[wattys shortlist 2018]
Colton has always hated Alexis. It's as simple as that.
Alexis has never hated Colton though, not even after the night havoc was let loose: chaos caused by him.
This summer, Alexis doesn't expect to be reunited with her to...
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"Help! Help!"
Instantly, I'm alert, eyes scanning my surroundings, flitting between left and right to find the source of the cries. Once I've decided that the danger isn't within my cabin, I run outside to the common area in the centre of the girls cabins to find Colton's boys covered in a wet, sticky substance... that's red.
Being the only group at the sleeping ground for rest, I'm the first and only counsellor on the scene. Assumingly, the boys have come from the woods but Colton isn't with them. They should've had a scheduled activity currently, so why isn't he?
Hearing the crunching of gravel behind me, I whip my head round to find my campers in tow. Crap. There's no time to deal with the boys and the girls but I can't leave them in the cabin alone. Crap!
Right, I need to address the situation... and fast.
"Briella, grab me the first-aid box, now!"
Briella scampers off back through the door she just exited to find the box we had been treating her wound with and I reach the boys. From head to toe they're drenched in the colour red but the funny thing is: no notable wounds are obvious. The thought lingers in the back of my mind but I shake it off. Cuts can drown in blood, right?
Regardless, the boys camp t-shirts are nearly ripped to shreds, almost as if they've been ravaged by something. One boy has lost a shoe, another's shorts barely exist anymore and one boy's glasses, broken. And of course, Colton is still nowhere to be found.
My first-aid box not within my hands yet, I decide to start questioning the boys. "Where's Colton?"
They look at each other, sending a silent message through air, before a boy with ginger hair speaks up. "We don't know, the last time we saw him... was when it happened. "
"When what happened?"
"When the bear attacked."
Gasps erupt behind me, Lillian tugging on my shirt with urgency. "But Vivian said you'd find wolves faster than you'd find bears!"
"I said it was a wolf!"
I frown. "No, you didn't."
"Yes, he did," one of the boys pipes up.
"Tell me again, slowly, what happened?"
"We were at rock climbing when a bear comes out of nowhere and starts attacking us. Colton didn't make it." Bingo.
I purse my lips. "So, Colton died when the bear attacked?"
"No?"
"But you said he didn't make it."
"He didn't."
"So he died then?"
The boy who had tried to help his friend stop drowning starts to sink himself, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
