Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
You wake up once in the night because you think it’s morning.
There’s a bright, pearly glow outside the tent that you’re sure is dawn.
But when you unzip the flap and peer through the opening, you realize it’s just the fire.
Someone has brought it back to life, and it glows in the pitch dark like a beacon.
There’s a single body, just visible through the top of the flames on the other side.
You hope it’s Diana, but when you walk close enough to see the night keeper of the fire, you see Silas, huddled under a blanket.
He’s half in shadow, half in light, but even with your limited visibility, you see his face and it looks calm, though his teeth are chattering a bit.
You’re about to say his name, but the cool night air seems to steal the words when you open your mouth.
You realize then just how chilly it is, even with the fire nearby.
The breeze goes right through your sweat-soaked pajamas, and you feel the cold travel through your whole body.
You’re about to turn around and go back when you hear his voice.
“Are you ready?” he says.
When you glance at him again, he’s just looking into the fire—nowhere else, and it’s hard to tell, actually, if he’s even speaking to you.
“Um. Ready for what?” you say.
There’s a long pause, during which you hear only the wind and the crackle of the fire. Then he looks up, just for a moment, but there’s a smile on his face.
“The devil’s loot,” he says.
At least that’s what you think he says. It’s hard to hear him over the wind.
“What was that?” you ask.
He’s looking at the fire again, and he waves you away with a single hand.
You just stand there for a moment, waiting to see if there’s more.
But there’s not more and you’re officially freezing now, so you take one last look at his glowing face and then you walk back to your tent.
It’s an odd moment, to be sure. But you’re barely awake by the time you crawl back into your sleeping bag, and you don’t remember closing your eyes again.
And you don’t remember any dreams.
You only know that when you wake again, dry-mouthed in the actual morning, to the sound of light rainfall on the top of the tent, it takes you a second to realize the panicked voice you’re hearing outside is real.
“Guys! Wake up. Guys!”
Everyone is up in seconds, and while your tentmates scramble for the flap and emerge into the clearing, you hang back and sit completely still in the empty tent. There is some murmuring that you can’t make out, then a clearer question.
“… Well, then, where is he?”
You know who they’re talking about immediately, but you’re trying to delay the moment when it becomes real.
Because as soon as it becomes real, your brain will start up the old familiar machinery, and your nervous system will explode.
You don’t get much time, though, before you hear a familiar voice.
“I don’t know.”
It’s the same voice that you heard on the phone the night of your brother’s death.
The same voice that wished you a happy birthday on the roof of the garage a million years ago.
It’s the voice that has been, in recent months, the only one you wanted to hear, but also the one that you couldn’t bring yourself to ask for.
“Guys,” she says. “I think Silas is gone.”
The light sprinkles you heard against the tent are turning into a real, cold rain, and when you finally emerge, you can feel the icy sting of the drops on your neck and hear them hitting the canopy of leaves hanging above you.
The drops sizzle when they hit the coals of last night’s fire.
You look around, and among the hangdog faces of your fellow adventurers, you see no sign of your leader.
His tent is gone and so is everything inside it.
No pack. No gear. Not even his hat. You look toward the water, and sure enough, one of the canoes is gone too.
“Hold on a second. Where did he go?” Fran says, a manic current to her voice.
“Don’t freak out,” says Will. “It’s early, bro. He’s probably out catching a fish or something. Outdoorsy people are super weird like that. They’re always horny for the morning.”
“I’ve been up for two hours,” says Diana. “And I haven’t seen him. Also, why would he take his tent?”
Nobody asks why Diana was awake. Most of you have some kind of insomnia.
The only thing that matters is the fact that he’s been gone so long.
Everyone gets really quiet; the only audible sound is a series of deep breaths coming from Troy, who is trying to get some oxygen in his lungs.
He has his eyes closed, and he’s working so hard to keep calm and meditative that it looks like he’s hyperventilating.
His wiener dog T-shirt is slowly getting soaked and showing his skin in sodden patches.
You’re thinking about speaking, when Troy pipes up again.
“I knew it,” he says between gasps. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” says Will.
Troy grabs his own head and shakes it back and forth.
“Don’t you get it? This is all part of it!”
“Part of what, Troy?” says Fran.
Her pink hair is wild from a night of bad sleep, and her eyes are so bloodshot they look completely red.
“The therapy!” he yells. “It’s more immersion stuff. Like the rapids! He’s throwing us in the pool again. Only I didn’t sign up to be thrown in the pool. I can barely swim.”
He starts walking around then, kicking things, sending pine cones skittering into the woods, until he finally seems to tire himself out and sits down.
Will and Diana are staring at the place where Silas’s tent once was.
Diana still looks shocked even though she was the first to know about this.
Will is harder to read, his stance a little more rigid.
“He said something about the devil,” you say finally.
And everyone immediately turns toward you.
“WHAT?!” says Troy. “What about the devil?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “He was mumbling. It was windy.”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be paranoid,” says Will. “He can’t leave us in the woods with nothing. That has to be against the rules or something.”
“Not if he’s a devil worshipper!” says Fran. “What if this is all for a big sacrifice and he’s going to, like, make us get naked and drink goat’s blood or something? Then eat us!”
“Fran,” says Will. “Enough.”
Troy stands up.
“How much research did you guys do on this whole experience?” he says.
“I was reading about all kinds of kids on these wilderness-therapy trips. They starve, get hurt, even run away or die. You trust your parents to figure out if this is one of the good ones? I don’t!
Mine were desperate to do something with me.
They would have sent me to a cult if it was legal. ”
“A devil-worshipping cult!” says Fran.
Will shakes his head.
“You guys need to chill the eff out,” he says. “He’s coming back. I was just in the canoe with him yesterday, and he was telling me how much he loves these trips. How they help him as much as they help us.”
“Help him with what?” says Fran.
There’s an edge to her voice, and for some reason, it’s this question that finally makes Will flinch a little.
Fran seems to be asking it honestly, but it doesn’t sound great after it leaves her mouth.
You feel your body shiver again, this time from the big, cold drops soaking your shirt.
It’s impossible to ignore the rain now, and finally you see Diana move toward the girls’ tent.
There’s water running down her face, and she doesn’t even brush it away.
When she gets inside the little dome, she hugs herself deeper into an oversize sweater and lies down.
“We don’t know,” she says from inside. “That’s the truth, right? We don’t know if he’s coming back. Or if this is some kind of a test. So what can we do?”
Troy starts to sniffle.
“Oh Jesus,” says Will. “Pull it together.”
You expect Troy to wander away, or suffer in silence.
But instead, he gets up and walks right over to Will, his skinny soaked frame only inches from Will’s muscular chest. He just kind of breathes in Will’s face for a moment, and Will tries not to look weirded out, but an uncomfortable smile betrays his true feelings.
“I’m just going to say this once to you,” says Troy.
Will blinks.
“Wake up.”
“Dude, seriously, if you don’t…”
“This is all really happening,” says Troy. “And you need. To. Wake. Up.”
Will steps slightly closer to him, and all of you are just waiting for this to jump the rails.
It wouldn’t surprise you in the least if they fell on each other, screaming and flailing.
Your money is on Will, but there’s a look in Troy’s eye that makes you wonder.
For someone who needs a support animal, he doesn’t seem very scared right now.
You take advantage of the brief pause in their standoff to walk toward them.
You put a hand on both of their shoulders.
You’re hoping to ground them, but the contact doesn’t have the intended effect, and both of them try to jostle you out of the way at the same time.
First Troy knocks into you with his shoulder, which sends you bumping into Will.
Will bounces you back, and you trip, somehow sending all three of you to the ground.
The back of your head glances off a rock, and when you put your hand over the spot, you feel the contours of a small cut.
“What the hell, guys?” you say.
“Hey!” says Diana.
“Nice going, Will!” says Troy. “Maybe you can help our situation with pure bro anger.”
“Guys…,” says Diana.
“You push like a NARP,” says Will. “Do you know that? That was the NARPiest push I’ve ever seen.”
“I think my head is bleeding,” you say.
“GUYS!” yells Diana, now right behind you. “SHUT UP AND GET IN THE TENT RIGHT NOW!”
Nobody moves until a flash of lightning forks through the sky above you, seemingly inches from the tops of the pines.
It’s followed by the loudest thunder clap you’ve ever heard in your life.
It sounds as if the sky itself is calving like a glacier.
When you look up, a pitch-black cloud is moving toward you, casting a darkness the way a giant spaceship does in a UFO movie.
Within moments, you’re all in the tent, packed together, breathing one another’s morning breath and trying to zip the flap closed, like somehow, this little nylon pod in the middle of nowhere can keep you safe from whatever Mother Nature is about to unleash.