Teen Killers Club

by Lily Sparks

  So I run to the lower field as fast as I can.

  * * *

  When I get there, the Teen Killers Club is sitting on a patchwork of old blankets and faded quilts, puffed up by the uncut grass underneath so it looks like they’re picnicking on top of a giant down comforter. They’re all eating from lunch bags Kate brought up from the kitchen. Nobody waves me over, holding up a bag with my name on it. Kate squints beyond me.

  “Where’s Erik and Jada? Why didn’t they come back with you?”

  “They’re … talking.”

  Kate’s smile drops and she shoots to her feet. She breaks into a run as she nears the tree line.

  “They’re just talking!” I call after her.

  “Talking with Erik can be life-threatening,” Dennis reminds me between bites of a PB&J.

  “Here,” Nobody says gruffly, swatting my leg with the lunch bag. “Eat.”

  I peer inside: a sandwich, banana, and Sour Cream & Onion Ruffles?! A lesser fake girlfriend might have eaten them herself, but Nobody has my back.

  “Oh man, I haven’t had these in forever,” I gush, popping open the bag and shoving the shards into my mouth with shaking fingers.

  “You’re bleeding,” Nobody says matter-of-factly.

  “Huh … how did that happen?” I drag the least muddy bit of my sleeve across my cheek. It’s not a good look that I got rolled by Jada after fainting on the obstacle course, and everyone hates a snitch. Nobody doesn’t press, so I cram my food down, hunched over so no one notices how much my hands are shaking.

  When Kate returns with Jada and Erik, his hands are in his pockets and her face is a blank. They go to sit at opposite ends of the quilt, though. Troy leans over and says something that makes Jada give him a tight smile.

  I dare a glance at Javier, who is stretched out on his back across a yellow blanket nearby, hands clasped behind his head as though sleeping. It’s like he’s activated by the sunlight: his skin glows, a small unconscious smile warming his handsome features.

  I know I should thank him for saving me, but the idea of starting a conversation is terrifying. Which is ridiculous. He saved my life! It’s actually weirder if I don’t thank him!

  I summon all my courage, lean forward, and tap him on his shoulder.

  “Hey.” I take a deep breath, “Javier?”

  SMACK. A sopping wet trash bag flops onto the ground in front of me, hurled with enough force to scatter its muddy contents across the picnic quilts.

  “Signal, you just failed your first test here,” Dave announces, and everyone turns to stare.

  “Didn’t even need the dogs to find it,” Dave continues, his voice rising. “Your body just found itself, Signal. Just washed up on shore while you were busy fainting up at the obstacle course.”

  The mannequin has landed face up, and memory of Rose’s face after she wasn’t Rose anymore comes back with searing clarity. Her blue eyes staring into eternity, her lips slack over red teeth. It is always there, in the back of my mind, under everything I see.

  “You’re getting one last chance with this body, Signal.” Dave sounds far away, and I try to hold onto the anger in his reddening face, to connect to any kind of embarrassment that will pull me out of the flashback, but it’s like the present is a dim film playing on the wall of the shed where I’m still trapped, Rose’s body in my lap forever.

  “Signal!!” Dave’s hand grabs my collar, jolting me back to reality. “Did you hear me?”

  I blink at him, relieved.

  “What did you come to camp to learn?”

  I honestly don’t remember the phrase.

  “How not to get caught.” Dave blows his whistle, still glaring at me. “Campers! Everyone else can return to their cabins to clean up. Everyone except for Signal, who is falling behind yet again.”

  I get on my knees and start picking her up as everyone leaves. My arms jerk, my fingers spasm as I try to pile the fake girl back together.

  And then I realize someone is staring.

  “Okay, seriously, what now?” I say, looking up in the direction they’ve all left, expecting to see Jada again.

  But there’s no one.

  I rise to my feet and turn in a slow circle, trying to hear past the rush of wind through the leaves. Behind me the first dark pines at the edge of the forest stand waiting. Their deep shadows could hide anything.

  “Signal!” A voice from the opposite direction. Javier lopes toward me through the tall grass and I swallow a cry of relief.

  “Look, I know we’re not supposed to help each other.” He looks over his shoulder, then drops his voice confidentially. “But there’s kind of a trick to getting rid of the bodies. If you want, I could show you.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  He catches up the stack of limbs, I grab the head.

  “Okay then,” he says. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Javier drops the mannequin parts. Here, in the heart of a scruffy little clearing almost retaken by the forest, is a rusted-out playground. It’s impossible to imagine children playing here, but they must have once. What a magical place this camp must have seemed like then.

  “We’re really far from the group now,” I point out uneasily.

  “Yeah, we need to be. Can’t let Dave smell the smoke,” Javier explains. “The burn barrel’s this way,” he calls over his shoulder, hurrying toward a break in the trees.

  “The what?”

  I chase him down a narrow path to a grouping of tall, mossy boulders. The shortest one is at least seven feet tall, with dark streaks pressed into its green moss that make sense when Javier carefully climbs up its side.

  He slips into the space between the boulders, there’s muffled clanging, and then a large rusted trashcan appears above me.

  “I’m letting go on three,” he calls. “Ready?”

  “Okay!” I reach up as the massive metal can rattles down and manage to slow its landing. Javier climbs carefully back down beside me, the lid under his arm, and lifts up the bottom of the can. I hoist up the top and see the inside is encrusted with something like black lava.

  “We all melted our bodies down during the drill so they’d be easier to hide,” Javier explains. We lug it back to the playground and stand it right in the middle of the sandpit. I dump the mannequin’s head and a couple of limbs inside as Javier produces a small bottle of lighter fluid from his pocket.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “We keep it with the barrel, along with some matches and whatever else we can sneak out of the kitchen.”

  “But I thought we were only allowed to use what we were given?”

  “The point of the test is not to fail.” Javier gives me a sad smile. “‘Allowed’ doesn’t get you much out here. Now back up.”

  He squirts lighter fluid around the inside of the can, lights up half a book of matches, then steps back as he throws it in.

  A WHOOSH of angry orange flame shoots out and the birds hurl themselves shrieking from the branches overhead. Javier clamps the lid on and black smoke trails out of the vents bored into the lid.

  “We can only do a couple pieces at a time. So it takes a while,” Javier says, retreating toward the swings. I follow him to a patch of grass upwind from the blue smoke now winding toward the trees. The smell is sharp and caustic, even though we’re a dozen yards away.

  Javier yawns and lies back in the grass, throwing his forearm across his face, and the line of a tattoo peeks from his sleeve. To keep from staring, I turn away to see a patch of exceptionally hardy dandelions, so yellow they glow even in the shadow of the woods. I pick one, enjoying the peppery smell, the feel of the cool feathery petals against my cheek. I pick a couple more, and then, just like Rose used to, I begin to loop them together.

  “How’re you doing that?” Javier’s got one eye open under the shadow of his forearm. I give him a big inviting smile.

  “This? It’s just a daisy chain. But with dandelions.”

  “I thought that only wor
ked in cartoons.”

  “You’ve never made a daisy chain?” My voice comes out just a little too high. “If you want, I could show you.”

  “Okay.” He sits up and his eyes meet mine directly and it’s so intense I stare at the flowers again, picking two, splitting the stems and talking way too fast as I explain how to link them. I’m semi-coherent but he listens patiently. After a few moments of rambling instructions, I hear myself ask, “So, uh, what’s your tattoo of?”

  Javier pulls up his sleeve to reveal an outline of a little boy holding a radio controller and staring up at the sky. Above him is a small remote-control plane. The boy is drawn in one continuous line, but somehow that single line captures a dozen telling details.

  “Wow, that’s amazing! It must have cost a fortune.”

  “I did it myself.” Javier smiles sheepishly. “Bic and needle.”

  “WHAT?!” I grab his arm before I really think that through. I stare down at the lines but all I’m conscious of is the sculpted arm they’re etched into, and the heat creeping up my neck.

  “Amazing.” I retract my hands, embarrassed. “Who is it?”

  “It’s just from an old photo.” He stares at the dandelions in his lap. I can tell there’s more, but I don’t want to pry.

  “Would you draw me something like that? You’re very talented.”

  “Tell that to this daisy chain!” He holds up a broken tangle of stems, and I laugh too hard, but he laughs too, so it’s okay.

  “Oh, see, you have to bring in the third one now … like that, and then … we bring the two ends together and … ta-da, it’s a crown!” I start to set it on his head, but he shies away.

  “You should wear it. The yellow will look nice against the blue.”

  When I plop it on my head he leans forward, his knees knocking into mine, and carefully adjusts it, his face so close I can count his eyelashes. He sits back and smiles at me.

  “Now, that’s really something. A real live flower crown.”

  “Well, not really.” I look down, overcome. “I mean, dandelions aren’t actual flowers, right? They’re like, weeds, technically?”

  “No way. Who even gets to decide that? They’re definitely flowers. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise,” Javier says, and he reaches up to gently move a strand of my hair in place under the crown.

  “Hey there, you two.” Erik’s deep voice rings through the trees, and I turn to see him all cleaned up, his long hair damp, holding half a bag of marshmallows.

  “Hey, Erik.” Javier smiles, but it’s a different smile. Tenser.

  “Helping Signal with her homework?” Erik pushes a marshmallow into his mouth and chews it while staring him down. “Kate needs you for Arts and Crafts, she said.”

  Javier stands, runs his hand over his close-cropped head, his expression sweetly confused as he looks down at me. I stand too, knocking the broken dandelions from my hands.

  “Thanks again, Javier.”

  “No problem. Keep with it. Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.” He holds out the lighter fluid. I take the flat tin can and watch him disappear through the trees, leaving me all alone with Erik.

  “Sorry if I interrupted something.”

  “We were just talking.”

  “No fair. Javier never plays with my hair when he talks to me,” Erik says drily, and I quickly pull the dandelion crown off.

  “I have a girlfriend, remember?” I walk past him to the old swing set behind us and perch on one of the rusty swings, the cold sand spilling into my shoes. Erik fishes another marshmallow out of his bag and walks slowly toward me.

  “You should remind Javier next time you see him.” Erik settles into the swing next to mine, his heavily muscled shoulders slightly bowed between the chains. “Marshmallow?”

  I shake my head. “I’m a vegetarian.”

  “Of course you are,” he says almost to himself. Erik bites the last piece of marshmallow off his long finger. He’d have beautiful hands, except all his nails are bitten down to the quick. It hurts to look at.

  “First Javier saves you on the obstacle course,” Erik continues, “now he’s hiding your body? I don’t want to get your hopes up, Signal, but he might have a crush on you.”

  “Doubtful,” I mutter, mortified.

  “It’s either that or he thinks you’re a complete idiot.” Erik shrugs. “Or maybe he likes you because he thinks you’re a complete idiot? Though personally, you strike me as the type who spends her weekends in the library.”

  Ouch.

  “Thanks, but you can save the condescending psychobabble for your girlfriend.”

  “Jada’s not my girlfriend, since you’re dying to know,” he says. “And since my ‘condescending psychobabble’ kept her from extending your smile to both ears, you’re welcome.”

  He catches my expression and recoils, laughing.

  “What a face! Signal, you’re awfully squeamish for a girl who supposedly decapitated someone and allegedly dates a burn victim.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t believe you have super psychic powers, so I guess we’re even.”

  “‘Super psychic powers’?!”

  “That’s what you’ve been telling everyone, right? That you kill people with your mind.”

  “Oh, sure, yeah, that.” Erik nods. “That’s not superpowers. That’s just having a knack for psychology.” He turns his full gaze on me, eyes wide and earnest. Coupled with his long, expressive eyebrows and cat’s-eye pupil, it’s kind of overwhelming.

  “You find a person’s weakness, right? That’s easy, people tell you their weaknesses all the time. Then you get friendly and slowly make them believe that weakness is gone. Once they believe that, boom.” He jabs his thumb in the air. “You break right through it, right into their heads.”

  “How specific and rational that sounds.” I roll my eyes, but it doesn’t faze him.

  “Eh, it’s hard to describe something so … intuitive.” His dimples are back. “What did Michelangelo say about sculpting? That he saw the angel in the marble and carved until he set him free? Not very helpful to every guy with a chisel. But that’s the process.”

  “I’m surprised Dave and Kate don’t let you teach a class.”

  “I wish they would. I’m starting to get seriously bored.” Erik bites at his nails. “That’s why I was hoping you’d let me help.”

  “Help with what?” I’m already bristling.

  “Help figure out who killed your best friend.”

  Best friend. No one in the media coverage described Rose as my best friend. Rose herself laughed the title off after middle school. But it’s how I’ve always thought of her, how I’ll always think of her. I stare at the blue plume of smoke rising from the burn barrel and clutch the cold swing chains.

  “… How did you know Rose was my best friend?”

  “Your face.” Erik shrugs. “When Dave was reaming you out back there. You weren’t listening to him. You were thinking of her. My guess is you loved her with all your heart.” He gets up from his swing. “I better put another forearm on the fire.”

  He walks away, his swing rocking back and forth, the chains making a high seagull cry overhead, and my vision blurs. Because he’s right. I loved Rose like a sister. Which is what no one, not her family or her friends or the world, seems to understand.

  “Signal?” Erik’s voice makes me drop my hands from my face, but he’s not looking at me. He’s lifted the lid with a stick and is staring into the barrel. “What was your body made out of?”

  “Some sort of silicone. Why?”

  “Silicone as in silicone bakeware? As in, highly heat and fire resistant?”

  I hurry to the edge of burn barrel and peer in. My mannequin’s head smiles up at me. Her glass eyes are blackened by smoke and her hair is gone but otherwise she’s completely intact, and looking more than a little smug at her own resilience.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  I’m dizzy with exhaustion, my “99% Angel
” sweatshirt is soaked through with cold mud from the obstacle course, and I’m back at square one. I seriously might collapse. Again.

  “We’ll stash her in the burn barrel and hide it in the woods.” Erik’s tone is decisive.

  “It’s too hot to touch.”

  Erik reaches for a large, faded pink plastic bucket at the edge of the sand box. “So we get some cold water from the stream.”

  “What stream?”

  “The one that’s closer than the lake, I’ll show you. We can chat about Rose’s case on the way. Or would you rather give me the bucket and have me get the water for you, Your Highness?”

  I grab the bucket before he can make more comments about other people doing my homework.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Really? Because I had a lot of thoughts about that senior she was dating.” Erik walks past me toward the forest, adding: “Especially after his first alibi fell through.”

  “What?”

  Erik turns back to me then, eyebrows raised. “You know. How Mike claimed he was at a party when she was killed. But when the police asked around no one had seen him, and then Mike confessed he’d left the party early to go smoke out with a friend.” He watches me for a moment, then his tone softens. “Oh. You didn’t know.”

  It’s like being in freefall again.

  “That can’t be true.” I clutch the bucket, my fingers going cold, the light-headedness from earlier washing over me. “Mike was a church kid, the pastor’s son. He didn’t even drink.”

  “Sounds like there’s something to talk about, then.” Erik shrugs, and disappears through the trees.

  I hurry after him into the shadow of the forest, down a winding, narrow trail almost swallowed by banks of fern.

  “How did you hear that?”

  “It was covered in the news. How did you not? Your lawyer never brought it up?”

  “My public defender wanted me to take a plea deal from the start.” And I’d been so out of it during the trial, heavily sedated or manic with grief.