The Blackwell GEO (Global Environmental Options) class was a very small, even selective course, only available to students with high GPAs and future goals aimed towards environmental causes. While Victoria could not claim that environmentalism was high on her list of priorities, she was absolutely certain that participation in the class activities would look good for university admission, even better on a letter of recommendation from Ms. Grant. The class for the 2013-2014 year at Blackwell was composed of Victoria Chase, Hayden Jones, Courtney Wagner, Brooke Scott, Kate Marsh, Juliet Watson, and a smattering of students from the science and technology departments that Victoria had never bothered to learn the name of. She only knew Brooke's because Brooke was involved in recording arts far beyond the available courses at Blackwell, and thus had been a reliable source for the Vortex Club's music.
Other than Kate Marsh, Victoria could not find a single one of her classmates. And it was abso-fucking-lutely pouring rain.
Now, normally this would not be a problem. However, today was a Friday, and the GEO class was out on a hike about an hour away from Arcadia Bay. And the fact that Victoria had just walked off to be able to pee when the rain started up had apparently separated her (and Kate) so far from the rest of the group that she couldn't quite catch up to them on the trail.
"HAYDEN!" she shouted. "COURTNEY? ANYONE?"
Kate was struggling to catch up with Victoria as she plunged down the trail, much more involved in the class for the ideas than the physical exercise. Still, at least she could hear a response from Kate.
"Uh, Victoria? Wherever they got off too, I think they're too far to hear us."
Victoria promptly ignored that, and set off again shouting, "HEY, YOU DICKS - WHERE ARE YOU?"
After a few seconds, she realized that Kate wasn't coming in tow, and the idea of losing sight of the one person still available did not sound awesome. She glared back at Kate. "Yo, Marsh, you coming?"
Kate shook her head. Her neat bun was deflating under the weight of the rain. "If we lose the others, aren't we supposed to stay where everyone last saw us?"
Victoria gestured down the trail. "It's not like they could have gotten far." Exasperation was leaking into every portion of her, soiling her composure like the water did her clothes. "We were back there for like, three minutes! And you figure they'd slow down what with the unprojected rain."
"I'm sure they'll come back soon," Kate offered, looking down and up the trail.
The ground was still hard, but Victoria worried that it would become a mire. Mud was always projected on these hiking trips, but she did not fancy hiking through muck.
"I'm sure they'll notice we're not with them in a few minutes," Kate added, and although the words sounded neutral, Victoria could see her expression turn sour. Kate actually lacked confidence that such a small class would miss them. Kate, sure, small as a mouse. But forgetting Victoria?
The rain was frigid, and it only worsened the headache she'd developed waking up the morning after a Vortex Club party. Her mood was shot, and the rain was somehow managing to pick up. Victoria raised a hand to her mouth as she thought, a little pocket of warm breath in the cold.
"Yeah, whatever - let's just head back to where we had lunch. There was a cave near there, and it'll be the most obvious place for them to check. Assholes."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Kate replied reassuringly, already turned to take the lead as they started the hike back.
And then, as she looked up at the sky, she added, "I just hope they're all okay."
"I'm sure they're fucking fabulous."
Victoria felt glad that the rain soaked the shame from her face. It wasn't her fault that everyone in this class was an apparent asshole.
As they trudged their way back up the trail, Victoria tried to figure out which would worse: that they had become separated and forgotten just as a storm hit, or that the class had decided to play an elaborate prank on them. Although she knew Ms. Grant would never stand for it, she herself would do something like that if someone needed to be taught a lesson, even her close friends. In fact, she had once had everybody hide while Taylor went to the bathroom at her own birthday party. If she could pull something like that off, maybe she really was associated with enough sadists that they all could be lurking behind the trees, holding their hands to their mouths to suppress the giggling.
Victoria's eyes darted around to every source of cover she could locate, trying to expose these traitors.
Hayden? Hayden had once shit himself on coke. That could be used against him.
Courtney? Courtney's social influence was inextricably tied to the club and thus, Prescott money. If she were displaced as president, she would be nothing.
Taylor? Taylor worshiped Victoria, and if she had gone along with this, it was because her will was weak. The guilt would hollow her out and make her more loyal than ever.
On and on Victoria went, down the list of classmates and ways to sink them utterly for this humiliation. She was so consumed with her fantasies of revenge that she didn't notice that Kate had stopped, and bumped right into her.
"Oh! Sorry Victoria," Kate apologized as she stumbled back.
Victoria did not seem that bothered at the crash, but rather just snapped back into reality. They had arrived at the edge of the small valley the class stopped at for lunch, with a narrow cave off on the opposite side of the trail. It was thin and dark, unquestionably filled with every matter of unpleasantness. However, it was raised above the trail and thus not filling with water, however dank it might be independently.
"This is shit," Victoria whined, entering first.
Kate hesitated for a moment, stooping down to pick up several rocks before entering. She dumped them in a pile just at the mouth of the cave, then left around the corner of the cave, out of Victoria's sight.
She didn't ask about it. Instead, she dropped off her backpack and began to take inventory, trying to figure out exactly how unpleasant this was going to be.
Granola bars. Half of a pot brownie, to be split between her and Taylor. A tank top in case it got too hot (figures). Sun screen. Three water bottles. Flashlight. Compass. A folding knife - the kind you were explicitly forbidden from bringing on these trips. A Buffy hoodie. A pack of cigarettes and a light.
Victoria patted her shirt. Soaked. She didn't fancy getting hypothermia two hours from the trail head.
She pulled out the hoodie before yanking off her shirt, frustrated that she didn't have doubles for her jeans. Cotton just left you chilled, and there were no woolen pants alternatives.
Kate returned to the cave entrance just as Victoria tugged the tank top free of the water bottles. She was carrying a much larger rock now, supporting it between her forearms, and nearly dropped it on her toes as she saw Victoria there. Victoria barely even noticed, and understood even less as she pivoted around with a call of 'sorry!'
Kate seemed to overestimate the amount of time that it took to put on a shirt, as she stood there, fidgeting for about ten seconds before crouching at the cave entrance, rolling the rock off her arms before retrieving her smaller rocks, stacking them into a small cairn just outside the mouth of the cave.
Victoria pulled her phone from her pocket, intent to let a few choice 'friends' know what she thought about what was going on, but discovered she had no service. Predictable. She dropped the phone into her backpack, retrieved her cigs and lighter, and zipped it up. Then, she approached Kate from behind to inspect the cairn and release the poor girl from her shock.
"You're not supposed to make those, you know."
Kate jumped, as if she had not expected Victoria there.
The stack was pretty noticeable, which was good, but likely futile when dealing with a bunch of GEO students. They would need bright, saturated colors to spot anything in the rain.
Victoria gestured at Kate's handiwork, "It's like littering. I don't know how they're supposed to know you did it, but you can be fined and everything. They're meant to mark the trail, so you could technically be leading some hiker to their untimely death in what I can only assume is a mine shaft reserved for the most desperate of heroin addicts."
"Oh," Kate responded blandly, hesitating over her creation.
"Just leave it," Victoria suggested, grabbing her cigarette pack from her hoodie. The wind was picking up, and she didn't want to stay another moment so close to the outside world, so she turned back into the cave as she lit a cigarette.
Kate was looking her over as she followed suit, dropping her bloated pack across from Victoria's about twenty feet inside, where the darkness threatened their visibility entirely. The first breath from the cigarette was like a flare in the darkness.
"You came a lot more prepared," Kate said, awkwardly standing about while Victoria just dropped down by her pack.
The stone in here was damp, and Victoria knew that she would be disgusted to find herself in whatever filth was certainly staining her jeans, if she could see it.
"I just have more experience with this sort of stuff, I guess. You get used to what you need after a while, although it seems I neglected the poncho part of the Ten Necessities."
Kate was easier to talk to when all you could see was the vaguest outline of her. "Ten Necessities?" she asked.
"Boyscout thing. Ten things to avoid getting fucked in situations like this - you learn it pretty fast if you don't want to be the dick mooching off of people."
The glow from the cigarette lit Victoria's face in yellow. She pushed her sopping hair back, tucking as much as she could behind her ears.
"Oh. Do you have an older brother or something?" Kate sounded genuinely interested. It was weird to have her eagerness directed at Victoria herself. Was this literally just how she talked?
"Nope," Victoria replied, filling the space between them with smoke.
Victoria could practically hear the cogs slowly rotating in Marsh's head, but if she figured it out, she didn't say anything. Instead, they sat in silence until Victoria ate through the entire cigarette.
Why her and Kate? Why were they two left behind? It's not like Victoria hadn't addressed anyone when she went off to pee - the clusters of students could get a little spread out, but Taylor and Courtney wouldn't have gone much further ahead without her, in all reason. If there was a planned prank on Kate, Victoria would have at least been part of it, or even more likely orchestrated it. The only person in the class who might have put up a fight to it was Brooke. But, no. They had just vanished as unexpectedly as the rain had come.
Victoria flicked the cigarette butt further down the tunnel as she exhaled the smoke one last time. Her vision in here was getting a bit better, and she could see the lines dividing the pieces of clothing Kate was wearing, creating a piecework frame in gray scale.
"You're not in on this, are you?" Victoria knew it was ridiculous, but she had to ask.
She could see Kate's head tilt to the side, the response taking a few seconds to surface. "No? In on what?"
Victoria shook her head, trying to dispel the paranoia. There was no way. "Ugh, nevermind. Just, like, the class didn't double back to the bus while you keep me from figuring out what's going on until like, they ambush us. Right?"
"Uh. No?" Kate sounded really taken aback. It was a pretty strange accusation if you weren't submerged in the weird, back-stabbing fuckery of the Vortex Club, wasn't it?
There was a pause, and then Kate added, "You're not doing that to me, are you?"
Victoria chuckled as if that was the silliest thing she had heard all day. "I don't think Ms. Grant would go for that, Katie."
Even in here, Kate's eyes seemed to spend a lot of time peering down at her hands. "Yeah, you're right," Kate said, unconvincingly. "She's pretty nice."
Victoria was surprised to hear how slow Kate was to give up the thought. Even Victoria realized, under whatever level of paranoia, that there was no way something like that would happen under her eye in such a small class. A faculty member would get into such unbelievable shit even if they weren't just fucking nice. Something must have really shaken her faith in the faculty at Blackwell. Weird. She was always so buddy-buddy with Jefferson and Grant and the janitor, Victoria figured she preferred the faculty to the students.
"Look, Kate, seriously. I'm not fucking with you. We might have missed a turn or something, but I'm sure they've noticed we're missing by now. We just need to chill for a moment."
"What if they don't come back?"
Kate's tone was so eerie that Victoria shuddered, and began rubbing her arms through the hoodie. This was one of the reasons that Victoria could not stand Kate - sometimes she'd speak up in class, and say some acutely grim thing out of nowhere, and not even seem to notice that everyone was giving her a look of what the fuck? For all the positivity she tried to radiate, there was some darkness going on in that girl's head.
"Look, no one's eager to be caught out in this storm. They'll be back soon." Victoria, even to herself, sounded utterly convinced. But there was something about Kate's doubt that crept into her, and she added, "And, if not, we'll just walk back to the bus and hang out 'til they're back. Out of this fucking rain."
Kate nodded, and said no more.
Hours passed amid some quiet conversation, but they neither saw nor heard the return of their classmates. Although the storm rendered the outside dark, Victoria could tell when night began to draw near. With no clear end to the storm, very little food available, and an extremely sore butt, Victoria began to feel desperate.
"Whatever happened, we've got to get back to the bus before it's full-dark out."
It was two hours to the trail head, and only going to get colder in the time that it would take them. With some luck and dedication, they would be able to make it just after eight. If nothing else, Victoria could be absolutely sure that the bus would not have returned to Blackwell without them, and if the class had gotten back there through some alternate route, they would likely encounter help of some sort on the way back.
Once Victoria had finished her fourth goddamn smoke in this cave, she asked, "You ready? It's gonna be a bitch the whole way back."
Kate's face pinched with determination. Victoria didn't think she'd ever seen her game face before. "Yeah, let's do it."
And they did. Within seconds out in the rain, Kate managed to slip and smear her pants with mud, but she just picked herself up and kept walking. The rain soaked through everything until Victoria felt numb everywhere, although the sting on her face would not abate no matter what. Even with some amount of light still out, it was nearly impossible to see the trail, and Victoria had to fish out her flashlight early on to keep their navigation on course. It wasn't a particularly hard trail, after all, but they couldn't afford to miss some small sign and end up hours away from a reasonable search zone. Victoria knew how deep these trails could go, and she had no desire to be located via helicopter days from now.
They trudged on for what must have been hours, though every minute only seemed to slow as the night grew colder. Every light but the flashlight soon vanished, and although Victoria knew there was a full moon out, there was no evidence of it here.
At some point along the trail, Victoria realized that she was crying, but she was almost grateful for the short-lived warmth on her face.
It had certainly been more than two hours. Probably more than three. And Victoria hadn't seen a sign in a long time. The trail was continuing on, easy enough to follow with the light, but it wasn't widening out into the well-trod areas managed by volunteer groups at all. They had missed something, but Victoria knew they were headed in the right direction. Not only did she have a great sense of direction, but she had her compass! Thus, she did not bring up her doubts about their location to Kate.
"Victoria, look."
Victoria stopped and shined her light back at Kate, noting which way she was pointing. She shifted the light off of the trail, but failed to make anything out for a few seconds.
Until her light descended upon a cairn at the entrance of a thin cave.
"No way," she said at a whisper. Then, shouting, "NO FUCKING WAY!"
She tromped off the trail towards the cave with Kate following immediately afterwords, and shone a light into the cave, certain that it must have just been a coincidence.
She saw several cigarette butts along the first twenty feet or so of the cave, which sloped slightly about forty feet back off to one side, but was clearly an old tunnel. The cairn was definitely the one Kate had made.
"How?" she wanted to scream, but her throat was suddenly constricting in frustration. "We were going north the whole time, there's no way."
"Tori, I don't know what's happening, but I can't feel much but everything I can feel hurts. Let's just get inside. It'll be easier once the rain stops."
God, Kate sounded like shit. She was practically pleading with Victoria, as if she were the de facto leader and Kate expected to be forced to keep marching through the cold. If there were a smooth surface in sight, Victoria would be ready to collapse; instead, the walls and floor of the cave were so jagged that she knew she couldn't lay down, nevermind sleep in this cold.
Victoria wanted to throw her flashlight out into the woods, to shred her pack and scatter its contents, to scream and scream until someone found them. Her blood boiled underneath her freezing skin.
"You're right, Kate. There's nothing more we can do tonight. We just need to wait out the storm, get the heat back, and we'll be fine."
They entered the cave, going deeper this time with the aid of Victoria's flashlight. The curve further in wasn't very steep, and the tunnel looked like it just went on and on and on. Victoria had no desire to go deeper into the suffocating place, but beyond the start of the curve, at least the air was dryer and warmer.
They started to take an inventory again, together this time. Kate had brought very little, and most of what she had brought she'd already consumed. A large, patterned blanket, probably a picnic blanket, dominated more than half of her pack, as well as several empty water bottles. Sun screen. Her camera, which had luckily managed to avoid utter destruction in her pack. She had clearly come expecting a fun daytrip.
"You're going to want to take off most of your clothes and leave them pretty spread out overnight. Squeeze them out and lay them on your pack, and try to stay warm under your blanket. If you think you'll be able to sleep, sleep sitting up or you probably won't be able to walk right tomorrow."
Kate was a lot less squeamish this time as they both pulled off their soaked clothes. Victoria's tank top was still dry enough to wear, which she appreciated, as her hoodie would be good for nothing more than a wet towel to make sitting more comfortable. She knew her pants would drain most of her heat for hours to come, but faced with that or several more hours of walking in wet pants tomorrow, she resolved to keep them, as well as her socks, as they were made of wool.
Victoria would say that Kate was in a worse way, as she didn't have a single piece of clothing that wasn't soaked (and nothing was wool), except that she had the advantage of a too-large blanket, which meant that she might actually get warm sometime in the night.
They sat across from each other shivering, using their discarded clothing as little thrones and their bags as buffers between them and the wall. Misery began to pollute the air as the minutes ticked by, and they both became aware that they would not be able to sleep for a second with everything wet. Trying to get back to the trail head in the rain had been a terrible mistake.
Victoria noticed when Kate stopped shivering after about half an hour. The blanket was doing its job, but Victoria felt no better than when they had entered, even if she was dryer.
Kate seemed to notice this in return.
"Victoria, come here."
"What?"
Kate held open the blanket.
"I may not have been a scout, but I know how radiation works. We'll both be warmer if you're in here, too."
Silence.
What had Victoria gotten her into, needing Kate's help like this? In the present, nothing sounded better than getting to share that blanket with another human being with blood instead of ice in their veins. In the future, though, this would make it incredibly awkward to be cruel to Kate. How can you huddle together for warmth through an October storm with somebody and continue to be a bitch to them? You fucking owe them allegiance after that.
After a long moment of deliberation, Victoria replied, "Yeah, you're right."
She grabbed her clothes and pack and pulled them over next to Kate, who backed away from the wall. They made a wide enough pad for both of them out of their clothes, then managed to pull their legs close before Kate draped the blanket over both of them. It could not quite close over both their bodies - what looked so large over Kate was less impressive with Victoria's broader body. A chill leaked in through the part in the blanket.
"Look," Victoria sighed after a few minutes of just trying to take the cold. "I know it's awkward, but lean into me a bit." She raised her arm up a bit so that Kate could scoot a few inches closer.
Kate complied, and Victoria's hand fell on her waist, keeping them as close as they could be side-by-side. They managed to get the blanket into a full wrap around themselves.
Kate was soft, and Victoria's fingers drew small patterns on it until she realized what she was doing and stopped. Kate began to lean in a little more, tucking the bottom of the blanket underneath their feet.
"You're actually kinda warm . . ." she said.
Victoria said nothing when Kate's head started to rest against her shoulder.
Somehow, they both managed to sleep.
Victoria thought she must not have slept at all, or at least not very long, when her eyes finally opened hours later. There was no change in light from the mouth of the cave, and the rain continued on.
She pulled her pack out from behind her to check the time. It was 5:30 am, and the storm had been going for fifteen goddamn hours. Her phone was down to a minuscule percent, despite the fact that it had spent almost all of that time off.
Kate woke up in response to the light of the phone. She squinted at it for a moment before mumbling, "It's morning?" and then, "Still raining."
"Yeah," Victoria replied.
"Fuck." That's a new one.
"Come here." It also sounded affectionate as she opened her arms back up, but Kate was too sleepy to notice, and lowered herself right into Victoria's arms.
Victoria was not used to maintaining contact like this with people (other than Taylor). If she weren't so desperate to stave off the cold and so happy to drift off to sleep again, she might have found it weird.
When she woke up again, it was because Kate had sat up so that they were barely touching each other, rubbing her eyes. Victoria checked her phone again. 7:20am. They had been in here all night, and yet the light level outside remained unaffected.
"I'm . . . really hungry," Kate said, when she noticed that Victoria was waking up too.
"I don't really have much food left," Victoria admitted.
"What about those brownies?"
"They're filled with pot."
"Oh," Kate said, deadpan. "We should probably hold off on those, then."
Victoria needed to move around before she was petrified against this wall. She stood up, leaving the blanket to Kate, and fished in her pack for the flashlight.
"I'm going to see how far this thing goes," she announced as she switched on the light.
Kate stood up almost immediately, "Hey, me too."
Victoria gave her a weird look, not that she could see it.
"What?" Kate asked. "I want to get a look at the floor plan of our new home."
"Oh, good," Victoria said with an edge of sarcasm, "We've hit the domestic delusions stage of going nuts in here."
Kate wrapped herself repeatedly with the blanket to keep it up off the tunnel floor, and the two made their way down the tunnel slowly. Even with Victoria's light, the ground was uneven and slick, the air heavy. They were probably breathing in some fungal poison and they'd die days after getting back to school.
The tunnel was much longer than either of them had anticipated. After maybe five minutes of spelunking, it still was getting no narrower. However, Victoria started to hear the sound of rain once again.
"I think this comes out somewhere - come on."
Victoria became very confused after a few more minutes, when the rock and earth began to give way to a gritty sand floor. Were they near a river bed?
They turned a corner in the cave, and Victoria could see a soft gray light further up ahead. The sand became finer, clumpier, and easier to walk on.
When they exited the tunnel, they found themselves not on the shore of a river at all, but on a beach with rocky sand. The ocean was colorless and upset, the tide higher than normal on the familiar beach.
Victoria knew exactly where they were. Somewhere up above her, the lighthouse sat on a peninsula overlooking Arcadia Bay.
"Where are . . .?" Kate started, but trailed off, knowing exactly where they were. "How did we?"
All she got in response was, "No fucking way."