Teen Killers Club

by Lily Sparks

  “Ha ha.” I shoot him a look. “No way. She would’ve told me if they did it.”

  “She didn’t even tell you his name.”

  That stings.

  “Still,” I insist. “She would’ve told me if she’d done it with him or anyone else. Because whenever she’d do stuff first she’d make a point of letting me know—”

  Erik lets out a strangled laugh, and I realize what I’ve just told him. Absolute. Mortification. I cover my face with my hands and will myself to sink into the earth.

  “I hate you,” I say at last, and he breaks out into peals of bright laughter that echo through the pines.

  “You truly forced that deduction on me.”

  “Erik!” I plead, embarrassed giggles bubbling up before I can help it.

  “Hey, your sexual experience or lack thereof is your business, thanks for sharing but—”

  “Signal!” Dave’s voice rings through the trees, and Erik and I both turn to see him on the trail leading up from the cabins a few yards away, the rest of the campers in a line behind him. “Are you still hiding that body?” Dave snaps.

  Jada is staring daggers at me, of course.

  “I just finished.”

  “Then you can both join us on our wilderness survival basics lesson.” Dave jerks his thumb behind his shoulder. “It’s a silent hike. Mouths shut, ears alert!”

  As I slink past Dave, I see Javier toward the back of the line, and I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with him until just as I pass by. I make a point of turning my head and smiling at him, but he must not notice, because he doesn’t smile back.

  * * *

  After an endless lecture on foraging and finding water in the woods, Dave tells us we’re free to return to our cabins for some rack time. I fall in beside Nobody.

  “So what do you think of camp?” I ask.

  “Beats a cell.”

  “I’m still angry about how they handled the kill switches.”

  “I like that we can walk around.”

  “And the obstacle course was brutal.”

  “I came in third.” She sounds proud.

  “The campers here are all insane.”

  “Javier saved your life today.”

  “Yeah … he did,” I admit sheepishly, “He seems really nice.”

  “Watch out for when guys are nice. They’re usually pretending.”

  “Well, then I guess Erik gets points for openly being a jerk at least.” I look over, hoping to get her impression of Erik, but she stares straight ahead. “So, uh, what did you mean yesterday?” I prod. “When you said he marked me?”

  “You ever see a dog piss on a tree?” She looks at me. “Like that. But without him having to piss.”

  Okay. Time to change the subject, I guess. “Did I miss anything good?”

  “Wound assessment. When to make a splint or walk it off. And I spoke with Jada.” Nobody pauses. “She’s …” Her gravelly voice breaks off.

  “A raving psycho bitch?” I finish.

  Nobody’s sharp glare registers even through her mask’s small eyeholes. There’s a long pause before she goes on.

  “Sometimes trees catch fire at the roots and burn up from the inside. You can’t tell looking at them. You could walk through a forest with a hundred trees burning like that and there’s not even smoke. But then, if you peel back the bark, you’d see the wood is glowing red, all burning up inside.” She clears her throat after this rather surprising speech, then continues, “Jada’s burning up on the inside. You want to call that being a psycho bitch, I can’t stop you. Just try not to take her head off, I guess.”

  Oh, that’s right. Nobody thinks I actually decapitated a friend of mine. No wonder she’s playing peacemaker. And from her perspective, what an absolute hypocritical brat I must seem.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have talked behind her back like that. I promise I’m not a psycho bitch either, okay?”

  “Maybe no one is a psycho bitch,” Nobody grumbles. “Maybe psycho bitches are just people with problems you can’t see.”

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe we’re all stuck in the details of our complicated, sordid, unseen worlds; maybe we’re all papering over the surface of ourselves and everyone else with simpler explanations. But it’s never enough to contain us. We break through or we shrink to fit.

  “Signal.” Nobody has stopped walking and I slow beside her. “Do you feel that?” She lays one of her long, scarred hands on my arm. Above us, the wind rushes through the leaves with a sound like the tide pulling away from the shore. And I feel it too. Again.

  Someone’s watching us.

  Nobody turns her head just a fraction. “There,” she whispers, her voice low in her throat. “By the pines.”

  Fifty yards ahead of us, framed against a knot of dark pines, is a man in a mask.

  The mask is rubber, white with blue markings, and molded into the face of a smiling bulldog. His arms hang at his sides and he stares right back at us.

  “Probably just another test. Probably just Dave,” Nobody mutters.

  “It’s not Dave,” I whisper back. “Dave’s not that tall.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Boys’ Cabin

  “Race you to him?” Nobody asks.

  “Are you out of your mind?!” I hiss.

  “It’s chase or be chased,” she says, matter of factly. “Together on three.”

  The man in the dog mask does not move at all. A dead thing could not be more still.

  “One …”

  Run toward a huge, hulking stranger!? Who’s been following us through the woods?!

  “Two …”

  If she goes alone, it’s one on one. If we turn and run, she’s right, we’re prey. Two of us, well, maybe it could scare him. Maybe he thought we were just normal girls.

  “Three!” Nobody yells.

  She sprints toward him and I race after her with an exasperated scream. Just as Nobody is close enough to reach for him, her red hand clawing through the air, the man in the dog mask turns and scrambles away. He’s clumsy but surprisingly fast, with the careless hurry of an injured animal.

  “Wait!” I yell, reaching for Nobody’s sleeve. “Nobody, wait!”

  But she’s deaf to me. He’s running for the ravine, slipping and sliding in the dark mud that surrounds the stream of water hidden by the trees, turning his head to glance back at us. I can feel Nobody’s excitement as she flies away from me, her legs stretching endlessly forward, bounding toward the creek he’s scampering through. Erik’s words ring through my mind: Watch your step or you’ll cross the fence.

  He’s leading her toward the creek. If she crosses that invisible line, she’ll die.

  I duck under a low-hanging oak branch as I race after her, shrieking at the top of my lungs: “NOBODY! THE CREEK! THE CREEK!!!”

  She glances back, just enough to break her stride, and I leap and pounce on her, in a gesture that’s pure Erik. Dog Mask, who’d disappeared through the trees, returns to the clearing. He stares back at us, cocking his head to one side, giving the rubber dog features a strangely disappointed cast.

  “He’s trying to get you to cross the fence,” I gasp, hugging her tight. “He’s trying to trigger your kill switch.”

  Nobody’s pale blue eyes lock with mine. Then she picks up a massive rock and hurls it at him with startling accuracy. He disappears into the brush, but she doesn’t follow this time.

  “Well, that’s a stupid test,” she says, and we walk in silence through the deepening orange of dusk. And it’s strange to know the sky would still glow and the birds would still sing if we were still back there lying dead in the creek.

  * * *

  “There you are.” Kate is sitting on the low steps to the girls’ cabin, stubbing out a cigarette as we approach. “Jada got here half an hour ago. Where’ve you two been?”

  “Dave had us do some pop quiz,” Nobody says.

  Kate stands and puts her hands on her hips, her voice stern.
“No, no he did not. Dave and the boys got back before Jada did. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying, okay, ask him! He had some guy follow us wearing a stupid dog mask.”

  Kate’s mouth drops, then snaps closed. She stiffly turns and walks away without another word in response.

  “That wasn’t a test,” I tell Nobody, but she just shrugs.

  “Whatever. I’m starving.”

  * * *

  I could cry at the smell of hot food when we go to the main cabin for dinner. I’ve never been so hungry in my life. There’s a vegetarian entree too, macaroni and cheese, but before we can start shoveling it onto our plates Kate blows her whistle for our attention.

  “Campers, listen up! After dinner and dish duty, we’re going to combine cabins. The girls will be moving in with the boys!”

  A hubbub breaks out across the room, but somehow my voice rises above it when I ask: “Is this because of the guy we saw?”

  Everyone starts asking me questions at once. Kate has to blow her whistle again.

  “Yes, okay! We had a trespasser at camp today. We found a boat pulled on shore. We believe he’s a local fisherman or hiker. Dave is off investigating now. Until we’ve sorted it out, we’re going to be using the buddy system: don’t go anywhere alone, always travel with at least one buddy. And if you run into an adult who isn’t me or Dave, don’t engage. At all. We clear?”

  “Can we hunt him too?” Troy grins.

  Kate gives him an exasperated look. “Let’s try not to crap where we sleep, guys.”

  * * *

  I take a quick shower in the relative privacy of the girls’ cabin before we pack up, and finally wash the obstacle course off me. The water is painfully cold, but nothing has ever felt as cozy as the giant turquoise fleece I bundle up in afterward.

  After dressing I join Nobody and Jada in packing up our stuff, which takes a surprisingly long time considering how few things we have to gather—sheets, footlockers, bath supplies—and haul it all through the dark to the boys’ cabin. We’re significantly slowed by the fact Kate will not let us walk alone. She makes us all go together as a threesome as we drop our belongings off by the door to the boys’ cabin. Only once all our things are in a big leaning pile on the shallow porch does she disappear into the trees, walkie-talkie crackling on her hip.

  The boys’ cabin is identical in layout to the girls: four unvarnished wood bunks in each corner and uninsulated knotty-pine walls awash in waves of mildew.

  “I smell gym socks,” I tell Nobody as we stagger into the cabin, comforters bundled in our arms. “And … flowers?”

  “You’re welcome. We cleaned up for you!” Troy grins, pushing a broom and chewing on the end of one of his blue hoodie strings.

  “This is ‘cleaned up’? Yikes,” Nobody mutters.

  “The top bunks are all taken, and Troy sleeps under me, but the other three bottom bunks are free,” Kurt adds, leaning back in his own top bunk across from the door, then starts noodling out “More Than Words” on his guitar.

  Javier is on the top bed of the back-left corner bunk, writing in a notebook, and he gives me a small wave. I’m about to walk straight to the bunk under his when Jada shoves past me and dumps all her bedding there, claiming it.

  Okay, fine. I turn to the bunk bed behind me. Dennis is up top, reading a worn copy of The Art of Intrusion.

  The door to the bathroom bangs open and I whip around to see Erik walk out, hair sopping wet from the shower, towel knotted around his waist, his chest clenched tight against the cold.

  Jada drops what’s in her hands and practically spins on her heel to get out of his path.

  “Whoever has the gardenia soap in there, I just used it,” Erik announces to the room. Muscles I didn’t even know existed flash along his sides as he bends to pluck a white thermal off his bunk and pull it on.

  “That’d be Troy!” Kurt throws a pillow down at his brother. “He specifically requested it from Kate when we first got here.”

  “I like a sumptuous scent, okay?” Troy fires back. “Most alpha males do. Floral smells boost testosterone. That’s why in ancient times kings wore leis and corsages and flower crowns into battle.”

  “They did?”

  “To be honest, no they did not.”

  “Stupid!” Kurt laughs.

  BANG! Jada’s footlocker slips from her hand in the middle of the room, hits the ground and hatches open, scattering a cosmetic portrait of her insecurities across the floor: concealer, zit cream, extra-strength deodorant.

  “PARTY FOUL!” Troy shouts, and there’s a high wolf whistle from Kurt and a tiny gasp above me from Dennis as Troy picks a red lacy bra up off the floor.

  I duck down to snatch up the box of super-size tampons that are within reach and tuck them in the corner of the footlocker before anyone notices, and then, cursing inwardly, drop to my knees and help pick up the rest.

  Kurt snatches the bra from Troy and fires it across the cabin like a slingshot. It hits the wall with a rattle and slides down under Erik’s bunk as the guys burst out laughing.

  “Wow, it’s almost like you’ve never seen a bra before.” Erik bounds up to Kurt’s bunk and has him in a headlock. Kurt laughingly punches at Erik’s arms, hard, as Troy attempts to wrench him off. I use the distraction to slip across the room, kick the bra from under Erik’s bunk and pack it away with the rest.

  Once we’ve gotten everything back in the footlocker, Jada latches it and slides it under her bunk with a shove, not acknowledging me. But Nobody shoots me a discreet thumbs-up, the masked person’s version of a smile.

  “Erik,” Dennis calls from over my head as I tuck in the corners of my fitted sheet. “What do you think Dave took with him to go ‘investigate’ that hiker? Long-range rifle with a silencer?”

  “Dave should be forced to use only the soup-can lid shivs he had us make our first day at camp.”

  “Oh man, dude, those were the dumbest!” Kurt pipes up. “What do you think the hiker has on him? A Swiss Army knife?”

  “That guy was not a hiker.” I turn around, my pillow hugged to my chest, midway through putting on a fresh case. “Nobody and I saw him, and he was wearing a big weird rubber mask. Who goes hiking in a mask?”

  “Dog Mask. Old timey. Very creepy,” Nobody agrees, the cabin going silent. The boys telegraph a glance around the room, and Erik’s dark eyebrows fly up as he stares at me.

  “Interesting!” Erik rubs his hair with his towel, peering at me through its folds. “Yeah, I don’t imagine animal masks are a hot item at the old REI. What happened exactly?”

  “He followed us through the woods after nature time with Dave or whatever.”

  “We tried to get him,” Nobody adds defensively. “But he got away.”

  There’s a shifting sound above me as Dennis sits up, and Javier’s eyes search my face.

  “Yeah, when we ran at him, he bolted straight for the creek. Like he was trying to get us to follow him across the fence.” I sit down on my bunk, legs unsteady. “Like he was trying to set off our kill switches.”

  “How would he know where the fence is, though!?” Troy insists. “This camp is like, a top-secret program that got going, what, two weeks ago?”

  “If that’s what Signal says happened, that’s what happened.” Erik bites at his nails and stares at me, damp hair hanging in his alert face. “So how would he know about the fence?”

  “I don’t know, but Kate knows who he is, I think. When we described him to her, she got weird.” But before I can say more, the door swings open and Kate strides in:

  “Fifteen minutes till lights out, guys! Early to bed, early to rise!”

  There’s an uneasy silence as Kate watches us collect our toothbrushes and bathroom gear. How much did she overhear?

  When I come back out of the bathroom the lanterns are all off, and while I’m burning to discuss Dog Mask with everyone, I can see the firefly glow of Kate’s cigarette through the screen door.

  There’s a
long silence, and then a very high fart.

  “TROY!!!” Kurt yells, “Shut up your BUTT!”

  “Who was that?!” Troy cries indignantly. “No, seriously, guys. Who would do such a thing?! Let’s get to the bottom of this. Who’s got a bubbly tummy in the house tonight?”

  “Troy,” Erik growls, “one more noise out of either of your ends and I will climb over there and permanently connect your rectum to your esophagus.”

  I hear Dennis start laughing overhead, a string of hushed, uncontrollable giggles, and that does it, I crack up and now we’re all laughing, so hard Kate calls “Go to sleep!” from the porch and we settle into cozy silence.

  As I curl up on my side and slide my hand under my pillow, I feel a crisp sheet of folded paper. I carefully pull the note out and tilt it to catch a dim beam from the porch light.

  It’s a drawing of a dandelion, captured in one flowing, elegant line. And underneath in block letters is written:

  “FLOWER FOR SURE.”

  * * *

  “Rise and shine!” Dave claps his hands right in my face.

  Pain rips through me when I try to sit up, muscles seizing in my arms and legs. I have to grip the ladder at the end of the bunk just to stand.

  “Little sore there, huh?” Dave laughs.

  “Everything hurts.”

  Kate, by his side, frowns at me.

  “Then you can take the morning to rest.”

  “Really?!”

  “Yup. But you’ll need a buddy.”

  My first thought is Nobody, but she seems to actually enjoy the obstacle course. The only person who dreads it as much as I do is, obviously …

  “Hey, Dennis?”

  Dennis, halfway down the ladder, has his glasses off. He looks too young without them.

  “You want to be my buddy this morning? Skip obstacle course?”

  “Yes, yup, okay.” He nods quickly. For monotone Dennis, this is the equivalent of a “HELL YEAH, GIRL.”

  “That works for me.” Kate smiles. “Dennis can get in some computer practice and your muscles can heal.”