Chapter Text
Her heart was pounding. Her lungs were working overtime. Her legs had a burning sensation; but she kept running. She had no choice. Mabel knew she was close to the treeline, just another half mile and she’d be in the clear. Only then would she be safe.
She tried hard to listen to the sounds around, but other than her ragged breaths she couldn’t hear anything. She took a moment to stop and take in her surroundings. The entire forest was silent, not even insects were making noise. She picked up the pace, knowing that the only thing worse than hearing what’s after you, is hearing nothing at all.
As she was approaching the entrance to the forest, she caught the sight of a shadow-like figure in her peripheral vision. Suddenly, there was a force that pushed against her chest, her body flying back a few feet and hitting the ground with a thud. The wind was knocked out of her already exhausted lungs, and it took her what seemed like forever to draw in a single breath. Gasping and coughing with the taste of iron in her mouth she quickly stood up, holding up her Grunkle’s old revolver and frantically looking in all directions. After a minute, her line of sight zeroed in on the treeline again and she bolted. A whoosh and a loud crack sounded, snapping her out of her fixation just in time for her to see a giant fir tree falling in her direction. She jumped and rolled into the grass of the forest entrance just in time to hear the deafening crash of the tree hitting the forest floor. She felt her hair blow around her face with the gust of air from the fall and it dawned on her then that she had barely managed to escape being crushed.
She lay there on her back looking up at the clear sky, shakily trying to catch her breath and thinking to herself how damn lucky she was to be alive. And after a moment she stood up, dusted off the seat of her shorts, and started walking back to her cabin.
* * *
TWO MONTHS AGO
“Mabel, I’m going to need those scrambled eggs now!”
Dipper was rushing around the mess hall, pulling chairs out of an extended storage closet to set up at the long tables.
Mabel popped her head out of a window leading to the back kitchen, “I’m going as fast as I can Dip, even the powdered eggs take time.” She went back to stirring the massive skillet of gelatinous yellow liquid. “I don’t know why you care that much, I’m certain the kids won’t.”
Dipper put out the last chair and started setting out stacks of reusable plastic trays and cups, “This is the first full day with the campers and if I can get just one of them to be interested in paranormal investigation, Grunkle Stan will take me off kickball duty and let me run a Creature Club with Grunkle Ford.” He stepped back to look over his item placement, occasionally readjusting to make sure everything was just right and center.
Mabel stepped out from the kitchen and watched her brother with confusion, “And just how are these shitty eggs supposed to help you with that?”
Dipper walked over to her, snapping her hair net against her forehead and putting his arm around her shoulder before she could retaliate, “Because, every day of monster hunting I start with a solid, balanced breakfast. So, I need these kids to be just as sharp and ready for anything.”
“I can assure you Bro-Bro,” she laughed while pushing him off, “these eggs are anything but solid and balanced.”
Camp Pines: An old plot of land on the outskirts of Gravity Falls, Oregon; and Mabel and Dipper Pines’ new home for the summer. Like all of Oregon, the vast landscape held a special beauty about it. They were surrounded by thick woods with plenty of hiking trails and close to a decent sized lake with a dock. Throw in the view of the Cascade mountain range and it was a really lovely place to spend a summer…at least it would have been, had their great uncle not bought the place.
Grunkle Stan, a shiesty senior always looking to make a quick buck, had decided the year before to purchase the decade-long abandoned camp at an auction he had read about in the local paper. While a lot of businessmen had the mentality of ‘You gotta spend money to make money’, Stan did not. He had bought the campgrounds as is and as cheap as he could haggle, which meant he’d bought ten buildings and ten paddle boats he had the twins and his personal hired handyman “fix up” for practically nothing. The property had six cabins for campers, one for counselors, one for Grunkle Stan, a gym, and a mess hall. Now with half-assed coats of paint and a light dusting, it was being marketed to the masses as “the summer experience of a lifetime”.
Hey, at least the scenery was nice.
Dipper had made Stan a website and a social media presence, the spots started filling up fast–most likely due to a handful of stock photos stolen off the internet and some wide angles of the grounds. Stan sure knew how to market a product. For staffing it was the twins and a few local teenagers that got roped into being counselors for pennies on the dollar and three months of free rent and food, plus handyman Soos as a groundskeeper. Come the first week of June, a group of forty-eight middle schoolers would get dropped off by their parents to spend a summer in the good ol’ outdoors, and it was Dipper and Mabel’s job to entertain them.
Once Mabel had finished up breakfast and set it all out, her and Dipper opened the doors to the mess hall to let everybody in. Sleepy campers along with sleepy counselors filed in, getting in line and loading up on the mediocre spread laid out for them. Strutting in behind everyone and whistling, Grunkle Stan to the front of the hall with a megaphone.
“GOOD MORNING CAMPERS!” A collective groan could be heard amongst the preteens, “WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST DAY AT CAMP PINES! WE HAVE PLENTY OF ACTIVITIES FOR YOU TO DO AROUND HERE, SO TRY NOT TO BREAK STUFF AND STAY OUT OF MY WAY!” He smiled, “IF YOU NEED ANYTHING, FIND ONE OF YOUR COUNSELORS WHO YOU MET LAST NIGHT, DON’T BOTHER ME! OKAY, UM, WELL, HAVE A GOOD SUMMER!” Stan walked over to the twins and handed off the megaphone, “Alright, I’m off to my cabin to make sure none of these kids’ parents’ checks bounced. Also, there’s a new gal here to take the place of the camp nurse. Apparently, you need a nurse or somethin’ around if you run things like this–who knew. Go make sure she’s all set up in the gym for me, will ya?”
Dipper and Mabel quickly turned to each other as Stan left, “ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS-SHOOT!”
Dipper fist pumped, “Yes! Winner! Have fun showing the old lady nurse around. I have a Creature Club to recruit for.” He stuck his tongue out and walked over to the other counselors to start rounding up the kids for the day.
“Damn…” Mabel said while sulking her way out of the mess hall. The last thing she wanted to do was play tourguide when she could be starting on some arts and crafts.
She made her way across the grounds, past the lake and up a footpath into the gym. When she walked in she saw a blonde girl sitting in a chair at a desk Grunkle Stan must’ve just had moved in earlier that morning. She didn’t recognize the girl at all, but she had to be around her age, “Um, hi, are you lost? Counselors are supposed to be with the kids in the mess hall right now. It’s not that far from here, you could probably still make it before they start their first activities.”
The girl looked up from inspecting her nails, “I’m not lost. I was told to wait here with this.” She held up a first aid kit. The apathy radiated off of this girl, it was hard to get a read on her, even for Mabel.
Mabel laughed awkwardly to break the tension, “Oh okay then, you must have come with the new nurse I heard about. Are you like her daughter or something? And have you seen her around? I need to give her a run down of everything.” She looked around to see if there was anyone walking towards them from the bathroom hallway.
Mabel watched as the girl sighed and stood up, walking around to the front of the desk to rest against it. Folding her arms she looked at Mabel, “I guess I’ll have to start with my own little rundown: I am the new nurse.”