The Lake

by Natasha Preston

  I push myself to my feet, feeling gritty sand embedded under my nails.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “This was stabbed into the door!”

  The counselors run toward us and we all meet a pale Cora.

  She turns the paper around with shaking hands. It reads:

  We’re going to have some fun

  Alert the cops and you’ll be done

  My heart thuds.

  I try to take a breath, but it’s like breathing through a blanket.

  “That’s creepy as hell,” Jake says, snatching the paper from Cora. “Who do you think wrote it?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Could it be one of the kids?”

  “Why would kids write that?”

  “Is it the stalker in the woods?”

  “What do they want?”

  “You guys need to calm down.”

  I stand back and listen to the comments flying all around me.

  My head is spinning so fast, I’m dizzy.

  Lillian wants us alone out here.

  24

  We’re outside in the middle of the night with the campers fast asleep in their cabins because Andy has called another emergency meeting. I think he actually likes calling them.

  He’s holding the note in one tightly clenched fist like it’s a prize he never wants to let go of.

  I’m still sitting on the tampered-with-inflatable information.

  I’ve left it too long and now I don’t know how to speak up or what I would say.

  What a nightmare.

  “All right,” Andy says, clearing his throat noisily. “We received this note this evening, and I find it completely unacceptable. Pranks are fine. I started them and encourage everyone to have silly fun.” He holds the note up. “This is going too far, though. We need to find out who’s responsible for it.”

  Why does he think it’s a camper or a counselor?

  “What will happen to the person responsible?” Jake asks. “Do they get booted?”

  Andy shakes his head. “No, we will speak to them. I will speak to them. We’re not about punishment, but the young person responsible has to understand that a prank like this won’t be tolerated.”

  The prank angle seems to be the only one he’s willing to accept.

  Kayla hasn’t said a word since she walked out of the cabin and into the middle of this mess.

  I can see in the tightness of her eyes and her hard jaw that she’s thinking. Maybe she’s finally accepting that this is about Lillian. That this, quite possibly, is Lillian.

  So many scenarios run through my mind about what happened after we left, what Lillian wants to happen now and what could happen if I react in different ways. Does she want to talk?

  “Esme?” Olly says.

  “Huh?” I look around. Everyone is gone. Well, they’re standing up and chatting in smaller groups.

  Tia, Rebekah, Jake, Olly and Kayla are still sitting with me.

  “You haven’t blinked in five minutes,” Rebekah says.

  “Sorry, this is all a bit crazy.”

  Kayla shakes her head. “This isn’t happening.”

  “What isn’t happening?” Jake asks.

  I widen my eyes at Kayla, telling her to shut up.

  Of the two of us, the most likely to crack is me. What is she doing?

  “Can’t you see? All of this is connected. Someone is trying to hurt us,” Kayla says.

  Tia laughs. “Don’t you think that’s a bit dramatic?”

  “How? The missing tags, the photographer in the woods and now this note.”

  And the inflatable. And the initials on our cabin wall. And the note in Kayla’s pocket. I swallow all the secrets I’m keeping.

  Rolling her eyes, Tia tilts her head like she thinks Kayla has lost it. “I’m not denying that someone is messing with us, but that doesn’t mean they’re an ax-wielding murderer.”

  I hold my hands up. “Calm down. No one said anything about a murderer or axes!”

  “All right, let’s stop with the wild theories,” Olly says. “No one is talking about anything as crazy as that. Let’s think rationally.”

  “I am!” Kayla snaps.

  Her hands curl into fists and she takes deep breaths, like she’s trying to calm herself down. She is getting more and more agitated.

  “What do you think Andy is going to do?” I ask. “Do we believe the threat?”

  Jake snorts. “Why would we believe this? It’s clearly someone screwing around, just like the graffiti.”

  “Well, I think the fact that Andy called another meeting shows that he believes there is some threat,” I tell the group. “I don’t know that this creep will do anything to us, games or whatever, but I do think they want something.”

  “We should find out what and give it to them,” Rebekah says, looking between Tia and me. “Right?”

  I shrug and look away.

  “What do we do?” Jake asks. “Leave a reply stabbed to a tree?”

  “You’re not helping,” I tell him.

  “No one is helping because there is nothing to help. We ignore the note and burn it, like we hid the writing on the staff cabin.”

  Rebekah shakes her head. “You want to pretend nothing is wrong?”

  “I don’t want some idiot who thinks they’re freaking Jason Voorhees getting in the way of our summer.”

  “Jason Voorhees, really?” Tia scoffs.

  Jake’s eyes turn black and he grits his teeth.

  “All right, everyone get some rest!” Andy shouts. “We’ll do the same as when we saw someone in the forest. Always double up with teams, CITs with counselors.”

  “We’re not going to the police?” Mary asks, her piercing eyes wide below her bangs.

  Catalina puts an arm around her and stares at Andy.

  “Not tonight. I’ll go tomorrow if anything else happens,” Andy replies.

  He walks off and half the counselors follow.

  Mary doesn’t move.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “We should go to the police now! They can protect us better than Andy. Why would he want us to keep this quiet?” she says.

  “He’s scared for the camp and its reputation. His reputation,” I say.

  She grinds her teeth so hard I hear them creak together. My stomach lurches.

  “Mary,” I say, shuddering. “Stop. You can talk to me, but I really need you to stop doing that.”

  Snapping her lips together, she looks away, her cheeks turning pink. “Sorry. I do it when I’m stressed.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “I think we should all agree to go to the cops,” she says.

  “That might not be a good idea.”

  “Or it might be the only thing we can do to stop this weirdo from hurting us.”

  Rebekah and Jake stop dead in front of us. Jake tilts his head. “Are you seriously thinking this crap is real? This dude wants us to panic. He wants to watch us run around, paranoid and worried about what he’ll do next. Mary, he’s just going to play games. We can beat him at that.”

  In my mind, I substitute he for she.

  “Beat him at his games?” Mary says. “What does that even mean? Do we play along? Pretend that we don’t see whatever he does? That doesn’t work for me. I won’t stay here in fear and allow someone to threaten us.”

  “You’re right,” I tell her. “We shouldn’t allow anyone to make us live in fear. But we have to be sure of what’s going on. If we go to the cops, tell them there’s a new crazy development, cause panic and this turns out to be a hoax, someone with a sick idea of fun, then who will trust us with their kids again? This is bigger than us, Mary.”

  I’m so scared that Lillian
will follow through with her threat. Before we do anything, I have to know how far she will go for revenge. I’m also totally not on board with the cops finding Lillian. Once they do, she’ll talk, and then it’s all over for me and Kayla.

  We could end up with a criminal record.

  My parents preach honesty and truth about every five minutes. If I lie, like ever, they are right there to set things straight. Which usually means I’m guilted into telling the truth and then chastised for not doing it earlier. They make their disappointment clear.

  It’s no fun.

  I can only imagine what they’d do if they found out I’ve been lying for ten years.

  “Not yet. Andy wants to wait,” Mary sneers. “All the while this freak is watching us.” She looks at the forest again. “He’s probably watching right now.”

  “Okay, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves,” I say. Her words send a shiver right down the center of my spine.

  “Someone has left a goddamn threat at a kid’s camp!” Kayla snaps. She throws her hands into the air. “We are in danger and we’re sitting here having a chat about it?”

  “Okay, Kayla,” I say, grabbing her hand. I tug her closer and she doesn’t resist. Suddenly, I feel like our roles have switched. “I’ll take her to bed,” I tell the others. “She’s tired.”

  Cora nods. “That’s a good idea. Get some rest.”

  Kayla doesn’t need a good night’s sleep, she needs to see clearly. We can’t go telling people about any of this stuff.

  No one can ever know what we did.

  25

  “Kayla?” I say once we close the door of our small room.

  She completely ignores me and changes into her pajamas, punching her legs through the leg holes as if she’s angry with them. She rams both arms through the sleeves and tugs the top over her head.

  “This is too much, Esme!”

  “I know, but we have to keep it together.”

  She swings around to face me. “What’s going to happen?”

  “We’ll be okay if we stick together and stay calm.”

  “They’re going to find out what happened that night.”

  My heart misses a beat. “No, they won’t.”

  I don’t believe my own words, but I want to calm her down.

  “Of course they will! How can they not?”

  “If Lillian wanted everyone to know, she would have said something by now. She isn’t trying to out us; she’s trying to scare us. She wants payback. If they find out and Andy kicks us out, her game is over.”

  “You think so?”

  Maybe.

  “I do.”

  “She was the crazy one that night, Esme.”

  I take a deep breath as I change into my pajamas. “I remember. That doesn’t mean we’re innocent. We did something wrong as well.”

  “We didn’t mean to…,” she whispers as she slips under the covers.

  “I know that, too,” I reply. “We need to get some sleep. We’re not going to figure anything out tonight.”

  Kayla rolls over and faces the wall, away from me. “Night, Esme.”

  “Night,” I reply, climbing up the ladder.

  The last thing I see before I close my eyes is Lillian’s carved initials.

  * * *

  I jump, awake and gasping and clutching my blanket as a loud thud seems to echo outside.

  “What the hell was that?” Kayla asks.

  I chuck the blanket off and scramble down the ladder.

  She’s already out of her bunk, waiting for me, and we run into the main room.

  “What’s happening?” Alana asks.

  All of the girls are awake and sitting up in bed.

  Cora comes out of her room sliding shoes onto her feet.

  “Stay in bed,” I tell the campers. “We’ll go and see.”

  Kayla, Cora and I go outside. It’s beginning to get light out. The sun is peeking through the trees.

  What was it? I look around, scanning the area. The lake is fine, the beach, the outdoor equipment. What…

  “Oh my God,” I breathe, finally locating the cause of the noise.

  Wedged into the door of the shed by the road is an ax.

  Cora turns around and says into the cabin, “It’s all right, girls. It was just some equipment that has fallen over.” She glances back at Kayla and me with a look that means “sort this out now.”

  By the time we reach the bottom step, counselors from every cabin are outside. So is Andy.

  The air is warming.

  “What on earth…?” Andy says.

  The staff cabin is next to the shed, so he gets there first.

  Written on the door just above the ax in red paint:

  I SAID NO COPS

  “I don’t like this at all,” Mary says, pressing one hand to her mouth. She turns in a circle, looking into the forest. “Last night I said I wanted to go to the cops. He was out there. He’s out there now. Watching.”

  Paranoia will drown you, and Mary is starting to sink.

  “Hey,” I say, laying my hand on her tense back.

  She flinches away from me, spinning around as if she’s afraid I’m the one stalking the camp.

  Jake steps forward, places one foot on the door and pulls the ax from the wood.

  Andy nods at him. “Marcus, Lorenzo, can you deal with the door quickly? The campers will be up soon.”

  Olly isn’t here. I guess he’s the one staying with the boys in the cabin.

  Mary shakes her head, cowering.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Catalina says, but her quavering voice suggests otherwise. “I’m going to check on Tia and the girls.”

  “Are you okay, Mary?” I ask.

  “An ax.”

  The other counselors disperse, either going to tell the campers nothing has happened or to conceal the evidence.

  Andy takes the ax from Jake and heads into the staff cabin.

  Jake shakes his head and touches my shoulder as he walks past.

  It’s just me and Mary now. Kayla walks off with Jake.

  Mary hugs her arms around her stomach. “This isn’t right. What if the man in the woods comes with a gun next time?”

  “Mary, he won’t. Okay? We’ll figure this out, find whoever it is and stop them without putting the kids in danger. We have to stay strong for them.”

  Lorenzo and Marcus come running back with a bucket of soapy water and two sponges. They dunk the sponges and start scrubbing immediately.

  Mary takes two deep breaths and closes her eyes. “Okay,” she says, opening them again. “I’m giving this a couple of days and then I’m taking things into my own hands.”

  “Let’s talk about it again later. Right now we need to make sure the campers are getting dressed and then feed them. It’ll be breakfast time soon.”

  Mary’s worried eyes look straight through me. She glances toward the forest once again and then walks away.

  If she’s not careful, she’s going to push Lillian even further.

  26

  Tonight is…what’s the best way to describe something that’s on a downward spiral? We’re in a tornado about to touch down.

  The day was fine, after the door was scrubbed. We hiked close to the forest’s edge, made campfires, built dens and ate bowls of chili with nachos.

  The campers are happy.

  The counselors, behind fake smiles, are not.

  We seem to be divided, too, figuratively and literally. On one side of the campfire are the counselors and CITs who are pro-cops, and the other side—hello, my side—are those of us who think cops are a bad idea. You could also divide the no-cop camp into two groups. There are the no-cops basing their opinion on this being some dumb, harmless joke, and the no-cops who think it’s more than that. />
  How can anyone think this is nothing more than a silly prank?

  I don’t know how to handle this. Maybe if Kayla and I tell everyone what happened with Lillian this will be over. Or maybe it will anger her and she’ll hurt someone.

  It’s a huge gamble.

  Lillian is messing with us, and I don’t know how far she will take it. I still haven’t told Kayla, or anyone, about the LC carved in the wall. She was in our room. Kayla wouldn’t be able to relax if she knew that; she would be petrified that Lillian would smother her in her sleep.

  It would set off the anxiety in Kayla that she’s fought so hard to get under control. She was in a bad car accident as a kid, one that killed her nana. It took years of therapy for her to get to where she is now. That could all be undone if I’m not careful.

  Never again do I want to see her sobbing hysterically on the floor because she can’t deal with the possibility that something bad might happen.

  Kayla and I should leave. What would Lillian do if we tried? I think back to the CIT pamphlet both Kayla and I got. It said we’d regret it if we didn’t come back. What if that was Lillian making a threat? Would she make our lives even worse if we left?

  Besides, how would we explain coming home weeks early to our parents?

  They would call camp and boom, suddenly we’re having a lot of talks. Or rather an interrogation. Mom and Dad would not let it go lightly and they would absolutely not believe I was just homesick.

  My dad is quite literally a human lie detector. He’s a polygraph examiner and conducts the test for hopefuls applying for a job with the FBI. That makes him sound a lot cooler than he is, like he’s in the FBI and could be an extra on Criminal Minds. It’s not like that at all.

  He conducts the test and sends the results off.

  “What are we going to do about this?” Jake asks.

  “We?” Tia curls her top lip.

  He scowls. “I’m not sitting here waiting for some creep in the forest to take another picture or stroke my hair while I sleep!”

  “Let’s not go there,” I say.