Raven turned to Danielle and puffed her cheeks out, and Nicole could see the redhead’s gaze harden in anger. Although a long way from “fat”, she was still highly sensitive about her less than svelte weight. The funny part of Raven’s taunting was that she was far from a slender girl herself, and probably weighed only fifteen pounds less than Danielle.
“One of you,” continued the councilor, “will be responsible for the emergency radio. This is to be used once to report when you’ve safely reached your assigned campsite, and after that, only in a medical emergency. If you use it for any other reason, you and your team will fail. And some of you have already experienced enough failure.”
The councilor looked in Nicole’s direction, and she tried to shrink behind the girls seated in front. So she wasn’t the most outdoorsy type. Sue me!
“We’ve prepared four special campsites, each located in opposite directions from here. Each campsite is in a clearing marked by an orange crate containing a tent just like the ones you’ve been using here, along with a workbook of various site-specific tasks to be completed before the end of the week. Now, without further ado, each team will randomly draw your campsite in the order assigned at breakfast...”
A counselor – Bossy, the one who’d woken them that morning – walked up to the first team of girls and held out a galvanized steel bucket. One girl reached in, and pulled out a thin strip of paper.
“Ooh,” remarked Bossy, eyeing the hand-printed name. “That one’s the furthest away. Did you want to redraw?”
“Hey!” exclaimed Raven, knowing that their tardiness had given them last pick.
The young girl smirked at them, and pulled out a second strip of paper.
“Camp Moon Wolf!” called out Bossy. “A beautiful location to the south, next to a bubbling, spring-fed creek. Deer have been seen in the area!”
Well whoop-de-doo...
The second team of girls drew Camp Lion Claw to the west, the third Camp Spirit Bear to the east, and then the final draw came to Raven.
Reaching into the now pointless bucket, she unfolded the one and only scrap of paper left, and read the name aloud. “Camp Beaver Tail. Um, miss, I would like to request an immediate change of name.”
“You can’t change your name.”
“Then I want to swap with Moon Wolf, ’cuz I ain’t no damn bitch Beaver Tail!”
The other girls giggled.
“Not going to happen, Miss Shaw. Consider this a lesson for you and your team in the importance of punctuality. Besides, all the camps are similar. Yours just happens to be three times further away. Enjoy the hike!”
Angrily crumpling up the paper and throwing it away, Raven turned back to her teammates with a scowl on her face, muttering, “Fucking pussy ass beaver tail,” under her breath.
Perhaps it would be nice and picturesque?
Chapter Four
What the campsite was, was a very long way away. After a grueling two-hour hike that included trekking over a rocky ridge and following a rushing river as it meandered along a valley basin, according to Lynn’s estimation they were still about twenty minutes away from the red “X” marking Camp Beaver Tail. Not that any of them were map-reading experts, nor had anything beyond a simple compass for navigation. A smartphone with GPS would’ve been so useful right about now!
“Hey, girls?” called out an appreciably winded Danielle. “Anyone else feel like taking a little break?”
“Already, Red?” whined Raven from up front. “We just took a fuckin’ break ten fucking minutes ago!”
“No we didn’t! That was like half an hour ago... and I’m feeling kinda effed up AF, y’know.”
Raven snorted. “You look kinda effed up as fuck.”
“Hey, screw you!” shot back Danielle. “Who died and put you in charge? And what the hell is your whole problem anyways! Why you always gotta pick on me? You don’t even know me!”
The grumpy black teen came to an abrupt stop and clenched her hands into fists... but remained silent. Finally, she sighed. “Fine,” she muttered, still facing away from the others. “Do whatever you want, ya big baby. Take five, or fucking fifty for all I care.”
“Gee. Thanks, mom.”
As Danielle shrugged off the heavy backpack and sat on a mossy stump, Nicole approached the sweaty girl and crouched to eye level. “Hey, you okay, Danielle? You’re looking kinda pale there.”
Danielle glanced up and smiled weakly. “I’m a redhead. I’m naturally pale. It’s our thing. But it’s like you said earlier: ever since I woke up, I feel just horrible! Kinda like a hangover combined with the flu... and damn if this hike ain’t makin’ every muscle in my body scream out in agony.”
From the side, Raven made a snorting noise like she was about to say something snarky.
Danielle swung around and jabbed her finger at the girl. “Don’t you fucking say a word, you miserable, judgmental bitch!” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood for any of your bullying shit, so just shut it!”
Looking mildly surprised that Danielle had a backbone, Raven cast her eyes downwards. “I was just going to say I feel weird too,” she said in a slightly annoyed tone. “But when you’re ready, let’s put on our big girl pants and get our asses up to that fucking campsite, okay? Then, you can rest for as long as you fucking want.”
With tensions on edge, the six girls relaxed as best they could – leaning against trees, massaging cramping calf muscles, re-applying stinky mosquito repellent, and sipping from large canteens of warm water.
Raven, who just couldn’t leave well enough alone, smirked as Danielle unbuttoned her pants and pushed them down a little, to rub some cream onto her chafing thighs. “You know, Red... guys like thigh gap – not thigh smack.”
Danielle’s eyes practically bugged out of her skull. “Oh my god! What the hell is wrong with you, Raven? Can’t you find someone else to pick on over and over and—”
Rolling her eyes, Nicole thumped the back of her skull against the tree she was leaning against. Nothing but bicker, bicker, bicker with those two! She was seriously thinking about throwing her canteen in their direction, when she heard a noise and held her breath.
A twig. Snapping. Not loud, but it had come from somewhere in the dense forest behind them.
She didn’t think too much of it at first, but then Nicole heard another twig snap slightly closer, and nervous butterflies began to stir in her stomach.
“Hey, uh, girls?” she called softly. “Did you hear that?”
Jessica, looking very bored with herself, shrugged. “Who can hear anything over that catfight?”
“Hey, you two – Ralph and Alice. Zip it!”
Raven turned and blinked. “Who?”
Nicole held her hand up for silence, straining to hear anything out of the ordinary.
Huruff!
A loud, menacing puff of air. Almost a growl. And everyone heard it as clear as day.
Bolting upright, Jessica suddenly looked much less bored. “Hey, um... ah, like what was that?” she asked, head on a swivel.
Nicole gulped. “Didn’t the counselors say something about there being bears in the park?”
“And lions!” added Jessica.
“Mountain lions,” clarified Alexis unhelpfully.
“So? It’s still a freaking lion!”
Hearing a branch rustle nearby, Nicole quickly grabbed her backpack. “Okay. I don’t know ’bout the rest of you, but I think it’s about time we get the hell outta here!”
Danielle hurriedly buttoned her pants and stood up. “No argument here!”
The girls began walking slowly and casually in the opposite direction of the noise, but when they all thought they heard an even closer rustling, Jessica screeched and took off in a blind panic – followed closely by the five others.
* * *
Thanks to the unsettling noises, that earlier twenty-minute estimate was slashed to an impressive ten when Jessica finally spotted the marker crate in a small clearing, about eighty feet
up from the wide riverbank they’d been following.
“Hey, lookie! Orange box thingie!” she called out excitedly, dashing off over rocks and thick beds of dried grass to be first to reach the assigned campsite.
Making their way more carefully over to the crate, the team took in their new surroundings.
“Welcome to scenic Camp Beaver Tail!” announced Jessica with a warm grin. “Asterisk: some assembly required.”
In all honesty, it wasn’t a horrible spot! Towering old growth Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar trees surrounded the small clearing, while tiny blue and white wildflowers blossomed in the shifting patches of sunlight that filtered through the dark green canopy. The nearby glacier-fed river added a constant rushing sound of moving water, while the snow-capped peaks of Mount Rainier itself towered majestically on the horizon.
If Nicole had been here by choice, rather than by judge’s decree, she might’ve appreciated the region’s natural beauty. As it stood, it was all she could do to stop the unending waves of nausea from dropping her to her knees.
Lynn unlocked the orange crate and opened the lid. “Hey, y’all wanna help set this thing up?” she asked, peering inside at the folded-up tent parts. “I seriously think I ain’t gonna wanna do it later on.”
“And we should call in, too,” prompted Alexis, who had been placed in charge of the radio. “Think we should mention the bear?”
“Fuck no!” proclaimed Raven. “We don’t even know what that was. Besides – you girls acted like fucking little bitches and ran off, which is the exact opposite of what you’re supposta do. Could make us fail, and I seriously ain’t doing this shit all over again.”
Nicole grunted. “Nice to see you were paying attention to something, Raven. But that means you should also know you can’t outrun a bear – and yet, you were in front of everyone!”
“You know the deal. Don’t need to outrun the bear, only need to outrun you. Or more likely, Red. Enough meat on her thick bones for a damn all-you-can-eat bear buffet.”
“Holy shit,” interjected Alexis, sensing trouble brewing. “Before you two start that crap up again, just what am I supposed to be telling them?”
With a sly look on her face, Raven held her hand out. “Give it here, Latte. I’ll call us in.”
Unzipping her survival backpack, Alexis retrieved the CB radio. “Please don’t call me that. And please don’t say anything that’ll get us in trouble,” she pleaded as she passed the handset.
Raven smiled, switched the radio on, and depressed the “talk” button. “Breaker breaker, this is Black Lightning. Come on back, good buddy.”
The sound of whining static came over the speaker for a full half minute before it cleared up. “Hello, Miss Shaw. Very funny. You’re the last team to check in.”
“Ten-four, Golden Biscuit. It done been a real long haul, and Raggedy Anne’s been a major dead pedal on our jailbird convoy... but we’re settlin’ in at the beaver palace now for a five-day free ride. Over.”
The radio produced static for another fifteen seconds before the counselor’s voice returned. “Uh huh. Well, remember to follow the chores and activities as laid out in the workbook. Do keep notes, because we’ll be expecting to read them, and remember that one of us will be dropping in over the next few days to check on your progress.”
“Ten-four, Golden Biscuit. Will keep an eye out for smokeys. Black Lightning over and out.”
Raven switched off the radio and handed it back to Alexis, who squinted suspiciously at the normally foul-mouthed city girl. “That was seriously ghetto, yo.”
“Fucking-A it was.”
It took every girl to help erect the large tent, and by the time that laborious chore was complete, they were all feeling very much under the weather.
“Shit, shit, shit,” muttered Raven as she smoothed a blanket out over the tall grass before collapsing on top. “I do not need to be getting the fuckin’ flu from one of you sickly bitches! Not today!”
“Hey, who says you’re not the one giving it to us?” shot back Danielle. “I felt perfectly fine until I woke up next to you this morning.”
“You mean, all this time that was you feeling fine?”
Alexis blew an ear-piercing two-fingered whistle. “Will you two stop it!” she yelled. “I’m sick and tired of you morons arguing like bratty little kids! Like, you haven’t even noticed that poor Lynn just threw up!”
“What!”
The group rushed over to the petite Asian girl, who was hunched over beside the tent and wiping drool from around her mouth.
“I... I’m okay, y’all,” she said weakly. “I think my blood sugar’s just super low after that long trek.”
Nicole snorted. “That’s what you get for being a skin and bones vegan. My Italian grandmother would be forever trying to fatten you up!”
Lynn smiled. “Yeah... but that makes me the least appetizing morsel for the bear buffet, now doesn’t it?”
“Maybe... unless they feel like a spring roll appetizer before the main course. Lookit, Lynn. You should probably eat one of the ration bars to boost your blood sugar, and then get some rest. I don’t know about anyone else, but before I go hauling buckets of water and trying to start a fire to cook dinner, I could use a bit of a nap while the sun’s still nice and warm. Maybe it’ll help get rid of this damned headache. Does that sound okay?”
The beleaguered team nodded in unison.
“Good. But let’s agree on just an hour or two, okay? Then we’ll have to buckle down and do some work...”
Chapter Five
Nicole awoke with a start. At first, she thought she was having another one of those freaky sex dreams, because her field of vision was filled entirely by blackness overlaid with a galaxy of twinkling white stars. At the same time, she felt engulfed by a dreamy state of complacency... almost like a narcotic sense of absolute calm.
“Kyle?” she called out hopefully – and yet her throat would make no sound.
That’s weird...
Gradually, Nicole came to realize that she was still at the campsite, outdoors, lying in the clearing where they’d all settled down for a quick nap. Only it was nighttime now, and she was still out there. How many hours had she been asleep? The team was supposed to be getting water, building a fire, and making dinner!
There’s so much work to do! Why has no one come to get me?
Rolling groggily onto her side, Nicole spotted the rest of the girls scattered about the grassy clearing, also fast asleep. They needed to wake up! Struggling to push herself upright, a blinding wave of literally painful nausea exploded inside Nicole’s skull, forcing her to fall back against the blanket, panting and as weak as a baby.
What the hell! My brain feels like it’s two times too big for my head, and my muscles five sizes too small! What’s wrong with me? This is bad. I need to call for help!
But, try as she might, Nicole could not force her body to respond to her urgent commands, and only managed to roll once again onto her back. It’s like she was nine-tenths paralyzed – and making that possibility altogether too plausible, she couldn’t feel any part of her body. Did she even have arms and legs?
Earlier, they’d thought they were getting the flu... but this was unlike any virus that Nicole had experienced. She was sick. Horribly sick. It’s almost like she was... dying.
The sobering realization hit the girl like a ton of bricks.
Isolated. Alone. Unable to move. Surrounded by bears and mountain lions and who knows what other deadly animals. Completely helpless. Was she going to die out here?
Nicole felt like bursting into tears of sorrow, but that physical reflex, too, would not respond. She didn’t want to die surrounded by these obnoxious strangers! Especially not when she was still an eighteen-year-old virgin who’d never done anything fun in her entire life!
Staring blankly up at the twinkling heavens, Nicole willed any part of her body to move, simply to prove that there might be a hope of salvation... but all she saw were a
few bright fireflies swirling above her head.
Wait a minute. Those weren’t fireflies.
They were letters. Glowing, yellowish-white letters.
And what’s more, they were attached to the inside of her unsteady left forearm.
Confused, Nicole would’ve pinched her eyebrows together and frowned, if that were physically possible. Instead, she barely managed to convince her elbow to bend, so that she could read what was printed in perfectly formed, phosphorescent type.
LET IT HAPPEN
Let what happen? The letters began to blur and lose their focus, but then reassembled into a single new word.
GOODNIGHT
What the—?
Exactly like someone switching out the lights, Nicole’s world cut to black.
Chapter Six
The overlapping melodic chirping of songbirds. The crisp, earthy scent of moist topsoil. The sun’s radiant warmth soaking into bare skin. The indistinct, wavering shapes of light and shadow dancing across closed eyelids. The stringent bitterness of stale saliva.
One by one, Nicole’s five senses gradually awakened.
Groaning loudly, she cautiously rolled over onto her side, fully expecting a wave of vicious nausea to stymie her efforts – and was mildly surprised when none did.
She felt... fine? Better than fine, actually. She felt pretty damn good!
Sitting upright, Nicole rubbed the gritty sleep from her eyes, scratched her arms, and then looked around the little clearing. Her five teammates were sprawled roughly where she remembered them last, each only just now waking up to equal amounts of confusion.
“What the fuck...” murmured Raven. “Who the hell slipped me a Mickey?”
“Like, ditto,” croaked Jessica. “Is it morning? Did we sleep through the entire night? Like, I don’t even remember eating dinner!”
Fully Equipped- Futas Gone Wild Page 3