“You’re white as a sheet.” The hushed voice jerks me back to the field. Javier has dragged his mannequin close to mine. “This is a timed drill. They don’t mess around about that here.” Javier glances meaningfully across the field at Dave, whose back is turned as he discusses something with the twins.
“I—I can’t …” I choke off the words. He can’t know, none of them can know, that unlike them I’m not a homicidal maniac and I don’t want to kill anyone.
Javier leans forward.
“You ever play with Barbies? These are just giant Barbies. He doesn’t care how you carve them up. Start with her arm. Right above the elbow. That’s the weakest part.”
He hands me his knife, and I clumsily roll up the sleeve of the mannequin’s knit shirt, already soaked with dew.
Just a Barbie. She’s just a Barbie.
The knife sinks into her soft pale silicone arm and blood weeps from the wound. Vomit rises in my throat.
“Oh dang, you got a bleeder!” Javier sounds genuinely surprised. “Some of the more expensive ones have fake blood inside, but they’re usually drained already. I’ve never seen one with the blood still in.”
I can’t speak. I just stare at the thick red liquid pooling inside my mannequin’s elbow. She’s still smiling up at me.
“How about we trade?” Javier offers, moving in front of me, taking my place over the mannequin. “I’ve never gotten a bleeder before. I want to try one. Cool?”
“Yeah, cool.” I nod, numb, and crawl toward the fake body he’s been working on. The head and one arm are already off, and the mannequin is much more Barbie-like than mine, with hard plastic skin all hollowed out inside like a chocolate Easter bunny. I can pretend I’m just packing up a store mannequin. Okay. I can handle this.
But I cannot freak out like that ever again.
I am surrounded by murderers more ruthless than anyone from Bellwood. The girl who gets through this program and gets out into the world again is the Girl From Hell. The girl who doesn’t make it through this program is the innocent loner who’s so pathetically awkward her whole town believes she killed her best friend.
“We’re forty-five minutes in! You should be past dismemberment and into clean-up,” Dave calls out, then pauses beside me and Javier, back to back in the grass, and watches us work for a moment.
“Javier, you took the bleeder I saved for Signal,” he says, annoyed.
“We wanted to trade,” I explain. Dave cocks his head.
“You were okay with that, Javier?”
“Yup, it’s fine,” Javier mutters, still carving away.
“Even though the bleeders are much more difficult to conceal?”
“Better practice,” Javier says gruffly.
“Great attitude!” Dave grins. “Javier’s got the right idea, campers. Because when you’re in the field, this is going to be a million times messier. You guys have it easy with this drill! Or then again, maybe you don’t …”
Everybody groans in anticipation of what he’s going to say next.
“Because guess what, campers, each of these mannequins has been marked with a specific smell and we will have a canine in. So when you go into conceal phase, remember to account for smell! Because what did we come to camp to learn, everybody?”
He pauses, and everyone but me and Nobody says, in unison: “How to not get caught!”
“That’s exactly right! Also, Javier,” his voice drops and he leans over us, his face stern. “I already marked Signal down as having the bleeder, so I’m going to need you to trade with her again. Good attitude, though. Points for effort. But Signal gets the bleeder.”
Under Dave’s watchful eye Javier and I trade places again.
“Okay, guys, you should all be in conceal phase in the next fifteen minutes, so I’m going to the kitchen to get some dinner. Meet me over there when your body is well and truly hidden!”
Javier has stacked the bleeder up like a pile of firewood inside the trash bag. Meanwhile, I haven’t even finished dismembering his mannequin. I hear him frantically sawing away and mumble an apology I’m not sure he even hears. Embarrassed, I gather up the bits of torn clothing and bundle them up with the limbs as the quiet grows deeper around us, the other campers moving on to the next phase. When I look back again Javier is gone.
I’m the last one left on a field much colder and bluer than when we started. Shivering, I rise from the ground and try to haul the bag up with me. No chance. It’s far too heavy.
Okay. I’ll drag it, then.
The trash bag glides easily over the damp grass behind me, but I’m tired and moving slow. The horizon behind the lake goes from neon orange to cool blue by the time I get to its short dock, and then the rack of canoes on the encircling sand makes me stop short.
I can go now. I’ll grab one of the canoes and strike out for the far shore, it’ll be night soon, I can run into the woods, they’ll never find me. I drop the bag just as a distant whistle sounds: Kate is standing in the door of the main cabin, just across the field. She gives me a wave, then disappears inside.
They’re not completely oblivious then.
I hoist my bag again and haul it all the way to the edge of the dock, then swing it out into the water. I pretend to wait to see if it’ll come up, but I’m actually staring at the far shore, gauging the distance.
I can cross the lake before dawn, while it’s still dark. The security is ridiculous here because the rest of these psychopaths don’t want to leave. They were loving that ghoulish pop quiz. This is where they belong.
But I’m not like them.
Decision made, I turn my back on the water and climb up through the long grass toward the glowing orange windows of the main cabin.
“Last, but not least!” Kate greets me with a paper plate inside the knotty pine dining room. The four round tables that fill the room are empty, chairs pushed back, and the enormous foil trays on the counter between the dining area and kitchen are almost scraped clean. What remains smells amazing, though, and I hurl myself toward the leftovers as Kate frets behind me.
“They just about finished everything. There’s some chicken left in the kitchen, though.”
“I’m vegetarian.” I slap a good spoonful of green bean casserole on my plate.
“Oh. Well, that’s nice. After you’ve eaten, we need to get your clothes together.”
After I’ve emptied my plate twice, Kate takes me down a narrow hall to a closet lined floor to ceiling with shelves, all bursting with old clothes. They’re all out of style and just a little too bright. I realize, when I pull a T-shirt loose and see a name written on the tag, that they’re about thirty years’ worth of lost-and-found items. Kate hands me a giant fabric shopping bag, the handle badly frayed.
“Grab anything you want and come back if you need something. Socks and underwear”—she pulls out a giant Tupperware bin stuffed with generic white Hanes—“are in here, all brand new. Toiletries—” she taps another plastic bin with generic deodorant, soaps, shampoos, tampons, and even Bic razors. “Anything else you need, jot it down on the notepad for the next time Dave or I go to town.” She taps a composition notebook wedged between two stacks of sweatshirts, then bustles away.