Northwoods

Chapter 6

           Liz zipped up her jacket and stepped outside the cabin.  An uncontrollable yawn forced its way from her throat and stretched on for what seemed like forever.  Just when she thought it was done, another spastic sigh ripped its way out in quick succession.  Her jaw and neck ached, her feet were numb and her head throbbed.  Adding embarrassment to the mixture of grogginess and exhaustion, her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was a writhing mess of snags and snarls—she knew from checking herself in the bathroom mirror before leaving the cabin.

            Hah.  Maybe I’m new wave, she thought with a quiet chuckle.

            “Come on, slow poke,” Jen called to her, a worried look on her face.  The girl stood with one slender hand on a hip.  Liz wondered how in the world she could have gotten cleaned up and dressed and outside before her, with all the time she normally spent fixing herself up.  No doubt she had yet to go to bed, motivated by the fact that her best friend was missing.  “This could be pretty bad.”

            They gathered near the fire pit with Brian, Dan, and the other girls assigned to Fox Den.  Dan looked half asleep and Brian was unusually silent.  Birck had his car idling next to the cabin, prepared to do a head count at the each of the cabins, and Trevek was briefing them on the situation.  Birck stood in pensive silence beside her, looking deeply worried and intensely irritated at the same time.  First Adam's scare, now four of his students were missing.  Liz was sure this trip was on the "Things That Make the Vein Throb" list.

            “If we don’t find them tonight,” Trevek said ominously, her voice booming in the quiet night, “then first thing tomorrow we’ll have to get the forestry service and police up here to do search and rescue.  They couldn’t have gone far.  If they’re smart, they’ll stop moving when they realize they’re lost.  That will make it easier to find them.  Rest assured, your friends will be okay, scary rumors aside.  All they're likely to get from this is a good story and a lesson about roughing it.”

            Birck spoke up in his dry monotone, "This will be a quick search, and I don't want any of you to go very far from this cabin.  Don't lose sight of each other or Ms. Trevek.  Got it?”  Nods and Okays went up from the little pack of students.  Birck stared at them a moment longer and then asked, “Nobody is confused on these instructions?  Then git!”

            Ms. Trevek clicked on her flashlight as Birck hopped in his car and drove away, leaving them in the dark.  She pointed the beam out towards the hill and the unseen lake below.  Liz didn't relish the thought of smelling that deer carcass again, but the trail was well defined.  If her lost friends were still in the vicinity, they might find it and start back towards the camp.  That was their hope, anyway.  Liz felt a pang of worry, though it was not related to the situation at hand.  At least, not directly.  She didn’t know why, but she felt as if there was something not quite right about the woods.  But she was neither superstitious nor afraid of the dark.  It was the fact that she knew Adam, and he was hardly excitable.  And that wound.  What did that?  Were their friends in danger?

“Come on, Liz!” Brian called to her.  “The sooner we find them, the sooner we get back to sleep!"

Liz refocused her attention to the trailhead, where her classmates were waiting.  She tucked her concern away for later.  “Let’s go.”

The four of them picked their way carefully down the hill to the lakeside trail, slowly navigating through all the reaching tree branches that were waiting to scratch faces and poke eyes in the thick, soupy fog that permeated the area.  It was worse the closer they got to the lake.  Their flashlight beams—even Dan’s halogen lamp, had trouble piercing the veil of gray.  The presence of the lake was only given away by the occasional wave slapping the steep shoreline a foot or two below them.