What Waits in the Woods

by Kieran Scott

  “Why’s that?”

  Penelope crawled inside her sleeping bag, lying flat on her back and staring up at the ceiling. Slowly, she folded her hands across her chest in a prim, pious way that made Callie randomly think of a body laid out in a coffin.

  “I just worry that it’s going to get her into trouble someday.”

  A twig cracked.

  Callie sat up in the dark, her heart racing. Was that psycho back, getting ready to leave them more gifts around the fire? Her fingers curled into the puffy polyester of her sleeping bag as she held her breath. It was so pitch-black inside the tent, she couldn’t see as far as her toes.

  There was a soft crunch outside, then a pause, then a crunch, then a pause. Callie squeezed her eyes closed. Someone was walking alongside the tent, so close she was sure that if she pushed her hand into the vinyl wall, she could brush his leg through the fabric.

  Crunch. Pause. Crunch. Pause. Crrrrunnnch.

  Callie whipped around, grabbed her headlamp, and turned it on. The light illuminated the lumpy forms of Lissa and Penelope tucked inside their sleeping bags.

  “Jeremy?” Callie called shrilly.

  The footsteps stopped. Callie bit down on her tongue. Her back trembled. She clung to the strap on the headlamp, her palms tacky with sweat.

  “Jeremy? Ted? Is that you?”

  Lissa stirred, letting out a soft sigh as she rolled over in her sleep.

  Silence.

  “Jeremy, please,” Callie whispered. “Please, if it’s you … say something.”

  Callie gnawed at her lip. She could hear the person breathing. Could practically feel the rhythm of his breath. She bit down harder and tasted blood.

  Don’t hurt us, she thought, her shoulders curling in on her. Please, please, don’t hurt us.

  Then, suddenly, the footsteps started again, much faster this time. Callie was sure that whoever it was meant to dive into their tent, but instead the footsteps took off. Seconds later she heard a rustle of branches, and then, nothing. Nothing but her own ragged breathing.

  A single tear spilled down Callie’s cheek as she tried to get hold of herself. Part of her wanted to wake up the girls and tell them what had happened, but what was the point now? The time to wake them, she realized, would have been when she’d first heard the footsteps.

  Measuring her breathing as best she could, Callie slowly got onto her hands and knees and inched toward the tent door. She closed her eyes, said a quick prayer, and ever so carefully unzipped the door until a small flap fell forward toward her. The crickets were so loud it was like being at a sold-out stadium show. Callie squinted into the darkness and saw that Ted was still in his sleeping bag. He snorted and rolled over. Alive.

  Callie let out a breath and glanced toward Jeremy’s tent. She was wide-awake now. There would be no more sleeping. And, suddenly, she wanted more than anything to just make up with Jeremy. He was right after all. She’d forgiven Penelope. If she could forgive Jeremy, too—and explain that she had zero interest in Ted—then the rest of this awful trip would at least be slightly less awful.

  An owl hooted. Callie gathered up all her courage, unzipped the door the rest of the way, and stepped out into the night.

  Wait a minute. What am I thinking?

  The second Callie was out in the open air, she realized what a target she was. Two minutes ago she’d heard someone creeping outside her tent and now she was coming out and being all like, “Hey! Here I am! Hope you have your knife, cuz I’m ready to be slaughtered!” What was wrong with her?

  There was a noise deep inside the trees, a great, swooping whoosh. Callie yelped. She ran for Jeremy’s tent and, with nothing to knock on, grabbed the poles and shook the whole structure as hard as she could.

  “Jeremy! It’s me! Wake up!”

  There was a long moment of silence. Callie looked over her shoulder. The eye-level branches in the trees right behind the girls’ tent rustled. Oh, God. What was it? What was out there?

  “Callie?”

  “Open the door! I need to talk to you,” Callie hissed.

  It seemed to take forever, but finally, Jeremy unzipped the door. Callie practically hurled herself inside.

  “What’s the matter?” Jeremy asked.

  “I heard something,” Callie said, breathless. She felt much better now, being inside, being with him. Even if the walls were made of flimsy cloth, at least there was something between her and the outside world. And if she couldn’t see the trees, it was harder to imagine the many creatures that could be out there watching her. The prying eyes. The rusty, bloody weapons.

  “Why’re you up?” Jeremy asked with a yawn.

  He sat down on the far side of the small tent. As far away as he could get from her inside the close space, Callie noticed.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said sheepishly. “I heard footsteps outside my tent.”

  “It was probably Ted,” he said acerbically.

  “No. When I looked out he was sleeping.” Callie sat up on her knees, her headlamp hanging around her neck and illuminating her lap. “There was someone out there, Jeremy. I swear.”

  Jeremy huffed a fed-up sigh. “The Skinner does not exist, Callie. Not anymore. Can’t you just get over it?”

  “But someone is following us, Jeremy. Who left those dolls around the fire?”

  He clenched his jaw and looked away, unable or unwilling to answer that one.

  Callie’s face burned with hot indignation. “And why do you keep talking to me like that?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like I’m five years old and stupid?” she shot back.

  “I’m not.” Jeremy’s jaw dropped. “I mean, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. And you did it earlier, too. I already have Lissa talking down to me. I don’t need you doing it, too.”

  “You know, that’s what I don’t get. If you don’t like the way Lissa talks to you, then why do you follow her around like a puppy dog?” Jeremy retorted. “Why did you even come on this trip you clearly don’t want to be on?”

  Callie felt like she’d been punched in the chest. A puppy dog?

  “I thought it was cool that I came on this trip. That I’d do that for my friends,” she whispered harshly. “At least that’s what you said two days ago.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before,” he said, looking away.

  “Before what?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “Before it became totally clear that they mean more to you than I do.”

  Callie stared. They don’t, she thought. You mean more to me than anyone.

  But something stopped her from saying it. Things had changed between them on this hike. Callie had seen sides of Jeremy she didn’t recognize. If he cared about her, he should have been doing everything he could think of to make things right between them, not snapping at her for having a conversation with the guy who was saving their butts. Not criticizing her for the way she acted around her friends.

  “Wow.” He let out a breath. “Way to not deny it.”

  Callie made a move for the door. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’m going back to bed.”

  “I should’ve never come on this trip,” he said.

  Callie looked over her shoulder at him. “Well, then maybe you should go home.”

  He lay down flat on his back and folded one arm over his eyes. She could see nothing of his face.

  “I would if I could,” he said. “Believe me.”

  Callie kept gulping air, but it felt like she was taking in mouthfuls of water. Each one made her choke. She didn’t want to say the words that soured the tip of her tongue, but she had to. She knew she had to.

  “Are we breaking up?” she asked.

  Jeremy didn’t move. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think we are.”

  People today. It’s as if nothing truly matters to them. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is precious. This “live in the now” attitude might work for some desperate thrill-seeker types, but
it’s simply destructive. That’s all there is to it. And that night … that night is a night I will never forget because of how sick they made me. They disgusted me. Sneaking out in the dead of night. As if they were somehow safe. Safe among one another, safe in the woods, safe in the world. They had no respect for themselves.

  And people with no respect for themselves don’t deserve to live.

  “Well, you don’t have to be such a jerk about it!” Penelope shouted.

  Callie’s eyes popped open. It was light inside the empty tent, but not bright, and she could feel the humidity clinging to her skin. It was going to be another long, hot, gray day.

  Three nights down, one to go, she thought instantly.

  Callie rolled over onto her side and her nose hit something hard. Her journal, open facedown, the uncapped pen next to it. She noticed that the skin on her cheeks felt dry and tight, and suddenly realized why. Her heart clenched as everything that had happened the night before came rushing back to her.

  The footfalls outside her tent. The conversation with Jeremy. Then lying here between her sleeping friends, silently crying, the tears streaming down the sides of her face and pooling in her ears.

  Jeremy had broken up with her. Or she had broken up with him. Who knew? What mattered was, they were no longer a couple. Six months, done. Just like that. After she’d gotten control of her sobbing, she’d decided to write about it, and had scrawled six pages about how angry and sad and confused she was. Getting the words down on paper had allowed her to finally fall asleep. She could only hope Pen and Lissa hadn’t snuck a peek at the journal when they’d woken up earlier.

  Trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest, Callie shoved her journal into her bag, then rooted around for a ponytail holder. She quickly plaited her curly hair into a passable braid and sighed, her back slumping.

  She and Jeremy were no longer a couple.

  How was she going to explain this to everyone?

  “Calm down, Pen. He was just making a comment,” Lissa snapped from outside the tent.

  “Stop telling me what to do!” Pen replied.

  Yeah. That didn’t sound good. Callie unzipped the tent and peered out. Ted and Lissa sat on one side of a small fire, bent over a sleeve of crackers and the tube of peanut butter, the sight of which made Callie’s stomach grumble. Penelope hovered beside them, one hand massaging her right temple. Jeremy peeked his head out of his own tent. He and Callie locked eyes and Callie felt like she’d been shot.

  “I’m just saying, there’s no point in making a fire when we have nothing to cook,” Ted said as Callie climbed out of the tent. The air was as thick as honey.

  “Well, I was bored!” Penelope whined. Her hair was pulled back in a haphazard bun and her eyes were hyperalert, like she had downed too much coffee. “You guys all slept so late. What did you want me to do, go out hunting?”

  “Now that would have been useful,” Ted joked.

  Callie stepped around to the side of the tent where she’d heard someone walking last night. She crouched to inspect the ground. There was nothing. No footprints, no broken twigs or crushed grass. But the earth was wet. It had rained at some point overnight. Maybe the weather had cleared the evidence. Callie stood and walked toward the fire just as Jeremy approached from the opposite direction.

  “You were only up so early because you went to bed so early,” Lissa said to Penelope, sandwiching two crackers around some peanut butter and taking a bite. “If you weren’t so lame—”

  “Where’d you get the crackers?” Jeremy asked.

  “Ted had them,” Lissa said. “You want?”

  “Oh, hey! You’re up!” Penelope brightened when she saw Jeremy and Callie. She bent over her weaving supplies and stood up with two bracelets, one in each hand, which she held out to them. Callie saw that one was thick, and the other thin, but they both were made of the same color string. Blue and aqua. Jeremy’s favorite color and hers, woven together in perfect harmony. “I made you matching bracelets,” Pen said with a smile.

  Neither Callie nor Jeremy moved, so Penelope stepped forward and shoved the bracelets into their hands.

  “I just want you guys to know how much I support you. I think you make a great couple and I’d hate it if what happened the other day … you know … got between you.”

  Callie stared down at the colorful bracelet, her eyes so full of tears she might as well have been swimming underwater.

  “Put them on!” Penelope prompted.

  Jeremy shifted from foot to foot, his heavy boots crunching pebbles on the ground. “Um … actually … we broke up.”

  “What?” Penelope gasped.

  “When?” Lissa demanded.

  “Last night,” Callie said. She looked around at the three of them. Penelope stunned, Lissa confused, Ted unconcerned. “In the middle of the night. I went to his tent and …”

  “Dude. When a cute girl sneaks into your tent, you’re not supposed to break up with her,” Ted chided, popping another cracker into his mouth.

  Jeremy shot him a look of death and handed the bracelet back to Penelope. “Thanks anyway. That was nice of you.” Then he turned around and crawled into his tent.

  “Sorry, Pen.” Callie handed her bracelet back, too, then returned to her tent and zipped the door closed behind her. She tried to cry quietly, but she was sure the others could hear her sniffling as she pressed her face into her sweatshirt.

  “Well,” Lissa said finally. “This isn’t gonna be awkward.”

  Callie let out a sob as tiny raindrops began to pitter-patter the roof of the tent.

  “This is all my fault,” Penelope whispered to Callie as they set out for the day’s hike. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No. It’s not,” Callie assured her, watching Jeremy’s back as he speed-walked ahead. Ted was out in front of Jeremy, and Callie and her friends were walking slowly, trying to get themselves some privacy.

  “It’s actually my fault.” Lissa gripped both backpack straps tightly. “If I hadn’t said anything during I Never, you guys would be fine right now. I’m such a jerk.”

  Callie and Penelope both gaped at Lissa. Had she just said something negative about herself?

  “What?” Lissa said with a smirk. “It’s not like I’m gonna go throw myself off the next cliff we come to. Chill.”

  Callie managed a smile—a small one—and looked at the sky. The rain had come and gone, but it was completely overcast. The sky looked white.

  “I’m glad you said something during the game,” Callie told Lissa, even though it wasn’t entirely true. Half of what she’d written last night had been her going back and forth about whether she would have erased the knowledge of Pen and Jeremy if she could have. But the truth was, she’d never know if she would have been better off clueless. She knew what she knew now and there was no reversing it.

  Lissa lifted her eyebrows skeptically.

  “No. I am. I mean, it stinks right now. It hurts. Like, it’s-very-possible-that-we-left-my-heart-back-at-the-campsite kind of hurts.”

  Lissa chuckled, but Penelope fixed her with a concerned look. She placed her small hand against Callie’s arm in a comforting way, and it did make Callie feel better. Just slightly, but still.

  “But it’s better to know than to be kept in the dark,” Callie went on forlornly. “And if Jeremy and I can’t handle it … we can’t handle it.”

  Lissa took a deep breath, watching the guys as they crested a small hill and gradually disappeared down the other side. “That’s very mature of you, Callie.”

  Callie smiled. “Thanks.”

  “But just know if you want me to dead-leg him right now, I will.”

  “Lissa,” Penelope scolded.

  Callie laughed. But she wasn’t angry at Jeremy, really. Just sad. And the idea of him falling over on the trail didn’t exactly bring the happy.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Was that what you were writing about in your diary last night?
” Penelope asked tentatively.

  Callie’s stomach clenched. “You saw my journal? You didn’t read it, did you?”

  “What? No!” Penelope’s eyes went wide and her hand fluttered to her chest. “Callie, I would never. I just saw it next to your sleeping bag, that’s all.”

  “Did you?” Callie asked Lissa, her head light with panic.

  Lissa crossed her heart and shook her head. “I swear.”

  Callie willed her pulse to calm. She would die if anyone ever saw what was in that journal. Simply die.

  “Good. I mean, thank you. I just … I write personal things in there, you know? Thoughts, feelings … stories,” she admitted, scrunching her eyes and waiting for the mocking.

  But it didn’t come. When she looked at her friends again, they didn’t seem horrified or even surprised.

  “I get it,” Penelope said. “Your secret’s safe with us. Right, Lis?”

  “Of course,” Lissa replied.

  Penelope shot Callie a private smile, clearly thinking about the other day when Callie had said the same thing to her. Callie’s heart felt warm. She and her friends were bonding. Just not over the fun, carefree stuff she’d hoped to bond over.

  When they got to the top of the hill, they paused. The guys had stopped in the middle of the trail for a water break, so Lissa and Penelope pulled their bottles out, each offering to share with Callie. She took a swig from Pen’s bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “You guys? Since we’re all down with the honesty … there’s something I want to say,” Penelope announced. She shifted from foot to foot, like she was trying to find solid ground. Callie tensed. Oh, God. What if she was about to admit that when she’d woken up early this morning, she had read through Callie’s journal?

  “Okay. Spill,” Lissa said with a laugh in her voice.

  “I think I might like Ted. Like, like him like him.” Penelope looked directly at Callie as she said this, clearly terrified to meet Lissa’s eyes. Callie’s lungs flooded with relief, but in the next second, her heart thumped with dread. She held her breath, waiting for Lissa’s reaction.