by P. J. Night
An awkward silence fell over the room. Maggie stared down at her poster like she wished she could be invisible. Jenna could feel Jason smirking at her, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of looking his way.
“I’m going to start dinner,” Mr. Walker continued.
Jenna stayed silent as she rotated the map and re-glued it to her poster.
“That’s looking really good,” Maggie said encouragingly. “You’re definitely going to get a good grade on this!”
“Hope so,” Jenna said quietly.
“Can you even believe that the Sacred Square is right behind your house?” Maggie asked. “Can I use your computer real quick? I want to e-mail Brit and Laurel to tell them! They are going to freak out. It’s so creepy!”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
As Maggie typed away, Jenna racked her brain, trying to think of a way—any way—to move the sleepover indoors. But how? Everybody loved campouts in the woods behind Jenna’s house. The other girls were already psyched for the first campout of summer. And even if Jenna somehow did convince her friends to have a sleepover instead of a campout, Jason was just waiting for more reasons to make fun of her. He knew her better than she wanted to admit—and he was absolutely right about her fear. She could already tell that he’d tease her relentlessly about it. He’d never shut up about it.
Lost in thought, Jenna traced her finger around the area marked on the old map: the Sacred Square. Then she glanced out the window at the woods.
If Maggie and the others knew what had happened there—
That Manfred Lewis and Chief Onongahkan had attacked the Keuhkkituh and turned it into the Marked Monster—
That the monster’s black blood had spilled there and that nothing, nothing, had grown from the polluted ground since—
That Imogen Lewis had probably bled to death on that very spot, a victim of the Marked Monster—
That almost two weeks ago, Jenna had found a claw in the tree—a sign from the Marked Monster announcing its return—
Jenna was certain they, too, would dread the thought of venturing into the Sacred Square, let alone spending an entire night there.
But how could she possibly tell them? It was all too crazy. They’d never believe it.
Jenna had a burst of hope when she woke up on Friday morning, the day of the campout. She jumped out of bed and ran over to the window. But the minute she looked outside, her hopes were dashed. The sun was shining brightly in a beautiful blue sky. It was a gorgeous, late-spring day, practically perfect camping weather.
One rainstorm? she thought. We couldn’t have one big, soaking rainstorm to turn the Sacred Square into a mud pit?
Now, Jenna knew, she was out of options. The campout was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not.
That was probably why her head was hurting so badly. Jenna rubbed at her temples and glanced longingly at her bed. All she wanted to do in that moment was crawl back into it, pull the blankets over her head, and sleep all day. Actually, now that she thought about it, it wasn’t just her head that was hurting. Her whole body had started to ache—especially her left arm.
Jenna rolled up her sleeve and stared at the cut. It was looking more disgusting than ever, with red streaks radiating outward from the wound. I’m going to have to wear long sleeves today, she realized. This cut is so gross.
But, she tried to reassure herself, at least it’s not oozing anymore. The thick, crusty scab had to be a sign that it was healing.
At least, that was what Jenna hoped.
After she got dressed, she went to the kitchen.
“Morning, sweet pea!” Dr. Walker said cheerfully. “Listen, Dad’s got a meeting and won’t be home until seven, and I’m going to be working tonight, so we won’t be able to grill up hot dogs for the campout. I’m sorry. Do you want to order pizza instead?”
“Sure,” Jenna said flatly. She grabbed a carton of blueberry yogurt out of the fridge and started to eat it at the counter. “Pizza’s good. Whatever.”
“Are you okay?” Dr. Walker asked, looking closely at Jenna’s face.
“I have a headache,” Jenna said, shrugging, still not wanting to worry her mother about her arm.
“This warm weather,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Allergy season is definitely here. Or do you think you’re getting sick?”
“Sick? More like scared,” Jason muttered under his breath.
Jenna rolled her eyes at him. “It’s just allergies,” she said.
“Honey, I’m putting some money on top of the fridge in case you want to order the pizza before Dad gets home from work,” Dr. Walker said. “Have fun tonight! I’ll see you in the morning!”
“Thanks, Mom,” Jenna said, forcing a smile.
As the school day dragged on, Jenna felt worse and worse—not just from her pounding headache and achy muscles, but from the weight of dread that seemed to grow heavier with every passing hour. More than once, she wondered if she should just go to the nurse and try to get sent home from school. If she was sick she could skip the campout. But then a terrible thought struck her: What if the rest of my friends go ahead with the campout?
She shuddered to think of her friends, all alone in the Sacred Square, not knowing what she knew. They would be helpless against the Marked Monster if it showed up—and if anything happened to them, Jenna knew she could never forgive herself.
The house was empty when she got home from school; her friends wouldn’t arrive for another two hours. I’ll just lie down for a minute and watch some TV, Jenna decided as she stretched out on the overstuffed couch in the den. But before she could even turn on the TV, she fell asleep.
To feel so hot when everything is so cold; when the limbs of trees groan under the weight of ice and all the world glitters with snow. To face your doom with clear eyes. To walk, step by painful step, to your end. To know of the teeth and the talons. The breaking of bones. The tearing of flesh. And all your precious lifeblood will drain from your body. Your veins will empty and your skin will sink and your body will be nothing but a shell, and then your body will not be, and the earth will drink of your blood until all that’s left of you is a dark stain in the dirt. You already know the last thing you will feel (pain); the last thing you will see (claws); and the last thing you will hear (a cry so sharp, so shrill)—
Jenna stirred just once before she sat bolt upright, her heart pounding, her head throbbing, her ears splitting from the noise—
She stumbled off the couch and ran to the door before she realized that it was the phone and the doorbell, ringing simultaneously, that had jolted her from sleep. When she flung open the front door, she found Brittany and Laurel standing there.
“Finally!” Brittany said in a voice of supreme annoyance as she flipped her phone shut. Her auburn hair glinted in the late afternoon sun. “We’ve been ringing the doorbell for, like, ten minutes!”
“Sorry!” Jenna apologized as she held the door open for them. “I must’ve fallen asleep or something.”
“Ooh, well played!” Laurel laughed. “You’re really going to stay up all night, huh?”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Jenna replied.
“Have you set up the tent?” asked Brittany.
“Not yet,” Jenna admitted.
“Well, let’s get out back and get started,” Brittany declared. “Before the sun sets and it gets too dark to see anything out there.”
“Is Maggie here?” Laurel asked.
“Uh, no,” Jenna said. “She didn’t come with you guys?”
Brittany and Laurel exchanged a look. “We, um, didn’t call her, actually,” Laurel admitted. “I assumed she would already be here.”
“Oh. Well, I guess she’ll be here soon,” Jenna replied. “And if Jason and my dad aren’t home by the time she gets here, she’ll know where to find us, right?”
The girls made two trips to the clearing to carry their sleeping bags, backpacks, tent, and the stuffed grocery bag of snacks that Brittany had brou
ght. The clearing wasn’t far from the edge of Jenna’s backyard—only about ten feet—but the dense trees completely blocked the house, making it seem like the girls had wandered much farther into the woods. A few bright rays of sunshine filtered through the tall pines surrounding the clearing. Though the sun wouldn’t set for a couple of hours, the trees cast such long shadows through the clearing that it seemed like night was coming on fast. The girls worked quickly to pitch the tent, assembling it at the edge of the clearing near the base of the biggest pine—the same tree where Jenna had found the claw a couple of weeks ago. She could see that an amber vein of sap had crusted over the slit where the talon had been embedded. Jenna tried her hardest not to flinch at every little snapping twig or unusual sound she heard. The woods are always full of weird noises, she reminded herself.
Still, she wished that Brittany and Laurel would keep it down a little. They were making it so hard for her to really listen to the noises … just in case something was out there, lurking beyond the trees.
As the sun began to set, Jenna glanced around. “Where is Maggie?” she asked, glancing at her watch. “We said five o’clock, right? It’s after six.”
“I’ll call her,” Brittany offered, slipping her phone out of her pocket. Then she frowned. “I’m not getting any service, guys. Stupid trees.”
There was a long silence.
“You don’t think—” Laurel began.
“The Marked Monster?” Jenna cut her off. “I don’t know! Do you think it was, like, waiting? What if she was walking out here all by herself and it attacked her?”
Brittany and Laurel stared at Jenna as if she’d lost her mind. “Um, I was going to say, you don’t think she’s waiting on your doorstep, really annoyed with us for not being at the house to let her in?” Laurel said slowly.
“Why would she sit on the doorstep for an hour?” Jenna asked crossly. “She knows we’d be in the clearing. She’d at least come out here to check, right? I mean, she’s not stupid!”
“Jenna, what’s up with you?” Brittany asked. “You don’t actually think Maggie got attacked by the Marked Monster, do you?”
Jenna opened her mouth and then closed it again quickly. The tone of Brittany’s voice told her everything she needed to know: To the other girls, the Marked Monster was just a joke, a spooky story they told themselves to feel all freaked out. Jenna could still remember how fun that used to be.
If you only knew, she thought. If you only knew what I know.
But she didn’t say anything like that. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “Let’s go inside. We can see if Maggie’s waiting out front. And we can call her.”
She didn’t mention the other reason why she wanted to go back: Any time spent away from the clearing, even just a few minutes, was a chance for her to feel safe. To know that she—and her friends—were out of the Marked Monster’s reach.
When the girls got back to the house, there was no sign that Maggie had been there. Brittany called Maggie’s house and let the phone ring for a long time … but no one answered.
Then, to Jenna’s outrage, she found Jason sitting in front of the TV, chowing down on his fourth piece of pizza from the large box in front of him.
“Jason! Did you get that with the money Mom left me?” Jenna demanded as Brittany dialed Maggie’s phone number again.
“Yeah. You’re welcome,” Jason said with that maddening smile. “I thought you’d appreciate it that dinner was waiting for you when you finished setting up the tent.”
“That money was for our dinner,” Jenna retorted. “Now you’ve eaten, like, half of it!”
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Jason replied, trying to act surprised—and failing miserably. “My bad.”
Jenna just shook her head and walked away. There would be plenty of time to make sure Jason got busted. For now, she had bigger things to worry about—like the disappearance of her best friend.
“I’m really worried,” Jenna said anxiously. “Maggie is never late like this. She always calls. She’s, like, superresponsible.”
Brittany and Laurel didn’t argue. “Jenna?” Brittany asked. “When you were outside—and you talked about the Marked Monster—you seemed genuinely freaked out. Is—is that what’s bothering you?”
“Ha! I knew it!” Jason crowed. “I knew you were scared!”
“Would you shut up already!” Jenna yelled. Then, to everyone’s relief, the doorbell rang.
“Maggie!” Jenna cried out, forgetting to act cool. She raced to the door with Laurel and Brittany following right behind her. When she saw her best friend standing on the doorstep, she practically tackled her with a big hug.
“Whoa!” Maggie laughed. “What’s up, Jenna? Sorry I’m late, everybody. My mom was driving me here from getting my braces tightened, but her car died and it took my dad forever to pick us up, and she didn’t want me to walk the rest of the way because it was starting to get dark. You know how it is.” As Maggie rolled her eyes, everyone laughed.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Jenna said quietly.
“Yeah, Jenna was really freaking out! She thought the Marked Monster was going to get you!” cracked Laurel.
“Oh, no doubt,” Maggie said, nodding. “She’s the expert on the Marked Monster, after all. Did she tell you guys about—”
“Wait, wait—tell us when we get back to the tent,” Brittany interrupted her. “It’ll be scarier that way.”
“Is anybody else hungry?” Laurel asked.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or not,” Jenna spoke up, trying to sound normal. “If you don’t grab a slice, like, now, Jason will eat the whole pizza.”
“We can’t let that happen!” Brittany cried as she led the girls back to the living room. Amazingly, Jason had disappeared, leaving four slices in the box.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Jenna said, shaking her head. “He’s the worst.”
“It’s not a problem,” Brittany replied. “I brought a ton of food. Don’t worry about it.”
Even though hours had passed since Jenna had eaten lunch, she found that she wasn’t hungry at all. She picked at her slice of pizza, nibbling the crust so her friends wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t really eating. While they ate, the sun dipped below the trees, and darkness fell over the Sacred Square.
“All right,” Maggie finally said as she wiped her greasy hands on a napkin, “let’s get out there and look for the Marked Monster!”
“Okay,” Jenna said, nodding as she tried to psych herself up. “Let’s do this.”
On the way back out to the clearing, she paused to get some food for the stray cat. She poured a large pile of it at the tree stump near the back of her yard.
“Kitty treats?” asked Laurel with a laugh. “Don’t you think the Marked Monster will want, like, fresh meat instead?”
Jenna tried to join in her friends’ laughter too. “This is for the stray cat,” she explained. “Even though I haven’t seen it all week. Besides, the Marked Monster doesn’t exist, right?”
If I say it enough, maybe I will make it true, Jenna thought.
At this point, it was so dark that the girls could hardly see. “Did we leave our lanterns back at the tent?” Laurel asked. “That was really genius, wasn’t it?”
“Come on,” Maggie said, glancing at the sky, where the moon shone through a thin veil of clouds. “We can find our way. Just stick together.” The girls grabbed hands and crashed through the underbrush on their way to the clearing, laughing and shrieking.
“Shh, shh, shh!” Jenna hissed. “Do you guys have to make so much noise? Seriously. Shhhhh!”
An awkward silence fell over the girls as they reached the tent. One by one, they climbed inside, and Brittany switched on her lantern. Then she turned to Jenna.
“What is your problem?” Brittany asked. Her scowling face was ghostly in the long shadows from the lantern. “You are no fun tonight.”
“Whatever.”
“No, I mean it,” Brittany sa
id. “Do you want us to go or something?”
“No,” Jenna replied. “I just don’t know why you have to make so much noise.”
“Actually, Jenna, is everything okay?” Maggie asked gently. “You seem, like, really stressed.”
“Really stressed,” Laurel added.
“I’m fine,” Jenna said firmly. “It’s just—if you guys keep making so much noise, you might scare it away. And then we won’t get any proof.” She hoped that her small lie would keep them from figuring out why she really wanted them to be quiet—so that they wouldn’t actually draw the monster to them.
“Right.” Brittany laughed. “I’m so sure the Marked Monster would be afraid of us. Now look,” she continued as she dug through her backpack. “My cell phone has a video camera, and I snuck this out of my dad’s stuff.”
Jenna watched as Brittany revealed a heavy, expensive-looking camera with a special flash on top of it.
“Ever since my dad got into photography, he’s been buying all kinds of fancy camera gear,” Brittany said importantly. “So I, you know, borrowed some of his stuff, like this low-light lens and special flash system that take pictures in the dark.”
“Wouldn’t you get busted if your dad knew you took that?” Laurel asked, her eyes wide.
“Well, who’s going to tell him?” Brittany asked. “As long as it doesn’t get broken or anything, we should—”
“Shhhh!”
All eyes turned to Jenna, who was holding up one hand. Her head was tilted to the side as if she was straining to hear something.
Brittany sighed loudly. “Again with the shushing? I swear to God, you’re worse than—”
“For one minute would you shut up?” Jenna said in a voice so cold that even Brittany stopped talking.
The girls sat in silence for a moment.
Then everyone else heard it too:
Drip.
Another silence.
Drip.
Even in the low beam of the flashlight, it was impossible to miss the tension etched on Jenna’s face.
“It, you know, it was getting cloudy,” Laurel whispered. “Maybe that’s just a, you know, raindrop or something.”