Strangers of adam

You’d be surprised what happens at Ms. Hayes’ summer camp. Or maybe you wouldn’t be, I don’t know. Could be nothing surprises you. Could be your own psychic makeup contains the greatest surprises of all, so you’re never shaken by what others label appalling. Could be you don’t even know what those surprises inside yourself are yet, you just sense their presence; like strangers behind a door, not even knocking, just standing there, knowing they’ll get in eventually.

The First Stranger

I didn’t know about the sacrifices when I started as a counselor at Ms. Hayes’ camp. I thought I got the job because I was exceptionally attractive and skilled at presenting myself as a respectable young go-getter, but later I came to think it was because Ms. Hayes saw something particular in me, something she’d only ever seen in herself, something that meant she wouldn’t have to hide a thing from me.

Before I met Ms. Hayes I thought caring about people was something I simply wasn’t capable of. Twenty-five years of practice had made me adept at faking it, but truthfully, I felt indifferent towards the suffering or not-suffering of others; the fact of anyone’s living or dying a concept I had no investment in. Ms. Hayes created an exception to this rule, broke through what had forever felt impenetrable. She didn’t know it (or maybe she did), but she could have told me anything on that penultimate day of my first camp summer, when she called me into her office and smiled like she was about to give me a present. She could have walked around the table and slit my throat; my devotion would not have wavered as I bled out on the chair, staring into her eyes.

Ms. Hayes told the story so well, it was like you were there. She was walking in the woods one year, about a week before camp started. The rest of the staff was arriving the next day, but until then, she was alone. It was a warm evening, but not too warm. The sun splintered golden through the trees. It was quiet and still, the sounds of nature muted, as if all of life had decided to sleep the day away. Like being in a painting. Ms. Hayes walked further into the woods than usual. She didn’t know why. At the top of a small hill she came upon a figure holding its hands out before an empty pit, shivering fiercely. It was tall and gray, its small black eyes set deep within a large, coin-shaped head. The thing didn’t look at Ms. Hayes, didn’t speak, but she could hear its voice in her head.

It was the voice of a child. It was the voice of her child, Rebecca, who had died when she was six. The thing didn’t pretend to be Rebecca, not really, it just wanted to demonstrate what it could do. Ms. Hayes went closer. The thing gave her visions: she saw herself living in a beautiful home, walking through a vibrant garden, speaking at glitzy benefits for cancer research, a picture of Rebecca propped beside her on the podium. And then the kicker: Rebecca brought back to life, laughing in Ms. Hayes’ arms.

Ms. Hayes fell to her knees before the empty pit. How? She croaked. How, how, how?

The tiniest smile formed on the thing’s lips, and it told Ms. Hayes what she had to do: one camper at every summer’s end; a new grave to keep the pit aflame until next year. Upon the tenth sacrifice, Rebecca would be returned.

There in Ms. Hayes’ office, I struggled to find the words. I was overwhelmed with gratitude, with joy. Ms. Hayes trusted me on the deepest level. She knew me. She was the first person to ever know me. Our connection was permanent now, sealed by the sharing of this secret.

“How many to go until Rebecca?” I asked.

“Two,” Ms. Hayes said. Tears formed in her eyes.  

I nodded, meeting her emotion from my own angle. “How exciting.”

The Second Stranger   

Every year, the marked camper would awaken on the last day of summer with a cut across their cheek. It was how the thing showed Ms. Hayes the one it wanted. This time, it was Brian. I observed him as he touched his cheek throughout the day, shrugging to his friends. Weird shit, he kept muttering.

The central advantage of my participation was that a counselor could easily be imagined as the facilitator of a surprise event. Being the camp director carried more administrative connotations, and it had always been a challenge for Ms. Hayes to guide the marked ones to the pit herself. But my inclusion made it simple — it was just me, Adam, the counselor you’ve seen around all summer, taking you to another camp activity. Simple.

I told Brian that the camp had arranged a surprise for him. I told him his name had been picked from a hat, that this event was held for the chosen camper at the end of every summer (not strictly fabricated!).

I led Brian into the woods and up the hill to the small clearing by the pit, where Ms. Hayes was waiting with her machete. She did it quickly, causing little pain. Brian fell to the ground and the pit went ablaze with a radiant, smokeless fire that glowed crimson in the dying light of dusk. I spotted a tall figure standing back within the woods, its head like a flattened crater. Ms. Hayes told me not to look at it.

We carried Brian to the pit and threw him in. Once the body entered the fire, Ms. Hayes explained, the identity attached to it was expunged from existence, erased from collective memory. Nobody would know Brian ever was. Nobody except us. 

“You can call me Ayla, you know,” Ms. Hayes said. 

I beamed. “Okay.” 

We both felt something powerful, I think, on the way back to camp. I suspected that Ayla was likely experiencing the same phenomenon as I was: the overwhelming relief of having someone who knows all of you. It was a spiritual exhale, a release of the most complete kind.

We had been walking in electric silence when Ayla took my arm and brought me in close to her. We kissed for a while and then she took off my shirt and pulled down my pants. I went to get them off from around my ankles, but she asked me to keep them on. I preferred to remove my clothing entirely during any sexual activity; it felt vulgar and un-erotic not to. But Ayla seemed to like it this way, and her liking it transformed it, made it wholly new. 

The off-season floated by in a not-unpleasant sort of haze, the kind of tunnel one can manage traveling through, given that the most wonderful light The off-season floated by in a not-unpleasant sort of haze, the kind of tunnel one can manage traveling through, given that the most wonderful light was waiting at the end. I went back to my job at the supermarket, where I acted friendlier than I ever had before, smiling at customers and actually meaning it. My sister visited near the holidays and expressed unease at my apparent peace of mind; didn’t I want more? Wasn’t I sad and wayward, living alone in my poorly-lit shoebox apartment, working a lowly job while others my age were well on their way to all the signposts of personal and professional success? I humored her, brushed her words off like lint. I think some people feel so beyond hope of happiness, they need to crush the idea of its existence in anyone else’s life. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with you. It’s just an emotional reflex, their heart kicking in response to joy as if it was a leg tapped just below the kneecap.

I spent my nights thinking about Ayla, wondering what she was doing, imagining her with me. I resisted the temptation to get in touch with her; I presumed myself to be part and parcel with a highly specific aspect of her life, one that could not be allowed to bleed over, not even by a drop. For the time, just knowing that we shared a psychic space — that there was somewhere we could both go in our heads, just the two of us — was enough.

Next summer, the first day of camp was sun-soaked and idyllic. I stood by the lake and listened to the sounds of car doors opening and closing, friends reuniting, laughter and shouting set against the ever-present buzz of mosquitos. Ayla was greeting parents, welcoming campers. She hadn’t said hello to me yet, hadn’t even looked at me. Why hadn’t she looked at me?

I went to Ayla’s cabin several times throughout the first couple weeks of camp, trying to go at night when it was unlikely that anyone else would be there. But my knocking went unanswered, the door always locked. Soon I started seeing Ayla get into her car at the end of every day and drive out of camp for the night instead of staying in her cabin. What was going on?

The summer went on like this, as if I was just another counselor. I held scavenger hunts for the campers in my group. I showed them how to roast marshmallows and taught them camp songs. I had a nice singing voice, everyone always said; a clear, noble, round voice, one that gave you courage, one you’d follow into a dangerous place.

One of the new counselors, Amy, had begun sitting near me during meals, talking to me at staff campfires, trying to get our groups together for shared activities. She was nice and I didn’t mind, but her attention puzzled me, as my mood was such that I couldn’t have been presenting my best self. One night I was lying sleepless in bed when there was a rapping on the window nearest my bunk. Amy’s face shone above a flashlight on the other side of the glass, eyes wide with faux menace. I went over and lifted the pane.

“Have you come to kill me?” I whispered.

Amy smiled. “Actually yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks for being honest.”

“It’s no problem. I’m just glad we can be open about it because I was worried it was gonna be a whole thing.”

“For sure,” I said. “So like, now?”

“Hmm.” Amy paused. “Do you want to take a walk first?”

Outside, the night air was cool and gentle, the water rippling against the shore intermittently. Across the lake, a scattering of lights shone few and far between. I imagined wealthy recluses reading in sterile living rooms beside walls of glass, their homes like tombs posing as sanctuaries, full of untouched items and rooms never entered.

Amy lit a cigarette. “Don’t tell the kids.” 

“Sure.” I smiled.

We stood in silence beside the water. Amy’s cigarette threw a small amber glow over her face; freckled and brown-eyed, framed by a dirty blonde bob-cut.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked.

“Lonely people,” I said.

“Hmm.” Amy blew a cloud of smoke that drifted out over the lake. “Are you one of them?”

I paused. “Not right now,” I said, and when I said it, it became true. Amy gave me a brief kiss, like poking a dormant animal to see if it’s alive. I leaned in and we made out for a minute, then suddenly I felt overcome with a sense of loss, like a loss of something I never had, but maybe could have had, and I started to cry.

“Was it that bad?” Amy laughed awkwardly. 

“I’m sorry.” I stepped back and wiped my eyes with my sleeve. 

Amy shook her head, confused. “It’s fine, Adam. Are you okay?”

I looked out at the water. I imagined Amy floating on the surface, dead, her skin translucent. I tried to feel sad about the image, tried to summon relief that it wasn’t real, that Amy was right here with me, alive. I tried to care. I wanted to care.  

But I didn’t, not really. I had only to swallow the idea of Amy’s death, and it fell like a rock into a deep pit inside me, hitting the bottom and rolling just a foot or two before coming to rest, sitting there and accumulating dust for eternity, never to be thought of again. So how could I ask Amy to care about me? Her affection would be like a mirror held up to all the humanness I should have had, but didn’t. There was only one person who could understand.

“We should get back,” I said.        

The next two months passed uneventfully. I stopped going to Ayla’s cabin. I saw her only during staff meetings and camp announcements, when everyone would gather outside the cafeteria and she would talk about things like sign-up sheets and Parents’ Day. It wasn’t until the evening prior to summer’s end, after awarding ribbons to the winners of the canoe race, when Ayla looked over her shoulder at me on the way back to her office. I could almost hear her voice in my head: follow me.

Within moments of being alone with Ayla, the wound of her neglect melted into a deep sense of renewal, of love. She hugged me, apologized for ignoring me.

“I couldn’t risk any complications,” she said. “Not this summer.”

Of course, I understood now. This summer would be the tenth sacrifice; this summer would be Rebecca, back to life. Nothing could be left to chance, no hair out of place, the entire summer like one held breath — until the exhale of Rebecca’s return. And then?

“What about after?” I asked. 

“After?”

“What about us?” Saying the word us out loud and meaning it put a lump in my throat.

Ayla paused, then leaned in and began kissing my neck. “We’ll work something out,” she muttered. “Maybe once every other month, something like that.” She kissed up my chin, onto my lips. “I can get a sitter.” She smiled. “Say I’m getting coffee with a friend.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath, placed back in the home I’d been severed from. “Okay.”

The Third Stranger   

The next morning, I awoke with a stinging pain on my cheek. I took my mirror out and saw a cut, just like Brian’s, streaked across my face. Was it a mistake? I was a counselor, not a camper, but maybe the thing didn’t care. Maybe Ayla knew this and hadn’t told me, or maybe this was a break in the pattern. None of it made any difference. I’d been marked. That was all there was to it. I made no plans to escape, to cover the cut before slashing the cheek of an unsuspecting camper. Either action would mean no Rebecca, which would mean no solace for Ayla, who had given me something I never thought I’d have.

Ayla caught sight of me during her morning announcements and stopped in disbelief, stammering through the rest. I nodded to her. I wanted her to hear my voice in her head: I won’t run.  

Everything had been planned just like last time. I was supposed to meet Ayla at the pit near dusk. I was supposed to bring the marked one. Easy.

I gave goodbye cards to the campers in my group. They painted t-shirts for each other and made friendship bracelets. They raced in potato sacks. Ayla kept me in sight the whole day, standing at a distance, glancing at me every now and then, making sure. I felt a lightness inside me. The ground became softer. In the moments I wanted to flee, I would think of Ayla and the peace that I was now directly capable of giving her. I knew how hard peace was to come by for people like us. 

Dusk approached. Amy stopped me as I made my way into the woods. She hadn’t spoken to me as much after the night at the lake, but she wanted to say goodbye. 

“Just in case you want to stay in touch,” she said, passing me a note with her number on it. 

“Thanks,” I said.

“What happened to your face?”

I spotted Ayla watching from just within the woods. She had an unblinking, dead-eyed look, as if she had shed all the parts of herself that were unneeded for the next 15 minutes.

“I must have cut it accidentally,” I said, continuing on my way.

“Where you going?” Amy called. 

“Just on a walk,” I shouted, wincing at the sound of footsteps behind me.

“Mind if I come?” Amy said. “I could use one last nature stroll.”

A rustling sound came from nearby. Ayla was hiding somewhere, but I knew she was close. I knew what would happen if Amy kept following me. 

I looked Amy in the eye. “Go away,” I said calmly. “Leave me alone.”

Amy shook her head in surprise. “Um, okay.” She sighed. “Have a good year.” She turned and walked back to camp. 

I held my breath until Amy was out of sight. The relief I felt when she was gone confused me. Did I care? It didn’t matter now. Nothing about who I was or had been mattered now. Soon it would be like I never existed.

I made my way into the woods and Ayla appeared from behind a fallen tree, machete by her side. She ushered me forward, somber but resigned, like a farmer taking a wounded animal behind the barn. I closed my eyes and tried to move outside of myself, to get out of my body and observe at a distance. This way I could simply watch as Ayla cut my throat, as I was thrown into the pit. I could look at myself and see a stranger.