Gravity Check

by Alex van Tol

  The display doesn’t light up.

  I watch as Chase presses the buttons harder. Nothing. “It’s not working,” he says. His voice is calm, but I know he’s worried.

  He turns the phone over and pushes the power button again.

  Still nothing.

  He presses it again, holding it longer this time. I bite back on my panic, reminding myself that some phones need to have the power button pressed for a few seconds before they’ll fire up.

  Still nothing.

  “Is it on?” Seth asks. He comes closer. “It is working?”

  “I don’t think so,” Chase says. “The batteries must be dead.”

  “Do you have spares?” I ask.

  Chase shakes his head. “Nope. They’re supposed to check everything out and make sure all our equipment is in working order before we go off on out-trips,” he says. He blinks, obviously surprised that the camp sent him out with subpar equipment. Then he looks up. “What about you guys? You got spares?”

  I shake my head. The only stuff we have with us that takes batteries are our headlamps, and those take tiny triple-As. No use in a sat phone.

  “I don’t, either,” says Chase. “Let’s check Nolan’s and Rico’s bags.”

  Our search turns up nothing.

  We’re stranded in a high mountain pass with no phone, no batteries. No way to call for help. And our friends are god knows where, very possibly in deep trouble.

  “I’m going to kill those guys,” Chase says. “Especially Rico.”

  “If the grow-op guys don’t kill them first,” says Seth, putting words to the fear that’s suddenly settled in each of our hearts.

  “Shut up, Seth,” I say.

  “What?” he asks. “It’s not like we’re not all worried about it.”

  Chase is deep in thought as we argue, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. After a moment, he looks up. “I’m going after them.”

  Seth turns on him. “What? Are you crazy? No, let’s…let’s wait a little while. Maybe they’re on their way back now!”

  I shake my head. “I doubt it, Seth. I think something’s happened.”

  Chase glances at the computer on his bike. “It’s after seven. We’ll be losing daylight soon. I think that spells trouble.”

  Seth shifts uneasily on his feet. “But you can’t just leave us here!”

  Chase runs his hands through his hair. “I have no other choice now,” he says. “It’s a tough call, but I can’t take you with me. It’s too late to bike out and go for help. It’ll be dark soon, and the risk of getting lost is just too great. And besides, anything could happen to those two in the time it takes us to bike all the way back to camp from here. It would take us hours. Even longer in the dark.” Chase breaks off and looks toward the trees. “You two will be fine to look after yourselves until I get back. I know you will. You’re both sensible guys with good outdoor skills. If we’re lucky, those two have just had an accident. Broken an ankle or something. But if something is wrong— you know, really wrong—I don’t need to be dragging you guys into it.”

  “He’s right, Seth,” I say. “It’s too dangerous for us all to go.”

  “Besides,” Chase continues, “what if they do come back? Someone needs to be here, or else they’ll go looking for us. And then we’ll all be separated. And that’s dangerous.” He pulls his helmet on and buckles it.

  I nod. What he’s saying makes sense. I don’t like the idea of splitting up, but it’s the only choice we have right now.

  “Where am I going?” Chase asks me.

  “Head straight on the single track for about two miles, then take the fork toward the forest on the left,” I say. “The trail opens up into a double track pretty quick. The plants start growing right there. We went a few hundred feet before we turned around and came back.”

  “Okay,” Chase says, sliding his shoe onto his pedal. He looks at us. At Seth’s worried face. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m coming right back. And I’ll be dragging their sorry asses with me.”

  I nod again, my stomach knotting into a tight ball. It feels terrible to have our counselor go off into the forest in the fading daylight. To go and find who knows what.

  What if he doesn’t come back?

  I push the thought away. Of course he’ll come back. He’s Chase, man. He’s a machine. Super Chase.

  Seth and I watch him pedal toward the path that leads straight into the heart of danger.

  chapter twelve

  Seth and I have a whole feast laid out for us, but neither of us can do more than pick at our spaghetti. I finally scoop everything into one pot and put a lid on it. We’ll keep it in case everyone comes back ravenous. Or else we’ll put it in a ziplock bag and stick it in the bear hang.

  I really hope that’s not what happens.

  We wash our plates and the pots without talking. I take out a deck of cards.

  “Want me to boil some water for hot chocolate?” Seth asks.

  I shake my head. It wouldn’t feel right to be sitting here, safe and warm and drinking hot chocolate when the other guys are who knows where. Probably not drinking hot chocolate. Besides, I don’t feel like anything sweet right now.

  We play Crazy Eights and Twenty-One, the only games we know.

  Gradually, the sky darkens.

  Seth watches, chin on his arms, as I build a fire. As the flames lick up through the tinder and ignite the larger pieces of wood, I look up and see the first star shining in the faded purple sky. Jesus. Where are those guys?

  “Where are those guys?” Seth asks. I’d smile if I weren’t so worried right now. We might not always get along, but we sure think the same way sometimes.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I sit beside him and watch the flames as they reach higher.

  “How long do you think Chase has been gone?”

  I look around at the sky. “I’d say it’s close to eight thirty now.”

  Seth shivers. “Why isn’t he back, Jamie?”

  I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I don’t know.” I’ve never hated hearing those words so much.

  “Do you think something’s happened?”

  I don’t want to admit it, but I’m terrified that something has. And I don’t know what to do next. Do we stay here and wait longer? Try to go after Chase? Send up smoke signals?

  Seth stands suddenly, snatching up the sat phone from where it’s sitting on a nearby stump. “Stupid phone,” he hisses. “Stupid idiots back at camp. How stupid do you have to be to send a bunch of kids into the wilderness with emergency equipment that doesn’t even work?” Seth asks. “Now what are we going to do?” His voice is rising, panicky.

  He turns toward the mountains at the end of the valley. “This sucks!” he screams. His words travel back to him in a faint echo. The cords stand out on his neck as he screams it again, louder. “This SUCKS!”

  He turns and throws the phone to the ground. The back of the battery compartment pops off, and the batteries spill out onto the hard earth.

  I jump up and grab the phone. “Don’t do that, Seth,” I say. I put the batteries into my jacket pocket. “You don’t know if we’ll need that thing later.”

  “Oh, and it’ll be so useful without any batteries, won’t it?” Seth spits. He sits down and puts his head on his arms.

  “Listen, man, it’s not my fault there’s no juice.”

  Seth lifts his head. “Well, can’t you fix it?” he barks. “Jamie the Perfect? You’re so good at everything else. Can’t you just snap your fingers and make new batteries appear, Jamie? Can’t you summon us a new phone with the staggering powers of your mind?”

  I stare at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re always the one with A Solution To The Problem,” Seth says, putting air quotes around the words. “Everyone looks up to you because you’re so smart,” he says. “Even Mom and Dad.” He looks away and rubs his eyes with the fingers of one hand. A frustrated sob escapes him. I’m speechless
. I know he’s worried about our situation, and I am too, but…this is what eats Seth up inside? That I’m smart? I mean, I’ve always gotten top marks in school. But I don’t brag about it. I offer to help him with his schoolwork, and he used to let me, but he doesn’t want me to anymore. Now Seth just struggles along on his own, barely scraping out a passing grade. It would be so much easier if he would let me go over the things he doesn’t get the first time around in class. But he doesn’t ever let me.

  “Who cares if I’m smart, Seth?” I say. “Everybody loves you. You’re, like, Mr. Popularity. I don’t have a quarter of the friends you have.”

  “Yeah, well. Friends can’t help you get into the Faculty of Engineering,” he says. He won’t look at me. “You need good marks for that.”

  Engineering. I had no idea he still wanted to do that. When Seth was little, all he did was build intricate things. He built the craziest stuff out of Lego. It was amazing. We all used to say he’d be an architect when he grew up.

  But when he started middle school, Seth stopped talking about being an engineer. He struggled to keep up his marks in math and science. And then, a couple of years ago, he gave up on school altogether, turning his energies toward making friends and having fun.

  I had no idea he still carried around that old dream.

  Here I’ve been resenting Seth all this time for being popular, and he’s been jealous of me for being smart! I feel like an idiot. But I can’t think of what to say. For once, my “great mind” fails me.

  And I’m still worried as hell about what’s happening here.

  This is all getting to be a bit much.

  chapter thirteen

  I sit back down by the fire and put my head in my hands. “I can’t believe the camp would send us out with a dead phone.”

  “Yeah, well, they did,” Seth says, his voice angry. “And no spare batteries. So where does that leave us?” He’s almost shouting now. “We’re in a real tidy heap of crap now, huh, Jamie? Our friends are lost in the forest at nighttime, in the middle of a massive grow-op with who knows how many armed guards.” His voice rises, closing in on hysteria. “Maybe they’re already all dead and lying there in pools of their own blood,” he says, gesturing toward the ground, as though their bodies were right in front of us.

  I wince at the thought. “Seth,” I say.

  He ignores me. “Maybe those guys are coming for us now,” he says.

  His last words fill me with cold dread. I sure hope not.

  And then it dawns on me that no one else is coming to help us. Whatever happens next is our decision. The way this situation will shake out is entirely up to us. I take my head out of my hands and look at Seth.

  “Seth,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “Listen to me.” I touch his arm. The words and my hand work like a magic salve, soothing him. He looks into my eyes. Listening. He doesn’t listen much anymore, but he sure is now.

  “We need to figure out what we’re going to do,” I say. “We need to make a plan. We can’t just sit here.”

  He nods.

  “Well, we could just sit here,” I continue, “but I’m not sure that’s our best option. The way I see it, we have three choices. One is to try to ride out to a road and then try to get help. But I have no idea where we are or how far in we’ve come. I wasn’t paying attention when we drove up here. And then we biked for a full day to get in here. We could spend days on the logging roads and not see anyone.”

  “Oh, man,” Seth groans.

  I keep going. “Option two, we wait here until someone from camp comes looking for us. But we’re on the second night of a four-day trip, so that means no one will even know we’re missing until suppertime the day after tomorrow. That’s over forty-eight hours until someone even launches a search. That feels like a long time to wait.”

  “What’s option three?” Seth asks.

  I take a steadying breath. “Option three is we go after them.”

  Seth swallows. Nods. Stares at the ground for a while. “It’s what we’ve got to do, isn’t it, Jamie?” He raises his eyes to meet mine.

  I nod.

  “Now?”

  I look up at the sky. More stars have edged their way out of the blue velvet. The last of the daylight is a whitish fringe around the mountaintops. There’s no moon tonight. It’s bloody dark out here.

  And it’ll only be darker in the forest. Taking headlamps would be an exercise in stupidity. They’d turn us into easy targets in terrain that’s completely unfamiliar to us. We would be at a distinct disadvantage.

  I refuse to think about what—or who— would have the advantage.

  I look back at Seth.

  “We’ll go at first light.”

  I’m sure I won’t sleep well. But I am surprised when I wake early the next morning after a deep and dreamless sleep.

  I sit up and shake Seth, who’s snoring beside me.

  My body is sore from all of yesterday’s action. I guess that’s what made me sleep so soundly.

  I give Seth another shake. “Seth,” I say. “We’ve got to get going.” My stomach does a slow rollover as I think about what I’ve left unsaid. Hey, come on, little brother. Let’s go ride to what could possibly be our deaths.

  I shouldn’t think of it that way. There’s any number of possible explanations for where Chase, Rico and Nolan might have gone. For all we know, they might have gotten lost and be waiting for us to come and find them. Not likely, considering Chase has gps on his bike computer. Or maybe they all fell off a ledge and are hanging out with sprained and broken ankles, waiting for us to come and help them back to the campsite. Again, not likely that they’d all be injured at the same time. But still.

  Or maybe they’re dead.

  I shove the thought away. I give Seth another shove too. “Get up, man. Come on. We’ve got to go find the others.”

  I stick my head out of the tent, half hoping that everyone has come home sometime in the night. My breath blows white in the frosty mountain air. I pull my tuque down tighter over my ears and unzip the rest of the door. Everything is exactly as we left it last night. Right down to the pot of spaghetti I forgot to put in the bear hang.

  I kind of wish the bears had found it. Then maybe they could’ve finished us off too so we wouldn’t have to face the task ahead.

  Seth groans behind me. His sleeping bag rustles as he stretches. I rifle through my pack, mentally compiling a list of things we’re going to need for today’s mission.

  I leave the tent and find a thirsty-looking tree to water. I zip up, then start filling my bag with emergency supplies. Headlamps. Duct tape. A large knife. Water bottles. Extra food. Rope. Emergency blankets. Jackets. The first-aid kit Mom made us pack.

  Seth gets dressed while I use a pencil stub to scratch out a note on a pad of paper I found in the bottom of the first-aid kit.

  August 9.

  I glance at the sun’s position in the sky.

  6:45 AM. My brother Seth and I have left this campsite to try and find our friend, Nolan, and our counselors, Rico and Chase.

  I am irritated with myself that I never asked for anyone’s last name.

  We are on a mountain-biking out-trip with Camp Edgelow. We’ve taken our bikes and followed the path that leads away from this campsite to the southeast. Two days ago, we discovered a large marijuana grow operation about two miles down this path, where it forks off from a dirt single track to an overgrown dual-track. The grow-op is most likely guarded, possibly by armed men. We think our friends have run into danger there. Our satellite phone died, and we don’t know where we are. We don’t feel it’s safe to try to bike out of the mountains alone. We have gone to find our friends.

  My hand shakes as I write the final few words.

  Please send help. Jamie Gardiner.

  I hear a noise behind me and turn. Seth’s eyes shift from the paper to me.

  “It’s good,” he says. “Let’s hope someone finds it.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

  I nod my h
ead and fight the lump that has risen in my throat. What are we getting ourselves into?

  I slide the note into a ziplock bag so that it won’t get wet if it rains. I rip several pieces of duct tape off the roll and secure the note to the outside wall of our tent. We slip on our packs, buckle our helmets and wrestle our hands into gloves that are stiff from yesterday’s sweat.

  Without a word, we swing our legs over our bikes and pedal away from safety.

  chapter fourteen

  We cut through the still morning air. My fingers are stiff on the handlebars, partly because of the cold and partly from yesterday’s play at the jump park. I think about that—how those might have been the last jumps Rico and Nolan will ever take.

  And Chase.

  My stomach is a bundle of live wires as we pedal silently along the hard dirt path. I slow as we approach where the double track crosses the trail. I squeeze my brakes and glide to a stop. Seth rolls up next to me, and we look around.

  Right in front of us is the grow-op, neatly edged by the track. We never noticed it the other day until we were well into it because the cannabis is so well disguised by the trees. This is the far western edge of the grow. The double track must act like a perimeter route, containing the plants and providing an easy way for the growers to get around.

  The thought of the growers sends electricity sparking through me. Who owns all this weed? Where are they going to sell it? Seth and I silently take in the scene in front of us. While some of the plants come up to our shoulders, a number of them reach much higher, over our heads. I wonder what the street value would be for a single stalk. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand and you’re looking at a heavy suitcase full of cash.

  Definitely an investment worth protecting.

  “Let’s stick together,” I say. Seth nods.

  I hold out my gloved fist. Seth bumps it with his.

  “Showtime,” I say.

  We pedal slowly along the wide track that runs parallel to the marijuana. I strain my ears to listen for any sort of noise. We bike for a while, searching for something we don’t yet know exists.