Chapter 10
“Where’s Clarisse?” Martin’s voice held a note of panic, and he tried to step further into the clearing.
I held out an arm to block him, and fortunately, he willingly stopped, though the worried expression on his face didn’t leave. I was curious about his concern for Clarisse and not Kyle, and it reconfirmed my crush theory.
We all remained silent as I listened intently and watched for any sign of movement.
There was none.
“Wait here for a moment,” I whispered to the group. “I’m going to check things out.”
“Please be careful,” both Sadie and Parker said almost at the exact same time.
I gave them a reassuring nod before I silently creeped out into the clearing with the pile of sticks still in my hand.
I guess if I really did get attacked by something, I could throw the bundle at them as a diversion and maybe buy some time for the others to escape.
I wished I had thought to whittle some of the branches down while we were still out in the woods, because I’d feel much more confident if I had something sharp or pointy to stab with.
I carefully moved through the clearing, and I kept a watchful eye on the surrounding forest. But there were no other sounds than my quiet breathing and wildly loud heartbeat, and the only motion in the area seemed to come from me.
“I think whatever did this has moved on now,” I announced as I turned back to the group. “But we should still be cautious, and try not to make too much noise.”
With that, the others slowly creeped into the clearing as well, and we all dropped our wood bundles in the center and began to root through what remained of our supplies.
Of the eight backpacks, only two of them remained fully intact and still had all their supplies. The others either had broken straps or were just in tattered pieces.
Most of the plastic water bottles had been damaged and were leaking everywhere, and we were only able to recover five undamaged ones.
Almost all of the food was gone, save for a few dented cans of beans, and even several of the emergency blankets were in tatters.
I didn’t like the idea of having a fire going at night since it could draw attention to our location, but with the sudden lack of spare clothing and blankets, we weren’t going to have much of a choice.
Even most of the flashlights, batteries, and matches were gone, which confused me even more. Had an animal done this, or a human? I couldn’t see a reason for why an animal would take any supplies other than the food, but the entire scene looked too messy and chaotic to have been done by a human.
And where the hell were Clarisse and Kyle? There didn’t appear to be any blood anywhere, nor any obvious signs of a struggle.
Had they run away and hid? Had they been taken?
My first instinct was to call out for them, but I didn’t want to take the chance that the perpetrator, whatever or whoever it was, wasn’t fully out of the area yet.
“What could’ve done this?” Sadie asked in a small voice.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But based on the damage here, my best guess would be a bear of some kind.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Parker agreed. “My family and I had a bear ransack our camp a few years ago when my little brother snuck food into his tent, and the result looked a lot like this.”
“Oh, my god,” Sadie gasped, and her eyes widened. “What did you and your family do?”
“Fortunately, we weren’t actually there when it happened,” Parker replied. “We’d been out on a hike, but we had to call the park rangers and notify them of the bear’s presence, and then we packed up what we could salvage and went home.”
“Clearly, we can’t do that in this case,” Tyler said with a little frown.
“No, definitely not,” Parker gave a small chuckle but then grew serious again.
“Though, I do think it’s odd. Having stuff destroyed while a bear is rooting around for food is pretty normal, but some of the missing things aren’t food related at all, and typically a bear wouldn’t take something it couldn’t eat. ”
Those had been my thoughts exactly.
I studied the adventurous woman.
Out of all of us, she seemed the most unconcerned by this turn of events, and I wondered if it was because she’d experienced something similar before.
“So, what should we do?” I asked. “You have more experience with this than anyone else.”
“Oh, well…” Parker shifted awkwardly on her feet, and she blushed slightly at the attention. “I’m not sure exactly. Normally, we’d leave the area since this spot is obviously in the bear’s territory, but since we don’t know how far that territory extends, moving might prove to be pointless.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed with a nod.
“In the meantime, we could take some extra precautions,” she continued.
“We should gather all the supplies we can salvage and put all the remaining food and water in one of the good backpacks. Then we can hang it high up in one of these surrounding trees, so the bear won’t be able to get to it if it comes back. ”
“What do you mean, if it comes back?” Claire gasped. “If there’s a chance it’ll make a return, shouldn’t we get out of here?”
“We don’t know anything about this place, or where the bear even went from here,” I explained. “It didn’t leave behind any obvious tracks. If we leave the area, we could risk running into the bear somewhere else.”
“Exactly,” Parker agreed. “We only have to camp until dawn, and the bear has already come through here, so there’s a huge possibility it won’t make a return until after we’ve already completed the trial.”
Her logic was sound, and I couldn’t think of any other possible plan. But I still felt nervous. A bear that takes more than food and leaves no tracks?
I had a bad feeling about this, but what else could we do?
“That’s all fine and shit,” Martin suddenly cut in. “But what about Clarisse? She’s still out there somewhere. What if the bear took her?”
“We’ll look for her,” I assured him. “But there weren’t any signs of a struggle, so there’s a good chance she and Kyle ran away and hid as soon as the bear made an appearance.”
Martin looked reassured by my words, but I could still see the panic in his eyes.
I was just about to suggest breaking into two separate groups, one to gather supplies and the other to help search for our lost teammates, but there was a sudden rustling sound that came from the nearby brush.
We all turned to face the direction of the sound, and I instinctively moved to stand in front of the women. Out of my peripherals, I saw Martin and Tyler do the same.
There was more light rustling, and a few seconds later, Kyle emerged from the trees with Clarisse close at his side.
There was a light sheen of sweat on their skin, their clothes and hair looked disheveled, and their faces were both flushed. For a moment, it looked like they both truly had been running for their lives through the forest.
But something was off.
The way they strolled back into camp was too casual, and their eyes widened when they saw the aftermath that was our campsite.
There was something else, too.
They looked just as surprised to see us back so soon as they did about the actual appearance of camp itself. They quickly stepped further away from each other, and I could’ve sworn their faces morphed into something that almost looked like guilt.
Kyle was able to mask his expression faster than Clarisse could, though, and his surprise quickly leveled into anger.
“What the hell happened here?” he demanded as he stomped closer to me, with Clarisse close on his heels.
His tone was accusatory, as if he suspected that I’d run through and ransacked the camp.
“Why don’t you tell us?” I said in a cool tone. “You two were supposed to be watching camp. Where were you?”
For a moment, Kyle hesitated, as if he were trying to think up a good excuse to explain his earlier absence.
But it didn’t take a genius to figure out what those two had been up to. It’d been written all over their faces.
“W-We heard something,” Kyle stammered. “We heard something big coming toward the camp through the trees. So, we ran and hid. It’s not like we have any weapons. What did you want us to do? Fight it off?”
“Of course not,” I said, and my voice was still calm. “But we both know that’s a lie. If you had been fleeing for your lives, then you wouldn’t have seemed so surprised by the state of camp, and you certainly wouldn’t be directing accusations at me.”
Kyle was beet-red, and his expression was angry, but I knew it was only because he’d been caught in a lie and couldn’t think of a way to talk himself out of it.
Martin had seemed especially quiet during our exchange, but his eyes were suddenly filled with hurt and anger as he glared at Clarisse.
Clarisse kept her eyes pointed at the ground.
“Look at me,” Martin growled at her, and I’d never heard him use such an intense tone before.
Clarisse shook her head slightly and kept her eyes glued to a patch of dirt near her feet.
“Look at me!” Martin practically yelled this time, and his voice was filled with pain.
At that moment, I realized this was not merely a man with a crush. No one would have that level of hurt over a simple crush.
No, there had been something more between them.
Clarisse’s body shook as if she were barely containing her own emotions, but she finally looked up at Martin. And when she did, her eyes were shiny with tears.
“Did you fuck h-him?” Martin’s voice rasped, and he spoke so quietly I could barely hear him.
Clarisse dropped her gaze back to the ground, and she mumbled something that almost sounded like ‘I’m sorry.’
Kyle stood next to Clarisse during their interaction, and he had a little smirk on his face the entire time. He looked like a kid that had done something naughty and gotten away with it.
Martin was silent for a long moment as he processed his emotions, and I could see each one shift across his face: pain, hurt, sadness, betrayal, disbelief, and finally, anger.
Martin’s head snapped up at that moment, and his hateful gaze was directed at Kyle.
“You fucking, traitorous bastard!” he snarled as he lunged at the cocky asshole.