Camp Woody Gap

chapter 1

The girl I'm most attracted to in this world is five or six feet above me, balanced on an aluminum ladder leaned against a thick wooden pole in the middle of nowhere. I'm holding the sides of the ladder so it doesn't fall, staring up at the back of her silky tan thighs pouring out of a pair of tiny green track shorts. She's opening a gray metal box with a screwdriver, her dark-brown hair blowing in the strengthening winds. If I bend just right, like I'm doing now, I can see halfway up her shirt.

The ladder slips, just a half-inch.

"Hey!" she yells down. "Watch what you're fucking doing!"

"All good!" I call back up with a smile. She sighs and gets back to work. I'm not entirely sure what she's fixing up there -- the wires for the weather monitor, I think, which runs out of an old, dilapidated shack way out on McConaughey Loop. Camp Woody Gap is isolated enough out here that it runs its own small, unmanned weather station, and that station barely works on a good day. Case in point: we'd headed out this afternoon expecting clear skies for a two-mile hike up the mountain, and now we're racing an oncoming storm. She's up there swearing, has been swearing since the clouds rolled in, and probably since we left camp.

Me? I'm just happy to be here, to be with her. Our boss, Mrs. Flintock, sent her most valuable employee to fix it and her least valuable one to hold the ladder. But there's no way Flintock could have known that I've had a crush on Pam Pfluger since the seventh grade.

"Is the green light on yet?" she asks.

"What green light?"

"There's only one green light, Mikey."

I squint away the tiny rain droplets spraying my face and look into the open weather box beside her leg.

"Oh yeah," I say, nodding. "It's on."

"Now tell me if you hear a click."

A loud metallic snap comes from inside the box.

"Check!"

"Okay, good," she says, shutting the box and screwing it tight. "That means it's working."

She slides down the sides of the ladder in one motion, landing just in front of me, and spins around, holding the screwdriver between her teeth like a pirate. She's as close to me as I can ever remember her being: her white 'Camp Woody Gap' T-shirt pulled tight in the front from the rain and wind, strands of hair stuck to her forehead, a single bead of water rolling down her cheek. All I can think isGod damn, she's cool.

She takes the screwdriver out of her mouth. "Move the ladder inside," she orders, looking up at the darkening sky and the first of the rain. "And let's get the hell out of here."

I drag the ladder into the weather station, a sagging one-room cabin built almost forty years ago. It's made of warped plywood and damp cedar, tucked against the trees. The temperature is cooler inside by several degrees, almost chilly, the air like a cellar. Old tools hang from nails on the wall beside shelves full of paint cans, batteries, and faded maintenance supplies. As we enter, the rain starts in earnest and bounces off the tin roof like ball bearings.

"I just gotta check one last thing," she says as I put the ladder against the far wall. She crosses over to the monitoring panel affixed next to the window, wiping rainwater off her forehead. She bends over the panel, one hand on the wall beside it. Her shorts ride higher against the backs of her thighs as she leans in, tightening between them. I look away, then back.

"Barometer's dropped," she says. "And the temperature is plummeting... crazy storm this time of year."

She flips a switch. A red light clicks on and buzzes for too long.

"What's that?" I ask.

She doesn't answer at first; instead, she inspects a gauge with cloudy glass.

"Shit," she mutters. "We need to go. Like right now."

"I dunno," I say lazily. "I think we should wait this out... it looks pretty gnarly out there."

She shakes her head with the barest tolerance. "You don't get it," she says. "We're gonna get stuck here if we don't leave--"

A flash of light and a crack of thunder spook us both. That sounded close, like something nearby got hit.

"Jesus," I say, looking up. The noise off the roof is louder than before. "What is that?"

She runs to the window, then to the door, which she throws open. We watch golf balls of ice pelt the path, the trees, and the weather mast.

"Hail," she says. "It's hail."

I let out a short laugh. "Yeah, no way I'm walking back in this," I say, trying my best not to seem too pleased.

Truth be told, I could think of worse things than being trapped for a while with Pam. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've fantasized about it over a thousand times.

Pam looks at me with contempt. "You don't understand, you idiot," she spits. "If we don't get to the other side of the riverbed soon, we're fucked."

"Riverbed?"

"You remember that big dry riverbed we crossed to get here?"

I just stare at her. I don't. She frog-marches me to the window and points.

"You see that?"

Through the trees, I see a brown strip of cracked mud and stones that looks like a wide horse trail.

"Is... that it?"

She sighs at me again.

"I almost think we should risk it," she says, her eyes drifting upward while she thinks.

While she's distracted, I take the chance to admire her. I am struck by how intensely pretty she is up close. Her eyes, her face, her neck, the smooth slope of her shoulders; strong arms, the healthy swell of her breasts, those supple, tan, athletic legs. A rare and natural beauty.

I'm transfixed. I think about making this the moment: kissing her, taking her in my arms, sliding my hands under her shirt, pulling it over her head, and--

She turns away abruptly, scanning the room again.

"Maybe... if there's a plank of wood we could carry over our heads..."

I watch the hail fall even harder. Whether I was stuck here with Pam or not, there is no way I would go out in that. And with that riverbed thing slowly filling with water...

"Hey, Pam," I say nonchalantly, still looking out the window. "Check it out."

"Oh no," I hear her say. "No, no, no."

I notice that it's not flooding; it's flowing. In a matter of seconds, it becomes a raging river, filled with rapids and white peaks. For the first time, I feel a twinge of concern.

"That's... bad, right?"

She puts her face in her hands. I hear her start to growl.

"Fucking Flintock!" she exclaims with rage. "Now we're stuck out here past nightfall!"

We are?I think.This is awesome.

I need to play this cool.

"I told her this could wait until morning," she rants on. "Itoldher. There was no reason -- nofuckingreason -- to send two people out past the safety zone after four o'clock, regardless of conditions. Ihatebeing right all the time."

"I'm sure we'll be fine," I say. "We're inside at least."

"Fine?" Pam turns on me. "We're inside a condemned plywood box with no radio, no stove, no blankets, and we're cut off from civilization for at least six hours. We're wet, it's getting dark, and it's gonna get cold fast."

"I-I mean," I stammer. "I'm not worried. You're the best ranger in the whole state."

"That is not a plan... And you!" she says, pointing at me. "You're half the reason this took as long as it did. I coulda done this by myself and been back by now. You hike like a snail!"

I'm a little hurt by this.

"It's my first summer," I say. "You're way faster than me."

She exhales.

"It's not your fault," she says, calmer now. "Youdidn't send you off with me to slow me down. Fucking Flintock."

I say nothing.

"And thank you. I... take a lot of pride in being Wilderness Corps Leader."

She really does. I'm friendly with her younger brother, so I know her trajectory better than she knows I know it. The Pflugers come from old moonshiner stock. Her father looks like Yosemite Sam and runs guided backcountry trips; her mother sells rabbit meat and purses made from their fur.

She was the first girl to become an Appalachian Trail Ranger, and she was the youngest camp counselor allowed at Woody Gap at fourteen, the same age as some of the campers. She was even in the paper for finding two lost kids before the adults did. She's been doing this every summer for the last five years.

Me? I'm originally from Hoboken. My dad works in the Research Triangle and moved us all to the boondocks for reasons I still don't understand. I'm eighteen, one year younger than Pam, and I can barely tie a knot. Truthfully, I don't even like the outdoors all that much.

So why am I here? Pam fucking Pfluger. What can I say? I'm in love with her. Pam could have been the stereotypical cheerleader on the arm of the captain of the football team, but she chose differently, opting instead to be some solitary creature of the woods, an expert on things no one cares about -- a perfect weirdo, not unlike myself. But cool. So fucking cool.

Unfortunately, she barely knows I exist, and she doesn't seem terribly impressed with what she does know.

I have six weeks to change that. I don't believe she'll ever leave these mountains, and I'm going off to college in the fall. This may be the last chance I'll ever have to make this magnificent woman my wife.

"I mean it," I assure her. "You're the most prepared counselor at Woody Gap,"

"I guess that's why I'm so upset," Pam admits. "I left so... unprepared."

"You didn't know," I say. I think about patting her shoulder, but I don't.

"I should have," she murmurs. Her tongue rests absent-mindedly between her lips, her eyes fixed on nothing, her brow creased in the most adorable way.

"Should we," I start, not knowing where I'm going with this. "Look for stuff? Stuff we need?"

She turns to me like I actually said something helpful, and my heart skips a beat.

"You mean like recon?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Recon."

Her eyes sharpen with concentration. "There's not much in here," she says, mostly to herself. "But it's not a bad idea."

"Cool," I say. "What should we look for?"

"Anything useful," she responds immediately. "Lights, matches... A radio if we get lucky. Blankets, batteries, dry clothes, emergency kit... Anything they forgot to throw out."

She glances once toward the rain and hail hammering the windows.

"Because we are absolutely not crossing that river tonight."

I turn around and smile to myself. This couldn't have worked out any better.

chapter 2

"God, there's a lot of crap in here."

"Yeah," she agrees, opening a rusted cabinet drawer. "And nothing we need."

"Gotta be something we can use."

"I doubt it," she shrugs. "Anything good would've been taken long ago."

I see a few old brown glass gallon jugs, squat and heavy, with a little handle near the neck, sitting on a shelf.

"Oh yeah?" I say, grabbing one. "What about this? Maybe it's rum."

"Don't fuck around," she warns. "A lot of this shit is in here because it's dangerous."

"Only danger in this bottle is a rockin' party."

I was going to pretend to drink it. But when I try to pick it up, it doesn't budge, caked to the shelf with dried sludge. I pull harder.

The bottom stays glued down; the rest explodes into a million pieces, the neck still clutched in my fist. A heavy wave of soapy liquid sloshes straight down the front of me -- soaking my shirt and my shorts, splashing down both legs into my socks and shoes. Glass skitters everywhere.

"Shit!" I yell, jumping backwards.

"I knew it," she says flatly. "Great job, now we have to clean that up."

"Uh," I say, shaking my shirt to let any shards fall. "I don't see a broom."

"Well, you better look for one," she says. "Or you're picking it up with your hands."

"Yeah, I don't think so," I chuckle, shaking out my shirt and my shorts, then one leg at a time. They feel funny. "What the hell is this stuff anyway?"

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"It kinda itches."

Pam walks over and checks out one of the other bottles on the shelf.

"Says wood cleaner." Carefully, she turns it around. I lean over her shoulder and see in big red letters the wordDANGER. My legs start to sting, and now my chest is itching too.

"Uh," she starts.

"What?"

"It's, um, sodium hydroxide. Lye-based."

"Is that, like, bad?"

Her back stays turned as she reads the bottle. "We're not going to panic."

"What -- what do you mean?"

She scans the room, her eyes darting from corner to corner. "The bottle has instructions for this. And I know what to do."

"Instructions for what?" My legs are really burning now. "Fuck, what is this shit?"

Pam turns to me. Her face is grim, almost pale. "Don't worry. I'm first-aid trained." She nods firmly and takes me by the wrist. My heart races -- from her touch, from the pain, from the fear. "But we need to flush it. Quickly."

She pulls me to the corner, where an old maintenance shower has been bolted into the cabin: exposed pipes running down warped wooden walls, a rust-stained concrete drain, and a showerhead hanging crooked beneath a stiff pull-chain valve.

She yanks the chain. Water spurts out, then weakens to a drizzle. When she lets go, it shuts off.

"Okay," she says, nodding to herself. "Okay, good." Then she looks at me, and her expression changes.

"Mikey," she says evenly.

I'm wincing from the growing pain on my shins, pulling my shirt away from my chest. There's an itch that starts inside my waistband.

"Mikey!"

I look over at her.

"I'm gonna need you to listen to me very carefully."

The seriousness in her voice sends a strange jolt through me. I nod quickly.

"You need to do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I tell you to do it. If you follow my instructions, everything will be just fine. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," I say bravely. "Of course."

"Okay," she nods, taking a small breath. "Take off your shirt. And don't touch the wet part."

I blink at her, then do as she says.

"And your--" She stops. She looks at my feet. "Shoes and socks."

I nod and kick off my shoes, then pull the socks off one foot at a time. I stare at her, not thinking, only waiting for her to tell me what to do.

"Also, your--" She stops again, pursing her lips, then softly exhales. "You -- you gotta get your shorts off."

I go momentarily deaf.

"What?!" I exclaim.

"I know," she says glumly. "I'm sorry."

This can't be the answer. Thiscan'tbe.

"W-why can't I just shower like this?"

She shakes her head. "This is really bad stuff, Mikey. It soaks into the fabric and traps it against your skin. And if you shower with them on, the lye could spread... like,everywhere."

She makes a horrible face when she says that.

"O-okay," I say at last. "Fine."

I look up, loosen my drawstring, and with shaky hands, lower my gym shorts. I step out of them and under the showerhead.

I'm standing there in my tight white underwear, hands in front of me, unable to meet her eyes. I can't believe this is happening.

"Okay," I say meekly. "Let's do it."

"Mikey," she says, and something in her voice fills me with dread.

I finally glance up.

She looks down, then back at my eyes.

Now I look down. The front of my underwear is damp, with a wide, dark band along the waist and a heavier patch spreading from the center where my shorts had pressed against it. One middle seam is wet too, a thin line where the liquid ran and gathered.

My stomach drops.

"No," I say, my head shaking on its own.

"Mikey, I'm so sorry." Her voice has gone soft, sympathetic but urgent too. She steps closer. "You have to."

I know she's right. I know. But my hands make it to my sides, and from there I can't make them move. I can hear the rain and hail pounding the roof, barely over the sound of my own heartbeat, which gets louder and louder. The burn on my legs gets stronger. There's a high, thin hum in my ears.

Pam Pfluger.Pam Pfluger. The name keeps running through my head like a record skipping. Seventh grade, the bus stop. I decided right there and then that I was going to marry her. Six years of imagining how it would go when we were alone together... and this is how.Thisis how.

"C'mon," she says. "I won't look... I'll turn around."

She turns, but it doesn't help. I can already see it in my head: her glancing back, her face changing, a cruel and horrible laugh escaping before she can stop it.

"Please," she speaks to the wall. "Hurry."

My fingers find the elastic. Wood cleaner drips from the seam, down the inside of my thigh. I feel a mild burn now under the waistband, where the wet fabric is tight against me. I pull it off my stomach and stop there.

Just do it. Just do it just do it just do it.

"Mikey!" She's looking back at me over her shoulder now, and her face is genuinely scared. "Please. I'm not gonna let you get hurt, but you have tohelp me."

I knew she would look, is all I can think.

"I... can't."

My own voice sounds pathetic to me. My face freezes in what I imagine is a kind of pleading.

She turns around fully. Whatever was scared in her face a second ago is gone, replaced by something flatter, frustrated.

"Do it!" she orders. "Now."

I'm caught in total panic. I can't move or think. This is a handcrafted nightmare, one I wouldn't even have had the courage to invent.

"Would you just--" she starts, but doesn't finish. I catch a glimpse of what looks unmistakably like disgust. It stings worse than the lye. I shut my eyes hard out of shame, shaking my head, blocking it out, wishing this all away.

"Oh mygod!" she yells through her teeth.

Then I feel it: her fingers hook the elastic. A sharp tug, both sides at once, and my underwear is off me -- down my thighs, past my knees, pooled at my ankles -- before I understand what just happened.

My eyes spring open.

She gasps, as shocked by what she's done as I am. Her eyes flicker down, then back up to mine, then down again. Her mouth tries to form a word.

Shelaughs.

It starts small -- a single, nervous sound, like a wheezing cough. Then she looks at my face, and the laugh breaks open, her eyes startled but bright.