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“Because Craig is too strong to be defeated by a ghost, Indian or otherwise,” Quincy said.
“What about you?”
“I said the whitemankilled them,” Janelle said. “We’re women. They’ve got no beef with us.”
“People really did die out here.”
Betz is the one who said it. Quiet, observant Betz. She looked at them all with her too-large, slightly spooky eyes.
“A guy in my world lit class told me about it,” she said. “A pair of campers were killed in the woods last year. A boyfriend and girlfriend. The police found them stabbed to death in their tent.”
“Did they ever catch who did it?” Amy asked, sinking deeper against Rodney.
Betz shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
No one spoke as they climbed the rest of the hill. Even the crunchof their feet on the leaf-strewn ground seemed to quiet down, letting them subconsciously listen for the sound of someone else in the woods. In that soft, new silence, Quincy sensed they weren’t alone. She knew she was being foolish. That it was simply the by-product of what Betz had told them. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was in the woods with them. Not very far at all. Watching.
A twig snapped nearby. Fewer than ten yards away. Hearing it made Quincy chirp out a half shriek. It set off a chain reaction of yelps, rising almost simultaneously from Janelle, Betz, and Amy.
Rodney, on the other hand, laughed. “God,” he said. “Nervous much?”
He pointed to the source of the noise—a mere squirrel, its tail a white flag waving above the underbrush. The rest of them began to laugh too. Even Quincy, who instantly forgot how strangely jittery she had felt mere moments before.
At the crest of the hill, they found a large, flat-topped rock as wide as a king bed. Dozens of names had been carved into the surface—remnants of similar kids who’d made the same trek. Rodney picked up a sharp stone and began to add his name to the list. Beer cans and cigarette butts were scattered around the rock’s perimeter, and an unrolled condom drooped from the spindly branch of a nearby sapling, prompting disgusted squeals from Janelle and Quincy.
“Maybe you and Craig can do it up here,” Janelle whispered. “At least protection is provided.”
“Ifwe do it,” Quincy said, “it certainly won’t be on a rock that, from the looks of it, is an STD waiting to happen.”
“Wait— You haven’t decided yet?”
“I’ve decided not to decide,” Quincy said, when in fact she already had. Agreeing to sleep in the same bed with Craig sealed that particular deal. “It’ll happen when it happens.”
“It better happen fast,” Janelle said. “Craig is prime beef, Quinn. I’m sure lots of girls are dying for a taste.”
“Interesting metaphor,” Quincy replied dryly.
“All I’m saying is you don’t want to wait so long that he loses interest.”
Quincy looked to Craig, who had scrambled atop the rock and was studying the horizon. He was interested in more than just sex. Quincywas certain of that. They had been friends first—meeting on their official first day of college and spending all of freshman year engaged in a slow, budding flirtation. The dating part didn’t happen until late August, when both returned to campus realizing how much they had missed each other over the summer. And if Quincy had started to sense some impatience about sex on Craig’s part, she chalked it up to desire and not the kind of pent-up frustration Janelle was implying.
Now perched on the rock, Craig caught Quincy looking. She raised her camera and said, “Smile.”
He did more than smile. He stood with his fists on his hips and his chest puffed out like Superman’s. Quincy laughed. The camera’s shutter clicked.
“How’s the view?” she asked.
“Pretty swell.”
Craig reached down and helped her climb onto the rock beside him. They were higher than Quincy expected, able to see how the rest of the forest sloped sharply downward for another mile before ending in a shadow-filled valley. The others joined them, with Janelle ordering another picture.
“Group shot,” she said. “Everyone in. Even you, Quincy.”
The six of them squeezed together and Quincy stretched out her arm until everyone had edged into the frame. Once the picture was taken, Quincy studied its frenzied composition. That’s when she noticed something behind them in the far distance. A mammoth building, it sat in the middle of the valley, its gray walls barely visible among the trees.
“What’s that?” Quincy asked, pointing it out.
Janelle shrugged. “Beats me.”