Campfire

by Shawn Sarles

  He raised the gun the rest of the way to his shoulder and stared down the barrel at Caleb, bringing the guide squarely into his sights.

  “Dad!” Maddie tried to get his attention. “Dad, listen to him.”

  But her father didn’t hear her. He was going to shoot, and Maddie couldn’t stop it. She screamed and turned away as she saw Caleb lunging forward, a last, desperate attempt to save himself. His fingers hovered inches from the gun, but he wouldn’t get there in time.

  The rifle exploded with an earsplitting roar. Maddie shut her eyes and prayed for it to be over.

  Only when the gunshot’s echo had died did Maddie ease her eyes open again. She looked at the ground beneath her, at her feet planted flat, her knees hovering just over the laces of her running shoes. She extended her legs and rose from her squat. She didn’t want to look, but she had to. She turned and saw her dad standing in the same spot, gun still in his hand—pointed up into the trees.

  Wait. That didn’t make sense.

  Maddie looked at the gun again and noticed that a hand gripped the barrel, forcing it up.

  Caleb’s hand. Maddie’s breath caught in her lungs. The guide was still standing. He’d managed to get there in time.

  “Shit!” Caleb screamed out, breaking the tension. The shot had also shaken Maddie’s father out of his mad frenzy. He didn’t seem so enthusiastic now.

  Caleb’s hand smoldered as he let go of the gun. The metal had scorched his entire palm when it had gone off. He shook it out now and continued to curse.

  “What the hell? You were really going to shoot me? I told you I didn’t kill anyb—”

  But before Caleb could finish, Kris rushed in and yanked the gun from Mitch’s hands. She raised it above his head in one swift motion, bringing the butt down with a crack against the guide’s forehead.

  Everyone looked on in shock as Caleb crumpled to the ground.

  “What? He’s a murderer,” Kris explained.

  TWENTY-NINE

  MADDIE COULDN’T HELP STARING AT CALEB’S unconscious face. A giant bruise had bloomed on one side of his head, a patch of dried blood scabbing over in his hairline, where Kris had smashed him with the butt of the rifle. Maddie wanted to reach out and touch his swollen face, to clean him off with a cool cloth. But she didn’t dare.

  He was a murderer—at least that’s what everyone else seemed to think. They were over on the far side of the fire right now, deciding what to do with him.

  Maddie didn’t want to believe it, but she couldn’t ignore the evidence. It wasn’t much, but it certainly made Caleb look bad.

  He knew the mountains the best. He could have slipped back and forth, even in the middle of the night, and they wouldn’t have noticed. He’d also been furious with Mark. Maybe the deer incident had set him off. He’d heard all their campfire stories. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to bring them to life. To terrify them all as he picked them off one by one.

  And then there was his knife. Its decorative C and bloody blade screamed his guilt.

  How could he have done it? How could he have murdered all their friends?

  “Maddie.” Abigail startled her, saying her name softly. “Can I talk to you?”

  Maddie turned. Even in the flickering firelight the girl looked pale. Unwell. Maddie had barely noticed Abigail that day. The girl had been attached to her mother’s hip, silent. When Maddie had caught her eye, Abigail had turned away quickly each time.

  “What is it?”

  “I—I wanted to apologize,” Abigail began.

  “Again?”

  “No, I—” Abigail’s eyes dropped down to her hands and she fiddled with her fingernails, scratching at the dirt underneath them.

  “What is it?” Maddie snapped, losing her patience.

  “I wanted to explain,” Abigail began uncomfortably, “about why I was out in the woods last night when—when Charlie saved me.”

  “Oh,” Maddie realized with a start. Her fingers flitted to the brim of her hat. “But that wasn’t your—”

  “I went out into the woods last night because I wanted it to be over. I wanted—I wanted to be with my dad. And Jason. I didn’t want to be scared or sad, or to lose anyone ever again. I was trying to find the stream. It would have been a peaceful end, floating away, disappearing under the current.

  “But then—he found me instead. Once he had his arms around me,” Abigail shuddered and corrected herself. “Once Caleb had his arms around me, everything in me screamed to live.”

  Maddie only nodded, letting Abigail finish what she had to get out.

  “And then—and then your brother showed up and he saved me. And I ran away. I left him behind to die. And I’m so sorry for that.”

  Abigail blurted the last bit out in one go. She winced, waiting for Maddie’s anger.

  But Maddie couldn’t be mad at her. She couldn’t be mad because she understood. She’d felt the same crippling depression all morning. The same survivor’s guilt.

  “It’s not your fault,” Maddie said, looking Abigail directly in the eye, making sure she understood her sincerity. What she didn’t say was that it wasn’t Abigail’s fault because it was her fault. Maddie had let Charlie down in those woods, too.

  “Th-thanks,” Abigail stuttered, though she didn’t look very relieved as she shuffled away, back toward her mother and sister. Maddie had tried her best to absolve the girl, but Abigail needed to forgive herself if she truly wanted to feel better.

  A groan escaped Caleb’s lips, and Maddie snapped around in time to see his head loll from one side to the other. She leaned in closer. She could see his eyes probing against his closed lids.

  Suddenly, Caleb jolted forward. Maddie fell back in fright. But before the guide could reach her, he came up against his bindings and was flung back into the tree they’d tied him to. He strained against the rope two or three more times before giving up. Then his eyes finally popped open and he spotted Maddie.

  “Wha—what happened?” His voice croaked softly. He closed his eyes as if to take a nap but opened them again almost immediately. “My head—ugh—it’s killing me.”

  Maddie didn’t know what to say, and so just stared at him.

  “So thirsty. Do you think—could you get me some water?”

  Maddie could hear the dryness in his voice, the way his tongue stuck as he took raspy breaths through his mouth. She hesitated and then scurried a few steps away, where she grabbed her water bottle from her pack. She looked back over her shoulder. No one had noticed that Caleb was awake. Even Chelsea had missed it, so exhausted by the day that she’d fallen into an uneasy sleep, her head resting against Bryan’s shoulder. Maddie turned back around and approached Caleb tentatively. She poured a few gulps of water into his mouth without saying a word.

  “Tha—” Caleb coughed up some of the water before swallowing another gulp. “Thank you.”

  Maddie smiled at him and was about to say something when Kris’s voice rang out.

  “He’s awake.”

  Maddie spun around, looking guilty, and saw Kris and her father rushing over. She backed away in a hurry.

  “So you’re finally back with us.” Kris’s voice dripped venom. “You killed my husband and Ed and poor Charlie. Even those boys out in the woods, my daughter’s friends. Why?”

  Caleb replied with two simple words.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Stop lying!” Kris raised her hand but Maddie’s dad reached up and grabbed her wrist before she could strike.

  “I think he’s already been hit hard enough. Let me try.”

  Kris bristled at the interruption but stepped aside.

  “Come on, Caleb.” Maddie’s dad bent down so that he could look Caleb directly in the eye. “You were furious at Mark. We found your knife under Ed’s body. You did this. So let’s stop pretending.”

  Caleb looked away, and Maddie’s dad pressed on, his questions coming one after the other as Caleb refused to answer any of them.

  “Why’d yo
u kill everyone? Mark, I can kind of understand. Even Ed. But those boys? Charlie? Was it your plan all along? To lead us out into the woods and then pick us off one by one? Did you think it was funny, torturing us like that? Torturing them?”

  Caleb hadn’t said a word since he’d first asserted his innocence.

  “Enough of this.”

  Kris leaped forward and pushed Maddie’s dad out of the way. She squeezed Caleb’s face between her hands, pressing her nails into his cheeks, digging her index finger into the wound at his hairline. Caleb shouted in pain.

  “Stop it!” Maddie couldn’t take it anymore as she screamed at Kris. “You’re hurting him.”

  “He killed them, Maddie.” Kris turned to face her, but her fingernails still dug into Caleb’s face. “My husband. Ed. Your brother. He doesn’t deserve compassion. He’s a murderer.”

  Kris underscored her point by digging her fingers harder into his head.

  “Why’d you do it? Why’d you kill them?” she screamed.

  Maddie backed off, trembling, more afraid of the wild glint in Kris’s eye than Caleb, bound and defenseless.

  “I—didn’t—kill—anyone!”

  Caleb reasserted his innocence, and Kris savagely tossed his head back against the tree. She turned from him and walked over to the fire. She wasn’t done yet. She bent over and picked something up off the ground. She held it over the flames for a few minutes.

  When Kris turned back around the thing caught the light and gleamed dangerously. Even from where Maddie sat she could make out the C on its handle. Kris took four quick strides and had Caleb by the hair. She jerked his head back. His neck strained but he didn’t fight her grip. He stared her in the eye, unafraid.

  “Maybe we should do to you what you did to my husband.”

  The knife hovered an inch above Caleb’s forehead. He didn’t seem to take Kris’s threat seriously, though. Until she brought the searing flat of the blade down on his cheek.

  The scream was horrible. Feral. Caleb jerked forward, but his restraints held fast.

  “No!” Maddie cried again. This time she ran toward Kris, trying to grab the smoldering knife out of her hand. But her dad scooped her up, holding her back.

  “Confess,” Kris shouted, her voice raw and wild. But Caleb didn’t speak. “Then I guess we’ll have to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

  Kris repositioned the knife in her hand and yanked Caleb’s hair back even harder this time. She brought the knife’s tip down on the guide’s forehead and made three slow, excruciating cuts.

  Caleb’s cries were even worse this time. Even Maddie’s hands couldn’t block them out as she squirmed in her dad’s arms, struggling to get free.

  “Still don’t want to talk?” Kris gave the guide one last chance and then carved a second antler into his forehead. Once Caleb’s howls had died down, she pulled back and admired her handiwork. “Not too bad. Though maybe I made them a little bigger than the ones you gave Mark. My mistake.”

  Maddie didn’t know how Caleb remained conscious. His face was swollen and cut up almost beyond recognition. The guide closed his eyes and tucked his chin into his chest as he whimpered. He was defeated, all the fight beaten out of him.

  But still, he didn’t confess.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Dylan spoke up. Her skin had lost its color, and she held her stomach like she really might vomit on the spot. “I need some air. This is all—this is all too much.”

  “Honey, don’t—” but it was already too late. Kris’s words fell unheard as Dylan staggered off into the dark woods. The knife shook in the woman’s hand, the spell broken, and she let it drop to the ground.

  “Let her go,” Maddie’s dad said as he released his own daughter. “We’ve got our killer. She’ll be fine. I’m sure she won’t go far.”

  Kris nodded, reluctant to see Dylan disappear. She turned and Maddie caught her gaze. The mania had disappeared from the woman’s eyes. Maddie hadn’t known Kris had it in her. Wherever it’d come from, though, it had gone. She looked broken and weak now. She stared right through Maddie, lost in thought, and then turned to speak to Maddie’s dad again.

  “Am I going crazy?”

  “No.” He didn’t sound so sure, but what else could he say?

  “It’s just,” Kris paused and looked at her shaking hands. “Mark and Ed are dead. Charlie. He almost got Abigail. He did this. Why won’t he admit it?”

  Maddie watched as her dad wrapped Kris up in his arms. There was an intimacy between them that she’d never noticed before.

  “He’s a lunatic, Kris. You can’t try and understand him.”

  Kris sniffled and then wiped her nose on Mitch’s shirt.

  “You know what’s sad,” she started, pulling away slowly, “for a while I thought you’d killed them. I mean, when I saw Ed—that seemed a little too convenient.”

  “I would never.”

  “Oh, don’t act so innocent. We both know what you’re capable of. You would—if the right opportunity presented itself.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Maddie’s dad bristled. He let his arms drop to his sides.

  “I guess that’s something good in all this,” Kris said, as if saving the situation. “No more Ed means no more blackmail.”

  “Means we can finally bury our past mistakes for good,” Mitch grimaced.

  “Maddie.” Someone was whispering her name. She turned, knowing it’d be Caleb. “Maddie, you’ve got to help me.”

  She could barely keep her eyes on him. But she couldn’t turn away, either. Two rivulets of blood ran down from the matching antlers on his forehead and merged into one stream between his eyebrows. The blood continued down his nose and into one eye so that he had to squint to see her.

  “I’m innocent.” His voice was a croak as he pled with her. “All you have to do is cut me loose.”

  Maddie looked down and saw his knife lying where Kris had dropped it. A few inches closer and Caleb would have been able to hook his foot around it and free himself.

  “I didn’t do this. You have to believe me.” Caleb’s tears trickled down his cheeks, falling from his blue eyes and mixing with the blood from his forehead. “Only you can save me. Be brave. Be my Mustang Maddie.”

  She froze, remembering that first day on the mountain, how he’d leaped in without a second’s thought, risked his own neck to save her. Had that really been only a couple of days ago?

  “Please. They’re going to kill me.”

  Didn’t she owe him? A life for a life?

  But no. He was the killer. He’d murdered her brother. She couldn’t forget that.

  But why deny it? Why not confess?

  Maddie didn’t know what to do. She was frightened. Saving him could mean killing them all.

  She crawled over and picked up the knife, balancing it in her palm. Caleb’s blood dripped off it and into her hand. She wiped it on her shirt, polishing it like she’d seen him do around the campfire.

  “That’s it,” Caleb whispered. “Now just bring it over here and cut me loose.”

  Maddie hesitated but then started toward Caleb.

  “What are you doing?” Chelsea’s voice startled Maddie, and she almost dropped the knife. She turned to meet her best friend’s gaze.

  “What are you doing?” Chelsea asked again, eyeing the knife suspiciously. “He’s a murderer, Maddie. He killed Charlie.”

  Maddie stood frozen for a moment, trying to work out the thoughts spinning in her head. Finally, she answered her best friend as simply as she could.

  “Did he?”

  She was doing the right thing. She was certain of it. Her gut told her he was innocent. And if that was the case, then that meant the real killer was still out there. They’d need Caleb if they wanted to survive.

  The rationalization played on a loop in Maddie’s head as she turned away from Chelsea and focused back on the guide. She leaned against the tree to get a better angle and held the knife over Caleb’s restraints.
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br />   But right at that moment, a crash sounded out in the woods. Maddie jumped, her heart back in her throat. The knife clattered out of her hand as she turned away from Caleb. She strained her eyes against the darkness, looking out the way Dylan had gone.

  There was another crash, leaves crunching and branches snapping, the thud of something heavy hitting the ground. Then a piercing scream filled the woods.

  Maddie froze. She looked to her dad and Kris. Both of their faces had gone white with fear. They stared at Caleb and then out into the woods, trying to put it all together. Their mouths opened in gaping Os as they realized—the killer was still out there.

  There was another scream and the two adults snapped back to themselves. They looked at each other with wide eyes and then rushed off into the night.

  THIRTY

  JUST AS SUDDENLY AS THE NIGHT had filled with commotion, the woods went eerily quiet. Maddie strained her eyes to see something—anything—through the darkness. The silence was so much worse than the screams.

  Silence meant death.

  “No. No. No. No. No.”

  She tried to fill the void, hoping the noise would help calm her down.

  Her heart pounded, nonetheless. Her breaths came in short huffs. Sweat soaked through her shirt. She couldn’t lose her cool. She had to think. What would Charlie have done?

  He would have rushed in and tried to save his girlfriend.

  But that hadn’t worked out for him. So what should Maddie do?

  The realization hit her with a shocking certainty. She should free Caleb.

  They’d need everyone if they wanted to survive. They couldn’t run anymore. It was time to face their attacker head-on.

  Maddie spun around and ran back to Caleb’s tree. Chelsea was still there. Her best friend rushed forward, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it with all her strength. Fear flooded Chelsea’s eyes. Was this really it?

  Maddie felt the finality of the moment, too, and returned the pressure. They’d gotten through a lot over the years, but this—this seemed like more than they could handle. This felt like it could very well be the end.

  But then Maddie remembered the previous night. Their pinkie promise. They’d sworn to fight until the end. And that’s just what she was going to do.