Free Faint of Heart by Jeff Strand

laughing and cracking jokes while he did it, probably asking Stephen if this one was big enough to keep.
    She wondered if pieces of Gary's friends were in that pond. Maybe a hand floating on the other side, or a foot waiting to get caught on a fisherman's hook.
    She squeezed her eyes shut. These were exactly the kind of thoughts she didn't need. She'd already known that bloody things had happened here. This didn't change anything. Her situation was no worse now than it was before. She needed to calm down and put up the tent.
    And, at the very least, be thankful that she knew Gary had never had a cavity in his life.
     
    * * *
     
    Rebecca had always been a strong believer in the power of humor. She rarely attempted to convey it to her students, because as fifth graders they found plenty enough to giggle about without her encouraging them. But she'd heard stories about people making miraculous health recoveries from simply watching comedy videos, essentially laughing themselves healthy, and she believed them
    While she still fully believed in the concept, apparently it took more than one's own bumbling slapstick antics trying to set up a tent for the healing power to work. Perhaps a cancer patient watching her would have received some benefit, but for herself there was nothing but frustration. Though the tent still had the instructions with it, this was a two-person job and definitely not a task for somebody who hadn't even slept in a tent since she was a little girl.
    Still, if she survived this and she got Gary back and the nightmares faded and she was released from the insane asylum, she'd recall her misadventures setting up the tent and laugh. She was Laurel and Hardy, trying to set up a tent. One of them, anyway, though if the stress continued at this level, pretty soon she'd have voices in her head and then she could play the roles of both of them. If nothing else, pretty soon she'd be doing the famous Stan Laurel whimpering.
    The tent pole she'd struggled to get into place toppled over, smacking her in the side of the head. Yep, she'd have plenty to laugh about after the bloodbath.
     
    * * *
     
    Finally the tent was up. It looked like crap, but she had no way of knowing that Gary's tent hadn't looked like crap, too. So, she had a tent and she had a fire. She was officially camping.
    She was terribly thirsty, and while she loathed the taste of beer, there was nothing else to drink. She wasn't about to drink from the pond again.
    She grabbed one of the fake-beers, sat by the fire, cracked it open, and guzzled a third of it in one swallow. It was awful, but she supposed that most of the world's population would be grateful for a cold fake-beer in this situation, so she decided to make the best of it. She finished off the beer, tossed the can in the fire, and prepared for her next task.
    Weapons.
    The kidnappers hadn't left Gary's pocketknife, which she was sure he'd brought along, so they weren't playing completely fair. Too bad this wasn't a board game where she could debate the rules. She'd gathered some fist-size rocks before she started setting up the tent, along with a pair of branches that were broken off to give them sharp tips, but now was the time to do some more elaborate preparation.
    She looked through her equipment. Tent spikes would have been helpful, but unfortunately they'd been plastic ones instead of metal, so she'd used them all for their intended purpose. Gary's tackle box was filled with hooks. Small ones, yes, but even a small hook could do some serious damage if it got you in the eye.
    She wished that she could set some sort of booby trap, but she didn't appear to have anything useful, and probably wouldn't know what to do with it if she had. The best idea she could come up with was to dig some small holes, cover them with paper plates or something, and hope that Alan or Stephen would step on one and trip. Pretty lame. Better to focus on sharpening sticks. It was slow going using a jagged rock