The Lake

by Natasha Preston

  “The radio!” Cora says from the porch. “Someone just came on the radio telling us to get in the staff cabin or they’d start a fire. We heard rustling in the forest.”

  My eyes widen.

  How did Lillian get back here so fast?

  “What? Okay, I’m calling the police,” Andy says.

  His response is met with a wild and collective no.

  “Get inside,” Cora says. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  We stampede into the multiuse cabin.

  “What happened while we were away?” Andy demands, pulling the door shut. “We can’t all be inside here. No one is watching the campers’ cabins!”

  Cora shakes her head. “It’s not them this person wants. They’re safer if we’re not with them.”

  “What’s going on, Cora?” I ask. “Where are Kayla and Rebekah?”

  “They were very anxious out here, so I told them to go in and get some rest a while ago.”

  Bed? Kayla went to bed?

  “About ten minutes ago, the first message came through the radio. This voice, it sounded like someone using one of those voice-altering things. They said if we contact anyone, wake the campers or alert the cops or anyone else, we’re dead. Dead. We didn’t know what to do, so we tried to look around, to see who was out there.”

  “How did this happen?” Andy asks.

  “They must have our frequency.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” he demands.

  “I knew you would be back.” Cora drops her eyes as she speaks. I don’t think she was certain that we would be back.

  “When did this person threaten fire?”

  Lillian, I correct him in my head.

  “Before you came back, literally seconds before. He said, ‘Everyone into the cabin or I’ll send the food hall up in flames and call the parents.’ Half went in the campers’ cabins and the rest went in the multiuse to see if we could spot anyone lurking.”

  “Parents?” Andy’s eyes bulge.

  “This person has the parents’ contact details?” I ask.

  Cora shrugs. “I don’t want to find out.”

  “It has to be a former employee,” Andy says. “I just can’t figure out why he would go to these lengths.”

  “Do we believe he would actually set the food hall on fire?” Jake asks.

  Cora raises her eyebrows. “We have to.”

  “Whoever this is, they want us to be alone,” Mary says from the back. “They want us trapped here, slowly going insane from paranoia, constantly worrying what we’re going to have to do next.”

  “Wait, if they want that, then surely they won’t set a fire?” Tia says.

  “She’s right,” I say. “How would he do that and get away with it? There would be smoke, and the flames would be seen from town; the fire department would come. It would all be over for him. That one is for sure an empty threat.”

  Andy is a bobblehead as he agrees with me. “I think you’re right. But we shouldn’t ignore it. Four years—four years—I’ve been here, and it’s always been a safe place. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Jake says, “I don’t think this creep is going to hurt anyone. This bullshit is all about fear and every time we have conversations like this and run off into the woods, we’re feeding his sick little fantasy. I’ll have no problem kicking his ass.”

  “That may be true,” Andy says. “Still, I don’t think it would be right to ignore this.”

  “We can’t ignore it,” Marcus replies. “He’s everywhere.”

  Lorenzo shakes his head. “Enough of this for tonight. Let’s not give him any more attention.”

  Mary folds her arms and glares at Lorenzo. Catalina puts an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, he’s right,” she says to Mary. “We should get some sleep. Let’s make it look like we’re doing what he wants and keeping quiet.”

  “We are doing that,” Olly says.

  We have no choice.

  29

  I dig my fists into my stinging eyes and rub.

  Man, seven- to ten-year-olds have a crapload of energy.

  I’m drained. The incident with Lillian in the woods has me on edge. I woke about every hour, panicked that she was searching for me again. Everyone looks on edge.

  But the kids are as excited and loud and bouncy as ever. I feel like I’m hungover, although the only thing I’ve had to drink since I arrived is water and coffee.

  I don’t know how the campers haven’t realized that every one of our smiles is forced. I’m positive I look like I’m grimacing.

  I care about them all, but I’m finding it really hard to bounce off the walls over a new fastest win of tennis.

  Lillian is out there, somewhere close I’m sure, watching the morning after her night of insanity.

  She’s loving it, I’m sure. I bet she’s drinking in every second that we look around for her.

  It could come back to bite me and Kayla in the ass eventually, if Lillian decides that she wants to make herself known. Which, let’s face it, she will. I just hope the others aren’t around to hear it when she confronts us.

  We’re standing by the tennis court in the shade of the trees. Kayla’s arms are wrapped around herself like she has to physically hold all of our secrets in.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, still looking at the girls and smiling. My jaw aches. I don’t know how models do it.

  “All right,” she mutters. She was awake in bed when I got back, chewing her nails to the quick. Mine are about the same.

  “You can tell me the truth, Kayla.”

  “Can I?”

  I fight the urge to push her. “Really, dude? We’ve known each other since we were obsessed with High School Musical. Hell, we have a blood oath!”

  “Oh, now it’s a blood oath.”

  Before we decided to become CITs, we hadn’t talked about the accident for years. I hate that we spent so long ignoring what we’d done. I hate that we ran.

  Dipping my head, I wince against the sting of regret.

  “Kayla,” I prompt.

  “What do you want me to say, Esme?” She looks across the court as her girls cheer for another point and purses her lips. “I’m scared. We both know Lillian is going to do something bad. We burned her!” Her voice is low, a whisper, but I feel it in my bones.

  “We don’t know that.” I don’t say it with much conviction. I’m shocked to hear those words come out of Kayla’s mouth. She’s always been a total pro at denial.

  “Yes we do! If we hadn’t been out there that night, then none of this would be happening now. She wants revenge. I still don’t think we’re to blame, but we didn’t get hurt.”

  “We never meant for anything bad to happen.”

  “Esme, can we not talk about this anymore, please? I’m totally over it.”

  We never talk about what we did anymore and it’s slowly driving me crazy. You’re supposed to talk, everyone says so.

  Kayla storms off, leaving me with a burn in my chest that makes me resent my best friend just a little. I need her support right now.

  I’ve spent so much time and effort making sure things aren’t too much for her. I never get that in return.

  Fine. Whatever.

  After games outside, we go in for dinner and then to the beach for a campfire.

  We finish up the day with s’mores. It’s a pretty standard end; there haven’t been many evenings that don’t include marshmallows.

  “Esme,” Mary says behind her massive bangs, “can you pop into my cabin and see if Phoebe is there? She went to get her hoodie and hasn’t come back out and I need to help Ava.”

  “Sure,” I reply.

  Kayla walks past me to join our girls by the campfire. They’re mostly split up tonight, though, mixed
heavily with the boys.

  Jogging up the cabin steps, I twist the doorknob and let myself in. “Phoebe?”

  My eyes bulge. Through a crack in the door to Tia and Rebekah’s tiny room, I catch a glimpse of Rebekah pulling her T-shirt down over her head. Her side and most of her stomach is burned.

  “Esme?”

  My pulse skitters as Phoebe walks up to me. She smiles.

  I jump away from Rebekah and Tia’s room. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  “I was getting a sweater.”

  Burns!

  “You ready to join us?” I ask.

  Rebekah has burns!

  She nods. “Yeah.”

  What does this mean? I dash out of the cabin with Phoebe right behind me. I don’t think that Rebekah saw me. She didn’t turn around.

  I walk with Phoebe until she sits down with her group. As soon as the other girls embrace her, I dart around the campfire and scan the crowd for Kayla. We need to have a conversation right this second. Whether she wants to or not.

  “Kayla, can we walk?” I say when I find her.

  Olly and Jake, who are sitting next to her, look up too.

  Her shoulders slump like I’m the last person she wants to see. I’ll try not to take that personally. “Er, sure, Esme….”

  She stands up and puts on a fake toothy smile that almost makes me roll my eyes. Doing the bitchy smile to me, really? Is she doing the popular thing now?

  I grin back and grab Kayla’s arm. “This will only take a minute.”

  The guys watch us suspiciously. Come on, we could be talking about anything. I’ll tell the boys it’s something menstruation related, that’ll shut it down real fast.

  Someone who knows the routine of camp and has access to cabins is doing this….

  “Jesus, Esme, what’s going on?” Kayla asks, stumbling behind me as I tug her by the hand. She pulls out of my grip and glares.

  “I know who Lillian is,” I say.

  “You what?”

  “Rebekah.”

  30

  “It’s Rebekah!” I say her name again because Kayla is looking at me the way you look at people arguing in Walmart.

  She blinks and shakes her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s her! Lillian. Rebekah is Lillian. They’re the same damn person. Catch up!”

  Throwing her head back, Kayla laughs. “Oh, come on, Esme. Rebekah was with us when we were chased through the woods.”

  This is it, time’s up. I can’t keep hiding things. “But she wasn’t there when I was stalked in the forest last night.”

  “What?” Kayla steps closer, tilting her head.

  “When I got separated from the others, someone was stalking me. I saw her. Well, it was dark and misty, but I saw someone dressed in black. Tall and slim. She was so close.”

  “Esme, Rebekah was with us last night.” Kayla says it like I’m slow.

  “No, she went to bed early, remember? And she has burns on her side and stomach….”

  “Lots of people have burns. How do you explain the night of the photos? Rebekah was there that night.”

  “Right.” I hold one finger up, cracking it. “There’s two of them; that’s how they’re able to do so much. She—Lillian—would need help. There is no way she could do this alone. I don’t know if Rebekah is Lillian or one of her cronies. Yet.”

  Kayla frowns, her once sparkly blue eyes now full of doubt. But I see it in there too, a little flicker. She’s starting to believe me. Kayla is considering the possibility that we’ve been living with one of our stalkers for weeks.

  “What did you see exactly?” she asks.

  I don’t like her emphasis on exactly, and her tone is the one she uses when she thinks someone is an idiot.

  “Mary asked me to go to her cabin and check on Phoebe. Rebekah and Tia’s door was open a little and I saw Rebekah putting on a T-shirt. There’s a burn all down her side and her stomach. Like all down it, not just, ‘Oh no, I spilled coffee on myself.’ It was bad.”

  Kayla blows out a breath, her eyes darting to Rebekah’s cabin. “Does she look like Lillian?”

  I shrug when she looks back at me. “Maybe. Her hair is darker, but so is mine now….”

  “What color eyes did Lillian have?”

  “I…Light-colored, maybe? Blue or green. It was dark that night.”

  I remember the orange reflection in her eyes from the flames and the look of terror in them.

  “That’s not good enough,” Kayla says. “You have to be sure about it! We can’t just accuse her of something like this. I mean, how many burn victims do you think there are? How could Rebekah do all this stalking anyway? The girl is petrified of confrontation.”

  “Yeah, well, even introverts can be crazy…and what better way for an introvert to attack than to watch from afar and send creepy anonymous messages. Besides, she’s not working alone!”

  Kayla shakes her head. “She would need pretty regular contact with whoever her partner is. I don’t think I’ve seen her use her cell once.”

  “You and I used to text each other through entire classes and the teachers never knew a thing.”

  “This is—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, get past that. We need to figure out a way to prove that Rebekah is Lillian before anything else happens. From this minute on, we don’t give her a second to breathe. We stay with her and watch her.”

  “Esme, if what you’re saying is true, we need evidence.”

  “I totally agree. That’s why I’m going to steal her phone.”

  “What? You can’t. The burns might be a complete coincidence.”

  “And all the weird ‘what’s your biggest secret’ crap that she was going on about when we first arrived? What was that about? She was trying to see if we’d lie.”

  “Which we did,” Kayla replies. “We’ve lied a lot.”

  “Sometimes the truth can do more damage.”

  “Even if the truth is about an accident?”

  I blink hard to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Kayla, the fire and Lillian getting hurt was an accident, sure. Keeping quiet about it for ten years wasn’t.”

  “I don’t need the abridged version, I was there,” she snips.

  “Whatever. I need you to distract Rebekah.”

  “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Why can’t we just ask her about the burns?”

  “How likely do you think she is to say, ‘Yes, Esme, I am the one creeping off into the woods.’ Come on,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Rebekah isn’t going to admit anything. We have to find out. Keep her busy.”

  I start to turn away, but Kayla grabs my wrist.

  “Wait. How?”

  “I don’t know! Ask her to talk, tell her you’re homesick. She likes to share feelings…even if they’re made up.”

  “All right. Be careful.”

  I’ll be the one in the cabin; she’s the one who’s going to be with Rebekah. It’s not me who needs to be careful.

  We part ways: she heads to the dock where Rebekah is dangling her feet into the lake, and I go inside Rebekah’s cabin.

  The campers are in the multiuse cabin having a dodgeball tournament.

  A dodgeball game doesn’t require every counselor and CIT, so we’ve split up. Half of us are supervising the campers and the rest are taking a break. That’s code for watching the forest. Kayla and I have been tagged in for first watch.

  Andy is flitting between checking the campers and making sure there’s no further danger. He’s clutching his phone and the damn clipboard like he has a clue how to handle this situation. He hasn’t mentioned the cops again, so I guess he’s not telling them anything else besides what he’s already told them about the guy on camp property. Which is hardly likely to be up there on the
cops’ list of urgent incidents.

  “Esme,” Andy says, walking toward me as he makes another round, “where are you going?”

  “Oh, Andy,” I say, pressing one hand to my throat and acting startled. “You scared me.”

  He didn’t. After two weeks at camp, I no longer jump when he pops up like a ghost.

  Think! Why are you going into a cabin that isn’t yours?

  “I’m sorry for frightening you,” he says.

  “That’s okay, I was just going to go check inside, you know?” I scratch my jaw. “That makes me paranoid, I get that, but we have kids here.”

  “I think it’s prudent to exercise caution, well done. I can take on cabin checks.”

  Seriously?

  I run my hand through my hair. “Even the girls’ cabins? The girls might be more comfortable if it was a female going into their room.”

  His pale eyes widen a fraction. I guess the thought of someone witnessing him looking through the girls’ cabin does not appeal to him.

  “Ah, right. I didn’t think about that. Very well, I’ll take the boys’ cabins. Let me know if anything is amiss.”

  I smile. “Will do.”

  That was too easy.

  Andy walks off, heading toward the boys’ cabins.

  After taking one quick glance over my shoulder and seeing that Rebekah is occupied, I open her cabin door and slip inside. I’ve been in Rebekah and Tia’s room once, shortly after we arrived.

  I press my lips together hard against the rolling in my stomach. Some people love snooping, but I hate it. It feels so wrong, and I always worry that I’ll find something nasty.

  If I find something in here that I don’t want to see, how will I look Rebekah in the eye again?

  I’d rather find evidence that she’s the creep in the woods. At least then this would be over.

  I walk through the main room and go into Rebekah and Tia’s bedroom.

  Their beds are made and there is nothing on the floor. Kayla and I are messy. I think I have at least three T-shirts on the chair.

  Rebekah’s is the bottom bunk; I remember her mentioning Tia was above her.

  I pick up her cream-colored pillow and stuff my hand inside the case. If I were hiding things, they would be in here or under the mattress. Not original, I’ve made my peace with that, but our options here are limited. The floorboards are fixed tight, probably thanks to Andy.