The Retreat

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  She can hear him getting nearer, moving fast, panting as he speaks.

  “It was always Dan, Maeve. Dan shot Justin on the trail. Dan came knocking on Anna’s door that night, then pushed her outside in the cold—”

  The words cut through the night air. Maeve stumbles, stunned and alone. Her stomach rising into her throat.

  Dan didn’t know where Anna was sleeping the night she died. None of the others did. Only Sim had seen her there. Only Sim could have known which door to knock on.

  She starts moving again, close enough to keep him in sight.

  “I’m trying to protect you, goddamn it. You need me.” Sim’s voice growing strained.

  The trees here are needled and snow-covered; Maeve feels like she’s cutting her way through a maze that springs back and re-forms around her, sprays and pricks at her face. Her hood catches and pulls away—for a moment she thinks it’s him, he’s there, but no, it’s only another branch. She tugs it off, angry, and yanks the hood right down.

  She comes, finally, to a break in the woods. Not quite a clearing, but at least some breathing space, the forest floor hard between iced-over roots. Maeve looks down. She’s found it, the path she followed the day before. The woods here carry sound differently and she can hear, again, a trace of the world outside the tree line. The wind moving off now, the skies beginning to clear.

  She can hear, too, the faint, constant thwack of the tarp somewhere far ahead on the ridge. Guiding her.

  Then, close behind, almost not even yelling: “Maeve—”

  She takes off at a run. She’s leaping now to stay just ahead of his beam without tripping and she can hear him swearing whenever he falls behind, unused to the trail, the knots of ice-covered roots and powder bluffs that Maeve herself learned only the day before. The key is to stay light and, above all, stay on your feet. She’s using the bloody hand now, and it’s no longer numb, the pain of it screaming high into her arm every time she wraps her fingers around another rough branch and hauls her body along. Where the woods grow darker again, she can still follow the sound of the tarp, caught in its tree, beating against the wind.

  Ahead of her there’s the root-gnarled crest that leads to the cache, rough now with new ice, and she slips, almost falls, clambers higher.

  At the top she leans hard on a bare trunk, gripping it for balance and trying to catch her breath. Day is coming. There’s an openness to the trees here, a spare feeling to the branches—they’re thinner, somehow—and the first real light makes the woods seem gray and dim but no longer black. The wind comes spiraling in and cuts through the gully. She can let him catch up now. She only has to wait.

  Down in the ditch, the elk, or what’s left of it, is still there. The cage of its ribs raw and filling with new snow. And tucked behind it, the ridge of dark fur she knows is Sadie’s hood.

  But no bear.

  Maeve listens for it—it must be somewhere close by. It must be. She can feel her connection to it now, as though the claw in her pocket were throbbing.

  This was the reason for the dreams. Wasn’t it?

  Down near the elk, she can see where the bear has made a bed, branches torn and piled into a deeper rut in the snow. But not just that—something else, some softer stuff. Grassy. Like the ragged edge of a blanket, like frayed yarn, with more of it caught around the icy roots at her feet. Maeve reaches forward and pulls a handful closer.

  It’s the tarp. The green tarp. Shredded.

  But that doesn’t make sense.

  If the tarp has blown out of the tree, then the noise she hears from the ridge—

  It means something else is making that sound. Something else is up there, beating in the wind. Her breath catches.

  An engine. A propeller.

  “Maeve!”

  The beam of light cuts through the trees. In an instant, the forest floor around her burns with it, the glare off the snow making her squint, the elk’s black eye gaudy and rotten.

  And Sadie, half buried beneath it, her hair matted into the fur around her hood.

  She spins to see Sim closing in on her now, back in the shadows. She brought him here, hoping to lead him into a trap.

  Another frantic scan of the forest. She can feel her confidence slipping.

  There’s no bear.

  He glances down at his footing, and she marks the moment when he sees the cache, the sweep of his light catching it from twenty feet away.

  She rises to her feet, her voice wavering:

  “What did you do.” It’s not a question.

  “Maeve—”

  He’s trying not to yell, not to draw attention. It’s almost a whisper. He stops moving, then slowly raises his head again. His eyes change. There’s a new, grim look to him, a commitment.

  Sim’s light holding on Sadie.

  If Sadie wasn’t shot accidentally, down in the village, if Dan didn’t kill her, then what happened? Maeve can imagine her trailing behind Sim, dogging him, trying to find her way back to the safety of the center through the long, cold night. The elk early that morning, spooked and rushing out of the woods—because someone was there after all. Maybe this was the place Sadie caught up to him, Sim reeling in surprise. Tired of her persistence. Angry.

  Or afraid of what she knew. Whatever really happened on the trip down the mountain, Sadie was a witness.

  Maeve takes a step back, then again, checking over her shoulder, but the gap between them stays unchanged. Sim picks his way toward her, the beam of light aimed low at his feet.

  There is still no bear. She turns her focus, desperate; the rhythmic sound is there, and under the wind, there’s another noise now, a hum, soft and growing. Something up there, hidden by cloud or darkness. Someone up there, looking down. Looking for survivors. It’s what she hoped for yesterday. A helicopter. Someone searching for them. Searching for Maeve.

  The bear, or the woods, drew her here for a reason.

  “Maeve. Come on!” More urgent than a whisper. A snarl. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll die out here. Come with me! Come back with me.”

  She needs to get her bearings. She can’t stay here, invisible, lost in the trees. She looks over her shoulder, judging the distance to the open, from here to where the ledge leans out over the valley and the frozen river below. The ledge she saw shift and fall just a day before.

  But the highest point is not the ridge. The highest point is farther on: the SkyLift.

  Daylight rises all around them and she scours the forest ahead. New growth sweeps along the gully to a rocky outcrop just beyond, a rock wall that leads up to the same ridge where it wraps around on the other side.

  That’s the fastest way to the lift. Not along the unstable ledge but down through the ditch, past the bear bed, and up the outcrop beyond. A shortcut. Over the wall, the rock covered in ice and snow.

  This is her only chance. Now.

  She pushes off, leaping down into the woods ahead. Her heavy boots kicking at bone left in the snow.

  “Maeve—”

  He’s still calling, but the voice is far behind her now, distant. She twists to check as she’s running—she can see him there, fearful, unwilling to go down into what is obviously the bear’s territory—and then moves on again. The muscles in her legs are dragging with exhaustion, her bones weighing her down. But when she turns back a second time, he’s gone, and she makes a mistake.

  She pauses, afraid. Looking for him before she gets there.

  It’s only a moment.

  She scans the cache, the woods to either side of it, the day growing brighter now, it seems, with every passing breath. Sim has disappeared. The waning hum above her, circling, but the pulse of it still strong. There’s a vague crackling higher in the trees, the sound of friction or wind moving through the rimy branches over her head. She’s alone.

  And then she turns.

  She can smell the thing before she sees it, before she hears it even—then it’s there. As if the forest simply opened to it.

  The bear. Maybe a h
undred yards back, maybe more. Deep in the woods. Its massive head trained on Maeve, a dust of snow on the shaggy fur of its shoulder. A grizzly: she can tell by the shape of it, its humped back. The sheer size. Its snout, lifting; it squints back at her.

  A male. That much is obvious, even at this distance: six hundred pounds, at least. She can hear it huffing at her, or barking. Maeve’s breath caught in her throat. She tries to hold steady, tries not to show her fear, but when it charges a few yards—Maeve jumps back.

  It was never waiting for her. It’s just defending the cache.

  Head up, ears up, alert. It pounds a paw against the ground, and snow sprays up in a mist.

  There’s no other sound. The woods and the wide white belt between Maeve and the bear are silent.

  She can no longer picture the bear from her dream. This bear seems bigger, more sharply outlined by the snow, its eyes hidden, shadowed by fur. It is completely dark. There is no reason to it.

  She thumbs the claw in her pocket, thinking of Anna, Anna’s words. Suddenly realizing her mistake: Nature turns to chaos. The problem is you can’t control it. The sign in the road: ALL WILDLIFE IS DANGEROUS.

  The grizzly paws the ground, huffs again.

  Sim is gone. Only Maeve stands alone in the bear’s home. Its cache. She needs to get away from the elk, get out of the area, but she’s afraid to take her eyes off the bear. It stays focused on her, its gaze never changing. Now padding forward again. Stalking her. Closing in.

  Maeve starts moving backward, her arms stretched out wide both for balance and in the hope that this will somehow make her look bigger. The bear doesn’t charge again but keeps coming the same way. Starting and stopping.

  Her knees are shaking and she tries to still them. She’s no threat to the bear: she’s prey. Her only chance is to get to the wall and climb.

  Light filters through the trees but the bear’s fur seems to absorb it. It is just a mass of darkness, moving ahead. Then it halts. Head low. Watching her.

  Maeve spins and sprints the last stretch to the wall.

  Her fingers dig into the ice; she finds a toehold and begins to climb. The outcrop goes up, not quite vertical but at a slim angle. Fifteen or twenty feet to the top. Where the ice dips and gathers snow, the wall looks pockmarked. Each spot another rough ledge she can—maybe—jam her boot into, maybe push higher. She can hear the bear’s huff as it closes in. The wound on her palm leaving a mark, a streak of blood wherever she puts it down.

  Near the top, there are no more rough patches: a thick layer of ice pours over the edge toward Maeve, snowless, as smooth as if someone had held a hose to its lip. Her hand slips and she slides back, boots scraping to stop the fall. She’s four or five feet down before she catches herself, finds her footing, tries again. Her fingernails useless against the slick of ice above.

  The air around her changes. Maeve reels. The smell of the animal is overpowering, musk and rot cutting through the cold air. The bear’s rough grunt, below her now. She looks down to see it raise its head, its eyes black and dull. Black claws gripping the ice. It barks, jaws open: the smell of it choking her.

  Her own breath coming in thrusts. She jams her boot hard into a crevice, kicking and kicking to get purchase. Then she pulls a hand away and goes for her pocket.

  When she brings it out again, she’s got Anna’s claw tight in her fist. Her arm swings at the shoulder and she hammers the claw like an ice pick into the sheet above.

  It sticks.

  Maeve torques her shoulder again to pull herself up over the lip, but something goes wrong—it doesn’t work. She grasps the claw tighter and heaves to keep from falling back, pushing up with her legs from below—but only one leg swings free.

  The toe of her right boot is trapped in its hold. Stuck fast where she slammed it in so hard. She tugs again, then tries bearing down through her heel and kicking up, but it’s no good: the boot is locked in place.

  The bear huffs at her, pawing low down against the snow, before it stands up for the first time.

  The problem is you can’t control it.

  The jolt of the first swipe knocks her sideways. The bear’s paw hits the rubber heel of the stuck boot; her ankle spirals as Maeve hits the rock wall, shoulder on, her bloody fingers shearing across the ice, the other hand tight on the sunken claw. The bear drops down and then comes at her again.

  Her ankle is suddenly useless and numb with pain, her foot loose and scraping at the tongue of her boot. The bear comes up again and she swings to the side, propelling herself with her good leg and then kicking down, trying to loosen a chunk of rock or ice to deter it. Her ankle somehow floating as it twists this time, light and detached. A claw sinks into the wall just beside her, but the animal’s weight is too much: the ice breaks away and it falls back. The bear drops to all fours again, raises its snout and makes a few throaty barks.

  Maeve keeps it in sight and gives a last jolt to free herself. The action of pulling up against the trapped boot makes her head swim. She reaches down with her bad arm to release the foot, wrenching up on her own thigh as though it were made of scrap wood.

  The foot slides free just as the bear rears up again, and a searing pain tears through her calf.

  She pulls her thigh in to her chest, but her foot just dangles—the ankle almost certainly broken, the leg useless now below the knee. She brings her other foot up and catapults herself over the lip, landing roughly on her side and rolling quickly away from the edge. Maeve draws herself to a crawl and punches at chunks of ice and exposed rock along the rim, sending them hurtling below like warning shots. The bear is still down there, trying its luck against the ice. The lift terminal behind her, a hundred feet away.

  She’s on her knees, trying to stand, when she hears something scrabbling up the ridge from the other side. She listens for the rumble, for the ledge to collapse—but this time it holds. The injured leg drags behind her as she heaves up, crying out as she wrenches the claw out of the ice, then throwing her arms out high and wide and bellowing as loud as she can. Blood soaks her jeans where the bear has ripped her open at the calf.

  But it’s not the grizzly that comes bounding up along the ridge.

  It’s Sim.

  Her leg suddenly gives and she’s back down again on one knee.

  She looks up to see him already bearing down. Maeve braces her good leg. She’s holding the claw tight between her fingers, like a set of keys. A weapon.

  Above them, the mechanical hum grows in strength, and for just a second she tilts her head to the sky, squinting through the cloud cover to see what’s there.

  “You hear that?” Her voice surprises her, low and used up.

  But the distraction is enough: his eyes flick away from her, and Maeve rises, quiet, her sock foot gingerly on the snow. As though she is standing on it. She doesn’t want him to know the ankle is broken, the leg ruined. Maeve can stay silent through just about anything. She needs him to think she can still fight.

  There’s another crash from the woods below.

  Sim jerks his head: it’s the second time she’s seen him look scared. She takes her chance and starts to move away toward the polished steel girders of the SkyLift terminal, the cables extending out dull in the gray light—but he catches her by the shoulder and she stumbles back. The bad ankle like a tether, holding her in place.

  She pushes him off and he catches her again.

  “Maeve, there’s nowhere to go. Come on with me.”

  She pushes him off again, but he won’t let go and the effort knocks her back. She lands down on one knee. Beneath them, the ice shelf groans. The combined weight of two people, too much.

  “Careful, now.” He steps in closer, like he wants to help. But when he reaches out a hand for her, his coat swings open: there’s a flash of black, a leather strap. The gun, there in its holster.

  Her leg is gone at the hip, she can’t feel anything anymore. She looks down at her slashed hand, almost surprised to see it still bleeding.

  Her
voice is low and calm. “Go back to the center, Sim.”

  He steps in again. Another creak in the ice shelf; they’re on a weak spot of some kind. Maeve tries to shift her body slowly away to where the shelf feels more stable. He’s standing over her now, so close that his belt buckle could almost brush her hairline. Wind comes howling up the ridge, bringing a shower of frozen snow with it, and for a moment she can’t see or hear anything else.

  “Listen to it down there, Maeve—you won’t survive. Come with me instead.”

  Down in the woods, the bear heaves against the wall another time, and the ice covering it cracks, breaks away, and falls to the ground below. Eventually the bear will hit rock. And climb.

  Sim jolts again at the noise of it, and this time Maeve springs onto her good leg, reaching for the gun. Her hand on the gun and his, too, and the holster wet and slick with snow and sweat. Maeve’s hand bleeding, her bad hand. He’s grabbing at it, trying to pry her off, when she comes at him with the claw. Not at his face or neck, but where it’s most useful: the razor tip tearing through the soft place between his thumb and forefinger. His hand flashes open in reaction—enough time for Maeve to close her fingers around the revolver and wrench it free.

  The gun goes off with a blast and she’s knocked back, a terrifying spasm through her hand as she locks it around the grip, but this time he’s charging at her. She fumbles with it, down on the ground, her fingers slick against the trigger. She pulls it again—the pain of using the bad hand is exquisite and the thing kicks up in her grasp, the force of it surprising her. The shot takes out a branch overhead.

  He stumbles forward to avoid the falling limb and slips against the smooth lip, his legs scissoring before he rights himself on the ice. His hand now torn and bleeding too.

  “Stay there,” Maeve says. She’s easing herself slowly back to standing. First on one knee, then a half hop to her feet. Her hand seizing up, the hand with the gun in it. She works to keep it steady, trained on him.

  He shakes his head.

  “No.” He moves toward her, deliberate. “This isn’t the plan, Maeve. Give me the gun.”