harlan @harlanduprearchive - Tumblr Blog

ALLIE BISHOP

Even as she stomped on like some bulldozer of a being, Allie snorted under her breath at the comment about someone trying to burn down the cabins. Good, maybe if they did, they’d be quicker to fix up the school dorms and send everyone back to campus. It was stupid in her mind that not everybody had been banished. Why hadn’t they just booted out the younger kids and given seniority to the rest of them? These were supposed to be their important years after all. But no, instead, here they all were living like homeless people in shitty cabins with crappy insulation and nature just about everywhere you turned.

Still, the fact the guy had apologized and actually given her a bit of breathing room made Allie’s shoulders relax a little, her moodiness not subsiding ( never subsiding ) but still simmering down a smidge.

“Assault and battery, with the slight addition of demonic ritualism.” She answered quickly, and clearly sarcastically too. Glancing back at the boy, the corner of her lips twisted up. “What landed you warden duties? No offense, but the nice ones don’t tend to last from what I’ve heard.”

“I did hear chanting from behind one of the cabins the other night. I thought it was one of the sisters sleep walking,” Harlan mused, nodding in consideration at her ‘charges.’ “Was the assault and battery part of the demonic ritual, or was that a whole separate deal?” He asked. In his three years at Broadripple, he had adopted the ‘go along to get along’ strategy. It hadn’t been hard — Harlan liked everyone. There were some people who he was convinced were either going to wake him in the night saying prayers over him (was that a Catholic thing? He didn’t think so, but he’d seen enough horror movies to know that any religion was one charismatic leader from cult status) or were going to off some sleeping upperclassman in their sleep after finally losing it, full Edith Lynch style. Most of the students seemed alright — but a concerning number fell to the worrying side of the line. Since they’d ventured out into the woods, he’d been keeping mental tabs on people who were toeing the line. His charge, at least, didn’t seem in danger of praying for his immortal soul. He hadn’t entirely ruled out the stabbing bit yet though.

At the question, he chuckled. “I uh, volunteered.” He said, crinkling his nose in almost embarrassment at the prospect. “But I thought it was going to be some kind of actual camping thing — not Foucault guided walks around the prison yard.” He said. “I don’t scare easy. Just — no loud noises or sudden movements. And if something comes out of the treeline, you’re on your own.” His tone was airy, like there was no way he would leave a man behind if some kind of cryptid did come barreling out of the woods, he wouldn’t be the first one back inside the safety of the actual campus.

#( — chat | allie )

ALLIE BISHOP

{ @ba-central }

location: on the way to the outhouse

“This is bullshit,” Allie grumbled to herself, angry not only that she’d had the absolute roast of her life that morning from Sister Michael for smoking behind the kitchen cabin — which by the way, she wasn’t the only fucking teenage chimney around here, how come she’d seen nobody else got that kind of serving before??? — but now she felt she was being watched like some kind of degenerate. Phrases stuck in her mind like Bishop, you’re setting a poor example, and we’ll have to call your parents if this kind of behavior continues which newsflash, old lady, she didn’t have parents! She had her mom, her mom, and that was it, get it right. Parents were just some ‘90s fantasy as far as Allie was concerned and that alone only helped keep her hate fire alive.

Whether it was because the criminal offense was still fresh, or Sister Michael just had it out for her for no fucking reason, now Allie apparently needed a chaperone to the bathroom? She’d repeat; this was bullshit. If she wasn’t so heated about it, she’d probably have apologized to the person for being stuck with her because they’d just been in her close orbit at the time of trying to sneak off and being caught, but fuck, she hated being treated like a child. This camp was a living nightmare.

“Can you back off? Jesus, I’m going to take a piss it’s not like a threatened anybody’s life.” She snarked, stomping her way towards the outside not sure she even had to go anymore, she just wanted to be away from the noise.

Harlan was a firm believer in extra curriculars — doing as much as he could, while he was able. ‘The experience,’ he would’ve said — ‘an Ivy league application’ is what he meant. What he hadn’t expected was to become a glorified camp counselor. Not even a particularly good one, because he wasn’t teaching kids who to tie knots of start fires — that he was qualified to do. Instead, he was chaperoning classmates around the grounds. A classmate, who if the grumbling ahead of him was an indication, was pissed. Was she a flight risk? What exactly did they expect Harlan to do if she decided she was over having a tail and took off into the woods?

It was that thought, and the attempt to make out what she’d said, that drew him just a bit too close. As she spoke more clearly though, Harlan gave a little start, almost jumping back. “I —” he started, hands going up in a gesture of clear surrender. “Sorry.” He said, quickly. Still following along as she set off (following something close to the two-second rule this time), his curiosity finally got the best of him. “I heard that someone tried to burn down one of the cabins this morning — I think what actually happened was someone left a curling iron on or something.” He interjected with a dismissive wave of his hand before narrowing his eyes in a playful suspicion. “Unless it was attempted arson.” He said, half-teasing. Clearly, he didn’t think anyone had decided to burn the place down yet. Though, given how quickly the tension had ramped up, he couldn’t entirely rule it out either. “Really though. What landed you supervised probation?”

#( — chat | allie )

ELLA DAWSON

location: behind cabin 2

time: 2:15pm

starter: @ba-central ( open )

Ella wasn’t totally sold on the cabins. She loved the idea of being out in the woods, delving into the trees for winding walks with her notebook and a bomb-ass writing playlist. But the romantic allure of the greenery and scent of soil faded when she had to return to a cramped bunk room with five brand new mosquito bites and no internet to download the audible release of Little Women. Her opinion, however, had shifted the moment she’d seen a white and black circled tail vanishing into the depths beneath her cabin. “Oh my god.” She’d already yanked her backpack off her shoulders, shoving her way through a contained catastrophe of math assignments, paperback books, and an array of gel-colored pens for the emergency snack living at the bottom of the bag. Probably a few months old, deformed from having melted, reformed, and melted again, Ella’s fingers were sticky with chocolate as soon as she peeled back the wrapper. She gave little heed to the inconvenience, dropping to her knees and holding the bar out. A token of friendship. The school might have disallowed pets in the dorms, but how could they argue with nature. The raccoon would be their mascot. Wendy and Harlan would love it. And Ella could already hear Kat shrieking. It wasn’t a tiktok of a cute cow with a flower crown, but in Ella’s opinion, it was infinitely better.

“pstpstpst.” It was the same sound Ella made when trying to summon the stray cats that would occasionally wander through Broadripple’s campus. She gave the protein bar what she hoped would be a tantalizing wave. She gave little heed to the twigs crunching behind her, far too focused on the mission at hand to be distracted. “There’s a raccoon,” she whispered, squinting into the dark pit beneath the cabin.

His Eagle Scout training had prepared him for this, he’d nearly convinced himself before that actually set out on the retreat. It wasn’t until he unpacked his belongings that remembered that really, the only thing he’d retrained from boy scouts was how to tie about ten different knots. Even then, Harlan wasn’t sure how to apply them in a practical sense. There were more creatures in the woods than he knew how to properly contend with, and he had spent the week leading up to retreat researching exactly what wildlife was native to the area, and how to get away from it if he had to.

When he headed toward the cabin and heard the unmistakable sound of someone trying to summon something, he planted his feet and considering making a run back toward the safety of the old buildings on campus. He was sure they were haunted, but at least those were ghosts that had accepted a bunch of kids roaming their territory. Woods ghosts were new ghosts, and he wasn’t about to be lured into a pit fall or something. As he looked around, he gave an audible sigh of relief as he saw that it was Ella. Ella, who was absolutely trying to entice something out from under the cabin. Suspicion returning, Harlan made his best attempt to be light-footed as he got closer. She answered the question before he had a chance to ask, and he let out a gentle laugh.

“Have you ever seen a horror movie? Even one? Because trying to lure a creature out from under a cabin in the woods is exactly how we’re the first to go out.” Harlan offered in a stage whisper, though his warning was entirely negated as he crouched down and squinted into the dark space. He pulled out his phone, carefully pointing the flashlight toward the ground instead of directly into the darkness. Despite himself, he felt his heart rate accelerate a little as he gradually shifted it up, just enough to let the green reflection of the animal’s eyes flare. Looking at her granola bar, he nodded in approval. “Maybe toss a piece toward it — it might follow a trail.” He suggested, quickly returning his eyes to the cabin. Then, after a moment’s though, he narrowed his eyes. “You’re sure it’s raccoon?”