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to locate it. In the clearing, you could still see where the cops had tramped all over the leaves and weeds. When we saw there wasn’t really anything else left, we got brave. “Stand right on the spot, right where his feet were,” Flip said. “I’ll take your picture, then you take mine.”
    The truth was I couldn’t be sure where the dead man’s feet had been, and I was just as glad. So I picked a spot at random, without looking straight down, and Flip didn’t challenge it. He just snapped the picture. Then we changed places, and I took his.
    After that, we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. I guess what we actually wanted was to relive a piece of the excitement without the full hair-raising effect of the first time. But instead, we were just standing around in the woods, and it was like nothing had ever happened there. So Flip said, “I hope I remembered to turn the film. Maybe we better take a couple more shots just to be on the safe side.” So we did. It was still a letdown, but I was feeling pretty good anyhow. Flip was probably right about climbing back on the horse, so to speak.
    The sun was getting low by then, and I think he and I had the same thought at the same time. Maybe it would give us a charge to hang around the woods as it got dark. We were in the mood for a little mild spooking. So we wandered back to the roller coaster block, the one next to the creek I’d flopped on. Flip chose this to sit down on, which I didn’t particularly appreciate. But he didn’t say anything, and I sat down beside him. We started talking about what they’d probably done with the dead man’s remains. Flip thought the County must have buried him in the graveyard out at the Poor Farm.
    I gave out the opinion there wasn’t enough left of him to fill a box; and so, they probably cremated him. Flip thought this was possible, and that got us to wondering if they’d yanked out his gold tooth before they disposed of him. Flip thought it would make a pretty good ornament for a key ring or a watch chain or to hang around your neck on a lanyard. So, as the conversationwent on and the sun went down, we managed to give ourselves a little minor thrill or two.
    We were getting each other worked up pretty good and decided to tell
Dracula.
We hadn’t told
Dracula
in maybe two years. In grade school, that never failed to get to us. Sometime around fourth or fifth grade, I’d slept over at Flip’s house one night. They showed
Dracula
on the “Creature Feature Midnight Matinee of Horror” on Channel Twelve. The real, original, black-and-white version with the horses pulling the carriage turning into bats and the whole bit.
    But it was no good. We’d outgrown it. Instead of scaring each other like in the old days, we kept arguing on the details of the plot. Finally, Flip said, “I guess we might as well head home. I’ve got to see the Nitwits get their dinner.” The Nitwits are Flip’s three younger sisters. His dad’s in the Navy and away most of the time and, when his mom was out playing golf or something, he had to ride herd on the Nitwits. This wasn’t his favorite duty, but I’ll tell you one thing: when he cracked the whip, the Nitwits jumped.
    So we got up from the roller coaster block. Flip picked up his camera case and was just about to swing the strap over his shoulder when he froze and whispered, “Jeee-sus!”
    Now this was more or less what he’d said when he’d found the dead man. And it scared me so bad I nearly wet my pants. Then I thought he was trying to pull something on me. But he wasn’t.
    He was staring at the concrete block we’d been sitting on. And right where our bottoms had been, there it was—another swastika. It was carved just about as carefully as the one in the clubhouse, butdeeper and bigger. The concrete was kind of porous, so the detailing wasn’t as good. But it had taken somebody quite a while to do. Painstaking wedge-shaped cuts. It was a wonder we hadn’t noticed it