by Bea Bledsoe
“No town there now.” Said Winnie quietly.
“No.” Said Leigh, looking down the short path to the valley. “But we’re here, Winnie. We are Blackriver.” She wrapped her hand around Winnie’s and they began winding through the threadbare pines. Overhead, the screech of a hawk echoed around them. Napoleon gave a happy whiny when he saw Leigh once more, but he jerked upon seeing Winnie, his eyes going wide and his ears flapping back. He reared back, unhappy to be surprised.
“Sorry.” Muttered Leigh, still trying to keep her own tears at bay. “He’s not the fondest of strangers.”
Winnie walked slowly towards the horse, her eyes on his.
“He’ll like me soon enough.” She said softly, and eventually Napoleon bowed his head and nuzzled her small hand with his black nose. “Animals are wonderful.” Winnie whispered, and she closed her eyes to let his huge cheek rest against her own. “Their minds are as pure as their hearts.”
“Hey!” Henry’s loud voice boomed across the valley as they walked through the tree line. He was standing nervously beside the car, worry etched across his face. Leigh watched the relief wash over his face when he saw her, and a reassurance passed through her.
He loves me.
When Winnie stepped out from behind Leigh, Henry shot to his feet, alarmed. “What the hell?” They walked slowly toward the car, and Leigh gestured Winnie forward. “Winnie, this is Henry Champney. Henry, this is Winnie Kassel. She grew up here with me, in Blackriver.”
Henry blinked for a moment, disbelief crossing his face. Finally, he gasped, “The girl in the woods. My God, she was real.” He quickly remembered his manners, much to Leigh’s relief.
“Winnie, so nice to meet you.” He reached out for her hand. She stared at it for a moment but didn’t offer hers in return. Instead, Winnie continued to stare at him curiously before Henry turned uncomfortably to Leigh.
She hasn’t been around people in a while, she thought, while mouthing “Sorry” over Winnie’s head.
“Can you get her some food?” She asked him.
Henry blinked as if he was waking up and then hurried around to the back of the car. “Er, yeah. Absolutely.”
Winnie tilted her head as she looked at Henry and then back at Leigh. “He likes you. The way he looks at you; it’s like there isn’t anyone else in the world.”
Leigh tried to smile. “Yes, I guess he does. It’s a nice feeling.” She answered.
Henry came back around the car, pressing chips, granola bars and bottled water into Winnie’s outstretched hands. She immediately ripped the chip bag open with her teeth and began shamelessly devouring them.
“I’m sorry.” She said, her mouth full. “I’m so hungry.” After a few minutes, she dove into the granola bars, moaning loudly. “I forgot what sugar tasted like.”
While Winnie ate, the sun began its long descent into night. Leigh began gathering armfuls of dry branches and logs, working swiftly to make a small pile of them before the sun set. Wordlessly, Henry began helping her, and soon he was bent over the pile with the lighter from the gas station. She watched the light from the growing flames flicker across Henry’s face. Something was bothering him, but she wasn’t sure what it was. After the fire had grown healthy, Leigh leaned against the car, watching as Winnie finished the chips and downed an entire bottle of water.
“Don’t eat too fast.” She said gently. “You don’t want to get sick.”
Winnie nodded and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
“Full feels good.” She muttered.
“Wanna change your clothes?” She asked, and Winnie smiled.
“I would like nothing more in the world.” Leigh led her behind the car and helped her changed her out of the sweater, tattered blue dress, and jeans (which stunk to high heaven) and watched as Winnie slid her narrow body into a pair of Leigh’s black leggings and a zip-up Harvard fleece. Winnie let her fingers trail over the raised white letters.
“Harvard.” She shook her head. “I wondered where you had gone. One day you were there, and then you weren’t. Your parents wouldn’t speak about it.”
“No, they probably wouldn’t. They were angry that I left.” With a sad smile, Leigh led Winnie back over to the fire, motioning for the girl to sit.
After a long pause, Winnie finally sank onto the blanket that Henry had put down for them. Now was the time. Leigh crouched down, her voice kind but firm. “We need you to tell us what happened to Blackriver.” She sat, and Henry settled behind her, pulling his strong arm across her chest as she curled in between his legs. Leigh tried not to notice how Winnie stared at Henry, like she had never seen a boy before. Then again, there were no other boys like Henry.
“The story. You want to hear the story.” Winnie said softly. She clutched the blanket around her shoulders and took a deep breath. Even the wind quieted to hear her sorrows.
“The first person got sick at the beginning of February.” She said at last, and even the night quieted to hear.
19
Winnie looked nauseated as she blew the air out of her cheeks, pausing. “Sorry, I just haven’t spoken about it since it happened. I have…have to think about it.”
“Take your time.” Henry encouraged, his voice kind.
Winnie continued. “The first person got sick at the end of February– I think. Leigh, as you know, we live out at the end of town, so I’m not really sure when it first happened, but a few days later we heard that both Dill and Eliza Hareman were gone, dead of some mysterious flu.”
“That fast,” breathed Leigh. “My God.”
“From there on out, you couldn’t go into town without hearing about one person dying or another. I remember heading over to chat with Miss Laney and then hearing she had died too, of this mysterious illness. The town wasn’t in a panic, not yet; they just thought it was bad luck that they had all died so close to each other. But then a week later, we heard that Scott Dunke and William had died.”
Leigh shook her head. “They were so healthy, and only in their fifties!”
Winnie nodded. “I know. After that we would hear about one or two almost one every day. They said it started with a headache.”
Leigh’s hand twitched at that, but she tried to keep her focus solely on Winnie. “By the time we realized that something was happening, it was too late.” Winnie took a drink of water. “The mayor called a meeting. Everyone came – but we all stayed away from each other, everyone wearing masks or bandanas over their faces. My parents made me stand outside, far away from everyone, but I could hear everything through the open door. The mayor said she had called the local authorities and asked them to contact the CDC, and that help was on the way. After that, she instructed us to stay in our homes and not interact with each other until this thing had passed.” Winnie shrugged. “That’s not hard for us Blackriver folk. We’re independent people.” Leigh smiled softly. This was true.
“My family knew we could make it on our own just fine, though it was incredibly boring. About two weeks passed. We were getting hungry, and so finally one day my mother went over to the Quinns’ chicken coop – they had both died by then – to look for leftover eggs.” Winnie avoided their eyes, her words emotionless. “My mother must have touched something in their yard, because she brought it home with her. Two days later, she died on our couch, unable to breathe because she said it felt like her lungs were full of fluid. I watched her face turn pale and then she stopped breathing and just…slipped away.” Henry’s arms tightened around Leigh, as if he could hold her back from the horror of what they were hearing. “There was no one to bury her body. By that time my father was sick too, and so I found a good spot on the slope in our backyard and dug as deep as I could.” Her lip trembled. “I couldn’t dig very far down, but I did my best. I maybe got Ma a few feet down.” A tear dripped down her cheek.
“Oh, Winnie,” Leigh murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
The girl ignored her, lost in her own story. “Daddy went next, just as the sun was setti
ng the next day. Same exact way Mama did. I put his body next to hers, just how he would have wanted it. Then I put dirt over them both.” Leigh’s heart ached, torn between wanting to comfort this strange girl and her own overwhelming grief for her own parents. She would have liked to have buried them, to have a change to look at their faces one last time.
“I’m sorry. Sorry that you had to go through that alone. At least you got to say goodbye,” she whispered across the flames, though she knew it was no comfort.
Winnie pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, resting her chin on her knees. “Tis fine. Couldn’t be helped.” She took a breath. “Then it was just me. I waited to get sick, but I didn’t. Finally, when I couldn’t stay in that house for one more second, I decided to risk it and go into town.” She was biting her lip so hard that it took on a bruised purple color. “When I went into town, I barely recognized it. No one was there. Everything was trashed. There were black marks on almost all the doors, and there was a dead body on the edge of town, just lying in the street. I never checked who it was.”
“And my parents?” Leigh asked, already knowing the answer.
Winnie met her eyes over the fire. “Their house had a black mark on it too.” She said it unflinchingly, a mercy as to spare Leigh any hope. Instead, Leigh let the nightmarish images overrun her mind: her father dying in his bed, with their multi-colored quilt pulled up to his chin, slowly surrendering to the dark as her mother pleaded with God at his bedside. And then…her mother, dying alone in the house with no one to comfort her; her daughter far away, laughing at a bar or something. It was so lonely that it ripped physically at Leigh’s heart. Several minutes passed, the only sound the snapping of logs as they surrendered to the flames. When Leigh was finally able to breathe again, the words were heavy with emptiness. “When was that?”
Winnie looked up. “What do you mean?”
“When was that – when you saw my parents’ house with the black mark?”
Winnie thought for a moment. “I’m not sure…I wasn’t keeping track of the dates while I was caring for my parents, so I’m not even sure myself. The third week of February maybe? Maybe earlier?” Leigh dug her nails into her palms, wishing she could fly up and away from here, back to her dorm room in Boston, where the biggest concern of her life was keeping her tuition bill paid.
Henry’s eyes were intent on Winnie. “So the whole town was dead, from this disease. What happened then?”
Winnie curled forward, trying to protect herself from the memories. “There were a few survivors left, but we were all afraid to go near each other. I saw a note on Old Sway with instructions; every night you were supposed to go to the edge of town with a candle burning, just to show that you were still alive.” She closed her eyes. “As the week passed, there were thirteen lights and then there were seven, four...then two. Then on that last night, I went out to the center of town with my candle, waiting to see another light…” She shuddered. “But it never came. The rest of the town was dark…and dead. There was only me.”
Leigh trembled. The thought of it was terrifying. “What did you do?” she asked.
Winnie sighed. “I went back to my house. What else was I going to do? I’ve never felt so scared. Knowing that there was nobody else in all of Blackriver. I was so…alone.”
“Except Dog,” said Leigh quietly. “Dog got out.”
Winnie blinked. “What?”
“Dog Hawdenfir. He escaped. He was trying to figure out what happened here from his mother’s house in Cody.”
“You said was.”
Henry ran his fingers through the dirt. “Dog killed himself. In front of us. He was insane. I wonder if the disease had affected his brain somehow.” Winnie stared at them, her face a mask of shock before a loud wail came billowing out from deep inside of her.
“They’re going to find me; they’re going to kill me.” She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked forward. Leigh wiggled out of Henry’s grasp and crawled around the fire to sit next to her. She took Winnie’s hand in her own, even though the girl flinched. How long had it been since someone had touched her?
“Who is they?” Leigh asked.
Winnie looked like she was going to throw up. “I was going to leave the next morning. I had my dad’s car keys and was going to drive to Tensleep, go to the police or someone…. but then I became afraid. What if they locked me away in some cement room? What if they thought I was a carrier of the disease?” Winnie cautiously leaned against Leigh. “So I stayed instead. My house felt safe during the day, and at night, I took some of my dad’s sleeping pills. I thought I was hallucinating when a few days later I saw figures in the dark, creeping outside my window.” She shook her head. “But I wasn’t. They were dressed in black. I could hear them shouting to each other, and then the power went out. Something inside me told me to run, and so I did; I ran out the back door and into the woods. I knew I had to find a place I could hide so that I wouldn’t freeze.”
“So you went to the White Devil Mill,” Leigh guessed.
Winnie nodded. “I got up to the mill just as the fire started.”
“The fire?” Henry sat forward.
“They burned it. Our town, our home. I watched as they burned each building with a flame thrower. It lit up the whole valley. Our house burned in minutes. My parent’s whole life, everything I owned, up in flames.”
Henry raised an eyebrow, etching his face into hard, handsome lines. “How many were there? Figures in black.”
Winnie shook her head. “Maybe ten? I didn’t count them.”
“And you stayed here?” Leigh rubbed the girl’s hand, her skin cool like granite.
“They took the cars,” she whispered. “And walking out of here….”
“Would be suicide,” Leigh finished. She knew too well the risks of that: hypothermia, getting lost in the woods, starvation, and dehydration…no wonder the girl had stayed. She would have, too.
“In the mill, I had a warm place to stay. I had some things from my house in my backpack: books and clothing. The old grain barrels kept the cold away. I had the river to catch fish in, fresh water. In the mill I found a storage closet full of leftover bags of cornmeal and wheat, so I’ve been able to make like an oat paste…it’s not too bad mixed with berries. And there’s a place over that hill where some corn is growing.”
“How long have you been up here alone?” said Henry, scooting closer to Winnie, who watched him intensely with her pale blue eyes.
“Give or take two months. But then, you came. I wanted to say hello, but then I saw your car and I thought you were one of them, so I ran,” she whispered.
Oh my God. This poor girl. Leigh pulled her closer. “Tomorrow morning, we are going to drive to the Denver FBI and tell them what you have told us.”
Winnie shrunk back from her. “What if they don’t believe me?”
Leigh tucked her finger under the girl’s chin. “I will make them believe you.”
“Okay.” Winnie finally whispered, with a soft nod of her head. “Okay. Tomorrow.” She reached up and rubbed her eyes with a balled fist, a motion so childish that it made Leigh’s heart hurt.
“You can sleep in the back of our car tonight,” she told Winnie. “We have some sleeping bags. You and I can sleep in the back, and Henry can sleep in the front seat.” Winnie looked out over the empty valley.
“Sure. That would be nice. Though, would it be strange if I go to sleep now? It’s been a while since I’ve been around people, and I feel like my brain is…exhausted. And all that food is making me sleepy, I think.” Leigh met Henry’s eyes and he gave her a small nod.
“Anything you want,” Leigh said.
She spread the sleeping bags in the back and helped Winnie climb inside, tucking the bag around her after making sure she drank some water. The girl was nervous, but Leigh could see the palpable relief on her face when she closed her eyes. She had been found. Winnie wasn’t alone, not anymore, and Leigh was no longer the sole survivor of B
lackriver. Here, in this pitch-black place, they had both found hope. She trailed her hand over Winnie’s hair as the girl drifted towards sleep.
“I’m here.” Leigh said. “You’re not alone.”
“I know.” Winnie said softly. “I’ve been waiting for you to find me.” Then she turned over. After a few moments, Winnie fell into a deep sleep; her chest rising and falling under the blanket, and Leigh stepped out of the car to find Henry waiting her, his face alarmed and his body rigid.
Something was wrong.
20
“Is she asleep?” Henry asked nervously, looking around.
“She’s exhausted. She was out within minutes. The poor thing.” Leigh shook her head. “The disease, the fires…all of it. How does one girl endure so much?” Henry was pacing back and forth nervously, wringing his hands together. He was so close to her now, and Leigh wanted to touch him, wanted to lose herself with him the way they had the night before. There was want and need, and then there was the girl lying inside their car, trauma written on every inch of her. It wouldn’t be happening.
Henry gestured with his head. “Hey, do you want to take a walk with me?”
Leigh glanced back at the car. “Not too far. I don’t want her to think we have left her, too. Everyone has left that girl. Everyone.”
“Sure.” Henry took her hand, and Leigh slid her fingers easily into his. Together they walked down the middle of the valley, the moon coating the top of each tree like a splash of spilled milk. The night was keen; Leigh could cut her teeth on its crisp air.
“You don’t think there is a way to get the disease, right? After they burned it all? Bacteria can’t live in temperatures that a fire burns at.” She stated.
“No, but…” Henry trailed off.
“No, but what?” She turned to him.
Henry stepped close to her. “Doesn’t this all strike you as a bit odd? This girl in the woods. Her story.”