Teen Killers Club

by Lily Sparks

  “On three,” Erik says. “One … two … three!”

  I’m between Nobody and Jada and across from Troy, positioned right at Dog Mask’s knee when we all come to a standing position. It’s way heavier than I’d imagined. I lock my elbows at my sides as we coordinate, in counted-off steps, to carry the dead weight down off the porch and into the wet grass.

  “He’s soooo heavy!” Jada groans.

  “It’s three hundred pounds of dead weight and a box of rocks. What do you expect?” Kurt says.

  After all the digging, my arms twitch with exhaustion and my hands are freezing, but I still flinch away from the folds of the plastic where warm blood pools.

  We thread our way through the trees, shivering as the last heavy raindrops fall from above, the wet grass soaking instantly through our shoes. At least we don’t need flashlights. The night has gone from black to royal blue, and I can just make out the treetops against the sky.

  When we get to the open field, we move faster as the ground slopes to meet the water, and then Dennis says “uh oh!” in his monotone, and the body tilts ominously. Despite all our hands shooting forward to stop it, mummified Dog Mask tips forward and topples onto the ground with a sickening squelch.

  “Dennis, you STUPID BUTTMUNCH!” Troy bellows.

  Dennis scowls, rubbing his hands together. “I couldn’t hold it. My fingers are too cold. Kurt let him fall too, why don’t you yell at him?”

  “Oh please. The kid who comes in last on obstacle course every day is going to blame me for this?!” Kurt’s face is pale, his shoulder high and tensed from when Dog Mask slammed him into the wall. “You and Jada—”

  “Jada what, Kurt?” Jada glares at him. Her hands are as raw as mine from digging. “Did you not see me back in the cabin wrapping this whole monster? Meanwhile you were playing around with his stupid mask—”

  “Hey, my hands are cold too!” I blurt, and everyone looks at me. “Why don’t we hold onto each other’s hands instead of the body?”

  “Like the body just rests on our forearms, and we hold onto each other?” Kurt asks.

  “Yeah?” I breathe on my hands and rub them together. There’s a collective pause. We don’t touch a lot in Teen Killers Club. Not a lot of hugs. But Dennis, clenching and unclenching his fists, nods.

  “That could help.”

  Erik says matter-of-factly, “Sounds good to me. On three, we lift him up again. Ready?”

  We squat down and with a monumental effort somehow lift the body to waist height again. Then, standing in place, we fumble our hands toward each other, grabbing onto each other instead of the corpse. Troy and I lock eyes as both our hands connect, his warm rough fingers digging into my forearms, and I cling back.

  “Good?” Javier calls down the line, looking at me.

  I nod as everyone else agrees, and then we go on, determinedly clutching onto each other, until we reach the small wood dock and the rack of sunburnt canoes.

  The sky is going pale over the water, the stars fading as the black blood of night drains away. I can hear the far-off cries of birds beginning to wake.

  Jada and I, being the smallest, pull one of the canoes off the rack and set it halfway in the water so the others can settle the body into it. There’s a collective sigh of relief as the body eases into the narrow boat, and Erik and Javier pull down a much longer second canoe and fasten it to the first one. We all grab paddles, load into the long boat, and push off from shore into the thick gray mist that hangs over the lake.

  Two strokes out and I can’t see in front of or behind us. The fog turns the world into a flat gray blank, and as we glide forward trails of mist eddy away from our paddles, giving us glimpses of the black water below.

  Erik’s voice cuts through the fog. “This is far enough, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Javier agrees.

  Erik and Kurt, at the very back of the boat, tilt the canoe with the body onto its side until Dog Mask slips into the still black water. It swallows him without a splash, only the slightest gulping sound and a swirl of fine bubbles, and then it’s as though he never existed. We sit shivering in silence, waiting to see if he’ll come back up.

  “I heard Dave and Kate talking,” I begin. I tell the group what I overheard the other night, and what I’d heard just now while getting cleaning supplies.

  “… Whoever headquarters is,” I end.

  “Probably whatever deeply buried government program is funding this place—and I’m guessing it’s very buried, considering the shoestring budget we seem to be on,” Erik says, thoughtfully biting his nails.

  “I’ve been thinking about this since you told us he tried to set off your kill switches,” says Kurt, hunched in his blue hoody, squinting into the water. “Maybe Dog Mask guy started out as a counselor with Dave and Kate, right? But then he started really thinking it over, learning more about the program, and he couldn’t handle it. So he came back to end the program before it even began.”

  “That would fit with wanting to force us out.”

  Troy frowns. “But he was also like ‘we won’t go quietly.’ So who’s the ‘we’?”

  “I’m telling you, he was a Protectionist,” Jada mutters.

  “I guess I just went to prison before Protectionism took off or something. How many of these guys are there?” I ask.

  “It’s hard to say. They’re not just in one political party, everybody seems to agree with them on some level,” Javier says.

  “‘Class As are evil. We know how to test if someone’s a Class A. So let’s just get rid of them all.’” Erik stares across the water.

  “Stupid dumb-ass Protectionists,” Jada grumbles. “I swear as soon as I get retired out of camp, Protectionists are the first people I’m going after.”

  “We get retired?” I blink at her.

  “After fifteen years, remember?” Jada looks around the boat. “That’s what Dave told me when I signed on. And we get paid for every target we do.”

  “I thought it was ten.” Dennis frowns. “Did anyone keep a copy of their contract?”

  “No.” Kurt sounds exasperated. “It’s not like we were in a position to negotiate. I didn’t even read the whole thing, because Dave told us the bus was about to leave and it was sign on or stay in prison. But I remember him saying we’d get paid when we retired, because I remember thinking, like, retired? How old will we be, sixty-five?”

  “They’ll probably just keep sending us out until we don’t come back,” Erik says flatly.

  “Why do you have to be like that?” Javier snaps.

  “Be like what, be honest? I don’t know, maybe because it’s an insult to other people’s intelligence to sit here and act like everything’s fine? Protectionist terrorists might be trying to shut down camp so they can pick us off one by one, but by all means, let’s pretend everything’s just—”

  “He wasn’t a Protectionist.” We all look to Nobody, sitting bolt upright in the middle bench of the canoe. She nervously keeps trying to pull down Troy’s beanie to conceal as much of her perfect face as she can, but it only emphasizes her high cheekbones, softly backlit by the rose gold break of dawn.

  “When we were fighting, I felt it,” she shrinks back a little as we stare, blinking her huge sweet blue eyes and speaking in the voice of a grizzled barfly. “He was having fun.”

  “Going back to what Kurt said,” I say after we all recover from the continual shock that is Nobody’s appearance. “Let’s say Dog Mask was a counselor, like Dave and Kate, but then something changed. He left or got fired, whatever, something turned him against the program. So why would Dave and Kate pretend they don’t know who he is? And why would Kate feel like she should be the one to kill him?”

  “Does it matter?” Javier’s voice is almost pleading. “He’s dead now.”

  “Don’t you want to know who else out there is targeting us?”

  “Everyone is. If we’re being honest.” Javier shoots a look at Erik. “The police, the Protectionists, everyone who
’s not a Class A—like you said, I know what the world thinks of me. How is that different than how it’s always been? It’s never been a fair fight, but I’m still standing. Whoever wants to take me down, they can come try it!

  “COME TRY IT!” he yells across the still water, and then his voice drops again. “Plenty more room where we put the last one.”

  The fog has begun to thin, and through it the rippled surface of the lake is blushing pink, warmed by the sunrise.

  “Yeah,” Jada whispers, smiling at Javier. “Whoever they are, what difference does it make? We’ll take them.”

  “I’m up for another round.” Nobody smiles beatifically, and we all melt at the sight.

  “Can I just tell you guys …,” Troy sighs. “I was saving all my M&Ms for last and then that asshole had to come and die on them and I’m mad about it.”

  I burst out laughing, realizing I had saved my chocolate for last too, and maybe we all had been secretly regretting our lost trail mix, because then they all join in, we’re drifting in the boat in the middle of the lake, whooping with laughter.

  “Can I give you a makeover?” Jada asks Nobody behind me.

  “No.”

  “Can I braid your hair at least?”

  Nobody considers this. “Okay.”

  Jada immediately stands, making everyone cry out as the boat rocks, then hops behind Nobody’s bench and buries her hands in Nobody’s hair. Nobody makes little grumble noises, like a wary cat in the arms of a toddler.

  “Watch out!” Troy elbows me. “Jada is making a move on your girl.”

  “Signal and I broke up,” Nobody announces, and everyone gasps at the drama. I nod, going along with it but more than a little confused, and then Nobody adds: “We’re still friends though.”

  “Always,” I say quickly. I have to admit, there’s a weird surge of rejection involved in getting fake-dumped by my beautiful fake girlfriend. What did I do? I look over at Javier, though, and his knowing smile makes my heart race.

  I can say, for the rest of my life: I have been kissed. And it was perfect.

  “Troy, you hungry yet?” Erik calls.

  “Yeah, man. Let’s head back!”

  “All hands on deck!”

  The canoe moves much faster now. Maybe because our arms got a chance to rest. Maybe because there’s no body dragging behind us. Maybe because we can see the vivid green horizon growing closer, the dewy grass shimmering in the earliest light of a new day.

  We climb up onto the shore, and Javier’s arm brushes mine as he falls in beside me.

  “So you talked to her?” he asks brightly.

  “Actually no. I should check in with her real quick,” I say, cheeks hot.

  “Okay. I’ll save you a seat at breakfast?” he says, reaching down to squeeze my hand.

  So we’re like, a couple now? Am I still dreaming? No, this exhaustion is real. My sore arms are real. If bad things can be real, good things must be too.

  “Yeah, okay,” I want to kiss him on the cheek but it seems like too much, and I see Nobody approaching, so I squeeze his hand back and pull myself away.

  “Hey, you.” I wave to her, and she gives me a stiff nod. “So uh …” I slow our pace so we hang back from the others, who are surging toward the main cabin. “Are we okay? When you said we’d broken up I thought, maybe … like, you’re not mad at me or something are you?”

  “No,” she says. “You just seem like you’re on the verge of a real relationship. So, thought I’d cut you loose publicly.”

  “Wow … that obvious, huh?”

  “Yup.” And she gives me an unearthly smile, then drops it, her angelic brow furrowing. “Don’t get me wrong. I still think he’s dangerous. But it’s your life, so …”

  “Dangerous?” I slow to a stop. “You think Javier is dangerous?”

  “Javier? What?” Nobody frowns. “We’re talking about Erik. You like Erik. It’s obvious.”

  “It is?” Erik’s voice, half-choked with laughter, interjects right behind me. I turn and find myself staring into his smiling face as he claps the water off his hands. He just put away both canoes, he’s been walking right behind us.

  Nobody rolls her eyes and walks on without us, since I’m apparently frozen in place and Erik is hovering over me delightedly, waiting for my response.

  “I don’t,” I stammer. “Like you. At all.”

  One eyebrow goes up, his dimples deepening.

  “At all,” I repeat.

  “Yeah, well, you would if I wanted you to. Like me. Love me even.”

  After a moment, I’m able to swallow. “Not a chance.”

  “Desperately.” He draws the word out. “It’d take, hmmm …” He closes one eye, calculating. “Three weeks? A month tops.”

  “Right.”

  “And after all those accusations of me getting into your head about Rose, a Signal with a crush on me sounds like a way more fun person to hang out with—”

  “Um, I have never believed you could actually get in anyone’s head, to be clear—”

  “Then this is the perfect way to prove it. Three weeks.” Erik’s grin is cocky when I dare a mortified look at him. “Starting from today. I’ll make you fall in love with me if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Um, literally impossible.” I laugh too loud, trying to make it clear I don’t take any of this seriously.

  He stops me short, hand on my shoulder, barely suppressing his own laughter, then swallows his smile and says in a serious tone: “Do you even know how beautiful your eyes are?”

  “I know you’re joking,” I sigh. “But just FYI, I’m about to start a new relationship with Javier so I just can’t with the compliments. Even sarcastic ones.”

  Surprisingly, this is met with silence from Erik. When I glance over, he’s furiously biting at his nails, and then—

  REEEEEE-BOOOM!

  Jagged planks shoot sideways out of the trees ahead of us, followed by a ball of smoke and the thud of what sounds like stones raining down on the main cabin’s tin roof.

  A second blast tears through the air and my ears go silent. A high shrieking note repeats again and again inside my head as Erik’s hot hand closes on my arm. His mouth shapes the words but I can’t hear anything, I only see him shout:

  WOODS! NOW!

  And then we sprint for the trees as fast as our legs can go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Field Trip

  The walls of our cabin collapse in on themselves like the sides of a stomped cardboard box. Dark smoke rises as Erik and I watch through the trees. Nobody sprints over to us and I fold her in my arms, then Dennis appears, followed by a wide-eyed Kurt, Troy trailing him and half-carrying Jada, then at last Javier comes running over to me as Erik slips away. I’m starting to wonder if my hearing will ever come back, when it does, all at once: Nobody’s groan next to my neck, the hiss and crackle of the flames, and Kate calling our names in the distance.

  “HERE! OVER HERE!” Jada screams, and Kate hurries through the trees, cat’s-eye glasses askew, soot streaks across her face.

  “What’s happening?” We mob her.

  “Everything’s under control.” Kate clears her throat. “We just had some issues with the facilities—”

  “Seriously?!” I snap. “Issues with the facilities?! That was a bomb!”

  “It was a boiler malfunction,” Kate says firmly.

  “Boiler? To heat up all the water in the showers, right?” Erik is furious.

  “It’s Protectionists. We’re being attacked!” Jada wails.

  “Quiet! All of you! Please!” Kate grits her teeth and then levels with us: “Listen. Our visitor last night left an incendiary behind, alright?”

  I imagine Dog Mask crawling under our cabin to place the bomb, while just overhead we sat obliviously talking about the meaning of life, and feel sick.

  “So we need to stay away from all the cabins until they’ve been swept for explosives. Dennis, you and I are going to go through the wreckage
with fire extinguishers, find the device, and examine it. Javier and Erik, you are going to stay here until Dave has finished sweeping the main cabin, and help him get supplies together. Everyone else will go up to the obstacle course field and find whatever tents or tarps are in the shed and set up a place where we can camp tonight. Alright? Everyone clear on what they’re doing?”

  We all nod. “Then let’s get moving!” she says, and blows her whistle to send us on our way.

  * * *

  The morning is unusually warm, and by the time the four of us have raked and cleared a patch of lawn and staked a few big tarps over it for tonight, we’re unspeakably gross. Kurt’s and Troy’s shirts are both soaked through with sweat, Nobody’s nails are black with dried blood and Jada’s Spongebob Squarepants nightshirt is stiff with it. Itchy mud squelches between my toes inside my canvas sneakers.

  Dave appears with Erik and Javier toward midday; they’ve gotten a chance to shower and are hauling up bags of food and sleeping bags. When he sees me, Javier drops the bag and starts walking toward me, but Dave blows his whistle:

  “Girls, hit the showers! Kurt and Troy, you’ll go when they come back!”

  For once I’m grateful for Dave’s control freak tendencies; I want to shower before getting too close to Javier, and also am sort of unsure how close to get or how to act now we’re a couple. Do we, like, tell everyone? It’s such a petty thing to announce, considering camp is under siege. I fret about it on the walk down to the cabin, while Jada grills Nobody on why she wears a ski mask.

  “People can be weird when they think you’re pretty,” Nobody shrugs.

  “What, like they’re too nice?” I laugh.

  “Yes,” she says, and her tone makes me stop laughing.

  Dave and Kate’s shower is just as cold as ours, it turns out. And finding clothes from the lost and found is impossible: everything that fits and isn’t hideous was already scavenged; what’s left either doesn’t fit or is, well, hideous. Jada makes it a game: who can put together the worst outfit?

  We’re all laughing uproariously at each other’s clothes as we return to the obstacle course, hair still damp, with me the declared winner: I have too-tight red track pants that say “CHEER” on the butt and a massive navy Big Dogs sweatshirt. (It features a Saint Bernard on a surfboard and the caption “If you can’t surf with the Big Dogs, stay off the Net.”)