devil town 𖥻 FEAR STREET TRILOGY

TWENTY FOUR. sister sister

The phone line at camp was notorious for disconnecting, switching off, and just being overall pretty shitty. That didn't stop Scott from calling Bonnie's mom four times before it worked well enough that he could talk to his kids. Scott and Bonnie were alone in the mess hall, the sound of the campers outside muffled through the thick glass windows.

Bonnie's head was resting on her boyfriend's shoulder as they spoke to her mother, Helen Foster talking animatedly about her two grandchildren. "Madeline can sit herself up now, isn't that wonderful?"

Scott gave a small smile that Helen couldn't see, and Bonnie gripped his hand. "Yeah, mom. She's been doing that for a little while now," she said, smile heard in her voice.

Helen scoffed good naturedly. "Well, forgive me, with work I don't get to see them very often." It was true. While the little family did live with Bonnie's parents, Helen and George both allowed their daughter space, knowing that while help was appreciated, they needed their own little bubble with just the four of them.

Helen and George Foster hadn't been very happy when Bonnie announced that she was pregnant at 18, knowing that it would hinder her plans to go to college for journalism greatly. But kids were something that Bonnie and Scott wanted, albeit not that early, so they were dedicated to giving their new son the best life they could while also being able to provide for him. Once they met Andrew, however, they knew that there was nothing they wanted more than to have another child, Madeline coming soon later.

"How's Andy?" Scott asked. "Is he being good? If he's giving you trouble, just-"

Helen clucked. "Yes, Scott, he's being good. He has all of his toys, he's playing with his sister. He's alright. You've only been gone a few hours,"

"Exactly," Bonnie said, giving her boyfriend a look. "We've got chores to do, but we just wanted to call really quickly to make sure all was running well,"

"Everything's going great," Helen reassured. "I'll let you kids go have fun,"

Scott and Bonnie both said their goodbyes into the receiver before Scott hung the phone back up on the wall. Scott kissed Bonnie on the head and she wrapped her arms around him. They stayed like that, trapped in their little bubble for just a moment, before Tommy knocked on the mess hall door. "Hey guys, it's roll call,"

Scott nodded at him, Tommy leaving with a smile, before looking down at Bonnie and tilting her chin up so she was looking in his eyes. "I love you,"

Bonnie sighed contentedly, the tension getting released. "I love you too,"

The two of them left the mess hall, meeting the other counselors outside. There was a little over a hundred campers, with most of them being Shadysiders. Sunnyvalers were only sent if they wanted to go, but a lot of Shadyside kids felt unsafe in their town, being left alone while their parents needed to work. There were four Sunnyvale counselors, Kurt, the head counselor, Nick Goode, the son of the late sherrif, and Karen and Jane, who pretty much kept to themselves and gossipped most of the time. There were twelve Shadyside counselors, most of them needing the money for college.

Joan was technically the head Shadyside counselor, but nobody acted like she was, not even Joan herself, preferring to spend her time in arts and crafts with the kids, making beaded necklaces and getting high. Cindy and Danny were basically together, everyone knew it, but neither of them would admit it. Evie stood near them, talking to Tommy, Julia and Gary, while glancing over at the two of them every so often. Valerie, Arnie and Alice were leaning up against the mess hall wall, while they shared a cigarette, Scott and Bonnie walking past them to join the others.

It wasn't that they didn't like Val, Alice and Arnie, it was more like Val, Alice and Arnie didn't like them.

Tommy checked his watch as Bonnie and Scott reached them, cupping his hands over his mouth to yell out. "Alright, Shadysiders!" There was a resounding cheer from the assembled campers. "Welcome to Camp Nightwing, my name is Tommy and these are your counselors,"

Tommy made a gesture to the rest of them, and one by one, each of the counselors introduced themselves. After Cindy, they looked to Evie, the last in line, who was staring off into the middle distance. Cindy nudged her and she snapped out of her trance. "Oh, yeah. Uh, hi, I'm Evie." She waved.

As Tommy ran over the rules, laundry, inspections, lights out, etc. Cindy moved away from Danny to put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Evie nodded, resisting the urge to look back over at the girl with the green ribbon in her hair. It wasn't Shirley, she knew it, but she could have sworn her sister was there.

Once he was done with his spiel, he turned to Joan. "Now we're gonna put you guys in your groups, and you're going to get a counselor assigned to you, and we're gonna be like your moms and dads for the next six weeks, you come to us for anything, okay?" she got blank looks but that didn't faze her.

Evie's group was first, and she yelled out the names of her campers, the kids coming up to stand near her. She got through all the As, then when she moved onto the Bs, she paused for a brief moment. "Ziggy Berman!"

No one moved. Evie waited for a moment. "Ziggy Berman! Ziggy!" she'd lost one of her campers on the first day. She coulnd't lose Cindy's sister, not after Shirley. Her breathing quickened, and Cindy's eyebrows bunched together, moving towards the brunette.

Before she was able to place a hand on her, a small scream was let out from the Sunnyvale side. "Rat!" A few more cries sounded out before someone yelled out.

"No, Stephanie, you dickhead, it's a rabbit!" It wasn't a rabbit. It was twenty rabbits, and the crowd descended into chaos with some kids trying to catch them, and others wanting to get out of the way.

"Are those the camp rabbits?" Cindy asked, the small animals darting rapidly amongst the campers. "Did they get out?"

Kurt appeared behind her. "No. Someone let them out," he snarled, looking around at the campers. The older ones were standing awkwardly, waiting for instruction, while the younger ones were running around, either after or away from the rabbits.

"Who would do that?" Gary asked. Evie looked down at her list on the clipboard, reaching the top one that hadn't been crossed off. She looked up, meeting a pair of warm brown eyes, standing a few feet away from the commotion, arms crossed, familiar scowl present on her face. She knew, it was obvious to anyone with eyes, but she wouldn't say anything.

Kurt didn't share the same care for Cindy Berman, however, and when he noticed the scowling figure over by the tree, he turned red. The very name Evie had just been yelling herself. "Ziggy Berman!"

────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note
literally my first instinct for all of these is just ahhhhhh but this act is gonna be shorter than act 1, there's only 7 pre-movie chapters before the movie starts in act 2 so that means that after this there's only 5 chapters left 🤭🤭 unless my maths is off whoopsies

now i'm desperately trying to finish this book before my beloved friend kenzie returns from her 18 month long trip because wouldn't it be lowkey disappointing if she got back and i hadn't finished a single fic that had been in progress. like, it would be funny but also just really sad and i respect kenzie too much to do that 😽