The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  Whenever I felt like I had nothing left, I looked back at Nat. She grew smaller behind me, a single body nearly lost amid the rock and elms. If I didn’t find us a way out, we were done. The peak of the hill drew closer by inches. Bear sat at the top, his dark body outlined in the gray sky.

  At the top of the hill was a rocky platform studded with scrub pines that held a commanding view of the land below. I slid down the side of a tree and sat beside Bear.

  Below, for as far as I could see, was an unbroken expanse of trees, rising and falling as they climbed hills and fell into valleys, like a mossy blanket laid over the earth. I turned in every direction and that’s all there was, wilderness stretching out to the horizon. I imagined we could have sat where we were a million years in the past and seen the exact same view. I searched for the sun to try to at least find our bearing but the sky was still too overcast.

  Even if we mustered the will to walk a hundred miles, we might discover we were going in the wrong direction the entire time. Instead of finding civilization, we would only end up deeper and deeper in the gradually darkening woods, more and more alone.

  I thought of Nat lying below and told my legs to move, to walk anywhere, in any direction, but the commands grew cold somewhere along the way. I fell back into the dirt and watched as night enclosed us.

  • • •

  I was lying in the dirt, barely conscious, when I heard the footsteps.

  I tried to open my eyes, tried to move, but it was as if I had been lashed to the forest floor, half in and half out of a dream. Bear growled low beside me.

  A hand grasped my shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

  It was a man’s voice. I opened my eyes, but my vision swirled and it was like I was seeing him from very far away. All I could make out was brown hair shining in a flashlight’s beam. Wind blew in the trees around us and a sleepy warmth moved through me.

  “James?” I said, my voice a woozy drawl.

  Another voice came up the hill. “Someone else down here.”

  Thunder shook the earth somewhere far away. “There’s a storm,” I said. “We have to go in now. We have to…”

  There was a blast of radio static and then another voice. “Pick them up. We’ll take them with us.”

  It was another man’s voice, deep and strong from somewhere nearby. I opened my eyes and saw a tall man with dark skin.

  “Grey?”

  I struggled weakly as hands dug beneath me and lifted me up. Bear barked, but the sound of it was distant and dreamlike. My consciousness slipped away as they bore me off. I swayed in their hands, drifting back and forth as though I was on the deck of some great sailing ship.

  19

  I woke with a gasp, feeling like I had been buried alive.

  I thrashed and twisted, until a great weight fell off my chest and I could breathe again.

  When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I was able to make out the dim contours of a room. It was large and nearly empty. Across from me, there was the outline of a closed door, its gaps letting in enough light to fill the room with gray and black shadows. Next to the door was a large cabinet. I saw no other doors or windows.

  My muscles ached as I sat up, finding myself in the center of an enormous bed. The weight I felt on my chest was a blanket with down filling, heavy as lead. My clothes were gone and had been replaced with nothing but a pair of soft boxers.

  “Bear?” I called. “Nat?”

  My body protested as I slid off the bed. The soles of my feet hit the ground and I almost drew them back in shock when they sunk into a thick pile of soft carpeting. Where was I?

  I stood up and limped across the room to the door. I grabbed the handle and turned. Locked. In the half-light, I could make out a small table and lamp sitting beside the bed. I made my way back and fumbled underneath the shade until I found the switch and clicked it on. The light stabbed at my eyes, but when they adjusted, I found a tall glass of water, beaded with sweat, beside the lamp. Icy rivulets coursed down my cheeks as I drank. I set the empty glass down, panting.

  The bed was nearly seven feet long, covered in a thick gold-and-tan blanket with sheets the color of cream beneath. I searched the drawer on the nightstand and the ones in the dresser, but they all came up empty.

  The lamplight revealed a second door on the other side of the room. It led into a bathroom filled with glittering chrome fixtures. I stood in front of the mirror that sat above the white sink. The blood and sweat-caked dirt had been washed off of me, replaced with a faint scent of lavender. Adhesive bandages closed my wounds. Even my cast had been scrubbed clean of dirt and blood. Why would someone go to all the trouble to wash and heal me only to lock me up?

  I scrambled for options, but anything I came up with seemed ludicrous. Bust down the door and escape? Even at my best, it was unlikely. Make a racket until my captors finally had to come for me? Maybe, but what then? Attack them and make a run for it, hoping I found Bear and Nat along the way? Ridiculous. I was wracked with cuts and bruises and my muscles screamed at nearly every move I made. There would be no daring escape. All I could do was wait.

  I looked down at the floor’s marble tile. Of course that didn’t have to mean I was helpless.

  I brought the water glass to the bathroom and wrapped it in a thick towel that hung by the shower. I set the bundle on the tile floor and stomped on it so that the glass shattered with a muffled crunch. A mix of shards remained. I picked through them, taking the largest and sharpest piece I could find. The rest went into the empty cabinet under the sink. The towel went neatly on the rack.

  I returned to the bed, tucking the glass shard underneath the mattress where I could get at it quickly. Once it was set, I cut the light and drew the heavy blanket over me. Exhausted as I was, sleep didn’t come easy. I was plagued with thoughts of Bear and Nat. Were they somewhere nearby, alone and afraid?

  I saw Nat’s father’s face pressed against the window of the helicopter just before the flash that took them down. What must Nat be going through right now? I hated that there was nothing I could do but wait.

  I draped my hand over the side of the bed so my fingers rested by the edge of the shattered glass.

  Wait and be ready.

  • • •

  I woke again to the sound of automatic-weapons fire.

  It was coming from somewhere inside the building. A jet streaked overhead and then another, the roar of their engines followed by the dragonfly hum of helicopter rotors. I slipped the glass shard out from under the mattress and rolled out of bed. Maybe I could use the dresser to break down the door and then—

  The door to the room was open.

  “RPG!”

  I flinched as the noise from an explosion rocked the house. A barrage of machine-gun fire answered, followed by a scream.

  I moved to the door in a crouch. On the other side there was a hallway of sunlit hardwood beneath yellow walls. There were more voices now. Two different ones at least, talking back and forth. There was another explosion, but this time there was something off about the sound of it, something flat and distant.

  “Awesome!”

  I clung to the dull end of the glass shard and stepped into the hallway. The polished wood was warm beneath my feet. I crept along it, past framed paintings that hung beneath pinpoint floodlights.

  “Whoa!”

  “Got it! You suck! You! Suck!”

  The hall opened up into a sunken den. There was a black couch against one wall facing a TV screen that was at least two feet high and three across. On the screen, three burly soldiers moved down a street that was hemmed in by crumbling skyscrapers, shooting at adversaries that leapt out of alleys and fired from smashed-in windows.

  “Use your grenade launcher.”

  “Dude, I only have like two left.”

  Two guys sat in the center of the couch facing the TV, video game controllers in their hands. They were both thin and tan in shorts and T-shirts, one guy with shaggy brown curls, the other blond. A coffee table in fr
ont of them was cluttered with game cases, magazines, and piles of junk food. The room trembled as an in-game F-18 thundered across the screen.

  “Oh my God, would you two idiots turn that down?!” A black-haired girl appeared from an adjoining kitchen, a paperback book open in one hand. “For real, I can barely hear myself—”

  Her book hit the floor with a smack the moment she saw me.

  “What, Kate?” the blond gamer shouted. “I can’t hear—”

  He turned to Kate, then followed her gaze to me. My fingers tensed on the glass in my hand.

  “Uh… hey, man,” he said, elbowing his shaggy-haired friend in the side. “How, uh, how are you?”

  On the screen the soldiers had paused in the middle of the street, their barrel chests panting.

  “Where am I?”

  The blond kid popped off the couch and jogged over to the steps.

  “Hey, no worries, man,” he said, extending his hand as he came up the stairs. “I’m Reese. We’ll—”

  I caught him off balance, throwing my shoulder into his side and slamming him against the wall. The girl screamed when I pressed my cast into his throat and raised the shard of glass.

  “Are you Path or Fed?”

  “What?”

  “Path or Fed?!” I shouted, keeping my eyes locked on his. “Where are my friends?”

  “Take it easy. We can—”

  Reese tried to move forward and I pushed him back again, wincing as my cast hit his throat. The tip of the glass touched his cheekbone.

  “Dude, seriously, we’re just trying to help you. Okay? I swear.”

  “Then why’d you lock me up?”

  Kate piped up from behind me. “Because you were acting like this!”

  I glanced at her, leaving my cast and the glass right where they were.

  “Sergeant Mitchell and his guys found you and brought you back here,” she said. “But you went crazy, like you were going to kill us. You even broke Christos’s nose.”

  She nodded over toward Shaggy, who had a white bandage plastered over the bridge of his nose. Red and blue bruises radiated from it.

  “So we shoved a couple Valium down your throat and locked you up. Figured after you got some sleep you’d be, I don’t know, thankful or something. You know? For saving your life? That’s why we left the door open this morning.”

  “Where’s Nat?” I asked. “And my dog?”

  “The girl’s in the bedroom next to yours,” Reese said, voice shaking, eyes on the jagged tip of the glass. “The dog was acting like he needed to pee, so the others took him out. I think they went down to the lake. He’s fine. We fed him and everything.”

  The bitter taste of adrenaline filled my mouth. I swallowed it and stepped away from Reese, keeping my eye on him in case he decided to try to take advantage and come at me.

  “Okay!” Christos exclaimed after a pause. “We’ve made some serious progress, folks!”

  “Christos,” Kate warned.

  “What? Reese isn’t going to have his throat cut. I think that’s an achievement. Others may disagree, but I’m all for it.”

  “Who are you people?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Uh, just, you know,” Reese said. “Playing video games.”

  “I don’t think that’s what he means, Reese,” Kate said. “Why don’t we take things one step at a time? We made some burgers a while ago for lunch. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

  My stomach rumbled but I ignored it. “I want to see Nat.”

  “She’s that way,” Christos said, pointing down the way I had come. “Last room on the right.”

  “There a key?”

  “We didn’t lock her room,” Kate said.

  “Why not?”

  Reese and Christos looked to Kate.

  “She hasn’t moved since we found you guys,” she said. “She won’t eat. Hasn’t said a word. She just lies in bed crying.”

  • • •

  There was no response when I knocked on Nat’s door.

  “Nat?” I said. “It’s me. Cal.”

  I opened the door into another room just like the one I had woken up in. The light from the hall spread across a small form curled up into a ball on the bed. Part of me thought I should just close the door and leave her be, that she’d come out when she was ready. But then I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

  “Nat?”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. Her back was to me and I hesitated a moment before reaching out and touching her shoulder.

  “Hey.”

  When she didn’t respond, I moved closer. Her eyes were open, staring blankly at the dark wall in front of her. She was still in her clothes from the day before, a sweat- and blood-stained T-shirt and jeans. They had wiped the blood and dirt off her face and bandaged up the deeper cuts, but I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t hurt worse, somewhere I couldn’t see.

  “Are you injured?” I asked. “Natalie?”

  She was motionless for a long time, and then she moved her head slowly from side to side.

  “Do you want something to eat?”

  Again she shook her head.

  “Water?”

  Nat’s eyes shut and her body seized as if she had been hit with an electric shock. Her knees rose up tighter to her chest. She looked like she was trying to disappear.

  I drew away, but before my feet could hit the floor, Nat’s fingers had encircled my wrist. She was still facing away from me, curled up like a seedpod, one arm reaching back. I eased back onto the bed and drew my legs up, lying just behind her. There was only a thin border of darkness between us.

  “I think I’m going crazy,” she said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from a hundred miles away.

  “You’re not going crazy.”

  “I just keep seeing it. Over and over.”

  I lifted a hand to smooth her hair along her forehead, which was damp despite the air-conditioned chill in the room. I searched for something else to say, hoping to stumble across something that would help push her out of the moment she was trapped in, but I knew it was pointless. I slipped my other arm, awkward in its cast, underneath her. My fingers pressed into her shoulder and drew her close until her back touched my bare chest. I closed my eyes and we lay there until our breath fell into sync and my heart pulsed against hers.

  • • •

  “Hey.”

  I turned to find Kate standing in the doorway.

  “Can I come in?”

  Nat had been sleeping for about an hour. Her breathing, ragged and shaking at first, had calmed. I nodded and Kate came in with a pile of folded laundry in her hands.

  “I washed your clothes,” she said, setting them down on the bed. “I also brought her some of mine, if she wants to change. They should fit, I think.”

  Bear’s collar sat on top of the pile. I set it aside, then reached for my shirt, pausing at a flowery scent coming off of it.

  Kate laughed. “It’s lavender. Sorry, we only have girly detergent. Drives the guys crazy walking around smelling like flowers all the time.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I slipped it on and finished dressing. When I was done, I stuffed Bear’s collar back in my pocket.

  “Oh, look who’s here!” Kate exclaimed.

  Nails clacked against the floor in the hall and then Bear leapt onto the bed and piled into me. He sniffed at every inch of me, burying his head underneath my arm, his butt wiggling. I rubbed his ears, then wrapped my arms around him and dropped my face into his neck. He smelled soapy and warm. A lump formed in my throat and I had to swallow hard to get rid of it.

  “Jumped in the lake with us like he was a puppy,” she said. “He even liked it when we threw him in the tub for a bath. We didn’t have any dog food, so we fed him some hamburger we had sitting around. He pretty much ate a whole cow.”

  Bear settled down into my lap, licking contentedly at the palm of my hand.

  “Where are we?” I asked
.

  “South Dakota,” Kate said. “This is our friend Alec’s house — well, one of his parents’ houses. You’ll meet him later.”

  “So you’re all Fed?”

  “I guess so. We’re not very political.”

  I looked up at her. “But you have soldiers here. You said Sergeant Mitchell.”

  “He’s the head of our security. Alec’s parents hired him and his guys to look after us when they decided we’d be safer here than in California.”

  “Have you heard what’s going on in Wyoming? Did it fall?”

  “I haven’t heard anything about it,” she said. “But I was just coming to tell you we’re getting supper together out on the back deck. Nothing big, just burgers and stuff, but it’s a nice night. You should come and join us. Both of you.”

  I turned back and saw that Nat was awake. She lay in the dark watching Kate silently.

  “Sure,” I said. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

  “Okay,” Kate said. “Cool. I’m just going to hit the shower and then we’ll get started.”

  Kate gave my leg a pat and padded barefoot out of the room. Bear glanced up as she went, then resettled. Above us the air conditioner cycled on, breathing cool air out into the room.

  “I’m fine,” Nat said. “You go ahead.”

  “You should eat.”

  “I’m not hungry. I just want to rest. Okay?”

  Music started up out in the house, filtering down through the hallways. A thump of bass pulsing beneath an electric fuzz. Silverware clinked together brightly.

  I stared down at her lying motionless in the dark. “I’ll bring you something back.”

  Bear jumped up to follow when I moved off the bed, but I nodded over toward Nat and he returned to her, crawling his way to the crook of her arm. Nat tried to shove him away, but he was persistent, wriggling closer until he had his nose buried in her neck. Finally she lifted one hand and began to stroke his side. I closed the door behind me and went out into the house.