The group made it back to the house and heard the boom from the lightning. "Derek, we probably should have gotten him out of the hole, its raining." Shelby and Manny were in agreement with Chris's opinion. They nodded along with him as he spoke, "Whatever the case is, I'm going to go back for him." Chris left and rushed into the woods, Shelby and Manny followed behind.
"Remember, he's still got Shortie, we can't hide that." Willis knocked into Derek to check him just a little bit. "Don't be a dick, what happens if Shortie gets hurt? You really wanna be doing something worse than dog duty?" He waved his hand in an 'it's smelly' gesture and went to catch up with the others. Derek tossed the shovel down and ran after them.
It was getting dark but the stone wasn't too far from the Camp, after passing through a few hills and into the blocked off sections of the woods it was only a few hundred feet uphill. The water was coming down the hillside, it made more mud. "#### this shit. I'm going to get a counselor, we're totally ####ed." Manny started to lose his mind, he plopped over in the mud, overwhelmed.
"Get your fat ass up Manny, we have to find Shortie." Derek ran past the group and cleared the last edge before he could see where the hole was. A yell, it was clear, very clear. Derek shouted at the top of his lungs. "WHAT THE ####!"
Manny was confused, he rushed over and saw what made Derek yell in anger. "Oh my god. What the hell happened? This is fucking horrible.. what are we going to do?" Manny's head spun he hyperventalted and passed out near the edge of the hole.
Mud had collapsed around the hole, there was a great big oak tree on top of it. Even if they went to go get the counselors, there would be nothing they could do in the mud. Digging would even be in vein because the water would quickly overtake what was uncovered.
Derek looked at the others. He kicked them all into the mud and stamped on their faces. "You ####king pricks! Now we're all ####ed." He sneered through his teeth.
Then, in a moment of epiphany it hit him. "Say nothing. We were never here." Derek looked the others in the eyes and then said to each of them. "There are plenty of other holes. Besides, we all left him there.. you're all as guilty as I am if they find out. Don't say a ####king word, Do you understand?" Derek backhanded the remainder of them, "Yeah, this means you all too. You ever speak of this and we're all going to end up paying for it so keep your mouths shut. In the morning, we'll all play like Jacob just didn't come home.. we'll say he was walking with Shortie and never came back. Just pretend like we didn't even come out here."
Derek's plan to convince them paid off, all of them swore to secrecy. All of them were guilty. "Lets hurry back before we're found out. Night inspection will want to know if everyone's home, we can't miss them and come back empty handed." he put his hands up as he was talking and pointed toward camp.
The boys cleaned themselves up, put the tools away and snuck back into Bunkhouse. Though most of them were having a hard time dealing with it, all of them found a way to sleep that night.
When morning came, the counselors were already knocking on all the bunkhouses to search for Jacob. The night inspection had noted that he wasn't in his bed, when they looked for Shortie, even he was missing. The Camp was on alert, they were rallying to search for him in the woods and feared the worst.
It came as a surprise to everyone that Jacob was missing. The Camp organized a search group and quickly cabled students together and spread themselves out. They were to look for Jacob and most of them were terrified, the storm last night was particularly unforgiving. The footprints from the night before, the campers from Bunkhouse 8 were slightly visible but it was impossible to tell how many of them were in the group.
Counselor Shultz poked at Derek, the leader of their bunkhouse and asked. "Where did you all get separated? Where was the last place you saw him? Take us there and we'll search that area."
Derek cringed but it was serious. He played it off well and walked them a space a few hundred meters in the wrong direction, a spot they had already scoped out earlier that week. He knew they would find nothing. "We last saw him and Shortie over there." Derek pointed at a ridge that fed into a creek.
"What?" the rest of the Counselors were furious with his answer, "Why didn't you say something last night, if he was swept down river?!"
One of the female counselors came up and dragged Derek away to ask him some more questions but Derek played stupid. "He was in the back, he was suppose to be following us. That stupid dog follows us everywhere, sometimes he wanders off." Derek didn't miss a beat, "We all figured he was right behind us, its not our fault if he slips and falls without us knowing is it? Do I need to call my Dad? He'd love to hear about how we were sent out into unsafe places." Derek got defensive and angry. The counselors could tell and started to question each of the campers from bunkhouse 8.
"Tell me everything!" They got in all of their faces but none of them gave up a word. Then, about an hour later a search team called out.
They found Shortie's leash near a downed tree.
Abel, one of the bunkmates started to cry and confess about the previous nights outting, it got the attentions of everyone. Derek punched and kicked Abel before the counselors pulled him off.
"Derek, How could you?!" There was a moment when he saw the hand flying toward his face. He knew it was deserved and didn't flinch. He stared at her with intent and sat down on a stump. "I ain't saying a damned thing without my lawyer."
The other campers watched in horror as they were led to the spot to search. The Fitness Coach noticed a bunch of tred marks around the collapsed tree. "This tree just fell right? So why are there so many footprints in the mud, most of us have just arrived but these over here." he rubbed his chin and started to freak out. "Get some equipment over here, there's a depression over here, it looks like a sinkhole. Remember that lightning strike last night, we all heard it. I bet this... aww please don't let it be true. Pass me that shovel. You all, don't just stand around, start digging."
He sank the shovel into the soil and started to clear away the mud. There were broken roots and branches that pierced into the mud, it made digging much more difficult but the counselor's worked all day to get to a depth of about three meters. They looked for what the boys were describing, a large rock buried in the mud. It would be their stopping point. When they reached a depth of about four meters down, there was a small pocket of space. No taller than a desk. It was perfectly round on the outside edge, like something had been there.
"There's nothing here!" Counselor Shultz threw the shovel at Abel. "You have a lot of explaining to do, where is Jacob? Where is Shortie?" He started to push at the bunkmates and get in their faces. "You think this a joke, someone could be dead right now!" he slapped Abel. "I don't care if I get fired for this, you little assholes deserve to go to jail for this, even if its a hoax." Counselor Shultz looked a the other camp counselors and the security guards. "Take these shitheads to the main office and call the police. The rest of you fan out and keep searching. Maybe we'll get lucky and Jacob is alive."
Camp security dragged the rest of the group off and back to Camp.
When it got dark, they returned empty handed still. "We've searched the surrounding area thoroughly, I refuse to believe he just vanished. The state police will be out here all night and tomorrow looking for him. There isn't any reason to believe he ran away, we believe him to be in distress." There was a state trooper directing locals to help with the search. They expanded the area of focus in a chance to find him, but after all their hard work, they came back with nothing. For three days they searched, the entire time, the campers from bunkhouse 8 were stuck answering question after question.
There was nothing they could be charged with, it was up to the authorities to prove foul play. However, the Camp itself sent all the campers home. The grief of losing a camper was enough to draw unwanted media attention when the news broke nationally. Jacob was a Choir boy, he sang for a popular church every Sunday and Thursday.
Presumed dead, they held a vigil for seven days and mourned.