Shrinkaway Camp

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Bloodthirstybutcher
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Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 02, 2024 1:25 am

Just in time for Spooky season, I have a new story for everyone that enjoys good old fashioned summer camp slashers!


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"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 02, 2024 1:26 am

Part 1-"Dear Diary"




Welcome to 1984!

-We've Got A Bigger Problem Now, The Dead Kennedys



Sunday, June 8th, 1984

Dear diary,

High school is over! I can hardly believe it!

Straight A's across the board! Didn't quite get valedictorian, that went to the exchange student from India, but that dude is probably gonna cure cancer one day so I'm not raw about it. It's a bitter sweet feeling leaving Central High behind. I've always enjoyed school, but I'm also so exited to move on to college. As intimidating as that is in itself.

I'm leaving to start my summer job tomorrow morning. I'm gonna be a camp counselor at the same summer camp I attended when I was in elementary and middle school! That's right, Camp Carey! I still can't believe it's been four whole years since I last spent the summer there. And this time, I'll actually be getting paid for it! I don't know why, but it feels like I'm cheating the system somehow.

I've got my gear all packed:

*New socks and underwear... check!
*Four pairs of new shorts... check! (Our shirts are being provided by the camp. I hope they're not yellow. Christ, I hate the way I look in yellow.)
*New bathing suit... check! (It's just a one piece, dark green. I chickened out on the bikini at the last minute. Maybe next time)
*All my toiletries: toothbrush, floss, hair brush, deodorant, makeup, tampons... check!
*Cassette player with plenty of tapes and batteries... check
*Reading Material: Lovecraft, Poe, and King... check! (Nothing like having some spooky books to read in the middle of nowhere. We'll see if I can finish them all before the season is over.)
*The letter... check!

Yes, I know. I'm bringing the letter.

Which means, yes... you guessed it... Marcy Duncan is also working at Camp Carey this summer. Did this knowledge influence my decision to take the job? Maybe. I'll never tell.

I know, I know... but I really intend to give it to her this time! I've held onto the damn thing for the last four years, changing things here and there, trying to get it just right. I don't dare look at what I've written because I might chicken out again. Spend another four years obsessing over every last word. It is what it is and my feelings are spelled out right there in black and white, for better or worse.

College is drawing near, so it's now or never. The timing couldn't be more perfect. Her boyfriend Todd dumped her just last week, and now I'm gonna get to spend an entire summer in close quarters with the girl I've been crushing on all through high school! Just the two of us, floating in a canoe out in the middle of the lake under the stars. God, I feel all tingly just thinking about it. The stars are aligning! Everything's coming up Phoebe this year, I tell ya! I'm sure if it!

I know it's a huge risk. God knows it's something I can't exactly share with just anyone. It's not easy to admit to yourself that you're into girls when you also just happen to be one, let alone the anxiety I feel just thinking about coming out to others. My best friend Stacy knows, but that's about it. If my parents ever found out I'm sure they'd disown me. They already act like I'm trying to kill them every time I dye my hair.

I know the odds of Marcy feeling the same way are as astronomical as winning the lottery, but I have to try. I don't wanna spend the rest of my life standing behind the three point line wondering why I didn't take the shot, ya know? I don't want to be tortured by wouldas and couldas like so many adults I know that peaked in high school.

And even if it does all go sideways, which it probably will, I still have my best friend to hang out with all summer. Yep, Stacy's packing up and heading to Camp Carey too! One last hurrah before we leave different schools. Plus, there's the kids to keep me busy. I can't wait to show them the same kind of good time I always had there.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep. It's about a three and a half hour drive to get there, so the bus is coming super early. That's if I can even get to sleep, I'm so nervous and excited all at the same time.

This summer is gonna be great, I'm sure of it!




End Part 1
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 02, 2024 1:27 am

Part 2-"Blue Monday"




But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today

-Blue Monday, New Order



Monday, June 9th


My heart sank the second I saw him. Sitting there at the back of the bus, his usual claim staked on the ride to and from school. Everyone knew it was his, and no one dared to challenge him for it. Even the old, rusted-out camp bus wasn't safe from Todd Masters' territorial pissings. I had no idea he would be working at the camp that summer. I was sure his name wasn't printed on the list of counselors that had signed up. Something like that would have jumped out at me like striking cobra.

Todd fucking Masters.

Rich. Star quarterback. Captain of the basketball team. C student, though I'm sure even that middling grade is the result of some faculty fudging in order to maintain our school's athletic dominance. I worked my ass off for my grades and this guy just coasted his way to a football scholarship at West Virginia! "Todd the Godd." That's what everyone called him. Worst of all, he'd been dating Marcy Duncan for damn near the entire duration of our four years of high school. The kind of dude that makes most girls swoon. Not me, and not just because I'm living the sapphic secrecy lifestyle. I see right through it all.

I hate Todd Masters... and trust me, the feeling is mutual.

Most distressingly, the fucker was sitting right next to Marcy. His arm around her shoulders. Her blonde, feathered locks twirling around his index finger.

And she was smiling.

They sure as fuck didn't look broken up, goddamnit. I could only stand there in the aisle with my jaw hanging in a stupid daze. My stomach twisted into a knot. Not this. Please not this.

"Hey! Take a seat, Phrumpy! Yer holdin' up the party!"

His charming nickname for me since freshman year. "Phrumpy Phoebe."

Did I fail to mention that I hate Todd Masters?

"Might wanna put the window up when you do. Be a shame to blow that blue shit outta your hair!" Chad Nowitzki added his two cents with a mocking laugh.

Todd's starting wide receiver, best friend, and all around pain in the ass. Also the only African American person I'd ever met with a polish surname. Not gonna lie, Ive always been curious about the genealogy there. Chad's name wasn't on the signup chart either. Nor was his girlfriend, the big-haired Cindy Lou Crux, who also decided to join the "party" as Todd called it. She and Chad occupied the seat opposite Todd and Marcy's. When I made I made eye contact with her, Cind sneered at me with a scrunched-up nose and a mouth full of new braces.

It's not like I was some church mouse or homeschool kid. I liked to dye my hair, wear a lot of black, listen to music that wasn't designed to be blasted form the speakers of a Trans Am. But it also meant that I was an other... and Todd and his fascist buddies zeroed in on "other." I got off easy compared to the Indian kid.

"Todd, be nice!" Marcy chastised him with a light punch in the ribs. "Howya doin', Pheebs?"

Marcy Duncan, always the thoughtful, kind-hearted soul... despite what the gum smacking against her teeth might lead you to believe.

"F-fine," I stutter. Fuck. How can someone so pretty and nice be so intimidating to talk to?! "Looking forward to getting to camp."

Well, I was anyway. If Stacy didn't show up soon, I was sure I might just jump right out the window.

Before Marcy could answer back, Todd pulled her face towards his and rammed his tongue down her throat. Yep, I'd say the two of them were very much back together. Too bad Vietnam was over, because the way I felt just then, I wouldn't have minded seeing Todd shipped off to fight the Vietcong.

I shook myself free of my stupor and slid into a seat near the middle of the vehicle. Not near the back with the cool kids, not up front with the bus driver like a compete spazz. The safe, ignorable middle. High school was over, but it's laws of survival were following me all the way to Camp Carey.

Worst of all, Stacy was nowhere to be seen. She never showed! There were eight other soon-to-be counselors on the bus, and she wasn't among them. I wouldn't be informed until later that afternoon by the camp director that her grandmother had taken a turn for the worse and that she wouldn't be coming. Other than the aforementioned crew camped out in the back, I didn't recognize the other four, two guys and two girls. Things just kept getting better.

What the fuck was happening?! This was going to be the best summer of my life! Why did Todd and his goons have to show up and ruin everything?! I needed to hide, so I removed my headphones from my duffle bag and tried to disappear into the latest Cure record. I needed Robert Smith's hauntingly sweet voice more than I ever had before.

It was a long ride to the camp. Luckily, I had my music and the lush beauty of the Appalachian mountains outside my window to distract me from my worries. It's just the first day. Don't let it get to you. Don't let it ruin your summer. Don't chicken out with Marcy, I told myself.

Who knew? Maybe Todd would get eaten by a bear? Or a mountain lion? Or fucking Bigfoot?!

A girl can dream, can't she?!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ha! What a dump! We really gonna spend our entire summer in this shithole, babe?!"

"That's why we're here a week before the kids arrive, TAAAAWWWDD! To help get the place in shape," Marcy informed her unimpressed boyfriend.

"Fuck, really? I thought we were just gonna, like, chill with some rug-rats for a couple of months! They're gonna make us work?!"

"We are. We will, but the place sits vacant for most of the year, so it's our job to get it ready so the kids... and the rest of us... can have a good time." This was Marcy's third year working at Camp Carey. She absolutely loved the place and was eager to get started with the chores.

"Man, I can't believe I blew off Tahiti for this fucking ghost town," Todd mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say?" Marcy asked.

"Oh... uh... just saying I can't wait to get started, babe! I hope they don't expect us to paint though. I don't paint. That's what Mexicans are for."

Oh, Todd Masters... looking and sounding the part of the Hitler Youth in a letterman jacket. I'm sure I've mentioned by this point that I hate Todd Masters, right?

Little did I know at the time, but a stipulation of Marcy's for taking Todd back was that he joined her that summer working at the camp. Her attempt to get him out of his comfort zone and think of someone other than himself for a change. Todd feigned enthusiasm at the prospect.

"Hello everybody!" The camp director stepped out of her cabin to greet this year's staff, such that it was. A beamy, perpetually cheery woman in her early thirties, Melody Carey's family had owned the property for going on five generations. I still remember when she was my camp counselor. She still looked the part, wide brimmed hat... khaki shorts... brand new hiking boots. Like Smokey the Bear with a C-cup. "For those of you who are new, welcome! I'm Melody Carey... and for those returning, welcome back! Can I get a woola walla ho!"

"Woola walla ho!"

Oh fuck.

I was the only one who did it! Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!

By the rules of teenage Darwinism, my bones would now be picked apart by any nearby predators and scavengers.

"Phrumpy Phoebe, from teacher's pet to camp narc!" As if on cue, Chad fired the first shot across my bow.

Melody set her arms akimbo and playfully chastised Todd's buddy. "Well, that's no way to talk about one your fellow Camp Carey Carey-takers, mister!"

Please don't help, I thought to myself.

I liked this woman, but I sure as fuck didn't need any more flack from the football team than I was already gonna get. Normally I wouldn't give a good-god-damn about what people thought of me, but it's a hell of a lot easier to feel that way when you have someone else in your corner. A friend who can face down the monsters with you. Mine was sitting bedside, watching her ailing grandmother talk to people who weren't really there.

"Come on now! I wanna hear a hearty woola walla ho from everybody!"

Oh god, I wanted to die right there... but then Marcy stepped forward. She elbowed Todd in the side to let him know it was time to fall in line.

"Come on, guys! Follow me!" The pretty blonde instructed, "woola walla ho!"

This time everyone joined, if not for some sarcastic enthusiasm from the jocks. I get it. I would have followed Marcy anywhere myself.

"That's more like it!" Melody exclaimed. "Now, we're gonna take it easy on you guys today... let ya'll get settled in... give ya'lls time to explore the camp, but rest assured we're gonna work our keesters off tomorrow!"

The outgoing director took role, then instructed her new staff where to bunk up. "Guys, you'll be in the west bunks, girls in the east. Feel free to bunk together for the week, but once the kids get here, each of you will be assigned your own cabin with your own troop to look after. Understood?"

Chad raised his hand, a smug smirk painted across his stupid face, "what's your thoughts on coed bunks, Ms. Carey?" This earned him another elbow to the ribs from Marcy.

"Absolutely not!" Melody decreed. "There will be no fraternization of that nature while working here. Especially once the kids arrive. Understood?"

"What is this place, some backwoods convent?" Todd snarked under his breath. Both Chad and Cindy Lou giggled amongst themselves.

Melody took a few steps forward, trying as hard to look as stern and imposing as she possibly could... failing miserably. The woman was about as intimidating as a baby chinchilla. "Listen, we have a small crew this summer. While I appreciate so many of you joining us at the last minute, the rules are the rules. Your focus should be on the campers, not on one other's... unmentionables."

Dear god, did she really just say 'unmentionables?' I was blushing with embarrassment for her.

Melody switched gears back to her her usual upbeat self, "so, with all that out of the way, you can pick up your manuals just inside the office door and I'll release you to go unpack your things. Just remember... no funny business."

I really liked this woman, always had. But I'm not unconvinced she hasn't time traveled from the turn of the century.

Of the nine of us, four are boys... and of course they all decided to group together in a single bunkhouse to maximize their mischief output. I'm sure the panty raids and shaving cream weren't long to follow. I held my distance from the other girls, following them towards our side of the property. The two I didn't know stake out a cabin together. I assumed Marcy and Cindy Lou would share a cabin for the time being, so I embraced the solitude and picked the furthest bunk from the rest on the southernmost end of the camp.

The old screen door, with its green paint flaking off, creeped open as I pushed through. I'd chosen that cabin for more reasons than just wanting to avoid the others. It was where I had stayed as a kid. I made so many great memories in this place. It was in need of a good dusting, but it looked exactly the same... yet... smaller somehow.

"Hey there, Carey-taker!" Melodys voiced startled me in my memory daze. "Ope, sorry! Didn't mean to spook ya!"

"It's ok, just reliving old times," I reply.

Melody cocks her head with a knowing grin, "you... you're little Phoebe Sellers aren't you? I mean, not so little now, but... it's you right?"

"I've been found out!" I reply in jest.

Her grin stretches into a full on smile, "I thought so! Bring it in, kiddo! How ya been?!"

We side hug since she's carrying something under one of her arms. "Can't complain too much." That was a lie.

"Looks like your hair turned blue! That's... somethin'!"

"Haha, yeah," I run my hand through my dark blue cleopatra cut self-consciously, "a girl's gotta find ways to set herself apart from the cro-mags... like those douchebags across camp."

"Now now, Phoebe, we don't talk about our fellow Carey-takers that way, you know that as well as anyone."

I roll my eyes with a smile, "yeah, I know... just... keep an eye on those guys, will ya? They're... they can be a handful."

Melody places her knuckles at her sides like Superman posing, "nothing a Camp Director can't handle!"

She's such a dork. Always has been. I love her. I don't know what it is about this place, you wouldn't think the girl with the blue bangs and the ripped Siouxshee and the Banshees t-shirt would be into something as hokey and Norman-Rockwellian as summer camp... but this place just brings the bright-eyed, optimistic child out in me.

Sue me.

"Just between you and me," Melody whispers with the back of her hand to the side of her mouth, "with such a low turnout this year, I couldn't turn the help away even if I wanted to."

"I was gonna say," I admitted, "it felt like your parents always had a small army of counselors up here."

Never one to be dissuaded from her optimism, Melody shrugged it off, "we'll get by. We always do. The lot of you will have about twice the number of number of kids to look after than normal. That just means twice the fun, right?!"

"Uh... right," I can't even mask the worry in my voice. That could mean twenty kids, at least, under my direct care.

The chipper camp directress thumbs toward the door, "I won't stand here talkin' your ear off all afternoon so you can get your things in order. Feel free to take a swim or a hike if you feel like it. Dinner's at five."

"Always was," I laugh.

"Oh, she adds, "here are your uniform T's. Got 'em in the brightest shade of yellow I could find!" She unfolds one to show me the graphic, a pretty good sketch of the lake shore with the camp name spelled out in logs above it.

I can't help but laugh, considering how the day has gone so far, "yellow... yay... I love it."

"I can tell," she jokes, "any more thrilled and you'll be doin' backflips down the beach!"

We shared another laugh before Melody made her way to the door. She nearly bumps into Marcy on her way out. "Oh, hey there, Marcy! Good to have you back this year!"

"Good to be back, Mel!"

"Dinner's at-"

"Five... I know, Mel."

"See you then!"

Marcy stands with the screen door leaning against her back. She was already wearing the yellow shirt provided by Melody, tied in a knot at her side which revealed her flat, flawless midsection. Sporting a pair of cutoff denim shorts and matching yellow flip flops, I suddenly found myself reconsidering my negative opinion of the primary color.

She knocks on the frame and asks, "mind if I come in?"

I'm instantly flummoxed, "uh...yeah... yeah, of course." I scramble to hide the underwear I have laid out on the bed. Why? I don't fucking know. It's not like Marcy hadn't seen another girl's undergarments before.

"I'm sorry about Todd earlier," she offered. "You don't deserve to be treated like that."

I tried to play it cool, "what? That? Pppppffffttt.... no biggie. Nothing I haven't heard a thousand times from him before."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to."

There's a bit of an awkward pause. I'm not sure if I should say thank you, considering her dipshit boyfriend isn't the one standing there apologizing. Fat chance of that.

"Soooo," she changes the subject, "I was wondering if I might bunk with you this week?"

What was that? Come again?! I think I'm hearing things! Did Marcy just ask if she could bunk with me?!

"I... uh...," needless to say, I was a little stunned. "I figured you'd be sharing a cabin with Cindy Lou."

Marcy let the screen door slam behind her as she approached me. She got so close that I could smell the bubblegum on her breath. It was everything I could do to keep my knees from buckling.

She leans down, being at least a head taller than I am, and whispers directly into my ear, "just between you and me... I can't stand her!" She giggles at her confession, then gives me the sweetest, cutest pout. "So? What'd ya say? Wanna be roomies?"

More than anything in the world, Marcy.

"Yeah... I think that'd be ok," playing it as cool as Fonzie. Yeah, I wish. "Just keep Todd away from me, ok?"

"It's a deal!" She offered an extended hand and I took it as we shook in agreement. "Great! I'll go grab my things!"

As Marcy's cute ass shimmied its way out the door, I couldn't help but think to myself... yeah, everything's comin' up Phoebe.






End Part 2
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by AB23 » Wed Oct 02, 2024 3:11 am

Oooo

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Oct 03, 2024 2:17 am

Part 3-"We Three Thieves"




Everywhere I go people stare
They put me down but I don't care
My mirror's telling me my face is a mess
And all my friends
They hate the way I dress
Cause I'm a rebel
A teenage rebel

-Teenage Rebel, The Avengers




Tuesday, June, 10th




I spent the rest of Monday afternoon sitting by myself on the shore, watching Todd and his crew fuck around on the floating pier. Marcy was with them, of course. Her darker colored bikini top exposed through her wet camp t-shirt. Eye candy galore.

That night, the two of us caught up on what had been going on in each other's lives. Where each of us were going to college, career aspirations, the usual bullshit. I suppose our relationship, as it was, warrants some explanation. I'm not some exiled member of their click or something like that. I never ran in their circles. And I'm not some creep rubbing one out to her yearbook photo every night before bed. There was something between us, once upon a time... at least, I hoped there was.

Back in sophomore year, Marcy and I shared a chemistry class, one which she was flunking very badly. I offered to tutor her, and by the end of the semester, she'd worked her way up to a B-. I was pretty proud of that, and even more proud of her.

Anyway, we got pretty friendly with one another during our time alone in her room. She'd tell me things I'm almost certain she didn't share with anyone else... perhaps because I wasn't a part of her actual friend group. It's strange how we can open up to compete strangers like that. Like, how it's so difficult for some reason to say certain things to someone you have to look in the eye on a day to day basis. I guess that's why therapists make such good money.

That class ended. Sophomore year ended. The following year came, and... I don't know how to explain it exactly. It was like... like neither of us knew how to get back to one another. Sure, we'd say hi in the halls and she always remained friendly towards me... but that was about it. And yes, the entire time I was tutoring Marcy, I was crushing on her hard. There were even a few moments... just between the two of us... where I felt like we could lay our souls bare to one another. Where I thought maybe... just maybe... if I leaned in for a kiss, that she might kiss me back.

As you can probably guess, I never tried.


Melody had everyone up bright and early the next morning to thoroughly clean out the dust and any deadfall that might have accumulated inside the cabins. Since there were two of us in our bunk, it made the work quite easy. I wiped down the furniture while Marcy cleaned windows. I swept and she beat the sediment out of the blankets outside. Just like we were back in sophomore year, the two of us made a pretty good team. When the place looked about as good as it possibly could, I was ready to kick back and take a nap, but Marcy suggested we go help the other girls with their bunks.

"No quicker way to make friends than to offer a helping hand," she philosophized. More time hanging out with Marcy? You know I wasn't about to turn that down. I'd clean out the boys cabins too if it meant the two of us could spend the day together.

God, how I wanted to tell her how I felt. I needed an in... a perfect moment to give her my written confession of my feelings for her. I kept it stashed away inside the back cover of my diary. I can't remember the last time I actually read the thing.


Everyone met back up at lunchtime. Marcy sat with Todd, joined by Chad and Cindy Lou. I sat by myself at a separate picnic table... naturally. I was doing a lot of that since I climbed on that bus the day before. This time though, the other two girls came over and joined me. Rebecca, who preferred to go by Becky, and her friend Heather. Marcy had been right about helping them clean their cabins, it made the crushing awkwardness of first impressions a lot more bearable.

Becky was a tall, skinny brunette. Almost freakishly tall. Even Todd the Godd would have to look up to meet her gaze. She always wore her hair in a pair of braided pigtails and was almost as peppy and optimistic as Melody... almost.

The other girl, a red-haired shorty with a little bit of baby fat left on her bones was Heather. Judging by the amount of luggage she'd brought with her, I'd wager she was from a wealthier family. From what I'd gathered about her during our brief time in working in the bunkhouse together, she didn't let her affluence dictate her personality. She was nice. Not like Todd Masters.

As I was saying, the two of them slid onto either side of the picnic bench opposite from me, almost simultaneously. Side by side, the two of them made quite the comedic sight. Like Wednesday and Pugsly in the old Adams Family comics... except, you know, also kind of attractive in their own ways. They looked at each other briefly, then back to me. It felt like a bit of a standoff, if I'm being honest. I tried to break the ice as best as I could, not exactly being the extraverted type like Marcy is.

"Soooo... uh... Sloppy Joe's for lunch again... I think the cook might be trying to kill us," yes, it sounded just as stupid coming out of my mouth as it must in your brain.

"Ask her," the tall one whispered to the shorter.

Heather replied, "no! You do it!"

My gaze bounced from one to the other, "um... what is it?"

Finally, Heather took the reigns. "We wanted to ask you something?"

This was going to be about my hair. I just knew it.

"How do you get your hair that deep shade of blue?"

See. Called it.

"Oh... uh... well, the trick is to bleach it out first. Then whatever color you wanna dye it will be a lot brighter. I mean, not that blue is a bright color... you know what I mean."

"Oooooh," they both cooed in stereo. Then Becky spoke up, "gosh Phoebe... you're so darned cool!"

Uuuhhh... what now? Never been accused of that before.

Heather interrupted her companion, "I bet you were a real badass at your school, huh?"

This time, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. "What?! Me?! Nonononono!" I waved off the very notion. "I was an honors student for fucksakes! I just don't dig the pastels and the acid wash and the Aquanet, ya know?"

"Did you hear that?!" Becky giggled to Heather, "she just said the 'F word' like it was nothing!"

Holy shit, these girls were a trip!

"How old are you two," I inquired.

"Eighteen," Becky replied. Heather parroted her answer.

"So... were you two raised in a cult or something?" Sure, it might have been a rude thing to ask, but come on!

Heather replied nervously, "sorry, are we being weird? We're being weird, aren't we? I told you she'd think we're weird, Becky!"

"Nonononono," I tried to assure her, "I just... I never thought of myself as being all that impressive."

"Are you kidding me?!" Heather beamed. "You're like the coolest person here! The lone wolf! Other than that Todd guy and his friends, everyone here is, like, afraid... no, that's the wrong word... INTIMIDATED! Yeah! That's it! Even the boys are whispering about you!"

What the fuck was going on?! I looked over towards the table where the other two boys were seated, and yeah... they were glancing in my direction. I couldn't help but blush as I spun back around in my seat.

"Am I on Candid Camera?" Was the first thing that sprung to mind. This was getting way too weird.

"Can we ask you something else?" Heather inquired once again.

"You don't need to be so formal about it, just ask," I told her.

"Can you show us how to, you know, do our hair like yours?! It's so...," the slightly pudgy one paused to make sure no one was watching her except the present company, "...fucking... neat!"

She and Becky giggled and awed at her first ever use of a curse word. The undisputed king of curse words at that! If you didn't know any better, you'd think these girls were, like, ten years old!

"Seriously though, your parents didn't keep the two of you chained up in the basement or anything, right?"

Heather answered, "we went to the same private school. It was really strict."

Aaaaaaahhhh! There it was. Bet it was a religious one at that.

"So... how 'bout it, huh?! Tonight?!" Heather begged.

"Tonight?!" It's not exactly like I had full salon zipped up in my duffel bag. "Yeah, I guess... we'll have to find some things first."

"Like what?" Asked Heather.

"Well... we'll need to swipe some bleach. I bet the groundskeeper has some stashed away in his work shed. As far as dye goes... I'll have to rummage through the kitchen for some food coloring."

Becky clapped her hands together with excitement, "yay! Like a scavenger hunt!"

"Uh... sure, you bet!"

Far be it from me to stand in the way of the further corruption of America's youth! Haha!


Could we simply have asked for the things we needed? Of course.
Would Melody have given them to us? Probably.
Was that any fun? Fuck no!

This was summer camp! Hijinks were practically mandatory!

The bleach wasn't difficult to locate. The lock on the old tool shed was rusted and in need of replacement anyway. The way I figured it, we were doing the old groundskeeper a service by breaking it, thereby forcing Melody to purchase him a new one. My two new friends were beside themselves with giddiness as they engaged in their first petty theft. In all honesty, it was mine as well.

To access the mess hall kitchen, I convinced my eager accomplices to distract the cook while I quietly dug through the pantry. Not much in the way of food dye, but I did find a few packets of Kool-Aid. They'd have to do in a pinch. While there, I also snagged a pair of mixing bowls, some food handler's gloves and a box of aluminum foil so I wouldn't expose my own skin to the bleach.

That night, the girls gathered in Marcy and I's bunkhouse for our planned makeover session. It was a strange feeling, for sure. I'd never really done anything like this before. My friend Stacy and I were the only goths... punks... whatever you want to call us, at our school. She liked to color her hair as well, but both of us had only ever done it ourselves. I just hoped the bleach didn't burn the girls' scalps.

After a solid twenty minutes of letting the harsh chemical do its job, I suddenly had a pair of toe-heads standing before me for my efforts. Each gawking in delighted awe at themselves in their vanity mirrors. Marcy sat in her bed, watching the whole thing in slack-jawed disbelief. While I awaited my new friends' return from rinsing their hair at the communal shower, I started mixing the first bowl of drink mix dye. The Kool Aid powder wasn't the deepest shade of green, so I wasn't holding my breath for a spectacular result.

"You really know what you're doin' there!" Marcy complimented me. In actuality, I did not know what the fuck I was doing, but I was having fun. A day ago I wouldn't have been so sure that was possible.

"We'll see," I replied. "I've never tried this before without food coloring."

"If nothing else, you could start your own cult," she joked. "Your fan club has really grown since we got here."

Once again, I found myself blushing at all of the sudden attention. That, and Marcy already had a way about flushing my skin, just be being Marcy. "Yeah, I don't get it."

"What'dya mean? You're awesome, Phoebe!"

I'm pretty sure I had turned the shade of an apple by that point. "You don't exactly earn a nickname like Phrumpy Phoebe by being the most popular girl in school."

"I never understood why people called you that. You could have filled out a cheerleader costume better than half the girls on the squad!"

"Oh, god!" I laughed, "are you trying to make me sick?!"

"Hey, I take offense to that remark!" Marcy folds her arms over her chest and pouts... with a mischievous smile lurking just beneath a forced frown.

"Maybe you should ask your boyfriend how I got the nickname," I grumbled, instantly regretting the way I'd said it. "I'm sorry, that wasn't fair."

"No... it was," she surprisingly admitted. "I'd hoped that having Todd here would give him an opportunity show me he could be a little less selfish, but I'm starting to think nothing is gonna change."

I thought about asking Marcy why she took him back, but thought better of it. Instead of feeling resentful of their relationship, for the first time I felt sorry for her. Seems like she'd been doing all the heavy lifting while Todd just took her for granted.

"Anyway, you're not 'frumpy,' Pheebs. You're smart and talented... and beautiful."

See what I mean about those signals? That last part seemed to hang in the air, striking both of us silent.

The other girls returned with towels wrapped around their newly blonde hair, unaware that they'd interrupted a bit of a moment between Marcy and I.

"I feel like Marylin Monroe!" Becky exclaimed. "Maybe I'll just stick with the blonde."

"No ma'am," I say in good humor, "you've come this far, now you gotta take a dip in the lime Kool Aid bowl!"

The tall girl shook out her wrists in nervous anticipation, "I can't believe I'm about to do this!"

Becky laid back in my bed with her head hanging over the side. I placed the nightstand beneath her with her hair collected inside the bowl. Then, I began to work the green paste I'd made from the mix into her newly blonde locks. I followed the same process with Heather, this time with a dark purple grape flavor.

After having the girls let the stuff soak into their hair for about an hour each, I had them head back to the showers to wash the drying gunk out. Upon their return, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the color took. Somewhat. It wasn't as dark as I would personally have liked, but Becky's hair was indeed green, and Heather's a pastel shade of purple. The Joker would approve.

"What'dya think?" I asked nervously. Each had their respective mirror held up at face level, analyzing my work in detail. It made me feel anxious as I hoped for their approval.

Becky spoke up first, delivering a guttural, laughing, "wooooooo-o-o-o-oah! Oh my gawd! Phoebe!? This is wild! I love it! Thank you so much!"

Then Heather, "yeah, Phoebe! This is... fucking... rad." I found it quite endearing how every time she tried that particular curse on for size, she felt the need to whisper it.

The two of them flanked me and smiled over at Marcy. Becky asked, "so?! How do we look?!"

"Like a buncha tootsie pops!" The cheerleader replied with a giggle. "Wait! I got an idea! Hold on a second!"

Marcy hopped off the bed and skipped towards one of her bags. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for: her Polaroid camera.

"Alright! Everyone say woola walla ho!"

With a bright flash of the bulb and the motorized ejection of the picture, my first ever makeover was immortalized forever. Unfortunately, it would also be my last.


The four of us chatted and gossiped and made each other laugh for a couple more hours before the private school girls headed off to bed. I was ready to turn in myself after such a long day, but Marcy stopped me as I pulled the covers back.

"Can I ask you something?"

I laughed, "why do people keep asking permission to question me?"

Marcy giggled, brushing a lock of her beautiful feathered hair behind her ear, "I know I probably should have asked earlier, but I kept talking myself out of it."

"Out with it, girl!"

The blonde blushed in embarrassment, "could you... maybe... do my hair as well?"

Wow! This was a surprise!

"You want me to dye your hair?!" Still not believing what I was hearing. Marcy Duncan's feathered locks rivaled only Farrah Fawcett herself in their beauty.

"Nothing too crazy!" She back-peddled, "maybe... maybe just a streak on the side?"

I smiled at her, loving that she felt comfortable enough with me to do this for her. "Which side?"


Marcy laid her head back in my lap as I applied the bleach to a long lock of her gorgeous hair. I took my time with it, applying the aluminum foil wrap with the utmost care. I'm sure she felt my crossed legs trembling beneath her. I had to fight myself not to run my fingers through the flowing blonde tendrils spread across my lap.

There would be no trip to the shower for Marcy Duncan. No ma'am. I washed the base chemical by hand, using her favorite shampoo. Like fresh wildflowers, she always smelled of it. We didn't speak much, she just gazed up at me with a contented smile, and I did the same back down at her.

For her color, I went with fruit punch, classic red. I didn't even bother putting the glove back on as I let her locks run through my reddened hands. I hadn't taken near the time with the other girls as I did with Marcy. I savored every moment, almost fetishistically. Chills raced up and down my back... and that all too familiar, yet long dormant charge. That electricity I only ever felt when near her was so strong that the hair on my arms stood on end.

Like all good things, this too had to come to an end. Marcy sat up and examined her still-wet pomp, turning her head from side to side to take in my handiwork.

"Do you hate it?" I asked.

"Are you kidding, me?! This is bitchin', Pheebs! It's so New Wave! Todd's gonna hate it!"

Good, I thought to myself.

"What'dya think, roomie? Am I cool enough to hang with your punk rock friends now?" She teased.

"You look like Jem," I reply, only half jokingly.

"Maybe we should start a band then," she giggled.

Marcy wrapped her arms around me and pressed her head against mine. I was a little surprised until I realized she was holding the Polaroid camera once again. Extending her arm far enough away from her body to hopefully capture us both. She snapped two more photos, one for each of us.

"Here," she said as I was offered one of them, "so we both have something to remember our first week of camp."

Oh, Marcy Duncan... how could I ever forget?






End Part 3
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Bloodthirstybutcher
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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Oct 03, 2024 2:18 am

Part 4-"The Legend of Camp (S)Carey"




I just wanna give you the creeps

-The Creeps, Social Distortion




Wednesday, June 11th


Watching Todd scrape flaking paint from the doorframe of his bunkhouse was definitely a delicious highlight of that Wednesday morning. The way he bitched and moaned and carried on, just short of stamping his feet, was like watching a five year old being forced to clean his room. So much for painting being work for Mexicans, ya racist prick.

Unlike those dipshit guys across camp, the girls and I worked together on painting each bunkhouse, making the process go much smoother, and a lot more fun. Even Cindy Lou joined us, though the girl with the comically Seussian name spent an awful lot of time scowling in my direction. It didn't bother me in the least. Her pack of privileged skanks and jocks may have ruled the roost in high school, but at Camp Carey, she was outnumbered four to one.

"Melody! I'm starting to get blisters!" Todd bellyached.

"That's great," Melody replied enthusiastically, "rough hands from a hard day's work build character!" The camp director had dealt with others like Todd Masters plenty of times in the past. Melody knew exactly how to handle them.

"You gonna explain that to West Virginia's coach when his star quarterback's hands are too mangled to throw a football?!" He continued to whine.

"My, aren't we the dramatic one?!" The perpetually chipper camp director teased. "You'll be fine, Todd Masters. And as far as your coach is concerned, I got a feeling he'd feel the same way I do."

Looking past the kind woman he now considered a slave driver, Todd caught his first glimpse of the candy-colored changes in our crew. "What the fuck?!"

Todd threw down his metal scraper and charged in our direction. Upon arrival, he grabbed Marcy by the arm hard enough that he startled her into dropping her can of forest-green paint.

"What the fuck is this?!" He grunted, pulling at Marcy's dark pink streak.

"Ooowwww!" She screamed, "Todd! Stop that!"

I didn't think about the futility of my following actions. Seeing Todd manhandle Marcy like that sent me into a blind rage. I charged at him, yelling, "get the fuck off of her!"

Now. I'm a pretty petite girl. One of the shortest in our graduating class, actually. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that running into Todd Masters was like running into a brick wall. The asshole shrugged off my attack, knocking me to the ground with his forearm without so much as shifting his feet. "Back the fuck off, Phrumpy! I don't need you turning my girl into some freak show like you!"

"Let go of my arm, Todd! You're hurting me!" Marcy pleaded. I could tell she was trying to stay calm, but her boyfriend's temper was obviously frightening her. It was hard to believe anyone could get so upset about a little dyed hair. Even "Cowboy" Ronny Reagan sported quite the stylish Mohawk after Hinkley shot him the fucking head.

"You skanks can dyke-out all you want, but you keep Marcy out of it! You got that?!"

The other girls took a startled step back at the raising of Todd's voice.

Marcy begged him to calm down, "Todd, stop! It's nothing... it'll probably be gone in a week!"

She managed to wrestle her arm away, which only succeeded in pissing him off more. Marcy's eyes grew wide with terror as he raised his arm to slap her with the back of his hand. The blunt end of his high school ring was about to come down on the poor girl's face, but another hand seemed to appear out of nowhere, grabbing him by the wrist and stopping Todd just in time.

That hand belonged to the old groundskeeper, Mr. Jeffries.

Alvin Jeffries had been the camp caretaker since Melody was in diapers. He stayed on at the lake year round. Someone had to look after the property during the long offseason, and Mr. Jeffries took great pride in his work. Melody and her family couldn't pay him much, but the camp did provide free room and board and plenty of fresh air. For the old WWII veteran, and long time hermit, this exchange was just fine by him.

"What the fuck do you think you're doin', old man?!" Todd fumed.

Alvin's response was as cool as the water in the lake itself, "ain't no way tuh treat a lady, son."

Todd spit in his bearded face, "yeah, and who asked you, ya inbred sheepfucker?!"

Now, Mr. Jeffries might have been getting up there in years, but the dude was built like a brick shithouse. Locking both hands onto the young man's wrist, the old-timer bent Todd's arm around and behind his back. In the blink of an eye, Mr. Jeffries had the star athlete wrestled to the ground. "Yuh need tuh calm down, young man. Ain't nothin' happenin' here worth gittin' yuh arm broke o'er."

"Todd bellowed like a wounded hound dog, "get off me! Get off me, you old bastard!"

Alvin didn't budge. "I'd be happy tuh oblige yuh, son, but not 'til yuhs calmed yuhself down some." He angled the quarterback's throwing arm higher, sharper... causing the kid even more pain.

"Todd, just stop!" Marcy barked.

"Fuck you, Marcy! This is all your fault!" He barked back.

Todd screamed like a little girl the next time Alvin applied pressure to his shoulder. His voice was just as calm and assured as when he'd first appeared. "Is yuh done?"

After a few more minutes of wriggling and cursing, Todd tapped the ground in defeat. The pain the old caretaker kept dishing out could only be described as crippling, but Mr. Jeffries himself never even broke a sweat. Coolest motherfucker I've ever seen. Alvin stood up, taking a guarded stance in case the mouthy shit thought to turn and sucker punch him. Todd climbed to his feet, brushing the grass and dirt from his clothing and rotating his arm at the shoulder. We all stared back at him with utter contempt.

"You could've broke my throwing arm, you asshole! That's assault, old man! My dad's a lawyer and when he hears about this, we'll sue the shit out of you! You all saw it!"

During all of this, I'm still sitting flat on my ass in the dirt where Todd had put me, a puddle of green paint creeping dangerously close to my shorts. When Todd tried to procure witnesses to his supposed victimhood, I stood back up, dusted myself off, and told him, "we didn't see anything... did we, girls?"

If looks could kill, then Todd's eyes would have cut me to shreds. As completely unhinged and dangerous as he looked, the others stood with me in their silence. Hell, not even Todd's best friend dared speak up. By this point, everyone in camp was present, and even Chad seemed disgusted by Todd's behavior.

"Please, just walk it off, will you?" Marcy continued to plead.

"Fuck all you, cunts! This ain't over!" And with that, Todd Masters stormed off into the woods, cursing and ranting in a pathetic tantrum.

Alvin brought a hand to his mouth to amplify his call, "don't go off too fah in them woods, son! Madman Maddox is sure to gitcha!" He let a raspy laugh loose while adjusting his very worn out overalls. Once he came down from his hacking-laughing fit, the ol' dude looked my way, saying, "couldja make sure that bottle uh bleach finds its way back tuh where it belongs when yuhs through wit it, Blue?"

For a second, I felt mortified with being found out. That awful, warm feeling that floods your skin when guilt singles you out in a crowd. But Mr. Jeffries offered a wink and a smile to let me know he wasn't upset. I smiled back, saluting him for his quick reaction and selflessness that afternoon, "aye aye, captain!"

Mr. Jeffries hobbled away, earning all of our respect that day. Marcy on the other hand, looking very torn in purpose, took off after her deranged boyfriend.

"Marcy?!" I chastised, "what the fuck are you doing?! Fuck him! Don't go after him!"

"I...," was about all the excuse I got out of her. I think she knew there wasn't a good reason to follow Todd. The former head cheerleader just hung her head and disappeared into the woods as well.

Sure, my reasoning could have been interpreted as selfish, but I'm also a realist. I had no illusions about Marcy ever feeling the same way about me as I did about her. Hope, yes... illusions, no. What I will say is that I cared enough about her to hope she didn't end up with a guy like Todd Masters. She deserved so much better.

"Well," Melody huffed, trying to alleviate the tension, "that young fella's a bit of a kook, ain't he? Oh my!” She exclaimed at the sight of her candy-colored counselors, “don’t you four look… modern!”

"Who the fuck is Madman Maddox," Chad asked, completely changing the course of the conversation. Drastically so actually. Like a dark cloud had been instantly lifted from the scene.


That's right!


Todd, Chad and Cindy Lou Metal-mouth were all virgins to Camp Carey, and therefore knew nothing about our camp's little urban legend!

"Camp fire tonight!" Heather announced. She and Becky looked at one another and laughed.

"Nonononono!" Melody tried to step in and squash the notion immediately. She absolutely hated the Madman Maddox story. Or at least she pretended to.

Chadwick scratched his head, "what? What did I say?"

"Tonight," Joe, one of the other two boys I hadn't been properly introduced to yet, told him.

"Right, tonight," I added, "we still have work to finish... and it'll be more... appropriate." Yes, I was still worried about Marcy... but goddamn, I loved the Madman Maddox story so much! She'd be back... hopefully after she found an old mine shaft to push Todd into.



The sun began to set at the far end of the lake, almost perfectly framed over the water by the surrounding forest. A sight worthy of a postcard. The fire was just starting to take to the old, dry logs built up in a teepee-like formation in the middle of the pit. Four sections of six long benches, each carved from native pine, surrounded the flaming centerpiece. The smell of roasting marshmallows filled the air. It was an ideal setting for an evening of ghost stories.

All of us were exhausted from our long day of painting the bunkhouses, but I couldn't help but feel proud of what we'd achieved. The camp looked fresh and new and I couldn't wait for the kids to see it when they arrived the following week.

Everyone, well... almost everyone... slowly filtered in around the fire, as cavemen certainly must have eons ago. Some things just seem to be ingrained in our nature. A warm fire meant safety and community... and the perfect opportunity to scare the shit out of one another!

Marcy had returned from the woods hours before, but Todd chose to sulk in his cabin all evening, even missing dinner. Good riddance. He could stay there all summer for all I cared. The fucking psycho. If I ever found out he had hit Marcy like he tried to early that day, I swore to god I'd kill him myself.

"So?!" Chad asked impatiently, "who is Madman Maddox?!"

"Who wants to tell it?!" Becky asked eagerly.

I suggested, "how about Marcy?"

"No no," she tried to wave me off modestly.

"Come on, you've always been a great storyteller!" She really was. Marcy blushed, surprised that anyone had actually been paying attention to her oral compositions in English class.

"Yeah, come on, Marcy!" Heather coaxed further.

Marcy smiled, rolling her eyes as she relented, "fine!"

Her three champions applauded and laughed.

Marcy took a deep breath before beginning...

"So... the Legend of Camp (S)Carey," she said with a heavy emphasis on the 's' sound. "Those of us who've stayed at this camp in the past are fully aware of it. It's a story that's just as much a part of this place as the pines and the lake. Told year after year. I have to ask, have any of you rookies noticed the abandoned building at the far end of the lake?"

Cindy Lou and Chad's heads turned towards the water. They'd been too busy since arriving to notice, but sure enough, the silhouette of of a rectangular structure could be seen peaking through the trees near the northern shoreline. Given that the lake was long and shaped like a curling finger, with the camp at the south end and the mysterious building perched at the north, the structure was easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. The remaining glow of the sunset really helped it stand out from the natural surroundings.

"Yeah," Chad replied, "I can't believe I missed that! What is it? A cabin?"

"No," Marcy informed him, "it's no one's home. The size is deceiving from here, but the building is actually quite large."

"Ok, so what is It?" Asked Cindy Lou.

Marcy continued, "so... back in the fifties, the land at that end of the lake was owned by some kind of government contractor. Experimental research of one kind or another."

"Yeah right," Chad scoffed, "way out here?!"

"Exactly," Marcy replied. "The isolation was exactly what the people in charge were looking for. A hidden encampment, locked away from public eyes. That way, they could get away with things that might have been considered... controversial."

"Alright, I'll bite... so what happened?"

"Well, they say the property had previously been occupied by a family that lived out in these woods. Backwoods types. Feral and primitive. They had no real ownership of the land since no one really knew they were up here, but needless to say... they weren't happy about their hunting grounds being taken over by government types. The very society they'd chosen to reject."

Chad was now fully engaged in the story, "did they do something?"

"Ah," Marcy raised a finger, "that's where things get a little murky. There was some kind of accident. An experiment that went terribly wrong."

Becky chimed in, "I heard it was an explosion!"

Joe added, "no way! They opened some kind of portal to hell and it sucked all the people who worked there into it! That's the way I heard it."

Marcy laughed, "that's ridiculous. Something went wrong, yes, but no one who wasn't there knows what really happened that day. And they aren't talking."

"W-why?" Cindy Lou asked with a quiver in her voice.

Marcy leaned forward into the glow of the crackling fire. Dark circles formed around her eyes as menacingly as someone as pretty as her could look. "Because every single person inside that building disappeared without a trace."

Cindy Lou shuddered, taking hold of her boyfriend's arm in fear.

The cheerleader continued, "these feral people were suspected of doing something to the workers in retaliation, but law enforcement could never find a single shred of proof that anyone had ever lived in these mountains. Some say these mysterious people never existed in the first place... others claim that they did, in fact, sabotage an experiment in progress... but they too fell victim to the cataclysmic results. All except for one..."

"Madman Maddox!" Everyone except the newbies and Melody exclaimed.

"I need to take a piss," Joe informed the group.

"Thanks for killing the mood," Marcy laughed.

Joe shrugged and marched off towards the boy's outhouse.

Chad was still on the edge of his seat, "ok! So who is this guy?!"

"The last of his clan," Marcy whispered for effect. "He's still out there, furious about what happened to his kin. He's made it his life's mission to stop the modern world from violating his mountain home ever again. Some believe he isn't a man at all, but a bloodthirsty Wendigo!"

Chad's head cocks back, "a Wendi-what-now?"

"An evil forest spirit, feared by the Indians and only spoken of in whispers. A creature intent on sating its endless hunger by consuming human flesh. Not sure I believe that myself, but either way, Maddox has been very effective."

"How so?"

"Well, for one example, there was an old logging road leading past the site of the facility that the forest service was planning on expanding and making into a scenic byway through the mountains... but something spooked the road crew working on it so badly that they refused to return…

"… and then there's the campers..."

"Campers? From here?"

Marcy nodded, "that's right. See, Madman Maddox doesn't mind the camp being here so much. It's rustic. It's primitive. It doesn't violate what he considers his domain or his ideologies. But venture into his territory on your own? Trespass on the old research facility? Well, you're taking your life into your hands at that point. There have been those who've stayed up here in summers past that decided not to head the warning... that it was all just bunk cooked up to scare new campers. Those who dared to cross the lake... have never been seen or heard from again."

"Well now, that's just not true," Melody scoffed... damn well knowing it was a lie. Campers had gone missing from Camp Carey in the past, but the Carey family had always chocked it up to wild animal attacks or getting themselves lost in the vast Appalachian Mountains. It was tragic when it happened, but not the work of some vengeance driven, hillbilly Wendigo. At least, that's what she told people... and to some extent, herself.

"Does anyone know what he looks like?" Chad pressed.

"It's said that he is large... very large. Seven or eight feet tall! And muscular. Maddox wears a long, filthy duster jacket made from the hides of animals he's hunted... and perhaps even human skin. In families like his, inbreeding is considered the norm. Not too many singles' socials to be had in the wilderness, you know. Madman Maddox was no exception. He's hideously deformed, and hides his face beneath a burlap sack. He’s been known to tie a pair of antlers at his forehead to frighten those who trespass away, probably where the notion of him being a wendigo originated from. That is... unless he decides to take his victims instead."

"What does he do to them when he takes them?" Chad asked.

Cindy Lou had had enough, "Chad, stop!"

Marcy grinned devilishly, "do you really want to know?"

"Fuck, girl! Spill it!"

Marcy waited, building the tension. Her face looked almost demonic in the flickering glow of the campfire. "Suit yourself..."

As Marcy spoke the words, a pair of arms reached out from behind Cindy Lou and yanked her away from Chad's arms into the uncertain darkness. She screamed in terror, being dragged further and further away from the others and the perceived safety of the fire. Her cries reverberated across the lake. All she could see out of the corner of her eye was a hooded face... with antlers rising above his head. Dear god, her panicked thoughts told her, its real! It's all real!"

Chad screamed as well, jumping away from the perpetrator instead of fighting to save his girl. The rest of us couldn't hold back our laughter anymore. Joe, the man impersonating Madman Maddox, released Cindy Lou. He himself fell to the ground, laughing hysterically. The terrified girl ran into her less than heroic boyfriend's arms, both dumbfounded by this insane cult they'd found themselves at the mercy of.

"Woola walla ho!" We all shouted in unison, then fell over the backs of the benches, laughing so hard that it hurt.

"And now you're officially one of us," Melody chuckled. She may not have enjoyed ghost stories herself, but a good old fashioned prank? That she got a kick out of. Always did.

"What the fuck?!" Chad screamed, "what the fuck is going on?"

I fought back the laughter long enough to inform him, "we're fucking with you, Chad! Call it... an initiation!"

The all-state wide receiver shook his head and breathed a sigh of relief. "Fuck! Y'all a buncha assholes! That was all bullshit?!"

Melody replied, "well, not the part about the old lab. It's off limits, yes, but only because it's on private property." Another lie courtesy of the secretive camp director. The road crew, the disappearances... all true. In truth, she may have hated the whole Madman Maddox shtick, but it provided her with a convenient way to keep kids out of the woods... and more importantly... out of the old lab. The insurance premiums on her property were already high enough.

"Don't feel bad," Marcy half-heartedly apologized, "we've all been victims at one point or another."

While Cindy still looked a bit shaken, understandably, Chad actually took the prank pretty well. He laughed it all off, high-fived Joe, then sat back down with the rest of us. "Muthafuckas 'bout turned this homeboy white."

Again, we found ourselves rolling with laughter.

"I have a story," the familiar voice caught us all off guard. The laughter ceased and our attention was drawn into the darkness from where it came. The image of Todd Masters, bathed in an increasingly intense orange glow, began to materialize from behind Melody. "And let me tell ya, it's a doozy."

The four-star athlete walked up to the fire itself without sitting down like everyone else. He warmed his hands in the flames for a moment before starting to pace arrogantly around the pit with his arms clasped behind his back.

Great. What was this asshole up to now?

"This is a story about a girl. A girl with a deep... dark... secret. One that could easily destroy her entire life should it ever get out." He paused his slow walk around the fire for the briefest of moments, looking directly at me with a sly, evil grin.

Gulp.

Todd resumed, "now, I could tell you all about this deviant... this... abomination of nature, living in the shadows among the righteous, god-loving citizens of her community, but... perhaps it'd be better to tell her story in her own words."

He didn't...

He wouldn't...

From behind his back, tucked away in his waistband, Todd withdrew a small purple book. My book. Not The Shining or the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Why oh why couldn't it have been Poe? Any of which would have been more appropriate reads at a summertime campfire gathering.

It was none of the above.

The book in his hand was my diary.

Oh god no.

He licked his lips and began to peruse the text, searching for something meaty to share. He'd glance from time to time in my direction to make sure I was still paying attention. Relishing the sight of me squirming in my seat. I leapt to my feet to try and snatch the diary from his hands, but Todd simply raised it above his head. Competely out of my reach.

"Ah ah ah!" He teased, "I don't think it's right to deny the other Carey-takers of their evening entertainment, do you?"

"Please don't do this, Todd!" I begged.

Not unlike Cindy Lou, I too had a pair of hands grab me from behind that evening. Mine belonged, not to Joe, but to Chad. He pulled me away from Todd, wrapping his arms around my midsection and forcing me to sit in his lap. I may be a small person, but the sheer strength he was able to secure me with was staggering. So much for thinking he was one of us now.

"Settle down, Phrumpy... let Toddy here tell his story!" Chad whispered in my ear.

I continued to beg, "please, give it back! I'll do anything!"

And I would have.

"Todd, what are you doing?" Marcy asked angrily. Her boyfriend just ignored her.

"You know what," the cruel boy changed his mind, "let's just skip to the good part."

The thing I dreaded the most was pulled from the back pages of the book. An envelope. One that's waited for its recipient for years. It had already been ripped open, its delicate contents already violated by this cruel teenage monster. Dear god, please... not like this!

Todd cleared his throat cartoonishly and began to read from the letter...

"Dearest Marcy..."





End Part 4
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:52 am

Part 5-"The Letter"




Cause even though I played the rules
You got me acting like a fool
When I see you I lose my cool

-Lust to Love, The Go-Gos




Dearest Marcy,

If you happen to be reading this, then somehow... someway... I've found the courage to give it to you. I can't tell you how many times I've written it. Rewritten it. Thrown it away... only to save it from the wastebin and start all over again. What I'm about to tell you is the hardest thing I've ever had to admit, but also the only thing that feels right.

I've known you for some time now. Shared classes with you. Laughed with you. Cried with you. We know things about one another that few others do. Distance and social standing has had a stranglehold on us since those times, but I miss having you in my life.

And this is the hard part for me to get past, so all I can do is just let it rip.

I have feelings for you.

I know, it's a lot to dump on you. Things happened gradually. Those nights spent at your place tutoring you. Getting to know you. I found myself thinking about you all the time. Aching to be near you. When I fell for you, I fell hard.

It wasn't easy for me to admit these things to myself. God knows that all a social outcast like me needs is for people to find out that they actually are different. That I'm attracted to my own sex, let alone that the girl I have a crush on is the head cheerleader and easily the most popular girl in our school. But there it is, and it's something I've had to learn to accept about myself, even if no one else does.

When I say I care about you, it's because I've seen the real you. The girl behind the veneer that everyone else sees. You're smart, funny, thoughtful... you care deeply about others. I care about you because, despite a societal standing that might dictate a certain way of behaving, you are still true to yourself. This is a rare thing.

I have no expectations that you might possibly feel the same way. I know I'm strange and that this confession might make me seem even stranger. I also know that this is high school. Relationships here flame and burn out as quickly as a struck match. These feelings aren't meant to last for a lifetime. When we don our caps and gowns, it might be the last time we ever see one another. That's just life.

Love may be a strong word for someone my age... but the way I feel feels more intense than a simple crush.

It takes certain conditions for a lump of carbon to harden into a beautiful diamond. Just the right amount of heat and pressure. And time. Lots of time. In the end, that diamond's worth is dictated not only by its beauty, but it's rarity. I know the odds of you reciprocating these feelings are as slim as the earth producing one of these gems, but I can only hope that maybe knowing me might have been the right conditions for you too.

But my crush is only part of the reason I'm giving you this letter.

I miss having you in my life, Marcy. The laughing, the crying, I miss it all. Remember our shared little pipe dream of going to Europe? To eat French food and stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower just to throw things over the edge? I think about it all the time, but anymore... I picture us high above the Paris lights, kissing you for the first time.

I miss that electric charge on my skin when I'm near you. I don't know if you ever felt it too. I hope you did. I wish I could be that sympathetic ear to you once again.

You're amazing, Marcy Duncan. Whatever this life throws at you, don't let it change that wonderful person I know you really are. And please know there's someone out there that is cheering for you, my beautiful cheerleader.


Yours always,
Phoebe Sellers




End Part 5
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:54 am

Part 6-"Up in Flames"




This limbo is no place
To be a digit in another space
In another crowd
I'm nameless bound
Overground from abnormality
Overboard for identity

-Overground, Siouxshee and the Banshees




"...yours always,
Phoebe Sellers"


I'll admit it. The letter could have used a few more drafts. What do ya want from me? I was in high school.

Hearing my words, so personal and heartfelt, spat back at me in Todd's viscously sarcastic delivery was nothing short of soulcrushing. The eyes of the other counselors fixed upon me and not him. If there's a word to describe a feeling worse than mortification, I was beyond even that.

"Daaaawwwwwww! Looks like Phwumpy Phoebe here has a widdle cwush on Marcy!" Todd declared in condescending baby talk and snide glee. "Whatdya say, babe? Wanna make it a threesome?!"

Marcy scowled back at her boyfriend, "stop this. Stop this right now, Todd."

“That’s quite enough, young man,” Melody added.

The tears poured out of my eyes. I wanted to run away, but Chad's python-like hold on my waist held me in place. I could feel his chin on my shoulder, his hot breath in my ear.

"You feel that snake growing beneath you?" He whispered into my ear. "How could any girl say no to something so big? Ten minutes alone with me... and you'll be beggin' for cock the rest of your life."

I could feel his penis stiffen beneath me, my struggles only exciting him more. I felt sick to my stomach. Wake up, Phoebe! It's a nightmare! It has to be!

Melody stood up and demanded an end to the spectacle, but the pair of merciless boys just laughed in her face. Cindy Lou was sitting so close that she had to be hearing the things her boyfriend was saying to me, but she just sat there in silence... letting him manhandle me. Letting him humiliate me. I could have sworn I seen a look of satisfaction on her miserable face.

"Whatdya think, Todd?" Chad asked his buddy with a sickening grin. "Wanna take her back to the bunk and the two of us show her what a man can do? She'll never crave tuna again!"

Todd looked right at me, that triangular, punchable smile of his torturing me even further. "They don't call me Todd the Godd for nothing. I think it's time for a little... conversion therapy. We could high five from either end of her!”

The two of them snickered like hungry hyenas. No once else could move, too stunned by what they were witnessing. I prayed that one of them would step up and help me. That they'd put an end to this punishing humiliation, but they just... they just sat there.

"Please! Just let me go!" No matter how much I sobbed, no matter how much I begged, Todd and Chad just laughed at me.

Marcy tried to wrestle my diary away from her boyfriend, but like me, she was no match for him. He shoved her away like she was made of paper. "Chill out, babe! We're only funnin'! Phrumpy here can take a joke, cantcha Phrumpy?"

All I could do was cry.


*Click*


Chad suddenly found the business end of a double-barreled shotgun pressed to the back of his head. "What the fuck?!"

"Best be lettin' the young lady go, son."

I knew that calm, yet stern voice coming from the blackness behind us. No voice has ever sounded so sweet. It was Mr. Jeffries, here to save the day once again! My knight in tattered overalls!

Chad released his grip and raised his hands in the air. I fell into the dirt, narrowly avoiding a fall right into the fire pit. Melody rushed to me as quickly as she could, wrapping her arms around me as I cried into her shoulder.

"Stand up, son. Turn around," Mr. Jeffries ordered. Chad did as instructed. "Get o'er there with yuh friend."

Todd and Chad stood side by side, silhouetted by the firelight, each with their arms raised above their heads.

"I'm only gonna tell yuhs this once, so's I hope yuhs good listeners. Eithah of yuhs lil' shit-fuh-brains so much as breathes on one uh these girls in such a way as I don't find respectable-like, I is gonna fill yuhs yelluh-bellies up with uh round uh buckshot."

Todd scoffed, "you're bluffing! You don't have the balls, old man!"

Alvin responded by hitting Todd in the gut with the butt of his weapon. "What yuh fail tuh unduhstand, son, is that uh man like me ain't got much left tuh live fuh. I's done time for puttin' thuh hurt on bigger ‘n badder men than eithuh uh y’all two pussies. Won't bother me a lick tuh run out muh days in the pen if'n it means punks like y'all ain't out makin' trouble fuh nice folks."

"You're gone," Melody interrupted. "Both of you. I want you off my property before noon tomorrow."

"You driving us back?" Chad asked sarcastically.

Melody responded, "I don't care if you have to crawl out of here on your keisters. Have your things packed. If you're not gone by noon, I'll have the police up here to haul you off on trespassing and harassment charges. You're no longer welcome here."

"Woola walla ho," Todd sneered.

Mr. Jeffries shooed them away with the end of his gun, "back to yuhs bunks. I suggest yuhs stays put… fuh yuhs own safety, that is. In a place like this... all kindsa things could happen to uh pair uh tenderfoots like y'alls in the night. Who knows what could be out theya waitin' for yuhs..."

"I ain't buyin' into that Madman Maddox bullshit, old man." Todd kicked dirt in the groundskeeper's direction.

"Suit-chuh-self," Alvin said as he lifted the shotgun away and propped it against his shoulder. "Can't imagine too many'll miss som'on as charmin' as you is, son. Keep clear uh the girls. I means it."

"You can't tell me who I can or can't be with, you old coot," the quarterback laughed. "And seein' as I'm no longer employed at this shitty hole-in-the-earth, I'd say the segregated sleeping arrangements no longer apply to me. Come on, Marcy... you're bunkin' with me tonight."

Marcy was also in tears, feeling the heaviness of guilt for unleashing this real madman on her fellow counselors and friends. "Go to hell, Todd."

"What'd you just say to me?!" The spoiled teenager moved to slap his girlfriend again, but Mr. Jeffries stepped in between them with shotgun lowered once more.

"It's over, you psychotic asshole," the cheerleader whimpered, "I never want to see you again." The pretty girl with the single pink streak in her hair stormed off towards the bunkhouse, wiping tears out of her eyes as she fled.

"Makin' all kindsa friends this evenin', aintcha son?" Alvin stepped forward, placing the barrel of the gun directly in the center of Todd's chest. "Now... give lil Blue here her book back, then skeddadle off to bed like uh good boy."

"I ain't your son, old man." Todd tilted his head and grinned. He still held my diary in his raised hand. Because he's such a lovely human being, instead of handing it over, he dropped it into the fire instead. "Oops."

Todd the Godd and Chadwick finally backed away, retreating to their bunkhouse for the night as instructed.

My eyes had been locked shut ever since Mr. Jeffries arrived. What had preceded was traumatic enough, but now... now I would have to face the others. Feeling like I'd lied to them all, even if that wasn't exactly the case.

Melody helped me to my feet, maintaining her comforting embrace. "Come on, you're staying with me tonight."

We walked back to her cabin, the silence of those behind us around the fire speaking volumes. I was a freak. For all his cruelty, Todd Masters was right about that. I would be in the eyes of my newfound friends for the rest of the summer anyway. As Melody prepared a place for me to sleep on her sofa, I wondered if I should leave the camp the next day as well.

"I don't understand how anyone could do something like that to another human being," Melody grumbled to herself. I'd never seen her so upset about anything before.

Great. The kindest, happiest, most thoughtful person I'd ever met was beside herself with anger, and put out because of my secrets. All because I needed to bring that stupid letter and ruin my life. Ruin the summer for her. For Marcy. Ruin everything.

When the sheets were laid out and the pillows fluffed, Melody came back over to where I was seated at her dinner table and wrapped her arms around me again. "I'm sorry for what those boys did to you. Can I get you anything? A cup of hot tea?"

"No thank you," I told her. Here I was, about to ask someone else for permission to ask a question, "can I ask you something?"

Melody took my hand, "anything."

"Would... would you be mad at me if I called my parents to come pick me up tomorrow?" Oh god, the last thing I wanted to think about was them finding out too.

"Mad?!" She asked surprised, "no, I wouldn't be mad at you! Sure, I'm gonna be down three more Carey-takers when I'm already short staffed, but that's not your problem. I'll get by. I always do. I just want what's best for all my campers, counselors included."

God, she's such a sweetheart.

"I don't want to go, but...," the words caught in my throat.

"It's ok," Melody began to run her fingers through my hair to calm me down, "I won't lie, I'd love to have you around this summer. And not just because I need the help. I was looking forward to having you back. You were always one of my favorites to have around back in my own counseling days. Smart, happy to be here, always ready to lend a hand. But these aren't decisions you have to make tonight, Phoebe. How 'bout you sleep on it?"

"Marcy. Oh god!" I blurted out. "I don't know if I can face her again! She must think I'm insane!"

Melody offered a sympathetic smile, "I very much doubt that. That creep she came here with, now that's insane!"

"They're all gonna look at me different now. This is where the whispers start. Worried glances in my direction in the shower, wondering if I'm leering in secret," I could already picture it. "You having to deal with angry parents because their children are being looked after by a fucking dyke!"

"You let me worry about that," she said. "And if it makes you feel any better, you can shower with the boys."

I couldn't help but laugh through my tears at that one. Melody was an excellent camp counselor when I was a kid. Now she's an even better director.

"Like I said, you don't have to figure these things out tonight. Just try and get some rest, and if you still feel the same in the morning, you're more than welcome to call home." Melody kissed me on the forehead and wiped the tears from my cheeks. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to knock on my door, ok?"

I sniffled, "yeah... you got it."


Sleep was more of a suggestion than anything that night. For hours, I could hear the other counselors voices down by the lake, too faint and muffled to make out what they were saying. I assumed it was about what a freak I was. Even after they too retired for the night, I just stared blankly at a brown, maple leaf-shaped stain in the ceiling. A leak Melody had been chasing for years. The longer I stared at it, the more it seemed to change shape. At least it was a distraction from everything else racing through my mind.

The optimistic part of me tried to tell the part that wanted to jump off a bridge that everything was going to be ok. That it'd all blow over. That no one would even remember this night in a week when they were up to their waists in hyperactive children.

Then the fear would creep back in. The ostracizing. The glances and whispers. Fear of standing out seems pretty strange for someone with blue hair, I know. Getting teased about hair color and clothing is a far cry from getting dragged behind some racist hillbilly's pickup truck for being gay. Appalachia ain't exactly known for its more forward thinking citizens.

Even more than that, coming out should have been my decision. Not one made for me. Especially by a piece of shit like Todd Masters. He took that from me and I'll never get it back.

I finally tried to shut my eyes. Clear my mind, as best as I could, and take deep breaths. In the end, I needn't have worried at all. My sexuality was the last thing on anyone's minds the following morning.


That night, Chadwick and Cindy Lou went missing.





End Part 6
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:55 am

Part 7-"The Disappearance of Cindy Lou Crux and Chadwick Nowitzki"




I can't hide
The way I feel inside
I just gotta say
It's you makes me feel this way

-I Can't Hide, The Flamin' Groovies




Thursday, June 12th



By the following morning, I had made up my mind that I was going home. My parents wouldn't be too happy having to make the three hour trip, but by that point I didn't care. I needed to get away from that place, from Todd, from my shame for the position I'd put Marcy in. All of it.

I picked up the avocado-green receiver and began to finger our phone number into the rotary dial. Each turn of the dial felt like one step closer to freedom from this waking nightmare. Before I could enter the final digit, a commotion outside caught my attention. I peered out the window, finding Todd and Mr. Jeffries once again in each other's faces, nearly to the point of exchanging blows. I dropped the phone and darted out the door. It's funny... if I'd just entered that last digit... if I'd just asked my parents to come get me like I'd planned, I could have been spared what was to come...


"What the fuck'd you do to him, old man?! Where's Chad?!"

Todd pushed Mr. Jeffries in the chest, to witch the old groundskeeper said nothing. He just mean-mugged the hot-headed young man trying to pick a fight with him.

"I know you did something! You crazy old bastard, what'd you do to him?!"

The other counselors were emptying out of their cabins as well, lured in by the latest conflict between the quarterback and the old caretaker. Marcy arrived first, trying to get between her former boyfriend and Alvin, who was just praying the little shit would throw the first punch. After all the shit Todd had pulled since the day before, he would have loved nothing more than to knock Todd's privileged block off.

"What the hell is going on?!" Marcy yelled.

"Chad's gone!" Todd replied.

"What'dya mean he's gone? He left?"

Todd shook his head angrily, "no, all his shit is still here!"

"Maybe he went off and got 'imself drowned," Mr. Jeffries taunted. "And if'n ya don't back yaself off, I'll make sures ya join 'im."

Todd's face turned bright red with rage. It was obvious he was fighting back tears, an emotional response I'd never thought him capable of. He lunged forward, nearly knocking Marcy to the ground. "I'm gonna fucking kill you, old man! You're dead!"

Interrupting this delightful display of male egotism, I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded towards the lake, asking, "happen to notice that, Sherlock?" Near the shoreline, about a dozen canoes were always lined up neatly in a row. A dozen minus one, that is. "Anyone seen Cindy Lou this morning?"

The lot of us marched towards Cabin 4 where Cindy Lou had been staying. Bed made. Suitcase untouched. Sure enough, Chad's girlfriend was missing as well.

"There ya go, Todd," I chastised. "Ever think for a second that the two of them just snuck off last night to fuck each other's brains out before insinuating Mr. Jeffries had… what? Killed one of them?!" I was so furious with him already, I didn't care if humiliating him further resulted in a busted lip.

Todd scoffed, "I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing, you dyke cunt."

Gee, thanks for reminding everyone, asshole.

Melody soon appeared in the doorway to the cabin, "and what seems to be the kerfuffle this morning, Carey-takers?"

Becky spoke up first, "Cindy Lou and Chad are missing."

The color suddenly drained from Melody's face. She was trying to hide her obvious concern behind that permanent smile etched into her face. As though she knew something we didn't. We'd find out for ourselves soon enough.

"They took one of the canoes last night," I informed her. "They probably just fell asleep on the lake or something."

"Melody scratched her chin, "sure... still... it'll take the sheriff over an our to get up here. Probably best to inform him now while we go out looking for them."

"What?! We're really gonna go out looking for those assholes?" I grumbled.

Todd turned to shoot me a nasty look, "hey, fuck you, muffmuncher!"

"Call thuh young lady names again, son. I dares yuh!" Mr. Jeffries said, standing up for me once again. I don't know how I got on this guy's good side, but goddamn was I glad for it.

"Please, stop fighting," Melody pleaded. "We'll split off in pairs."

"Don't you think this is a little risky?" Heather asked. Melody just ignored her.

"You four, take the east shore of the lake," the director ordered. Pointing in Mr. Jeffries, Marcy, Joe, and my direction, "and you four will take the west." Sending Heather, Todd, Becky and Brandon (sorry you didn't get much of an introduction, Brandon, but your role in this story is minuscule at best) away as well. "I'll remain here and wait for the sheriff to arrive and in case those two get back before the rest of you. Stay near the shore, don't venture out into the woods. Make sure you take lots of extra water with you. And a compass. We'll all meet back here before 10am. Got it?"


We combed the shores of that lake all morning, never seeing a trace of that damned canoe. We called out across the lake and into the thick woods, only to be answered by the cawing of ravens. I had to admit, as little as I cared for the two of them as human beings, I was actually starting to worry about Chad and Cindy Lou. What if something did happen to them?

Mr. Jeffries was kind enough to take me on as his search partner, to which I was eternally grateful. Marcy still hadn't made eye contact with me, and not just because she was so far ahead of us as we marched along the western shore. Even with that much distance between us, you could cut the tension with a knife.

"I'm sorry fuh what that boy did to yuh last night, Blue," Mr. Jeffries said, seemingly sensing where my mind was at that moment.

I offered a nod and a half-hearted smile in return, afraid that I might start crying again if I actually started talking about it.

The kindly old man continued, "takes all kinds to make up this world, I reckon. Unfortunately fuh most uh us, fellas like that seems tuh run it."

"Ha!" I exclaimed, "ain't that the fuckin' truth."

"Well, they'll always be theya. Nothin' we can do 'bout that. Best not tuh let 'em git tuh yuh."

"Easier said than done, especially when you actually are a total freak," I replied.

"Like I's said, takes all kinds, Blue. Takes all kinds. It ain't fellas like that dumbfuck over theya that change thuh world. It's thuh freaks and weirdos. Folks that thinks outside thuh box. That's you, Blue. Don't let motherfuckuhs with lawyer dads and football scholarships try and stuff yuh into theyuhs. Unduhstand?"

"Yeah. I suppose so. It doesn't help me out right now, but thank you, Mr. Jeffries. It means a lot." It really did.

"Enough of that Mr. Jeffries bullshit... call me Alvin."

"Alright, Alvin... my name is Phoebe."

Alvin laughed, "naw, I think I like 'Blue' better!"

We both laughed. It felt good, even though the nagging sigh that followed brought me back down to reality. "I hope she can forgive me."

"Who? Blondie up theya?"

"Do you only refer to us by the color of our hair?" I joked.

"Cut me some slack," he chuckled, "I'm an old man. Ain't great with remembering names and y'all made it so much easier on me this ye-uh. Blue, Blondie, Greenie, and Purple!"

"Fair enough," I laughed back.

"I pay attention to things around heeya... it's kinda muh job, yuh know. I sees you two together. I thinks it'll take mo' than a piece of papuh tuh ruin that."

"I hope you're right, Mr.- I mean Alvin. I hope you're right.”




We went as far as the private property signs at the north end of the lake before turning back. The sheriff had already arrived by the time we returned. Cindy Lou and Chad had not found their way back, as we all had hoped. As the other exhausted counselors filed into camp from their efforts on the opposite side of the lake, everyone congregated at the picnic tables where Sheriff Porter and Melody were talking. I immediately took off my shoes and began rubbing my aching feet once seated.

"Is this everyone?" The sheriff asked Melody. She nodded. "Fine."

The good sheriff was quite the character himself. A short, portly fellow with a gut that hung way over the front if his gun belt. "Dunlop disease'" my dad would call it, "because his gut done lopped over his belt." The officer chewed his gum, or cud for all I knew, with such an intensity that I thought his jaw might dislocate. You could just tell this was one of those guys who didn't get his draft ticket punched to Vietnam and was furious he never got the chance to gun down some 'gooks' like his older brother.

"Good morning, my young friends. I'm Sheriff Porter. I'd like to ask y’all a few questions, if'n ya don't mind."

No one made a sound.

"Fine. I understand a couple of friends of yours snuck out last night and didn't come back. Now, did any of y'all see them leave?"

Again, silence. Also, friends was a generous way of describing our relationship.

"Ok then. I also understand there was a bit of an altercation last night? Is this true?"

A few exhausted nods were all he got for an answer.

"Hmmmm. Would any of you present have cause to harm these two?"

There it was. Just what I needed, to have this country bumpkin cop find out I'm gay and try to pin a murder on me because I'm nothing but a ‘godless, degenerate queer.’ Amazingly, not even Todd spoke up... but only because I think he fell asleep. Tsk tsk... so worried about his friend he couldn't even keep his eyes open for this. Insert eye roll here.

"Well I'm gonna take a drive up the old forest road and see if'n they's shacked up at the old lab. Wouldn't be the first time. I suggest y’all think real hard about anything that might have sent those two off without comin' back."

Not exactly the most constructive encounter with the local law enforcement.



After the long walk and lack of sleep, all I wanted to do was crash down on my bed. I was so tired, I didn't even think about heading back into Melody's cabin. I drug myself back into the bunkhouse and toppled face first into the cozy mattress like a felled tree. Sleep would have found me quickly, if not for a wrap at the door.

Fuck.

Now what?

My body felt like it weighed three times as much as it did when I first got up that morning, so it took some effort just to roll over onto my side. "What do you want?" Most of the question was muffled by the pillow.

"Pheebs? Hey... um... mind if we talk?"

Marcy.

The sudden flood of adrenaline lightened the weight in my muscles and I shot up in bed.

"I'm sorry... I… I can come back later." She looked flustered and nervous.

I waved her off, "no... uh... it's fine." I tried nervously to make my messy hair look more presentable.

"You sure?" She asked. Who could say no to Marcy Duncan?

"Yes."

She grinned awkwardly, then came inside and sat next to me on the bed. It was quiet for a few agonizing seconds. Neither of us knew where to start, or who should start, or whether or not we should even be having this conversation to begin with.

"I-," we both said at the same time.

"You go ahead," I said. God I felt so tense. I couldn't even bring myself to look at her, I was that scared and embarrassed.

"I just... I wanted to apologize for Todd... again," she wiped the heel of her hand across her brow and laughed awkwardly, "deja vu all over again, ain't it?"

I didn't say anything.

She continued, "anyway... what he did last night... that was so awful. So awful. I'm so sorry, Phoebe."

I snuck a glance at her, then resumed staring at my trembling hands clasped in front of me. "I appreciate that, but you don't have to apologize for him."

"Someone does... because he sure won't," she replied. I got the impression that she had to do that a lot. “If it makes you feel any better... I meant what I said. He and I are done. No take-backs this time."

"That's great, but... do it for yourself. Not because of me." I was shaking so badly you'd think it was winter inside that cabin.

"I am. I just wish I would have stuck with my gut earlier and not pressured him to come here. I love this place and I don't need my memories of it, or anyone else's for that matter, tarnished by Todd Masters."

It grew quiet again. At least for a few moments.

"Can I ask you a question?" I didn't notice until just then, but Marcy was trembling just as much as I was.

"Anything," I tell her.

"Was... was that letter really for me?"

I can feel my skin flush with ramped up anxiety. Here we go...

"Yep... uh… yes."

"How... how long have you... felt this way?"

"Three years." Oh god, just hearing the words leave my mouth makes me feel like an obsessed stalker.

Marcy grew quiet again as she tried to think of how to word her next question. "Do you... I mean... did you mean it? The things you wrote?"

"Every word."

There's another brief pause... and then...

Marcy scoots closer to me and places a hand over my own. She rests her head on my shoulder as well. Tingles race pe up and down my spine and my skin felt like fire. That electricity. Enough to power all the lights in New York City.

"Thank you," she whispered. "It means a lot to me. I just wish I could have read it myself without Todd ruining it."

I was afraid to speak. I just want to stay in this exact moment for the rest of my life, but I forced the only question that mattered from my lips... "...d-does this mean...?"

"I don't know," she responded even quieter. "I still need time, I think. It's a lot to process."

"Yeah... I know... sorry. I had no right to put this on you."

"No... no no no, that's... I mean...," I can tell she was struggling with all of this as much as I was. "I've just never..."

"It's fine," I let her know, "I never expected you to feel the same way. I just... I wanted you to know how I felt. I wanted... I wanted you to know how I see you."

"I've missed you too, you know," she bumped me a little and we both rocked in place. "I'm sorry I got so wrapped up in all that other bullshit that I lost sight of who my real friends were."

"Must be all that Aquanet you use getting to your brain," I joked, desperately seeking some levity. Marcy picked up my pillow and playfully hit me in the chest with it for that one.

She lifted her hand and extended her pinky towards me, "friends... for now?"

...for now...

Now there's a pair of words I could obsess over for a lifetime. “For now”

A teetering tear finally loses its balance and rolls down my cheek. I offer my own and lock our fingers together in a ritual we hadn't performed in years. "Friends. Now can you get the fuck outta here so I can get some rest?! Turns out existential dread is terrible for your beauty sleep!"

Marcy playfully fakes surprise, then hits me again with the pillow. "Fine, just don't dream about me too much, ok?"

I laugh, "sorry, I've moved on. Madman Maddox is flying me to Hawaii for the rest of the summer. He's a really great guy."

Marcy laughs. God I love that laugh. For a moment, she stares at me with those big, blue eyes of hers. It's like... I don't know... like she's really seeing me for the first time. I'm surprised by a gentle peck on the cheek before she disappears out the door. I fall back into bed, touching the spot where her lips had just been pressed against my skin. Suddenly, the weight of the world has been lifted.

How was I ever going to sleep after that?!





End Part 7
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:55 am

Part 8-"Hushed Whispers"




That's her
I'll never believe her again
She might have deceived my friends

-I Want You Back, The Hoodoo Gurus




That afternoon, Marcy and I decided to hang out down on the dock together. Partially to keep an eye out for Chad and Cindy Lou in case they returned, but mostly just to get away form the others. We laid side by side on our beach towels, our feet cooled by the icy lake water. The warmth of the sun beat down on my skin in stark contrast. It was relaxing enough to finally get that nap I so needed.

I felt good. Really good actually. It's strange to think about just how much I wanted to die not even twenty four hours before. My worries were still there, but pushed to the back of my mind where they belonged. It helped that I knew Marcy and I were ok. What 'ok' meant was still up for interpretation, but I was happy to take just about anything over what I had been feeling.

Out of nowhere, I was jolted out of my siesta by the shocking wet and cold of a bucket of freezing water being thrown over top me. I gasped awake. I hadn't rolled into the water as I initially thought, and the laughter surrounding me let me know I was the butt of someone's prank. Heather and Becky were standing over me, giggling profusely. Even Marcy was slapping her knee with laughter. Apparently she'd seen them coming and decided to take part in their playful conspiracy against me.

"Gotcha!" Heather exclaimed, then high-fived her partner in crime.

"Gee, thanks," I grumbled through my chattering teeth. The mischievous girls had even been so kind as to add ice to the bucket for maximum effect. I was freezing. "I'll be sure to count on you two when I need my next wake up call."

The girls sat down on the dock with us as they came back down from the high of their prank. Becky was the first to ask, "how're you doin' since... you know?"

I glanced over to Marcy, barely containing a grin. "Alright actually."

"Really," Heather asked.

"I mean... I wasn't. But I'm ok now."

The two of them stared at me in the same way they did that day at lunch when they asked me to dye their hair.

"Something on your minds?" I asked with a laugh.

Becky bravely began, "so? Is it true? Are you, like a..."

"Lesbian?" I cut her off. "Yeah. Far as I can tell anyway."

The way they looked at me, I'm not really sure how to explain it. There was an innocence in it. They weren't judging me in any way. I think they were just... fascinated?

"So you aren't attracted to boys at all?" Becky asked perplexed.

"Nope."

Heather took over the conversation from there, "does that mean... you've had sex with other girls?!" She whispered the word 'sex' in the same way she did when she swore.

"What?! No! I mean, not yet! I just got out of high school! It's not like I'm a cheerleader, for christsakes!"

Marcy scoffed/laughed, punching me in the arm, "hey! I'm sitting right here, you know!"

"I'm kidding," I assured her.

Heather continued, "yeah, but like, someday, right? You and another girl will...," she used her fingers to mimic legs locked together. I was actually a little impressed that the sheltered private school girl knew about scissoring. Or maybe I shouldn’t be. Who knows what adolescent Christian girls got up to when the lights went out.

I was an open book at this point, almost literally… no thanks to Todd. So, I figured I'd just roll with it. "Yeah, I guess... with the right girl. Someone I really care about." I actively refrained from glancing in Marcy's direction. I'm sure the conversation was weird enough for her as it was.

"How would that even work?" Becky asked, clearly not as educated as her best friend.

"It's not like I'm an expert, but how does sex work with anyone? It's like Johnny Rotten says, "love is just two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishing noises."

"Johnny Who?"

"Never mind... the Bullocks." Cracked myself up with that little gem. Of course I was the only one who got the reference.

My friendly interrogation was interrupted by the sound of wheels turning down the gravel drive into the camp. It was Sheriff Porter, returning from his trek northward, down the old forest service road. As he stepped out of his army-green Ford Bronco, he scanned the camp around him, settling on the four of us out by the shore. Becky waved, but her greeting was not returned. Our group looked at each other in confusion.

Had he found something?

Melody descended the steps to her cabin to greet the comedically intense officer once again. We couldn't make out what the two were saying to each other, but it was also apparent that they didn't want us to hear. Melody looked in our direction suspiciously, then invited Porter inside to speak more privately. I pulled my feet out of the water and started walking in that direction without even bothering to slip back into my sandals.

"What are you doing?!" Becky whispered.

You don't get grades like mine without an inquisitive mind, and I really wanted to know what the two of them had to say. Especially with how secretive they were being. What I didn't expect was that my three friends would join me as we snuck up to the director's cabin. The four of us pressed ourselves against the wall, just below the office window. It was open, so we didn’t have to strain too hard to hear the conversation, but that also meant we had to be as quiet as possible. I couldn’t help but peek just over the edge of the sill to see what was happening inside.

"...did you find anything," Melody asked.

Porter removed his wide-brimmed hat and took a seat on the same sofa I'd spent the night on. "I found the canoe stashed under some brush at the far end of the lake. Looks like your missing campers made quite an effort to conceal it. Almost didn't spot it myself."

Melody looked nervous. She chewed at her nails as the sheriff continued.

"And there were these...," from within a black trash bag sitting at his feet, the man removed two sets of clothing. Both male and female, shoes and all, as well as two yellow Camp Carey t-shirts. Very much the same things Chad and Cindy Lou had been wearing the day before.

What the hell?!

Melody asked him sarcastically, "so your hypothesis is that the two of them stole a canoe... stripped down to their birthday suits... then ran off into the wilderness together to do... what exactly? Start a nudist camp?!"

Porter sniffed in defiance, "makes more sense than..."

"Than you-know-what?" She finished his sentence for him. "We need to get a search party up here... now!"

"Now, Ms. Carey, you know I can't declare anyone missing until they've been gone for more than twenty four hours. The two of them are also over eighteen, so they're legally adults."

"So what?!" Melody protested.

"So... it is not illegal for consenting adults to decide to disappear."

"You can't be serious?!" She exclaimed, slamming her hand down at her side. "Even if it isn't...," she paused to look around. I ducked back down to be sure I wasn't seen. "They could be hurt, or worse."

"I understand that, but it'll take time to organize a search party. It ain't exactly metropolitan up here. We're gonna have to pull people in from outside the county. It'll take time to organize. The best I can estimate is late tomorrow morning."

Melody pinched the space between her eyebrows in frustration. "So we just leave them out there another night?"

"Unless you wanna risk sending another party of your own making out there like you did this morning," he snarked back. "That was very careless of you, Ms. Carey."

"If anything, I'd say I care too much," she countered. "Did you find anything else? Anything... odd?"

Odd? What exactly did Melody think happened to those two?

The sheriff stood back up, placed his hat back on his head, and began to make his way to the door. It was obvious he wanted to dodge Melody's question.

"Sheriff Porter?!"

The man stopped in his tracks, his back to the director with arm braced on the frame of the door. "Yeah. Sort of, I guess. Their clothes..."

"What about them?" She asked nervously.

"I don't know... the way they were just sitting there on the forest floor. Like... like those kids had just... melted out of them or sumpthin'." He gulped to moisten his dry throat, setting his police trained 'command presence' aside and letting his real fear for those missing teenagers show through. "Like something came up from hell itself and pulled those two back down with it."

Peaking back over the sill, I could tell Melody was trembling. I'd never seen her look so scared. I'd never seen her scared at all, to be honest.

"It's happening again, Sheriff Porter. Isn't it?"

The officer didn't answer the question. He didn't even want to consider the answer. "I'll be back in the morning. Hopefully with help. Keep your kids in camp, Ms. Carey. No need to put more of them at risk."

With that, Porter pushed through the screen door and down the steps. He spun his tires in the gravel as he left, seemingly anxious to get away before nightfall. Melody stood on the porch and watched him drive away. As for the four of us eavesdroppers, we crept around to the back of the cabin where we hopefully wouldn't be heard.

"What the hell was that all about?!" Marcy whisper-shouted.

"I don't know," I admitted, "Melody is obviously hiding something from us. I think Joe and Brandon deserve to hear about it. You guys head over there, I'll run down and grab our things from the dock and meet you there in a minute."

"Right," Marcy agreed.

The three of them took a shortcut through the tress while I waited for Melody to go back inside. I didn't have to wait very long. She closed the front door behind her, then walked into her bathroom and turned the water on. I couldn't help but think it was to hide the sound of her crying. My mom does it all the time.

I raced back down towards the shore, just about to reach the dock, when a large, imposing figure stepped out from behind a cottonwood tree.

Todd.

Wonderful. What did he want now?!

"Eeehhhh... what's up... dyke?" He snarked with a terrible Bugs Bunny impersonation.

I won't lie to you, I felt pretty cornered. No one else was around. Mr. Jeffries was nowhere to be seen. It was just Todd and myself. I felt even smaller standing before him than I usually would. I tried to play it off.

"Leave me alone, Todd... unless you've come into some of my medical records you feel you need to share with the class too?"

I tried to push past him, but as I did, he took me by my upper arm with his massive paw of a hand. Hard. Like, leave a bruise hard.

"Think you're real funny, don'tcha cunt!"

"Oh yeah, I'm a regular Bobcat Goldthwait," I snarked back. He squeezed my arm tighter. It felt like I was at the doctor, getting my blood pressure checked. I could actually feel my own pulse.

He lowered himself just enough so he could look me directly in the eye with that psychotic stare if his. His coach called it the eye of the tiger, but the look of madness was probably more accurate. "I'm only gonna say this once, so I suggest you pay close attention. I don't care who's cunt you bury your face in, as long as it isn't Marcy's. Stay away from her, Phrumpy. She's mine."

I tried shaking his grip away, to no avail. "Last I checked she didn't belong to anyone, asshole. She's not your fucking pet."

"She's whatever I want her to be. Marcy'll realize what a mistake she made and come crawling back." He grabs his dick through his pants to show me its size. "Who could resist this? You'll never give her anything like this."

"Jesus Christ, dude! What's your major malfunction?! Get over it! Marcy doesn't want you anymore! In fact, she'd be better off dating The Son of Sam!" I half expected to get my bell rung for that little nugget.

Todd finally released my arm, which throbbed with pain as the blood rushed back in to fill it. He raised a finger to my face and threatened me once more, "you've been warned. I got no problem beating a worthless muff-diver to death. Far as I'm concerned, you're just another one of the dudes."

With that, the hate-crazed jock finally backed out of my face, raising both middle fingers to me as he left in the direction of his bunk.

So glad he decided to stick around.





End Part 8
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Rusco57 » Sat Oct 05, 2024 4:24 pm

Wow!! Great story so far. I have a feeling that a lot more is about to happen, looking forward to the next installments.

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Oct 06, 2024 2:21 am

Part 9-"Shadows in the Night"




Under blue moon, I saw you
So soon you'll take me
Up in your arms, too late to beg you
Or cancel it, though I know it must be
The killing time
Unwillingly mine
Fate
Up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him

-The Killing Moon, Echo & the Bunnymen




"Unnnngh."

Nature called.

I gave my eyes a chance to adjust to the dark before glancing at my watch. 2:13 AM.



Friday, June 13th



As cozy as that old mattress felt, I really had to pee. So, I threw the covers off and slipped my feet into my sandals. It took a few steps to gain my balance as I wobbled my way to the bunkhouse door. I made a point of opening and closing it as quietly as possible so I didn't wake Marcy.

The night air felt crisp and cool. A light breeze rustled the trees in a lovely, ambient whoosh. It sent a chill through me as I trekked across the wet grass to the outhouse. I wrapped my arms around myself and doubled my pace, eager to return to bed. My sleep schedule had been all screwed up the last couple of nights, putting it mildly.

The outhouse was more than a hole in the ground, but not much. At least it had a proper toilet seat and not just a hole cut in a wood plank like you see in old westerns. It wasn't a treat in the daytime and sure as hell sucked in the middle of the night. I waved my hand through the darkened doorway, a ritual I remember doing as a kid out of fear of walking into a freshly spun spiderweb. At least the boys could just step outside their bunks and wave their meat hoses anywhere they wanted.

I finished my business and pushed through the slim outhouse door, ready to return to dreamland. I was barely awake as it was, struggling to keep my eyes open. Shuffling like a ghoul straight out of Night of the Living Dead.

And then something incredibly strange happened.

My slack-limbed gate was stopped cold in its tracks by a bright, bluish-green light pouring out of the windows of the bunkhouse. I wasn't even sure what I was looking at, it made no sense. There wasn't any electricity hooked up to the bunkhouses. Let alone anything capable of generating a light that intense. Whatever was causing it seemed to emit a low hum before the light disappeared, blinking back to darkness in an instant.

That's when I saw him... it... I couldn't know at the time. A tall, dark figure stepped out of our cabin. One far too large and imposing to be Marcy. His massive boots stomped down the short set of steps back to ground level, each giving and creaking under his weight. I couldn't believe my eyes when he came fully into my vision. The figure's head was crowned with antlers.

It couldn't be...

There's no way...

It was just a story.

My first thought was that this was just Joe back in the Madman Maddox mask trying to fuck with us. Except, this guy was so big he could have eaten Joe for breakfast. In the stranger's right hand, he wielded a large, bulky machine of some strange design. This was never a part of the disguise. Everything else though... the duster... the burlap sack... the antlers...

Was he real?!

Was this really Madman Maddox in the flesh?!

I saw him, but he didn't see me standing there, vulnerable, but shrouded in darkness. I can't imagine his peripheral vision was the greatest from the insides a flour sack, much to my luck. I stood there frozen. Daring not to breath as I watched him meander with a prominent limp towards Becky and Heather's cabin. He moved so slowly that it in itself was unnerving.

Oh god.

Marcy!

This stranger had just been inside our cabin, doing god know what! I slipped my feet out of my sandals so the soles would not slap my heels as I crept back towards our bunk. I planned my steps up the creaky stairs to match the stranger's while he stomped up the stairs to the next cabin to further hide my own steps. Once inside, even in the the dark, I could see that Marcy wasn't in her bed.

"Marcy?!" I whisper-shouted. "Marcy, are you in here?!"

I got no response.

I padded my way towards her bed and gasped at what I saw. The covers had been thrown off the bed completely, leaving only what appeared to be Marcy's pink pajamas laying where she should have been.

Like... like they'd just melted out of them or sumpthin'.

Like something came up from hell itself and pulled those two back down with it.

The sheriff's words echoed in my mind. This was exactly what he had seen. It looked like my friend had just... blinked out of existence. What had he done to her?! Where was she?! And why would he take the time to arrange her clothing like this?!

A scream rang out from Becky and Heather's bunk. As terrified as I was, I still bolted out the door and down the stairs, slipping in the grass as I tried to get to my friends. When I looked up, that light... that hum, had returned. The stranger's silhouette washed across me from window. I'd never been so scared in my life.

I scrambled back to my feet, getting to the window just before the light shut off again. I could hear Heather inside, begging the man to spare her. I peeked over the bottom of the window sill just in time to have all my questions answered... and in a way I never could have anticipated.

Becky was nowhere to be seen, but there, cowing in the corner, was Heather. Arms raised. Tears streaming down her cheeks. A look of terror plastered across her face that overshadowed my own. She continued to plead with this terrifying man in any way she could think of. "Don't! Please don't! I'll do anything!"

And that's when the impossible happened.

The near-blinding light erupted from the device he had aimed in her direction. Heather screamed, but that scream's volume decreased as she slowly disappeared into her nightgown. Her arms pulled inwards, her head shrunk along with any bass remaining in her voice. Within a matter of seconds, Heather was gone. Only her bunched up night dress remained where she had just been standing. Or so I thought...

The stranger then limped towards the discarded nightgown, knelt down, and reached his hand inside. What he extracted shocked me to my core. I had to cover my mouth to keep from screaming. It was Heather, gripped in his huge, dirty, scarred hand like a captured animal. Somehow, only inches tall.

He'd shrunk her! This man had actually shrunk Heather! Straight up, Twilight Zone, b-movie, trashy-dime-store-paperback-sci-fi-novel shrunk her! It defied the laws of physics, and I should know... I got an A+ in physics! How was what I was seeing even possible?! My jaw nearly hit the ground in absolute astonishment.

My thoughts flashed to the empty clothing in Marcy's bed.

Marcy.

Please not Marcy.

The bunkhouse door swung open, crashing against the side of the building. Again, I had to stop myself from screaming from the start. The hulking man-beast had to duck under the top of the door frame to clear his antlers, but I'm almost certain he would have had to anyway. The man was just that tall. He shuffled back down the steps, planting both feet on each board before attempting the next. Heavy breathing wheezed from beneath his hood. His odor was so pungent that it stung my eyes. On one shoulder hung the terrifying shrinking device, resembling some 1950's version of futuristic technology. It looked so heavy that I doubted I could even lift the damn thing if I wanted to. Hanging from the opposite shoulder was an animal hide satchel of crude make. The muffled cries of my friends competed with one other from within it.

Only one stood out.

"Phoebe! Phoebe, heeeeeelp!"

My fear had been realized. He had her. Somewhere within that pouch of rotting deer fur was Marcy Duncan.

I wanted to reach out and snatch the satchel away, but what was to stop him from doing the same to me? And if he got me... who would help us then? No one would ever begin to think that this is what happened to us. We'd be lost for good.

Instead of moving on towards Melody's cabin in the center of camp, Maddox turned northeast... towards the lake... towards the forest...

...towards the old lab.

It was him. It really was Madman Maddox.

My good sense told me to run and wake Melody. Perhaps I should have. In the moment though, my only thoughts were of getting Marcy and the others back. I worried that if I turned my back, if only for the few moments it might take to get the camp director, that their abductor might disappear. That I'd lose Marcy and Heather and Becky in the process. If the stories were true, I knew we'd never find them.

So... without water. Without shoes. Without a compass. I made the rash decision to follow the shadowy figure into the unknown night.




End Part 9
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Oct 06, 2024 2:22 am

Part 10-"Phoebe Sellers to the Rescue"




Come closer and see
See into the trees
Find the girl
While you can
Come closer and see
See into the dark
Just follow your eyes
Just follow your eyes
I hear her voice
Calling my name
The sound is deep
In the dark
I hear her voice
And start to run
Into the trees
Into the trees

-A Forest, The Cure




The man I assumed was Madman Maddox continued his slow trek towards the shore of the lake. His pace was so leisurely, as though the abduction he'd just committed was as trivial as a morning stroll. I held my distance, giving him enough space to mask my own footsteps. I tried my best to mirror his, but his erratic gate made it extremely difficult.

And then I tripped.

I fell over something I couldn't even see, landing flat on my face. Somehow, I restrained from crying out as I hit the ground, but my impact did make a sound. A hollow thud. I knew he'd heard. I didn't dare move. I could see his antlered head turning in the moonlight reflecting off the lake, searching for the source of the sound. Minutes ticked by, but it felt like a lifetime. Despite the chill in the air, sweat cascaded down my brow.

After waiting for an agonizing length time, the stranger seemed satisfied with the only sound that remained belonging to the wind blowing through the trees. The enormous man resumed his clandestine pilgrimage. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I was soaking wet from dewy grass and my own perspiration, which only amplified the biting cold of the mountain wind.

The object I'd tripped over was soft. Not like a mossy log rotting on the forest floor, but... meaty. I reached out to touch it with trembling hands... and felt clothing. My shaky fingers felt upwards until they fell upon a bearded face. My god, it was Mr. Jeffries!

It wasn't fresh mountain dew my clothes were dampened with. It was blood.

I'd bottled up scream after scream since I'd stepped out of the outhouse, and this one nearly won out. Madman Maddox really was a... a... madman. I know, expert deduction, honors student.

This intruder not only kidnapped my friends, in the most fantastical, insane way I could ever imagine... but he'd also murdered a man. A good man. A man I'd grown quite close to in such a brief period of time. I felt his face again, fighting the tears that ultimately came anyway. I found his eyes still open, so I brushed them closed.

Goodbye, Alvin. I will never forget the kindness you've shown me.

I hated leaving him there, but the poor man was, at that crucial moment, a distraction from my mission. I know that sounds crass and insensitive, but Jeffries was beyond help... and my friends were still alive.

My heart skipped a beat as I looked back towards the shore. For a second, I thought I'd lost the lumbering monster in the mask. My eyes desperately searched the dark for any sign of movement, and thank god, they found it. He hadn't gotten too far, still moving along at a snail's pace. He'd just passed behind a tree long enough for me to momentarily lose track of him. I wiped the blood that coated my hands against the back of my shorts and struggled back to my feet on knocking knees.

This was madness. Choosing to chase this man was pure, stupid madness. I wasn't thinking about what I was going to do once I figured out where he was taking the girls, only that I couldn't leave them. I stood no chance in a fight against this absolute redwood of a man should he discover my pursuit. I feared what plans a individual such as he could possibly have for a sack full of tiny girls. My skin crawled at the thought. It's not like he was inviting them over for tea or something.

And how did he come into such a device? A primitive man, draped in animal skins, wearing a crown of antlers on his head, didn't exactly strike me as the member of Mensa it would take to develop such a machine.

Perhaps he found it. Hidden for years beneath the rubble of the old lab at the far end of the lake. Just laying there, waiting for the perfect sociopath to make it his own. Even then, how the hell was he powering it? There were no power lines running through this portion of Appalachia, and something like that would need the kind of energy that could power entire cities... or even level them.

The sandy shore faded away beneath my feet to give way to the rocky and prickley forest floor. I was no longer moving slowly to keep pace with Maddox, but to protect my exposed feet. Though the pain of pine needles and quartz pebbles was nothing to thumb your nose at, being barefoot allowed me to feel the ground in front of me for anything that might snap or break. Dawn was a long way off and the forest canopy was only going to make things darker. I needed any advantage I could get.

We weaved through the brush and the roots, the rocks and low hanging branches. Scratching and cutting my feet on rusty barbed wire from forgotten fences hidden in the deadfall. Thank god I got a tetanus shot before leaving home. Hours went by and the slow advance made it feel even longer. Worrying about what else might be out here with me other than the psychopath with the magic boom stick. Occasionally I'd hear the startled screams from my friends as they jostled around inside their abductor's makeshift pack. It only heightened my resolve.

I'm coming, Marcy. Just hang on.

A clearing in the trees revealed a massive structure, visible even in the moonlight. From a distance, it was difficult to see just how Space Age the building was, but up close, it looked like something straight out of the Jetsons. If the Jetson's home had blown up and was left to the elements for a quarter of a century anyway. To my surprise, the man I was following didn't head inside, but kept walking on past. Deeper into the woods. Further into the mountains.

Where was he taking them... us? Maddox led us to a sheer rock face, shrouded at the base with brush and dead branches. Setting his cumbersome weapon aside to free up one of his hands, he knelt down to the base of one of those shrubs and dragged it away. What lay behind was a door of all things, cut directly into the stone. The knob screeched in need of oiling as he turned it, then Maddox disappeared into the mountain.

I crept nearer. Upon closer inspection, there was a large, aluminum garage-style door just to the left the one he'd opened. Easily large enough to drive a tall military vehicle through, maybe even a semi. It was strange and terrifying. Like anything else that had happened that night really.

Turning the knob as slowly as I possibly could to keep it from announcing my presence, I too made my way inside. I could hear his footsteps echoing through what had to be a massive, cavernous space. I felt the dramatic change beneath my soles from earth to cold concrete. What the hell was this place?

I felt my way through the dark until I came to a metal rail that halted my progress. A fence or a banister was my guess. It was there that I could see a light descending into a deep void. A large stairwell, down which Maddox made his way by torchlight like a gothic medieval dungeon in an old British horror film. At that moment, I knew I had to follow closer. Not just for my friends' sake, but because I didn't want to find myself lost inside that place with no light whatsoever to guide me back out.

As stealthily as I could, I began my own descent. The glow of the torch spiraled along the squared walls below, bouncing and swaying with Maddox's shuffling steps. It stunk of age and mold. The further underground I got, the wetter the walls and floor became. Likely due to this bunker's close proximity to the lake, the ground water was slowly trickling in to fill this strange structure up like a well.

I'd counted four stories when I heard him push through another door and exit the stairwell. I fought back the panic as the entire chamber fell into darkness. I was still an entire story above him and now had to find my way down the next flight in complete darkness. When I said earlier that I'd never been so scared in my life... that was until that very moment. And trust me, that high mark would be toppled several more times before the night was over.

Simply by touch, I managed to locate the door. At eye level, there was a small, rectangular window which enabled me to see the faint glow of the kidnapper's flame at the end of a long, neglected hallway. The kind of limnaal space that could make your hair stand on end in full light, let alone by torchlight. Wood, drywall, leaves, animal bones, pieces of metal... all crunched and slid beneath my feet, making me cringe with the worry of being heard.

The passage, lined by many darkened rooms, led to a single one at the far end, where the light burned brightest. That door also held a similar window as the previous, allowing me to see the light in the first place. I peeked inside... and what I saw took my breath away.

It was a laboratory... at least it used to be. Some kind of observation station just on the other side of the door, with a larger room located behind a wall of what I guessed was one way glass. Antiquated computer systems lined the walls, covered with a patina of age. Old scientific equipment whose purpose remained a mystery to me sat broken and forgotten on the dirty floor. Yellowing paper, reports of one kind or another, carpeted the entire area. But none of it was as unnerving as what lined the walls…

It was the dolls.

The walls were lined with them. Creepy, handmade abominations with X's sewn into their eyes and mouths. All of them staring lifelessly towards the center of the room where Maddox sat at a crusty old wrap-around desk. His back was to me, but I could tell from the motion of his arms that he was emptying out his goody bag. He scooted away in a rolling chair for just a moment, revealing what I already knew, but still could not believe.

Heather, Becky, and Marcy were all crumpled together... naked... clinging to one another in disorientation and terror. Just behind them, up against the glass of the empty observation chamber, was a rodent cage of sorts. Probably used for lab rats back when the place was a functioning facility. Inside of it were Chad and Cindy Lou, both of whom were also shrunken. Each pressed up against the bars and calling out to the others to save them.

And then there was Todd Masters. Yup, Maddox had snagged him too. He stood at the edge of the desk, cursing and demanding he be released and restored to his original size. Threatening a lawsuit, as was his usual play. I wasn't so sure Madman Maddox was schooled in modern law myself, but knock yourself out, Todd. It couldn't hurt.

All I could do was watch for the time being. And Maddox didn't seem to be harming them, any more than he already had anyway. They screamed and pleaded with him, but their protests fell on deaf ears. He just sat there, perfectly content to stare at his little acquisitions as they were... like... like pets? Dolls? Jesus, it was all so fucked up.

My mind raced for the safest way to get them all out of there, but the simplest answer wasn't going to be safe at all. I felt around on the ground until my fingers fell upon something to throw. A beaker! It would have to do. I tossed the glass container as far down the hall as I could. It shattered at the other end, echoing a crash back down the hallway. All sound ceased from inside the room. Madman Maddox stood up from his chair. I ducked into the closest room available, hiding in the suffocating dark. Waiting for this lunatic to go investigate the strange noise.

The door swung open and I could hear the shrunken voices of my fellow campers calling out to whoever might have made that crashing sound to come save them. I'm coming, I thought to myself, just hang on.

Maddox grunted as he stepped out into the hallway. His unmistakable dragging limp pushing the debris littering the floor like a broom in front of him. He hobbled further down the tunnel until his form disappeared into the black. A door opened, then slammed shut.

Trembling with terror, I made my move.

Marcy's voice erupted first, as much as it could anyway. "Pheobe!" The others followed suit as I snuck into the room. I raised a finger to my lips to shush them.

It was difficult to believe my eyes. Six of my fellow counselors, standing just a few inches high in front of me. I'm sure their perspective was even more surreal. Especially for Todd, who suddenly had to rely on someone he loathed for rescue. Trust me, Todd... the feeling was mutual. Not that I actually would, but the thought had crossed my mind to just leave his ass there.

"Be quiet," I whisper-shouted at the tiny people begging for my help. "I'm gonna get you outta here."

I went to reach for Becky, who reflexively recoiled at the gargantuan hand coming for her. Of course she did, she was scared shitless. I was there to help, but I was just as much of a rubber-suited monster from a Godzilla movie to them as Maddox. I opted for plan B.

Opening the door to the rodent cage, where Cindy Lou and Chad were still pressed against the bars, I ushered everyone inside. "Everyone in! I'll carry you out of here!"

Marcy, as terrified as she looked, took charge and corralled the others through the bars. I knew that, despite the incredible nature of the circumstances, she was the sort of person who could set aside her own fears and thrive in a crisis. Marcy was a leader, through and through.

"Everyone take a seat and hold on to something!" I instructed. "This is gonna get bumpy!"

With my miniaturized passengers braced for the escape, I reached my hands under the cage and began to lift. The sudden jostling squeezed a yelp out of a couple of them, even as hard as they tried to remain quiet. I hadn't let the weight of the enclosure rest on my hands for more than a second when Marcy screamed.

"Phoebe! Look out!"

The entire room lit up in a blinding burst of blue-green light.




End Part 10
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Oct 06, 2024 11:50 pm

Part 11-"Disappearer"




Danger
Be prepared
I'll catch you unaware

-Danger, Pylon




The cage containing my shrunken coworkers quickly grew heavy in my hands. A static charge like I'd never felt before filled the air around me. My skin tingled and crawled, the hair on my arms and neck standing on end. I couldn't help but drop the endlosure out of shock. My friends toppled around inside as it came crashing down on the desk.

The creepy, doll-covered walls stretched and retreated from where I stood. The very floor beneath my bare feet seemed to move. Expand. Slither away from under me. Barely able to keep from falling. I spun around to face the man I knew stood beyond the light. I couldn't see him, the intense glow shining in my eyes was just that bright. The beam rose before me like the morning sun in time lapse. Higher and higher.

The shorts I wore to bed fell to my feet first, then my panties. My black, loose-fitting Bauhaus t-shirt slipped further and further down my shoulder. My bra did the same until it too joined the rest of my underwear on the floor. I was shrinking. There was no question about that. My desperate attempt to save my friends... thwarted. And now I was paying the price.

The mechanical source of the light continued to focus its intense beam down on me, getting larger and and more star-like as I got smaller and smaller. I tried to stop it, leaping forward to knock the weapon out of Maddox's hands, but not only had I grown too small to reach, but tripped and fell over my own piled-up clothing. They had bunched up at my feet, and I was disappearing further into them with each passing second.

People speak of time freezing in moments like this, feeling like hours when trauma finds them. I have myself. But this, everything about it was so... quick. I was trying to fight my way out of a tangled web of my own clothes that only grew larger and more encapsulating as the seconds ticked by. Before I knew it, I was looking at this green sun through the huge skylight of my shirt's collar. My attire had become a massive fortification, trapping me within like the bottom of a soft pit. Everything kept stretching and rising around me as I shrank...

...and shrank...

...and shrank.

It wasn't just the dizzying sensation of going Alice-In-Wonderland that I was feeling either. It's difficult to put into words, but... it was like... I was loosing a portion of myself. Like the very building blocks that made me... me... were melting away.

The laws of physics state that it is not possible to simply shrink an object... or person in our case... without compacting it. If this extraordinary device simply shrank matter, our bodies' mass would have been so dense that we wouldn't have been unable to move... and more than likely would have killed us. Standing mere inches high, but still weighing the same. Yet somehow, this contraption had been designed to account for this restriction by burning that excess mass away. I wasn't just shrinking, but degrading, in a manner of speaking.

The ray's effects were relentless. As I continued to shrink, I feared Maddox might not stop. That my friends got off easy, and I'd be living out the rest of my life among germs and bacteria. Thank god that wasn't the case. Silver linings and half full glasses.

When the beam finally blinked off, it was as though I'd stepped into another world. My knees shook so badly I was barely able to stand on them. Terrified to such an extent that I just wanted to curl into a ball and cry. And then he appeared in the open view above my head. An absolute skyscraper of a man, tilting his bagged head like a curious puppy... waiting to see what I'd do.

I froze.

The two of us regarded one another in an uneasy moment before Madman Maddox finally spoke...

"Dolly..."

Hearing his gravely voice for the first time was enough to set my feet in motion. The second I moved, his hand descended into the collar of my shirt to grab his latest victim. The only thing I could think to do was to duck beneath the folds of my overgrown clothing, burrowing deeper between them and the floor like a frightened mouse. I could feel his massive fingers probing through the fabric for me. I kept crawling as fast as I could, but that didn't stop him from just ripping the dark covering away like a tornado hauling off a circus tent. Maddox tossed my clothes aside and once again reached out for me.

Scrambling to my feet as quickly as I could, screaming like a woman possessed, I darted beneath the desk where my fellow shrunken victims remained trapped high above me. I scanned the area ahead as I ran, with the gigantic maniac in hot pursuit. I was amazed I'd even made it as far as I had, a testament to just how slow he was. Still, even with his handicap, his sheer size allowed him to cover the space of entire soccer fields with a single stride. I had to outrun him. I just had to.

Hidden against the darkened wall, I saw my chance. There was a hole! Not much more than a crack in the drywall, but a hole just the same. God knows what lurked inside, but it was my only hope for escape.

The narrow fissure barely allotted enough space for me to slip through. I may not have had I not been completely naked and drenched in sweat to lubricate my way through. Just as I managed to squeeze inside, four meaty, scarred fingers erupted through the same crack, blowing out and enlarging the hole. They squeezed and probed. Tore away at more and more of the drywall like a wrecking ball. It was everything I could do to keep out of his reach as I crawled on sloes and palms for my life.

And then... a second hand burst through the wall behind me with the force of a bunker buster. This time, the grasping tendrils of flesh found me.

The next few moments were a whirlwind, getting ripped from the wall in a cloud of powdered gypsum and lifted into the air faster than any rollercoaster on earth. Maddox's hand completely encapsulated me, leaving only bands of light to penetrate the fleshy trap through his fingers. When they finally lifted away, I was greeted by a single, bloodshot eye peeking through the tattered hole in the burlap. It looked wild and excited, yet also vacant of intelligence. His grunting, heavy breathing rumbled through my body as the massive, twitching eye studied me from head to toe.

"Pretty," he wheezed. "Pretty... blue... dolly."

I screamed again, trying to hide the shame and horror of my naked state from this leering monster. A reaction that only seemed to amuse him. Weightlessness filled my stomach as the terrifying elevator ride resumed, this time lowering me down onto the desk top where he dropped me from an uncomfortable height. I crumpled like a rag doll as I hit the hard surface. I heard the others scream my name as I toppled and rolled to a stop, but I still couldn't take my eyes off the hooded titanic looming over me.

This time, I didn't let the fear glue my feet to the ground. I took off immediately, but where to? I can tell you that when you're that scared, the destination is the last thing on your mind... only that you have to get away. Before I had a chance to pick up any semblance of speed, I crashed into the palm of his filthy, calloused hand as he slammed it down to stop me. I fell backwards, but knew I couldn't stop. I turned on my palms and darted in the opposite direction. Maddox saw this coming, slamming his left hand down to wall me in. Surround me. The unblinking eye of Madman Maddox staring down at his helpless captive like that of some otherworldly, Lovecraftian god. He had me cornered. There was nowhere to go except back against the cage... that, or launch myself over the edge.

The terror I felt in that moment was so intense. So consuming. I felt light headed and damn near the point of fainting. I fell into the fetal position and covered my face like I was five years old, pulling the blankets over my head to hide from the monster in the closet.

That's when I felt his disgusting touch.

A single finger, easily as thick as a tree trunk, ran down my back with a gentleness it shouldn't have possessed. It lifted away and returned to do the same from its former starting place. Again. Then again. I screamed out with the realization that I was being... petted.

"Pretty... blue... dolly," Maddox cooed again in his raspy, grumbly voice.

"Wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup...," I tried to tell myself. Each stroke of his grubby, stinking finger made my flesh crawl.

God only knows how long this went on. A part of me thinks he was trying to calm me, but his efforts only petrified me more. Just one of his digits was larger than I was, and I could feel their weight and power, despite how hard he seemed to be trying not to hurt me. When I proved unresponsive to his attempts, his thumb joined in on the action, pinching me at my sides and lifting me off the counter top as though I weighed nothing at all. Fuck, for all I knew, I did weigh nothing at all! His opposing hand opened the gate to the rodent cage and I was quickly deposited inside with the others.

Maddox closed the gate and latched it with a key, trapping all of us within. The moment he let me go, I scrambled into the furthest corner I could to put as much distance between he and I as I could... not that it really mattered. He was so immense, so imposing, that he could just reach in and take me again at his heart's delight. It was what he planned to do to me... with us... when that happened that I feared the most. There was nothing he could want from us that was anything but nefarious. Not after the way he touched me.

Maddox stepped away, retrieving his shrinking device and placing it on a stand against the far wall that seemed to have been crafted specifically to support it. When he returned, he plopped back down in his rolling chair, sighing in exhaustion. He stared at the cage for a while longer. Not saying anything. Just staring, as though the very sight of us brought him some kind of twisted peace.

Raising his hands to his head, Maddox began to loosen the rope holding the antlers in place against his head. As the binds gave, he pulled one away and set it down on the counter next to the cage. The other did not budge. Though a bit of a struggle for him, the next thing to come off was the burlap bag covering his face. I wanted to brace myself for the horror I was about to behold under that mask, but I couldn't pull my eyes away.

What lied under that disguise was the face of a normal man. Caucasian. Dirty and disheveled. Unshaven and long haired. Not a fraction of the Toxic Avenger I was expecting. He was older, perhaps in his fifties or sixties. Probably would have been quite handsome in his day. The most striking thing about him was the very reason he chose to cover his face.

Perhaps it was too dark to notice, or I was too frightened to analyze what I'd seen before... or some combination of the two... but the other antler protruding from his head wasn't an antler at all. It was a length of rebar. Twisted and bent, and lodged in the man's head. It had penetrated through the back of his skull and erupted out of his face through his right eye. Hence the single eye hole in his mask. How the hell he'd survived head trauma like that was anyone's guess.

Maddox raised his arms above his head and stretched with a long, exaggerated yawn. "Tired... dollies. Dollies... sleep... now." He stood back up and shuffled to another corner of the room, scratching himself as he limped. There, a filthy old mattress covered in animal furs awaited him. I could tell he had to take great care when lying down so as not to jostle the rod sticking out of his brain. Jesus fuck, I couldn't even imagine the pain. If he hadn't just abducted us, I'd honestly have felt sorry for him.

But he had... so fuck him.

Out of nowhere, I suddenly felt Marcy's arms envelop me. Her face sobbing against my shoulder. As many times as I'd fantasized about laying naked with Marcy Duncan's arms wrapped around me, this was hardly what I'd hoped for. As she embraced me, I could already tell that something was... off.

Marcy felt... big. Way too big.

I was quick to learn that even among the shrunken, I was still in the presence of giants.





End Part 11
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Oct 06, 2024 11:51 pm

Part 12-"Less Than Zero"




And it's the damage that we do we never know
it's the words that we don't say that scare me so
there's so many people to see
so many people you can check up on and add to your collection
But they keep you hangin' on
until you're well hung
Your mouth is made up but your mind is undone

-Accidents Will Happen, Elvis Costello & the Attractions




I had been so angry and disappointed with my friend Stacy for ditching me that summer, but as I sobbed into the side of Marcy's neck, I was glad she'd been spared our fate.

Marcy and I had hugged before, but it never felt like getting mauled by a bear. She was a cheerleader, not an Olympic swimmer, for chrissakes! While I was glad for something substantial to hold on to while I tried to cope with what had just happened to us, I also knew what it meant. Madman Maddox had been extra generous with the amount of exposure to the device's beam with me than he had the others.

In fact, all of their sizes were... off. Becky was a regular Sarah-plain-and-tall if there ever was one, easily the tallest among the girls. After her own encounter, she was smaller than Heather or Marcy. Cindy Lou and Chad were at least double my own height... and as for Todd the Godd? He'd always been large and imposing, but this was out of control. His hulking frame filled up a fourth of the cage by itself! He couldn't even stand up straight inside of it!

So that leaves me. Cradled against another woman like a child being comforted by its mother. I had always been the short girl, but this experience had taken that to the extreme. I wouldn't find out just how bad I got it until much later, but finding yourself reduced to less than three inches tall is one hell of a trip.

I hadn't noticed when I first laid eyes on my companions as I entered the room. Things moved so fast, and to me, they were all just... small. Now... I was the freak among freaks, which I was probably the best suited to deal with. Phreaky Phrumpy Phoebe. I suppose I shouldn't hold Maddox's lack of proportional miniaturization skills against him since he had an iron rod protruding from his fucking brain.

The football players and Cindy Lou kept to their side of the cage, while Heather and Becky joined in Marcy's embrace. That was a lot of weight for a little thing like me, but I endeared it out of our collective need to comfort one another. I could feel eyes on us from across the old, shredded newsprint that lined the base of the cage.

"This is what happens when you send a dyke to do a real man's job," Todd barked. "Thanks for nothing, Phrumpy!"

There was no use in arguing with him. Sure, he got himself trapped long before I ever did... but he wasn't wrong. I messed up. I couldn't help them. And now all of us were trapped, and the few left back at camp didn't even know we were gone. I just buried my face deeper into Marcy's skin and tried to cry the fear away while the other side of the cage bickered with one another.

"Thith ith all your fault," Cindy Lou accused her boyfriend. She hit him in the arm repeatedly as she vented. "You justh had tuh thee thith plathe for yourthelf, didn'th you?! They warned uth not thuh, Buh you thuth couldn'th rethitht! An you had thuh drag me intho ith!"

She hit him some more, and Chad shamefully sat there in silence and took it. She hadn't spoken much in the few days since arriving at camp, so I hadn't really heard the effect the girl's fresh braces had on her speech until then. "Look at uth! Look ath uth, Thadwick! We're never getthing outh ub here! Thah manic ith gonna kill uth and eath uth and ith all your fault! Buck you! Buck you! Buck you..."

It went on like that for a while.



It was difficult to judge time down there. The flickering torch was the only source of significant light, and even it burned out after a time. The shrinking device emitted a green glow from within a rod shaped structure near its rear, what I assumed to be its mysterious power source. Plutonium maybe? Particle acceleration? Something even more exotic in origin? Fucking Martian jizz? Whatever it was, it made for a fine nightlight if nothing else.

The girls and I fell asleep together, clustered up in the corner like a pack of naked mole rats. We'd run out of tears to cry, and the exhaustion took hold immediately. Not exactly the orgy of naked female flesh I would have liked it to be. Marcy held me close, and I her. It felt nice, despite the circumstances. I wished we could've had the chance to be together like that before Madman Maddox crept into our lives.

I was still grappling with the reality of The Legend of Camp (S)Carey being a real, flesh and blood man.

I awoke some time later to the sound of crumpling in the strips of yellowed newspaper bedding. In the dim, green glow, I could just make out the unmistakable, skinny silhouette of Becky, fidgeting with something in the dark.

"What're you doing?" I whispered, not wanting to wake the others after such a traumatic ordeal.

"Sorry," she whispered back, wincing as she apologized. "I didn't mean to wake you."

I peeled myself away from Marcy, taking care not to disturb her. Never thought those words would ever leave my mouth. Anyway, I carefully stepped through the pair of huge, sleeping women to join her. Even in the dark, it was disorienting to see just how much larger Becky was than I. I could stand next to her eye to eye, but only because she was kneeling.

"No... I don't think I can sleep anymore. Any idea how long we've been out?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, continuing to fidget with the paper in her hands. "Every moment here feels like an eternity."

I asked her, "what're you up to there?"

"Oh. I couldn't sleep for very long, and since as none of us have anything to wear, I thought I might try weaving some of this paper together for clothing." She stood up straight on her knees, revealing the modest loincloth she'd already fashioned for herself, along with using her pigtails to conceal her modest breasts. "I'm just working on a top right now."

"May I help you?" I offered. It was such a sweet, selfless gesture from a very sweet girl who didn't deserve to be trapped in that godawful prison.

"Thank you... yes," she almost broke the restraint of her whisper. She felt around in the bedding for a pair of long strips, holding them up into the light to show me what she was doing. "I've just been folding them one over the other, like weaving a basket. See? I was going to show the kids how to do this next week. I suppose that won't be happening now, will it?" The disappointment in her voice was enough to break my heart and I found myself tearing up all over again.

I think Becky was looking forward to being a camp counselor more than any of us. In the short time that I'd known her, I'd learned about her half a dozen siblings and strict, but caring parents. She loved kids and hoped to become a teacher one day. In her own words, "I suppose that won't be happening now, will it?"

"I'm not ready to give up hope just yet, Becky. Don't you give up either, ok?" I took her hand in my own and rubbed the space between her thumb and forefinger. She silently nodded, in that heartbreakingly timid way that only shy girls can.

For the next few hours... I mean... I guess they were hours, who really even fucking knows... Becky and I quietly toiled away at making clothing for the others. We kept it simple, just enough to cover our private areas, meaning loincloths for all and breast wraps for the girls. With everyone's sizes so out of whack, we had to guess with the larger counselors. (Yes, we even made clothing for the jocks, mostly because no one wanted to get slapped in the face with Todd's comparatively enormous Johnson. Strictly practical).

The weaving action made the garments stronger and far more comfortable to wear than covering ourselves in strips of paper alone ever would have been. I'll give the girl credit, it was pretty ingenious. I think having a task, something else to focus on other than our predicament, helped with both of our mental states as well.

After finishing a set for Marcy, a task I deeply wanted to get just right, I stood up to stretch my legs and back. A few rotations to work the crick in my neck out and I was ready to go back to work.... except...

On the last rotation I opened my eyes and caught a glimmer of green out of the corner of my eye. A reflection of the light emitted from the shrinking device. It drew my curiosity, whatever it was... sitting just outside the bars of the cage among the acorns and cobwebs. Trying my best not to crinkle the noisy paper beneath my feet, I crept away from Becky in the object's direction. When I reached the perimeter, I pressed my face through the flaking white paint of the grated walls and peered outward. The item was rectangular, shiny with words engraved on its surface... I had to know. It sat at such an angle that I couldn't quite make out what was inscribed in so little light... so... I reached out.

"What are you doing?!" Becky whispered at me. "Don't do something that might wake him up!"

"Don't worry," I tried to assure her, "I'll be careful."

I reached for the plate with my arms first, finding it just out of reach, my fingertips slipping down its surface. Undeterred, I chose to slip my leg through next. I managed to catch the pin on its reverse within my toes and drag the shiny plate closer. The item clanged lightly as I pulled it awkwardly through the bars. As soon as it was through, I carried it back to where Becky and I had been seated.

"Well? What is It?" She asked anxiously.

I wiped the dust away from its surface like I was Indiana Jones inspecting a sacred artifact. "It's a name tag."

"Ok, but who's?"

After angling the reflective surface just enough to catch the light, I read the inscription out loud:

“Ingenuity Solutions Employee No. 2937

Dr. Xavier Maddox

Project Leader-Level 5 Clearance"


The words were accompanied by a headshot of the very man who had abducted us. Clean shaven, much younger, but there was no mistake about it. This was the same man.

I had to ponder what this meant, building a better picture in my mind of what had happened in that awful place all those years ago. Flashes of my encounter returned to me as they would in a movie. His understanding of the machine, his knowledge of this bunker, even his clothing. He wasn't wearing a duster at all, but a filthy lab coat that he'd mended and repaired with furs over the course of the last two decades!

"He really is Madman Maddox then, isn't he?" Becky asked with a tremble in her voice. "But... I thought he was supposed to be some kind of mountain man?"

"No, Becky," I whispered in a stunned daze, "I think he invented that fucking thing!"





End Part 12
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Mon Oct 07, 2024 11:37 pm

Part 13-"Project Lilliput"




Where figures from the past stand tall
And mocking voices ring the halls
Imperialistic house of prayer
Conquistadors who took their share

-Dead Souls, Joy Division




Monday, February 15th, 1959


*Bzzzzzzz* "General Maxwell is here to see you, sir," a woman's voice erupted through the intercom speaker sitting on the desk of Dr. Xavier Maxwell.

"Thank you, Dolly... go ahead and send him in."

This was the moment Dr. Maddox had been dreading all week. Ever since he learned that General Maxwell would be stoping by, that is. These endless drop-ins, scheduled meetings, and surprise inspections from the top brass were proving to be an increasingly irritating distraction from the doctor's work. The very work these government types were funding in the first place. Maddox often joked with his colleagues that he could have 'cured the common cold by now,' if not for all the interruptions.

The doctor lifted the needle from the record spinning on his antique Victoria and slipped it back into its sleeve. A little Mozart always helped him think. He loved that record player, a gift from his wife for their fifth anniversary. Maddox always claimed that music sounded more 'authentic' on the old hand-crank players than the newfangled stereo systems, whatever that meant. That was his opinion anyway.

After a courteous knock, a square-jawed, flat-topped man in formal military dress stepped through the door without being instructed to enter. A number of accomplishments adorned his chest in multi-colored bars, as well as a pair of stars, which he pointed out incessantly. The kind of man who stares directly into your soul when he shakes your hand and squeezes it with extra force. His way of feeling out what kind of poof he was dealing with. Dr. Maddox loathed General Maxwell.

"Dr. Maddox! Good to see you again!" The General greeted the scientist with a big toothy smile full of coffee stained teeth. Maddox took his visitor's hand and squeezed it just as hard as he knew Maxwell would, taking care not to unlock his gaze from the military man's. He was all to familiar with this mind game, every asshole in a uniform he'd met since taking this contract tried to play it with him. Inevitably, he would find himself gawking at the way Maxwell's exaggerated jaw jutted out in front of his top row of teeth.

"General. Been a whole month already?" The project leader snarked. The General still hadn't let go of his hand.

"Dr. Maddox?" Maxwell said with sarcastic surprise. "I get the distinct impression that you aren't happy to see me."

Maddox dismissed the General's challenge without acknowledging it, "I assume you're here to view the latest test?"

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world, Doctor. Wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Xavier finally managed to wrestle his hand free of Maxwell's grip, "then I shouldn't waste too much more of your time." The doctor was eager to get the government assigned babysitter out of the building as fast as he could so he could get on with the project.

The pair of men made their way down the hall of the Ingenuity Solutions Lakefront Facility, or the ISLF as most working there referred to it, to the administrative elevator. While the modernist architecture of the building served as a nice front for pencil pushers and management, the real work was done in secret below ground. Deep within the mountainside. Hidden from the prying eyes of potential soviet spies.

The pair entered the lift, with the doctor pressing the Level 4 button before the doors even closed. There was an awkward silence among the two isolated individuals the entire trip down the shaft to Experimental Research Level 4. The door slid back open, and the General graciously/sarcastically allowed Maddox to exit first. Xavier rolled his eyes.

"You don't care for me too much, do you Dr. Maddox?" The General asked rhetorically as they pressed onward down the long, narrow hallway. Four stories below ground.

"Do I like seeing my life's work bastardized by the United States military?" Maddox groaned. "No, General Maxwell. I do not."

"If not for the United States military setting you up with this cushy contract job, your 'life's work' would still be a pipe dream," the General countered.

This remark halted Maddox right in his tracks. "This technology was meant to be a benefit to humanity. To revolutionize shipping and travel. Solve world hunger. Hell, one day... when we can pinpoint and isolate individual cells, it could even cure cancer! Leave it to the military to take something good and turn it into a weapon."

The General stepped directly in front of Maddox, face to face, his nose nearly touching the doctor's. "Now you listen, and you listen well, you mouthy fucking beatnik. I've seen battle. I've seen the bodies of my best friends ground into paste beneath the mud-caked tracks of enemy tanks. I've watched women and children disappear before my very eyes under a rain of heavy mortar fire. I survived a German bombardment, having an entire city brought down on top of our position in northern France. We're at war, Doctor Maddox. The United States Army doesn't give a flying fuck about your feelings or your misplaced philanthropism... and to be perfectly frank, neither do I!"

"I think you're mistaken, General," Maddox scoffed. "Maybe it's because your brain is too shell shocked to tell the difference, but you do realize we are NOT, in fact, at war?"

The General yelled back at Maddox through his gritted teeth, "THIS NATION IS ALWAYS AT WAR! WE'RE IN THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES TO SAVE THIS GREAT COUNTRY FROM THOSE WHO WOULD SEE OUR FREEDOM DISMANTLED FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN PETTY JEALOUSY! And believe you me, we're fighting against the most insidious enemy of all. One that doesn't wear a pretty little crooked cross on their arm so you know just who to aim your rifle at! Oh no, Dr. Maddox! Our enemy creeps into your mind via those who claim to be academics! Oozing into our homes through our radios and televisions and movie theaters through socialist Hollywood propaganda! An enemy that turns good, god-fearin' American citizens into Rusky-loving communist pinkos! A psy-op perpetrated by godless, vodka-swilling Cossacks from the other side of our planet!"

Maxwell buried his finger into the doctor's chest, twisting it like he was trying to drill his way directly into Maddox's heart. His words suddenly taking on a stern and direct whisper, "Just because your enemy doesn't come at you with tanks and bombs and ships of war, does not mean we aren't in the heat of battle. You'd do well to remember that, D. Maddox."

This was a first for Xavier. He'd come to know well enough what an insufferable asshole General Maxwell could be, but he hadn't realized just how insane the man was. A pacifist and a socialist at heart, Maddox feared more than ever what the government had planned for his work... and what they might do to him when he was no longer useful. Oppenheimer himself found that out the hard way.

The General maintained his position to further intimidate the doctor, but what Maxwell lacked in basic human decency, Maddox more than made up for with poise and a calm demeanor. He never enlisted and wasn't some grunt that could be pushed around by a psychotic, puffed-up drill Sargent. The General could shout and spit and carry on about his WWII glory days and invading commies all he liked, but until the work was done, Maddox held all the cards. He raised his hand to usher Maxwell further into the facility. "Be a shame if you came all this way just to miss the show, General."

The career military man sniffed and adjusted his jacket, feeling satisfied with how the doctor had received his diatribe... for the time being anyway. Before the two could get on with the final leg of their journey, Maxwell felt it necessary to slap Maddox across the face like a misbehaving child, just to let him know who really was in charge.

"Remember your place, boy."



A small team of six, as well as the doctor himself and his unwanted guest, stood safely behind a pane of glass. Their collective gaze was fixed upon the lit-up room on the opposite side of the protective barrier. A large chamber, one with a strange looking and imposing device, shaped somewhat like a gigantic shower head, looking over a stepped pedestal in its center. Chained to the top of the short mesa was a common farmyard pig, happily munching away at a bucket of rufage.

"We're ready to begin when you are, Doctor," one of Maddox's aids informed him.

"Explain to me again why another miniaturization test is necessary, Maddox," the General asked smugly. "We already know the technology works. I believe you told me last time you were working on the re-enlargement issue?"

Maddox placed his arms akimbo and dropped his head in frustration. "I've already told you, the compressed density problem!"

"In layman's terms, please. I'm just a dumb old army grunt after all."

The General's sarcasm did little to quell Maddox's anger, but at the risk of more delays when he was so close to completing his work, the doctor bit his tongue and explained the experiment as he already had over the phone.

"Miniaturization of organic matter has been successful, yes. We've even managed to make its delivery system portable, to the government's specifications." Maddox gestured towards the rifle-like device mounted behind glass on the far wall. "It will do neither of us any good if the subject is still as massive as they were at their original size. No one could survive that. All of our previous subjects have died from cardiac arrest... their blood simply became too heavy for their hearts' to pump."

"Massive?" The general queried. "You're confusing me, son. How can something be tiny and massive at the same time?

"Jesus," Maddox groaned, pinching the space between his eyebrows. "Mass is not a measure of size but density." He picked up a piece of paper and crumpled it up into a ball. "See! The paper is smaller, but it still contains the same amount of mass. Understand? Or do I need to bring in a grade school physics teacher to break it down further for you?"

"Continue," the General huffed.

"We can miniaturize a subject, but if we can also remove that extra mass, then store that mass somehow... then and only then will we be able to move on to resolving the re-enlargement issue."

The conversation was interrupted by one of the other techs counting down to execution. "Project Lilliput to commence miniaturization, test twenty-nine in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

"I'd put your goggles on if I were you," Maddox informed the General.

A low hum vibrated the glass and rumbled the floor beneath their feet. Four beams of light emitted from massive stage lights set up in the corners, each fixed on the unsuspecting pig. The general dropped his shaded lenses just in time for the entire chamber to burst with a different kind of light. Intense, blue-green, warm. Static electricity flooded the observation room, causing the hair of the entire team to stand on end. The blinding flash lasted for all of sixty seconds before the machine powered down completely.

Every member of the team dropped their goggles in unison and stared out into the chamber in stunned awe. At the center of the room stood a miniaturized pig, standing all of six inches high at the hip... and for the first time, the subject was very much alive. Confused as to why the mouth of its food bucket had suddenly grown out of reach, but alive just the same.

The observation room erupted in excitement. Men shook hands. Secret lovers kissed. It was a moment of hard work and due diligence finally paying off. A celebration was indeed in order. Maddox, though elated, immediately entered the adjustments he'd calculated into the portable model as well.

"You say you've stored the pig's... mass?" The General interrupted the uncorking of champagne bottles.

Maddox was too excited himself to let the General bring him down again. He finished up his changes to the workings inside of the machine and closed the service door. He replied through joy-filled laughter, "what? Yes... I believe so. That's what our instruments are reading."

"Do it." The General's tone was curt and matter of fact.

"Excuse me?" Maddox was surprised by the sudden order. "What did you say?"

"I said do it. The pig. Grow it back."

Maddox laughed at the absurdity of the General's demand. "Sir, we're months... if not years away from re-enlargement. This is a win, enjoy it."

The doctor suddenly found the business end of loaded handgun staring him right in the face. "Every moment we waste means another poor child is being brainwashed by those pinko bastards! The future of America is at stake, Doctor! The Russkies have beaten us into space. They've built atomic weapons larger and more destructive than anything we've ever thought possible. This nation needs a tactical advantage before we all wind up speaking Russian!"

Maddox raised his hands above his head, hoping to god the General wasn't serious. He hadn't been entirely truthful about re-enlargement testing not having begun. Unbeknownst to General Maxwell, the team had secretly tried to reinstate a test subject's size already, with disastrous results. A goat carcass actually, one that had succumbed to the intense weight of its own shrunken body. After the attempt, the janitorial crew had to spend the next two days cleaning up what was left of the poor animal. The team swept the incident under the rug, but that's how Maddox knew re-enlargement at this stage was dangerous at best. Reinstating mass out of nothing had proved... explosive. Performing the same experiment with stored mass... no one knew what could happen.

Maxwell cocked his weapon.

"Donny... reactivate the machine," Maddox ordered the young man behind the controls, realizing Maxwell was indeed out of his mind.

The youngest member of the team reacted with apprehension, understandably, "but sir... we-"

"Do as the General says," the doctor repeated. "No one here is getting hurt because the General wants a show."

A few turned knobs and a forced lever forward latter and the device began to warm back up. The idle hum of the generators returned.

"Get on with it," the General ordered.

Maddox looked to the young man behind the control panel and nodded. He glanced at the other members of the team, all of whom looked just as distressed as he was. He gestured with his head to take cover beneath the console. They acknowledged the message, and like any other Cold War era scenario, the crew ducked and covered.

Donny gulped. He made the sign of the cross over his chest before beginning the countdown. "Project Lilliput to commence re-enlargement, test two to initialize in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

"Test two?!" The General began to chastise before the machine roared to life.

The people working inside the ISLF never knew what hit them.

A surge of energy exploded and spread throughout the entire facility, strong enough to shatter glass and blow down walls. The wave spread out at the speed of sound, funneled through the exits of the underground bunker. Either out the rear delivery entrance cut into the side of the mountain, or up through the elevator and ventilation shafts and into the main office building at the edge of the lake.

Unlike a normal explosion, the force didn't dissipate as it spread, but retracted back in on itself the way a nuclear detonation might, carrying with it the combined mass of any living creature caught in its terrible wake. The helpless pig absorbed all of this in an instant, ballooning and stretching to fill the room until its own body failed it. The gigantic hog exploded with the force of a hundred sticks of dynamite. In a matter of seconds, The General... Maddox's team... anyone working in every level of the bunker... all of the higher-ups in the main building... were dead.

All except for Dr. Xavier Maddox himself.

The lead-lined door between the observation chamber and control room had mostly shielded him from the devastating effects of the machine, sheerly by chance, but did not spare him from the subsequent explosion of the test hog.

For two days, he lay unconscious among the rubble, surrounded by the miniaturized corpses of his coworkers. On the third, the once brilliant scientist opened the only eye he had left. He was met with instant, excruciating pain, finding a piece of rebar had penetrated his frontal cortex, running completely through his brain and out the back of his skull. Maddox should have been dead, and in some ways, the genius scientist had. What was left in its place was a grotesque shell of the man that was.

His clothes had torn at the seams and felt uncomfortably tight against his skin. The shoes on his feet ripped though at the toes. The retracing wave of energy, bringing with it a torrent of cosmic building blocks, had affected Maddox quite differently than the pig. He was larger. Much larger.

Awkwardly adjusting to his new, eight foot tall body, Xavier stumbled up the emergency exit stairs, not knowing who he was or how he wound up in such a strange place. Even simple motor functions like walking had become difficult. His mind had shattered, leaving the once brilliant man with the intellect of a toddler.

The bright lights of the afternoon sun blinded Maddox through the trees as he pushed his way through the door of the bunker, something that spooked him so much on that first attempt that he retreated back inside, tripping on fallen debris and injuring his leg in the process. He might have stayed down there forever if the grumbling in his stomach hadn't grown so demanding. Maddox hadn't eaten in two days, and for what little intelligence still remained, basic survival instinct took over.

On the fourth day, the doctor forced himself out of the hole. The striking outline of the main office beckoned him closer. Perhaps he might find sustenance within. With a pronounced limp, Maddox made his way through the trees and brush to the newly abandoned building. A toppled vending machine provided the hungry man with some familiar looking snacks. Baby Ruth. Twinkies. Kit Kat. He inhaled the confections as he explored the building, like some primitive caveman stumbling onto civilization for the first time.

There was a familiarity to the place, like he'd been there before, but those memories were fractured and minimal. One room in particular drew him in. A simple office, completely destroyed with piles of paper scattered across the floor from the intensity of energy from wave blast. A desk, a pair of chairs, and an old record player lay overturned. An office, with the name Dr. Xavier Maddox engraved on the plate outside the door. Again, it felt... familiar... but fleeting.

Turning his back quite literally on his past, Maddox stuffed another sweet, processed cake into his face and stepped out of his former office. In doing so, he accidentally tripped once again. This time over a piece of ceiling tile, causing the already injured man to crumple to the floor. He screamed out in pain, his cries made up of mostly gibberish, but caught himself when he saw what lay beneath the fallen tile.

It was the body of a woman... unfortunately deceased. A pretty brunette who suffered at the effects of the energy surge just as everyone else within a half-mile of the facility had. She lay naked, in a pile of her own overgrown clothing... reduced in size to a mere doll.

The shell of Maddox poked at the tiny figure like a curious chimpanzee, jumping backwards just in case the strange little thing tried to bite. When she didn't move, the damaged man watched her for some time as she lay in her eternal sleep. He didn't understand why, but it made him sad as he passed the little doll from one hand to the next. Again, Maddox knew this person... somehow... maybe.

He did in fact. This unfortunate victim of his creation was his very own secretary, the sweet, and lovely Dolly Penske. Mother of two and loving wife.

Taking her broken body in his hands, the former Dr. Maddox shed a tear for the mysterious woman.

"P-p-oooor... d-dolllly..."




End Part 13
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Mon Oct 07, 2024 11:37 pm

Part 14-“Woola Walla Ho”




Little sister, the sky is falling,
I don't mind, I don't mind
Little sister, the fates are calling on you

-Kimberly, Patty Smith




Who knows what time it really was, but for as long as we'd been held down inside that bunker, it had to be sometime late Friday morning. One by one, the other counselors trapped inside the cage with me began to stir. Becky and I handed out the simple garments we'd made, for which all were grateful. All except Todd the Godd, of course.

"I ain't wearing no fuckin' diaper!"

"Suit yourself," I snarked back, "just don't come cryin' to me when you get your balls caught in the bars."

The alpha dickhead sneered at me for a moment, then slipped each leg through the bottom of the paper knickers. Could I have just made him a simple loincloth like we did everyone else? Yes. Was it much funnier to weave him a pair of Pampers? You're goddamn straight. Becky and I had to distract ourselves somehow to keep from crying on our work and ruining the paper.

"Is he still asleep?" Marcy asked.

"No," Becky replied. "That mountain in his bed is just a crumpled up blanket. He left a while ago."

She was right. As we sat in the middle of the cage making clothing, Madman Maddox had gotten up, put his burlap bag back over his head, and disappeared out the door. Strangely, he seemed to make an effort not to make any noise... like he didn't want to wake any of us. How very fucking considerate.

"I hope he figures out we need to be fed," whined Heather. "I'm starving!"

The word fed rang in my ears. Like we were no longer human, but neglected pets. The thought sent a cold shudder down my spine.

"Wha thuh buck ah we go'uh duh?!" Cindy Lou mumbled. Her speech had worsened somehow in the night.

Heather, Marcy, Becky and I all looked at one another with concern.

"Is... uh... are you ok, Cindy?" Marcy inquired.

Cindy Lou turned into Chad's shoulder and began to sob.

Chad answered for her, "it's her teeth. When that psycho zapped us with that... thing... her braces grew inside her mouth! They busted all her teeth out!"

Good god.

Oddly enough, I suddenly remembered when Stacy and I went to get tongue piercings together and I ultimately chickened out. Fuckin' glad I did.

"She's in so much pain," he continued, "her whole jaw has swollen up. We need to get her to a doctor!"

"I don't think we're going anywhere," Heather whimpered. "He's gonna keep us here forever!"

"Stop that!" I yelled back at her. I felt bad about doing so the second I had, but sitting around and feeling sorry for ourselves wasn't going to get us anywhere. There was only going to be one ticket out of that place: the device.

I looked to the largest among us, Todd the Godd, thinking for the first time the asshole might actually live up to his nickname. "Todd, do you think you can bend the bars open enough for one of us to slip through?"

"What? So you fucking midgets can escape and leave me behind with the ubercreep?! No way!"

"No, you fucking dumbass," even at a time like this, all the guy could think about was himself. "So we can get to his machine!"

"What do you mean, get to his machine?" Chad whined. "None of us know how to work that fucking thing!"

Becky stepped in, somehow knowing exactly where I was going with this, "that guy has a metal rod sticking out of his head! If he can operate it, I'm sure we can figure it out."

"Its huge though!" Heather countered. "It would have taken four of us to lift it before he shrunk us! How the heck are we gonna aim it!"

"We won't need to," I explained. "It has to have a trigger of some kind. Once we find it, one of us will lay in wait. Then, when he walks in front of the damn thing... zap!" I brought my fist down on my palm to punctuate my point.

"Wait," Marcy cut in, "I thought we were going to use it on ourselves to get big again and get the fuck out of here!"

"And what if he comes after us?" I replied. "Or someone else. "It's just like Heather said, even at full size, we aren't carrying that thing out of here. He could just shrink us all over again. If we do manage get out of this place, we can't let Maddox do this to anyone else. We have to neutralize him first if we're ever gonna have a chance."

The group fell silent, each contemplating whether or not this was the best course of action. I looked to Marcy for her approval, that which meant the most. She just shrugged with a slight grin and feigned a less than enthusiastic, "woola walla ho."

"Yeah," came a surprising ally in Todd. I think more than anything he was looking for a fight, "we should take this fucker down! Besides, just think of how much that thing must be worth!"

I spoke too soon.

Once again, Todd was only thinking of how all of this could benefit him. Whatever, if we escaped that hellhole, he could have the fucking thing. The miniature giant knelt down and slipped his fingers through the bars of the cage near the entry gate.

"Wait! No!" I screamed. "Try it at the back! So he doesn't notice! We don't know if this is gonna happen today or a week from now!"

"A week!" Heather pouted, "I don't wanna be here for a week!"

"Right," Todd replied and then shifted to the other side of the cage. Chad, though significantly smaller than his best friend, joined him to try and pry open the grated bars. Even with Todd being so much larger and stronger than the rest of us, between the two of them, the boys only managed to open a very, very narrow gap.

"We're not gonna fit through that!" Heather exclaimed.

"You try it if you can do better," Todd snapped back. Heather retreated back into her shell in response. The Godd looked to his friend, shaking his head, "stupid fat bitch."

"Leave her alone!" Marcy barked back. "We're all in the same situation here! Can we at least save the insults and bickering until we get back to normal?!"

"Whatever," Todd grumbled, then took another bash at widening the hole. What we ended up with wasn't much of an improvement.

"I guess that plan is shot," Chad said as he slumped back down to the floor, his head falling into his hands.

I walked up to the pried gap and ran my hands along the inside of the bars. "I think I can get through it. Can someone give me a boost?"

Chad's head lifted in surprise, the look on his face being that of hope restored. The base of the cage was made up of a metal tray, with a sort of berm around the edges to help prevent its proper occupants, small rodents, from kicking the bedding out as they made their little burrows. It was too slick and flat for me to find purchase, but Chad's assistance, I was able to clear it.

The bars themselves were a tight squeeze, one I wasn't actually sure I was going to make it through once I tried. I got stuck, and the claustrophobia building in my brain about brought on another round of tears. A massive foot suddenly came into contact with my exposed ass as Todd literally kicked me through. The force sent me flying into the wall, just below the observation window, and only narrowly avoided hitting my head. I collapsed to the ground, but remarkably, remained unharmed.

"You're on your own gettin' back in," Todd informed me, "don't know why you'd want to anyway. Just don't fink off and leave us here to die, ok dyke?"

That was about as encouraging a remark as I'd ever received from the guy. I saluted the little-big-man sarcastically, "aye aye, captain," then climbed back to my feet. Marcy had forced her way to the open spot in the bars, her face peering through them, looking so disorientingly large.

"Phoebe... please do me a favor?" She asked.

"Anything," I told her. And I would.

"Don't die.

I kind of laughed her request away, but I could tell she was deathly serious. "I'm not going to die, Marcy. I promise."

Turning in the direction of the shrinking machine, and seeing the treacherous path laid before me, I almost choked. Holy fuck, I remember thinking to myself, I AM gonna die!

A wave of vertigo hit as I looked across the dark landscape of gigantic knobs, keyboards, stationary, and whatever trash Maddox the packrat had dragged into the room for decades. A part of me wanted to crawl right back into that cage, at least inside there I was safe. But a quick glance back at Marcy's sweet face gave me the courage I needed... and not just for the journey ahead.

"Fuck it."

I turned back to the girl I'd been infatuated with for most of my high school experience. I pulled her face close to mine, closing my eyes, and planted the deepest, most passionate kiss I'd ever given to another human being on her beautiful, soft lips.

Should I have asked? Yes. But if I was going to die, then nothing was going to keep me from stealing that moment. The strange thing of it was... Marcy Duncan kissed me back. My knees weakened and a rush of endorphins flooded my brain in a euphoric state of absolute bliss. I could have lost myself in that stolen moment for the rest of my life and never returned.

After that, I felt invincible. Like I could take on Maddox singlehanded. And maybe that's why she kissed me back, knowing any hope I could find would help me on my journey. It wasn't at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but it was still the single greatest moment on my young life.

The door to the lab swung open, revealing our masked captor in all his horrifying glory. Bag, antlers and all. I unlocked my lips from Marcy's and ducked behind the base of the cage. She and Chad then stood in front of the hole to conceal it, as well as yours truly. I could only peak over the base of the tray and watch at risk of being seen.

An enormous, dirty hand reached toward the gate of the enclosure and unlatched it...






End Part 14
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Oct 08, 2024 10:36 pm

Part 15-"Subterranean Dance Party" *Violent Content Warning*




And I tried and I tried
But you looked right through me
Knife to my head when she talks so sweetly
Knife in my head when I think of Cindy
Knife in my head is the taste of Cindy

-Taste of Cindy, The Jesus and Mary Chain




Those still trapped inside the cage braced themselves as the gigantic hand of Madman Maddox invaded the cage. Some clung to the bars, others tried to scale them. Todd stood his ground, ready to attack if necessary. I could only stand idly by amid the panicked chaos, trapped between the wall and the back of the cage.

The monstrous appendage halted its advance when it reached the center of the cage. His meaty fingers opened up, but instead of reaching out for one of the tiny people cowering at their tips, they released something. Maddox removed his hand quickly and latched the cage closed once again.

It was a mushroom.

Huge, brown and delicious looking. I'd tried to ignore my own hunger up to that point, but seeing the enormous, hooded fungus just sitting there, my stomach started to growl. Outside the cage, Maddox grunted and huffed. Pointing at the umbrella shaped morsel and miming with his hand to where his mouth was hidden under the bag. In his own primitive way, he was informing us that it was, in fact, edible.

Heather didn't even hesitate, crawling on hands and knees towards the mushroom in a frenzy like it could very well be her last meal. She broke off a wedge from the top and damn near inhaled it. Maddox clapped his hands and hooted with delight.

"Come on," she coaxed the others, "we need to eat while we can. Who knows when he'll bring food again."

The others crept closer to the offering, each taking a share until the entire mushroom was gone. Marcy was kind enough to sneak me a portion through the bars from behind her back. I can say with utmost certainty that this was the most delicious mushroom I'd ever had, due mostly to my hungered state.

Maddox seemed quite pleased with our willingness to eat. I couldn't help but wonder if there were others in the past who had refused to do so. A hunger strike of sorts to free themselves of this literal madman. With him in seemingly good spirits, Becky made a bold move.

Climbing to her feet, the gangly girl approached the giant's side of the cage. She pressed her face through the bars and looked up at him, "we need water. Do you understand? Wa-ter?" She mimed holding an invisible glass in her hand and chugging it.

Maddox grunted a few more times, then sprung up out of the rolling chair. He disappeared down the hallway, leaving me with a prime opportunity to make a move. I bolted across the built in keyboard, feeling the buttons depress under the soles of my feet. Each key threatened to trip me up at any moment.

Once across, I was met with a mountain of animal furs the man had collected and piled up high on the workstation. Before I even had a chance to try and scale it, Maddox had returned with a paper cup full of water, probably left over from an office cooler. A gigantic white coffee mug, laying on its side with a broken handle and the famous "I (heart) New York" logo printed on its surface, provided me with some quick cover. The giant placed the still-dripping cup inside the cage.

I definitely wished I'd stuck around a bit longer to get a drink for myself. A full belly only reminded me of how parched I was. Then again, it's not like the place was still hooked up to a fresh water supply. He'd probably filled it from the ground water seeping in through the walls in the stairwell.

Once the others had drank their fill, Becky risked speaking to him once again. "Thank you, that was very nice." I liked the way she was thinking: play nice with the lunatic. Keeping him engaged and ignorant to the missing member of the party. The entire plan at that point banked on the man's brain being so damaged that he might not notice one of his new pets had gone MIA. So far, he hadn't.

"Sir, it's been so nice to visit you here," Becky lied through her teeth, "but we have to get back to camp soon. There are children coming in a couple of days. They need us to look after them. We'd all be glad to come visit you again though, wouldn't we guys?"

Becky side-eyed the others, who picked up on what she was selling quickly and vocally agreed. "Yeah! We'd love to come see you again!"

Maddox scratched his head through the burlap sack covering it. I'm not sure he could really process anything Becky was saying. He seemed to get excited though, pointing to the old Victrola in the corner. Taking a step towards the old record player, the wheezing monster took hold of the crank. With a few turns, the thing came alive with a warbly tune dancing on a warped record. As it played, Madman Maddox swayed along with Melody.

I don't need to tell you how surreal the entire scene was. A cage full of shrunken camp counselors. A former scientist turned legendary terror. A court of rawhide dolls watching their insane host dance like both king and jester in the middle of his underground kingdom. It was all too weird to have been a dream, no matter how much I wished it was.

After the spin began to slow, Maddox cranked the record player back up before pointing in Becky's position. He continued to dance and flail his arms, coaxing the tiny woman to join in. Apprehensively she went along with his wishes. As the scantily-clad girl twirled in place, the giant with the rod protruding from his face laughed and clapped.

"What the hell are you doing?" Todd whispered at the dancing string bean.

"I used to work with the mentally disabled kids at school," she whispered back. "Just humor him until he gets bored with us."

"It's what he might do when he does that scares me," Heather added.

As she spoke, the giant simpleton pointed at the pudgy girl, letting her know it was now her turn. Even from my distant vantage, slightly peeking around the rounded lip of the mug, I could see the fear in the poor girl's eyes. I too feared what might happen if she didn't comply... but to the girl's credit, she followed suit.

Maddox moved from one tiny person to the next, loving what each brought to his twisted celebration. Even Todd joined in, though he made sure his middle fingers were raised at the huge man as he danced The Twist in his paper diaper. When Maddox's gnarled finger fell on the still-sobbing Cindy Lou, she became the only one who refused to join the party. She retreated into the corner of the cage, covering her face and curling into the fetal position.

Maddox did not approve.

He stomped his foot, the likes of which rocked the entire counter beneath us. The others jumped back further into the enclosure from the start.

That stupid bitch! She couldn't just play along and keep the crazy, murdering man-child happy for five goddamn minutes?!

Maddox reopened the cage and reached inside, removing the miniaturized Cindy Lou Crux in his clenched fist. She kicked and flailed in his grasp, screaming in abject terror. Maddox raised the defiant, yet terrified girl to his face and roared. Cindy froze in dumbfounded fright.

"Bad... dolly," the giant grunted, wagging his finger disapprovingly at his shrunken captive.

I could see Cindy wince at his words, which I could only assume was in response to the heated stench of Maddox's breath beltching from his mouthful of rotten teeth. Even filtered through the bag covering his face, I can tell you from my own experience that the smell was nothing short of toxic. The former scientist lowered the frightened girl back down to the counter, but left her distressingly outside of the cage. Cindy's head turned from the giant to the gate and back again as she desperately looked for a way to get back to Chad and the relative safety the cage offered her.

"Stay," he ordered. She didn't move, too frightened to dare defy him.

Maddox limped over in my direction once again, sending me ducking back inside the broken coffee mug. From within, I could see his hand cranking up the old Victrola once more. Same side... same piece. I peeked back out from beneath my cover when I heard the distinct squeak of his office chair when the man's astronomical weight lowered back down. This time, he'd returned with something else...

It was one of the dolls that had been pinned to the wall!

Fuck me, I remember thinking, he can't tell the difference between any of us and one of those creepy dolls!

Maddox held the grotesque figure in a standing position on the desktop, then with his left hand, picked Cindy Lou back up and pressed her entire body into the disgusting doll. She yelped and squealed, cringing at having her half-naked body rubbed up against the leathery hide of the crude-looking effigy. Meanwhile, the giant giggled and danced, hummed and moaned as he swayed the two playthings in his hands to a herky-jerky waltz.

Unable to escape the giant's clutches, Cindy Lou went limp, hoping to god the lunatic would get bored soon and stuffed her back inside the cage. Only then did she open her eyes... only then did she notice something strange beneath her gaze. A faint mark on the doll, in the shape of an anchor decorating its upper arm...

...a tattoo!

Cindy peeled her gaze away from the navy-style tattoo long enough to allow herself to stare the doll straight in the face for the first time. Hidden behind the shoddy stitching, the crude X's sewed over the eyes and mouth of the figurine, was a very human face. Dried and tanned, preserved by Maddox when he had found the poor soul twenty-five years earlier in the aftermath of the tragic accident. The accident that robbed him of his intellect and turned him into a hulking monster.

He'd preserved all of his former colleagues this way... as well as anyone he might have fancied since that time. Hikers. Campers. Forest service workers. Maddox had built himself quite the collection over the last quarter of a century.

As the realization of what she was seeing hit her, where terror had once gripped Cindy Lou Crux, something beyond that took hold. A fear so intense and primal that a lock of her hair actually turned white before our very eyes. Her widening gaze fell further down the body, taking in the autopsy-like scars left behind from where Maddox had stuffed the miniature mummy with dead leaves and soil, some of which still protruded from the seems like a poorly constructed scarecrow.

Like a building storm, the existential terror had grown too powerful to hold back. At that moment, Cindy Lou Crux released one of the most blood curdling screams I've ever heard. "THEY'RE PEOPLE!"

The ghastly cry rung out through the echoing lab. Not being privy to what she had seen, the first thought I had was that she was pleading for Maddox to see us as human beings and not as dolls. But then I took a long, good look at the other "dollies" adorning the chamber. Really seeing them for what they were in the dim torchlight for the first time. Sure, the X's over their eyes were unnerving, but what made the mummies outright disturbing was how undoll-like they looked. None of the stretched proportions of a Barbie. No billowy limbs of a Raggedy Ann. No, what made them creepy was just how human they were.

I almost vomited up my mushroom breakfast right there.

Cindy's hysteria erupted. Her flailing and screaming crescendoed until she finally couldn't take being held any more. She locked her teeth onto Maddox's massive finger and bit down. The man-shaped dragon roared again, but did not release his grip.

"BAD... DOLLY," he repeated, this time more sternly. More menacingly. The palm-sized mummy fell away to the floor and Maddox tightened his grip on Cindy. He stared intently at the miniature figure still squirming and screaming in his hand. His lone eye growing wilder and wider inside the burlap sack.

What happened next would haunt me for the rest of my life. All of us. I still wake up screaming from time to time, traumatized by what I saw... what we all witnessed that morning.

From seemingly out of nowhere, Maddox presented a scalpel in his right hand.

Cindy froze again. "No! No, pwease! I'll be good! I'll be good! I'll-," her pleas were cut short.

I turned away, closed my eyes, and tried to keep from screaming myself as the monster plunged the tip of the blade into Cindy Lou's chest. I had to cover my ears to block out the horrified screams from my friends... and the sickening sounds that followed. The sounds of what amounted to... human taxidermy. The removal of the poor girl's innards, to be replaced with packrat fluff and mattress foam. I could only hope that the poor girl went quickly.

We may not have been friends in life, but I would not have wished that fate on my worst enemy. Not even Todd. Just thinking about it takes me right back to that moment. It's still so vivid in my memory, like I'm reliving it all over again.

It took hours for Maddox to finish his work. Drying her out near open flame. Stuffing her. Then stitching the dead girl back up, along with his usual flourishes: the X's over her eyes and mouth. The man seemed quite he pleased with his work, despite the sobs coming from within the cage. When satisfied, he bounced the shell of Cindy Lou around in front of the cage, presenting her to his horrified onlookers. Forcing the girl to dance in death where she would not in life.

"Good... dolly... now," he cooed.

Chad completely lost his shit.

The distraught boyfriend threw himself at the bars, screaming at Maddox in a fit of unfiltered rage. "Open this gate! Open this gate right now, motherfucker!!! I'll fucking kill you!!! I'll fuck you up, motherfucker!!! Cindy!!! Cindy!!! Let me out! Let me out!!"

Maddox narrowed his eye at Chad. "BAD... DOLLY."

It would seem that the terrible cyclops's work was not done. Chadwick Nowitzki was also dragged from the cage that day. And just like his girlfriend, he too was eviscerated. Stuffed. Then pieced back together. And just like Cindy Lou Crux, we were all forced to bear witness to his child-like cruelty. Like a toddler pulling the wings off a butterfly.

No one dared challenge Madman Maddox after that.

From my ceramic hiding place, I saw things that are now burned into my memory forever. My resolve to get us all out of there has only strengthened.

That motherfucker Maddox was going to pay.






End Part 15
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Oct 08, 2024 10:37 pm

Part 16-"Godd In An Alcove"




Nerve ends tick in flicker-book animation
One eye's closed in fear, anticipation
Will it stay shut? Will it ever open?

-Nerves, Bauhaus




The device loomed like an alien vessel in the darkened chamber, the dim, pulsing light emitted from its power supply bathing me in its emerald glow. It's design rang of a very 1950s, very sci-fi origin. Clean lines, attractive, very space age. It was right there before me, the only problem being that, to me, the fucking thing was larger than a department store!

How the fuck was I ever going to operate something like that?! How were WE going to run it?!

Our abductor was sawing logs over on his soiled mattress against the far wall, giving me the opportunity to finally analyze this incredible shrink ray. Even after suffering it's effects, it still felt impossible to believe such a thing actually existed. An honest to God shrink ray! Looking like something straight out of a comic book!

At the other end of the L-shaped, wrap-around console desk, my friends had grown very quiet. What was left of them anyway. I couldn't imagine any of them actually sleeping... I sure as hell couldn't after watching two of us get flayed like freshly caught trout.

I couldn't shake their screams from my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, the image of Cindy Lou's chest caving as the scalpel plunged into it seemed to be burned into the backs of my eyelids. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sob, but I couldn't. The others were counting on me to get them out of this, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let them down again.

A minimal number of knobs and levers were built into the side of the device, none of which were labeled in sort any way my teenage brain could comprehend. They made for adequate footholds if nothing else as I set aside my fear of heights and began to scale the enormous machine. There were two controls that stood out though, one being an obvious trigger, and the other a simple switch. A silhouetted image of a small person on one side, and a larger one on the other. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, and were I not clinging for dear life on the side of the ray like it was El Capitan itself, I would have leapt for joy.

The effects was reversible!

That knowledge alone felt like having the world lifted from my shoulders. We were going to escape. We were going to return to our lives... and we were going to "take this fucker down," to paraphrase the eloquence of Todd Masters.

I thought about using the device on myself first, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to operate it on my own. I was simply too goddamn small. It was going to take a team effort to fire the ray, as we all suspected. We needed it warmed up and ready for when Maddox passed in front of it.

Fuck me. It still pains me to admit it... but I needed Todd the Godd.

Making my way back to the cage in far darker conditions than I'd left was an exercise in overcoming fear itself. Getting past the Victoria in the corner was hard enough in torchlight, given the already narrow ledge of counter left between it and the shadowy abyss below. The mountain of furs I had to climb once again without slipping. Running into cobwebs so large and robust at my new size that they actually pushed back instead of breaking, hoping to god their occupants had long abandoned them. Feeling my way through the dark with the ever present danger of kicking a pine nut or tripping over a bolt or a pencil and sending it crashing to floor, announcing my presence... and that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Somehow, I made it across the control panel without making a sound or falling. The journey was perilous, and I knew I'd have to make it at least once more without waking the sleeping beast.

After setting up a pencil sharpener as a step stool, it still took a bit of a jump and a reach, but I was able to grab hold of the top of the cage's tray and peek back inside through the bars. Thankfully, Marcy and the girls were sitting in the same corner they had slept in the night before.

"Marcy!" I whisper-shouted, "Marcy!"

The pretty blonde spun around on her rear and grabbed hold of the bars, pressing her face through. "Oh, thank god you're alright!" I could tell by the tremble in her voice that she'd been crying. Who could blame her. I could have used a good cry myself.

I pulled my puny self up a little higher so we could whisper closely. "I think... I think I know how the machine works, but it's gonna be too much for any of us to operate without Todd. We need to figure out how to get him out."

Marcy nodded, "I'll go see if he's awake."

"Are we really getting out of here?" Heather whimpered.

I had no idea if it was the truth, but I needed she and Becky to keep their hope alive, "yes. If there's anything I can do about it, we'll be scarfing down as many shitty Sloppy Joes as we can stand by the end of the day."

By the time I rounded the corner of the enclosure, I could easily make out Todd's enormous shape next to Marcy's near the gate. "Alright, smartass," even as I'm trying to help him escape, the guy still feels the need to insult me, "how do you plan on getting us out of here without rattling the cage, huh? I don't know about you, but I don't feel like getting pinned to the wall like Chad and Cindy, or carved up like that old man back at camp, ya dig?"

"Wait, Jeffries is dead?!" Marcy asked, her jaw dropping in shock.

I nodded in sullen confirmation.

The gate was held closed with a locking mechanism, the key to which was safely stored away in Maddox's tattered lab coat. A coat that he even wore to bed, apparently. That said, the keyhole looked large enough from my shrunken perspective that I might be able to slip my arm inside to pick it. The only problem... I had no fucking idea how to pick a lock.

I explained to them what I had in mind, and with Marcy's assistance, I was lifted up above the base of the cage and left to cling to the bars from the outside. To say I was a little apprehensive would have been an understatement. Sticking my forearm inside a rusty old lock wasn't high on my list of must-dos in life. After some feeling around inside, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how the mechanism worked. Now I just had to find something to jam in there to turn it.

Maddox's name badge!

"Todd, is that name tag still inside the cage?" He looked around for a few seconds before presenting it to me. "Great! Do you think you can remove the pin from the back of it?"

The giant among us pinned the plate beneath his foot and pried the pin away more easily than I would have thought possible. For once, his sculpted athleticism was going to work in our favor.

He handed me the oversized safety pin and I went to work bending it against the bars until I made a suitable enough shape to shove into the opening. It wasn't easy, and the sound of metal clanging on metal had the hair on all of our necks standing on end. One false move and I could wake the slumbering Goliath and earn myself a one way trip to join our dead coworkers. After much trial and error, I felt the lock loosen and was able to turn my makeshift key.

The gate began to fall, with me still clinging to it, but Marcy and Todd caught it before the thing could crash down onto the counter. I found myself dangling in the air by my fingertips for a moment before letting go and landing safely on my feet, though closer to the edge than I ever would have felt comfortable. Todd and Marcy then lowered the ramp-like gate very slowly until it met the formica surface without making a significant sound. The two of them crawled out first, then Heather. Becky started to make her exit, but then stopped mid-step.

"Wait," she whispered, "we need someone to stay behind. If he wakes up, you're gonna need someone to distract him."

"Becky?" Marcy whispered, "are you sure?"

Becky was right. This was an all hands on deck sort of mission, but the girl had proven she could maintain Maddox's attention, potentially buying us precious seconds. Although she looked terrified to be left alone in that place, Rebecca Benson was a fucking trooper if there ever was one.

"We'll be back for you, I promise," Heather tried to assure her best friend. Truth be told, I think we all knew there was a very good chance that attempting this was going to get us all killed. Better to die trying than to just give up and accept defeat, I suppose. At least that's what I told myself at the time.

Our party of four made our way across the treacherous landscape of accumulation and neglect. Back across the keyboard valley. Over Pelt Mountain. Through the aging spiderwebs and oversized tripping hazards. Past the old record player, until the group finally reached the device. Somehow, it looked even bigger than the last time I stood in its shadow. I had to stop and convince myself that I hadn't shrunk again after simply coming in contact with it.

There was something else. Something that nagged at me the entire journey across the room. Something Todd had said... about winding up like Cindy and Chad... and Mr. Jeffries. How exactly did Todd know he was dead? It was dark... and he was stuffed inside Maddox's bag with the others when I found Alvin's body.

"So," Todd whispered, "how does it work?"

Setting those thoughts aside, I pointed out the different levers and knobs and what I thought each might do. One for intensity of beam. One for localization, say for using it on a single subject or many at once. There was one I was sure controlled how large or small it would allow the subject to get. Then, of course, the most important ones: the switch to select enlargement or reduction and the trigger.

Still, I couldn't shake Todd's words.

"So why don't we do this," he proposed, oddly deciding to change the plan mid execution. "I set the three of you up where you can make me big again, then I can deal with the one-eyed Bambi over there. I grow the rest of you back and we all get the hell out of Dodge."

Again, this set red flags off inside my head. The last person I'd trust with rescuing us was Todd. I barely had faith enough in him for this task.

"Todd? How did you know Alvin was dead?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Who?" He barely seemed phased by my question.

"Mr. Jeffries... the groundskeeper. How did you know he was dead?"

Todd's face flushed to red, "what does that have to do with anything?"

The guilty look on his face was enough confirmation of what I suspected. The answer hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Oh my god," I gasped.

"What?" Marcy asked, freezing in her tracks as she was about to start climbing up the side of the machine. I'm sure she thought Maddox had awakened.

"You did it, didn't you?" I pointed my finger at the imposing figure in front of me. "Mr. Jeffries... you killed him!"

"Phoebe!" Marcy exclaimed, then lowered her voice, "what the hell are you talking about?!"

Todd grew quiet.

"There's no other way he could have known," I frantically explained. "All of you were inside of a bag! He's the only one of you that knew, right?"

Marcy and Heather looked at me dumbfounded.

"I'd shut my mouth right now if I were you, dyke," Todd growled.

"Phoebe, stop!" Marcy pleaded. "He may be an asshole, but he's not a murderer!"

"Think about it," I continued, "why is he even here?! Other than Chad who was taken the night before, the other boys aren't here! Melody isn't here! I saw Maddox go from bunk to bunk, but only on the girl's side! And Jeffries wasn't shrunk like we were, he was stabbed!"

Marcy's gaze turned from me to Todd, "is what she's saying true?!"

My voice cracked in my panicked state, "you're a murderer, Todd Masters! Just like that monster across the room!"

In the passing of a second, I felt Todd's massive fingers wrap around my throat and my feet leave the countertop.





End Part 16
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 09, 2024 9:35 pm

Part 17-"Villians"




I'm no one's little girl
Oh no, I'm not
I'm not gonna be cause I don't wanna be
I never shall be on your family tree
Even if you ask me to
I'm gonna turn you down
I won't mess you around
Cause I don't wanna be
Don't wanna be, don't wanna be

-No One’s Little Girl, The Raincoats




Me and my big fucking mouth.


Should I have waited to point the finger at our muscle for committing a murder until he was no longer of use to us? Maybe. Yes. Judge all you like, but if you were in my shoes with all the stress I was already under, I'd wager you might make a few misstep in judgement yourself. As I found myself dangling over the edge of the counter by my neck, immediate hindsight was definitely scrutinizing my impulsive accusation.

But I also knew at that very moment, in my soul, that Todd was never going to save anyone but himself. That bastard was going to leave us for dead, whether everyone knew about what he'd done or not. He was gonna take that shrink ray for himself and forget the rest of us ever existed. Why else would he want to change the plan? Why else would he want us to grow him back first? The dude wasn't exactly known for his altruism.

"You just couldn't keep your bitchy mouth shut, couldja dyke?" See! Even Todd agreed with my assumptions.

"Todd! Put her down! She can't breath," Marcy pleaded while pounding at his lower back with her fists, about all the higher she could reach.

In response, he kicked her away, sending her flying back towards the device. "Make sure the machine is ready, wouldja babe," he said without taking his eyes off from me, "after what that dead hillbilly did to my arm, my grip hasn't been what it was... and I'd hate to drop your little muff-diving friend here like a bad habit."

The pressure around my neck was so intense. It wouldn't have mattered how much I clawed at his fingers, Todd wasn't going to let go. Not unless Marcy did as he told her anyway. I could feel my head getting light as I struggled for any air I could get.

"Todd... please... stop...," I gasped through his crushing grip.

"Please don't hurt her!" Marcy cried out, "I'll do anything you ask!"

"I know you will," the young football star replied.

Marcy and Heather, who had grown very quiet in the last few minutes, began to scale the side of the shrink ray as quickly as they could. Flipping the levers I'd pointed out to them. The machine suddenly hummed to life.

Just as things were about to go black, my windpipe opened up again, allowing me to breath. Todd had switched me to his other hand, but now held me above the dark precipice by my hair. As grateful as I was to be able to breath again, the pain at the top of my head was so severe that I thought he might rip my scalp right away from my skull.

"For your information... not that it really matters anymore, you little bitch... but I didn't mean to kill the old man. I was just gonna put a scare in 'em. Let him know who he was messin' with. It was that old fucker that made the first move. I had a knife on 'em, and he went for it. We got into a tussle. It was a fucking accident, for fucksakes! I'll tell you this much though, I ain't doin' time for some worthless old drifter. No ma'am. I was trying to drag the fucker's corpse towards the woods when that bastard over there got me!"

"Todd, please! Stop!" I cried out. So much for keeping my voice down.

"You just had to be a nosey little bitch, didn't you?" He snarled at me. "We could have all left here together. But now? I got a life ahead of me, dyke! I'm gonna go pro! Do you think for a second that I'm gonna let a miserable little bitch like you take that away from me?!" He whispered the next part so the others wouldn't hear, "and since I can't risk my secret getting out, you and your friends ain't leavin' this hellhole."

It was everything I could do to keep from screaming as the hair on my head was slowly being ripped away. It hurt so much, but I didn't dare squirm either, fearing how little it might take to send me to my death far below.

"I... I think it's ready," Marcy called down to us as quietly as she could so that Todd could hear her without rousing the still sleeping Maddox.

Todd grinned at me, "it's been nice knowin' ya, Phrumpy."

"Nooo!" This time I couldn't help but scream, thinking he was about to drop me. Instead, Todd walked me over to the machine, still dangling by my hair, then stuffed me between the trigger and the circular finger guard. I was lodged in place with my ass and legs hanging in the air.

"The only way your gettin' out of there," he informed me, "is to put your weight on that trigger and grow me back."

"I won't do it!" I shouted back, which earned me a hard smack across my bare ass.

"That's fine," he snarked back, "but all I have to do is yell and that motherfucker over there is gonna wake up. And all of you look like some very... very... bad... dollies right about now."

"For christsakes, Phoebe!" Marcy whisper-shouted, "just give him what he wants! We'll figure something else out!"

I sighed. She was right. It was not better to die trying after all. We needed to live to fight another day. I'm suddenly struck by just how fucking cliche I sound. Fuck me running.

"You're lucky I have a hard time saying no to your ex, fuckface. I'll be sure to take good care of her for ya," I said in a deliberate effort to poke the bear.

Todd laughed, smacking me hard on the ass once again, "that's what you think, dyke. She's gonna make a nice pet to keep me company in my dorm room. Maybe I'll even let the guys on the squad pass her a round a bit. One hell of a way to build a bond between teammates, don'tcha think?"

"You really are a sack of shit, Todd Masters!" I'm sure I looked really intimidating from his point of view.

Todd walks down the length of the barrel, then stepped in front of the business end of the shrink ray. He raised his arms in a Jesus Christ pose, and closed his eyes, "when you're ready, cunts!"

As much as it killed me to do it, I rolled my body into the trigger. The low hum of the working machine returned. The room filled with the now familiar blue-green light that had victimized us all.

Todd laughed as the beam hit him. "Have a nice life, bitches! I'm outta here!"

In an instant, Todd Masters was gone. Blown to smithereens by the unexpected effects of the device. Bits of him sprayed in every direction, raining blood and gore down on everything and everyone nearby. Namely us. Where the future NFL first-rounder had just stood, only a red, radiating stain sprayed against the wall and countertop remained.

The sheer force of the explosion had been enough to knock the enormous device off from its stand and send it crashing down onto its side. Marcy and Heather were nearly crushed beneath it, but leaped away at the last second as they rode the toppling building-sized gun down. As for me, I was alive, but I was pinned awkwardly beneath the trigger guard with my legs straight up in the air. Completely trapped.

A blood curdling scream rang out from above me. It was Heather, who had just received a shower in Todd's entrails as they returned to earth. A second scream mirrored the first from across the room, in the direction of the cage. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The dark, horrifying figure in the distance rose from his bed with an angry grunt.

Maddox was awake.

The giant immediately struck a match to the torch beside to his bed. He waved the burning branch in the direction of the cage, growling at the sight of an open gate and the single tiny woman left within. He leapt at the cage, causing Becky to scream out once more. His massive paw yanked her from its belly without regard for her safety and brought the tiny, screaming girl to his face.

Then the former scientist looked in our direction...

"BAAAAAD... DOOOOLLLLLIIIES!"

I felt like my stomach had fallen right out of my body as the two of us locked eyes... eye... whatever. I could see his rage burning in that unblinking eye. I could almost feel it. He was coming for us, and we were going to meet the same fate as Cindy Lou and Chad. Cut open and stuffed as display pieces in the world's most horrifying doll collection.

"Phoebe! Shoot!"

Marcy's voice was just about that only thing that could have penetrated my frozen state of terror. I was so locked into Maddox's gaze that I hadn't even noticed the way the shrink ray had fallen. The barrel was pointed directly in the giant's direction.

Call it luck. Call it divine intervention. Call it whatever you like. All I knew was that I wasn't going to waste my chance. At least, not until I saw Becky struggling in his grasp.

"I can't!" I screamed back, "He has Becky!"

Over the grunts and clopping limp approaching us at a determined pace, I heard a distant voice scream out from the monster's direction. It was Becky's, telling me exactly what I needed to hear, "Just do it, Phoebe!!! Stop him!"

"I'm sorry," I whispered to myself... to her... to anyone who might hear. I closed my eyes and rolled into the trigger once again, pulling the muscles in my lower back as I did so.

The beam hit Maddox, stunning him with surprise. The switch from growth to reduction must have been tripped when the gun fell because the giant didn't simply explode as Todd had. Maddox began to shrink rapidly, screaming in more extreme pain with each passing second. I wasn't quite sure why in the moment. He was flailing like a coyote with its leg in a trap, but outside of a small amount of static shock, the process hadn't caused any of us any pain at all.

All except for Cindy Lou.

Her braces!

The rebar lodged in Maddox's skull! The ray wasn't affecting it at all!

A few more seconds passed before the pressure grew too much for Maddox's skull to bear. His head split wide open like the cracking of a cantaloupe. The metal bar fell to the ground and clanged end to end until it finally came to a rest. The Legend of Camp (S)Carey fell to his knees, blood pouring down his face from the crack in his skull and reduced to about a fourth of his original size. Finally, the shrunken giant collapsed face first onto the floor where a reservoir of blood would grow and pool as it poured from his head.

For more than two decades, Madman Maddox had stalked the woods outside of Camp Carey, abducting and murdering those who were unfortunate enough to cross his path. He met his end at the hands of four tiny women who refused to give up hope when things were at their most hopeless.

And on a more personal note... an added bonus, if you will... we also sent Todd the Godd to hell along with him. For what he'd done to Alvin, he'd earned his spot on the devil's roster. I suppose the University of West Virginia will just have to survive conference play without him.






End Part 17
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 09, 2024 9:35 pm

Part 18-"Patience"




Spending time nowadays
By my side
That's oh so nice
And again with you
It's equal nice
It's paradise

-It’s Obvious, The Au Pairs




It took us three days to climb out of that bunker.

With none of us left standing over five inches tall, getting up the four flights of stairs was a feat unto itself. We had no food. What water we had to drink was trickling through the walls of the stairwell, not exactly the most sanitary source imaginable. The small amount of light beckoning to us from above kept us going on. It was a goal, and a manageable one to start with considering what lied beyond that door. Starved and exhausted, I don't think any of us wanted to think about the trek through the forest that followed.

No, we didn't try to use the machine again. After seeing what it did to Todd, it was obvious that we had no idea what we were doing, and that there wasn't one among us worth sacrificing for further experimentation. As a group, we collectively decided to try and reach the camp. We could always direct law enforcement back to the scene. If nothing else, at least we'd be together.

After crawling beneath the bunker door, we found ourselves in another world. An Appalachian forest filled with trees larger than redwoods. Ferns and brush as big as buildings. Chipmunks scurrying across the mossy floor that rivaled bison in size. Needless to say, it was an intimidating sight.

"How," I remember Heather whimpering. "How are we ever going to do this?!"

Truth be told, I was wondering that myself.

I felt Marcy's fingers slip between my own until our hands were interlocked. I looked up to her, and she back down at me. She was smiling, but I think only doing so to fight back the wealth of tears that were welling in her eyes.

"We just keep going," she said, stiffening her upper lip. "We are Camp Carey Careytakers, gosh darn it! How could we ever hope to teach those kids the survival skills we ourselves have learned from all our time in this place if we're not willing to put them to good use?"

"Yeah, but..."

"But nothing," Marcy cut Heather off. "We just survived the most insane circumstances that anyone on earth has ever seen! We scaled a staircase as tall as Mr. Everest! Without food! Without proper climbing equipment! And guess what, we're still here! A long walk isn't going to stop us after what we've been through! The four of us are gonna make it back to camp if my name isn't Marcy Eloise Duncan! Now... can I get a Woola walla ho?!"

Even I groaned at the suggestion.

"I'm not asking!" Marcy barked, clapping her hands and stamping her foot as well. "Come on! Do it with me! Woola walla ho!"

The response from the three of us was less than enthusiastic.

"Again! Louder! I wanna feel that Woola walla ho!" She pressed.

On the second try, we put a little more into it.

"Again!" Marcy repeated, "make me belieeeeeeeve you!"

This time, she got the response she wanted. With sore, dry throats, all four of us raised our fists in the air and shouted an enthusiastic "Woola walla ho!"

"Excellent!" The pretty blonde exclaimed, squeezing my hand with appreciation. "Alright hikers, let's get hiking!"

You can take the cheerleader out of the squad, but you can't take the cheerleader out of the girl. And Marcy was a damn fine cheerleader.



Another day would pass before we were found. It was a member of the search party that had been combing the woods since we went missing. The man damned near stepped on our little improvised camp early that morning. He might have kept on trudging through the underbrush had the bright colors of our hair not caught his attention, standing out against the forest floor. I think the poor guy about had a heart attack when he saw us, scratching his head and questioning if what he was seeing was actually real. Who could blame him.

The search was unlike anything anyone in the region had ever seen before. With so many of us gone at once, and the body of poor Mr. Jeffries added on top of the mystery, it wasn't just search and rescue volunteers that came out. There was FBI, CIA, military, as well as an unprecedented police presence spanning every office for a hundred miles around. We were told that this was to find us as quickly as possible, but with such a large government presence, I couldn't help but feel like they were just as interested in keeping a lid on the whole thing.

Why do I say that? Well, it's been over a year since we crawled out of that dungeon of horrors and we still haven't been returned to normal. It would seem that shrinking matter is much easier to achieve than enlarging it, and the scientists working on restoring us are stumped. Twenty-five year old records were opened and poured over. Another team retrieved every piece of yellowing paper left inside the old bunker, searching for any clues that Maddox might have left behind.

We're currently being kept at some government facility, don't ask me which one because no one will tell us. My guess is Wright-Patterson, but I can't know for sure. To their credit, the scientific team trying to restore out size have made a commendable effort to make sure we're comfortable. More than the military types, that's for sure. I'm sure we'd be locked up in cages and forgotten about if they had their way. I get the feeling the only reason they're letting the brains run the show is because they're interested in the technology.

The girls and I have kind of become the lab's mascots, for lack of a better term. One of the lab techs and I share similar tastes in music, so he always brings in tapes he's made of bands he thinks I'll enjoy. It's sweet, and I've amassed quite the collection thanks to him. I generally need some help loading the tapes into the deck of my Walkman though.

On the more serious side, we still aren't allowed to see our families. The occasional phone call is about all we get. They've rigged up a small microphone and speaker so we don't have to move from one end of a full sized phone receiver to the other to have a conversation anymore. It's so hard to talk to my mother and still not be able to tell her anything about what really happened. She seems to think we're in some kind of quarantine, which I suppose isn't far from the truth.

Becky took the isolation the hardest. As you probably figured out on your own, I was no longer the smallest member of our tiny click. When the beam hit Maddox, it enveloped her as well, shrinking her even further to a heartbreaking inch and a half in height. She's been better this past couple of months, coming out of her depression more and more with each passing day. We've all stood beside her, especially her best friend Heather... helping her out in any way we can.

I can't apologize to her enough, being as I'm the one who pulled the trigger. She waves me off every time, being the sweet soul that she is, but it doesn't deaden the guilt I still feel. She was a good friend to each of us when we needed her, and she literally took one for the whole team. I've told her repeatedly that when we finally get out of this place, I'm going to erect a statue in her honor. A teeny tiny one. Small enough that I can set on my desk. It always seems to make her laugh.

As for Marcy and I... well, I think I'll keep those details to myself. A gentle-woman never tells. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Besides, oversharing in my diary has already gotten me into enough trouble as it is. What I will say is this... that girl is my rock. I know I said Becky took our situation the hardest, but we've all had our moments when we wanted to give up. Marcy has never let those thoughts get any further than that. Just thoughts.

I look back to that day when we escaped the bunker, when that hope we'd been clinging to for days was suddenly draining from all of us like a breached dam. The way Marcy stood tall... figuratively speaking of course. The way she shared her strength with each and every one of us. How she wouldn't let us quit. Even now, how every single day, she makes sure to greet the rest of us with a smile and an upbeat attitude. I don't think there's anyone among us that is as happy to just be alive as Marcy is. And it's infectious.

Everything I said about the girl in that now infamous letter was true. She is the strongest person I know. Ah, fuck it! When you care as much about another person as I do Marcy, who could keep a lid on something like that?! I wanna shout it from the mountain tops... or in our case, the tabletops! I love you Marcy Duncan... with all my heart... and I always will.


So...

...we wait.


Our lives may have been put on indefinite hold, no thanks to the notorious Dr. Xavier "Madman" Maddox, but we sure aren't going to live them that way. We may not be able to attend college for now, but we can still read and study so we can slip right back into our old lives. Careers will have to wait, but employers are gonna climb over one another to hire us. Seeing the world will have to take place in books and movies, but don't think for a second that's gonna be forever. I'm going to kiss Marcy Duncan at the top of the Eiffel Tower, even if we have to ride up there in someone's pocket.

Above all else, the four of us still have one another. Until we can finally leave this chapter behind us. Even then, Marcy, Heather, Becky and I are bound by experience and friendship for the rest of our lives. These girls have become my new family and I love them.

For now, we just have to be patient and trust that our scientist friends will find a way to restore us. That doesn't mean there isn't fun to be had though. Let me tell ya, you wouldn't believe the kind of trouble four girls you can get up to at this size...




The End
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Bloodthirstybutcher
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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Oct 09, 2024 9:36 pm

Post Script-"Good Morning, Stacy Wilcox"




I can't look down or I might fall on you
I might follow in your footsteps
I see a showdown at sundown
What's the lowdown?
I had to hunt, I had to hunt you up

-I See Red, X




Sunday, June 15th


Stacy Wilcox, best friend of Phoebe Sellers, pours herself a bowl of cereal. Shredded wheat. Yuk! Old people cereal, she thinks to herself. The high school graduate plops down on her grandmother's plastic covered floral sofa. She clicks power on the remote to the big, wooden console television, eager for a little time to herself before her parents and siblings wake up too. Where she had hoped there would at least be cartoons on at that early hour, Stacy is met with a flash news bulletin, just about to begin...


(The morning news anchor, Tom Stone, adjusts his tie on air.)

"Breaking news just in from our continuing coverage at a certain Camp Carey summer Camp, located in the mountains outside of Clarksville. The longtime caretaker of the establishment, a Mr. Alvin Jeffries, was found murdered yesterday morning from an apparent stab wound. If that wasn't strange enough, seven camp counselors, five girls and two young men, also seem to have gone missing."


"What the fuck?" Stacy says out loud, a spoonful of bland, square cereal and milk hovering just outside of her mouth. "No way!"


"The missing counselors are listed as follows:

(A high school yearbook photo of each individual is brought up on screen as the anchor reads off their names.)

Rebecca Benson
Cindy Lou Crux
Marcy Duncan
Todd Masters
Chadwick Nowitzki
Heather Roebuck
and Phoebe Sellers"


The spoon falls from Stacy's hand and splashes back down in the bowl. "Phoebe?!"


"We have a corespondent on scene in the Appalachian mountains where the summer camp is located. Wendell, what's the situation down there right now?"

(The camera cuts to the field reporter, Wendell Huff)

"Thanks, Tom. As you can see behind me, there is a flurry of activity here on day two at the camp. Rescue volunteers from all over the state, as well as what appears to be some federal and military assistance. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it in my fifteen years in journalism."

"I see you're standing with an officer there," Tom points out.

"Yes, this gentleman is Sheriff Delbert Porter. Sheriff, does your department have any notion of what went on here this weekend?"

Sheriff Porter tilts the front of his wide-brimmed hat upwards and scratches the top of his head, "well, as you know, Wendell, the department isn't at liberty to discuss an active murder investigation."

"Do you believe these teenagers to be complicit in the murder of Mr. Alvin Jeffries? Could this be some kind of strange occult ritual? Satanism, I mean?"

"Again, we can't discuss that sort of thing right now, but rest assured that Pope County law enforcement is looking at every angle."

Wendell shifts gears, "is such a large government presence usual for a situation such as this?"

"Well, no... I can't say that it is... but I won't say I'm ungrateful to have the help. This is some big wilderness up here and any extra set of eyes we can get out in these woods we'll take... just as long as they don't step on our toes, that is. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work. We've got seven kids to find."

"Thank you for your time, Sheriff. Up next we have the camp director, is that correct?"

Melody steps into frame, "yes."

"Could you state your name for the camera?"

"Um... Melody... Melody Carey." She looks visibly nervous, and not just because of the camera. Melody is worried sick about her missing "Careytakers."

"Ms. Carey, do you have any notion of what happened here at your camp?"

"I... I don't know... all I care about is finding those kids for their families."

"Do you still plan to open the camp this summer?"

Melody seems taken aback by the question, "hardly seems like the most important thing at the moment, does it? But to answer your question, no. We were already short on help before those counselors went missing, and now there's no way we can open this summer if they aren't found. Not that I'd want to at this point. Not with him out there..."

"Excuse me, miss... to whom are you referring? Do you have a suspect in mind who might have abducted your employees?"

Melody waves him off, clearly trying to fight back tears. She steps off camera, but can just be made out saying, "I've already said too much."

Wendell composes himself once again, preparing to end the segment. "Well there you have it, Tom. The mystery only seems to deepen here at Camp Carey."

(The camera cuts back to Stone.)

"Intriguing," Tom says dryly. "We'll be sure to update you right here on this ABC affiliate as more information comes in. Until then, please... keep those young men and women in your thoughts and prayers, ladies and gentlemen. This is Tom Stone, signing off for 10/11 News. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming."

The special news bulletin ends, returning the time to the local hellfire and damnation baptist preacher who pays for that slot on Sunday mornings. He appears to be speaking at a pulpit set at the base of a dilapidated drive-in movie theater. "...the path of the righteous is one of great trial and tribulation..."


Stacy Wilcox sits unmoving in a state of stunned silence, staring blankly at the highly animated preacher. She can't believe what she's just seen, her best friend Phoebe has gone missing in the woods at the very camp she herself was supposed to work at this summer. It could just as easily have been her face plastered all over the television that morning.

The bowl falls from her trembling fingers and smashes to pieces against the floor.

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

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"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by MrWitness » Thu Oct 10, 2024 9:49 am

I'm probably the last one who's into doll sizes, but the story is great! Thanks!

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Oct 10, 2024 11:14 am

MrWitness wrote:
Thu Oct 10, 2024 9:49 am
I'm probably the last one who's into doll sizes, but the story is great! Thanks!
Thanks for reading it!😊😁
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Shrinkaway Camp

Post by Flippity-Floosy » Fri Oct 11, 2024 1:11 pm

Once again, you have a nice fun read that's captivating as it is entertaining! Awesome job BTB! While I love all your stories (your Alana of 17 to me is my favorite and imho your magnum opus) but this one I finished within a couple hours!

Think about making a sequel?
Last edited by Flippity-Floosy on Wed Dec 04, 2024 2:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Little lady. Big weeb. Normal-sized writer. What's on the menu?
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