Page 95 of Middle of the Night

As I continue to stare at Billy’s message, with its series of triangularA’s, I can think of only one way to make that happen.

A half hour later, I’m showered, dressed, and parked outside Russ’s store, which has been open for all of a minute. Russ spots me from the registers as soon as I enter and rushes over.

“Hey, Jen called me. You kind of freaked her out this morning. Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” I say as I keep walking deeper into the store.

Russ trails after me. “So there was no break-in?”

“It was all a big misunderstanding.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

I stop at the campsite display in the center of the store. It’s still so early that Russ hasn’t had time to turn on the bells and whistles that made it so charming. No cricket sounds chirping from the fake rock. No fan blowing cellophane flames in the firepit.

“I want to buy that tent,” I say.

TWENTY-SIX

According to the instructions, the tent can be assembled in fifteen minutes.

It ends up taking me two hours.

Even then, I know I did it wrong by the way the tent pitches slightly forward, as if it’s on an incline and not the same flat patch of grass where a similar tent stood thirty years ago. Sure enough, one touch is all it takes to send it collapsing in a heap of orange.

I begin again, starting from scratch. I consider waiting for Russ to get home and enlisting his help. But his demeanor in the store earlier tells me he’d offer more questions than assistance.

“Why do you need this again?” he asked as he rang me up.

“It’s for Henry Wallace,” I said, making up the excuse on the spot based on my recollection of Henry being inside the tent when we visited the store days earlier. “I thought he might enjoy it.”

While that seemed to appease Russ in the moment, I know he’ll find it weird that I’m erecting the tent in my backyard with Henry nowhere to be seen. So I go it alone, taking a mere hour to assemble it a second time. Unlike the first, it stays upright, which causes no end of pride.

When I’m done, I go inside to the kitchen, where I’d left my phone, and see literally hundreds of alerts, all from the trail cam app. Of course. Since I’d forgotten to turn off the camera, my every move that morning has been captured and sent to my phone. I swipe through a few of them, cringing at the sight of sweaty, sweary me wrangling with the tent before deleting the whole batch.

The phone pings again, this time triggered by a blue jay streaking by, and I’m treated to the new view offered by the trail cam. Grass in the foreground, spreading to a backdrop of the forest at the edge of the yard, plus the addition of the tent. Well, part of it, at least. Only a portion of the tent’s front half nudges into the frame, an orange triangle rising to a peak that’s just out of view.

I don’t set foot outside again until night falls and I return to the tent armed with a gross-smelling sleeping bag I found in the basement and a ratty throw pillow dug from the hall closet. Also with me: an LED lantern my father used whenever the power went out; my pen and notebook, in case Billy wants to try writing again; a bag of Scrabble tiles because I once saw a movie in which a ghost communicated with them; and a bottle of cheap bourbon because I’m pretty sure I’m being stupid.

No, it’s more than that.

I’m insane.

Truly, utterly insane.

Yet my understanding of the situation—that I’ve lost it, fully and completely—doesn’t force me out of the tent. I stay hunched inside, my shoulders scraping the sloped sides as I uncap the bourbon and take a swig directly from the bottle. Not the best idea, really. Especially since the goal is to get into a remembering mood by making things as similar to that night as possible, in which case I should be slurping Hi-C Ecto Cooler from a juice box.

After one more swig of bourbon, I wriggle into the sleeping bag, lie flat-backed on the ground, and wait. For what, I don’t know.Probably nothing. Five minutes in and already this feels like a colossal waste of time. I decide to give it an hour. Two at the most. It’s not like I’d be sleeping if I were inside the house.

“Come on, Billy,” I mutter. “You want me to remember? Then help me. Because only you know what happened. Only you were there. I didn’t see a thing.”

I stop talking, mainly because there’s no one here to listen. Just me. Talking to myself like a psychopath. But I also stop because I’m not sure if what I’m saying is true. There’s a very good chance I did see something in the tent that night.

That’s why he’s been haunting me.

Billy needs me to recall what he already knows, to tell the people who need to be told, to act as his voice now that he no longer has one.

“Fine,” I say, ostensibly talking to myself but really addressing Billy. “I’ll try my best.”

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