Shadows gather and stretch. They make strange, monstrous shapes that creep up the walls. They have long heads, long claws, long arms stretching out for me. My stomach turns and I close my eyes.
Knees must have kicked me harder than I realized. But unless he broke my nose and sent a shard of bone into my brain (unlikely) or detached my retina (slightly more likely), the kick has nothing to do with everything looking weird.
It’s just . . . it sounds crazy, but I feel like I can feel the lake behind me. Like it’s dark, kind of alive, and . . . reaching for me.
The nurse must have gone to the Great Hall to get the ice pack, but I don’t think I’m alone in here. Those shadows on the walls loom. I don’t want to look. I make myself look. They’re still here. They’re everywhere.
I hear something from the other side of the curtain. At first, it’s slow and steady—as if someone didn’t turn the sink tap quite tight enough. But it gets faster, a steady, trickling beat.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The roof could be leaking. Is it raining?
I twist to look outside. The sky is angry and dark, and a wind whips through the trees. But I don’t see any rain. And the sound is coming from inside the infirmary. Maybe a pipe burst? Or maybe—my brain trails off. There aren’t that many things that go drip-drip-drip in the world.
Even though I feel really heavy, I stand up. I shuffle like there are invisible chains around my ankles. Each step I take goes on forever. The air is thick, like molasses, like tar. The fabric divider isn’t that big, but I’m moving in slow motion. It takes almost a million years to get to it. The walls keep changing height, the ceiling stretching up and lunging down so low I want to duck.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound echoes in a weird way. As though the small infirmary is a tunnel now, one that goes on and on into the distance.
The sound quickens.
Drip-drip-drip.
“Miss Kortepeter?” I call. My stomach tightens. My head is suddenly too full. I take one more leaden step and push the divider open.
The nurse stands in front of the sink, frighteningly still. She hunches over it, her shoulder blades so sharp they look like broken wings. And that’s not all that’s wrong with her. Her hair is loose and wet. It hangs heavily around her head. Dark, wet beads slip from her hair onto the floor, all the way around her.
Drip-drip-drip-drip-drip.
The drops puddle on the floor around her feet, forming a dark lake. Too dark to be water. It’s not water. It’s deep red. It’s—
I manage to make a helpless sound. It’s not the scream I wanted, but that’s all that comes out. Even if I did scream, who would hear me? Everyone else is at the lake.
There’s no one here to help me. No one here but her.
Woozy, I reach for something to steady myself. I can’t scream and now I can’t run away. This is daytime. It’s not night; and yet, I’m exhausted. My head hurts, but headaches don’t do this.
Something is wrong. Something is wrong with this place.
Corryn was right. She was right and I blew her off and . . .
DRIP.
Everything snaps back into place. The light comes back on, the walls are even, the ceiling is at a reasonable angle.
“Tez!” Miss Kortepeter exclaims as she comes through the front door.
Her hair is twisted into a bouncy ponytail. She’s dry and looks really confused. My insides turn to liquid when I look to the sink.
No one there.
Nothing on the floor.
The sound has stopped and my knees give up.
“Blood,” I say, and wobble.
She rushes over to me. “Did your nose start bleeding again? Come on, let’s get you comfortable.”
In a flurry of motion, Miss Kortepeter gets me back to the cot and settled on the thin pillow. She carefully arranges the cold pack on my face and tells me to try to relax.
Relax. Right.
I heard something. I saw something. Faces in the fire, and now blood in the infirmary. There’s something going on at Camp Sweetwater, and it’s something bad.
This time, I’m not afraid I’ll fall asleep on this cot.
I’m afraid I might never fall asleep again.
Corryn
Tez sits in the great hall with a plate of coagulated mac and cheese.
It’s clumped up into a cold brick. He doesn’t look like he has taken a single bite. Instead, he presses a cold pack that can’t be very cold anymore to his nose. He should use the mac and cheese instead.
I slide in with my own plate of slop and sit across from him. His eyes look dark and his skin has taken on the green tone of the lake. To say he does not look well is an understatement.
“I can’t believe you barfed,” I say. (Probably should have opened with “hi.”)
“Hrm,” he says. It’s not really a word, just a noise.
“Actually, I can believe it,” I say. “I’ve been there. One time when I was learning to 180, I wiped out so hard on my bike that I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t throw up, but I definitely thought I might.”
“Hrm,” Tez says.
This is pretty weird. From what I’ve observed, Tez is the type who likes to talk a lot, and all of a sudden, he’s totally silent. The silence is kind of awkward, so I keep talking to fill the space. “I can’t believe Knees kicked you. That’s totally crazy. What was he thinking?”
All I get in response is another “Hrm.”
Tez is not answering at all, just making this weird noise. It almost sounds like a snore.
“Don’t fall asleep,” I say, and laugh. “That’s what they always tell me when I fall off my bike. You know, if they’re worried about concussions. They tell you not to sleep. Which is weird, you know, because for pretty much anything else wrong with you, you’re supposed to sleep, to rest up and feel better. But somehow, no, if it’s a concussion, it’s like sleeping is pretty much the worst thing you can do.”
“Thanks, I know,” he says peevishly.
I preferred “Hrm.”
“Jeez,” I say. “Sorry. Just trying to make you feel a little better. That really was out of line that Knees kicked you like that! It’s not fair. And Gavin, what a jerk. You know what makes me want to throw up? His cologne. I mean, it’s like—”
“You think I care about Knees?” Tez says. He is not looking at me and is barely moving his lips. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are wild.
“You think I care about how Gavin smells? You think I care about getting kicked in the face? Faces get kicked, it happens. You know what doesn’t happen? Rooms that change size and shape. Nurses who suddenly appear covered in blood!”
What the 7Up?!
“Did—did that happen?” I whisper.
Tez nods, gravely serious.
I swallow hard, then say, “Lakes don’t try to drown you, either.”
“What?” Tez puts his not-cold pack down hard. “Something happened during your swim test?”
“No,” I say, lightly sarcastic. “My towel always tries to murder me when I’m at the beach.”
Tez’s expression changes. It’s still dark, but now there’s fear mixed in. “Corryn, there’s something wrong with that lake.”
I nod. “And with the clinic too, from the sound of it. And whatever it is, it’s happening to both of us!”