CONTINUED: PART 2
Soon, the fire was roaring, and we had a nice little stew (it was from the can, but it somehow seemed much better and yummier-looking, in this setting) simmering in a hang-pot at the edge of the fire. Sophie stirred it occasionally, and Brianna passed around some chips and dip while we waited for it to be finished.
Ashley and I were roasting marshmallows over the fire, sitting next to each other in a mildly awkward silence of some sort, while the others ate chips and chatted.
I looked up at the sky. For once, it was actually black. Not like over NYU, where it was a permanent, hazy-dark-gray, even on the “clearest”, most cloudless nights, due to all the light-pollution.
I pointed up at Orion's belt, and looked at Ashley.
“Hey, look, it's Orion's belt,” I noted.
She glanced up at it for a couple seconds, and then looked at me with a tight, polite little smile, and awkwardly resumed staring at her marshmallow.
I scratched the back of my neck, and then resumed staring at my own marshmallow, in turn.
A few minutes later, the “stew” was ready, and we all feasted on it like animals, almost inhaling the stuff.
After we finished eating the s'mores for dessert, we all set our sleeping bags down on the ground, and lied on top of them, facing up toward the stars, our hands clasped behind the backs of our heads, taking in the beauty of the night sky, and chatting quietly amongst ourselves.
Dave made sure to put his bag directly next to Brianna's and the two of them spent most of the time chatting with each other. They seemed to be getting along pretty well. Shit, maybe he really would get laid.
Normally I'd be proud of him, as he was usually terrible with the ladies, especially the really hot ones, but in truth I was a bit annoyed, given how badly I seemed to be striking out with Ashley. Sophie seemed to be making more ground with Ashley than I was, and the most riveting conversation-piece she had come up with so far was that a leaf had fallen into her hair, and now it was hard to get all the crunched up little pieces out with her fingernails.
Brianna was now leaning over on her side, helping Sophie pick the pieces of dead leaf out of her hair.
On a brighter note, this gave me a terrific view of Ashley's ass. So I stared at it mercilessly, and spent my time contemplating what she might've looked like in the nude.
This was ridiculous. I needed to start an actual conversation of some sort. Something. ANYTHING.
“So uh... Ashley... I heard there's some weird cult around here. You ever hear about that?” I asked, tentatively. “A cult? Huh. No, I never heard about it. What do you mean?” She was still resting on her side, facing Sophie, her back turned to me, but she turned her head to look at me over her shoulder now.
“Yeah, they say there's like, this weird cult of super rich and powerful people somewhere right around here. They uh, I think they supposedly have some big gathering once a year, where they burn a gigantic wooden sculpture, and they dance around it chanting some weird shit or something...”
“...wait WHAT?” said Ashley, with a look of surprise. She had turned onto her other side, and was facing me now.
Holy shit. It was working!
“Uh, yea, seriously, I read this whole thing about it on the internet. It gets even crazier. Supposedly they even burn a few human sacrifices, alive, during the bonfire. That part has never been confirmed though. It's supposed to be like, this ultimate 'power trip' type of thing. Like they are trying to confirm to themselves that they really are as rich and powerful and above the rest of society as they thought they were. And then they all take turns eating the flesh of the poor people they cook on the bonfire.”
“Oh my GOD. Please tell me that isn't actually real!” she gasped.
“Well...” I smirked, milking the moment for every last drop, “...some say it's just a tall tale... but...” I looked her hard in the eyes now as I said this, “...others say it's completely true. In fact, they say that they collect the human sacrifices from the woods in the area around it. Like, random hikers and campers the find the night before the big ceremony.”
“Oh come on. That's ridiculous. There's no way that's true...” she said, but I could hear just a slight bit of fear on her voice.
“Yea, well... the ceremony is supposedly tomorrow night. So, that would mean... tonight's the night they'd be collecting their victims. I mean, you know, if any of all that was actually true or whatever...”
Ashley punched the side of my arm, kind of hard, and looked at me, “you are totally fucking with me right, now, aren't you?” She bit her lower lip and shook her head, scoldingly, as she looked into my eyes.
“Maybe I am...” I smiled, “...but then again... maybe I'm not...”
“UGH! I HATE you!” she yelled. But then she slid up a little closer against me and rested her head on my shoulder, and gazed up into the stars with me. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye without turning my head, and she did the same thing, at the same moment. Then we both averted our eyes back up at the sky, and laughed a little, as we lay there, by the fire.
Hmm. Maybe Dave wasn't the only one who was gonna get his fuck on, tonight.
~ ~ ~
I woke up groggily, in my tent, and the back of my head was throbbling like I'd been hit by a sledgehammer.
“W-wu..h?” I touched my fingers to the back of my head, and then held my fingers in front of my eyes. My fingers looked blurry, but they were covered in semi-clotted blood. A lot of it.
“Whu..the... WHAT THE FUCK!?!??”
I stood up and spun around a little too quickly, and immediately got dizzy and fell back down.
That's when I noticed the piece of paper. It was small and innocuous enough. Looked like it was torn out of one of those little palm-sized reminder-notebooks. The wind had it rustling up against the inner edge of the tent.
I grabbed at it and held it out in front of me, and it took my eyes a few seconds to focus, since everything still seemed a little blurry.
Our names?
It had all of our names scribbled on it. Dave, Brianna, Sophie, and Ashley's names all had horizonal lines slashes across them. Mine was the only one which was different. Mine was circled, with an 'X' scrawled on top of it, and a little note beside it that just said “does not qualify.”
I crept over the opening of the tent, and felt my hand brush against something soft. I looked down and saw Ashley's underwear. This triggered a hazy memory from the previous night. Her breasts squishing gently against my face as she rode me cowgirl-style, my hands cupping the sides of her hips, pushing down as I thrust into her, hard, over and over.
“Shit. I guess I actually did get her, after all...” I muttered. For a moment, I was going to bring her panties up to my nose and take a deep breath, but then I remembered the strange predicament I was in, and put them back down and continued crawling over to the opening of the tent, and peered around outside.
In all directions, everything was just one gigantic wall of white. The sky. The air. The ground. The forest. All of it, morphed into one homogenous blob. The only actual objects, or motions I could see, of any sort, were the millions of little white specks of snow, flying completely horizontally, in the screeching wind. It was only at this point I realized these white specks were now quickly filling up the interior of my tent.
I hurried to zip up the tent-opening, and then sat there rocking back and forth, clutching my throbbing head in my hands, trying to figure out my next move.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!
What the fuck was going on!??
Could it possibly be?? The cult thing? I had only said it as a joke, to break the ice, the previous night. But I really had read about it on some wikipedia page a few months earlier, whilst bored one night, procrastinating on studying for some exam.
CONTINUED BELOW