ONE BY ONE - Chapter 1
"It's not that we have to stay in a glorified shack for a whole weekend for sport..I just don't understand why Vanessa and Jenny have to come, I mean they're not even graduating," Blair Waldorf complained as she helped her blonde best friend finish packing.
"Blair come on, Dan wants them there," replied Serena, defending her ex-boyfriend's guests.
"Of course it's all about what Dan wants," Blair said as she rolled her eyes.
"B, this is going to be a blast. Remember this is just like old times except its Dan's treat..something new and crazy before we all split up. Would you rather just spend another night in the hotel getting drunk and hottubbing?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
Serena laughed and sighed, "We're going to be canoeing, chatting around the camp-fire and maybe even making smores..you know like the ones in the movies! You won't even notice all the Brooklyners okay?"
"Okay, okay. Let's go, Chuck's outside and he's gone be picking everybody up in the limo."
The girls called down to the front to have people carry Serena's luggage outside and headed into the elevator themselves. Blair got in the limo and Serena waited for the butlers to finish loading her stuff in.
"Well aren't we a happy camper." Chuck said slyly, looking at the expression on Blair's face. She looked like she was being shipped off to war.
"Shut up Chuck, I'm not in the mood for your psychobabble," replied the girl.
"Look I'm just saying you might want to lighten up, nobody forced you to come. I'd much rather be on a plane to Europe right now but since Archibald and everybody else seems to have insisted on tagging along with the charity case, it wouldn't be much of a grad trip."
"I know! Why do they all side with the commoners?" Blair asked, agreeing.
"Beats me. We should have just gone to Barcelona together." Chuck whispered, smirking.
"Dream on, Bass." Blair said sharply. "Seriously, I have a bad feeling about this trip."
When Serena was set to go, they went and got Nate, Is, Penelope and Nelly Yuki. After picking up Nelly, they drove half an hour, crossed the Williamsburg Bridge and picked up the 3 non Upper East Siders.
Then they were off to the Buttermilk Resort..a 2 hour drive. It was quite a ride. Serena and Blair talked to each other and texted, Dan talked to Nate and the Brooklyn girls, the "Mean Girls" talked amongst themselves and Chuck slept.
An hour into the ride, everybody heard a loud sound. "What was that?" Blair asked, looking around.
"I think it was thunder." Jenny replied.
"WHAT!?" Blair asked as she began panicking.
"B, relax it'll let up soon." Serena said, trying to clam her best friend.
"It's not supposed to rain today, I checked like a billion times…" Dan Humphrey said, pitching in.
"See, Serena I told you I had a bad feeling about this trip." Blair said, shooting Dan a dirty look.
"So then why did you come?" Humphrey shot back.
"BECAUSE my friends are coming, MY friends."
"Oh is that some way of saying that I stole your friends?" Dan asked, confused and annoyed.
"COOL IT you two, if you bicker all weekend you're gonna ruin the trip." Serena said, jumping in.
All 10 of the passengers were silent now, Chuck still sound asleep.
"Can I just ask one thing?" Vanessa said, finally speaking up.
Everybody nodded.
"Why DID you guys want to come? I mean some of the other seniors went to Amsterdam..you guys are coming to Buttermilk Falls, the creepy camping resort?"
"Well for one thing we're not potheads that go off to Amsterdam whenever we get the chance." Blair said, slouching back.
"You know what I mean!" Vanessa replied.
Blair shrugged. "Ask Nate."
"What?" Nate said, looking interrupted from some deep thought. "I just wanted to try something new, all of you didn't have to come."
Soon the rain was POUNDING on windows and everybody seemed to be panicking internally a little. Before long the limo pulled up to the resort and everybody got out.
They all had to carry their own luggage through the pouring rain, though Chuck got his driver to do it.
"Sooo Dan where do we go now?" Nelly Yuki asked.
"To our cabin."
"And where exactly is that?" asked Chuck.
"Hmm we have to go ask at the front desk in there," Dan said pointing to a nice well built marble hut.
Everybody headed to the hut as to get inside and get dry. They all got inside but nobody else was there.
"Hello? Anyone here?"
It was totally empty.