Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Pine City Pathfinders Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

PINE CITY PATHFINDERS

Laney Henrique hid in the outhouse to cry, and made a wish, hapless as that seemed. Girl Scouts was fun before, but it was different with the new troop. Her father had to pump her up about returning before she reluctantly feigned interest and got into the car. There was to be a bus waiting for the troop of girls aged ten to fourteen. Laney looked out the window hoping the bus wouldn’t show, but it was there, as were the other Pathfinders. The rusty car with the dent in the front bumper stuck out like a cold sore amid the Mercedes, BMWs, Infinities, and a single Bentley.

Begging, pleading, all her whines fell onto unhearing ears. Her father needed time to himself.

Laney’s mother had two breasts but had lost one to a doctor with a knife. It was too late already, those fucking nodes—whatever they were, really—sent out deadly parcels, not so different from Laney stomping door-to-door with chocolaty mint cookies.

A fresh start after their world lost a pillar. A new town. A new school. A new troop.

The Girl Scouts had a bunch of sayings, they had banners, everyone sang together, and they worked as a team. When the tasks ceased, the pecking order directed conversation.

Pine City was much bigger than Walker’s Forest and yet had fewer members in the Pathfinders troop. There were only nine girls and from a city of better than thirty-thousand residents.

Laney made it ten. A tiny troop by usual standards.

The Pine City Pathfinders were snobs and did all within their power to destroy those unbefitting who thought they ought to belong.

The meanness came in whispers as the bus rolled east, away from city life, to Frontenac Provincial Park only a short ways west of the Quebec border. The Scout leader was a reasonable woman but didn’t care for tattletales or whiners.

The bus passed into the bush and the driver, a skinny man with a bald head and a worried demeanor, parked. The girls exited. Then, in a flash, the bus left.

Laney watched and wished her first wish of the day. She wished she were at home.

The troop had an entire section of the park to themselves. In the wilderness, the city rules didn’t apply.

Tents risen, fire blazing, the girls cooked cans of beans and poked sharpened sticks through wieners. Mrs. Marriott explained the different edible goods in the forest that time of the year. There weren’t many, but in a pinch, there are certain roots you can eat. After the main course, they ate s’mores and the floodgates opened to the fat jabs.

Laney was easily twenty pounds heftier than the next biggest girl in the troop.

“Eat another, fatty!”

“I know how to hide food from raccoons, but how do we keep tubs from eating all the chocolate?”

Laney ate one s’more and explained that she needed the washroom. It was a stinky wooden box with a bench seat featuring just a hole. There was a candle and a book of matches near the toilet paper roll. The ceiling vented out into the evening dark and she sat in the dim candlelight crying.

She wished her second wish. This time for her mother to go back to the way she was, the way her family had been.

Home, before it all changed.

“Laney, Laney, I’ve got to…can you hurry up?” Mrs. Marriott’s voice came through the soft wooden door with urgency.

“Yeah, okay,” Laney muttered and wiped her eyes and nose on a wad of rough one-ply. “Oh Mama, I wish you were here,” she whispered and dropped the damp wad down the hole—third wish.

“The girls are telling ghost stories, have fun,” Mrs. Marriott said. She held a copy of Vanity Fair. “Don’t worry about… I mean, maybe grow thicker skin…” she added, trailing purposefully as she pulled the door closed.

Laney walked away until the dim voices grew louder and the light from the fire flickered into view. It was close to freezing and she had little choice but to join the other girls.

Joan Reeves held a flashlight under her chin, the girls had quieted momentarily to hear the story play out.

“And then, the girl goes to the fridge and it’s empty. Then she goes to the neighbors’, but that fridge has nothing, all their food gone too.”

“Then what?” Jackie Reeves, Joan’s sister, said. Named after the famous Collins sisters.

Joan sneered. “The girl goes everywhere, but there isn’t nothing left. Then it gets dark out and in the distance, she sees a bright red fire and smells meat cooking. The girl goes for it ‘cause it smells just like McDonald’s and Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken all wrapped into one.”

A few girls groaned appreciatively. Laney sat quietly waiting for a punchline.

“Then the girl goes close to the big fires and sees lots of those spit things with whole cows and pigs spinning, still alive, they’re mooing and squealing, but she can’t help them. The skin is peeling and like hamburgers and bacon spill out, not cooked, but raw. Then she just keeps walking and she sees more animals, but they’re dead and then she hears a buzzing noise. Zuzz, zuzz, zuzz, zuuuzz. It’s like a saw or something, she sees a giant person’s back, all covered in blood.

“She calls out, ‘Hello?’ The massive person turns and the girl sees the evil grin and the ugly face. The blood on the apron didn’t cover the words.”

“What did it say?” Jackie said.

Dramatic pause. “Laney’s Kitchen. And the big fat cook is Laney and she’s cutting meat. See she’d eat all the animals one day and then she’d get hungry so she held the next available source of food.” Joan paused again for dramatics. “She was cutting up her own mother and eating her.”

The troop shrieked and cackled. Laney broke off into a run. It didn’t matter that it was cold, it didn’t matter that she’d be alone, it didn’t matter about bears or cougars, she’d rather die.

Laney ran until she didn’t hear the mean words. She held her arms tight around her in a too-small corduroy jacket. The uniform included thick leggings when the season changed, but still it certainly wasn’t wearing-a-dress-in-the-woods season.

“Oh Mama,” she said over and over as she wiped her eyes, her back against a tree, her butt in a pile of damp leaves.

She hadn’t settled for five minutes when she heard screaming. It came not from the direction of the campsite, but from the outhouse.

“Mrs. Marriott?” Laney called out, stupidly.

She rose and took a few steps, heard another scream and imagined a mountain lion opening the outhouse door and chowing down, it made her stomach turn.

“Help me!” Mrs. Marriott’s voice carried through the forest.

Laney quickened her pace, jogging until she saw the outhouse. Posted behind a maple tree, she watched the door swing gently back and forth. Mrs. Marriott moaned from within. Laney took a hard swallow and stepped from the shadows into the half-moon’s light that offered a pale cast over the clearing.

“Mrs. Marriott?”

“I need help,” Mrs. Marriott said. “I’m hurt real bad.”

The Vanity Fair issue had just lit from the candle, the toilet paper was probably next. The image before Laney was all wrong. Mrs. Marriott appeared smaller. Brown stains streaked much of her body and she reeked of shit. The toilet paper lit and the pyre offered more angles.

“Mrs. Marriott?” Laney said, backing away. The new light showed a view of exposed insides, coiling and soft. Mrs. Marriott’s butt had dropped down into the hole and her legs folded upward. It’s how she looked smaller.

“Laney, something got me and came up through me,” Mrs. Marriott said holding gooey intestines coiled around her hands like snakes. She then passed out, or perhaps away.

Laney didn’t stick around to be certain.

The terrified girl raced for the normal sounds of the troop. She stopped once in the light, leaning on her knees, trying to catch her breath and trying to corral the necessary words to describe the scene in the outhouse.

“Laney’s having a heart attack,” Liza Hopper said, index finger pointed.

“Mrs. Marriott, she’s…she’s…”

“Spit it out, fatty,” Diane Winger said, number two in the troop weight category.

“Mrs. Marriott’s dead!”

The girls paused and then laughed.

“Nice ghost story. Wasn’t even scary,” Joan said. “Mrs. Marriott’s probably taking a dump reading her fashion magazines, she brought like a hundred of them.”

Another string of laughter filled the air.

“No, I swear, she’s dead!”

“Did ya eat her?” Jackie asked.

The laughs were louder than ever, but as soon as they slowed, branches snapped in what seemed every direction. The Pathfinders quieted, listened.

“Mrs. Marriott?” Debra Shriver called out, loudly, but not too loudly.

A cloud roved in front of the moon and the woods beyond the immediate circle of benches around the fire fell into endless shadows. The shadows were ravenous. The girls leaned tight to each other, Laney stood to the side and scanned the forest.

“Probably just racoons,” Jackie said.

Some raccoon, go see Mrs. Marriott that way!

A twig snapped near Laney and she froze, staring into the endless night.

“Maybe they’ll take Laney and be full-up.” Joan was not at all joking.

A tiny girl, one usually only willing to speak once a solid groundwork of insults had been laid, added, “No way, raccoons couldn’t even get all the way through—ahh!”

“Shari!” Debra screamed as she watched the skinny girl fall forward and then disappear beneath the bench, her fingers digging trails in the hard-packed earth. A silver ring glinted firelight from within one of the divots, tiny writing declared, Daddy’s Girl.

The rest of the troop on the bench jumped up and to the other side of the fire, putting themselves near Laney.

The girls hugged together, even Laney, until something rolled from behind them, connecting with the Reeves sisters’ ankles.

The troop become a series of individuals and spread apart with shrieks. The fire light found Shari Keaton’s eyes where she lay at the edge of the tree line. Filthy and dead.

The girls scattered into the woods.

“Wait!” Laney shouted. Light is good, light is good. The woods are where you go to die, haven’t any of you seen a horror movie?

Branches snapped all over and five girls pivoted and sprinted toward the fire, as if Laney’s thoughts were words. Body parts, smeared brown and yellow, rained down on the fire. The screams were constant, as if straining their vocal folds had become honey for their frightened souls.

A foot. A hand. A heart. Gushy, smooshy sounds plopped and terrified.

“What’ll we do?” Jackie begged.

“Give it Laney!” Joan said. “Take her, she’s the fattest, take her!”

Laney began what had become a commonplace reaction to life and sobbed into her hands. She dropped down from the others and sat on a bench. Let the thing kill her, let it!

Behind the Reeves sisters, a bench flipped into the air and landed with a thump. The troop ran to Laney, linking arms in her arms, hoping to anchor their bodies.

Screams once again filled the night air as two dark shapes swung out of the shadows and connected with Diane’s cheeks. The blow came at such power that her skull crumbled and her brains oozed from behind her eyes like Play-Doh from a press. Blood and hair sprinkled and wafted like a fog.

The horrid outhouse scent was everywhere.

Two girls ran hand-in-hand toward the tents. The cloud cover floated from the moon and revealed a human-shaped figure picking up the girls. There were a dozen pops and a half-dozen snaps as the thing twisted them together like a pretzel. They groaned and grumbled for two seconds before they stopped.

“Laney, you got to get us out of here,” Joan whispered, cuddled tight.

“Yeah, you can fight it, you’re biggest,” Jackie said.

Are you nuts? Laney thought.

“Let’s just…” a branch snapped and footfalls swished behind them, they all stood, instinctively, the Reeves’ sisters continued their tight hold, “just hide in a tent and hope it thinks it got us all.”

It was such a stupid plan, but there was nothing better. The girls crept to the closest tent. They zipped the door and tried to hide in the tiny space.

Joan and Jackie rolled beneath a sleeping bag.

“What’ll we do now?” Laney asked.

“You should offer yourself. We’ll tell everyone and you’ll be a hero. It’s only fair.” Jackie pulled at the hair by her ears.

“Yeah, it’s fair.”

“How?” Laney pouted. Nobody loved her and nobody would ever love her again. Her mother was gone and her father had become distant and stressed. It was so obvious that he didn’t love her anymore. Soon enough she’d be dead and nobody cared. She cried harder, speaking through racking gasps, “How…is it…fair?”

“You’re newest,” Jackie said, tilting her chin out as if to say obsv’.

Maybe it is fair and maybe you should just go out there and die! “Fine!” Laney shouted and crawled from the tent. “Come get me, I want to die! Come get me! I’m just a big fat loser and I wish I was dead!”

Behind Laney, the tent rustled and then flattened with three spitfire snaps. The Reeves’ screamed and the shadowy figure stomped up and down on the tent, pushing the contents deep into the ground. Laney watched a moment and then got to her feet and ran to her own tent. There was hope in comfort, for a wild moment she thought she dreamed it all and would wake up, if only she got back to her bed.

She unzipped her tent, crawled inside and rolled into her tattered sleeping bag.

Footfalls approached. Every step seemed like a shovelful of dirt over her grave.

Laney shivered. “Please, please,” she moaned and heard her tent canvas rustling. It was a heavy-duty tent purchased from the army surplus store. “Please, no! Maaa-maaa!”

The rustle drew loud for one second and then disappeared, off in the distance, there was a clanking crash and Laney knew it was her tent tossed away as if it weighed no more than a baseball. It was impossible to look.

Hands fell onto her sleeping bag and clawed for a seam.

“No!” Laney screamed, and her feet kicked out and she flipped onto her belly to crawl toward the fire, the sleeping bag like a turtle shell. The monster let her go.

Near the fire, weight pinned Laney to the ground.

Laney whined, eyes closed, “Uhh, plea-ea-ease.”

Heat and stench fell onto her and then she felt pressure on her face, on her lips.

A kiss.

She opened her eyes and saw the familiar shape. Flame light danced over the skin that was not skin and the corn kernel eyes, peanut teeth, and a wadded toilet paper ball lodged in the figure’s forehead.

The thing was shit, alive.

But the shape.

The shape was what Laney needed.

“Mama?” Laney asked and naturally licked her lips, spat. “Mama?”

The figure nodded.

“Oh Mama!” She reached up and held the rank visage.

Shit stamped Laney’s cheeks and neck in the shape of lips thirty-nine times over the following three minutes. The pair fell into a quiet embrace, sharing a sleeping bag one last time.

—

“There’s one over here. Holy, I think she’s alive!” a voice cried out.

Laney opened her eyes to the mid-morning light and the familiar face of the nervous bus driver.

“Oh god,” he said as he swung back the sleeping bag.

A thick wall of shit, pounds of it, spooned tight up against Laney’s back. The shit kisses paraded the girl’s chubby cheeks and she smiled up at the driver, her lips brown with shit speckles.

Another three men approached, all in blue.

“What the fuck happened?” the biggest officer of the trio asked, a shirt cuff pulled in front of his nose.

“I, uh…” what did happen? “Maybe it was raccoons?”

“Raccoons!” the cop shouted.

Laney sat up and shrugged, damp, packed shit fell from her back. “I guess so.”

“Where’d all this shit come from?” a second cop asked, he was much younger.

Laney shrugged again. “Out of bums, I guess.”

XX