PLAY
SUNDAY LATE-MORNING -AT THE BRIDGE LAKE RIVER
After leaving Courtney and Chris -AKA the nonswimers behind- the rest of the group walks upstream looking for a good fishing spot.
They find a puddle of stanked water where the current isn't so strong and decide for it. They gingerly cross, jumping over rocks, to the middle of it and then sit on one of the bigger rocks to begin an afternoon of waiting for a fish to bite.
Adrian looks to one side of the river and sees, hidden by thicket, a small cave. Not so small actually, big enough for someone to climb in a live in it. He thinks of the possibility of it as his home and toys with the idea in his mind.
Then he hears screaming and splashing. He stands up and sees Chris being dragged by the current of the Lake River and Courtney swimming toward him.
"Mr. W, Chris and Courtney are in trouble." He points out.
Mr. Whitaker gets up as well and sees what Adrian is seing.
"Oh Jesus, Oh no, I shouldn't have left them by themselves."
"Let's go help them." Carlos says snapping Mr. W back to earth. They all jump and run trying to get to them on time.
Carlos slips on a rock and falls to the river. He gets up and starts off running again. Adrian's in front of him almost out of breath. The bandage in Adrian's chest (the one that makes him manly and flat) is not allowing him to get enough air.
By when he gets to the scene, Adrian is breathless. Courtney is hanging on to a rock and he tries to pull her out, but he can't even breathe for himself. Luckly, Carlos arrives and pulls Courtney and Chris out.
"If I was a real man, I would have gotten her and Chris out." Adrian says to himself defeated and stepping away.
Courtney and Chris sit in the middle of a circle of concerned kids. Mr. W's saying how sorry he is and that he should have left a swimmer with them.
Lennox laughs, he looks at Courtney and says. "Um, I think you did Mr. W. She can obviously swim!"
Everyone's cheering Courtney about how she bravely saved Chris. Chris pats her shoulder and thanks her (she pushed him away as soon as he came in contact with her skin).
Adrian sits back in the shadows of the trees. Now more than ever, he wishes he could just get out of his life, just come to the mountain and live here forever.
He turns his head to look at the direction where he saw the cave. He makes a couple of mental notes to himself. The plan cristal-clear in his mind. Today, at night, he's coming back here to check out his new home. Screw high school, he was moving here now. He turned eighteen in just a couple of years anyways. He did feel deeply sorry for his father -everyone eventually left him- but he couldn't deal with life in a society that didn't accept him as he was.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON -BACK AT THE CABIN
"You know what sucks Mr. W?" Carlos asks.
Mr. Whitaker shrugs. "I don't know, that we don't have a pool?"
Carlos nods, "Well now that you mention it, yeah it does suck that we don't have a pool, but I was thinking of something else." Carlos says eying one of the piles of books in Mr. Whitaker's office.
"What?" Mr. Whitaker asks still feeling jumpy about what happened that afternoon. Chris could have drowned if it wasn't because Courtney was such a strong swimmer.
"That I had to wake up at 7:00 AM to go to a fishing trip, and all I got was a long walk, sweat, mosquito bites and yet another long walk.
"Actually, you woke up at 7:30." Adrian corrects toying with two of Mr. Whitaker's pens trying to balance one over the other.
"That's not the point!" Carlos waves his arms in frustration. "Why did we have to leave so early?"
"How did you expect us to stay after what happened?" Mr. W asks wiping his forehead.
"But nothing did happen."
"Well it could have. My lack of good leadership led us to an unfortunate accident. We were lucky Miss Wright could swim."
"Why did Courtney come anyways? She's not in the outdoors club?" Adrian asks.
"That is none of your business boys. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm busy trying to get my sanity back."
"You have a sanity?"
"Come on Carlos, see you later Mr. W." Adrian drags his friend out Mr. Whitaker's office and drops him off in the couch next to Joseph.
"Pop corn?" Joseph offers.
Carlos shrugs, "Sure,"
Adrian leaves them pig-out by themselves and walks up to his room. Mrs. Whitaker's in the kitchen cleaning up lunch's mess.
It's barely two in the afternoon. Courtney sits popping bubble gum bubbles as she reads a thick paperback. Brooke sits between Tom and Sebastian, the three of them stare blankly at the TV screen. The twins are probably up in their room comparing rocks for their collection. And Chris tries to make conversation to Courtney who seems to be trying to ignore him and yet not quite wanting him to go away.
Adrian climbs up the stairs and heads to his room. Though the entire city of Greensboro is going through a particularly hot autumn week, Adrian quivers as he steps into his room. It's absolutely empty, not that Adrian expected anything else, but lately he seemed to always be alone. It didn't feel right to get close to people and not letting them know who he really was. It was fake, and unfair, and a complete pain in the rear end, heck!, a complete pain in the ass.
Adrian flops on his bed and stares at the ceiling for a second. Today has been a bad day and it's barely two in the afternoon. What happened today at the Lake river was totally unexpected, like a kick in the gut. It caught Adrian completely off guard and yet it managed to hurt him so deeply.
He wanted to be the one to pull Courtney and Chris out the water, he wanted to be the hero. And why hadn't it happened that way? After all, he was the one to see them and the one to get there first. But no, Carlos stole away his glory.
Adrian couldn't even breathe. It all happened so fast. He ran and ran, he caught hold of Courtney's cold hands, he had her. And then, just like that, when it was time to act he couldn't even pull her arms because he couldn't breathe, because the stupid bandage around his chest wouldn't allow his chest to rise and fall. It just stayed stiff.
Adrian peeks under his T-shirt. He gets up and stares at his image in the bathroom mirror. He locks the door so that nobody will walk in on him. A soft "drip, drip" comes from under the sink and a crystalline puddle of water has formed on the cold white titles.
Adrian rolls a wad of paper and throws it over the puddle. He removes the water-soaked wad and tosses it in the trash can. Then, catching a second glimpse at his image in the mirror, Adrian takes off his shirt.
A black bandage wraps his upper torso. He fingers it gingerly, a warm tear rolls down his left cheek.
He grabs the bandage and pulls at it. He violently unrolls himself careful not to let out any frustrated screams.
When he's done, red nail trails run along his chest and two masses of fatty tissues protude out his otherwise flat chest. His breasts.
Rivers of tears run down Adrian's face and wind up in the floor. He pulls at his breasts hoping that they'll magically fall off and stop tormenting him everyday of his life but they only go scarlet and blood trickles down his chest.
Adrian's knees go weak and he falls to the floor crying. He covers his mouth with both hands in an attempt to amortiguate his cries.
Boys don't cry.
A voice in his head says, but Adrian ignores it. If that's so then he doesn't want to be a boy, he doesn't want to be a girl. He just want to be nothing, to figure out who he is without exploding before he gets there.
Adrian abruptly stops crying knowing in his mind what he has to do. He has to go back to that cave, he has to be strong for a couple more weeks and then forget about society until he's ready to deal with it.
He takes off the rest of his clothes and switches on the shower. Stepping in to the spraying water under the showerhead, Adrian closes his eyes and relaxes his body, tonight he's going to meet the rest of his life.
SUNDAY LATE AFTERNOON -ADRIAN AND CARLOS'S ROOM
Adrian double checks he has everything he can possible need. A portable knife deep in his pocket, a flashlight at hand, paper and pen and a good sense of direction.
He walks out his room and checks his watch. It's five thirty-five, he spent almost two hours showering and then an hour getting ready. He walks carefully and gets to the stairs unnoticed. Avoiding the first creaky step, he checks for people.
Apparently, Mrs. W's making dinner now and Mr. Whitaker's still in his office. Courtney and Brooke are nowhere in sight, they're probably still in their rooms.
Carlos, Joseph and Lennox are obviously watching a game since their eyes are glued to the TV screen. James must be upstairs.
Adrian walks down the steps grateful for the little wall that divides the living room from the dinning room. He swiftly moves unnoticed through the dining room and slips out the back door.
Once outside he runs as quietly as possible to the woods from where he plans to run to the front of the cabin and from there he'll get on the trail that leads to the Bridge Lake river and from there to the cave.
He has no trouble finding his way to the front. Though the trail would be much more confortable than being poked everywhere by a million sticks, Adrian stays in the woods afraid someone might see him from a window in the cabin. Now that he was out, getting caught would be a bad idea. Besides, he had planned this carefully. He left the lights in the bathroom on and the door closed, that way Carlos would think he's in the bathroom. He wouldn't, of course, wait forever but it would definetly win him some time and that's all he needed, just some time.
Once the cabin's well out of view, Adrian steps on to the trail. Walking through the forest definetly slowed him down. It's ten after six and he's not even halfway there. It doesnt matter, he still has some time though it's starting to get dark. He's got his flashlight for that he reminds himself clutching it's rubber handle assuringly.
The trail is a repetitive dirt path, nothing fancy, just a well-worn brown path with forest on both sides. The sky is turning pink and purple as the sun sets. Nightime bugs begin to come awake, crickets chirp their singsongs together and fireflies blink their lights.
Fireflies are conceited, Adrian thinks absent mindedly, they like to show off their 'nice-looking' asses so much, they even have lights on them. And to top that off, their butt-light is what they use to attract a potential mate.
He laughts at the idea of humans putting light bulbs on their butts to attrach a companion. Sometimes, it seemed, life was hard, some other times it was easy and some other times it was just plain silly.
Adrian finds a circular rock and kicks it to entertain himself. Before he knows it he's at the narrow passageway that leads to the Lake river. He glances at his watch but can hardly make out the dark figures so he punches the glow-in-the-dark button on the side of his watch and the numbers immediately come out in a glowing green screen.
7:45 the watch said and then the light blinked away. Adrian sighted and began to walk the narrow trail. Though it's dark, he doesn't want to switch on his flashlight (actually, Carlos's flashlight) just yet. He has no idea how much charge those batteries have and he wants to save as much possible so that he can explore the cave closely.
If you were careful, the narrow trail was easy to get through. Only someone as clumbsy as Chris could possible fall off. Adrian gets through in no time.
As soon as he's out the narrow trail, he can hear the Lake river flowing softly through the night. Frogs croak under the moonlit starry night.
Adrian walks a bit closer to the Lake river until he can finally see its wondrous beauty, once there he flips on the flashlight and begins to look around for the cave he saw this afternoon.
The night and the moonlight make the paradisiatic spot glow blue and seem almost magical. Adrian knows for sure he has made it to the same place they came to this same afternoon, but it looks different at night.
He tries to re-trace his steps, everything he had done this afternoon. So he walks upstream and then back down stream. He finds the big rock to which Courney held on to and steps back. His back is met by the tree under which he hid that afternoon.
Adrian smiles hopefully. He shines the flashlight in the direction where he saw the cave this afternoon. It's hard to make out at the night, but he's positive he sees it in the distance. Right now it's nothing but a fist-sized black hole. Distance, of course, makes it look smaller than it actually is, Adrian just hopes it'll be big enough for him to fit whole.
He studies the river deciding on which would be the best spot to cross. He remembers where Mr. W had taken them upstream and heads that way hoping to come across the rock-hop bridge he had crossed earlier today.
Though he does not find the same exact place where they crossed, he does see a place where the water's thinner and rocks stand out from it. Not wanting to waste any more time searching for an easier alternative, Adrian crosses right there.
He jumps onto the first rock. It's slimy and he almost slips, but is saved by the blessed balance his arms provide. More carefully this time, he extends his leg till his foot touches the next rock. This rock is almost round so he has to be extra careful. He closes his eyes and places both feet firmly on the rounded rock. He wishes he had taken off his hiking boths and walked on his bare feet feeling that they would give him a more steady trip through the rocks, but he knows there's nothing he can do about that anymore.
He's two rocks away from the other side of the river. He jumps over them with no major trouble since they are big and flat.
When Adrian finally makes it to the other side he's out of breath and sweating. The bandage around his chest giving him problems again. He hadn't dared leave the bathroom without it so he had it on as tightly as usual.
He walks downstream searching madly for the cave. His eyes finally stumble over it and he sighs relieved.
"Thank God," He whispers relieved.
He points the beam of light directly to it and strides along the forest. Kneeling and crawling and pushing and kicking, he gets to the cave.
The cave looks like a perfect place for Adrian. It's close to the river, it looks like it keeps the rain out and it looks like it could be made into a comfy place if you gave it a chance.
Adrian raises his wrist to check on his watch. "8:39," He shrugs. "not bad."
He notices that the front of the cave is heavy with footprints. The footprints mark big, almost gigantic, hiking shoes. Not Adrian's but somebody else's.
Adrian rubs his chin thoughtfully, "Huh, that's strange." He thinks out loud not remembering any of his classmates coming down here.
He walks closer to the cave, he's standing right in front of it when the flashlight goes off. "Oh no, not now, c'mon!" He pats the flashligh and claps it to his other hand. It comes back on.
"There you go. Good flashlight." He says hoping that's the first and last time it happens tonight.
Adrian aims the beam of light to the inside of the cave to see what's in store for him. He gasps.
SUNDAY NIGHT -AT THE CAVE
The cave is not deserted. In fact, it seems as if someone's been living here.
The water-dripping walls are lined with rifles, hunting knives, and rocket-shaped fireworks. A black mat is extended over the floor and a cushiony pillow lays on top.
On top of the pillow lay a Polaroid camera and a bundle of pictures.
Adrian checks that no one's coming and that no one's inside the cave. When he finds he's completely alone, he walks closer to the pillow and takes the pictures in his hand placing the flashlight tight in between his teeth.
"Sheee-it!" He says dropping the flashlight as he sees the pictures.
The thick pieces of plastic paper reveal images of the outdoors' club bus, Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker, the cabin, the kids, everybody and everything.
The was one picture of Courtney getting off the bus holding a duct tape sealed yellow cookie jar. A thick market arrow poited at it and said, "Money?" and another arrow pointing to Courtney's face. "Kill the bitch, dammed leg slasher!"
The other pictures were marked too. Mrs. Whitaker's bag, Tom's expensive suitcase, Mr. Whitaker's big hiking boots. And that wasn't even the worst part. All of the pictures were marked with hateful words like, "Die rich scum!"
Adrian gasped widely. He had just found a murderer's retreat and the next target were his friends. Adrian gets up alarmed, if the killer is not here he (or she) must be out there.
Adrian drops the pictures and picks up the flashlight. He thinks about arranging the pictures as he found them, but then decides that it won't make much difference if the killer kills the others. He scrambles to his feet screaming, "Holy shit!".
He runs and runs afraid he might be too late. He crosses the river and the narrow trail without even realizing it. The bandage in his chest doesn't allow him to breathe so he rips it off not caring what anybody'll say or think or even do. He has to get back and warn everybody about the danger or something horrible might happen. Before he knows it he's back on the trail. It must be about nine with some minutes when he hears a scream in a distance.
"Courtney!" He says recognizing her voice immediately and yet not seeing a trace of her. 'Oh no, am I too late?' his mind wonders as he runs desperately. He has to warn them, he has to save them, he just has to.
STOP…
…REWIND…
…PAUSE