The Gorge

They had been friends since high school. Over the years, their association had been reduced to these trips to the Gorge, where they had camped, and mostly partied like they were still teenagers, once a year.

No one failed to show. By returning here Danny, Craig and Max felt as if they were upholding an obligation to the friend they had lost the summer after they graduated. No closer friends existed, as far as they were concerned, and their ritual always included the toast to Freddy, who had fallen to his death that fateful year.

“Here’s to you, Freddy,” Danny held a beer can up and waited for his buddies to do the same. “No finer friend ever lived.”

“Here, here!” Craig added, then proceeded to drain his can.

“To Freddy Freedom…” Max, the philosopher of the group chimed in. “We love you brother.”

“I’ll drink one more to that,” Craig reached into the cooler and chuckled.

The conversation, as it was prone to do, went the rounds from sports, to women, work and kids. Max was recently divorced from his second wife. Danny had been married seventeen years and had three teenagers. Craig’s first wife had left him twelve years ago and he had not become attached to another woman for longer than a few months at a time ever since.

“Oh, man!” Max said, smacking a palm to his head. “I almost forgot.”

“What?” Both Danny and Craig said.

“I brought some LSD,” Max grinned.

“Oh, hell…” Danny’s face slipped into his fatherly pose.

“Sheez,” Craig clamped his jaws. “I haven’t done any of that since…”

They all looked at each other.

“Think we should?” Max said as his eyebrows went up.

“What the hell,” Craig turned up his beer and drained that one as well. “We’re here to party, right?”

“I don’t have to be anyplace for the next four days,” Danny said. “I guess I’m in. You don’t think it’ll react with any of my meds, do you?”

“Relax,” Max said, pulling his back pack over and rummaging through one of the zipper pockets. “I’m a doctor.”

“You’re a doctor of philosophy, Max,” Craig gave them both a deadpan look. They all broke out with chuckles.

“It’s cool, fellas,” Max pulled a small vial out of the zipper pocket and held it up. “This stuff is pharmaceutical grade. Gonna have to trust me on this one.”

“Too bad you couldn’t find any mushrooms,” Danny said as he popped open another beer.

“Why do I always have to be the drug supplier for this crew?” Max shook his head. He looked at Craig. “You did bring the smoke, right, Craig?”

Craig smacked his palm to his head. “Oh man, I almost forgot. Yeah! I got some really great shit, too!”

“Break it out,” Max told him as he opened up the vial. “Party is started, officially.”

“Hell, I’m gonna go on and start cooking then,” Danny said. “I ain’t gonna trip my ass off without a little something in the gullet.”

“Good thinking, Danny,” Craig said distractedly. He was now busy rolling joints.

Max held up the small vial and an eyedropper. “Hold out your beer, guys…”

“Wow, liquid stuff, huh?” Danny looked at the dropper, curious.

Max chuckled, “like I said, it’s the real deal. No rat poison for this group.”

“Excellent!” Craig held out his fresh beer and Max dosed it with a few drops of LSD.

Once the three of them had finished their beers, they passed the first joint as Danny made them salivate, cooking summer sausage and potatoes in his iron skillet, right on the fire. “This is the life, fellas…” he grinned at the two of them.

“No doubt,” Craig was really feeling it. The first slippery effects of the drug were taking hold. “Hey, that is some really good shit, Max.”

Max grinned and nodded. “You bet it is. Makes you really wish Freddy was here too, huh?”

“Yeah…” Craig looked at the fire and said no more to the idea of Freddy.

“Freddy would’ve been so stoked,” Danny said, stirring his fricassee. “Ah, hell, there may be a little ash in this, you guys.”

“Ash don’t hurt anything,” Craig said, letting out a reverberating belch. “’s good for ya.”

“Hey, I know this ain’t exactly the best of times to bring it up,” Max said looking a bit worried at the two of them. “But, ah, did either of you guys check with the ranger office about the bears this year?”

“Great…” Craig said looking around. “Get me going on a high-powered hallucinogen and then bring up the bears.”

“I checked,” Danny said, chuckling at Craig while stirring his concoction. “There are two bad ones, supposed to be way over on the south end…” he pointed with his wooden spoon; a couple of potatoes dropped into the fire and hissed. Craig stared at them as the fire burned around them, mesmerized suddenly. “That ranger woman said they have white paint spray-painted across their backs and shoulders. They should stand out if they come around.”

“Then what?” Craig said, still staring at the potatoes.

“Then, we run like hell,” Max said, slapping his leg and laughing.

“It ain’t funny, dude,” Craig said. When he looked up at them, his eyes were already going black; his pupils were dilated. “You two were in the backfield. I was a tackle. Guess who a bear catches if we run for it?”

“Hey,” Danny said. “That’s right, we only have to outrun Craig’s fat ass.”

“Fuck you, dickweed,” Craig spat. “I’m up a tree, that shit happens.”

“These bears are supposed to be pretty good climbers, you know,” Max was smiling wide as he said it. He toked the joint and passed it over to Craig.

Craig took it and nodded. “I know… Remember that year we came up here and there were a couple of bears up a tree, going for that beehive?”

“Suppers ready, guys. Hold over your plates and let’s dig in. Gonna need our strength for the climb.”

~

The walk through the woods to the rock face was one they had repeated many times. Both Max and Danny spent most of the walk laughing at Craig, who was constantly seeing stuff everywhere he looked in the darkness. “Is that a bear?”

“No, Craig, it’s a tree, just like the other bear you thought you saw was a tree,” Max teased him mercilessly. “You can’t hold your shit, dude.”

“I got my shit right here, man.”

“Easy, guys, here it is…”

They stood by a flat table rock at the base of a cliff. Max shone his flashlight at the side of it and found the spot where they had each taken the time to carve words for their lost buddy, Freddy. This had been the spot he landed on when he fell to his death.

“Fucking Freddy…” Danny said. “You were the best of all of us.”

No one spoke for a few moments. Then Max urged them on, “We need to do this if we’re gonna do it at all.”

Carefully, they began to strap on gear: harnesses, clips and coils of rope. Then, with no one saying anything, Danny began to climb the rock wall, using the many protruding ledges like a ladder. Max followed. Craig brought up the rear.

About half way up, the small ledge that Craig had braced his right foot on cracked and came away from the wall. He screamed and just barely held on. “Oh shit, shit, shit!”
He gasped and then took a big lung full of air to call out, “Hey, I need some help here, fellas!”

No one answered. A moment ago, he could still see Max’s silhouette just above. Now, he saw nothing up there, just the craggy outlines of more rock. This was the part that stuck out over the gorge. Just over the next ledge, he knew, the face of the wall angled away from the gorge, almost a hill that could be walked down from above. It was also, he could not help but remember, the spot where Freddy had fallen. The last place on the face of the earth where Freddy had last spoken a word, and Craig had been there with him.

“What’s a matter, lard-ass?” Freddy’s voice, sounding all of eighteen again, came to Craig’s hearing. “You stuck again?”

“Freddy?” Craig’s mind knew this had to be the LSD. Freddy was dead; he had seen it with his own eyes. “Go away, Freddy. You aren’t really here. I’m tripping.”

“Oh, you’re tripping, lard-ass. I guarantee you that,” Freddy sounded mad.

“Shut up, Freddy. I’m barely hanging on here.”

“You’re fucked, Craig. You just don’t know it yet. Not like you knew how fucked I was.”
“Bullshit!” Craig said, then he yelled up the wall. “Hey! You fuckers get back down here and help me, goddamnit!”

No one answered from up there.

Craig’s swinging legs finally found a small place to land his toes. He placed both ends of his feet there and adjusted his hands. All the effort had left him trembling. He was out of shape, and he knew it. His calves were cramping; his heels drooped, threatening to release. “Shit,” he whimpered. “I need some help here…”

Freddy’s voice came down to him again. “Jeez, Craig, you are in pitiful shape, buddy. Remember how you used to be our mule? Remember how we could always count on you to pull the load?”

“Get out of my head, Freddy.” Craig could not think. His brain was in panic, constantly expecting the worst. All he could find to concentrate on was the grip his fingers had on the rock over his head, and they were becoming numb. “Oh my god, I can’t feel my fingers!”

“Makes it kind of hard to hang in there, huh buddy?” Freddy sounded amused.

“Why are you haunting me?” Craig was crying now, certain that he was about to loose his hold.

“Oh, c’mon, Craig. You know exactly why. This is where you killed me. You can’t have forgotten that.”

Craig’s breath was ragged. It stuttered in his lungs. His diaphragm was going spastic, but the LSD also had full control as well. He began to giggle, despite everything else.

“Glad you can find some reason to laugh at your situation, Craig,” Freddy’s ghost told him. “You look ridiculous hanging there like that, lard-ass.”

“Fuck off, Freddy… The guys will be back in a minute and pull me off of here.”

“No, Craig. They’re at the top, taking it easy. They’re stoned too, see. Everyone is waiting to see what becomes of you.”

“Why? Why me? What…” Craig stopped before he said it aloud.

“…did I ever do to you?” Freddy finished it. “Is that what you were gonna ask, Craig? You knew better than to ask that, right? You and I both know what the answer to that question is, don’t we?”

Craig could not control his emotions now. “I’m sorry, Freddy. Like I told you back then. I didn’t mean for it all to come out like this.”

“Sure you did, Craig. After all, I fucked your girl, got her pregnant and all that.”

“Yeah, you fucker. Goddamn quarterback and you think you have the right to take anything you want. The rest of us are just mules to obey your whip.”

“That’s the Craig I remember…” Freddy sounded closer. Craig could almost swear he was really there, just over the top of the ledge he needed to get to; the one Freddy had fallen from all those years ago.

They had been climbing this wall for decades now. Freddy had taken them to it the first time, when they were just sixteen, fresh and full of youth, strength and overworking hormones. Freddy could climb this bitch like a monkey; hell they all could do it, back then.

The reunions had kept them all with a need to remain in reasonably good shape. But, now they were in their forties. Craig’s cholesterol was over three hundred and climbing.

“Last time we were together like this, it was me hanging on down there, wasn’t it, Craig?”

“Yeah, Freddy,” Craig resigned to the ghost. If the LSD was going to make him deal with this now, then he would just deal with it. He knew that the stuff was prone to bring out any unresolved psychological issues, even make them blow up into more than they ever were in reality. But, reality, Craig knew, was a secret that only he and Freddy, the dead Freddy that he had watched plummet to his death, knew to be true.

“All that time, all that climbing, I thought I knew this rock better than that. But, just like you, Craig, I made a wrong foot placement, and there I was, dangling from a thread, with only you to save me, help me out of another jam.”

“I…I remember,” Craig said through clenched teeth. His fingers, completely numb, jerked and threatened to let go. It felt like he had no control. Frankly, it surprised him that he still had a grip at all; it was sheer force-of-will that was keeping his hands clawing for purchase.

“Remember how you put your hand over the side here, Craig? You said: ‘take my hand, Freddy’, remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“So I took it and hung there, swinging while you looked over at me. You were grinning, Craig. Remember that?”

Craig’s voice faltered. “Yeah…” he gulped, “I remember, Freddy.”

“That’s when you told me that you knew. You knew that Meg was pregnant. Not by you, but by me instead. I guess finding that out broke your heart, huh Craig?”

Tears burned down his cheeks. He managed a nod. “Yeah…yeah, Freddy, that’s right.”

“I’m putting my arm over the side, Craig. I want you to take it.”

“I can’t, Freddy. I’ll fall.”

“What I don’t understand, Craig, is why you let me go. Was it that bad? Just knowing that I knocked up your girlfriend was bad enough to kill me?”

“Fuck you, Freddy! I hated your goddamn guts! I loved you, and I hated you. The idea of you and her…” Craig had snot dripping from his nose. He needed to wipe it, but could not chance letting go with either hand. “She told me that you and her…she said she was going to go off to live with you in Chapel Hill. She said… she said she didn’t love me in the first place. That she only went with me to get closer to you. I hated you for it.”

“So you let me go, didn’t you, Craig?”

“That’s right, Freddy. I just let you go. Then I screamed like I was so wounded that you fell. I was screaming that I had killed you. Danny and Max, they came back down and we laid up there on that ledge and looked down at you. I was crying, so were they, but they kept patting me on the back, telling me that it was okay. That I had tried and all that. They didn’t know about… They didn’t know.”

“You’re probably right, lard-ass. You gonna give me your hand or not?”

“You’re a ghost, Freddy. I’m just tripping my ass off.”

“Look up, Craig.”

Craig did, he peered upward through his tears and his melting vision. The face that looked over at him was Freddy’s. He was surrounded in a golden nimbus of light that seemed to come from nowhere. “God, Freddy, is that really you?”

“Who else could I be, Craig?” Freddy’s arm shot down and his open palm stopped just above Craig’s spastic fingers. “C’mon, take it.”

“It’s really you! My god!”

“Take it, Craig, we ain’t got all night.”

With the last of his strength, Craig held tight with his left hand while his right came off the stone ledge and grasped for the arm of Freddy’s ghost. He half expected that it was his moment to die; that the arm he was going for was not really there at all. But it was solid enough, the wide-sinewed hand and strong, young fingers gripped tightly around Craig’s wrist. “Holy fuck! You’re real?”

“That all you can say, lard-ass?”

Craig scrambled to get his feet to pump up the rocks. He tried to get his other hand up to take hold of Freddy’s arm, but was simply too weak by then. Dangling in mid-air, he looked up into Freddy’s face. “Why did you come back, Freddy? Just to save me?”

“No, lard-ass. I’m here now to watch you die…” Freddy let go.

~

The sound of Craig’s screaming fall echoed through the gorge. Crickets and night birds fell silent, for a few moments. Both Max and Danny had been waiting, but the scream told them it was time to go back down.

Freddy was still laying on top of the stone ledge. “You okay, kid?” Max said.

Freddy stood up and brushed off his clothes as he nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m doing pretty good. Better than I thought I would.”

“Did you… you know,” Danny sounded squeamish. “Did you make sure before?”
“He confessed it right away, Mr. Carmichael. He really thought I was his ghost.”

“You’re his spitting image, Freddy.” Max said, giving the eighteen year-old boy a pat on the shoulder. “It’s like your father never died down there at all.”

“But he did, professor. He did. I never knew him, all because of that…” he looked over the edge again. “Because of him.”

“Was he scared?”

Freddy Jr. smiled. “He was terrified, sir.”

“As we said before. You can never tell a soul about this. Not even your mother, Freddy.”

“This is enough. Thank you both for agreeing to it.”

“We’re just glad you found us and told us everything that had been going on. We never knew about it. We had always thought it was pure accident.”

“What now?” Freddy Jr. said. “We just leave him down there?”

“No, we have to get down and retrieve the body. The authorities would wonder why we waited, otherwise.”

At that moment, an inhuman sound rose from the gorge.

“What the fuck was that?” Danny said, his hands to his head.

“It sounded like…” Max stepped closer to the edge and looked over.

“It can’t be him,” Freddy said as he stepped over as well. “I watched him hit. He bounced, I tell you.”

“Danny, bring your light over,” Max said. “I can’t see down there.”

Complying, Danny’s light swung over the rocky floor of the gorge at the base of the cliff they stood upon. There was no body there. But, the sound, a mournful, painful screech rose over the darkness. It sounded like words, garbled and full of anguish.

“My god, Max…” Danny said as they all stepped back from the ledge. “Could he be…”

The sound came again, echoing all around the gorge; it was a macabre sound, wounded and terrible.

“What is he saying?”

“I’m sorry…” Danny said, shaking his head sadly. “He’s yelling that he’s sorry.”
~