Starry Eyes

by Jenn Bennett

  “But you’ve been in others, right?”

  “Just the Melita Hills Caverns and Zip Lines,” he says, the corners of his mouth lifting.

  “On that school field trip?”

  “When Barry Smith vomited on the bus after the zip lines.”

  “Those are the only caves I’ve been inside too,” I say, alarmed. And it was basically just an excuse for them to build a gift shop and charge everyone a million dollars for Cokes. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

  “We’ll be fine,” he assures me. “The book says the tricky part is that the tunnels are all connected. It’s one big maze. There are supposed to be a pair of ropes that lead up to a higher level of tunnels, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

  “We’re climbing ropes?” This is gym-class horror all over again.

  “No.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I mumble.

  “The ropes are just our visual landmark. There are several exits, and the one we need to find is near the ropes. It will take us out to the northern side, where there’s a big trail that leads to that valley I told you about.” He slips on his hoodie. “You might want to put a jacket on. It’s going to be chilly inside. And it should take us about an hour to make our way through. Then there’s an easy path down into the valley on the other side, where we can make camp by a creek and have dinner.”

  An hour. I can do that. Better than climbing up that rocky path behind us. And at least it’s out of the sun. I should have brought a hat like my mom suggested. I think the part in my hair is sunburned. Pretty sure my cheeks are too. But who’s got a vitamin D deficiency now, huh?

  I flick on Reagan’s headlamp as we step into the mouth of the cave. The entrance is a big, round room. Scattered rocks lay in heaps, as well as a couple of empty water bottles and what looks to be a pile of toilet paper. So much for “leave no trace.”

  A fat tunnel at the back of the room leads farther into the mountain, and that’s where we head. Once we are inside, sunlight wanes at our backs, and our headlamps become our new sun. It’s much chillier here, and the air smells damp and musty—like rock, I suppose. I never thought about rock having a strong scent. It’s not an unpleasant one, though, and the cool air feels good in my lungs. Clean. Uncomplicated. Much like our path. The tunnel is wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side, and the ceiling is several feet over our heads. Veins of color thread through the rock walls—marble, Lennon guesses—and though the floor is rock, it’s better than walking outside.

  “This isn’t so bad,” I say, letting my headlamp bounce around the walls.

  “I told you.”

  We soon come to another tunnel. Two, actually: one to our left, one to our right. They’re both about the same width as the one in which we walk.

  “What now?” I ask.

  “You don’t need to whisper, Zorie.”

  “Everything echoes in here.”

  “Echo, echo, echo,” Lennon says in his deep voice, cupping his hand around his mouth. “If an echo bounces off the walls of a deserted cave in the middle of the woods, does anyone hear it?”

  “Are you finished?”

  “For now.” Lennon unhooks his black compass from the belt loop of his jeans and flips it open. “We need to head south. Seems like this is the maze part I was telling you about.”

  “This isn’t going to be like the hedge maze in The Shining, is it?” I ask.

  “God, I hope so. I love that movie,” Lennon says. “Did you know that in the book, there’s an army of topiary animals that come to life?”

  “Please don’t talk about that while we’re in the middle of a dark cavern in the middle of the wilderness where no one can come to our rescue,” I say. “And no ghost stories, for the love of Pete. Did your survivalist teacher really tell you that story? Wait. Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “I should tell ghost stories for a living,” he says. “That was fun. Until the bear. Well, that was fun too. Until the fight.” The bright beam from his headlight shines in my face. “Too soon?”

  I hold up a hand to block the light. “Can you not do that?”

  He turns his head away to beam light in front of us. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not sad about Brett, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I tell him.

  “Good. He’s not worth your tears. Though, for the record, you have terrible taste in guys,” Lennon says, shining his light back to the compass in his hands.

  “Pardon me?” I say, lightly shoving his compass hand with mine.

  He chuckles. “You’re pardoned. And forgiven. And absolved for all your sins. So let’s focus and get through here, because I’m starving.” He steadies his compass again. “Okay, so as I was saying, all of these tunnels eventually lead into a huge cavern room. If we hit that, we’ve gone too far west. So I think we can just choose a tunnel and try to walk in a northern direction.”

  “We go to the right, then?” I say.

  “Wrong north. Otherwise known as south. Take a left.”

  He’s awfully merry for someone who has only a vague idea about where we’re going. We head left and continue into the cave, walking in silence for several minutes. A noise echoes in distant tunnels, and this raises my pulse. I probably should have asked about bats. Or maybe I’m better off not knowing.

  As he navigates a sharp turn in the tunnel, I stew over his words.

  “Sins?” I say.

  “What?”

  “You said I was absolved of all my sins. What did you mean by that?”

  “I was just teasing.”

  I don’t think he was.

  After a short silence, he says, “I mean, you know how I feel about Brett. But Andre Smith, too? Are you into jocks, or something? What was up with that?”

  This conversation is moving into territory that I don’t care to relive. “Andre was nice to me when I needed a friend.”

  “Yeah, I saw him. Being nice to you.” He pauses and then says, “But I didn’t know you were seriously seeing each other. Brett caught me up and told me . . . well, more than I needed to know.”

  I stop walking. “What did Brett tell you?”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Lennon says.

  “No, we can’t. Because if Brett was gossiping about me, I think I have a right to know.”

  Lennon considers this and continues walking, until I have no choice but to either catch up with him or be left behind in the maze.

  “Tell me,” I insist.

  “All right,” he finally agrees. “Brett said you and Andre were, you know . . . exchanging body heat.”

  That’s a funny way to put it. In a way, it makes it seem worse. Like Lennon—someone who sees all kinds of crazy sex toys on a daily basis—can’t even bring himself to say what Andre and I did out loud.

  “Andre and Brett talk,” Lennon adds. “Multiplayer.”

  “What?”

  “Online gaming. One of the sports games, FIFA or Madden, or something. I don’t know. I only play survival horror games. Maybe a little Minecraft. Okay, and some Final Fantasy, but don’t tell anyone about that.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask for it,” he says. “Brett volunteered it.”

  “I only saw Andre for a couple of weeks.”

  “I saw you guys out at Thai Palace once.”

  “You were spying on us?”

  “The restaurant is across the street from my place of employment,” he says irritably. “So no, I wasn’t spying. I don’t own a telescope.”

  Ugh. I was hoping we could avoid bringing up that mishap. Like, forever.

  “And if you want to know the truth,” he continues in a crabby voice, “I thought it was sort of shitty of you to flaunt that in my face.”

  “I didn’t even know you saw us! How could I be flaunting?”

  “A million restaurants on Mission Street, and you pick that one?”

  He’s actually 100 percent right. I did pick that restaurant on purpose. I was sti
ll mourning Lennon at the time, so yeah. I wanted him to see me with someone else. I know it was shallow, but I was in pain.

  What’s puzzling me now is his complaining about it. Because if I didn’t know better, I’d think he sounds as if he’s mad about me dating Andre, and why would that be? Could there be some truth in Brett’s torch-carrying remark?

  Is he having second thoughts about us? Why? What changed?

  The path splits again, but this time one of the side tunnels only heads east. Lennon hesitates, checking his compass and glancing down our current tunnel. It looks to curve ahead, and that’s back where we came from, so he points us down the eastern tunnel.

  It’s even wider here, and the walls begin changing. Gone is the smooth rock. Now it’s craggy like the fabric of a curtain, and the ceiling is much higher. It also feels as if we’re ascending.

  “Funny that you heard all about me,” I say after several minutes of walking. “Because I didn’t even know you were dating someone.”

  I hear my own voice, and it sounds petty. What is wrong with me? Maybe I’m grumpy because of the dropping temperatures in here. My fingers feel like ice, and I really wish I weren’t wearing shorts.

  “Maybe you weren’t paying attention.” He’s said this before, and I don’t understand why. Am I missing something? Before I can ask, he throws me off guard and says, “I dated Jovana Ramirez.”

  Oh.

  Jovana. She’s one of the nouveau-emo girls who hang out at the skate park with the stoner kids. I don’t really know much about her. I certainly had no idea she and Lennon were a thing. “When?”

  “We started seeing each other a few months ago. We like a lot of the same bands.”

  Suddenly, all the defenses I’ve built up over the last year come crashing down like a poorly played Jenga move, and a horrible warmth floods my chest.

  What is this strange feeling? Jealousy?

  “Are you still dating?” I ask, and immediately regret it. Take it back, take it back, take it back! I don’t want to know.

  And when he doesn’t respond immediately, I fear the worst.

  That’s when it hits me like a kick to the ribs.

  I’m not over Lennon.

  I tried so hard. I ignored him. I got rid of all the stuff that made me think of him. I stopped going places we used to go. I cried until there were no more tears to stop me from getting angry. And then I moved on.

  Only, I didn’t.

  How did I not realize this before?

  Something hits my shoulder. I swing my headlamp up to see Lennon’s arm blocking my path. He’s staring intently down a branching tunnel. I follow his gaze and squint into the darkness beyond my headlamp’s reach. A shadow shifts.

  “Someone’s in here with us,” Lennon whispers.

  My pulse picks up speed, though I’m not sure why. This cave is open to the public. It’s probably just another hiker. No cause for alarm.

  “Hello,” Lennon calls out. His big voice reverberates off the rocky walls.

  No answer.

  Okay, this is starting to worry me. The dark was fine when it was just the two of us. Sort of calming. Peaceful. But now that peace feels threatened.

  Lennon gestures for me to move back a step, and then he leans down and whispers in my ear, “I thought I saw a man. But maybe I was imagining it.”

  “Why are we whispering, then?” Something drips on my arm, startling me. It’s just water from a stalagmite. Or stalactite. I could never get those right. Whichever one grows from the ceiling.

  Lennon shakes his head and his chuckle sounds forced. “It just freaked me out a little.”

  Yup, me too. We listen for a minute. I don’t hear anything. It’s eerily quiet in here. Images of ax-murdering miners flood my anxious brain.

  “Shouldn’t we be out of here by now?” I say.

  “We’ve got to be close to the exit.”

  “Is that the way we’re supposed to go?” I ask. “Where you didn’t see a creepy shadow troll?”

  Lennon studies his compass and looks around. If I squint, I think I can make out two more branching tunnels ahead of us. Possibly a third. This maze is getting complicated.

  He sees the tunnels too. “Stay here. I’ll go check those out.”

  I watch his back disappear past my headlamp. I don’t like this. At all. I’m beginning to feel a little claustrophobic and have to force myself to calm down when water drops on my shoulder again. I shift positions to get away from the cave drip and accidentally kick a big, loose rock. It clatters against the wall.

  I wince and look down. Something’s moving. It’s a black-and-white striped ball. Only, one end of the ball is unraveling, like yarn. Shiny yarn.

  It’s a motherfucking snake.

  16

  * * *

  I freeze.

  The snake is unraveling faster. I’ve disturbed its hidey-hole, and now it’s lifting up its head, looking around for the person who dared to wake it up.

  I have no idea what to do. I quickly flick a glance at the tunnel ahead, but I don’t see Lennon’s headlamp right away, and I’m too scared to take my eyes off the snake.

  Maybe I should stay still, as Lennon instructed during the bear incident. Do snakes have good eyesight? It can’t smell me, right? Maybe I’m blinding him, and if I stay super still—

  My headlamp flickers. This catches the snake’s attention.

  WHERE IS LENNON?

  “Bad shrimp,” I call out softly as the snake’s head lifts. Its tail shakes, slapping against the rocky floor. That seems . . . not good. “Bad shrimp!”

  The snake’s head strikes.

  I jump away.

  My headlamp flickers out.

  Panicking, I scramble backward and bump into the wall behind me. My foot feels caught on something. I jerk it, and it doesn’t help. It’s heavy and . . .

  Oh sweet God, I’m dragging the snake! It’s wrapped around my ankle, and I can’t tell what’s going on. I shake my foot around and that’s when I realize that the snake is biting me. Its mouth is clamped onto my leg, just above my sock. I can barely feel anything—why can’t I feel it? Is that poison, numbing me?

  I scream.

  Lennon’s light bobs into view. He’s running toward me, and now I can see the banded snake wrapped around my ankle. It’s huge. I’m going to die.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Lennon says, holding up his hands. “It’s okay. Calm down. Stop kicking.”

  I take in a sobbing breath and nearly fall down.

  “It’s only a kingsnake,” he tells me in a calm but firm voice, dropping in front of me. “Only a California kingsnake. Let me get it off. It’s okay. He’s just scared. I want you to stay still while I get him to release you.”

  I don’t know what any of those words mean. He might as well be speaking in tongues. And maybe he realizes this, because he softly shushes me—or maybe the snake, I’m not sure. But his fingers are digging inside the snake’s tightly wrapped coils, searching for the head, which is firmly attached to my leg.

  “Shit,” Lennon mumbles.

  “What?”

  “Hold on,” he says. “Are you in pain?”

  “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know,” I say. It’s sort of pinching me. Smashing me. Like my ankle is being slowly crushed. “Get it off of me. Please, Lennon.”

  “I’m trying. It won’t let go. I’m going to need to—”

  “Kill it!”

  “I’m not killing it,” he says, unbuckling his pack and shrugging it off his shoulders with a grunt. “I can get it off. Just hang on. I need something.”

  He quickly unstraps the bear canister from the top of his pack and opens it, dumping out some of the contents until he spots a tiny plastic bottle of blue liquid. It isn’t until he’s got the cap unscrewed that I recognize the bottle’s contents. Mouthwash.

  Angling the bottle against my leg, Lennon pours a small amount in the side of the snake’s mouth. The sharp scent of mint and alcohol fills the air. Nothing happens. Is he trying
to freshen its breath? What the hell is going on?

  He pours another few drops out. And suddenly, I feel the snake’s mouth release me. Its black-and-white stripes shift, and it stiffly uncoils from around my ankle as Lennon holds it behind its head and forcibly helps to unwind it.

  I gasp and start breathing faster. A lot faster. It sounds like I’m about to give birth, but I don’t even care. I’m just so relieved. The second Lennon lifts it away from me, a terrible animal-like sound comes out of my mouth.

  “It’s okay,” he tells me. “I’ve got it.”

  I smell blood. I see blood. It’s dripping down my ankle onto my sock and staining it bright red.

  I’m going to pass out.

  “You’re not,” Lennon says.

  Did I say that aloud?

  “You’re just hyperventilating,” he says. “Sit down and slow your breathing. I need to take this somewhere and put it down, or I can’t help you.”

  Take it far, far away. Better yet, take me and leave the snake.

  “Breathe slower,” he says again.

  I close my eyes for a moment and try to calm down. I hold my breath until my lungs feel like they’re about to burst. Then, after a few unsteady inhalations, I get myself under control.

  “Okay?” he says.

  I nod.

  “What happened to your headlamp?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. It went out.”

  “Try to turn it off and back on again,” he says.

  My fingers fumble for the switch. “It doesn’t work,” I tell him.

  “It’s fine. You have a backup.”

  “It’s in my pack,” I say. But I really don’t care about that. I just want the snake he’s holding to stop moving.

  “Okay. I’ll get it for you as soon as I get back.” He adjusts his arm as the snake’s tail tries to wind around it. “I’ll be gone just a second. Right where that first tunnel veers off to the left. See it?”

  I do. But as much as I want that snake out of my sight, I really don’t want Lennon to leave again. A fresh wave of panic rushes over me as darkness envelops my section of the tunnel. I can’t think about it. Or wonder if that snake was a mama and there’s a possibility that other tiny baby snakes are going to swarm in the dark. So I just slowly slide down the wall until my butt hits the cold, rocky floor. And I lean against my pack, watching the moving white light of his headlamp. When he ducks down the branching tunnel, the light disappears.