“They’re doing a bed check.” Erik sweeps the clippings under the low stage and turns off the lamp. “Come on—” He takes my hand and we run downhill, racing to get to the cabin before Kate and Dave. When we hit the lawn, I head for the back door, but his iron arm sweeps me along the side of the cabin:
“Window,” he whispers. “The back door creaks.” Erik effortlessly catches me up around the waist and lifts me to the window in one powerful gesture. I bruise my shin hard on the sill but manage to climb in and slide into my bunk just as feet land on the stairs. The hinge of the door sighs and a flashlight beam sweeps the mildewed wall. I struggle to keep from panting until the door closes.
“All accounted for,” Dave says.
“I saw a glow on the hill.” Kate sounds uncertain. “And we know he’s still around. That campfire was only a few hours old.”
“We just have to keep them close until we find him. And then …?”
“I’ll do it,” she says, and I hear the flick of her lighter. “I owe him that much.”
Their steps fade into the roll of the lake and the wind in the eaves and Dennis’s soft, steady breath overhead. When I can no longer puzzle over Kate’s words, the thermos tilts in my mind. Rose stands behind it, her face clearer and clearer as sleep pulls me into darkness.
“Chug it, ho.”
Morning comes before I’m ready to get up. But I pull myself out of bed with everyone else, and manage to not come in last on the obstacle course. I spend the second run-through watching from the tarp, and when Dave is out of earshot, lean discreetly toward Erik:
“Hey, uh, Erik?”
He turns to me. The missed sleep has made his eyes bloodshot so they glow green.
“Hey, I uh … I think I remembered something from the shed—”
Dave’s shrill whistle cuts the air.
“Attention, campers! On your feet, on your feet, make a line! Camp Naramauke’s first annual Color Wars starts RIGHT NOW!!”
We look around at each other uncertainly.
“Those of you who went to summer camp might have done a Color War before. There’s teams and songs and talent competitions,” Dave says, rattling a coffee can at the start of the line, right under Nobody’s nose. It’s full of brightly colored Sharpies. “Our version, as you might imagine, is a little different.”
“We have three winners in our Color War. The first winner is whoever can ‘slash’ as many of their fellow campers’ throats as possible. And it has to be a line that could kill: I want to see that carotid artery crossed, guys! The second winner is whoever manages not to get their throat slashed. And the third winner is whoever wins the Scavenger Hunt. Though it’s very possible for all those wins to go to one camper.”
“What do we win?” Dennis asks.
“One hour of screen time on Kate’s laptop. No social media logins, but otherwise you’re unsupervised. Watch a show. Check your sites. Whatever.”
There’s a collective gasp, then howling cheers, then the air goes tense as we hush ourselves and become as quiet and focused as runners before a starter pistol fires.
Dave starts down the line, holding out the can. “So pick a color, watch your neck, and we’ll announce winners after dinner.”
I choose blue and immediately am on my guard, stomach turning over, arm hairs on end. We all move warily on our way down to the lower field to eat, walking far apart and eyeing each other between nervous giggles.
Once on the field, we sit in a circle facing each other. I get so distracted keeping an eye on Erik I almost don’t hear the soft footsteps in the grass behind me, and whip around to find a sheepish Dennis hovering, his orange Sharpie uncapped.
“Nothing personal, Signal,” Dennis says, actually starting to smile at my betrayed expression. “You’re just my only chance.”
“Then you’ve got no chance!” I say, uncapping my Sharpie with a flourish and giving him an overly dramatic grimace. “I’ll be right behind you when you least expect it.”
“Challenge accepted,” he says, and slinks back to his lunch bag. I figure when we get up again I’ll strike.
But before lunch is even over Jada makes the first move, springing herself on Troy. They go end over end across the quilts in the center of the circle as the rest of us hoot and cheer. Neither will let the other stand—they roll around clutching each other’s wrists and staring into each other’s eyes like the rest of us have disappeared. Jada, a good foot shorter than Troy, eventually manages to get her knee in the middle of his chest and pins him down like she did with me in the field, but Troy seems reluctant to wrestle her off. He’s got her wrists in each hand now, his face gone bright red, and he laughs, “Whoa, you got some arm strength!”
Troy lets his hand flicker on her left wrist, gazing up at her curiously as though wondering if she’ll notice. The second he gives, her arm slips across his throat and she bows over him, her short hair nearly brushing his face, and gently swipes the marker tip from ear to ear. Then she rolls off of him, giggling uncontrollably.
Troy’s face matches the magenta stripe she’s left across his neck. “Can’t I try to get her back, Dave?” he calls, his eyes not leaving Jada’s face.
“Nope, you’re out,” Dave says. “But you can still participate in the Scavenger Hunt. Kate will give you the list of things to find down at the Arts and Crafts table. So get moving, campers!”
We all stand slowly, nervously laughing as we gauge each other’s proximity. I’m about to make my approach on Dennis when I notice Javier in my peripheral.
“What!?” Javier grins when I spring away.
“You KNOW what!” I can’t hold in my frantic laughter as I wheel away from him. Dennis has disappeared over his shoulder, Jada on his heels. So I turn and run, almost sideswiping Kate in my hurry.
“That’s the spirit!” Kate calls after me.
“You can run but you can’t hide!” Javier calls, footfalls hard behind me. I race down the hill toward the picnic table under the sycamore, the water sparkling a deep blue in the midmorning sun, and grab one weathered corner like it’s base, but this isn’t tag.
Javier catches my arm and spins me into him like we’re dancing, my back pressed against his chest, his strong arm across my collarbones, the scruff of his chin catching in my hair. I can’t pull his arm away even with both hands, but I wriggle enough that he ends up spinning in a circle to keep hold of me, the blue and green whirling in a dizzy, gold-rimmed blur. My face hurts from laughing.
“Go on. Do your worst!” I cry at last, grateful he can’t see how hard I’m blushing. The cold tip of the marker lands under my ear and makes a quick line across my throat just as Erik crests the hill. My eyes connect with Erik’s, and I swear I hear his thoughts, his deep voice as clear in my head as though he were whispering in my ear:
What a Nice Guy that Javier is.
My laughter sputters out like a spent firework and I sink to the picnic bench, a shiver snaking up my back. But is the shiver from a fake throat slash?
Or from hearing Erik’s voice in my head?
“Okay, okay, settle down, everyone in their seats for the time being,” Kate laughs. “Plenty of time for slashing throats left before dinner. Now. Today we’re going to be practicing our suture stitching.” Kate puts a green plastic strawberry container in the middle of the table. It’s full of travel sewing kits the size of a matchbook, like you get in hotels. She has us each take one, then hands out pieces of plastic the size and shape of credit cards, only they’re coated on one side with brown or beige silicone and feature two bright red ridges, one curved and one straight.
“When you’re out in the field, accidents happen. You might tangle with a target, break some glass clearing a scene, or catch your arm on barbed wire. And obviously you can’t just waltz into an emergency room. You’ll have to patch yourself up as best you can, so knowing how to stitch flesh wounds comes in handy. We’ll get some practice in today. And for our Color War …” She waves a stack of papers. “We also have the Scavenger Hunt.”
She puts a sheet in front of each of us, face down like a test, and then announces we can begin. I flip it over hopefully: if it includes forageable plants, I might still have a chance at the screen time.
Surprisingly the list is just eight items long. And each one begins with “Find the camper who …”
“Find the camper who wet the bed until they were thirteen?” Kurt reads the first one out loud. “No one’s going to come clean about that. How are we supposed to figure that out?”
Jada, across the table, is frozen in place.
“That’s the game.” Kate smiles a tight smile. “Find a way to make them tell.”
Troy is pale. For once he isn’t joking. “That’s a messed up game.”
“Which of the campers’ first kiss was with their—” I read out, then stop on the word “stepbrother.”
My eyes connect with Nobody’s, and we both look at Jada, whose head is hung down like she’s staring at her sheet, shoulders hunching forward, curling in on herself like burning paper.
“Well, that was me,” I tell the table. “You can all me put me down for that one.”
Erik’s eyebrow goes up, and I widen my eyes at him.
Troy clears his throat. “Cool, thanks, Signal. You can put me down for number seven.”
Dennis looks up from his sheet, sincerely confused. “You can’t be number seven. You don’t have third-degree burns, Troy, that’s clea—” Dennis stops talking abruptly. “Oh, okay. Sorry. Um. I’m number three then.”
Erik sighs, stands up, stretches his long arms, and walks over to the tree. He hauls himself up on his customary branch and leans back against the trunk.
“Thanks, Dennis. I’m the bedwetter,” Javier offers confidently, as a knowing chuckle goes around the table.
“Nice try, guys.” Kate puts her hands on her hips and glares at us. “Dave and I know the right answers. If you don’t turn in a sheet with the correct camper matched to each item, then you don’t get dinner tonight. Now get to work.”
Just the thought makes my stomach hurt. Hunger here is not a joke. Our days are physically exhausting, our nights are cold, and a bag lunch won’t cut it until breakfast. On top of which, the chance to search online for what Mike and Vaughn are up to might never come again.
Maybe I can just guess? The others are all still reading.
Guiltily, I scan the list:
Some are obvious, most aren’t. Figuring out who goes with what for some of these would require borderline psychological torture. Ashamed of myself for even considering the list, I ball the sheet up.
The sound is deafening in the silence around the table. Heat flushes up my neck as everyone turns to look at me.
“Congratulations, Signal,” Kate snaps. “You’re the first person disqualified from the Color War. Enjoy missing dinner.”
I throw the ball in the center of the table and cross my arms in response.
And then, in the ensuing tense silence, there’s a crumple sound overhead and a second ball of paper falls from the tree.
Kate’s expression darkens, but Troy laughs and Jada claps, and the sound of crumpling paper rises around the table, except from Nobody, who folds her sheet into a paper plane and sends it shooting toward Kate’s back as she turns and heads up the hill, her walkie-talkie off her hip, radioing to Dave.
We don’t care. We’re all still laughing when there’s a yip from Jada, her hands slapping over her throat. She spins around and we all see Dennis, Sharpie uncapped, give her an apologetic grimace.
“Dennis!! Oh no, you didn’t!” she laughs, throwing her paper ball at him, and that launches the paper fight. We throw the balled-up lists at each other, pulling the sheets from each other’s hands, tearing and twisting the paper and throwing it across the field until we’ve turned each other’s darkest secrets into white confetti.
When the air horn goes off, there’s only three people left without Sharpie marks, and Erik gets Nobody on the way to the field where Dave is waiting.
“So it’s just me and Erik now?!” Javier says. He and Erik lock eyes. “Game on.”
Erik bares his teeth in a smile, and there’s a few encouraging hoots from the twins, but they break off as our huddle gets closer to Dave.
He’s in the tall grass where we had the pop quiz that first day, so I don’t quite see what’s happening at first. From a distance it looks like he’s holding a decomposing hand.
“Where’s Signal? Where is she?” Dave says in a voice that makes me go cold. Then, seeing me, he strides over and grabs the collar of my shirt and slings me face first into a pile of mannequin limbs on the ground, so hard the knee of my jeans split on impact.
I try to get up, but he kicks behind my knee. I hit the ground, a wheeze rattling out of my chest as I collapse in the cold grass, Dave standing right over me.
“I told you, Signal,” Dave says through clenched teeth. “No more chances.”