Maybe I should be grateful. It’s a new nightmare this time.
Not the old one with Sammy stumbling toward me in the dark. This time, I’m the one who is underwater. My feet are stuck down in the cold mud and weeds. I’m staring up, watching oily sunlight play across the surface. My chest is empty, and I know I’m going to drown soon. But I’m not panicked. Instead, a kind of weird calm settles over me. Then I hear a hollow knocking sound echo through the water. I look around, trying to find the source of it. Nothing but murky blackness. The banging gets louder. I see someone, just on the edge of my vision. Someone like me, down here on the bottom. In a red jacket. Sammy? No. Maybe—Josh? Again, I don’t think so. I suddenly gasp, lungs filling with cold water. The figure in the red jacket holds out his arms, trying to give me something. It’s small, brown. A book, maybe? The knocking sound gets louder, coming from all around me.
I can’t see. I can’t breathe.
Noise slams me awake. Someone is banging and yelling on the door of the Swamp. I throw off my blankets and yank on some jeans. Josh is fumbling to put his glasses on, still tangled in his sheets. When I open the door, I see Harvey and Edward standing there. Both of them look pissed.
“Get your clothes on,” growls Harvey. “Follow me.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Harvey look angry like this before. Edward just looks smug. Josh and I pull ourselves together and head outside. We walk behind Harvey, his footsteps visible in the thin frost on the ground. The sun isn’t up over the trees yet—how early is it?
We stop in front of one of the staff cabins, number seven. It’s already sealed up for the winter with big plywood sheets over the windows. Harvey leads us inside and turns on the light. The place has been trashed. Beds are tipped over, sheets ripped up. In one spot, there are big gouges as if someone has jammed a knife into the wall again and again.
“What happened?” I ask Harvey. But Edward answers.
“Don’t pretend to be innocent,” he says. “We know about your party last night.”
“What?” I look at Josh. He’s as confused as I am. “What are you talking about?”
Edward steps forward and holds up a crumpled beer can. From last night. The one I threw at the figure in the shadows.
“You were watching us,” I say flatly.
“Watching you? No, I found this can, and another, out at the Point on my morning walk. It’s my habit to keep an eye on the Point. Such reckless behavior can happen out there.”
“So we had a couple of beers,” says Josh. “We had nothing to do with… this.” He gestures at the wreckage. Edward’s face twists into a grimace.
“Don’t you dare lie to me!” he barks. He steps toward Josh, and for a second I think he’s going to slap him or something. But Harvey quickly puts himself in between the two.
“Edward,” he says. “Give us a second, all right? I’ll take care of this from here on in.” Edward stares at Harvey, breathing hard. Then he spins around and slams out the screen door. Harvey watches him leave, then turns to us.
“Look,” says Harvey, “I know something went on between Edward and you guys yesterday. The guy’s got a mean streak. Right now, it’s worse than usual. I get that. But is this your idea of revenge or something?” He looks from Josh to me, his brow furrowed. “You guys are better than that.”
“We didn’t—” I begin.
“I don’t want hear it. Just get to work. Fix this.”
Two hours later, we’re just finishing cleaning up the cabin. And still trying to figure out how this happened.
“Maybe it was another raccoon?” suggests Josh as he sweeps up some shards of glass near the back of the cabin.
“I don’t know. There’s no food or anything in here. Windows are still sealed up. The door wasn’t broken.” I examine the big marks on the wall. They’re only in one area, deep scratches where a wooden plank of the wall meets the linoleum floor. “And this doesn’t look like claws.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not you. Not me. Not Harvey,” says Josh. He stuffs more ripped-up sheets into a big green garbage bag.
“Edward?” I say. I feel the gouges in the wood. What the hell made these marks? The plank is popped out a little from the rest of the wall, almost like it’s been pulled loose. Harvey will make us replace that. More work.
“No,” says Josh. “He’s mean, but he’s not crazy.”