Long Live the Queen

by Ellen Emerson White

  The only slightly logical thing was to go downhill. And stay near the water. It had to go somewhere, right? So, she could just pull herself along, and—what if she went in the water? If she could swim—or float—she could maybe move a little more quickly, and not leave any tracks for them to follow.

  “Good plan, good plan,” she said. Nothing like a little pep talk. She looked at the stream. It couldn’t be all that deep, and she would just stay near the edge. Only, what if there were fish and gross things in there? Of course, if there were fish, she could catch them, and—she had to laugh. Even if she could catch one somehow, was she really going to sit down and eat something raw like that? Something that had been alive? Even fish sticks made her sick.

  In the meantime, he could be on his way here. So, she took a deep breath, and eased herself into the water, yelping from the shock of the cold. She supported her bad hand on her chest, trying to protect it, gritting her teeth against the pain in her knee. Damn, it was cold.

  But, in another way, it was a tremendous relief, making her feel more awake than she had in days. And she might actually get clean.

  “That’d be something new,” she said. Not that anyone was around to appreciate her irony.

  Not that, in all honesty, anyone had ever particularly appreciated her sense of irony.

  She ducked her head under the water, scrubbing her hair with her good hand. Some soap would be swell right about now. Of course, if she were Nature Girl, she would probably be able to make herself some soap out of special leaves or something. She had read all of the Little House on the Prairie books—she should really be able to come up with some fun facts. But, for some reason, all she could remember was Jack, the brindle bulldog. And Almanzo, eating those incredibly delicious meals. Cracklin’ bread, and fried apples and onions, and—thinking about food would not be a good idea. Although she would damn near kill for a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

  Hell, she’d kill for a little plate of okra.

  Pretty much used to the water temperature—cold as it was—she let her body float along the edge, controlling her progress with her good arm, touching—and sometimes, slamming into—algae-slick rocks. Luckily, the current wasn’t very fast, but she still banged into many more rocks than she avoided, her progress much slower than she’d hoped. Sometimes, trees and bushes grew so low over the water, that branches would smack her in the face, and she lost count of how many times her bad leg banged against yet another rock.

  She floated along for what seemed like hours, getting more and more tired. It was so quiet out here. Peaceful. Had she ever been in the woods before? Once, in New Hampshire, she and her family had gone on like, an Audubon trail, but they’d had a tape recorder to tell them what they were seeing, and exactly where to walk, and—it wasn’t wilderness. So—quiet. So big.

  The water didn’t even seem cold anymore, just sort of relaxing, and soft, and—she didn’t realize she was falling asleep until her head was already underwater. She fought her way back up to the surface, broken bones forgotten, choking on a lungful of water. Oh, Christ, oh, Christ, she was sinking, she couldn’t get—she thrashed around wildly, trying to keep her head above water, gasping for air.

  The bank. She had to get over to the bank. Grabbing rocks wherever she could find them, she managed to pull herself onto the mud, half in and half out of the water. She couldn’t get air, she couldn’t get any—she coughed up what had to be half the god-damn river, and when the bout was finally over, let her face slump into the mud.

  Jesus. She lay in the same spot for a long time, too tired to drag herself the rest of the way out. Christ, that’d really be stupid—to drown out of plain old exhaustion, after everything else she’d managed to do. It might be faster to use the water, but if she could fall asleep in the iciest damn stuff she’d ever been in, then she couldn’t take chances.

  Christ, she was tired.

  WHEN SHE WOKE up again, it was dark. Scary. There was a tree a few feet away, and she made her way over to it, hunching against the trunk. Except, there might be animals. Bears, and wolves, and—snakes. What if there were snakes? There might even be poisonous snakes. Her skin felt crawly, and—bugs! What if she was covered with—she slapped at her back and shoulders with her good hand, in complete revulsion, not feeling anything moving, but—Jesus. What if something crawled on her? She would die. She would just flat-out, on the spot, die.

  There were rustling noises all around her—animals? wind?—and she felt the nearby ground until she found a stick. A heavy stick. She backed up right against the tree so no one could get her from behind and clenched the stick tightly in her good hand, ready to defend herself.

  It was so dark—darker than anything she’d ever imagined—and there seemed to be eyes everywhere. Looking at her, watching her. Haunting her. Maybe there weren’t just animals—and terrorists—out here. Maybe there were spirits and, and supernatural things, and—they were all going to get her, and—somewhere up above, there was a bird noise, and she almost screamed.

  A bird. Okay, it was just some stupid bird, no reason to panic. But, maybe sometimes, birds attacked people, and—Hitchcock! Swarms of birds flying down to—not even birds, swarms of everything, all coming to—oh, Christ, why couldn’t that son-of-a-bitch have just killed her?

  She was too afraid to sleep. Too afraid to lie down, even. She couldn’t look around, because she kept seeing shiny eyes and movement, and—but, if she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t be able to see them coming. Even now, he was probably following her and laughing. Hiding somewhere, waiting for her to think she’d gotten away, then he would jump out and—she had to get away from here. But, lots of animals were nocturnal, and if she moved, she might see some.

  More to the point, snakes and things might see her. Kill her.

  There was rustling everywhere, and she couldn’t tell if they were getting closer. Whatever they were. And it was cold. Ripping off her damn sleeves had certainly been a stupid idea. Instead of using the cloth as a scarf, should she wrap it around her arms? No, too much work. But, could it get so cold that she would die? It was, after all, May—or maybe June? So, unless she was way far north—could she be in like, Canada? No, she wouldn’t have survived last night, if she was someplace like that.

  There was a loud crackling sound off to her right, and she stiffened, turning to face it, her stick ready. It was an animal, because she heard the noise again, going away from her. Away. Thank God. If she was lucky, maybe little animals and things would be as afraid of her as she was of them. Rabies! What if something bit her, and she—by the time rabies symptoms showed up, she’d be long gone, anyway. It’d be more sensible to worry about freezing, and starving, and the ribs that hurt so much that they—if they were broken—might puncture holes in her lungs, and—what would be sensible, would be to sleep.

  Only, it was so dark that she couldn’t. Even at home, she had been known to leave the bathroom light on, and the door open a crack, “just in case she had to get up in the night and might trip on something.” Yeah, right. Just in case scary things came to get her, more likely. Which, since there were supposed to be all kinds of ghosts in the White House, was a reasonable fear. One time, when Beth came to visit, she had insisted upon sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, and then been full of tales about the many spectres she’d seen. Beth, however, was prone to putting people on.

  What did Beth think about all of this? Did she know about it, or was there really a blackout? But, the blackout would have started after her mother’s speech, and—what about Josh? One of the times, the man had to have been lying, and maybe Josh really was—she didn’t want to think about that. She hadn’t actually seen him—just the door opening through the smoke—but, who else could it have been?

  Actually, it could have been someone else she knew, or a teacher, or—it wasn’t going to help to think about that. Or Josh, or what had probably happened to Chet—who was one of the swellest agents she had ever had, or about anything. She shouldn’t think, or move—or even
breathe loudly.

  All she should do was stay very, very still—and wait for morning.

  14

  SHE LOOKED UP, seeing stars above the trees. The most she had ever seen. Really bright stars. The same stars she had seen in Chestnut Hill. The same stars she had looked at from Pennsylvania Avenue. Not that she was the kind of person who gazed longingly at the dark night sky and wanted to travel to other worlds. She had liked E. T. and all, but in general, space could not have held less fascination for her. People were supposed to feel small and insignificant and all that, when they looked at the stars, but—well, she just thought they were pretty.

  She remembered lying out on the White House lawn one summer night with her brothers, all of them staring up at the sky. If they looked behind them, they could see the White House; if they looked ahead, they saw the Washington Monument, lit up against the blueish-black darkness. If they looked around, they saw a lot of hovering Secret Service agents. Mostly, though, they just looked up at the stars and tried to figure out which one was the North Star. Her father was the only one in the family who ever spent time admiring Nature’s Beauty, so the Big Dipper was the only thing they could locate with any certainty, but it was nice, lying there on the perfectly groomed grass, admiring the sky and thinking summer thoughts. Finally, Neal decided he was hungry, and the three of them went scuffling inside.

  In Chestnut Hill, it was always lawn chairs. Lying on lawn chairs in the backyard, smelling of mosquito repellent, eating whatever brownies or cookies Trudy had most recently baked for them. If her mother was home—August, with Congress in recess, was the best bet—her parents would be sitting on the patio, and lying out in the yard, Meg would hear ice against their glasses, low voices, and the ever-present New England sound of the Red Sox on the radio, or maybe on one of the televisions inside. “Hi again, everybody, and welcome to Fenway Park in Boston. It’s a beautiful night for a ball game, and—” If she and her brothers took Kirby for a walk around the neighborhood, they would hear the Red Sox game coming through the open windows of almost every house.

  She missed that house. Missed their lives. Missed having no one know, or care, who the hell she was, and what she did with herself. What she wore, while she was doing it. Her mother was still a hotshot, a “rising star in the Party,” but she was only a Senator, and there were ninety-nine others. Many of them men and women—mostly men, of course—who had been there longer than she had, and made more headlines. Congress was even better—there were over four hundred of them. Of course, they all wanted to be President, but very few of them made it. Most of them never even tried.

  Meg gritted her teeth—where she still had teeth. Life would have been a hell of a lot nicer, if her mother hadn’t had to try.

  MORNING AGAIN. SHE had finally fallen asleep, all crunched up against the tree, and when she opened her eyes, she was stiffer and colder than she thought it was possible to be. And the birds were very damn loud. She looked around, the woods still seeming almost as scary and forbidding as they had all night long. But somehow, she would have to stay awake today. Another night of not being able to fall asleep and staring at utter blackness—being awake was worse than the nightmares she had when she wasn’t.

  Also, tonight, she would have to try and find some kind of shelter. A fallen tree, maybe. Boughs she could burrow into for warmth. And here she was, with these worthless cloth strings, and—a splint. Maybe she could use them to make a splint. If she could walk—at all—she might actually get out of this. She could tie a couple of sticks in place, and use another stick as a cane—it just might work.

  Energized by this unexpected—and, in retrospect, obvious—idea, she looked around for some straight, sturdy sticks.

  One of the few good things about being in the forest was that there were sticks all over the place.

  She dragged herself around the clearing until she found two nice straight ones, which she broke to approximately the right size by propping them against a rotting log and kicking down hard with her right foot.

  That accomplished, she moved her bad leg out as straight as it would go, feeling reaction shudders from the pain go all over her body. There were two tree roots growing closely together, and on an impulse, she stuck her ankle between them, then used the weight of her body to pull her leg out straight. Then, she tried to ease her kneecap back into place with her left hand, not afraid—since she was alone; she hoped—to make every pain-moan and groan she knew how to make. Should she try a rock, maybe? Pound it into—no, enough with the rocks already.

  How about her foot? She thought about that, then grabbed onto a tree with the crook of her arm, using her right foot to push on the kneecap. The pain got worse and worse, until she was damn near shouting with it, the swollen muscles fighting the pressure every millimeter of the way. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it for another second, something in her leg jerked—and then, it felt better. Not a lot better, but better. Noticeably so.

  She sat up, not moving her right foot away so that the kneecap wouldn’t slip right back out again. Frowning, she pulled her sweatpant leg tight, seeing what looked like an almost normal knee. Still deformed, but not unrecognizable.

  Hunh.

  “Good work,” she said aloud.

  She reached for the two sticks, set them on either side of her leg, then unwound the sleeve ropes from her neck. First, stomach muscles straining, she leaned forward far enough to slip one of the sweatshirt cuffs onto her foot and then pulled it over her ankle, and up around the two sticks to hold them in place. It was hard as hell to do it with only one hand, but she wrapped the cloth tightly around her leg again and again, then tied several awkward knots.

  Finished, she sat back, testing to see if the splint was secure. It appeared to be, without cutting off her circulation, and she couldn’t help being pleased with herself. Not that it was like, some miracle cure—but, it was an improvement, no question.

  The only problem, was that now she was too trashed to move. If she was really clever, she would have made herself a sling, and—to hell with it. She’d used up all of the cloth, anyway.

  She stayed on the ground for a while, resting. When she felt a little stronger, she crawled over to the stream to drink. Then, she sat up, looking around for another stick to use as a cane. Once she’d found one, she pulled in a deep breath, aware of how much her knee still hurt. But, if it was going to hurt anyway, she might as well walk on it. It’d be faster than trying to drag herself along, and safer than trying to swim. After all, the worst that could happen was that she would fall down. Like, big deal.

  Using a tree, she hoisted herself up onto her right foot, groaning from the various knifing pains, so dizzy that she had to lean there for a few minutes. When was the last time she’d stood up, anyway? It seemed like years. And the combination of starvation and exhaustion wasn’t exactly a strengthening one.

  When the worst of the dizziness and spots in front of her eyes ebbed away, she let her left foot touch the ground. It hurt, but not as badly as it might have. She sucked in a deep breath, reached out with her stick, and then hopped over to it on her right foot. One step. Jouncing her hand hurt like crazy, the dizziness was back—and worse, her good leg was trembling almost too much to hold her up. Still, it was a step.

  “A step in the right direction,” she said, to amuse herself.

  If, in fact, it was the right direction.

  Lean, hop. Lean, hop. She made it five steps, then had to rest, sagging against a tree. Then, she tried three steps—and rested. And two more, her breath ragged, her ribs hurting so much that they felt as though they might actually burst right through her skin.

  Lean, hop. Lean, hop. She fell—more than once, the splint jarring loose each time. But she would just fix it, rub away as many tears as she could, and force herself to get back up again.

  Tonight, at least, sleeping wasn’t going to be a problem.

  IT WAS DARK, it was light. Dark, light. Lean, hop. Lean, hop. Stagger, fall, crawl. Cry, sleep
. What a fucking nightmare.

  Her right leg really wasn’t strong enough to do all the work anymore and she drank some water, then pulled herself into a pine-needle clearing, checking first for snakes. She had actually seen a few in the last day or two—mottled brown or black, slithering in the reddish dirt—and had had to quiver in disgust—and fear, holding her stick as a weapon.

  Luckily, they didn’t seem to want to have much to do with her, either. None of the animals did—she kept hearing things, but other than a couple of deer, she almost never saw them.

  Every sound, no matter how tiny, was terrifying—it might be him, coming after her—but, they were usually very small sounds. Scuttling. Fluttering. Rustling. Probably squirrels and rabbits and stuff. When she was moving, she would use her stick to poke the underbrush ahead, hoping to scare out whatever might be in there. So far, as a strategy, it seemed to be working pretty well.

  She knew she was supposed to be hungry, and sometimes, she sort of was, but mostly, she was dizzy and sick, the ground seeming to move up and down in front of her eyes, trees dipping away from her.

  People had gone through worse. She had to keep remembering that. People had gone through things that were much, much worse. People survived worse things than this.

  Stronger people. And—braver people.

  It seemed like she had been in these stupid woods for years. Not that the seasons had changed or anything. So far. She leaned over, lifted her filthy sweatpant cuff—the dirt was kind of reddish; was she in the South, maybe? Did it matter?—just enough to look at her leg. Hair. Actual hair on her legs. How gross.