Inhabited (3 page)

Justin picked up Ryan’s tweezers and used the point to dent the metal.
 

“Where did you get this?”

“Do you listen to anything I say? It came from the mine. Technically, the cave attached to the mine, but close enough.”

“Bullshit,” Justin said.

R
OGER
SHIFTED
HIS
WEIGHT
again. The plastic seat hurt his ass. He couldn’t wait for the end of the lecture. His eyes returned to the chalkboard where the woman had written her name. “Dr. Deborah Grossman.” The D in doctor was significantly darker and larger than the D of the professor’s name. She clearly had feelings of inadequacy.

Roger glanced at his fellow classmates. He was one of only four students. The guy with the dark hair—was his name Aaron?—was probably another paid helper. Aaron looked just as bored as Roger felt. The other two were probably students, or interns, or whatever. What did they call them? Teaching assistants? Something like that.
 

The door groaned on its hinges and Dr. Deb came back in. She licked her fingers before handing out the copies of the instructions to the four of them.

“Sorry,” she said. “The copier was broken and I had to go to the one upstairs. These are the procedures. Feel free to bring that copy with you on Sunday, but I want you to have those memorized. You’ll be in dark, cramped places and your hands will be full. I want you to have a good sense of the procedures even when you’re not looking at the paper.”

The girl, Florida, was already hunched over her copy, running her finger down the sheet as she memorized it. Roger looked at his and squinted. The type was tiny. Half of the instructions were numbers for calibration. It would take him a week to memorize that, and he only had two days. He was going to have to fake it.

“I’ve showed you the Hoffman probe and the drop-stamp. What haven’t we gone over?”

The kid in the front shot up his hand. Roger couldn’t remember the kid’s name.

“Kevin?” Dr. Deb asked.

That was it—Kevin.

“Have you told us about sampling and containment procedures yet?” Kevin asked.

“No, but that’s a good point. If you get a positive reading on any of your devices, you’re going to stamp, log, and then call in. That’s all you’re going to do. I don’t want any of you to try any of the sampling or containment operations. Are we clear about that?”

“Crystal,” Roger said. Dr. Deb locked eyes with him. Roger blushed and looked down at his paper. He had no room for snark. This job didn’t pay much, but he needed the money. His mouth had cost him enough paychecks and he was determined to not let it happen again.

“Good,” Deb said. He could feel her eyes on him. He kept looking down at his paper. “I want to say one thing, and I want you to all take it to heart. You
will
witness something this Sunday that is outside the realm of your experience or understanding. Believe that. I don’t want anyone surprised about what they encounter.
When
you encounter something, I want you to
stay put
. We’re not here to be frightened or run away. If you have a problem with that, you can bow out now and I’ll thank you and pay you for your time today. If you are serious about showing up on Sunday, please raise your hand now to indicate that I can count on you.”

Roger looked up. Dr. Deb was staring right at him.

Kevin and Florida already had their hands up. Aaron frowned and raised his hand. Roger put his hand up slowly to join the others. These people were crazy, but he needed the money.

“Good,” Dr. Deb said. “Florida, I want you to pair with Roger. Aaron, you’re going to go with Kevin.”

Kevin gave a little fist-pump and put his hand out to Aaron. Instead of shaking with him, Aaron just waved at the kid. Roger smiled at Florida, but she didn’t even glance his direction.

“Okay,” Dr. Deb said. “See you on Sunday.” She gathered her bag and walked out.

Roger was still extracting himself from the chair while the others fled. He got to the doorway and saw the girl moving quickly down the hall towards the stairs.

“Excuse me!” Roger said. “Florida?”

She turned but didn’t come back. Roger hurried after her. When he caught up with her, he was out of breath. “Hi,” he said. He started to put out his hand but then retracted it. He didn’t want to seem as needy as Kevin. “I’m terrible with numbers. I guess I have one of those learning things or whatever. Also, my eyesight is not great. I’ll recopy these numbers to a bigger sheet unless you’re already going to memorize them. I figure that if we’re together, there’s probably no need for me to get all worried about having all the numbers, you know?”

“We’re supposed to double-check each other,” she said, folding her arms.
 

“Yeah, I know. Trust me though, it’s going to take forever if you want me to be worried about the numbers.”

“We both have to know the calibrations. If you want to back out, I’m sure Dr. Grossman can find me another partner.”

“No! No. That’s okay. I’ll manage it. I suppose I can copy them over to cards or something,” he said. She had already turned to walk away. “Thanks, Georgia. See you on Sunday.”

“It’s Florida,” she said over her shoulder.

“Okay, Virginia,” he said to himself. The door to the stairwell closed behind her.

“G
O
HOME
,” J
USTIN
SAID
, pointing emphatically. “Go on, get! We don’t want you. Go home!”

Travis covered his mouth as he laughed.

“But I want to come with you guys,” Ryan said.

The night had cooled off a little, but it was still too hot to be walking halfway across town. Justin’s temper got worse with every new drop of sweat that formed on his forehead.

“You can come with us, but you have to keep up,” Justin said.

“He’s too high to keep up,” Miguel said. “Give him a break.”

“Do you believe in the gold?” Justin asked.

Miguel shrugged.

“No, seriously, do you believe in it or not?”

“Yeah,” Miguel said.

“Then move faster. If we don’t catch up with Joy, then we can’t go find your gold.”

“Technically, we can,” Travis said. Justin turned to this new voice and raise his eyebrows. Travis buckled under scrutiny. “No—you’re right. We need the equipment.”

“Good. We all agree. Miguel, why don’t you help Ryan keep up?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, inexplicably turning on Miguel. “That’s true. Why don’t you?” Ryan sounded upset at Miguel’s shortcomings.
 

Miguel laughed until everyone joined him.

“Come on,” Justin said. He took the lead walking down the dusty sidewalk. A wind was kicking up the sand. It wasn’t enough breeze to cool anything down, but the sand gave the streetlights an orange glow. Justin imagined that hell would look like this at night. It would probably feel like this too.

At the next intersection, Travis tugged on his arm. Justin stopped.

“This way,” Travis said.

“How come?”

Miguel and Ryan were following arm in arm. They caught up to the conversation.

Ryan, as befuddled as he was, came up with the explanation. “You can’t just go
talk
to Joy. If you want to talk to Joy, you better have Kristin with you. And don’t talk to Kristin without clearing it with Carlos first. Everyone knows that.”

Justin nodded along. Ryan was right—everyone did know that. It was the damn heat that was making his brain malfunction. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand how anyone could function in that heat.

“Got it,” Justin said. Travis led the way. They went past the front of the store and down the side street to the alley. They walked right down the middle of the access road. Neighbors behind the grocery store would call the cops if they saw anyone slinking around the shadows. It had happened before.

When they got to the loading dock, Travis climbed up the bumper and banged on the metal door. It pushed open a second later. A pair of women came through and walked by Travis while pushing cigarettes into their mouths. He caught the door.

“¿Está Carlos?” Travis asked the women.

“Yeah,” one woman said, lighting her cigarette. “Go on in. Nobody cares.”

“Be right back,” Travis said to the others.

Ryan wandered over to the women to talk to them. Travis slipped through the door and disappeared inside.
 

“This is convoluted,” Miguel said to Justin.

“You have a better plan?” Justin asked.

“Can’t we just go buy a bunch of flashlights and batteries?”

“With what? Have you got a bunch of money that I don’t know about? We’re going to need whatever we scrape up just to buy enough gas to fill up Jordan’s truck.”

“I didn’t think of that. I guess I figured we could ride bikes out there, but it would be too far.”

Justin nodded. “Yeah, and if we’re going to be optimistic, you gotta figure we’ll have some rocks to carry back, right?”

“We should get some backpacks or something too.”

The door banged open. Travis came back out, followed by Carlos. He was slapping flour from his hands as he walked.

“What’s up?” Carlos asked.

“We want to talk to Joy about that caving equipment,” Justin said. “We figured we needed to talk to Kristin first, you know?”

“Yeah? What? You need me to talk to Kristin? Go talk to her yourself.”

Justin looked to Travis. This wasn’t going as he expected.

Travis took over. “You know where Kristin is?”

“Sure,” Carlos said. “She’s probably over at Downside like she is every Friday night. You know that.”

Travis shrugged.

“What do you guys need caving stuff for? You know all she has is those crappy carbide lamps, right?”

“And helmets, and some ropes,” Travis said.

Carlos nodded and tilted his head. “Why do you want that stuff?”

“We’re going into Old Hang,” Miguel said.

Carlos began to wipe his hands on his apron. He shook his head and frowned. “Is this that gold thing? Jordan was talking about that. Sounds like bullshit.”

“That’s what I said,” Justin said. “But we’re going anyway, just to check it out.”

“What time you guys going over there? I’ve got another hour here and then I’m off until Sunday.”

Justin, Travis, and Miguel exchanged glances. Nobody had an answer.
 

Miguel finally thought of a response. “We’re going to try to borrow Jordan’s truck. You going home after? We could meet you there.”

“Cool,” Carlos said. “I gotta get back.” He turned and left them.

-o-o-o-o-o-

“You guys stay here and watch him,” Justin said, pointing at Ryan. “Keep him out of trouble for ten minutes, okay?”

Travis nodded.

“Sure thing,” Miguel said.

Justin pushed his way through the heavy door and stopped at a line that wound down the dark hall. For a second, he thought it was the line to get into the bar. It was all women—they were waiting for the ladies’ room. He excused himself as he worked his way down the line.
 

At the archway, he blinked and scanned the crowd. Most of the people were either crowded at the bar or along the stage. The middle of the room only held scattered people. Justin realized that the person he was looking for was the woman on stage. She was singing some karaoke version of a song he vaguely recognized.

Returning to his search, Justin spotted Leslie, Kristin’s roommate and partner in drinking. She was at the bar. Justin headed to her. He squeezed in next to her, between stools.

“Hey,” Leslie said.

“How’s it going?” Justin asked. He had to shout to be heard over Kristin’s singing, amplified to drunk levels.

Leslie leaned in to yell to him. “Where’s your cadre? Don’t you boys usually move in packs?”

“We’re on a mission. We want to borrow some of Joy’s stuff. Her Dad’s stuff, I guess.”

“So why are you here?” She held up both her hands, nearly toppling her drink.

“Can’t go to Joy’s alone. Brit is an asshole.”

“That’s so true,” Leslie said, slapping his arm. Some people had an inner beauty that shone through their exterior appearance. Leslie was the opposite. She was gorgeous, but had such a rotten disposition that she remained single. It didn’t help that she always hung around Kristin, who was both pretty and nice. The contrast was drastic.

The bartender approached and claimed Justin’s attention. “What’ll you have?”

“I’m good,” Justin said.

“You have to order something.”

“Water.”

“Two drink minimum for dudes.”

“I’m driving,” Justin said. He held up his house key as a prop.

The bartender shot him a disgusted look and disappeared.

“Hey!” Leslie yelled. “You were amazing!”

Justin turned around and smiled. Kristin approached, wiping imaginary sweat off her brow.
 

“Was it okay? You think?”

“Yeah,” Leslie said. “You were great.”

“Hey,” Justin said, inserting himself into their conversation.

“Oh! Hey,” Kristin said. She automatically looked past him to see who else was there. He might have been acting casual about it tonight, but everyone knew that Carlos was jealous. None of his friends approached Kristin without Carlos around. It was messed up, but she seemed to accept the arrangement.
 

“I left the guys outside so they wouldn’t get in trouble in here. We’re looking for your help to go talk to Joy.”

“You mean those guys?” Kristin asked. She pointed over Justin’s shoulder.

Down the bar, Justin spotted his friends. Ryan was waving his arms frantically and talking way too close to some guy who looked very annoyed. Miguel was leaning halfway over the bar, probably describing some infinitely complex cocktail to the patient bartender. Travis was engaged in a deep conversation with several women who were clumped around him.

“They look like they’re doing fine,” Kristin said.

Justin didn’t even have time to comment before the situation exploded. The guy that Ryan was annoying suddenly took a swing at him. Meanwhile, Travis had said something to the women. They all began to push him towards the door.