DAY ZERO
> Hi, dad.
> Wanted to call and check in. I made it to South Pomona like, 20 minutes ago. I literally just finished getting my haul off the rig and weighed. Didn’t even know you could buy this much fertilizer at once.
> Needless to say, I’m happy I won’t have to drive with that smell anymore.
> Though it was so bad I swear I still need to breathe through my mouth, ‘stead of my nose.
> ...
> At least I was already wearing a bandanna ‘round my face. Helped block some of the smell. You have to wear one when you’re passing through here, on account of the dust.
> It’s weird, though. Not a lot of folks around here to begin with but usually someone’ll come by and make sure I’m not cheating them out of any merchandise when I weigh in.
> Not today, though.
> My guess is everybody’s hunkered down inside, waiting for the air to become breathable again. But sure, it’s totally fine to make the delivery girl do the dirty work.
> I’m not stopping here. Gonna drive as much as I can today, stick to the highways, and stop just to get rest. Maybe once I’m past the dust I’ll find a Motel 6 with someone who can point me in the direction of a shower and a Burger King.
> My cough’s back again.
> I bet if mom were on the line right now, she’d be going on and on about how “she told me so,” and “I should stop smoking those awful cigarettes,” and “oh, oh, baby, come home.”
> It’s ok, though. And I’m not smoking.
> Too much.
> Tell mom to check on the family photos in the dining room when she can. Something’s gone off in the ones I have of me and Sofia at Uncle Ray’s wedding. She looks… faded.
> Probably just the sun damage, though. I’m being silly.
> Look, dad.
> I’m coming home no matter if you want to see me or not. It’s important that we’re together after so long. You don’t get to say who I am anymore. I made a promise to her that I’d be there for you and mom, and I will, damn it.
> Okay. Getting back on the road now.
> Stay safe.
DAY ONE
Engine sputters like wet fertilizer hitting asphalt. A familiar sound, given a dash of poetic flavor thanks to my most recent haul. Squelch. Nothing to worry about. He’s lazy and dusty, but he’ll wake up soon. Putputput. Then – life!
Slept in the cab last night. Curled up under the passenger seat like a stray cat, tail tucked neatly to conserve body heat. I’ve got no tail, and my legs are too long to achieve the same effect. It feels like hiding. But like, doing a shit job of it.
I can’t hide when I look like this, anyway. Not that I want to. The makeup isn’t hiding any of me either, and I hate when people assume that’s what I’m trying to do.
If that were the case, I probably wouldn’t still be wiping dried blood off my upper lip.
God, I need to shave.
Last night I woke up to her voice, whispering in my ear. Hate ghosts like her. Make me promise one thing when they’re alive and the moment they kick the bucket they decide to get all P.O’d and righteous and now the closer I get to keeping my promise, the more spooky things get for me when I’m alone. And I’m always alone.
Engine’s just like you, Dad. Bring him to a hill and he’ll look at the crest of it, so far above his head, and let out a sigh the mountains can hear for miles. And he’ll hem and haw about having to grind his way up that hill. I’ll keep an eye on the dial, making sure he doesn’t overheat. I know how to push him like I know how to push you. I watch that needle creep up, start sweating.
I think to myself, if it blows, I’m screwed. I wonder whether it’ll burn hot, like you or cold, like me.
But you know, he makes it to the top and I give him time to cool down, and I cool down, too. So that’s what we’re doing right now.
I hope I’m giving you the time you need to bring your needle down, Dad.
After Luisa’s injury, our descent was slow going. Even the smallest amount of pressure on her ankle– an unsteady foothold or a miscalculated push-off against the wall of the chasm as we rappelled down– was enough to stop our entire party as we made sure her bandages were wrapped tightly enough to prevent further blood loss. The ruddy moss that carpeted the cliffside was saturated with moisture from the morning’s downpour. When I felt several warm drops on the back of my neck, I glanced up, panicked that somehow Luisa’s bandage had snagged on a rock or protruding root and that the wound had reopened– but it was only water, stained crimson from its tenure within the moss. Luisa was too stubborn to heed any of our attempts to convince her to camp on a ledge and care for her ankle more thoroughly– we knew this about her the way we knew everything about everyone by this time, and yet we all continued to press her, watching her features for any sign she was flagging. None came.
At approximately 230 meters below the surface, we came upon the beginnings of a more extensive cavern layer than we had seen on our journey down. The glimpse of sky above had darkened from its pale blue and peach to a deep rose, matching my flushed cheeks and the knuckles on my left hand, which had been gripping the rope so tightly I nearly forgot to let go once my feet were firmly on the cavern floor.
“Wait, hold on–”
Hilde was just above me; she had not yet reached the bottom of the ravine. For a moment I thought she was telling us to wait for Luisa, that something had happened. But Luisa was next to me, her arm draped over my shoulders, leaning against me for support. I realized I could see her, somehow, so far underground I should barely have been able to sense my own hands in front of me. We had no artificial light sources, yet the five of us (six, counting Hilde) were illuminated in a rainbow of shades, coming from somewhere further into the caverns– a subterranean nightlife district. What Hilde had seen from her higher vantage point was not Luisa but the source of this light. Once everybody had descended safely, we secured our ropes and headed deeper into the cavern layer.
The temperature above ground had been stifling, the air breathable but carrying with it a humidity that made me acutely aware of the hair on my arms and upper lip. Down below the surface, however, the climate had cooled to a reasonable 15°C, enough that the light jacket I had brought from base camp seemed less of a burden to wear than to carry. The moisture in the air was unfortunately only slightly more tolerable. We had all agreed that using the portable atmospheres was an abominable waste of fuel, but peering around at the others, I could make out the green led on Luisa’s choker that meant the device was powered. We let her have this. She had been through enough. The cavern itself was composed mostly of solid rock. Illuminated by the as-yet unknown light source, its walls shone, a telltale sign that we were hiking through what was once home to volcanic activity. The volcano, of course, was long-dead, but the light bouncing off the cavern walls gave the impression that the rock was dancing. We had set off early in the morning, and none of us, even Luisa, had much momentum left. Seeing as we had encountered nothing alive but the moss, and the rock was only pretending to live, we decided it would be safe to make camp in the cavern and continue our search for the light once we had all rested.
It was then that I sensed the presence of something just around the corner. It was not a sound so much as a current, I think, as I recall the subsequent encounter to the best of my abilities. I say this because if it were a sound that alerted me to the source of the cavern glow, nobody else had given a sign that they had heard it, too. Yet somehow, the sensation had pitch, like the nearly inaudible whine of static electricity. With it came a slight, barely visible change in the quality of light, a momentary flicker which was similarly unnoticed by the rest of my companions. The back of my neck prickled, and I motioned for the others to come quickly but carefully...