If Max had known that all he needed was a little help to make his plans work, he would've tried to win some of the other campers over long before this.
"Floor it, Nikki!" he called down to the green-haired girl in overalls who was currently manning the gas pedal.
Nikki's grin widened and she chuckled as she leaned harder against the gas pedal with her elbow.
The bus picked up speed. Max checked the side mirror—the rearview being too high up for him to use even if he stood on tiptoes—and was satisfied to see that David was nowhere in sight. He wasn't exactly sure what they'd do once they were well away, but they'd figure something out; just being away from David was a plus in Max's book.
"Don't you think we're going a bit fast?" Neil—Max's other accomplice—clung to the back of the driver's seat as he watched the road. "It's not like they can catch up now!"
"David is way faster than you think," Max replied, tightening his grip on the wheel as the bus cleared a dip in the worn dirt road. Come to think of it, the fact that David hadn't been able to catch up to him before he made it to the bus this time was pretty weird, considering how fast the bastard could usually move when he needed to. He checked the side view mirror again just in case.
"Look out!" Neil shouted behind him, jumping forward to turn the wheel himself as something big and dark loomed up in front of the bus.
The momentum of the turn threw Nikki onto the brake pedal as Max tried to keep them on the road, swinging the back of the bus away from Camp Campbell when it finally skidded to a halt. Max tumbled out of the driver's seat as the bus rocked back on its suspension after the sudden halt, Neil landing on top of him and Nikki rolling out from under the steering wheel.
"What the hell was that?" Max snapped as he pushed Neil off and got to his feet. He jumped back onto the driver's seat to see if the thing they'd almost hit was still there and found that yes, it was.
And it was one of the strangest things Max had ever seen in his life.
At a glance it looked like an unusually large black bear, but once you got beyond that the reality was much more bizarre. A beak and large eyes, feathers, it looked like the result of a bear and an owl meeting on a dark night and somehow deciding to get it on.
"Oh my god," Neil whispered, having climbed up with Nikki to get a look when they noticed Max's dumbfounded expression.
"Cool, it's like some kinda man-bird-bear!" Nikki cried, her grin back in full force as she jumped down and pulled the lever that opened the bus door. "I'm gonna go tame it!"
"No!" Max and Neil shouted in chorus as Nikki darted out the open door. They hurried after her, Max taking the stairs in one leap while Neil stumbled down them and nearly fell on his face in the process.
The creature, whatever it was, took one look at the young girl hurtling toward it at breakneck speed and dropped down on all fours to beat a hasty retreat into the forest. It disappeared into the gloom before Nikki could catch up, and Max and Neil grabbed her arms to stop her following it.
"Whoa whoa whoa Nikki you have no idea what that thing is!" Max said as Nikki started dragging them, their shoes leaving grooves in the dirt road as they pulled against her.
"You can't just go running off after random cryptids you see on the road!" Neil added.
"Kids!"
They looked up as David skidded to a halt next to them. Max braced himself for an annoying lecture but felt glad that David's appearance had at least gotten Nikki to stop.
"Kids, are—" the rest was cut off as David braced his hands against his knees to get a few extra lung-fulls of air after running so long to catch up. "Are any of you hurt?"
"Physically? No," Max replied, pleased to see how winded David was despite still feeling a bit rattled. "But mentally I'm going what the fuck because we just saw some crazy shit here."
"What?" David asked, the confusion plain on his face as he straightened. It quickly turned to panic when he realized what Max might mean by that. "Did you hit someone?" He frantically scanned the surrounding road, as if he somehow could've missed a broken bleeding body before this.
"It was some fucking, cryptid shit!" Max replied, gesturing toward the forest. "It ran away when Nikki charged it."
"I mean, there's no way something like that could really exist," Neil began with an uneasy chuckle, a bit of hope in his voice. "We could've just, hallucinated it, right?"
"Do not do this shit to me now, Neil. You know what we saw!" Max said, pointing an accusing finger.
David watched the exchange with no small amount of confusion. "So what did you see?" he asked, since it was clear he wouldn't get a proper answer unless he addressed it directly.
Nikki turned to him, still grinning. "There was a big man-bear-bird that was standing in the road and Max almost hit it but then it ran away when I tried to tame it," the answer came in a big excited rush as Nikki jumped up and down with eagerness. "And now I'm gonna go find it!"
"No!" David scooped Nikki up before she could run off. "Campers are not allowed in the forest without supervision!"
"Well then supervise me cap'n cause I'm goin' in!" Nikki started running while still in David's arms, and he held her away from himself before he could get kicked.
"Look, what you saw was probably just a bear and besides! You two haven't settled in yet!" David said, holding onto Nikki as her legs slowed. "Why don't you go back to camp and we'll see about planning a nature hike sometime soon!"
"Wait, you don't believe us?" Max asked, giving David an indignant glare. "We all saw it, David! Look, I bet it left tracks." He found them toward the center of the road and pointed at them. "See?"
"Those are bear tracks, Max," David replied with that annoying, overly patient voice as he put Nikki down. "Bears live all over the place around Lake Lilac."
"Holy shit, David," Gwen said as she came to a stop beside him, out of breath from the jog it took to catch up. "Is everyone okay?"
"No harm done, Gwen!" David quipped, giving her a reassuring smile. "There's a little confusion over a bear that wandered past but everyone's safe and sound."
"It was not a bear, David!" Max yelled, stomping his foot for emphasis. "Right, Neil?" he gave the other boy a pointed look.
Neil scratched his head, faced with a dilemma. "Yeah, it wasn't," he admitted, looking equal parts unsettled and intrigued.
"It had an owl face!" Nikki added, pointing at her own face to help reinforce the point.
Gwen let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay kids, let's get back to the campsite. I'm not in the mood to get mauled by a fuckin' bear today."
Max was still glaring daggers at David as he walked back over to Nikki and Neil. "You know what? Fine. If you won't believe us, we'll just have to prove it," he said, putting his arms around Nikki and Neil's shoulders and smirking up at David. "Then we'll see how well you sleep at night." Max started back toward the camp, towing Nikki and Neil along with him. "Come on guys, I'll show you our tent."
"This is gonna be awesome!" Nikki hopped with excitement as they walked, almost pulling Max off his feet.
"Great, like we needed two more hellspawn to deal with," Gwen grumbled as she watched the trio go.
"Oh don't be that way, Gwen! I'm sure everything will work out," David said, his grin a touch smaller than usual.
"And thank god you were awake to catch up before they could get lost," Gwen admitted. "Would've been a fucking nightmare otherwise."
"Awake?" David asked, looking puzzled. "What do you mean?"
Gwen's glare snapped to him with a suddenness that made him jump. "Don't play dumb with me, I saw you hopping around like there was some fucking wasp out to kill you."
David's grin was more guilty than happy now. "Ah, right," he said as he scratched his left forearm, where three marks from the tranquilizer darts were still visible. "Well I couldn't just let Mr. Campbell get hit, and there was a chance one of the campers could be hit too."
"Christ, David. You could've at least let him take one or two, he's the whole reason those guys were even here in the first place."
"What?" David squeaked, looking shocked. "Gwen, that's horrible!"
"Oh come on, he passes out and we just dump him in the attic until he wakes up, he likes it in there anyway."
"But he could've been taken away while we weren't looking!"
Gwen rolled her eyes. "So what? If Campbell goes to jail I can bet you he'll be back out in three days tops." She folded her arms over her chest and looked away. "Maybe it'd teach him not to hang around camp when he's got people following him, too," she grumbled.
"Either way," David said brightly, eager to change the subject. "Max made two new friends today and I think that's something worth celebrating!" There was a hopeful tilt to David's eyebrows as he reached behind himself and drew his guitar from beneath the bottom hem of his vest.
Gwen gave him a tired scowl—the vest trick was something David only did when the campers weren't looking, and the first time she actually witnessed him doing it had been amazing, like something straight out of one of her paranormal romance novels. Now, however, it was just status quo and about to unleash that despised camp jingle on her reluctant ears. "Hey David!" She snatched the guitar from David's hand and held it over her head, turning toward the forest. "Fetch!"
David lunged toward the forest, but his feet didn't stay under him. He fell face-first into the dirt before Gwen could even half-complete her throw.
"The hell?" Gwen took a step back and dropped the guitar. "David?" She knelt beside him and gave his shoulder a hard shake, receiving only a muddled groan in response. The movement shifted David's yellow bandana, revealing a tranquilizer dart embedded in his shoulder near the neck that he must've missed. Gwen plucked up the tranquilizer dart and looked from it to David with a mix of horror and surprise. "Holy shit, David! How many of these did you take?" she asked, shaking the tranquilizer dart in front of David's nose as if he could still keep his eyes open to see it.
Whatever reply David made was too garbled for Gwen to understand, and though the lids moved his eyes refused to open.
Gwen tossed the dart into the scrubby grass at the side of the road. "Well, guess a dozen-odd tranq darts will put even you to sleep," she said humorlessly as she got to her feet. Gwen braced her palms against the small of her back as she looked up at the sky and took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. "Ugh, God, we gotta get more help around here," she grumbled to herself with a glance down at David, who was now completely unconscious.
First things first, the bus had to be taken care of. Gwen walked over to it and hopped inside, turning it off and putting the key in a back pocket of her shorts. Now it wouldn't get stolen on top of all the other crap that happened today, and she could pass the key to Quartermaster when she ran into him on the way back. She didn't have the proper license to drive it, and felt that courting further disaster by taking that chance would only come back to bite her in the ass. With that taken care of, Gwen returned to where David still lay on the road.
After taking a few moments to savor a place where she wasn't subjected to the constant noise of the campers, Gwen picked up David's guitar, took her co-counselor by the collar of his shirt, and started dragging them both back to Camp Campbell. She was going to feel this workout tomorrow, that was for sure.
"Hah!" Nikki leaped through the tent flap and landed next to Max's cot, feet wide and arms up as if she expected a fight. "The coast is clear," she said with a grin, looking back at Max and Neil.
"Yeah good job jumping into the right tent this time," Max said as he followed with Neil behind him. "Almost didn't get away from Nerris and her stupid dice collection," he added with a roll of his eyes.
"So who else here is doubting what we saw on the road?" Neil asked, looking nervous.
"Are you serious right now?" Max gave Neil a glare. "We all saw it, Neil. How the fuck would we all hallucinate the exact same thing?"
"I know, it's just," Neil paused and scratched his head, his eyes narrowed in thought, "Something like that shouldn't even exist! Just, how? Are there more? How does no one else know?"
"Isn't that like, what cryptids do, though?" Nikki asked. "They creep around and most people don't know they exist?" She gasped when she came upon a realization, her eyes practically sparkling. "Does that mean we'll find Bigfoot here too?"
"One weird thing at a time, Nikki," Max said with a wave of his hand. He stuffed his hands in his sweatshirt pocket and walked over to his cot, where he hopped up and took a seat. "First we gotta prove these owl-bear things exist and watch David's sense of security crumble... Then we can figure out Bigfoot."
"What makes you so sure we can even find this thing again?" Neil asked. "Did you even hear anyone talk about it before we actually saw it? You know, urban legends and all that? They must've told a few around the campfire here."
Max gave the question some thought, trying to remember if David or Gwen had mentioned anything like the owl beast during their inevitably-lame campfire scary stories. It was difficult, given that he usually only half-listened to them. "No, I don't think they did," he admitted with a frown. "But I know someone who might be able to tell us about it."
Neil grimaced. "It's the creepy bus driver, isn't it?"
"Well yeah, Quartermaster's like, the resident hillbilly. If anyone knows about all the weirdass urban legends and conspiracy shit around here, it's gonna be him."
"He still gives me the creeps," Neil muttered.
"Aw don't worry Neil, all we have to do is get him to share his old man wisdom with us and we'll find Bigfoot in no time!" Nikki cut in, practically bouncing with excitement. "I can't wait!"
Harrison was waiting for them when Gwen reached the door of the counselors' cabin. He looked up with a grin when he spotted Gwen, only for it to fall to a frown around a second later when he noticed David. "What happened?" Harrison asked once Gwen drew level with him.
"Try around two dozen tranq darts to the everywhere," Gwen replied humorlessly. Her back and arms were killing her, and right now she just wanted to be inside so she could sit down and rest for a bit. "And then a long jog after a bus," she added, rolling her eyes.
"Aw man," Harrison said, his shoulders drooping with disappointment. "But David was supposed to take me on a "nature hike" this afternoon," he added in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Christ, Harrison. Don't use air quotes, the other campers aren't stupid," Gwen said, her voice low in case any possible eavesdroppers were nearby. "Just go practice the safer magic for now. I'll make David take you tomorrow, I promise."
"Well, okay," Harrison said, still disappointed. He scuffed a shoe in the dirt, then turned and walked off toward the activities field.
Gwen sighed, letting her head droop for a moment, then used the hand that still held the guitar to work the door handle and levered the door the rest of the way open with her foot. Before entering she reached in and set the guitar beside the door, then hauled David up and draped one of his arms over her shoulders so she could get him inside without the door swinging shut on his legs. She stopped on the mat once they were inside. It would be best to put him on his bed for now, but he was covered in dust from being dragged.
One more thing to do before being able to sit down, just great. David would thank her later for not getting his bed dusty but that didn't take the edge off the ache in her muscles now. Regardless, Gwen set to work, taking care of what she could reach of David's front first for convenience's sake. Once there was at least less dust than before on what she could see of David, she turned him so that his chest leaned against her right shoulder and started swatting dust off his back.
David stayed asleep all throughout, giving Gwen an incoherent mumble or two at most. It made her wonder just how long he'd be out, and worry began to edge its way in. Kids she could handle, albeit grudgingly and with varying amounts of shouting, but they weren't the only thing you had to keep an eye on around Lake Lilac. Hopefully the goddamn tranq darts wouldn't keep David down for more than a night, she could hold down the fort for at least that long where special matters were concerned. Any longer than that, though... She didn't want to think about. Sleeping would definitely be difficult if that was the case.
With her task done and the door mat covered in a new layer of dust, Gwen wrapped her arms around David's waist, lifted him up with a quiet grunt, and crab walked as quickly as possible over to his bed. She dropped him face first on the covers—he was heavier than he looked, and the less she had to actually carry him the better—and took his boots off since there was no getting all the dust and dirt off of those. Gwen turned him over and lifted his legs up, then pushed him so he was laying on the bed rather than across it.
Gwen took a step back and scratched her head. Did you need to put someone who'd been hit by a bunch of tranq darts in the recovery position? Hard to say, since first aid camp had never covered such a situation before. And David was ridiculously hardy anyway so did it really matter?
The day was catching up with Gwen, she could tell. The anxiety attack prior to having to run headlong after the goddamn bus and then having to drag her coworker back to camp wasn't helping anything either. And now the worry was back and sinking its teeth in a little deeper. Gwen decided to play it safe, rolling David onto his side so he was facing the room; legs bent, the bottom leg outstretched while the calf of the other was draped over its knee, bottom arm out in front with the other laying across the chest, chin up and mouth angled down.
There, that was the best she could do for the time being. Gwen crossed to her armchair and dropped into it, kicking up the dust that was left on her clothing. She gave the dust cloud a half-hearted swat, then sighed and slouched down in the chair as she looked at David again.
God, please don't let Campbell's stupid shit be what does him in. Please wake up tomorrow morning.
That damn worry was working in deeper, starting to trigger her anxiety. Gwen took a deep breath and tried to calm herself as her heart rate kicked up. She couldn't sit here like this forever either, there were the campers to worry about and they were probably getting into some sort of trouble even now. Taking care of the camp was going to be hell with just her, and that was without the possibility of weird bullshit wandering in to make things worse.
More help was what they needed. Well, one of the things they needed, because Campbell was a goddamn skinflint when it came to everything but himself. Gwen rocked her boots side to side, tapping their sides together while she thought. There had to be a rule about the kid per counselor ratio, and they'd just added two more...
Gwen pushed herself up and got to her feet, hurrying to her desk where she was sure she'd stored the Counselor's Handbook in a drawer. They never really referenced the damn thing and Campbell only cared about rules being enforced when the authorities were around to watch, but it was possible she could justify hiring on another counselor if there was a rule about it in here. She started thumbing through it as she crossed back to her chair and sat down again.
And there it was—a recommendation of four campers per counselor, with a note that five was doable but not ideal. Gwen smiled and slammed the book shut, then went to her bedside table to grab her laptop. Campbell had gotten her to make up custom advertisements for the camp some time ago, and it would only take a few adjustments to make it suitable for her purposes and send it off to the Sleepy Peak Times. Thankfully they used email—the town of Sleepy Peak looked so old fashioned that the fact had come as a pleasant surprise when Gwen found out—and there was a chance the ad would even make it into tomorrow morning's paper if she hurried.
They wouldn't be stuck herding five cats each for much longer.