Mine (2 page)

“Where are you?” Dooley yelled.

“Here,” Antonio answered from the other side of the debris. “Just go around.”

As they carefully picked their way past the pile, Joel noticed a swath of scarred and pitted ground stretching as far as he could see back into the woods. He guessed a flash flood had carried the junk through the forest until it smashed into the fence.

As they came around the other side, Leah said, “Oh, wow.”

Joel pointed his light ahead. Along with the branches and rocks deposited by the flood were two giant tree trunks. They had slammed into the fence with enough force to rip a wide hole in the chain link.

Antonio was standing in a meadow on the other side, Kayla looking at him through the gap.

“You shouldn’t be in there,” Mike said nervously.

Antonio laughed. “Who’s going to know?”

Dooley worked his way up one of the logs to the rip and paused. “What do you see?”

“Pretty much the same as that side.” Antonio swung his light around, illuminating a small meadow and several trees. “I’ll go in a little farther and see if there’s anything interesting.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mike said. “The sign said
RESTRICTED AREA
.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” Dooley chided him as he stepped through the hole.

“Should we come with you?” Courtney asked.

“Just stay there for a minute while we check things out,” Dooley told her.

“Be a good little woman,” Leah whispered so only Joel could hear. “Let the big tough men handle this.”

It was all Joel could do to keep from laughing out loud.

They all watched as Dooley and Antonio crossed the meadow and disappeared into the woods. For a while the two boys’ lights bounced off trees here and there, but soon the beams vanished.

“Should…we go look for them?” Kayla asked a minute later.

“I’m not going in there,” Mike said. “I-I-I’m not getting arrested.”

“We’ll give them a few more minutes,” Joel said. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

“You scared, too?” Courtney asked.

“No, of course not.” While that wasn’t a lie, the restricted sign had definitely given him pause.

Half a minute shy of when Joel would have given in and gone searching for them, a light flickered in the woods. A few moments later, they heard the crunch of footsteps on pine needles.

When Dooley stepped out from the trees alone, Kayla took a step through the opening. “Where’s Antonio?”

“You got to see this. Come on!” Dooley waved for them to follow and then vanished back into the woods.

Courtney joined Kayla on the other side.

“Don’t you even know what restricted means?” Mike said. “We’re not supposed to be in there!”

“If they were really concerned, the government would have patched this up long ago, don’t you think?” Courtney said before the two girls hurried after Dooley.

“Restricted means no trespassing!” Mike called after her. “
I’m
not going in.”

“Then stay there, chicken,” Kayla called back.

Flustered, Mike looked at Leah and Joel. “You two are staying with me, right?”

If he’d been alone, Joel might have let Mike persuade him, but when Leah gave him a sly smile and said, “Let’s check it out,” he followed her through the rip.

T
WO

J
OEL AND LEAH
jogged over to the spot where Dooley and the others had disappeared between the trees. Before they entered the woods, Joel glanced back toward the fence and could just make out Mike’s silhouette on the other side.

A panic hit him. What if Mike was right? What if they did get caught? What if they were
arrested
? Would they get kicked out of camp? Wait, would he have to complete middle school in jail? Maybe even high school? What would his parents say?

Something rubbed across his palm. He glanced down and saw Leah had grabbed his hand.

“Come on,” she said. “We don’t want to lose them.”

He nodded and smiled, his fears forgotten.

The path—or what passed for one—led them through the trees and bushes to the widest meadow they’d yet encountered. Right at the edge was another fence. It was in considerably worse condition than the one with the sign on it, and didn’t need the aid of a flash flood to punch a hole through it. Most of the chain-link fencing had slumped to the ground, where it lay in a rusting heap.

Dooley, Courtney, and Kayla stood on the other side.

“Where’s Antonio?” Kayla asked.

Dooley pointed his flashlight to the right, at a hill on the edge of the meadow. “There.”

The hill was fifty feet to the summit at most, but it boasted the unusual feature of a wide rocky overhang with a one-story building tucked beneath it. Though the structure had a closed door, the easy way in was through the large hole in the wall near the right front corner, inside which stood a smiling Antonio.

“What is that?” Courtney asked. “A house?”

“An office, I think,” Dooley said, “but I’m not sure. I just took a quick look inside before I came back for you guys. Let’s check it out.”

As they approached the building, Antonio said, “The maid didn’t come today so it’s a little messy.”

One by one, he helped everyone through the hole. Once inside, the first thing Joel noticed was the odor of dust and rotting wood. He moved his flashlight beam across the floor and saw that while some linoleum tiles remained, mostly it was exposed concrete splintered by dozens of weed-filled cracks.

He moved his light to the walls. Whatever color they’d once been had turned into a water-stained tan. Here and there nails stuck out where something had once hung. Along the opposite wall was a partially opened door.

Three desks sat in the room, big metal things with rounded corners. They looked like they were from one of those old detective movies Joel’s dad would sometimes watch on TV. Behind each were the crumpled remains of a wooden chair.

“Look at this,” Leah said.

She picked a landline telephone off the floor. It was the super ancient kind, complete with rotary dial and buttons across the bottom. A thick, cracked cable ran out the back and into the wall.

Dooley walked over and grabbed it out of her hands. “This is awesome. I call dibs.”

“No one has dibs on anything,” Leah said. “We’re already trespassing. We’re not going to steal, too.”

“It’s not stealing. No one’s using it.”

As Dooley started yanking on the cable, Joel said, “Leah’s right. Just leave it.”

For a moment, it looked like Dooley was going to shove Joel, but then he shrugged and dropped the phone on the floor. “A piece of junk anyway.”

After he walked off, Leah whispered, “I’ll bet he comes back tomorrow night to get it.”

Joel nodded.

The search continued into the next room. It was the same size as the first, but instead of desks, there were a couple of round, water-warped tables circled by four chairs each. The chairs were metal and once had padded seats and backrests covered in a green plastic material. Most of the material had rotted away, leaving only bits and pieces as reminders.

“What’s in the next room?” Kayla asked Antonio, indicating the closed door.

“Didn’t make it that far back yet,” Antonio said.

He started for the door but Dooley pushed him aside. “This one’s mine.”

Dooley turned the knob, clearly expecting the door to open. Instead, it moved only an inch before jamming to a halt. Unable to stop himself in time, Dooley smashed into the metal surface with a loud grunt.

“Dammit!” he said, grabbing his nose. “Am I bleeding? I am, aren’t I?”

Courtney shined her light on his face. “Move your hands.”

“Get that out of my eyes.”

“How am I supposed to see without it?” She grabbed one of his hands and pulled it way.

Vibrant red blood ran from his nostrils, glistening in the beam.

“Tilt your head back,” she said. “Does anyone have a tissue or a rag or something?”

When no one responded, Courtney said to Dooley, “Pull your T-shirt up and hold it over your nose.”

“I’m not going to mess up my shirt.”

“It’s already messed up.”

He looked down and groaned when he saw the bloodstains around the collar. “Ah, man.” Reluctantly he pulled up his T-shirt.

“You should probably lie down,” Kayla suggested.

“I don’t need to lie down. I’ll be fine.”

Leah pulled a chair from one of the tables and scooted it over to him. “At least sit down.”

Dooley made no objections this time and did as she suggested, tilting his head over the backrest.

With Dooley out of commission, Antonio tried his hand at the door.

“Hey, I said it was my turn,” Dooley shouted when he realized what was going on.

Antonio snorted. “You screwed up your chance.”

He pressed his shoulder against the door and pushed. A loud scraping sound came from the other side, but the door moved only a few more inches before stopping again.

“Madsen, give me a hand.”

As Joel joined him, he felt cold air drifting through the small gap.

“On three,” Antonio said. “One, two,
three
.”

Again the door put up resistance, but the two boys were able to keep it moving until there was a gap wide enough to pass through.

More cold air wafted over the threshold.

“What’s in there?” Kayla asked. “A freezer?”

Antonio played his light through the opening. “Nah, just another room.” He slipped inside and disappeared.

Likely fearing his own toughness would be questioned if he stayed where he was, Dooley shot out of the chair, T-shirt still over his nose, and hurried after his friend. Courtney and Kayla were a bit more reluctant this time, but still followed after their boyfriends.

“Should we join them?” Leah asked, not nearly as confident as she’d sounded earlier.

“I don’t hear any screams.”

Leah chuckled. “So you’re saying we might as well?”

“We’ll never hear the end of it if we don’t.”

“Joel, you coming?” Antonio called.

Joel looked at Leah. After a moment, she whispered, “Okay.”

“Yeah,” he replied to Antonio, and then stepped into the cold room.

T
HREE

Mike

N
EAR THE TOP
of the debris pile, Mike found a spot stable enough to sit on. From there, he could see over the fence and into the woods where the others had gone.

He kept hoping to catch a glimpse of one of their flashlight beams, but thirty minutes came and went without even a hint they were coming back. Every minute that passed added to his growing belief that something had happened to them, and whatever that something was would soon race out of the woods and deliver to him the same fate.

Dammit
,
what’s taking them so long?

Though he’d initially decided he would head back to camp after twenty minutes, that was never going to happen. Even if a bear or a wolf or Bigfoot didn’t make him its dinner, he knew he’d end up lost. As his mom was fond of saying, he wouldn’t be able to find his way out of the Chapel Hills Mall—a place he’d been a thousand times—if his life depended on it.

The woods made him uneasy enough during the day. They downright terrified him at night, even more so because he was alone. The whistle of the wind in the trees and the hoots of owls were unsettling, but he could deal with them. It was the occasional crack of a twig or the thud of something falling to the ground that freaked him out.

He’d been regretting not going with the others since the moment they disappeared. Sure, that would have meant the possibility of breaking the law, but better life in prison than dying from fright as a law-abiding citizen.

He checked his watch again. Forty minutes.

Where are you guys?

A piece of wood snapped nearby. He froze, waiting for the sound to repeat. When it didn’t, he took a breath and returned his gaze to the forest beyond the fence.

Where
are
you?

F
OUR

Joel

U
NLIKE THE OTHER
two rooms they’d explored, this third space contained only the heavy bookcase that had been moved against the door.

“Well, this is boring,” Courtney said, shivering.

Antonio played his light over the far wall. No exit. “I guess we reached the end.”

Joel looked back the way they’d come, then at the doorless wall. “That’s weird. I’m pretty sure the building’s longer than this.”

Leah nodded in agreement. “Maybe there’s an outside entrance on the other end.”

Dooley kicked at a piece of loose flooring. “There’s nothing here worth checking. Might as well go see if you’re right.” He headed back toward the exit.

Joel turned to follow, but stopped. “Hold on.”

“What is it?” Leah asked. The others paused and looked back.

“If the only way in and out of this room is through that door, then how did the bookcase get pushed against it?”

Leah’s brow furrowed. “Excellent question.”

“Whoever left last probably pulled it into place as they went out,” Antonio said with a shrug.

“And how would they have done that?” Leah asked him. “It was on the other side of a door that was
closed
.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It had to get there somehow, right? There’s nothing here. Let’s go outside and see if the other half is more interesting.”

But when he started walking again, the only one who followed him was Kayla.

“Genius boy’s got a point,” Dooley said. “Maybe there’s a hidden door or something. That would be pretty interesting, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

They spread out through the room, Joel and Leah playing their lights along the baseboard of the meadow-facing wall. Joel was thinking they might find an emergency exit, maybe a panel or something that popped out of the wall for quick access to the outside, but they didn’t even find a crack. At Leah’s suggestion, they checked the ceiling for a hatch, but again nothing looked out of the ordinary.