Primal Animals

by Julia Lynn Rubin

Genres: YA Horror

Synopsis

Arlee Gold has always lived in the shadow of her successful mom, who expects nothing but the best. In an effort to get her daughter back on track after a few less-than-stellar school years, she’s enrolled Arlee as a legacy at Camp Rockaway, an elite college-prep summer camp deep in the North Carolina
wilderness. Arlee is intimidated by the camp’s shiny exterior, suffocated by the relentless heat, and tormented by the ceaseless stream of crawling, slimy, flapping bugs that seem to come straight from her nightmares.
In the midst of her brewing dread, Arlee is relieved to find a queer sanctuary in her cabinmates and is especially drawn to Winnie, the enigmatic girl who sleeps in the bunk above her. Except Arlee starts to notice whispers in her wake and other campers avoiding her. Struggling in her prep classes and feeling
increasingly paranoid, Arlee can no longer suppress her panicked “glitches,” and her worst fear is confirmed: Even here, in the place her mother promised was “going to change everything,” she’s been found out as a freak.
Just as she’s facing a summer completely alone, she is slipped a mysterious invitation and finds herself caught up in a secret society that expects its sisterhood to protect one another—by any means necessary. Here, finally, Arlee feels like a part of something bigger, something that matters. Guided
by their cunning leader, Lisha, her smile sharp enough to cut bone, the sisterhood will stand against any threat, unquestioningly. But when Winnie is put in grave danger, Arlee is forced to confront just how far her sisters will go and whether they truly protect the girls.

Release date: May 24, 2022

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 288

Sample

CHAPTER ONE


The air is thick with flies.

“Horseflies,” Mom says, as if in reverence. She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the driver’s seat as we stop at a traffic light. “Now this takes me back.” Mom inhales deeply, that sharp scent of horse manure and fresh-cut grass intermingling in the early summer air. A smile plays at the corners of her lips.

The blueberry oatmeal I had for breakfast crawls up my throat. The flies and their too-many feet, their nasty wings. It’s too much. Too many eyes. Too much buzzing. They’re angry little torpedoes, shooting themselves through the open car windows and bumping against my face, my bare arms and legs.

I feel hot and shaky all over.

I want to vomit.

But Mom doesn’t seem to feel the flies. Not like I do.

Buzz-buzz-buzz.

The traffic light finally turns green. “Mom.” I shake her arm, and she snaps her eyes open, gasping as if coming up for air. She sees the light, sees the look of horror splashed across my face, and that trace of a smile fades. She hits the gas pedal and swats frantically at the flies as if she’s just noticed them. Rolls up the car windows. Flips the AC back on. Reaches out a freshly manicured hand to me in apology, guilt etched across her face.

“Arlee…,” she tries. Mom knows I hate bugs—flies especially—but she doesn’t know just how much. I play it off like it’s because they gross me out, but it cuts deeper than that.

I wish I could tell her why, but then I’d have to explain … and I can’t.

“It’s okay,” I lie. There’re still a couple of flies lingering in the car. Little hitchhikers, I tell myself. I breathe slow and deep. They can’t hurt you, Arlee. They’re harmless. I pretend I can’t see or hear them—that low, thrumming, dull buzz—but my heart is racing all the same, pumping blood into my ears.

I want to scream.

Mom merges lanes. She swallows hard. “We’re almost there, honey.”

“I’m fine,” I say, though far less convincingly. I squeeze her moisturized hand in reassurance, and she gives me a squeeze back.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asks. “Because I could just turn around and drive us home now.” She grins faintly to let me know she doesn’t mean it.

I nod and force a smile that I know she sees right through. “It’ll be good, being there all summer. I was reading online about exposure therapy, too, you know? I can handle it. I’ll probably come home in August and you could dump a whole vat of cockroaches on me and I wouldn’t even flinch.” I shudder at the thought. I’m rambling. I can’t stop. I’m so anxious.

Mom chews at the bottom of her scarlet-red lips but says nothing more. She’s so beautiful and glamorous in her perfectly winged eyeliner and emerald blouse, and it’s kind of strange sitting next to her with my bare face and dirty, tangled blond hair. My jean shorts are tight around a belly I’m insecure about.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the passenger side-view mirror. Even though I just turned sixteen, I feel younger now, somehow, with my face free of makeup and my black-framed glasses on instead of the contact lenses I sometimes wear. I guess I’m going to have to feel younger for a little longer.

Because for the next two and a half months, I won’t have access to eyeliner or curling irons. Not my laptop or even my phone. I can’t use my meditation app to calm down if I get severely overwhelmed, or binge-watch Netflix into the early hours of the morning to try to distract myself from my own racing thoughts that keep me up all night. I won’t be able to call Mom to vent if something stressful happens, or even contact Dad, though it’s not like we still talk more than once or twice a year. I can’t take long walks downtown at sunset and window-shop. Browse boutiques and sip iced coffee and then cool down in our cozy apartment after a day spent in the blazing sun.

No respite from the moths and mosquitoes and … the flies … those creepy-crawlies of my darkest dreams.

Good thing I packed two huge cans of Deep Woods bug spray.

I’ll be on a strict daily schedule, up early each morning. Splitting my time between standardized test-prep sessions and camp activities like horseback riding through rivers. I’ll be sleeping in a screened cabin in an extra-long twin bed, surrounded by the bodies of other girls.

There will be networking events with fellow ambitious students and a few guest camp alumni.

That’s what I’ve been told. That’s what the brochures all promised. Time to really focus on what I want to do next. Where I want to go to college, and beyond that, who I want to become.

Camp Rockaway is going to help secure my future. That’s what the admissions counselor in the stuffy office with the knit sweater kept telling Mom and me, over and over, while I sucked on a disgusting candy from a dish on her desk that I felt too self-conscious to spit out, and Mom just smiled politely. That’s why my father forked over half the tuition for me to attend, even though he’s only been in and out of my life since eighth grade.

Mom spent four summers at Camp Rockaway from the ages of fourteen to seventeen, and ended up graduating summa cum laude from Dartmouth and with a distinguished law degree from Yale. She says she’d never be where she is now without her summers at camp. They helped her work her way up from nothing; now she’s a real self-made woman. She met three of her best friends at camp, too, the women she has over for Scotch and soap operas every other month, the ones who’ve known me since I was a baby. They gift me things like Hermès bracelets and velvet scarves for my birthday. They came to so many of my piano recitals, including my biggest one ever, where each time they sat front row, clapping and sobbing with pride as if I were their own daughter … even though I barely knew them.

So, I know that Camp Rockaway is one of those chances you don’t pass up, especially if you’re sort of a fuckup like me with a less-than-stellar GPA. I screwed up big-time freshman and sophomore year, but that’s over now. I can’t focus on it anymore. I have a chance to boost my college application and get me in prime position to ace the SAT and ACT. I think of what the camp admissions counselor kept telling me, over and over as I sucked that too-sour candy: “We are drawing a blueprint for your future.” Camp Rockaway is a work-hard, play-hard summer prep camp for bright kids with big goals. It isn’t jail, or even boot camp.

So why does it feel like it is? Why is my stomach churning like a washing machine?

I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose and turn up the volume on the radio. Try to listen carefully to the lyrics, let my mind empty of all thoughts.

My right leg is restless. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to calm it down.

We drive past weathered clapboard homes and old farms. Firework stands that sell sweet tea and lemonade. A field full of beautiful white horses. It’s real country out here. I flip off the AC and roll down the windows, trying to coax out the remaining hitchhiker flies. The air out here feels different, cleaner. Sweeter. Mom steers us onto a rusty iron bridge. It’s impossibly tall, and as I glance out the window, I see the vast expanse of bay blue stretching out in all directions, the water so dizzyingly far down. I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I already desperately miss Raleigh. Camp Rockaway is just a three-hour drive from home, but it’s like we’ve been on this road forever. The deeper we go, the swampier it gets, and the taller the leaning trees loom, branches winding to the sky. It’s like we’re entering a different world.

Mom gives a dreamy sigh, seemingly oblivious to my simmering anxiety. “It’s been over twenty years since I’ve been back down here. It’s been too long. I almost wish I could join you and be one of your bunkmates.” She laughs a little, though it’s tinged with sadness. “You don’t even know how much it’s going to change you, Arlee. It really is going to change everything.”

I nod like I understand, but I’m still not sure how only one summer is really going to change everything for me (even if it does give my test-taking skills a boost) or why she’s making this place sound like some sort of quasi-religious retreat.

Mom’s brows furrow when she finally notices my expression. “Honey? What is it?”

“It’s … not, like, a Jesus camp, right?”

That cracks her up. A frantic laugh spills out of me, too, releasing some of the gut-crushing fear. She gives me that look, a sparkle in her eye—that there’s my girl look she flashes my way whenever she’s proud of me or I’ve said something funny—and rests a hand on my knee. I always swell with pride whenever I make her laugh like this. Whenever I do something that makes her glow.

“You’re funny, Arlee.”

“I try.” I make myself grin at her, even though inside and out, I can’t stop trembling. The short burst of laughter didn’t last long in calming my nerves.

Mom squeezes my knee in the same solid, sure way she squeezed my hand. Her long fingernails pinch at my skin. “I know you’re a little nervous, baby, but it’s going to be good. So good. Things are coming that you can’t even see yet. Believe me?”