Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

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It was rhythmic — my staying with the pack and then falling back and then rejoining and then falling back. No one made wisecracks or slighting remarks. They weren't the passive-aggressive sort, unlike me, and they simply accepted me. That made me feel even more an outsider, like when they prayed before bedtime in the tent, all of us squeezed into the two-man — er, two-person — tent because of the mosquitoes.

The praying I was coming to tolerate — barely — but I couldn't stand the closeness and the odors and noises and restlessness. So after 20 minutes, I scrambled out of the tent and up a nearby ridge where there was a light breeze. It was so much more comfortable up there at the top, and I slept on the bare ground until the stench of burning meat wakened me. I couldn't spot the source, so, more curious than tired, I followed the smell. At the bottom of a narrow valley that paralleled the ridge, I saw naked figures in masks, danc-ing and groping one another around a bonfire. In the middle of the fire, the charred husk of an animal was bound and staked to a spit that was patiently turned by an old man or it might have been an old woman.

The smell was unfamiliar, but the form could have been that of a pig — not huge, but maybe a hundred pounds or so. But this wasn't pork. Back home in the small farming town where I had grown up, there were stories about devil worshipers. They held us in sway for a time, but in a remarkable group gestalt switch, devils and UFOs lost their hold on us when we discovered girls. What I was seeing was debauched, but likely nothing more ... I wanted to believe. I found my way back to the top of my ridge and moved upwind of the fire and tried to sleep some more.

At first light, Abby heard me scampering down the hill and turned towards the woods. She didn't hide the Bible she'd been quietly reading but put it aside to ask how I had slept. I answered that the 72

incessant buzzing of mosquitoes had freaked me out, so I had to get away and slept great except for a really bad dream. She turned back to the canal and asked, "Do we frighten you?" "Of course not!"

I said, in an obviously contrived tone, wondering what she might be talking about.

We were interrupted — thankfully in my view — by the others who were just pulling up on their bicycles with breakfast in hand. It turned out that Griff and Beth's riding ahead had paid off. They'd met the tail-end of a Boy Scout troop yesterday and got directions to a little community with a coffee shop, general store and B&B that was no more than a mile off the towpath. It was a relief to know that we weren't as isolated as I'd felt last night on the mountain. But that had to have been a nightmare.

Breakfast was a treat and there was nothing uncomfortable about the conversation, although grace did seem to go on without end.

Ahead was a long day. We had to cover close to 100 miles including a stretch through a tunnel, which was supposed to be so long and dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

There was no one else on the path with us, and in fact only Griff and Beth had seen anyone since we'd started out. We'd sort of hoped to meet someone going in or coming out of the tunnel, but we were alone. Just outside the tunnel, we strapped our flashlights to our bicycle frames, switched them on and rode into the darkness, watchful to avoid bumps and ruts and debris that could catapult us into the canal. We couldn't see it, but in the damp blackness, we smelled it and felt how close it was.

Only half a mile or so long, yet it took us a good half an hour to get through. Abby's flashlight came loose and fell into the canal, so we all decided to get off our bikes and walk the rest of the way with her. The funny thing was that it was completely quiet in the tunnel, 73

and except for the flashlight episode, no one said a word. There was nothing but the crunching of the ground underneath and an rhythmic dripping from overhead.

We re-emerged into the brilliant blue and green canopy and a ca-cophony of forest sounds. The sounds of our voices resumed immediately, too, as if a glass bell had been lifted. The lost flashlight was dismissed as a minor inconvenience — after all there must be other towns ahead. And within an hour, Beth and Griff were out of sight again. Meanwhile, I dropped back, keeping an eye out for a comfortable spot to read another couple of chapters.

By sunset, Abby and Lee and I had reached our destination about 15 miles west of Harper's Ferry. I had rejoined them around mid-afternoon on Lee's second flat of the day. We set up camp and waited for the others to come back for us — that being the unspoken agreement, I thought. Dusk came and went, dinner came and went, but there was no sign of Beth or Griff.

The girls weren't concerned — I couldn't understand why (was it this faith thing?) — but I was, so I volunteered to go out looking for them. The blackness of a so-far moonless night swallowed all but the small ball of flickering golden light emanating from our miserly fire. As I refastened the flashlight to my bicycle frame, images of the fire last night came back, sending chills through me. I couldn't leave, but I couldn't go either. But I had to go, because there might

— must — have been an accident or something. More importantly, I couldn't show my feelings. I wasn't going to be a coward.

When I rode off, I could see in my mirror that they were reading by the fire. I couldn't believe it, but I was a little jealous that they could take this so calmly — not stupidly or carelessly, but peacefully. Yet, it was so foreign to me, and I rejected their tranquil resolve, instead 74

summoning the anger I needed to go out searching the woods for our irresponsible companions.

If I hadn't been so smugly angry — and a tiny bit afraid — I'd have appreciated the gorgeous rising of the moon. The moon's reflection in the canal, the shafts of light piercing the forest were spectacular, though it's only after the fact that I recollect that beauty. There were sounds in the woods that weren't heard in the daytime, and to make it worse, I relived the previous night multiple times as I sped along the towpath. In the moonlight, I checked my watch periodically. By 10 o'clock, I was ready to give up. I was furiously self-righteous to the point that fear had little grip on me, and by the time I got back to camp, which was still minus our comrades, I was in a completely-justified foul mood.

On the face of it, I wasn't in such a bad predicament. However, there was something about these people. Later, my roommates couldn't believe I spent the night in the woods with two very attractive young women and nothing happened. Nothing except, of course, we — they — prayed out loud so I kind of participated, and afterwards, we slept together — but quite apart — in the tent, because outside the tent, the mosquitoes were unbearable.

Next morning, our lost party woke us up at sunrise with coffee and donuts. There were so many things I'd wanted to say to them, especially Griff, but my anger didn't have the edge it had last night. I just managed to say that we were really worried about them, though Abby contradicted me by saying that she knew they were alright. From my own personal sacrifice, I added that I must have ridden 80 miles up and down the trail looking for them, to which Lee and Abby nodded quietly.

It turned out that one of the scouts Griff and Beth had met the day before had broken his leg. Griff and Beth, both pre-Med and also 75

high school sweethearts, I finally learned, rigged up a stretcher for him and took him to the nearest road leading to Harper's Ferry.

They caught a ride and went with him to the hospital and stayed with him until one of the scout leaders arrived. It was so late; they stayed in a motel, and headed back for the canal at daybreak. They were apologetic for staying in a motel. They seemed to feel guilty about that.

By mid-morning, we'd reached Harper's Ferry, an important stop for Lee and Abby — Lee because she was a post-grad student researching the Civil War and Abby because she was a freelance photographer. It was a long, long day for me. I had finished my book. However, the food was much better in the tourist restaurants than on the trail, and I actually got to where I found the view from above of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia separated by the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers to be almost worth the trip itself.

The last day was drizzly — the first wet day we'd had. We reached Washington by lunchtime, found a hostel downtown, and ate at a Thai restaurant around the corner. That was it. We'd done it. Four days. As planned.

The next day Beth's parents brought the cars to pick us up with our bicycles. Beth and Griff were going back home to Morgantown. Ab-by and Lee were staying with friends in Georgetown, and I was driving back to school. In my rear-view mirror I saw them one last time as I waved goodbye, my arm fully extended out the window.

Beth and Griff were walking hand in hand in the other direction, while Lee and Abby were giving directions to a group of students from the hostel. By the time I crossed the Potomac for the last time, my impatience and anger and priggishness had dissipated into an emptiness. My little white '77 Corolla now seemed much bigger.

Outside, instead of one path, there seemed to be infinite paths ...