Campfire

by Shawn Sarles

  “That’s what he said.” Maddie nodded.

  “Wow.”

  The two lapsed into silence then, their footsteps the only sound as they walked through the forest.

  “It’s kinda scary, isn’t it?”

  The thought had churned in Maddie’s head for the last hour. She couldn’t decide how she felt about the whole thing.

  “I mean, scary that he lost his temper like that and got so… violent.”

  The word sounded heavy coming out of her mouth. Maybe too extreme. And a bit damning. But how else could she describe it? It was scary. And violent.

  “Yeah,” Chelsea thought about it. “But it’s not like he was swinging the bat at someone else. Like, then it’d be really scary.”

  “Mmm,” Maddie agreed, but not with much enthusiasm.

  “You know how boys can be.” Chelsea picked up her thought. “All that testosterone. It can mess with their heads. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. Just that he had a bad day.”

  Maddie could tell her bestie was trying to downplay the whole incident, and she knew exactly where Chelsea was going with it.

  “I’m not into Tommy,” Maddie stated plainly.

  Chelsea stopped and turned to Maddie.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive.” Maddie rolled her eyes. “I was just trying to forget about Caleb. About my face-palm of a pickup line with him.”

  “You know,” Chelsea wasn’t letting it drop, “it’s okay if you like Tommy Meyers. You could do a whole lot worse.”

  “Worse than a felon?” It sounded so bad coming out of Maddie’s mouth. “Who in their right mind would crush on a guy who’s gotten arrested?”

  “I mean, I’m head-over-heels for my best friend’s brother… who also happens to have a girlfriend,” Chelsea admitted. “So what if Tommy got arrested? That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. And that doesn’t mean you can’t crush on him if you want.”

  “I don’t have a thing for Tommy Meyers,” Maddie said again.

  “I’m not saying you do. I’m just saying that you could—in theory—and it would be okay. I mean, it even sounds like he’s remorseful and dealing with it and all.”

  “But it’s Tommy Meyers.” Did Maddie really have to spell it out? “As in the boy who once had us at each other’s throats.”

  Chelsea only shrugged as if she’d seen it all before. They’d buried that fight a long time ago.

  “I don’t have a crush on him,” Maddie said one last time.

  “Fine. Fine.” Chelsea threw her hands up. “I get it. You don’t like Tommy Meyers.”

  Maddie sighed.

  “But just know that if you do start liking him”—Chelsea had to get in the last word—“I’m 100 percent here for it.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes.

  “You done now?”

  Chelsea smiled innocently, and Maddie couldn’t help smiling back.

  The girls started walking again, chattering away. They were so distracted that they didn’t even notice the eerie shadows springing up around them, the trees creating tall and hulking figures beneath Maddie’s flashlight beam. They didn’t stop and worry about invisible eyes peering out at them from the cover of dark. For maybe the first time that week, they felt at ease. Safe. Not the least bit frightened.

  And then, out of nowhere, something banged in the night.

  Maddie stopped and Chelsea nearly tripped over her. Maddie quickly said “Shh” and motioned for her to listen. Then, feeling brave, Maddie flipped off her flashlight and dragged Chelsea into the dark forest. She was tired of being afraid of every little thing that went bump in the night.

  She moved slowly, picking her way through the underbrush. The moon was hidden behind a cloud, but her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark. She could make out roots and leaves on the ground, but only those directly in front of her. She focused all her attention forward, knowing that if she chanced a glance over her shoulder at her reluctant best friend, she’d lose her resolve and turn back.

  Every few seconds, Maddie paused to make sure she could still hear the rustling. It had gotten louder. Whatever it was wasn’t worried about staying hidden. Maddie pressed on. They were close.

  A moment later, a grunt punctuated the night and Maddie froze. Another grunt. It sounded human.

  She peered ahead and saw a faint glow. She kept moving. Slower now. Creeping through the underbrush. She knew what was happening, but she didn’t know who.

  A little clearing opened up in the trees just ahead. They were almost there. Maddie sneaked behind a big tree trunk and listened.

  It wasn’t just grunts and rustling now. She could make out a low murmuring, too, someone whispering a frenzy of out-of-breath words.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so so so so sorry. I was just so angry. And so jealous. The way he had his hands all over you. I couldn’t take it.”

  “Shut up, Mark.”

  Maddie’s heart leaped into her throat as she recognized the second voice. She edged her head around the tree trunk. She knew what she’d see, but she needed to confirm it.

  A lantern sat on the ground in the little clearing, illuminating everything—Mark with Maddie’s aunt Julie, both naked, her aunt’s back pinned against a tree trunk.

  Maddie heard Chelsea gasp, but even as grossed out as Maddie was, she couldn’t turn away. It was clear this wasn’t a new thing. But how long had they been sleeping together?

  Mark’s grunts came louder as Julie’s nails pressed into his back.

  “You’re such an idiot, Mark,” she gasped. “But you’re my idiot.”

  Maddie couldn’t watch anymore. She turned and ran, pulling Chelsea along behind her, no longer caring if anyone heard them.

  At that moment, the moon finally came out and the forest grew suddenly lighter. Maddie looked back, hoping that neither adult would see them.

  That’s when she saw something—a familiar glint in among the trees. But she turned back around quickly and kept going. She wanted to get as far away from her aunt’s affair as quickly as possible.

  As they made their way back, Maddie and Chelsea moved on autopilot, neither girl saying a word. Both were still in shock. Maddie’s mind raced with the truth she’d stumbled upon. She wondered if anyone else knew. Was that why her uncle had been so quick to throw down with Mark earlier? She wished she hadn’t seen anything at all.

  When they arrived in camp, everything was still, everyone asleep in their tents. The fire crackled softly, its embers almost dead. Maddie started when she saw Caleb still up, sitting quietly next to the dying flames, working away at his knife. She didn’t say anything to him, though, as she and Chelsea slid past and into their tent.

  The two girls climbed into their sleeping bags and exchanged one last look before turning in for the night, their look saying it all—that they’d never tell anybody about what they’d just seen.

  SIXTEEN

  THERE WAS A CRISPNESS TO THE air as Maddie came out of her tent the next morning, her legs buzzing with energy. Sleep had helped dull the shock of what she’d stumbled upon the night before, but the whole scene—Julie and Mark’s naked bodies—still disturbed her. She couldn’t quite shake the image of Mark’s butt.

  Luckily, she had spotted a new trail the day before, one she was excited to tackle now. A hard run would definitely help clear her mind.

  Bending over to stretch a little, Maddie pulled out her iPod and began scrolling through her playlists. But before she could pick one, a shout came from the other side of camp. A second later, Mark’s splotched face appeared.

  If anything, he looked worse than he had the night before. Sleep hadn’t helped clear his red-rimmed eyes or flatten his scraggly mess of hair. It also didn’t help that he only had on a pair of boxer shorts and a shirt that’d come completely unbuttoned, revealing his disturbing paunch.

  “Who did this?” Mark spun around in a circle, looking for someone to blame. Only Maddie, Caleb, and Charlie were around, though. Everyone else was
still asleep. “This isn’t funny. Who’s responsible?”

  “What the hell are you complaining about now?” Uncle Ed came out of his tent, fully dressed. Aunt Julie appeared right behind him, staying a few steps back from her husband. “Some of us were enjoying a quiet morning.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Mark pointed his finger and leaped toward Ed. “You trying to get back at me for last night? Punching a drunk man wasn’t enough?”

  “What are you talking about?” Ed grabbed the accusing finger and shoved it away.

  “Don’t play dumb.”

  As he said this, Mark finally pointed to what he meant. Maddie followed his finger and gasped. There, splashed onto the side of his tent, plain as day and red as blood, were two lightning bolts—a pair of antlers.

  “This your idea of a joke?” Mark spit the question at Ed, but the other man didn’t reply.

  No one spoke for a good minute. They all remembered Caleb’s story from the night before. Maddie turned toward the guide and tried to read his face, but Caleb had on a stony expression.

  “You.” Mark’s attention turned to Caleb. “This was your story. Did you do this?”

  Mark stared at Caleb, almost daring him to deny it.

  “No,” Caleb finally answered. “And I made that story up. The Mountain People aren’t real.”

  The guide’s eyebrows crinkled inward, as if it pained him to admit the truth. But Maddie could see the immediate relief as Mark’s shoulders loosened.

  “It must have been one of the kids playing a prank on you,” said Kris, who had scrambled out of her tent after her husband’s outburst, throwing out a theory that Mark happily latched on to.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Must have been. But which one?”

  He spun around and eyed his own two daughters first. They’d just pulled themselves out of their tent, and neither looked pleased. Maddie was surprised but thankful to see Abigail there, rumpled but standing on two feet.

  “It wasn’t us, Dad,” Abigail snarled, her patience razor thin. Maddie imagined she must have a pretty bad hangover.

  Mark turned to Bryan and Maddie next, but both of them just shook their heads.

  “It’s not blood, is it?” Aunt Julie had gotten closer to the tent and was eyeballing the antlers. She reached out her hand in curiosity.

  “Don’t touch it!” Mark lunged forward and snatched her hand away. “It might be diseased.”

  “Well, if it’s ketchup, we’ll know it’s just a prank.” Aunt Julie twisted out of Mark’s grip.

  “And if it’s animal blood…”

  Mark took off his shirt and draped it over the antlers.

  “I’ll clean it up,” he announced. He eyed everyone, unembarrassed by his bare, flabby torso. “Just—no one touch it.”

  And then he disappeared back into his tent, leaving everyone else a bit confused in his wake.

  “You kids didn’t do this, did you?” Maddie’s dad asked gently as he looked at his son.

  “Wasn’t us, Dad,” Charlie replied breezily. Then he took Dylan by the hand and pulled her away toward the lake as the rest of the group broke up.

  Maddie didn’t know what to think. The appearance of the antlers was certainly odd. In Caleb’s story they had been ominous—a threat. Had Abigail gotten the boys to prank her own dad? It seemed like something right up Jason’s alley, just like the claw marks on that tree.

  “He probably did it himself.” Maddie’s ears pricked up as she overheard her uncle grumbling. “Probably wanted sympathy points or something. He’s a twisted man.”

  “Oh, stop that,” Julie chastised her husband. “Why would Mark do a silly thing like that?”

  “Why would he take a rifle into the woods and shoot a damn deer?”

  Ed held nothing back. He looked at his wife, challenging her to disagree. Bryan rolled his eyes and walked away from his parents without a word.

  “Where are you going?” Ed hollered after his son, but Bryan kept going without a reply. “Hey! I’m talking to you.”

  Ed started forward, his voice raised. His wife’s hand shot up and pulled him back.

  “Let him be.”

  “That boy needs to learn some respect. And he needs to man up.”

  Julie kept her mouth shut, but her hand stayed firmly on Ed’s shoulder. After a minute she let him go and headed back to their tent. Ed stared after her, a weird look in his eye. Again, Maddie wondered if he knew—or maybe only suspected—what she’d seen in the woods the night before.

  “What are you looking at?”

  He’d caught her staring. She smiled and was thankful that he couldn’t see inside her head.

  “Just going for a run.”

  “Have you seen your dad around?” Ed changed the subject quickly.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Maddie caught a flash of her dad retreating toward the woods. She looked back at her uncle and shook her head.

  “Well, if you see him, let him know that there’s something I need to discuss with him.”

  “Okay.” Maddie didn’t know what that could be about, but she didn’t really care. She gave her uncle a little wave and jogged off.

  When she got to the edge of the clearing, she paused, pulling out her iPod again. She spun through her playlists. She wanted something upbeat, something that would dispel the morning’s strange mood. She hummed to herself as she scrolled, until finally she found what she wanted—Boy Bands. That would do the trick. But just as she started off into a jog, a movement in the trees caught her eye. She squinted and there, just twenty-five yards away, she saw where her dad had sneaked off to. And he wasn’t alone.

  Maddie shuffled a few steps closer, and she could see Kris’s disapproving frown. The woman didn’t look happy as she listened to Maddie’s dad. Was this the word he’d wanted? The horse ride up the mountain seemed so long ago.

  “Kris, you’ve got to help me out,” her dad pleaded. “I don’t have the money.”

  “You’ve always come up with it before.” Kris’s answer came out cold.

  “It’s different this time. I’m running on empty. I’ve already double-mortgaged the house. And I’ve got two kids to raise.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Kris snapped back. “I’ve got two kids. And Mark’s useless ass might as well be a third. Yet I still manage to find the extra cash each month.”

  Maddie felt bad for listening. Even frightened. Was she about to hear something she didn’t want to know?

  “And you didn’t see me getting a million-dollar payout from Linda’s life insurance,” Kris finished her point, thrusting her finger into Maddie’s dad’s shoulder for extra emphasis. “Where’d that money go?”

  “You know it wasn’t anywhere near that much,” Maddie’s dad snarled back, an animal cornered. “And most of what we did get went right into the funeral and—”

  “You had plenty left over that you could have put away,” Kris cut him off. “But instead, you got back into gambling. I thought you would have learned your lesson. I’m tired of your excuses.”

  “You try burying a wife—the mother of your children—”

  “You can save the sob story, Mitch. We all lived through it. I lost my best friend, too, you know.”

  “Yeah. And you got her company after.”

  “Don’t even start with that. I bought out your wife’s share years ago. Fair and square. You got good money for it. Above market value.”

  “And what’s that money doing for me now?”

  “It’s not my fault you spent it.”

  Their voices had risen to shouts. Maddie wished she could turn her ears off. She started backing away, one step at a time, praying the two adults wouldn’t see her. But then, all of a sudden, Kris glanced her way.

  Maddie didn’t know what to do, so she turned away, ignoring Kris’s anxious wave. She pretended to stretch, faked that she was so absorbed in her music—that wasn’t actually playing through her earphones—that she hadn’t even noticed Kris and her dad having a very apparent and
heated argument.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see that Kris had given up on flagging her down and was talking to her dad again. Their voices were lower now, but Maddie could still hear every word.

  “Please. Please.” Maddie’s dad sounded pathetic. Defeated. “Please help me out. Just this once.”

  “I’m sorry, Mitch. I can’t.” Kris sounded firm. “But talk to him. I’m sure Ed will understand.”

  Maddie’s heart thumped. Why did her dad owe Uncle Ed money?

  “No. You’re right,” Kris responded to Mitch’s harrumph of disbelief. “But maybe he’ll give you an extension.”

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  Maddie’s dad grimaced as if Kris had punched him in the gut. He pushed past her and walked deeper into the forest. He looked like he had some serious thinking to do. Kris turned and watched him go. After a moment, she headed back toward camp.

  Maddie couldn’t move. Her father’s words echoed in her head.

  They were poor.

  Broke.

  Penniless.

  She tried, but couldn’t shake the depressing revelation.

  So she hit play on her iPod and bolted into the forest.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE MILES BLURRED BY, DISAPPEARING UNDER Maddie’s flying feet along with the thoughts about her father—the argument, the worries, the things she’d overheard that she wished she hadn’t. It was one of the reasons she loved running. She could disconnect from the world, unplug her brain and the negative thoughts churning away there.

  It was a motion honed over years of drills and thousands of miles. Perfected so that when she ran she felt weightless. Her thoughts gone. Her body flying. Her brain high on endorphins.

  She focused on her breathing, on her body’s rhythms as she pumped her arms. She felt the familiar burn of exertion, the wind whipping her hair back. Her heart pounded, letting her know that she was alive and well. That she was powerful. As her feet hit the ground, her worries flew up and scattered in the wind. She wished she could feel this way all the time.

  She rounded a tree on the other side of the lake and made her way back. She could feel her body tiring, but she didn’t slow down. The pain drove her forward. She pushed along the last stretch of shoreline and then plunged back into the forest. She had only a quarter of the trail left—just under three miles.