Conclusion: The Faucet and its Drips

~ It invades my ears just like a sweet melody...but it's far from one in reality...

~It can drive you to insanity...

~

In uniform, the campers skip about around a bonfire in the centre of the hall, the song rolling off their lips as I can finally discern what it's made up of.

Feet and crackling fire echo with the lyrics.

"Oh, the blood is spilling across the open fire

Dazzling and appealing we all sit in harmony

Gathered for a meal of flesh and bone

Only the finest from way back home"

My face sours. My heart numbs. I don’t understand-

"Raised and trained in the lake and wood

We eat them, we eat them as we should

We sit now and sing our praise

Our friend was so good, with such a good taste

These are whispers only Pripyat knows

Not a word gets out, we bite our woes"

-why anyone would teach a child this song? My eyes catch a glimpse, my nose catches a whiff, both horrors burning bright: The uniform was singed, but the skin was much darker, red and flaked like an ember. Hair of matching colour sears away, engulfed by the flames of the devil. The children, skipping and singing, are doing so while roasting one of their own.

I back away horror-stricken and my mother instincts think, ‘Is it Birch?! Where is Birch?! Please, Please be okay!’

My roasting heart compels me to run and find him. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Where’s Liraz? Why is this happening?! What compels someone to…cannibalize?!

I almost slip on wood chips as I run to quell my heated mind. The horrid melody replaces the tweeting birds and the rustling of the woods. Cabin after cabin goes by as I climb the stairs of the administration office. I think Liraz must have answers. Liraz is playing a joke, right? Right?

“Liraz!” I shout as I burst through the door. The room is vacant. I glance at random, for some piece of information, some explanation for what I saw.

My eyes land on the hamster painting, a group of cute rodents among the grass, but now there is a row of the picture, and each depicts a darker truth. The hamsters move within them, and slowly rip each other apart, exposing the ribcage and devouring the pieces. It hits me in the chest as my heart has yet to burn off the adrenaline.

A creak enters the cabin, my head whipping down to the door.

“Birch!”

I run up to him and hug the life out of his lungs. He doesn’t struggle or utter a word.

“W-where have you been? Where is Liraz? W-hat’s going on…I don’t under-”

“They…got Cherry.” Birch whispers, voice blown to bits.

“Wha-” The image enters involuntarily into my mind. The searing of red hair.

“They-they…” Birch can’t finish the sentence as he weeps for his friend, the first pick they chose to eat.

I hug him, unsure of what to say, what to do. Now I think my car’s sorry state is intentional. Trapping us here as if we were prime slabs of meat.

“We’ll…get away. We’ll-” I swallow my sorrow sharply.” We’ll…remember her.”

‘I must do what a mother can.’

Birch had brought his bag with him, hastily packed as if a tornado would soon touch down. I don’t ask for details.

I shut the door to the cabin and quickly rummage through the papers I spotted yesterday. I tell Birch to keep his eyes to the floor and he complies without a word. Quickly flipping through the documents I find Cherry’s as well as my son’s and snatch them from the stack. I roll them up and cuff them in my hand, peeking out the window nothing meets my eyes. Should I call Reed? The police? How does one deal with this situation? Especially when trapped here like cattle.

My action runs faster than my thoughts as I take my son’s hand and exit the cabin. Outside its dead silence but the eerie melody vibrates through the oxygen we need to survive. I gather up my nerves, tie them so they don’t stray and walk on cautiously. I never thought the ground was so noisy until now. Every step has minefield potential.

Birch holds my hand loosely, his eyes downcast at my heels. His breath, so shallow that I can’t hear it.

“Birch?” I whisper.

He nods.

I want to kneel and comfort him, but I’m aware it's the worst time to do so. I take his shallow response positively while I guide us off the path.

A small opening is ahead and we pause behind the last cover, the clawed-out tree I nearly walked into the night before.

With Birch secured behind me, I peek around to check the area.

Ginger hair almost gains me a headache. Liraz stands at the top of the triangle-shaped clearing. Her hands rest on her hips, her head tilting to-and-thro like a see-saw. My eyes narrow at her odd behaviour.

“What to do, what to do, what do to~”

She repeats the three words, though not in frustration. The tip in her voice is one of a child playing hide and go seek. I shudder at it, taken aback by the playfulness, relieved she wasn’t in the cabin when I burst in. I feel a burn on my arms imagining what could’ve become of me. What would become of Birch?

The last bit is horribly searing.

She tilts her whole body sideways, trying to see from a different point of view. At this point I know she’s not in the right mind. Not of them are. I wonder how in the world they changed so drastically? The missing piece is just as crucial to pass as the clearing ahead.

Liraz then walks away towards the dining hall, an urgent skip in her step. As she leaves a wind comes off and brushes against her, whispering a frightening truth into our sense of smell.

The scent of blood is on her.

Once the lot is empty, I take Birch and run across as quickly as possible.

Opening the door to my car, Birch gets in on the other side, his bag hitting the back seat.

I fumble to insert the keys into the ignition, having to focus on the task. I turn it and it only rumbles. Again and again and I pray and pray for it to start.

My prayers are only fumes. Birch trembles in the passenger seat, watching out the window for predators. I collapse against the wheel, wanting to scream, but I bite my own tongue, drawing blood.

I immediately dust off, take my phone and dial Reed’s number.

Ring~

Ring~

Ring~

Just like the dead car, the line is dead as well.

“No, no, no.” I choke under the pressure and fear. I wish Reed was here, I wanted us to be together and far away from this slaughterhouse of a campground. The cabin in the mountains…

“Mom…” Birch suddenly says and I turn to him, wiping tears from my panicked eyes.

“I…think it’s the plant.”

“...The plant?”

“...Neither you or I consumed them because of our allergy.”

My mind goes back to the torn foot of the pine tree. “The licorice?”

He exhales deeply, trying to keep himself together. “When…I was with Cherry we were…looking through a book of local…plants.” Birch’s eyes stare forward as he tells me. “...it said that…licorice can…increase appetite.”

I think of the song. I think of the cannibals they have become. “B-but how is it…this…consuming?”

“I-I don’t know. I-I’m not even s-sure I want to. Cherry…” Birch mumbles as I see distress catch under his eyes. He doesn’t so much as hide them, instead he focuses ahead, too scared to look away from the camp.

During breakfast, Liraz said they were famous, the licorice pancakes. The local licorice has a certain distinctness. My mind races with the new roots of the situation. I see the plates again, I hear the mouths chewing. Like primal animals, not a crumb was left on the clawed paper.

Though the futileness of it only hammers my heart further into the reaches of my DNA, I turn the key. Again and again.

Nothing. I pop the hood and get out, the bells ring in my exit, but I hear them tell me not to go.

“Stay inside.” I say to Birch who only nods and stares ahead.

The gravel scrapes as I walk in front and lift the sheet metal up, propping it on the holder. I glance at Birch, then back at the interior. My eyes scan over all the complex metallic parts of the engine. Then they land on something. The weaving timing belt around the camshaft has been cut.

I glance behind then back in front. What now? There’s no way to fix it and I haven’t seen any other cars. I don’t know if Liraz has one. I look at Birch who appears as an apparition in the passenger seat. He reminds me of those kids I saw that night, the ones I can’t seem to shake off.

“Mom.”

I hear his call through the glass separating us and all I see after is his hand pointing passed me. Without a knot, I know what it means. No words are needed to address such evil.

The shuffle of feet like zombies invades my ears. Without a breath I slam the hood shut and run to the driver's seat, locking the door as the door slams just before carnivorous fingers can pry it open.

A sound like hail falls upon us as Birch and I lean to the centre, dozens of hands hoarding the windows.

“Oh come on~don't be this way now~”

I hear Liraz state, ending off with a deranged laugh.

The smell, that flaking smell of iron makes me nearly gag with its pungency. The claws leave bloody streaks upon the windows.

Every single face smiles with hunger, eyes unblinking as if they themselves were tearing the flesh off our bones as if we were BBQ ribs.

Heavy breathing and panicked gasps are the only audible noises coming from the two of us. You could barely hear it amongst the constant assault upon my car.

“Come on~ we’re starving children! You’re a mother, aren’t you? Then give your flesh and blood!”

“Only to feed my child!” I yell, trying to block away from the noise. I look for something, anything to defend us and catch onto Birch who shuffles into the back and pulls out the seat.

A crowbar appears in his hand. “U-use this if you have to.” He nods. “W-we’ll get out of here…we have to remember…m-mom.”

I look at the weapon as a tree branch is whacked upon the glass, forming a crack within it. I was taken aback by how he knew where it was when I had forgotten at the crucial moment. I look toward his eyes amidst the chaos, they’re full of fear, but there is a determination for us to survive. Us.

“Y-yes.”

I take it in my hands. The crack widens and with it, the horrid song is sung, suffocating like smoke in the lungs.

"The fish in the lake aren’t for eating

We catch in release in reeling

Around and around our day's play

Never leaving at the end of the day

The fire is lit, skin searing

Perfect temperature circles the pit

The woods protect our songs"

With the pelting and the sick harmony of voices, Birch and I stick together as a last knock against the crack shatters it. My body whips away to shield Birch.

"Oh, the blood is spilling across the open fire

Dazzling and appealing we all sit in harmony

Gathered for a meal of flesh and bone

Only the finest from way back home"

The song eats away at my humane thoughts, unable to think of anything else than its repulsive lyrics.

The hands reach out, fighting against one another, so much that they claw each other, nails dragging down the arm. The driver's side is exposed, leading the crowd to gather there and Birch crawls to open the passenger door. And I follow, cutting myself on the dust of glass.

I fall out of the other side, moving away with the crowbar, Birch also stands defensively, baring a thick broken branch in his hand.

The site we see drops my stomach six feet under.

The campers started harming each other, the blood soaking their clothes now a mix from home among others. Still, they sing as they slowly die, the lyrics rolling lazily off their mouths.

I want to cover Birch’s eyes, but Liraz spots us and is able to shuffle through the cannibalizing mass of flesh.

"The fire is lit, skin searing

Perfect temperature circles the pit

The woods protect our songs"

She sings, dragging her leg with a stick piercing out of it.

Mouths chewing. There are no howls of pain, replaced with the mad hatter song.

Her blood trails behind her flimsily, waving like a happy dog’s tail. I don’t breathe as I prepare to hit her. Birch doesn't breathe as he prepares to hit her.

When she’s close enough, the blood making me overwhelmed in a fever, I swing at the same time as Birch, our weapons whacking against each other.

Our breath tangles as she laughs and lurches.

Birch grabs me first, and that’s when it happens, her singing is momentarily killed from her bloody lips as she is struck to the gravel, collapsing upon her tail.

I look up and almost cry.

Reed drops a camp sign, huffing as he observes her form.

“DAD!”

He looks our way, with eyes full of relief and horror. “I-I’m so glad I made it in time!”

We run up to him and practically collapse into each other.

Reed kisses my head. “You're okay. You're okay. You're okay. We’re okay.”

He holds us away from the twitching bodies, the last lines of the song dying with them.

"We sing at camp Pripyat

Only at camp Pripyat

Do we feast..."

“Yeah. That old manager, I was with him before he was taken to the hospital. He mentioned something about a nuclear dump site at Pripyat. You don’t know what that toxic stuff can do. I did some digging, some 60 years ago the powerplant had it buried in the hills. The slope went right to where most of the licorice grew.”

“T-that’s probably why the licorice was the way it was. They mutated, pollinated, and kept growing throughout the decades.”

“Who was in the photo?”

Reed looked onward grimly. “His kids. One of them died at the camp 20 years ago.”

“They drowned…” I mumbled.

I thought about how they could’ve ended up, in the stomach of their peers. Leaning against the window I gripped the files, glancing at Birch who did the same. We drove in silence in the borrowed car, one Reed paid a cabin for.

As we drove back to the motel I heard the dragging kites rustling in my ears.

Camp Pripyat was abandoned after that, the police left to clean up the most sickening scene their eyes had ever laid upon. And somewhere in the bush, the licorice plant sang its own song of goodbye.

Epilogue: 6 months after the events at Camp Pripyat.

I wish dishes with a comfortable silence. Though it wasn’t how I wanted Birch to become independent. I couldn’t deny the fact that he took initiative. He chooses to remember, choose to defend. People must lean off each other.

I am his mom, Reed’s his dad, and he is my son, and there will never be a moment we feed off each other.

Birch sat on the couch in our living room, eyes scanning over a page in a brochure. “A cabin in the mountains…sounds nice.”

The End.