It was Some sort of camp site, walled in all around by the ugliest entrail-colored high fence Kari-Lynn had ever seen. Overgrown trees blocked out a good deal of light, but the sun still beat down mercilessly. If the trees had not been there, it would've been a wonder how any living thing could survive more than an hour in this.
In the opposite direction, which would've been probably northeast since this seemed to be in the late afternoon, there were rundown buildings that were an ugly grayish, light brownish color, with the most ghastly shade of yellow shingles on one roof, and reddish orange on another.
What hit Kari-Lynn hard a moment later was a noxious stench that was probably coming from a stagnant body of water not far off, and possibly backed up sewage somewhere on the property as well.
All around and at varying distances were the sounds of working. Someone was hammering, someone else was chopping wood, still another was pushing a cart that didn't roll easily or smoothly on the uneven ground.
Kari-Lynn had a bundle of clothes in front of her that looked as grimy as the ones she herself was wearing, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do with them.
Somebody was heard off to the right, yelling, "Well, don't just stand there, get cracking!" This was followed by the unmistakable sound of a thwack and an outcry as another person was being hit with something.
Kari-Lynn shivered, and tried to make herself as small as possible. She sucked everything in, doing her best to be inconspicuous.
"Hey you!" The sharp voice sounded closer now, and there were hurried footsteps coming right toward her. "Whatcha waitin for, the rain to come and do your work for ya?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do - " Kari-Lynn muttered.
"Ya may be new here, but ya can't really be this ignorant!" the nasty-tempered woman sneered, "What's always done with a pile of dirty clothes? Ya wash 'em, idiot! Now get your lazy but going!"
Kari-Lynn cried out as she felt a sting as a whip found its mark on her right shoulder.
"Well go on, the water's over that way!" The awful woman pointed a grubby finger that Kari-Lynn didn't see.
"I don't have eyes in the back of my head!" Kari-Lynn protested, and she didn't dare say aloud that this woman had just been stupid by pointing at something behind her head.
"That way!" the woman poked Kari-Lynn in the side hard enough to get the message across. Then she walked briskly off.
Since the woman was walking in the direction she had just indicated, Kari-Lynn thought it might be best to wait until she was out of site to start moving. In the meantime, she watched the woman's scrawny frame and frizzy auburn hair, clopping away in what looked like some kind of uniform and jackboots.
Kari-Lynn groaned and picked up the clothes that she really didn't even want to be touching in the first place, and trudged off, hoping there would at least be clean water around somewhere.
"Phew, what a stink!" she mumbled in disgust.
The sounds continued, the woman yelling orders at unfortunate workers and hitting them with her whip, the work itself, the occasional gust of wind.
In the meantime, Renee was having troubles of her own.
She was being forced to run laps around a small track in another section of what she could only guess must be a prison camp, and she never understood why. It was hot, her throat was parched, and she was too tired to complain. Every time her knees threatened to give, some overseer would bark at her that time wasn't nearly up yet and she had to keep going.
When Kari-Lynn got to the water, she made a face in disgust and turned up her nose. No doubt about it, Just great, it had to be the stagnant pool.
"I can't wash anything in that!" she whined out loud.
"Then I guess the laundry just ain't gettin done." said someone coming up along side of her.
"Who are you?" Kari-Lynn asked, turning toward the person.
What a site. The girl had a mop of matted greasy hair that could've been light brown or mousy blonde, her teeth were crooked and broken off, and they looked like they hadn't been brushed for weeks on end. Her gray eyes were sunken in, she had a strange looking scar on one side of her face, and her clothes were filthy rags.
"Don't matter, they never call ya by yer name around here." She said, putting her bucket in the water.
"What are you doing that for?" Kari-Lynn asked.
"'s my job today. I'm s'posed t'get enough for supper and doin dishes and you know."
"What!?" Kari-Lynn was appalled. "You don't mean we're washing dishes in this stuff!"
"Of course. Ain't no other water source around, or if there is, the higher-ups that run this place sure ain't lettin any of us know. Oh well, cheer up, mate, it hasn't killed anyone yet and it won't kill ya either."
When she got her bucket filled, she picked it up and trundled away with it, leaving Kari-Lynn standing there with her mouth open in disbelief.
Renee didn't remember when she had finally stopped running and collapsed, but apparently she had, because now she was lying on a bed, in a very small, dreary looking room.
"We'll get 'er back on 'er feet soon enough," a harsh but cheerful voice was heard just behind the door which was soon jarred abruptly open.
"Oh, it's one of our newcomers," said a second person whose face was shrouded in some sort of mask.
"Yeah, we'll find 'er a proper job tomorrow. In the meantime," the first person chuckled, "Let's give 'er a little water to revive 'er, eh?"
The second person nodded.
Renee was almost ecstatic just to get some water to drink at this point.
That feeling soon gave way to something entirely different, Renee startled and sat up, screaming. She was freezing and soaking wet.
"Works every time!" the first person laughed, throwing the now empty bucket aside. "Now you can get back out there and - "
A loud bell rang.
"Saved by the bell," she said, reconsidering. "Nevermind runnin for now, it's roll call, inspection and then chow time."
The two escorted Renee out of the room, down a dingy hallway, and outside. They kept her between them, not allowing her any opertunity to bolt.
Inspection and Roll call was nerve-wracking. Someone came around, counting each person and telling them to straighten up if they slouched, wear a brighter smile and salute if they failed to do either, speak up when required to say anything etc. Failing inspection could mean having to go without supper, and anything to eat or drink until the next morning.
Everyone looked more or less the same, except for different facial features, pathetic hair styles, stature, and body shape. They were all dressed in ragged, faded, dirty clothes, their hair was unkempt and greasy or frizzy, most anything that had once been a vivid color was now faded and grunged up so that it looked like everything else around the place. Black was no longer really black, and white wasn't white.
"Fifteen!" the person doing inspection and roll call was getting closer to Renee. "Stop twitching your face like that!" Apparently, Number Fifteen had a nervous mannerism or tick, or perhaps it was just an involuntary muscle twitch that couldn't have come at a worse time, but she was told to clear and wash all the tables after supper was over.
"Sixteen!...Seventeen!"
Renee was Seventeen.
"Here," she said.
"Well I can see that!" came the disgusted reply. "Oh, you're one of those new people. You think that makes ya special or something?"
Renee just stood there, trembling in her wet clothes, how she wanted to cuss this woman out, who did she think she was, anyway?
"Well? What's the matter with you, you're shaking like a leaf!"
"Screw you!" Renee finally blurted out, and immediately regretted it.
"Seventeen, you will be on foot duty tonight!"
The others laughed derisively.
"What's that?" Renee sneered back, trying to out-attitude them all.
"You'll find out. Oh - and you didn't salute. No supper for you!"
"She should be so lucky." someone murmured.
"Nineteen, since you want to starve, you can join her. None for you either!"
The roll call and inspection continued, and Renee and Kari-Lynn turned to smile at each other when they thought no one was looking.
When it was over, everyone except Renee and Number Nineteen, was herded across a section of the camp and into a mess hall.
It looked as dreadful as any other building on the property. Inside, the walls were a sickly greenish purple color, and fading. A sour, puky smell wafted through the air.
Everyone lined up, got their dishes and cutlery, and finally their food before filing to one of the several long tables to eat.
The sickly smell grew stronger the closer they got to the food, and it remained strong as Kari-Lynn got her portions with dread.
The tables were untreated wood, like picnic tables. The chairs were the sort for indoors however, and were made of metal and hard plastic.
None of the food smelled good, and it looked just as bad. Slimy salads with watery, wilty lettuce, if the vegetables weren't actually rotten yet, they were at least on the verge, they certainly weren't fresh and considered good and safe to eat by most standards. There was something that looked like they might be instant mashed potatoes with some sort of thick white sauce or gravy on them, and the meat could've been anything, it too was covered in a red sauce of some kind.
Kari-Lynn began wishing she had also been punished with no supper as Renee had been. It would've given them a chance at planning an escape, and she wouldn't have to pretend to like this meal. Showing dislike was sure to bring on some other punishment. But what in the world could she do?
"So, here we are again," said someone taking her place across the table.
Kari-Lynn looked up and nodded. It was the woman she met by the edge of that disgusting water where the laundry was supposed to be done.
She watched the girl digging into the potatoes.
"How can you eat that stuff?"
"You get used to it after a while," the girl said through a mouthfull and continued shovelling it in.
Kari-Lynn tried, but she just couldn't bring herself to take a bite of the main course. The sauce on the potatoes smelled sour, not in a tangy way, but in the worst way. The meat smelled spoiled, even with the sauce on it.
She picked aimlessly at the salad, which didn't look any more appetizing. It didn't smell too bad, yet still not good either. Kari-Lynn figured it was probably the dressing, which as far as she could make out, was likely supposed to be blue cheese.
She shut her eyes and stuck her fork into the salad, picking up something that might have been a radish or small type of tomato.
But her eyes opened again rapidly as she felt her fork shake in her grasp, of its own free will, as if someone had just grabbed the other end. In fact, she had half expected the girl across from her to be the one snitching the morsel from her.
"Hey," she began, and then she suddenly dropped her fork, shrieking hysterically.
On the end of her fork was not a vegetable, and it wasn't the girl across from her trying to take it away.
It was an intact, living eyeball that rolled and glared at her, apparently upset at being stuck with a fork!
"Hey, what's the matter with you?" the girl across the table asked. "It's just a tomato, it can't hurt you."
"No! Don't you see!" Kari-Lynn squealed, "It's an eye!"
"Are you outa your head?" the girl laughed. "It's a tomato, see?" She reached across the table, picked up Kari-Lynn's fork and popped the vegetable into her mouth.
"OMG!" Kari-Lynn wailed, flopping back in her chair, ready to pass out.
"Hey you! Scarface!" someone who was apparently supervising the mess hall came hurrying over. "Steal from your neighbor again and you'll get tied to the rafters for a whole day!"
Scarface swallowed hastily. "I wasn't stealin anything, she doesn't want it!" she retorted.
"Huh, noobs." said the supervisor, looking at Kari-Lynn. "If you're tryin to set everybody into a panic so you can escape, ya can forget it!"
Kari-Lynn only continued screaming incoherently.
"Shut up, you infernal brat!" the supervisor slapped her across the face. Looking at the other girl, "You're excused, go back to your bunk and stay there until someone tells you otherwise."
"But I wasn't finished - oh, nevermind," the girl mumbled as she stood up.
"What was that, Scarface?"
"Nothing important enough for your ears," came the cheeky response.
"Well, aren't we feeling plucky tonight."
"If you say so," and Scarface/27 hurried off before the supervisor could think of anything else derogatory to add.
Kari-Lynn barely registered any of this, she was so traumatized by the gross-out salad. She didn't even resist when the supervisor roughly lifted her out of the chair and started dragging her off to somewhere probably even more dreadful.
The next thing she knew, she was made to mow the grass. Not that there was a real motorized lawn moer to be had, or that there was a real lawn to speak of. She was given something like a giant pair of scissors and was told to cut the grass all over the camp ground.
Renee had been given a whitewashing job at the head building. This was the place where all of the people in charge slept, and conducted business.
When it was finally time to retire for the night, all of the administration came into the building and a few of them made snied comments about how artfully Renee had whitewashed a section of the wall. She wasn't nearly done, and they were going to make her continue the next day.
But that wasn't the end of her work for the day. She had almost forgot what the inspector said about foot duty.
"Now, you can get busy and wash our feet, cut our toe nails, and polish 'em, for whoever wants it." said a tall, big-boned woman with piercing green eyes and long, straggly gray hair. "Bex will be in here soon with the bucket and wash rag."
Renee's mouth fell open. She didn't want to get within ten yards of any of these people, let alone have to touch their stinking dirty feet! She didn't know how she survived that smelly, ugly ordeal, but somehow, she did.
Eventually, she and Kari-Lynn were shown to their bunks for the night, but they were not side by side or across from each other. The people in charge had deliberately made sure to keep these newcomers separated as much as possible.
As Renee was crawling into the bunk, a girl in the one across commented on how nice and clean her hair looked, and that it was a dead giveaway she was new here.
She just smiled.
In another section of the dorm in her own bunk, Kari-Lynn began planning a sneak getaway. She was dead tired, but even so, didn't think she could get to sleep in this hot, smelly place. The bunks were nothing but long wooden shelves with blankets on them. These blankets had two purposes. You could crawl under them for warmth, which was hardly necessary in this heat, or you could sleep on top of them, as the only source of cushioning from the hard wood shelf where you would be lying.
Sleep came to them eventually, and for a time, was the only relief from the unholy stink of the place.
But sleep had its own terrors. Kari-Lynn started awake when dreaming of an alarm clock ringing, and when she went to shut it off, a bloody face glared at her from the display.
"Eww!" She shuddered.
Renee dreamed she was taking part in a diving competition, only when she came to the end of the board to jump off, it was no longer a diving board, but a window out a skyscraper. Below her was a giant pool, of blood!
In that blood were swimming dismembered human remains! A disembodied arm stuck itself out of the writhing mass of carnage and waved at her. A head opened and shut its mouth and drifted away.
Renee awoke in a cold sweat, and then it hit her, where she really was. She just had to get out of here somehow.
Both girls made it out of the dorm, lucky enough not to have awakened anyone, or so they hoped.
What happened next was extremely tense but seemed rather vague all at the same time. Someone else was out in the darkness, apparently thinking of making a break for it as well. Although Kari-Lynn and Renee were at opposite ends of the grounds, they both heard whispers in the darkness where others wanted to get away, and were told not to try it by fearful companions who said they were sure to die if they were caught, and end up on the camp dinner table.
This made Kari-Lynn and Renee absolutely sick. Not only was the food bad, Kari-Lynn knew, but had that mystery meat been a somebody rather than a something?
Wind blew, and it was chilly.
Kari-Lynn and Renee didn't know how long they stumbled around in the darkness, nearly dying of heart attacks every time they heard a twig snap or the flapping of wings as a moth or even a bat whizzed by.
Eventually, they met up, and nervously hurried away from the buildings.
Finally, they arrived at another structure, something solid. It was the huge property fence. They had forgotten about it, how were they ever going to scale it?
The girls moved anxiously along the fence until they found a couple of trees that were growing right up to it.
Why had anyone not thought to get out of this place long ago by way of these trees? It would be easy enough if they could just climb them and get over the fence that way.
That was exactly what they did.
Then, the daunting task of letting themselves slide down the fence. Renee hesitated for a moment, but then she thought she heard angry voices and a door open sharply from somewhere on the campground. Oh, no, the jig was up now. It was either let yourself down over the fence and risk hurting yourself a little, or letting yourself get caught and subjected to who knew what sort of awful punishment.
"After them!" "Get those two! Hey you, get back here!" the voices from behind the fence shouted angrily.
When landing on the other side, finally out of the campground, the girls started running for their lives.
They found themselves on city sidewalks, running aimlessly down them, past various streets, trying to make their way home.
They weren't sure when night turned to day, but it apparently had. The sun beat down on them and the pavement under their feet in short order.
Even in daylight, Kari-Lynn thought she heard those dreaded campground voices in pursuit, but a glance back revealed nothing. She just kept stumbling on.
Renee crossed a road where there was no sign of traffic, until she was almost across. As she was about to step onto a curb, a white van zoomed past,hitting her with a rear-view mirror.
Renee fell to her knees on the curb, crying. She tried to move, to get up, but found she couldn't. Her knees were like jelly. She felt the inner workings of her arms and shoulders as she tried to use them to haul herself all the way onto the curb. But nothing really happened. She couldn't move.
Another vehicle, an 18 wheeler this time, rolled by, causing her to scream. She was sure it was going to roll over her toes. It hadn't, but the effect was devastating.
Kari-Lynn was equally helpless, having fainted on a sidewalk.
In the opposite direction, which would've been probably northeast since this seemed to be in the late afternoon, there were rundown buildings that were an ugly grayish, light brownish color, with the most ghastly shade of yellow shingles on one roof, and reddish orange on another.
What hit Kari-Lynn hard a moment later was a noxious stench that was probably coming from a stagnant body of water not far off, and possibly backed up sewage somewhere on the property as well.
All around and at varying distances were the sounds of working. Someone was hammering, someone else was chopping wood, still another was pushing a cart that didn't roll easily or smoothly on the uneven ground.
Kari-Lynn had a bundle of clothes in front of her that looked as grimy as the ones she herself was wearing, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do with them.
Somebody was heard off to the right, yelling, "Well, don't just stand there, get cracking!" This was followed by the unmistakable sound of a thwack and an outcry as another person was being hit with something.
Kari-Lynn shivered, and tried to make herself as small as possible. She sucked everything in, doing her best to be inconspicuous.
"Hey you!" The sharp voice sounded closer now, and there were hurried footsteps coming right toward her. "Whatcha waitin for, the rain to come and do your work for ya?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do - " Kari-Lynn muttered.
"Ya may be new here, but ya can't really be this ignorant!" the nasty-tempered woman sneered, "What's always done with a pile of dirty clothes? Ya wash 'em, idiot! Now get your lazy but going!"
Kari-Lynn cried out as she felt a sting as a whip found its mark on her right shoulder.
"Well go on, the water's over that way!" The awful woman pointed a grubby finger that Kari-Lynn didn't see.
"I don't have eyes in the back of my head!" Kari-Lynn protested, and she didn't dare say aloud that this woman had just been stupid by pointing at something behind her head.
"That way!" the woman poked Kari-Lynn in the side hard enough to get the message across. Then she walked briskly off.
Since the woman was walking in the direction she had just indicated, Kari-Lynn thought it might be best to wait until she was out of site to start moving. In the meantime, she watched the woman's scrawny frame and frizzy auburn hair, clopping away in what looked like some kind of uniform and jackboots.
Kari-Lynn groaned and picked up the clothes that she really didn't even want to be touching in the first place, and trudged off, hoping there would at least be clean water around somewhere.
"Phew, what a stink!" she mumbled in disgust.
The sounds continued, the woman yelling orders at unfortunate workers and hitting them with her whip, the work itself, the occasional gust of wind.
In the meantime, Renee was having troubles of her own.
She was being forced to run laps around a small track in another section of what she could only guess must be a prison camp, and she never understood why. It was hot, her throat was parched, and she was too tired to complain. Every time her knees threatened to give, some overseer would bark at her that time wasn't nearly up yet and she had to keep going.
When Kari-Lynn got to the water, she made a face in disgust and turned up her nose. No doubt about it, Just great, it had to be the stagnant pool.
"I can't wash anything in that!" she whined out loud.
"Then I guess the laundry just ain't gettin done." said someone coming up along side of her.
"Who are you?" Kari-Lynn asked, turning toward the person.
What a site. The girl had a mop of matted greasy hair that could've been light brown or mousy blonde, her teeth were crooked and broken off, and they looked like they hadn't been brushed for weeks on end. Her gray eyes were sunken in, she had a strange looking scar on one side of her face, and her clothes were filthy rags.
"Don't matter, they never call ya by yer name around here." She said, putting her bucket in the water.
"What are you doing that for?" Kari-Lynn asked.
"'s my job today. I'm s'posed t'get enough for supper and doin dishes and you know."
"What!?" Kari-Lynn was appalled. "You don't mean we're washing dishes in this stuff!"
"Of course. Ain't no other water source around, or if there is, the higher-ups that run this place sure ain't lettin any of us know. Oh well, cheer up, mate, it hasn't killed anyone yet and it won't kill ya either."
When she got her bucket filled, she picked it up and trundled away with it, leaving Kari-Lynn standing there with her mouth open in disbelief.
Renee didn't remember when she had finally stopped running and collapsed, but apparently she had, because now she was lying on a bed, in a very small, dreary looking room.
"We'll get 'er back on 'er feet soon enough," a harsh but cheerful voice was heard just behind the door which was soon jarred abruptly open.
"Oh, it's one of our newcomers," said a second person whose face was shrouded in some sort of mask.
"Yeah, we'll find 'er a proper job tomorrow. In the meantime," the first person chuckled, "Let's give 'er a little water to revive 'er, eh?"
The second person nodded.
Renee was almost ecstatic just to get some water to drink at this point.
That feeling soon gave way to something entirely different, Renee startled and sat up, screaming. She was freezing and soaking wet.
"Works every time!" the first person laughed, throwing the now empty bucket aside. "Now you can get back out there and - "
A loud bell rang.
"Saved by the bell," she said, reconsidering. "Nevermind runnin for now, it's roll call, inspection and then chow time."
The two escorted Renee out of the room, down a dingy hallway, and outside. They kept her between them, not allowing her any opertunity to bolt.
Inspection and Roll call was nerve-wracking. Someone came around, counting each person and telling them to straighten up if they slouched, wear a brighter smile and salute if they failed to do either, speak up when required to say anything etc. Failing inspection could mean having to go without supper, and anything to eat or drink until the next morning.
Everyone looked more or less the same, except for different facial features, pathetic hair styles, stature, and body shape. They were all dressed in ragged, faded, dirty clothes, their hair was unkempt and greasy or frizzy, most anything that had once been a vivid color was now faded and grunged up so that it looked like everything else around the place. Black was no longer really black, and white wasn't white.
"Fifteen!" the person doing inspection and roll call was getting closer to Renee. "Stop twitching your face like that!" Apparently, Number Fifteen had a nervous mannerism or tick, or perhaps it was just an involuntary muscle twitch that couldn't have come at a worse time, but she was told to clear and wash all the tables after supper was over.
"Sixteen!...Seventeen!"
Renee was Seventeen.
"Here," she said.
"Well I can see that!" came the disgusted reply. "Oh, you're one of those new people. You think that makes ya special or something?"
Renee just stood there, trembling in her wet clothes, how she wanted to cuss this woman out, who did she think she was, anyway?
"Well? What's the matter with you, you're shaking like a leaf!"
"Screw you!" Renee finally blurted out, and immediately regretted it.
"Seventeen, you will be on foot duty tonight!"
The others laughed derisively.
"What's that?" Renee sneered back, trying to out-attitude them all.
"You'll find out. Oh - and you didn't salute. No supper for you!"
"She should be so lucky." someone murmured.
"Nineteen, since you want to starve, you can join her. None for you either!"
The roll call and inspection continued, and Renee and Kari-Lynn turned to smile at each other when they thought no one was looking.
When it was over, everyone except Renee and Number Nineteen, was herded across a section of the camp and into a mess hall.
It looked as dreadful as any other building on the property. Inside, the walls were a sickly greenish purple color, and fading. A sour, puky smell wafted through the air.
Everyone lined up, got their dishes and cutlery, and finally their food before filing to one of the several long tables to eat.
The sickly smell grew stronger the closer they got to the food, and it remained strong as Kari-Lynn got her portions with dread.
The tables were untreated wood, like picnic tables. The chairs were the sort for indoors however, and were made of metal and hard plastic.
None of the food smelled good, and it looked just as bad. Slimy salads with watery, wilty lettuce, if the vegetables weren't actually rotten yet, they were at least on the verge, they certainly weren't fresh and considered good and safe to eat by most standards. There was something that looked like they might be instant mashed potatoes with some sort of thick white sauce or gravy on them, and the meat could've been anything, it too was covered in a red sauce of some kind.
Kari-Lynn began wishing she had also been punished with no supper as Renee had been. It would've given them a chance at planning an escape, and she wouldn't have to pretend to like this meal. Showing dislike was sure to bring on some other punishment. But what in the world could she do?
"So, here we are again," said someone taking her place across the table.
Kari-Lynn looked up and nodded. It was the woman she met by the edge of that disgusting water where the laundry was supposed to be done.
She watched the girl digging into the potatoes.
"How can you eat that stuff?"
"You get used to it after a while," the girl said through a mouthfull and continued shovelling it in.
Kari-Lynn tried, but she just couldn't bring herself to take a bite of the main course. The sauce on the potatoes smelled sour, not in a tangy way, but in the worst way. The meat smelled spoiled, even with the sauce on it.
She picked aimlessly at the salad, which didn't look any more appetizing. It didn't smell too bad, yet still not good either. Kari-Lynn figured it was probably the dressing, which as far as she could make out, was likely supposed to be blue cheese.
She shut her eyes and stuck her fork into the salad, picking up something that might have been a radish or small type of tomato.
But her eyes opened again rapidly as she felt her fork shake in her grasp, of its own free will, as if someone had just grabbed the other end. In fact, she had half expected the girl across from her to be the one snitching the morsel from her.
"Hey," she began, and then she suddenly dropped her fork, shrieking hysterically.
On the end of her fork was not a vegetable, and it wasn't the girl across from her trying to take it away.
It was an intact, living eyeball that rolled and glared at her, apparently upset at being stuck with a fork!
"Hey, what's the matter with you?" the girl across the table asked. "It's just a tomato, it can't hurt you."
"No! Don't you see!" Kari-Lynn squealed, "It's an eye!"
"Are you outa your head?" the girl laughed. "It's a tomato, see?" She reached across the table, picked up Kari-Lynn's fork and popped the vegetable into her mouth.
"OMG!" Kari-Lynn wailed, flopping back in her chair, ready to pass out.
"Hey you! Scarface!" someone who was apparently supervising the mess hall came hurrying over. "Steal from your neighbor again and you'll get tied to the rafters for a whole day!"
Scarface swallowed hastily. "I wasn't stealin anything, she doesn't want it!" she retorted.
"Huh, noobs." said the supervisor, looking at Kari-Lynn. "If you're tryin to set everybody into a panic so you can escape, ya can forget it!"
Kari-Lynn only continued screaming incoherently.
"Shut up, you infernal brat!" the supervisor slapped her across the face. Looking at the other girl, "You're excused, go back to your bunk and stay there until someone tells you otherwise."
"But I wasn't finished - oh, nevermind," the girl mumbled as she stood up.
"What was that, Scarface?"
"Nothing important enough for your ears," came the cheeky response.
"Well, aren't we feeling plucky tonight."
"If you say so," and Scarface/27 hurried off before the supervisor could think of anything else derogatory to add.
Kari-Lynn barely registered any of this, she was so traumatized by the gross-out salad. She didn't even resist when the supervisor roughly lifted her out of the chair and started dragging her off to somewhere probably even more dreadful.
The next thing she knew, she was made to mow the grass. Not that there was a real motorized lawn moer to be had, or that there was a real lawn to speak of. She was given something like a giant pair of scissors and was told to cut the grass all over the camp ground.
Renee had been given a whitewashing job at the head building. This was the place where all of the people in charge slept, and conducted business.
When it was finally time to retire for the night, all of the administration came into the building and a few of them made snied comments about how artfully Renee had whitewashed a section of the wall. She wasn't nearly done, and they were going to make her continue the next day.
But that wasn't the end of her work for the day. She had almost forgot what the inspector said about foot duty.
"Now, you can get busy and wash our feet, cut our toe nails, and polish 'em, for whoever wants it." said a tall, big-boned woman with piercing green eyes and long, straggly gray hair. "Bex will be in here soon with the bucket and wash rag."
Renee's mouth fell open. She didn't want to get within ten yards of any of these people, let alone have to touch their stinking dirty feet! She didn't know how she survived that smelly, ugly ordeal, but somehow, she did.
Eventually, she and Kari-Lynn were shown to their bunks for the night, but they were not side by side or across from each other. The people in charge had deliberately made sure to keep these newcomers separated as much as possible.
As Renee was crawling into the bunk, a girl in the one across commented on how nice and clean her hair looked, and that it was a dead giveaway she was new here.
She just smiled.
In another section of the dorm in her own bunk, Kari-Lynn began planning a sneak getaway. She was dead tired, but even so, didn't think she could get to sleep in this hot, smelly place. The bunks were nothing but long wooden shelves with blankets on them. These blankets had two purposes. You could crawl under them for warmth, which was hardly necessary in this heat, or you could sleep on top of them, as the only source of cushioning from the hard wood shelf where you would be lying.
Sleep came to them eventually, and for a time, was the only relief from the unholy stink of the place.
But sleep had its own terrors. Kari-Lynn started awake when dreaming of an alarm clock ringing, and when she went to shut it off, a bloody face glared at her from the display.
"Eww!" She shuddered.
Renee dreamed she was taking part in a diving competition, only when she came to the end of the board to jump off, it was no longer a diving board, but a window out a skyscraper. Below her was a giant pool, of blood!
In that blood were swimming dismembered human remains! A disembodied arm stuck itself out of the writhing mass of carnage and waved at her. A head opened and shut its mouth and drifted away.
Renee awoke in a cold sweat, and then it hit her, where she really was. She just had to get out of here somehow.
Both girls made it out of the dorm, lucky enough not to have awakened anyone, or so they hoped.
What happened next was extremely tense but seemed rather vague all at the same time. Someone else was out in the darkness, apparently thinking of making a break for it as well. Although Kari-Lynn and Renee were at opposite ends of the grounds, they both heard whispers in the darkness where others wanted to get away, and were told not to try it by fearful companions who said they were sure to die if they were caught, and end up on the camp dinner table.
This made Kari-Lynn and Renee absolutely sick. Not only was the food bad, Kari-Lynn knew, but had that mystery meat been a somebody rather than a something?
Wind blew, and it was chilly.
Kari-Lynn and Renee didn't know how long they stumbled around in the darkness, nearly dying of heart attacks every time they heard a twig snap or the flapping of wings as a moth or even a bat whizzed by.
Eventually, they met up, and nervously hurried away from the buildings.
Finally, they arrived at another structure, something solid. It was the huge property fence. They had forgotten about it, how were they ever going to scale it?
The girls moved anxiously along the fence until they found a couple of trees that were growing right up to it.
Why had anyone not thought to get out of this place long ago by way of these trees? It would be easy enough if they could just climb them and get over the fence that way.
That was exactly what they did.
Then, the daunting task of letting themselves slide down the fence. Renee hesitated for a moment, but then she thought she heard angry voices and a door open sharply from somewhere on the campground. Oh, no, the jig was up now. It was either let yourself down over the fence and risk hurting yourself a little, or letting yourself get caught and subjected to who knew what sort of awful punishment.
"After them!" "Get those two! Hey you, get back here!" the voices from behind the fence shouted angrily.
When landing on the other side, finally out of the campground, the girls started running for their lives.
They found themselves on city sidewalks, running aimlessly down them, past various streets, trying to make their way home.
They weren't sure when night turned to day, but it apparently had. The sun beat down on them and the pavement under their feet in short order.
Even in daylight, Kari-Lynn thought she heard those dreaded campground voices in pursuit, but a glance back revealed nothing. She just kept stumbling on.
Renee crossed a road where there was no sign of traffic, until she was almost across. As she was about to step onto a curb, a white van zoomed past,hitting her with a rear-view mirror.
Renee fell to her knees on the curb, crying. She tried to move, to get up, but found she couldn't. Her knees were like jelly. She felt the inner workings of her arms and shoulders as she tried to use them to haul herself all the way onto the curb. But nothing really happened. She couldn't move.
Another vehicle, an 18 wheeler this time, rolled by, causing her to scream. She was sure it was going to roll over her toes. It hadn't, but the effect was devastating.
Kari-Lynn was equally helpless, having fainted on a sidewalk.