The only one who wasn’t—was Capone.
I spotted him holding back, arms crossed at his chest, observing the rest from the rear of the amphitheater.
Peashooter hadn’t noticed. He was too busy talking to Sporkboy. “Go to the mess hall. Take some rug rats with you. Grab whatever food you can carry and bring it back.”
“Whateverwewant?” one of the Piranhas asked, his eyes wide with all of the culinary possibilities.
“If you can poke a stick through it and cook it, you can eat it.”
The Piranhas all turned to one another and conferred amongst themselves. Finally reaching a whispered agreement, their spokespiranha turned back to Peashooter and asked, “Can we barbecue gummy bears?”
“Sounds tasty to me.”
Each Piranha brightened before bolting for the mess hall.
Peashooter turned to the crowd. “Hear that?” he asked, summoning our appetites. “Anything! Hot dogs, marshmallows, ice cream. Tonight, we feast!”
One Piranha fastened a tin cup to the end of a branch and dumped a handful of gelatinous grizzlies inside. Holding the cup over the fire, all those rubbery bears melted into a bubbling molasses. The cup was passed from one Piranha to the next, with each taking a sip of the molten froth. Sufficiently sugared up, each Piranha took off, racing around the amphitheater, gnashing their teeth, spitting out gibberish—
“Gimmemoregimmemoregimmegimmemoooooooore.”
I watched Firefly fling another suitcase into the fire. The flames embraced its new fuel and bathed his skin in an orange glow. His chest rose and fell as if his heart were trying to kick free from the confines of his rib cage.
Peashooter turned back to me. “You hungry?”
“Not really,” I lied.
“Give it a few hours and I’ll bet you’ll gnaw off your own wrist.”
“Beats Sporkboy’s cooking.”
“Anything you’d like to add to the fire?”
“No, thanks.”
“How about…this?”
He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and slowly opened it in front of my face.
Sully’s missing flyer.
“Give that back!”
Yardstick pressed his cleats into my chest. “Stay down.”
“Material possessions make a man weak,” Peashooter said. “So consider this a gift, from me to you.”
Peashooter wadded up the faded flyer with one hand.
“Don’t—”
He tossed the crumpled ball into the blaze.
“Stings, doesn’t it? Having everything you care for taken away from you.” He addressed the crowd, pointing at me. “From now on, Spencer’s name will be…Rat.”
Several campers laughed, repeating Peashooter’s christening. “Rat! Rat! Rat!”
“For the longest time,” Peashooter said, “there was no written word in these woods. Rat had taken our library away from us, so we needed to rely on each other.”
The antlers attached to Peashooter’s head seemed to grow even longer. Their shadow reached for the trees at his back.
“Your counselors told you about the Wendigo,” he continued. “They said he was just a ghost story. A myth. But living out here for the last six months, I know he’s out there.”
“I never took you to be the superstitious type,” I said.
A breeze blew through. Pines rustled all around us, and the crow feathers wrapped around Peashooter’s arms bristled.
“We’re the Wendigos,” he said. “These are our woods. That’s why we’re renaming this place. Camp New Leaf is dead. From now on, our home is called Camp Cannibal. Long live Camp Cannibal!”
“Long live Camp Cannibal!” the campers shouted back.
“Long live the Law of Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
“Claw and Fang!”
There was a scream at the back of the amphitheater. One of the Piranhas shrieked like he’d just seen a Wendigo.
He had.
The towering beast stepped into the firelight.
“Look what I found!” Sporkboy hoisted the moose’s head from the mess hall over his own and charged toward the fire, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The glass eyes of Camp New Leaf’s placid mascot captured the flames, both black marbles flickering yellow and orange.
When Sporkboy reached the center of the amphitheater, he skidded to a halt and launched the moose’s head. “Bombs away!”
A cloud of cinders exploded into the air as the flames embraced the decapitated head. Campers cheered.
Peashooter raised his fist and shouted, “Let the wild rumpus begin!”
The Tribe formed a mosh pit around the inferno. Their bodies sweated in the firelight as they belted out made-up songs, slam-dancing before the heaving flames:
Hello mother, hello father…
I send you greetings from camp slaughter.
Grub is rough here. Flesh is more palatable.
I guess that’s why this place is called Camp Cannibal!
I never felt more homesick in all of my life.
Not for a house. Not Mom’s or Dad’s place. But for a sense of belonging.
I felt homesick for Sully.
It wasn’t long before the newly expanded Tribe wasn’t singing anymore—but howling like a pack of wolves. Their voices rose into the night’s sky and echoed through the woods.
“Ow-ow-owwwoooooooooo! Ow-ow-oooowwwwoooooooooooooooo!”
The moose kept staring up at the stars. The expression on its face never changed as its maple-leafed antlers wilted into the fire.
A flap of its hide slid off the wooden skull and the moose was gone.
I watched as my fellow campers slipped deeper and deeper into savagery. From the glow of the fire, they barely looked human anymore.
DAY TWO: 0100 HOURS
really need to get out of here.
The cord around my wrists was cutting off my circulation, and I could barely feel my fingers as I tugged at my bindings.
Yardstick had slipped off into the mosh pit around the fire. Nobody was keeping an eye on me anymore.
Perfect opportunity to make a break for it.
I wriggled over the ground until the shower curtain rod slid out from between my arms and legs. Bringing my knees up to my chest, I used my bound hands to undo the bungee cord around my ankles.
Quick, Spencer.
There was no time to free my hands. Running was priority number one. I leapt onto my feet and bolted for the main path.
Go!
Go!
Go!
I made it about five steps before tripping. With my hands bound and no way to brace my fall, I hit the ground hard. The impact forced the air out of my lungs.
Turning over, I saw Thomas—sorry, Klepto. His foot slid back from the path.
“Ooops,” he said.
Before I could catch my breath, Sporkboy flipped me over onto my back and pounced, planting his knees on my chest.
“What’s the rush, Rat?”
Even with most of his extra heft burned off his big-boned body, Sporkboy still weighed a ton. He pitched back and forth on his knees like a rocking horse.
A burning sensation started to brew within my lungs. Every bronchiole was suddenly craving air.
“Get off,” I strained. I tried pushing him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
My fellow campers kept back. None of them said a word. A hush hung over them, some bowing their heads, while Peashooter sauntered up the path toward me.
“I’m no doctor,” Peashooter said. “But if I’m not mistaken, I think Rat is showing symptoms of an asthma attack. What do you guys think?”
Compass wandered up next to him. “I read somewhere putting pressure on his chest i
s about the worse thing you can do.”
“You heard the man.” Peashooter tapped Sporkboy’s shoulder. “Better let him up for air.”
“Sure thing.” Sporkboy glanced down. “Pardon me.”
He crawled off, one knee at a time.
The moment all that excess weight lifted off my ribs, I rolled onto my stomach and coughed.
Where was the air all of a sudden?
I reached for My Little Friend around my neck, but before I could grab it, Compass seized the shoestring and yanked.
My Little Friend scuttled over the ground in front of me.
I reached for my inhaler, my breaths growing shallower. Just as my fingers grazed the plastic canister, Sporkboy kicked it.
My Little Friend skidded even farther out of my grasp.
I had to pick myself up onto my elbows and drag myself across the amphitheater, my breath breaking off into pebbles of staccato gasps.
Charles took a step forward, ready to scoop up my inhaler and hand it to me, but Sporkboy held his hand out. His palm pressed against Charles’s chest.
“Stay back,” Sporkboy said.
“But—” Charles leaned against Sporkboy’s hand, his bear-trap jaw flapping open.
“If he needs it so badly, he can get it himself.”
The rest of the camp didn’t even try to help.
I was on my own with this one.
There were about two feet between me and My Little Friend. Before I could grab it, Compass leaned over and examined it with his cold scientific detachment.
“Is this yours?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, Compass punted My Little Friend clear across the amphitheater.
“Don’t—”
The trees seemed to uproot themselves and rotate about me. I pinched my eyes shut and reopened them, but the woods kept whirling.
Round and round and round it goes, where my breath stops, nobody knows….
I’d had bad attacks before. I just had to remember what to do if I didn’t have an inhaler handy:
1. Relax.
2. Keep calm.
3. Even your breathing until it’s back to normal.
The O.G. members of the Tribe circled around me as I struggled onto my feet. Behind them, the rest of the camp observed in complicit silence.
I tried breaking through the ring of bodies, but Sporkboy pushed me into Yardstick.
“Red rover, red rover,” Sporkboy sang, “send Spencer right over….”
Yardstick shoved me into Compass.
The circle tightened as the tendons in my neck started to constrict, clamping down on my windpipe.
“Help…” I started.
Compass brought his hand up to his ear. “What was that?”
“Can’t…breathe.”
“You’re turning a little blue, Spencer. You should lie down.”
My doctor told me it’s always better to lean forward. Never lie on my back.
Too late.
Compass rooted his right leg behind my feet and yanked on my arm, sending me spiraling to the ground.
I landed on my tailbone. Totally crushed my coccyx. I was sprawled out on my back. Every pine needle bristling in the trees above my head seemed to simultaneously reach down from their branches and pierce my eyeballs.
Peashooter’s head hovered above my own. “You okay, Spence?” he asked. “Need a hand?” He reached out to me, but the weight of my own arm was too much.
The sky was now prickling with yellow spots. I couldn’t see.
“Doc…tor.”
“What’s that?” Peashooter asked.
“Get me…to…a doctor.”
“I think he’s asking for his daughter,” Sporkboy suggested.
“No,” Yardstick said. “He’s asking for his copy of Harry Potter.”
“You’re both wrong,” Compass said, shaking his head. “Water. Spencer is asking for water.”
“Water?” Peashooter scanned the surrounding area. “See any water around here?”
Sporkboy pointed to Lake Wendigo.
“Well,” Peashooter said. “If Spencer wants water, let’s get him some water!”
The sound of their voices dwindled in my ears.
Hands seized my arms and legs.
The ground was gone.
I was being carried.
Or was I floating on my own?
It felt like I was drifting over the ground, in the air forever. Then I heard the warp of wood beneath me.
The dock. We were on the dock.
I could feel a breeze against my cheeks. It was cold.
Somebody giggled above me. Sporkboy, most likely.
My head rolled to one side and I could see the smooth glass surface of the lake filling my vision.
Nobody tried to stop them. Not one camper.
I wanted my mother.
I wanted my father.
I wanted Sully.
I wanted to breathe.
I wanted to live.
I came to a halt. I felt a wobble in the dock, even though I wasn’t touching it.
“On the count of three,” someone announced. “One…”
I felt myself swing forward.
“Two…”
I felt myself swing back.
“Three!”
I swung forward and felt them let go.
I couldn’t take a breath before the cold embraced my body.
I couldn’t reach the air.
Everything felt heavier, hugging me, pulling me down. The last pocket of oxygen in my chest slipped through my lips, dribbling upwards.
Numbness swept over.
Down, down, down into the dark.
I can’t breathe….
I can’t…
I…
A silhouette drifted before me.
The murk made it impossible to make out a face. All I saw was a fuzzy outline gliding effortlessly through the water, a tangle of tentacles obscuring its features.
A hydra-haired mermaid.
DAY TWO: 0700 HOURS
woke on my back. The wooden cage I was in looked like a playpen for a feral infant. The bars were made of branches, each end tied off with shoelaces or twine.
I was instantly reminded of a quote from The Call of the Wild:
“There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath and wounded pride….Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate?”
The sun reached through the surrounding bars. I lifted myself on one elbow. As soon as I boosted my abdomen off the ground, my lungs blazed, setting the rest of my chest on fire.
My lungs felt like they’d been sandpapered.
I could only take short breaths, these pitifully infinitesimal gasps of air. Each rasping grasp at the oxygen sent a shrill whistle up from my throat.
I was alive. Just barely—but still alive.
I was already out of breath just from picking myself up, with what little breath I was able to inhale in the first place.
I slumped over. Spent. Good as dead.
There was nothing left in me.
No more fight, no oxygen. Just a shell of inflamed tissue barely held up on a frame of burnt-match bones.
My clothes were still damp. Last thing I remembered, I was plunging into the depths of Lake Wendigo. Everything else is a murky blur of cold water.
How did I get here?
A tuft of smoke spirited up from the burned bits of furniture in the fire pit. The moose head had disintegrated. Nothing but the charred tinder sticks of its antlers remained.
The Piranhas were asleep in a heap. They looked like a litter of puppies all piled together, using each other’s bodies for warmth. Their chests rose and softly dropped in rhythm, their slight
snoring drifting across the amphitheater.
“Look who’s still breathing.” Peashooter was leaning against a log behind the cage, tossing an apple. “We figured you were done for, up until Yardstick found you on the shore. I’m impressed you could swim all that way on your own.”
Had I? There just wasn’t any other explanation.
“Welcome to your home-away-from-home-away-from-home.” Peashooter drew near the cage until his face was only inches from mine. “Get cozy. You’ll be here for a while.”
So that was it: I was a prisoner of war.
I remembered photographs of internment camps in world history, where captured soldiers were kept in bamboo cages.
“You…win.” I wheezed, the bars now between us.
Peashooter laughed. “Say that again.”
“Just tell me…what you want….”
“You can’t quit, Spencer. We’ve just started!” He took a bite out from his apple. “If all we were after was winning, believe me—we would’ve been running victory laps around you a long time ago.”
Peashooter tossed the half-eaten apple directly into the pile of Piranhas. They woke with a start, the apple rolling over the ground—only for the pack to scramble after it, clawing and gnashing at each other until one of them bit down on the piece of fruit. That didn’t stop another Piranha from chomping down on the other side.
In seconds, all that was left was the core. It fell to the ground in a puff of dirt.
Peashooter gripped the bars of my cage.
“Who are you, Spencer?” he asked. “Do you even know? You always talk big. But who are you underneath it all? That’s who I’m waiting to see.” He held out a hand. “Think of yourself as an onion.” He balled his hand into a fist. “I’m going to peel away every layer of your existence. Your cocky attitude, that mouth of yours.” With each item he listed, he peeled back a finger. “I’m going to strip you down to the very core of your being—and when I reach it, when I reach the true Spencer Pendleton, I am going to show you what it feels like to lose everything that matters most. Then—and only then—will you know what it’s felt like for us all these months.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, rubbing my chest.
“You always valued yourself more than the common good of the Tribe,” Peashooter said,
“Only because…” I had to take in a deep breath to finish my thought. “Because the common good quickly became tyranny.”
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