Summer Solstice

Chapter 1

It should be noted that Natalie hated the outdoors. Sure, she enjoyed the occasional long walk or beach trip but camping? Camping was just asking for trouble, the basis of half of the teen-scream horror flicks out there, which she tried to tell her friends. But did they listen? No, of course not. They never listened to her.

Natalie was grumbling all of this information, trying desperately to fall asleep, when she heard the gunshots. "You son of a-" Dahlia Lawrence, Natalie's best friend, was shrill with horror. Then she was silent. Looking back, Natalie would decide that that was the worst part: the silence after the shot.

Her tent mate and long time crush, Alistair Kempton, tried to shield her from the man killing her friends. He wasn't successful. Alistair was dragged out first, begging and pleading for his life, when he was shot. One. Two. Three gunshots.

Natalie cowered in the corner of her tent. She knew she couldn't run, so she fought, screaming and hoping that someone else in Blackwater Forest could hear her. "Sonya?" The man asked. "Sonya, calm down. It's me. It's Cyril."

Natalie kept screaming at the top of her lungs. Cyril was saying something, but Natalie didn't hear it. She blacked out when he laid down on top of her.

---

AJ woke up when he heard the panicked screams and the gunshots at the next campsite over. When Colonel Jingo at Pershing Academy told the cadets that they'd be going on solo survival missions, AJ had been thrilled; he loved a good challenge, and camping? Camping was always a blast!

But neither AJ nor Jingo had expected there to be a gunner on the loose. A little voice in his head told him that he should investigate. Common sense told him otherwise, but AJ hadn't listened to that when he applied to Pershing, so why should he now? He picked up his pack, emptied all non-essentials (clothes, tarp, rope), and flicked open his standard issue knife. What he saw when he got to the next site sickened him. Even though the only light was from the waxing crescent in the sky, AJ could make out at least four...no, wait, five bodies. Yes, that lump next to the big tent was body number five. And there was a grown man leering over a young girl. The man had a gun, and AJ had brought a knife to a gunfight. Dammit. AJ wanted to help, but he wouldn't be much good with a bullet in his head. So he waited until he heard the man stomp off into the woods. Carefully, he knelt next to the girl. She didn't have any gunshot wounds, and she had a pulse. AJ sat and waited for her to come to, but there was one thing wrong with that plan. The killer came back twice during the night before the girl ever came around. AJ was careful not to move anything in the area, both for the police and so that the killer wouldn't notice him. He wondered if and to whom he should pray.

---

Natalie came to and started screaming when she saw Alistair's dead blue eyes glaring into hers, a thin trail of blood running from his ginger hairline. He was dead he was dead he was dead why was he dead?

Across the clearing, Dahlia, who had helped talk Natalie into coming, had the same corpse gaze. Now more than ever, Natalie hated how much looking at Dahlia felt like looking in a more-attractive fun-house mirror.

Natalie screamed with even more vigor.

A boy hurried across the campsite and clamped a hand over her mouth. His warm hazel eyes, staring into Natalie's electric blues, were full of fear and concern. "Be quiet. The only reason you're still alive is because that psycho thinks you ain't. Understand?"

Carefully, Natalie nodded. The boy lowered his hand. "We need to get moving. Can you walk?"

"I...I think so." She gulped. "Who are you?"

In the soft pre-dawn light, Natalie could make out that the boy had an underage soldier aesthetic about him. His hair was shaven tight against his head, dark stubble already growing back across his scalp. The name "Jackson" was emblazoned across his fatigues. "Andrew Jackson. Buddies call me AJ." AJ stood and offered Natalie his hand.

She took it, and AJ helped her to her feet. "You got a name?"

"Natalie Dreyfus." She answered after a brief hesitation.

Truth be told, Natalie wasn't really sure she could trust AJ. But, after a brief analysis of her situation, she concluded that she didn't have any better options. A twig snapped somewhere back in the woods. "Run." AJ whispered, grasping Natalie's hand.