Cameron

CAMERON

"You don't get it," Cam said. "I watched you fucking die."

Isaac was just as haggard as Lee, and he didn't even have a flesh-eating leg wound to thank. He was paler than Cam had ever seen him, tears falling down his cheeks and soaking his sad excuse for facial hair as he tended to his brother's leg.

Lee was short for Levi. Cam vaguely remembered Isaac talking about him on their first night in the research cabin, even though she'd hardly been paying attention. She'd been envious of their relationship. Her brother Coulter would more likely beat her up than have a heart-to-heart with her, and he was forty.

"If this is death, then death sucks." Isaac wiped his nose on his sleeve and continued to clean Levi's wound with a dirty rag. It was so pathetic that Cam had to intervene, shoving Isaac out of the way and trying not to barf as she knelt in front of Levi.

Isaac pushed open one of the shutters and light flooded the room. The infection had eaten through Levi's flesh to the bone. He needed an amputation, and the only place Cam knew that was clean enough was Ruby's. Ruby hadn't offered such a service, though in fairness, the open wound of an amputation would likely not better his chances .

She toggled between Levi's messed-up leg and the fact Isaac was alive. "How long have you been here?"

"Around three years." Isaac sniffed. "Levi found me during year two."

Cam turned her face toward the open window and took a deep breath, hoping it would clear away the stench, and the nonsensical time gap. Isaac had disappeared on Mount Agnes. Emmett had found him in a sinkhole, decades older. Now, the experiences Isaac claimed he'd had still didn't align with her time in the forest. "So you've been in these woods for three years?"

Isaac pointed to a mess of tallies covering the wall. "I try to tally most days, but sometimes I forget."

"But you entered Deadswitch with me."

Isaac nodded. "You, Siena, and Emmett. And then we left, but we got lost, and I tried to retrace my steps." He wiped his face with his sleeve again, and Cam thought of all the germs living on his arm. "I swam in this weird pond and don't really remember what happened after that, just that I kept getting more lost. There were a lot of bad nights until I found this place. And there are still bad nights, just not as bad as before. Especially once Levi arrived."

"Oh, yeah. How the hell did that happen?"

"I came looking for him." Levi hissed as he stretched out his injured leg. "Our parents didn't even tell me he was missing until the rescue mission switched to recovery. I left two hours later to fly to Cali."

"People are looking for us?" she asked. No, it made little sense. They hadn't been in Deadswitch for longer than their permit stated. "There shouldn't be a team out looking for us yet."

"There were folks looking for you. That was years ago."

"That's impossible. We've been gone for a month at most."

Levi grimaced. "I don't know what to tell you." The sweat on his face glistened. "Anyway, I couldn't rely on someone else deciding whether Isaac was dead. I had to search for myself."

"And then you got sucked into this vortex, too," Cam finished. "Jesus fucking Christ."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," Levi muttered.

Out in the village, a bell rang.

"Food time," Isaac announced. "Levi, you gotta get up. You know they won't give me a meal for you unless you're there."

With his eyes closed, Levi shook his head. "Ain't happening, kid. It'll be alright."

Cam was still unfamiliar with the village rules, but she was good at picking up context. "I'll go, if they'll feed me. I'll bring back my... uhh... serving. Levi can have it."

"Are you sure?" Isaac hissed, clearly worried. "You need to eat."

Cam managed a smile. "Sure as shit."

As she stood, her eyes fell upon the room's small table, and the numbers carved into opposite sides of the surface.

32. 33. Something she'd ask about later.

She followed Isaac out of the shack into the muck of the village. The scent of smoked meat hung thickly on the air, and Cam's stomach growled. She pressed her fist into the cleft between her ribs to shut it up.

More people milled about than earlier; the bell must have brought them out of hiding. Most wore a strange mix of wilderness gear, casual clothing, and poorly tanned hides that reminded her of Isaac. The old Isaac. The hides were few, though. It was safe to assume that if people really died as quickly as Ruby said they did, the clothes and belongings were divvied up. Unless they were infected. She really didn't understand how transmission worked, but it was obvious this place wasn't clean. The likelihood these villagers cared seemed next to none.

A few people studied her as she and Isaac passed them, as if trying to place her. Some even gave her a nod or a wave. No one seemed suspicious of her. They should suspect her. Here they were, all lost inside some monstrous forest vortex where infection ran rampant and no one could escape, and they were fucking waving ? Filthy, emaciated, and waving?

She wished she'd stayed at Ruby's and collected more information, because instinct told Cam she was missing something big and dangerous here. Maybe many big dangerous things.

"Tell me about this place," Cam muttered to Isaac. "It just exists in the middle of nowhere? Where did these cabins come from?"

"The cabins have been here for, well, forever. People come and go. People die. Some have been here for a decade or more, but most don't make it that long."

"Because of infection?"

"Yeah. That. And other things."

Cam stole a glance at Isaac. He looked older than the last time she saw young Isaac, but not that much older. A couple of years, maybe, which would match Levi's timeline and not hers. But things other than age were different about him, too. The young Isaac she remembered had a youthful and often obnoxious glow about him, like he was the kind of guy who could do a keg stand before climbing a mountain. Besides all that Jesus shit.

Did Jesus people do keg stands?

But this guy... this Isaac walking next to her was sick. Not how Levi was sick. It was the slow sickness one would get from eating a handful of chicken nuggets every day for the rest of their life and nothing else. Malnourished sick.

"Who runs the place?" Cam asked.

"Right now it's Bert and Tammy."

"They sound like Muppets."

"Everyone shortens their name. I go by Izzy. You already fit right in."

Isaac did not remind Cam as an Izzy, but she said nothing. The thought of fitting right in unnerved her enough. "So Bert and Tammy... are they mayors?"

Isaac shrugged. "They're called Elders."

"Sure, Elders. That's not creepy at all."

Isaac guided them on a path that led from the maze of cabins through an alley, and Cam was assaulted by the stench she'd smelled when she first entered The Tooth.

On the other side of the crag, away from the cabins, stretched a long row of covered pigsties, all occupied by—well, she wouldn't call them pigs. Hairy wild hogs scuffed about, their tusks small but sharp.

It wasn't the hogs that smelled, but the filth they wallowed in. Not shit. Something worse than shit that paired horribly with the scent of roasted meat. She gagged at the smell of them together and tried hiding her reflex. Isaac didn't seem to notice.

"So that's what you eat?" Cam sneered at the hogs as the two of them funneled into a line a few dozen yards long.

"Yeah. We take turns caring for them. And killing them."

God. "And what if you don't want to take your turn? What if you don't like the idea of killing an animal?"

Isaac glanced out of the corner of his eye and swiped a finger across his neck.

Cam halted in her tracks, the guy behind her almost stumbling into her. "Shut the fuck up."

"Shh," Isaac hissed, gesturing for her to keep walking. "They kick you out. If you put up a fight, that's when things get violent."

"So you do your job, feeding and butchering..."

"And guarding and cleaning and fixing," Isaac said.

"And in the end you don't die."

"And you stay dry."

The staying dry bit Cam could understand. It hadn't stopped raining since she entered the valley.

Night was deepening, the sulfurous torches along the perimeter doing little to brighten the village. A part of her hoped to glimpse Avery amid the crowd. She was also terrified of the same thing. Would Avery be Cam's age? A few years older, sped up along a timeline Cam didn't understand?

Dead?

Most likely dead.

Levi was literally rotting away in the hut behind her. Clearly there wasn't a doctor or a medic here, or Isaac would act with more urgency. Right?

They approached the front of the line. The serving station looked like a booth stolen straight from a small-town carnival. The woman who served roasted pork from a variety of old tins and take-out platters looked like she'd survived a battle. The left side of her head was burnt, and she was missing a patch of hair. Cam couldn't tell if she was thirty or sixty, but beneath all the marks and the scars, she'd once been beautiful. She wore a threadbare sweatshirt and jeans, and a bloodied coffee shop apron.

The woman smiled with unsettling confidence. "Welcome."

Cam recalled her earlier conversation with Isaac. "You Tammy?"

Tammy flashed a scar-crooked smile. "I see you've already met the folk around here."

"You could say that," Cam said.

"You a newborn, or a returner?"

Ruby and Levi had also called her a newborn, but she was unsure what constituted a returner. Tammy's grin deepened, a sign that Cam's hesitation gave her an answer. "This should serve you good." Tammy scooped some slop into a wooden bowl and pointed to a Big Gulp cup full of mismatched spoons. "Happy to have you. Up for a tour in a bit? You can hang around here until I'm done, and I'll show you the place."

Play the part, a little voice whispered. She was here for information. This was the easiest way to get it.

Cam took the bowl. "Sure."

Tammy winked at her. "I'll come seek you out." She pointed to the plate of slop. "Enjoy that."

Cam handed the slop off to Isaac as soon as Tammy wasn't looking in her direction. As he returned to feed Levi, she waited in the rain, meandering around the bonfire near the canine-shaped crag. Here, the woodsmoke and wet soil masked the hog stink.

Despite making everything soggy, the rain wasn't that cold. She hadn't been cold at all since embarking from the cabin. Warm, wet environments were breeding grounds for bacteria, maybe the source of such lethal infection. But this was just an assumption. This place would terrify her once she knew more.

The other villagers hurried back to their cabins in groups to eat. Had they reached this place in a group, or grouped up after arriving? How many people could fit into those tiny cabins?

The villagers shared their houses and their food. So many of these people looked emaciated. Thing was, when people starved, they acted more desperate than those in this village. Fights broke out. Factions were organized. Not here, at least, not from what she'd seen so far. Everyone politely lined up to receive their one daily serving of slop. Violence could create such obedience, maybe. Malnourishment and weakness could as well.

A couple sat across from Cam at the bonfire, a pale woman and dark-skinned man both in their fifties. The man reminded her of a reed in clothing. The word BASTION was written on the patch over the brand label of his jacket. The woman had dumpling cheeks and wore a vintage hunting coat that must be heavy with rain. Neither carried a bowl of stew.

The man smiled hesitantly at Cam, and then his eyes lit up and he waved. She lifted her hand in return. Did he think he knew her?

"You're new here," the woman announced, elbowing the man. "What's your name?"

"Cam," she said.

The woman pointed to herself. "Dee." Then to the man. "Star."

Be cool . "Hi." Would it be too weird at this point to whip out a picture of Avery and ask if Dee and Star knew her? Patience . She'd be here tomorrow morning. She could ask then.

In the meantime, she had to placate Tammy.

The couple muttered quietly to each other, and it felt weird to stick around, so Cam returned to the food shack. Tammy was hanging up her apron, a group of thin men and women scrubbing rusted pots in buckets of water behind her.

When Tammy spotted Cam, she motioned her closer with the crook of her finger. "Let's go somewhere dry, shall we?"

Cam nodded, following Tammy deeper into the village. Tammy walked with a subtle limp, but Cam couldn't tell if it was age-related or an injury from the elements.

At the very back of The Tooth stood a building much larger than any of the cabins. Less shabby, too. Their government building? Elder building? The term would never stop creeping her out.

Tammy escorted Cam to the double doors at the closer end. "The Tooth is more than just a few cabins for lost souls. It's our home, and our sanctuary." She pushed open one of the heavy double doors. The air inside the enclosed hallway smelled of mildew. Oil lamps flickered softly along the walls.

"Lost souls," Cam repeated. "How the hell do so many people get lost out here?"

Tammy slid off her soaking patched jacket and folded it over her arm. She looked up at Cam and grinned crookedly again. She was such a small woman, commanding leadership in ways other than her stature.

"It's our purpose. All of ours. I can't believe anything else, with how magnetized our community is. Our faith beckons people from the outside."

The hairs on the back of Cam's neck prickled. "Faith in what?"

Oh , she could tell Tammy had just been waiting for that question.

"The same faith that sustains us." Palpable pride tinged Tammy's voice. She turned and walked down the hallway, and Cam followed her. "It keeps roofs over our heads and fills our stables. Prayers are our bricks, and belief is our mortar."

The weathered wood and crumbling stone that made up The Tooth defied Tammy's metaphor. Was it faith that held this place together? Or a collective delusion ?

The hallway opened to a cavernous room and the bulk of the building, and Cam halted in front of a statue of a majestic antlered woman.

She didn't know how long it had been since she was standing in the research cabin's lab with Emmett and Siena, Emmett having just retrieved old Isaac from the mysterious reappearing tunnel beneath the cellar. He'd taken pictures on his phone of a grotto within the mountain, and a statue exactly like this one.

The Mother Reigns .

This statue was much cleaner and well taken care of, the floor of the building constructed around The Mother's feet, as though she'd been here long before the village of The Tooth.

"This is The Mother." Tammy spoke with hushed reverence. "She who blesses our bounty, our families, and ensures the continuation of The Tooth."

"A harvest goddess," Cam said, trying to hide the disgusted, sarcastic tone rising inside her. The blessing of such a goddess wouldn't come so easily—at least not without something in return. Goddamn, she fucking hated religion, and weird religion even more. She tore her eyes from the statue to Tammy, who watched her carefully.

"I'm sure The Mother isn't a selfless goddess," said Cam. "What do you offer her in return?"

Tammy didn't seem offended by this question. "We care about her well-being as much as she cares about ours, and believe in a harmonious cycle of giving and taking."

Don't roll your eyes. "So what do you offer her? Those pigs out front are pretty fat. You sacrifice your food? Resources?"

Tammy pursed her lips like she was trying not to laugh. "Of course not. Her needs aren't the same as ours. She requests one of us every year in autumn to join her in the forest and be nurtured."

Oh. Great . A human sacrifice—no big deal. Something told her panic wouldn't go far here, so she kept her expression even despite her dire need to gasp for air.

"Is joining them in the forest code for?— "

This time, Tammy did laugh. "Of course not, sweetie. We don't kill the one she chooses."

Cam cast her eyes at the statue. "The Mother chooses the person?"

"Well, yes. When I arrived in the village years ago, she would request a child. Though I've known no one to bear children successfully in these woods. So we'd offer a pool of our youngest for her to choose from. But the Mother is particular, and she no longer asks for children. The past few years, she's requested a lover..."

Cam tuned Tammy out as memories thundered through her.

After Avery's disappearance, Cam had obsessively searched the internet and collected every video, every article, every social media post on Avery Mathis, hoping the threads of her online life would weave together and form a clue—any clue—as to what had happened to her.

It only took seven years, but here Cam was, in some mystical forest, standing in front of an effigy as a brainwashed woman casually explained the human offering required by The Mother.

The thing was, Cam had heard this all before. Seen it, really, in the last video game Avery had played. She couldn't remember the name of the damn thing, but the premise was exactly this, wasn't it? A child cast away from the village after a great harvest feast, a sacrifice made to the forest and The Mother in exchange for prosperity.

Some sicko could have set this up to mimic the game, she rationalized, though it felt false the moment she thought it. Deep down, she knew the game was based on this place. Avery had disappeared into these woods after playing it. Cam just didn't understand what it all meant.

Siena could figure it out. Though, as a nauseated foreboding filled Cam, she was so fucking thankful Siena wasn't here.

"Aren't you curious how The Mother chooses her sacrifice?"

Cam blinked, refocusing on Tammy. The woman had been talking this entire time, but Cam didn't care what she had to say. She needed to get the hell out of here, but before she went...

Slipping her hand into her back pocket, Cam retrieved the flyleaf from the back of Without a Trace , unfolded it, and showed Tammy the photo of Avery. "Was she ever a sacrifice ?"

Tammy scrutinized the photo, scratching her chin.

"Would have been a few years ago," Cam elaborated.

"You know, she may have been the final child sacrifice," Tammy said.

"She wasn't a child," Cam retorted.

"But young enough . The youngest out of the villagers."

"What happens to the sacrifices?" Her voice hitched, this news getting the best of her calm facade.

"We release them into the woods the night of the feast, and The Mother takes them."

Like the game.

Tammy's smile tightened. "I think you should meet someone." She gestured to a small open door. The room beyond was dim, but that was all Cam could see.

"Bert, our Soothsayer. The wisest man I know."

Cam didn't wait for Tammy, but crept toward the room herself. It was the size of a closet, wall shelves lined with bottles, books, and melting candles. Bert, the Soothsayer . She expected some wrinkly old man sitting in front of a crystal ball, but this man looked barely forty. Built like a lumberjack, he had a matching beard to boot. He sat at a small table in the center of the room, next to him a large half-finished bowl of stew—not the slop fed to the villagers, but something akin to what Ruby had fed her the night before.

He wore a dark sweater with a blue patch on one elbow that he rested on the table. As he ate, he read from a handwritten book. Recognition flashed in Bert's eyes when he glanced up at Cam. He looked vaguely familiar, like someone from her recent past. Maybe one of the Caltech faculty. But Cam was terrible with faces .

"This is Cam." The tone of Tammy's words harbored a secret, and when Bert nodded, it was like Tammy had spoken something else.

Alarm thrummed through Cam, and she stepped backward. "I'm not feeling well," she said, but when she spun, Tammy wasn't who stood directly behind her. Instead, she was confronted with two men and a woman, all the size of Bert.

These fuckers had clearly been fed more than slop, too.

"Go on, Cam." Tammy stood behind these—these sentinels —sounding like a mother encouraging her kid to approach the Free Candy van.

Cam's heart hammered in her throat. Her curiosity was about to kill her.

"Sit down," Bert ordered.

Cam whipped toward Bert, forcing her expression stoic to match his, and sat opposite him.

"I apologize, I am not one for pleasantries," he rumbled, like an engine revving in slow motion. "That's Tammy's expertise. But I promise you, this won't take long."

"I haven't been told what I'm doing here." Cam's voice was thick. She was failing at the whole biting back her fear thing, but Bert didn't seem to notice, nor care. He stood and meandered toward the nearest wall, fluttering his fingers before plucking something off the shelf. He returned and set it carefully on the table.

A deck of cards. Cam recognized the sketch of antlers on the back, but couldn't remember from where.

Bert sat again, pushing the cards to the middle of the table. He did not shuffle them, instead drawing the top card and placing it faceup, near him.

A sketch of an open hand, eye in the center of the palm: THE HAND.

"Loyalty, patience, obedience." Bert drew another card with a sketch of a woman with antlers. THE MOTHER. "Fertility, abundance, and sacrifice. "

What was this, a fucking tarot reading? Was he kidding? No... he looked way too serious to be kidding.

"These are my cards, and now we'll read yours." Bert flipped over the next card. In the sketch a skeleton lay twisted on the ground, jaw agape, in its chest a bleeding heart.

THE LOVER, the card read. The second card Bert pulled was also THE MOTHER .

Behind Cam, Tammy muttered something fiercely. A prayer?

"We've completed all readings of our new community members this year. A Lover had yet to emerge, but I kept my faith. The Mother has always guided us."

Cam burst out laughing, but it was only to hide the knee-jerk terror. "You've got to be kidding me."

Bert smiled at her, and she hated how warm and inviting it was. Sincere . "This is an honor."

"I'm not a part of your fucking community," Cam spit. "I met someone on the road who needed help, so I brought him here."

"And yet you're still here." Tammy pushed past the guards and stepped into the room. "Asking questions about a woman who was sacrificed to The Mother years ago. If you're searching for her, then we're your only option."

Cam had already come to this conclusion herself, that the prospect of this ritual was the missing link—the only link—to the path that led to Avery.

But being The Mother's Lover carried its own set of horrifying implications. "You believe so strongly in your cute little fortune cards, and yet you've brought the cavalry. Why?"

Beneath his beard, Bert's lips twitched, but he said nothing.

"The Mother has chosen me. If I run away, will she smite your village here? Or will she smite me?"

"She won't smite at all," Bert said. "She will find you no matter where you are and take you as her own. But to keep our community strong, and The Mother invested in our prosperity, the ritual of the Feast must happen. "

"So I have to stay here."

He nodded. "Unfortunately, any escape attempts must come with consequences, though that is not an ideal scenario. You won't need to escape, because the woods are far more dangerous than what's between these walls." His eyes gleamed like he was sharing a secret with her. "We'll take good care of you."

Cam swallowed. "How far away is this feast ?"

"Two months."

Two months . Two months in a place Ruby said was full of misery and desperation. Two months in a place she wasn't supposed to eat the food. Did she have enough dehydrated meals to last that long? She couldn't remember how many she'd thrown in her pack, but it wasn't two months' worth.

She'd have to ration, or eat the meat. She didn't want to fucking eat the meat.

But being spit out into the forest after the Feast, on a trail Avery had taken years ago, wasn't too bad. If Avery had survived for seven years, she could survive two more months.

Cam's chair squealed as she stood. "I'd like to go back to Is—Izzy's cabin now."

"I'll keep you company," Tammy said. Cam pushed between the trio of goons, who didn't join them.

Cam's resolve crystallized as she and Tammy walked back to the cabin in silence. Night had fallen, and the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, though mist hung thickly in the air, every building a soft but dead-black silhouette against the muffled torchlight. Quiet, too. Only the occasional hog snort accompanied their squelching footsteps.

Cam had to be smart about this. She needed to formulate an escape plan for the next two months in case this place became too dangerous for her. The Mother would not come find her if she ran away, because there was no Mother. But that didn't mean she wanted to escape; she was closer to Avery than she'd ever been.

Either that, or she was a desperate idiot on a wild goose chase.

They reached Isaac and Levi's cabin, and for the first time, Cam noticed there wasn't a lock on the cabin door. Not odd for a culty village, but something she needed to keep in mind.

Stepping into the shack's dim interior, the stench of rotting flesh assaulted her. The room was silent and cold, the candle in the corner burnt out.

"Lee?"

Cam fished the flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on. Her stomach lurched.

Levi lay dead atop the covers of his bed, his eyes open and mouth agape. Black ooze covered his infected leg, which had been severed right beneath the knee.

Levi's foot was on the ground. The infection had eaten straight through his entire limb.

Tammy, who had slinked in behind her, muttered a prayer beneath her breath, and Cam fought the urge to wheel around and deck her in the face.

Where the hell was Isaac?

"Stay here," Tammy said. "We need to take the body away from the cabins and disinfect this one. I'll go get help."

So Tammy knew of the dangers of infection, too.

Tammy left. Cam covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve, following the beam of her flashlight around the rest of the small cabin. She refused to look at Levi again; the longer she soaked in the viscera and fucked-up contours of his gaunt body, the more overwhelming the dread became.

How did anyone survive here? How would she survive?

The beam of Cam's flashlight fell upon a note atop Isaac's threadbare bedding. She picked it up. The paper was handmade, like Ruby's.

Cam—

I can't stand The Tooth without him. I don't know if I can live with myself knowing I'm the reason he's here, and the reason he died.

Don't come after me.

—I

P.S. They feed the bodies to the pigs.