What Waits in the Woods

by Kieran Scott

  Callie swallowed hard. She’d never heard Lissa’s voice so soft and coaxing. For once, she wasn’t ordering her around or telling her what was best. She was asking. Maybe this was her way of apologizing for what she’d revealed during I Never. If so, it wasn’t enough.

  Still. Callie glanced over her shoulder. Did she really think she was going to double back the way they’d come and sleep by herself in the woods tonight with no tent, in the rain? She was sure that if she did decide to go, at least Jeremy would come with her, but the thought made her throat close over. She couldn’t even look at him right now.

  Besides, after seeing that knife, she really did wonder if someone was following them, and hate it as she might, that whole safety in numbers thing was probably true.

  Then she heard a laugh. A light, airy, but somehow sinister laugh just a touch louder than the sound of the raindrops pitter-pattering against the leaves. Her blood stopped cold.

  “What was that?” she asked, turning.

  The laugh sounded again. Lissa—brave, irreverent Lissa—grabbed her hand and held on tight. Callie’s eyes darted around at the trees. There was no telling what direction the laugh had come from. She remembered how last night, Lissa had been standing right next to her and Callie hadn’t even known. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

  “Is that the laugh you heard before?” Lissa asked Jeremy.

  “Oh, so now you believe me?” he hissed through his teeth.

  “Do you think it’s whoever left that knife there?” Callie asked tremulously. “Do you think the knife was, like, a warning?”

  Another laugh—mocking, cruel. Callie’s shoulders tightened.

  “Who’s there?” Jeremy shouted. “Whoever you are, come out.”

  Silence.

  “You guys,” Penelope whispered, “maybe we should—”

  They heard it again. A knowing chuckle this time, and louder—closer.

  “He’s right behind us,” Callie whispered.

  There was a crunch of leaves, a tumble of rocks downhill, and Lissa’s eyes widened horribly.

  “Run!”

  Clutching hands, Callie and Lissa dove into the muddy lake with Jeremy and Pen right on their heels. Callie’s feet sank so quickly she almost lost her balance, but Lissa clung to her, holding her upright. The water swirled up to Callie’s knees. When she tried to lift her foot, the mud held tight to her boot, sucking at the thick rubber sole as if trying to swallow her whole.

  “I can hardly move!” Penelope whimpered.

  “Callie, are you okay?” Jeremy called from behind, but Callie ignored him.

  She managed a step, then another, then another, but it was slow, slogging work. She gasped for air as she wrenched herself free of the mud, each step more difficult than the last. About a third of the way across, something slick brushed her shin and she screeched.

  “What?” Lissa demanded.

  “Something touched me!” Callie wailed. “There’s something swimming around in here.”

  “Who cares? Just keep moving.”

  Lissa’s fingers were clenched so tightly around Callie’s that the knuckles felt like marbles against her bone. Lissa was moving faster than Callie, of course, their arms now outstretched between them as Lissa tried to drag Callie along. Callie’s legs strained and quivered from the effort of trying to keep up. She looked over her shoulder, past Jeremy and Penelope, at the path from which they’d come.

  No one was there, but Callie felt at every moment that someone was going to come crashing through the woods, teeth bared, knife glinting in the rain. All she wanted to do was run. But she couldn’t. She could barely take a step.

  Lissa, Penelope, and Jeremy had been wrong. The Skinner was still out here. And he was coming for them.

  Finally, Lissa let out a frustrated groan and let go of Callie’s hand, racing for dry land. Penelope moved past Callie as well. The two girls were nearing the far side of the swamp.

  “Cal. Are you okay?” Jeremy asked, coming up beside Callie.

  “I’m fine,” Callie snapped as she strained to lift her right foot. It suddenly pulled free and she fell sideways, careening into Jeremy. Tears filled her eyes, threatening to spill over.

  “Here. Let me help you.”

  He went to put his arm around her, but she shoved him away. “I said I’m fine.”

  Jeremy’s eyes were pleading. “Come on, Cal. Let me help.”

  Callie heard a branch snap and decided it would be better to accept Jeremy’s offer than to get skinned alive by a psychopath. She locked her arm around him and he did the same to her. Together they found a rhythm for their steps and struggled slowly but surely to the far side of the swamp.

  The second they hit dry-ish land, Callie detached herself from Jeremy. The rain had slowed to a mist-like drizzle and she could see more clearly across the water than she had from the other side.

  Penelope had both hands pressed into a tree trunk as she gasped for air. Lissa paced back and forth, catching her breath, her gaze on the far shoreline.

  “What is it?” Callie gasped, following Lissa’s sight line. “Who’s there?”

  “There’s no one,” Lissa said, her hands on her hips. “Nothing.”

  Callie’s brow knit. “But we all heard—”

  “Yeah. We did,” Lissa confirmed with a nod. “I think we should keep moving.”

  “Um, you guys?”

  Jeremy had jogged ahead a few steps and was standing next to the trail marker they’d spotted from the other side of the swamp. It was a metal square that looked like it had been through a trash compactor, its green paint chipped away from the edges.

  Callie’s heart skipped a startled beat. “Wait. Isn’t that supposed to be blue?”

  “Yep. It most definitely should be blue,” Jeremy said.

  Penelope lifted her head. Wet wisps of her brown hair were stuck to her cheeks like dark veins. “We’re on the wrong trail?”

  “No,” Callie said in a low voice. “No, no, no.”

  “We’re lost?” Penelope asked, her green eyes filling with panic.

  “No way. We’re not lost.” Lissa lifted her chin, but there was none of the usual bravado in her voice. “We’re not. We’re just—”

  “On the wrong trail!” Jeremy shouted.

  Lissa scowled but had no response. Callie’s chest filled with an awful, prickling dread.

  “We took the wrong path after the bridge, didn’t we?” she said quietly. “We should have doubled back like Jeremy said.”

  “No,” Lissa protested, shaking her head. “We cut right through the woods and found the trail.”

  “Yeah, well, clearly we found the wrong trail,” Callie shot back. She pressed her face into her hands, holding back a wave of terrified tears. “And now there’s some crazy, laughing psycho coming after us. What’re we going to do, you guys? What’re we going to do?”

  She looked back across the swamp, wondering if whoever was out there knew they were lost. If that was why he was laughing. She wondered what he was planning to do with that knife.

  “I can’t take this,” Penelope said shakily, ripping her backpack off and throwing it at the ground like it had betrayed her. When she took her cell phone out of her shorts pocket, Callie’s heart leapt. Visions of rescue vehicles and clean towels and pizza boxes danced in her head. “Anyone have an issue with me using this now?”

  Lissa pushed her hands into her hair. “Come on, Pen. You can’t just—”

  “Callie’s right!” Penelope interjected, startling everyone with the sheer force of her voice. “There’s some crazy person out there laughing at us! I’m not just going to stand here and wait for him to decide which one of us he wants to gut first.”

  “Hey there!” someone shouted. “You guys need some help?”

  Callie spun around as a complete stranger materialized out of the woods.

  Callie’s heart fluttered around inside her chest like it wanted to escape. Not that she could blame it. She wanted to escape. I
nstead she ended up gripping Jeremy—the one person she really didn’t want to be touching right then—for support.

  The stranger was tall, with brown shaggy hair that fell over his ears. His face was tan and his arms strong, plus he had the widest calf muscles Callie had ever seen. There was a flannel shirt tied around the waist of his green cargo shorts, and sweat stains beneath the arms of his light gray T-shirt. As he got closer, Callie could see that he had a small white scar just above his right eye, and that he was young—not much older than her and her friends—and handsome. There was a well-worn gray backpack secured to his back with a sleeping bag tethered to it by a set of blue bungee cords. No tent, as far as Callie could see.

  “Where did you come from?” Lissa asked the stranger, stepping up in front of the others.

  The guy raised his hands. They looked like hard-worked hands, with short scraggly nails and dirt creased into the knuckles. It was a gesture of peace—of surrender, even—but Callie’s fists clenched.

  Someone had been laughing at them. Laughing in a sinister way. And this guy was the only person they’d seen since starting out on the trail the morning before. She could do simple math.

  “Just out here for a hike like you guys. Except unlike you, I know where I am.”

  “How do you know we’re lost?” Penelope asked, clutching her phone to her chest as she stepped closer to Jeremy.

  Callie felt a flash of annoyance and jealousy. If Jeremy was going to be protecting anyone around here, it was going to be her. But even as she thought it, she felt stupid and childish. They were all in danger. They were all scared. Her love life, she could figure out later. If there was a later.

  The guy chuckled. It didn’t sound like the scary chuckle they’d heard earlier, but it was hard to tell.

  “Because no one hikes this trail. Not anymore.” He tilted his head toward the green trail marker. “Park service closed this one down ten years ago thanks to a series of mudslides. This is nothing,” he said, gesturing toward the swamp they’d just crossed. “Parts of it farther up are completely wiped out.”

  Callie, Jeremy, and Penelope turned to glare at Lissa. Her ears quickly flushed pink.

  “So we were right,” Jeremy said. “This isn’t the trail Zach told you about. We should have gone back to the bridge.”

  “And you know this how?” Lissa demanded of the stranger, ignoring Jeremy.

  “I grew up on this mountain.” The guy took a wide-legged stance. When he crossed his arms over his chest the muscles strained, tightening the hems of his sleeves. “My dad was a park ranger. My name’s Ted, by the way. Ted Miller.”

  No one said a word. Callie and her friends looked at one another, wondering whether they should introduce themselves.

  The corner of Ted’s mouth curled up. “This is the part where you guys tell me your names.”

  “Did you hear a laugh a few minutes ago?” Callie asked, trying to test him.

  His thick eyebrows rose. “A laugh? What kind of laugh?”

  “Like a … taunting laugh,” Penelope said quietly. “It wasn’t you, was it?”

  Callie’s fingernails dug into her palms. One bit tighter and she was going to draw blood, but she couldn’t seem to unclench. Fear gripped her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “Got no reason to laugh.” Ted shook his head slowly. “I’m out here alone and it’s not like the trees are telling any jokes.” Now he did laugh, and it was a pleasant, jovial sound, nothing like what had set Callie’s teeth on edge before. She managed to relax, ever so slightly. “So are you going to tell me your names, or should I just move on?”

  Callie hesitated. But if this guy was going to ax murder them in the middle of the woods, it hardly mattered whether he knew their names or not.

  “I’m Callie,” she offered quietly. “That’s Lissa, Penelope, and Jeremy.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Ted gave Callie a friendly smile. “So, listen, I know the trails up here like the back of my hand. I can get you back to civilization, if you want.”

  “Really?” Callie squealed automatically.

  “Oh, we want,” Penelope said, then looked at Lissa and blushed, as if she’d spoken out of turn.

  “I’m not sure, you guys,” Jeremy said. “We don’t even know him.”

  “Hey. Standing right here.” Ted waved.

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Jeremy asked pragmatically.

  “Look,” Lissa spoke up. “What we really want is to get to the trail stop. We know where we’re going from there.” She reached back and tugged the band out of her hair, combing her wet blond locks out over her shoulders. “Can you tell us how to get there?”

  “The trail stop?” Ted extricated one arm from his backpack strap, then the other, letting it drop to the ground. He crouched over it and unzipped the top. Callie, Jeremy, and Penelope took an instinctive step back. Who knew what he had in there? “You mean the Twin Pines stop? You’re at least fifteen miles from there.”

  “What?” Penelope breathed.

  “Yep. How far did you guys veer off course?” He said this lightly, like it was some kind of joke. Then he pulled out a bulging bag of trail mix, tore it open, and held it out to Lissa. “Hungry?”

  Lissa didn’t move. Callie’s stomach grumbled. There were peanuts in the trail mix. And raisins. And chocolate.

  “I’ll have some,” she announced.

  Jeremy shot her a betrayed look, but she ignored it. She’d had nothing but a handful of Goldfish, three apple slices, and a couple of M&M’s since breakfast and had probably burned more calories hiking than she ever had in her entire life. She didn’t see the harm in taking a bit of trail mix when it was offered. She reached in for a handful and stuffed it in her mouth. The chocolate melted on her tongue. It was as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

  Penelope was the next to step forward, then—grudgingly—Jeremy. Lissa took nothing.

  “Listen, my cabin is a couple days’ hike south of here. I can get you there and avoid the parts of the trail that are missing.” Ted stood up and popped a few peanuts into his mouth. “We have a booster, so your cell phones will work and everything.” He looked down at their feet, which were dripping with gloppy mud. “And showers.”

  Callie swallowed the rest of the trail mix. A couple days. That meant they could still make it back to civilization before Sunday—before her dad came to pick her up and before her mom got home. She wasn’t at all confident that she could make it through a couple of days—especially not now that there was going to be some serious awkwardness between her, Jeremy, and Penelope. But what was the alternative? At least Ted had a direction for them to walk in—a destination. And a shower sounded like heaven to her.

  “Come on, Lissa,” Penelope ventured, fiddling with her bracelets. “At least if we go with him we’ll know we’re going the right way.”

  “Yeah, if he’s telling the truth,” Lissa shot back.

  Ted lifted his hands again. “Hey. I’m just trying to help.”

  Jeremy looked away, his jaw set, like something had seriously angered him. What was that, exactly? Callie wondered, annoyed. The chance to get home in one piece?

  “Hey!” Callie said, turning to Lissa. “If we go with him, you still have a shot of making it home in time for soccer practice. But if we go it alone, who knows how long we might be out here?”

  “She’s right,” Penelope said, brightening. “There’s no way you make starting forward if you miss the first practice.”

  Lissa’s lips twisted to one side, and Callie knew she was deep in thought. Callie held her breath. Lissa couldn’t really say no, could she? Not when there was literally no other conceivable course of action.

  “Fine,” Lissa said finally. Then she took a step to the side, giving Ted a wide berth. “Lead the way.”

  Callie almost wanted to high-five Penelope behind Lissa’s back. They’d done it. They’d gotten Lissa the Great to cave. But Callie resisted. When Penelope shot a tentative smile at her, Callie looked away.


  “Cool,” Ted said. “Let’s go.”

  He started up the trail and they all fell into line behind him. It wasn’t until Ted was just cresting the small incline that Callie noticed the swipe of blood across the back of his shorts—four long smears. Like fingerprints.

  “You can put that away, you know,” Ted said, looking over his shoulder at Penelope, who was still clutching her phone hours later. The sun was starting to set, turning the sky an inky shade of blue. “You’re never gonna get a signal out here.”

  “I can’t help it,” Penelope said, holding the phone close to her chest. “It’s like a security blanket.”

  Ted pushed a low branch out of the way and held it for the rest of the group, like a doorman holding open a door. Callie kept staring at the bloodstains on his shorts, trying to get up the guts to ask him about them. Was she the only one who’d noticed?

  “I’ve got a security blanket, too,” he said as the group crept past him, one by one. “It’s called a gun.”

  Callie’s heart plummeted. He wasn’t serious, was he?

  “What?” Jeremy snapped.

  Ted let the branch whip back into place behind them and raised his hands again. “Kidding. Chill, Little Man.”

  Jeremy glowered and Callie felt an odd little thrill of triumph. She was still no closer to forgiving Jeremy for his betrayal, for keeping his relationship—or whatever it had been—with Penelope a secret. So now it kind of made her feel gratified that someone was making him feel bad.

  Which, of course, made her wonder if she was an awful person.

  Following Ted, they came to a plateau in the mountainside and a wide, grassy area surrounding a glassy pond. The surface of the pond was so placid, it perfectly reflected the scenery around it—the mountaintops and trees, the clouds that had finally broken up into wispy curls.

  “It’s getting dark,” Ted said. “We should set up camp here.”