CLAWS 2

by Stacey Cochran

  “You alright?” Todd said.

  She tossed the empty beer can into the black garbage bag, not a bad shot from six feet away.

  “No gawking,” she said, wagging a finger.

  She stepped down to the blanket by the water. Everyone gawked, the girls most especially. She started to unzip her ski jacket. Todd and Dennis looked at Clark and Eddie, then all four guys looked across at the girls. Erin and Carson were watching Holly, but then they realized that she was going through with it and they tried to play it cool.

  “So, how’d you find out about this place?” Carson asked.

  Nobody watched Holly. They heard her stepping out of her jeans. Todd glanced and saw a little pile of clothes on one side of the blanket. Holly was in her panties and a pinkish-white T-shirt. Her back faced the group. She started to pull her shirt up over her head, turned back and saw Carson look away, and then pulled the shirt up over her head without comment.

  “Jesse brought me up here the first time,” he said. Jesse was Todd’s ex-girlfriend. “I don’t know how she knew about it. Probably some other guy.”

  He sipped his beer. Everyone heard Holly step down into the water, and they turned to see. She stepped out away from the bank.

  “Oh, man, that feels fucking awesome,” she said. She was under the water up to her shoulders, and she turned and looked back up to shore. “It feels really great!”

  Steam stirred around on the surface where she swirled the water.

  “How deep is it?” Erin called.

  “I can touch bottom.” She started to stand up, then dropped back down into the water. “It’s probably about four feet.”

  They were silent for ten seconds. Everyone stared at the fire, and they listened to Holly swimming around out on the water.

  “Okay, fuck it,” Todd said. He stood up and walked over to the blanket.

  Like Holly, his back faced the group. He untied his shoes and then stepped out of his jeans. Carson watched him the whole time, glancing at Erin who was grinning.

  “You wear tighty whities,” she howled.

  “Hey!” he said.

  She was laughing and doubled over in her lawn chair. Erin grinned at her. They all looked at him, and he looked over his shoulder somewhat irritated with them. Then, he pulled off his T-shirt and pulled his underpants down.

  Erin whistled, and Carson howled, “Take it off!”

  He had a nice looking ass, they both realized. The two freshmen girls both blushed but smiled. He stepped down into the water and started swimming out from shore. The pond was about forty feet across, and Holly was nearly on the other side.

  • •

  Carson was the last to enter the water. Everybody was splashing around and the girls were staying mostly together a few feet from the guys in the dark, but they were all having a great time and the hot water felt incredible. It was the first time Acacia and Jordyn had ever been skinny-dipping with boys.

  Carson heard something in the woods beyond the SUV. She was alone on the shore and still had some beer to finish. Her head came up, and she looked into the woods. It was pitch black, and the snow continued to fall gently. Carson leaned forward.

  She heard a twig snap, and something made a low burbling sound. A jolt of adrenaline struck her like a heart attack, and she struggled to breathe.

  “Guys, I think I heard something,” she called.

  Nobody out in the water heard her. They were giggling and splashing around, and one of the guys had invaded the girl’s circle. It was Dennis, and the girls were all splashing him mercilessly and laughing.

  She looked into the darkness.

  “Come on in the water!” Erin called.

  Carson turned and saw the steam out over the pond. The girls were twenty-five feet from shore and closely surrounding Dennis, splashing him with water. The other three guys were ten feet away from them, and finally Dennis managed to get away.

  He laughed and then sighed, a safer distance from the girls’ splashing.

  Carson stood up from her lawn chair and walked over toward the SUV. She saw her reflection in the tinted, darkened glass on the back window, and she thought she looked like a dork. The hood of her ski jacket was up over her head.

  Everybody else was down in the water, having a great time, and she was the one who was nervous and bashful and didn’t want to get naked in front of everyone else. She stared into the woods beyond the SUV a few moments more, then looked at her reflection again and whispered, “You are such a dork.”

  She walked back down to the blanket, undressed, and piled her clothes on the girls’ stack. She stood there buck naked for a second, turned and opened the cooler, grabbed another beer out of the ice, and then walked out into the water, cracking the can open as she went. She sipped the beer. It was ice cold.

  The hot water felt really, really good.

  • •

  “Hey, guys, did you see that?” Acacia said.

  She’d seen something move by the back of the SUV in the darkness. They all stood out in the middle of the thermal pond. The guys were a few feet away, except for Eddie who had paired up with Jordyn. Eddie and Jordyn were on the far side of the pond from the group, kissing one another in the steam and water.

  “Maybe you saw a wild animal,” Clark teased her.

  “No, I’m serious,” she said. “I thought I saw something.”

  Her hair was wet, and she wiped water back from her face. She started to wade toward the SUV, so as to see better through the snowfall.

  Carson said, “I thought I heard something up there a minute ago, too.”

  “All of you are paranoid,” Dennis said.

  “No, I heard something,” Carson said. She looked at Acacia. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know. It was kind’a low to the ground.”

  Todd said, “It’s probably a raccoon or something.”

  Clark looked at Dennis and Todd. Everyone heard Eddie and Jordyn making out in the water. Jordyn made little gasping sounds, and everyone looked over in their direction. It was hard to tell what they were doing exactly in the darkness with the steam on the water’s surface. Their lips were locked; that was for sure.

  Clark called sarcastically to him, “Hey, Eddie, there’s a bear up on the shore. We need you to check it out.”

  Eddie and Jordyn continued kissing, but Eddie’s hand rose up from behind Jordyn’s back. He gave Clark the finger.

  The group of four remaining girls and three guys looked at one another.

  Dennis said, “It’s probably like a chipmunk or something. Seriously. I’ll check it out.”

  Everyone nodded and looked toward the shore where the SUV reflected the campfire’s light. No one else said anything for a moment, and Dennis started swimming toward shore. Everyone watched him as he stepped up out of the water onto the blanket. He grabbed a big towel from the lawn chair and wrapped it around his waist. Everyone watched him as he looked into the darkness.

  He didn’t see anything at first, then his eyes caught the tracks in the snow near the back left corner of the Explorer. They were big tracks.

  Clark called from the water, “What do you see, man?”

  Dennis turned and called out, “It looks like some kind of tracks, like an animal.”

  One of the girls actually said, “Oh, shit.”

  Dennis’s body had become tense. The group out on the water couldn’t tell whether he was putting them on or was for real. They saw him bend over and grab his boots from the edge of the blanket.

  Man, it’s cold, he thought.

  Still wearing the towel around his waist, he grabbed his ski jacket and put it on. He felt the keys in the right front pocket, and he walked from the blanket through the snow toward the back of the SUV.

  Everyone out on the water watched him vanish into the darkness beyond the back of the Ford.

  He was gone for twenty seconds. Carson began to worry.

  “What is he doing?” she said.

  Todd started to call out,
“Denn—?”

  But his voice fell silent because everyone in the water heard a blood-curdling male scream. It was Dennis.

  His scream lasted five seconds, then dropped silent for three seconds, and then started again for another five seconds. It was like no other scream any of them had ever heard. It was like he was being ripped wide open.

  “What the hell?!” Holly said.

  “He’s screwing with us,” Todd started to say.

  “Like hell that was a fake scream,” Carson said.

  Everyone froze. They were terrified. They waited for Dennis to come around the back of the SUV to say “I got you!” But another ten seconds passed, and he didn’t appear.

  Everyone began looking around them on the pond. They realized how dark it was beyond the shore in every direction. They were surrounded by pine forest. The snow continued to fall.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Eddie said.

  He and Jordyn waded over to the rest of the group. Carson looked up at the blanket on the shore. All their clothes lay piled up there. Everyone stood in the water. It was only about four feet deep.

  “I think he’s fucking with us,” Todd said.

  “Fuck you, he’s fucking with us!” Carson said.

  “Shut up!” Holly yelled. “All of you! Shut the hell up!”

  They fell silent. Everyone had trouble breathing.

  “Is he screwing with us?” Carson shrieked.

  She grabbed Todd’s shoulders and swung him around. She tried to shake him.

  “Is he fucking screwing with us?” she said again.

  “Let go of me!” he yelled.

  There was a crunching sound beyond the SUV. It sounded like something heavy was snapping through the tree branches. Because of the unusual acoustics on the water, it was difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from. It sounded like it moved over toward the front of the SUV.

  Whatever it was, it was staying up in the woods just beyond the shore.

  “Dennis?” Todd called. “Dennis, man!”

  Everything grew silent.

  Everybody froze. Everybody stayed put. Nobody moved.

  They stayed that way for another thirty seconds. The group stayed together out in the middle of the pond. Everybody kept looking up toward the shore near the campfire and SUV.

  Acacia started to cry. She whimpered. The water kept licking up at them as they pivoted one way, then the other, scanning the dark snow-covered bank. The snow was six inches deep, and sparks shot up from the fire.

  The forest was silent all around them.

  They stayed still another minute, not saying a word. Everybody was afraid to move. They felt safe in a group, even if everybody in the group was terrified. Todd, Carson, and Holly tried calling up to the shore again for Dennis, but there was no response.

  Another minute passed.

  Everyone listened for sounds from the shore. There was nothing.

  Thirty more seconds passed.

  “Screw this,” Eddie said. “He’s up there fucking around!”

  Eddie started wading through the water toward the SUV.

  “Eddie, wait!” Todd said, but Eddie stepped up from the water onto the blanket.

  He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. He looked into the darkness and glanced at the campfire.

  “Dennis!” he called.

  Silence.

  “Dennis, man, quit screwing around,” he said. “You got us. We’re all friggin’ scared.”

  Silence.

  “Dennis, man, come on, dude,” he called. “If I’ve gotta come back there and find you, I’m gonna kick your ass. I’m not fucking around, man. Come on! Quit fucking around.”

  Silence.

  The group out in the water watched him. He turned, looked out at them, and shrugged.

  “Do you see anything?” Todd called.

  Eddie shook his head. Todd started to wade toward the bank.

  Erin said, “Todd, don’t leave us out here.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Todd said. “Just chill.”

  The five girls—Carson, Holly, Erin, Jordyn, and Acacia—and Clark watched Todd step up from the water onto the blanket. He didn’t even bother with a towel for a minute, but stood beside Eddie, holding his arms close to his chest for warmth.

  “What is it?” Todd said.

  “I don’t see anything,” Eddie said.

  Todd saw the tracks on the ground by the back of the truck at the exact same moment as Eddie. Eddie pulled on his shoes, and stepped over to them. Todd shivered and grabbed a towel from the lawn chair. He wrapped it around his waist.

  “What is it, man?” he said. He knelt and grabbed his shoes and his ski jacket.

  Carson called from the water, “What do you see?”

  Eddie said to Todd, “Dude, these are bear tracks.”

  Todd stepped over toward him. It was very cold with the chill of the water on him, even with the ski jacket on.

  Eddie placed his hands in the tracks. His hands—side by side and palms down—were not as wide nor as long as the single track. The tracks led up into the woods. Todd glanced back at the trail from which the Explorer had come thirty feet to their left.

  The girls out on the water couldn’t see them.

  “Screw this,” Carson said. “I’m not staying out here.”

  She started to wade toward shore.

  “Wait up,” Holly said.

  Clark, Erin, Jordyn, and Acacia followed Holly and Carson’s lead. They all started heading toward the blanket up on the snowy shore. The fire crackled, and sparks shot up into the air every few seconds. The snow continued to fall.

  No one cared that each was naked. They stepped up onto the blanket and started passing the towels around. They saw Eddie and Todd leaned over at the SUV’s back left corner.

  “Everybody into the SUV,” Todd said.

  It was cold.

  “What is it?” Carson said. Her hair was wet, and she grabbed her ski jacket from the pile.

  “Into the SUV,” Todd said again, “now!”

  The girls started to protest, but Todd stood up and started to approach them.

  “We’ve got bear tracks,” he said. “Big bear tracks. Get into the SUV!”

  Suddenly, they heard something in the woods just beyond Eddie. It was large, and it snapped through the branches of trees.

  Carson tried to grab up her clothes. Todd threw open the back right door on the SUV.

  “Come on, now!” he yelled. The girls ran for the door.

  The ice and snow was cold on their bare feet. Each carried what clothes they could.

  They heard a low burbling sound from just beyond the woods.

  Eddie said, “Oh, shit, man!”

  Acacia screamed. Todd grabbed her and forced her into the SUV. Something hit the back right window hard. Everyone but Todd, Clark, and Eddie were in the SUV.

  Suddenly, Eddie screamed. All of the girls inside the Explorer screamed.

  Todd looked at Clark. He roared, “Get in the front!”

  Clark threw open the front passenger-side door and started to climb inside, but he slipped and hit his head hard on the doorframe and fell out onto the snow.

  Eddie continued to scream. Todd heard something mauling him on the left side of the Ford. Because of the darkness, snow, and tinted windows, he couldn’t see through the truck. He glanced down and saw Clark lying in the snow to the right of the passenger-side door.

  “Shit!”

  He started to kneel down to pick him up. His back was fully exposed. The girls were going nuts inside the SUV, screaming their heads off. Todd grabbed Clark’s arm and tried to pick him up. Then, he heard something behind him, no more than five feet away.

  “Motherfucker!” he screamed, dropping Clark’s arm and scrambling up into the SUV.

  He managed to get the door shut, just as something huge passed by it.

  He climbed over into the driver’s seat and so didn’t see what was behind him. The girls screamed. Then,
Clark started to scream outside the Explorer.

  It was similar to the scream they’d heard Dennis scream a few minutes before. One long scream for five seconds, then a pause for three seconds, then another long five-second scream. Todd tried to look out the front window, but the glass outside was covered with a fresh coating of snow.

  Whatever it was, it had pulled Clark’s body in front of the SUV. Acacia and Jordyn were going nuts. Holly and Erin yelled at them to shut up. Carson caught a glimpse of the animal just before it passed in front of the truck.

  She couldn’t see very well packed into the back seat with the other four girls. Todd hit the power locks, and all the doors locked. He tried to turn on the windshield wiper to clear the front window of the snow, but the keys were not in the ignition.

  He pounded on the horn.

  Carson climbed into the passenger seat beside Todd.

  Acacia screamed, “We’re gonna die! It killed them! We’re all gonna die!”

  Erin kept shouting, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  Todd kept the horn depressed.

  Carson shrieked, “Where are the keys?”

  Holly cried out, “We don’t have the keys?!”

  Something hit the front of the Ford, and the whole thing shook. The snow on the front windshield slid a little, but not enough to enable them to see through it. Their body heat and the moisture from the lake had caused the side windows to steam up. They couldn’t see out of the SUV at all.

  A bloody hand struck the back left window. It made a streaking sound sliding down the glass. Acacia turned and saw the hand and arm, and she screamed. The window was fogged, and it was impossible to see who it was, but he was alive.

  “Open the door!” Jordyn shouted.

  “Don’t open the door!” Erin screamed.

  They each looked at the back left window. The body on the other side of the steamed-up glass leaned closer to the window. Todd couldn’t see it from his position in the driver’s seat.

  Jordyn shrieked, “It’s Eddie!”

  She started to reach over Holly to open the door, but Eddie was struck by something outside and was yanked away from the window. A moment later, he screamed. It sounded like the animal was ripping him in half. Holly screamed at her to get back.

  Jordyn fought with her, trying to reach the door handle. Her fingertips touched it, her arm and hand stretched out all the way.