Bible Camp (4 page)

Ken stared back at her with an
unbelieving look then he turned away in a huff.

“
I believe it could be the place,”
Russ said in a lowered tone, then he too went to join the
others.

At the nearest grill, Lance sprayed
plenty of lighter fluid from a plastic bottle onto some kindling
picked up in the woods. A moment later he scratched a match on its
box and tossed the burning splinter into the grill. Flames whooshed
up high, bringing a startled cry from several, then the fire
settled down into a warming, waltzing blaze.

“
We ready to cook?” Lance asked,
looking over a shoulder to his friends.

“
Oh, yeah,” Russ said, coming forward
with a plate, metal tongs and the food.

It wasn’t long before the scent of hot
dogs wafted through the night’s air, the moon shining down and
bouncing off the lake like two silver dollars staring at one
another.

When the first batch of dogs were
ready for munching, Russ piled them on a plate and brought them
over to a table where Gloria was setting out cans of
soda.

“
Should’ve brought beer,” Ken
said.

“
You ain’t kidding,” Lance said with a
laugh.

Ignoring the others now that the food
was ready, Russ grabbed a bun and stuffed a hot dog into it. “Let’s
eat!”

Mary came forward, frowning.
“Shouldn’t we say grace before we eat. I mean, we are here for the
church, after all.”

The others stared at her as if she had
lost her mind, but then Ken shrugged and said, “Okay, let’s get it
over with.”

Mary bowed her head.

But before she could speak, a curse
came from Abby.

Everyone looked to the girl in
black.

“
This is stupid,” she said, slamming
her book closed and jumping to her feet. “I’m not going to sit here
and listen to a bunch of Jesus garbage just so I can
eat.”

Then she picked up a lamp and stormed
away from the site, taking the trail she and Russ had found earlier
in the day.

No one said a word to stop
her.

“
She’ll be back,” Russ said, looking
hopeful.

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, when she gets
hungry.”

Only Mary continued to look
displeased. “Should she be alone out in the woods?”

“
Let her go,” Gloria said. “Serves her
right to be alone for the way she’s been acting.”

“
Ken?” Mary looked to her boyfriend,
who only said, “Let’s just eat.”

***

Tucking her book under an arm, Abby
continued to go deeper and deeper into the woods, grumbling as she
went, the burning oil lamp held before her.

Once the voices of her friends faded,
she paused, letting out a sigh while she dug the crumpled remains
of the joint from a pocket. Popping the bent wrapping into her
mouth, she flipped open the oil lamp and leaned into it, puffing as
she lit the end of the joint with the tiny flame. A second later
she was inhaling and giggling.

“
Bible idiots,” she said to herself
with a disdainful look over a shoulder.

She found she could not only not hear
her friends, but she could also no longer see the glow from their
cooking fire.

“
Fine,” she said under her breath,
then turned and continued to walk further into the
woods.

To her left the forest continued to
grow thick and heavy, practically none of the starlight nor the
moon having a chance to shine through. But on her right only a thin
row of tall weeds separated her from the brightness of the lake,
the moon high above revealed in duplicate upon the jouncing waters.
Of sound, there was little, only the lapping of the waters. The
woods were dead silent, not even the night bugs
chirping.

Abby ignored all of this as she
continued on her way. Thoughts of the scenery were far from her
mind.

Which was why she barely registered
the hulking figure that appeared from the shadows only a few feet
ahead of her.

One moment she was walking along
alone, and the next this monstrous form stepped out of the
darkness, Abby’s lamp revealing the ends of tattered jeans and worn
leather boots.

She gasped and halted, then tried to
lift the lamp to see who was there.

She never got the chance.

A swishing noise sounded, followed by
a thunk, and Abby gasped again, then gurgled. She dropped her lamp,
the glass shattering but the small fire still burning, then she
herself dropped next to the flame, her book plopping down into
weeds next to her.

Before a heavy boot came forward to
stamp out the light, the glow of the flames showed the silver of a
hatchet buried in the young woman’s forehead, a thin stream of
crimson curling down to drip onto the forest’s floor.

***

“
We should have said a prayer before
we ate,” Mary said, sulking with chin in hand as she stared across
a table to where Lance and Ken held a chugging contest, pretending
their sodas were beer.

No one seemed to pay her any mind, and
a moment later the two guys slammed their empty aluminum cans down
onto the picnic table.

Then each of them burped.

Lance let out a chuckle. “It’s a tie!
You want to try again?”

Ken rubbed at his stomach while his
mouth formed into a distraught twist. “I don’t know, man. I think
three is enough for me.”

“
Then I win!” Lance shouted, jumping
up from the table with his arms high overhead.

Ken didn’t look pleased with the turn
of things. “Now wait a minute. You didn’t win.” He stood as if to
reproach his friend.

It was then Russ came forward from the
shadows, a dark flashlight in one hand.

“
You guys,” he said, “Abby has been
gone for a long while. Think one of us should go check on
her?”

“
You’re welcome to it, fat boy,” Lance
said with another laugh.

Keen seemed to lose interest in
Lance’s gloatings, so he sat again across from Mary. “Yeah, you go
and heck on her, Russ.”

“
Mary?” the big guy said. “What do you
think?”

“
Somebody should check on her,” she
said.

Russ turned to Gloria, as always,
sulking by herself at the next table.

“
You want to come with me?” he
asked.

“
Me?” she said.

Russ’s lips quivered as he glanced
over into the woods. “Well, yeah. We should probably stick
together, you know, so nobody else gets lost.”

Gloria snorted. “I doubt little miss
dark-and-brooding is lost. If you’re worried about her, you go
check on her.”

Looking to the rest of his companions,
Russ saw no one else appeared interested in going with him, not
even Mary.

“
Mary?” he said.

“
You’ll be all right,” she said with a
nod to the woods. “I’m sure she hasn’t gone far. Probably just
reading her book.”

“
Yeah, that’s right,” Russ said,
forcing a smile. “She’s probably just reading her book.”

With those words, he turned away from
his friends, flicked on the flashlight and took tentative steps
towards the dark of the forest.

***

Russ hadn’t gone far into the woods
when his flashlight began to blink out.

“
Piece of crap,” he said, batting at
the end of the plastic light.

The light flashed again, then off and
back on several times before leveling out and remaining
on.

Russ squinted through the gloom and
let the flashlight lead the way as he continued forward.

After traveling a couple of minutes,
he could no longer hear his friends back at the camp, but he also
hadn’t run across Abby.

Still, he continued
forward.

Until his light went on the fritz
again.

Cursing, Russ shook the flashlight,
but with no luck. The bulb simply would not come back
on.

Cursing again, he called out, “Abby?
You there?”

There was no response.

“
Hey, my light has gone out,” he said
to the darkness. “If you’re there, I could use some
help.”

Still, there was no answer. Yet he
thought he caught a whiff of smoke upon the air.

“
Abby, I know you’re there,” he said,
his voice a little angry. “I can smell you smoking pot.”

It was then the sound of something
crunching through the forest ahead came to his ears.

“
Abby?”

Yet again, there was no
response.

“
Stop fooling around,” Russ said,
nervously shaking his flashlight once more.

The sounds of movement drew nearer,
louder. It sounded as if Abby were walking heavy or had put on a
lot of weight.

Still shaking his flashlight, Russ
spouted, “This isn’t funny, okay? You don’t have to --”

The flashlight flicked on.

At Russ’s feet was Abby’s head. A
splintered crack of red gore nearly split her skull. The rest of
the body was not to be found.

He pissed himself.

Then turned and ran.

***

“
We really should have brought some
beer,” Lance said, draining another can of pop.

Across from him at a picnic table,
Mary squinted her dislike for the topic while Gloria shrugged and
pulled another drink from the cooler next to her feet.

“
Yeah, it would have been good,” Ken
said, roasting another hot dog on a stick, “but I didn’t want to
chance it since not everybody is old enough.”

Lance looked surprised. “Who isn’t old
enough?”

Gloria snorted. “Russ, for
one.”

“
Russ?” Lance asked.

“
And Abby,” Gloria added.

Lance brought forth more laughs.
“Hell, no wonder those two aren’t any fun.”

“
I’m not twenty-one yet,” Mary said.
“I won’t be for another few months.”

Lance chuckled again and stood,
walking towards Ken. “That explains a lot.”

“
Hey, watch it,” Ken said, his gaze
steady at his pal. “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking
about.”

“
I know, I know,” Lance said. He
looked to Mary. “Sorry, girl. I just call them as I see
them.”

“
Yeah, well, okay.” Mary
shrugged.

Gloria was about to interject her own
words, when a crackling noise came from the woods, a sound like
someone walking. All heads turned in that direction.

“
Russ, that you?” Lance called out.
“Abby?”

“
Shush.” Ken gestured for his friend
to be quiet.

“
What’s your problem?” Lance
asked.

“
There’s no light,” Ken pointed out.
“Russ had a flashlight, and Abby had a lamp.”

“
Good point,” Lance said. He leaned
down and picked up a hefty branch fallen from a tree, then he
stood. “If it’s somebody trying to be freaky, I’ll let them have
it.”

“
Don’t hurt anyone,” Mary said. “It
might only be Mr. Tucker.”

Ken didn’t look overjoyed. “That old
man gave me the creeps.”

The sound came again from the forest,
and Lance stepped forward hefting his makeshift club over his
shoulders.

Ken picked up a flashlight from the
table and brought it up, shining it in the direction of the
noise.

For a moment there was nothing to be
seen in the light, but then some branches shook and into view
stepped Russ, his eyes glazed, almost crossed, his arms dragging,
his legs barely moving.

Lance lowered his club. “Russ, you
okay, buddy? Did you find Abby?”

Russ didn’t say anything. He just
stood there staring straight ahead, his knees slightly bent as if
weak.

“
Russ?” Mary asked.

“
I don’t know, guys,” Russ finally
said, his words soft, barely more than a whisper. “I ... I think I
had an accident.”

He dropped forward, face-down in the
dirt. Ken’s light revealed a hatchet protruding from the back of
Russ’s skull.

Everybody screamed. Lance dropped his
stick and jumped back, almost bouncing into Ken, also rushing away
from their dead pal. The girls kept screaming.

After a moment, Ken seemed to get a
hold of himself. “Everybody, shut up!”