There’s a moment of silence, like one collective intake of breath before diving into deep water. And then everyone but me leaps to their feet, laughing. Like the last period bell just rang on the last day of school—that’s the kind of sudden joyful excitement that fills the air.
A masked assailant is here to kill us all, and these ruthless predators, these bloodthirsty Class As, these friends of mine couldn’t be happier.
They huddle up as I stare down at our scattered pieces of trail mix, my stomach in free fall.
“He went left. He’s gonna try to come in through the back.”
“Why wait? Let’s go out to meet him!”
“Nice try, Erik, you just want him all to yourself. Let him come in here and then we can all take turns.”
“What weapons have we got?” Javier addresses the room.
“I got a shiv.” Jada pulls a plastic toothbrush handle scraped to a sharp point from one of the pockets of her pink sweatpants. She’s had a shiv on her this whole time?!
“I got some stones in a sock,” Kurt offers.
Troy wordlessly walks over to his bottom bunk bed and pulls out a short-handled hatchet, grinning broadly at the others’ impressed surprise.
“Squirreled this away the first day when they made us clear the saplings off the soccer field. Dave never missed it.”
Nobody grabs the sleeve of my gray Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, yanking me to my feet. I’ve been frozen on the floor while they’ve been excitedly planning.
“I had a kitchen knife under my mattress.” Javier glares at Erik. “But it went missing a couple days ago.”
“Is that an accusation?” Erik snarls.
“I have it, Javier,” Nobody says, still hovering at my side, and my jaw drops. “And I’m not giving it up. It was dull when I took it and it was hard work getting it sharp again.”
“Okay.” Javier takes my arm. “You take the knife, and I’ll guard her?” Nobody looks to me for approval, then agrees to the trade-off.
Javier reaches down for the lanterns on the floor and snaps them off: snap, snap, snap, plunging the room into blackness.
CREEEEEEAAAAK.
The rusty hinges of the back door to the bathroom are pulled open from outside.
BANG!
The back door slams against its wood frame: he wants us to know he’s coming.
Javier puts himself between me and the door to the bathroom, and walks us back between Erik’s and Kurt’s bunks, into the darkest shadow of the cabin, while everyone else gets into position. Hidden behind him I break down, choking on my own breath, fingers digging into his sweatshirt. I could bolt out the window, but what if Dog Mask saw? I’m trapped. We’re all trapped.
Javier takes my hand in his, his thumb moving slowly over the back of my hand until that’s all I can feel, the calm steady pressure, though he doesn’t look back at me. He stares straight forward, ready to take whatever comes next. I grip his hand, scars and all, and squeeze back with all my strength. Javier doesn’t even flinch.
Another bolt of lightning turns the room into a black-and-white photo: Nobody crouched by her bunk, gleaming knife in hand; Troy standing with his back to the front door, hatchet raised; Erik at his side, clutching one of the heavy halogen lanterns by its base. Jada has shot up the ladder of Erik’s bunk beside the door to the bathroom, so she can strike first from above when Dog Mask comes in.
The rain seems to hammer down faster and faster as we all watch the bathroom door. Any moment now. Why is he just standing in the unlit bathroom? What is he waiting for?
The sigh of the front door breaks the silence and a scream rips from my throat. Dog Mask bursts in behind us, catching us all by surprise, his heavy steps shaking the thin floorboards. His shoulders are level with the top bunks, his eyes flat behind his smiling mask. He’s so close I could reach out and touch the gleaming edge of his axe.
Erik throws the lantern at his head, hard, but Dog Mask blocks it with the axe, sending it crashing to the floor to light him from below in blinking, sputtering bursts as he swings the axe down at Troy.
With a grunt Troy throws up his hatchet, one end in each hand, and Dog Mask’s axe head catches awkwardly on the thin wood handle. Troy’s arms tremble frantically as he fights to keep the axe from bearing down and splitting through his chest.
Kurt darts forward and jabs Dog Mask’s ribs, but Dog Mask doesn’t flinch, he just sends Kurt flying into the wall with a half-hearted backhand. But the momentary distraction allows Troy to slip away, and then Javier shoots forward before I can stop him.
He stoops to picks up another lantern, and Dog Mask whips around, axe flying up, and a high, wild shriek escapes me for an endless instant until Dog Mask’s throaty voice eclipses mine. Dog Mask spins away from Javier, one arm curling to his side, and we all stare as Nobody pulls her knife from under his arm and it drips a dark, black red onto the white sheets below.
Tall Nobody looks like a child across from Dog Mask, but she steps forward and they circle each other in the center of the cabin, stepping through the blankets and paper towels where a moment ago we were giggling and safe. Erik moves forward but Nobody puts out an arm without even looking at him.
“Me first,” Nobody whispers.
Dog Mask’s axe sighs through the air, held one-handed now, and Nobody dodges it. Dog Mask lunges, but she feints left and his axe head bites into the side of Erik’s bunk.
Nobody, taking advantage, swipes at his other shoulder, but he pulls the blade from the wood with a rain of splinters and cuffs her hard with his forearm before the knife connects. Her foot catches on something and she tips to one side, falling.
“NO!” I shriek, straining forward, but Javier’s hands clamp me in place.
In the nanosecond Dog Mask’s axe swings high enough to expose his neck, Nobody impossibly recovers, surging up in a perfectly planned swoop that ends with her knife buried in Dog Mask’s throat.
She buries the blade deeper, leaning in toward him until their faces almost touch.
His axe clatters to the ground. Guttural whimpers and thick, broken groans spill from him as his broad, bloody hand claps onto her black ski mask.
Nobody stands completely still, grasping the knife with both hands like a fishing line that might at any moment jerk her into the tide, her scarred arms twitching with effort. His knees sag and she sinks with him, onto first one knee and then the other, so they’re kneeling across from each other in the middle of our blankets, dark blood soaking the sheets around them.
Whether she’s making sure he dies or making sure he doesn’t die alone, I don’t know.
Dog Mask’s fluttering hand clasps her hood. And then, with an almost delicate gesture, he pulls it away.
Nobody’s face is not burnt. Unlike her scarred and melted arms, it’s untouched and perfect. She is ludicrously beautiful. She stares back at Dog Mask with the kind of face perfume companies use to remind you how it feels to fall in love: heart-shaped, high cheekbones, with a clear-cut flower of a mouth and large, striking eyes that burn into his.
Nobody reaches over to Dog Mask and pulls off his mask.
The man underneath is maybe thirty-five. His head is large and heavy, his eyes sunk deep in his face, and a mass of scar tissue from his nose to his chin is made more grotesque by the blood bubbling out of his lips. The others all draw forward in a circle around them, except me. I’m frozen where I stand, in the deepest shadows, trying to reconcile the angel and demon kneeling in front of me.
“Tell … Kate …” Dog Mask’s head lolls, sweat standing out on his cheeks.
“What?!” Nobody asks in her familiar coarse voice, her long, delicate eyebrows drawing together. “Tell Kate what?”
“We won’t go quiet,” he sputters, choking on his own blood. “Deal with … the devil. S’all it’s ever been … tell Kate …” His eyes shut against the pain. “Won’t go quiet.”
And then his breathing stops, and all I can hear is the drumming of the rain.
Nobody gently lets go of the knife, and he slumps onto his side. She reaches forward, feels his neck, withdraws her hand, and nods.
The guys rush Nobody in an ecstasy of whoops and high-fives.
“Hey, great work there, Nobody. Wow.” Kurt sounds more than a little smitten.
“You kind of hogged the kill, but I’m prepared to let it slide,” Erik says.
Nobody looks through them to me. It’s so weird to think this gore-spattered angel is the same person as my fake girlfriend Nobody, but as she gawkily walks over she becomes more familiar. And when she drags the back of her hand under her nose and then roughly puts an arm around my shoulder and says in that same raspy voice, “What’s wrong?!” I get it. It’s still her.
“What’s wrong?” I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look around our circle for some understanding. But no one else is crying. Not even Javier.
I stare at the disfigured man below us, with his sunken, staring eyes. How did he look as a baby, when his mother first held him? How does a person become a monster like this?
And I know he would have killed us, that Nobody is a hero, that I owe her my life for what she did. But it’s beyond awful. Seeing the light go out of his eyes will haunt me as long as I live. But I can’t say that. Not to them.
“He was supposed to kill us all!” I manage instead.
“Well, he didn’t.”
“Yeah, he got his own butt killed! BA-BWAAAMP!” Troy does an elaborate air guitar lick right over the slumped body that makes Javier crack up.
“Stupid.” He shakes his head as Troy continues rocking out.
“But why did he say that?” I plead. “How does he know Kate? What the hell is going on?!”
“Um, can we talk about the real issue here?” Jada puts her hands on her hips. “Nobody, why have you been wearing a mask all this time, girl? You’re like … a supermodel.”
“Seriously,” Kurt says a little too warmly.
Nobody looks down at her ski mask as though debating whether to put it back on. It’s saturated with thick, warm blood.
“I mean damn, girl,” Troy says, trying to keep from cracking up at what he’s about to say. “I never knew I wanted a knife to the throat so bad.”
Nobody tosses the bloody ski mask at him like a water balloon, he sidesteps it, and it lands with a big red splatter that trails all the way to the front door just as Dave and Kate rush in.
“What’s all the ruckus in here?!”
Kate’s eyes land on Dog Mask, and she freezes.
Dave steps in front of her, chuckling.
“Well, looks like you found the hiker! Thought he was going to have some fun stabbing some poor defenseless teenagers, huh? Instead you guys got a bit of a pop quiz!” He pulls back his rain hood and steps pluckily over to the body on the floor, nudging it with the toe of his boot. “Aaaaand you passed! Now you can work together to dispose of this body by morning. Kate, you and I should report an intruder to HQ.”
“Right.” Kate’s voice is thick. She reaches blindly behind her for the door.
“Wait.” I stare past Dave at Kate. “He had a message. He said to tell Kate that ‘they’ wouldn’t go quietly. How did he know your name?”
Dave lets an uneasy silence fill the cabin. Then he says, “He’s been skulking around for a while. Guess he picked up that Kate was in charge!”
“Why was he skulking around? Why did he target us? Why hike out to this camp?” I press.
Dave shrugs, his smile disappearing. “Why do any of you kill? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I just need you to be good at it. You have obstacle course in three hours, so I suggest you all clean up this mess.”