Hide and Shriek #14

by Melissa J Morgan

  “It does not. It sounds like an animal,” Valerie argued, but the quaver in her voice betrayed her uncertainty. Then she raised her voice and rasped, “Chelsea? Belle? Clarissa?”

  The creeping noise stopped.

  “There. You heard that, right?” Gaby said.

  “Hello?” Valerie called, her voice scratchy and shrill. “Anyone there?”

  Nothing.

  Gaby rubbed her arms, even though she wasn’t cold.

  “How long have they all been gone?” she asked. “Someone should have been back by now. I mean, even if Chelsea is having a spazz attack, they’d send someone back to tell the rest of us that they haven’t, like, died or something.”

  “They haven’t died,” Valerie snorted. “They’re probably just calming Chelsea down.”

  “Maybe Jenna went psycho again,” Gaby said. “Like she did in the bunk. You know, not everything is always Chelsea’s fault.”

  “Hey, we all went a little psycho,” Tori reminded her. Then she sighed. “You know, guys, maybe Dr. Steve called it right. We’re the bunk from hell.”

  “We are not. We’re just . . . cranky,” Brynn said. “Hormonally challenged. My mother says all girls go off the deep end when they hit their teens. We are almost there, girlfriends.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  Tori cupped her hands around her mouth and faced the thick, dark woods. “Chelsea! We’re sorry! Come back!” Her voice barely registered above a whisper.

  They all screeched, hoarsely shouting all the names of the missing.

  “Belle!”

  “Clarissa!”

  “Nat! Jenna! Chelsea!”

  As before, there was no answer, only the lonely hoot of an owl.

  After half a minute or so, Tori gestured at the lake. “Guys, the fog is getting thicker. And it’s started to creep up the bank.”

  “It’s like that movie called The Fog,” Priya said. “All these dead guys are inside the fog and when it swirls up around you, they get you!”

  “Oh,” Candace fretted.

  “Did you guys see that Johnny Depp pirate movie? When the moonlight shines on the pirates, and they look like skeletons?” Valerie mock shuddered. “Brrr!”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Alex suggested. “Like the social. What do you think the theme will be this year?”

  “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Valerie said, snickering a little.

  Gaby thought of how pale Belle must look out there in the forest and had a crazy micromoment where she thought, What if Belle really is a vampire? But she knew she was just thinking like that to scare herself.

  Right?

  “Guys?” Tori croaked again.

  The fog was creeping over her, Gaby’s, and Valerie’s ankles. Gaby took a step back.

  It wafted forward, almost like it was getting ready to pounce.

  “Eek! Spooky fog!” Valerie whisper-cried. She turned on her heel and ran back to the campfire. Tori followed after her.

  “It’s just fog,” Gaby said, but she ran away from it, too.

  chapter EIGHT

  Gaby felt a little guilty looking through Clarissa and Belle’s tent for ore flashlights, but they still hadn’t returned, anthe fog had crept up from the lake to encircthe fire ring. She wondered if the fog had meven deeper into the forest farther down the shore. That would explain why Belle and the others hadn’t come back—because they couldn’t see which way they were going. Maybe theyhad gotten so far away, they couldn’t hear everyoyelling for them. Not that they were yelling veloudly.

  “Are you thinkiwhat I’m thinking?” Valerie asked her as shepulled a tube of lip gloss from Clarissa’s daypacunscrewed the wand, and pulled the lanterncloser to check out the color. Then, as if shefelt guilty, too, she hastily reinserted the wand and put the lip gloss back in the pack.

  The gas hiss was freaky, like the lantern was breathing. Gaby was afraid that might mean it was finally running out of propane. They had to find some flashlights, anquick.

  “I don’t know,” Gaby said. “What are you thinking?”

  “That this could be some kind of prank they’re pulling to get us to ‘bond’?” Valerie made air quotes.

  “You watch too much reality TV,” Gaby replied.

  “I’m serious. Think about it.” Valerie returned to her search. “Ooh, Clarissa has that new eye shadow I’ve been wanting.” She held it up.

  “Valerie, we’re not doing makeovers. Just look for flashlights,” Gaby snapped at her.

  “Hey, you’re not the boss of me,” Valerie snapped back.

  Gaby flared. She didn’t like being here, didn’t like looking through their counselors’ private belongings, didn’t like anything about this campout. She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “I thought you were so great at getting along with other people.”

  “I am,” Valerie insisted. “Usually.”

  “What are you saying? That I’m hard to deal with?” Gaby said, as she moved from Belle’s duffel bag to another corner of the tent. She made out the shape of a box and pulled it open. Taking a breath, she reached her hand inside. She felt cold metal and wrapped her hand around it.

  “Flashlights,” she announced, pulling one out. She flicked on the light, not realizing she was aiming it directly at Valerie, who raised her hand in protest.

  “Hey!” Valerie said.

  “Sorry.” Gaby shined the flashlight into the box. “There’s probably half a dozen of them in here.” She moved them around until she could see the bottom of the box. The milky light bathing the flashlights reminded her of sunken treasure. “But no cell phone.”

  “Hey, here are the treasure hunt notes,” Valerie announced, picking up the familiar-looking clipboard.

  “Let me see them.” Gaby eagerly held out her hand.

  Valerie demurred, leaving the clipboard in her lap. “Belle doesn’t want us to see them.”

  Gaby huffed. “Maybe there’s a clue about where everybody has disappeared to.”

  “They haven’t disappeared,” Valerie insisted. “We just don’t know where they are.” Valerie reached out and took a flashlight, then flicked it on and focused it under her chin. “I suggest that aliens abducted them, mwahaha.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  Valerie put the clipboard beside the opening to the tent. “I’ll tell you what. If they’re not back in a few minutes, we’ll look at the notes, okay?”

  “Whatever,” Gaby said. “Let’s keep looking.” She added, “Maybe we can find the SPF 5000 sunscreen Belle uses to stay so pale.”

  That got a chuckle out of Valerie.

  Then Gaby said, more seriously, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe she was really sick and she’s been in a hospital. You know how she can be kind of edgy? Maybe she just got out and she’s not used to being back in the outside world.”

  “Maybe she’s been in a mental hospital,” Valerie said. “Maybe she took an ax with her into the woods and she’s killed them all!” She slapped her cheeks. “Oh my God! She’s Cropsy’s daughter!”

  “Why do you keep doing that?” Gaby half-shouted at her. “Aren’t things scary enough for you?”

  “It just comes naturally,” Valerie admitted. “My head just goes there.”

  That felt like an apology. Gaby calmed down and nodded as she flicked another flashlight on and off. She was testing them.

  “Maybe you should go back to Hollywood with Tori and become a movie director,” Gaby said.

  “LaToya and I are talking about going to a performing arts high school,” Valerie told her.

  “I’ll bet that’s a big hit with your parents,” Gaby replied. “Mine are always pouring on the pressure. ‘Get good grades. Go to a good college.’ ”

  “Actually, my stepmother’s very supportive,” Valerie said. “But it is making my dad a little crazy.”

  “My parents are both attorneys,” Gaby said. “They work all the time. They’ve already told me that I should go to law school, and I’m thinking, ‘Why? S
o I can work all the time, too?’ ”

  “Wow. That is pressure.” Valerie dropped her hands onto her knees. “Well, I think we can safely say that there are no cell phones in here.”

  Gaby ran her flashlight along the floor of the tent, then up one side and along the ceiling. As she moved down the other side, something flickered in her side vision and she jerked her flashlight back.

  “Hey, did you just see something?” she asked Valerie.

  “Something like what?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw something.” Gaby moved her flashlight slowly.

  “Stop it. I’m not falling for it.”

  “I’m serious,” Gaby insisted. “I—”

  “Something’s coming!” Valerie hissed.

  Footsteps padded toward the tent. Both girls aimed their flashlights at the opening.

  It was Tori.

  “You scared us half to death!” Gaby cried.

  “Sorry,” Tori said. She ducked her head in. “Did you find anything?”

  “Flashlights,” Gaby proclaimed. “And the notes for the scavenger hunt.” She held them up them to show Tori.

  “No man may look upon them and live,” Valerie said.

  “Lucky thing none of us are men,” Tori drawled.

  “If they don’t come back soon, I say we look at the notes,” Gaby told Tori. “Valerie’s got this theory that all this is part of the bonding experience,” she said as she crawled on her hands and knees from the back of the tent.

  Tori snorted. “I’ve got this theory that we have stumbled into a bad horror movie.”

  “Great minds think alike,” Valerie said and edged her way out of the door, flashlight and clipboard in hand.

  Gaby said, “Well, I don’t like watching horror movies, and I like being in them even less.”

  “Maybe we should look at the scavenger hunt notes,” Tori said. “What if they left us a note, like, Dear Bunk Psycho, welcome to Survivor, Camp Lakeview-style. While we are gone, your job is to build a hut and search for edible berries and not snark one another to death. It’s a whole big bonding thing.”

  “We have tents and lots of food,” Gaby pointed out, ignoring Tori’s snarking comment. “But you might be right. I say let’s check the notes.”

  “Okay, I’m outvoted,” Valerie announced. “We’ll check.”

  The trio returned to the campfire. The other girls were sitting at the two picnic tables, most with their knees tucked under their chins as if they were trying to avoid the fog that rolled along the ground like waves. Someone had added a bunch of wood to the campfire and the flames flickered over their tired, anxious faces.

  “We found flashlights,” Gaby said cheerfully. She gestured to the box Tori was carrying.

  “But no cell phone?” Candace asked.

  “No,” Gaby admitted. “But we know Belle has one. Maybe she’s calling for help right now.”

  “Which implies that we need help,” Priya said.

  The group fell silent for a moment. Gaby didn’t know what to say to that.

  Candace looked up at her. “Do you think we need help, Gaby?”

  The bunk waited for Gaby’s answer. Somehow she had become a leader. That seemed to happen to her a lot. She’d say or do something and the next thing she knew, other people were either doing what she asked, or getting mad at her for asking them to do it in the first place.

  “I don’t know, but we have the scavenger hunt notes, and we’re going to look at them and see if this is part of the game. Okay?”

  “Good idea.” Alex gave her head a decisive nod. She looked at the others. One by one, they nodded, too. Wow, everyone agreed on something.

  “I hope we don’t get in trouble,” Candace said.

  “They’re the ones in trouble,” Brynn said in her hoarse, scratchy voice, “for leaving us alone.”

  “You have a point. Let’s see what the what is.” Gaby reached for the clipboard. Valerie handed it to her.

  “One,” Gaby read. “Divide the girls up into groups. Two, we hide! We (along with the bags and bags of penny candy we’ll be holding) are the prizes of the scavenger hunt!”

  Stunned murmurs went around the group as they took that in.

  “Oh my God! This is a prank! I’m going to kill them both!” Brynn pantomimed choking someone.

  “Me too,” Tori agreed.

  “Wait a minute,” Alex said. “That doesn’t follow. Chelsea was the reason Belle left. And Clarissa went after Belle.”

  “Chelsea was in on it. Remember when Chelsea left us at the lake? That’s when they must have planned the whole thing,” Brynn said, her voice filled with awe. “So then Chelsea pretended to be a total spazz and march off so Belle could split, and then Clarissa could split. Wow, Chelsea deserves an Academy Award for her performance. I bought it.”

  “No way. Chelsea would not say something mean about Alex for the sake of a stupid game,” Alyssa insisted.

  “I totally agree with you.” Gaby was pleased to hear someone stick up for Chelsea. Sure, sometimes the girl was irritating, but wasn’t everybody?

  Brynn shrugged. “So maybe Belle found Chelsea after she stomped off and told her to play along. And then Clarissa realized Belle had taken advantage of the situation and started the scavenger hunt. So she left.”

  “But she took Natalie and Jenna with her,” Alex argued.

  “Besides, we were going to do the scavenger hunt tomorrow. In the daylight,” Priya put in. She looked at the other girls. “Right? Isn’t that what Belle told us?”

  “I . . . think so,” Tori said. She tilted her head. “I can’t remember. But maybe that was to throw us off. Maybe taking Natalie and Jen was to confuse us, too.”

  “Guys, please. Think.” Alex picked up the clipboard and scanned it, turning the first page and running her finger down the next page. “There is no way that a camp counselor would leave us alone and then expect us to look for her in the woods. That’s totally against all the Camp Lakeview rules.”

  “No normal camp counselor,” Valerie shot back. “We’ve already established that Belle is a little bit . . . unusual.”

  “Weird,” Brynn said.

  “Spooky,” Tori agreed.

  “Wacko,” Valerie added.

  “Not that wacko,” Gaby insisted.

  Brynn folded her arms across her chest. “If it’s not a game, why haven’t they come back?”

  “Because they’re lost?” Alex suggested.

  “In that case . . . Chelsea!” Brynn tried to yell, but her voice completely gave out. “Belle! You guys!” she whispered.

  Everyone joined in again. As before, there was no answer to their lame distress calls.

  Gaby gazed at Alex. “What else is in the notes?”

  “They were going to make trails for us through the woods,” Alex replied. “Bend back branches and tie pieces of cloth around tree trunks. It says to follow the map.”

  Alex flipped through the pages to the end. “Mayb” She looked to the left. “. . . exactly where Chelsea and everyone else took off.”

  Tori leaned over her shoulder. “You’re right.”

  “I’m going to go see if I can find them.” Picking up the clipboard, Gaby got to her feet.

  “Gaby, no.” Priya frowned. “Clarissa told us to stay here.”

  “And every time someone leaves, they don’t come back,” Candace added in a soft, frightened voice.

  “Well, I’m going. Enough’s enough.” Gaby took a flashlight out of the box and flicked it on.

  “You can’t go alone,” Tori announced. She flashed Gaby a half-smile and got a flashlight, too. She flicked it on and ran the beam around the outskirts of the campfire.

  “Me three,” Valerie said.

  Gaby looked at Valerie and Tori, surprised that both of them had volunteered to go with her. She thought they didn’t like her.

  “Don’t, you guys,” Alyssa insisted. “We’re probably wrong. I’m sure they really went to get Chelsea and then they got turned
around in the fog. They’ll be back as soon as it clears up.”

  “And they’ll find out we’ve ruined the scavenger hunt,” Candace said.

  Gaby tried to sound lighthearted as she said, “Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Coming, ladies?”

  As Tori, Valerie, and Gaby left the campsite, Tori wondered if she had just made a big mistake. In every scary movie she had ever watched, this was exactly what the characters did—split up—and then the crazed slasher-guy picked them off. She didn’t know why on earth she had volunteered to go. She just . . . had. She had to do something. She couldn’t stand just sitting there, wondering what was going on.

  But that’s what the characters in the slasher movies do, and we always crack up and say they deserve what they get, because they’re so stupid, she thought.

  “Chelsea?” Gaby rasped as they walked into the dense woods. “Belle?”

  And then the slasher-guy starts following them through the woods. They’re easy to track, because they make so much noise.

  “Chelsea, we’re sorry!” Valerie whispered. “Oh, why did we sing so much? I can barely talk!”

  Above them, broad-leafed trees and pines rose like enormous gargoyles. The long branches bobbed and shifted like leathery wings. The hot, moist air hung thickly around Tori like a net. She slapped her arm, heard a buzzing in her ear, and shooed a mosquito away.

  As they walked, the three bunkmates aimed their flashlights downward, but the beams bounced off the thick fog. The mist had risen to the tops of Tori’s knees. She walked carefully, feeling rocks and tree roots underneath her sneaker soles; but she still tripped over something strange and hard—tree root, branch, she told herself—and she jerked when something skittered from beneath it through the fog, hidden from her scrutiny.

  This is such a horrible idea, she thought again, as her heart pounded.

  “Hey, look at this,” Valerie said.

  She shone her flashlight on the bent-back branches of a spindly bush.

  “No. Way,” Gaby said excitedly. She looked down at the map. “They must have made this path.”

  “When?” Tori asked, examining the broken branches. “They never left the campsite.”

  “Sure they did,” Gaby insisted. “Belle was with us at the lake. She made sure all of us were there. Remember how she kept counting us? She got upset when she realized Chelsea was missing.”