The Camping Trip II
Sometimes all I think about is you
Late nights in the middle of June
-- Glass Animals, Heat Waves
Up in the mountains, gentle breezes swept past, a break from the stagnant warmth that came with summertime. The clearing itself was mostly in the shade, under the large treetops that covered the sky, light poking through in brilliant spots. A ways away was a sunny path down to the lake, where Ryan lay to sunbathe, wearing only a pair of shorts and sunglasses. The others sat near him, albeit in the shade themselves, cracking jokes and drinking beer.
Laith was the only one left in the camp, busy with the grill, cooking up some steak. Carolyn had packed some hot dogs for her sons, but barbecue sounded a lot better. It hadn’t even been over the fire that long and it already smelled great.
“You cook, right?” Laith asked Theodore, shuffling through the contents of one of the coolers.
“I bake, actually. I—well.” He didn’t really cook as much as he fetched the ingredients and did the dishes.
Laith took out a plastic bag with potatoes inside.
“I help my mom bake,” Theodore explained, sitting next to him.
“Here.” Laith passed him the bag and a peeler. “You’re my sous-chef now. A chef runs the kitchen, but doesn’t cook every meal. Yelp would be full of negative reviews. I waited five hours for my soup!”
“Depends on the chef, really,” he pondered, peeling the potatoes. “If I knew Chef Ramsay would make my meal from scratch, I’d go prepared; bring a book, wear some comfy shoes. Some people would walk out in half an hour and down-vote a positive review even if the president were making their meal.”
“What’s the president doing near my meal? I’d down-vote him too.”
Theodore laughed. When the first potato was done, Laith cut it in half and put it on the grill with a light drizzle of olive oil, some salt and thyme.
“So rustic! Ever thought about medieval cooking? It could be your calling.”
Laith hummed thoughtfully. “Everything does taste better slathered in lard… I think you’re onto something. Is this the beginning of a business?”
“I think Tyler Durden already beat you to it.”
“Huh, I didn’t know about his culinary prowess. Guess they cut that out of the movie.”
“It got buried under all the explosives, but he had a kitchen in that basement; we just didn’t get to see it. The book explains it in more detail.”
Laith grinned, eyes locked on his face, bright near the fire. “You’re clever, Theo. How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“I thought so. You look different.”
“How? I saw you just a couple of months ago.”
“I mean from the first time we met. You’re taller now. When’s the beard gonna come in?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Laith’s grin cut dimples into his face.
***
That afternoon was spent in the lake; the air was warm and the water was cool, a refreshing dip that allowed the group to have some fun and appreciate nature. The lake stretched from side to side, so wide it’d take them half a day to circumvent the whole thing. Joking around, they blasted some music and pushed each other in, holding heads underwater, getting into petty fights. While everyone jokingly participated, Ryan and Laith forgot how to play, treading the line between fun and violence. Emily climbed on Laith and held him under, but every time Ryan decided to get involved, she distanced herself, while Justin mostly floated around and stared at the sky.
Everybody’s bathing suits allowed Theodore to take notice of a few things. First, that both Emily and Justin also had tattoos, except theirs were usually covered by their clothes; a big skull between Emily’s shoulder blades and some song lyrics on Justin’s upper arm. He also had two long scars under his pecs, perfectly symmetrical, like they’d been done on purpose; surgical precision. Laith, on the other hand, had about as many tattoos as he’d expected, peppered all over his body. He was the most muscular too, with strong arms, big pecs and a firm stomach. Theodore’s eyes followed him, watching his skin drip with crystal clear water. It was only when Ryan jumped on Laith that Theodore managed to look away, hit with a sharp feeling in his stomach. At least no one could catch him staring if he wasn’t doing it.
As beer cans piled up and shadows stretched long across the lake, the group’s enthusiasm began to wear off. Justin and Emily sat on the pier with their legs dangling in the water, passing a joint back and forth as Ryan chugged the last can and Laith expatiated on the creatures that lived in the bottom of this lake. No one seemed to be taking him seriously though, dismissive of every detail he gave despite how much sense he was making. If the water was see-through, why was it that, when they swam to the heart of the lake, the bottom disappeared? Instead of light brown sand mixed in with stones, there was darkness. It was creepy to think about. Theodore kept his legs close to his own body, afraid something would pull him in.
When Emily announced she’d be going back to the camp, everybody followed.
Laith grilled some hot dogs for dinner, which Theodore helped make by putting them in buns and adding the condiments. The group sat and talked around the fire, calmer now, almost drowsy. It was the best time they’d had so far, when Theodore’s hands didn’t shake and breath didn’t leave him. Laith even let him have the last hot dog, grilled to perfection. He ate it as conversations swayed from mildly serious topics to absolute tomfoolery, but still nothing he could fully understand. It was the first time they’d talked in riddles all day, having only spoken of each other before. He listened very intently, trying to piece these mysteries together. No one brought up the Dead Ponies, the Alvorada or the Hollywood boys, talking in more general terms this time, no name-dropping.
Night slowly fell. They didn’t have to wear masks in the woods; the air was breathable here, cooler at night. One-by-one, the group bid each other goodnight and disappeared into their designated tents, once again leaving Theodore alone with Laith, as he’d hoped. For as close as these guys were to each other, there was a clear dissonance between Ryan and Laith, which could get so intense that even the others became uncomfortable. Emily seemed exhausted by it while Justin was thoroughly absent; the baggage was too emotionally taxing. It answered the age-old question, whether Ryan only picked fights with his parents or if he was just like that. Theodore watched the fire.
“What’s in the bottom of the lake?” he asked, a whisper that wouldn’t wake anyone up.
“Hunger. Life always enters through the stomach. Didn’t you feel the darkness watching you?”
“Of course I did. It watches me all the time.”
Leaves trembled in the breeze, an orange glow on the bark, flickering with the fire.
“I want to see it,” Theodore whispered.
“Do you?”
His eyes met Laith’s, a fiery glow reflected back at him. “I’m tired of being scared.”
Dark eyebrows pinched together, delicate, reminiscent of how his mother looked at him sometimes. “Facing off with them won’t make you less scared; it’ll just give eyes to your nightmares. Sometimes too many. It’s stupid.”
“Then let’s get stupid.”
Laith grinned.
***
The surface of the lake mirrored the stars up above, a moonless portrait of traveling clouds and silver glitter. Creatures watched him in the dark, studying his every step, but next to Laith, he wasn’t scared. They jumped into the water and swam far away from the pier, zipping over the surface, undulations left in their wake. In the dead center of the lake, Laith stopped and turned to face him. His heart punched him in the throat.
“Do you know what’s under us?” Laith asked.
“Hunger.”
Laith smiled. “We’re going to swim right into it, as far as we can, as fast as we can. You need to promise you’ll stay with me the whole way down.”
“I promise.”
“Give me your hand.”
Their hands met over the surface, fingers pressed against the back, a firm clasp that made his pulse skip and his chest puff out. Staring straight at him, Laith nodded, and the two of them drew in as much breath as they could. At another signal, they dove straight down.
The depths of the lake were pitch black, as dark as the eye could see, an all-encompassing abyss right below. It terrified him, but still he swam, following Laith’s lead. The further they got, the better he could see the tendrils that snaked up the corners, moving in the darkness, a shifting mass of shapeless limbs. It was bigger than the two of them, bigger than the lake itself, an entity at the bottom that snuck into the darkness and wore it like a glove. The very center of it was incomprehensible to look at; a mess of moving parts and slithering viscera, gaping in the middle, too dark to tell apart from itself. It reached towards them, slipping through the water. Theodore’s heart hammered. He had no idea how far, or how close, they were to its mouth.
Glancing up, he noticed the incredible distance from the surface, twinkling stars dozens of feet away. When that clicked, he panicked—could they even go back? Would they even go back? His arm tugged on Laith’s—he couldn’t do this. Stronger than him, however, Laith pulled him further down, and the deeper they went, the tighter his lungs became, crushed on all sides. Claustrophobic and terrified, he kneed Laith in the stomach, freeing himself in the process. He took the escape out of instinct and immediately swam to the surface. Smooth tendrils brushed his legs as he kicked, trying to wrap around them, but they were too slippery for a good grip.
The last of his breath escaped him a long ways away, working as a catalyst that forced his feet to swim as fast as they could, arms flailing in desperation. He was going to drown. The fear was all-encompassing. His legs burned in a different way than his lungs; the void inside was heavy, weighing him down as stars grew gradually closer.
Suddenly, he breached the surface. Breath quickly drew into his lugs, a loud gasp that must’ve echoed across the entire forest. Wheezing and coughing, he kept moving, swimming toward the pier, a mere dot in the distance. One glance over his shoulder displayed a perfectly still sheet of darkness.
“Laith!” he shouted, swimming still, adrenaline shattering through his chest. He could still feel the limbs that had touched his feet and failed to wrap around his ankles. Panicking, he called for Laith again, louder this time, with a deep sense of dread freezing his veins. One more call, more desperate than before, and the surface finally broke; Laith gasped in the distance. Relief washed over Theodore.
They met up on the lakeside. Theodore hugged himself in an attempt to calm down, shoulders up to his ears. “We were going to die.” Shivers ran up his spine as the adrenaline began to wear off, hands squeezing.
“We will,” Laith corrected him, starting toward the camp. He dripped from head to toe, slicking his hair back with a hand. “Now your dreams have a shape. It didn’t consume us, but left a piece in us instead. The reverse has happened—we consumed it. We carry its image; we spread the dark.”
“No, I’m made of light.”
“That’s what you think.”
***
His and Ryan’s tent was just big enough for the two of them, sleeping bags stretched across the floor. When Theodore crawled in, Ryan was already deep asleep, lying on his side. He watched the glow of the fire flicker with the breeze, shadows swaying across the tent. Leaves shuffled and twigs broke, monsters watching him for the shadows, breathing close by.
Every time he shut his eyes, he was back in the lake, facing the giant, swimming straight into its mouth. Ice cold fear seized his heart and set it off, snapping his eyes open. Staring at the bright glow, he breathed, calming down. Once more, his eyes closed, and again snapped right open, heart beating fast. It’d be one of those nights. He turned and nudged Ryan on the back, calling out his name, softly so his brother wouldn’t get angry. A deep and conscious breath followed a stir.
“I can’t sleep,” Theodore whispered.
Ryan groaned, still turned away from him. “Listen to music or something.”
That’d never worked, not once. He tried nudging Ryan again, but to no success; his brother was dismissive and just wanted to sleep. Terrified, Theodore left the tent.
Despite how quickly it’d started to die down, the brightness of the fire was still comforting. It kept him company as he crossed for Laith’s tent. Unhesitating, he pulled the entrance flap and found Laith looking back at him, eyebrows up in surprise. He lounged over the sleeping bag in his black swimming shorts and a tank top, pillows stacked up behind him, the glow of his phone on his face. Without a word, Theodore climbed in and closed the entrance flap.
“Nightmares?”
Theodore didn’t answer, getting into the sleeping bag instead, squished between Laith’s legs and the side of the tent. It was only supposed to be for one person after all, so Laith moved over a bit, or as much as he could to make room. Breathing amber and sea foam, Theodore closed a hand around Laith’s arm, fingers firm on his skin.
“Promise you won’t let them get me,” he whispered.
“They wouldn’t dare. I’ve dealt with worse demons in the past, way more dangerous, that tried to kill me. They’re all afraid of each other. You know there’s a hierarchy, right? I’m at the top of the food chain.”
“You must be delicious.”
Laith snickered. His presence slowed Theodore’s pulse back to normal, sleep falling over him like a blanket.
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