Reunion

Installment One:

"... Beauty at a Price..."

With school behind them, Vince, Carolyn, Kimmy and David drove north to the Appalachian mountains, in search of fresh air, good times, and most of all, freedom.

“It’s weird how James isn’t coming with us,” Kimmy said from the back, resting her arms on the front seat. “I mean, it’s like he’s always been here, you know?” She bounced back to her seat and looked out the window at the blur of trees. “I kind of miss him.”

“I don’t,” said Carolyn from the front.

Vince looked at her.

“Watch where you’re going,” Carolyn said. “Is it so awful that I don’t miss James?”

Vince shook his head and adjusted the radio. “No, I guess not.”

“I think it is,” said David from the backseat. “Would you be saying the same thing about me if I wasn’t here?”

Carolyn smiled at him. “Maybe.”

Vince threw a french fry at her.

She picked it up off her lap. “Ew, it’s cold.”

“What do you expect?” Vince said, “McDonalds was 300 miles ago.”

“Wake me up when we get there will ya?” Kimmy said, leaning onto David’s shoulder.

When they arrived at the lodge it was eight pm.

“Can’t we just sleep here tonight?” Carolyn asked.

“But it’s such a beautiful night, hon.” Vince heaved the backpacks out of the trunk, handing one to each of them. “Here’s your nice pink backpack, Kimmy.” And then he rolled his eyes as he slammed the trunk lid down.

“Screw you, dipstick. Pink happens to be a very legitimate color.”

“Legitimate? That’s a pretty big word for you, isn’t it? And please, do tell us why pink is ‘legitimate.’”

David shoved Vince’s elbow. “Leave her alone, man.”

Vince held up his hands then adjusted the backpack straps at his shoulders. “Let’s just get going then, shall we? I’d like to get a couple of hours hiking under our belt.”

“A couple of hours?” Kimmy sighed. “Ouch!” She pulled her backpack off. “What in the hell?”

“What is it?” David lifted the pink backpack and held it in the light coming from the lodge.

“It looks like a note or something. Look, it’s pinned on…”

“Not very well, the pin isn’t closed.”

David pulled the pin out of the paper and unfolded it. He walked toward the lodge where the light was better.

“It’s from James.”

“What?” Carolyn and Kimmy said at once, then crowded around him.

‘Hmm…”

“Just read it out loud already.”

TO MY GOOD FRIENDS VINCE, CAROLYN, DAVID AND KIMBERLY ~
YOU HAVE EMBARKED ON A JOURNEY FROUGHT WITH DANGER AND SURPRISE
TWO HOURS FROM WHERE YOU ARE NOW STANDS A BUSH OF DELICATE FRAGRANCE AND FLOWER

IT IS BY THIS BUSH THAT YOU WILL FIND THE FIRST CLUE IN A SERIES OF RIDDLES TO BE SOLVED BEFORE I MEET UP WITH YOU SOMEWHERE…
…ON THE TRAIL

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Vince laughed uproariously, scaring a nightbird from one of the surrounding trees.

“This is so like James, don’t you think?” Vince said looking up at the emerging stars.

“What to be a freak? Yeah, you’re right, it is.” Carolyn hoisted her backpack over her narrow shoulders and adjusted the already unkempt bun on the back of her head.

“What do you have against James?” Kimmy asked, “Besides the fact that he used me as a pincushion.”

She rubbed her shoulder.

Carolyn shrugged. “Nothing, I just, I…”

“What?” Vince asked taking her arm, a little too forcefully.

“He just scares me a little, or something, I don’t know.” She shrugged again and shook her head. “I don’t… want to talk about it.”

A silent few moments came and went, and the foursome found themselves on the edge of the stand of trees.

“They seem so… so tall.”

“What do?” David asked Kimmy.

“The trees, it’s like they’re…” she looked up at them, and then the rest of them followed suit. “It’s like
they’re standing guard or something.”

“Oh, Kimberly,” Carolyn said as she took a step onto the trail, “You’re so creepy.”

“I’m not creepy Miss Carolyn Cassidy Vaughn, I’m eccentric.”

Carolyn coughed. “Just what the woods needs is eccentric Kimberly in her stylish pink backpack.”

“Girls, girls…” David said, weaving his fingers through Kimberly’s.

“Don’t patronize me,” Carolyn said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like for one of the big strong men to take the lead, I’m afraid I’ll trip over a root or something.”

Vince grabbed her arms and waltzed her out of the way. “I’ll be the big strong man you’re looking for, hon,” he said, then immediately fell head first onto the path.

Carolyn gasped and held her hands out to catch herself from falling but her legs were in more control than she thought and she stopped quick enough for David to smash into the back of her.

“What the hell,” Vince said.

“So much for my big strong man,” Carolyn mused.

“Hey, I took a root for you, babe. A little more respect would be appreciated, now help me up.”

Carolyn held out her hand and Vince grabbed hold of it, nearly taking her down with his own weight and size.

“So what do you think James meant by “a bush of delicate fragrance and flower?” David asked after they resumed their hiking. He knocked his flashlight with the heel of his hand, the light steadied.

“Who the hell knows,” Vince said with a long sigh. “I guess we’ll know when we see it.”

“And I thought we’d gotten rid of James on this trip,” Carolyn said, mostly to herself, but with the quiet of the woods, everyone else heard her.

After moments of silence between them, with just the snapping and calling of the creatures in the woods, Kimberly said, “That’s still not very nice, Carolyn.”

“I wasn’t put here to be nice to James, Kimmy.”

“What are you here for then?” Vince asked.

“To fill your life with sunshine and joy,” she said smiling, though Vince could barely see her.

The moon was rising behind the trees but didn’t do much to help light the path.

The foursome walked in near silence for nearly a half an hour. During that time, the moon rose higher in the sky, making the need for flashlights unnecessary.

Vince stopped abruptly when he saw it, and then so did Carolyn, Kimberly and David.

“Whoa,” Kimberly gasped. “This must be what James was talking about.”

Carolyn brought her hand to her mouth in astonishment, then, “Yes, I would agree.”

No one moved.

“It’s magnificent.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The four walked cautiously and reverently toward the moonflower bush, its petals, like glowing white tongues, opened obscenely toward the bulbous moon.

Carolyn sniffed the air. “Can you smell it? It’s like, gardenias or something, only, lighter.”

“Do you really think this is what James meant? This, this…” Kimmy held her arms out wide, “this tree?”

“It’s not a tree, hon, it’s a moonflower bush,” said David.

“Whatever, it’s incredible, it’s almost neon.”

Vince knelt and held his hand to his chin. “It just looks that way because there’s a full moon tonight. If there were clouds out, it wouldn’t look this spectacular.”

Carolyn held a finger out, drawn by the beauty of the petals.

“Carolyn!” Vince yelled out, bouncing up off his knees to a stance. “Don’t touch it.”

She yanked her hand back as if it were about to be bitten. “Why?”

“I think it might be poisonous.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, taking a step back. “But, how would you know?”

Vince shook his head. “Just a guess really. Think about every other beautiful thing in nature. Roses, lightning, I don’t know, a beautiful woman – it’s all beauty at a price, isn’t it?”

Carolyn slugged his shoulder.

“He might be right,” said David, circling the bush. “It’s almost as if it wants you to come toward it. Do you think it might be like a Venus Flytrap?” He pushed Kimmy toward it and she squealed.

“Hey, guys, come on,” Vince said, irritation showing on his face through the sudden wrinkles in his forehead. “Let’s not act like children.”

“Do you remember what James said?” Kimmy rubbed her shoulder as if somehow her brain had now fused James and the pinprick into one instance.

“Yeah, he said we’d find the first clue here,” Vince continued to look up at the moon, and then down to the bush.

“I don’t see anything,” Carolyn called from within feet of the bush’s roots. “David, let me see your flashlight.”

She took the flashlight from him, jiggled it and pointed it inside the moonflower bush.

“Nothing in there but, ew, spiders maybe, and rotted leaves.”

David knelt beside her and clawed into the dirt with his fingers.

“Anything?” Kimmy asked from behind them.

They shook their heads no.

And then, like a serpent rising out of a vase, it appeared.

David grabbed hold of it with both hands and backed away from the bush on his butt.

“Don’t drop it,” Vince said, shining his own flashlight on it.

“What do you think it is?” Carolyn asked.

“It looks like absynthe if you ask me,” Vince said, taking the glass jar from David and holding it up to the moon. He jiggled it slightly, the green liquid swaying in the glass. Particles inside of it glimmered like diamonds. They stretched, curved, disappeared then formed again.

“It’s sparkly,” Carolyn said, whisking her chilled hands together quickly.

“Yeah, it’s like, liquid gems or something,” Kimmy said, getting nearly underneath it to get a better view.
“But is it the clue? I mean, what else can it be? What do you think it means?”

Vince shrugged. “I have no idea what it’s supposed to be.”

“Maybe he wants us to drink it,” Carolyn said.

“Or bathe in it,” David said, elbowing Kimmy.

Carefully, Vince unscrewed the golden cap and sniffed.

“Well?” Carolyn’s nose twitched.

“Smells, like, apples, I think.”

“Apples?”

“Yes, apples, and limes, and kiwi maybe.”

“All those fruits?” Carolyn said.

“But not only that,” Vince continued, driving his nose in deeper. “I smell something else, too. I can’t quite…”

David put his hand on the jar and and pulled it from Vince’s grasp.

“Careful!” Vince yelled, holding the jar up while David juggled it in his hands. “Don’t fucking break it.”
A drop or two sloshed out over the lip of the jar and onto Vince’s sneaker. He stopped, stood still for a moment. “It’s warm.”

Thunder hit so loud then the path beneath their feet seemed to quake.

“I didn’t see any lightning,” Kimmy said.

Vince laughed. “There had to be lightning somewhere, Kimmy dear.”

“Well, I know that, Vince dear, I’m just saying, it sounded close by, and I didn’t see any lightning. You’d think we would have.”

“She’s right,” David said. “We should have seen the lightning, it was too loud not to.”

“You think maybe that wasn’t thunder?” Carolyn asked.

“It could’ve been…” Kimmy put her backpack on the ground then sat on it. “It could’ve been an animal.”

Carolyn laughed. “An animal? What are you crazy? An animal that size would have to be…I don’t know…”

“The size of a mountain?” Vince added.

“Yeah, exactly, the size of a mountain,” Carolyn said.

“Well,” Kimmy adjusted her butt on the backpack. “With all these mountains out here, and it being dark, a monster the size of a mountain could easily blend right into the scenery, couldn’t it?”

“There you go again, Kimmy, being super creepy.”

David screwed the cap back onto the jar. Vince took it from him then sat on his backpack on the ground. He took off his sneaker, and then his sock. "Menthol, that's what this stuff smells like."

Lightning lit up the distant hills, thunder, low and throaty, moved over them like a moan.

Kimmy stood up. “I gotta pee.”

“Don’t go too far,” Carolyn called after her.

They listened to her crunch off the trail.

And then she screamed.

“Kimmy!” Carolyn yelled, then scrambled to stand up. “Where are you?”

Kimmy continued to cry out, but it was now more of a whimper. Carolyn, with David and Vince behind her, raced through the trees, searching for the golden beam from Kimmy’s flashlight.

“I’m over here,” she called. She hadn’t had the chance to go too far, Vince got out in front of Carolyn and
Kimmy fell into him.

“What’s the matter?” Vince was breathless.

“It’s James,” she said.

David worked his flashlight over the area, a strobe effect of green and flash and brown. Kimmy had dropped her flashlight and it had rolled slightly, it’s beam falling through a dense patch of brambles.

“Did you find another clue?” Carolyn said, coming up behind Kimmy and resting her hand on her shoulder.

Kimmy shook her head, then pointed.

David’s flashlight beam fell on something new.

James.

Kimmy cried out and crumpled into Vince’s arms.

Carolyn covered her hand with her mouth and stifled a cry. “Is he…?”

“Dead?” David held the flashlight in his left hand while he checked the pulse in James’ neck with the right. “No pulse.”

“No pulse." He lowered his head. "Sounds like dead to me,” Vince said, and Kimmy cried harder.

Droplets of rain splattered through the trees and onto their heads. Lightning flashed, definite and precise with a clap of immediate thunder.

“We’ve got to find some shelter,” Vince said.

“We can’t just leave James out here.” David grabbed his feet. “Carolyn, can you take my flashlight?”
Carolyn took hold of the flashlight, and then Kimmy took Vince’s.

“We’ll have to carry him somewhere.”

“Where?” Carolyn asked. She ran back to the trail, about ten yards away. The others watched her flashlight beam zig zag over the trees. “I found something!” she yelled.

“What’d you find?” Vince called before picking up James’ arms.

“... cave.”

They could no longer see her flashlight, so they followed the sound of her voice.

Vince and David picked up James, then followed behind Kimmy who listened for the sound of Carolyn’s voice. Rain fell harder. It splashed in their eyes and glued strands of hair to their cheeks.

“Where the hell did she go?” David sputtered, dropping James and then picking him back up.

Lightning tore through the trees and thunder clapped nearly immediately. Vince jumped. “Holy shit.”

“Carolyn!” Kimmy yelled.

“Here!” she cried back through the nothing.

“Goddamnit I don’t know where she is,” Kimmy said going back to Dave and Vince.

“Well you’d better find her because we can’t very well stay out here in this storm,” Vince said, half-pushing Kimmy back toward the trail.

“Well don’t fucking hit her, man,” David said, setting James’ legs down in the mud.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry, we just need to get to some shelter…” another flash of lightning lit the canopy of trees above them. “Quick.”

Kimmy ran ahead. “Carolyn!”

“Over here!”

Her voice was louder.

“Follow me, guys,” she yelled as loud as she could back to Vince and David.

Through the rain and the fresh glaze of mud on the forest floor, the three made their way to Carolyn and the cave.

Vince set James down inside. He knelt beside him for a few moments with his eyes closed, then moved his lips without speaking.

Finally, he said after looking around, “Well, it isn’t the Ramada, is it?”

“Not quite,” Carolyn said, hugging him. “Yuck, how are you guys gonna get dry?”

“I don’t know,” Vince said, dragging James’ body to the back of the cave. “I don’t think it much matters at this point. James is dead.”

“Do you really think…” Kimmy held her hand up to her mouth.

Vince nodded. “Yeah, whatever he had planned for us, I guess… I guess something happened. It backfired maybe? I don’t know. You know what a shithole he can be.”

“What if…” Carolyn sat down, adjusted the flashlight to point upward. “What if, whatever got him, will come and get us?”

“Geesh, Carolyn, look who’s creepy now,” Kimmy said.

Carolyn stood up. “Hey, it’s a serious concern, don’t you think? I mean, James is dead.” She waved her hand in his direction. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to end up that way, too.”

“Okay, okay,” Vince took her in his arms. “Just calm down. None of us is going to end up dead. Come morning, we’ll backpack out of here, with James.”

Carolyn sighed and sobbed into Vince’s wet coat. “I didn’t like him, you know? But I certainly didn’t want him to die.”

“I know, hon, I know.” Vince stroked her hair.

“Let’s just try and get some shut eye,” David said, unrolling the sleeping back from his backpack. Thunder rolled, echoed through the mouth of the cave. “That is, if we can.”

The four of them stripped to their underwear and hung their wet outer clothes over the metal cage of the backpacks. Then they unrolled their sleeping bags into a crude square just inside the opening of the cave.

“You think he’s alright over there?” Kimmy shone her flashlight on James, who lay just as Vince had left him. Beyond him, the cave snaked deeper into the earth. Once in a while, a light breath of sulfur reached them through it.

“Well, he’s not going anywhere, that’s for sure,” David said, bringing the sleeping bag up under his chin.

But when morning came, everyone saw that David, was wrong.

END OF INSTALLMENT ONE

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