What The Heart Desires

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Damn that candle and damn my curiosity. I should never have even seen the devilish thing. I wish to God I hadn’t.

If I had just been in bed in the men’s dormitory where I should have been, maybe I could have avoided the events that took place that night. If I had just not seen that candle, maybe I’d be more normal today. But I’m not normal, at least not anymore. Normal people don’t refuse to leave the house after dinner for fear that they may be caught outside after dark. Normal people have no problem sleeping with the lights off. Normal people don’t have to meticulously make their beds so that they can clearly see what’s underneath without having to get on their hands and knees to look. If I had a quarter for every time someone has told me it's all in my head, that I’m just being paranoid… Well, you get the picture. But if you had seen what I saw that night, you’d have trouble sleeping too.

The year was 2001. I was working as head lifeguard at a large church camp in rural Missouri. I won’t say the name of that camp (another thing normal people don’t have any trouble with), but when I say rural, I don’t mean just outside of town. This camp was at least fifty miles from anything resembling a city. The closest thing to civilization was a little pit stop twenty minutes down the road in a little unincorporated mudhole called Grant Hollow, population twenty-three and one old coon dog. You may think a camp like that out in the middle of nowhere would be pretty dull, but you’d be wrong. It was the seclusion that gave it its charm.

I spent some of the best summers of my life at that camp. First as a camper, which was great, then as staff, which was infinitely better. From the beginning of June through the end of July, every week was pretty much the same. Campers would arrive on Friday, spend five nights and six days learning about Jesus, and doing all the things you might expect at a church camp. Swimming, fishing, crafts, hiking— we even had a ropes course for the more adventurous kids. As far as I was concerned, I had the best gig of all the staff. For three hours a day, I would sit by the pool under an oversized umbrella, with a whistle in my mouth and a big red rescue tube on my lap, ogling the other two lifeguards with eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

Every hour I would give the lifeguards a break. I’d blow my whistle and tell the kids to sit on the sides of the pool while the other lifeguards and I would jump in to cool off. That was my favorite part of the job. Seeing Rachel let her hair down before diving in and coming up dripping. I had the hots for her and everyone knew it, including Rachel. I didn’t care. She enjoyed playing hard to get and I enjoyed the chase. I was the cat and she was the mouse and someday I would have her right where I wanted her. Until then, I would just enjoy the game.

I was always first out of the pool when the break was over –not because I was trying to set a good example as the lead lifeguard, mind you, but because I wanted to make sure I was already in my seat with my shades on when Rachel pulled herself out of the pool directly across from me – water rolling down her shoulders and over her perfect body. I would have to consciously hold my mouth shut so as not to let my jaw drop when she would bend over to slide her shorts back over her skintight, red lifeguard’s one piece. There was a reason I kept the rescue tube on my lap.

The campers would all be gone by Wednesday afternoon and that was when the real fun would begin. No campers meant no responsibilities. The entire staff would rush to reset for the next camp. The kitchen staff would restock and make sure everything was clean and in its place. The counselors would clean their cabins and launder the sheets and blankets. My pool staff had it easy. All we had to do was sweep and power wash the deck, vacuum the pool and bleach the locker rooms. I had the additional responsibility of making sure the P.H. was perfect, but that was something I did every morning anyway.

By the time the sun was going down, the camp director would have us all meet up at what we called the council ring. It was halfway up a steep hillside path everyone referred to as “cardiac hill”. The hill was only a little less than a third of a mile, but it was dangerously steep. At nineteen years old, I was in the best shape of my life, but even so, climbing up that damn path still had me breathing hard. The council ring was really just a big fire pit surrounded by three rows of bleachers made of split and sanded logs secured to stumps. We’d gather and debrief. The director would go over any housekeeping, make us sing some songs and share a devotional thought with us before setting us loose for the next twenty-four hours. It was during one such break that my life changed forever.

That summer was brutally hot. Missouri summers are hot anyway – it was not uncommon to have entire weeks where the temperature never dropped below 90 degrees, even at night. But that summer was especially hellish. Not only was it hotter than Satan’s scrotum, but the humidity never dropped below 95 percent. I would walk outside at 6:00 every morning and I would be sweating before the door even shut behind me. By the time I walked to the pool, which was a downhill walk of maybe a quarter of a mile, my shirt would be plastered to my back and chest.

It was a hot summer, but not that night. A rare cold front moved through the area that morning. I almost felt bad for the kids having to drag their luggage through torrential rainfall from their cabins to the pavilion where the busses would pick them up. By midafternoon the rain had stopped, but the cool weather remained. It had been 116 with the heat index on Tuesday. By the time we all gathered at the council ring, the temperature had dropped into the low eighties and the humidity was almost completely gone.

“One more thing before I cut y’all loose for the night,” David said. He was the camp director that summer. A bit of a prude as far as I was concerned, but not bad as far as bosses go. He was in his mid-fifties from what I could tell, which was ancient to my teenage brain. He took off his glasses, tucked them into his shirt pocket and pursed his lips thoughtfully as if he was thinking about the best way to say what he was going to tell us. “I Just wanted to remind y’all that the far end of the old airfield is off limits.”

There were audible groans from several of the staff. “Now just hold on,” David said and pressed the air in front of him. “I know some of y’all like to explore up there and that’s just fine. Not a better place to see the stars than up on that air strip, but I also know that there’s a cabin a ways back there in the woods past the airfield, and that some of you,” he looked directly at Demetrius and Holly when he said this, “like to sneak up there at night.”

Demetrius had been standing with his arm around Holly, but when David stared them down, he sheepishly let his arm drop to his side. “Number one, this here is a Christian camp and I expect y’all to behave accordingly. Number two,” he said and paused for a moment as if he were selecting his words very carefully. “Number two, that cabin ain’t on our property, you hear? That property belongs to Mr. Higgins who owns the farm a few miles down. He called me the other night to let me know he found some empty pop cans up there and some other trash. He asked me to make sure y’all know that if you go up there, you’d be trespassin’.”

“Yo, you seriously think he’d have us arrested for hanging out at a dump like that?” Michael said. Michael was a short, skinny black kid from East Saint Louis who used to brag to us about making daring escapes from the cops. Most of it was bullshit and we all knew it, but I’ll never forget the day I bet him ten dollars he couldn’t jump the six-foot fence around the pool without using his hands. He may have been short, but man could he jump. He took a running start, jumped higher than I thought possible, touched the top of the fence with the bottom of his feet and dropped down. Best ten dollars I ever spent.

“Arrested? Nah, probably not,” David said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised that if he catches you, you might end up spending the next few days pulling rock salt out of your backside.”

“Rock salt?”

“My goodness, you are a city boy ain’t ya, Mikey?”

I elbowed Michael in the ribs. “Don’t ask,” I whispered.

“Now, unless there’s anything else, y’all are free to go until this time tomorrow.” David said, “Just don’t do anything Jesus wouldn’t do, ya hear?”

That was the last time I would ever see David.

~

The rest of the evening was amazing. I opened up the pool for whoever wanted to take a dip. I was close to winning Rachel over—I could feel it—and that late night swim was just the thing to spark a little romance. My plan worked. It took two solid hours of flirting in the pool, but before we split up to go back to our separate dormitories, Rachel surprised me by taking my face in her hands and planting a short kiss on my lips. I was in heaven. I had been working toward that moment for the last two summers and it did not disappoint.

The kiss didn’t last for more than a second and yet, in my mind, that one second stretched on for what seemed like hours. She released my face, bit playfully on her lower lip, turned and jogged to catch up with the other girls without ever looking back. It was no wonder I had such a hard time getting to sleep that night. I guess in some small way, that quick kiss sealed my fate.

I laid in bed for a solid two hours after everyone else was already asleep. My mind was racing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel. The warmth of her hands on my cheeks, the softness of her lips on mine, the sweet taste of the strawberry lip balm she must have just applied moments before. Every time I closed my eyes all I could see was her giving me that seductive smile, her perfect white teeth pressing into her bottom lip as she turned away. I was hot, and not in the sweaty sense. What red blooded American teenager wouldn’t be?

I got out of bed as quietly as I could, slipped on a sleeveless t-shirt and basketball shorts, and did my best impression of a shadow as I silently made my way outside. I really wanted to see Rachel again, but I knew there was just no way to pull it off. I didn’t even know what window was closest to her bed in the women’s dormitory. Even if I did, trying to wake her up would doubtless wake whoever else was in the room as well. I would just have to wait until morning. In the meantime, there was nothing like a long walk in the cool of the night to clear my mind.

Flashlight in hand, I made my way up cardiac hill and into the clearing that had been an air strip many years ago. It was no longer used as such, but David always kept it mowed so that campers could go up there at night to see the stars. I’d been up there many times, but never on a night like that. The air was completely still. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of a breeze and the calm almost didn’t seem natural. Every other time I had been up there, even on clear nights, you could hear all the sounds of nature. The leaves rustling in the gentle wind, crickets and grasshoppers playing their nightly concerto with tree frogs chirping along dissonantly. There was no such song that night. No breeze. No sound. Just the big open sky, a tapestry of stars shining like gems in the cosmos and a moon so full and bright you’d think you could reach out and touch it.

That should have been my first warning sign, but I was so lost in the euphoria of puppy love that I barely noticed at all in the moment. I walked, lost in a daydream, imagining what it would be like to have Rachel there beside me. I fantasized about making out with her, wondered if her lips would taste as sweet the second time, if her skin would feel as soft and warm, what it would feel like to have her body pressed close to my own.

I don’t know how long it took me to wander up to the far edge of the air strip. I only remember looking up and seeing a faint light in the distance. It was like a bucket of cold water being dumped over my head. I froze mid-step, my heart racing in my chest. Who would be up here at this time of night? I glanced down at my watch. Three o’clock in the morning. I considered going back right then, and oh, how I wish I had. But of course, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was just too curious.

The night was so clear, and the moon so luminous, that I had turned off my flashlight some time ago. My eyes were completely adjusted to the dark. That changed the moment I stepped out of the clearing into the cover of the tall pin oaks. The abundant ambient light of the open field vanished, and I found myself in nearly pitch-black darkness. Pitch-black, except for the faint light a hundred yards or so in the distance.

I retrieved the flashlight from my pocket and used it to search the ground for a path. I wasn’t very familiar with these woods. I had only been up to the old, abandoned cabin once or twice, but I did remember there was a defined stone path. I swept my flashlight from left to right. Nothing but the decomposing remnants of fallen leaves and dried out twigs from the mighty oaks surrounding me. Right to left. Leaves, twigs, a few stones and finally the old path, but that wasn’t all I saw. Just as I was turning to walk toward the path, I saw movement from the outer edge of the beam. I froze in place, goosebumps raising up over every inch of my body. My heart was beating so hard in my chest that not only could I feel it thumping in my throat, but when I stopped to listen, I could hear it pounding away as well.

I stood motionless, hoping to hear movement. I thought it would be impossible for anything to move over the detritus on the forest floor without making some sort of sound, but I was wrong. I stood there for what seemed like forever. Eventually I began to calm down enough to think. It was just a squirrel or something, right? Maybe a racoon or opossum? Yeah, that had to be it. What else could it be? I probably scared it more than it scared me, and it ran up a tree or something. I took a deep, stuttering sigh and laughed quietly at myself. I was glad Rachel wasn’t there to see me freak out.

I hadn’t taken more than a few steps before I heard something that brought the panic racing back into my mind—a deep, guttural growl rumbling from somewhere behind me. I ran. My fight or flight instinct kicked in immediately and fighting wasn’t an option. Whatever was out here was bigger and faster than me and no doubt it could see better in the dark. I was only a few steps from the path which meant the cabin couldn’t be more than two or three hundred feet away. I ran. Not caring that the dim light I had seen from the air strip was really a candle in the window of the old cabin. I ran for my life.

I tried to keep the flashlight on the path, but when you’re sprinting as fast as your legs will carry you, its hard to keep the beam steady. It was so dark I nearly missed the dilapidated wooden steps leading up to the door of the cabin. There were only three of them, but my stride was off just enough that I completely missed the first step, caught the second with my shin and went sprawling headfirst across the small deck. I must have instinctively let go of the flashlight to break my fall, because all I could see was the beam of light rolling in a circle and finally coming to rest improbably, pointing at the front door.

I scrambled to my feet and lunged for the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. Of course, it wouldn’t turn, it was locked and had been as long as I could remember. The only way in was through a window around back that had been broken out ages ago. A large stump provided just enough height to make it possible to pull yourself through. There was no way I could make it to that window. It was too far away. I reached for the flashlight, pressed my back against the door and aimed the beam at the stairs. That’s when I saw it. It was prowling silently back and forth and daring me to move. A huge black cat, bigger than any I’d ever seen. It was hunched down in an aggressive stance but even so it must have been nearly four feet tall at the withers and probably twice that from nose to tail.

“Get! Away!” I shouted, but it was pointless. My shouting only seemed to play into its prey instinct. I had to find a way to escape. I glanced left. There was only the broken railing to the patio and beyond that, darkness. I glanced right and I felt a tiny bit of hope. There was a candle in the window. A candle. That meant someone else was already here. The door was locked from the outside but maybe whoever was in there could open it from within. “Help!” I shouted as loud as I could, but I was so terrified, all I could muster from my semi-paralyzed vocal chords was a throaty whisper. I tried again, but my voice wouldn’t obey so I did the only thing I could think to do. Fighting every instinct I had, I turned my back to the beast in front of me and started banging on the door with both fists. I was sure the creature was already up the steps and probably only seconds away from dragging me to the ground, but it was my only option. If there was no one in there, I was dead anyway.

To my surprise, I heard the doorknob rattle for a moment and then turn loudly. I was putting so much of my weight on the door that the moment the latch released, the door flew inward, and I fell through the opening into the glow of the candlelight. I scrambled to my feet and slammed the door behind me hoping that my weight would be enough to keep it closed when the giant feline inevitably tried to claw its way in. I closed my eyes, bracing myself, but the blow never came. I took a deep breath and sunk to my seat.

“How kind of you to join me. Jeremy, isn’t it?” The voice was deep and velvety smooth. The voice of a basso profundo—rich, melodic, terrifying, and dripping with posh British charm.

My eyes snapped open and I found myself not in a run down old shack in the woods, but in an elegant reading den. Fire crackled on an immense stone hearth. There was an animal skin of some kind, probably a bear judging by the size, stretched out on the floor in front of it with a high-backed reading chair to either side facing the fire. It was from the chair on the left that the voice had come. “Please, Jeremy, do have a seat. There’s no need to fear. That pesky cat can’t get to you in here.”

“Who are you?” I said when I finally managed to find my voice. I still couldn’t find the courage to get up and I had no intention of sitting next to whoever was in that chair.

“Who I am isn’t important just now, Jeremy.” The voice said. “What is important is that I’ve been waiting for quite some time for a bit of company. Please, do have a seat. I won’t bite, I promise.”

It took all the courage I possessed but what choice did I have? It was either sit with whomever was in the seat in front of me or take my chances with the monstrosity outside. “How is this possible?” I asked.

“Dear boy, whatever do you mean?”

“This isn’t the old cabin I remember.”

“That old thing? Of course not. Do you really think I would deign to wait in such squaller?”

“How should I know?” I said. That made him laugh.

“Come, sit. All will be explained.”

I slowly got up from the floor, hesitantly made my way to the chair on the right and sat down but I couldn’t bring myself to look over at whoever was in the other chair.

“There now, isn’t that better?” the voice said, and I had to admit that it was. The chair was soft and seemed to support my weight in all the right places to make me relax. I closed my eyes, partly so I wouldn’t have to look at him and partly because the chair felt so very nice. We sat in silence for a moment before he continued. “It has been such a very long time since I’ve had any company.”

“I find that hard to believe.” I said.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“People sneak up here all the time. Hell, a couple of my friends just got in trouble because they had been coming up here to make out.”

The dark voice only chuckled softly. “I see. But did they come on a full moon at precisely this time of night?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“They did not, I can assure you.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Who are you? What are you?”

“Names, my dear boy, are powerful things and I’m not one to give mine out so easily. For the moment you may call me William. As for what I am, well, I doubt you’d believe me even if I told you, which I will not. It’s not important anyway. What is important is that you are here.”

We sat in silence for a moment before he continued. “Tell me, Jeremy, what is it you desire?”

“No offense, but right now I’d really like to wake up in my bed and find out this is all some elaborate nightmare.”

“Tisk, tisk, Jeremy. Come now, I am offering to grant you a single wish.”

“Like a Genie or something? Is that what you are?”

“No, my dear boy, I am not a Genie. As I said before, what I am is of no consequence to you. Now, let’s try this again, shall we? It will be the last time I make such an offer. You should consider yourself exceedingly fortunate to have met someone so benevolent as myself. Tell me, Jeremy, what is your heart’s desire? Name it and it will be yours.”

My mind immediately jumped to Rachel. “Don’t be a fool, boy!” the voice said. “You already have her, or are you too dimwitted to understand that?”

“Fine,” I blurted out, “Money. I want money. Lots of it. Enough to buy whatever I want for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, how disappointing,” the voice said sorrowfully. “I really had hoped you would be different, Jeremy. I thought I had seen something special in you. I see now that I was quite mistaken. However, a promise is a promise. When you return to your pitiful life, wealth will find you and you will want for nothing that money can buy.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Oh, but I am. Now. I’ve done something for you, it’s time to pay up.”

Ice water flushed through my veins, and I felt a dark chill wash over me. “What do you mean pay up?”

“Well, you didn’t think that wish would be free, did you?”

“You didn’t say anything about requiring payment.”

“I didn’t? Well. It must have slipped my mind.”

“You can keep your wealth. I don’t have anything to give you.”

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid. What’s done is done and it cannot be undone. Besides, what I desire from you is so small, a trifle really.”

“Go on,” I said, curiosity overcoming my better judgement.

“One soul. One life, that’s all.”

“I thought you said it was a trifle. What good is all that wealth if I have to give you my soul?”

“Oh, not your soul. No, that would be far too costly, wouldn’t it?”

“Then whose?”

“Well, that’s for you to decide isn’t it,” the voice said, and before I could turn away the dark figure in the chair next to me rose and turned to face me. I couldn’t make out his face. It was covered in a veil of shadow cast by the bright fire behind him. “Take this,” he said and extended his hands, palms upward. There in one palm was an ornate, jeweled feather pen and in the other, a bottle of gold ink resting on a single square of paper. “You make the choice,” the dark one said. “Whoever you name, their soul shall belong to me.”

“That’s it? Just write down a name and we are square?”

“Indeed, dear boy. Indeed.”

I didn’t know what to think. Surely this couldn’t be happening. It was all a dream; it had to be. I felt foolish for not realizing it sooner. It was the only explanation. I had fallen asleep on my bunk, and this was all just a dream. What did it matter what name I wrote down? I took the pen and paper from his hands and wrote the first name that came to mind. David.

“Oooh! Good choice, Jeremy! Very good choice indeed,” the man said gleefully.

“So, we’re good then?”

“A promise is a promise. One last thing before our business is concluded. Should you ever get the notion to tell anyone about what happened here tonight, should you ever think about telling anyone about me or how you came to discover this place, it will be your soul I come for next.”

And just like that, it was over. The fire went out in a puff of smoke and the dark man stepped back into it, vanishing like a shadow into the darkness. I blinked and found myself back in my bunk covered in cold sweat. The first light of dawn was just starting to filter through the window, and I breathed a sigh of relief. It had all been a dream. I laughed out loud. I didn’t care if it woke anyone else, the elation I felt in that moment was overwhelming. It was all a dream, Rachel had kissed me, I would see her at breakfast, and all was right with the world. Except it wasn’t.

At breakfast we learned that David, only fifty-six years old and in good health had died suddenly. I would later find out that it was a brain aneurysm that did him in, but I knew better. I knew right when they told me. It wasn’t a brain aneurysm that killed him—it was me, writing his name in gold ink on ornate paper with a jeweled, feather pen. I called my mom to tell her what happened later that day and she had exciting news for me. It turned out Dad had won the Missouri Lottery to the tune of 250 million dollars. Mom and Dad died two weeks later in a car crash leaving me, the only child, wealthier than I could have ever imagined. Wealthy, but miserable and depressed and lonely.

I’m taking a real risk writing all this down. The dark man said if I ever discussed it with anyone, he would take my soul and I’m inclined to believe him. But this isn’t really talking about it, is it? I just had to get it off my chest after all these years. Unfortunately, that means that if you’re reading this right now, I’m probably not long for this world. Don’t feel bad for me though. You’re doing me a favor. It’s what I deserve.