Chapter 2 #2
her part-time work managing Allie’s online persona, Tess’s life was a blur of dull and thankless tasks. For years she’d secretly
envied her best friend and her glamorous, carefree existence.
“Tess, you’re sure you’re okay with this? I won’t be offended if you back out.”
“I’m in.”
“Because we can still make it a fun day if you change your mind.” Allie pointed back to the trail, to the fifty-minute hike
back to her car. “There’s a gorgeous lake down there that Ethan and I like to camp at. Or we could drive farther, to the waterfall
by—”
“I’m already wearing the girdle,” Tess said. “Let’s do this.”
Allie laughed. She was already smiling again, that puzzling melancholy from a minute before instantly erased. The uncertainty
needled under Tess’s skin, and she wished she could read her best friend’s thoughts. What happened with Ethan?
Allie wasn’t telling.
“Almost forgot.” She touched Tess’s helmet again and then her own. “And we’re live.”
Tess heard two electric chirps. Both cameras were now recording.
“Now we can get murdered.”
“Exactly,” Allie said. “Take a good look at the sky. You’ll never see it the same way again.” And on the way inside she said something else, oddly cryptic. “And remember, Tess: the cave you entered isn’t the cave you’ll leave.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see.”
At first it felt like entering an unlit hallway.
The overhanging ceiling was about six feet high and dripped cold water. Daylight glowed behind them, casting distorted shadows
over a floor of brown mud. It smelled like wet dirt and mildew. Stringy spiderwebs stuck to Tess’s face.
“I’m proud of you,” Allie said. “You’re barely grinding your teeth.”
“So far, so good.”
Tess’s eyes were adjusting to the new darkness. The interior didn’t feel like an alien ecosystem, as Allie had often romanticized
it—honestly, what she saw was closer to a truck stop restroom. On the rock wall to the left a gang symbol was spray-painted
in red. To the right, a lopsided attempt at Homer Simpson, and farther down, a gargantuan ten-foot penis.
“I wasn’t expecting vandalism,” Tess said.
Allie sighed. “The dick is new.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
“Too much.”
A bottle clinked underfoot, startling Tess. The ground was carpeted with beer cans and soggy cardboard. Charcoal and a pool
of melted plastic marked a small firepit, and beside it, a filthy sleeping bag. This caught Tess’s attention—did people live
here?
“Watch your step.” Allie covered her mouth. “I think that’s human shit over there.”
They were only a few steps inside and it already reeked like a wet dumpster, food waste and sugars fermenting inside stale glass.
Flies darted through the air and tickled Tess’s skin.
Her hiking boot landed in something conspicuously squishy and she tried to ignore it, staring forward down the black corridor.
She focused on a silhouetted rock formation thirty feet
ahead that resembled a standing figure, pulling closer in the dark. She reassured herself that if she could just get to that
man-shaped rock, she’d be fine.
Twenty-five feet. She breathed through her mouth.
Twenty.
Allie pointed. “Want a certified pre-owned heroin needle?”
“Nope.”
Fifteen feet.
She tried to ignore the odors and the wet squish under her boot. She knew the garbage was an important sign. As deep into
the wilderness as they may have hiked, as forbidden and secret as the cave may look from the outside, it wasn’t undiscovered.
Humans had walked this ground before—if only to inject drugs, burn trash, and deface the walls. She kept her eyes locked on
the faint shadow of that rock formation ahead, watching it gradually sharpen into clarity. Coming closer, closer.
Ten feet.
Five—
It moved. It wasn’t a rock at all.
Allie breathed in a startled gasp beside her. The form had coalesced into a human figure leaning against the damp wall, casually,
as if waiting for a bus. Every article of his clothing was black: pants, jacket, rubber gloves. His face was shrouded by a
balaclava.
Allie recovered and smiled—“Howdy”—and the shadow raised a can in a lazy greeting. Monster Energy glinted in the faint daylight.
They passed the figure in silence, and Tess kept her eyes trained forward, trying not to make eye contact, trying not to initiate conversation. But it was already too late. His voice echoed after them: “You girls going in?”
Tess cringed.
You girls. She could sense Allie’s irritation almost telepathically. Her best friend stopped and, after a deliberate pause, nodded once.
“That’s the idea.”
“You probably saw my rig parked back there. I’m with Green Ridge.” He caught up behind them, splashing mud under his boots.
“I’m Jacob, by the way—”
“We have a permit,” Allie said.
“No worries. Fish and Wildlife requires the company to send someone out once a year to check for signs of white-nose syndrome.”
He made an exaggerated aw-shucks shrug. “You’re looking at the guy who drew the short straw.”
Tess blinked. “‘White-nose’?”
Allie nodded. “It’s an infection that’s—”
“Lethal to the local bat populations.” Jacob’s voice overpowered hers, friendly but noticeably overamped. “It looks like this
gray-white fuzz growing on the animal’s nose, wings, ears. Rots them alive from the inside out. It can wipe out an entire
colony in a few months. And it’s a fungus, so it spreads from cave to cave when spelunkers carry spores on their clothes.
That’s why it’s incredibly important that before you enter a cave, you make sure to—”
“We’ve already decontaminated our gear,” Allie said.
“And again, afterward.”
“Of course.”
“And it should go without saying, but please don’t touch the bats.”
“We’ll remember that.” Allie unzipped her pack and handed him a laminated permit.
Tess could tell they were sizing each other up.
Behind the black mask’s reinforced faceplate, Jacob’s face was just a strip of tanned skin and eyes.
Six feet tall and in his mid-thirties, he towered over them both with a sort of primate dominance.
He barely glanced at Allie’s permit before handing it back.
“Which part of the cave are you two visiting?”
“The Upper Vault.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Safer up there.”
She sensed another tiny sigh from Allie. Jesus Christ.
Then his eyes moved to Tess and crawled down her body. He couldn’t resist studying her gear: a hodgepodge of her own improvised
choices ( jeans, headlamp, kneepads) and borrowed gear (Ethan’s helmet, Allie’s harness). His eyes lingered on the front of
her helmet for an extra beat, and Tess knew he’d noticed the GoPro.
“Damn,” he whispered, studying the camera as it recorded him, and even through the ski mask fabric Tess could smell tartar
on his breath. “What’ve you got there, Babygirl?”
She froze.
Allie blinked. Babygirl?
He seemed to recognize the strangeness of his comment and changed the subject with a burst of artificial cheer. “Hey, you
girls want a cave guide?”
Allie smiled tightly. “Thanks, but we’re good.”
“You sure? I know where to find some amazing stuff down there. Secret places no one knows about.” He took lumbering steps
as he followed them. “I’m not due back to the office until four. I’d love to tag along with you.”
“We’re not interested.”
Another big step. “Come on. I’m not so bad.”
“No thanks.”
“I promise, I’ll stay out of your way—”
“Fuck off,” Allie said.
She’d uttered it so softly, so calmly, that Tess didn’t immediately comprehend what had been said. It sank in with the delayed
echo of a gunshot.
Five seconds passed.
Ten.
Finally, Jacob’s posture changed. He stepped back, tilted his head, and audibly licked his lips behind that strange face mask.
“Your loss.”
Then Tess felt Allie tug her shoulder with a hissed whisper—“Forget this guy”—and just like that, they were moving on, deeper
into the cave.
She sensed the man’s eyes on their backs, watching them both melt into the blackness. When they were far enough in, Tess muttered
in her best friend’s ear: “That was stupid. We have no idea who he might be.”
“You’re welcome.”
“One weird comment isn’t worth getting murdered over.”
“It’s fine.” Allie grinned, all teeth. “I wouldn’t have murdered him.”