Cold Case

There was a boggart on the nature trail.
Okay, there actually wasn't. But it was dark, and I was walking along the nature trail by myself, and when I turned and saw a tree stump that was vaguely shaped like the English spirits, I was surprised at how much it startled me.
I got to the end of the path, which overlooked the quarry, and I stood on the rocks just above it. Every few years, some kid would be swimming in the quarry and drown, and there would be an outcry that would eventually die down in time for the next drowning.
I took off my pack, a battered blue thing that Kline had given me, and pulled out a Polaroid camera. I began taking photos that spit out the front, and I gathered them and slipped them into my jacket pocket. I had twenty pictures loaded, and I used up most of them. Then I turned and walked back down the path, away from the quarry and into the woods, across the wooden bridge, and up the hill toward the tennis courts.
Kline was waiting there. "You do it?" he asked.
I nodded. "I got a bunch of photos. You got any plans for the weekend?"
"Probably gonna shoot some animals. How about you?"
"Got a camping trip with my Boy Scout troop. Winter camping in the springhouse out at my place."
"Cool."
"Cool."
We slipped back into play practice through the back doors, into the cafeteria where all the other kids waited backstage. I approached the table where the Orphans were sitting with a bunch of older kids, and slapped the photos down on the table.
"There," I said. "I did the dare---I went in the dark and got pictures. Now quit telling Misty Jo there's zombies on the nature trail."

Someone had come up with the great idea to leave a bunch of teenagers unsupervised in a snowstorm.
I mean, it had seemed like a good idea. My Boy Scout troop was camping in the springhouse on my dad's property, so it wasn't like we were totally on our own. But as night fell and a big snowstorm started, the actual survival part of it began to seem kind of intimidating.
"With a snowstorm coming in, we're gonna be stuck here for a while," I said. "What do we have done so far?"
"Everyone's got their packs stored and their sleeping bags out," said Jonas, who was sort of the unofficial second in command. "We have the perishable food out in the snow, so it doesn't go bad. Joey's downstairs, filling up the water bottles from the spring. I have Mark, Bobby, and Jon out getting firewood."
"Good. We're going to need a fire." I knelt down by the metal furnace and began building one. I started ripping strips off of an empty milk carton. Those are great for starting fires---They light quick, and the wax makes them waterproof. I began building a small pyramid with the carton strips and some small sticks.
Three of the other scouts came back in, carrying some broken branches. It wasn't enough to hold us all weekend, but it was a start. I said,"Put them there by the furnace."
They dumped the wood into a pile. Mark said,"We saw something big out there. There was something walking around. Might have been a wolf."
"It was bigger than a wolf," said Bobby.
"Might have been Bigfoot."
"It wasn't Bigfoot, you loser."
I got a small fire started, put a couple of branches in, and closed the furnace door. "What's all this about Bigfoot?"
"It wasn't Bigfoot," said Bobby.
"Well, it was something big," said Mark. "We heard something moving around in the trees up at the top of the hill. Near the Bulldozer Trail. We couldn't really see what it was, but it was big and loud."
"We should check it out," I said.
"You know we're supposed to stay near the springhouse in bad weather," said Jonas. "Rusty will tell on us if we're out running around."
"Rusty's a little weasel," I said. "If I can get Mark and me snuck out of here, can you keep him busy?"
"I can make him clean the upstairs."
"Mark and me will slip out."
"Lou," said Mark,"This place has one door. How do you plan to sneak out?"
"Leave that to me," I said.

We headed for the back room. On the way, I grabbed the troop's first aid kit from where it hung on the wall.
The back room to our springhouse was mostly used for storage, and closed off from the rest of the house. It was in bad condition, with the floor sagging and no glass in the windows.
"Lou, there's no way we're getting out of here," said Mark. "This room doesn't even have any doors."
"We're going through the window," I said.
Mark looked out the window. "We're fifteen feet up."
I picked up a coil of rope and cut off a couple of feet with my Swiss Army knife. Then I took the scissors out of the first aid kit.
"We're gonna rappel," I told him.
He squinted at me. "You ever done this before?"
"Sort of. I saw it on The A-Team."
I made a loop with the short piece of rope, feeding it through one hole in the handle of the scissors. Then I took the longer piece, wrapped it into a coil through the other hole, tied one end to a beam, and threw the other out the window. When I stepped into the short loop, I was essentially wearing a harness and attached to the rope, using the scissors handle as a figure-eight descender.
"You're not serious," said Mark.
"In theory, it should work," I said.
"You go first."
I stepped up on the windowsill, took a deep breath, and jumped backward out into space.
The scissors slid along the rope, arresting my free fall into a slower, more controlled slide. I fell back against the wall about halfway down, hitting it with my feet and sliding the rest of the way. I landed on my feet, harmlessly, in the snow.
I looked up at Mark, staring out the window at me.
"Pull this up," I said. "Your turn."

We walked up the trail to the top of the hill, where several trails met. The snow was coming down around us. Mark pointed. "It was right up there, in those trees."
"Let's take a look."
We walked into the trees, and I looked down. I saw tracks in the snow, walking aimlessly around.
"See anything?" Mark asked.
"There's tracks, but I can't tell from what," I said. "Not human tracks. Something was walking around out here, but the snow's covering it. In half an hour, they'll be completely covered." I stood up. "They went that way."
"You hungry? I got bullion."
"I'm good."
Mark took out a packet of beef bullion and began eating it dry. He had that habit; he would carry packets around and eat them in pinches.
I was carrying my whip, a three-foot brown leather weapon. I'd gotten it secondhand from a friend a while ago, and I'd been practicing, but I hadn't had much of a chance to use it yet.
"What do you think it is?"
"The Great Christmas Tree Goblin maybe? I don't know, Mark."
"The what?"
"When I was like eight, my dad told me about a creature I'm pretty sure he made up. We live on a Christmas tree farm, so he talked about this big green Bigfoot thing that he called the Great Christmas Tree Goblin. I think he was trying to scare me into not getting out and exploring at night."
"Did it work?"
"Not really. I spent a lot of time sneaking out to find the Great Christmas Tree Goblin."
We walked downhill. I knelt down, looking at the ground.
"What're you looking for?" asked Mark.
"I'll know when I see it," I said. "One of the tricks to tracking is to imagine everything the way it should be, and then see what's wrong with the picture. Look. Whatever it was stepped on this stick."
"A broken stick? In the forest? Oh, sure, you'd never find one of those otherwise."
"Mark. Shut up. Look. The broken part is still clean and light-colored. If it had been, say, overnight, it would have been dark and dirty. This was just recently broken. And it's a clean break, too, which means that it was something with a hard foot, not a soft padded foot."
"How do you learn all this stuff?"
"I read a lot." I stood up. "He went thataway."
We walked back uphill---The area I'd grown up in is covered with rolling hills. The snow reflects light, making it easier to see---We didn't even need flashlights.
"If we see Bigfoot, can we shoot him?" Mark asked.
"We're not shooting Bigfoot."
"What if it's self-defense?"
"It is not self-defense to shoot a monster in the trees. Also, we don't have guns."
"With all the dangerous stuff you been doing lately, you don't have a gun?"
"I don't like guns much. I don't trust people with anything more dangerous than a paper clip."
We followed the trail, at this point getting fairly far from the springhouse. I found tracks, signs of the creature passing, as we went.
"Shh," said Mark. "Up there."
"What?"
"I hear it."
We moved forward, toward the trees. I could hear it, something big rustling in the pine trees. I held out a cautious hand toward Mark, and got out my whip.
It came through the trees---A horse. A big, brown horse.
"A horse!" said Mark.
"A stray horse," I said.
He gave me a look. "You guys get stray horses out here?"
"Every couple of years, yeah. A horse will get away from some nearby farm and roam around a while. He'll walk around for a day ro so, and then head home---They always do."
"So what now?" asked Mark.
"Let's go back to the troop and tell Rusty there's dead bodies buried under the springhouse."
"Is there?"
"You never know."