The Fort (Aric Davis)

basement door.
    He needed to hurry to Meijer to get supplies, and then he needed to go back to Division Street to get another girl, someone who at the very least was a size similar to Amy. Everything was happening so fast, but Hooper knew it was as it was supposed to be. Amy was finally home. Now he just had to do everything right so she could stay there for a very long time.

10
    Scott and Luke were already in the fort when Tim got there. He could tell even before he began to ascend the ladder, before he could hear them talking or try to see through the windows. That was because when the boys had first built the fort, they’d installed a security system, so that they would know if a stranger was up there waiting for them. The idea had been Scott’s stepdad’s on his lone trip to see the thing, and it was simple: All three boys were to keep a bottle cap in their pants pocket at all times. Scott had Coke, Tim had Budweiser, and Luke had Sprite. If they came alone, they were always to check at the base of the ladder that was farthest north, or closest to Tim’s house. No caps placed on the ground under the bottom rung, but noise coming from upstairs? That meant run home and get an adult.
    Today, Tim saw the Coke and Sprite caps right where they were supposed to be, and he flipped his Budweiser cap next to them out of habit, just as Scott’s stepdad had told them to. “You have to do it every time,” he’d said, “or it’ll be pointless and you could end up getting killed by some drifter anyway.” The boys had nodded at this passing of valuable knowledge, and all of them loved the ritual that felt almost like something James Bond would do.
    His cap in place, Tim slowly began to ascend the ladder. All three of them could do it quickly—Scott the fastest by far—but it was still pretty cool to go slowly and look at how the forest changed as you climbed. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see—the boys’ near-constant presence in the woods would’ve sent most local wildlife in search of a quieter locale—but there was still a lot to take in. Even the trees looked cooler the higher up Tim got, and no matter how many times he did it, the trip to the top never seemed to get boring.
    Tim arose from the hole in the floor, then transitioned from the last rungs of the ladder to the waiting safety of the fort. Luke grabbed his forearm as he came over the gap in the wood, and then Tim felt the faint sense of vertigo fade. Feet planted on semisolid ground, Tim thanked Luke for the hand and asked the other boys what they were doing.
    “Nothing,” said Luke. “Just trying to hit that target again, or at least we were.”
    “Yeah,” said Scott dejectedly. “Either our guns suck, or we suck. Probably both.”
    “Well, we’re not going to get better guns,” said Tim. “I had to bug my mom forever just to let me get this one. There’s no way she’s going to let me get a better one, not even if I got a paper route and saved my own money.”
    “Good luck getting a paper route around here,” said Luke. “The Bennetts have that locked up until they die.” This was an endlessly sore point for any cash-strapped neighborhood child old enough to have a bicycle. The Bennett brothers, a pair of alcoholics who lived in Luke’s trailer park, had miles’ and miles’ worth of paper routes, and had used them as a sole source of income for as long as anyone could remember. The worst part was that the Bennett brothers, drunks or not, did a great job with their thousands of deliveries and there was no way they were going to get fired anytime soon.
    “Yeah,” said Tim. “I know. It just sucks, is all. I know my dad would let me get a better gun, maybe even a .22 like I fired one time up north, but my mom won’t have a real gun in the house.”
    “Hey, did you guys hear about Molly Peterson?” Scott said, changing the subject. “Her mom and my mom are friends at work, and I guess Molly never came home last night. My mom said that, knowing Molly, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was shacked up with a sailor or something for a few days, but I guess her mom is totally freaking out.”
    “I heard about that,” said Tim. “Her mom called my mom this morning. Molly was out to the movies last night with my sister and…” Tim trailed off.
    “And what?” Luke asked him. “What happened at the movies?”
    “Well,” said Tim, “the thing is, I don’t know exactly. Also, my mom told me not to tell anyone