What Waits in the Woods

by Kieran Scott

  “Really?” Lissa asked.

  Pen’s gaze flicked in her direction. “Yes. Really. Is that okay? I mean, I know you like him, too.”

  Lissa’s brow knit and she gave Penelope a dubious look. “What? Please! I have Zach.” She looked down the hill, where the boys were readjusting their gear. “Ted’s cute and all, but it’s not like I was going to ask him out or anything. If you really like him, you should go for it.”

  Penelope’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Really?”

  Lissa laughed, her head thrown back, like this was hands down the funniest conversation she’d ever had. “Of course! Come on, Pen. Like I would ever let a guy come between us.”

  She looped one arm around Pen’s neck and dragged her close, knocking Penelope off balance. Even so, Penelope was beaming. For the first time in a couple of days, Callie realized she looked like herself again.

  “Hey, we’re down one couple. Maybe you and Ted’ll pair up and we’ll come out of this with a new one. It’s the circle of life,” Lissa joked, taking another swig of water as she released Penelope.

  Down one couple. It sounded so simple for something that felt so completely world-ending.

  “I don’t know. I still can’t believe you and Jeremy broke up,” Penelope said to Callie.

  Jeremy looked over at them, as if he knew he was being talked about. Callie expected him to glance away quickly, embarrassed or ashamed or whatever, but he didn’t. He just stared, his expression hard. Callie’s stomach suddenly felt hollow.

  She’d thought she knew him. Really knew him. But now she wondered if she ever knew anything about him at all.

  “Hear that?” Ted asked, a bright smile on his face as he paused in the center of the trail.

  Callie held her breath and listened. Penelope leaned toward Ted. Birds chirped merrily in the trees, but there was also a more insistent sound, like a pleasant gurgle.

  “Water?” Lissa asked, her eyes lighting up.

  Ted nodded. “Water.”

  He walked at a fast clip down the hill and the rest of them followed. Callie was careful to keep her distance from Jeremy. Within minutes they had come to a burbling stream fed by a waterfall. Callie gasped at the beauty of the water tumbling over the sudden drop and frothing at its base.

  Lissa dropped her bag and knelt at the water’s edge to splash her face and suck some of the liquid from her palm.

  “You really shouldn’t drink that until Ted purifies it,” Jeremy warned.

  “It’s just snowmelt. I’m sure it’s fine,” Lissa replied, splashing her face and the back of her neck. “What do you think the Native Americans used to drink?”

  Jeremy pushed his hands into the side of a tall boulder, pressing one heel back to stretch his quad muscle. “Native Americans didn’t have to deal with the thousands of pollutants we have today.”

  Callie looked away. How could he be acting so normal and chatty? She’d feel much better if he was being quiet and broody, like her.

  “Native Americans didn’t have to deal with the thousands of pollutants we have today,” Lissa mocked, pitching her voice so high she could have been a cartoon mouse. “When I want a science lesson, I’ll ask you for one.”

  Jeremy flung his bag down right next to Lissa, so close she jumped up. Then she teetered, and Callie thought she might fall into the water. But Ted reached out to grab her. Callie found herself gripping Penelope by the arm.

  “What the heck was that?” Lissa demanded.

  “I’m so sick of your attitude!” Jeremy shot back.

  “Oh, really? Well, I’m sick of your face!” Lissa replied.

  “Lissa!” Callie blurted, then realized that, technically, she wasn’t supposed to be defending Jeremy anymore.

  “You guys, please don’t fight,” Penelope said, closing her eyes and bringing her hands to her head. “I have a headache and this is really not helping.”

  “Great! Now you’re causing Penelope actual physical pain,” Lissa chided Jeremy, getting right up in his face. “Nice work.”

  “She didn’t say it was my fault,” Jeremy replied. “Maybe it’s the incessant sound of your know-it-all voice that’s doing it.”

  “You guys, please,” Callie said quietly.

  “All right, all right!” Ted stood between Lissa and Jeremy and held up his hands. “Penelope’s probably dehydrated and hungry. That could give anyone a headache.”

  Callie noticed that Penelope was trembling. “It’s not a migraine, is it?” she asked her friend. Her aunt Lola got migraines a lot and always needed to lie down in her room with the lights off to get over them.

  Pen shook her head. “I just … I feel all fuzzy.”

  “Let’s sit down, then,” Callie said. She gently took Penelope’s hand and led her over to the water, helping her sit down on a dry rock near the edge. Penelope let her pack slip off her shoulders, then put her head between her knees. She cupped her hands in the water until she had gathered a pool between her palms, then brought it to her face. Water leaked out between her fingers.

  “You okay, Pen?” Lissa asked, coming over.

  Penelope lifted her face. Her skin looked ashen. Tiny droplets of water clung to her long eyelashes. “Is there anything to eat?”

  “I’ll get you some trail mix,” Lissa offered, shooting Jeremy a dark look.

  “I’ve got a couple of traps set up near here,” Ted told them. “Maybe I could get a real lunch together.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Lissa said as she crouched in front of Penelope with about an ounce of trail mix nestled in her hand.

  “Lissa, you stay here and keep an eye on Penelope,” Ted said. “Get a fire going if you can. Caliente and Little Man, you come with me.” Ted turned back toward the trees, but Jeremy didn’t move.

  “Stop calling me Little Man,” he said tersely.

  Ted paused and turned around again, very, very slowly. His chin was lowered, his brow shadowing his eyes. “You gonna start with me, too? Because I don’t think you want to go there.”

  Callie’s heart skipped a beat. Ted sounded like he meant business. Jeremy’s hands curled into fists. For a second no one moved. Callie held her breath. The last thing they needed right now was a brawl.

  “Forget this,” Jeremy said finally.

  He grabbed his backpack from the ground and stormed off, disappearing into the trees. He was gone so fast, it was as if the woods had just gobbled him up.

  “Jeremy!” Callie shouted. “Where’re you going?”

  But there was no reply. There was nothing but the hissing of the water, and the low, eerie creak of the trees in the wind.

  “I’ll go with you guys,” Lissa offered, capping her water bottle after filling it in the stream. “Pen, you’ll be okay here by yourself, right?”

  Penelope nodded and laid herself out on the ground, using her backpack as a pillow. She closed her eyes, wisps of her light brown hair tossed over her face by the breeze. “I’m just gonna rest.”

  “I don’t know. Shouldn’t we wait for Jeremy to get back?” Callie asked, biting her lip worriedly.

  “He’s probably just blowing off some steam,” Ted said, readjusting the knife sheath on his belt. “He’ll be back in a minute.”

  Callie stared at the still trees where Jeremy had disappeared, then slowly looked over at Penelope. “You sure you’re all right out here alone?”

  “It’s fine. Go.” Penelope waved weakly. “If the Skinner shows up, he can have me.”

  Okay. That just seemed like inviting trouble.

  But Lissa turned around and clapped her hands. “All right, then! Let’s go get lunch.”

  “Follow me,” Ted said, heading in the exact opposite direction from the one Jeremy had chosen. Callie glanced over her shoulder for some sign of Jeremy, but there was nothing. She hoped he knew what he was doing out there. She hoped he’d be back by the time they were. She still cared about him, even though she was angry. She wished she could just take back the last few days and start over.r />
  But there was no starting over.

  “Want a sip?” Lissa asked, offering Callie her water bottle.

  “Sure. Thanks.” Callie tipped her head back and let the cool water sluice down her throat. When she righted herself again, she felt dizzy and grabbed Lissa’s arm.

  “You okay?” Lissa asked.

  “Lost, dehydrated, starving, and stuck in the woods with my ex-boyfriend? Sure. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she joked, then sighed. “Sorry if I’ve been kind of out of it today.”

  “Please.” Lissa smirked, stepping over a fallen birch. “None of us are handling this situation very well. Except for Ted the Adventurer.”

  Callie let out a short laugh. “I like that. He does seem pretty cool about being out here, like it’s just another challenge to conquer or something. Guess that’s what happens when you grow up on a mountainside.”

  “Son of a psycho!” Ted shouted suddenly.

  He had stopped a few paces ahead of them.

  “Or maybe not,” Callie said.

  “What’s the matter?” Lissa jogged over to Ted, and Callie quickly followed. He was standing in a tiny patch of dirt, staring down at his trap. It was empty.

  “Oh. You didn’t catch anything?” Callie asked, her heart sinking.

  “No, I didn’t catch anything because the trap was destroyed!” Ted shouted. He crouched over and picked the trap up, then threw it down again with a loud, metallic clatter. Callie had no clue what a rabbit trap was supposed to look like, but she could tell now that the cage part was dented, and there was some kind of spring mechanism that was lolling free when it probably should have been tensed. “What kind of jerk does this?”

  “So there is someone else out here,” Callie said, her pulse quickening.

  “Well, clearly!” Ted shot back. He stood up and faced them. “Honestly, who would do this?” he demanded again, looking at Callie and Lissa with accusing eyes. “I’m serious! Tell me! What’s the point of messing with someone else’s traps? It’s not like you get anything out of it! People suck, you know that?” He leaned back and bellowed toward the sky with clenched fists, the tendons on his neck bulging. “You suck!”

  Callie was frozen in fear. She’d never seen anyone have a fit like this in her life. Lissa stepped in front of her.

  “Ted, just chill,” she said in a low, soothing voice. “We still have the Snickers bar and some cereal and peanut butter. We’ll figure something out.”

  “It’s not that,” Ted said, whirling on them. “I just hate these people who traipse up in here like they own the place—like they have any frickin’ clue—and just take what they want, do what they want. Who do these people think they are?”

  Ted slowly approached Lissa until his nose was mere millimeters from her face. Callie’s breath was short and shallow as she hid behind her friend’s shoulder, wishing she wasn’t such a wuss. Every doubt she’d had about Ted in the past forty-eight hours suddenly blared inside her mind.

  Who is this guy? Where did he really come from? What does he want with us?

  Ted took in a breath, then backed off and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “Clearly this is something I’ve obsessed about a lot. It’s not your fault. It’s theirs. The idiots who have no respect for nature or for other people. You guys are pretty cool. I know you’re not like that.”

  He returned to the trap and crouched next to it again, muttering to himself. Lissa cleared her throat and inched forward.

  “Is there … I mean … is there anything we can do?” she asked. “Jeremy’s pretty good with machines and electronics and stuff. Maybe he could fix it.”

  “They trashed the spring load. The whole thing’s useless.”

  For a long moment, Callie and Lissa simply hovered there, waiting, as Callie wondered why they weren’t just going back to the stream to rejoin Pen and hopefully Jeremy. Her stomach roiled angrily.

  “Let’s go back,” Lissa said finally.

  “Shh …”

  Ted crossed his legs and laid his wrists across his knees with his eyes closed. Callie stared at Lissa.

  What is he doing? she mouthed, wide-eyed.

  No clue, Lissa mouthed in reply.

  Just then a small brown bird flitted up and perched atop the broken cage of the rabbit trap. Ted’s eyes opened and without warning, his hand shot out and grabbed the bird. There was an ugly crack and Callie felt like she would gag.

  “Did you just—” Lissa didn’t have to finish her sentence. Ted dropped the lifeless bird on the ground, its neck snapped.

  Ted looked Lissa and Callie coolly in the eye and a shiver went down Callie’s spine. “Survival of the fittest.”

  “You’re looking a lot better.”

  Ted reached around Penelope’s back and kneaded her shoulder. She blushed, dipping her head forward and smiling. Over a small fire, the carcasses of two small birds popped and hissed. Lissa, Callie, Ted, and Penelope had already eaten two of them.

  Jeremy still had not returned.

  “Thanks. I feel a lot better,” Penelope said.

  Ted jostled her slightly, pulling her in toward his side and hugging her. “See? I told you food and water would do it.”

  Lissa took a swig of water, staring pointedly into the flames. Callie kept her eyes trained on Ted. Because a) she couldn’t believe he was flirting so blatantly with Penelope when it had seemed clear for the last two days that he favored Lissa, and b) she was slightly nervous that at any moment he might reach over and snap Penelope’s neck.

  She also couldn’t stop thinking about the vandalized trap and what it meant. Was the laugher still out there, possibly very close by? Callie shivered in the blistering heat. And where was Jeremy? What had happened to Jeremy?

  “You’re sure staring a lot this afternoon, Caliente,” Ted said suddenly, swiping his grease-stained fingers on his shorts. He took the last two birds off the fire and laid them down on his tarp to cool. “Don’t tell me you’re crushing on me now.”

  The way he said it was so egotistical, implying that he knew both Lissa and Pen were crushing on him already. Which, of course, they were, but still.

  Penelope shot Callie a curious look, but Callie shook her head to tell her no. She was not crushing on anyone. Pen relaxed back on her hands, message received.

  “I’m not staring,” Callie told Ted.

  He cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m sorry if my survival tactics have made you guys uncomfortable,” he said. “But you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “Where’d you learn to do—that?” Callie asked, the words tumbling from her mouth. She was hoping there was some reasonable explanation for what she’d witnessed. That he wasn’t just one of those kids who, at a young age, started killing small animals for sport until he gradually escalated to serial killing.

  “What?” Ted asked. “The birds?”

  “Yeah.” Lissa pushed herself to her feet. “That was really …”

  “Cool?” Ted supplied, lifting one eyebrow.

  Callie fidgeted. “I would have said ‘disturbing,’ but whatever you think.”

  Ted’s face hardened, his lips all but vanishing as he sucked in a sharp breath. “I spent every summer since I was eight at a survival camp out west,” he said. “They taught us how to do everything from building our own shelters to foraging for edible plants to killing anything that moved.” Ted pushed a long branch into the ember pit and a flame suddenly burst to life. “And, by the way, I haven’t heard anyone thanking me for providing lunch.”

  “I said thank you!” Penelope protested, her cheeks reddening.

  Lissa walked over to the water, bent at the waist, and let her hair trail into the stream. After a few seconds she flipped her head back, spraying cold droplets across the ground. A few fell in the fire, hissing and smoking. Ted looked at her appreciatively.

  “Thank you, Ted,” she said flatly.

  Penelope’s face tightened at the shift in Ted’s attention. She looked away,
resting her cheek on her knees.

  “What was this survival camp called?” Callie asked, testing him.

  “Why? You thinking about trying it?” Ted asked, tearing his eyes off Lissa and leaning back on his hands.

  “Maybe. You never know,” Callie said, lifting a shoulder. She was trying to act casual, but her mouth was dry. She couldn’t help noticing he’d deftly avoided answering the question. “The apocalypse could come tomorrow and then anyone left would have to live off the land, right?”

  Ted laughed as Lissa rooted around in her bag for a comb.

  “Girl lives for her post-apocalyptic novels,” Lissa said in a jeering tone.

  “No, she’s got a point.” Ted stood up and walked slowly around the fire until his hiking boots were perpendicular to Callie’s stretched-out legs. Smatters of blood—some dried, some fresh—peppered the toes. “The meek will definitely not be inheriting this earth.”

  The sun was directly behind his head, casting his face in perfect shadow. Callie shielded her eyes, but the glare was so bright it stung. Finally, she looked at the fire again, purple Ted-shaped dots marring her vision. Ted sat down next to her. His knee pressed into her leg and she fought the urge to move away. She didn’t want him to know how intimidated she was. Showing weakness seemed like a bad idea.

  “So what kind of survival skills you looking to learn?” he asked. “Maybe I could teach you something.”

  Callie shrugged. “I don’t know. What if a bear walked into this clearing right now?” she asked, forcing herself to look at him. His face was close to hers. “What would you tell us to do?”

  “Get up slowly and move away from the food and the water,” he said. “A bear comes wandering in here, it’s because the scent of cooking meat attracted him. He wouldn’t be looking to pick a fight with us. Best thing to do would be to let him have what he wants, then wait for him to move on.”