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Chapter 3: Fright Night
Zach looked down at his phone with a start.
Aleks. He sighed, aggrieved, then turned to the clock on the nightstand. It was late...maybe she'd think he was sleeping?
But she wasn't. And he knew what that was like. Here he was, now, unable to sleep.
'There's nothing going on, Aleks.' he replied.
'I just can't right now.'
'It's not a good idea.'
Drew (Ghost Of Terrance Drag)
Drew had grown tired of waiting for Micah, surely he would still be able to initiate the prank on him later, but for now maybe the ghost of the beloved Terrance could be wandering the grounds, creeping out any who break curfew.
With that he exited the cabin and slowly, ghoulishly walked throughout the grounds, a silent specter, nothing but a lost and longing look on his face and in his eyes, as if he wished to be among the living, and never found closure in life.
Aleks looked at her phone when he responded, frowning some.
'Zach...I just...I'm your friend, and I won't judge you...not at all...never....'
'I just felt so...lost after everything....holding hands...the walk....'
'If it's not a good idea, than maybe me asking was the bad idea in the first place....forget I texted.'
'Let's just pretend I never said I liked you, let's just not hang around each other for the rest of this stupid retreat.'
'Night.'
She sent the messages, than set her phone upside down on the nightstand and rolled onto her front so she could buy her face in her pillow. And the rest of that night she spent crying herself to sleep in her pillow leaving a bunch of tear stains all over her pillows.
Tracy (High as a kite)
Tracy heard something, lifting her head from where she was laying on the bench table right now. She rubbed at her eyes a few times, rubbing the tears away as she looked at Terrance, who was very much dead. She had held his dying body in her own arms.
"T-Terrance?" She called out, jumping off the table and slipping in her stupid Prada shoes, falling onto her hands and knees and not even giving a damn about how she was ruining her outfit right now. If he was back here, did that mean she could finally yell at him about leaving her.
She stood up, not caring about her bloody knees or ruined dress. "TERRANCE YOU BLOODY ASSHOLE! I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO AND DIE ON ME!" She screamed out, frantic, crying and reaching out towards who she thought was him.
Okay, wow, a girl hadn't blown up Zach's phone this badly since he'd been sent picture after picture of his mother being slowly tortured to death.
Clearly she was angry. Zach didn't want to make her angry! He should've left well enough alone... Stupid Mr. Evans and his stupid beard and his stupid pictures...
No, those were Mr. Smith's pictures. Whatever.
He heaved an aggrieved sigh, figuring he might as well get a last word in.
'It's probably for the best.'
Well, now she'd definitely hate him. But if that was the choice, against the alternative...
He lowered the phone to the dresser, and lay down in bed.
When he closed his eyes, it came back to him clear as glass.
54 years...
54 years...
54 years...
"Doesn't your mother wonder where you are?"
He almost cries out, but bites his tongue, burying his head in the pillow.
He's gotten very good at that.
Drew (AKA Drewance)
Drew turned his head to the voice that called out for Terrance, and saw Tracy running, falling, and running again towards him. He slowly walked into her grasp, not saying a word, just hugging her softly, his touch, light, almost non existent.
He moved, only holding her waist as he looked into her eyes, a soft sad expression on his face. He wasn't going to talk until he assessed the situation and her sobriety level.
Aleks heard her phone, picking it up and reading it.
She dropped her phone onto her bed and ran out of her cabin and straight to Zach's cabin. She began pounding on the door, she didn't care what would happen, she hadn't even put on shoes and her feet were actually hurting and probably bleeding right now.
Hell her face probably looked worse, mascara running down her cheeks, hair a mess and looking a total wreck.
"ZACH THIS IS NOT HOW THIS IS GOING DOWN! DAMNIT!"
She yelled out, tears spilling down her cheeks as she stood there pounding on his door before eventually sliding down onto her knees and just sitting there in front of his door. She hadn't wanted this, not this way.
Tracy
Tracy placed her hands on his shoulders, assessing that he was right there right now and holding onto him right now.
"Am I just hallucinating right now? Did I take too many oxy's? Or did I die because I mixed too many pills tonight?"
She felt the tears rolling down her cheeks, sniffing gently as she looked at him.
Quickly she reached into her purse, feeling like he was fading from her view and her grasp. It was like she couldn't feel him anymore, so she pulled one of the bottles out, not knowing which one it was, but opening it and taking three of the pills. The bottle had ended up being the Hydromorphone bottle, which was definitely not something you mix with Oxycodone.
"Why did you leave me?! How could you just die on me you stupid jerk....."
Zach jolted out of bed at the cry, at first believing it to have been part of his dream.
He jolted up in bed, looking one way, then the other, as his heart slowly stopped its pounding.
Aleks. And she was crying.
He practically fell out of bed, neglecting the fact that he wasn't wearing pants, and threw open the door to behold the girl on her actual knees on the actual ground sobbing actual tears.
"Aleks..." he breathed, "Aw, man. Aleks, you...this isn't..." he leaned out the door, looking one way and then the other and, seeing there was nobody around, sighed heavily, "Come on,"
He extended a hand, "Can...can you get up?"
Aleks reached up and took hold of his hand, using her other to rub at her face a bit.
"Y-you asshole....y-you don't get to decide the e-end of this..."
She sobbed, her voice cracking as she cringed for a moment before looking down at the blood.
Her feet, she hadn't put slippers or even shoes on right now, and her feet were bleeding right now.
"I...w-won't let y-you...."
She hiccuped a few times, cringing as she reached out to grip onto his shoulder to stabilize herself right now.
Drew
Seeing that she was drugged out of his mind he felt more comfortable speaking, he gave a soft smirky grin that Drew had seen in so many of Terrance's pictures, and looked at her.
"You aren't dead you dumb bitch, but keep mixing those pills and you will be." He said, not in a hurtful tone, but a playful loving tone. "And in Prada, nobody looks good after an overdose." He told her.
His smirk faded and turned into a look of sympathy, "I didn't leave you, I'm still here..I stayed because of you." He told her and shook his head, "It's not like I planned any of this, you know how I am, action before thought."
Tracy
Tracy started smacking his chest, sobbing like it didn't mater. "Your an ass hat! I told you not to go and die...I should have given you my stupid gun...I should have kicked off my shoes and ran off with you." She sobbed, collapsing against him and gripping onto his shirt like he was her last thresh hold to this world anymore.
"You don't get to tell me how to get high anymore....your gone now and I'm left alone in this stupid world..."
She was already starting to get woozy, stumbling and swaying on her feet. She was leaning heavily against him right now. "If I die....we'll be together....than I won't have to do anything..."
"Oh my God, you're bleeding..." Zach stared, "Come on, you couldn't put on shoes?"
He found himself thinking of Brooke as he hefted Aleks over to the bed, lowering her onto it, "Aren't girls supposed to have, like, limits before they start chasing after dudes like this? Becuase, Aleks, seriously..." he leaned forward, "I'm not worth it. I'm not. Bad idea. No me gusta."
He moved to his bag, "I...er...I've got some First Aid stuff. Mostly for, like, sports injuries, but I can bandage you up."
"Are you that much of an idiot?!" Aleks screamed at him, rubbing at her eyes furiously as she continued to cry.
She sat on his bed, not even aware of where she was sitting right now, but at this moment she had to say what she had to say to him. She needed to get it out while she had the balls to actually do it, while she was crying and able to actually say the things that even scared her.
"I was almost killed by Ghost Face one night too...the night after the park where we all thought we lost you...." She continued to sob, rubbing her eyes more.
She hiccuped a few times, lowering her hands to look at him with her bloodshot eyes and mascara stained face.
"We're both damaged goods...whatever problems you have, can't actually be as bad as what I've had to do in my life! What I had to do in order to survive before we moved to Lakewood!!!" She belted out, shrugging her shoulders as she started shaking some.
Drew
Obviously this was getting a little too real, he wasn't expecting a girl like Tracy to embrace death so easily. Composing himself he grabbed her by the shoulders, and shaking her around as he spoke, so that even if he was closer to her her vision was stirred.
"God damn it Tracy if you let yourself die, I will disappear, you will never see me again ever, because I don't hang out with sad, whiny, suicidal sluts, I hang out with fun, snarky, sugar babies who know how to have fun." He said in an angrier voice.
"Pull yourself together, you aren't just living for you anymore, you have to live for me too. You have to make the most out of your life, because I will never get to again, you hear me!?" Drew shouted as he clasped her jaw, making her open her mouth as he shoved his fingers down her throat trying to make her barf as he turned her slightly so she wouldn't puke on him.
Tracy
A somewhat hazed yelling came through to her ears, and when she felt the fingers shove down her throat, it took her a while before she started to throw up and vomit up as many of the pills as she could. Though the oxy's were still too far into her system, but the Hydromorphone's were able to come up.
After a few more heaves, she collapsed into his arms and went somewhat slack. But she was still breathing, "D-Don't leave me...please....I can't lose you again....I'm sorry..."
The guilt was finally showing through, Tracy hid behind the booze and the pills, the life of useless blackmail and money using, and it all got worse after she lost Terrance.
"I'm lost Ter....you left me alone with all these stupid idiots...why can't I just come be there already...I don't wanna be here..." Her words were slurring more, and she began to fall asleep, though still breathing thankfully enough.
Okay, now he really wished Brooke were here. This probably filed under what she called 'Women's Mysteries'.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, "Yes, I'm a giant frickin' idiot, okay? Big whoop! I'm a giant dumbass, you could probably do better. You could definitely do better. I'm not worth your time. See!" he uncorked a bottle of peroxide and drizzled it with little grass over the open wounds on her feet, "I'm reckless! I burn! And when I do your bandages, they're gonna be crooked and retarded looking because that's the kinda guy I am! Crooked and retarded Johnny Football! Big ol' idiot!"
He seized a role of gauze from his pack, beginning to apply it with as much grace as he was able (as advertised: not much) around Aleks's hurt feet, "I know, Aleks. I know what happened to you. And I get it, it...it changes you. It does. Almost dying. But...hey, if we made a dating service out of everyone in our class who almost died, we'd have the entire class. I almost froze, okay? And...and you got hurt, and that's awful. It is. But it doesn't mean we're destined to be together or anything."
And now she was yelling, trembling like she had some shaking sickness. Zach abandoned his work for a moment to hold her steady, one strong hand pinning her in place by the arm, "Aleks, Aleks, calm down! Alright, just...just calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you. Only thing I'm gonna do is say 'no'. And it's sticking that way. I've made a lot of dumbass decisions in my life. This isn't one of them."
He pauses, looking her over.
Don't bite. Don't take it. Come on, just ignore...
"What...what did you have to do?" he asked, voice muted. As far as he knew, Aleks's family was rich. What would an heiress have to worry about surviving for?
Drew
"Shhh...Shh...It's okay Trace, you're gonna be okay, I'm always here with you, always watching." He whispered to her as he picked her up bridal style and began walking to her cabin.
"It's your time Trace, it's time for you to find out who you are without me, because the truth is, you never needed me...I needed you." He said, not knowing if she could hear him as she seemed to be at least half asleep already.
Aleks felt her body trembling more now, as she had to think about everything, as she let the memories of what she had to do in order to survive before Lakewood.
"My dad...he wasn't the nicest dad....he....he....sent me out at night to sell his drugs for him, and to make sure that the rent was paid."
Her body shook more, and she found herself clinging onto him as if he would stabilize her somehow. It wasn't supposed to be like this, to be explaining her past to someone, nobody was supposed to know, not even Brooke knew this shameful little secret.
"I was 7 when it first started...7 years old selling drugs. When I became of age as daddy called it....that's when he started using my body to make the money. I'd take the drugs to the guys, and than the guys would get their way with me, once they were done....they would give me the money and send me back home."
The tears were pouring down even harder now, she was trembling, as if her body wouldn't stop unless something made it, as if she was about to have a seizure.
"That kept....kept going on until my mom stole me away in the middle of the night and moved us to Lakewood....she stole a bunch of dad's money, or rather the money that he used me to make for him. When we got to Lakewood, mom bought a mansion next to the Mayor's...she changed our last names....and....and we'd never thought we'd see him again..."
Her body shuddered more as she brought her hands up to smack the sides of her head and pull on her hair as she sobbed uncontrollably, she had never told anyone that story before. Her body rocking and trembling as she gripped tighter to his arm.
"If he finds me....he'll....he'll drag me back into that...."
Tracy
"I love you Ter...." Tracy said gently as she slowly fell asleep completely, she had obviously taken too much and right now she couldn't think of anything. At least she got to see him one last time, she had gotten to see her Terrance one last time.
Her eyes fell closed, and her head rolled onto his shoulder. She would be pissed about the Prada shoes and her current bloodied knees and ruined dress. But it had all been worth it, for one last moment with him. "I'll miss you...come back to me..." She absently mumbled in her sleep.
Drew
Drew listened to her final words before she was completely swept away by sleep. Soon enough he found her cabin and opened the door, he put her on a bed, kissed her cheek, and left, never saying a word.
Now that he had hopefully gave Tracy some closure, he could use this get up for it's intended purposes...Fucking with people.
Okay.
Fuck.
Zach's lips were suddenly dry. He wanted to say something, felt he should have something to say to that. His embattled mind was having some trouble on this, merely repeating some variation of the phrase, What am I supposed to do with this? over and over in his head.
"That's...that's horrible, Aleks," he said at last, looking at her in a new light. How small she was, how scared...
Her mom helped her, he thought with a grim resignation, Saved her.
"That's what Mom's do," he could hear his own mother's voice, as if from a thousand miles away, "We help our kids."
"Listen, he...he's not going to find you," he told her, "Why should he? It's a big world. And Lakewood's nowhere. Your Mom was smart to bring you here. Nobody ever thinks twice about us unless there's some guy in a mask cutting up somewhere."
He took a deep breath, "Aleks, I...I don't know why you told me this. Maybe you didn't want to, but you did... I guess I can get that. Lots of things I wish I could just come out and say..." he bit his lip, "I hate what happened to you. I...I want to help, and...and I'd like to be your friend."
He shook his head, "But I can't be anything more than that. For your own good."
Aleks shook her head, pulling herself up. "I shouldn't...."
She shook her head again, rubbing violently at her eyes as she looked at him. "He'll find us...he always does...than we'll have to run again...and we don't have much left to run with...."
Than it hit her, this was the perfect place she could vanish in, nobody would suspect her of being in a swamp.
"But I know what I can do...I'm strong enough..."
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, almost as if saying goodbye to him. She looked at him one last time, "Whatever secret your holding in Zach...tell someone before it ends up eating you alive and killing you too...."
She moved to the door, not caring that her feet were still bleeding or unbandaged mostly. "And for the record...you're worth it to me...Brooke told me to go for it, to tell you how I felt...and I did...and I got shut down. Well at least I'll have that moment in your arms...and that kiss....that'll help for what comes next."
"Goodbye Zach....I hope you can find that person to tell...like I did...because your the only one who knows." And with that she was tearing down the path again and back towards her cabin, she wouldn't do this, she liked him, she wouldn't put him in danger.
She burst into her cabin, not seeing anyone else in there, which meant she could do what she needed to quickly. She changed out of her pajamas, throwing them carelessly into her backpack, along with two other outfits, complete with four sets of bras and panties, along with socks. She yanked her jeans on quickly, pulled on a pair of socks and than her hiking boots. She pulled on her white tank top and the black jacket. She grabbed her black beanie, pulling it on over her blonde hair before throwing her purse into the backpack.
She put her knife in her pocket, and grabbed the canteen and the flashlight before adding a few extra batteries in case she would need them.
And with that she exited her cabin and kept the flashlight off, ensuring her phone and charger with in the backpack. She turned on the flashlight, and headed as deep into the wooded area as she could, she had to get away, before anyone else got hurt.
Before Zach got hurt.
Zach watched her go, "Wait, Aleks, I...Aleks!"
She was gone. He'd barely finished fixing up her feet, the gauze roll was still in his hand.
"Aw crap," he muttered, "Oh frick. Oh jeez...where are my pants?"
He rummaged through his dresser drawers, grabbing a pair of sweats, "Aleks!"
Forget it, she was probably too far to hear. What, was she nuts? All of that about liking him a lot and wanting to spend time with him, and then all of a sudden she was an ex-hooker who'd been used to sell drugs, and now she was hiding from her dad, and now her dad might find her, and now she might as well make a house out of mud and sticks and call it a day...
No. Nu-huh. She came to him, she wanted to talk to him...
"Fine," he muttered, grabbing his sneakers, "Let's talk."
Aleks wanted him so badly? Fine. He was gonna find her and he was gonna talk some sense into her.
Bout time he found somebody.
Aleks had stopped running to catch her breathe, and because her feet were also hurting her pretty badly right now.
She sat down on one of the benches, turning on her flashlight and looking around before pulling her boots off, one look and she quickly put it back on, there was blood all over the bottom of her sock, which meant that the other was just the same right now.
Dropping her backpack on the table with a thud, she pulled the knife out of her pocket and held onto it.
She took her canteen off her shoulder, taking a sip.
It wasn't something she should have said, none of that was, but he was so hell bent on not telling her things, and she had just lost it.
Hence the second bout of crying as she dropped the flashlight on the ground and it rolled under the table. She cursed beneath her breathe, dropping onto her knees to reach under the table for the flashlight.
"Aleks?" Zach called, "Al?"
He was pretty sure she wouldn't approve of that nickname.
Well, fine. I don't approve of running around in the dark looking for her.
Things would be so much easier if he just never bothered with girls. If he'd just listened to Jake back in the third grade and heeded the Gospel of Don't Touch Them Or You'll Turn to Millipedes. So much would've been avoided.
What did Aleks even see in him anyway? She called him an idiot, and he was. If nothing else proved it, this midnight trek through the swamp did.
Luckily, he remembered the lay of the land from his bout of exploring with Carl. The kid had been nuts for climbing trees and scrambling down steep slopes, but Zach had stuck to firmer ground. He could only hope Aleks did the same.
He wouldn't like to think what would happen if the Honey Island Monster Thing Carl kept going on about turned out to not be a vaguely sex-sounding euphemism.
Eventually, he became aware of the sound of crying and quickened his pace, moving toward the stand of picnic tables, not that far from the cabins.
So much for running way...
He saw her scrambling around under a table. Sighing in exasperation, he quickened his pace and bent down, retrieving the flashlight for her.
"Need a light?" he tossed it to her, lightly, "Gonna come out and say it...it takes serious lady clout to call someone an idiot and then so something this..." he scrambled for the word, "Idiot-like. What the hell are you trying to do, Aleks? Dig a hole and spend the rest of your life with the Honey Island Swamp Monster? Because that's not a good idea."
Aleks looked up at him, moving to sit on the bench and hold her face in her hands.
"Running away because I made a complete fool of myself...."
She sniffed, looking over at him as she placed the flashlight on the table and pulled her backpack over to her. How had he found her? Why had he even come after her?
"Zach...I was being sincere when I said what I did about you....about how I felt...."
She looked over at him, before glancing back down at her feet. "I would have gotten farther....but my feet." She mumbled, pulling her beanie off as she tried to figure out what the hell she could possibly do to fix anything she had said to him.
"I just wanted to be there for you...someone you could talk too....and someone you could confide in." She said gently, sighing some before she could lose herself in him anymore than she had already had. She was a complete mess, and right now she didn't want to hurt him, or rather be hurt.
Part of her just wanted to run off again, but instead she found herself standing up despite how much her feet were hurting, she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and just hugged him for a moment.
Daring, a daring move but she tried to be bold for a moment and leaned up and kissed him.
"I have no idea," Carl replied quickly. He didn't care it was just a fox or a deer, he wasn't sticking around to find out. Not with a killer on the loose.
"Do you think it was the killer?"
***
"Think she's on drugs?" Stavo flat out asked.
***
Audrey shrugged and said, "Maybe she ran back to Lakewood."
"Yeah, well, there's a reason they needed bandaging up," Zach allowed, "Running away like that...and it's dark! I mean, if he hasn't found you since you've come here, he's not gonna just show up in the middle of the..."
He broke off, sighing, "Listen, that's really nice and all. And...and I'm glad you felt..." he didn't want to say comfortable, because that was definitely now how she'd seemed when she told me, "...I'm glad you shared that with me. And stuff. But I'm not trading you my baggage for yours. So...swood move, gonna pass on it. But I will make sure you stop acting like a rabid monkey demon, and get back to..."
She kissed him.
He was being kissed.
A girl was kissing him.
The earth had come loose from its moorings, there was this weird wind whistling in his ears that may have just been his own unsteady breathing.
He'd imagined kisses before, of course, as guys do... Most of the time, he'd imagined Brooke. And she'd always smile and laugh and whisper something stupid and clever into his ear, call him 'Johnny Football' and throw her arms around him...
That was usually where it ended. Happier dreams.
This was no dream. Zach couldn't exactly call it 'happy' either. She wasn't the same girl who'd sat by him on the bus and listened to music with him. She was haunted and sad and maybe a little bit crazy.
Sometimes Zach felt he was crazy too. It was the easiest explanation, and the hardest to face.
Finally, he leaned back from her, lowering his head, and hoping he could keep his courage, "You are a really manipulative person."
But he smiled, feeling his face heat up, "Come on, let me...let me get you back."
Jeez, she was light. Zach had worried that attempting the 'bridal carry' thing you saw in movies would end up with them both sprawling, but he could manage her in both arms well enough.
"You've got...er...Audrey's cabin, right?" he asked, mostly by way of conversation.
***
"If it was, he's a giant pervert too," Micah grumbled, "I swear, he was getting his fill of it."
An ugly thought... Micah shuddered, "Probably an animal, right? A...very big, very subtle animal..."
Okay, so not as comforting an alternative as he'd thought.
***
"Who isn't on drugs?" Eli shrugged, "But, no, I think it's, like...I dunno, it was just one conversation. Could be anything."
They approached the cabin. Eli looked furtively from Stavo to the door, "Do we knock or raise hell?"
***
"Sounds like something she'd do," said Brooke breezily, "Personally, I've vowed to stick out this B.S to its end. Nothing short of group singalongs will chase me off."
-Zach, Micah, Eli and Brooke
"Maybe it was a deer," Carl added, hoping they could both calm down, "Or Hogzilla."