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“You pray. I’m way more concerned about the living,” Stella said as she rejoined them. She held up a keychain that had a green and yellow “Go Ducks” logo on it. “Keys were in the ignition, and there’s almost a full tank of gas. The men musta been painters. There’re a bunch of old paint cans and tarp in the bed. I’ll toss out the paint.”
“We’ll get the suitcases,” Mercury said.
“We need to hurry,” Stella’s gaze kept retuning to the nightmare view. “I have a bad feeling.”
Mercury rubbed her arms. “Me too, and it’s freezing out here.” She headed to the wrecked SUV with Stella and Jenny in tow—and then stopped when she realized Karen was still standing there—beside the bench—staring at what was left of Principal Richard Hale.
“She’s going to be a giant pain in the ass,” murmured Stella.
Silently, Mercury agreed, but she was used to managing pain-in-the-ass students. She knew how to get kids everyone else thought were nothing but trouble on her side and even coax them to perform for her—or at the very least stop being annoying. Automatically, she used her classroom management skills, honed by more than a decade of teaching teenagers Richard Hale used to call “the bottom of the barrel,” on Mrs. Gay.
“Karen, how about you pray over each of them”—Mercury made a sweeping gesture that took in Hale, Amelia, Coach Davis, and the two dead strangers—“while we get the truck loaded.”
Karen nodded solemnly and rubbed the gold crucifix she always wore around her neck between her thumb and forefinger. “Yes. Yes, I can do that.”
“That was smart,” Jenny said as they approached the SUV.
“Give ’em a task to keep ’em too busy to cause trouble,” Stella muttered.
Mercury rounded the back of the big Escalade and breathed a sigh of relief. As the vehicle had been thrown on its side, the rear hatch had popped opened. “Here, y’all! It’s unlatched. I think we can force it the rest of the way up.”
The three women wrenched open the hatch. Stella went to the pickup, started it, and backed it to the rear of the SUV so that the front of the truck was pointed out at the silent highway. She kept the engine idling as she jumped out of the cab, opened the tailgate, climbed into the bed, and began tossing paint cans onto the parking lot.
“Wait—don’t throw out those tarps.” Mercury struggled to roll two big suitcases over the gravel. “We can cover our stuff with them. Plus we might need them. Later.”
Stella met her gaze. “You hate camping.”
“I hate dying even more.”
“I’m a good camper,” said Jenny, who hauled two more suitcases behind her.
“You can pitch a tent?” Mercury asked Jenny as she handed Stella the first of the luggage.
“Yep. I can even start a fire with sticks, but it’s a lot harder than the movies make it look. Basically, it takes a lot of time.”
Stella lifted another suitcase, grunted, and then replied. “No need to worry about stick rubbing. I bought a new lighter at the Portland airport.”
Mercury raised a brow at her best friend. “Before or after you bought those pre-rolled joints?”
“During.” Stella said, and Mercury lifted another suitcase up to her, which her friend didn’t grab because she was staring over her head toward the once scenic view.
Before Mercury could ask what was going on, she heard a weird rustle that came from somewhere behind her. It was like a group of kids were wading through piles of fall leaves. She turned just as the first deer ran past her. The doe’s brown eyes were huge and panicked as it raced by. Behind the doe, squirrels, rabbits, several more deer, a fox and a whole cluster of chipmunks poured up over the lip of the mountain, as well as from the tree line on either side of them. The creatures darted past the vehicles, completely ignoring the humans.
“What level of Jumanji are we on?” As each moment unfolded, Mercury felt more and more like she’d been trapped in a video game where everyone dies over and over again.
“Get the rest of the suitcases and grab Karen. We need to go—now!” Stella said.
Mercury and Jenny sprinted back to the SUV. Jenny grabbed the last two suitcases while Mercury climbed up on the side of the vehicle and pulled open the back door. Immensely relieved, she snagged her giant purse, Stella’s Louis Vuitton knockoff, and Jenny’s backpack before she jumped to the ground, dodged a panicked raccoon, and raced to the pickup. They tossed everything to Stella, who hastily tucked tarps over their things before she jumped from the bed and got behind the wheel. Jenny slid quickly in beside Stella.
Before Mercury joined them, she spotted Karen Gay. The history teacher stood over what was left of Coach Davis’s body. Her hands were folded and her head bowed. She seemed utterly oblivious to the woodland creatures who fled past her and through mounds of strangely overgrown grass. Mercury rubbed her eyes, sure her vision was messed up. She blinked and refocused on the weird grass not far from Mrs. Gay, and with a jolt she realized two things. One—her eyes weren’t messed up. The grass was taller and brighter green than it had been just moments ago. And two—the clumps where the long grass had grown were in the same spots where she and Stella had been knocked to the ground, unconscious and bleeding.
“Mercury Elizabeth Rhodes! Pull your head out of your ass and get in this truck!” Stella’s voice cut through her focus.
“Sorry, yeah, okay.” Mercury cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Mrs. Gay! We need to go—now!”
Karen turned her head to glance over her shoulder at Mercury. Her brow was furrowed in irritation. She opened her mouth, clearly to shout back at Mercury that she wasn’t done, but before she could speak, the ground began to shudder like a horse trying to rid itself of flies.
Stella pushed in the clutch and wrestled the old gearshift into first. She shouted, “Mercury! If Karen wants to stay, leave her!”
