The Monster of Midway: Fort Worden

The Monster of Midway: Fort Worden

I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest for a while, and a psychiatrist is too expensive, so I figured it’d be both thematic, and cathartic to post this story here. It’s something I’ve been living with for a long time, and I just want to shoulder it alone anymore.

Danny wasn’t quite right. Never was. Aaron’s cousin Beth, who was two years older than us at the time, had the same homeroom as Danny, and every Tuesday and Thursday Aaron’s mom would pick us up from school. We’d then circle back around a few blocks in the opposite direction to pick Beth up, before turning back around once more and to go back to their house where Beth and I would wait to be picked up.

It was over post school snacks that Beth would tell us about Danny. Face stuffed with our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she recounted the time she had to do a group project with Danny, and how when he looked at you his eyes were dead like fish eyes.

“He would look at me,” she said nervously, clearing her throat.

“Go on,” I pleaded.

“He would look at me, but he didn’t see me, y’know? I was just meat, like a cow or something to him.”

He was a monster as far as she was concerned.

Aaron and I laughed it off nervously.

“I’m not lying,” she said, stamping her foot and pointing her finger right in my face.

My smile disappeared.

“You know Derek Mendelson?,” Beth asked.

“Ya.”

“Well he’s got that wonky eye, the one that’s always looking the wrong way right?”

We nodded.

“In kindergarten Danny beat him in the face with one of those wooden building blocks you make forts out of.”

“Shut up, you're lying. He’d be in jail,” said Aaron.

“No you little idiot, no one saw it happen. It was during nap time, and the teacher was out smoking a cigarette. They didn’t even hear Derek cry out. When they found him, the side of his face was smashed in, and his eye had popped out of his head.”

I remember wanting to vomit as I imagined what it would feel like to sneeze and have an eye pop out, let alone have it squeezed out of my face by broken bones and flesh.

“Danny didn’t say a word, and then when Mrs. Merrick showed up, she said Danny was just trying to help Derek. Of course, Derek didn’t remember anything, because he didn’t wake up for a week, but everyone knows what really happened.”

For every year of school, there seemed to be some accompanying story involving Danny Merrick, and he always seemed to just slip by without any sort of serious consequence due to the tenacity and quick tongue of his mother.

Beth hated Danny. Everyone did. He was terrifying to be around, and it baffled parents just how it was he stayed in school, and infuriated others when they found out it was because his mother was one of the two 5th grade teachers. Mrs. Merrick.

She was a Mrs. , but she was also a single mom. Apparently Mr. Merrick went for a drive one night and decided enough was enough, if you know what I mean.

They found his car at the bottom of a cliff out near Whytecliff Park with little Danny Merrick in the back seat.

I guess he’d left a note, although the only person who really knew if that was true or not is Mrs. Merrick. She’d never spoken about it, and surely no one had ever asked.

So needless to say, everyone had an abundance of sympathy, bordering on pity for Mrs. Merrick and as far as any of us could tell, that’s why Danny was allowed to rampage freely.

The older Danny got though, the less leeway people were willing to offer.

It had been easier to excuse his behavior as a child. He was the big kid with brain damage from the crash, who had too few words to express his anger or frustration. He was the child without a father, or better yet, the child whose father tried to kill. He was just looking for attention.

The excuses were endless as they were infuriating to listen too.

See, it’s one thing to tell a child their fear is unreasonable or irrational, but it’s another when your child’s fear becomes your own - and that point hadn’t come just yet.

I didn’t have to think about Danny much after he went to high school, and Beth was old enough to bus home after school. So we never heard much about him anymore, apart from the sleepover practice of scary stories, but by then he was more a creature of suburban myth, than the awkward fish eyed brute that stalked the halls of our primary school.

He was Danny Merrick, the monster of Midway Primary School.

I wish I could say that’s where it ended; That Danny was sent to a military boarding school where they set him straight, that he’d received some sort of mental health care, although I’m not sure that would have done any good.

The summer before grade 8, Aaron and I went to summer camp together.

Our parent’s collectively figured one night that it would do the two of us some good to mingle with kids older than us, since all we ever really did was hang out with one another.

They didn’t want to separate us, but they were worried we wouldn’t acclimate to high school. Summer camp seemed like the perfect solution. We’d get our fill of running around, and sunshine before high school could get its claws into us, and we’d get used to being around teenagers.

I don’t think either of our parents had a single worry when they sent us off.

It was right about August 5th, when the big yellow bus pulled up out front of my suburban home, honking the horn, and already half full.

Aaron, and I were as anxious as we were excited with our bags packed, and our parents reminding us of every little thing.

“Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

“Underwear is only to be worn once, and then it needs to be cleaned.”

“Say please and thank you.”

And of course our dads chimed in as well but more sardonically.

“Look out for bears.”

“Don’t drop the soap.”

That last one we didn’t get until a few years later.

When we arrived at Fort Worden, we found much less in the way of creature comforts than we’d expected.

Where we thought there would be cabins, there were only raised platforms, and large canvas tents on top.

There were 3 outhouses dotted around Fort Worden, and all of them involved a laborious walk into the woods, which were unlit, so at night we’d have to hold it or brave the dark.

The mess hall was a gravel patch, long tables, and a tin roof.

Truthfully it wasn’t terrible, but it was shocking, and not at all what we had expected.

The camp counselors were nice enough, and often too busy flirting with one another to manage us– which suited us just fine.

Fort Worden had plenty to do, and our days were full to the brim between the caves, and canoes. The bow and arrows, and games of hide and seek.

The hardest part was night.

Not a single one of us wanted to say a word, but we all missed home terribly when the sunset and we were sent to our tents after dinner and campfire time.

Each tent had 4 kids, and while there were both girls and boys at the camp, the boys and girls were separated as far as could be east to west across the massive property.

My tent had myself, Aaron, Mark, and Arthur.

We all got along well enough, and talked late into the night the first two nights because what would camp be without trying to scare one another so terribly that we can barely breath, until we all scream and run and jump and laugh together.

At least that’s what we thought.

It was the second night that Aaron and I decided to start telling stories about Danny Merrick.

Arthur enjoyed the stories, he laughed and leaned in, letting us jump scare him once or twice.

Mark on the other hand sat quietly listening with big wide glistening eyes. Every few seconds whipping his flashlight to the tent flaps nearly scaring Aaron, and I more than we were scaring him with our stories.

“Stop that, you're freaking me out,” Aaron said, punching Mark in the arm.

“You heard that right? That noise. You heard it!” Said Mark, visibly sweating in the cool night air.

“Hear what you little freak?” I said, trying as best I could to sound tough.

“Someone's outside.”

“It’s just the wind rustling leaves,” said Aaron, trying the most compassionate approach.

“Yeah,” said Mark unconvinced. “You’re probably right.”

None of us in the tent slept well that night.

Each one of us, with one eye open.

I never asked the other guys in the morning, but I clearly heard someone crying quietly.

Morning came, and all four of us were dead on our feet.

We perked up after breakfast, but we didn’t have much to say to one another, and the camaraderie of the previous 2 days seemed to have evaporated– Arthur and Mark to afraid to talk with Aaron and I lest we continue telling them stories that might terrify them badly enough to make them cry in the middle of the night.

I remember Aaron and I looked at each other from time to time that day, more than a little ashamed for having taken it too far.

I don’t remember much more of that day apart from the counselors complaining that the donut stash had been raided, and whoever the culprit was, left a note behind.

We all had a good laugh at that.

That night when we went to our tents, Mark and Arthur smiled politely and rolled over in their sleeping backs zipping them up tight.

Aaron, and I felt terrible. We weren’t sure if it’s because we felt guilt scaring our new friends, or felt embarrassed that we weren’t as likable as we thought we were.

Aaron and I looked at each other, mirroring one another’s ‘we messed up’ faces, before turning out the light and falling asleep ourselves.

I woke once that night, to what I thought was one of the other boys in my tent getting up to go to the washroom.

Braver than me, I thought, and closed my eyes, quickly falling asleep again.

I woke up earlier than the others, and shook Aaron by the shoulder.

“What time is it?” He asked.

I checked my watch.

“Half past six.”

I was dead set on getting to the mess hall having breakfast and grabbing one of the good canoes and a couple fishing rods, before all the older campers grabbed them.

Aaron followed me half asleep.

The camp cook was still prepping, so we ate cheerios, and ran off.

The sun was just nearly about to crest the mountains when we got out onto the water.

It was the first time Aaron and I had been alone since we arrived at camp, but we didn’t talk much. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing but it was nice just to relax with my childhood best friend all the same.

Things felt like they were changing as I watched the sun rise over the mountain peaks.

Once again, not sure if that was good or bad.

“Whose that?” Asked Aaron, breaking the silence.

“Huh?” I replied.

“There was… I-I could've sworn I saw someone on the far side of the lake,” Aaron said.

“There’s nothing over there,” I shrugged.

We said nothing more for the next hour before heading back to shore.

When we docked, we could tell something wasn’t right. Counselors were running through the trees, followed by a swarm of kids trying their best to keep up.

We pulled the canoe up onto the shore, and headed up the beach.

“Hey,” I cried out, stopping a girl in her tracks as she followed the crowds at a more reserved pace. “What’s going on?”

“You haven’t heard? Jesus christ, some kid died last night,” She said, throwing her hands up in the air as if it were the moon landing.

Aaron and I dropped out fishing rods and joined the throngs of people following them through the woods to the easternmost edge of the camp, past the mess hall, and directly to our tent.

“What the hell?” Aaron said under his breath.

I wondered if the hair on the back of his neck stood up like mine, or if the vomit bubbled into his throat.

I wasn’t sure what to do but found my legs carrying me to the tent flap.

Arthur was sitting on the edge of the platform– his eyes wide and face as white as a ghost.

As I passed the other campers I could overhear what they were saying.

“Apparently he was in his sleeping back, rolled over. Everyone went to breakfast before one of the kids came back and smelt him.”

As I approached the tent, still unsure of what I was doing, or why– Arthur’s eyes caught mine.

He was terrified, and rightfully so. The counselors grabbed the three of us roughly, tied us up and waited for the police.

We were speechless in the way kids often are– whether or not we had committed the crime, we felt guilty just by the way we were being looked at.

Eventually the police arrived, and we were questioned.

There wasn’t much to it though, no revelations. We had all gone to bed, and woken up in the morning.

Except for Mark.

By the time the sun had risen, Mark was already dead. Still bound in his sleeping bag his back had been broken just beneath the neck, his eyes had been gouged out, and he’d been force fed till his stomach burst, killing him slowly and painfully.

All that had happened while we slept.

The killer had stepped over each of us, and tortured Mark, all while we slept soundly no more than a few feet away.

I think that’s where I’m going to end it for now. I’m sorry, I know it’s not much of an ending, but it’s 4:45 am and I haven’t slept. This is a lot to rehash, and I’m afraid if I don’t stop now I won’t be able to sleep. It’s already getting light out so I’ll have to put a “to be continued” here. I’ll be able to go into detail next time.