The Pink Lab: Call of the Faeries 3 Pt.1

“Out here, the road goes on forever.”

Ryan said it ominously, eyes squinted. Beyond the RV’s window, night had fallen, proving the squint and gravelly voice were both affectations.

Chastity took a deep pull from the vape and held it, felt it coolly burn her lungs, then erupted in wispy smoke. She handed the device back to Ryan, who took an admirable pull all his own from the thing.

“Where are we anyways?” Chastity squinted, too, but hers was born of effort to recall the last city sign they’d passed.

Colin chimed in from the back. “We’re past Lincoln, heading Northwest.”

“Good navigating,” Ryan belched, another thin cloud bursting from him. 

“Thanks.”

Colin watched the couple trade the vape back and forth, eyes lingering on Chastity’s thin arm as it extended to Ryan in the driver's seat. Even her arm was beautiful, Colin mused.

“You guys want to pull over to eat?” Andi asked, scooping ground beef into a bowl. Around that bowl were similar bowls of pico, lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, and spicy sauce. Soft tortillas were warming on the narrow stovetop. 

“Make us a couple?” Ryan asked. “I’d love to get to the campgrounds by morning. If we don’t get a good spot, it’s going to be a long walk back and forth to the stages.”

“Can do,” Andi assured him. 

“Need a hand?”

This from the last of the quintet sharing the RV. Bailey looked ready for the show in denim shorts and a blousy white top with flowers stitched into the seams. Her chestnut hair was wavy and bounced on her shoulders. Andi tried not to stare. Part of the reason she’d agreed to join the group for the cross-country trip to the festival was to give Colin an experience he wouldn’t be able to have alone. Being in the chair since he was a teenager left him sour about his future, but he’d been coming around lately, and Andi wanted to encourage him to see the possibilities of his world and not only its limitations.

That was the more noble of Andi’s intentions. The other was to spend some time up close and personal with Bailey. College was almost done, and Andi hadn’t made her move. Not even after Bailey confessed she was bisexual. If ever there had been an invitation to kiss her, that was it. But Andi was ever the practical girl. She thought and rethought, considered and reconsidered. A regular J. Andi Prufrock, she chided herself, trying not to be obvious about her admiration of Bailey’s tan legs. 

Andi assembled tacos for Chastity and Ryan in the front seats, shoving away the cattier thoughts about the couple. They were friends with Colin through their theater classes. Colin was stage manager for most productions the school mounted, and Ryan and Chastity were often the pair to seize leading roles. They had acted across from one another in four performances; the one in May would be their last. That was how they met, fell in love, and became the “it” couple in the department. Both were pretty beyond measure and both had the kind of natural charisma that makes life easy.

And here was Andi, serving them on paper plates and trying to ignore her own scrawny body and string black hair, pretending that she belonged among the beautiful people. They had accepted Colin and she should give them some grace. Wasn’t their only sin being better than her by all measures?

“Thanks,” Chastity said, tucking her legs beneath her in the copilot seat. “I’m really glad you decided to come, Andi. We love Colin to death. Between us, you might be cooler.”

She winked. A brief eclipse of her baby blue eye, a leggy and fresh-faced blond woman with a million-dollar smile. Why did Andi’s returning grin feel so false?

Bailey was making tacos for her and Colin, so Andi fell back into the bench seat on one side of the small dining table. She was inexplicably very tired. She wasn’t used to taking long trips like this one and found the tight quarters and sunny demeanors of the others tiring. Maybe it wasn’t Colin who needed to be taken care of on this trip. Her life before the trip felt smaller now, and she was acutely aware that she didn’t spend all that much time around people. 

A plate landed on the table in front of her. 

“You look like you could use a taco.”

Bailey grinned, but hers was genuine. She scooted into the seat opposite Andi and deposited her own plate on the table. Eye went wide like she was struck by a sudden revelation and was out of her chair. She returned with a pair of canned beers to accompany the tacos.

“Thanks,” Andi said. She felt hot and claustrophobic.

“You can relax, you know. This is supposed to be a vacation.”

“I am,” Andi assured her, nodding for emphasis. “I’m having a good time.”

“Beg to differ,” Bailey countered. She had a raspy voice that made Andi’s insides go soft and squirmy. “You have been making sure everyone else is having a good time, up to and including arranging a taco bar. You look tense.”

“I do?”

“You do. So when we are done eating, I will clean everything up and you are going to get high and watch other people work for a change.”

Andi broke into a laugh. “You know I don’t smoke pot.”

“Vacation,” Bailey repeated like a mantra. 

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

“Are you trying to corrupt my sister?” Colin asked.

Andi straightened, her big sister persona kicking in between breaths.

“Don’t be rude, Colin.”

“I’m trying, C,” Bailey growled, “but she is fighting me.”

Andi opened her mouth, unsure what she was going to say, but something. Or what if she leaned across the table and kissed her? Wouldn’t that wipe that smirk off her face?

Bailey held Andi’s eyes, daring her. The air was heavy with that gaze. The air crackled, waiting for the spark to ignite the next moment.

“Shit!” Ryan called, cranking the wheel and stomping the brakes. 

The RV listed hard to the left. Bailey was gripping the seat and wall, Andi held to the table. Colin’s chair spilled over, leaving him on the floor in a heap, arms clawing to right himself. Chastity and her taco landed in Ryan’s lap. The vehicle tottered, pausing at the apex of its balancing act, and then clattered back to its four-wheeled stance instead of rolling over. 

The RV was stopped and all the humans in its belly were silent, breathing hard and fast, fingers dug into the nearest surface while they waited for confidence that the world was right side up and they were themselves intact before releasing that death-hold. Ryan turned the engine off.

Chastity smacked Ryan’s chest, hard. “What the fuck, Ryan?!”

“It was a woman. She jumped out of nowhere.”

Andi was up and helping Colin back into his restored chair. She paused when she saw the limbs of trees reaching over the road like skeleton fingers. 

“When did we end up in a forest? I thought we were surrounded by cornfields.”

“We were,” Ryan admitted. “It was like one second it was flat nothing and the next we’re on our way to see the Wizard.”

“Look at this mess,” Chastity said, ignoring the mystery of the forest for the remains of the taco.

“You saw a girl?” Bailey was at the well of steps beside the kitchenette. “Hang on a second.”

She was out the door before Ryan could protest, and Andi was behind her in a flash. Had Ryan really seen someone? Was she hurt? Ryan and Chastity spilled out, too, leaving the doors of the RV open like spread wings. 

They fanned out, looking down the road behind them for a sign of life. 

“I swear I saw her.”

“I know you saw something, baby. Sorry I yelled about the taco,” Chastity reassured.

“Nothing here,” Bailey admitted.

Andi stared down at her phone. “Do you have a signal?”

“What?” Bailey saw the glow of Andi’s phone and checked her own. “No. Nothing.”

Andi looked around them, at the dark branches that reached for them in their knotty arcs. 

“This place gives me the creeps.”

“Agreed. Let’s get back on the road.”

Ryan and Chastity were already in their seats when Andi and Bailey shut the door of the RV’s belly. 

“Thanks for leaving me behind,” Colin barked.

“Sorry, honey, we were just out for a second.”

“Maybe more than a second,” Ryan corrected.

The brother and sister looked to the front. They saw Ryan turning the ignition. No sound accompanied the action. No roar of an engine. No click of the starter. 

“We’re stranded?” Colin asked.

“Delayed,” Ryan said and threw a sunshine smile back at them.

“What do we do now?” Chastity asked.

The silence in the RV as each contemplated the answer to that question was deafening. 

While they are deciding what to do, a girl named Summer comes upon them. She tells them she can get them help if someone will come with her, Bailey goes with her. The rest wait and watch as they disappear into the trees.

Bailey follows Summer into some nearby caves, a shortcut Summer says. There’s a flowery scent that accompanies their trip, stronger as they go deeper into the caves. She becomes intoxicated, and when Summer kisses her, she starts to forget wy she was there at all.

Ryan and Chastity leave the van to go get down. They feel they are being watched and start to chase the sounds of giggles and flashes of someone moving through the trees. They get separated. Ryan is easily seduced by an ethereal beauty named Autumn. Chastity is afraid of the girls who appear from a strange mist and tries to flee but becomes ensnared by a tree that feeds her nectar.

Andi is growing increasingly panicked. She wants to scout up the road a little and Colin assures her he’ll be fine. She sets out on her own.

Colin finds himself alone and growing more afraid. Then, Bailey finds him, only she’s different. We get a full transformation as Colin’s handicap disappears and he becomes one of the faeries that now flit around the empty minivan.

Andi hears someone following her and decides to head back to the minivan. The area is empty. She is terrified and goes searching for the others. She comes across the caves and sees light glowing from within. She swallows her fear and goes deeper.

Along the way, she sees the faeries flitting about. She gasps when she sees that Chastity has become a sensual wood nymph, being pleased by one of the faeries. She is going to turn and run and Summer and other faeries discover her. She screams and faints.

She wakes at a great feast. Her friends, minus Chastity, sit around the table. They no longer recognize her, but want her to join. She is fed some of the sweet bread at the feast and screams and flees while the faeries flitter and chase her. She explodes from the mouth of the caves and runs to the road. She is picked up by a truck driver, hysterical and screaming in the back of the truck until the faeries cease to give chase and she is free. Only here eyes have taken on a golden hue and her back is starting to itch like there’s something growing there. As we end, she hums a song she has never heard before.