You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

Once that one had made up her mind, it seemed like the discussion was over. They were taking her, and no one was going to argue about it anymore. They marched her deeper into the forest, away from where she needed to go, she knew. Karin could tell as much by the smells around her: the deep scent of wet soil and earthworms and drenched bark, like her dad had taught her. She wished she hadn’t dropped her mini flashlight. It was a small thing, but she really needed that.

The one by her left arm was holding her tight, and the one by her right arm seemed to be giving her some slack and walking a little behind. She could hear the swoosh-swoosh of all their garbage-bag rain ponchos as they walked. Why would anyone wear garbage bags when you could buy a whole rain suit at HEMA for ten euros? Were they just homeless people or what?

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” the one on the right said, like he was trying to protect her.

“That’s really okay,” she said. “I’ve been in this forest, like, a million times with my father before I was even ten years old. I know how to find my way by the stars. I can light a fire without matches.”

It was a pretty dense part of the woods. They were not on a bike trail or even a real walking trail, just a very narrow dirt path that someone had made recently. These people, obviously.

“You’re twelve and you know how to start a fire without matches?” said the one on her right. “I’d like to see that.”

“Why don’t you just shut up and stop talking nonsense,” the one on the left said.

Karin smelled something really rank all of a sudden. It kind of hit her smack in the face. Something she had never really smelled before—it was acidic and sharp in her nose. She automatically stopped and almost retched right there in the woods.

“Come on,” said the one on her right, jerking her arm with force to make her keep up.

“I’m coming,” said Karin. She couldn’t understand why no one else seemed to be smelling what she smelled. “Is this where we’re going?”

Karin figured it was too late now. They had her. She might as well look. It was a really creepy place. There were these big metal canisters dumped all over the ground, and lots of empty plastic bottles and buckets. But also a crazy number of empty beer bottles all around. Were they drunks, like the sad, red-faced guys who hung out by the corner near her school?

There was some kind of beat-up old caravan covered by a large dark-green tarp that hung from the branches of a twisted tree. This was their place, their, uh, compound? Could they be, like, in some kind of cult? As they got closer, she could see there was also a dark-blue tent.

She tried to keep breathing normally as they dragged her forward. But it was really gross, like putting your face into kitty litter but without the fake flowers or whatever it is they use to make kitty litter smell “fresh.” Just cat pee, and really strong. How long would they force her to stay here and what would they do to her?

Just as they reached the camp, the garbage-bag-poncho people all started talking at once. Karin could make out only bits and pieces of the conversations they were having in more than one language. One voice was louder and clearer than all the rest. “What do you expect we can do with her?” she heard her saying. “You think we’ll ransom her? Jesus. She doesn’t look like she comes from money.”

They didn’t seem normal—well, obviously—but their bodies all seemed to be crooked, or limping, or just kind of bent, and the little she could make out about their forms under the garbage-bag ponchos made her realize that all of them were really skinny. Maybe they were ghouls, or actual zombies—living dead. Vampires?

The one with the loudest voice started cursing. “What the fuck are we going to do, then? You guys are all such fucking idiots! Sometimes I can’t even believe it.” Suddenly, that one was standing in front of her and pulling back the hood of her poncho, to look more closely at her face.

In spite of herself, Karin looked up, and the sight was freaky. This ghoul’s face was like one of those time-lapse apps where you take a picture of a kid and see what they’re going to look like when they’re really old. But it still kind of looks like the young person, except their skin is all loose and flappy.

Even though she didn’t mean to, Karin stepped back, and the ghoul moved closer, leaning over her. Her breath was totally gross, like rotting fish. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she said, and then laughed.

Karin, who totally didn’t get the joke, decided to do what her mom always told her to do: “If you can’t figure out the right move, just be honest.” Nodding her head, slowly, she said, “Yes. You’re…you’re all scaring me. I’m, like, a little kid,” she added. “I’m supposed to be on a camping trip. I really don’t want to be here.”

The leader laughed again. She had all these missing teeth, which made her look really old, like some kind of cartoon hag. “Of course you’re scared,” she said to Karin. “We must be fucking frightening.” She looked around at the rest of the group, in a semicircle behind her, and they all started laughing.

“Listen,” the hag said, “we aren’t going to fuck with you because that would be fucking insane and we are not going to be fucking insane, right? We’re a bunch of screwed-up assholes, and we’ve done a lot of bad shit. We’ve ruined our own lives, yeah, but we’re not that fucked up. We’re not messed-up humans. We’re not going to fuck with a kid.”

Karin couldn’t even begin to count the number of