Grimm Woods Read online

  “Uh-huh. About this party—”

  “Every year, the counselors put on a little shindig down at the lake. Kinda like opening ceremonies.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  Chase frowned. “Dude. I don’t know what kind of anger management shit you’re dealing with, okay, but lighten up. It’s cool. Everyone’s here to have fun.”

  “Sorry, dude, but save your recruitment spiel. I’m here to earn a paycheck and stay out of trouble. That’s it.”

  Chase smirked—“Big. Reeking. Bullshit.”—and clapped Scott on the back. “What kind of saint signs up for fairy-tale-adventure camp and then shows up and picks a fight with the first prick they see? Huh? Tell me something. Do you want a good time, or do you wanna lie low making crafts and leading singsongs ’til you slit your wrists with a glass slipper?”

  Their gazes met, and Scott noticed a wild glimmer—an electric spark—flash across the windows to Chase’s roguish soul. He felt like Henry Jekyll staring into a mirror and seeing Edward Hyde smiling back.

  “I’ll only say it one more time. Your ass is cordially invited to this evening’s moonlit soirée. Dress is casual, dope encouraged, love guaranteed. How’s that, princess?”

  Chase extended a hand, and Scott massaged the back of his neck, sensing his inner Hyde slinking closer. “We’ll see,” he said, cracking a smile for the first time that day. “We’ll see, we’ll see.”

  They clasped palms and slipped them apart, bumping fists.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.” Chase flicked his cigarette butt. “Now let’s get outta here.”

  Scott ran a hand over his buzz cut and tossed his butt too, grinning as they made their way out of the trees and across the clearing toward the buildings in the center of the camp. Above, the sun blazed hotter, and as Scott looked around at the scenery—the huts, the horse pasture, the archery range—a strange thought popped into his head. It was a notion he hadn’t considered until now and a possibility, quite frankly, that surprised him.

  Maybe, he conceded, maybe this summer won’t be that bad after all.

  2

  “Mr. Mamer and Mr. Fehlman. Nice of you to join us.”

  The camp tour was well underway when Scott and Chase slipped into the group of counselors ten minutes after their impromptu smoke break. Chase shook his head and called back, “Wouldn’t miss this for every bunny at Playboy, Big C.”

  The other guys snickered, and a few of the girls grinned, biting their lips as they eyed up the camp bad boy.

  “As I was saying,”—Charlotte turned, ignoring the comment—“we’re now entering the south side of Storybook Square.”

  They had arrived at the colorful conglomeration of buildings at the heart of the camp. Up close, the area looked like a cartoon hamlet, and as they stepped onto a cobblestone path and started down a winding street—first past a gingerbread-style crafts hut, then a library labeled “Thumbling’s Reading Corner”—the folktale homages multiplied in every direction. If a building wasn’t based on a specific fairy tale, it was wrapped with a mural depicting one of a dozen classics: Prince Charming kissing Snow White, the Fairy Godmother transforming Cinderella’s outfit, Goldilocks tasting the bears’ porridge.

  Chase leaned over and whispered to Scott, “Wait until you see the kids’ faces the first time they get a load of this. They go apeshit.”

  Really? Scott wondered. Seems like the place could use some work.

  By the look of the structures—the weathered rooftops, the sagging saltbox gables—many of the buildings were in need of an architectural facelift. Not only would the roofs have benefited from new thatching, but the paint was chipping, too, and every crack was a chink in the illusion: not gumdrops but bricks, not beanstalks but termite-mauled two-by-fours.

  “The square is the heart of the camp.” Charlotte’s voice carried over the crowd. “Three Pigs Mess Hall is on the right; Gingerbread Crafts Hut on the left. Rapunzel’s Zip-Line Tower is straight ahead. If we keep going…”

  Her voice faded as Scott assessed more of the artwork.

  Princesses, talking animals, knights in shining armor.

  He smirked, unimpressed.

  Then something else caught his eye. Not something—someone. A girl, blonde, had lit up with a radiant flash of laughter less than ten feet ahead of him. Her look was tanned and simple, as though one of the princesses had popped out of the nearest mural and swapped her grandiloquent ball gown for a fresh tank top and a pair of skinny jeans.

  Scott smiled. That’s more like it.

  “Christ,” Chase whispered. “Check it, check it. Denisha’s ass is so hungry it’s eating her shorts. Mmmph.”

  Scott’s attention shifted to the person whom Chase had indicated: an African-American girl with a curvy figure and a complexion as smooth as Italian leather. Her pink booty shorts—as Chase had oh-so-poetically pointed out—were so tight that her butt appeared to be sucking the denim inside, and every second or two, a droplet of sweat came glistening down the back of her thighs in a long, sexy contrail that left little to the imagination.

  Scott looked around and noticed the other guys were equally distracted from the tour—and not only by Denisha. The counselors were a parade of all shapes and sizes, from toned legs and button noses to pierced eyebrows and butterfly tattoos inked into lower backs. Still…that blonde girl. Blonde was Scott’s Achilles’ hair color. Plus, she just looked nice. He’d been through bad-girl streaks before, and there was something incredibly fake and exhausting about women who were in constant need of dance floors, seven o’clock shooters, and more makeup than a Jersey Shore guidette.

  “You’ll find the younger children like to mimic their favorite characters…” Charlotte’s voice faded in and out. “There’s a lot of time at the start of the week devoted to crafts and costume making…On Thursdays, we do scavenger hunts…”

  The group passed a water fountain where the statues of seven dwarfs were posed on its circular tiers. A bronze effigy of Snow White sat on its concrete ledge, dipping her hand in the basin, and beyond the fountain, the path continued out of Storybook Square to the fort at the top of the hill.

  “The stables and the archery range,” Charlotte said, motioning east, “are for eight- to twelve-year-olds only. There’s a trail that leads to the lake too, and we’ll be scheduling trips throughout the week. Nobody goes into Grimm Woods with fewer than three counselors per fifteen campers, and under no circumstance after sunset. Understood?”

  “Why?” a girl with a pixie cut piped up. “Anything dangerous?”

  “Coyotes, bobcats, black bears,” Charlotte said without missing a beat. “Gray wolves and timber wolves. Badgers, foxes, cougars. Even if nothing’s hunting you, doesn’t mean you can’t get lost.”

  “Yeah, Goldilocks.” A buff teenager bumped the girl with the pixie cut. “They’ll lick you up for dinner.”

  “If I don’t lick her up first,” Chase mumbled, and Scott bit his tongue to stifle a laugh.

  “Joke all you want,” Charlotte said, “so long as you stick to the rules. I haven’t had a single accident in eleven years, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Make no mistake, I’m not afraid to ship anybody home if there’s a problem.” Her eyes hovered over the group and settled on Chase and Scott. “Clear?”

  Everyone nodded, Chase and Scott included.

  “Good,” Charlotte said. “Now who’s hungry?”

  ____

  On the outside, Three Pigs Mess Hall looked like a trio of conjoined buildings: one of straw, one of sticks, and one of brick. Inside, it was a single room with five log tables stretching the entire length of the hall. A buffet line ran along the southern wall—boasting a salad bar, hot trays, and prepare-your-own sandwich stations—while the kitchen occupied a separate space at the back, visible through two serving windows featuring a view of an enormous brick oven. The smells were simple and glorious: homemade vegetable soup, freshly baked buns, and fried buttermilk chicken coated with crisp, craggy crust
.

  “Who’s the roid head?” Scott asked. He was sitting with Chase and two other counselors, Dominique and Roddy. “The guy who made the Goldilocks crack.”

  “Lance,” Chase said.

  “Lance. And who’s his girlfriend?”

  “Denisha Lewis. The one with the magnificent ass.”

  “That booty, man.” Dominique snarled, biting into a drumstick.

  “Don’t get me started,” Chase said.

  “What about the third wheel? The one who’s grabbing a drink?”

  “Cynthia Blakemore,” Roddy said. “Went to high school together in Grand Rapids. It’s been awhile, though. Heard Vixxxens is paying her tuition now.”

  “The strip club?” Chase smirked. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Check out the girl at the other table. Nikki Platt. Been coming here as long as me, and she dances at Vixxxens too—I bet she got Cynthia the job. Wonder which one works the pole better, if you know what I mean.”

  Scott had no interest in Nikki or Cynthia. His gaze was locked on the girl whom he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of since the tour. “Who else is new?” he pressed.

  “Besides you, Rip Van Winkle? Umm…” Chase looked at the table where the rest of the girls were eating. “Meegan, Bethany, Brynn, and Kimberly have been here before. I don’t recognize the brunette. Or the Asian chick sitting by herself.”

  Scott frowned. Which girl is which?

  “She’s a social one, huh?” Dominique nodded at the Japanese counselor. “Anybody invite her to the lake?”

  “I did,” Roddy said.

  “And?”

  “She said she’d come, which kinda surprised me. Pegged her as the goody-two-shoes type.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chase said, flashing Scott a wink. “Scotty here can smooth out our foreign relations.”

  Scott shook his head and brought his last chicken wing to his lips. Just as he was about to bite in, Dominique nudged him and asked, “Hey, man, you gonna finish that?” Before Scott could reply, Dominique reached over—“Good.”—and snatched the wing out of his hands.

  “Watch it, Dom,” Chase said. “He’ll fight you for that.”

  “No,” Roddy cut in, “he’d have to be stupider than he looks to fight a black man for a piece of fried chicken.”

  Everybody except Dominique burst into laughter. “You know,” Dom said, sticking the wing in his mouth, “I’d be offended if it wasn’t so goddamn delicious.”

  The guys laughed again, and Roddy stood up and turned for the buffet. “S’cuse me, boys. Dessert’s calling.”

  “Bring me something too,” Dominique said.

  “You’ve got a hell of an appetite, Dom, you know that?”

  “It’s this cooking. I’m telling you, if that Ella woman was thirty years younger and two hundred—nah, maybe a hundred pounds lighter, I’d lock her down so fast they’d be calling our wedding video the next Fast and Furious sequel.”

  “Or Gone in Sixty Seconds,” Chase said. “Man, the minute you tried cowgirl, she’d flatten your ass faster than a steamroller.”

  “What? I like a girl with meat on her bones.”

  “So not those two?” Scott nodded across the room—more determined than ever to learn everyone’s names—at the girls sitting beside his crush. They were rail thin with long, gaunt faces, and their skin was so taut it was a wonder their clavicles hadn’t sliced through their necklines.

  “Meegan and Bethany,” Chase introduced from afar.

  “They look like malnourished alley cats,” Scott said.

  “Close,” Chase added. “Anorexics. Nobody asks, everybody knows. We graduated together in Lansing. Meegan’s what, five-six and ninety, ninety-five pounds? She used to run cross-country before her boyfriend dumped her junior year. That’s when she started losing weight. Things weren’t bad bad until she met Bethany, though, who’s been starving herself since middle school. Can’t say I remember much about Beth before then, only that kids used to make cracks about her last name.”

  “Which is…?”

  “Ford. Called her ‘half-ton’ or ‘hemi-butt’ and shouted crap like ‘Ford’s gonna pull their sponsorship’ when other girls lapped her on the track.”

  “That was you, wasn’t it?” Dominique asked.

  “Needless to say,”—Chase glossed over the question—“when she got her license, she refused to drive her mom’s Taurus, and her dad bought her a Mazda instead.”

  Scott watched as Meegan and Bethany picked tiny flakes of lettuce off their sandwiches and nibbled on them like rabbits. They reached for their glasses of water in unison, took two baby sips, and then covered their plates with their napkins so no one could see how much food was left.

  “What about the girl beside them?” Scott asked, his heart rate spiking.

  “Brynn Gately,” Chase said. He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Scott had a name, and that was more than enough for now.

  Brynn Gately. Gately, Brynn. Brynn Gately. Don’t forget, stupid.

  Scott’s eyes did another lap around the mess hall. Anorexics and outcasts, strippers and schoolyard bullies. These were the counselors—the chosen few—meant to be shining beacons of model behavior for the next generation, when really, each of them had their own constellation of vices, just like everybody else.

  Brynn Gately…Brynn Gately…Brynn Gately…

  Roddy returned from the buffet and lowered a plate of watermelon onto the table. “Bon appétit.”

  “Aww, hell no.” Dominique scowled. “No, no, no. You gotta be kiddin’ me.”

  “Afraid not,” Roddy said.

  “Where’s the apple pie?”

  “Sounds like Charlotte’s cracking down on sugar this year. Lunch desserts are exclusively fruit.”

  “I’ll sue that bitch.” Dominique straightened up. “Fried chicken and watermelon? Fuckin’ racist lunch foods. What about ice cream? Or some of that fancy crème brûlée shit?” Chase and Roddy bent over laughing, which stoked Dominique’s shtick even more. “Shit.” He raised his voice. “I’d even settle for donuts. Or a cheesecake.”

  “An entire cheesecake?” Roddy wiped a tear from his eye.

  “Yeah, bitch, a whole cheesecake. Or a chocolate chip cookie, how about that? There’s dessert. Charlotte, you listening? Get some muthafuckin’ chocolate on the menu for this muthafuckin’ nig—”

  Charlotte stepped into the mess hall—a cardboard box clutched in her arms—and Dominique trailed off as she passed their table and shot him a suspicious look. Chase and Roddy stuck their fists in their mouths to stifle their laughter, but Scott didn’t have to. He was watching Dominique in amazement and thinking, I’ve never seen a black guy turn that red before.

  “All right, everybody,” Charlotte said, setting her box on one of the tables. “How was lunch?”

  A mixture of staggered “Goods” floated back from the crowd, even from Dominique (which made Roddy and Chase chew their fists harder).

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Ella.”

  The counselors echoed the thank you, and the cook waved through the kitchen window before closing the shutters.

  “Okay,” Charlotte continued. “Let’s get to it. Who can tell me the mission of Camp Crownheart?”

  No one said anything, but it didn’t seem like she expected them to. At this point, Scott assumed, it’s probably part of her annual script.

  “Our mission,” the manager explained, “is to provide a fun, enchanting experience for children ages six through twelve with a focus on team building and moral development. Straightforward? Good. So it’s important from the second the kids arrive tomorrow that everyone’s got their game face on. Now remember: some of them are already on thin ice. Maybe they’ve had trouble in school or issues at home. Not all, but some. Of course we can’t help everybody, but that doesn’t mean we don’t offer equal attention to even the most difficult cases. Nikki, grab that stack of brochures and pass them out. Yes, yes, the blue ones…good. When you get a manual, open it to page three and
think about which stations you want to supervise.”

  Scott took a brochure from Roddy and sat up straighter, trying to spy the stations that Brynn was pointing at with Kimberly.

  “Numbers-wise,” Charlotte continued, “we have fifty-five campers rotating every seven days. The bus comes once a week on Fridays to take the old group home and again on Saturday to drop the new group off, giving us a day to reset. If anybody gets homesick, suggest an activity that involves teamwork. We encourage peer support as much as possible, but pending that, there’s a line in my office for emergencies. Some parents try slipping in cell phones, but the nearest coverage isn’t for a hundred miles, so the kids may as well turn them off when they get here. Goes for you, too.”

  Scott felt the outline of the Nokia flip phone in his pocket. Most people would argue that it was already useless in a world replete with Wi-Fi and mobile data (For God’s sake, it still uses T9 to text), but out here, even the smartest of smartphones were obsolete. That gave him a surprising twinge of satisfaction.

  “There’s a radio transmitter in the fort,” Charlotte said, “so in the event of an emergency—Oh, Bruce! Yes, bring that up here. On the table, please.”

  Scott turned to see a broad-shouldered man entering the mess hall with a cardboard box tucked under his left arm. He wore brown pants, leather brogans, and a green shirt with a belt looped around his waist to form a makeshift tunic.

  “Everyone, this is Bruce Bergman,” Charlotte said. “Our groundskeeper. Comes to us from…out West, I believe?”

  Bruce nodded, setting his box beside Charlotte’s. “Great Falls,” he said, scratching his coarse cheeks. The length of his whiskers hinted that he hadn’t shaved in over a week, maybe two. “Montana.”