Chapter Eighteen #2
We gather the supplies from the trunk, there’s a backpack for each of us, along with other shit we’ll have to carry.
I’m both impressed and annoyed at how put-together this trip is.
Clearly, Thea had this planned with that Billy guy for a good while.
We all don a backpack, each grabbing one of the smaller bags as well.
“So, exactly how far is it to the campsite?” I ask hesitantly.
I’m actually a little scared to hear the answer.
I may be an active person, but I prefer civilization and flat running trails.
Venturing into the woods, this far away from any town, is not my idea of a good time. In fact, it may be my worst nightmare.
Cary closes the hatch on the SUV. “It’s not that far,” he replies.
Which isn’t actually an answer at all. It’s what parents tell their kids because they know the real answer will result in a meltdown.
At this moment, I realize I’m the toddler in this situation.
Cary is treating me with kid gloves because he knows I won’t be thrilled with the answer.
If Ripley weren’t here, I may have thrown the colossal fit I wanted to throw. Instead, I say, “Sure, sure…”
It’s a slow start, we’re all still feeling the effects of last night and the lack of sleep. So far, we’ve hiked for ten minutes, and it doesn’t seem like we’ve gone far at all.
“We should take bets on who’s going to try to bail first,” says Ripley from in front of me. He turns around to look at me and Brooks, Cary oblivious in front of him. My stomach flips at the smug expression on his face.
“Why… would we do that?” I ask.
“Because Ripley is a shit-stirrer,” Brooks says without missing a beat. He isn’t wrong.
“Personally, I think it will be Seth,” Ripley declares without acknowledging what Brooks said.
“What? Why?” I ask, mildly offended. He shrugs as if there’s no real reason and he didn’t just call me a quitter.
“Yeah, definitely Seth,” Brooks chimes in. My head whips to him.
“Okay, fuck you both,” I tell them. “Cary, back me up here. Brooks will obviously be the first one to bail.”
He glances at me over his shoulder, the grimace on his face telling me everything I need to know before he opens his mouth. “I… agree with them. Sorry, dude.”
Throwing my hands up in exasperation, I stomp ahead, determined to prove them wrong. “Fucking assholes,” I mumble under my breath, their laughter growing louder behind me.
Never in my life have I been this hot and sticky and itchy.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck as I swat my leg, killing the devil-spawn insect before it has the chance to bite me for the seventy-third time.
In addition to my approximately seventy-two mosquito bites, there’s also a blister forming on the back of my heel.
To make it even worse, no one else seems to be having issues.
This camping trip alone has me wishing I was back in Seattle.
It’s been an hour. Sixty minutes, and we still aren’t to this mythical campsite.
I’m starting to think it doesn’t exist and this was a ploy to get me in the woods without a struggle.
I’m painfully aware I’m not well-liked. Maybe they all decided it was time to take me out.
Ripley got to have me one last time, get me out of his system.
Brooks has probably been waiting for this day for years since he’s Team Thea.
And Cary, well, he’s just a simp, doing whatever his wife-to-be asks of him.
I’ve had way too much time to build up this scenario in my head as Cary and Ripley chat and chuckle behind me.
I pull my phone from my pocket, the signal is low, but there are at least two bars.
My messages are threadbare, two of the five people who text me are here, and the other three are busy living their lives on the other side of the country.
I bring up my messages with Iris.
4/25 9:48 a.m.
Me: I’ve been coerced to go on a hike. Sending you my location. Just in case.
Delivered
She’ll have questions. Lots of them. And if I make it out of this alive, I’ll be more than happy to answer them.
I miss her. We haven’t talked much since I’ve been here, just work talk.
Witnessing Ripley and Thea’s friendship has me realizing how similar it is to what I have with Iris.
At first it weirded me out, but I’ve decided it’s comforting, knowing he has someone in his corner the same way I do.
I haven’t even put together just how tangled our—
“What was that?” I ask, my voice strangled and higher than usual.
“Did you guys hear it?” I’m looking around frantically, searching for the culprit of the guttural noise, but all I see are trees in every direction.
My mind is already conjuring worst-case scenarios and thinking back to the sounds reported with the sightings; they were low-pitched and loud, just like this.
“Probably a deer or some shit,” Brooks pipes up, the first words he’s spoken in the last thirty minutes.
“No, no. It wasn’t a deer. It was something else, something big.” I’m still glaring into the woods around us, my head jolting in another direction every time a twig snaps.
“What… is happening?” Ripley asks from behind me. Cary is chuckling, and Brooks has already walked past me, as if I’m not having a panic attack in the middle of the wilderness.
“Dude. Still? Really?” Cary asks, incredulous. Then he turns to Ripley and adds, “It’s a long story, but basically, he believes Sasquatch exists.”
Ripley blinks at him a few times, then he bursts out laughing. “What? No. Like Bigfoot? Really?”
“It’s not funny. There have been sightings!” I say, almost screeching at the end.
“Oh, wow. So you’re an actual living and breathing Sasquatch truther? How did I not know this pertinent information?” Ripley snickers. Brooks turns around, his face lit up in amusement.
Ignoring them, I pull my phone from my pocket again—two bars still.
Enough to do a quick internet search. “Oh my God.” My eyes widen at the information on the screen.
“You’ve had sightings. In South Carolina.
In central South Carolina. Holy fuck. I’m going to die camping.
Bigfoot is going to murder me in these godforsaken woods. ”
The cackling around me is so loud, the birds in the nearby branches fly off. Ripley braces against a tree as if he’s about to fall over. Even Brooks is chuckling up ahead.
And Cary—fucking Cary, he’s the worst of them all, bent over with tears in his eyes he’s laughing so hard. “Don’t make me laugh, I’m going to throw up,” he wheezes.
I hate everyone.