Put That Kid Down

Chapter Twenty Three

They'd made it to the top. Max wasn't sure how - it had been a blur. A bloody, sweaty blur as they struggled through the forest in a nightmarish fight to survive. Now they finally stood at the precipice, and Daniel saluted him.

"It's been a pleasure serving with you," his lips slipped into a smile like a snake's fangs into soft flesh.

And he was gone.

Max turned to David with wide eyes, unable to believe it had been that easy. David smiled, kindly, as if he'd forgiven Max now that this plan had worked out. Maybe it really had worked, he hoped against all reason, and he wouldn't have to...

A large hand cupped his cheek and David leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead.

That done, the man still lingered near, and Max felt his palms turn cold as David whispered softly into his ear.

"Now it's your turn."

.

Max awoke with a start to the rocking of the boat, and hastily rearranged himself, trying to pass it off as a shift rather than let on that he'd actually fallen asleep.

"Help. Oh, help. I am..." Daniel tilted his head against the wall of the boat and sighed, "Bored."

"Well, we don't really want to walk across Spooky Island with you, so we have to go around," Max replied, forcing himself into a similar, relaxed position, arms akimbo as he watched the sky pass overhead instead of making awkward eye contact with Daniel or David.

He could hear the steady rush of the oars through the water and knew David was... unphased by the return of silence. Maybe preferred it.

"The fog is getting close," Daniel pointed out, unmoving.

"If we have to land and walk, we will," David said flatly. "There's a boat on the other side of the island, too."

Perking up, Daniel sat upright and faced David with gleaming teeth, "Ah, is that how you dispose of the bodies?"

Still rowing at a constant pace, David fixed Daniel with an unimpressed look.

"I will take that as a yes!" Daniel threw himself back, humming pensively, "You couldn't always have had time to make the trip, though." His head cocked, sharply, and his eyes lidded, smug with cruelty, "Where did you hide them in the meantime? Don't tell me - I'll guess."

Max chanced a glance at David, but his expression gave nothing away.

"You had to have killed, at least a few times, in order for your campers to still be alive... And it would have happened around the camp, obviously. Where... does no one go?"

The stony expression didn't falter.

"Those woods are riddled with dangers off the trail... You didn't just string them up like trash, did you?" By the glee in Daniel's voice, it was clear that's exactly what he wanted to be the case.

An oar complained as David's fist clenched around it with a sharp crack.

"Oh, you did. You're sick," Daniel laughed once with a high-strung triumph. "Your kids would have been better off with me."

Max made his opinion known with an irritable, "Just shut up."

"I'm going to die after this lovely boat tour and our nature hike." At Max's instinctive flinch at the reminder, he pressed into Max's personal space, nose nearly brushing Max's face, with false shock in wide, dead eyes, "Do you want me to regret my last hours on earth?"

A hand gripped Daniel by the back of the head and pulled him upright, prompting a gasp from the cultist.

"Don't touch the kid," David said simply, and Daniel laughed.