by Amy Lane
Climate change—so terrifying on so many levels.
“So judging by the mountains around us….”
“About ten miles southeast of Donner Pass. There’s probably a small town maybe five miles from the base of this hill, if we keep going south, and I think if we keep wandering east, we may—may—stumble across Highway 89, but no promises. Did I mention I was trying not to drop us out of the sky?”
Tevyn nodded grimly. “Understood. Bottom of the mountain, guys. There’s just no way around it.”
But the slope of the mountain seemed as likely to get them somewhere as the curve of the earth.
When the shadows started growing long, they went back into the slightly warmer area behind the tree line, searching for another friendly tree cluster for shelter—but no such luck. The temperature started dropping quickly as soon as the sun dipped behind the horizon, leaving Mal and Tevyn at the base of the biggest pine tree they could find, noting that the clearing of snow at its bole was about four feet lower than they were.
Mallory shivered and looked at Tevyn, who nodded soberly.
“Snow cave,” he said. “You go down first and start digging. I’ll get the metal box—you can use it to scoop out more room. We’ll put one fire blanket underneath us, start the fire at the base of the tree so the smoke can escape, and use the other fire blanket to line the back of the cave. It’s all we got. I’ll fetch some firewood and start stomping down a slope on the other side so we can slide Damien down. Let’s get to it.”
Snapping the box in half felt like betraying a friend, but the metal definitely worked faster than Mallory’s aching hands. While he worked, Tevyn stomped down a trail on the other side of the tree, dropping load after load of firewood that he stacked to Mal’s left while Mal kept hollowing out more and more of the snowpack, leaving about a foot of it over their heads in a little arch and keeping the spot for the fire between the snow cave and the tree.
When it was big enough, after Mal had lined it with the blankets, Tevyn slid Damien down backward, and Mal caught him, hauled him back into the little cave, and started the fire as soon as he was situated.
The iron oxide helped, little sparkles emitting from the flames as they caught and burned the still-green bark. They set the rest of the packet aside—the storm had knocked a lot of branches down, but few of them had been dead before set upon by the wind.
Tevyn joined them after one last batch of firewood, and the three of them together huddled in the back of the cave, teeth chattering, waiting for the warmth to kick in.
When they were warm enough to remember it, Damien reached into the insulated bag and pulled out one of the thermoses of melted water. Tevyn added their second-to-last packets of broth mix to it, and they shared it like a flask.
Damien took a sip and muttered, “This just reminds me that I haven’t had enough really good scotch in my life.”
Tevyn took it from him. “Beer. IPAs—the good ones. When the company is big enough to know what they’re doing, not big enough to be bought out by a bigger company.”
Mallory took his drink and played the game. “Crisp white wine,” he said. “A little fruity, but not too much. With a plate of chicken carbonara.”
“Talisker,” Damien said on a sigh. “After lobster for dinner.”
“Fat Tire,” Tevyn finished. “Thirty-two-ounce porterhouse, medium rare, mushrooms, and a loaded baked potato.”
For a moment they enjoyed the warmth of the liquid—and of the fantasy. Mallory knew that fantasy by now, knew how important it was to give their minds something to do besides dwell on the warmth and the food and the safety they didn’t have.
“There is this dance club in the Haight,” he said, and Damien chortled.
“You, go dancing in the Haight?”
“Once or twice,” Mallory said with dignity. “After a bad breakup. When my self-esteem was really low and I thought, ‘Hey, maybe someone will appreciate a man in a three-piece suit.’”
“Wait a minute.” Tevyn regarded him suspiciously. “Was this where you picked up that porn model? The one who said you hit high C?”
Mallory laughed. “Same place—probably same night. The thing is, dance clubs aren’t supposed to serve food. And if they do, it’s supposed to be, like, pizza bites from a tiny toaster oven powered by hamsters in the back, right?”
Damie and Tevyn looked at each other and nodded, as though they agreed that yes, this was dance club cuisine.
“Well, this place—it was an old rave warehouse, and I don’t even know if it’s still there, but nobody had told them their food was supposed to be shitty. They made these hamburgers that were amazing. I mean, for all I know they laced them with Viagra, which could explain the whole Skylar episode, but all I remember was that I was drinking cheap vodka and I asked for a burger, and what showed up on my plate was haute cuisine, with some of the best kettle-cooked chips I have ever tasted. If this was a hamster-powered toaster oven, it was magic.”
“So you’re saying you should give up because you’ll never have that burger again?” Tevyn asked, sounding appalled.
“No! I’m saying that some of the most magical things happen when you’re someplace you never expected to be, with people you didn’t expect to spend time with.” He caught Tevyn’s eyes across Damien and winked.
“Like me,” Tevyn said, getting it.
“Like us.”
“Are you trying to make me puke?” Damien asked. “Because it’s terribly unfair to have this conversation when I’m sewn into my bed.”
“Yeah, Damie,” Tevyn muttered. “That’s why we hauled you across the damned mountain. So you could throw up on us when we can’t even run away.”
“Half the damned mountain,” Damien muttered. “Which is the only reason I’m saving you from the finale of the show.”
His voice sank on a note of misery, and Tevyn and Mal moved in a little closer to him, huddling under Tevyn’s parka.
“You two sleep first,” Mallory said softly. “I’ll mind the fire.”
“I can’t even help with that here,” Damien said. “And I shouldn’t be this tired. All I did was get my ass dragged across the snow!”
“Damien, you’re sick,” Mallory said brutally. “Get some sleep. When it’s your turn, you can wake one of us when the fire’s low. C’mon, man. Keep thinking about scotch and steak. We’ll get there.”
“Yeah.” Damien yawned. “Yeah.” He fell asleep soon after, and Tevyn reached across him to grab Mal’s hand.
“It was a rough day,” he said, sounding dispirited.
Mallory squeezed his hand. “And yet we’re still alive.”
Tevyn smiled slowly. “You’re handy to have around, Mallory Fitchner Armstrong.”
“Yes, I am, and no, that’s not it.”
“Crispin.”
“No.”
“Ian.”
“No.”
“Joel, Joey, Joseph, Joe?” he tried.
“Noel, Noey, Noseph, and No!” Mal fired back, overjoyed when he laughed.
“Gabriel,” Tevyn suggested, eyes bright as they regarded each other in the confines of the cave, the fire their only salvation. “Like an angel.”
“Nope. Just Mallory. Like a man.”
“My man.”
“If you’ll have me.”
Tevyn nodded and then leaned his head against Damien’s chest, because there was no more room anywhere else. “I will.”
Mal fed some more green branches into the fire, grateful for a wind that pulled the smoke away from them—and that they couldn’t feel in their snug little cave. When the fire was satisfactory, he set up the two halves of the metal box with snow to melt, because their water bottles needed to be replenished.
They’d been gone for five days. They’d survived for five days. One way or another, this thing was drawing to a close.
Finding Wings
THE next day dawned overcast—not threatening snow, but no sun to warm them as they trudged through it either. Mal wor
ked hard to keep their spirits up, but Damien spent a lot of time huddled in misery, helpless, and, in spite of their best efforts at medication, in pain.
Tevyn was feeling the effects of hunger. Without exertion, if they were someplace warm, they could survive for another five days on water alone. But he and Mal were working their asses off, stomachs grumbling, their rationed half a power bar and broth just enough to put one foot in front of the other.
And even that was running out tonight.
The fuzzy gray disc of the sun dipped toward the horizon, and the temperature dropped. Tevyn glanced at Mallory, who had the same look he’d worn since the helicopter had gone down. The one that said he’d do anything necessary to be there for Tevyn, anything Tevyn would ask.
Tevyn couldn’t ask any more of him. Not today. “We need to find shelter!” he called, hoping for more than a hole in the snow tonight. “Maybe with some more time we can find something better!”
Mallory nodded, and together they turned and trudged back to the tree line, Tevyn stopping to mark trees every so often as they went.
He’d been doing that on the way down—every two hundred yards or so, he’d leave a scrap of used bandage on an overhanging tree limb, or scratch an arrow pointing the direction they were heading in on a tree trunk, if one was close enough.
Anything to mark that they’d been there, in case he was making the wrong goddamned call.
Which was exactly what it felt like as they stumbled through the forest, heading toward the center of the mountain. Tevyn hoped the extra time would buy them a chance to get near the rocky outcropping that had served as a wall originally, helping to shelter them all from the wind, but the drop in temperature made him start eyeing tree trunks again, wondering which one would help them make another snow cave like the night before.
“Hang on,” Mallory said. Making sure Tevyn saw what he was doing, he set his end of the travois down, and Tevyn joined suit. Their backs and arms were exhausted and trembling—Tevyn knew if his were, Mallory’s had to be too.
“Where you going?”
Mal was heading for a mound in the snow, next to what looked like a fallen tree, leaning on its fellows.
“That looks wrong,” Mallory said, nearing the mound suspiciously. He was about five feet away from it when he dropped completely out of sight.
“Shit!” Tevyn ran toward the mound but stopped short of where Mal dropped out of view, and heard a knocking sound.
A hollow, metallic knocking.
And Mallory swore, long and creatively, using the synonym for fornication in amazing and creative ways.
“Mallory? Holy shitballs, man—what’s got you so riled!”
“Tev, it’s a plane! An old one! Under the snow!”
Tevyn lay down on his stomach and crept forward to peer over the lip of the hole Mallory had fallen down.
And gasped.
“Oh wow. What is that? Four passengers maybe?”
“Mm….” Mallory was peering in through a window. “Yeah. I’m thinking a Cessna 182. There’s no wing….” He squinted above them at what Tevyn had first thought was a tree. “Or, well, it’s not attached to the plane anymore.”
Tevyn stared at it and then back to Mallory in the hole in the snow. “Is the, uhm….” Oh, how grisly. “Is the pilot still there?”
Mallory peered inside again and shook his head. “No. In fact, the cockpit door is frozen open—see?”
Tevyn had to squint against the encroaching darkness. “So, think we can get Damien down there?”
Mallory nodded. “Go get him. I’ll try to make a ramp. But first… hey. I’ve got an idea. Give me one of the used-up hand warmers and the flint striker. I want to make sure nothing else has decided to use this as a home!”
Tevyn had both items in his pocket, so he handed them over. Then he ran back to the travois for more iron oxide packets and found Damien tiredly kvetching about having the world’s shittiest view.
“What in the hell—”
“Look, we might actually have shelter tonight. And some more resources. So give me the first aid kit and hang tight!”
“C’mon, Tevyn, could you at least drag me a little closer so I can hear you talk?”
Tevyn took a deep breath and remembered that while he and Mallory got to exchange looks as they dragged the travois behind them, all Damien had was a stunning view of the sky, with his own snail trail in the snow for variety.
“Yeah, sure. But not too close. Don’t want you to go sliding down into that hole without help.”
“Understood.”
It was a good thing the bottom of that coat was slicker than K-Y on a stainless steel rod—it was difficult to haul by himself but not impossible.
When he got back, Mallory had already started a fire inside the airplane, back in the cargo area near the tail.
It was burning merrily, consuming what looked like a pile of debris that was inside the plane, and Mallory was near the tail end—part of which had broken off—scraping down snow to give Damien a ramp.
“If we pull the handle out of the travois, we can slide him down in here and let him get warm while we go get wood for the fire,” Mal said excitedly. “There were old bird’s nests and branches in there. The windows on the other side are broken, and the whole thing is tilted so they’re near the ground. But I didn’t see any snakes or raccoons or anything, and I don’t smell cat piss, so I don’t think there’s a mountain lion here.”
They’d seen one that day, around noon, walking on the fringes of the tree line, eyeballing them with prejudice—but not attacking.
A few moments later, they’d heard a tussle back among the trees and a high-pitched squeak. Tevyn had pitied the poor bunny, but figured better Mr. Cottontail than the three humans who didn’t have a whole lot of fight left in them.
“Awesome. I’ll lower him down backward. You drag him in. Ready to get out of the cold for a bit, Damie?”
“God, yes,” Damien muttered. “Don’t suppose there’s anything soft there for my back?”
“We got ourselves a jump seat!” Mal said, pointing to it with a little bit of glee. “Are we ready?”
They made it sound cheerful, and in a way it was. Warmth. Actual seats. A true shelter from the wind.
But Tevyn’s limbs were aching with exhaustion, and he knew Mallory must be about done. Damien had been a trouper, but the lines of pain were etched so tightly around his forehead, eyes, and jaw, Tevyn was surprised he hadn’t cracked a tooth, trying not to cry out every time they went over a bump. And while they were getting closer to the bottom of the mountain, they weren’t getting there fast enough. Tevyn estimated they had two more days of hiking just to get down there, and they’d eaten the last of their food that morning.
And the hand warmers were almost all gone, so they’d be hoping Damien’s body heat would keep the water melted for the next couple days too.
So Tevyn lowered Damien into the defunct airplane, knowing very well it might be their final resting place—in the darkest sense of the word.
Shortly thereafter he was giving Mallory a hand up the ramp, and they were slogging through the snow again, looking for wood.
Out of curiosity, Tevyn led them toward the wing, propped up against the nearby tree. Or, well, half a wing.
“I wonder where the other half is,” he said, pushing at the fifteen feet of aluminum alloy to see how strongly lodged it was. There were two half-corroded struts on the bottom, but he figured they could break that thing off and….
And what?
“Back in the forest somewhere.” Mal got on Tevyn’s side of the thing and pushed at it, hard. Together they managed to dislodge the broken half from the snow, and it fell with a soft whump.
And skidded, belly first, only catching on the strut.
Tevyn caught his breath, the thought inevitable, and then he and Mallory locked gazes.
“Tell me I’m crazy,” Tevyn said bluntly.
“I’m not sure we can make it two more days,” Mallo
ry replied, just as bluntly.
“This—this idea—this is dumb. Like… like insanely dumb. Like stupid TV people yelling at the screen saying, ‘Don’t do that, asshole! It’s really frickin’ dumb!’”
Mallory swallowed and moved toward the wing, then pulled hard until it was convex side down. The rounded side actually slid better, and he used the strut to push it along the icy crust of snow for a few feet and then let go.
And it kept going.
He turned to Tevyn, face tense. “Tev, we’ve got three choices. You know that, right?”
“You’re the guy who does risk assessment for a living, money man—lay it out for me.”
“The first is, we get up tomorrow and we keep hauling Damien down that hill.”
They both shuddered. Damien’s bid to be near their voices was about the only thing he’d asked for all day.
“We haven’t changed the bandage in two days,” Tevyn said, voice shaking. “I don’t know how much longer he can make it.”
“I don’t think it’s two or three days,” Mallory told him, not backing down from the hard thing.
“What’s the other choice?” He knew. It didn’t even have to be a question.
“We go inside that plane, and we hunker down and mark trees and burn everything and live on snow and the peanuts I found when I was looking for paper to burn.”
“There’s peanuts?” Tevyn said hopefully.
“Well, yeah. They were going to be a surprise.”
“We’d die there,” Tevyn told him, all of the play gone from his voice.
“I know it. One night we’d let the fire go out and we wouldn’t wake up.” It had been in the tens or twenties every night since the helicopter crash. They had maybe three more weeks until the spring weather picked up.
“Now tell me the third option.” Tevyn took a shaky breath. “I need to hear you say it.”
Mal’s lips curved up, just a little. “Well, Tevyn Moore, snowboarding superstar, we could strap ourselves to that big frickin’ snowboard and let you fly us down this mountain.”