Appalachian Adventure Racing Camp
Copyright© 2025 by Canairs90s
Scene 6 — Lindsey
Lindsey gave him a thumbs up and dived into the brown creek water. It was a bit warmer than when Dillon had launched her into the creek an hour ago, she noted. What she hadn’t planned on was the fact she couldn’t see anything because of the dirty water. She was forced to navigate based on when she encountered a muddy bank with her hands. She hoped she could still make it to the intercept point in time to get Annie.
Lindsey swam as far as she could before she needed to take a breath. She hoped it was far enough to be out of sight from everyone, then had a panicked thought she could have gone too far. Luckily when she surfaced she was only about 15 meters short of the bridge over the creek. She ducked back under water and quickly covered the remaining distance. Thinking about her next task she realized her light colored running shoes could be difficult to cover quickly, so she removed them and left them on the bank, grabbing the can of black paint they had left there previously.
Peeking around the corner of the bridge support down the trail she was happy to see nobody coming yet, plenty of time to execute the plan. She swam the short distance so she was adjacent to the muddy area they had planned to use, then crept across the ground to the mud pit. She could see where the other teams that had used this mud had already disturbed the surface. She used that loosened mud to bury the paint can deep enough so it wouldn’t create an obvious silhouette and give her away.
Lindsey understood that if she was going to ambush Team 3 she had to thoroughly conceal herself in the mud. This was the less exciting part of her plan. Reminding herself of the emphasis on winning at all costs Lindsey dove into the muddy area on her front. The ground wasn’t terribly soupy despite the rain so instead of the slip and slide experience she expected this was more a belly flop into wet dirt. Lindsey panicked slightly, since the mud wasn’t that soupy covering herself wasn’t going to be as easy as she hoped. She had expected that she could jump in and being totally covered in a few seconds of rolling around, but it wasn’t going to be that simple. She glanced down the trail, still no sign of Stefan and Annie. ‘Ok good’ she thought and set about her task.
Sitting up slightly, she thrust her hand into the mud and quickly realized there was plenty of moisture below a thin surface layer of earth that had already begun to dry as the sun rose. She needed to churn up the mud to get the consistency that would allow her to get properly covered. She got up on hands and knees and began desperately kneading the earth, soon it looked like she was wearing brown evening gloves. Thinking about how she could speed this up she realized she could use her entire body as essentially a churn. She laid back down and began rolling over in place, churning up the mud until it began to wetly stick to her, soaking into her clothes and covering the skin of her arms. She took another look at the trail, still no sign of them.
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