CHAPTER 4

I woke up.

I lay there in my bed for a few minutes, pillow damp with drool, frowning at the thoughts that lingered at the edges of my awareness—dark places and a sense of threat. Like I’d had some nightmare about caves and the things that hid within them, but whatever had been so terrifying about it had vanished with the rays of the sun.

Outside, the birds were chirping and one of the neighbors was mowing their lawn. I lay there for a little while longer. Somehow, everything remained normal. I dragged myself out of bed and rubbed at my eyes. That’s right, I remembered. I’d been at a party. Chad Remington’s party.

But how had I gotten home?

I didn’t know. My memory came in fits and starts. When I tried to assemble a jigsaw puzzle from the bits I could grasp, it was like reaching into the box and only getting sky pieces. Frowning, I pulled on some pants and headed downstairs. If I couldn’t remember, then maybe there was someone who could.

Mom was making breakfast in the kitchen. Maybe she’d have answers. Dad had always been the cook of the family but, well, she’d had to step up after that whole business. She even still wore his old Kiss The Cook apron. We’d recovered in the wake, but it still wasn’t something we talked about.

“Good morning,” she said. “How was everything last night?”

“It was fine,” I replied. “Hey, mom, weird question—but how’d I get home last night?”

“Hmm? Oh, Vince dropped you off. Do you want some pancakes?”

“No, no, I think I’m good. You said Vince dropped me home?”

“That’s right,” Mom replied. “Why, is something wrong?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. You’re sure it was Vince?”

“Well, I didn’t see his car, and you went right to bed, so I suppose I’m not one-hundred percent certain. Is everything alright?”

Some part of me wanted to say no but I couldn’t figure out why.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m fine. Maybe I just had too much to drink.”

“You should be careful about that. But, well, you’re only young once. You’re sure you don’t want pancakes?”

I relented, but still wasn’t hungry. As mom ate pancakes—poured from a bottle, of course—and I just sort of poked at them with my knife and fork to see if I could make the meal seem appetizing, I tried to piece everything together. Vince couldn’t have driven me home, some part of me insisted, but it couldn’t provide the evidence for that argument, either. It’d been something to do with Emerson Bennett and Max Cheong. Something important. But what the fuck was it?

I couldn’t figure it out. I ended up throwing out my pancakes, washing up the dishes, having a shower, and still got no closer to figuring it out. In the end, I decided to cut to the heart of the matter and just call Vince. It took five tries and I paced around my room all the while.

“Yo,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, man. Did I wake you?”

“Yeah. But it’s all good, buddy.” Vince yawned. “Whassup?”

“This might sound crazy, man, but... Did you drop me home last night?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jeez, don’t you remember anything? Just how hard did you party, bro?”

“Hard enough,” I said. “It seems that way, anyway. I remember...” I had to concentrate. “I think I went off into the woods to smoke weed with Emmie and Max Cheong? Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Vince said, laughing. “And the three of you were high as shit when you got back. You were like a total zombie, bro. So, what, did the three of you hook up out there in the woods? It’s cool, man, I don’t judge.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Hey, Caleb,” Brit said over the phone.

“Brit says hi,” Vince added.

“Hi Brit,” I replied. “I don’t know. It’s just weird.”

“You’re not wrong about that, man.”

My phone buzzed. “Hang on, I’m getting another call. I’ll call you back.”

“See ya, buddy.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hey, this is Caleb.”

“Hey,” Emma said. “Happy Saturday.”

“Happy Saturday. How’re you, Em?”

A momentary pause. “I’m fine,” she replied, at last. “I think.”

“Yeah. I think I know the feeling.”

Another pause. “Listen, Caleb. Did we... Did we do anything last night?”

My cheeks simmered.

“No,” I replied. “I mean, I don’t think so.”

“Okay.”

Emma let out a breath. “What about Max and I? Please don’t tell me—”

“No, no. I don’t think anything happened there, either.”

“Oh, thank God,” Emma said, and I had to agree. “I just don’t remember most of the night. It’s like I’ve forgotten something important.”

“I know,” I said, and realized I hadn’t stopped pacing yet. I stopped. “I don’t remember anything either. That’s weird, right? It feels weird.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Um. Have you heard from Max?”

“No. But I don’t have his number or Facebook or anything. Is he okay?”

“That’s the million dollar question. He left me some weird messages at some point. I was going to go by his place and make sure he’s okay. Do you want to come with?”

Then, I saw something. Just for a second. There was vertigo, and the feeling of seeing through molecules. Just for a second, out of the corner of my eyes: a simple plane, bizarre characters, and an urge to accept. Then I turned to look, and it was gone.

“Okay,” I said.

I thought I was going insane.

It would’ve been easier if I had.

If we all had.

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Fifteen minutes later, Emma turned up in her older brother’s big black pickup truck which she affectionately called Ironhide. I climbed into the shotgun position and Emma pulled into the street, heading off across Stonestead. I found myself glancing at the clock as we drove, like I expected it to be stuck, but I couldn’t figure out why. Sometimes I caught Emma opening her mouth to say something, but she never did. I think we both knew that something strange had happened, but talking about it would make it more real than it already was.

I’d say Max lived on the good side of town but, well, there’s nowhere in Stonestead that isn’t good. So, I’ll be blunt: Max lived on the rich side of town. His parents had something to do with local politics, and this meant he had looks, personality, and money. It wasn’t a surprise, everyone knew that about him and he didn’t lord it over people, but, even from the outside, his family home made mine look like a shoebox.

Emma pulled up and cut the engine. “Okay,” she said.

I peered toward the Cheong residence. No cars in the driveway, but the garage was closed up. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Let’s go.”

Emma stepped out and I followed. The two of them had known each other since preschool, so, it seemed best to let her take the lead. She crossed the lawn at a good pace. which seemed odd, and knocked on the front door. No response. Rang the doorbell. Nothing. Rang it again.

“Hey!” I called out. “Max! It’s Emerson and Caleb!”

Nothing but the breeze through the trees. Emma shrugged, dragged the welcome mat up, and grabbed a key from under it. “We’re just going to take a look around,” she said. “Make sure he’s okay.”

“Wait, people really do that? Leave keys by the front door?”

“Dude, who the fuck is going to rob this place?”

“Okay, good point.”

Inside, Max’s place was about as opulent as I thought it would be. A roomba trundled around the living room in a steady pattern, going about its work. The kitchen was immaculate, the kind of cleanliness my mother wished she could get. The kind of cleanliness you had to pay for, probably. Still, something was bothering me. I opened the fridge, found it full of groceries. I sighed in something like relief.

“Hey,” Emma said. “What’re you doing?”

“Just checking the fridge.”

“Why?”

“There’s stuff in it. It means there’s been people here recently.”

“You think Max wouldn’t be here?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Emma frowned. “His bedroom’s upstairs. And Caleb, please, stop freaking me out.” She turned, heading for the staircase, and I realized what’d gotten under my skin.

“Uh, Em?” I began. “I don’t know how to put this, but... You’re not limping.”

“I know,” she replied, tone curt. “I’m trying not to think about it.”

The stairs led up to a landing, with the master bedroom to the right and a hallway to the left. At the end of the hallway, light glimmered in the gap between door and carpet. “Jackpot,” Emma murmured.

The hallway was dim, and it felt like the shadows were moving. I told myself it was just a trick of the light, that I was making myself nervous. But how could I ever be sure of that again?

Emma knocked on the door. “Hey, Max, you in there?”

“Yeah?”

The fact he was in there was more shocking than that he wasn’t.

“You just didn’t respond to us before,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Emma glanced at me. I shrugged.

“Hey,” she said. “We’re coming in, okay? Be decent.”

She popped the door open and the light was near-blinding. Once my eyes had adjusted, I saw why—Max was sitting on his bed, shirtless, and every single light in his room was on. Light from the ceiling, his desk, his bedside table, his ensuite (wait, he has an ensuite?) and even what looked like a Santa Claus nightlight he’d plugged into the socket closest to his bed.

All of the curtains were drawn closed.

“Hey,” I said, glancing at Emma, then back to Max. “You okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Max replied.

“I don’t think so. What’s with the curtains?”

“Is the outside world still there?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, with the same false levity I had. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You know why,” Max said. “Because of last night.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping one of you could tell me. But I also don’t ever want to think about it again.”

“So,” I said. “You saw it.”

Max just nodded. While we all processed that, Emma went over and pulled the blinds open. For a second, just for a split second, I thought Stonestead would be gone. That there’d just be nothing but infinite darkness.

“We have to talk about it,” I said.

“You know, Caleb,” Emma said, “I’m not sure we do.”

“We have to.”

“If the Grim Reaper wants to scare the heck out of me and fix my busted-ass leg and everything else for being such a good sport about it then, hey, great, thanks.”

“Emma,” I said, slowly, carefully. “You were dead.”

“What?”

“You died.” The memory of finding her on the cave floor was as sudden and sharp and clear as she was before me now. “That’s how it began.” The jigsaw pieces were more colorful now, shapes and outlines beginning to form.

“We went into that cave. We thought it’d be funny to see if ghosts could get high. I don’t know how far we went in. Maybe thirty, forty meters? Then you sat down on this bit of rock, and you just—you just vanished! Max and I, we had to find you, and we did, and you were dead.” I sucked back tears. “You died, Emerson. Then Max vanished and then I...”

I wiped at my eyes. “Then I woke up this morning in my bed like nothing had fucking happened. There’s this goddamn hole in my mind. But I saw something. I know I did. And I know it saw us.”

“Fucking hell,” Max said, falling back against his pillows.

“That’s not what happened, Caleb,” Emma said. “Max—”

“What?” I asked. “What’re you talking about?”

Max sat up, staring at me.

“Because you vanished first.”