The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (famous ebook reader txt) 📕

A few people in the front snickered before a woman yelled, “We can’t hear you.”

Taking an exaggerated deep breath, Tim shouted, “This better?” Without waiting for the answer, he plowed on. “Like I was saying, welcome! We are going to start by getting sorted into our cabins.”

“Got your maps,” Joe whispered, finally appearing at Dylan’s side.

“Still can’t hear!” the woman called again.

“I said, we are going to get into cabins,” Tim screeched, causing the people near the front to jump back another foot.

“Great. And if I could just borrow this,” Dylan said, reaching for the bullhorn in Joe’s other hand.

“Oh no. I need that to help people find their cabins.” Joe moved the bullhorn away from her as if she were a toddler reaching for something with a Mr. Yuk sticker on it. Tim’s voice cracked as he continued to scream at the room.

“Joe, you’re gonna have to do me a solid,” Dylan said, taking her best big-sister tone and grabbing onto the bullhorn. Giving the horn a hard yank, she managed to wrench it free from Joe’s death grip, eliciting a gasp from the man. Stumbling backward at the sudden release of the hotly contested item, she smoothed her jacket and her tone—“You’ll get it back, promise”—then marched over to Tim and thrust the thing at him as another round of “whats” went around the room.

“Is this better!” Tim shouted into the shrieking bullhorn. A volley of squeals sent hands over ears as the people in the front gave up and walked back toward the coffee stand, leaving Tim a good ten feet of room.

Dylan made a mental note to have Brandt pick up a PA system at some point and silently thanked her lucky stars that Tim hadn’t decided to have this professionally filmed “for posterity.”

“You may have noticed we are at a children’s campground and not a luxury retreat. There was a mix-up in scheduling, but it is in keeping with the theme of the weekend, which is”—Tim paused for dramatic effect—“invention!” Clearly, he had expected applause here and stopped talking to wait for it. The awkward moment stretched into a half minute of silence. Finally he explained, “It’s invention because we want you to explore new ideas . . . like a curious child.” Tim spoke more slowly and moved his free hand in a come-along-with-me-here-people gesture. When the clapping still didn’t start, Tim shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway, we have a few hours before dinner, so what we want to do is divide everyone into cabins.”

Tim instructed everyone to get in groups of eleven people based on their birth month. He continued through the room like a motivational speaker, asking what month each group was and pairing them with another group from the same month, then yelling, “Fantastic! Head over there to that gentleman with the stack of papers, and he will get you situated,” before moving on to the next group.

“We’ll gather for dinner and a keynote session at five thirty,” Dylan said to the first group when they approached for cabin assignments. Observing the blank stare most of the group members gave her, she made another mental note to get copies of the schedule to hand out at dinner. Just one of about fifty mental notes to take care of before everyone reconvened in the dwelling of the dead animals.

“Hey, Dylan?” Brandt’s voice came from behind her.

“What’s up?”

Brandt curled his lanky frame inward before speaking. “The bunk beds don’t have sheets.”

“Shit,” she said, not caring if the giant cross and every dead animal in the room heard. It was going to be a very long two hours.

“I can’t believe I maxed out my credit card at REI,” Dylan mumbled, passing more sleeping bags to Deep.

“Better or worse than maxing it out at the hunting-goods store?” Deep asked, grabbing a bag full of neatly arranged pillows from the back of Dylan’s packed car before closing the hatch.

The two had spent the better part of the last two hours cleaning out every sleeping bag provider in the region, while Brandt had stayed in the great hall cramming pillows into cases that Tim had managed to track down from a home-goods store. Judging from the pink princess pillowcases, Dylan suspected he’d had to clean out the place too.

“I think the woman behind the counter was wearing a newer model of my jacket,” Dylan said as the pair began inching toward another cabin about a hundred yards down a muddy gravel road.

“I’m just saying I’ve never seen so many crossbows in one location. I spent so much money I’m pretty sure I landed myself on a government watch list,” Deep said as they jumped out of the car again.

“At least it will make for a funny story when you have to explain it to the NSA.”

“Too bad Tim didn’t get a Model X. The thing would have been useful right now.”

“Don’t say that. He is probably looking for a reason to buy a new Tesla,” Dylan quipped, rearranging a few more of the puffy monstrosities that blocked her rearview mirror. “Thank you for doing this. I know Tim isn’t easy to work with, and I’m a relative stranger, so you have zero obligation to help. But I appreciate it.”

Deep looked at her with a joke in her eyes. “Don’t mention it. It seems weird, but I’m not ready to give up on Technocore yet. Tim and I knew each other a bit in college. I majored in fashion and happened to be good with design. He took a chance on me as a front-end developer. Who else would have given me a shot in tech with my résumé?” She sighed, looking out the window, then back at Dylan again. “I was about to call it quits when you rolled in. You seemed tougher than the other consultants, so I thought I’d give you a chance.”

“I don’t know that I’m tougher, but I’m glad you stayed. This would