By eleven o'clock, Mrs. Kleinburg had packed us off to bed. We slept in Sam's room, as usual, me on the floor in my sleeping back and Sam a foot-and-a-half above me in her bed.

Sam's room was a hodge-podge of the person she was and the person her mother thought she should be. The walls were painted a rosy-pink with white baseboards and crown molding. The bed was a four-poster that would have made any princess green with envy. It had a white canopy and pink comforter. There was a white vanity, with a tiny white stool set in front of the oval mirror where Sam could apply her makeup. (Not that I had ever seen Sam wear makeup.)

In contrast to this was a huge chest-of-drawers, set against the far wall, which was dark mahogany and had belonged to her father before the divorce. Atop this monstrosity were Sam's many trophies... baseball, hockey, soccer, and her prized Taekwondo medal. The floor was covered with athletic gear including, to my amazement, a Jockstrap. Two baseball bats leaned in the corner and a signed hockey stick was mounted to the wall over her bed. The other walls were covered in rock'n'roll posters featuring such bands as her beloved AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and Van Halen.

Mrs. Kleinburg wished us a good night and turned out the light after blowing Sam a kiss and ruffling my hair. Everyone ruffled my hair for some reason, but I liked when she did it.

Laying there in the dark I wondered if Sam had decided to go to sleep and forget about the séance. We hadn't spoken about it since the big blow up. The room was quiet and I could hear her steady breathing. Maybe she had already gone to sleep. I closed my eyes.

"Wake up!" Sam was leaning over the edge of her bed shaking me and I realized I had drifted off.

"Wha—," I mumbled.

"Wake up, Brownie," Sam whispered her face inches from my own. "We gotta go!"

Her breath was warm on my face and her mouth was so close to mine that I had the sudden, insane urge to kiss her then but before I could move she jumped up and began to dress.

I watched in amazement as she pulled her nighty (pink and obviously not her choice) over her head revealing blue boxer shorts and a white vest. The tiny bumps on her chest giggled as she hopped on one leg getting into her jeans. Then she put on her t-shirt and looked over at me.

"Come on, Brownie!"

I began to stand up and then crouched low again to hide the tent in my own boxers. Erections were the newest embarrassment in my life, always seeming to appear at the most inopportune moments. Just before the end of school I had been called in front of the class to work a math problem out on the chalkboard and found I had a raging hard-on for no good reason at all. I was entirely fed up with carrying books in front of my crotch in the hallway, although I noticed many other boys in my grade doing the same thing.

Under Sam's watchful eye, I shuffled around on the floor like a demented crab, pulled on my own jeans which helped to somewhat camouflage my shame and sat back down to put on my shirt, socks, and shoes.

"Okay," I said standing with a furtive glance at the front of my pants to ensure the bulge wasn't too noticeable. "Let's go."

Sam crept out of her room and down the hallway silently and I followed. My footsteps seem to thunder on the hardwood floor and she gave me a dirty look. She crept over and pointed down at our feet. She was barefoot and I was surprised to see her small nails were painted with bright red nail polish. I looked at her and smiled stupidly not knowing what she expected.

Sam rolled her eyes, got down on her knees and began untying my laces. She pulled off my right shoe and then my left and handed them to me impatiently, then held her finger up to her lips in the 'shush' sign.

She turned and began heading down the hallway silent on her bare feet and this time when I followed there were no loud footfalls. We made our way down the stairs and through the kitchen to the back door and Sam let us out, opening and closing the door with the smallest of clicks and creaks.

It was a warm night and the lawn shimmered with dew. I stopped for a moment to put my shoes back on, wondering what the wet grass must feel like on Sam's bare feet. The forest extended behind her house as it did mine, but unlike my backyard, hers was fully fenced. As she had done a hundred times before, Sam boosted me over the fence and then clambered over herself. The fact that she had to help me was a bit demoralizing but I simply wasn't tall enough to get over on my own.

Once we were on the other side we were in full darkness. Sam's backyard had been lit by the glow of an almost full moon, but here at the edge of the forest, the light was blocked by the mass of branches and leaves overhead as well as the wooden fence. Instinctively I grabbed her hand and Sam gave a little shriek.

"Don't do that, Brownie!" She whisper-screamed, "you scared the fook out of me!"

"Sorry."

We moved through the edge of the forest in silence skirting the trees behind the Andersons house first and then coming out into semi-light behind the DuBois house which was unfenced like my own. We moved further into the forest then, knowing Rene DuBois had installed a motion sensor light last year after his house had been burgled and not wanting to set it off.

Then we were in my own backyard. I looked up and saw my parent's bedroom light was still on. My father would be asleep, but my mother tended to be a bit of a night owl. She was currently re-reading Gone with the Wind for the umpteenth time and was undoubtedly caught up in the exploits of Rhett and Scarlett at that very moment.

Sam was looking at the light in the window dubiously but I gave her a thumbs up and led her over to Luca's little grave.

Sam sat down next to the spot and I reluctantly joined her feeling the dampness of the ground immediately soak through my jeans. She closed her eyes and held out her hand's palm side up. When I didn't do anything she opened her eyes and glared at me.

"Hold my hands, Brownie!" she said impatiently, shaking them for emphasis.

They were cool and a little sweaty but I ignored the feeling and gripped her hands tightly.

"...and close your eyes."

She closed her eyes once more and I followed suit. All around us were the sounds of the forest. Crickets chirped madly and the wind whispered softly through the trees. Somewhere off to our right, there was the sharp crack of a branch breaking and I glanced nervously towards it into the darkness, then snapped my eyes closed again.

Sam started to speak, very softly. Her voice had a sing-song quality as if she was reciting a nursery rhyme.

"Lucaaaah... Lucaaah... Are you here?" She intoned.

I scrunched my eyes tightly closed and waited, not sure what to expect.

"Lucaaaah... if you are here please let us know by making a sound."

My senses seemed to have expanded and I could hear every noise in the forest. Squirrels scampered above us in the branches, frogs burped and croaked, and birds chirped and hooted, but there was no sound from my little Luca.

"Please, Lucaaah... let us know if you are here." Sam repeated in that strangely eerie tone.

For a moment nothing happened and then the forest went completely silent. The crickets, birds, squirrels and all of the other creatures seemed to be holding their breath in anticipation and I found that I was holding mine as well.

The silence went on and on until I wanted to scream and then suddenly there was a blast of light behind my eyelids as if someone had taken a flash picture. Sam jerked away from me with a start and our hands came apart.

She screamed and my eyes flew open expecting to see someone dragging her off, but instead, she was still sitting on the ground a foot away from me staring into the forest. I followed her gaze and saw lights flashing far off towards the centre of the woods. They looked like strobe lights and the brilliant flashes hurt my eyes, forcing me to squint. There was movement in the lights and for the briefest of moments, I saw him... the average man... the man who had asked if Luca was dead and then spoken with my father. He was running through the forest and then his neck was too long and then he was gone, seeming to disappear right into the strobing lights. There were two more flashes so bright that I had to look away and a thunderous boom that seemed to shake the ground then nothing.

Slowly the sounds returned all around us as the crickets resumed their chorus of chirps and then the rest of the forest menagerie joined them filling the air with what seemed to be a cacophony of noise after the silence of a moment before.

Sam was staring at the place where the lights had been with her hands over her ears. Her whole body was trembling.

"Did you see that?" she asked, her voice hitching.

"Yeah," I said thinking I should say more but unsure. Should I tell her that I had seen the average man the day Luca died? But what if she only meant the strobe lights? What if she hadn't seen the man with the long neck? She would think I was crazy.

"What did you see, Sam? I asked nervously.

She opened her mouth to answer but then the porch light came on and my father was shouting from the open back door.

"Who's back there!" He yelled. He sounded angry and to my surprise, there was also fear underneath that anger. My father was afraid. I had never believed that could happen. He was a grown up and grown ups weren't afraid of anything.

As I watched he took two tentative steps towards us, hitching his bathrobe tighter. He cocked his head to one side and squinted directly at me.

"Joey?" he called.

At the sound of my name, I had the momentary and almost undeniable urge to get up and run. Instead, I sat very still and held my breath.

"Joe, is that you? Get the Hell up here!"

I rose on unsteady legs, unable to stop myself and watched as he began to walk briskly towards us. He grabbed my arm roughly just below the shoulder and shook me painfully.

"What the fuck are you doing out here? Do you have any idea what time it is?" Then he spotted Sam and suddenly let go of me. "... and you, what are you two doing creeping around in the dark?"

"John... what's going on?" came my mother's voice. She was now standing in the back doorway staring at the three of us.

"It's Joe and the girl from down the street!" he called back.

Sam and I were hustled inside and for the next fifteen minutes, my parents read us the riot act. My father paced back and forth in front of us as we sat on hard kitchen chairs staring at the floor.

"You could have been hurt... or gotten lost... or abducted," He lectured. "Do you have any idea what kind of people hang around in that forest at night? Drug addicts... bums... pedophiles... murders..."

"That's enough, John." My mother said quietly, but he ignored her and railed on.

"Just what the Hell were you doing back there anyway? Well? I want an answer."

Sam cleared her throat and answered in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

"It was my idea, Mr. Brown... I thought we should go to Luca's grave and..."

My father cut her off. "That damned dog again?" He rounded on me. "Look, the dog is dead, let the damn thing be!" He thundered.

"John!" My mother cried in horror.

"Well, Goddammit Mary, he's been mooning over that dog for weeks... and now he's dragged the Kleinburg girl into it as well!" He looked down at me, eyes flashing. "Be a MAN for Christsakes!"

I rocked back as if he had slapped me and tears began to roll down my face. To my right, Sam was sobbing quietly.

"John, I think that's enough." My mother implored.

He turned and looked at her in disgust. "It's enough when I say it's enough!" Then he turned back on the two of us. "Joey, I don't want you two in that forest anymore! It's off-limits, do you understand?"

I nodded, looking at my feet and trying to stop the flow of tears.

"Good!" he said with finality.

My mother was shrugging her coat on over her bathrobe and motioning to Sam.

"Come on Sam, I'll walk you home."

Sam rose and began to cross the kitchen, head still down, staying as far away from my father as possible. He looked at her as she passed and his frown deepened.

"Oh, and no more sleepovers, you're both too big for that nonsense now." As he said it I saw his eyes had come to rest on Sam's t-shirt where two small sharp points jutted out from her tiny breasts

Sam looked up and realized what was happening. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest and moved quickly out of the kitchen. My mother gave my father an exasperated look shaking her head as she followed. 

"Really, John..." she said under her breath.

The front door closed a minute later and I was alone with him now. I didn't dare move for fear of setting him off again so I sat looking at the floor in silence. The tears had stopped and more than anything I just wanted him to leave.

"So..." He said quietly. "What were you two really doing out there? Were you kissing?"

The question came as such a shock I had no idea how to answer.

When I didn't say anything he continued. "Don't get me wrong, if you were kissing out there I get it. Hell, I was young. I guess I'm even a little proud, but you aren't old enough for that stuff, Joe."

Again I said nothing. The whole conversation was crazy. My father seemed to be waiting, but I could think of nothing to say. He stood over me looking down and finally he let out a long sigh.

"Alright... well, go to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning."

I slid quickly off of the kitchen chair and practically ran up to my room. In bed I stared at the ceiling, thinking about Sam and how much trouble she must be getting in at home. I didn't think I would be able to sleep at all that night but eventually, I drifted off... and dreamed of Sam and the lights in the forest and the man with the very long neck.

Authors Note: I hope you are enjoying the story. If so please vote and leave me a comment.

Thanks,

Allan F.