Chapter Eight #2
A few moments of static, then: “Hi, sweetheart. Everything’s fine, but we need you at Brook Trout. Right now, please.”
“What happened?” I said, already taking off down the path.
“Just come, Greer.”
“Be there in three,” I promised. I was wearing flimsy sleep shorts and a tank top, but the air was still warm and humid. As I walked, I ran my hands down the sides of my face, thinking back on last night and how I’d ended up in Steph’s bed rather than my own.
After we’d done lights-out at Brook Trout and Smallmouth, we’d all met back at the cabin just after ten.
It had been a long day, and Margo and Chelsea had both been out cold before I’d even turned off the overhead light.
But as I’d made my way to my bed, Steph and I had locked eyes from across the room.
Her face was lit up from the light of her laptop.
“Please tell me you’re not tired.” She’d patted the spot next to her in bed, a hopeful smile on her face.
I’d hesitated, but only for a second. “Nope, not tired,” I’d whispered, crossing the room to sit beside her.
“I like to be on the outside,” she’d explained, and I’d done a sort of awkward crab walk over her to get to the far side of the bed. We’d both had to clap our hands over our mouths to muffle our laughter.
She’d pulled up a show on her laptop—“What do you mean you haven’t seen Fleabag, Little G?”—and we’d proceeded to watch three episodes.
I was fairly sure I’d pay for the lack of sleep tomorrow, but in the moment, I hadn’t cared at all.
As I approached Brook Trout, I could just make out two figures sitting on the front steps, illuminated by the full moon and the dim front lights. One was definitely my mother. The other, I was pretty sure, was—
“Is that Miss Greer?” It was Kendall. She didn’t sound thirteen right now—no, she sounded like a toddler, desperate and afraid of the dark.
“Don’t worry, it’s just me,” I said, jogging the rest of the way to them.
As I got closer, I could see that Kendall’s face was blotchy, tear-stricken.
At her request, Chelsea had done her hair in two French braids last night, but they were matted now and coming undone.
Her pajama shirt had a cartoon of three smiling girls holding hands around a big heart, the phrase Girl Power! emblazoned in pink.
My mother had a protective arm wrapped tightly around her. “She requested you specifically.”
I dropped to my knees and grabbed Kendall’s limp hands from her lap. “It’s okay,” I said, hoping I sounded comforting. “Tell me what happened. You’re safe, everything’s fine. I’m right here.”
She blinked, her chin trembling slightly. “I woke up because I really had to go to the bathroom. I tried to get Harper to go with me, but she didn’t want to. So I just went by myself, because it’s not that far.”
My mom brushed a loose, tear-soaked tendril of hair from Kendall’s face, and tucked it gently behind her ear.
“She thought she saw someone in the woods,” she explained to me, though her eyes stayed on Kendall. “She screamed, and I was close by, just finishing my night rounds, so I came running.”
Kendall looked up at me from beneath her eyelashes, brow furrowed. “I did see someone. When I came out of the bathroom, it was standing there. Watching me.”
My scalp prickled at the way she said it. “What was watching you?”
“A monster,” she whispered.
“What do you mean? What kind of monster?”
She gave me a guilty sort of look that I wasn’t expecting. “What did he—it—look like?” I asked. “It’s okay, you can tell us. You won’t get in trouble.”
She glanced at my mom, who gave her a small nod of encouragement.
“Well, last night after lights-out, um, McKenzie wanted to tell ghost stories. I know they’re not allowed,” she said in a rush.
“And I told them we’d get in trouble, but nobody was listening to me.
So she said to shut up and then told us this story that her older brother, Jacob, told her. ”
Neither my mom nor I spoke, but I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
When Jacob Green had been a camper here, there were only two things he cared about: beating other kids at basketball in the rec center and scaring the shit out of every camper who was younger than him, ghost story rules be damned.
“What was the story?” I asked, though I had a bad feeling that I already knew.
She sniffled, rubbed her nose on the back of her hand.
“Well, a long time ago, there were two girls who came to Dread’s Cove.
At night, they would sneak out of their cabin after the other girls went to sleep to explore the woods.
They went farther and farther out every single night, until they made it to the very edges of camp, past where anyone was allowed to go. ”
Her voice grew quieter. “That’s where they found the secret graves of all the prisoners who died here.
They were all in a row, their bodies buried next to each other.
The girls could feel the spirits there, and that they were angry.
One of them got scared and said they should turn back.
She said it was a bad idea to disturb them. But the other girl wanted to stay.
“They got down in the dirt and started digging up one of the graves. And they were right. There was a body there. It had been there for so long that there was only a skeleton left. They each took a bone with them, like a souvenir. Then, they went back to their cabin, and they woke everyone up to show off what they’d found. ”
She looked between me and my mom, her pupils blown wide. “The next morning, there was a message written on their cabin in blood. It said, YOU WILL PAY.”
My teeth clenched the way they always did when I heard that phrase. No matter how the story changed—sometimes it was two boys, or two counselors; sometimes the bones were in the middle of the lake, or buried in the Barn—they always found those same three words.
I knew what came next. The story always ended the same way.
“A day later, they were both gone. They’d disappeared out of their beds. The bones they’d stolen were gone, too. The prisoner came to take back what was theirs. And to punish them.”
Kendall took a deep breath, like the adrenaline had finally slowed down, and she looked thoroughly exhausted.
“McKenzie says that the monster is still out there in the woods. Whatever thing they woke up is just biding their time. And they’ll only be happy when every camper is gone for good. When everyone here is gone for good.”
My mother kept her features smooth and expressionless, but I could tell she was frustrated. She’d forbidden telling ghost stories years ago, because it always led to something like this. Especially when this story started to make the rounds.
“That’s what I saw. A monster. It came up from the grave, and it’s wandering around in the woods, looking for its next victim. To punish us.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I know what I saw. The Phantom of Dread’s Cove.”
I knew it wasn’t real, and even so, I shivered. I would have to have a serious talk with McKenzie tomorrow—absolutely no more late-night ghost stories. “That sounds really scary, Kendall. But you don’t need to worry.”
“You don’t believe me?” Her lip trembled, and she was on the edge of tears once more.
Just as I opened my mouth to speak, my mom caught my eye, and I hesitated.
I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
We didn’t want her to grow more agitated by telling her she was wrong.
But we also didn’t want her to believe there was someone—or something—out there, stalking through the trees in the middle of the night.
“I think your eyes were playing tricks on you,” I said at last, and my mom gave a subtle nod of approval. “A good night’s sleep will make you feel a million times better.” I squeezed her hand once, then twice. “I promise, there’s nothing out there. The Phantom isn’t real.”