by Sergio Gomez
Chapter 34
It was Noelle who jumped into gear first. She slammed the living room door shut on the hallway before the man could reach them, and threw the lock. “Out the windows!” she shouted at the boys.
Dalton and Wayne had been frozen in terror, with looks on their faces like they’d just shit their pants, but the command shook them out of it. They sprang into action, running to the window closest to them.
Dalton was fidgeting with the screen window when a thought occurred to him. “Wait! Wait! What if there are others outside?”
“Shit,” Noelle stopped mid climb out of the window and sat down on the ledge. She swung her legs back inside the cabin. He’s right.
But there was no time to think.
The intruder kicked at the door, as if to put an exclamation point on the thought.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The kicks were strong, but the door was holding…for now.
“Put something in front of the door!” Noelle said to Dalton.
Dalton understood the change of strategy and ran over to the entertainment system where the SNES was setup. He grabbed it and dragged it across the floor as hard as he could, finished and polished wood be damned. The TV went crashing off the back as the cord caught at the end of its length. The gaming system went with it. With one final sad electronic glurp, Mario faded to black.
Wayne jumped back into the cabin and ran over to the other side of the furniture to help speed up the process. The entertainment system’s legs screeched as they sliced streaks into the wooden floor.
Meanwhile, Noelle was working on closing the windows, aware that the place would quickly turn into a sweatbox without any air conditioning.
Better sweating than dead, she thought.
Now that they had the furniture in place and (it seemed, for the time being, anyhow) that the added weight was successfully holding their intruder at bay, Dalton and Wayne each went to a set of windows to close and lock them. If there were more intruders out there, they could easily break the glass, but they’d at least be alerted of where they were coming from.
With the windows secured, they gathered in the center of the room by the pool table, away from any windows in case glass did start flying through the air.
Wayne threw his arms around Noelle. He didn’t mean it in any perverted way, it was more a gesture of him searching for comfort. He buried his head into her shoulder and cried. “I want my mom.”
Holding onto each other, they both crumpled to the ground. Noelle ran her fingers through his hair and put her head on top of his.
“Wayne, stop. We’ll be okay. We will,” she whispered to him, but she didn’t believe it herself.
Didn’t believe it at all. And she started to cry, too.
Chapter 35
“There it is!” Emeril called out.
They were greeted by the same sign Gavin and company had just been looking at a few minutes ago. Both Emeril and Molly read the sign with the graffitist’s fix:
WELCOME TO CAMP SLAUGHTER
Emeril could hardly believe his eyes. It was exactly the name Harold Buckley had used. He swallowed. “Molly, grab your camera!”
“On it, Emeril,” she said, reaching into the backseat. She powered the camera on, hit record, and pointed it at the sign. “What’re you thinking, Emeril?”
“I’m thinking, I’ve never been to Disneyland—but if I had gone as a child, this is probably how I would have felt,” he said.
The Subaru came around the last curve before the road straightened out and went up the hill to the campgrounds. Molly looked over her shoulder and saw Emeril’s face was flushed red and his eyes were shiny. The stoic man was barely visible in this jubilant face. It was the most excited she’d ever seen him, and all they’d seen so far was a sign.
“The grove is supposed to be somewhere around here,” Emeril said.
“And in the grove, the cannibal’s hideout?” Molly said. “Am I remembering that right?”
“Yes, yes. Precisely,” Emeril said.
He clutched the steering wheel tighter as he felt that tremble in his organs again. This time, though, he was ready for it, and kept control of himself. He felt his insides moving; his heart, his lungs, his bones, his blood, his arteries, even the fillings in his teeth, it all moved like people in a stadium doing the wave. Except, nothing was physically moving. This was nothing more than a feeling, a feeling that something supernatural was near.
Emeril was sure that’s what this new sensation was. It was a sign that he was on the path of his destiny. He’d stayed up all last night, looking at the cracks in the ceiling of the shoddy cabin, wondering if he was losing his mind or not, but now he was sure he wasn’t.
They were going to uncover something huge.
Emeril Dantes didn’t know this, because he could only feel the energy emitting from the campsite—or rather, the energy emitting from the space the campsite was built on—but they were heading to a part of the Earth where spirit energy was collected. A space where the living and the dead world touched each other. It was only a soft touch, a gentle kiss between the two worlds, where only those born with an extra sense could ever feel the interaction. It was a place where lost spirits roamed, waiting for their day to finally cross over into the next realm for good.
Emeril and Molly were headed into haunted lands, to put it in simple terms.
Chapter 36
Ignacio kicked the door two more times, but it wouldn’t budge. Whatever they’d put in front of it was too heavy to knock over.
He had to get them another way. The machete could hack through the door and make a hole big enough for him to squeeze through, but that would take forever. They’d escape out of the room through the windows by the time the hole was big enough.
The windows. Yes. He could use the windows to get inside.
He made his way out of the cabin and went around to that side of the cabin. He saw his prey huddled in the center of the room inside. What he could see of their faces was as pale as horchata.
Using the handle of the machete, he smashed a window. The exploding glass got their attention.
The girl made a sound that was a cross between a scream and a sob. The cry of fear.
Ignacio smiled.
The blue-haired guy got up and started for a part of the room Ignacio couldn’t see. It didn’t matter, he was going to kill them all.
He switched the machete into his other hand and reached inside the window to unlock it. Then, with the same hand, he threw it open.
Before he could start to climb inside to begin killing, the blue-haired guy returned, and Ignacio realized the trio wasn’t as helpless as he thought.
Stupid Ignacio…
Dalton heard the glass shatter, and knew it was time for him to act. A fourteen-year-old kid and a petite girl weren’t going to be the ones to get them out of this bind, so it was all on his shoulders.
As absurd as it was, he heard his brothers laughing at that thought in his mind.
Ignoring the laughter, he ran over to the bucket of darts, scooped some up in his hand, and then ran back to the center of the room. The giant man was in the middle of climbing into the window. Without bothering to take aim, Dalton threw a dart in his direction.
By some great stroke of luck, the dart went into Varias Caras’ face, into the side of his mouth where the mask didn’t cover. It pierced through his cheek, stopping just short of his tongue.
Ignacio screamed, and fell backward out of the window, spitting blood into the air. He picked himself up to his knees, pulled the dart from his cheek, and threw it over his shoulder. Trying to ignore the pain in his face, he started back through the window.
Dalton launched another dart. Somehow, his shaking hands still had true aim. The dart went into Ignacio’s brow, right into the exposed part of his face above the right eye. Blood oozed down into it. He didn’t fall back this time, instead, he threw himself through the window like a man on fire diving into water.
Out of pure reflex, Dalto
n threw another dart, but his luck had run out. The dart missed entirely, whizzed past Varias Caras, and went out the window.
Ignacio got up to his feet and ripped the dart out of his face. Then he swung the machete through the air in a blind rage.
Dalton hopped back, but he was too slow.
The machete went through his neck, cutting it open on a diagonal. His head snapped back, tendons in his neck stretched to their limits like the roots of a stump being pulled from the earth. His head remained attached to his body only by the neckbone and some scraps of skin.
Ignacio pulled on the handle of the machete, and since it was still stuck in Dalton, he pulled the kid toward him. At the same time, he punched him in the jaw. The impact was enough to break the neck bone, and the last bits of skin ripped as Dalton’s head went flying off his shoulders.
The head tumbled through the air, struck one of the walls with a wet splat, and then fell to the ground. It bounced on the floor a few times before coming to a rolling stop. Dalton’s face stared up at the spinning ceiling fan with an agonized expression.
Ignacio stomped on the lifeless corpse for leverage and pulled the machete out of it. Then he readied it for the next kill.
While this was happening, the girl had climbed out of the cabin and was running into the woods. But it didn’t matter right now. He only cared about the young kid.
The fresh meat.
Wayne was halfway out of the window when Ignacio grabbed him by the belt loops of his pants. He yanked on him, but Wayne clung on the sill with both hands.
This was nothing new to Ignacio. They always did this. But he was stronger than them…always stronger.
Ignacio pulled harder. Wayne lost his grip and fell to the floor hard enough to break one of his ribs. He screamed, but the scream got caught in his throat as Ignacio stomped on his back and knocked the breath out of him. His ribs crunched some more underneath the pressure of the big boot.
Wayne tried squirming away from him, but it was no use, the guy was too big and strong. It felt like an anvil had fallen on him. Wayne kicked and punched the air and started to cry, but he knew this was as pointless as the squirming.
Ignacio drove the tip of the machete through the back of the kid’s neck, all the way through until it was stuck in the wooden floor. Wayne’s limbs continued to thrash through the air, but it was nothing but his muscles spasming as he died. After a few seconds, his whole body went still.
Blood from the wound began to run down and pool around the boy’s head, sopping his hair and turning it red. It didn’t matter, Ignacio didn’t like the head anyway. That was the part of his prey he always threw in the trash after peeling the skin for his masks.
Ignacio peered out of the windows to see where the girl was. He could still see her sprinting in the trees—or at least going at a pace that was her version of sprinting. She was slow. He could catch her if he hurried, maybe…
But no. The important one was Mamá’s lookalike, who wasn’t here. Which meant he’d have to go looking for her later. For now, though, he was done here.
Ignacio returned to the young kid. He pulled the machete out of his neck, then chopped his head off. No point in keeping it attached.
With one hand, he lifted the boy up and put him on his shoulder.
He started out of the den, glancing over at the headless body that used to belong to the blue-haired kid in the middle of the room. He’d have to leave it behind, unfortunately. Ignacio didn’t like leaving corpses behind.
That was one thing Mamá had drilled into him. Don’t play with your food and don’t waste any.
Hay gente que no tienen de comer.
There are people who don’t have anything to eat.
And here he was, walking away leaving behind a perfectly full human body that would have fed him for weeks.
It didn’t feel good to waste food. Didn’t feel good at all.
Chapter 37
“What is that?” Molly said, looking around the camera and pointing to what appeared to be people moving between the cabins in the distance.
“Hikers,” Emeril said, throwing her a sideways glance. “Did you think it was spirits?”
Molly laughed. “No, screw you Emeril. Just taken by surprise. Nobody’s supposed to know where this place is.”
“Right. So. Shall we find out what they’re doing here?” It was more of a statement than a question considering he was unfastening his seatbelt as he spoke.
They were parked in front of the CAMP SLAUGHTER sign, and a quick glance at the cabins that made up the place confirmed that his was indeed the spot Harold Buckley had told them about. Emeril had sobered up from the high of finding the place, and though he no longer felt the wave of energy going through him, he still had the sense that there was something supernatural here.
“Yeah, let’s go talk to them,” Molly said. Then she started reaching for the glove compartment where they kept the revolver.
“No need for that,” Emeril said, lifting his shirt up to reveal the pistol holstered to his hip. “This should be enough. You bring that with you.”
He was referring to the camera.
“And if they’re dangerous, you think I’ll be able to record them to death?” Molly retorted.
“I don’t think it’s necessary we stroll up to them strapped like cowboys,” Emeril said. “Please, Molly? We need to capture this… all of this…”
“Alright,” Molly said, seeing his face weakening. “Okay, fine. But I better not regret this.”
“I’ll do all of the talking. You just stay back and record. It will be fine. I promise.”
Molly didn’t respond, just climbed out of the car. On the driver’s side, Emeril did the same.
Like the first cabin Gavin had peered into, the campgrounds looked like they’d been abandoned in the middle of a busy day. Targets in the archery range still had arrows sticking out of their grimy, faded faces. There was a small lake near the campground with a lonesome, filthy canoe sitting on its bank.
Gavin and Fletcher went up to one of the lodging cabins, which were much smaller than the office cabin, and peered inside it. Most of the space inside was taken up by a bunkbed that had collapsed on itself. A mess of splinters stuck out from the support columns where they’d broken. Seeds and spores had found cracks in the floor and grown into wildflowers and fungi. By the looks of it, this was the only life the cabin had seen in years.
“Want to go inside?” Gavin said.
Fletcher looked away from his window and over at Gavin to see if he was serious. “For what?”
“I don’t know…” Gavin shrugged. “Just to see what else we find.”
Fred was coming up the porch steps to join them and heard Gavin’s suggestion. “Man, you always have to be messing around, huh?”
“What?” Gavin whirled around to face him. “Come on, Fredster, it’s not like we’re going to get into trouble.”
“Let’s just leave it alone,” Fred said.
“I don’t get it, why?”
Fred shrugged. “I don’t know. It just feels…wrong to disturb things around here.”
Gavin knew what he meant, which was the reason why he wanted to do it. The only way he’d ever known how to deal with uncomfortable feelings was by confronting whatever was making him feel that way. And right now, these stupid campgrounds were doing it to him. He’d feel better kicking down one of these cabin doors.
“Just leave it alone,” Fred repeated. “Let’s just go take pictures with the girls over there.”
The girls were out front of another cabin, taking selfies for Vanessa’s Instagram. Despite their initial resistance, they seemed to be having a good time—a better time than even the guys—and were laughing and joking as they looked over the pictures on their phones.
“Now who’s acting scared, Fredster?” Gavin smirked.
But just as quickly as the smirk came it disappeared. His lips went flat as he saw a light in the distance. Because of the strange mood the place had him i
n, he thought it was something supernatural for a second.
But no. It wasn’t anything supernatural. Just as surprising, though perhaps not as frightful, it was a pair of headlights. The lights went off, and all Gavin was looking at now was the front of an old car parked outside the campgrounds.
“What the hell?” Gavin said. The car seemed to have come out of nowhere. In their distraction, none of them hadn’t even heard it coming. This was strange.
Fred and Fletcher turned around to see what had his attention in time to see the Subaru.
“Whoa. Who is that?” Fred said.
“How should I know?” Gavin snapped.
“Should we get out of here?”
Gavin’s response was to climb down the cabin porch steps and walk over to the girls, who as of yet hadn’t noticed the unexpected visitors.
“Hey, girls, sorry to cut your photoshoot short—but we got company,” he said, approaching Vanessa and Brooke.
The girls put their phones down and looked at Gavin’s face to see if he was serious. They saw the other boys coming toward them behind Gavin, with similarly long expressions on theirs.
“What? What’re you talking about?” Brooke said.
“Look,” Gavin pointed behind them.
They spun around, and nearly jumped out of their shoes when they saw the vehicle.
“Oh shit!” Vanessa said, hopping backward. “Are they park rangers?”
The car doors opened, and they saw an older man wearing a chauffeur hat and a Hawaiian shirt getting out of the driver’s side. From the passenger side a thin blond woman got out. The object around her neck flashed underneath the sunlight. If Gavin hadn’t seen the headlights first, the way this object shined would’ve made him think about ghosts.
“No way they’re park rangers,” Gavin said, getting a second look at their visitors. “Not dressed like that.”
The others agreed. The old man looked like he’d just gotten off the plane from his first trip to Thailand, rather than someone dressed to deal with trouble in the woods. But that realization only made this all more confusing.
