The Thirsting

    The pipes at Camp Chipmunk had never been the best, though Roger Harrison had demanded they be replaced. For fifteen years, Roger worked as the maintenance man—fixing broken crap is my duty, he always liked to say when people asked why he cared so much.

    There was just something about this place that brought a smile to his wrinkled face. He reveled in how it made him feel. The scent of fresh air—growing up around New York had given him smog, but that isn’t worthy of breathing—and he got his chance at seeing numerous woodland critters scurrying about on their daily errands.

    “We all work our predetermined schedules,” Roger said, speaking to the squirrel nibbling a walnut nearby as he passed.

    On this particularly late afternoon, this aging old man took it upon himself to fix some small problems he had previously left unattended. The sunlight peaked through an assortment of countless trees surrounding Camp Chipmunk in what Roger’s younger pragmatic employer, Ralph Hanson, preferred calling ‘The natural shield of Pennsylvania that keeps those city monsters out.”

    Their opening season was coming soon, and they had hung a large sign out by the main road, before you turned onto Chipmunk Drive, which led straight to the main office. During days they were opened between April and November, they had hundreds of visitors every week. Naturally there were a few return customers who Roger and the other employees had gotten accustomed to seeing and could call by name. One of their biggest attractions, the one thing that brought them more business than few local competitors were stories. When Roger was growing up, he remembered how his father had brought him here. They had sat around the fire during chilly nights, listening while stories were told about giant hairy creatures capable of walking like humans, standing between seven and ten feet tall.

    Selling Big Foot and Sasquatch memorabilia out of their small store connected to the main office where you could also find a game room downstairs. Roger lived here, in a camper he had sitting at the top of the hill overlooking everybody camping below. Camp Chipmunk was his life.

    Carrying his handy toolbox, Roger Harrison decided he would play Bob the Builder and fix stuff just because he could. Below the main office building, he made his way into the men’s room; sinks on his left, next to that was two bathroom stalls, and at the far end were three separate showers with their own private sections for you to get undressed without other men judging you.

    The previous November, Roger had learned the shower at the far end was leaking due to ancient pipes Ralph Hanson refused replacing. With the buzzing florescent lights overhead, Roger set to work on fixing this retched leak. Carefully removing red tiles he would put right back, gluing them if necessary to save his greedy boss some money.

    A creaking sound caught his attention. Poking his head outside the shower stall, he looked toward the door, still standing half open the way he had fixed it.

    “Is that you, squirrel?” Roger laughed. “Get your nuts outta here.”

    Still smiling, he returned to his work. His humor died out when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps striding nearer to his location.

    He twisted on his heel, heart pounding furiously against his ribs.

    “Sweet Mother Mary,” Roger said.

    A raised arm descended toward him, and his blood splattered the tiled walls.