Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

BW - 1

The moon cruised the sky over the lake in no hurry, humming along to the music that grew louder down at the Sweet July campground. Alex Corban and her niece Claire met with Jason and Susan Borski halfway to the lake shore and they headed all together to the bonfire on the pebble beach, where the campground guests gathered for the Full Moon Party.

Jason and Susan were Alex's best friends from high school. They'd gotten married soon after graduation and left town, and ever since, once a year, Alex would go to wherever Jason's job had taken them and spend a week with them. After meeting in New York and Las Vegas, they were grateful when the summer of 2018 found the couple living in Helena, Montana. Happy to take it easy for once, they'd rented two pretty cabins at the Sweet July campground, just north of a little town by Flathead Lake, and Alex had brought Claire along.

They got beer at the improvised bar and lingered there, watching the people dancing around the fire. It took Alex about two heartbeats to spot the guy in his thirties making his way among the dancers in no hurry, scanning around as if he were looking for someone. Fit, short dark hair, firm cheekbones, his lips pursed in a smug, mild smirk. He seemed genetically engineered solely to catch her eye.

"And who are you," she muttered.

Claire heard her and looked the same way. "Oh, that's Aidan, Mark's big brother."

"Mark? The nice boy staying at the cabin next door?"

"Yup, that one."

Alex shot a suspicious glance at the girl. "Is that lust I hear in your voice, kiddo?"

"What? No!"

Claire's quick reply made Alex scoff. She turned to the bonfire again and recognized Mark two steps behind the hunk, like a bodyguard. The boy was so tall, his head showed out among the people around him.

Susan let out a happy, "Yay!" when she heard the beginning of Red Hot's Around the World. Jason took his wife and Alex by the hand.

"C'mon, Claire!" he cried, dragging the other two toward the fire.

The girl shook her head. Dancing was so not her thing. She stayed near the bar, watching them. It was great, seeing her aunt forget about everyday troubles for a few days and have such a good time.

Dragged by Jason, Alex stumbled on Aidan. She apologized with a nod, giggling, and turned to dance with her friends. He nodded back and tried to check her rear, but Mark pushed him softly to make him keep moving.

The brothers reached the bar a moment later, where Claire greeted them with a merry smile. Mark and Aidan had arrived to the campground three days earlier, on a 1974 Dodge Challenger that looked better than a collector's piece. Chance, or most likely Sweet July's manager, had given them the cabin next door to the Corbans. Aidan went out to town every night, but Mark stayed at the campground and mingled with the other guests when they got together at the cafeteria after dinner.

Claire would've gladly declared him her vacations special project, because not only was he so nice, he was also hot as hell. But Ollie waited for her back home, so she had to behave. Which didn't mean to be rude.

"Hey! Didn't thought you guys were the party type."

Aidan gifted her with an ironic smirk. "You'd be surprised."

Mark was about to say something when the cute couple from cabin five approached the bar. Claire and the girl pointed at each other.

"Symbol sister!" they said at the same time, laughing.

Claire noticed Mark's curious frown and showed him the pendant hanging from her neck.

"I bought this yesterday in town, at the flea market," she explained. "And turns out Nancy had bought one too. We picked the same pendant without even knowing!"

"Go figure," Aidan muttered, rolling his eyes.

Mark leaned in to take a closer look at the design and frowned deeper.

"Claire! C'mon already, kiddo!"

Considering Mark's face was only inches away from hers, Claire felt relieved when she heard Alex. She excused herself with the brothers and hurried away.

Aidan's eyes followed her on the way to join Alex and her friends. Claire was all fair and petite, too girly for his guts. Alex, on the other hand, was a hot brunette with piercing dark eyes and a beautiful face, with a determined expression and a body with the right curves to make his fingertips tingle.

"Her big sis?" he asked, elbowing Mark.

"Alex?" replied the boy absentmindedly. "She's Claire's aunt."

"Aunt? But she doesn't look older than me."

"'Cause she isn't. She's thirty."

"But Claire's your age!"

"Younger. She turned twenty last month."

"Damn! How come we don't have a young hot aunt like her?"

Mark didn't waste his breath on an answer. Not like Aidan's predator instinct expected any.

The party went on until the bar closed at midnight. Jason and Susan said goodnight to the Corbans and started for their cabin among the guests leaving the beach. The couple from cabin five slow-danced to an Albert Collins blues by what was left of the bonfire. Alex and Claire were finishing their beers by the closed bar when Mark and Aidan joined them, on their way to the campground lawn.

The song ended and none followed. Alex frowned, watching the couple walk into the strip of woods along the lake shore. Looked like they were heading to the tiny patch of beach three hundred feet away, hidden behind the tall trees. Weird. Claire was the empathic Corban, not her. Yet, she had something like a bad feeling about them.

"That's the best part of any party, if you ask me," said Aidan by her side. "After-party sex."

Alex turned to him with a disgusted grimace. "Nobody asked you," she grunted, and poked Claire to leave.

Silence soon blanketed the campground. The lake brought gentle waves to wash upon the beach. A cool breeze caressed the old trees enclosing the lawn and the cabins. The moon was but a small pale coin, high in the sky.

Alex lingered reading in bed long after Claire fell asleep. She was trying to decide if she was thirsty enough to get up and fetch something from the bridge, when Claire stirred in her dreams. Her muffled groan made Alex jump to her feet.

Before she reached her bed, the girl jolted up with a cry, both hands to her throat. She yanked her new necklace off and threw it to the floor. Alex stopped short when the pendant hissed, blackening the floorboard it'd landed on. She crouched down with a curious frown and reached out to it, but she didn't need to touch it to feel the heat it radiated.

Claire's gasp made her look up. Her niece pulled her tee down, below her collar bone, grimacing in pain. Alex's eyes widened in disbelief: the girl's pale skin showed a burn that outlined the pendant's design.

"Don't touch it! I'll bring you some cream," Alex said, straightening up.

She'd barely walked into the bathroom when a riving scream of sheer horror and pain echoed all over the campground.