by Sergio Gomez
Fred shifted his weight to his other foot and rubbed the back of his neck. “You going to give me shit if I tell you?”
Gavin scanned his face, and saw Fred was legitimately concerned about it. He shook his head. “No—I mean, maybe. I’m a dick, you know? That’s kind of my thing.”
Fred laughed, but there was nothing behind it. Gavin punched him on the arm playfully and said, “No, I won’t laugh at you. Tell me.”
“Ah, man. I feel really stupid about this. You were right, though. I waited too long. She has a boyfriend—or, she’s ‘seeing someone’ as she put it.”
“Ah, Fredster,” Gavin said, putting his arm around his shoulders. “All things end. Good, bad. Neither. They all end. Eventually, everything ends. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Now it was Fred’s turn to feel the forces of cosmic irony, because Noelle had said something to that effect about him and Gav’s friendship just yesterday. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the two conspired this behind his back.
Of course, that wasn’t what happened. It was a lot simpler than that: Time passes, and things change. Everyone knows that, even if it’s easy to forget sometimes.
The only thing that’s certain is death.
“When you’re right, you’re right, Gav,” Fred said to him.
They went quiet for a good while after that, and just watched the sunrise in the distance and listened to the morning birds twittering in the trees.
Focus… Focus… Fletcher told himself, trying to imagine the dart flying across the room and hitting the bullseye. If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
He launched the dart…and missed completely. The dart struck the wood paneling behind the target, bounced off, and fell to the floor.
“Man! You suck!” Gavin laughed from the wall he was leaning against.
He was bored of beating Fletcher at darts, so he headed out of the room to see if the girls were done cooking breakfast.
By himself now, Fletcher was done with the game too. He went to fetch the dart behind the entertainment stand where he saw it bounce.
Fletcher ducked down to get the dart but stopped when he saw a crumpled piece of paper stuck between the furniture and the wall. What he could see of it was colorful, with lines going every which way. There was a strange allure to it, and he stuck his hand in the gap and took it out.
He uncrumpled it. Dust came out between the folded crevices. Fletcher blew on the map he was staring at to clear the dust off it.
The graphics on this map were in an older style, but it was almost exactly the same as the one they’d used last night. In fact, the YOU ARE HERE arrow even pointed to Lakewood Cabin. Everything else was there, too: Willow Lake, the trail they’d used to get there, even a giant boulder covered in graffiti they passed was on there as a landmark.
The biggest difference, and the part that drew Fletcher’s eyes, was that someone had drawn in a series of tiny cabins with a Sharpie. Over the cabins was the name CAMP LAKEWOOD. This was all done over where the map originally had nothing but trees.
“Weird,” Fletcher said under his breath.
He started to fold the map up and put it in his pocket when he heard feet shuffling into the room.
“Yo,” Gavin said. He stopped at the doorway. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Fletcher said, trying to straighten up. “Just can’t find the dart is all.”
“It’s right there,” Gavin said, pointing by one of the entertainment system’s legs where a fluorescent green dart tail was poking out of. “You sure you’re alright?”
Fletcher forced out a short laugh. “I think maybe I hit the bong a little too hard this morning.”
“Never that, bro.” Gavin smiled at him.
“I’ll be alright,” Fletcher said, relieved he’d bought the lie.
“Well, the girls got breakfast ready. Breakfast burritos. Hurry your ass up or I’ll scarf down yours, too.” Gavin laughed, then left the room.
Fletcher grabbed the dart from underneath the entertainment system, then put it in the metal bucket with all the others.
Before heading back, he took the map out of his pocket and looked it over again. He’d half expected the map to have disappeared from his pocket or disintegrated, but it hadn’t. It was still there, mysterious and oddly drawn-in cabins and all.
He wasn’t sure why, but it felt like he’d found some sort of hidden treasure map. The feeling was similar to when he discovered a new indie band he liked, and he would listen to their discography before telling anyone to check them out, so could remain the “expert” on the subject. It was a douchey thing, but the same thing was happening here.
He wanted to gander over the map a few times, take in all the details. Maybe get a current map and compare so that he could point out the differences to the others when he finally showed them this retro map.
There wasn’t much of a point to this, because really, no one would care. But in the moment, it felt right. For a second, he wondered if it actually was the pot he’d smoked making him feel like this.
Then his stomach grumbled, reminding him of Gav’s threat to eat his burrito if he didn’t hurry. Putting the map back in his pocket, he raced out to meet the others on the deck.
Chapter 28
Nadine was stirred awake by the sound of the barn door rolling open. She sat up, shielding her eyes from the bit of sunlight coming into the barn. It was an odd daytime visit today.
Varias Caras walked through the barn and set his camo bag down in front of her. The mask he was wearing today was a man’s face. It was cracked and dry and looked ready to fall apart. There were stitches running from the top right side of the forehead that went diagonally down to the left cheek, which suggested it already had fallen apart before. The sewing was done so poorly it looked like a long centipede crawling on the face.
“Good morning!” he said happily. “Makeup look pretty still. Pretty, pretty.”
He bent down and planted a slurping kiss on her cheek.
Nadine’s stomach turned, but she was thankful that her captor was as petulant as he was. He had no sexual desires, and didn’t do anything beyond kissing her, because all he wanted from women was platonic companionship. Nothing more. The problem was, he went about achieving it in the worst ways possible.
Varias Caras unzipped the bag and took out a red dress from it. It was long, with frills on the ends of it and on the sleeves. Nadine wouldn’t have ever picked it out herself and worn it, in fact, Stephen probably would have made fun of her for wearing something like it, but it was undoubtedly a pretty dress.
“Mamá’s favorite dress,” Varias Caras explained to her, holding it up in the air so that the dress flowed down to its length. “You like?”
Nadine nodded. She saw his fat lips curl up into a smirk.
“Good.” He got up.
He put the dress on the shelf where he kept the chainsaw and other tools, then grabbed a hose off one of the bottom levels. He screwed the hose into a faucet that was only a few feet from Nadine, then walked over to her, leaving the hose coiled like a snake on the ground for the moment.
“Bring other girl here today. Have party for Mamá’s birthday,” Varias Caras told her. “Have to clean you first. You understand?”
“Yes,” Nadine said.
“I take clothes off now,” he said.
He always announced that he was going to strip her clothes off before he did it. It always came off like he was apologizing for it.
Deep down inside, Nadine appreciated the decency. It made her sick with herself to see any shred of humanity in this monster, but maybe that was what the mind did in these situations. It looked for any forms of consolation to outweigh the horrors.
“Up, up,” Varias Caras said, reaching around the waistband of her shorts. Nadine complied, and used her stubs to raise her buttocks so he could slip the gym shorts off her.
He never put any underwear on her (either because he didn’t want to bother with the
extra work or because he didn’t understand the function of it, Nadine wasn’t sure), so she settled back on the ground bare ass. The floor felt ice cold against her skin.
Next, he started undoing the cuffs around her wrists and her neck. This wasn’t as freeing as it may have seemed, because he undid the locks with one hand and pointed a knife at her with the other.
Often when he was changing her shirt, she thought about wrestling the knife from his grip, but the scenarios played out like movie snapshots in her head with completely different outcomes.
In one scenario, she would take the knife from him and be quick enough to slash his throat open. Varias Caras would fall to his death instantly. She’d take the keys from his pockets and unshackle herself, then get out of this demented barn and be back out into the real world.
In the second scenario, the one that she knew was the more realistic outcome, Varias Cara would overpower her attempt to snatch the knife and stab her to death. Maybe even worse than that, maybe her resistance would activate some sort of sexual impulses in him and he’d do much worse before killing her.
Just the thought of that was enough to deter her from trying anything too bold. Things were bad, but she was well aware that they could get worse.
He finished undoing all three of the shackles, took her shirt off, cuffed her up again, and then went back to the hose.
“Fresh and clean for Mamá’s party,” Varias Caras said, turning the faucet on.
Using his thumb, he blocked some of the hose’s opening and aimed it at Nadine. The first sprays of water felt like the fingers of a dead person, but after that it got better. Varias Caras sprayed water all over her but made sure not to wet her face.
He didn’t want to ruin his makeup job.
Fifteen minutes later, Varias Caras had her dried off, wearing Mamá’s red dress, and shackled up again. He stepped back to get a good look at her with a big grin on his face.
Her captor looked her up and down with admiration, but it wasn’t with any sexual desire. It was the way a man might look at his favorite sports car after spending an afternoon washing and waxing it.
“Muy bonita. Me gusta.” he said, nodding to her. “Mamá’s party will be fun. Good time.”
“Only…only one other girl, right?” Nadine said, her voice cracking. She wasn’t even fully aware that she’d asked the question until it was already coming out of her mouth, but she had to know. She had to know that he was only planning on bringing one girl back to suffer with her and not anyone else.
“Yes,” Varias Caras said, then dropped his eyes to the floor. With one finger, he reached into the eyehole of his mask and rubbed under his eye. When he brought it back out, Nadine saw it was wet.
My God. He’s crying.
“I…I am sorry,” he said. “My brain…it cannot handle taking care of two Barbies.”
Varias Caras threw himself to the floor, flat on his stomach. His long, curly hair splayed out on the floor looked like a dead crow laying on his head.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” he yelled out, smashing his fists against the floor.
Nadine felt the floor and the wall behind her vibrate with each one of his strikes, and for a second thought the damn barn was about to collapse and kill them both.
The tantrum only lasted a few seconds, then Varias Caras picked himself up off the floor. He punched himself on the side of the head before saying, “I have to let you go when I bring back other Barbie… I am sorry.”
He looked at her. His eyes were wet and shiny behind the grotesque mask.
He’s talking to me like I’m a pet he has to put down. Nadine could hardly believe what she was hearing, and the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like that was exactly what was happening. She was a pet to him, nothing more.
No, no. Even less than that. I’m a Barbie. A Barbie doll. The name finally made sense to her after all this time, and her heart quivered in fear.
“I will return later with other Barbie,” he continued, “Then tomorrow, after Mamá’s party, maybe let you go.”
Without waiting for her reply, Varias Caras headed out.
He rolled the barn door shut, staring at her from behind the face that didn’t belong to him the entire time. This was one expression Nadine could never figure out, because his eyes were void of any emotion when he was leaving the barn. They were entirely soulless. A pair of dark, dead eyes staring at her from the exit point of her prison.
Tomorrow she might be let go. But there was no promise in his words. There was no promise of a tomorrow for her at all.
Chapter 29
Gavin, Fletcher, and Fred were gathered on the front deck, their stomachs filled with breakfast burritos. They were passing a hefty joint around to each other.
The weed was really hitting Fred out here in a way he’d never felt it hit him before. It also didn’t help that Gavin had made them all take shots of tequila during breakfast. Either way, the headline of the missing couple article was burning in his mind with an itch he could only scratch by talking about it.
“Hey, did any of you happen to do any digging around about this cabin?”
“What do you mean?” Gavin asked.
“Man, I saw some creepy article about this place,” Fred told them.
“What’re you talking about?”
“You didn’t do much research on Lakewood Cabin, did you?” Fred asked.
“No. Just tell us what you saw—and take a hit and pass it already,” Gavin scolded.
Fred grimaced, but took a big hit and reached over the picnic table to hand him the joint. “Saw something about a couple never returning from this place.”
“Big whoop,” Gavin took a big hit of the joint, and then passed it to Fletcher. “Take a look around us, Fredster. You could get lost looking for a place to take a piss out there.”
“No, dude. I think it was something else,” Fred argued. “If I had any service out here, I’d pull up the article.”
“What else did you find?” Fletcher asked. He felt like the map was burning a hole on the side of his thigh.
“I don’t know, that’s it. Why?”
“Did you happen to see anything about a campsite?”
“Uh,” Fred jogged through his memory. “No?”
“Check this out,” Fletcher took the map out of his pocket. “I found it in the game room, behind the entertainment system.”
He splayed it out on the picnic table, and Gav and Fred gathered over it. Immediately, they noticed the Sharpie cabins and the name CAMP LAKEWOOD.
“What the hell?” Gavin hooted.
Fred took out the map he had in his pocket and put it on the table next to Fletcher’s map. They were indeed maps of the same location, with the obvious difference being the graphics and the added in campgrounds.
“What about this?” Fred asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just weird that someone drew this stuff on a map and left it behind,” Fletcher replied. Now that Fred had posed the question, he wasn’t really sure what his point was.
“Must be some abandoned place someone stumbled upon by accident,” Fred guessed.
“You guys want to go and try to find this place?” Gavin grinned at them.
“Wh-what if we get lost and don’t come back like that couple that disappeared?” Fletcher asked.
Gavin burst out laughing. “Fletch, how fucking high are you?”
“Pretty high.”
“Yeah,” Gavin continued. “I can tell. Nothing like that is gonna happen to us. We’ll just find some campgrounds and that’s it. It’ll be fun.”
Fletcher shook his head and laughed at himself. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright, I’m down.”
He didn’t get much time with the map himself, but this was better anyway. A hike through a forgotten trail sounded like a killer idea.
“What about you, Fred? You in?” Gavin asked.
“Yeah,” Fred said, giving in to peer pressure. “Sure, alright. But let’s follow the paths on the map. No
getting crazy.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Fredster.” Gavin said, gathering up the maps.
They finished the joint, then went inside the cabin to ask any of the others if they wanted to come.
Chapter 30
Emeril drove through the woods, driving faster than he realized. Something pulled him like a magnet, and he knew this first location—”file 3” as Harold Buckley had labeled it in the email—was where his life’s work would finally pay off.
He was reminiscing on his years as a psychology graduate student, when his colleagues (and especially the professors) all thought he was insane for his beliefs in the supernatural. Back then, he cared more about what people thought of him, and mostly tried to keep his beliefs to himself. But the whole time, he felt something inside of him that he couldn’t ever describe, something that told him there was more to this world than just science and psychology. Things that wouldn’t ever be discovered by those who treated the sciences like gospel.
He didn’t know what it was then, and didn’t know what it was now, but he felt like it would all make sense when they reached the location in file 3’s map. When they reached Camp Slaughter…
“Emeril, maybe you should slow down?” Molly suggested.
She noticed the same thing Nadine Lang had noticed more than a year ago driving down a similar road with her husband speeding; if a car was coming in the opposite direction, they’d have a hard time avoiding a head-on collision. It wasn’t likely anyone would be driving on this road at the same time, but on the other side of the same coin, totaling a car in such a remote area would make dealing with the aftermath a hassle.
“Sorry,” Emeril said, lightening his foot off the pedal. “Just a bit anxious to reach our destination.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” It came out in a ribbing tone, but she meant it, too.
His face was beaming, almost youthful in appearance. She’d never seen him like this before. It helped to calm her own nerves down—but only to an extent.
