Ana sat with her friends Wendy and Kate at lunch on Friday. Sam had a different lunch period but creepy Derek had the same lunch period as Ana and her friends. He spotted her across the green and swaggered up.
"Hey, Ana," Derek called. His smile was wide and way too many teeth were showing. "I checked the weather for Wolf Lake this weekend. It's supposed to be pretty chilly tonight."
Ana tried to respond as though she didn't want to throw her lunch at him. "Uh. . . yeah, thanks, for letting me know, Derek."
Derek's smile became a leer. "If you get cold you can always climb into my sleeping bag with me. I'll warm you up. I promise." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Ana gave up on trying to be nice. "The only way I'd let you warm me up, Derek, is if I cut you open with a lightsaber first."
Wendy snorted. "Star Wars burn? Harsh."
"Take a long hike off a short cliff, perv!" Kate called as Derek grinned and walked away.
Wendy leaned close to Ana, "If he does get too close to a cliff while you guys are camping, you know what to do, right."
It was Ana's turn to snort. "I also was thinking how sad it would be if he fell in the campfire or if someone smeared peanut butter on him while he slept and he got eaten by a bear."
The three girls spent the rest of lunch gleefully fantasizing about all the ways Derek might meet a messy end in the woods. Ana was in a considerably better mood for the second half of the day and thought she might sustain herself all weekend by bringing to mind the mental images from today's lunch whenever Derek got on her nerves.
After school, Gran picked Ana up. They went to the store on the way home and picked up a few supplies and groceries for the weekend. Then they went home and got everything loaded in the car so that they'd be ready to go when the boys were ready.
The boys came straight from practice. They were already laughing and goofing off and Ana had a bad feeling when she noticed they seemed a bit slap happy. Derek had his bags with him and Sam ran upstairs to grab his stuff. As soon as their bags were loaded, they piled into the car.
The boys sat in the back and Ana sat shotgun. The boys had headphones on and were already guffawing at some stupid video on Sam's phone before they even got to the freeway. Ana rolled her eyes. They were so annoying. Gran and Ana listened to an audiobook. It was a fantasy novel and Ana let herself slip away in her mind to a land with princesses and talking animals.
It was dark when they arrived at the campsite. Gran asked the boys to set up the tents and it surprised Ana when Derek agreed without arguing. Ana helped Gran put sandwiches together for dinner.
The tents were up quickly and the four of them traipsed to the edge of the lake to eat. The view was marvelous and the moon reflected on the water. The serenity was disturbed by the boys who were roughhousing and threatening to push each other in the lake. Ana had a wicked fantasy that Derek would fall in and disappear in the black water. He didn't, though, and after a while, they walked back to the campsite.
It was getting chilly near the water so Ana ducked into her tent and changed into sweat pants and a thermal shirt. She pulled an oversized sweatshirt over that and went out to sit by the fire Gran had lit in the fire circle.
Ana was feeling very warm and content and was seriously annoyed when she realized she needed to pee. She put it off for as long as she could but eventually had no choice but to get up and head to the communal toilets.
The bathroom was chilly and Ana was in a hurry to get back to the fire. She let the door close behind her and took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She didn't want to trip on her way back and had taken a few careful steps before a hand closed over her forearm. She spun and could make out a figure in the dark but didn't recognize him until he spoke.
"I'm ready to warm you up, now," Derek said. His voice was husky. Ana felt terror shoot through her as Derek pinned her between his body and the cold cement wall of the little outhouse.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yuck! Vote to kick Derek in the boy bits! Then let me know if you had any other ideas of "accidents" that could befall him in the woods.
YOU ARE READING
The Dream Train
FantasyFourteen-year-old Ana and her sixteen-year-old brother, Sam, are lost in the woods, cold, tired, and hungry. Their only hope is an old train station in the woods. When a train stops at the station, they are sure they are saved. The train seems fa...
