Gravediggers (6 page)

“What're you reading?” asks PJ.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just some notes on which berries are edible.”

“Good call,” says PJ, nodding to himself, trying to play calm. “I could eat soon.”

There's no point in telling them—my panic might rub off on PJ, and Ian will probably declare me insane.

Then a noise rings through the air, unlike any animal call we've heard. It's a low, sonorous moan that seems to bounce between the trees and pass over us in a wave. I watch dread creep over PJ's and Ian's faces.

“What was that?” asks PJ, looking up to me for reassurance.

“Flammulated owl,” I fib, to him and myself. “They're common in this region.”

He nods, but he knows I'm lying. His eyes ask me,
What are you
really
thinking?

And with how scared my gut feels right now, I don't want to tell him.

 

 

 

Chapter Six
PJ

I
've got to be strong, for Kyra.

That's what I keep repeating in my head.
Kyra's out there. She's at home in bed in the blue sheets with the hippos on them, and she doesn't know why you're not reading her a story. She needs you to get back to camp and call home and read
Burly Bunny and the Thunderstorm
to her, because otherwise she'll have bad dreams.
That's all that gets me up the mountain.

We climb for what feels like miles, while the light fades and the shadows close in around us. The view of the sun disappearing behind the Bitterroot peaks should be beautiful, but we don't have any time to think about it, just to race against it.

Ian and Kendra are amazing. They make it look so easy. It's like Ian's body was built for the wild—skinny, muscular legs and arms, sharp hunter's face, and a sweaty mop of blond hair that never gets in his eyes once. My mom always says he's about to hit his “big growth spurt,” and I can see it now; every time he stretches and climbs, he looks like he's about to rip out of his skin. He's so into being the hero, the pioneer, that he doesn't take the time to feel stupid, even when we're lost out in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.

And Kendra Wright's brilliant, even with us, with me. Before she opens her mouth, she stops, blinks, reviews the situation in her head, and thinks of the thing that will most encourage us to do what she wants, what she thinks will best get us out of here. More than that, though, she is trying to figure out what to do next. All that awkwardness is just her way of thinking things through. It's like she's the anti-Ian.

Between his hard head and her sharp mind, we're dragging ourselves farther and farther along. That noise, that horrible sound that Kendra claims was an owl, seems to follow us, along with the creepy stone wall and the huge disappearing deer.

Everything is terrifying out here. Every rock has a dark space underneath it that something probably lives in, and every pile of leaves looks like it has eyes somewhere inside it peering out at us. Even the trees start becoming a solid mass of shadows towering over us, reaching out with prickerlike branches, pulling us deeper into the wilderness. In horror movies, it's all set pieces—carefully placed branches, choreographed rocks, prerecorded animal noises. Out here it's random, wild. There's no control, no motivation.

I try to forget my fear, focus on the forest and the hike, but it's always there. Ian can outrun it and Kendra can outthink it, but I have nothing, just a lump in my throat. My backpack is full of a million different bug repellents and first-aid accessories, and a
Burly Bunny
book about not being scared of lightning, but none of those things can help us out here against a poisonous snake or a ravenous coyote.

Or the decayed bodies of the Pine City Dancers
—no. I can't let my mind wander, can't let the fear overtake me. My hand fishes my camera out of my pocket, and it beeps alive. When the forest appears onscreen, I'm back on top, able to break free of all the fear that's bubbling up in my head.

“PJ, you should turn that off,” says Kendra. I pan to her disapproving scowl. “We might need it later to help document landmarks on our hike. Keep us from walking in circles. Don't run down the battery.”

There's truth to that, sadly. I hit the Power button, and the screen goes dead. Suddenly, all the agony of being out here comes flooding back into my skull and chest.

I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to have a panic attack. Not yet.

We find a flat spot that's more grass than leaves, and Kendra holds up a hand, telling us to stop. “Let's try to make a fire here,” she says. “I have some Ramen noodles and a couple of granola bars in my backpack. We should eat.”

“Does anyone know how to make a fire?” I ask, my voice cracking.

“I do,” say Ian and Kendra at the same time, and then stare at each other dumbly.

“Trust me on this one,” says Ian. “I know how to build a fire.”

“Do you?” she asks. “Who taught you?”

“My dad. Dads teach their sons these things.”

“Is that what this is about?” says Kendra, almost vibrating with anger. “Girls can't build fires?”

Ian finally wins because he just starts gathering stones and twigs without waiting for another argument. Kendra looks flabbergasted without something to do, something to make right. It gets painful to watch her looking so confused and awkward, so I say, “Want me to go get water for the noodles?”

“That'd be great,” she says, folding her arms. “I'll study the map some more.” It does the trick—she's in charge again. Besides, what else am I going to do?

The creek we stopped at before the wall extends up the mountain a few yards away, so I walk down to the edge with Kendra's canteen. The water rushing along the smooth stones makes a nice burbling noise that helps calm my nerves a little. Right now, I'm just relieved to not be stuck between those two opposing forces for a minute.

There's a tiny pool near me where the creek levels out, and I crouch down and dunk the canteen into the icy water. It lets loose a line of bubbles that stops when it's full, but I don't pull it out quite yet. Little fish swim around my fingers, sniffing at the canteen. One or two of them nudge my hand with slippery noses, and without thinking, I take out my camera and film them silently. The day's worry starts to disappear from my mind. I wonder about the fish. It must be strange, having a newcomer shove some big metal container into your home. What a funny idea, being a fish like these, spending your whole life in one little pool in a long creek. Maybe they change pools every year at some time, jumping upstream or letting the current take them down the mountainside. Maybe they're content to live in some small puddle—

Someone's here.

My eyes fly up to the forest as my breath gets yanked out of my chest. Gray woods and brown leaves surround me, the same as before only now backlit with the bright gold and reddish brown of oncoming dusk, but I can sense something, a new presence, off in the woods.

“Hello?” I call out. Nothing.

In the movies, the person who thinks they're being watched is almost always being watched. My mind's eye pans out into the trees, imagines a close-cropped shot from some bushes—me, kneeling by the creek—with heavy breathing over it. Now I'm eyeing every bush and burrow, wondering where the eyes are, from what angle this new presence is watching me.

But it's the curious people, who have to go wandering off to find out what's spying on them, who take a machete to the face. The people who get back to camp are the ones that survive. I screw the lid on the canteen, turn around, and retrace my steps quickly, eyes on my back the entire time.

When I return, Ian is trying too hard to kick a fire pit in the dirt with just his sneaker. He sweats and grunts with the effort, switching from toe to heel and back again. Kendra watches from a few feet off, her arms crossed, a smile on her face.

Poor Ian, wanting to kick and shove his way through everything. In a horror movie, he'd be the jock—the first to go. It's embarrassing to watch, so I find a decent-sized rock, kneel by the spot he's kicking, and start gouging the ground with the stone's edge.

“Here,” I say. “Get the dirt broken up, then kick it aside. Can someone give me a stick?” Kendra hands me a thick twig, and I stab it into the ground and clear away the loosened soil. (I mean, I learned this from
Sleepaway Camp
, but still, c'mon, Ian.)

“Huh. Right.” Ian wipes a sweaty clump of hair from his eyes. “It's good to see you're in survival mode, man.” He looks at Kendra. “Why didn't you think of that?”

“I did,” she mumbles, smiling meanly. “But you were doing so
well
.”

He kneels to help sweep the dirt out of the hole. “We should be helping each other out here. This is the kind of situation that separates the wolves from the poodles.”

Kendra and I share a little look, and it's obvious we're both thinking the same thing—
You've got to be kidding me.
I know that's not Ian talking; it's one of Coach Leider's stupid sayings repeated by someone who doesn't want to admit he's worried. Besides, Ian gets a lot of this jock wisdom stuff from his father. My dad says that Vince Buckley has “weird ideas about being a man.” (Apparently, Ian's dad didn't even
play
sports in high school, just liked to hang around the locker room and talk a lot of game.)

As I help Ian push a circle of stones into the dirt and stack twigs for kindling, I decide that I'm neither a wolf nor a poodle nor a dog of any kind. I'm a little fish in one pool of a huge creek. But now I'm in a different pool. And I need to stay strong if I want to make my way upstream, back to my puddle, my house, my little sister.

Ian desperately tries to rub two twigs together but finally stops, shakes his head, and tosses them away. “Must be something wrong with the wood,” he says.

Kendra picks the twigs up and tries it herself, and after a minute of rubbing, a wisp of smoke grows out of the pile of leaves, and pretty soon we have a little fire going.

“Good thing I got it warmed up for you,” mumbles Ian. Kendra shoots me a look and rolls her eyes. We all take a moment to huddle around the fire like we're praying to it, hands out, eyes pinned to the small orange blaze.

After we all warm up a bit, Kendra stands and announces in this threatening tone, “I need to go to the bathroom.” She points. “Over there.”

“What, you think we're going to follow you or something?” Ian laughs.

Kendra's face flushes, and she storms off into the woods. The minute she's out of earshot, Ian looks at me and grins.

“Man, this is kind of crazy, isn't it?” he says. “Lost in the woods, left to fend for ourselves . . . we're learning more out here than anything we could back at camp!” He laughs again, a little too hard. I must make a face, because he switches tones. “You all right, man? You scared?”

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. Understatement of the century, but I have to stay strong. “Kind of. We just didn't plan for this is all. Aren't you?”

“Nah!” he says, just quick enough to let me know he means
yes
. “I mean, look, this isn't how I expected to spend my afternoon, but you have to roll with the punches. Sure, I'm a little, you know,
freaked out
, but scared? No way!” He nudges me with his elbow. “Maybe don't talk about this with Queen Brain, though. You know how girls get.”

Weird ideas about being a man
, my dad says. “My lips are sealed.”

“You're not still ticked about me getting us lost, are you?” he says. “I mean, I know you think it was stupid and all, but it's not
totally
my fault, right?”

“You didn't force us to run after you,” I offer. It's a weak response—it
was
stupid of us to follow that buck, and it
is
Ian's fault, and I
am
still upset, but saying that won't help anyone, especially Ian. That's how he works: everything about him rests on his confidence; make him feel uncool and he's useless. “We all got into this together.”

Ian nods. “Exactly. We got into this together, so we have to get out of this together. If we get back, I promise I'll never go running off into the woods again.” That
if
is a little open-ended for me, and I wrap my hands around my knees and squeeze hard.

Kendra comes back, and Ian suddenly gets all official and hardcore again. “I better check the area,” he says. “You never know what might creep up on us if we don't secure a perimeter.” He crunches his way off into the woods, and Kendra walks over and sits down next to me.

“Stupid Ian,” she mumbles. “The trip was going fine until he had to go chasing that deer. And I followed him, beyond all logic. PJ, what was I even thinking?”

This is how it will be until we're found, or we get back to the lodge. PJ Wilson, amateur therapist. But here I am. Because I know how to be a big brother.

“It'll be okay,” I say. “You're doing really well.”

After a pause, she says, “Don't tell Ian, but I'm actually kind of worried.”

It's funny that they hate each other so much, because they're so similar. “This is a strange situation. None of us were prepared to go running blind into the woods—”

“That's not it,” she whispers. “I
was
prepared. My directions were right, PJ, but they got us lost. My compass said we were facing north, but now it's reading west one minute and southeast the next. And I can't explain it, but since we passed the wall, I've just been . . .
unsettled
. About everything.”

She looks up at me with big frightened eyes, and it sends chills across my skin. It's not just her. Deep inside, I know what she's feeling. Something's off about this neck of the woods. Looking back at it, maybe that wall wasn't meant to divide property.

Maybe it was meant to keep us out.

Ian comes out of the brush, and we both sit up with a start. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” snaps Kendra, then stands and begins looking around. “Okay. My noodles are in one of those plastic cups. I guess we have to put the canteen over the fire until the water's boiling.”

“Won't that ruin your canteen?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It's metal. Should be fine. Besides, what other options do we have?”

Good point. Kendra gets her backpack and digs around until she finds a small white cup rattling with uncooked noodles. She takes the canteen from me and slips a stick through the belt loop on the cap. Then she jams the other end of the stick in the ground, and voila, the canteen's suspended over the fire, the flames just out of reach of the wood.