Boys Life

which we began to fully realize as the sky darkened to the east. How far we were from home we didn’t know, but for the last two hours we’d seen no mark of civilization. “We’d better stop here,” I told Davy Ray, and I indicated a clearing, but he said, “Ah, we can go on a little farther,” and I knew his curiosity about what lay over the next ridge was pulling him onward. Ben and I kept up with him; as I’ve said before, he was the guy with the compass.
    Our flashlights came out to spear through the gathering gloom. Something fluttered in front of my face and spun away: a bat on the prowl. Another something scuttled away through the underbrush at our approach, and Ben kept asking, “What was that? What was that?” but neither of us could answer. At last Davy Ray stopped walking, and he shone his flashlight around and announced, “We’ll set up camp here.” It was none too soon for Ben and me, because our legs were whipped. We shrugged the knapsacks off our aching shoulders and peed in the pine straw and then we set about finding wood for a fire. In this case we were lucky, because there were plenty of pine branches and pine cones lying about and those burned on half a match. So before long we had a sensible fire going, the firepit rimmed with stones as my dad had told me to do, and by its ruddy light we three frontiersmen ate the sandwiches our mothers had made.
    The flames crackled. Ben discovered a pack of marshmallows his mom had put in his knapsack. We found sticks and began the joyful task of toasting. All around our circle was nothing but dark beyond the firelight’s edge, and lightning bugs blinked in the trees. A breath of wind stirred the treetops, and way up there we could see the blaze of the Milky Way across the sky.
    In this forest sanctuary our voices were quiet, respectful for where we were. We talked about our dismal Little League season, vowing that somehow we’d get Nemo Curliss on our team next year. We talked about the Branlins, and how somebody ought to clean their clocks for screwing up Johnny’s summer. We talked about how far we must be from home; five or six miles, Davy Ray believed, while Ben said it must be more like ten or twelve. We wondered aloud what our folks were doing at that very same instant, and we all agreed they were probably worried sick about us but this experience would be good for them. We were growing up now, and it was high time they understood our childhood days were numbered.
    In the distance an owl began to hoot. Davy Ray talked with great anticipation about Snowdown, who must even now be somewhere in the same woods sharing these sights and sounds, perhaps hearing the same owl. Ben talked about school getting ready to start soon, but we shushed him. We lay on our backs as the firelight dimmed, and stared up at the sky as we talked about Zephyr and the people who lived there. It was a magic town, we all agreed. And we were touched with magic, too, for having been born there.
    Sometime after the flames had died and the embers glowed red, after the owl had gone to sleep and the soft warm breeze brought the fragrance of wild cherries into our campsite, we watched shooting stars streak incandescent blue and gold across the heavens. When the show had ended and we were all lying there thinking, Davy Ray said, “Hey, Cory. How about tellin’ us a story?”
    “Nah,” I said. “I can’t think of anythin’.”
    “Just make one up,” Davy Ray urged. “Come on. Okay?”
    “Yeah, but don’t make it too scary,” Ben said. “I don’t wanna have bad dreams.”
    I thought for a while, and then I began. “Did you guys know they had a prison camp for Nazis around here? Dad told me all about it. Yeah, he said they had all these Nazis in this camp in the woods, and all of ’em were the worst killers you can think of. It was right near the Air Force base, only this is before it was an Air Force base.”
    “Is this for real?” Ben asked warily.
    “Naw, dummy!” Davy Ray said. “He’s makin’ it up!”
    “Maybe I am,” I told him, “and maybe I’m not.”
    Davy Ray was silent.
    “Anyway,” I went on, “there was a fire in this prison camp, and some of the Nazis got out. And some of ’em were all burned up, like their faces were all messed up and stuff, but they got out, right in these woods, and-”
    “You saw this on ‘Thriller,’ didn’t you?” Davy Ray asked.
    “No,” I said. “It’s what my dad told me. This happened a long time