The Bonfire Season (Chapter 2)

“The Party Begins” 🫥 The last of the daylight bled out faster than any of them expected. One minute the clearing was washed in cool gray-blue dusk, and the next it felt like the woods had pulled a curtain around them. That changed the mood. Not completely. Not enough to ruin the fun. But enough that everyone seemed to move a little quicker. Lanterns were hung from low branches around the campsite. Theodore and Regan argued over the best place to set the speaker while Weston kept insisting he had a “vision” for the bonfire layout that nobody else could understand. Octavious, as expected, ignored the nonsense and got the actual work done, stacking wood, checking the camp stove, setting out emergency lights, and making sure everybody knew where the first-aid kit was. Grace-Lynn noticed all of it while pretending she wasn’t noticing much at all. She sat on a cooler for a moment, watching the others work in the growing dark, and felt that strange shift again — that tiny pressure in the chest that comes when a place doesn’t feel fully empty, even when it should. Leighanna dropped a folded blanket beside her. “You’re doing that thing.” Grace-Lynn glanced up. “What thing?” “The thing where you act calm when you’re creeped out.” “I’m not creeped out.” Leighanna gave her a look. “You touched the ash like you were in a crime documentary.” Grace-Lynn snorted. “It was weird ash.” “That is not helping your case.” For the first time since they arrived, they both laughed without forcing it. Nearby, Cashmere was helping Theodore string a few battery-powered orange lights around one side of the clearing. Their rings flashed whenever they reached up, tiny glints of silver catching firelight from the lanterns. Theodore was talking, of course, because silence seemed physically impossible for him. “I’m just saying,” he said, holding up one end of the lights, “if I die looking ugly, I’ll haunt every single one of you.” “You say that like haunting us would be inconvenient for you,” Cashmere replied. “It would be inconvenient emotionally.” “No,” Cashmere said. “You’d thrive.” Theodore placed a hand to his chest. “You know me so well.” Not far from them, Regan and Weston had moved on from “setting up” to wrestling over the speaker playlist. “Take that one off,” Regan said. “It’s Halloween.” “It’s terrible.” “It’s iconic.” “It sounds like a haunted carnival threw up.” Weston gasped like he’d been slapped. “How dare you.” Octavious passed behind them carrying firewood. “Play whatever you want as long as it’s not so loud none of us can hear if someone’s coming.” The words landed heavier than he probably meant them to. Weston looked over. “You are really committed to making this feel like a murder weekend.” “You picked an abandoned lodge in the middle of nowhere,” Octavious said. “I’m adjusting accordingly.” Luther came in from the edge of the clearing with an armful of branches for kindling. His dark clothes had faded almost completely into the tree line before he stepped back into the lantern light. Grace-Lynn noticed dirt on his hands. “You went off by yourself?” she asked. Luther shrugged. “Not far.” Octavious immediately looked up. “Don’t do that.” “It was thirty feet.” “I don’t care if it was ten.” Luther dropped the branches by the firepit. “You’re not my dad.” “No,” Theodore called out, “but spiritually he is all of ours.” That got enough laughter to break the tension. Eventually the bonfire caught. It started small — low flames curling around dry wood, sparks skipping up into the dark — but within minutes it was a full blaze, bright enough to push the shadows back from the center of camp. Orange light danced across everyone’s faces, making them look different. Sharper. Wilder. Like the fire itself had turned them into a temporary version of themselves. Music started up. Drinks were opened. The first real wave of excitement came back. This was what they had come for. The camping trip. The party. The freedom of being somewhere no one could interrupt them. For a while, they let themselves have it. Weston passed out drinks like a host at some unhinged private event. Regan took over grilling despite having no idea what he was doing. Theodore nearly dropped the bag of marshmallows into the fire and blamed the wind. Grace-Lynn and Leighanna sat in folding chairs with their legs stretched toward the heat, talking quietly about nothing and everything. Cashmere moved easily between conversations, laughing here, listening there, seeming more relaxed than before. Luther lingered near the edge of the group, not separate exactly, but never fully at the center. Octavious stayed closest to the camp setup, checking things almost absently, as if some part of him refused to stop being prepared. At one point, Grace-Lynn looked around the fire and thought, This is the version I want to remember. That thought unsettled her enough to make her look away. Later, when the food was eaten and the fire had settled into a stronger steady burn, costumes came out. That changed the energy all over again. Suddenly it was louder, sillier, brighter. Grace-Lynn disappeared into her tent with Leighanna and came out ten minutes later transformed — sleek black and red, fitted devil costume, dark makeup, sharp liner, silver hoop earrings catching in the light. She looked less like someone going to a Halloween party and more like she had arrived to ruin one. Weston whistled. “Okay, wow.” “Relax,” Grace-Lynn said. Leighanna stepped out behind her wearing a black-and-gold look with feathered details and dark lipstick, elegant enough to make the whole campsite look cheap by comparison. Theodore clutched his chest. “Why are y’all serving end-of-my-life visuals in the woods?” “Because some of us commit to a theme,” Leighanna said. Cashmere emerged next in layered black lace, silver jewelry, smoky eyes, and a look that managed to be both soft and untouchable at once. They smiled when they saw everyone staring. “What?” “Nothing,” Grace-Lynn said. “You just look insane.” “In a good way?” “In a way that would get people written out of a movie.” Cashmere laughed. The guys’ costumes were less impressive but equally committed in their own chaotic ways. Weston had gone full fake vampire — dark shirt, dramatic cape, fake blood at the corners of his mouth. Regan wore a blood-splattered athlete look that mostly just looked like Regan after a very bad party. Theodore had somehow found a priest costume and was far too excited about it. Octavious wore all black with a long coat and gloves, simple enough to be cool without trying. Luther just wore black jeans and a fitted dark shirt with a small skull pendant and let everybody else decide if that counted. “You didn’t even try,” Regan told him. Luther took a drink. “This is my costume.” “For what?” “Bad decisions.” Theodore pointed at him dramatically. “See? That right there. That’s why people think you’re mysterious.” Luther deadpanned, “I’m not mysterious. I’m tired.” That made even Octavious laugh. By the time the costumes were fully on and the second round of drinks had started, the campsite almost felt magical. The orange lights glowed softly in the trees. The fire cracked and popped. Music drifted through the clearing. The lodge stood dark behind them like a backdrop nobody wanted to acknowledge too much. Weston, naturally, wanted photos. “Oh no,” Grace-Lynn said immediately. “Oh yes,” Weston said. “We did not come all the way out here looking this good just to not document it.” He herded them together by the bonfire before anyone could protest too much. It took forever. Regan kept making faces. Theodore kept changing poses. Leighanna wanted better lighting. Cashmere said candids were better. Octavious just wanted it over with. Luther looked like he was attending a funeral against his will. Eventually Weston set his phone up on a cooler and ran into place. The timer flashed. Eight friends crowded together in front of the fire. Grace-Lynn in the center, Weston half-leaning into frame, Theodore grinning too wide, Regan throwing one arm around Octavious, Leighanna angled perfectly toward the light, Cashmere smiling just enough, Luther standing at the edge with that unreadable expression. The camera clicked. Then clicked again. Then one more time. Weston ran to grab the phone. “Okay wait — these are actually sick.” He scrolled, laughing. Theodore immediately leaned in to judge. Regan demanded veto rights. Leighanna said she wanted them all. Cashmere asked him to send the one where nobody looked staged. Grace-Lynn stepped back from the crowd for a second, smiling despite herself. That was when she heard it. A sound from the woods. Not an animal. Not wind. A single sharp crack, like a branch snapping under careful weight. She turned so fast her neck hurt. Nothing there. Just dark trees. Black space between trunks. The faint edge of lantern light hitting leaves. “Grace?” It was Octavious. She looked back. He had noticed her expression. “You hear that?” she asked quietly. Everybody else was still talking over one another around the phone. Octavious listened. For a second, the only sounds were the fire and the speaker. Then— A faint scraping noise. From the direction of the lodge. Both of them turned. The upstairs window looked black and empty. But one of the boards covering it was moving. Slowly. Not swinging in the wind. Lifting. Then settling back into place. Grace-Lynn felt every hair on her arms rise. “Tell me you saw that,” she whispered. Octavious did not answer right away. That told her enough. Weston noticed them looking and turned. “What?” Grace-Lynn almost said, someone’s in there. But she didn’t. Because the second everybody looked up, the window was still. The board unmoving. The glass dark. Regan frowned. “What am I looking at?” “Nothing,” Octavious said too quickly. Grace-Lynn shot him a look. He gave a slight shake of his head — not because he didn’t believe her, but because he clearly did not want the whole group spiraling yet. Weston shrugged. “Haunted house vibes. Love it.” Theodore lifted his drink toward the lodge. “If there’s a demon in there, they’re welcome to join us if they bring better alcohol.” Leighanna did not laugh. Cashmere looked from the lodge to Grace-Lynn and back again. “You saw something.” Grace-Lynn hesitated. “Maybe.” “That means yes,” Leighanna said. Luther had gone still, staring at the second floor now with a look Grace-Lynn couldn’t read. “You know this place?” she asked him. He took too long to answer. “My uncle talked about it once,” he said finally. “Said people around here avoid it.” “That is not enough information,” Theodore said. Luther looked at the fire instead of at any of them. “There was some story. A party, years back. Kids disappeared. Small-town urban legend stuff.” Weston let out a breath. “See? Legendary.” “No,” Leighanna said sharply. “Not legendary. Weird.” That shifted the mood more than anyone wanted. The laughter thinned. The music suddenly felt too loud. Even the fire seemed to crack differently. Cashmere crossed their arms. “I’m not saying we should leave, but I am saying I don’t like that house.” “Then we ignore the house,” Weston said, trying to recover the fun. “We stay here. Bonfire, drinks, costumes, no creepy lodge talk.” Grace-Lynn looked at him. “You picked the creepy lodge.” “And now I’m choosing emotional growth.” Theodore burst out laughing, and somehow that helped. A little. Enough that they sat back down. Enough that the conversation restarted. Enough that for ten more minutes it almost felt okay again. Then headlights appeared through the trees. Every voice stopped. The music kept playing for two more seconds before Regan lunged and turned it off. The clearing fell silent except for the crunch of tires over dirt and dead leaves. An old pickup truck rolled slowly into view from the narrow access road. Not fast. Not lost. Purposeful. It stopped just beyond the outer edge of the lantern light. Nobody moved. The driver’s side door opened, and an older man stepped out in a weather-worn hunting jacket and boots muddy to the ankle. He shut the door behind him and looked over the eight of them, then at the lodge, then back at the fire. His face had the kind of hard, tired expression people get when they’ve spent too many years seeing things they never wanted to believe. For a few long seconds, he said nothing. Then: “You kids need to leave.” And no one laughed. Cast Members : MarieEve Grace-Lynn She/Her Cinnamon Octavious: He/Him YanderTron21 Weston: He/Him Rain Regan: He/Him RobbieRIOT Leighanna: She/Her hwest14 Theodore: He/Him Envious Luther: He/Him Justini Cashmere: She/They Chapter 3 will be posted tonight after I get off work! You definitely don’t want to miss it 🔪🕷️🙈 I hope you all are enjoying this!