Camp Mendinghell Part 6/?
Rated: T
Disclaimer: I don't own the O.C. characters or actors. This is a work of fiction and not meant to infringe on any copyrights.
Summary: This is an AU in which Ryan meets the Newport kids at a tough love wilderness camp.
Unbetaed: (Because I don’t have one.)
He waited until dark, and then he came.
Unzipping the boys’ tent and dragging Ryan out roughly by the arm.
The first blow knocked him sideways.
No words were exchanged, for he knew that he had brought this upon himself.
His lip was split and one of his teeth felt loose, but he didn’t raise a hand to inspect the damage.
A.J. grabbed him by the neck of his t shirt and pushed him over to the beginning of the trail.
“March.”
…
Luke awoke around three that morning, jolted awake by an unidentifiable force.
His first thought was that he had too much elbow room- his second was that someone was missing.
Quietly opening the zipper, he gave a backward glance at the other boys. Before he could change his mind, he nudged Seth in the ribs.
“Whassamatter?” Seth asked, squinting up at him sleepily.
“Ryan’s gone.”
Seth’s tired brain couldn’t think of any questions to ask, but he groggily slipped on his shoes and followed Luke into the night, figuring it was better to go on a wild goose chase with Luke, than be a sitting duck with Oliver.
“You sure he’s not in the bushes sucking face with Taylor? Or taking a piss?”
“He talked to Bob earlier… about Oliver. I think A.J. might have found out.”
“What about Oliver?”
Luke told Seth of his and Ryan’s suspicions as he laced up his boots.
No feet protruded from the pup tent; A.J. was gone too.
“He killed a horse?” Seth asked, his voice coming out in a tiny squeak.
They walked in silence down the trail, lit only by the feeble beam of Seth’s flashlight.
A coyote howled in the distance, and Luke bumped into Seth, who had stopped short.
“Are there bears out here?” Seth asked conversationally.
…
He didn’t know where he was when he woke up.
It wasn’t that ‘in-a-hotel, forgot-where-I-was-for-a-second’ feeling, but rather a sense of genuine confusion enhanced by concussion.
He was lying on the hard ground, atop dirt and stones and rotting leaves; just another piece of detritus waiting to rejoin the earth.
Looking up, he saw thin slats of light peeking through the wooden ceiling of boards placed atop a large hole.
The boards were overkill- there was no way he could climb out of the well.
…
They called his name.
‘Yelling quietly’ was a bit of an oxymoron, but they didn’t want to risk waking Bob or one of the other counsellors. Besides, Ryan was a good listener- hopefully he would hear them and come, or at least yell quietly back.
Luke was starting to fear the worst- that A.J. had gotten wind of Ryan’s conversation with Bob, and executed some twisted form of retribution in the name of ‘discipline’… or revenge.
They walked through the stables, peeking into the stalls only to find a horse sleeping soundly in each one.
Seth decided he liked horses much better when they were asleep; the same way he preferred A.J..
The barn door squeaked open.
They dove into an empty stall, hiding behind an empty drinking trough and concealing themselves with a blanket that smelled strongly of horse.
…
From where he lay in the darkness, faint voices ricocheted of the walls of the well.
His name echoed like it had been spoken in a cave, and he stood up slowly- painfully- gripping the crumbling mortar to steady himself.
His ribs permitted only short, shallow breaths but his lungs seemed okay. He’d had a puncture once before, and this didn’t feel as bad.
He made a quick assessment of his injuries, noting the bruises that covered his torso, and the defensive wounds on his hands and arms; at least he’d gone down fighting. His jaw wasn’t right either; a throbbing pain pulsed through it, and his teeth felt all wrong, as if the top and bottom didn’t quite meet.
He leaned against the damp stone wall, sinking to his knees and then slowly reclining; no need to waste what little reserves he had.
He didn’t know when and if A.J. would come back for round two.
…
A.J. tossed a large coil of rope into the empty stall, leaving the barn before the dust it issued had time to clear.
His anger had abated somewhat, dulled by fatigue and alcohol, and he stumbled back to the trail hoping to catch a few hours sleep before he had to blow his whistle and play counsellor again.
The boys released their collective breath as the door swung shut, heaving the scratchy blanket off of themselves.
Luke went over to the rope coil; it was stained with dirt and something else- maybe blood.
“The well,” Seth said, seeing what Luke had found.
“He’d drown…” Luke replied, chalk faced.
“Not the drinking water- there’s another one… an older, abandoned one. It’s not as deep, but not even Ian or Sarah could climb out of it without a rope.”
Luke looked at Seth with something akin to respect.
Camp was changing his perspective on all fronts, nothing seemed certain anymore.
…
The voices were closer this time, and getting louder.
Ryan yelled, “I’m in here!” but his words came out in a slurred moan, his jaw not opening fully.
The boards were slid aside, and light poured down the shaft, blinding him for a moment.
Seth and the Luke peered down at Ryan’s crumpled frame.
“He looks pretty rough… I think you’re gonna have to go down first and harness him in, Seth. Then I’ll pull you up one at a time.”
The idea of venturing down an abandoned well would have terrified him, only a few short weeks ago, but now this prospect seemed perfectly reasonable.
He’d never had a friend to look out for before and Ryan had become a friend, or something like it, and his pulse raced with urgency rather than fear.
…
Bob took a swallow of herbal tea as he leafed through Ryan Atwood’s file. A perennial insomniac, he did most of his paperwork in the wee hours of the morning.
The boy’s school records were relatively clean; his grades high, despite the constant upheaval of changing schools. There were numerous absences, but only a handful of behavioural incidents, none of which seemed very serious.
An assessment by a school psychologist had dubbed him ‘thoughtful and introverted’ and claimed he had internalized much of his grief, not even crying at his mother’s funeral. There was no mention of pathological lying or delusional behaviour in any of the reports, but surely the boy’s primary caregiver knew him best.
Ryan’s allegations against his stepfather and Oliver, and his story about the horse had made Bob uneasy and he wondered if placing Ryan in A.J.’s group had been a conflict of interest.
Oliver made him even more uneasy, but without conclusive evidence about the cause of Johnny’s fall, no real accusations could be made.
He put Ryan’s file back in its place, and looked at his watch; he had an early meeting with the camp’s lawyers in town to talk about Mendingwell’s liability over the Harper boy’s accident.
The counsellor’s had their maps and would leave a bit later in the day. The hiking trip was often where the campers experienced their epiphany, if it were to happen- to understand why they were there and what they could gain from the experience.
He hoped this would be true for Ryan.
…
Seth knelt anxiously beside Ryan’s body, waiting and praying for signs of life.
“I think he’s coming around.”
Blue eyes opened into half crescents as he mouthed a silent thank you to his saviours.
“Don’t worry man. We’ll take pictures of your injuries and the well, and A.J. will be behind bars before you can say ‘Mendinghell’. Your parents’ lawyers will have a field day- the whole camp might get shut down,” Luke said reassuringly.
“Mom’s dead, dad’s in jail,” Ryan mumbled through his busted teeth.
“Then your guardians will sue, who do you live with?”
There was an awkward silence, and the moment he had avoided for so long could no longer be put off.
“A.J.”
“You don’t have to worry about him, man. Who do you live with- outside of camp?”
Seth was already putting it together- A.J.’s ruthlessness with Ryan, his expectations of leadership… this was an old and practiced routine.
“Uh, Luke…” Seth tried to interject, to save the other boy’s breath, but Ryan had already opened his ruined mouth again.
“A.J. is my stepfather.”
TBC Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, and is crucial for the improvement of my writing, characterization, the plot etc.