Chương 173: Book Five, Chapter 76: Return to Camp

~Kimberly~ It amazed me how early exploration quietly became my favorite part of a storyline. It amazed me that I even had a favorite part of a storyline. It wasn't too long ago that I couldn't bear to think about them at all. Exploration was the only time I felt safe… I would usually have to pretend I was having fun. Sometimes, I could actually feel it. Talking to NPCs, finding new locations, the thrill of a discovery that could take the story in a whole new direction—the innocence before the killing starts.

I didn't want it to end. But it would. It always did, and in the worst of ways. Carousel had warned me about pigeonholing myself as Antoine's love interest, but because of my trope Get A Room, we had to add that to the story. It seemed Carousel was going along with it. As much as I liked exploration, the trip down the forest trail to Carousel River Camp was still tense.

It was too early in the Party Phase for me to worry about getting attacked, but the forest was thick, and I couldn't shake the feeling we were being watched from the moment we stepped into it. Antoine was on alert. Was that because he was a protector and ready to fight, or was the anxiety of being in a forest getting to him? I didn't know. He swore to my face that he had everything under control, and I wanted to believe him. But I also knew that Antoine could keep secrets better than most—even from me.

"What do you say we take a dip at the river?" one of the mercenaries said, the blonde one with the long hair tied up in a bun.

"I'll allow it," Antoine said, "but you have to keep your gear on." The men laughed. They were carrying so much gear that they'd drown if they ended up in the water. I wondered what they were being told in their scripts. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were totally enjoying themselves—enjoying the hunt. Boys being boys. But then again, scripted NPCs were such great actors. Was it because of practice, or were they magically controlled to play their character? I couldn't know.

I had seen some NPCs that didn't give great performances. They were either wooden or way extra. Riley said that's just how horror movies were, so it was probably on purpose, but I wasn't sure.

"The camp is just up ahead," Michael said as we rounded a long stretch of the trail that almost completely circled a pond. I didn't know what to think about Michael, but now that I saw him in action, I felt I knew him better. He understood the hunt. He understood fighting. It was every other part of Carousel that seemed to drive him crazy. He always looked so frustrated. Lila told me Michael had been tricked into coming to Carousel through a pen pal who had written love letters to him.

They said that when he got back stateside from a deployment, he drove straight to Carousel. I couldn't imagine how disappointing that would be. I had not seen the side of Michael that could get tricked like that. He was hiding it. Just like Antoine was hiding his pain, Michael was hiding his. Boys will be boys. We walked further along the trail. It was steep, and thick roots grew where the trail had been blazed many years ago. The character I played was getting nervous. She remembered this place.

I tried to clear my mind, to feel her heartbeat through mine. I needed to know what she knew—even if all I'd been able to do so far was know what she felt. And what she felt about this place was terror. The script said she was brave, and that was why she decided to return here, but she did not feel brave. I'd have to feel it for her. Just a few hundred feet later, we came across a junction where an old dirt road met the trail. I gasped when I saw what stood beyond that. Camp Dyer.

I recognized it right away, even with the wrong name on the arch at the entrance. This was the wrong place. These were the wrong hills, the wrong dirt, the wrong trees. As we entered under the archway (one of the mercenaries had to cut a lock off the gate) and followed the trail toward the camp, I started to see the old familiar buildings. They appeared to have been laid out in the same way they had been in my memory.

The only difference was that there was no Lake Dyer, no docks—just a large blue river lazily flowing by. And everything looked decrepit. The buildings were falling apart. The plants had grown and were overtaking everything. We were On-Screen, so I couldn't discuss this with Antoine, but I could see he was reacting to it just as I was. Was this Carousel teasing us, or was Camp Dyer here simply because the story called for a summer camp, and this was Carousel's favorite one?

Antoine turned to me as I stared over the buildings, up at Dyer's Lodge, and around to the other cabins.

"You all right?" he asked. I hardened my features and put on a brave face.

"Of course," I said. Be brave, Kimberly, I thought to myself.

"That over there," I said, pointing, "that's Dyer's Lodge. That's where the counselors slept."

"Looks empty," Michael said.

"The windows are broken."

"This place has been vandalized ten times over," Antoine said.

"All right, fan out in groups of two. Don't be too brave. Make sure to call for backup if you see anything, and don't kill some random kids who decided to trespass."

"Come on, boss, you take the fun out of everything," one of the mercenaries grumbled. What was it with these guys and their lame jokes in the face of danger? Pairs of two meant only one thing—that Antoine was ready to go exploring with me. With any luck, we would find something good here. And we did have luck, thanks to Lila bringing Bad Luck Magnet. That poor woman. She wanted so much to be forgiven for what she had done that she was willing to use that trope. I hoped nothing too bad would happen to her.

Antoine looked at me and nodded his head for me to follow. Everyone scattered. Antoine and I walked around the camp, kicking over piles of leaves, both trying not to talk about the tension between us. We couldn't hold off forever.

"That cabin over there is the place we first met," Antoine said. It was an easy guess. We were close enough to see all the claw marks on the doors and the things that had been stacked up in front of the windows. That had been the place where my character had somehow survived an onslaught that killed my friends. The question was, how was I going to find answers about it without an NPC around to tell me everything or another convenient newspaper article?

If we were going to get the information we needed, we would have to give Carousel—and the audience—what they needed. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"It's the place where my life changed forever," I said.

"You saved me. I'll always be grateful for that."

"We'll always have Camp Dyer," Antoine said with a smirk eyeing the perimeter, moving forward careful step after careful step.

"Oh God, don't say that," I said, laughing.

"This isn't a romantic spot."

"I'm sorry," Antoine said, holding back a laugh.

"Never thought I would hear you say that," I said.

"You rescued me, stole my heart, taught me the life of a hunter, and then abandoned me. This is the only sorry I get?" Antoine took a deep breath.

"I always told you it wasn't going to be forever," he said.

"I can't risk getting too close to anyone." His eyes grew distant. The audience would already know what was on his mind. His character's brother, like his real brother, was dead. And like his real brother, he felt responsible.

"That is the final lesson you taught me," I said.

"Always be the first one to leave. I was young, and you were everything."

"Kimberly," he said. I turned away, doing my best to force out tears so that I could hold them back to look tough. After a moment of me turning away and him staring after me longingly, I said, "Do you remember that Italian place where they played poker in the basement? The one we went to when we were staking out the werewolf in the Pine Barrens?" I turned to look at him.

"Best pasta I ever had," Antoine said.

"What was it—Gino's?" I asked.

"I don't even think they were a real restaurant. I think they were just a cover for illegal gambling."

"Oh yeah, that place was mobbed up," he said, "a hundred percent." We laughed and smiled at each other, but of course, the laughter couldn't last.

"We'll always have Gino's," I said.

"This place belongs to the wolves." That was it. No more fluttering eyelashes. No more thin smiles. It was back to business. I walked up ahead toward the cabin, and he followed. We sorted through the wreckage On-Screen the entire time. Michael must not have had much luck because he hadn't stolen the audience's attention even once.

"I just don't understand it," I said.

"If the werewolves wanted me, they could have busted this door down. Heck, they could have gone through the wall. This isn't a real log cabin—these boards are thinner than they look."

"I was distracting them," Antoine said.

"They didn't burst through because they smelled me in the wind, and they didn't want to get caught surprised." That didn't sound right. As I looked at the door and my character's feeble attempts to support it by putting a bunk bed up against it, it just made no sense. Looking at the claw marks on the door—their claws went right through the press board like it was butter—and yet, from what I understood, I had held out inside this cabin for 30 minutes before Antoine's character cleared the wolves.

We kept searching, turning things over, looking for clues. That's how exploration went. Most of it didn't show up in the final cut, but tossing couch cushions and opening every drawer and closet was how you found important things. I was just about to give up when I looked out the window and saw a tree with a single set of claw marks. They were old, probably from the date of my attack. Above the marks was a hole—the kind that a small animal might call home—except this one was perfect and round.

Below those claw marks were carvings. At first, I didn't understand what the letters meant until I realized they were the initials of all the friends I lost. I had put those marks there—or at least my character had, I had to assume, as the sole survivor. Now, we were on to something. I slowly walked out to the tree, trying to project uncertainty and hesitation—not because my character didn't know what was there, but because I was afraid to look inside the hole. It was a subtle performance.

The inside of the hole was dark—almost too dark for real life. Still, I knew how storylines worked, and I knew there would be something important inside. Bravely, I reached into the darkness. Something scuffled against my hand. I let out a small scream as a bird flew out of the hole—an owl, from what I could tell. Antoine, behind me, started to laugh.

"Let me help you out there," he said. He unclipped a flashlight from his belt and shined it inside the hole. There was a bird's nest in there, for sure, but there was something else, too—a square bag. It was made of leather and had a zipper. I grabbed it and retrieved it from the hole. It was worse for wear, but it looked like nothing had gotten inside of it. I looked around and saw the nearest picnic table. I set the bag down on the table and unzipped it. The first thing I found was an old Polaroid-style camera.

The name Thomas L was written on the side in marker. Thomas was one of the victims of the attack. He was one of my friends. I gently moved my fingers over the camera as if remembering something, and sure enough, I could feel my character mourning someone. Not Thomas, but someone similar. That old, familiar pang in my heart was returning. I set the camera down and looked deeper into the bag, where I found a large stack of Polaroids. The pictures were of me and my character's friends.

I had no idea how they had gotten my image. Carousel often imitated our voices or handwriting, but to see myself smiling back with my arms spread around strangers was off-putting. I couldn't hide it from my face, so I tried to make it look like I was having a difficult time reliving old memories. The pictures were innocent—teenagers having fun. I even looked younger in the photos. Antoine watched over my shoulder as I shuffled through them.

I flipped through the first couple, which were of me and my friends camping and hiking. I found a picture of Sarah and stopped. I could feel my character reacting to the photo, so I tried my best to mimic those feelings: confusion, longing, and dread. Emotions I felt with each and every picture. But when I looked at Sarah's, it was mostly confusion.

"Is that the one you saw, the one that is still alive?" Antoine asked. I nodded my head.

"She was a camp counselor back when we went here as preteens. After the camp closed down, she invited us out here when we were all adults. Well, we were 18, so we thought we were adults. But now it feels like we were still just kids." He furrowed his brow.

"Whenever I find a victim of a werewolf, I always pepper their wounds with silver shavings to stop them from turning. I'm not sure how your friend managed to shift anyway. I must have missed her."

"You must have," I said. But I kept flipping through the photos—because we were still On-Screen, which told me there was more information in them. And then I figured out what it was. I flipped to a photo and saw that both Sarah and I were in it, although we were not standing next to each other.

"Does it look like she's staring at me?" I asked.

"Kind of," Antoine said. I flipped through more photos until I found another one where she was in the photo with me. Yet again, while I was hanging from a low tree branch like a goofball, she was in the distance staring at me. Another picture: my arms were around Thomas. He had apparently stuck the camera on a timer or something. In the background, nearly out of the shot, was Sarah—staring at me. A shot of us in the abandoned cabins, partying. John's older brother had bought him beer for the trip.

We were all posing for a picture, looking at the camera—except for Sarah, who was looking at me.

"I never noticed this before," I said. Antoine didn't know what to say. He just stared at me with his best, "Things are starting to get strange" look, and I could almost feel the tension in the moment. We didn't know what to say.

"Did you find anything?" a voice called out from back toward Camp Dyer. Suddenly, the tension was gone, and we looked over to see that the blonde mercenary had separated from his buddy and was watching us from a distance.

"Nothing," Antoine called back to him. He looked at me as I put the camera and pictures back inside the bag and grabbed it. It was time to go. We waited at the gates for all of the groups to return.

"Did anyone find any signs of squatting or anyone living here at all?" Antoine asked the group as soon as everyone had returned. Everyone shook their heads or answered, "No."

"That's great," Antoine said.

"We've narrowed things down considerably. There are only a few more locations that we need to check." Antoine could always see the bright side. It was one of my favorite things about him. We found the trail that would lead back toward Witherhold Manor and traveled down it for some time, both On- and Off-Screen. After we had walked for 30 minutes, we suddenly went On-Screen, and I heard all of the mercenaries stowing their weapons as best as possible. I tried to look around to see what had happened.

There were no werewolves from what I could see, but up ahead was a line of six hikers in brightly colored clothing.

"Act normal, people," Antoine said. Then, after a pause, he added, "On second thought, act better than normal." The guys snickered. They laughed at all his jokes. We continued walking down the path as the hikers approached us. Everything should have gone just fine, though I noticed that they were staring at us with well-warranted concern. Except for one of them. He was grinning from ear to ear.

When they got close, that guy—a very tall hiker with a pointy chin—said, "You can never be too safe out here in the woods, huh?" He laughed like he had made a great joke. Seeing a bunch of heavily armed military men in the middle of a hiking trail would be pretty concerning, but this guy thought it was funny. The hiker behind him, a woman, tugged at his shirt as if begging him not to engage. The blonde mercenary decided to respond. He said, "I don't know if we're overdressed or if you guys are underdressed."

Most of the hikers were very wary of us, but the tall, pointy-chinned one laughed and said, "Well, maybe you guys are the underdressed ones."

"I sure hope not," the blonde mercenary said. I really needed to ask him what his name was. It was very strange to have an NPC who wasn't named be this vocal. He was just called Mercenary.

"Let's move ahead," Antoine said.

"Pick up the pace." We started walking forward, even faster than we had been, and the hikers looked relieved. The big, tall hiker, who was supposed to just be an NPC, didn't have much Moxie, just one point. He turned and watched us go, calling after us, "Is there something you know that we don't?" with a grin. No one answered him. Often, I would get jealous of the tropes my teammates had. They could do some truly incredible things. Riley could know whatever tropes the bad guys had.

Antoine could basically be superhuman. Dina could sneak around a storyline without ever being seen. Anna was guaranteed to be the last one to die. I was a social butterfly, and in a lot of storylines, you didn't really need a social butterfly. But in this storyline, I was glad to have my tropes because one of them— Social Awareness —had just given me a very important insight. It could tell me information about relationships between different characters.

Most of the time, you could figure that out by talking to people. I still liked to keep it for moments like this. Whenever the pointy-chinned hiker and the blonde-haired mercenary talked to each other, I learned something that sent chills down my spine. Those two knew each other. More than that, if I wasn't mistaken, those two men were best friends.