What Waits in the Woods Read online

  For my mom, who imparted a love of scary stories

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 1

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 2

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 3

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 4

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 5

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 6

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 7

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 8

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 9

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  RECOVERY JOURNAL: ENTRY 10

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY KIERAN SCOTT

  COPYRIGHT

  There’s no question things could have gone differently out there in those woods. One zipper more tightly zipped, one foot more carefully placed on a rotting wood plank, and I might not be here today. I might be roaming free instead of sitting locked up in this hole, sucking my every meal through a straw, staring at a padded wall.

  There might not have been so much bloodshed. Or there might have been even more death. There’s no telling how everything might have turned on a chance.

  What could never have been different was the why. That is the only nonvariable. And yet, that is Doctor Pea Brain’s favorite ask Every. Single. Time he walks into my tiny square cell.

  “Have you thought about why?”

  “Any more insights as to why?”

  “I can’t help you unless you tell me why.”

  Well, here’s the thing, Doc. If you’re so entirely brain-dead that you can’t figure it out for yourself, then I can’t help you. Because the why is obvious, you potato-headed, Afrin-snorting idiot. The why is all there is.

  What I can tell you is this: They deserved to die. Every last one of them. And if you can’t see that … well, then no one can help you.

  Callie Valasquez wasn’t ready to die.

  Not here. Not now. Not like this. Not standing in the middle of the pitch-black forest clutching a roll of toilet paper. No. That just seemed wrong. She was only sixteen.

  But it was going to happen. Especially if that thing—that snorting, breathing, hulking thing—managed to pick up her scent.

  Callie stood perfectly still. She tried as hard as she could to keep her breath shallow, but the terror gripping her heart kept making her want to suck in air, to cough. Her knees quaked and her stomach twisted itself into horrible, ever-tightening knots.

  Why had she used that strawberry shampoo this morning? The sugary scent wafted from her thick, dark, meticulously straightened hair. Or could the thing out there smell her coconut body wash? Or maybe the chemical odor of the olive-green nail polish she’d applied to her toes in the kitchen after breakfast, thinking it was oh so hiking-appropriate? Callie looked down at her bare, throbbing toes in her new Teva flip-flops.

  Maybe it was her feet. They’d been pretty rank when she’d peeled off her sweaty socks and carefully applied first aid cream and Band-Aids to her lovely new blisters. Oh, God. Could it smell her feet?

  Another snort. This one even closer than the last. She could feel the thing’s presence just behind her like a pulsating warmth. It was so large it radiated heat. She imagined a huge brown bear with a snout as wide as her father’s hand. A wild boar, awful fangs glinting in the moonlight. A mountain lion, crouched low and taut, primed for the kill. Her instincts told her to run, but her fear kept her frozen. That and some vague notion from a movie she’d once seen as a kid that the best policy in this situation was not to draw attention. Bears couldn’t see you unless you moved. Or was that dinosaurs?

  What was she even doing here? Was being part of the popular crowd in the tiny upstate town of Mission Hills, New York, really so important to her that she had to risk her life? Just because she had some insane need to prove that she was no longer the nerd she’d been back in Chicago, now she was going to die?

  The moment Lissa Barton and Penelope Grange had noticed her in the cafeteria that second week of school, when Callie had been the shy new girl, she’d latched on to them like a life raft in a storm. And that moment had led directly to this one.

  Callie had never been camping in her life. Had never felt the need to go camping. But this was apparently what people did for fun in upstate New York—at least, what her new friends did for fun—so here she was, having loads and loads of fun.

  When her boyfriend, Jeremy Higgins—yes, Callie had a boyfriend now, another upside to being newly popular—had picked her up this morning, she’d been so nervous she started up a kind of mantra—four nights, four nights, four nights. That was all she had to get through.

  Yet here she was, evening one, about to get eaten alive.

  She vaguely wondered if the thing would maul her friends after it was done with her.

  “Hey, Callie!” Jeremy shouted from their campsite, which was probably forty yards from where she was standing. “Are you okay out there?”

  There was a surprised snort and, suddenly, the thing took off into the woods. Callie whipped around in the direction of snapping twigs and crunching leaves, but saw nothing. Just some low, weak branches crushed in the underbrush nearby. She heaved a breath, bent at the waist, and pressed her hand to her heart.

  “You’re okay,” she whispered to herself, tears squeezing from her eyes. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

  She was going to live. Four nights. By Sunday, she’d be back in her dad’s car and they’d be driving to the airport to pick up her mom after her summer in São Paulo. Then, next week, she and her mom would go to New York City for a back-to-school shopping trip. Callie was going to live to see her mother again. To finish writing at least one of the ten short stories she’d started since June. To read the rest of the Black Inferno series and finish painting her new bedroom now that she’d finally settled on that pretty aqua after three misguided attempts in the purple family. Everything was going to be fine.

  Except.

  Callie stood up straight and turned around. She had no clue which direction she was facing. She’d lost her bearings when she’d whirled to spot whatever it was that had crept up on her. Was the camp in front of her, behind her? Where was the skinny, muddy trail she’d taken to get here?

  A low mewl escaped her lips. Callie brought her hands to her head, the soft triple ply of Penelope’s toilet paper soaking up her sweat. She thought about shouting out for help, but she didn’t
want to look like an idiot. Lissa and Penelope had already spent half the day teasing her for not breaking in her hiking boots, for packing her makeup bag and a change of earrings, and for forgetting to bring her water bottle, which she knew for a fact was sitting on the kitchen counter where she’d thought she wouldn’t miss it on her way out the door.

  She didn’t want them to think they needed to babysit her every time she had to use the bathroom, too. If that was what you could even call what she’d just done—squatting next to a tree. Ew.

  If only she’d had her phone. She could text Jeremy and he would come find her without alerting Lissa and Pen to her total lameness. But she’d left it in the pocket of her hoodie, which was tossed uselessly on a blanket by the fire.

  “Callie,” she muttered to herself. “Think. You’re a straight-A student. You survived getting lost on the Chicago L by yourself when you were ten years old. You can figure out which direction to walk to get back to camp.”

  It was funny, really. Until now, she’d always thought of herself as a survivor. Her parents had been letting her walk home from school with her friends in Chicago since she was eight. At twelve, she’d flown to Brazil, alone, to visit her grandmother, and hadn’t freaked out or cried once.

  With her friends back in Chicago, she was the leader—the one who could navigate the map at Six Flags, order the exact right number of pizzas for a party of fifteen people, and figure out the tip. She hadn’t even crumbled when her parents had told her that her dad had gotten the job at Cornell Law and they were moving to New York, leaving behind the friends she’d had her entire life and the only neighborhood she’d ever called home.

  But it seemed upstate New York survival skills were entirely different from Outer Loop Chicago survival skills.

  Callie looked up. It was past eight o’clock on an August night. The sky was deep ink blue beyond the tangled canopy of branches and leaves, and every last tree trunk looked black in the darkness. Black and exactly the same.

  Okay. Forget pride. Pride was stupid. It was time to shout for her friends.

  She opened her mouth just as a hand came down on her shoulder.

  Callie didn’t shout. She screamed.

  “Hey! It’s just me.”

  Jeremy trained his flashlight on his face, the bright white light illuminating the dark flop of hair over his concerned brown eyes. Gleaming green dots peppered his chest and disoriented Callie momentarily, until she realized that his Milky Way galaxy T-shirt was of the glow-in-the-dark variety.

  Callie felt a rush of warm relief. The fact that Jeremy was at least a foot taller than her, with his runner’s legs and his broad shoulders, was suddenly very comforting. Nothing fazed Jeremy. He was smart, practical, reliable, funny, and—thank God—here.

  Callie reached over and hugged him as tight as she could.

  “There’s something out here,” she said into the soft cotton of his shirt. The little rubbery stars were cool against her skin. “Some kind of animal.”

  “Really? Where?”

  Totally casual. Like she was about to point out some rare variety of plant. It seemed that growing up surrounded by mountains had inured her friends to what Callie saw as obvious dangers.

  Jeremy shone his light around them in a circle and Callie gripped his free hand. She held her breath, dreading the thought of feral eyes glittering in the dark.

  “Don’t. I don’t want to know. Let’s just get back to camp.”

  “Hey.” Jeremy trained the light at her shoulder to better see her without blinding her. “Seriously, are you okay?”

  She tried to imagine how she looked to him right then. Her white T-shirt streaked with dirt and sticking to her skin. Sweat saturating her hair and probably making it frizz, even after she’d worked so hard to get it perfect that morning. Her mascara was waterproof, but she wasn’t sure if it was perspiration, stress, and exhaustion–proof.

  When Jeremy had asked to come on this trip with her and her friends, she had jumped at the chance, not wanting to be away from him for five whole days. But now she wondered if it was a bad idea. Between her camping cluelessness and her total inability to groom, he wasn’t going to be seeing her at her best.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just do me a favor and don’t look at me. At least not until I’ve washed my face and braided my hair.”

  “Why?” Jeremy tilted his head. “You’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful.”

  He hadn’t even blinked. It was so cool, how he stated it like that—like her beauty was an accepted fact. Callie knew she had her moments—those days when her nearly black eyes shone and her light brown skin was blemish-free—days when she didn’t mind being an unremarkable five foot five and when she inspected her curves in the mirror, she saw a bit of her beautiful, soft-yet-strong mother looking back at her. But that wasn’t “always.” It was once in a while.

  Even so, she was glad Jeremy didn’t see it that way.

  “And you’re crazy,” she joked. “But thank you.” She tugged at his hand. “Come on. Let’s get back to camp.”

  “I’m serious!” he said, falling into step with her. “Even in chem lab, when you’re wearing those foggy goggles and they’re pinching your cheeks next to your nose, you’re, like, the hottest girl in school.”

  Callie laughed and leaned into him. She had almost forgotten about the nameless animal by now.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.

  He kissed the top of her head. “Me too.”

  They had only taken a few steps when they heard Lissa’s voice.

  “I told you, no!” she whisper-shouted. “Zach, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. You can’t come up here.”

  Jeremy raised his eyebrows and Callie almost laughed, realizing that Lissa was on the phone.

  Nothing like stumbling on to a lover’s quarrel. Zach Carle was Lissa’s über-popular linebacker boyfriend. Callie glanced around, but couldn’t figure out which direction Lissa’s voice was coming from.

  “So what if Jeremy Higgins weaseled his way on to this trip?” Lissa went on. “I wanted it to be girls only so I’m not going to be responsible for bringing another guy. Just because Callie is clingy, doesn’t mean I am.”

  Callie felt like she’d just been punched in the gut. Was that what Lissa really thought of her? She glanced at Jeremy to see his jaw drop.

  Lissa was still talking. “Look, it’s five days. If you can’t handle life without me for five days, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Jeremy snorted a laugh, then slapped his hand over his mouth.

  “Wait, shh,” Lissa said. There was a pause, then: “I have to go.”

  She stepped out of the trees, so impossibly close by that Callie almost yelped in surprise. How could she not have seen her friend when she was standing ten feet away? These woods were the greatest camouflage ever.

  Lissa’s long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she still wore the brown cargo shorts and white ribbed tank top she’d had on all day, only now she had a blue Mission Hills High basketball hoodie zipped halfway over it.

  “Stalk me much?” Lissa asked, her blue eyes flashing.

  Callie flinched. “We were just on our way back. Is everything okay?” she asked, gesturing at Lissa’s phone.

  Lissa looked down at the cell in her hand as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Zach,” she said, then scoffed. “For a football jock, he’s seriously needy. But whatever. He’ll live.”

  She shut the phone off and shoved it into her sweatshirt pocket. No apologies or acknowledgment that she’d said anything wrong, even though it was clear Callie and Jeremy had overheard her. Jeremy rolled his eyes; he’d known Lissa since they were little kids and never seemed rattled by her. But Callie’s stomach felt tight. She knew Lissa could be callous, but Callie hated any sort of conflict or tension, even if it was unspoken.

  As Lissa turned to walk back toward camp, Callie saw a flash of something white near Lissa’s heel.

  “Hey, Li
s. You dropped something.”

  Lissa stopped and Callie bent to pick it up, but then recoiled.

  It was a wad of torn white gauze, soaked with blood.

  “What is that? Is that yours?” Callie asked, standing up again so quickly she almost tripped backward, but instead found Jeremy’s steadying hand.

  Lissa crouched over the scrap. “Nope. It was probably dropped by some other camper. Just leave it.”

  “Like we were really going to risk the hepatitis?” Jeremy asked.

  “Nice one, Science Boy,” Lissa said archly. Then she walked off, her ponytail swinging jauntily behind her.

  “That is so gross,” Callie said, hugging herself as she edged around the wad of gauze. “I hope whoever used that wasn’t seriously hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jeremy said. “It’s probably been there forever.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”

  But she shivered nonetheless, because Jeremy hadn’t noticed the most important detail—which he probably should have, since he had taken a special elective in criminology last semester.

  The blood had shimmered in the beam of his flashlight, wet and sticky. There was no way it had been there forever.

  That blood was still fresh.

  “Ever so slowly the girl approached the basement door,” Jeremy intoned, lowering his voice to a chilling octave. The fire’s flames made shadows dance across his face as he crept around the circle of stones where the girls sat. “All she could hear was the incessant sound. Tap … tap … tap … tap …”

  Callie huddled against Lissa’s side, her eyes wide with fear as she gripped her friend’s sweatshirt sleeve. Penelope clung to Lissa’s other side. Lissa, of course, was totally calm. She followed Jeremy’s progress with a smirk.

  “Her hand shook as she reached for the brass handle. Tap … tap … tap … tap …” He crossed behind them so that it felt as if the rumble of his voice was tingling down Callie’s neck. “She held her breath, her tongue dry. Tap … tap … tap … tap … And just as her fingertips grazed the cold, rusted knob … the beast came flying out of the cabinet and sunk its teeth into her neck!”

  Jeremy flung his arms around them from behind. Callie’s heart jumped, and she and Penelope screamed, the dissonant sound echoing across the placid waters of Mercer Pond and through the mountains.