The Search Party

by Simon Lelic

  So yeah. Arsehole. That’s all I’m trying to say.

  And obviously I didn’t want to go inside the cave. Because I wasn’t lying when I’d said I thought someone was following us. Obviously I wasn’t lying. Plus, the cave itself . . . I mean, I’m not totally stupid. I knew what Mason was suggesting. The reason he insisted we look inside. He thought Sadie might have been in there. Somehow. And to be honest, I did, too.

  “What’s that smell?” said Fash, as he followed Mason in. The rest of us were hanging back on the edge of the stream. Cora because she was just as scared to go in there as I was, I guarantee you, and Luke because he was acting sort of protective. The way he does sometimes. Because he knew I was worried about what was out there in the woods, and he didn’t want to leave me on my own.

  “It’s just cave smell,” I heard Mason saying. His voice had gone all echoey. “Why? What did you think it was?”

  Either Fash didn’t answer or I didn’t hear.

  “Whoa,” said Mason, after a minute. The rest of us were peering into the opening, trying to see what they could, but all I could make out was their torch beams. And then one of them swung straight toward us, making all three of us wince. “It’s big in here,” said Mason. “Seriously, what’s everybody waiting for? Come on in.”

  “Shine that torch somewhere else and we might actually be able to see where we’re stepping,” said Luke, with a hand up over his eyes.

  Mason’s torch beam swung back toward the dark.

  “Have you . . . Is there anything in there?” I called out. I was asking Fash, but surprise, surprise, Mason was the one to answer.

  “Not really. There’s some kind of altar. A satanic thing, I think. And a statue of what looks like a goat, or a demon or something. And . . . is that a pentagram, Fash?”

  “Ignore him,” came Fash’s voice, sounding about as fed up with Mason’s bullshit as I was feeling. “There’s nothing to worry about. Come in and get yourselves dry.”

  I looked at Luke, who nodded. Cora had already started forward, and after hesitating for a moment, I followed her inside. I was fully expecting Mason to jump out and grab me, but instead he was just standing on his own in a corner, moving his torchlight around the cave. And it was hard to tell in the dark, but I’m pretty sure he was smiling.

  I moved away from him and stood next to Cora. She was using one of the other torches to look around. We only had three. Torches, I mean. On account of the fact our phones had gone missing. There would probably have been a light on Sadie’s Nokia—the one we found, I mean—but I guess none of us thought to check. But maybe it’s a good job we didn’t, because otherwise it might have run out of battery, like the torches did later that night. And if it had . . . I don’t know. Maybe we’d all still be out there.

  “You were right,” Cora said. “It is big in here. It must go six or seven meters into the bank.”

  Actually, it was smaller than I’d imagined. But only because I was worrying it would turn out to be the entrance to an entire, like, network or something. With tunnels and, I don’t know, caverns and that. Like a whole other world. Like in stories. You know?

  But it was basically room-sized, with three walls and a roof. There was space for us all to sit down, to lie down if we’d wanted, and the ceiling was high enough that none of us had to stoop. And yeah, it smelled a bit weird, but only of earth and stuff. Nothing . . . bad.

  And the other good thing, I suppose, was that at least it was dry. Because obviously, after eight hours or whatever of traipsing about in the rain, we were all completely soaked through. Even my waterproof turned out not to be. What I wanted to do was change into something dry, but when I checked the clothes in my rucksack, they were just as wet as what I was wearing.

  “Can we light a fire or something?” I said, trying to wring out my spare jumper.

  The others had finished exploring—it didn’t take long—and they sat down and leaned against the walls, sighing like my dad does when he gets in from work and parks himself on the sofa.

  Fash put the torch he’d been holding in the middle of the floor, directing the beam toward the ceiling, which was basically a crisscross of tree roots. Cora and Mason switched the other torches off, which left us sitting in this weird kind of half-light, where you couldn’t really see other people’s faces. The entrance to the cave had turned into a gaping hole, as black as the cave itself had looked when we’d been outside peering in. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. I mean, it should have felt cozy. With the rain coming down outside, and being in the dry, and sitting up close to people who were supposed to be your friends. But instead I just felt trapped. Like we’d been cornered or something. You know?

  “A fire would be a neat trick,” said Mason. He tossed a stone or something through the entranceway, and it made a rustling sound as it landed somewhere amid the trees on the other side of the stream. “What exactly do you suggest we burn?”

  “Like . . . wood, or—” But then I realized what he was getting at. I bit down, clamping my lips tight. Mason was directly across from me, and though I couldn’t see his face, I could just imagine him smirking.

  “Not to worry, though,” said Mason. “I’ve got something to warm us up.” I saw him shift, and there was a noise like he was rummaging in his rucksack. And then he held what he was clutching in the middle of the torchlight, like it had been beamed down from heaven or something.

  “What the actual fuck?” said Cora.

  “No way,” said Fash. “You’ve been carrying that with you the whole time?”

  “Well, it didn’t carry itself,” said Mason.

  “Why didn’t you mention it before?” said Cora. “Jesus, Mason.”

  There was a rustle and then a popping sound as Mason uncapped the bottle. “Gang?” he said. “Meet Dr. Daniels. Dr. Jack Daniels. Curer of ills. Banisher of chills. The finest healer in the land.” He took a swig, straight from the bottle, and made a sound like it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted. Then he passed it along.

  “Where did you get it?” said Luke as he took the bottle. Again, I couldn’t see his face, but it looked like he was staring at the label, as though trying to work out whether it was real. Because we hardly ever got hold of spirits. There’s only one place in the entire town where they let us buy alcohol, the little corner shop on the road behind the quay. But Old Man Miller, who runs it, only ever lets us buy cider. Alcopops. Stuff like that. He won’t sell us anything stronger, no matter how much we beg. Mason even tried wearing a disguise once so he could bag us a bottle of vodka, but Mr. Miller just laughed him from the store. He—

  Wait. You won’t arrest him or anything, will you? Mr. Miller, I mean. For selling us alcohol?

  No. Right. Of course. Obviously you’ve got other priorities.

  “It’s my dad’s,” Mason said. “Was my dad’s. He must have blown his dole money at the office. But I figured we’d need it more than he does. In fact, we’re doing him a favor. The doctor told him he should cut out the booze.”

  The bottle had made its way to Cora. She took a swig, and because she was sitting right beside me, I was able to see her grimace. She offered the bottle to me.

  “No thanks,” I said, and I made to pass it straight to Fash.

  “What’s the matter, Abi?” said Mason. “Worried about sharing our spit?”

  He leaned forward a bit, into the torchlight, and his face . . . It scared me. Not just because of the way the light was shining—you know how people’s faces look when they hold a torch up under their chin? But also because of his expression. For the first time since we’d been out there, he looked almost . . . not cheerful, exactly. Excited. And that was the reason I didn’t want to drink. Because I didn’t trust him. Like, why had he even brought it in the first place, that’s what I wanted to know. And saved it until that moment? And yeah, OK, maybe I say dumb stuff sometimes, but I can’t be tota
lly stupid if I figured out he was up to something before it crossed any of the others’ minds.

  “Have some,” said Cora, oblivious. “It does actually warm you up.”

  I took a sip. A small one. And I passed the bottle on to Fash. From the look on his face, he was clearly wondering the same thing I was—wondering about Mason, I mean—but he only hesitated for a second. He tipped the bottle back and swallowed. “You’re right,” he said, gasping slightly and screwing his eyes up tight. “It’s not as good as a fire, but it’s definitely got a burn.”

  “It does the trick, doesn’t it?” Mason said, taking another swig himself. “It’s just a shame we don’t have any Coke to go with it.”

  “Stop it,” I found myself saying. Just quietly, and I don’t think anybody heard me. Except Cora maybe, who turned her head.

  Mason had passed the bottle on again, and it was on its way back round. “It’s almost like a regular night out,” he said, and this time I could hear his grin. “All we need is for some old biddy to walk by and give us evils, and for one of us to start puking in the gutter.”

  “Stop it,” I said again, louder this time.

  I saw Mason’s shadow turn its head toward me. “Stop what?” he said, all innocent.

  “Stop acting like you’re enjoying this. Like it’s a . . . a regular night out.”

  He moved forward enough that I could see his face. “Are you not enjoying yourself, Abi?”

  “No, I’m not enjoying myself. We’re not supposed to be enjoying ourselves!”

  There was a flash in Mason’s eyes then, where they caught the light of the torch.

  The bottle reached me again and this time I didn’t even take it. I just shook my head as Cora held it out.

  But then I changed my mind. All of a sudden, I didn’t care anymore. I wanted to be drunk. Just completely off my face, you know? So that I wouldn’t feel anything, wouldn’t have to think about anything, least of all what we were doing. Why we were doing it. And when it would end. When, instead of sitting in a hole in the middle of the woods, freezing our arses off because of the rain—and because of the fact we were wearing shorts—we could just go home and . . . and . . . and I didn’t know what. Anything. Nothing. Whatever the hell you’re meant to do when your best friend goes missing, and you’re basically waiting for her to turn up dead.

  I snatched the bottle off Cora as she made to pass it to Fash, and I tipped my head back as I raised it to my lips. I didn’t even wipe it first. I just swallowed—once, twice, again, until Fash grabbed the bottle away from me, and I collapsed forward, coughing.

  “Jesus Christ, Abi,” Fash was saying, somewhere off to my left. “Are you OK?”

  “She’s fine,” I heard Mason say. “Just getting into the spirit of things. Right, Abi?”

  I tried to grab the bottle off Fash again. I don’t know whether I wanted another drink or just to chuck it at Mason’s head.

  But Fash moved it away from me. He passed it straight on to Mason.

  “How about some music?” said Mason. “I’ve still got my iPod. Maybe we should listen to one of the playlists Sadie made me.”

  “Dude . . .” said Fash, glancing at Luke.

  “What?”

  “Just . . . I don’t think we should.”

  “No,” agreed Cora. “No music.” The bottle had come round to her again, and she took a gulp. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said she was feeling the way I was. Just, like, screw it. You know? Like she was determined to get as drunk as she could.

  And that’s the way it went. The bottle kept coming round, and we all just kept on drinking. At least, that’s what I thought, but the bottle seemed to last forever. And then eventually, at some point—I couldn’t have told you when, because I’d completely lost track of time—but at some point the whiskey was gone. Finished. And I didn’t feel cold anymore. I barely even noticed that I was still soaking wet.

  When the bottle made its way back to Mason, he held it up to the light. Then he stood up, and tossed it into a corner of the cave. It didn’t break. It just landed by the entrance with a thonk.

  Mason smiled when he turned back to us, and he didn’t sit down.

  “So,” he said. “What should we talk about?”

  The rest of us just stared. It was like, we had been talking. A bit. Just as we drank, you know? Not about anything in particular. About the rain, mainly. About how mad it was after the summer we’d had. About how it felt like an end.

  “Abi?” said Mason. “You had a subject, didn’t you?”

  “Huh?” I said, confused. And more than a little bit pissed. Not happy pissed, though. Normally stuff like whiskey makes me happy. Lively. But sitting there against the wall in that cave, I didn’t think I’d ever feel happy again.

  “Death,” said Mason. “That’s what you were talking about earlier, wasn’t it? You and Fash? So go on. Why don’t you ask the others what they think about the afterlife? About whether they think ghosts are real.”

  I’d been . . . not dozing exactly. But sitting there in a sort of trance. Letting my brain swim away on the alcohol. All of a sudden, though, it was like a warning siren had gone off somewhere inside my head. Like when you fall asleep in front of the telly and then the phone rings, and you don’t know if it’s your alarm or your mum’s car getting broken into outside or a signal that, actually, the building’s on fire and you’re seconds away from being roasted alive. You get this jolt, like electricity, telling you to get ready for something bad.

  “What about you, Cora?” said Mason. “Do you think, if people die, they find a way to come back to haunt us? Assuming we deserve it, I mean.”

  “I don’t want to talk about ghosts,” said Cora, with a glance toward the woods outside. All we could see was the rain, and the slope of the bank on the other side of the stream, and the gray silhouettes of the trees. And I don’t know if it was just because of what Mason had said, but to me they looked like people. Like dead men in the dark, closing in.

  “No,” said Mason. “I don’t imagine you do.”

  Cora looked up at him, sharply.

  “So how about a game instead?” Mason went on. “Truth or dare.”

  “What are we, twelve?” said Fash. “Come on, mate. Sit back down. You’re making me nervous.” Which he said with a laugh, like he’d meant it to sound like a joke, but all it did was make him sound afraid.

  “Let’s start with an easy one, shall we?” said Mason, ignoring him. He’d started to pace, meaning from where I was sitting he was moving in and out of the light.

  He stopped, and turned to face us. “Which one of you tipped away the water?”

  There was silence as the rest of us tried to work out whether he was joking.

  “Was it you, Cora?” he said. “Or you, Abi?”

  “What? No, I . . .”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mason, not this again,” said Cora. “You’re drunk. Just sit back down, like Fash said, and let’s the lot of us get some sleep. And then, in the morning, we can all go home. We’re not going to find anything else out here. Not in this weather. And we should tell the police about Sadie’s phone.”

  I’d started nodding without even realizing.

  “I’m not drunk,” Mason said. “And I hate to disappoint you, but nobody’s going anywhere. Not until we get this straightened out.”

  He sounded drunk. But the thing was, I believed him when he said he wasn’t. Whatever was making him act the way he was, it wasn’t the alcohol. It dawned on me that maybe he’d only been pretending to drink when the bottle had come around to him. Maybe that was why it had lasted so long.

  “Mase . . .” said Luke, and he reached a hand to Mason’s elbow. “Come on, man. Take it easy.”

  “No, Luke,” Mason said, pulling his arm free. “You of all people need to hear this.” And, as before, he faced me, Cora and Fash across the t
orchlight. “OK, fine,” he said. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? If you’ve had enough of playing games?” He moved to his left, and it was only just before he spoke again that I realized why. He was standing in front of the entranceway, blocking the rest of us inside.

  And his face changed. Before, he’d been acting as though he was enjoying himself. As though it was all just a bit of a laugh. But now he looked the way he had so far only in flashes. As though whatever he’d been carrying around all knotted up inside him had finally come undone.

  He bent down, and he picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels. He gripped it by the neck, and then he smashed it against the wall of the cave.

  “So,” he said, turning, the broken bottle gleaming in his hand. “Which one of you killed her?”

  FASH

  I WAS LYING. Before. You were right. I mean, it’s all true, all the stuff I told you, except . . . except I didn’t tell you everything.

  My mum, when I spoke to her, when I asked her what I should do . . . she got mad. I doubt she’ll ever not be mad at me ever again. She says I should have been honest with you from the beginning. And I realize that now, I do, but I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. Not Mason. Not the others.

  Not Sadie.

  And not myself either, I suppose.

  But Mum made me realize it’s too late for any of that. So I’ll tell you, I will—I promised my mum I would. Except you have to believe me when I say to you, I had nothing to do with what happened to Sadie. I swear it. On my mother’s life. It’s just . . . I mean . . . the truth is, I may know a bit more about what happened than I made out.