Camp Cannibal

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  One whiff of Firefly, and Compass flinched.

  “What happened to you?”

  Firefly only bowed his head. “Gotta keep the bonfire going.”

  “Go take a shower,” Compass instructed. “Wash yourself off before anyone else smells you.”

  Firefly raced out from the amphitheater, nearly in tears, leaving me alone with Compass.

  “Everybody’s starting to unravel,” I said. “You know that, right?”

  “Prisoners only speak when spoken to.”

  I let out a half-laugh. “You guys have turned into camp counselors of chaos.”

  “Take that back.”

  Yardstick rushed into the amphitheater, out of breath. “Somebody set the totem pole on fire!”

  If Firefly can’t bring the kindling to the fire, he’ll bring the fire to the kindling.

  “Does Peashooter know?” Compass asked.

  “He’s asleep,” Yardstick said. “I figured I’d tell you first before waking him.”

  “I’ll find Sporkboy. We can put it out before Firefly sets the rest of the camp on fire.”

  Yardstick and I both watched Compass exit the amphitheater. As soon as he was gone, Yardstick turned to me. “Ready to get the heck out of here?”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said.

  Something shiny dropped at Yardstick’s feet. My eyes locked onto it.

  An X-ACTO blade.

  I picked it up and started slicing. The shoestrings had been tightly wound around the joints, the branches knotted at each corner.

  Yardstick kept a lookout. “Hurry.”

  “I’m trying,” I muttered. The shoestring finally unraveled from the branch. I grabbed hold and yanked as hard as I could, prying the piece of wood free.

  I slipped my head through the gap, only for my shoulders to jam.

  Too tight.

  I had to pull myself back in and keep cutting. Working on the neighboring bar, I muttered under my breath—“Come on, come on, come on.”

  The shoestring started to give.

  “Someone’s coming,” Yardstick said.

  The lace loosened, then snapped free.

  “It’s Compass!”

  There was no time to cut through the other end of the bar. I wedged myself into the gap. My shoulders slipped through. I was just about to clear the cage when my shirt snagged on the end of a branch. I had to reach back and yank myself free.

  Compass walked into the amphitheater just as I plunged from the cage.

  “Well, this is awkward,” I said.

  “How did you—?”

  Yardstick thumped Compass upside the head with his quarterstaff. Compass went cross-eyed before falling to the ground.

  Yardstick winced. “Sorry…”

  I noticed the Piranhas had returned to their perch in the tree and pressed my finger against my lips. They nodded.

  “Grab his legs,” I said to Yardstick as I leapt to my feet. “Compass needs a time out.”

  •••

  Firefly had offered up the perfect distraction. While everyone else focused on extinguishing the flaming totem pole, Yardstick and I could slip out from the amphitheater totally unnoticed. A processional of cannibals rushed up the path, each carrying a bucket full of water from Lake Wendigo, while we kept to the tree line.

  I halted long enough to watch the totem pole get doused. Those six blackened skulls were charred beyond recognition, the outer layer of bark burned away.

  “We’ve got to go,” Yardstick whispered. “Now.”

  “Keep an eye out for me, okay?”

  “Where are you going? The woods are this way.”

  “All I need is one second,” I said, and ran for cabin two.

  No guards. The door was surprisingly unlocked.

  This was way too easy, I thought as I entered.

  All the lightbulbs had been removed inside. Darkness enveloped every corner. A sliver of moonlight reached in through the window, barely illuminating the pack of discombobulated counselors stretched out along the furniture-free floor. They looked like a litter of newborn puppies, still blind to the world. Defenseless.

  “George?” I whispered. “Stan? Anybody?”

  “Spencer…?” A hoarse voice struggled out from the dark. “Is that you?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Stan…” He didn’t sound like The Man anymore.

  “Can you guys get up? Can you run?”

  Their heads lolled over their shoulders, back and forth. I spotted Capone curled up on the floor amongst the rest.

  “Come on!” I grabbed his leg and tugged. “Get up! On your feet! Let’s go!”

  He wouldn’t budge. None of them would.

  “Now’s not the time to lay around.” I tugged Capone toward the door. “We’ve got to—”

  I turned to find Peashooter standing in the doorway.

  The entire Tribe waited behind him.

  Yardstick was on his knees, arms bound behind his back with bungee cords. Compass and Sporkboy stood at his sides, making sure he didn’t move.

  “Gotta hand it to you, Rat,” Peashooter said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?”

  “Glad to hear you’ve been reading.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to kill.”

  “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity,” Peashooter recited.

  I pounced on Peashooter and pressed the X-ACTO blade against his throat. So much for nonviolence, but my back was up against the wall here.

  Peashooter held out his hands at his sides, remaining calm.

  “Let’s take this very slow,” I said. “Or you’ll never quote Thoreau again.”

  “I’ve read it so many times, I don’t quote it…I am it.”

  “You really should get out more.”

  “Where would I go?” he asked. “This is my home now.”

  This was what happens when you lose yourself in a book…completely. Now he’ll never come back.

  “What should we do?” Compass asked.

  Even with a blade pressed to his neck, Peashooter couldn’t help but grin. “You heard him….What should we do now, Rat?”

  I spotted Charles in the crowd, a strained expression spread across his face. Klepto stood next to him, his bow and arrow slung over his shoulder. He took it into his hands, itching for a shot.

  “Don’t test me,” I said.

  “This is all a test,” Peashooter said. “Every day is a test.”

  “Keep your initiations for someone else. Release the counselors.”

  “Or what?” Peashooter was unnervingly calm. “They’ve always been free to go. The door has always been unlocked. They’ve just never been motivated to leave.”

  It dawned on me that Klepto would have generously donated his tackle box of pilfered prescriptions. I was betting all of the adults had been dunked under dosage after dosage of mood stabilizers.

  Peashooter nodded at Klepto. “Can you take him down?”

  Klepto pinched his lazy eye shut, taking aim. “Easily.”

  “Do it.”

  Before Klepto could fire, Charles sunk his teeth into his wrist. Klepto howled as his fingers released the bowstring. The arrow struck the cabin door just behind my shoulder.

  Klepto jerked his arm back, but Charles refused to let him go, the two playing tug-of-war with Klepto’s own wrist.

  Once Charles’s badger mandibles locked in place, there’s no releasing them.

  “Get him!” Peashooter shouted. “Get him now!”

  I shoved him out of the door and rushed back inside the cabin.

  Charles finally let Klepto go. “Run, Spencer,” he yelled before being buried beneath a pile of his chemically i
mbalanced compatriots.

  I slammed the cabin door and pressed my back against it.

  “All right, guys,” I shouted. “Time to wake up!”

  Fists began to pound against the door at my back.

  “I could really use a little help here….”

  The door budged behind me. My feet skidded forward a few inches.

  “Now or never, guys…Motivate! Motivate!”

  The door gave way behind me and I was pushed to the floor.

  Rolling onto my back, I saw that Peashooter had forced his way in. A pair of cannibals thrust Charles and Yardstick into the cabin. They landed on top of me.

  “So much for your big prison break.” Peashooter leaned against the door frame. “Better get some rest, boys. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

  The door slammed, sealing us inside the pitch-black. This time Peashooter locked the door—CLICK!

  “Sorry, Spencer.” Charles bowed his head. “I tried….”

  “If it wasn’t for you,” I said, “I’d have an arrow buried between my eyes.”

  “That’s it, then,” Yardstick said. “We’re dead.”

  “Not yet,” I mustered. But the words held no weight.

  “Spencer?” A weak voice whispered my name. My eyes adjusted to discover George on the floor. No more ponytail. “Who are those kids out there?”

  “My imaginary friends.”

  DAY SEVEN: 1000 HOURS

  eashooter loomed large over the rest of the Tribe. The PA system’s mic had been rigged with extra cable, allowing him to stand on the cabin’s roof.

  Charles, Yardstick, and I were dragged out from the brig and brought to our knees before him, our hands bungee-corded behind our backs.

  Peashooter lifted his arms into the air, summoning the camp to chant—“Claw and Fang!”

  “Claw and Fang!”

  “Claw and Fang!”

  Peashooter dropped his arms, and the cheering instantly died out. He brought the microphone up and began to preach. “Some amongst us would prefer we remained enslaved. Imprisoned by our parents. Kept in line with our prescriptions.”

  Peashooter pointed directly at me.

  “For one of our own to oppose our charge and side with the adults of this world, well—there is no word for that person other than rat. Say it—Rat!”

  “Rat!” the crowd roared.

  “Rat!”

  “Rat!”

  “And there is only one appropriate punishment for rats—Death!”

  “Death!”

  “Death!”

  “Death!”

  “Today, we sentence three such conspirators. You have all been found guilty for committing crimes against your Tribe. Any last requests?”

  “I am the Wild,” I stared straight at Peashooter and recited. “…the unknown, the terrible, the ever menacing, the thing that prowled in the darkness around the fires of the primeval world…”

  “Enough,” Peashooter turned to his fans. “Everyone ready for an execution?”

  The crowd cheered.

  “What’s the fun in merely executing your enemies? Today, you will all hunt. Take a good look at your prey.”

  I glanced over at Charles. Tears streaked his cheeks. Yardstick kept his chin tucked into his chest. His eyes never left the ground.

  “You will be given a fifteen-minute head start,” Peashooter announced. “If you make it out of these woods alive, then congrats. You’re free to go. Best of luck.”

  I really didn’t like the sound of that.

  “What happens when somebody believes they are about to die? They cry out for their mommy and daddy. Well, mommy and daddy aren’t coming to save you today. No one is. ­Cannibals—it’s time!”

  I saw Compass slip a pillowcase over Charles’s head. I caught one final millisecond of panic in his eyes before I was enveloped in a white blindness.

  “Must be lonely in there.” Compass’s voice seeped through the cotton shroud. “How about some company?”

  He slipped something inside the pillowcase. I peered down my nose and discovered he was holding a glass jar just beneath my chin.

  Something buzzed against the glass.

  Wings?

  A wasp rose up from the opening, hovering in front of my face. Compass quickly pulled the jar out and sealed the pillowcase around my neck.

  The wasp. Was inside. My pillowcase.

  It grazed along the cotton contours, looking for a hole to fly out of, finding absolutely nothing but my face.

  He didn’t seem all too happy to be trapped in here with me.

  The feeling’s mutual.

  Somebody gave me a swift kick in the rear end.

  “And they’re off!” Peashooter’s voice echoed over the intercom.

  I was running blindly through the woods. My feet couldn’t move fast enough. I shook my head in every which direction in hopes of throwing off the pillowcase.

  The wasp’s wings brushed against my right cheek.

  Please don’t sting me Mr. Wasp, please don’t sting….

  I couldn’t free my hands. The bungee cord wouldn’t budge. I kept wriggling my wrists, growing numb from the loss of circulation.

  If I could just slip my thumb through, I think I might be able to—

  There was a blur of yellow directly before my eyes. That wasp plopped itself on my forehead. I didn’t stop running. I could feel my pace pick up, racing faster.

  Faster.

  If I could just free one finger, just one—

  I ran face-first into something sturdy.

  A tree.

  I fell over backward, hitting the ground. I had to blink a couple dozen times to bring my equilibrium back.

  I yanked my left hand free from my bungee-bonds and pulled off my pillowcase. The wasp was now a yellow jam spread across my forehead.

  I winced from the brightness of the sun.

  Looking up, I saw the trees were shimmering in the sunlight.

  Something metallic.

  Cell phones. The busted guts of a dozen cell phones dangled from the branches. I jumped up and plucked one.

  Please work, please just work, please—

  No good. The screen was cracked, the batteries plucked out from the back. A nail had been driven directly through the keypad and tied off with a piece of twine.

  I had to run. I took a step forward and quickly came face-to-face with…

  …Myself?

  A black-and-white photocopy of my yearbook picture had been tacked to a tree trunk. I could tell from the pained expression on my face—part discomfiture, part constipation, caught in mid-blink. Mom had a million of these back at home.

  Each eye was crossed out with a red X. At the bottom, someone had written:

  MISSING.

  I spotted another flyer. Same X’ed out eyeballs:

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

  I was surrounded by dozens of my own duplicated dead-eyed face, each one awkwardly smiling back at me. There was another:

  LAST SEEN THIS SUMMER.

  Charles and Yardstick were still blindly struggling through the woods, their heads swallowed by their pillowcases. It was like watching a game of pinball. They would rebound off the trees, stumble back onto their feet, and run all over again, only to hit another tree.

  “Yardstick—stop!” I called after him. “It’s me!”

  He wouldn’t listen, plowing ahead. I had to chase after him.

  “Stop running!”

  I jumped into the air and yanked off his pillowcase. He looked stunned. And stung. Several welts pockmarked his forehead. His chest heaved from all the panic.

  “You okay?”

  “Not really.” He scanned the woods, hyperventilating. “We don’t have much time until they’re right on top of us.”
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  “What do we do?”

  “Haul ass.”

  Charles had just puckered up to another trunk, running head-on in to a tree. He rebounded off the bark and staggered back. Shaking his pillowcased head, Charles collided with the same tree all over again.

  And again.

  “Let’s get him before the others do,” I said.

  “Careful.” Yardstick grabbed my arm. “These woods are booby-trapped.”

  “Booby-trapped? With what?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Charles had managed to make his way back onto his feet. He took one blind step in a different direction and…

  SNAP!

  A set of steel, ahem, jaws latched themselves around Charles’s shin. He let out an ear-piercing shriek as he fell over face-first onto the ground.

  Yardstick and I rushed up.

  A leg-hold trap had closed around Charles’s left ankle. The metal teeth had sunk deep in his Achilles tendon.

  I pulled the pillowcase off his head. Charles’s face was a portrait of pain. When he looked down at his foot, his eyes widened even further. He shrieked.

  I picked up a nearby stick and pushed it past Charles’s lips.

  “Bite.”

  Charles sunk his teeth in. The stick instantly snapped in half. I found another, thicker stick—“Try not to bite down so hard this time, okay?”

  Charles limply nodded.

  “How many traps are out here?”

  “This is nothing,” Yardstick said. “There’re land mines, trip wires, snares, pitfalls…”

  I motioned to Charles’s bloodied leg. “What should we do?”

  “Let him chew through his own leg and free himself?”

  Charles squealed, vigorously shaking his head.

  “You grab that end,” I nodded to the trap. “I’ll grab the other. On the count of three, pull as hard as you can. Charles—when you’re free, pull your leg out of the way. Once we let go, those teeth are gonna snap shut—hard. Got it?”

  Charles nodded, clenching his teeth around the stick.

  “Okay, here we go,” I said.

  We all took a deep breath.

  “One,” Yardstick and I started the countdown together. “Two…”