Chương 31: The Performance

I burst out of the stoner cabin straight into chaos. A blast of cold air bit my skin, stinging with a sudden realization of how hot and muggy the stoner cabin had been. The noise of the crowd surging toward the lake and the colored lights cutting through the darkness were disorienting. I tried to track a guy running past me, but my eyes couldn't keep up; he was a smear of motion that registered a half-second too late.

The music from the cabin and the screams from the lake clashed in a dissonant noise that made my equilibrium swim. The Mild Euphoria debuff worked overtime, and I blinked hard against the lag between my eyes and my brain. According to the HUD, my Lucidity held steady thanks to the Fear reduction, but the price of getting high as balls took form as the -10% hit to Perception that made my sensory input untrustworthy. Guilt bled through the pharmaceutical haze.

If something happened to Tre or Isabel while I was inside getting high— The thought conjured immediate images: Isabel torn open like Austin. Tre's tiny form in pieces, painted eyes staring at nothing. My friends all dying because I'd needed to take the edge off. I ran toward the screaming, bracing myself for horror. Instead, I found excitement. Kids were whooping and laughing as they streamed toward the lake. My head snapped toward where I had left Isabel holding Tre, but they were no longer there.

"What the hell?" I grumbled, jogging toward the lake, hoping to spot them. I found Isabel near the edge of the crowd with Tre standing on her shoulder. He was pointing toward the water with apparent enthusiasm.

"Isabel!" I called, pushing through the cluster of teenagers.

"Thank God," she said when I reached them.

"He keeps trying to get closer to the show."

"Show?" I stared at Tre, then back at Isabel.

"Wait… how did you sober him up so fast? He was completely wasted like five minutes ago."

"I didn't do anything," Isabel said, looking just as confused.

"Fear is a hell of a drug!" Tre announced proudly, gesturing at himself.

"When those screams started, my system just—" he made a whooshing sound and a gesture like an explosion, "—burned through all the alcohol. Like instant sobriety. It's amazing! Or terrifying! Both!"

"Adrenaline just... reset you?" I asked.

"Apparently!" Tre said.

"Perks of being a magical murder doll, I guess. Who knew?" Isabel nodded, impressed.

"That's... actually really useful."

"Sorry, what's all this?" I asked, looking back at the lake.

"It's hilarious!" Tre said.

"Performance art!" I took Tre onto my shoulders to give Isabel's back a rest, and we all pushed toward the front of the crowd for a better view. The source of the screaming was a girl waist-deep in the dark water beside the dock, angular-featured and athletic, wearing an orange two-piece. Her distinctive pigtails bounced as she splashed around, stealing overdramatic, terrified glances over her shoulder. Goosebumps covered her exposed skin, probably from the fact that the lake water had to be fifty degrees at best.

"That's Caitlin Morris," Isabel said with an eye roll.

"Drama kid. She was practicing that scream in the girls' bathroom mirror last week."

"They're coming! They're coming!" Caitlin shrieked, her voice carrying across the camp. The old wooden dock beside her stretched about forty feet into the water, worn down by decades of use. The DJ was a bleached-blond dude who looked ten years older than everyone else at the party. He'd transformed the middle of the dock into a full concert stage, complete with speakers the size of refrigerators flanking his table. A set of lights and lasers swept colored beams across the water.

At the far end of the dock, a group of girls danced and swayed to the music. One of them wore only a sparkly purple bikini and had to be freezing her ass off, but even I had to admit she looked pretty sexy backlit by the moonlight reflected off the lake. The DJ had killed the volume on those massive speakers, leaving my ears ringing with that same pressurized emptiness you get on the drive home from a punk rock concert. Nobody else seemed to notice or care how perfectly choreographed it all was.

Then two figures rose from the water behind Caitlin; they had identical white sundresses plastered to their bodies, lake filth streaked across the fabric. Each wore an old-style umpire mask, the metal grates glinting under the DJ's lights. They tossed aside their snorkels and made zombie-like moans, brandishing cheap plastic knives with retractable blades that snapped back on springs. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"What in the Halloween Horror Nights is happening?" Tre said.

"The Lake Mothers." Isabel's words came out low.

"Run, Caitlin, run!" someone yelled, and a few people picked up the chant. Caitlin shrieked and bolted toward the crowd as the "Mothers" lumbered after her in exaggerated slow-motion, slashing at empty air. A random kid materialized from the crowd with a squeeze bottle of ketchup and squirted crimson streaks across her stomach. The cold splatter made her eyes snap open, and she broke into a startled giggle. Meanwhile, Tre provided running commentary: "Run, girl! No, the other way! No, no! Watch out!"

He bounced on my shoulder.

"This might be the best night of my life." Caitlin suddenly popped back to her feet, and all three performers took their bows. The "Mothers" took off their masks, revealing two sweaty boys. They held for applause, then parted so Caitlin could step forward and take a solo bow, as the DJ slid the fader into a melodic, wavering violin piece.

"Oh, nice cue with the Psycho theme," Tre said approvingly, clapping his little hands together.

"That was incredible. Cheap props, solid execution. I'd give it a straight six." The beat finally dropped. The unmistakable machine gun pace of Busta Rhymes' rapid-fire lyrics barreled over the Psycho violins.

"I forgot they did this stupid thing," Isabel said.

"My freshman year, they at least used stage blood." The crowd dispersed, breaking off into smaller groups already replaying videos, tagging each other, and just turning the whole thing into easily forgotten content.

"Ugh, of course Perry squirted ketchup all over her boobs! Perv," some girl complained to her friend. Tre, Isabel, and I were the only ones who knew that the threat of the Lake Mothers wasn't a joke. But we couldn't tell a single one of them. Worse, we'd been laughing and clapping along with them. I'd been enjoying the spectacle so much that I completely forgot we'd lost track of Sameer. Craning my neck, I scanned the crowd in a desperate search for any signs of Sameer.

I wanted to see a flash of his gray Nikes, or his dark hair bouncing through the crowd, or even the colored lights reflecting off his glasses, but I got nothing. The party was a beehive, drunk teenagers packed in tight, their biggest worry their FYP algorithm getting fucked up, completely oblivious to the killers among them. One provocation, and everyone was going to get stung. I led Isabel and Tre to a cluster of empty chairs, preparing myself to share the bad news.

"Sameer wasn't in the cabin. Some kids said he stepped out a while ago."

"I was watching the door, I promise!" Tre protested defensively, his voice pitching up in panic.

"Like a hawk! A small, vigilant hawk!"

"He could have snuck out a window on the other side or something." I reached back to put my hand on his shoulder.

"Don't beat yourself up. It was a bad plan to begin with."

"Oh, well, if he left, he probably just went home," Isabel tossed out, grasping at Sameer's innocence.

"Sameer hates loud parties like this. He gets overstimulated by the noise and—""Isabel." I kept my voice gentle but firm.

"Think about the timing. Tiffany went missing about an hour ago. If Sameer snuck out of the cabin around then..." The realization dawned on her face, her relief crumbling.

"No," she said.

"He wouldn't." She bit her lower lip, trying to construct an alternative explanation, anything that would keep Sameer innocent.

"We've been tracking everyone all night," I continued.

"We were with Evan and Summer when Tiffany went missing. And we had eyes on Liam." I shook my head.

"But Sameer was unaccounted for that whole time."

"Does this mean he tried to kill us at the station?" Isabel's voice was small.

"Fuck. It's really him, isn't it?" Voices drifted up from the east side of the lake. Summer's search party had returned, emerging from the tree line like survivors from a disaster zone. They looked exhausted. Summer's perfect ponytail had unraveled, strands plastered to her neck with sweat. She'd kept her composure, but her smile seemed forced.

Evan's shirt was streaked with brown smudges from pushing through branches, and Liam's shoes were covered in mud, and I could almost hear the squelch sound they made when he wrenched his feet free. Brynn brought up the rear, splotchy red cheeks, eyes puffy from sobbing. I counted heads. Four people had gone into those woods. Four came back. Tiffany Liu wasn't with them.

"We covered this whole side of the lake, even started searching in the woods." Summer paused, mouth in a concerned frown.

"Nothing. It's like she just vanished." The group slumped into chairs near the bonfire, and someone handed Evan a water bottle. He drained half of it in one go, then passed it to Liam, who drank the rest in a single gulp.

"What about the other side of the lake?" Tre asked. Brynn spoke with a faraway tone to her words.

"She didn't go that way. I saw her walk off in this direction." She pointed back the way they had come.

"Maybe you guys missed something in the dark," I offered.

"Maybe..." Evan replied, but his tone suggested he didn't really believe it.

"I've been saying maybe she got a ride home from someone," Liam added, picking mud off his shoes. The redhead wiped her cheeks and furiously shook her head.

"She wouldn't do that without telling anyone. There's no way Tiffany would just ghost us." Summer put a comforting arm around her friend.

"Brynn, honey, we searched everywhere—""Not everywhere." Brynn reared back, eyes wild.

"We didn't have enough light, and no one wanted to go too close to the water! What if she's unconscious and we walk right past her?" The group went still. Based on the exhaustion on everyone's faces, the reluctance to go back into those dark woods was palpable. I glanced at Isabel, then over at the tired search party. Tiffany was missing. Sameer was unaccounted for. He could be out there doing something to her right now while we sat around a bonfire.

The reassuring weight of the Maglite from Mickey's diner appeared in my hand.

"We'll help." I clicked the light on and swept the strong beam over the dark treeline. Relief washed over Brynn's face. Summer looked surprised but grateful.

"Really?" Summer asked.

"Yeah. We've got a good light, and it's definitely worth a second look." I glanced at Isabel and Tre.

"Right, guys?" Isabel nodded slowly, understanding what I was really saying: we needed to find Sameer before he hurt anyone else.

"Hell yeah!" Tre said from my shoulder.

"Search party part two: electric boogaloo!" Evan pried himself from the chair with a huff.

"Fine."

"Come on," Brynn said quickly, already moving toward the treeline with Summer and the Ponytail Twins in tow. My flashlight beam punched a hole in the darkness ahead, Isabel on my right, Tre perched on my back, Liam and Evan in the rear. The farther we got from the bonfire, the thinner the music became, until only the chirring of insects and the slap of water against the bank followed us.