“Look,” Brewer said, “Bucket can use his phone, once he’s down there at least. And then…” Brewer riffled around in the front pockets of his hoodie and pulled something out in a closed hand. “You can have this.” He gave a small black headlamp to Lucy. It smelled of sweat and his greasy hair, but Lucy was happy for anything that might keep her safe.
“Thanks.”
“No worries. Besides, in about half an hour I’m going to have fucking full-spectrum super-vision anyway. Wolf pupils. Bat hearing. Purple-green wobblies everywhere. All that.” Brewer reached into his other hoodie pocket, pulled out his Ziploc bag of mushrooms, and started mowing down the contents like they were potato chips. He grinned at Lucy and Bucket and spoke around his stuffed cheeks. “You eat ’em fast and you don’t taste the shit as much!” He lifted the bag to his mouth and tapped out whatever fungal crumbles were left in the bag. Then he pulled another crinkling bag from his rear pants pocket.
“Wait. What’s that? Are you eating more?” asked Bucket.
“Oh hell no, dude. An eighth is good for me, or I start seeing some shit that definitely doesn’t exist. Saw a giant chicken once. Huge. Golden… It was beautiful. But then I got scared. This is only some Skittles so my breath doesn’t smell like cow flop all night.” He knocked back half the bag at once. Lucy heard the candies clacking against one another, smelled synthetic fruit on the wind as he chewed. There was something about the scent that made her feel carefree, and for a moment she was excited to be out at a party, and even more excited to be around someone new. She remembered a time when she was very young in Peru and a boy she didn’t know sat down next to her and handed her a lollipop made from caramel and coconut, and how the day, like too many, had been horrible, but those moments where they’d both sat there eating candy had been perfect.
Oh god. I’ve officially snapped. I smell some fruit snacks, and now all is right with the world.
But Lucy decided that the feeling, however irrational, was one worth riding for as long as she could, so she slipped Brewer’s headlamp over her hair, flipped on the switch, and said, “Okay. Let’s party.”
Brewer flinched, and she realized the lamp was shining right into his eyes. “Goddamn, girl. Watch where you’re aiming. Trying to blind me by a big-ass hole in the earth?”
“Oh, sorry.” She couldn’t tell if he was really mad. She tilted the light on her forehead downward and looked up to see Brewer was smiling. Excited.
“Do that an hour from now and it’ll be like shooting rainbows into my brain.”
“Yeah, now that you mention it…” Bucket held out his hand with his palm up. Brewer passed him the keys to the truck.
“I’m trusting you, man. Don’t go grinding my gears. And don’t leave me out here, even if I tell you to leave me out here. Hell, especially if I tell you that. If I try to watch one more sunrise without blinking I’ll be blind for sure. Greg saved me last time. He shook me and said, ‘You can’t stare at the sun. You’re going to go blind.’ Which, you know, totally true. So I’m forever grateful for that. But what if Greg isn’t here to save me this time? Do you think he’s here? I hope he is. Good dude.”
Lucy and Bucket exchanged a look—He’s already starting to trip out.
“Anyway, once more into the breach.”
“What does that mean?”
“No idea. It’s what my cousin says when we’re about to do something crazy.”
Then Brewer walked over to the drop-off, got down on his knees, and steadied the top of one of the ladders.
“Wouldn’t take shit to anchor these with some tie-downs and rebar, but we have to pull these old guys in the morning. Used to be a nice staircase here, but the Forest Service removed it after some dipshits spray painted a bunch of swastikas on the cave walls and left a dead dog down there.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. They torched a bunch of hibernating bats too, which is super illegal. My aunt said she heard it was Satanists that did it, but I told her it was probably just regular assholes. Maybe the Jessup brothers. Maybe some kids from the Butte. Town’s full of dicks. Close your eyes and throw a rock, right? Anyway, I’ll hold her steady until you’re down.”
Lucy knew that Bucket would probably like a steady descent too, but he was already walking toward the other ladder and starting his climb down. They could both sense that Brewer was doing this for her specifically.
Bucket’s ladder clattered against the stone, loose pebbles tumbling into the cave below. Brewer asked, “You got it, bud?”
“Yeah, dude.”
Lucy recognized Bucket’s flat tone—He’s getting bitchy. Is he nervous? Jealous? What am I going to have to deal with tonight?
She really had no idea, but there was a cool boy with candy on his breath waiting for her, and that was enough to send her down the “Stairway to Heaven.” She steadied her nerves as her legs hung over the drop, and after she found the first rung with her foot, she felt safe. Three rungs farther down and the horizon disappeared from view. She felt the cold and dark of the cave wrapping around her with each step. It was the same sensation she got from diving into the swimming hole out past the Pinewood campgrounds—the warmth was only at the surface, and everything below was beyond the reach of the sun.
Before she knew it, she’d descended thirty feet and was standing on the cave floor. She heard Bucket make landfall to her left. Brewer was already on the ladder above and rushing down.
Lucy aimed her headlamp up to try to help him, and saw a flurry of fast, flitting movement in the beam. Then she heard the high-pitched squeaking sounds and realized she’d never seen so many bats in her life. Maybe a hundred of them swirling up and out into the night, though these were so much smaller than the ones she’d seen darting around the dusky treetops as a child, and they were heading out much later than she thought natural. Something stirred under her skin.
Turn around.
But Bucket and Brewer were already plunging toward the light and sound at the heart of the cave. Lucy imagined the two ladders behind her emitting a keening metallic screech, like the tines of a tuning fork sending out a warning signal, calling out to her, pulling her back. But that felt crazy, and she was tired of feeling that way, so she ignored the bad vibes and joined her friends as they walked toward the bottom of an ancient hole in the world.
* * *
As far as lemons-to-lemonade scenarios go, maybe having your eye gouged out in a violent attack was worth it if it earned you a harem of sympathetic drunken cheerleaders. Lucy could see the jealousy on Bucket’s face, watching as Jake Bernhardt sat by the party fire like a one-eyed king on his Coleman ice chest, Lisa K on his lap and Tiffany Pedersen rubbing his shoulders and three other members of the cheer squad listening intently to whatever he had to say. Their faces were all sympathy and sweetness. Jake was damaged, a survivor. And even after everything that happened, he had come out to celebrate with his friends. So brave.
“That eye patch is a pussy magnet, Lu. What’d that guy even do? Act like an asshole and then get beat? How is that—”
“What? Fair?” Lucy could barely hide her annoyance. She had almost fainted when she saw Jake, and even now seeing him reminded her of too much. She thought about Chris Carmichael and Mr. Chambers and how neither would be the hit of the party any time soon. She thought about purple smoke and collapsing faces and at last the gravity of her decision to come to the party had landed and sat like a stone on her chest. And here was Bucket, thinking he’d trade an eye for a series of sympathy lays.