Chapter 2 Making Camp
The entrance to Candle-Fly Camp was a gravel driveway with a single signpost illuminated by a dim solar-powered landscaping light. There was a bulky black mailbox and a wooden sign the size of a paperback. Dark letters were burned into the wood along with a stylized moth.
Candle-Fly Camp.
A haze of insects orbited the LED glow.
Surrounded by unbroken night in every direction, suspended in a globe of arthropod movement, the camp’s logo looked like a magic sigil inscribed by a storybook witch. A warning. Or the kind of invitation that smiles with sharp teeth.
Beyond the sign was an uneven, rutted drive barely wide enough for one car sloping up a steep incline and rounding into utter darkness.
The place looked like the private driveway of a hermit, a paranoid hermit who collected shotguns and named them after his favorite B-movie heroines.
“Meet my girl Sonya!” It did not look like a commercial enterprise.
Green pulled in next to the mailbox and put the car in park. The way ahead didn’t look meant for hybrid vehicles with impressive fuel efficiency.
He glanced down at the GPS. It showed his car icon on a blank green space with no roads at all. As far as technology was concerned, he was off the edge of the map.
He poked an interior light on and consulted his brochure. There was a picture of that same sign with its moth logo. It seemed a lot friendlier on the page, photographed in daylight. He swallowed and flicked off the light, turned off the GPS, and coaxed his car into the lightless woods.
Green was used to places where headlights were more about being seen than lighting your way.
There was no real night in the city, just an aesthetic shift.
This was different. If not for the two blue-white cones of illumination ahead, the darkness was as complete as any deep-sea trench or subterranean lake beneath a hollow hill.
The gravel drive wound up and up. Green cracked his window to see if he could hear any camp sounds, whatever those might be, but instead he found a monochromatic wall of insect chirps that were part of the living darkness.
The only human sounds were the purr of his heater and the stony growl of his tires struggling up the drive.
Some automatic instinct of self-preservation kicked in and he threw the car into reverse, craning his neck to look over his shoulder and begin his retreat.
No.
“This is what I came here to do.”
Speaking was harder here. The woods didn’t like his voice.
A tree branch off to the left fell with a crack like a gunshot and Green flinched.
“This is the plan. This is the plan.”
He summoned the will to overrule his reflexive need to escape and put the car back into drive.
Nothing leapt from the trees to clamp jaws around his throat and he forced himself onward through the inhuman din and the alien dark.
Once, Green drove his old neighbor, Mr. Reynard, to an antique shop called Honeywell Treasures forty minutes outside the city.
It was a repurposed barn in the middle of farmland.
The vast cornfields made him feel alone and exposed.
There was something deeply haunted about all those rows of green hissing in the breeze.
There were words in that sound. It wasn’t a wild space.
It wasn’t a human space. It was something in between, where the stink of manure and hay dust tapped him on the shoulder and asked, Are you lost?
This was so much worse.
He finally reached level ground and saw a double-wide trailer sitting on blocks, tucked back with a couple muddy parking spots carved out in front.
There was another lit sign with the stylized moth logo above the word Office.
Below the sign, a hunk of obsidian hung on a chain.
The volcanic glass was wrapped in rainbow-colored Christmas lights that made the stone’s surface shine like an oil slick in the dark.
He didn’t have a chance to park. Someone was approaching his window.
He shrank away from the movement, felt rude, and wrestled a smile onto his face.
As soon as the window hummed down, a large woman with a shapeless hat like a brown paper lunch bag planted her elbows on the car door and leaned in uncomfortably close. He felt the car tilt in her direction.
“Hi, Mack. I’m Dancer. Like the reindeer. I see you admiring my hat. Sad news. It’s one of a kind and I don’t sell them anymore. Don’t ask why.”
Green’s heart pounded in his throat.
“Fair enough. I’m Green. Looking for a place to camp. For a while.”
“Smart you coming to a campground then. Sound plan. I was just joking, by the way. About the hat, I mean. I do sell them.”
He did his best not to let his anxiety show on his face. Dancer was very close and so was her hat. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties and smelled faintly of maple syrup.
“So, um, how do I sign up for a campsite? I’m planning to stay awhile.”
“Yes, you mentioned that. You want me to build the price of the hat in or do you fancy a separate bit of haggling for that discrete piece of commerce?”
“Maybe just the campsite for now.”
“Shrewd. I like it. Well, you pay what you think you owe here. How much would you like to pay up front?”
Green fished in his wallet and pulled out three twenty-dollar bills.
“Would sixty dollars be alright to start?”
“It would sorta violate the premise of you choosing the amount for me to weigh in at this juncture, but I think we can confidently say that I do not feel taken advantage of at this stage in our business dealings. Hell, you’ve earned yourself a hat. Here, take mine. I warmed it up for you.”
Dancer pulled the formless felt thing off her head and deposited it snugly on Green’s scalp. It was warm and a little itchy.
“Now then, I expect you wanna meet the patch of dirt that you plan to call home, yes?”
“Yes. If possible, I’d like something next to the woods with a little privacy.”
Dancer laughed like a clogged pipe and dramatically scratched her chin while scanning her surroundings.
“You don’t say? Yes, we’ll see if we can’t find something next to the woods. As for privacy, most days you could walk around out here buck naked and have a very good chance of not sullying the eyes of another human being, though frostbite may well exact some form of retribution for your audacity.”
Green felt a grin tug up the corner of his lips. Dancer was not what he had expected.
“Great. Should I just park here or…”
“Nah, just unlock for me.”
She rounded the car and got in the passenger seat.
She must have pulled another hat from a pocket, because she was wearing one again by the time she got seated.
Green was six feet tall himself, but was certain that Dancer was taller.
She filled the car and the glow of the dash lights made her eyes look as black as old coffee.
She thumped the dash affectionately.
“Good car. I like this car. Personable. Drive on.”
He did as he was told and followed Dancer’s directions down increasingly narrow lanes.
“Turn right at the moss man,” she said.
“The what?”
Dancer pointed.
“That big old stump that looks like a man. The one with the moss. You really couldn’t pick that up from context clues, fella?”
“I’m new here. I’m not at my best tonight.”
“Well, such things may be forgiven in the fullness of time.”
Green turned and entered a road so narrow that twigs squealed against his mirrors.
“Just a little love tap from your new neighborhood,” Dancer said.
The interlaced branches overhead and the darkness beyond made the way feel very much like a tunnel.
“Is there a place to turn around somewhere in here?” Green asked.
“Sure, with the correct application of motoring skills. You thinking of leaving already? Having second thoughts about your privacy request?”
He was, but he wasn’t about to admit it.
“No, I’m just wondering how I’ll get my car out again.”
He was also wondering how many victims of serial murderers thought their killers were charming moments before they realized their mistake.
“Don’t worry. Your site has a parking spot right off the road here. Easy as a mosquito’s lunch.”
Green nodded, not terribly satisfied with the answer.
Maybe she’ll say something folksy while she orders me to dig my own grave at gunpoint.
“Now, this is your road. You and Valentina are the only ones up this way. ’Course she mostly keeps to herself and her studies or whatnot, so I wouldn’t worry about your privacy and all that.
We call this Moss Man’s Row and I have the utmost faith that you can figure out the etymology of that particular moniker. ”
“I think so, yes.”
“Now, you’ll have plenty of space, a fire ring, a tent pad, and if the mood takes you, there is room for a more permanent domicile.
Of course, if you plan on any construction of a serious nature, I would ask that you keep me informed.
Can’t have people building things willy-nilly around here.
That’s how towns happen and between you, me, and the katydids, I do not have mayoral ambitions. ”
“Understood.”
“Green, I like you. I hope you will not think it too forward of me to consider you an acquaintance.”
“Uh, no, that seems like the right word.”
“Well, that’s alright then. Ope, here we are.”
Dancer poked a finger at her window and Green pulled onto a small gravel patch just off the right side of the road. If there were other campsites, he hadn’t seen them.
“That path there leads to your place.”
She pointed to a gap in the wall of brush a foot from his bumper.
“It opens up. Just fifty feet or so into the trees. Valentina is up another half mile on the left, just before the road ends. Couldn’t miss it if you tried.
’Course, I’m not suggesting you bother her this evening, just good policy out here to know where your closest neighbor is, get what I mean?
I’m told cell service around here is a coin flip most days. Not that I would care to know.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Green eyed the dark path leading from the parking spot into the inky tangle ahead. Continuing this adventure meant clicking off the headlights and exiting the car. Taking a flashlight into…that. Dancer’s cheerful confidence was infectious, but she was a stranger and her comfort was fleeting.
“Alrighty, I’ll see myself back to the office.
If you need anything, Valentina should be your first stop.
We look out for neighbors out here. That’s how it’s gotta be.
Stickin’ together whether we like it or not is pretty much our only advantage over the other more capable animals of this world, huh? ”
“Thank you,” Green said. His voice shook. His adrenaline was starting to flow at the simple prospect of being alone in the dark woods.
He didn’t want her to go. He fumbled for something to say.
“Oh, Alf and Jerome say hi.”
“Them those kids from the gas station?”
“Yeah. I just met them.”
“Huh. I’m a little surprised they remembered me out here. Folks will surprise you, won’t they?”
Green didn’t answer. He was distracted, staring out the windshield at the formidable patch of night meant to be his new home. His fingers crept to the acorn in his pocket.
Dancer smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“You’ll settle in. The most dangerous thing in the world is people and there are blessedly few of them around here.
All the other things in these woods will mostly just be curious about you.
Can’t much fault them for that. Well, have a good night.
Welcome. I’ll expect your next payment when you deem the time to be appropriate.
I’ll let you know when we’re having our next camp community meal.
Come see me anytime, but I gotta warn you up front… ”
Dancer paused for emphasis and Green’s eyes widened.
Serial killer. Serial killer. Serial killer.
“One hat per customer.”
With that, Dancer hopped out of the car, quick as a cat, and was swallowed up by the darkness. He imagined he would hear her footsteps trudging back down the road. He imagined wrong.