You and your buddy Ben gather your cheap spelunking gear from the corner of his basement where you keep it and hoist it up the narrow steps to his living room.

His mom is sitting there the same as when you'd come in, still in her bathrobe, a green terry cloth robe Ben said his dad gave her, that's how old it is. You head through the room without saying anything since she never responds when you do anyway, not so much as a "hi there" even though you've been her son's best friend since the two of you dominated the kindergarten playground together. It gives you the creeps to see Ben try to talk to her. He's never tried to do what the rest of us would do if our mothers were walking, breathing vegetables like her. We'd have lost it long ago, taken her by the shoulders, slapped her, told her to fucking snap out of it. But not Ben. He lingers behind you, and you know he is bending down to kiss her on the cheek.

What do you do next?

You enough is enough with Ben's mom. Someone needs to get through to her. You spin around on one foot, determined to get a reaction, if only for your friend Ben's sake.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Anderson," you say, and you cannot stifle the thought that you sound like that character in The Matrix but know that this is no time for movie references, no matter how apropos.

Ben is suprised by your sudden need to address his mother. He stands there, his hands swinging nervously at his sides, as if he's struggling against the urge to take physical action against you, and you push on.

"Mrs. Anderson," you say again, as the first one didn't succeed in getting her eyes to shift from the TV screen to you. This one doesn't either. You clear your throat. "Mrs. Anderson! Please look at me!" You're practically yelling now, your voice booming over the laugh track.

Slowly, ever so slightly, her head tilts up. Her eyes settle on your chest, then make their way up your chin to your eyes.

"Well. Just who. The fuck. Are you?" she bellows. Her voice sounds gravelly, nicotine-charred. Her blue eyes are the emptiest eyes you've ever seen. Looking into them makes you feel as if you're falling down a mineshaft. The back of your neck goes cold, and you step back, feeling Ben's hand on your shoulder.

"Get the HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!" she screams. Ben grabs your arm, you both snatch the spelunking gear, and you're out of there.

You meet up with Rick

You and Ben wait for Rick to pull up in his rusted-out Cavalier. They'll probably make you drive as usual, seeing as how they're all jealous of your sea-green Chevy Nova. Black vinyl seats, a beautiful, flawless paint job that you applied yourself, a car with curves like Kelly Siegel, you always say; she's a girl who goes to your high school.

Rick pulls up, foul black stuff coming out of his tail pipe. "You guys want to help me with this exhaust problem this weekend?" he asks.

You oh, yeah. Can't pass up an opportunity to mess around with somebody else's car.

Rick gives you a high-five, and you drop down to take a look at the underbelly of his car. Just like you suspected: The exhaust system is pockmarked worse than your face was before you discovered Stridex pads. The salt they put on the roads at the merest hint of a snowflake here in Southern Illinois wreaks havoc on cheap cars like Rick's. You're in for more than a weekend job helping your buddy, but that's OK. If he wants to sink burger money into a car that ain't worth it, that's no skin off your nose. It'll be good practice for when you go for your automotive tech certification.

Plus, you made Rick happy. He'd never fix his car without your help.

You drive to the Caves

You pile into your Nova, Ben riding shot-gun and Rick lying down in the back seat. He pretends he's being chauffeured around town, as if he were one of the Cardinals baseball players who live in those brand-new houses out by the golf course. Or Jimmy Connors, who is from Belleville, which everybody likes to point out as if it validates their existence in this cow-town. Rick mimics Ozzie Smith, complaining that his wrists are sore from all the backflips he did in the outfield last night, which is pretty funny considering that Rick is what they call "husky." Nothing so much as a two-step has been performed by that guy since he was six.

Ben fiddles with your radio, but there isn't anything good on. "When you going to get a decent tape deck in here?" he asks.

"When you start giving me gas money, that's when," you tell him, and that shuts him up.

You quickly make it out of town and are curving around cornfields full of giant harvesters. You roll your window down to smell the sweetness, a little like candy corn before you've eaten too much to taste anymore.

Suddenly Rick, says, "Did you all hear about the dead body they found out in one of these caves?" You know he likes to exaggerate and make shit up, so you don't bite. "Might be the cave we're going to," he says, dragging it out.

You decide to take the bait. "No, Rick, we haven't heard. Why don't you tell us?"

"Yeah," he says, sitting up and putting his elbows on the backs of your seats. "Some guy with his dick cut off."

"No!"

"Yes, your honor. The man has no dick."

"Shee-it." You and Ben laugh, realizing that Rick is quoting "Ghostbusters." All three of you know every line because your family owns a second-hand VCR that came with just that one movie, and since nobody else's family has a VCR, you've all seen the movie about 50 times.

You inside the Cave

The cave the three of you enter today is a new one for you, a real beauty, nice and clean-smelling limestone with fingerlike projections of rock, boulders stacked like furniture. You and your friends live for the world of the cave, where nobody is around to mess with you, none of those pansy-ass suits who commute to St. Louis everyday and look down their noses at you. The caves are your world, and in them, you feel like kings.

You shine your flashlight on a few tiny bats clinging to the rocks, wings tucked in like little Draculas sleeping the day off. The three of you crawl through passageways no wider than your shoulders. Pale white plants, like tiny mushrooms, grow along the floor.

"Hey, check this out," Ben says. He stares into a room full of pure, clear water. Over the water, draped like banners, are hundreds and hundreds of spider webs. You lean in, shining the flashlight on them: spindly white spiders, many carrying egg sacs, which vibrate as if about to burst open.

Rick comes up behind us. "I'm not setting foot in there," he says.

What do you do?

You death to the spiders!

You take the walking stick you thought to bring with you and use it to hatchet across the silken webs, destroying the delicate swathe hanging over the water, and hundreds of spiders, along with hundreds of gestating embryos of spiders in their little vibrating egg sacs, plunge into the water and drown.

... But wait a minute. What did these lovely, ghostly white cave spiders ever do to you? It's not like you're a hobbit trying to get past evil monsters with your sword Sting. This isn't that kind of story, and you're just a dude with a stick.

Game over for you, sadist.