Chapter 6: “It’s Always the Lich in the Polo Shirt”

  Scene 1: “Chip Doesn’t Blink, Right?”

  Todd hadn’t slept.

  Not really.

  After getting nearly possessed by lake fog, chased by memory leeches, called out by his own reflection, and told—by a dog—that he was “next,” rest had become more of a theoretical concept. He’d laid down, sure. He’d even closed his eyes. But his brain was staging a rave of unresolved trauma beneath his skull, complete with mental strobe lights and a remix of Echo’s scream.

  So when he sat across from Chip the Counselor the next morning, sipping coffee like it owed him a favor, Todd noticed something that had always been wrong—but now landed with the weight of a piano being dropped by regret.

  Chip didn’t blink.

  Not once.

  Not when Doug barked.

  Not when Jessie walked by shirtless again for absolutely no reason.

  Not when Todd made direct eye contact and slowly, deliberately, never broke it.

  Just that same perma-grin. That same sunshine-laced voice that sounded like it had been scrubbed with bleach and capitalism. That same unnerving Camp Evershade polo—cornflower blue, always pressed, never wrinkled, and stitched in a way that probably voided some kind of moral warranty.

  “Morning, team!” Chip chirped, bouncing on the balls of his boat shoes. “It’s another perfect day to identify some enchanted runes and jog around the lake of repressed memories! Who’s ready for the Rune Relay?!”

  Todd took another sip of coffee.

  Then, quietly: “He doesn’t blink.”

  Rachel, beside him, raised an eyebrow. “Took you long enough.”

  “No, seriously. Watch. Watch him. He’s been talking for, like, four minutes straight and hasn’t blinked once.”

  Jessie leaned in. “I thought that was just his thing.”

  “That’s not a thing. That’s a red flag.”

  Rachel shrugged, sipping black coffee like it came from the underworld’s finest roastery. “Probably because he’s not using his own body. I’m guessing charisma glamor over a necrotic core. Maybe even a prestige weave.”

  Todd blinked. “A what?”

  “A spell that makes undead things look less corpse-y. Think magical Instagram filter, but cursed.”

  “Like a—like a real estate agent from hell.”

  Jessie nodded solemnly. “Lich vibes. Totally.”

  Todd glanced down at Doug, who sat near the table gnawing contemplatively on a bone-shaped twig and looking deeply uncomfortable.

  “You with us, buddy?”

  Doug stopped chewing. Growled once.

  Then padded over to a puddle—probably leftover rainwater, possibly some sort of interdimensional lake drool—and stared into it.

  Todd followed his gaze.

  Chip, reflected in the puddle, looked exactly the same.

  Except… no reflection.

  Just a flicker. Then a blur. Then nothing.

  Todd froze. “He doesn’t cast a reflection in Doug’s puddle.”

  Rachel stood abruptly. “Time to confirm.”

  She stormed over to Chip with all the tact of a disappointed banshee and said, “Hey! Quick health check. May I?”

  Chip beamed, ever sunny. “Of course, superstar!”

  She pressed two fingers to his wrist.

  Waited.

  Then blinked.

  Pressed harder.

  Waited longer.

  Nothing.

  Jessie joined. “No pulse?”

  Rachel turned, deadpan. “Flatlined. Like his fashion choices.”

  Zara strolled over, frowning. She pulled out a rune-detecting lens, the kind that lit up active magic like a glitter bomb in ultraviolet.

  She hovered it over Chip’s chest.

  The polo shirt glowed.

  Stitched into the collar were tiny, nearly invisible runes. Active. Pulsing faintly. Woven into the fabric.

  Zara muttered, “Protection spells. Obfuscation. Ego-boosting enchantments.”

  Rachel snorted. “So he is a lich in a polo shirt.”

  “Not just a lich,” Zara added. “A lich under a charisma spell.”

  Jessie whistled. “So basically—an immortal, undead motivational speaker in business-casual.”

  Todd stared. “The hell kind of camp is this?”

  Before they could test whether his socks were also runed (they were), Chip clapped his hands—once. Loud. Too loud.

  The echo of it made a few birds fall out of trees.

  “Hey gang!” Chip beamed. “Who’s ready for today’s rune-identification relay race?”

  No one was ready.

  Rachel crossed her arms. “You realize we’re actively uncovering a dangerous magical conspiracy, right?”

  Chip didn’t blink. “That’s the spirit! Nothing bonds a team like decoding ancient symbols under time pressure! Let’s rune and groove, campers!”

  Jessie whispered, “If he starts singing, I will punch the sun.”

  Zara quietly pocketed a thread sample from Chip’s sleeve. “We need to be subtle,” she murmured. “We can’t blow our cover yet. Not until we’re sure.”

  Todd backed away, still staring. “You’re telling me I’ve been eating potato salad made by a soulless undead marketing intern this whole time?”

  Doug growled again. A low, guttural one.

  Chip waved, utterly unbothered. “See you at the starting line, team! I’ll be the one holding the bell of motivation!”

  He turned and walked away—arms swinging, polo shimmering, shoes not quite touching the ground.

  Jessie frowned. “Did… did his feet just hover?”

  Rachel nodded. “One inch. Barely. But yes.”

  Todd slumped against the wall. “So. Chip’s not alive. His shirt is cursed. His reflection is AWOL. He’s working for—or is—the big bad. And we’re expected to run laps around rune markers while pretending that’s totally normal summer behavior?”

  Zara leaned in, voice low. “We need proof. Something we can cross-reference.”

  Doug woofed. Once.

  Then turned.

  Trotted away, tail high.

  Rachel sighed, already following. “Guess the dog wants to show us something cursed again.”

  Jessie cracked his knuckles. “We storming another haunted shack?”

  Zara nodded. “Let’s go find some lore.”

  Todd didn’t move.

  “Guys?”

  They stopped.

  He pointed at Chip’s retreating back. “He still hasn’t blinked.”

  Rachel called over her shoulder, “Neither should you, Todd. Not until we break the spell. Or burn that shirt.”

  Jessie grinned. “Whichever comes first.”

  Todd took one last sip of his lukewarm coffee, nodded to himself, and muttered, “Please let it be the shirt.”

  And then he followed the team into the woods, toward whatever horror Doug was about to sniff out.

  Again.

  Scene 2: “Doug Drops the Lich Lore Dump”

  Doug did not walk so much as glide, with the single-minded energy of a dog that had found the trail of something unholy—or maybe just really, really weird.

  Todd followed behind, regretting everything from his lack of magical training to the half-eaten cursed cupcake he’d inhaled during the last campfire debrief. Zara, Rachel, and Jessie kept pace with the kind of quiet intensity that suggested they were either about to storm a magical fortress or review a one-star Yelp review of Hell.

  The path wound through trees that were far too quiet.

  No birds.

  No bugs.

  Just the distant hum of the rune relay race being announced by a man who—confirmed—had no pulse, no reflection, and possibly no soul. Chip's voice echoed faintly from the loudspeakers:

  "Remember, gang, runes are just puzzles made of friendship! And also sometimes entrapment!"

  Doug growled. Loudly.

  They reached the old Arts & Crafts building—or what used to be Arts & Crafts before it was abandoned for being “too haunted for macaroni art.” It had since been padlocked, hexed, overgrown, and officially renamed by the campers as the “Forbidden Reading Shed.” Because nothing says “bad idea” like combining paper, dark energy, and poorly ventilated spaces.

  Doug sat outside the warped wooden door, thumped his tail once, and barked.

  Jessie stepped forward, cracked his knuckles, and kicked the door open like he was auditioning for Magical Crime Scene Investigators: Summer Edition.

  Inside?

  Dust.

  Stacks of ancient books.

  And the unmistakable scent of mildew and broken dreams.

  Rachel lit a lantern with the flick of two fingers. “Smells like forbidden knowledge and sad glue sticks.”

  “Just like middle school,” Todd muttered, stepping carefully over a mound of glitter glue that had fossilized into a hexagon.

  Zara scanned the room with her detection lens. “There’s an active magical trace here. Strong one. Not just from the books, either. Something... aware.”

  Doug padded directly to a crate in the back and nosed it open. Inside sat a thick, chewed-up leather tome, its cover embossed with cracked gold letters and a cartoonish smiling skull.

  Todd squinted. “Is that a… dog-chewed lich manual?”

  Rachel took it reverently. “‘Liches: Smiles, Souls, and Summer Jobs.’ Oh good. An actual guidebook for necromantic customer service.”

  Jessie raised a brow. “Are we about to get the lich version of an employee handbook?”

  Zara opened it and flipped to the index. “Oof. Chapter Seven: Team-Building Activities for the Soul-Drained.”

  Rachel laughed. “Oh look—Chapter Fourteen: ‘How to Spot One in Your Community.’ We’re checking that box.”

  Todd leaned over her shoulder. “Wait, wait—read it out loud. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  Rachel cleared her throat dramatically.

  “Liches in public-facing roles often rely on glamor spells and morale-sustaining relics to blend in. Common identifiers include:

  ? Reanimating paperwork or rosters that update themselves.

  ? Uniforms stitched with hex-deflecting runes.

  ? A soul tethered to an item known as a ‘laughter bell.’

  ? Excessive, unsettling cheer.

  ? An aversion to blinking.”

  Jessie held up a finger with each item. “Yup. Yup. Super yup. That one jingles every morning. And very yup.”

  Todd threw his hands in the air. “He’s liching so hard, I’m shocked he hasn’t asked us to fill out a posthumous feedback survey.”

  Rachel flipped the page. “It also says their tether—usually the bell or a relic—anchors them to the site of their resurrection. If destroyed…”

  Zara finished, “...the glamor collapses. The body fails. The soul either flees or implodes. Or occasionally explodes into motivational glitter. Depends on the lich.”

  Doug wagged his tail.

  Jessie nodded slowly. “So, just to be clear, the undead camp counselor is using a cheer bell to enslave our free will, and the polo is actively deflecting our curses while we’re being emotionally gaslit into daily team-building?”

  “Yep,” Zara said.

  Todd blinked. “Honestly, I kind of admire the dedication.”

  Rachel snapped the book shut. “So how do we break it?”

  Doug barked once, sharply, then nosed the corner of the crate.

  Inside was a half-rotted blueprint of the camp grounds. Someone had annotated it in red ink—hastily, angrily. A scratchy hand had circled the camp bell tower, even though no such tower was listed on the current maps.

  In block letters, written in the margins:

  “RING FOR COMPLIANCE. RING FOR CONTROL. RING FOR THE FOOL TO FALL.”

  Zara’s face went pale. “That’s… That’s what’s on the inscription around the staff bell. The one Chip rings every morning.”

  Todd blinked. “He’s been using it to keep the campers docile?”

  Rachel nodded. “Not just docile. Obedient. Think about it. No one ever questions the schedule. Or the activities. Or why Kevin showed up and then exploded. They just go along with it.”

  Jessie crossed his arms. “So what now? We storm the bell tower, karate chop Chip’s fashion sense, and throw the bell into a pit?”

  Zara tilted her head. “Technically, we’d need to disable the soul tether—probably the bell—then disrupt the protective enchantments on his clothing, sever the anchor magic from the clipboard roster, and perform an unbinding ritual on the camp itself.”

  Todd groaned. “So a light Thursday, then.”

  Doug sneezed and barked twice, tail thumping.

  Zara picked up the lich manual and tucked it under her arm. “Let’s find the bell tower. I have a bad feeling about how long that thing’s been ringing.”

  Rachel pulled out a vial of ink and scrawled a symbol across the inside of her forearm. “If he’s controlling memories too, we need to mark ourselves.”

  Jessie traced a matching sigil onto his bare chest.

  Todd pulled out a Sharpie and started writing “DO NOT TRUST THE HAPPY GUY” on the back of his hand.

  Rachel gave him a look.

  “What?” he said. “If I forget everything and see this later, I’ll believe me. I’m my most trusted source of panic.”

  Jessie gave him a thumbs up. “Honestly? Valid.”

  Zara stepped into the doorway, eyes fixed toward the distant trees.

  “The bell tower isn’t supposed to exist anymore,” she murmured. “But I bet Doug knows the way.”

  Doug growled low—then turned, nose to the wind.

  Rachel slung her bag over her shoulder.

  “Let’s go shut up a lich.”

  Todd sighed, capped his Sharpie, and whispered, “You know, I thought summer camp was gonna be fun.”

  Jessie smirked as they followed the dog into the woods.

  “Oh, it is. We just skipped to the bonus level.”

  Scene 3: “The Bell Tower That Shouldn’t Exist”

  Doug led them where the trees grew too close together, where even the fog hesitated. The ground sloped into a pocket of silence, tucked so far from the usual camp paths it felt like they'd dropped into another dimension—or at least an unlisted zip code.

  Todd tried to keep pace without tripping over exposed roots or his own anxiety.

  “You ever notice how Doug only finds creepy ruins?” he muttered.

  Rachel nodded, deadpan. “It’s his spiritual gift. Some dogs smell cancer. Doug smells cursed infrastructure.”

  Zara was already sketching containment runes on her palms with lake-blessed ink, whispering a spell that made the air thrum around her fingertips. Jessie walked a few feet ahead, shirtless as always, wielding a broken lacrosse stick like it was a divine relic.

  And then they saw it.

  The bell tower.

  Tall. Narrow. Sharp as a guilt trip and just as quiet. Black wood warped upward like it had been grown, not built. No one remembered building it. No map had ever marked it. No staffer had mentioned it.

  But it had always been there.

  Waiting.

  “What the hell,” Todd breathed, “is this Jenga tower of doom?”

  Zara squinted up at it. “That’s spinal bone.”

  Jessie stopped chewing his granola bar. “Wait. What.”

  She pointed at the central column—the spiral staircase leading up was not wood, or stone. It was vertebrae. Stitched together. Seamless.

  “It’s a necromantic staircase. Someone wove it from volunteer donors.”

  Rachel deadpanned, “Volunteers?”

  “Mostly unwilling,” Zara said.

  Todd rubbed his arms. “So we’re just… climbing that? Like it’s normal?”

  Jessie clapped him on the back. “Nothing’s been normal since you got licked by a memory leech.”

  “Technically, I was emotionally licked.”

  Doug growled and nudged the first step.

  It creaked.

  Then accepted his weight as he began to climb.

  Rachel followed without hesitation.

  Zara ascended after, one hand always on the railing, whispering stabilizing charms under her breath.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Jessie went next, hopping two vertebrae at a time like this was just an oversized gothic jungle gym.

  Todd sighed, patted the vertebrae like he was about to apologize, and climbed.

  The tower was tight. No windows. No railings.

  The higher they climbed, the louder the air seemed to buzz—like a bell was ringing without ringing. Every breath tasted metallic. Every heartbeat echoed like it didn’t belong to him.

  Halfway up, Todd stopped. “Do you guys hear that?”

  They paused.

  Silence.

  Then…

  A soft chime.

  Once.

  Then again.

  The kind of chime you’d hear before a corporate meeting, or after an angel lost its customer service credentials.

  Zara stiffened. “That’s the bell.”

  Todd shivered. “It’s ringing inside my spine.”

  Rachel touched the wall. “We’re inside a magical feedback loop. It’s tuned to obedience. That’s why we keep forgetting. It’s been ringing through us. Resetting camp. Resetting time.”

  Doug barked—once.

  They reached the top.

  The chamber was small. Round. No windows. Only dust and shadows.

  And in the center: the bell.

  Hung from gnarled roots overhead, it glowed faintly. Made of tarnished bronze and veined with something… organic. It was larger than expected, carved with faint runes around the rim. Below it, a square mat made of stitched-together name tags.

  Todd stepped closer. “Those are camper badges.”

  Rachel crouched, touching the mat. “They're all kids who left early. Or… vanished.”

  Jessie stared up at the bell. “Why does it feel like it’s watching me?”

  Zara moved closer and read the inscription aloud, voice flat:

  “Ring for compliance. Ring for control. Ring for the fool to fall.”

  Todd slowly turned. “He’s been using it to bind us.”

  Rachel stood. “To all of us. Every camper, every day. That’s why no one questions the schedule. Why they don’t notice when time skips.”

  Jessie pointed to the ceiling. “You think Chip rings this before every event?”

  Zara nodded. “Probably remotely. Bound to his voice or presence. The bell's an amplifier—it rides through memory, emotion, and structure. That’s how he keeps the camp in check.”

  Doug growled louder now, backing away from the mat of name tags.

  The bell chimed again.

  No one touched it.

  Todd jumped. “Did it just ring on its own?”

  The tower darkened.

  The walls pulsed. Softly. Like breath.

  The bell swung again.

  Chimed.

  Then again.

  Each time it struck, Todd felt something shift inside him—like someone was reaching into his brain with a spatula and giving his sense of self a good stir.

  “I don’t like this,” he whispered. “I’m feeling very… joiny. Like I want to participate in a group activity.”

  Rachel turned sharply. “We need to leave. Now. It’s attuning.”

  Jessie took one step back—and the bell sang.

  A pure, high note.

  Doug barked—loud, sharp, defiant.

  The sound shattered the note like glass.

  Everyone blinked.

  Zara gasped, clutching her chest. “It almost got me. I—I thought I was ten again. Back when I first got here. I wanted to trust it.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “This is the heart of the ritual.”

  Todd looked at the name tags again.

  He recognized one.

  His own.

  “Guys,” he said, voice small, “my name’s on here.”

  Jessie moved to yank it up.

  The bell shrieked.

  Todd hit the floor.

  Flashes of memory spiraled—Chip smiling, Chip welcoming him, Chip handing him the clipboard and calling him “a natural leader.”

  It hadn’t been a compliment.

  It had been a tag.

  Zara threw salt toward the base of the bell. The glow dimmed.

  Rachel muttered a protection spell, carving a circle in the dust.

  Doug growled—then howled.

  The bell cracked.

  A hairline fracture down one side.

  Jessie grinned. “Well, well. The bone tower has a weak spot.”

  Zara pulled him away. “We’re not ready to destroy it. Not yet. But now we know.”

  Todd crawled to his feet. “So what now?”

  Rachel turned to him, eyes glowing faintly with fury and magic.

  “Now we break the chain. And we start with the clipboard.”

  Doug barked once, then led the way down.

  The tower creaked behind them, the bell still humming—just beneath the threshold of hearing.

  Todd glanced back once.

  And for a moment, the bell shimmered.

  Then—he could swear—it winked.

  Scene 4: “Memory Glitches and Todd’s Existential Panic”

  The first sign that something was wrong was Kevin.

  Or more accurately: the lack of Kevin.

  No garlic necklace. No suspicious cleansing sponge. No glitter residue. Nothing. Just... a gaping Kevin-shaped hole in the vibe.

  The second sign was the glitter.

  It was gone.

  Even the pine needles that had been shimmering for two days like a Twilight fan club meeting had returned to dull, boring green. Todd stood in front of the now Kevin-less bench beside the snack hut, blinking like he expected the air to admit something. Like: Oops, sorry, forgot to render your trauma.

  “Guys?” Todd said slowly. “Kevin exploded here. Like, sparkles and everything. Right? Right?”

  Rachel was next to him, arms crossed, eyes scanning the grounds. “He did.”

  Jessie shrugged. “Maybe he re-exploded somewhere else?”

  Zara frowned, pulling out her scry stone and holding it up to the sky like it owed her a refund.

  Doug growled faintly. He was sniffing a patch of air like it insulted his mother.

  “Okay,” Todd said, pacing. “Let’s just recap. We uncovered the existence of a sentient cheer bell being used by a lich to rewrite campers’ free will. We infiltrated a bone-based bell tower that should not exist. We cracked the magic bell. I blacked out and maybe joined a cult. Kevin was a Placeholder construct who detonated into glitter. And now? Nothing? No evidence? No Kevin? No cursed vibe residue?”

  Rachel glanced around. “And no one looks freaked out.”

  Indeed, the rest of camp bustled as if nothing had happened. Campers jogged in loops. A few played enchanted cornhole near the lake. One group sat around Chip—yes, Chip—who was animatedly discussing the importance of positive reinforcement while balancing a s’more on his nose.

  He was, of course, not blinking.

  Todd stared. “This is worse than when I found a frog in my toothpaste.”

  Zara muttered something dark and unsanctioned under her breath. “He’s sealed the cycle. He reset the timeline.”

  Jessie turned sharply. “Like, time travel?”

  “More like memory realignment. Think... magical gaslighting with extra glitter.”

  Rachel pulled out a charm and flicked it toward a camper.

  It hit. Sparked.

  The camper blinked. “Whoa! What day is it?”

  Zara stepped forward. “What do you remember?”

  The camper scratched his head. “I dunno. I just got here today. We did orientation. Got assigned cabins. I think they said it’s Day One?”

  Todd’s stomach turned. “It’s not Day One.”

  Jessie asked, “How many days has it been?”

  “Three,” Rachel said flatly. “Exactly three. Since the cursed canoe, the saltwater, the sigils, the memory sap. All of it.”

  Todd dug into his pocket, pulling out his notes. His hands were shaking, because he knew—he knew—what he’d written. Detailed sketches of the bell tower. Notes on Echo’s last words. A very dramatic sketch of Chip bursting into flames while yelling, “You miss 100% of the rituals you don’t chant!”

  He flipped open the notebook.

  Blank.

  Half the pages—gone.

  “What?” he whispered. “No. No-no-no-no-no.”

  He flipped again. And again.

  All the notes he knew were there—gone. Replaced with doodles of squirrels and vague to-do lists like "Ask Zara about salt circles" and "Avoid emotionally intense fog."

  Rachel grabbed his arm. “He rewrote your records.”

  Jessie reached into his own bag and pulled out a camp flyer. “Mine says ‘Welcome to Week One!’”

  Zara clenched her fists. “He didn’t just loop memory. He looped documents, too. Paper. Ink. Reality anchors.”

  Todd backed up slowly. “This is too much. I’m not trained for this. I’m a half-trained junior field witch with anxiety and a caffeine dependency and a history of making emotionally questionable decisions.”

  “You’re doing great,” Rachel said flatly.

  “No, I’m doing cursed. I touched a cursed canoe. I got bit by a memory snake. I got winked at by my own reflection, and now—now—the lich has scrubbed our collective memories like a sadistic camp counselor with a magical Etch A Sketch!”

  Zara gently pushed him onto a bench. “Deep breaths. In. Out. No hyperventilating into your boot this time.”

  Todd nodded, inhaled—and promptly choked on a floating marshmallow someone had hexed to hover.

  Doug walked over, tail low, and laid a paw on Todd’s foot.

  Then he looked up and said—because of course he could speak again now—

  “The lich reset the loop.”

  Everyone froze.

  Todd coughed once more. “Cool. So now the dog is dropping the narrative bomb.”

  Doug’s eyes glowed faintly. “He’s sealing the cycle. Binding the camp to the bell’s memory framework. Only those touched by the original curse are immune.”

  Rachel stood. “And that’s us.”

  Jessie cracked his knuckles. “So what—you’re saying we’re the only ones who know this place is cursed?”

  Doug nodded. “And you only have until the next bell cycle to stop it. After that? You forget too.”

  Todd buried his face in his hands. “Great. I’m gonna forget I hate kale. Then I’ll eat kale.”

  Rachel tapped her temple. “No. We don’t let that happen. Not this time.”

  Jessie unslung his bag. “So what’s the plan? We punch him?”

  Zara looked up. “Yes, but magically.”

  Doug barked once. “You’ll need to break the tether.”

  Rachel’s voice hardened. “We find the phylactery. We sever the spell. We end the loop. Permanently.”

  Todd looked up, pale but determined. “And what if it explodes?”

  Rachel smirked. “Then you’ll probably die. But with style.”

  Scene 5: “We Need a Phylactery and a Plan”

  The best plans in history have been born in war rooms, laboratories, and candlelit libraries.

  This one was born behind the camp’s compost dumpster.

  Which smelled like betrayal and three-week-old vegetarian chili.

  Todd crouched on a patch of dead moss, clutching his Sharpie like it was a wand, a weapon, and a pacifier all in one. He was scrawling on a flattened graham cracker box, because paper had become emotionally unreliable since the memory reset. He’d already checked his own palm four times to make sure the phrase “Don’t Trust the Polo” was still there.

  Jessie was drawing on the ground with a stick, diagramming what looked like either a counter-ritual formation or the world’s laziest attempt at hopscotch.

  Zara was muttering in four languages, two of which were only taught to certified death mages.

  Rachel leaned against the dumpster, sipping a mug of something dark and bubbling. Possibly coffee. Possibly vengeance.

  Doug sat perfectly still in the middle of them, eyes closed, as if channeling tactical inspiration from the Astral Plane or a very dramatic opera.

  “So,” Todd said, “step one: figure out what Chip’s hiding his soul in.”

  Zara nodded, rolling her neck like it cracked time itself. “That would be his phylactery. Classic lich move. Tie your soul to a physical object, and as long as it survives, so do you.”

  Rachel narrowed her eyes. “If we destroy the tether, he collapses. The spellwork fails. The cycle breaks.”

  Jessie held up a drawing. “I vote it’s the bell.”

  Zara shook her head. “Too obvious. Too central. It’s the amplifier, not the anchor.”

  “Then what?” Todd asked. “His shoes? His playlist? That terrifying smoothie he drinks every morning that smells like optimism and death?”

  Rachel pulled out her notebook—one of the few that hadn’t magically self-sanitized during the memory reset—and flipped it open to a page marked “The Undead Admin Aesthetic.”

  “Think about it,” she said. “What’s always with him?”

  Jessie shrugged. “Unholy pep?”

  “No,” Rachel said. “The clipboard.”

  Everyone froze.

  Todd sat up straighter. “You mean the one he uses to track everything? Who’s in which cabin, the rune relay results, what time we’re allowed to poop?”

  Rachel nodded. “It updates in real time. It knows everyone’s names. It even added Kevin before Kevin existed. That clipboard isn’t just a planner—it’s a magical roster of souls.”

  Doug barked once. Loud.

  Zara snapped her fingers. “Of course! That’s why it survives every reset. That’s the binding contract. That’s where the phylactery’s stored—under the guise of camp logistics!”

  Todd stared. “You’re telling me the Lich of Summer Eternal bound his soul to an administrative tool?”

  Jessie shrugged. “Kind of genius. No one questions clipboards.”

  Rachel added, “Especially not one that smells like vanilla and gaslighting.”

  Todd pointed his Sharpie at the ground. “So, we break the clipboard. What’s the catch?”

  Zara stood. “We have to destroy it during a full ritual cycle—while Chip’s actively using it. Otherwise, the tether just relocates. And we only get one shot.”

  Rachel flipped to another page. “There’s a ritual. Old, risky, loud. Soul-breaking magic. I can do it… but I’ll need backup. Distraction. Wards. Energy anchors.”

  Jessie grinned. “Say no more. I’m shirtless and deeply theatrical. I’ll join the talent revue.”

  Zara gave him a look. “You’re going to perform?”

  He shrugged. “If I have to recite Twilight shirtless to save camp from necromantic purgatory, then I’m your guy.”

  Rachel pointed at Todd. “You’re on clipboard duty. You grab it the second Chip’s distracted.”

  Todd swallowed. “And if it screams?”

  “Let it scream. That means it’s working.”

  Doug whined once, then pawed at a metal object nearby. Buried in the dirt under an overgrown fern was… the bell. The original one. The one from the tower. Covered in salt and pine sap, now dull and cracked.

  Doug sat next to it, ears lowered.

  “He buried it,” Zara whispered. “To block its influence.”

  Doug licked the bell once, then began howling—low, melodic, mournful.

  The howl trembled through the trees.

  The bell pulsed once.

  Then dimmed.

  Then went silent.

  The group stared.

  Rachel whispered, “Was that… a lullaby?”

  Zara nodded slowly. “Ancient Canine. He’s putting it to sleep.”

  Todd blinked. “Okay but—how does a ghost dog know ancient lullabies?”

  Doug looked over his shoulder.

  “I had pups once,” he said simply.

  Everyone shut up.

  The silence was so soft you could hear Zara quietly cry into her sleeve for exactly four seconds before Rachel cleared her throat.

  “Okay. So. We’ve got the plan: Jessie goes decoy at the talent revue, Zara and I get the ritual ready backstage, Todd goes for the clipboard, Doug keeps the bell suppressed.”

  Jessie grinned. “And we kill the lich.”

  Todd raised a finger. “Wait. What if—hypothetically—it explodes? Like, physically. Like, ‘There goes my face’ explodes?”

  Rachel sipped her bubbling drink. “Then you die. But with style.”

  Todd sighed. “Honestly, that’s the best I’ve ever been promised.”

  Zara started drawing the ritual circle on a nearby stump, her ink glowing faintly.

  Jessie tossed a practice microphone into the air.

  Rachel sharpened her glowing rake.

  Doug started humming something that might’ve once been Kumbaya, but now sounded like it had been translated into Deathwolf.

  And Todd?

  Todd checked his Sharpie notes.

  Twice.

  Don’t Trust the Polo.

  Get the Clipboard.

  If It Screams, Don’t Drop It.

  He nodded to himself.

  “Alright. Let’s ruin some undead paperwork.”

  Scene 6: “Jessie Joins Theater Club (As a Decoy)”

  There was chaos.

  There was mayhem.

  And there was Jessie, shirtless, barefoot, and standing center stage with a glittery copy of Twilight held high like it was a sacred relic.

  Todd crouched behind a sagging stack of unwashed stage props just off the side of the amphitheater, watching this slow-motion disaster unfold like a magical train wreck choreographed to a mid-2000s vampire fever dream.

  Jessie turned a full circle, basking in the confused-yet-hypnotized silence of the crowd. Campers leaned forward, enchanted. A girl in Cabin Pinecone clutched her inhaler like a holy artifact. Doug sat in the front row wearing sunglasses.

  “Chapter thirteen,” Jessie announced in his deepest, most tortured voice. “Confessions.”

  Rachel, in disguise as an “emotional support counselor” with a clipboard and a fake nose ring, leaned toward the front row and whispered, “It’s a metaphor for the inescapable decay of moral structure.”

  Zara, hidden under the stage with Todd, muttered, “Or it’s just working because no one can look away from those abs.”

  Todd was hyperventilating into his sleeve. “Why are his shoulders reflective? That can’t be natural.”

  Jessie launched into the reading with Shakespearean commitment.

  “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…”

  “What a stupid lamb,” he growled.

  “What a sick, masochistic lion.”

  The audience gasped. Someone in the back swooned audibly. A second-year camper whispered, “Is this allowed?”

  Chip floated an inch above the grass, humming YMCA slightly off-key, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes glowed faintly, like two LED bulbs running on enthusiasm and the souls of counselors past.

  He didn’t blink.

  He didn’t move.

  He was enraptured.

  Todd tapped Zara on the arm. “Now?”

  Zara nodded once. “Now.”

  They bolted across the back lot, ducking behind a poorly secured curtain that smelled like regret and mildew. The admin building loomed ahead, all clapboard siding and emotionally repressed filing cabinets.

  Rachel was already in place, standing outside Chip’s office with her counselor badge held high and her expression set to I charge by the hour and your trauma is interesting. Her clipboard glowed faintly—the real one hidden inside Todd’s bag.

  “Remember,” she whispered as they slipped past, “if it bites, scream first, chant later.”

  Todd crept down the hallway, Zara at his side, dodging enchanted awards and a motivational poster that read:

  “Dare to Dream. Or Die Screaming. Either Way, We’re Growing.”

  They reached Chip’s office.

  Unlocked.

  Too easy.

  Inside: chipper lighting, a lava lamp that pulsed with what Todd was pretty sure was actual lava, and a desk that looked like it had been cursed by Martha Stewart and then exorcised by Satan’s HR department.

  There it was.

  The clipboard.

  Floating above the desk.

  Waiting.

  Zara reached into her pouch, drew a bone-handled blade etched with sigils, and nodded. “Ready?”

  Todd nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

  He reached out—

  The clipboard shrieked.

  A high, unnatural screech that sounded like a banshee trying to recite a TED Talk. It twisted in the air and tried to yank itself free from his hands as Todd clutched it with every ounce of repressed theater-kid strength he had.

  Zara began chanting in harsh syllables that peeled the wallpaper clean off the walls.

  The clipboard hissed, vibrating.

  Its cover flipped open—pages turning on their own. Names wrote themselves in real time, campers blinking into magical existence: Kyle With Too Many Teeth. Becky Twice-Cursed. Placeholder 006.

  Todd screamed, “IT’S WRITING PEOPLE! IT’S WRITING PEOPLE INTO THE UNIVERSE!”

  Rachel burst through the door, brandishing a glowing enchanted rake. “GET DOWN!”

  She swung.

  The rake hit the clipboard midair—THWACK—and it sparked like a possessed pi?ata.

  Zara shouted the final line of the unbinding spell.

  The clipboard screamed again.

  Jessie crashed through the wall.

  Literally. Through. The. Wall.

  Covered in glitter, roses, and very possibly bite marks.

  “THAT’S ENOUGH TEAM-BUILDING!” he howled, tackling Chip mid-float.

  Chip screeched. His cheer magic backfired—blasting out quotes at random:

  “Every problem is an opportunity wearing a fun hat!”

  “Synergize or DIE!”

  “Let’s circle back after the screaming ends!”

  The clipboard burst into flames.

  It sang a jingle as it died:

  “Camp Evershade, where every soul’s a star—”

  BOOM.

  The air whooshed.

  Zara dropped to one knee.

  Rachel caught Todd as he staggered, still smoking from clipboard detonation proximity.

  Jessie sat on Chip’s twitching, half-visible corpse as the lich glitched in and out of visibility—one moment grinning, the next a skull surrounded by writhing admin paper.

  Todd blinked up at the ceiling, panting. “Did we just kill a magical HR department?”

  Zara wiped ash off her sleeve. “Almost.”

  The clipboard let out one last puff of flame.

  Doug barked from the doorway, sunglasses tilted at a heroic angle.

  Then he said, “One more bell to break.”

  Scene 7: “The Clipboard Bites Back”

  The office was on fire.

  Not metaphorically.

  Actual fire. Crackling. Singing.

  Because the clipboard—The Clipboard—had chosen not to die quietly. Its final act, as it burst into flames, was to sing the Camp Evershade welcome jingle with increasing tempo and ominous harmonization.

  “??Camp Ever-shaaaaade…

  Where magic meets your faaaaate…

  Where rules are suggestions and DEATH IS THE GATE—??”

  It ended in a high-pitched shriek that cracked the windows and made the lava lamp implode inwards.

  Todd lay sprawled beside the filing cabinet, covered in soot, glitter, and what he hoped was the last of Chip’s motivational aura.

  Jessie was still on top of Chip—who was no longer floating, no longer glowing with undead cheer, and very much not wearing his polo anymore. It had disintegrated. So had about a third of his face.

  “You good?” Jessie asked Todd, panting, knuckles still sparking from where he’d punched through a bureaucratic undead.

  Todd wheezed. “Define good. Because emotionally I’ve been screaming internally for about six hours.”

  Zara stood with a spell-crackling hand raised, her other hand pressed to a rapidly unraveling sigil on the wall. “The clipboard didn’t just bind names—it wrote them into the fabric. It was modifying camp reality in real-time. That’s why we couldn’t hold onto memories. That’s why Kevin’s glitter got redacted.”

  Rachel was hunched near the wreckage, yanking still-glowing pages out of the smoking remains. “These are contracts. Soul contracts. Each page... it’s a person.”

  Doug stepped into the room like a canine archangel, tail low, ears back. His paw crunched over a sizzling corner of contract parchment, and he growled low in his throat.

  Chip twitched.

  He wasn’t entirely Chip anymore.

  The glamour was gone. No more perfectly parted hair or too-white teeth. Now he was something between a corpse and a broken puppet. Pale bone, stretched smile. His left eye was completely black. His right eye was… a spinning wheel. Like a loading screen.

  “I hate that I’m saying this,” Todd mumbled, “but I think the clipboard was keeping him stable.”

  Rachel stood, holding a glowing page between two fingers. “This was his anchor. The final name on it?”

  She turned the page.

  It read: Chip. Title: The Lich of Summer Eternal. Status: Motivationally Possessed.

  Jessie blinked. “There was a form. For being a lich?”

  Zara frowned. “He filed himself. He admin’d his own undeath.”

  Todd sat up, wincing. “Is there a checkbox for ‘accidental career possession’?”

  Chip jerked. Spasmed. A horrible, rattling clack came from his ribcage.

  He stood.

  No, rose. Slowly. As if dragged up by invisible strings.

  And from his mouth came a series of phrases, cut from audio and pasted together with the enthusiasm of a cursed corporate slideshow.

  “You miss 100% of the rituals you don’t chant.”

  “Every camper is a valued energy source!”

  “Circle back! Circle back! Cirrrrrrr—cle baaaaack!”

  He glitched.

  Physically.

  His left arm became a tree branch. Then a microphone. Then dissolved into fog. His face melted into a default smiley face before snapping back into bone.

  Todd scrambled backward. “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HIM?”

  Zara chanted something ancient and acidic.

  Rachel grabbed her glowing rake again.

  Doug barked once.

  Then Chip screamed.

  It wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t even a sound.

  It was a tone.

  An HR compliance training in sonic form.

  Everyone clapped their hands to their ears. The camp itself seemed to vibrate.

  Outside, the bell tolled.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Then a crack split the air like lightning made of memory.

  Zara gasped. “The bell’s breaking.”

  Jessie lunged and grabbed Chip by the collar—or what was left of it. “Hey, motivational corpse! Time to UNsubscribe!”

  He hurled him out the office window.

  There was a pause.

  Then: CRASH.

  The sound of bones hitting gravel, glass, and the limits of magical patience.

  Doug padded over to the window and looked down.

  “Lich destabilized.”

  Rachel flicked the last burning clipboard scrap into a containment jar.

  Zara collapsed into a chair. “We still need to seal the soul tether or he might reform.”

  Todd blinked. “I thought the clipboard was the soul tether.”

  Rachel shook her head. “That was just the interface. His phylactery has to be—”

  The room went silent.

  All eyes turned to the bell outside.

  Where a glowing line of crack-light was zigzagging up its surface like a death countdown.

  “Oh,” Todd said weakly. “Of course. The bell.”

  Jessie wiped blood and glitter from his brow. “We break that, it’s over?”

  Rachel nodded. “No more resets. No more glamors. Chip gets ejected from the living plane. Hard.”

  Zara stood. “But it might blow.”

  Todd sighed. “Of course it will.”

  Doug growled, voice low. “We break it. We end it.”

  Todd turned to Zara. “What do I do?”

  She reached into her pouch, pulled out a jagged ritual dagger carved from a melted lunch tray and cursed obsidian.

  “Hit it with this,” she said.

  “Cool,” Todd said. “Just hit the magical soul bell with a knife. Great.”

  Zara smirked. “You’re the only one who touched the clipboard and lived. It knows you now.”

  Jessie cracked his neck. “We’ll buy you thirty seconds.”

  Rachel threw open the doors. “Doug, go howl the fog into submission.”

  Doug took off like a missile made of loyalty.

  Todd stared at the dagger in his hand.

  Then, with the air of a very tired boy who had not asked for any of this, he followed.

  Scene 8: “Chip Explodes. Cheerfully”

  The bell was waiting.

  Still hanging in midair above the shattered husk of the tower’s foundation, it spun gently in place—slow, deliberate, smug. Cracks ran down its sides, glowing with thin tendrils of gold light like the camp itself was trying to stitch it back together with hope and delusion.

  Chip hovered just below it.

  Or what was left of him.

  No skin. Just bone and enthusiasm. His soul tethered to the last vestiges of his Camp Spirit?. His mouth opened and closed in erratic, glitching intervals, spitting motivational quotes like an AI trained exclusively on Pinterest boards and human sacrifice.

  “There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there is one in immolate.”

  “If you’re not glowing, you’re not growing!”

  “Pain is just weakness being audited.”

  Todd stood at the edge of the clearing, dagger in hand, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. The air vibrated with heat and possibility. The bell's hum was no longer gentle—it was hungry. Buzzing louder, faster, like it could sense he was coming.

  Behind him, the others were holding the line.

  Jessie flung salt grenades like glitter bombs of destruction, shirtless and swearing in Old Elvish just to confuse the enemy fog.

  Rachel chanted counter-harmony spells through a megaphone shaped like a raccoon skull.

  Zara drew blood from her palm and fed it into a runic circle etched into the dirt with Doug’s paw prints.

  And Doug? Doug stood in front of Todd now, tail still, ears flat, gaze locked on Chip.

  “Last chance,” the ghost dog growled. “You sure you want to be the one to do it?”

  Todd looked at the dagger.

  At the bell.

  At Chip, who was now glitching between his polo-clad camp form and a screaming skeleton wearing a “TEAMWORK IS MAGIC” lanyard.

  He sighed. “I got licked by a nostalgia snake, kidnapped by cursed fog, winked at by my own reflection, and just tackled a motivational lich with my emotions.”

  He stepped forward. “Yeah. I’m the guy.”

  Doug stepped aside.

  Todd moved toward the bell.

  Each step felt heavier. Like the air itself was saying, No no no, friend, stay behind the existential dumpster where it’s safe and full of comforting garbage.

  He reached the center of the clearing.

  Chip glitched again.

  “Let’s table this… never.”

  “Just one more quarter of Q3 ritual synergy!”

  Then his eyes—those burning, pixelated excuses for orbs—snapped to Todd.

  “Campers,” Chip hissed, voice echoing from too many throats, “we don’t destroy the experience—we lean in.”

  He lunged.

  Todd didn’t flinch.

  He raised the dagger.

  He jumped.

  And he stabbed the bell.

  It sang.

  Loud.

  Pure.

  It rang once—high and clear and endless.

  The air fractured like glass. The sound hit the soul, not the ears, and ripped backwards through every second Todd had spent at Camp Evershade. Every moment. Every loop. Every fake Day One. Every cursed smile.

  Then the bell cracked.

  A hairline split widened instantly, shrieking with the sound of memories unspooling.

  Chip screamed.

  No more quotes.

  Just a howling void as the magic tether snapped, his form collapsing mid-air. Bits of burnt polo fell like cursed confetti.

  Then, in his final moment, Chip whispered:

  “Let’s circle baaaack—”

  BOOM.

  He exploded.

  Cheerfully.

  Like a fireworks finale at a motivational speaker's funeral.

  Glitter. Light. Screams.

  The bell shattered mid-chime, releasing a wave of air so clean and cold it made Todd stumble.

  Silence.

  Total, honest, beautiful silence.

  For the first time in days—maybe weeks—Camp Evershade felt… normal.

  The fog lifted.

  The sky brightened.

  Someone sneezed in the distance, and it didn’t echo with horror.

  Rachel walked into the clearing, rake resting on her shoulder. “Is he gone?”

  Todd turned, face covered in soot and righteousness. “He exploded into a PowerPoint presentation of trauma. So yeah. I think he’s gone.”

  Doug padded up. “Lich deleted.”

  Jessie tossed glitter out of his pockets like a celebratory flower girl. “We did it. Evil’s defeated. I can go back to being shirtless for leisure, not shirtless for justice.”

  Zara knelt beside the broken bell. She pressed a rune into the dirt and whispered a sealing spell.

  Then she stood. “No more resets. No more loops. It’s over.”

  Rachel clapped her hands. “Okay. So… who’s running arts & crafts now?”

  Everyone turned.

  Todd, still holding the ritual dagger, blinked. “I… may have signed up by accident.”

  Jessie groaned.

  Rachel facepalmed.

  Zara actually cackled.

  Doug sat and said, simply, “You’re gonna need glitter wards.”

  Todd sighed, looked skyward, and muttered, “Next year, I’m going to Camp Literally Anything Else.”