Perils of Camp

James was the first one I saw vanish. Gone. Eaten by something out of the shadows. That’s what happens when your parents send you to camp.

The camp is co-ed, but the shadows eat the boys first. Fourteen boys, eight girls in total. It’s Jill of the four of us who remain swears at her cell phone when it won’t work. We’re surrounded by old growth forest, mountains. The place is the kind of rustic that charges a fortune to give nothing.

Leanne laughs. She has the kind of laugh that reminds me of me, a little bit. “Cell phones not working is the first sign we’re in a horror movie.”

Chris tries to punch her for that. Jill tells us all to be ready. Find weapons. Run if we see the monster.

“Run,” I repeat.

Jill turns. Looks at me. “.. you know what I mean, Yumi.”

I’m about to call her out when something moves. A shadow but not one. “Jill.”

She turns. She has a knife, and the crouch like they do in movies.

Chris and Leanne are yelling at each other near the fire. One of them punched the other.

“Quit it,” Jill barks at them, the knife gone as quickly as I saw it. “The guys are gone. Dead. Something. We need to work together.”

Chris tells Jill where to shove that idea.

“You don’t like me, fine. But Yumi can’t run. You want her dead because you’re being stupid?”

The other two offer choruses of no, head into the cabin to get every flashlight they can.

Jill throws logs on the fire as I wheel over to her.

“You know how to use a knife,” I say.

“I know a lot of things.” She stands. “Most of them useless without a cell phone to call for help.”

“We could pray.” That’s Leanne, utterly serious, ice over her right eye.

“You can if you want to. But there are things even gods fear.” And I want to laugh, but Jill says it like she doesn’t give a damn if we believe her or not.

“Oh, you mean Charlie?! She’s busy doing other things!”

The boy who is in the camp is just there. One moment not, the next in front of us. He’s eleven, and stares at the knife that Jill stuck into his chest with a look of reproach.

Jill is holding the broken blade, her eyes wide.

“That was really rude you know,” the... boy... says.

“Rude,” Jill whispers.

“Uh-huh! We hadn’t even done introductions and you do know it’s really rude to stab someone I hope!”

“It didn’t work,” Jill says weakly.

“Well, I am tough like a Jay.” The boy says that as if it should make all the sense in the world.

Jill scrambles back, the colour draining from her face. She was fast when she got the knife out, but this is even faster. Like something out of a movie. I don’t even know where the gun in her right hand comes from. It’s small, black and pointed right at Jay.

“You’re with the magician.” Jill’s voice is short, flat, alien.

“Uh-huh! Honcho is coming but I took a shortcut,” the boy said proudly.

“And you’re Jay.”

“Yup! It’s a really good name for me to have, since it’s mine! Also, I might have tagged you since I’m playing a game of tag on tumblr, too!”

“Jill.”

Jill lowers the gun a little and looks at me. “This is beyond me. We’re safe now. Possibly. A little bit safer.”

“You have a gun? What’s with having a gun?” Chris demands. Leanne has scrambled backwards, eyes wide, stuttering out a prayer.

“Sleep.” Chris and Leanne drop to the ground as a man walks out of the woods. He looks ordinary, even if he put two people to sleep with a single word. “Jay, get them into beds please.”

I barely see Jay move. One moment Leanne and Chris are on the ground, the next they aren’t.

The man walks toward Jill and me, nods. “I am the wandering magician. You,” to Jill, “seem to know about me. I won’t ask who your family works for, but I always did wonder how summer camps survived monsters and Outsiders.” His gaze flicks over to me. “And you?”

“Yumi.” I don’t move. His gaze holds mine, and I can’t shake the feeling he’s looked right into and through me before I even realized it.

“Why are you here?”

“My parents sent me to camp. Never mind this place barely qualifies as accessible. Bonding, making friends, all that bullshit they did in camps.”

“And you think you can’t?”

“I don’t want to.” The words slip out. “Everything is easier like this.”

“Perhaps.” He turns to Jill. “You would have kept her safe, even so?”

“I don’t have to like someone to help them. And if you try any trick on me magician, I’m going to shoot you.”

The man – magician – smiles, and the smile is devoid of humour. “You won’t, and no one you work for will. Please stop wasting my time with empty threats. When did the creature arrive?”

“It’s only been a few hours. I’d have been able to get hold of a chopper otherwise,” Jill says. “A strike team will be sent in if I don’t report.”

“Of course they will.” The magician whistles, and Jay returns. “Jay?”

“Uhm! Yup, it is one of them Honcho but it’s being really tricky and trying to avoid bindings!”

“One of what?” I ask it before Jill can.

“A monster,” the magician says.

“You’re in the middle of nowhere for a monster?” Jill says.

“I’m often in the middle of a nowhere. In this case, the fault lies in Tumblr.”

Jill just stares. The magician waves a hand to Jay. Who grins proudly. “I was told that monsters don’t hide under beds but inside heads and! I let someone know I kept lots of monsters in my head and they said some got out!”

“‘A random few got lose.’ Jay was told that. And so they have, and we’re working on capturing them.”

“An entire camp died because of a Tumblr post,” I say, my voice funny in my ears.

“Oh, no one died. They’re being kept inside a shadow I think. That one, in fact.” And the magician snaps his fingers and something comes out of the shadow of my wheelchair and vanishes a moment later.

Jay burps. Somehow he does that proudly too. “I got it Honcho!”

“I gathered that. Check on Charlie and the next one.”

Jay vanishes. Right before my eyes. The magician looks at Jill, then me. “I can make her forget, if you want. It’s less paperwork on your end.”

“I’m not owing you any favours,” Jill snarls.

“If you wish.” The magician looks at me. For some reason, I know Jill can’t hear what he says next: “Anger is useful, but only if you don’t let it control you. If you need another way, text Jay. His number is on your phone, and he’ll try and help.”

“Is that safe?” I ask.

The magician laughs. The laugh takes years off of his eyes. “No, but I am trying to get Jay to help more often on his own. When you need help, ask and he will try.”

I consider a boy who can’t be hurt by names, absorbed a shadow-thing inside him. I nod. “The monster –.”

“You were a good hiding place for it.” he pauses a beat. “Your chair made your shadow larger; that is the only reason. Everyone who was in it is now sleeping in beds and fine.”

I nod. The nod is very controlled.

He smiles, and turns, and walks into the forest.

Jill pulls out her phone, texts someone and looks at me. “I need to make a report. I can explain later. I'll need to you cover my absence, please.”

“I’ll tell everyone you’re helping me. No one will ask questions.”

“Huh. Useful,” she says, and then jogs toward the front gate of the camp.

I might have to tell my parents camp wasn’t horrible after all.