by Amy Cross
They exchanged a brief wave, as a shiver ran up Lizzie's spine.
“This is going to be fun,” she muttered as she climbed up the steps and onto the coach. She was immediately met by a sea of faces, most of which appeared to share her lack of enthusiasm. Some looked sick, some didn't, but no-one seemed particularly enthusiastic and Lizzie couldn't help noticing a faint smell of plastic and chemicals in the air, which reminded her of the hospital ward where she'd spent so much time recently.
“All aboard!” the driver's voice called from outside.
Making her way along the aisle, Lizzie looked for somewhere to sit, although she'd already begun to notice that most people had chosen to place a bag on the spare seat next to them, as if to emphasize that they really didn't want to have company. Spotting a free space, she was about to sit down when the skinny guy in the adjacent seat put his coat in the way. With a faint smile, Lizzie continued along the aisle until she spotted one other free space.
She quickly sat down, before the girl next to her had a chance to place her sweater in the way.
“Ramones, huh?” Lizzie said, glancing at the girl's t-shirt as she realized that this was the girl with the father her mother had noticed. “Cool. Do you -”
“Please don't talk to me,” the girl replied, making a point of adjusting her headphones and turning her music up so that Lizzie could hear it from her seat.
Sitting back, Lizzie watched as the driver closed the door at the front of the coach. A few seconds later she heard the engine starting up, and finally the coach began to reverse out of its spot. Turning to look out the window, Lizzie saw her mother still standing by the car, still waving. She waved back, but as she noted the sadness in her mother's eyes, Lizzie was suddenly overcome by a sudden but very strong feeling that they were waving goodbye, that somehow they wouldn't see each other again.
Forcing herself to ignore the sensation, she turned and stared ahead, watching the back of the seat in front of her as the coach bumped across the gravel. After just a few minutes, they passed a large wooden sign, slightly askew at the side of the road:
Welcome to Camp Everbee, Home of Dreams and Hope.
Chapter Two
“Dead,” he muttered, holding the dead squirrel by its tail and letting it swing in the breeze for a moment as he examined its carcass. Turning it around, he looked for some sign of injury, but there was none. Finally, he got hold of the animal's head and forced its mouth open, exposing its teeth.
Pausing for a moment, Freeman turned the dead squirrel upside down and examined its other end.
“No sign of blood, nothing to indicate poison...”
He ran his fingers against the corpse's belly, finally feeling a faint lump.
“Bingo,” he said with a frown. “Seems like you, my little friend, met the enemy within.”
Getting to his feet, he opened the cloth sack he'd been carrying all morning and dropped the dead squirrel inside.
“Still,” he continued, “better to be safe than -”
Before he could finish, he heard the distant roar of an engine. Turning, he watched as a coach passed along the road just a few hundred meters down in the valley, heading up the side of the mountain.
“Great,” he said with a sigh, “another load of spoiled brats heading for camp. Just what I bloody need.”
***
“Hey!” he called out half an hour later, hitting the bell on the counter. “A little service?”
Dropping his cloth sack onto the diner's counter, he planted himself on a stool and grabbed a menu. He knew what he was going to have, of course, since he had the same thing every day, but he always liked to check the menu just in case. One day he was definitely going to order something new, but for now he just liked knowing exactly what was headed his way. After a moment, however, he looked over at the door to the kitchen as he realized he couldn't hear any activity.
“Hello?” he shouted. “Ed? Elaine? It's me! It's Chris Freeman!”
Silence.
Setting the menu down, he climbed off the stool and made his way past the counter. He pushed open the door at the far end and leaned into the kitchen, only to find that it was empty. A few packs of meat had been left to defrost on the side, but now they were leaking across the bench and dripping blood onto the floor, while various pots and pans had seemingly been abandoned on the grill.
“Ed?” he called out. “You in here?” Feeling a twinge of pain in his lower back, he winced for a moment, but the sensation passed soon enough.
Making his way over to the grill, he looked into one of the saucepans and saw a portion of baked beans. He touched the side of the pan and found that it was cold, and then he headed over to the door that led into the storage room. Leaning into the darkness, he listened for any hint of movement.
“Ed? What the hell's going on? It's lunch-time!”
Silence.
“Ed, I'm hungry!”
He waited.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, heading back over to the grill and turning one of the knobs, before hitting the ignition button to start the gas flame. “It's coming to something when a man has to cook his own food in a bloody diner.” Setting the pot of beans aside, he grabbed a frying pan and placed it over the heat, before adding some oil. “Ed,” he said out loud, “if you're around and you can hear me, I'm helping myself. I can't sit around waiting for you to do your bloody job, I've got a busload of spoiled city kids coming to camp and I'm betting they'll mess everything up as usual. A landsman's work is never done.”
Heading into the storage room, he hit the light-switch but found that it was dead. He tried it a couple more times, before sighing and feeling his way over to the refrigeration unit. After locating a source of bacon, he headed back into the kitchen and started cooking.
“You're not getting a tip, you know,” he called out. “Jesus, I mean I never expect the most amazing service from you guys, but this is kind of a new low, yeah?”
Reaching over to the radio, he switched it on, taking a moment to find a channel with some decent music. As an old Springsteen song blasted out, he turned the bacon in the pan before making his way over to the back door and pushing it open so he could check the yard.
“Anyone home?” he shouted.
Outside, the yard was filled with wooden pallets and empty crates, while a beat-up old car had been parked next to the gate, but there was no sign of any human activity.
“You guys just upped and left?” Freeman called out. “What the hell's wrong with you?”
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he brought up Ed's number and hit the Call button. He sighed as he put the phone up to the side of his face, but a moment later he realized he could hear Ed's ring-tone coming from over on the other side of the yard. With the phone still ringing, he made his way down the rickety wooden steps and across the mud, until he walked around the car and found that Ed's phone had been left on the ground, while the driver's side door was hanging open.
“Ed?” he called out, cutting the call before picking up the abandoned phone.
Glancing around, he began to feel a glimmer of concern in his gut. Ed and Elaine weren't exactly the type of people to up and leave all of a sudden, and his doubts were only strengthened when he peered into the car and saw that the key was in the ignition.
Heading around to the front of the car, he put a hand on the bonnet but found that it was cold.
“Ed?” he shouted again, looking back toward the rear of the cafe. “Elaine?”
Bringing up Elaine's number on his phone, he waited for the call to connect and then he looked back at the cafe as he heard a ring-tone coming from inside.
“What the hell?” he whispered, making his way back into the cafe and heading past the grill until he reached the seating area again. Walking over to the cash register, he found Elaine's phone tucked neatly to one side, which was where she always left it when she was working.
He cut the call and looked around for a moment.
“Anyone he
re?” he asked.
Silence.
He wandered over to the door that led into the bathroom. Figuring that he'd checked everywhere else, he leaned into both the men's and the ladies' rooms, but there was still no sign of anyone. He paused for a moment, trying to work out why the hell Ed and Elaine would have simply abandoned the cafe without locking the door, without taking their phones, and without using the only car they owned between the pair of them. Heading back into the main seating area, he looked around, hoping to spot something that might give him a clue.
Suddenly his phone began to ring.
“Jesus,” he muttered, looking at the screen and seeing the name of the last person he wanted to speak to:
Crystal Wallace.
Taking a deep breath, he answered the call.
“Hey, boss,” he began, “I'm just -”
“Why aren't you here?” she hissed. “The coach just pulled up!”
“I know,” he replied, still glancing around the cafe, “I saw it a little while back, I just -”
“Can you please come back to camp and do your job?” she continued. “I've got enough on my plate with two dozen kids showing up, the last thing I need is to have my employees running off doing whatever they please.”
“Actually, I was -”
“Is it directly related to your job?”
“No,” he replied. “Well, kinda -”
“Then if you still want a job by the end of the day,” she told him, “you'll get back here pronto. Am I making myself clear?”
“Crystal,” he muttered.
“What?”
“No, I mean... You're making yourself crystal clear, Crystal. It was a little joke.” He sighed. “I'll be back within the hour. I just need to swing by Karen's and drop a specimen off first. Hey, you didn't hear anything about Ed and Elaine Cooper taking off, did you?”
“The people who run the diner? No, why, is that where you are? I'm sorry, Mr. Freeman, did I disturb your vitally important lunch break?”
“I'll be back shortly,” he told her. “I'm sure you can hold the fort until then. I just -”
Before he could finish, he heard a click on the other end of the line, and he realized she'd hung up on him.
“Highly strung, much?” he muttered, searching through his contacts list until he found the number for the local police station. He hit the Call button and waited until someone picked up. “Hey, Joyce,” he said finally, “this is Chris Freeman. I don't wanna alarm anyone, but I'm up at the Easy J Bar and Diner out on Templeton Road, and I think something strange is going on...”
Chapter Three
“The first order of business,” the over-smiling woman said as she clasped her hands together on the makeshift stage, “is to welcome all of you bright young men and women to Camp Everbee. I truly hope that each and every one of you will have a fulfilling and rewarding time here with us. This is a place where dreams come true and hope soars through the sky.”
Standing near the back of the small crowd, Lizzie rolled her eyes.
“My name,” the woman continued, “is Crystal Wallace, and I'm the camp coordinator. Next to me is Dean Marlowe, my deputy, and it's our job to make sure that you get the most out of your stay. Nothing gives us greater pleasure than to see your smiling faces each morning.”
The man next to her – a slightly older gentleman with a pasty face and a comb-over – nodded an acknowledgment to the crowd.
“Now before anyone hauls me over the coals,” Crystal continued, “I want to say that yes, I do know that this is the twenty-first century, and I also know that we're in good old Great Britain, and not somewhere out in the United States. Camps like this have much more of a tradition in America, but we're hoping to import the idea over here. After all, we can't let the Americans have a monopoly on enthusiasm and optimism, can we?” She took a deep breath. “I know some of you might also be a little cynical about the way this particular group has been brought together, so I just want to reassure you that nobody here at Camp Everbee is going to patronize you just because you're sick.”
“God forbid,” Lizzie whispered, glancing at the girl next to her and hoping for a smile. No such luck.
“The truth is,” Crystal added, “it's not just the campers here who have cancer. I can inform you that Dean and myself are also afflicted. That's why I set up the Camp Everbee experience several years ago. We wanted like-minded people to come together and share their experiences, while also having a common background.” She paused for a moment, with a hint of nervousness in her eyes. “I hope everyone will feel free to discuss their condition with their cabin-mates. If anyone doesn't want to go into detail about the type of cancer they have, perhaps because they like to keep things private or because the problem is in an intimate area, feel free to simply say that you'd rather not be specific. Myself, I have no trouble being truthful. I have breast cancer. Stage 3b, for those who would like to know.”
She turned to Dean.
“I'd rather not be specific about mine,” he said awkwardly.
“Okay,” Crystal continued, forcing another smile. “Before you all go and get settled into your cabins, I think we should continue this introductory meeting by singing the official Camp Everbee anthem! Dean will hand out lyric sheets, and the words have been set to the tune of one of my personal favorite songs, Yellow River by the great Jeff Christie!”
“Oh God,” Lizzie whispered, looking up at the clear blue sky. “Take me now.”
***
“Leukemia,” the brown-headed girl said as she dropped her bag on the bunk and turned to Lizzie. “Hairy cell, actually. It's a subtype of chronic lymphcytic leukemia.”
“Lizzie,” Lizzie replied, with a smile and a frown, as she reached out a hand. “Lizzie Miller.”
“Oh, sorry,” the girl continued, shaking her hand, “I thought... Yeah, my name. Beth. Beth Bondell.”
“Did you say hairy cell?” asked the blonde girl who was unpacking over on the other side of the cabin. She'd spent the past few minutes arranging a huge selection of make-up products on the windowsill, and now she seemed to be putting them in a specific order. “Like, seriously? Hairy cell?”
“It's the proper name for it,” Beth replied, turning to her. “It's because of how it looks under a microscope.”
“I would not want anything called hairy cell,” the girl said, scrunching her nose up. “It sounds gross.”
“It's not gross,” Beth replied, a little defensively. “Honest, it just got that name because of how it looks down the microscope. You can look it up if you don't believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” the blonde girl muttered, tipping another vast collection of cosmetics onto her bed. “I just think it's gross.”
“Well I like the name,” Lizzie said. “I mean, it does sound gross, that's true, but at least it's better than most of the names they give these things.”
“What do you have?” Beth asked.
“Well,” Lizzie replied, “actually, I -”
“That's so rude,” the blonde girl said as she began to line up her various tubs and tubes. “You're not supposed to just outright ask someone like that. You're so gauche.”
“It's not a secret,” Lizzie told her. “Seriously, we're not going to be precious about things, are we?”
“Nobody touch anything over here,” the blonde girl continued. “Everything on this shelf is mine, okay? Some of it's medical stuff and some of it's just normal make-up, but all of it is mine and mine alone. Besides, there's an art to applying these products. If you want to test something, ask me nicely and I'll almost certainly say yes, although some of these products are very expensive and hard to get, so I'm afraid one or two are off-limits.”
“No worries,” Lizzie told her. “What was your name again?”
“Kirsty,” the blonde girl replied.
“I like that name.”
“Thank you,” Kirsty said with a broad, fake smile. “That means so much to me.”
“I wonder wher
e the other girl is,” Beth added, looking over at the empty bunk. “I'm pretty sure I heard them say that the place is fully booked.”
“I guess,” Lizzie replied. She paused for a moment, wondering whether or not to admit to her own condition. Although she preferred to keep herself to herself, she figured she was among people with similar conditions and, besides, she wanted to at least try to make friends, even if she figured it was a hopeless quest. “Bowel cancer,” she said finally.
Kirsty and Beth both looked at her.
“That's me,” Lizzie added with a faint smile. “I have bowel cancer. Dukes' C, to be precise, which means it's grown through the muscle layer of my colon and spread to my lymph nodes. It's an aggressive little thing and right now I'm just waiting to find out if it's spread further, in which case... Well, I guess you know how it is, right?”
The three of them stood in silence for a moment.
“That's horrible,” Beth said eventually. “I'm so sorry.”
“Don't worry,” Lizzie continued, “I take precautions and I have enough pills to keep me going for a while.”
“Does it smell?” Kirsty asked.
“No it doesn't smell,” Lizzie said firmly. “Thanks for asking, though. What about you? What do you have?”
“None of your business.”
“But Beth and I just -”
“None of your business,” Kirsty said again.
“I thought we were supposed to be best buddies here,” Lizzie continued. “I mean that's why we're all being packed into these little cabins like sardines, isn't it? To socialize and get to know each another? Shouldn't we start by finding out what's wrong with each of us? I mean, it can't be anything more embarrassing than bowel cancer, can it?” She waited for a reply. “Can it?”
“Let's not talk about it,” Kirsty told her. “Please? There's such a thing as too much sharing, you know.”
