"It's so cool," says a boy next to me. "Tons more fun than if we were in someone's house or a condo or something. No one's parents would ever have a clue. My dad would shit, if he knew where I was."
When I look over at this boy I see he's really just talking at the fire and not looking at me or expecting me to say anything. He's wearing a ski mask so I can only see his puffy chapped lips and his bloodshot brown eyes. No one is hardly bothering me. They just keep drinking and shouting. My face is hot and my back is cold. I turn around and watch two boys who are trying to crawl as far back in the cave as they can. The firelight flashes on the soles of their boots. The ceiling slopes down there and there's just jagged black spaces stretching back.
"Son of a bitch!" one boy yells.
"Motherfucker!" yells the other.
The cave swallows up their voices and doesn't really echo.
"Rad hair," a girl says, sitting next to me. She has a sharp chin and a striped hat on her head. Her face flickers.
"Thanks," I say. "I think there's bats that live in this cave, probably."
"What?" she says. There's a pompom made of yarn on top of her hat.
"Bats probably don't like all this racket," I say.
"I know you from chemistry," she says. "Right? I didn't know you partied."
"Chemistry," I say. "I think so."
"God, I'm thinking of dropping that class. Were you at Mary's party last week?" she says and then looks past me at three boys coming close.
"Keg stand!" they yell, pointing, and then she's over by the metal barrel and they're holding her upside down while she drinks beer from the black hose.
I keep having these conversations that are not quite conversations. Mostly I am trying to stay close to the fire and to wait for the night to be over. I keep thinking if someone I talk to seems like a friend or a person I could trust that maybe they could help us but no one seems like that. They are only getting drunker and more stupid.
A girl vomits and someone puts snow on top of it. A boy across the fire from me stands and unzips his pants and takes his penis out and pees on the fire with a sizzling sound. He almost falls over, sitting down. Someone behind me is saying that lava came through this cave, a long time ago, that that's how it was made. The batteries on the boombox are wearing out so the music goes wobbly. Words are just stretched out sounds. No one seems to notice.
I just stare and stare into the red and yellow and orange flames. After a while I look up and there are maybe only ten people left in the cave. A tall boy in a ski parka with a beard and snowmobile boots comes over to the fire and looks at the few of us that are left sitting there.
"Keg's kicked," he says. "Now or never, everyone's taking off."
"We should put out the fire," a girl says and then everyone says that doesn't matter, that it's not like the cave would burn down.
"What about all this leftover wood?" a boy says. "I carried it all the way up here, man, but I'm not carrying it down."
"Next time, maybe," another boy says, "or whatever."
I stand and walk outside, where the moon is even brighter. The air is freezing cold in my nostrils and throat but is fresh and thin. I cough and taste smoke.
"Did anyone get Jared?" someone says. "He passed out, before."
"Yeah," someone else says. "They dragged him through the snow and that woke his ass up!"
"Helen," the tall boy says, and it takes a minute to tell that he's talking to me so I turn around.
"What?" I say.
"You got a ride with Courtney, right? I think she's waiting down there. You can get a ride with me or Jericho, though." He points back toward the cave.
"Tell Courtney I'll ride with Jericho," I say.
"You sure?" he says. "All right."
He turns away down the slope and I wait and then follow a little. I check back and no one else is coming out of the cave yet so I drift over to the side, into the trees. I hide while people start coming out and stumble past. Below cars are driving away with their red taillights going smaller.
I wait. No one calls and no one comes back. It's quiet again with the moonlight and at the mouth of the cave some orange flickers and glows.
Only once I get closer do I think that animals could have found Father there and licked and bitten at his bloody hand or pulled at the bones showing in his arm but when I take the branch away he's there like he was. He stares up at the sky. His hair's burned off and his beard and there's frost on his face.
"They were having a party in the cave," I say. "They're all gone but there's still a fire."
The sled has frozen a little to the ground and I kick Father's side by mistake getting it loose. Then I put on my pack and carefully slide him down through the trees out at an angle across the slope. In front of the cave the snow is stamped down by all the footprints which makes it easier to pull the sled. The ground inside is frozen near the mouth so I pull until the sled catches on the gritty floor and then I drop the rope.