Mine (5 page)

He climbed out of the car and smiled at the boy in front. “You’re Joel Madsen, aren’t you?”

The kid looked surprised.

“And Leah Bautista and Mike Hurst,” Ness said. “Am I right?”

“Um, yes,” Joel said.

“So glad I found you. Are you all okay?”

“We-we could use a ride,” Leah said. “We’re from Camp Red Hawk. Do you know where that is?”

Ness paused before saying anything more. The kids’ responses were slow, and they didn’t appear nearly as relieved at being found as he thought they would. Drugs? Or shell-shocked? He decided to play things cool. “Sure, I know exactly where that is. I’m heading in that direction right now. Happy to give you a lift.”

“Really?” Joel said.

The other boy, Mike, hadn’t reacted at all when Ness got out of his car, but a confused look was starting to cloud his face. “Joel? Leah?”

Joel glanced at Ness and then stepped over to Mike and whispered something to him.

“Is it just the three of you?” Ness asked.

“Uh-huh,” Joel said.

“No others with you?”

“There were,” Leah said, “but…”

“But we got separated,” Joel finished for her.

Ness plastered a big smile on his face to hide his concern. “Hop in, and let’s get you back to camp.”

F
OURTEEN

T
HE PARKING LOT
at Camp Red Hawk was jam-packed when Ness arrived with the kids. Nearly all the vehicles belonged either to the sheriff’s department or the park service. Ness had radioed ahead so a lot of people were waiting when he pulled up near the cafeteria. At the front of the group stood the worried parents of each of the kids.

As soon as his passengers climbed out, they were smothered in hugs and tears.

“Why are you here?” Joel asked his parents the moment he could get a word in.

“Why are we here?” his mother repeated. “Oh, honey, we’ve been so worried about you.”

That was all the reunion Ness was privy to before he was waved over by Dan Rawlings, senior forest ranger for the area. With him were several other members of the search coordination team.

“Where’d you find them?” Rawlings asked when Ness joined them. His expression, like those of the others, was a mix of surprise and relief.

“I was driving down Route 17 on the way back here and there they were,” Ness said.

“What about the other four?” Marina Hassan, another ranger, asked.

“One of the kids said they got separated.”

The group’s mood dimmed.

“Did they at least know where they saw them last?”

Ness grimaced. “They seem pretty dazed. Thought it best to get them here before asking too many questions. For now, we should have the teams focus on the area east of Ryder’s Bend. That’s the direction they were coming from.” He looked at the two sheriff’s deputies who were part of the group. “Separate the kids into three different rooms. Not next to each other, either. I’m not sure, but they may have been scared into saying nothing. It should be easier to get them to talk individually.”

The two men nodded and the meeting broke up.

F
IFTEEN

Joel

T
HE KIDS AND
their parents were led over to cabins in the girls’ area, where they were separated by family into three different buildings.

Joel was confused when he walked in. Though the cabin’s layout was exactly the same as in his cabin, the mattresses were bare and there were no personal items anywhere. The thing was, he knew for a fact that all cabins—both boys’ and girls’—were being used. The director had said as much at the opening night campfire. It then dawned on Joel he hadn’t seen any other campers since he and Leah and Mike had returned.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

His mother, her arm still around him, said, “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“The other kids. The ones who were staying here. They were here last night.”

His father looked surprised. “Last night? You were
here
last night?”

“Well, not in this cabin,” Joel said.

Before the conversation could continue, someone cleared his throat. Joel looked over at the doorway and saw the deputy who’d driven him and his friends back to camp.

“Did I hear that right?” the man said as he entered the cabin. “Did you say you were here last night?”

“No. Not
here
,” Joel said. “My cabin.”

“Your cabin?”

“Boys’ number four.”

“And this was last night?”

“Yeah. Where else would I be?”

“Did you see any other campers?”

Joel’s bewilderment increased. “Not after the campfire. Just the kids I share the cabin with.”

The adults now looked even more perplexed than Joel felt. For a long moment, no one said anything.

It was Joel’s dad who finally broke the silence. “Joel, what day do you think it is?”

“Thursday.”

The adults looked at each other.

“So last night,” the deputy said, “you were at the campfire, and then you went to your cabin and then…?”

This was the moment Joel had been dreading. He didn’t want to admit they’d broken the rules, but what choice did he have? “We, uh, we waited until we knew the counselors were busy and then snuck out to take a hike.”

“Last night,” the deputy said.

“Uh-huh.”

Another shared look among the adults.

“What?” Joel asked. “What’s going on?”

“Sweetie,” his mother said. “Today isn’t Thursday. It’s Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? What are you talking about?”

His father said, “You’ve been gone six days.”

Joel stared at him. “That’s not funny.”

“He’s not joking,” his mom said. “We’ve been here since Thursday afternoon. All the other kids were picked up by Friday. There’s been an army of people looking for you.”

Joel shook his head. “No way. We left last night.”

The deputy sat down on one of the bunks. “Why don’t you tell us what happened Wednesday night?”

“
Last
night,” Joel said.

The deputy smiled but said nothing.

S
IXTEEN

The Three Who Returned

L
ATER, IN THE
dark of night, as they each drifted off to sleep, Leah and Joel heard the voice.

::LEARN.

::TRANSMIT.

::MINE.

Mike heard the voice, too, but his message was not quite the same.

By morning, they had forgotten all about it.

S
EVENTEEN

Excerpt from the official report on the Camp Red Hawk disappearances

Primary Investigator: Deputy William Ness

Joel Madsen, Leah Bautista, and Mike Hurst were asked to repeat their stories several times to different members of the investigation team. The accounts remained factually unchanged and were consistent with one another, while having enough deviations for investigators to form the opinion that they did not plan their responses in advance.

All three children are convinced they were gone only one night. They all remember leaving camp and heading into the woods. But none could recall which direction they had gone. Their next memory after that was of walking down the road where I found them.

When asked if there had been a specific destination they were hiking to, none could remember, or if whether or not the destination had been reached. They also have absolutely no idea what happened to the other four teens who’d been with them. Each seemed to have a hard time remembering the names of the still missing campers, and in many instances needed to be prompted.

The three were taken to Children’s Hospital in Denver for observation, where doctors were unable to find any physical reasons for the collective memory loss. Wide-ranging tox screens were taken but all returned negative.

Each child underwent several sessions with a child psychiatrist who specializes in trauma. Unfortunately, the doctor was unsuccessful in jarring loose anything that might have led us to their four camp mates.

At this point Courtney Reed, Kayla Witten, George Dooley, and Antonio Canavo are still listed as missing.

BRUISER & THE FASTEST GIRL IN THE WORLD

E
IGHTEEN

Joel

E
IGHTH GRADE STARTED
no differently for Joel than it did for most kids—full of awkward hormonal spikes and a growing desire for independence, sprinkled with fleeting moments of hope that the security of childhood would last forever.

The occasional petty outburst brought on by nothing at all was also common for his age, as was the strange feeling that clenched his chest at the sight of girls he’d grown up with and never thought twice about before.

It was no surprise, then, that as winter approached, his parents and his teachers failed to notice there was more going on with him than the standard teenage tribulations. They’d seen it all before, so who could blame them for thinking they were seeing the same again?

That he was doing better academically than ever was written off by everyone as the natural progression of a bright kid coming into his own. That he’d sprouted up three inches between August and the end of the year, shooting past his father’s height, seemed natural, too. He was at an age when that kind of thing happened.

But getting into two fights during the fall term and another in the spring, something he’d never done before—that was troubling. It was found, however, that in each incident, he’d been sticking up for someone being bullied, so no one thought of him as a problem kid. He was simply at a point in life when his emotions got the better of him.

Still, there were consequences for resorting to violence.

In a private meeting with Joel and his father after the third fight, Principal Manning said, “As much as I wish I didn’t have to do this, school policy dictates a two-day suspension.” He looked at Joel. “This is off the record, just me speaking as a person, not as your principal. I don’t blame you for what you did. I would hope I’d have done the same in your shoes. But this
is
your third fight, Joel, and if it happens again I won’t be able to help you. You’ll receive a week’s suspension, with the very real possibility of expulsion. I know that neither you nor your parents want that.”

“Don’t worry,” Joel’s dad said. “It’s not going to happen again, is it, Joel?”

Joel mumbled, “No.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“No,” Joel said, louder. “It won’t happen again.”

He hoped he wasn’t lying, because he knew if he saw another jerk beating up someone simply because he could, he wouldn’t be able to look the other way. It was how his brain worked now. Anytime he saw someone being taken advantage of, he’d forget whatever he’d been doing or thinking about, and all he could focus on was the situation before him.

As if reading his mind, Principal Manning said, “If you do come across any more…incidents, I urge you to find a teacher or one of the quad staff and let them handle it.”

That sounded good in theory, but Joel knew if he did as the principal suggested, the perpetrator would likely be long gone by the time an adult arrived. But he said, “Yes, sir,” to help bring the conversation to an end.

Thankfully, there were no more fights before the school year finished. This had nothing to do with Joel avoiding confrontations, however. His growing reputation as a more than capable defender of the defenseless kept him from making a return trip to the principal’s office.

On the first day of summer vacation, when his eyes opened that morning, his first thought was of Camp Red Hawk.

This was unexpected. The camp hadn’t crossed his mind since the previous fall. Now that it had, any joy he should have been feeling about the days of freedom before him failed to materialize.

He knew Red Hawk had been permanently closed, and that its director and owners had been charged with negligence and other crimes in connection with what had happened the previous July. What happened after that, though, he had no idea. Once he’d given videotaped testimony about what he remembered, which wasn’t much, he’d put the summer behind him, hoping never to think about it again.

And yet here it was, once more fresh in his mind.

Of course he knew the reason why. For the three previous years, his parents had sent him to summer camp, a different one each time. Though they hadn’t said anything yet about this summer, he assumed he’d be told soon enough where he was going.

The thing was, Joel didn’t want to go to camp again. He had no desire to be anywhere remotely similar again.

He waited a week, expecting his folks to pull out one of those glossy brochures and show him the “fun” they’d arranged for him to have, but each night passed without the topic coming up.

He was getting so anxious about it that at dinner on the eighth night after school had ended, he broke down and asked, “So what camp am I going to this year?”

Joel’s mother, who had been in the midst of dishing out salad, stopped, tongs in the air. “Camp? Don’t you remember? You’re not going this summer. We’re visiting Nana and Papa in St. Louis.”

“We are?”

“I told you that months ago, sweetie.”

He didn’t remember, but that was okay. He wasn’t going to camp.

Just like that, the dread that had wrapped itself around him like a straightjacket vanished.

__________