Sid dragged his feet as they walked across the grassy field separating the park from the woods.
The Shindig committee, a group of parents and kids, had strung white twinkle lights along the branches that edged the woods. However, deeper in, the forest lay thick and dark.
Ashley spotted Shane Savage on Norm’s team and gave him a half wave.
He nodded at her and smiled.
“Okay, everybody on my team wears camo bandanas. Don’t take them off either,” Norm announced, walking through the kids and thrusting bandanas into their hands.
“We’ve got yellow bandanas,” Brenda said, grinning. “So we can actually see each other.”
Norm shot her an annoyed look, but her team laughed.
Ashley tied the bandanna around her bicep.
“Our flag is hunter orange because Brenda didn’t think she could handle the camouflaged one.” Norm gave them all a look as if Brenda were a total wimp.
“And ours is light blue,” Brenda added, holding up the light blue flag.
“The territories are divided along the trail sign.” Norm pointed at a small wooden sign that explained the several trails that wound through the woods. “Everything to the right is our territory and everything to the left is Brenda’s. If you get tagged, you’re frozen until one of your own team frees you. And don’t even think about moving your flag once it’s hidden,” he added, glaring at Brenda’s team.
Ashley rolled her eyes. Norm was a notoriously poor sport who bent the rules to win. If anyone was going to move their flag, it would be Norm.
“May the best man win,” he added, offering Brenda his hand.
“Or woman,” Brenda snapped. When she extended Norm her hand, he jerked his back and smoothed it through his short brown hair.
“Better luck next time,” he said.
Sid offered Ashley a pained expression before following Norm, Shane, and the rest of their team into the woods to the right of the sign.
“Five minutes and the game starts,” Norm added before slipping into the trees.
Brenda wanted to hide their flag on a knobby oak tree at the end of their territory. Ashley climbed the tree and tied it around a branch.
After the team broke apart, Ashley slipped into the trees, stealthily moving out of her team’s territory and into Norm’s. She hadn’t expected to get into the game, but the look on Norm’s face had her wanting to see his expression when she captured his flag.
She hunched down and ducked under a dense pine tree, running smack into Shane Savage.
He grunted, but managed not to fall over.
“Oops, sorry,” she apologized, rubbing her chin where she’d struck his shoulder.
“I think you hurt yourself more than me,” he said, squatting back down. “So, am I frozen or are you frozen?” he whispered, laughing.
“Let’s call it a wash,” she said. “Are you trying to find the flag or just hiding from Norm?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Don’t you know Norm is invisible with his camouflaged bandana on?”
“I like capture the flag, but Norm takes it to a whole new level.”
“Norm takes everything to a whole new level. Did you see him in dodgeball the last week of school? He whaled Sally Hansen in the face with the ball so hard her glasses broke.”
“What a dick,” Ashley murmured, her desire to get the flag stronger as she imagined poor Sally crying over her broken glasses.
“Catch you on the flip side,” she said, starting forward.
Shane’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
She froze as Norm, squatting low and shuffling through the forest like a soldier, crept by.
Shane smirked, and Ashley clamped her teeth together to keep from laughing.
Norm had painted two streaks of black paint across his cheeks.
Ashley thought of tagging Norm, but knew if he saw her and Shane, he’d throw a tantrum and likely insist the game be started over.
Norm disappeared into the darkness.
Shane laughed silently, and the tremble of his shoulders was too much. She spurted a laugh, her breath catching, and dropped to her knees on the bed of leaves.
“Shhh… " Shane told her, putting a hand on her shoulder as his body bucked from the quelled laughter.
Their laughter subsided and Ashley took a deep breath “Seriously, that guy is a freak,” she giggled.
“And that’s if you’re being nice,” Shane added.
A scream pierced the quiet, and Ashley jumped up, heart racing.
30
Shane stared at her, smile gone, his blue eyes wide and confused.
“What was that?” he asked, though they both knew it had been a girl’s scream.
The girl screamed again.
They pushed through the trees, running toward the sound.
Other kids had come out of their hiding spots. In the darkness, Ashley watched dark figures running haphazardly. She couldn’t make out faces. Voices called and branches snapped.
The forest, silent moments before, filled with sound.
“Who screamed?” someone yelled.
“Was it a joke?” Brenda’s voice drifted through trees.
Another scream pierced the night, this one different from the first.
Sid’s scream
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Sid was mumbling, and Ash ran toward the sound.
A flashlight beam waved across the forest floor.
Sid stood staring at a leafy ground, his flashlight shaking. The light flitted across blood-splashed leaves. At the edge of the trampled grass lay the body of Krista Maynard, an eighth grader. Blood gushed from a wound in her throat.
Ashley knelt, pulling her bandana from her arm and stuffing it against the girl’s neck. Warm blood seeped through the bandana.
“Sid, give me your bandana. Shane, yours too,” Ashley commanded. “Somebody run for help. Shane, get Mr. Freeman.”
Mr. Freeman taught social studies at the middle school. He was also a volunteer firefighter and a paramedic.
Shane thrust his bandana into Ashley’s free hand and sprinted away.
Sid had not moved. The flashlight continued to weave and bob.
“Sid, give me your damn bandana,” Ashley boomed as Krista’s blood saturated Shane’s.
Other kids stepped from the trees.
“Is that Krista?”
“Oh my Gosh, what happened? Did she run into a tree?”
Ashley heard their murmurs, but trained her eyes on Krista’s face. The girl’s eyelids fluttered. Blood had soaked into her blond hair making the light strands that fanned out behind her look dark.
The seconds dragged and suddenly Mr. Freeman was there along with Sid’s mother who was a nurse.
Someone pushed Ashley aside, and she stood on shaky, stiff legs.
When she emerged from the trees, parents and kids stared at her, horror-struck. She looked down. Her light blue t-shirt was streaked in blood.
MAX POURED the wine and corked it, pausing when he heard murmured voices.
Kim sat on his back porch, hardly a place for a casual conversation at almost eleven pm.
Kim laughed.
He took their glasses and pushed open the screen door with his hip.
Kim sat alone in an Adirondack chair. Her pale legs were crossed, and her hands rested on her knees.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked, surveying the dark yard beyond.
“Oh, just-” she smiled and turned her head as if to ask the person their name.
She craned around in her chair looking toward the side of his house. A tall hedge of juniper trees separated his yard from his neighbors. Kim stood and walked down the steps, peeking around the house, and returning a moment later with a puzzled expression.