Epilogue 2
Micah
“Have you ever been to an adults-only summer camp?”
I use quotation marks around the words, but the man doesn’t notice.
The gurgling moan I get in response tells me I’m close to out of time with him, and I’ll probably never know if he’s been to summer camp or not.
“Me neither. Never even heard of it.” I tsk, turning from his hanging body. “Although, some might consider the group homes I grew up in perpetual summer camp in some ways.” I laugh dryly and I angle toward the man briefly, but he’s still just hanging there. “Jeez, man. I was joking.” Tough crowd.
In my mind, summer camp—even the adults-only version—is warm and happy. Buzzing with energy. Constant chaos and fun.
The group homes I ended up aging out of were nothing like that.
Constant chaos? Buzzing with the energy of a nitroglycerin mixture? Hell yes.
Warm, happy, and fun? Not a fucking chance.
“Well, sorry you never got a chance to go…” I turn to face the man, reaching for his wallet at the base of the tree near his limp body. “Logan Wheeler,” I muse, turning the ID over in my hand. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to go to camp in your next life, huh?”
I frisbee-flick the ID into the woods with my black, latex covered fingers. I really don’t care what happens to it.
A long line of red drool spills from the man’s mouth and toward the ground as his head hangs forward. Honestly, I’m surprised those nails held him up so well. I eye the dried blood crusted to the edges of his hand, remembering what a bitch it was to get him up there in the first place.
0/10, do not recommend. It was quite a clunky process.
Okay, maybe 5/10, because when my work here is complete, the final image will be glorious, I’m sure of it.
“But maybe in your next life, don’t be a sex trafficker, yeah?” I continue moving around him, organizing my supplies back into the duffel bag.
It’s purely good luck I happened across a man I wanted to kill, and he ended up being a monster. Although, I can’t say that it would have stopped me had I found out he was citizen of the year or some shit like that.
People who end up on my bad side fall into one of two categories. The first category belongs to the murderers.
This man who’s bleeding out nailed to a tree, he falls into the second category.
“You broke the cardinal rule of bro code, man.” I shake my head at the nail gun as I tuck it back into the black bag. “You touched my girl.”
Giving the man a pointed look, I wait for some hint of regret to flash across his features.
To be fair, he did express a lot of that in the hours leading up to this one.
“She’s been to summer camp. Did she tell you that in the couple hours you paraded around that party with your slimy arm hanging over her shoulder?
Bet she didn’t. She doesn’t talk about summer camp anymore.
Hasn’t been back in years.” I pause, giving him one last chance to join in the conversation.
“She is going back, though.” The man gasps, though something tells me it isn’t a voluntary response to my statement.
“I know, I was surprised too. Especially after what happened last time, you know? It was all over the news, you had to have seen it.”
After zipping the duffel bag closed, I pull my knife out of my pocket, turning to the man for the last time.
I lean forward in front of him, getting my face close to his already bloody abdomen as I carve my favorite five letters into his skin.
He’s so far gone, he doesn’t even react to the sharp metal digging through the layers of muscle and fat.
“But my Junebug, she doesn’t need to worry this time,” I mutter, trying to focus on keeping the letters straight. “Do you know why?”
On the last letter, my hand cramps, but I power through the final drag of the blade across his stomach. Flipping the knife closed, I stand straight, tuck the blade back into my pocket, and take a couple steps back to get a better view.
Glorious, just as I suspected. Carving her name into his stomach was a spur of the moment decision. I was just thinking, I really need to teach him a lesson about touching things that don’t belong to him. And what better way to do that than claiming her for all the world to see?
“Because I will be there with her.”
I turn my back on the man, sling the duffel bag over my shoulder, and begin my traipse back through the woods to my Jeep.
I’m excited for summer camp. I always wanted to go as a kid, but that really wasn’t an option for me. Most of the kids I grew up with were alright though, so I guess that makes up for it.
And besides being excited for camp in general, I am really looking forward to being there for my girl. It’s going to be hard for her, going back after all this time. She needs me to be there. And I want nothing more than to be there for her.
I’m finally ready to make my move. There’s just one thing I need to take care of first, and then…
See you at summer camp, Maeve.
The End