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Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp has been proudly family owned and operated for seventy years. The target demographic for their services is between 3rd and 6th grade; ages 8-12. For reasons unknown, there was a significant influx of 5th graders this year, and to balance out the child to adult ratio, both Laura and Max are assigned co-leadership positions in existing cabins. He partnered with a recovering jock boasting the intellectual complexity of a chocolate eclair, and she with the shining gold star of the camp, Chris Hackett’s own daughter, Kaylee.
Travis’ niece.
At first glance, as well as under further surreptitious scrutiny, there’s not much family resemblance between Kaylee and her uncle. She clearly takes after her father: gregarious and first to laugh, radiating a saccharine benevolence so thick you could choke on it. She puts Laura in mind of carnival food: wispy cotton candy and funnel cake covered in powdered sugar. Which sounds like such a great idea until you ride the tilt-a-whirl six times and spend the afternoon schlepping around in the blazing sun.
She’s good with the kids, though. Which Laura supposes is what really matters. It’s not that she herself isn’t, but more that it will make the summer less of an uphill battle to be able to tag in someone who is predisposed to playing ‘good cop.’ Even in the best of moods Laura isn’t likely to stand accused of being particularly gentle or nurturing. And though she may have an overabundance of experience with childcare, it’s always been more of a requirement than a preference.
The perils of growing up the eldest daughter of a daycare owner.
It was the advertised nursing experience that had caused her to snag on this job in the first place. That, and it would be outside and away from everything for a few months. An opportunity for her to really get a break before she and Max move to…
Fuck.
She’s done it again.
Included him out of habit.
God fucking dammit.
And damn him most of all.
Trapped in close proximity all fucking summer. And it’s all his fucking fault.
Laura considers her treatment of Max since the onset of camp to be almost out of character for how charitable it is. She didn’t chew him out. Didn’t dress him down. Hasn’t publicly berated or belittled him. Hasn’t gone around and talked shit about him. She doesn’t even ignore him, pretending he doesn’t exist. No. Instead she’s employing an altogether more subtle method: careful and intentional indifference. Like they’re just strangers. Just co-workers.
Which is a, frankly, merciful punishment for upending her future plans and leaving her to mop up the ensuing mess on her own.
His crime against her isn’t so simple as ‘not getting accepted to Landis and then keeping it from her.’ Rather, it’s a snowball tossed over a cliff side to roll downhill until it becomes a fucking avalanche. Gathering up petty details like transportation and apartment leases and loan repayment timetables. It shames her, really. How much she’s only just realized she’s come to count on him sticking around. How many of her future plans she’d woven his influence into. It’s certainly not her MO to rely so heavily on anyone else. And she’s not at all grateful for what the exception has to say about her trajectory as a person.
Second hand complacency. That’s what she was fool enough to fall victim to. She got soft. Held the reins too loose. Believed Max when he said things would work out. They’d make them work.
But hindsight is 20/20, and it’s never been more apparent that the only person putting in the work was Laura herself. She was the one that got everything set up. The one who did the research. The one who figured out the logistics. Laura did the apartment hunting. Laura did the paperwork. Hell, Laura was the one who wrote Max’s application essay, in all honesty. Even if it wasn’t her fingers that pecked out the keys for the final draft, every other step had been due to her influence. At her behest.
Max’s blasé attitude about the entire process was a goddamn privilege she had purchased for him with her own blood, sweat, and tears. Her own early mornings and sleepless nights. She’d been so determined to make things happen just as she’d envisioned, she never bothered to stop and consider that Max never put his own ante up on the table. Hers were the stakes they were both gambling on. She won’t be making that mistake again.
Not ever.
And certainly not with Max.
He’s proved to not even be worth the full force of her vengeance.
So she stymies it. Freezes it. Turns the twisting, tangling rage in her gut into a block of solid carbon dioxide. Burning cold and smoking. A response she’s gotten quite well-practiced at over the years.
Laura Kearney has yet to encounter anyone who’s better at frosting people out than herself.
She’s discreet, though. As the correlation between her icy demeanor and Max’s pouty sulking is unlikely to go unnoticed by the other summer staff. Or ‘Hacketeers,’ as they refer to themselves.
Everything’s like that here. Themed. With ‘witty’ names. It’s…well…
Honestly, the place is one shade shy of a nightmare. So wholesomely nostalgic for a time none of the campers’ parents were probably even alive for. All the cheerfully painted animal mascots, with their too-wide smiles and chipping paint…the plucky little mottos and camp songs Laura suspects were originally sung by children that practiced hiding under their desks from atom bombs…a little to the left and it would be an all too perfect backdrop for the kind of B horror flick Laura might fall asleep watching on Netflix.
But it’s like everyone else, even the kids, are immune to how fucking cheesy the entire aesthetic is. The kind of lame she’s positive a group of eleven and twelve year old not-quite-teens are sure to make note of. Roll their eyes at. Call cringe. Turn into a meme. Anything but enthusiastically buy into. So far though…nothing.
She must have missed the group inoculation when she was late to camp that first day.
Just like she’d missed the ‘handing in all cell phones' ceremony. She’d come prepared, of course. Brought an old android she’d been keeping in a box under her bed for such a time as this. When Chris Hackett finally caught up with her and Kaitlyn during her makeshift orientation, she’d slapped the decoy into his open palm after a beat of feigned hesitation. All the better to sell her deception.
She’d be needing her real phone, after all. If she was going to put the number on the business card she’d swiped from the Sheriff’s patrol car to use.
Which is one hundred percent what she did as soon as she found time to sneak off by herself the next morning. With the excuse that she’d need updates on the state of her vehicle. His response was to sigh heavily into the receiver and then curtly supply his personal number for future update requests, tone nothing but professional and humorless.
Hearing his voice rumble through her earpiece, however artificially disinterested, was still enough to set her heartbeat to racing. It seemed a victory somehow, getting a cell number from him. Even if she wasn’t quite sure what she meant to do with it yet.
Well, beyond supplying a consistent reminder that she’s spending her summer only a short drive away from where he’d be spending his. Handy information to keep in mind.
Information she intends to inspire him to make use of.
Because there is no way after whetting her appetite with the delectable taste she’s had of him that Laura could possibly restrain herself from going back for seconds. Or thirds. Or however many helpings she ultimately elects to indulge in over the course of this summer.
He hadn’t known a damn thing about her. (Except that she was the kind of girl that would felate a middle-aged cop within 24 hours of meeting him.) And yet…he’d seemed to intuit exactly what she needed. How to make her feel special. Seen. Taken care of.
And he made her cum. Twice. In quick succession.
That, in all honesty, is the part she’s most keen to revisit. Preferably with his cock buried deep inside her next time. God, even the fantasy of it makes her light-headed and dizzy with want. And it’s all of two days before she’s concocting a multi-step plan on how to make that fantasy a reality.
This summer is already shaping up to be a memorable one, that’s for certain.
---
There’s something rather evocative about the crisp snap of the first bite into a ripe apple. Which is an abnormally wistful observation for Travis to make while elbow deep in engine grease, but there it is. The sound conjures carefree memories from a childhood he never got to have. A setting safe and sunny. Filled with music and laughter.
He cuts a glance over to where his niece is crunching away, sandaled feet propped up on his workbench and tipped precariously far back in a patched up rolling desk chair. They’re both on something of a break this afternoon, Chris having dropped her off on the way to pick up some last minute (i.e. forgotten) supplies. She’d even requested it herself.
They used to do this a lot more often- casually share space. He…misses it. Misses her.
When Kaylee was about five, she’d started to pick up on the family dynamic and had expressed concerns so chillingly familiar, Travis went straight home to clear all the shit out of his spare room and build her a second home to escape to. Complete with fairy lights and a canopy bed.
His brother hadn’t loved the idea at first. But Travis stymied his own enthusiasm enough to put his brother off the scent, claiming it was to give Chris a break now and then. Some time to himself.
He’s always had to do that. Spin things to make them sound like a burden carried. Pretend he doesn’t have anything worth taking. Anything to lose.
It’s been a while since his niece stayed in her room at his place, the tacit request becoming increasingly infrequent over the past six years. He knows it’s not a coincidence. Kaylee told him as much.
It’s easier when I’m close to the others.
The others.
The Kaylee whose diapers he’d changed, whose pigtails he’d braided, whose dance recitals he’d gone to never thought it was ‘easier’ being around her family. Not since she started grade school. He’d heard loud and clear what she hadn’t said.
The pack.
It’s easier being with the pack.
Travis should probably count his lucky stars he’s evaded the infectious jaws of his kin thus far…it’s just…he can’t escape the gut churning hypothese… that it’s intentional somehow.
All scratches and no bites. Nothing that would invite him to join.
He really should be used to that by now.
Travis never has been picked first. Hell, he doesn’t even get to play. Someone needs to be referee, after all. Make sure everyone else is having fun and following the rules.
Better to simply volunteer for the position and skip the inevitable disappointment of getting his hopes up.
It’s not safe, this whole damn situation. And the ‘solution’ his family cooked up? It’s not even close to being practical or efficient. But it’s ultimately not his call. So he makes it work.
…or doesn’t, as is more often the case.
And then he catches the blame for it.
Travis’ phone vibrates in place atop his workbench, signaling a message received. The only person who ever regularly texts him is sitting not six feet away. Could be Chris saying he’s on the way back. Could be work.
He knows it isn’t.
It’s Laura.
Clever thing that she is, she somehow managed to keep hold of her cell phone under Chris’ nose. Displaying a flagrant disregard for the rules that should probably elicit some kind of professional objection from him. As a representative of the law and all that. But any objection has…not been forthcoming, leaving Travis to fabricate a displeasure with her he simply doesn’t feel.
Since her call to the station and his subsequent insistence she avoid using his professional number for personal means, he’s been receiving all manner of innocuous little text updates about the start of camp. With a few photos mixed in here and there. A selfie or two among them.
He hasn’t engaged in return, mind. Knows better than to encourage such behavior. But he’s also well aware he’s not discouraging it either. Her enthusiasm to keep a line of communication open between them is more flattering than he’d care to admit. And it’s not as if he’s under duress to do so. Surely there can be no harm in…letting things lie for now.
But her last message made it rather obvious she has no intention of matching his energy on the matter.
Come visit me.
Yeah. No. He absolutely shouldn’t. And he won’t. It was foolish to indulge as much as he already has. Irresponsible. Reckless, even. He’s already got too many plates spinning, and the stakes are supernaturally high. Their…dalliance…no matter how sweet it had been, how liberating and simple it was to just take something so uncomplicated…so enthusiastically offered…
It can’t happen again. Especially not after Chris’ comments the day he dropped her off. That kind of scrutiny is trouble he doesn’t need. And the last thing he wants is further fallout with the family. And…Laura doesn’t deserve that anyway. She deserves to have a summer filled to the brim with excitement, sunshine, and the rollicking carelessness of youth. And then to go home. Back to school. Wherever. So long as it’s somewhere far away from him, his family, and the lonely, moonwashed nightmare his life has become.
North Kill is a ghost town. A graveyard. And he’s the self-appointed combination undertaker and groundskeeper. Has been since even before the fire.
Travis’ first priority once elected was overseeing the process of moving the North Kill County Sheriff's Department over to Maple Springs, a newer settlement in the valley where people are actually living these days. Where there’s strip malls and a fucking Starbucks. He didn’t face much opposition to the relocation, the whisperings of North Kill being cursed working in his favor. And after Hank’s passing, most folks were just as inclined as he to start somewhere fresh, albeit for different reasons.
He commutes to Maple Springs less and less often these days, preferring to keep his work as remote as possible, confident in his deputies’ ability to handle the day to day without him. Biding his time and narrowing his search. Knowing the clock is tick tick ticking toward the day his name is no longer uncontested on the ballot and hoping to hell and back he can end things before then.
Before he no longer has the ability to protect his family from the consequences of their actions.
‘Uh-oh. Big sigh alert. Is it terminal, Doc?’
Travis is startled out of his own thoughts by his niece’s playful comment and looks up to see she’s spun to face him with a bemused smile on her face.
It takes all of a second for him to snap the cover of his brown study shut and return to the present.
‘More like DOA. It’s obvious this little rust bucket ain’t had a good tune up in a dog's age, and the trip through the woods tore up her underbelly something fierce.’ He straightens, grimacing down at the exposed engine compartment with his hands propped on his hips. ‘Plus, all the salt damage has corroded the metal so bad a sneeze could have shaken it to pieces. So the rocks and stumps she hit coming off the road were just overkill.’
Kaylee shakes her head, chuckling fondly, ‘Overachiever.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I said she’s an overachiever. Doesn’t do things by half-measures.’
Travis’ eyes drift back to the car, his expression intentionally neutral, his tone non-committal. ‘That so?’
‘Works for me, though,’ Kaylee shrugs with another pointed bite of her apple. ‘My cabin mate last year was lazy as fuck. Always trying to get out of chores and shit.’
‘Language.’
Kaylee rolls her eyes at his instinctive admonishment, and continues as though he hasn’t made it. ‘I like her. Laura. I mean, she’s a total smoke show, but she’s not up her own ass about it. She’s smart, super competent, and an ace at getting the kids to listen. I think some of them might actually be a little scared of her.’
Travis hopes that turning back to the task at hand is enough to hide the smile tugging at his lips over that last observation. He has no trouble believing Kaylee is right on the money.
‘She’s funny, too, though. Like, ruthlessly funny. She actually made Caleb laugh the other day? I forget what she said, but I’ll never forget how surprised everyone else in the room looked.’
‘…I can’t remember the last time I heard him laugh like that.’
Travis hears the smile leech out of Kaylee’s voice, and chances a glance her way. She’s drawn her knees up to her chin, arms wrapped around her legs as she considers the nearly finished apple in her hand with an expression that tells him there’s a lot going unsaid. He knows better than to ask- she’ll either let him in on it or she won’t, but it’s gonna be on her own terms either way. He’s never been one to pry. He reckons that’s one of the reasons they get along so well.
After a few minutes of meaningful silence, his patience is rewarded.
‘Laura’s…she’s uninhibited. Driven. The kind of person who goes where she wants and takes what she wants…and thrives.’
There’s undeniable longing in that pause that follows. It settles around them like fog, so suffocating and thick Travis half expects his view of Kaylee to be obscured if he should risk looking her way.
He doesn’t.
Because he can’t tell where her longing ends and his begins.
‘If things were different…I think maybe she and I…we could have a lot more in common.’
Ah. And there it is. The bitter truth it all boils down to every time.
The family curse.
Six years on, and she’s still mourning the future she had to put on hold. And to someone so young and bright, who’s spent nearly her entire existence living for the day she could get away, six years is no mean sacrifice. Every full moon he comes back from another fruitless hunt, he watches that much more hope chip off of her spirit. That much more light dim in her eyes.
It's no secret Kaylee wanted more out of life. Ever since she was little, she’s always talked about when she’d grow up and move away. Far away. Now, thanks to the curse, she’s stuck here just as much as he ever was. As they all are.
Not for the first time, Travis aches to his bones with the shared burden of his niece’s heartbreak. Would that he could carry it all. Lift the yoke of despair from her shoulders and send her sprinting off into the world she so desperately yearns to be a part of, never to look back. All the pastel dreams of her childhood, whether whispered like prayers and sung like hymns, have been evaporating into smoke in front of his very eyes. And it cuts deeper than any tooth or claw ever could. Like he’s being flayed down to his fucking soul.
He’s been silent too long. He knows that. His crippling inability to comfort is a flaw he’s already excruciatingly aware of. He has no words of wisdom, no promises of relief. Sparing Kaylee the insult of lying to her face leaves him without much to say. And even less to do.
So Travis does what he can do.
He changes the subject.
It’s a piss-poor substitute for optimism, but distraction has always been the preferred method when facing his own demons. He’s never been a ‘glass half full’ kinda guy.
‘How’s the rest of the team look this year?’
Kaylee shifts in the chair, the plastic base groaning with the redistribution of her weight. She doesn’t reply right away, but he doesn’t dare look up and risk locking eyes. It’s too vulnerable a moment for both of them.
‘Pretty solid, actually,’ she finally answers, her cadence just a hair too chipper to be anything but forced, but he takes the effort as proof she’s just as eager to move on to another topic as he.
‘Caitlyn and Jacob are back, unsurprisingly. I mean it’s been, what? Almost a decade now? They’re staples at this point. And Ryan, too, of course. He’s spent so many summers here, I think Dad is planning to name him an honorary Hackett.’
Travis bites back a snipe about how little of an honor that would truly be, instead, humming what he hopes will be interpreted as a prompt to continue.
‘Dylan- you remember Dylan, right? Tall, brown hair, can’t take anything serious to save his life? No? Hm. I could have sworn you met him. Anyway, he’s back again this summer too. Dad’s roped him into some scheme with the camp radio I don’t care enough to remember the details about. There’s also this girl named Abby who used to come to the camp back in the day. She joined the Hacketteers this year. I remember her being really shy and artsy back then. Not too much has changed, I guess.’
As Kaylee continues to ramble on, it’s like he’s watching her open the farmhouse door and step out into Oz, for how much more colorful and alive she seems. Maybe Chris is right after all. Maybe they do need the camp. If for no other reason than to remind the kids that they’re still kids. Still human.
‘As for the new bloods, we have four this year.’ She holds up a hand and ticks off a finger with each name supplied. ‘Nick, Emma, Max, and Laura.’ Nick’s from Australia, I think? The kids think he’s really cool. All the girls have a crush on him. I’m not sold on Emma, yet. She’s pretty full of herself. But the fourth and fifth graders really seem to resonate with her whole ‘Instagram Influencer’ vibe.’ Kaylee rolls her eyes heavenward, her lips dipping into a brief grimace. ‘So long as she doesn’t go around creating drama for its own sake, we won’t have beef.’
‘And speaking of drama,’ Kaylee stamps her feet to the floor and shuffles the rolling chair closer, exhilaration over the opportunity to indulge in a bit of scuttlebutt painted all across her face. Travis chuckles to himself, amused and relieved in equal measure by how like her it is to make a comedic production of ‘spilling the tea,’ as she so calls it.
‘Max,’ she states with an affected gravitas that implies her forthcoming reveal is quite the scandal. She waits for him to swing his gaze her way, waits for him to recite his practiced script for this sort of exchange. A comforting little ritual to fall back into.
‘What about him?’
‘Well, you know I’m not one to gossip…but since you asked.’ Kaylee grants him a toothy grin, her hands clapping together beneath her chin. ‘Oh, T, it’s messy. You see, Max was Laura’s boyfriend- now ex-boyfriend. As of the day before camp started.’
Travis fumbles his next line, not expecting that whatever had Kaylee so keen would be anything even tangentially to do with him. He concentrates on keeping his expression as unimpressed and indifferent as it’s been up to this point, dumping a bucket full of proverbial sand over the spark of apprehension that flares inside him.
‘That so?’
Thankfully unaware of the subject’s relevance to her uncle’s…recent goings on…Kaylee nods emphatically and launches into the story as she’s come to understand it over the past few days. That they’d been an item for years. Were planning a future together. Then, Laura found out Max had lied about being accepted into her dream school, so she promptly threw her bags in the trunk and set out to The Quarry on her own. Even though they’d planned on traveling together.
Travis mislikes how invested he is. How damned curious. But it pales into comparison with how unsettled he is by how learning any of this…doesn’t trigger any guilt in him. He listens in carefully concealed interest as Kaylee continues, disgust climbing further up his throat the longer he searches his feelings for so much as an inkling of shame or regret and comes up empty handed.
It’s…concerning, to say the least.
‘I haven’t asked her about it verbatim, but all of us can tell how pissed Laura is. I mean, she doesn’t even look at him. It’s like she’s looking through him. Like he doesn’t really exist. I, uh, don’t get the impression she’s the forgiving type. I know I’d think twice about crossing her, that’s for damn sure. Max has been shambling around with this permanent kicked puppy dog look. It’s rough. Especially ‘cuz he seems to actually be a good guy? I know the others have been trying their best to cheer him up, but I think the only cure for him is time. I mean, poor boy only just made the biggest mistake of his life, and is realizing there’s no going back.’
He should…say something. Chime in. React. Offer some sagely insight about choice and consequences. But Travis can’t decide on how he’d respond if he knew none of the characters in this story, so rather than risk piquing his niece’s suspicion, he remains silent. Barely even daring to breathe. He just has to coast to the end of this conversation. Then he can process whatever he is, or isn’t, feeling on his own time.
‘I feel bad for him, honestly. He clearly didn’t know the stakes until it was too late.’
Travis tries to kill the question before it passes his lips and fails spectacularly. Like firing buckshot at a stationary target from two feet away and still missing. ‘What stakes?’
The near giddy delight is gone, vanished in the span of a heartbeat while he was otherwise engaged. Kaylee nods solemnly, her brows pinching together, as if in sadness. ‘Laura’s the kind of girl he’ll spend the rest of his life regretting he let go.’
Travis’ hands still. He contemplates the grime crusting his fingernails as he turns that sentiment over and over in his mind.
He thinks of the unanswered texts. Of the abandoned satin hair ribbon folded up and tucked the glove compartment of the Chevelle. Of sky blue eyes glittering with playful defiance and reckless determination and life.
Trouble he doesn’t need.
The kind of girl he’d spend the rest of his life regretting he let go.
Travis plucks the faded red oil rag from his back pocket and closes the hood of the Toyota.
‘Come on. We best get you back to camp.’
Kaylee sighs. ‘If we must.’
He considers her reluctance as he swathes the grease from his hands. What he might do to ease it.
‘Wanna stop for a rootbeer float on the way?’
Kaylee blinks, eyes impossibly wide. ‘Really?’
‘Sure.’
The smile that lights her face is devastatingly like the ones she used to give him as a child, freckled and affectionate and full of sunshine.
‘I’d really like that, Uncle T.’
---
Laura’s first ‘special assignment’ as camp nurse is to transition one of the outbuildings into a secondary first aid station. Apparently, it took this long for management to figure out having injured kids pack it all the way back to the main lodge for everything from splinters to snake bites is a bit inefficient. So, while the bigger scheduled events see Laura playing deputy to Kaylee Hackett, she’s given significant freedom of discretion over how to best spend the remaining hours of her day.
It primarily manifests as walking back and forth carrying things. Constantly. When she’s lucky, there’s a group of kids nearby at the top of her trip that she can draft into service. Children this age tend to like being useful, after all. But the vast majority of her work is done solo.
It seems to Laura that the, uh, admin of this establishment is less of an organizer and more of an Idea Man. A conclusion she draws after reading the hastily scrawled ‘directions’ for her task and failing to see how it could have anything to do with the laughably incomplete inventory sheet.
So, officially, she’s putting together a nursing station. But in reality a large portion of her time has already been dedicated to revamping and re-recording the catalog of equipment and supplies, stream-lining the process as she goes along so the next motherfucker unfortunate enough to stumble into this summer job doesn’t have to spend three whole days digging around through cabinets, sorting through mislabeled cardboard boxes, and kicking up clouds of decades old dust.
If she gets the black lung, she’s skipping workman’s comp and going straight to filing a lawsuit.
Jacob, or ‘Ripple Beefwell’ as she’s taken to referring to Max’s cabin mate, gave their gaggle of extremely impressionable hellions water pistols. Which incidentally turned the lot of them into ambush predators. So when someone knocks at the entrance to the yet to be christened Nurse’s Station, Laura huffs in aggravation, slams the armful of supplies she’s just arrived with onto the counter, and snatches up the dual spray bottles she’s been affixing to her belt for the purpose swift retribution.
‘I warned you little Gremlins what would happen if you keep this up! You fuck around, you find out!’
But when she rips open the door, weapons primed and ready, her target is several feet taller than she’d anticipated.
Travis Hackett quirks a dark brow at her, thumbs in his belt loops and laughter in his eyes. ‘I thought the rule was you’re not supposed to get Gremlins wet.’
---