For the record, I did not suggest the cave.
We left Todd Michaels’ house sometime after the speakers started crackling and someone knocked a beer into his mother’s decorative bowl. Todd—The Quarterback, as Rodney insists on calling him, even when Todd is standing right there, was still in the kitchen telling the same story about the same game. Annie had heard it three times. Trevor said that was two and a half times too many.
I was ready to go home. That's when Rodney decided he wanted to become a local problem.
‘We should hunt vampires!’
He said on the front lawn with a warm beer in his hand, almost like he’d just remembered we needed milk.
Every town has something. Steelers Bay was tied to vampires, and depending on who’s telling it, they would say they live under the old railroads, or sleep on the cliffs, or even the old woods. But only when the fog rolls in. Nobody could ever name someone who’s actually seen one. They could always name someone whose cousin did though.
Rodney apparently ‘knew’ a place.
‘Of course you do,’ Annie said fixing her smudged eyeliner.
Trevor joked and asked if vampires took appointments becuase he's been meaning to donate recently. Rodney told him to stop being an ass and to follow him. So that brings me here, I started writing things down because if we were going to spend the rest of the night proving Rodney was an idiot, I wanted an accurate record.
That is why I came. Documentation. Not curiosity.
We took the dead trail just outside town. There was barely a trail left, only two muddy grooves, weeds up to our knees, and branches that seemed determined to catch every loose thread on Annie’s jacket. The party got quieter behind us until I couldn’t tell whether the bass was still there, or my heartbeat got stuck in my ears.
Rodney walked in front with his phone held out like a sacred weapon, while Trevor kept making little hissing noises behind him. Annie threatened to go back twice only to chicken out and keep walking. Nobody believed any of it. Not really.
Then the trees thinned.
The cave was tucked into the hillside, low and wide, with roots hanging over the opening. Rodney swept his light across it. Wet stone flashed back at us. A few feet in, the beam stopped showing anything useful.
‘Told you,’ he said.
‘You said vampires,’ I told him. ‘That’s a hole...’
Annie laughed, I think a booger shot out her nose i'm not sure. Trevor on the other hand didn’t laugh. He was looking past Rodney, into the dark.‘Lets get this over with, I promised my mom I'd pick my sister up in the morning.’
We started walking toward it, and I got that feeling. Y'know, the one you get when you turn around before somebody says your name. Like someone had been watching us for a while and had only just decided to let me notice.
I looked back at the trail. Nothing but trees, the pale strip of mud we came down, and Steelers Bay somewhere beyond. When I faced the cave again, the feeling was still there.
It was the beers. It had to be the beers, and Rodney spending the whole walk talking about teeth and people disappearing. You can make anything feel wrong if you talk about it long enough.
Rodney called for us to hurry up. I told him I was finishing this entry.
The full moon had cleared the trees behind us, and there was a red glint to it I hadn’t noticed before. A thin crimson stain caught along its edge. It put a shuddering shine on the wet rocks around the cave.
I looked down at this page. Then back up.
Still red.