Thirteen (9 page)

I also learned that Adam played the trombone, and that he was a boy scout. That's where he'd learned to make the pizza bagels, which were yummy.

I couldn't be certain—after all, I'd known him for less than three hours—but I got the strangest prickly sensation that he…I don't know. Kind of thought I was cute, maybe. Just from the way he checked my reaction when he said things, and from how he thwacked Logan's head when Logan laughed at me for jumping at a noise from the woods.

“She thought it was a bear!” Logan crowed.

“No, I didn't,” I lied.

“Shut up,” Adam told his brother. “She's never been camping before.”

“Yeah I have,” I said. “I went to spend-the-night camp last summer.”

“Not the same,” Cinnamon said.

“Don't worry, there are no bears in Pisgah Forest,” Adam told me.

“Only escaped
murderers
,” Logan said, stretching the word out.

“What?” I said.

Adam thwacked Logan again. “Murderer, singular,” he corrected, meeting my eyes in apology. “Not murder
ers
.”

“
What
?!” I cried.

“Mom, is there an escaped murderer in the forest?” Cinnamon called to Mary Beth, who was sitting across the fire and chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Gibson.

“No, of course not,” Mary Beth said.

“Actually, yes,” Mrs. Gibson said. “We heard it on the news.”

“Told you!” Logan said.

“But it's nothing to worry about,” she said. “Apparently, a convict from the state prison—”

“A
murderer
,” Logan interjected.

“—broke free from his work group. The police think he headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway into the forest.”

“Oh my god,” Mary Beth said. “Should we be here? Is it safe?”

“Of course it's safe,” Mrs. Gibson said. “He's not out to bother anyone. He just didn't want to be in jail.”

“Can you blame him?” Mr. Gibson said, letting out a booming laugh. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Killed his wife. Crime of passion.”

“Are you pulling my leg?” Mary Beth said. “I'm serious, Charlie. Tell the truth.”

“No, no, it's absolutely true,” Mrs. Gibson said. Her wide eyes didn't seem capable of deceit. She swayed a little, and Mr. Gibson steadied her. “But if he was in this neck of the woods, I'm sure it would be
crawling
with police.”

“Unless he killed them all,” Logan pointed out.

Adam thwacked him.

“Ow!” Logan said.

Mrs. Gibson patted Mary Beth's knee, then poured herself another cup of wine. “Now. Who's ready for s'mores?”

 

That night, in our tent, I tried not to think about the murderer. I giggled with Cinnamon about what a greedy-guts Logan was (he'd wolfed down four s'mores and five additional marshmallows), and agreed that her patented marshmallow-toasting technique beat the pants off Logan's scorch-'em-and-scarf-'em method.

“It's all about the coals,” Cinnamon pontificated. Our hands were under our heads. Our sleeping bags were pulled up to our chins. “Stick your marshmallow directly in the fire, and it's going to burst into flames. Case closed.”

“I hear ya,” I said. Time after time, Logan had charred his marshmallows to a crisp, and time after time, he'd yelped in dismay and blown at them madly, which only fed the flames. But he'd eaten them anyway, blackened crust and all.

Adam, on the other hand, demonstrated admirable finesse. His marshmallows puffed to perfection and turned an even, golden brown. Had there been a marshmallow-toasting prize, I secretly would have awarded it to him.

Adam was an interesting guy. Although, hmm…was that actually true? He was smart and said funny things and was somehow less stud-muffin-poser-ish than most boys I knew. Maybe it was a public school–versus–private school thing. Maybe private school guys were more polished, and not always in a good way.

But if I were honest with myself, the really interesting thing about Adam was that he liked
me
. It was both foreign and thrilling to have this boy whom I'd only known for several hours pay so much attention to me.

It wasn't like Adam was any competition for Lars. Not hardly. But was I the type of girl who not just one but two boys could like?

Apparently, I was.

Next to me, Cinnamon sighed. We listened to the silence, which wasn't really silence, since there were
things
out there, alive and moving on the other side of our flimsy tent. A twig snapped, and I flinched.

“You okay?” Cinnamon said.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Only…”

“Only what?”

“You're going to kill me.”

“Why?”

She rolled to face me. Her expression was pleading. “I have to pee.”

“What? No!” I said. Everyone else was in their tents, probably asleep. The fire was out, doused by lugged-up jugs of creek water. It was dark and spooky and the murderer I was trying very hard not to think of leered and beckoned in my brain.

Come, little girlies
, he whispered.
Come to me now.

“Can't you hold it?” I said.

“I can't,” Cinnamon said.

“Are you
sure
?”

“If I wait much longer, I'll go in the tent. And that would not be pleasant.”

I scowled and pushed myself to my elbows. “Fine,” I groused. “Let's go.”

“Thank you, Winnie,” she gushed, squirming out of her sleeping bag. “You are the best friend
ever
. And if you ever have to go, even in the middle of the night, I
promise
I'll go with you.”

“You better.”

“I will!”

We held hands as we tiptoed past the fire pit. Our grips tightened as an owl hooted. We fought to hold in our nervous laughter.

“Curse you, oh owl!” Cinnamon whispered.

“Demon of the dark!” I contributed.

“Don't say that word,” Cinnamon said.

“What, ‘demon'?”

“Yes! Don't!”

“Demon, demon, demon!” I whispered. It was funny. It was also payback for the “Winnie got carsick” remark.

“I'm serious!” Cinnamon begged.

We stepped behind a tree just a few feet from the campsite, and Cinnamon tugged down her sweatpants. She squatted, and after a few seconds I heard the
ssss
of pee against ground. If it were daylight, she'd have hiked much farther away to do her business. But in the pit of night? No way.

She did a shake-and-wiggle (no toilet paper) and yanked up her sweats.

“Okay, let's go,” she said.

A moan came from the campsite. Cinnamon and I clutched each other, our fingers digging deep.

“What was that?” she said.

“I don't know!” I replied.

The moan came again, guttural and thick. My heart pounded.

“Omigod, omigod, omigod,” Cinnamon babbled. “We're going to die!”

This wasn't a joke. This was real. My brain knew that something had to be done—we had to go to the campsite and help whoever was being hurt—but my body was frozen.

“Help!” I tried to say. It came out as a squeak. “
Help
!”

There was the ripping sound of a zipper being unzipped. “What's going on?” Mr. Gibson demanded.

Then everything happened fast. Cinnamon and I ran toward Mr. Gibson, who'd trained his flashlight on Adam and Logan's tent. Through the fabric, I made out a dark hunched figure. The moan came again, a violent retching sound.

“Charlie, get the ax!” Mrs. Gibson screeched, pushing out of her tent. She wore a short pink nightie, and her hair was in curlers. “The ax! The ax!” She ran to the makeshift kitchen area and rooted frantically through a bag of canned goods.

“Get out of here, you maniac!” she shrieked. She threw a can of corn at her sons' tent, only her aim was terrible, and Mr. Gibson flung up his hands.

“Judy, watch it!” Mr. Gibson barked.

A growl came from the tent. A crazy escaped-convict's growl.

Omigod
, I thought.
Somebody is going to die. I am standing right here, and somebody is going to die.

I spotted the ax by the pig stump. I grabbed it, stumbling forward and lifting it above my head.

“Winnie!” Cinnamon screamed.

I reached the tent just as Logan tumbled out. He was green—way greener than I'd been on the drive through the mountains. He doubled over, and an arc of vomit streamed through the air. There was splattering. It was bad.

I dropped the ax, which thudded to the ground. When I saw it there, its blade dense and sharp, I felt lightheaded.

“Winnie, are you okay?” Cinnamon asked, rushing to my side.

“Too…many…marshmallows,” Logan muttered. He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he threw up again.

“Eww!” Cinnamon said, jumping back.

Cinnamon's mother emerged from her tent. “Oh, God,” she said, looking hung-over. “Is that vomit I smell?” She clapped her hand to her mouth.

Finally, out staggered Adam from the boys' tent. His hair was disheveled. He took in the scene—his parents, the vomit, me. The ax. His bleary eyes met mine.

“Wow,” he said. “You private school girls are tough.”

 

The next morning we packed up camp and drove to a hotel. A lovely Holiday Inn, with running water and toilets and an absence of deranged lunatics. Well, except for us.

The grown-ups paid for three rooms: one for Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, one for Mary Beth, and one for the four kids.

“No hanky-panky,” Mrs. Gibson warned, which made us crack up.

“Yeah, right,” Cinnamon said under her breath. “Who exactly would we have hanky-panky
with
?”

Adam blushed and glanced at me. I liked it.

Logan spent most of the morning in the bathroom, and Cinnamon, Adam, and I watched Showtime and bounced on the beds. We joked about the Great Ax Incident. We rapped on the bathroom door and asked Logan if he wanted us to bring him more marshmallows.

At wine o'clock, Adam, Cinnamon, and I swam in the pool while the grown-ups sipped chardonnay at the outdoor bar. Cinnamon begged her mom to buy us virgin piña coladas, but Mary Beth waved her off.

“Go get some exercise,” she prodded.

“What about Logan?” Cinnamon said, gesturing at the chaise longue where Logan sprawled. “He's not exercising.”

“Go exercise, Logan,” Mr. Gibson said. “Give us a couple hundred laps.”

Logan groaned.

Mrs. Gibson swatted her husband's arm. “Don't tease him. His tum-tum hurts.”

There was another family swimming in the pool along with us. A dad, a mom, and a whole bunch of pale, skinny kids. One of the girls wore a gymnastics leotard for a bathing suit.

“Listen up, you rats,” the dad bellowed. All his kids were in the shallow end. Two of them looked his way; the others kept listlessly splashing. The girl in the leotard bobbed in endless circles. “I'll pay any one of you ten dollars to go down the slide headfirst.” He gestured toward the twisty slide in the deep end. “Headfirst, and on your back. Ten dollars. Any takers?”

The two paying attention shook their heads. The girl in the leotard wiped a slime booger from her nose.

“I'm talking ten big ones!” the dad tried again. “What's wrong with you kids?”

His wife said, “Frank.”

“They're a bunch of wussies,” he told her. He turned back to the pool. “You're all a bunch of wussies!”

“Hey, mister!” Cinnamon called. She grabbed my hand and raised it. “She'll do it!”

“What?” I yelped.

“If you can stand up to an ax-murderer, I think you can go headfirst down a slide,” she said.

“
You
do it,” I said.

“No way. It's got to be you.”

“Oh, God,” Adam said, hiding his face.

“Well?” the man said.

I looked at him. I looked at his kids, who'd suddenly grown interested. I looked at the slide, which wasn't
that
steep.

“Fine,” I said. I clambered out of the pool and marched to the slide. I climbed the ladder.