Full Moon Hike, Julie Steimle [best summer reads .TXT] 📗

our camping site.”
“I am not carrying wood along with my pack up that hill,” Dawn said, shaking her head at him and setting her hands on her hips.
“I wasn’t talking to you, lazy. I already knew you wouldn’t help.” Will then walked back to me who was actually thinking the same as Dawn though we did not often agree. “Unless you want to do all the wood gathering when we get up there, we can start now.”
Travis gave a shrug. “I’d rather wait.”
“Me too,” I said at last, raising a hand.
Dawn grinned at us then turned to Will with triumph. We didn’t often out-vote Will. Usually it was the other way around.
Rolling his eyes and slumping his shoulders, he exhaled. “Fine. We’ll gather wood when we get to camp. I just don’t want us going too far off the path. It is a wildlife reserve and there are wild animals running about.”
“Nothing in this forest could possibly be scarier than Eve,” Travis said, though Dawn actually peered over her shoulder to search for a bear or a wolf. I myself wondered if it was cougar country, imagining how I could actually fight off one of those pretty dangerous mountain lions if they came on to the camp. Looking at my hands where at one point claws had formed when I was in desperate need, I noticed how thin my ordinary fingernails were, thinking that no way was I really all that capable of fighting off every animal that existed.
I started to pick up some pieces of dry wood. Will broke into a laugh watching Dawn practically jump to help me. Only Travis stared at me as if he thought I was just trying to be funny. He didn’t find it so amusing.
Between the second and third campground I noticed three other hikers were in the woods but not on any path. I could hardly make out their silhouettes in the shadows through my sunglasses, so I lifted them. I could see better in the dark than anybody, a vampire trait. In the dim I peered at them and saw what I realized were those three hunters. They were dressed differently, in camouflage this time with hats. They had other rifles in their hands and they crept up the mountainside as if they didn’t want to be seen. No one else but me had noticed them. Dawn and Travis were talking about the summer picnic our town usually held on the Fourth of July, wondering if we would be going to that or not while Will walked ahead of us on the path, listening to his MP3. I had been taking up the rear for most of the way since Dawn had caught her second wind and we were all walking at slower pace, taking more breaks. But in the distance over their conversation, I could hear those imps shouting, though through Dawn’s imps constantly suggesting she drop trash wherever on the trail it was difficult to hear clearly. What was certain was that they had spotted us.
“…shoot her. Accidents happen in the mountains. They’re going to the summit. Just push her off.”
I froze.
“What is it?” Dawn turned, looking at me.
I rushed up to Travis and Dawn, whispering low. “Don’t look now, but I think I see those hunters. They got by the rangers somehow.”
But I should have known whenever anyone says ‘don’t look now’ they’re going to look. Both Dawn and Travis squinted, peering at the dark under the trees, both of them searching to see what I had seen.
“I can’t see a thing.” Dawn straightened up. “Can those eyes of yours really see—?”
I slapped a hand to her mouth. “They can hear us.”
“No better than us, them,” Dawn murmured, looking only mildly hurt.
But Travis rushed from us up the hill and pulled one of Will’s earphones out of his ear. At first Will was annoyed but then he listened to Travis’s whispers and waited for Dawn and me to come up the hill. When we reached him, Will looked me in face then glanced at the forest where I noticed the three men duck down. He spoke in a lower voice. “Travis says you see those hunters. Are they following us?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But I think we are headed in the same direction.”
He frowned. Lowering his head to whisper more, he said, “Ok, there are no rangers up here with us, so we need more than ever to stay on the path so they won’t have an opportunity to do anything weird. Eve, if you don’t mind, just keep an eye on them. All of us should act as if we don’t see them.”
“Well, duh,” I said, glancing to Dawn and Travis.
Will smirked, knowing I had tried to keep things inconspicuous. “Fine. But Eve, just in case, be ready to fly.”
“That means I need more suntan lotion.” I unbuckled my waist belt and slipped off my pack, taking off my button down shirt next. I always wore a tank top under my other shirts. It was a practice I started since I discovered I had wings that sometimes popped out from the birthmarks between the nape of my neck and my shoulder blades when I get startled, tearing any shirt that sits tight to my skin.
My brother handed over the bottle.
I suppose from where the men were hiding in the forest it looked like we had paused because I was tired. I was hoping it at least. Either way, as I stood there on the path and slathered up my bare arms and shoulders while my sister helped me with my back so that nothing would burn, I noticed the threesome had continued to creep up the mountainside. Their imps still shouted that they ought to at least make spooky animal calls to frighten us, though one suggested shooting at our feet. But I didn’t think that they suspected we knew they were there anymore.
Travis started to sing camp songs to get our minds off of the hunters. Will took off his earphones and joined in. I sighed, wishing I were at the beach with my surfboard, wishing we didn’t have to climb all day long, but Dawn suddenly chimed in and jabbed me in the ribs to do the same. Tilting my head, I also started to sing the words, almost forgetting that three men with guns had gone ahead somewhere in the forest with some ulterior motive that was obviously against the rules of the wildlife reserve.

We reached the fourth campground just as the sun had moved behind the trees towards the horizon. Will cleaned out the fire pit and had Dawn collect pinecones while Travis and I stacked our rather scanty collection of wood next to it. I went out to gather more wood so that we would be able to roast hotdogs and marshmallows and make s’mores, while Travis started to set up the tents. We brought only two of them. One for the boys and one for the girls. As long as Dawn and I gathered pinecones and wood for the fire, Travis agreed to set up our tent also.
I had lost sight of those three men around the third campground. And since I could not see them, I figured it was safe to stretch my wings and fly about rather than walk. The first stretch felt wonderful, taking wings from that itchy cramped position somewhere inside my back to at least the span of my arms. It wasn’t broad enough to take me high or fast, but with the trees so close together I didn’t want to risk bruising them with an ill-placed flap. I had learned that my wings were just as real and tender as my arms and fingers were, sometimes more so. In the past, I had been a bit too careless and I had a few tears and scars in the skin between each clawed finger of my wings. I carried the wood in my arms as I flapped over the forest floor, diving down whenever I found a good piece. I got back just as Will had made the fire high enough to really start cooking, the light in the sky growing dim.
“Here you go.” I set my wood down next to Dawn’s collection of pinecones.
He grinned up at me. “Did you have a good fly about?”
“Not yet.” I returned that grin with a real smile.
I suppose my fangs must have shown because I could see Will twitch as if he was about to flinch and thought better of it. He gave a small smile and nodded. “Ok. Just wait a little longer, until the sun sets at least.”
Nodding, I walked over to one of the felled logs set purposely next to the fire pit for a seat, resting my rear on it as I retracted my wings into my back again. “That’s fine. Then, should I start dinner?”
He nodded, gesturing to his pack. “Go get it out. I think we packed it in my bag.”
Hotdogs.
We always packed hotdogs when we went camping. Will had carried the condiments in his pack, including the pickle relish, which I liked, and the mustard, which I didn’t. In Dawn’s bag were the buns, only slightly smushed. Travis had carried the actual hot dogs and the prepared coat hangers we always used for our hotdog and marshmallow roasting. I had to undo the twist ties that bound them together and set them so the tips leaned over the fire, just in case they were not washed properly last time they were used. In my pack were the fixings for s’mores. I carried them in my pack only because I was the least likely to be tempted to eat them before it was time to get them out. There was an advantage to seeing and hearing imps at times.
As I set out the fixings for dinner, also opening up the pre-made pasta salad our mother packed in Dawn’s bag, I smelled something funny. Actually, I thought I heard a gunshot first, but it was distant and muffled by the noises of the trees and all the scurrying animals and insects in them. The smell I first thought was from the hotdogs. When I had opened the package some of the juice got onto my hands and I had to wipe them off on my shorts. But when I leaned in to sniff them, the smell did not get any stronger. The real source of the odor was somewhere distant, yet growing stronger and more familiar as I stood there taking in the forest air with a deep breath.
“What is it, Eve?” Will stood up.
I shook my head slowly, still listening to the air for sounds. The shouting of distant imps, I was sure I could hear them from across the path and deep into the forest from two places. One imp noise was coming closer quickly. And unlike the shouts from Travis’s imp that told him