John Romero - Coed camp

Dan went back to his cabin. He was tempted to tear up the photo, but figured, what was the use. Pete had the negative, and maybe even more copies. The youngster watched him as he tucked the photo inside his wall locker and locked the door carefully.

"Come on," he said. "We're going to the village."

He drove fast, all the way in, saying not a word to the little devil beside him. But that didn't seem to bother the kid at all. He parked near the movie and bought a ticket for Pete, but he refused to go in with him, nor did Pete insist.

"I'll be at the tavern down the street when you come out," he said.

Pete only looked at him, then took his ticket and marched into the movie. Dan noticed that some horror film was showing. So monsters enjoyed looking at other monsters. He shrugged his shoulders and turned back down the street.

At the tavern he ordered a mug of beer, and the same good-looking waitress in her sexy short skirt served him. She gave him a big flashing smile. "Where's your girl friend?" she asked coyly.

Any other time Dan would have followed up on her little opener for a flirtation, but after the recent thunderbolt he didn't feel like it. In fact, he didn't feel that he would ever get his cock up for a fuck again as long as he lived. However, he forced a smile for the girl.

"She's out at the camp," he said.

He was tempted to get drunk, but he knew that would be stupid. He had to play it cool if he was going to outwit the kid. And he had to be cold sober for the midnight council tonight. A million questions ran through his mind as he drank his beer. Most of them boiled down to one: how the hell had the kid managed to be on the spot with his camera? He could only guess at the sort of pictures he had of the others.

He nursed his beer so long the waitress came back for another try. There were only a couple of other customers in the tavern, and she wasn't busy. She casually leaned a shapely thigh against the table, giving him plenty of opportunity to see a lot of it. Her miniskirt was very short, and every bend of her body was a provocation. But Dan still wasn't buying. He ordered another beer and she went away, puzzled that he didn't ask her to sit down.

In a little more than two hours Pete appeared in the door of the tavern. Dan saw him and got up to pay his bill. The waitress looked at the youngster waiting for him, then at Dan's glum face, and she guessed that he was stuck with a bad assignment. She gave Dan extra-encouraging smile and said softly, "You'll have to come back again when you're not tied up."

Dan was still human enough to react, at least partly. He gave her a genuine smile this time. "I'11 do that," he promised.

The drive back to camp was as silent as the one in. He parked in the parking lot and Pete jumped out and trotted over toward the arts and crafts building. Dan went down to the infirmary. Marsha sat at her typewriter, filling out health charts on the campers. Uninvited, Dan sat down in the chair near the desk, facing her. Her first impulsive reaction was the familiar warm smile, but it quickly froze into the professional look she wore most of the time now. She read in his eyes, though, that he was also in the net, and her cool gaze quickly dissolved into a look of sympathy.

"You too?" she said.

He nodded.

She shook her head and sighed. "Just imagine, such a marvelous set-up, and then this has to happen. He's the devil in the Garden of Eden." She shook her head again. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"That might help," he said gratefully. "Maybe we can come up with something at the meeting tonight."

She pressed a warning finger to her lips and looked carefully around. "Don't even talk about it," she cautioned. "He's uncanny."

Dan drank his coffee and left, nervous over the threat looming over them all, but somewhat relieved to know the reason for the breakdown in morale among the other counselors.

The luminous hands on his wristwatch still pointed to a few minutes until midnight, but Dan was too restless to lie in his bed any longer. He eased out of the bed and slipped as silently as a shadow back to Pete's bunk. The kid was breathing deeply and steadily. If he was faking sleep, he was a real expert. Well, hell, Dan thought wryly, there was no doubt that he was a real expert.

He pulled on a pair of khaki shorts, but went barefoot through the darkness toward the main office. No light showed anywhere, and no sounds came from within. A ragged silvery edge of the moon gleamed briefly, but a bank of clouds had effectively blocked most of the sky.

The outer office was in total darkness, but Dan made his way across it without wrecking himself against desks or other furniture. He was familiar with the layout. He opened the door into Stein's bedroom. If anything, the inside of that room was even darker than the outer one.

"Who is it?" Stein's voice came softly through the blackness.

"Dan."

"There's a rug in the middle of the floor, Dan. Sit down."

He touched a shoulder as he sat down and realized that at least one other person had already come. He couldn't tell who. Nothing was said, no sound was made. He sat cross-legged in the eerie darkness, listening to his own breathing. In a minute or two the door creaked faintly as someone else entered. Stein repeated his formula, and Andy, the youngest counselor, answered. You too, Dan thought. This was blackmail on a wide scale. But what was that little bastard Pete after?

That was the first question asked when everyone was present and Stein lighted a candle and placed it in the middle of the circle of people seated on the rug.

"What does the little monster want?" Annabelle drawled.

"He wants me for a chauffeur, looks like," Dan said.

"And I row the royal barge about the lake," Buddy growled.

"He'll think up something for the rest of us," Stein said. "We've got to nail him, and fast."

"Let's just kill him and hide his body," Andy suggested with a lopsided grin.

"Don't think I haven't considered that," Stein came back. "But those negatives are hidden somewhere, maybe with a note in somebody's hands telling where to find them, just in case-" He didn't finish. Everybody got the picture.

"Could we buy him off?" Marsha suggested.

Stein laughed shortly. "He's Peter Mordant's son. Peter Mordant is the hottest star in Hollywood right now. The kid's rolling in money. Just look at all that camera equipment he's got, and he's just twelve years old. He doesn't even know how much dough he's got. No, money's not the answer."

"Li'l 0l' Sneaky Pete," Annabelle mused. "There's got to be some way. Look" she said bluntly, "would it do any good to seduce him, the Samson and Delilah bit?"

"I don't think that would interest him a lot just yet, Miz Magnolia," Stein chuckled. "He just has a lot of interest in other people's sex activities."

"Indeed he does," Marsha said softly.

Several other ideas were passed back and forth. Andy suggested torture, but Marsha vetoed that. "It would leave marks," she said. "Even if we didn't scare him, internal injuries could be checked out by a doctor. And the little devil would yell his head off."

It soon became obvious that nobody had any really workable suggestion. After they had sat in glum silence for several minutes, Stein spoke up again. "And another thing. It won't be enough to simply get hold of those negatives. We've got to cook up something, some way to get rid of him. Get him out of this camp. After this caper, we know he's got the brain to pull any kind of a wild deal."

Another long period of silence ensued. The candle had burned halfway down. No more ideas came out of the sober-faced group. Stein stood up.

"Not tomorrow night, but the night after that," he said. "Same time. Here. And goddammit, somebody come up with an idea or all our asses are in a sling." He picked up the candle and blew it out.