Chapter Text
“Can somebody tell Natalie that this isn’t pampered princess boarding school?”
Nat’s eyes flutter open at the auditory disturbance and she curses at herself. Shauna’s stupid shrill voice has truncated the only good dream she’s had in a long while. As she sits up slowly, pulling back the layers of jackets messily draped across her body, a hand pushes past the blankets covering her hut entrance. Melissa’s face appears.
“Hey, Shauna wants us all up right now.”
“Yeah, I fucking know,” Natalie groans, but nevertheless she slips on her sneakers. Shauna has a short fuse, and she’d rather not deal with brunette’s bullshit if she can avoid it.
Nat walks out to see the Yellowjackets standing around in a circle. She slips between Robin, who was already choking back sobs, and Akilah, who was petting a baby goat and rocking it like a baby. Across from her, Shauna stood with her hands in her pockets, manspreading upright like she always does. She shoots Nat a piercing look but chooses not to comment on her tardiness.
“We’ve got a lot to do today, sluts,” Shauna says, staring them down menacingly. “Travis and Misty will take the shit bucket down to the lake, and—”
“Oh come on, I did that last time,” Travis objects.
“Stop being a fucking misogynist and dump our shit, Travis,” Mari retaliated.
“Whatever,” Travis replied.
“Anyways, as I was saying, before that rude interruption, Melissa, Gen, Britt, and Robin, will continue collecting sticks and remodeling my hut. Don’t fuck it up this time,” she says, shooting them a bitter look. “Taissa, Van, and Nat, you guys go hunt for game — I’m not really in the mood to see your faces. Today, I will supervise Akilah with the food, and Mari—” Shauna turns to her and tosses her worn shoes. “Shine my shoes.”
Mari opens her mouth, ready to bite back, but resists, replacing whatever insult she was aiming at Shauna with a huff.
Shauna, ever so satisfied with herself, dismissed the group to go do their designated tasks. Nat wandered back to her hut to grab her stuff, including the rifle. Despite her disapproval of Shauna’s leadership and the current state of affairs, she liked hanging out with Tai and Van, even if the third-wheeling was a bit excessive at times.
“Hey,” Nat said, approaching the couple, who were sitting by the fire pit. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Van responded, launching up into a standing position.
As the trio made their way through the thick forest, the two of them trailing behind Natalie, Van and Tai start reminiscing about old memories from before the crash.
“Do you guys remember that time after Jeff and Jackie’s breakup when Shauna ran all of Jackie’s laps for her during practice and passed out?” Tai asked.
“Yeah, and look at her now,” Van replied. “She’s like if Jigsaw and Chucky had a bisexual baby.”
“Nice one,” Natalie chuckled, fist-bumping the redhead. Out of all the girls, Natalie and Van have kept their dynamic most faithfully to their pre-crash days. Nat has never told her this, but if it weren’t for Van, she probably wouldn’t have joined the soccer team at all.
“Shauna wants Van and I to teach lesbian bible study again later,” Tai said.
“Seriously? No offense, but what is anyone getting out of it?” Nat asked. Ever since Shauna became bisexual (who didn’t see that coming?) antler queen (she wrongfully stole that title from Nat), she has been enforcing a weird lesbian mandate, as if they didn’t have more pressing issues.
“I’d say we are some pretty good teachers though,” Van remarked, nudging Tai. “Everybody is starting to see the appeal of the homosexual agenda.”
“Leave it to Shauna to find out she’s gay and force everyone to be gay too,” Nat mutters.
“Okay, tread carefully, Scatorccio, you know who you’re talking to,” Van responds.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s weird because obviously Ben was gay but she killed him for it. It’s like she’s really homophobic, but at the same time also really gay.”
“It’s true,” Tai said. “She’s gay, but also the most homophobic person I’ve met. It’s fucked up.”
Suddenly, Nat catches a glimpse of an animal in the distance and whips around sharply, causing her backpack to get caught on some branches.
“Woah, watch out Scatorccio.”
“I just saw something over there,” Nat said, pointing towards it. The girls head slowly towards the direction Nat is pointing at.
They spot a clueless deer with its nose buried in the ground, either digging or eating something. Nat raises her rifle steadily as Van and Tai stand behind her with bated breath.
A shot rings out. Bullseye.
Van, Tai, and Natalie arrive back at the camp, carrying the deer carcass using a makeshift stretcher they put together with tree branches and a towel. The girls at camp were strangely more delighted than usual to witness evidence of a successful hunt, and as they set down the stretcher, Gen broke the news to them.
“All the animals in the pen have died.”
The three of them look up at her in shock.
“What? How did this happen?” Nat questioned, feeling her anxious instincts returning.
“We don’t really know,” Gen admits. “Akilah believes it was an infection. We must not have cleaned the pens well enough or something, but they were all sick. We were hoping you guys would bring something back.”
Shauna appears, not acknowledging any of them, and examines the deer. “Good. This is going to be good enough for now. Bring it to the butcher station.”
Due to the catastrophic animal pandemic that just occurred, they had their meal later than usual, and after they were done, Shauna got everyone’s attention.
“So as you guys know, our animals all died. Now, I don’t want everyone to freak out, because the season isn’t over yet and evidently there are still animals out in the wild up for grabs. But as leader, I don’t want to take any risks.”
Shauna turns to Lottie. “Lottie and I had a productive discussion earlier, and she gave me some valuable insight. She said we must turn back to the wilderness for guidance if we want to survive this in the long run.”
Murmurs ensued as all of them turned to each other in concern and confusion.
“Silence,” Shauna commanded. “Lottie, do you want to say something?”
Lottie, looking as mysterious as ever, slowly rises from her stump.
“Akilah saw this happening,” she begins, speaking softly. “The Wilderness is unhappy with us. We’ve been careless lately, and now we need to give it what it wants.”
“We are not fucking hunting and killing people again just because you had a weird vision, Lottie,” Nat snaps.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Lottie states calmly.
“Then what do you mean?” Nat asks, placing her hands on her hips.
Lottie pauses. She then looks at Nat and says, “the Wilderness wants us to copulate, Natalie.”
Nat’s jaw drops, and she stares at Lottie, appalled. The rest of the Yellowjackets sit in awkward silence as a random gust of wind hits them. Van is the first to speak up.
“So when you say ‘us’ do you mean like all of us…or just you two?” Van asked, gesturing at Nat and Lottie.
Lottie seemed to consider the question, but then just looked at her with a blank expression.
The other Yellowjackets exchange confused glances, waiting for someone to knock some sense back into Lottie or simply knock her out and send her back to her hut. Then, Shauna steps forward and drives the butt of her rifle into the dirt twice, demanding everyone’s attention.
“You heard her, the Wilderness demands gay sex,” Shauna said sternly, looking all of them in the eye. “So don’t stand around looking stupid, Mari. If by sunset you are not all in your huts lezzing out, I will shoot you. Got it?”
The girls start murmuring amongst each other, but nobody objects. As they disperse, Shauna glances at Lottie, who looks like she’s in deep thought. Suddenly, Travis is beside Shauna, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Uh, how am I supposed to lez out if I’m a boy?”
“Figure it out, Tinkerbell,” Shauna sneers at him. Travis backs off.
Misty comes up to Mari and grins. “This is gonna be so fun,” she shares, “I’ve never got to do anything like this before!”
Mari responds, “Are you serious? We’re stuck in the fucking woods, all of you bitches stink, and most importantly, you guys are all ugly. How am I supposed to get it up in these conditions?”
Van rolls her eyes. “Mari, please. didn’t you ‘get it up’ to Eli Grossman after the winter formal?”
“What? No!”
Misty interjects. “No, it’s true, she did, I was— um…I mean, I don’t know.”
Mari whips her head towards Misty. “What the hell, Misty? What do you know?”
“Nothing…”
“Okay, timeout,” Tai interrupts. Let’s stop arguing and just do what Shauna says, okay? Or at least pretend to. She legally can’t check because she’ll be busy too.”
Mari huffs, but relented, padding back to her hut. Van waits for her to leave before she walks up to Tai and squeezes her shoulders.
“I think the Wilderness is going to be very pleased with us tonight,” she whispered cheekily.
Tai smacks her gently on the head and smiles.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure of it.”
Back at her newly remodeled hut, Shauna strips off her dirty flannel and decides to put on one of Jackie’s shirts.
“Shipman,” a familiar voice rings out from behind her.
Shauna turns around quickly to see Jackie kneeling in the middle of the hut with her hands in her lap, wearing that blue varsity jacket.
“Christ, Jackie, what are you doing here? I’m changing.”
“You brought me here, you freak. Also, nothing I haven’t seen before,” Jackie’s ghost impishly quips, giving her a once-over.
“Go away. I can’t have you here right now,” Shauna says, stuffing her shorts into a backpack.
“But you need me here, Shauna. You’re hungry. And you and I both know Melissa isn’t who you’re hungry for.”
“That’s enough, Jackie,” Shauna snaps. “You don’t exist anymore. Why don’t you go haunt Bruce Willis instead? You were always trying to sneak a peek at his Bruce willy.”
“Please. I just thought it looked kinda weird. Besides, it’s much more fun to haunt you, because you care. In twenty-five years when you’re married to Jeff and your kid hates you and you’re living your shitty suburban mom life, you’d still care about me.”
“That isn’t gonna happen, Jackie. I’m not going to marry Jeff. That’s your dream, not mine,” Shauna bites.
Jackie laughs. “Whatever you say, Shipman. I bet it feels better to believe that I’m lying to you, but I’m not.”
Melissa’s voice calls out from outside the hut, snapping Shauna out of her Jackie daydream.
“Hey Shauna, are you in here?”
Jackie leans in closer to Shauna and looks up at her with those big round eyes.
“I think dinner’s ready,” she said with a smirk. Then she’s gone.
As the sun was setting, casting a violet glow over the camp, Natalie decided it was the perfect time to sneak out of camp, but was annoyingly stopped by none other than Misty Quigley.
“Nat? Are you leaving right now?” Misty asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“Mind your business, Quigley,” Natalie said, pushing past the curly-haired blonde.
“Wait, you can’t leave,” Misty cries out, “We’re all supposed to be lezzing out! It’s a team effort!”
Nat sighs and rolls her eyes, facing Misty. “I think the rest of the girls have that covered.”
“B-But you have to! It’s the rules,” Misty says, grabbing her arm. “Shauna said she’s going to shoot us if we don’t all comply!”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what Shauna says. It’s just some dumb shit Lottie and her came up with to ridicule us.”
Misty looks downright distraught. “You’re going to ruin everything for—”
“Oh my God, what is the deal with you all?”
“Natalie if she catches any one of us—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Misty, goddammit.” Natalie grabs her face and plants a quick kiss on her lips.
“There. Is that lesbian enough for you?” she says, pulling away from a shell shocked Misty.
“Um, yeah. Okay. I guess that counts,” Misty blushes, adjusting her glasses.
“Alright,” Nat says, smoothing down her shirt. “I’m leaving, and don’t you dare say a word of this to anyone, got it?”
“Got it.”
Natalie leaves Misty, who is still trying to process what just happened. A couple feet away from the camp she begins to hear horrifying animalistic noises from the huts, which was a sign that the girls were consummating their plea to the wilderness. She tries to block it out by keeping her flashlight by her hip and her vision focused on the dark path before her. If she gets eaten by wolves, it would’ve been well worth it, because there was no way she was going to subject herself to the weirdest unethical polyamorous gay cult that ever existed.
She stops by the cliffside and sits on the bark of a tree that has fallen over. In any other case, this was a beautiful night — the stars and the moon seem like they were painted by Van Gogh himself. Whenever Natalie was alone, which was usually at night, she’d always find herself thinking of life before the crash. Day by day, she would start to forget things, like the color of the towels her neighbors at the trailer park would always hang out, or the taste of shitty beer, or the last thing her mother said to her before they left. She closed her eyes, letting the silence simultaneously calm and unsettle her, and found herself praying to a god she had abandoned years ago that she would return home soon.
“God, if you can hear me—”
“Natalie.”
“Jesus, fuck!” Nat jumped, turning around to see not Jesus, but Lottie.
“What the hell Lottie?”
“What are you doing here?” Lottie asked.
Nat’s nerves settle down. “I can’t be at camp with all that fucking bullshit happening right now.”
“You mean the lezzing out?”
“Good job, Sherlock,” Natalie quips. “Shouldn’t you be lapping up some girl in a shitty tent right now?”
“It’s not how this is supposed to happen.”
“Um, not an expert but I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how lesbian sex works.”
“No,” Lottie says sternly. “This is not what It wanted. It’s what Shauna wanted.”
Nat raises an eyebrow in skepticism. “Okay, then what did It want?”
Lottie sighs and looks at Natalie. The moon is reflected in her eyes, and her face is illuminated in an arrestingly haunting way.
“Let the non-believer shed their arms and rid themself of the cage around their heart. When the heart bleeds freely, let it flow with the wilderness, and we shall never walk this earth hungry,” Lottie recites, without a single catch in her breath.
Nat’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow, okay. I think you should go to sleep.”
“Yeah, maybe I should. But you should go join the others, Nat.” Lottie says, but Nat gets the feeling she doesn’t mean it.
Nat chuckles. “I’m straight, Lottie.”
“No you’re not.”
“Now who the fuck are you to decide that?”
Lottie stares at her with those soft dark brown eyes and something just clicks.
“Shit,” Nat blurts, to her own detriment. She doesn’t even know what just happened, but it felt like something did.
Lottie smiles to herself, before turning away.
“Wait. Dude, did you just try to telepathically turn me gay?”
Lottie stills and looks over her shoulder.
“That’s crazy, Nat. You can’t turn someone gay. It’s always been within you.”
Nat couldn’t help but laugh. Lottie Matthews, of all people, just called her crazy. This might’ve been the funniest thing that’s ever happened to her.
“And what about you? Is it also in you?” Nat questioned mockingly.
Lottie is silent for a moment. Nat couldn’t tell if she was contemplating what to say or whether to say anything at all.
“Your greatest sacrifice will set you free,” Lottie finally responded, before disappearing into the dark forest.
Great, Nat thinks, slightly irritated now. It's like Lottie needs to end every single one of their conversations with ominous bullshit or else she’ll explode and die.
The next morning, the group slowly emerged from their huts — some of them clearly refreshed, others worn out. Nevertheless, the air had definitely shifted overnight as the girls glanced at each other, trying to put together the pieces of who slept with who.
“No way. Misty fucking Quigley with Gen and Robin?” Mari whispered to Akilah as they watched the three of them exit the hut. “What the hell were they doing, high-fiving each other?”
“I dare you to go ask her,” Akilah cheekily said, nudging Mari.
Mari walks up to Misty, who now has a large grin plastered across her face.
“How was the arts and crafts session, Velma?”
“Oh!” Misty exclaimed, tugging on her cat sweater. “It was such a lovely time!”
Suddenly, a wicked idea pops into Mari’s mind, and a mischievous smirk spreads across her face.
“I didn’t know you had that much pull in you, Misty. I’m honestly shocked and impressed,” Mari said, leaning closer. “How do you feel about turning it into a challenge, just between us?”
“A challenge?” Misty asked, obviously confused. “What do you mean?”
Mari smiles smugly and leans back into a tree. “Suppose you and I had a little friendly competition where we,” Mari glances around, “see who can pull the most girls within the season.”
“You mean whoever has sex with the most people?” Misty asks.
“Yeah. If I win…” Mari says, “You have to do all my chores for me from now on.”
Misty considers this, and frowns. “What’s in it for me?”
“Well, what is it that you want?”
Misty takes a minute to contemplate.
“Okay, I’ve got it! If I win, you have to take dump bucket duty for me, and I also have to be invited to all the team meetings from now on,” she beams.
Mari scrunches her face but agrees. It’s not like Misty has any chance of winning anyways.
“Fine.”
Mari grabs a knife from the butcher table and returns, carving a line down the trunk of a tree. “This side is going to be you, and this side is me. We’ll keep a record here so we don’t forget.”
“Wait, how many people did you sleep with last night?” Misty asks.
“Akilah and Britt,” Mari says, looking satisfied with herself.
“Well then I’ve already won, because Nat also kissed me.”
Mari raises an eyebrow. “Yeah right she did. And pigs also fly.”
“I’m not lying, it really happened!” Misty protests.
“Well, either way it doesn’t matter because you have to be full on lezzing out for it to count, Misty. It’s the rules.”
“Alright, fine.”
Mari turns around and carves two notches on her side before handing the knife to Misty.
“Two-two,” Misty says, drawing two tally marks on her side.
“May the best woman win,” Mari states, and the two shake hands. “And Misty, remember, you’re not allowed to drug people.”
“I wasn’t planning to!”
“Everybody huddle up!” Shauna yelled in the distance. The girls made their way over to her.
Shauna stands with her hands on her hips, waiting for everyone to flock to her. Her hair was more matted than usual, and she was wearing Jackie’s worn out butterfly shirt.
“Alright guys, listen up,” Shauna began. “Earlier this morning a pair of hares wandered into our compound, and luckily I caught them just in time.”
Everybody shifted their gaze to the animal pen and sure enough, two little furry creatures were mingling in the middle.
“Thank goodness,” Tai said.
“Awesome,” Travis commented.
“So it seems like the Wilderness was very pleased with our ritual last night. I am…proud…of you all. Keep it up,” Shauna said, walking off sheepishly.
Misty beams. “Three cheers for the Wilderness!” she exclaims, clapping her hands. The rest of the team join her in a chorus of hesitant and scattered applause.
“Hey,” Shauna said, standing next to Tai, who was hanging some clothes alongside Akilah. “We didn’t get to do the lesbian class yesterday.”
Tai side-eyes her. “Well, we did do a little more than teach yesterday. It was basically hands-on learning.”
“Yeah, I know,” Shauna responded. She pulls a piece of paper out from her pocket. “I just thought we could do with a little structure, so I wrote a syllabus.”
Tai wipes her hands down the side of her pants and grabs the piece of paper. She skims over it and looks back at Shauna.
“I appreciate it, but Van and I are professional lesbians. We can handle this by ourselves.”
Shauna steps closer to Tai and stares her down. “This isn’t a request, Tai, it’s an order.”
Just as Tai was about to speak up, Van pops out from behind her. “What are you guys arguing about?”
Tai crosses her arm and faces her girlfriend with an annoyed look on her face. “Shauna over here wants us to follow her syllabus for the lesbian class.”
“What? Why do we need a syllabus?”
Akilah, bless her heart, softly interjects. “I personally really enjoyed the last class Van and Tai did.”
Shauna shoots her a menacing look and the girl glances away nervously.
Tai turns to Akilah, “Well, we can’t do that anymore because Lesbian Stalin here—”
“It’s Bisexual Stalin to you, Taissa,” Shauna retorted.
Tai just rolls her eyes. “She’s not bisexual when she’s out here,” she mutters to Van.
“One more word and you’ll be the next queer I bury,” Shauna threatens.
Taissa flashes Akilah and Van a look that screams are you hearing this shit? before she angrily hands Van the paper and storms away.
On the other side of camp, Natalie ignores the commotion as she sits alone by her hut, drawing random doodles into the ground with a stick. In the distance, she notices Travis talking to Lottie. Nat watches as she hands him a mug, rubs his shoulder, and walks off. Travis doesn’t drink it though, and the boy merely holds onto it as he looks around like he doesn’t know where he is. Nat decides to drop her stick and walk towards him.
Travis eyes her weirdly as she approaches him.
“Hey Travis, what’s up?” Nat says nonchalantly.
“Nothing,” he replies. Their interactions have been a little strained ever since the break up—not that they were ever really dating in the first place.
“Did Lottie give you shrooms?”
“Uh…” Travis said, playing dumb. “What do you mean?”
Nat rolls her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Travis. What did she put in your drink?”
Travis bites his bottom lip. “She’s been asking me to drink this mushroom tea so I could start seeing…visions,” he whispered.
“Well, have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Have you seen any visions yet?” Nat asked.
“Well…yeah, I did. It felt like getting high at first but now it just makes me feel weird.”
Nat thinks for a moment. She really missed the feeling of being high. Sure, it might be Lottie’s weird wilderness shrooms, but to hell with it, she’s got nothing and no one else out here.
“You can give it to me,” Nat states plainly.
Travis looks surprised. “Nat, you want Lottie’s shrooms?”
“Yeah dude, it’s just shrooms. Nothing special about it. Just don’t tell her about this.”
Travis agrees and hands her the mug, tucking his hands back in his pockets. “Good luck,” he said, before walking off.
Nat stares at her reflection in the tea for a while before bringing the cup to her mouth and taking a small sip. Damn, it tasted pretty gross. She swigged it the second time, holding her breath as the concoction entered her body.
“Ugh,” she grimaces. She blinks, and suddenly her body feels a hundred times lighter. Then, the ground starts swaying beneath her and Nat feels as though a warm blanket has been wrapped around her body. Her lips curled up into a smile as her mind wandered into a drowsy state, and the only thing she could see was a bright glowing light spreading towards her peripheral.
“Hello, Natalie. I’ve been waiting for you.”