The Ghost of Lizard's Rock (16 page)

At the corner of the
building closest to the forest, Wesley, Rufus, and I were laying
the trap. Wesley and Rufus emptied the sack of cow pies all over
the ground making a slippery mess.

I tacked up a large sheet
of paper on the wall beside the cow pies on the ground, which read,
‘Courtesy of the Cow Pie Gang!’

It all happened so
quickly. Even now as I sit here I can hear the echo of Wesley
shouting “Let’s go,” and running around the building to look in the
window.

I can see every detail. I
have played the next minutes over and over in my sleep every night.
I can see it like some awful slow motion movie.

Josie was standing at a
shelf by the doorway - acting as if she was looking at clothes. Her
eyes glanced quickly toward the window on the back wall.

Wesley nodded his head at
Josie, which was the signal to start.

My brothers were standing
near some magazines waiting for the signal from Josie. They smiled
at each other as they saw Josie wink at them. In a flash, the two
boys bolted for the door, knowing that Halter would try to stop
them and take their candy.

At that very same moment,
Josie quickly turned around and walked straight into Jerry Halter’s
chest with a bunch of clothes in her hands. As an added touch,
Josie tossed the clothes in the air so that they covered Halter and
both his buddies all at once. Somehow they fell over each other in
a pile on the floor.

The havoc created by
clothes gave my little brothers just the time they needed to get
past Halter and run out the door. Right on cue, one of my brothers
laughed at Halter as he fumbled with trying to get a coat off the
top of his head.

The anger in Halter's eyes
shot out like flames. "Get up you idiots!" He jumped to his feet
and ran out the door with his two buddies following him. Halter’s
eyes searched right and then left for the two boys.

Halter could hear the
laughter of my brothers around the corner of the building, "Let's
get em!” He started running for the corner of the building with his
buddies right behind him.

Expecting that he was
going to catch the little boys around the corner of the building,
Halter never saw what was coming. His feet slipped in the fresh cow
pies and flew upward while his head and shoulders came down first –
ker splat! If that wasn't bad enough, his two buddies lost their
footing as well and landed right on top of Halter’s body, pushing
his head and shoulders even deeper into the pile of cow
pies.

Halter pushed and shoved
until he got both of his buddies off him. His angry eyes finally
saw the sign on the wall and realized it was all a setup.
"Josie!"

He jumped to his feet and
ran back around the corner looking both directions. His eyes came
to a stop as he saw Josie running down the street towards the
forest. "Come on guys. Let's teach Jones a lesson."

Luckily for me, I was
hidden from their view, but was able to see everything that
happened next.

Josie stopped at the edge
of the forest to look backward. I’m sure she was surprised to see
Jerry and his buddies only a short distance away running toward
her.

My heart started to pound
loudly in my chest as the fear of Josie getting caught suddenly
crossed my mind. I kept thinking, "Stick to the plan Josie," as I
ran through the forest just behind Halter and the other two
boys.

I saw Josie dodging
through the bushes just below Lizard’s Rock, but so did Jerry
Halter. Halter laughed loudly as he started to close in on
her.

At that moment, I knew
exactly what Josie was going to do. She would head for the top of
Lizard’s Rock in hopes that Halter wouldn’t see her climb up there
and hide on top of the rock.

Josie was wrong! Halter
was too close to her and saw her climbing up the side of the
gigantic rock.

I felt so helpless to help
her. I didn’t know what to do. I watched from behind a tree as
Josie looked over her shoulder to see Jerry climbing up the rocks
right behind her. To the rear of Halter were his two
buddies.

Jerry stopped for a moment
and looked up into Josie's frightened face, "Thought you were going
to get away?" He laughed loudly and began crawling up through the
rocks behind her. The other guys laughed even more loudly as they
followed behind Halter.

I could see the fear
inside of Josie growing on her face. I followed behind the boys up
Lizard’s Rock and hid in the bushes behind them. My chest pounded
as I watched them moving closer to Josie.

My body seemed frozen in
fear. I nearly gasped for air as I realized Josie had backed her
feet up to the edge of the cliff.

Josie looked into the eyes
of Jerry Halter like a trapped animal. I will never forget that
look. I was frozen. I couldn’t move as I watched the trembling
began to spread across Josie’s entire body.

Josie took a single step
backward and stood motionless for just a second. In that final
moment, I think Josie saw me hiding in the bushes and tried to
smile.

“Josie!” shouted Halter as
he realized she was standing at the edge of the cliff with her eyes
fixed straight ahead. “Don’t move!”

Jerry’s voice had suddenly
changed from anger to pleading, “You’ll…”

Josie’s foot slipped on a
small rock, sending her backward off the cliff to the rocks below.
Her scream echoed throughout the forest and my mind.

Halter was totally
stunned, “We’ve got to get out of here!” The boys turned around and
scrambled down the rock as quickly as they could, never seeing me
hidden in the bushes.

Rufus and Wesley were
hiding in the forest and never saw what happened, but they did hear
Josie’s scream! Knowing that something really bad must have
happened, they made their way back through the forest to their
homes.

I remained hidden for
quite a long time before I finally found the courage to climb back
down Lizard’s Rock. I was so afraid of even looking at Josie’s body
- I just ran home and hid in my bedroom.

I can still remember the
knock on our door after dark, when her dad came to our house to see
if Josie was there or if we knew where she was.

I lied to her dad and told
him that I hadn’t seen her since early in the afternoon! I know now
that I shouldn’t have lied, but I was so scared!

I’m sure Josie’s scream
will forever haunt me.

I looked up from the pages
of the hidden entry in the journal and wiped away the tears that
were streaming down my cheek. I couldn’t imagine anything more
terrible than this. I took a deep breath and began reading the
final words of the entry.

Wesley, Rufus, and I
talked the next day for only a minute. We decided it was best to
never talk about it again or even go near the hideout.

Jerry Halter went from
being a mean kid to a guy who rarely ever talked with people at
all. Some people say he had problems in the head. I heard he
eventually got in trouble and is in a jail somewhere.

As for me, I live with the
nightmare of seeing Josie every day in my dreams falling off that
cliff and hearing her scream. I only hope that she has forgiven me
for what happened on that day and all the things that I didn’t
do.

One day, someone will find
this cave and our journal; and maybe, just maybe they will discover
this hidden message and know the truth of what happened to Josie.
The importance is not in knowing what happened that day – the
importance is in not repeating the mistakes that we made – and
especially the mistakes that I made.

Maggie Wilson

I closed the journal
gently, placed it on my nightstand, reached across to the lamp, and
turned it off. My mind kept thinking about Josie in those last
moments and the horror that Maggie had lived with for the rest of
her life.

I turned over, pulled the
covers up a little closer to my face, and stared out my bedroom
window into the dark of the night until I eventually fell
asleep.

The Dance

I woke up this morning
still facing the window. My eyes focused on the old leather journal
still sitting on the nightstand where I had left it the night
before. It was still hard for me to imagine what had happened so
many years ago to Josie and the others.

I thought, “If we are
going to be the new Cow Pie Gang, then we have to listen to
Maggie’s words and not make the same mistakes. We can’t be about
revenge – we must be about protecting!”

I pulled myself out of
bed, stretched for the ceiling, and then it hit me – the dance! It
was like an unbelievable energy and nervousness charged my entire
body all at once! I flitted back and forth across my bedroom
gathering my things for school.

I flew down the stairs and
into the kitchen. Breakfast was a quick bite from an apple, some
juice, and then I was out the door with a piece of toast in my
hand.

Eric sat at the table
calmly finishing his breakfast. “First dance…” He drank the last
swallow of his juice, walked over to Mom and kissed her on the
cheek. “Have a great day!”

Mom remained standing by
the stove with her cup of coffee in hand with and a look of
satisfaction on her face. She looked lost in thought as she stood
there with a smile on her face. She placed the cup in the sink and
went out the back door to work.

The start of the day at
school went pretty much normally, except that it seemed like
Maddison was always staring at me with her evil-like grin. I
figured it would be best to stay away from her as much as possible
and I did.

At lunch, I reminded the
group to meet me tomorrow morning at the old cemetery near the edge
of the forest at 10 o’clock. I decided to wait until then to tell
them about Maggie’s message in the journal.

The afternoon was just as
quiet as the morning. The teachers were purposefully keeping
everything as calm as possible with the noticeable excitement in
the air over the dance. I am sure many of them were anxiously
awaiting the weekend to recover from their ‘first week of school’
exhaustion and the big dance.

Allie and I walked out of
the dressing room from PE at the end of the day. To our surprise,
the entire gym was being transformed for the dance that night. Here
and there, students from both schools were decorating and setting
things up.

I saw Oliver’s sister,
Michele, across the gym and waved at her. She quickly saw me and
waved back. She shouted across the gym, “Wanna help?”

“Gotta go home,” I shouted
back, “See you tonight.”

Michele nodded her head
and returned to her work.

It was then that I saw
Maddison, Heather, and Rebecca watching us. They seemed to be busy
doing something by all the sound equipment. Maddison still had that
evil grin on her face as if she were up to something.

“Hey,” said a voice from
behind me.

I turned around to see if
the familiar voice was who I thought it was. “Hey,” I felt that
strange warmth in my face again.

“See you at the dance
tonight?” said Troy with those beautiful eyes locked on
mine.

“Uh,” the words seemed to
be stuck in my throat, “yea.”

“Until then,” Troy smiled
and turned to walk out of the gym.

My body seemed frozen as I
watched him leave the gym. A gentle elbow in my ribs by Allie
brought me back to reality. Allie and I looked at each other for a
moment and then laughed out loud; we knew exactly what the other
was thinking.

I glanced back at the
table where Maddison stood watching me. The irritatingly smug look
on her face was gone – now it was a look of pure
revenge!

“Come on,” nudged Allie.
“Don’t waste your time with her.”

“Yep,” I turned away from
Maddison and started toward the door beside Allie.

We walked out to the bus,
side by side, talking about the dance and most of all – Troy! The
two of us continued talking non-stop all the way to my
house.

Allie sat down on my bed,
cross-legged, with her back pack beside her. Her dad had said that
she could come to my house to get ready for the dance. She sat
there with a cute smile on her face as I continued to babble on
about the dance.

“This is going to require
reinforcements,” I stared into my closet and scrunched my mouth
sideways.

“Come on,” I said grabbing
Allie’s arm with one hand and her backpack beside her. “This is
going to require G.G.”

“G.G.?” Allie said
confused as I half dragged her down the stairs toward the front
door.

“Yup,” I said, “Trust me.
You’re going to love her and G.G.’s going to absolutely adore
you!”

We practically knocked
Eric over in the hallway by the front door. He was coming in from
football practice. It had been a short practice to let the guys
have time to get home and cleaned up before the dance.