Free The Devil's Cauldron by Michael Wallace

“Nah, I’m cool. Whatever.”
    Meggie gave up. She went back to her room, deciding to grit her teeth and go through with it. If not for the absolute evidence that Kaitlyn was stealing from the company, she almost could have forgotten that sexy hug last night, and how it left Benjamin so turned on. So what? It was weird, them being cousins and all, but Meggie wasn’t the jealous type. Not really.
    Breakfast went fine. Kaitlyn was all charm with the two other men, and barely flirted with her cousin at all. She was sweet as the high-fructose, fake maple syrup that came in pitchers to the table to drench their pancakes. Duperre updated the caving plan, then quizzed them on gear and supplies. Outside, they dropped the tailgate on Duperre’s extended-cab pickup to double-check equipment: boots, headlamps and helmets, ropes and harnesses, surveying gear, caving packs, a first aid kit, and everything else on the list. He had a clipboard and he physically checked them off one by one. Duperre even checked the food supplies, and broke open another pack of energy bars, which he passed around to put in their packs.
    “You never know what we’ll find down there,” he said. “Hate to call it quits early because someone has the munchies.”
    The older man’s professionalism calmed Meggie’s nerves, and by the time they crammed into the truck and headed east into the Snake Range, she found herself getting excited about the cave.
    But when they crawled into the hills on a dusty ranch road, Duperre started getting sick. He pulled over on a steep, winding turn, then bent over in front of the bumper, breathing heavily.
    “You okay?” Meggie called.
    “Yeah, I’m good. Give me a minute.”
    “What, is he carsick or something?” Kaitlyn asked HalfOrc, but the other man shrugged.
    He came back still pale, but looking stronger. “Sorry, guys. That doesn’t usually happen to me.”
    They spent another quarter of a mile bumping over and through ruts before he had to stop again. This time he stomped down the emergency brake, staggered out, and puked his guts over the edge of the hill.
    HalfOrc got out, too. He walked around for a few seconds, then came back with his hand over his belly and a deep scowl on his face.
    “Don’t tell me you’re carsick, too,” Kaitlyn said.
    “I don’t get it,” Duperre said when he got back. “I never get motion sickness. Not like this.”
    “Feel like I’m going to have a bad case of the shits,” HalfOrc said. “Maybe it was that greasy spoon where we ate this morning. Food poisoning.”
    The other three exchanged bewildered glances. None of them were affected. Finally, Benjamin dug around in his pack for Dramamine, which the two sick men took.
    Meggie spread the map in the backseat. “We’re almost to the trailhead. Another twenty minutes.”
    “I can hold on that long,” HalfOrc said. “How about you, dude?”
    Duperre nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be better once we stop driving.”
    But by the time they reached the spot marked on the map and parked, the two men had already stopped again and thrown up the Dramamine, then some Pepto Bismol, which came up pink. HalfOrc rushed off into the scrub oak with a roll of tissue. Moments later, explosive noises came from behind the trees.
    Benjamin and the two women lined up the gear, then paced around the truck. The two sick men weren’t getting better. HalfOrc let out a flurry of curses from the brush.
    Meggie came back to the vehicle, still in the middle of the ranch road, where Duperre lay in the truck bed with his pack as a pillow and one arm draped over his eyes. “I’m wondering if we should get you back down.”
    He peered out. “What, you mean, a hospital?”
    “You tell me.”
    “It’s not that bad. I think I hit the worst.”
    Meggie glanced up at the sky, with the sun rising from behind the mountains to the east. They were still in the shadow of the range, but the sunlight was spreading across the valley floor and would soon be