Chapter Three: Emerald Darkness

The trees enveloped Tyson as he climbed the hill like he was walking into a great green maw. He watched as tan coloured moths flitted from evergreen to maple. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he realised the air was filled with the small bugs. Tyson shuddered. Bugs usually didn’t bother him, but seeing that many writhing through the air gave him a bit of the creeps. 

Wouldn’t the guys just love hearing that. Commander Coté brought to his knees a mouthless insect. He smiled to himself until he realised most of the guys who would give him shit were dead. Tyson tried to shake off the thought but it dug in. 

Tyson screened each member of the Vanguard himself. He combed through hundreds of applicants, psych profiles, service history, hell even family records to find the top most qualified and mentally fortified candidates. Leading the team was the biggest achievement of his military career. Eight successful operations in the last ten years had only served to convince him that the team he picked was solid. The thought of each of them taking their own life, and that he was now one of only two surviving members was hard to swallow. He thought of Frankie Sultan, dubbed Frank the tank by the rest of the crew, not because of her stature, but because of her sheer will. It was no surprise to Tyson that she hadn’t succumbed to whatever ghosts haunted the rest of the team. 

Yet his thoughts taunted. He made a mental note to call Michael after this and check in. 

As he emerged from the canopy of trees the daylight once more lightened and the overcast light did little to brighten the entire campground. Tyson noted the place would be a beautiful sight at sunset, if the sun ever came out. Up ahead Tyson could hear the delighted squeals of a child playing on the rust patched playground. The pathway forked around it to the camp sites and Tyson caught glimpses of white-faded-to-yellow plastic that marked the parked campers. Makeshift clothing lines criss-crossed over burnt out fire pits. Among the tents of weekend warrior campers sat gas guzzling R.V’s with peeling bumper stickers that read ‘campers do it in the woods’ and ‘I got tanked at Skipper’s Aquarium.’   

Tyson spotted a little girl in dirty overalls laughing as she rode the slide and hit the grass. She was instantly back on her feet and moving. Her body out running her legs as she stumbled, top heavy, toward the ladder. On the bench beyond the sandbox border were her parents. New parents, Tyson guessed, from the way the dad was cradling his head in his hands while the girl’s  mom stood between him and the slide, her expression pinched with fear as she asked the screaming little girl what her plan was as she climbed quickly up the ladder. Tyson watched for  a beat longer, hadn’t Helena been that size only a year ago? The father caught him looking and Tyson nodded. The guy did his best to nod back, but he looked like he was going through one hell of a hangover.  

Ahead of him was the office and restaurant. The house was a farmhouse typical of the time, a remnant of the land’s history when it was used as a homestead. On the restaurant attached, a giant smiling robin’s head wearing a chefs hat grinned out at the campers, a lost relic of the 1950’s when the Robin’s Nest was established. Tyson’s boots crunched gravel as he made his way to the white siding panelled farmhouse. 

Inside a bell clanged against the worn wooden door and the floor creaked beneath his foot falls. He walked through a mud room lined with local jellies and honey for sale and into the main floor. A staircase to his left was sectioned off with a rope running through a sign asking that patrons to please refrain from going upstairs. Tyson felt off balance as he navigated the sagging floorboards, each seeming to let out an exasperated groan as he settled into them. This was accompanied by the clatter of china in an unseen hutch as Tyson moved through the main hall toward the service counter. 

He stopped on the faded green runner, hands on his hips, his eyes doing a slow circle of his surroundings. In front of him the welcome desk was occupied by a bell, a landline telephone (rotary dial, he marvelled) and a brass spike with waybills impaled on it. Behind the desk a hutch stood to the side of a window looking out towards the road they drove in on. The walls surrounding it were covered in faded white wallpaper with rose bushes threading along them.

 On the top of the hutch a stuffed otter stared down at him, its paw clasping at a clamshell that had cobwebs cascading off of it. The otter stared him down with yellowed lifeless eyes, frozen aways on the guests and not the bounty it reached toward. Flanking the otter on either side was the deer and wolf head. The trio sparked a memory in Tyson and he looked closer at the worn wooden counter in front of him, vaguely remembering seeing it from a much lower perspective. His brow pinched together in thought. Did this look familiar, or was he only tricking himself into thinking he remembered? 

The stairs behind him creaked and a kindly voice called out. “Be with you in a moment.” Tyson turned in time to see a heavyset man wobbling towards him, replacing the rope as he walked through it and cleared the stairs. Tyson’s greeting died on his lips and his brow stayed pinched, hooding his eyes. The man that stalked toward him looked nothing like Kurt Wesson,  owner and person he’d been speaking to over his computer. Kurt looked like a bag of bones, judging from the staff directory on the site. This man looked like about five of him put together. Tyson eyed the door, and then returned his gaze to the man. 

His ankles look weak, if I’m moving I can make it to the door before he can even start turning his bulk. The man seemed harmless as he settled himself behind the counter, but Tyson had grown weary in his military life. When someone let their guard down that was usually when they got killed. Something didn’t sit right with Tyson about this change. He didn’t recognize the guy from any material he’d seen, and Kurt didn’t mention anything about someone else working when he got there. Tyson leaned against the counter, keeping the brass spike within reaching distance. 

“Hi there, I don’t know if it was you I was speaking with or Kurt, would he be around?” Tyson asked. The older man twisted his mouth down in a grimace, his clipped white moustache making a second, smaller frown above his lips. “Ah no, Kurt unfortunately had an urgent family emergency to tend to, he left rather quickly.” 

Tyson feigned concern “I was just talking to him about two days ago, on your computer? The chat function.” The man in front of him lifted his hands from the counter, his chubby fingers splayed from his palm looked to Tyson like over cooked sausages. “As I said, it was rather sudden his leaving.” 

Tyson saw a flash behind the eyes, or thought he did, a hardness that betrayed the man's jovial nature and the feminine wallpaper that adored the area around him. In a flash it was gone, replaced by a joviality and smile that showed nubby yellow teeth cut close together. His white brows shot up. “But” he continued “My name is Rollie, Kurt called me in and I can help you just as well as he could.” 

Tyson explained who he was and Rollie confirmed his booking in a leather ledger spread out in front of him. “Ah yes, two for Coté, Cedar Cabin. Garbage and recycling pick up is tuesday, please separate your paper from your cans, if you wish to donate your beer cans to our auxiliary fund you can use a clear bag provided, please rinse and separate them. We also have a cribbage tournament at the Robin’s Nest this evening, you and your guest are welcome to attend. Dinner is served at six and the games start promptly at seven, ten dollars a person with a fifty-fifty draw.” Rollie finished, beaming. 

Something in his bonhomme attitude didn’t sit well with Tyson. He didn’t know this old man, had barely met him, and now he was carrying on as if the two had become friends. Tyson eyed the wolf head grinning down from its expanse of grey and black fur. He checked his watch. “That’s kind of you Roy, but I think my daughter and I would just like to get settled in and get a lay of the land tonight.” He watched as Rollie’s smile faltered. It was clearer this time, the mask chipping a little more as he flubbed the name. Rollie blinked it away quickly but Tyson saw annoyance dance across his eyes again, tugging the skin around them into creases before they smoothed and he smiled that stupid grin showing his disgusting little teeth. “Ah, my apologies Mr. Coté, but the name is Rollie.” 

“What did I say?” Tyson asked. 

“You said Roy.” 

“Hmph, sorry about that.” Tyson shrugged, collecting the keys and paperwork for the cabin from the counter and turning to leave. From behind him he heard Rollie’s high pitched voice tinkle through the air, Tyson thought he heard a twinge of urgency to it. “Perhaps a decent meal might clear your head. My wife Linda makes the whole menu from scratch. Chili and garlic bread, but the lunch rush will be ending soon.” 

“Not thanks. As I said, I think I'd like to get the lay of the land today.” 

“As you wish.” Rollie held his hand up as Tyson left, swatting it at him as the bell jangled his exit like he was a bothersome fly. 

Tyson mulled over the interaction on his way back to the cabin. Clear my head, my head is clear as a bell. Fat cocky prick. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, Kurt hadn’t mentioned anything about being gone, but then again no one plans for a family emergency. Tyson stopped. He turned back to look at the house behind him, the vent from the restaurant billowed greasy smelling white smoke into the grey air. Tyson took his Blackberry from the case attached to his belt.. He leaned against a tree on the outskirts of the park, now deserted. After a few taps he brought up the web page for Sunnyview Suites. He navigated to the staff directory and watched the same grainy picture of Kurt Wesson, owner, that he’d seen on his desktop days before. No mention of part time staff, and no picture of Rollie or his supposed wife. Tyson ran his tongue across his teeth and looked at the office, debating whether he should go back. 

What are you going to do? His thoughts chided? You don’t know the full story. Take your own advice, get the lay of the land, gather some data, and make an informed decision. Tyson mulled the decision over but knew he wouldn’t do anything. It was the same thought process he’d employed during combat: P.A.T. Pause And Think. He replaced his Blackberry and continued down the path, the trees once more taking him into their emerald darkness. 

Behind the clouds the sun was a muted circle of pale yellow. The water was tinted green from the trees along the bank and yellow pollen floated in it diminishing any appeal Tyson may have felt for an afternoon dip. Instead he eyed the rowboat knocking against the dock and decided on getting a workout in after making sure Helena set things up properly. 

He stopped short at the truck, bits of gravel rolling down the hill. Tyson sighed. His hand instinctively rubbed the back of his head in a gesture of exasperation. Tyson’s pickup sat where he parked it, the cab still piled with coolers and reusable grocery bags, the box still shut tight and packed with supplies needed to sustain Helena and himself for the two week stay. 

“Useless.” he muttered. “Absolutely fucking useless. Helena!” he called as he threw the door to the cabin open. “What did I say before I left? I asked you, no, I told you to unpack the-'' Tyson searched and felt his anger growing with each empty room he found. He checked each room, and then, against his better judgement, checked each room again slowly. He moved from the small bathroom, to the first bedroom, to the smaller bedroom, and then finally back to the shared kitchen and living area that dominated the middle of the cabin. In the silence he heard the waves against the shore and the boat knocking against the dock seeming to tick away the moments. The silence was shattered by the single, sudden, bark of incredulous laughter Tyson let out. In a flash he had his Blackberry out and was stabbing his index finger into the glass display pulling up his contacts and moving to Helena’s name. He began texting, fury biting through the worry like a grassfire moving through a dry plain. He vaguely saw auto correct kick in as he sent the three words and was momentarily grateful his message couldn’t be misunderstood. He watched his screen for her answer to appear underneath his initial question: 

Where are you? 

***

In the office Rollie watched the man leave. Tyson, he said his name was. He replaced the curtain as Tyson glared back at him before disappearing into the trees. Rollie moved to the small refrigerator behind the counter. From it he withdrew a chipped bowl with blue mayflowers chained around the rim stained orange by the chilli sauce sloshing around it. He took the bowl carefully from behind the counter and made his way slowly beyond the fraying yellow rope and up the stairs of the old house. He paused to catch his breath at the landing as it laboured out of him in a slow wheeze. Something in his chest clicked and caught and he began coughing. His body shuddered with the wracking cough but he kept the bowl steady as he slowly regained his composure. He hocked a gob of something green onto the pale yellow carpet and continued up the three steps to the second floor, dabbing his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. 

Outside a bedroom door he produced a steel key and fitted it into the lock. As the door creaked open he began to see the man chained to the bed. He saw his wrists rubbed raw from the handcuffs that held them to the headboard. Then the grimy mat of greasy brown hair parted in the middle and receding at the forehead. Then the bruises and cuts from the forehead leading to two black eyes and a scarred chin. From there the man’s skinny chest heaved as he tried to breath through his blood caked nose. Rollie manoeuvred his girth through the door and swiftly shut it with a sway of his hips. 

“Now.” he said, spoon stirring the chilli rhythmically, “you should eat something.” He blew on the chilli for dramatic effect as Kurt Wesson began moaning from his bondage. His head moved spastically from side to side but with his arms bound it was only a matter of effort before Rollie pushed the spoon through his cracked lips, forced it through his clenched teeth, and into the back of his throat where Kurt choked it down in a wave of sputters, coughs and saliva. 

This continued until Rollie scraped the bowl clean, dropping the spoon with a metallic clatter.  

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