Dark Mountain by Richard Laymon

crunch of footsteps behind him. Scott stood on a rock to his left. “You okay?”
    “Shit.”
    “What was it, the sweats?”
    “Yeah. Happens now and again. Shit, you’d think fifteen goddamn years’d be enough to get over it. The damn thing’s fucked up my whole life.”
    Scott tossed a pebble into the water. It made a soft
plip
. “I guess none of us got out of it unscathed. I have plenty of bad times myself, and I wasn’t even shot down.”
    “God, I used to love to fly.”
    “You were one of the best.”
    “I’d probably be a captain, now, like you, if…You know what really gets me? It’s all in my head. All in my fucked-up head, and there’s not a thing I can do about it. Like there’s some damn stranger inside here.” He tapped his fingertips against his temple. “Just hiding in here, scared shitless, and every once in a while he has to pop up and let me know he’s still at the controls.” Flash forced a smile. “Could’ve been worse. I’d been a grunt, I might be scared to walk.”
    Scott smiled. “Always a bright side.”
    They stood up, and turned away from the shining lake. As they walked back toward the others, Flash saw Nick and Julie coming up the trail. “Dig him up?” he called out.
    “Sure did,” Nick said.
    “Boy, was he a mess!” Julie added.
    Flash sat down on the log and watched the two approaching. Nick’s hand was out, closed as if he were holding something.
    “He was all dismembered,” Nick said.
    “What?” Karen asked, looking stunned.
    “All cut up in little pieces.”
    “That’s not amusing,” Alice said.
    Nick and Julie smiled as if it were. Nick stepped in front of the twins, who were resting against their packs with their legs outstretched. “I brought you girls a souvenir,” he said. “One of Digby’s fingers.”
    “Nick!” Alice snapped.
    “Catch, Rose.” He made an underhand toss. His sister shrieked as a finger-sized object fell on her lap. Julie cracked up.
    “
Nick
!”
    “You creep!” Rose yelled, and hurled the stub of wood back at him.
    Heather started to laugh. Everyone laughed except Rose and Alice. “Really juvenile,” Alice said, scowling.
    “So,” Flash said, “what did you really find?”
    “Nothing,” Nick told him. “We decided to leave the thing alone.”
    “Poor Digby’s been through enough,” Julie explained.
    “You didn’t find out what’s buried there?”
    “I guess we’ll never know,” Nick said.
    Julie nodded. “One of life’s unsolved mysteries.”
    Flash looked at Scott and shook his head. “Our kids, I’m afraid, are a couple of chickens.”
    Scott grinned at him. “As my pappy used to say, ‘Better a chicken than a ghoul.’”

C HAPTER T WELVE
    “Must we?” Alice complained. “Why don’t we play cards instead? Do you play bridge, Karen?”
    “Not very well, I’m afraid.”
    “I want a story,” Rose protested.
    “Me, too,” said Heather.
    “You girls were frightened out of your wits last night.”
    “It was
neat
.”
    “Too windy for cards,” Arnold said. He broke a dead branch over his knee, and placed both pieces on the fire. “I’m for a story.”
    Alice sighed. She didn’t want to be a stick in the mud. On the other hand, she certainly didn’t want a repeat of last night’s shenanigans. The story itself hadn’t bothered her. Not much anyway. But her idea of fun did not include being startled from a half sleep by the hysterical screams of her daughters. “It’s all right with me,” she said. She stared across the blazing fire at Nick. “No funny stuff to night. Promise?”
    “Cross my heart,” he said.
    “Who’s got a story?” Scott asked.
    “A real scary one,” Benny added.
    “Karen?” Arnold asked.
    “Someone else’s turn. I did my damage.”
    At least she had the good sense to realize she’d caused all the trouble.
    Scott leaned toward the fire, grinning. “There is, of course, the true story of Digby Bolles.”
    “Oh, Dad.” Julie smirked at