had all pulled down then: mosquito nets to cover their faces and necks. But their hands and forearms were unprotected. The black northern mosquitoes buzzed around their bodies, thirsty for blood. It wasn’t so bad for the supply carriers. They could slap the bugs away. But carrying the canoes required a tight grip of both hands. Jake cursed as he watched the welts rise on his arms. Ty stumbled along some way behind the rest. He stopped every few yards to swat away the mosquitoes that circled his body in a swarm.
“Look over there, in the crook of that tree,” Phil yelled. “It’s a gooney bird nest.”
Everyone looked in the direction Phil’s arm was pointing. There was a huge nest with large gray eggs in it. Gooney bird eggs.
“OK, you guys, it won’t be the last time you see a gooney bird nest. Let’s get going,” Jake ordered, without breaking his stride.
They continued the rest of the portage in silence. When they came to the next lake, Jake pushed his canoe into the water and Eric loaded in the supplies.
“I thought we were going to have lunch now,” Ty complained in the whimpering voice the others had grown to hate.
“On the next portage,” Jake said without consulting anyone else.
“I’m starving, too,” Ron said under his breath. But he pushed the canoe out into the lake, trying to catch up with the others who were already out ahead.
The three canoes moved out over the blue, clear lake. There was no conversation. Each person was either lost in his thoughts or too worn out by his physical exertion. The air was still.
Then, the silence was broken. The hoarse, croaking call of the gooney bird echoed over the lake. Seconds later, a huge bird dove down from the sky like a kamikaze bomber. Its body shot into the water, not more than twenty feet from the last canoe.
“That one came close,” Ty leaned forward and whispered to Ron. He didn’t like the gooney birds — in fact, he was afraid of them.
The two boys watched for the gooney bird to reappear. It took over a minute. Then it surfaced, several yards away from where it had entered the water. A silver fish was clamped in its strong beak.
The six canoeists watched as it took flight again. Ten minutes later, another hoarse croak came from in the sky. It was loud, incredibly loud. Everyone looked up. Even Jake couldn’t believe his eyes.
“That’s the biggest gooney bird I’ve ever seen,” he exclaimed.
No one took his eyes from the bird. Its body straightened out like an arrow, ready for the dive. When it hit the water, waves rippled out that slapped against the canoes.
“A bird like that could kill you if it wanted to,” Phil said in a quiet voice. Pete looked around to Ty and Ron. He had the same scared look on his face that they did.
The gooney bird resurfaced farther away from their canoes. But they could see its prey wriggling desperately in its beak.
No more gooney birds dove around them on the lake. They reached the next portage. After getting an OK from Jake, they pulled out the squashed loaves of bread and the peanut butter and jelly from their packs. It wasn’t much food, hungry as they were, but they couldn’t eat a lot until the evening meal, when they made camp.
The six sat silently, wolfing down their sandwiches. Ty finished first. He reached for more bread. Jake grabbed his arm as his hand went into the bread wrapper.
“You’ve had your share. That’s all you get today. This food has to get us all the way back to base camp.”
Ty withdrew his hand. Jake’s grip had left marks on his arm.
The others started talking about the day’s journey as Ty sat alone, feeling sorry for himself.
“You’ve been in this part before, haven’t you, Jake?” Eric asked.
Jake said, arrogantly, “Not where we’re going today.”
“But I thought you said…” Phil began.
“I know, I know, I told you we’d go the regular route. But I’ve done that a million tunes. I thought I had a good group here.” He stopped and sniggered, “That was before I found out about Ty.” Then he continued his explanation. “Anyway, I decided last week that I’d go somewhere new. Somewhere that canoe parties don’t go to.”
“Great,” Pete said without enthusiasm. He was too tired to feel adventurous.
Phil stood up. “Let’s get moving, then.” He felt a little worried. He had hired Jake and he was responsible for everyone else. But as long as Jake knew where he was going….
They started the portage. Jake took the lead canoe again. But this time Pete and Ty shouldered the canoes while Phil and Ron and Eric carried supplies. Eric broke a trail through the woods, directed by Jake.
“Hey, look at this,” Eric called out after they had been walking for twenty minutes.
The rest of them came to a halt around Eric. He had found another gooney bird nest. And two pearly-gray eggs filled it. But these eggs were unlike the others they had seen. They were huge. Too huge, almost, to belong to the same kind of bird.
“I want to go back,” Ty whimpered. The huge eggs had set his imagination wild. In his mind, he could see a giant bird swooping down on him.
Eric laughed at him. “What’s wrong with you, Ty, you scared of these eggs?” Eric walked over to the nest and took his walking stick and poked at it.
“Leave them alone, Eric,” Phil ordered.
But Eric was looking at Jake, to see what Jake thought. Jake was smiling at him.
Eric took his stick in both hands and raised it high in the air. Then he drove it down, tike a stake, first into one of the gooney bird eggs, and then into the other.
The others watched him do it in hushed silence. Then, high above them in the trees, there was a rustle of wings. An agonized cry pierced through the stillness of the woods. It continued on and on like an eerie death wail. Circling above them in the sky, a giant gooney bird swooped up and down above the treetops.
Ty was shaking. Tears were running down his cheeks. Everyone else had turned pale. Even Jake looked uneasy. Eric threw the stick on the ground by the nest and ran back to join the others.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jake said.
They moved through the woods, traveling fast. But they couldn’t escape the croaking of the gooney bird. It continued to shriek in the sky.
Hurriedly, they shoved off into the next lake at the end of the portage. Each of them was filled with a strange sense of guilt and fear… even foreboding.
On the lake, they automatically fell into a fast paddle. It was as though they were racing against something. Jake and Eric’s canoe cut through the water in a straight, smooth line. Phil and Pete followed close behind. Ron and Ty struggled to keep up. After two hours of paddling, they were behind; so far behind they were barely in sight of the other two canoes.
“Come on,” Ron said nervously to Ty, “hurry it up.”
“I’m trying,” Ty panted, “I’m trying.” But they couldn’t narrow the gap between them and the others and they began to feel almost abandoned.
“You don’t think Jake would leave us out here, do you?” Ty asked.
“Sure, Jake would,” Ron answered. “But Phil wouldn’t.”
Then they stopped talking. In the sky above them, they heard the flapping of strong wings against the air. Just before it began its dive, the giant gooney bird screamed out its eerie call.
The four in the other canoes stopped paddling and turned around. They saw a huge gooney bird diving down, straight down onto Ty and Ron’s canoe. Its body was pointing like a finger at their bodies.
They saw Ty cowering low and Ron desperately trying to turn the canoe with his paddle.
At the last second, Ron swung the boat to one side. The gooney bird plunged into the water two feet away. A wave of water almost swamped the canoe. Ty started screaming.
The other two canoes had turned around and were coming toward them. The gooney bird surfaced twenty feet away and then took off again into the air. It had no fish in its beak.
“Ty, shut up,” Jake ordered. Ty stopped screaming and stared blankly at Jake.
“We’ll stay together from now on,” Jake said. Then he swung his canoe around and started off across the lake.
“Are you crazy, Jake?” Phil yelled after him. “Let’s turn back. We can get back to where we camped last night.”
Jake kept paddling. “I said let’s stay together. If you don’t get moving, I’ll leave you here.”
The three canoes moved out across the lake. Ron and Ty paddled mechanically. They couldn’t let themselves think of the bird. They couldn’t let themselves think at all.
For two more hours they pushed on. This was a big lake and Jake headed them to its furthest point. Finally, they touched shore on a small island. They pulled their canoes up and waited for Jake’s orders.
“We’ll head in a ways and see if we can find a decent place to camp.”
The six shouldered the canoes and supplies and tramped into the interior of the woods. After ten minutes of walking, they came onto a clearing.
What they saw made them stop short. But no one said a word. No one knew what to say. It was a deserted campsite. Two tents were pitched. A cooking kettle hung over a burnt-out fire. Camping equipment sat around the clearing. It looked as though the people had just disappeared — leaving everything behind.
“I want to get out of here,” Ron said.
“Wait a minute… wait a minute,” Jake repeated as the other five started to go back in the direction from which they came.
“Let’s check this place out,” Jake said as he walked over to the campfire.
The others sat down the canoes and supplies and walked cautiously over to join Jake.
“Look,” Pete said, pointing to some food, “it’s only a few days old.” Phil kicked a loaf of bread. Insects scurried out of it.
“Why do you think they left?” Ron asked.
No one answered. But each of them, in his head, was thinking of a terrible reason.
“I don’t see how they could have left,” Phil said. “I mean, you can’t just leave all your supplies out here in the middle of nowhere and then expect to…” His voice trailed off; he didn’t finish what he was thinking.
“They didn’t even take their sleeping bags,” Eric said, coming out of one of the tents. “Everything is set up for them to go to bed… but they didn’t, I guess.”
“Come on, you guys, let’s get out of here,” Ty pleaded.
Jake looked over at Ty’s scared face. Then he laughed. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re camping here tonight.”
“No, we’re not…”
“I want to get out of here…”
“This place scares me…”
A chorus of five voices broke in on each other, protesting what Jake said.
But Jake had made up his mind. “Pitch the tents,” he ordered.
No one, not even Phil, felt secure enough to contradict Jake. Jake was the guide. He was supposed to know this country and these woods. He was the only leader they had.
They pitched their three tents across the clearing from the two empty tents. Jake insisted that they use the same campfire. By the time they were all set up for the night, the sky had begun to grow dark.
Jake lit the sticks of wood he had carefully built up. The wood burst into flame, the yellow tips of fire licking up at the dark night.
The six of them sat around the fire, eating their daily quota of beans, bacon, and stew. There wasn’t much conversation. They were all hungry. And their minds were on something they didn’t want to talk about.
The night grew darker. Above the high black shadows of the trees, the moon shone in the sky. The campfire was like a beacon light, shining up from the dark woods.
They sat around the fire, still, even though the food had long been eaten. Jake got up from the circle and went down to the lake. The others sat huddled together.
“Do you think we’ll be OK, Phil?” Pete asked his brother.
“Sure, Pete.” Phil wanted to give some reassurance, some strength. But he felt the same ominous fear that he saw in the others’ faces.
“We’ll be OK,” Ty whispered to himself.
High above them, high up above the towering trees, came the flapping of giant wings. They looked up. The gooney bird passed under the moon. Its black shadow was silhouetted in the moon’s silvery light. It began to dive.
The beak was aimed toward the campfire’s beacon of light. The beady eyes were fixed upon the circle of bodies in the large clearing. It swooped down on them, making its hoarse call of beckoning to the other giant gooney birds.
It came down in a great swoop over Ty’s body. Its strong beak clamped around his neck. Then Ty was pulled upwards, his arms and legs flailing in the wind.
The other giant gooney birds came. Five more giant gooney birds swooped down for their prey.
Moonlight streamed down on the still, deserted campsite.
Tales for the Midnight Hour-Stories of Horror, J. B. Stamper - Midnight Hour 01
