between himself and the camp to vomit properly out of earshot. His mouth was already watering, a purge wasn’t far off. Damnit, damnit, damnit. Carly can’t hear this. Churning, his roiling stomach began to bloat; at any moment he would lose it. Farther and farther he shuffled into the woods, finally letting loose with a furious heave.
Wiping his mouth clean of slop with his sleeve, he looked around for stray branches for the fire. He didn’t want to spend too much time away. After all, within the hour everyone would be feeling good, and he wanted very much to be sitting next to Carly when they did. So he loaded his arms with as much wood as possible, turned around, and returned to camp.
Only, he couldn’t remember from which direction he had staggered. Oh, damnit. He knew he wasn’t that far, but the trees all looked the same. What the hell am I doing in the woods?
He wandered, night slowly creeping in over the forest. Trees menaced the horizon, shadows crept hungrily behind him. This was a bad idea, a truly, spectacularly bad idea, and as the few minutes’ journey stretched into what seemed like an hour, Abraham Collins was sure this was how he was going to spend his weekend: wandering aimlessly through the woods while his best friend scored. And that’s when he saw the campfire.
Abe staggered back into camp, dropping the armload of wood into a pile, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. His head was pounding, his stomach steadily expanding with gas. While the fire was still roaring in the center of camp, no one was sitting around it. “Guys? Dallas?” he called out. There was a rustling to his left, coming from one of the tents, then a giggle and a SSSHHHH. The tent unzipped and Dallas partially emerged from the small separation it created, giving the weird impression that there was nothing left of him but a disembodied, floating head.
“Hey,” Dallas whispered. “Did you get the wood?”
“Yeah,” said Abe.
“Good. Good.” Dallas fumbled for words, watching them rattle around behind his eyes before realizing he would never catch any of them. Instead, he gave Abe a telling look.
“Where’s Carly?”
“Dude . . . ,” Dallas began.
“Where is she?” Abraham asked once again, this time with a slightly more powerful intonation.
“Dude,” Dallas repeated, “you blew it.” Abraham’s jaw went slack. “You had your shot, Bro-ham. Come on,” he whispered, quieter still, “I’ve got both of them in here. And you saw them. I can’t pass this up.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t believe you.”
“No, seriously. They’re both—”
“No, no. I believe that. I just. I can’t believe . . .”
“Look, dude. What can I say?”
“Nothing. Just, just don’t say anything. I’ll just sit out here all night. Alone.”
“Yeah, about that.” Dallas gave him a concerned but pleading look. “Can you do me a solid and not hang out by the tent? I mean, it would be kind of creepy, you know?”
Abe tried to speak up, his mind sifting through the hundred or so things he would like to say were he to man up. Then he sighed and did what he always did: he slunk away, envied his best friend for what he knew was going on, and dreamed of a day when it might be him in that tent. As he walked away, he stepped on a large twig. The SNAP echoed, bouncing around the camp. He looked around, startled, realizing what was going on.
Great, he thought to himself. Now the stuff kicks in. He listened for a moment to the fire, the crackling pops and snaps like an orchestra of Black Cats set off in a soda can. Abraham was sweating, cold, and had a headache beginning to crescendo. Now the auditory hallucinations were settling in, meaning he was just moments from finding out how badly the mushrooms were going to hit him. Looking up, he saw the moon, big and bright in the sky, and decided that if he was going to trip his balls off, he might as well find a good spot for staring at the stars while he did.
It didn’t take long to find a large, almost comfortable limestone boulder resting cautiously on the edge of a steep cliff overlooking a lush, serene valley. Moonlight dripped over it like pooling blood. Colors were sharper than before, flickering—almost shimmering—ghost trees waking from their daylight slumber, stepping out of their stumps to walk and sway amongst the living. Abraham stared at the