The Lake

by Natasha Preston

  I follow her line of sight and there is no one there. “Yeah. You?”

  “Yep. Tia and I played a couple games and then she wanted to find Jake and Kayla. I don’t think she enjoys my company that much.”

  I start the game and pick up the giant spongy hammer. “Of course she does. She probably saw some girl she likes and went to talk to her.”

  “Thanks, Esme, but I saw her with Jake and Kayla two seconds later. I’m not the most fun person, I know that.”

  We whack moles, Rebekah as if she’s actually trying to kill them, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. I wouldn’t like to be on the end of her anger.

  Her phone buzzes in her pocket, but she continues hitting moles.

  “Don’t say that,” I tell her. “I thought we were all having fun together. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “Thank you,” she says quietly. With a frown, she adds, “You’re so nice.”

  We spend an hour at the arcade, and I have the face of every person in here memorized. I age them, or rather de-age them ten years and none look like Lillian.

  She isn’t here unless she’s had facial reconstruction.

  “We should get back,” Jake says. “It’s been almost two hours.”

  When we get closer to the entrance, my heart stutters. On the sidewalk, right outside the open door, is a blond girl, around twenty. Suddenly, she whips around and runs.

  I do a double take, my pulse racing.

  Lillian?

  “Let’s go now,” I say, jogging outside.

  “Esme!” Kayla calls after me.

  I hear their footsteps close behind.

  The slightly cooler dry air hits my face. I whip my head in both directions.

  Rebekah steps in front of me. “Esme, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I needed air.”

  “All good?” Olly asks.

  I take one more look around, but there’s nothing in the empty parking lot. “Yep, let’s get back to camp.”

  Was that her waiting outside the arcade. Watching us?

  17

  Rebekah dashes across the road, calling, “Let’s go before Andy realizes we’re gone!”

  “Where’s the fire, Rebekah?” Tia says, running after her.

  We cross the road and race into the forest.

  They’re running so Andy won’t realize we’re gone. I’m running from Lillian.

  Dry grass and sticks crunch beneath our feet.

  “How much further?” Rebekah asks.

  “We’ve only been in the forest for five minutes,” Tia replies.

  It took us about twenty minutes to reach the road from camp. It’s darker now because we’re not using the flashlight, and we’re slower. The last thing we need is someone noticing us.

  “I hate this part. What if we make too much noise gettin’ back into the cabins?” Rebekah says.

  “Don’t,” Olly replies.

  I nudge his side. “Unhelpful. Just say you were going to the bathroom and heard a noise outside.”

  Olly grins. “Ooh, I like it, Esme. You’re good at being sneaky.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  I can just about make out Kayla looking over her shoulder at me.

  “It is,” he replies.

  To the left of us something flashes, lighting up the forest like freaking fireworks. I blink and a dot of white dances in front of my eyes.

  “What the hell was that?” Jake says, whipping the flashlight from his pocket and turning it on. He shines it in the direction of the flash.

  I gasp, my free hand flying to my throat. “Was that a camera?”

  Another flash.

  “Shit, it is!” Olly hisses.

  “Who’s there?” Jake calls.

  I push against Olly, my hands shaking. “We need to go now!”

  “Shh, Esme.”

  “Someone is taking our picture!”

  Another blinding flash.

  “Go!” Jake snaps, turning around and running in the direction of camp. He’s holding Kayla’s hand and practically dragging her. We all take off after him.

  We sprint single file, and I wince every time another flash of light hits the forest and casts long shadows between the trees.

  My stomach churns.

  I push my legs to go faster and faster to keep up with the others.

  The forest lights up again. My pulse is thudding loudly in my ears.

  Someone is taking photos of us.

  Another light makes me gasp again and turns my blood to ice. What if the next flash reveals the person behind it? If they’re standing between the trees we’d only see them when the flash went off.

  I want to know who it is, but I’m also scared to know.

  “Almost there!” Jake snaps in something between a shout and a whisper.

  If I fall over now, I’m going to kick myself.

  I dart between two trees behind Rebekah. Olly’s footsteps are thundering right behind me. My thighs scream in protest of the pace I’m keeping.

  I ignore the pain and press on, gulping air and trying to remember if you should breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth when you’re running or the other way around.

  “Go, go!” Olly says, putting one hand on my lower back.

  I push harder, gritting my teeth. My legs feel like they’re going to snap off. We burst from between the shrubs and run along the forest, toward the cabins.

  The flashes stop abruptly.

  Jake slows and turns. I almost run into Tia as everyone else slows down too.

  “What?” I ask, bending over to catch my breath.

  Olly and Jake exchange a look, one that turns their faces red with anger and makes me flinch.

  “Oh no. You cannot go back,” I tell them. Are they crazy?

  Their male pride has been hurt. We were chased out of the woods by someone with a camera. But it’s not like we can afford to be caught. Andy wouldn’t be too happy that we went to town in the middle of the night.

  He’s big on responsibilities, and he has one to keep us safe, too.

  Olly’s jaw clenches in the dim light of the wood lamppost. “We can’t let whoever that was get away with it.”

  “Why would they want photos of us anyway?” Rebekah asks. “What were they trying to do?”

  “I intend to find out,” Jake replies.

  Kayla puts her palms on Jake’s chest. “Wait up a second. We don’t know who it is or what they’re capable of. They might be dangerous.”

  “Me and Olly can take him.”

  I throw my hands up, annoyed with all the testosterone flying around. “And if he has a gun? You stronger than a bullet, Jake? Let’s go inside and pretend this never happened.”

  She could have just been trying to scare us.

  It was a success.

  “It’s probably just someone trying to freak us out,” I say.

  “Esme is right,” says Tia, backing me up. She points toward the forest. “We don’t know what that person is capable of. It’s most likely that he was there to freak us out, but I don’t want to take that chance. Do you?”

  Jake growls a no that sounds like it wounds his ego, while Olly grits his teeth.

  Tia shakes her head. “What if they send the pictures to Andy?”

  “Even if they do, all they got is us running through the forest and we told everyone we were going for a walk.”

  “That’s true,” Kayla says.

  “Let’s just go to bed, I’m over it,” Jake mutters.

  I take Olly’s hand and he grips mine tight. I’m just happy to help calm him down. “Hey,” I say, leaning against him. “It was just some crazy guy in the woods. We don’t need to get mixed up in whatever he was doing.”

  Olly’s gre
en-and-blue eyes slide very slowly to mine as if he needs a second before dealing with me. My mom did the same thing when I was nine and I accidentally smashed her very expensive eye shadow palette.

  “If he comes back…”

  I nod. “Then you can kick his ass.”

  Rebekah peers over her shoulder and into the forest. “Can we please get to bed before someone hears us out here?”

  We split up and head to our cabins. The boys’ cabin is closest, but Olly and Jake stand on the porch, watching us get inside safely before they go inside. That is so cute!

  Rebekah and Tia tiptoe into their cabin and close the door.

  I can hear my ragged breathing as we walk up to our door. Kayla and I walk up the two steps at the same time, carefully placing our feet in case the wood creaks. I look back at Olly and Jake as Kayla slowly turns the door handle.

  With a quick wave to the boys, I turn and slide through the small opening. Kayla didn’t open the door wide; I’m guessing so the light from outside wouldn’t creep in.

  The room is filled with heavy breathing and soft snoring. I glance at each of the bunk beds in the large room. The girls are all very still. It’s sometime after one in the morning.

  Kayla and I pad into our room. We undress in silence; I clumsily pull my pajamas on and climb up to my bunk quickly and quietly. Neither of us speak. We usually say good night, but tonight we’re too scared.

  Lying on my back, I replay the events of the forest in my head. I can’t remember exactly how many flashes—photos—there were, but it was a lot.

  Somebody wants evidence that we snuck out.

  Evidence that Kayla and I snuck out.

  Like we did ten years ago.

  18

  Edge, meet Esme. Yep, I’m on it, the edge, in a major way.

  It’s morning and no one but me is acting strange. Andy is his usual self, which tells us he has no idea what we were up to last night. But still, I can’t calm down.

  Every time a noise comes from the woods, I jump. Which is freaking often since the kids are collecting sticks and branches to make dens.

  Olly and Jake are with some of the other guys, lugging larger branches for the structural parts of the dens. Once each group has four large branches and a bunch of medium and small ones, they have to make their own den and it needs to stay upright.

  It’s a little challenge that Andy told the campers about over breakfast, and it’s caused a lot of excitement.

  I haven’t spoken to anyone about last night yet, not even Kayla. We haven’t had any time alone, and to be honest, I don’t think anyone wants to relive it.

  In the cold light of day, we seem a bit dramatic, not even asking whoever it was to show themselves. We all ran as if we were being chased by zombies. Not that I was ever going to ask the cameraman if he wanted to chat over an iced tea.

  My little group of four are piling up medium sticks on the beach.

  Andy stops beside me with his clipboard. “Good haul,” he says. “Looks almost there.”

  “Yeah, I sent them on one last trip.”

  “Excellent. How are you today?” he asks.

  My heart misses a beat. I blink heavily. What does he know? “I’m fine, thanks,” I croak. “How are you?”

  He smiles. “I’m well. Are you ready for a day of camp building and fire lighting?”

  “I am.”

  Dipping his chin in a curt nod, he says, “Well, shout if you need anything.”

  I watch him walk off and my tense shoulders relax a fraction. If Andy knew we had snuck out he would definitely say something. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy around him. He’s the kind of guy who sorts things out right away, not someone who waits and sees how it goes. We would have all been in the staff cabin first thing. Hell, he would have had us in there the second we got back in the very early hours.

  Inhale, exhale, act normal.

  Guilt doesn’t feel good on me. It’s a shame I can’t remember a time before it.

  I watch my girls carry back armfuls of sticks that are about as long as their legs. “Well done, girls. I think we’re ready.”

  They wait with me. I’m not allowed to leave the beach because I’m in charge of making sure all the groups have enough sticks and that the campers who dump them here don’t wander off.

  A little bit ironic that I’m in charge of keeping them out of trouble when I can’t even manage to do that myself. Still, what Andy doesn’t know…

  When everyone else gets back from gathering wood, Andy instructs the groups about what they will need and sends each merged group of eight to different parts of the forest.

  Cora and I follow eight massively hyper girls who are bouncing, dropping sticks and talking a million miles an hour. I bend down and pick up another dropped stick.

  “What did you do with your night off?” Cora asks, brushing one hand over her smooth ponytail.

  It’s an innocent enough question, but my mouth goes dry in a nanosecond.

  “We just went for a walk.”

  “Yeah, there isn’t much to do. When I was a CIT, I think I played Go Fish about a thousand times. I was so jealous of counselors who could get dressed up and go out for the evening.”

  My hand tightens around the stick. “Maybe next year I’ll get to go out.”

  “Oh, you think you’ll come back next year, then? To here or somewhere else?”

  “I like it here,” I tell Cora, even though I’m almost positive I will never return. I love camps, but this one has way too much baggage.

  “That’s great, Esme. I love it when I hear that people want to return. You’re so good with the girls and they all love you.”

  We’re halfway to our designated den area, the furthest from camp.

  “Okay, girls,” Cora says, and launches into instructions.

  We can use whichever trees we want in our area and the den has to be big enough for all the girls to sit under.

  Cora and I help them with the large logs since it took four girls on each end to carry them up here. Why we weren’t just sent to our zone to collect sticks there, I do not know. Andy might have some control issues, wanting to see each freaking stick before we took them away to use. Or maybe he was promoting teamwork, getting everyone together to gather the most suitable materials for everyone to use.

  “Ew, look,” Alana says, pointing to a collection of cigarette butts on the ground.

  I bend down and count five of them. “No one here smokes, right?”

  Cora folds her arms. “They’re not supposed to.”

  Alarm bells chime a very loud song in my head: It’s the creepy cameraperson!

  This was the direction that we came last night. Did they stick around and watch us? But who hangs around long enough to smoke five cigarettes when everyone has already gone inside?

  Unless this isn’t the first time they’ve watched.

  “That’s not safe,” Isabel says.

  “You’re right,” I tell her, collecting the butts and trying not to gag. Someone’s mouth has touched them. “I’m going to throw them in the trash and disinfect my hands.”

  “Will you let Andy know too, please?” Cora asks.

  “Sure thing.”

  The second I turn around, the girls have forgotten. Cora gets them on task and they fuss over which sticks to use first.

  At least our phantom smoker had the good sense to properly extinguish the cigarettes. They’re almost flat they’ve been stomped into the ground so hard.

  I walk back toward the cabins in the thick heat.

  “Found these by our den,” I tell Andy, opening my hand so he can see what I’m holding. Then I dump them in a trash can near the multiuse cabin where he’s scribbling something on his clipboard.

  His frown makes his whole forehead crumble. “Who’s been smoking?”
<
br />   I shrug. “I’m not sure. Us CITs walked around last night, but no one smoked, and we didn’t see any counselors doing it either.”

  Sighing, Andy nods. “Okay, I’ll have to make sure I speak with each staff member today and remind them that it’s forbidden to smoke on campgrounds. And in the forest too,” he grumbles, tutting. “Thanks for cleaning them up, Esme.”

  “No problem.”

  “There’s someone there! There’s someone there!” Isabel screams.

  My head whips in her direction. She’s pointing into the forest.

  Cora steps in front of the girls, her head bent forward as she tries to get a better look.

  Jake and Olly are running toward them. Andy and I take off too, with him shouting at everyone else to stay where they are.

  “Mary, watch the campers,” he says as we pass her.

  “Where?” I ask when we reach Cora. I’ve got a stitch in my side and ice in my heart.

  There has to be someone out there watching us. Ava’s sighting in the woods, the creepy message, the pictures that were taken.

  Kayla can’t explain it away with coincidences. Lillian is trying to mess with us.

  Olly and Jake are in the forest, and spread a little too far apart for my liking. Does safety in numbers mean nothing to them?

  Andy follows them as Mary looks at us from the other side of the lake.

  I put my arm around Isabel. Her slender frame is shaking. “Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her. “Remember, we don’t own all of this forest.”

  She looks up at me with fear in her eyes. “He was walking.”

  “Toward us?”

  “Um, kind of, I think. I saw the side of his face.”

  Cora turns. “It was definitely a man?”

  Isabel nods. “I think so. I couldn’t see his face very well.”

  Translation: It could have been a woman or a man.

  “Okay.” I look at the twelve girls huddled together. “Look, there is no reason to be alarmed. I’m sure people go on hikes all the time out here and not everyone pays as much attention as they should. Sometimes they miss the sign saying this is private property. I’m sure Jake and Olly will find him and remind him that he shouldn’t be here.”

  Biting my lip, I watch the spot in the forest where the boys disappeared.