Camp Norse: The Saga

2. This Is Bullshit

"Hey, dipshit, got any red threes?" Johnson asked, his seven cards splayed out in his hands.

Anthony furrowed their eyebrows, pursing their lips. "John, there're hearts and diamonds, and they're both red. Which one is it?"

"Hearts."

"Go-fish."

"Bullshit!" Johnson folded his cards into a small stack and gestured wildly with a free hand. "Threes have to be the most basic fucking card in the whole fucking deck. I call bullshit that you don't have any."

"If we're calling bullshit," Mira said, looking down tentatively at her own hand of cards, "then we're playing the wrong game. John, take a card from the deck. It's my turn."

Johnson flayed his cards and took one from the main pile. It was a three of hearts, and he slapped that sucker down hard with his other matching suits. Anthony rolled their eyes. Mira looked up from her cards to choose someone to pick. She chose Johnson.

"John, do you have any aces?"

Johnson begrudgingly slipped his ace of spades from his hand and gave it to Mira.

"Thank you," she said and set out three aces she'd managed to keep.

Anthony whistled. "Seven pairs. Mira, you're a pro."

"It's all about memorizing what cards each player has. Anthony, it's your turn."

"Oh, right." They looked down at what cards they had and contemplated whether to ask Mira or Johnson. Mira had the least amount of cards in her hand, so Anthony chose Johnson to ask. "So, uh, John-"

"Great."

"-do you have any kings?"

"This is fucking bullshit." Johnson handed Anthony his king of clubs.

Anthony took the card and paired it up with their king of hearts, settling it on the ground by their feet. "Sorry," they said, but there was no sympathy.

Johnson made a tsk noise with his tongue. "Yeah, you'll be sorry once I-"

Mira raised an eyebrow, a grin working its way to her lips. "Once you do what, John?"

But Johnson wasn't listening. He'd interrupted himself by stopping mid-sentence to peer up into the darkness around them. The green flames of the bonfire casted an illusion of pitch blackness outside of light's glow. Their tents were in view, so were the starting trees by the shore, but they bled black the further you looked. The three of them could hear near to everything around them, but seeing what they heard was a completely different matter.

Johnson started to stand up, what cards he had left slipping out of his hand and cascading to the ground.

"What's wrong?" Anthony asked.

Mira flung her cards somewhere behind her, just about done with whatever Johnson was pulling. "He's probably faking it, trying to scare us." She gave him a pointed look. "It isn't working, dipshit."

"Will you two shut the fuck up?"

"Hey!" Mira exclaimed. "Look, I don't know what's got you so pissed off, but telling us to shut the fuck up isn't solving anything. What's got you so riled up?"

"I thought I heard something." Johnson looked out into the blackness beyond the bonfire's virescent luminance, seeing nothing but the forest and the dark.

Anthony bit at the chapped skin of their bottom lip. "We're by Millinocket Camp. You might have heard some group screwing around."

"Look, Tony," Johnson said, "I know what I heard. It was a snap, like a twig or something. If it was a group of shit-wads, then I wouldn't be so concerned, but it wasn't."