The answer came in a flash.
He was leaner since the last time I laid eyes on him, but his sunburned cheeks couldn’t hide those freckles. He still had that sponge of curly orange hair atop his head.
And those wild eyes.
There’s no way that’s him, Spencer. You’re acting mental.
I pinched my eyes shut and counted down from ten. When I reached zero, I opened them up again and—
Sporkboy was still there.
Looking at me.
Smiling.
“So whaddya say, campers?” A sunny can-do attitude seeped through George’s voice. “Heeeeere’s to…”
“…Camp New Leaf.”
“Come on, now. You can do better than that! Heeeeeeere’s to…”
“…Camp New Leaf!”
“Now that’s more like it! One more time! Heeeeeere’s to…”
“…CAMP NEW LEAF!”
FILE #7: CHARLES SANDERS
Charles had been a punching bag ever since he was five. He wasn’t fast or tough enough to stick up for himself. All the older kids targeted him before his baby teeth had even started to fall out. So, once he finally got his adult teeth, he started a regiment of eating raw carrots for every meal, masticating his day away until his jaw was reinforced with a thick strip of muscle and sinew.
Charles had the puffiest cheeks you’d ever seen, his buccinators bulked beyond belief. Adults thought he looked adorable, always oohing and aahing at him and pinching his cheeks—but Charles’s iron-jawed mouth might as well have been a roulette wheel. The moment it opened, you were gambling your life away, until—crack—his mandibles snapped, sealing his teeth together like a bear trap. Once his masseter muscles cinched, there was no unlocking them.
If Charles couldn’t fight back the bullies with his fists, he’d bite back. Hard. And he wasn’t afraid of breaking skin, either. Whenever he was backed into a corner and all else failed, he would simply sink his teeth into the closest limb and hold on for dear life.
Charles ended up getting into more trouble for defending himself. Suddenly he became the tormenter, and his bullies the victims. He sent more kids to the hospital for stitches than any bully ever did.
Medication: Rabidium, Cujopentantaline
DAY ONE: 1500 HOURS
he Last Stand of a Balding Man.
Examining George—and his ponytail—up close, I could see that his widow’s peak retreated past his ears. It looked as if somebody had gripped him by the back of his head and yanked so hard, all of his hair now hung on in the rear.
I really should break the bad news to him: Really poor choice in hairstyle.
But first: Poop therapy.
Sorry. Group therapy.
The pamphlet called these sessions “round-table chats in an open-air environment.” Any kid worth their neuroses knew better.
Time to “share our feelings.”
Time to “explore our emotions.”
Time to take a nap.
The Middle Kids from cabin three all sat cross-legged in a circle. We had been told to stay behind while the other campers broke off into their own age groups.
I had watched Sporkboy slip off with the older campers and was about to make my way through the crowd and follow him, when George blocked my exit with a sunny can-do smile.
“Just where do we think we’re going?” he asked.
“Nowhere. Just taking in the wonders of nature.”
“I’m gonna have to keep an eye on you, aren’t I?”
“Me?” I shook my head. “Nope—no, sir. You can keep your eyes to yourself.”
Deep within the woods, a duet of birds chirped back and forth. The scent of the surrounding pines lingered in the air, filling my lungs.
The freshness was beginning to freak me out a bit. It was almost a little too fresh.
“What a beautiful day at Camp New Leaf, huh?” George squeezed into our circle, looking more eager to be sitting here than anyone else. “It’s so great to see so many familiar faces again! Mason—welcome back!”
A kid in a long-sleeved hoodie tugged on his frayed cuffs, pulling them down until they swallowed his hands. “…Hey.”
This definitely wasn’t sweatshirt weather. It was too hot to be wearing a hoodie.
“How have things been?”
“Okay, I guess.” Mason busied himself with a pair of sticks.
“Mind me asking how many reversions you’ve had since last year?”
“Twelve,” he mumbled. “Maybe thirteen.”
“A baker’s dozen!” George seemed pleased. “I’d say that’s an improvement. That deserves a hand. Everybody—let’s give Mason a little New Leaf cheer.”
George started clapping. Charles joined in, then stopped when he realized nobody else was applauding.
Mason just started rubbing his sticks together, faster and faster. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he looked like your average everyday bored-out-of-his-gourd suburban troublemaker. Probably his biggest problem was he had a little too much time on his hands. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But peeking out from beneath the collar of his sweatshirt, I caught a glimpse of discolored tissue.
It was craggy, like lava rock.
I lost myself in the fibrous flesh wrapping around Mason’s neck, then suddenly discovered it snaking around his wrists as well.
George cleared his throat, drawing my attention back to the circle.
“Anybody know why we sit in a circle?” He waited for an answer.
Nobody offered one.
“It’s because no one’s in charge here.”
Is this guy for real?
“This is a conversation, people,” George continued. “You don’t have a conversation when one person stands in front of a class and talks down to everyone else.”
God, I just want to tug that ponytail of his….
“A circle is our bond, okay? It links us together….”
Just one quick yank…
“We are a fellowship here. We are one.”
My hand lifted from my side. I could feel myself slowly reaching for that ponytail.
So much for self-restraint.
George turned to me and noticed my raised hand. “You don’t need to raise your hand to ask a question. We’re not in class.”
“Sorry,” I said, lowering my hand. All heads turned toward me. “I just want to be clear that I’m hearing you correctly….Are you saying you’re not our leader?”
“I’d like to think of myself as more of a moderator,” George replied after taking his sweet time to mull it over. “A facilitator for our group discussion.”
“So…if you’re not our leader, then who says we have to be here?”
George hesitated. “Well—I’m the one who says you have to be here.”
“But you’re not our leader.”
“Theoretically, I am.”
“But you just said you’re not.”
“Well—technically, yes. But—conceptually, no.”
“I’m confused.”
“I’m still in charge of overseeing the camp, but here, when we get together for our afternoon discussions—”
“You mean therapy?”
George’s eyes tightened. “This is your first summer here, isn’t it?”
“Yessir.”
“For our afternoon discussions, I try to step back from my official status and become one of the guys. Just because I’m a counselor at this summer camp doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun too.”
“You mean prison camp.”
As in, a full-blown gulag in the tick-infested great outdoors.
George paused, then nodded to the woods. “See those trees?”
I turned to look. Then turned back and nodded.
“Does that look like a priso
n to you?”
“A prison doesn’t need to look like a prison to be a prison,” I said.
“Very interesting.” George checked something off on his clipboard. “You can go.”
My eyes widened. I turned to Charles. He shrugged his shoulders.
“If you feel like breaking out of this beautiful, serene prison,” George extended his arm, palm upward, as if to present the woods to me. “Have at it.”
I kept to my log, unsure of what to do.
“What’s wrong, Mr…” George scanned his clipboard. “Pendleton? I thought you wanted to escape? Here’s your chance.”
I didn’t move.
“I don’t blame you one bit,” he said. “With over fifty miles of woods between you and the nearest town. We trust you to realize that there’s nowhere for you to go.”
How do you break out of a prison that doesn’t have any bars?
I was willing to find out.
I stood up. “Catch you guys later….”
I had taken only two steps before I heard a branch snap.
Scanning the woods, I spotted a deer.
At least I thought it was a deer. I saw something with antlers walking between the trees.
For a split second, no more than a single synaptic misfire in my chemically clouded mind, I could have sworn that deer was walking upright on its hind legs.
A memory of a hoodied reindeer from Greenfield Middle suddenly popped into my mind, only these antlers seemed real.
I turned my head back to the circle, “Do you see that?”
“See what…?”
I scanned the woods once more, but the antlers were gone.
“I just—I think I just saw—”
A bird chirped overhead. There was something familiar to the ululation.
Something human.
“You guys hear that?” I asked, my chest tensing. “Tell me you heard that, okay?”
“That’s the sound of Mother Nature,” George offered. “Guess you don’t get much of that in the city?”
The first chirp was met with another, coming from deeper in the woods.
It sounded like they were communicating.
Telling each other to close in.
You’re imagining things, Spencer, I thought to myself. There’s no way that could be—
Another chirp.
“Spencer?” George asked.
Then another.
“Earth to Spencer…”
I stepped back from the trees. Slowly. Safety in numbers. Returning to the circle, I noticed most campers weren’t even looking at me. Except for Charles. Paranoid behavior probably wasn’t anything new at New Leaf. Mason continued to rub his sticks together.
“Glad you decided to stay,” George said. “Why don’t you start off our discussion today?”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” I focused my attention on the woods.
“The first step toward making progress is to claim responsibility for the things we’ve done.”
Another chirp.
Louder now.
“Maybe you could explain to the rest of us why you want to run away so badly. Perhaps it has something to do with your parents separating?”
“Can we please not talk about my parents?” I shot back.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s none of your business, that’s why.”
“Sometimes we do things solely for the purpose of drawing attention to us,” George said. “Now, I have read some pretty wild stories from your therapist….”
“I don’t need a therapist.” I shot him a glance before turning my attention back to the woods. “The court is making me go see a therapist.”
“I’m not accusing you of needing a therapist, Spencer. What I’m saying is, rather than using your imagination to paint a vivid portrait of other runaways—”
“I didn’t make them up.”
Another twitter. This one sounded nearer.
The chirps were closing in.
Something’s wrong here, Spence, I thought. Something’s about to happen.
“If you want people to listen to what you have to say, you don’t have to—”
I leapt to my feet. “They’re real. They’re here! We’ve got to go!”
“Spencer, please…”
“They’re coming!”
“Who?”
“The Tribe, that’s who! They’re surrounding us right now! I can hear them communicating with each other—”
Just then, a pair of robins perched themselves on a branch above my head.
I took a step back, realizing how crazy I must have just sounded.
But I could’ve sworn they sounded just like…
I couldn’t even finish the thought.
Like what, exactly?
An infinitesimal part of me refused to let go, believing even now that the Tribe was out there, somewhere in the woods, circling the camp at that very moment, only seconds away from raiding our group therapy session.
“I think I’m going to recommend we increase your Chlorofornil for a couple days.” A sense of superiority saturated George’s words. “At least until we can communicate more clearly. How’s that sound?”
I stared George down. “Something bad is going to happen here.”
“Are you…threatening me, Spencer?”
“No. I’m warning you.”
“I think you’ll find threats don’t go over so well with me.”
I could feel my hand tighten.
I wanted to throttle him.
I wanted to—
A slender thread of smoke rose up from the patch of pine needles before Mason’s feet, then puffed into a plume. He sat back and marveled at his handiwork.
I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of a match burning deep in his pupils.
George jumped up and quickly did a soft-shoe dance in his leather sandals to stomp out the flames.
“It’s okay, it’s okay—I got this one! No worries, gang! I got it!”
Turning back, I took in the endless stretch of pines.
I could cut through these trees, make my way back to the service road, and eventually reach the highway. From there, I just had to flag down a car, give them a sob story about getting lost in the woods and—BAM: I’d be home before nightfall.
But which home would I be running to, exactly?
Which one would take me?
FILE #12: MASON REYNOLDS
Mason fell in love with the kitchen oven his mother cooked on when he was nine years old. She would slip a casserole in, and in a matter of thirty minutes at three hundred and fifty degrees, it came out transformed. The intense heat had turned it into something new. Something special. So, one day, when his mother wasn’t looking, he opened the oven and reached his hand inside, hoping to harness that fire for himself. What he got instead was a second-degree burn all along the fingers and palm of his left hand.
Mason started off frying ants with a magnifying glass, and quickly graduated onto his first box of matches. Now, there’s no holding him back….
Word around the campfire is that Mason burned down the last three houses he’s lived in, and apparently, he set his school’s mascot on fire during a pep rally…while there was a kid still inside it. (He got out alive.)
At the beginning of every summer, the counselors at New Leaf have to check his pockets for lighters. Each morning at breakfast, he’s frisked before sitting down at the mess hall table, just in case.
Medication: Protasoline, Kerosipitrol, Pretrotaz
DAY ONE: 1700 HOURS
alking through the doors to the mess hall, I was immediately greeted by a huge moose.
Its head, that is.
Camp New Leaf’s official mascot was mounted directly above the main entrance. Its sh
abby antlers had been painted green to resemble leaves.
That animal had seen better days, for sure.
Its fur had begun to peel back. I spotted a spider crawling out from one of its cobwebbed nostrils.
I had no appetite. All I wanted was to sit and keep an eye out for unwanted company.
I don’t care how paranoid I was coming off—this camp was closing in on me.
Scanning the older kids’ table for a sign of Sporkboy, or even Compass, I spotted a camper towering over the rest. His back was to me.
His awfully brawny back.
There’s no way. Absolutely no way.
Shaking my head, I tried to shake the six-foot mirage from my mind.
Fight the fog fight the fog fight the fog fight the fog fight—
To heck with this, I said to myself. I’m tired of hallucinating. If that really is who I think it is, there’s only one way to find out.
I walked over and stood behind him.
When he didn’t turn around, I cleared my throat.
Nothing.
So I reached up and tapped the skyscraper on his shoulder.
That got his attention.
He stood up and my eyes leveled with his chest. I had to crane my neck back just to take a look at him.
“What…” I started, swallowed. “What are you doing here?”
Yardstick stared me down with an unimpressed look on his face.
“Going to camp?”
His hair was twisted into tiny nano-dreadlocks that coiled around his scalp. One eyebrow lifted with a bit of attitude—which was a surprise, considering the Yardstick I knew had been so cripplingly bashful, he’d hardly even meet your gaze.
“Do I even know you?” There was a confidence in his voice that hadn’t been there before. All that shyness seemed to have evaporated.
“You can’t fool me,” I said. “I know who you are.”
Yardstick just shook his head.
“Stop acting like I’m crazy!” I shouted. “I’m not crazy!”
The mess hall went quiet just then.
Turning around, I realized all eyes were on me. “Do you see this kid?” I pointed at Yardstick. “He’s one of them! One of the…”
My voice faded.
I was acting crazy.
Camp Cannibal Page 5