IT'S TUESDAY,

which means it’s time for Rib to lead this week’s expedition of suicidal teens into the Cave, which means it’s time for him to stock up on methadone while he’s there.      
This is how he works it: he rounds up the suicidal teens (all the teens in town save for a pair of face-to-face conjoined twins) for an educational expedition into the Cave where the Cannibals live in harmony with nature, never dwelling on the goneness of the past nor the ever-delayed arrival of the future.


Rib explains every week like it’s first time they’ve heard it. Stan, in his role as town mayor, has gladly signed off on this form of expeditionary group therapy, at a loss for what else to sign off on.

For his trouble, Rib receives a small stipend.

When he uses it to buy methadone, he turns his life into a cautionary tale:
For his trouble, Rib receives a small stipend.

When he uses it to buy methadone, he turns his life into a cautionary tale:
is the message he asks the suicidal teens to consider taking home with them.



THE SUICIDAL TEENS,

show up at ten-thirty in Rib’s Culvert, in sneakers and cargo pants, backpacks and water bottles, feeling almost healthy with anticipation. Despite themselves, they find they’re looking forward to the day. 

Their days aside from this are chunks of online aimlessness, random drug tests, half-hearted sex trials, knives, high places, and sleep.
Rib asks, hiding his phone under his shirt while texting Chester the Cannibal King, as if this might lend his attention an undivided appearance. 

Nodding, they set out through the Culvert to the Cave.

Chester hasn’t texted back yet, which is unusual, but not so unusual as to prompt a change in behavior from Rib, who basically has one mode.

SOAKED TO THE KNEES

in Culvert juice, they cross over into the drier reaches of the Cave.
The particular iconography of the Cannibal Religion resets their mood. In this part of the country, every Cave (and it’s full of them) has a unique Religion, complete with a world-origin-and-annihilation story and a moral and semiotic code. No scholar, much as many have tried, has ever been able to demonstrate even the most tenuous connection between the Religion of one Cave and that of any other. 

Indeed, Gerb the liquor store owner has made an amateur career out of arguing that the Cave Religions are even more different than they seem.

In this Cave, a giant discarded Ferris wheel is bent into an oval to fit the rock contours. Each car houses a Cannibal Child, or sometimes several; these serve as their home until they are physically too big to fit inside, at which point they enter adult society and all that comes with it.


Rib asks the suicidal teens, as they 
pass this area and enter the Main Chamber.

NOW THEY'RE STANDING BEFORE

the Cannibal Idol, a wax 1.5x-scale-model of Chester, complete with his signature blue Dockers, white button-up shirt, and graduated bifocals. They each take a nibble of his left index fingertip, chewing and swallowing the wax to prostrate themselves before proceeding further. Each time they return, what they’ve bitten off has been replaced.

For some of the teens, this is more than they’ve eaten at one time since last week’s visit.


As they wait for Chester, a Cannibal Underling approaches. She motions for Rib to bend down (Cannibals are strong but short).




the Underling whispers in his ear. 


Then she motions at a hole in the rock wall which, if Rib is not mistaken, wasn’t here last time.
Then she motions at a hole in the rock wall which, if Rib is not mistaken, wasn’t here last time.


The Underling points at the hole again. 
 Rib asks.


Rib repeats what he just said, and the Underling looks perplexed again.

the Underling explains, pointing at a huge boulder beside the hole in the rock wall, 
Now Rib is the only perplexed one. He points at the emptiness beyond the hole. The Underling nods.

Just then, one of the suicidal teens, as if only now discovering the hole, shouts, knowing it’ll echo,


The others applaud with a mixture of envy and terror as the teen barrels through.

Everyone waits for the hard crash at the bottom. Not knowing how far down it goes, they don’t know how long to wait.

In the end, they hear nothing but a very faint fizz, like Alka-Seltzer dissolving in a glass.

A WHILE LATER,

Chester emerges from the hole with a paper bag tucked under his chin and a dripping body in his arms.

Most of its face and clothes are gone. Organs and skin hang from its sides in spongy strips.


Chester lays the paper bag and the body tenderly on the Cave floor and whistles, summoning the Cannibal Children from the Ferris wheel.

They fall upon it, suckling like wherever they put their mouth is a milk duct.








Rib can’t seem to speak, so Chester takes over:
He genuinely had no idea that the 
Cannibals drank it. Chester smiles.


Rib stammers.

He gestures for Rib to come to the place where the stone has rolled aside. Rib looks down: a sludgy river glowing dark purple, glinting silver in places, lit only by its own light.
he can barely get the words out.  Chester smiles like he can’t imagine this is even a question. 

A loud crunch: the Children have reached bone. Chester shakes his head.


He lets them crunch a little more, then whistles again, scattering them back into the Ferris wheel. Then he picks up the remains and cradles them in his arms.



he says, throwing them back through the hole. They fizz down under the stream, smoke slightly, and vanish.

he says proudly, like he invented it. Then he picks up the paper bag and hands it to Rib.
he smiles.
Rib hands him the cash in a daze, forgetting to make his anti-drug speech to the teens.

He can feel Lynda, the newscaster, already preparing her report on the Methadone River, as if any discovery anywhere in town were beamed automatically into her brain.
he barely manages to say, fearing that 
camera crews may soon block their exit.
The suicidal teens line up behind him, wondering if they’ll try to muster the energy to shoplift from ULTRA MAX tonight or just go home and crash.