Stranded

by Melinda Braun

  “A day? Maybe two?” Isaac said. “It might take longer for them to get to us.”

  Oscar picked up a vanilla pudding cup. “Then we need to make some rules about food.”

  Isaac shifted his stance back, hands on his hips, studying Oscar, or more like sizing him up. I couldn’t tell by his face what he decided. “You have an idea, Wiener?”

  “We parcel out the food evenly. Everyone gets the same amount up front. No fighting about it.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Chloe said, emphasis on the word “fair.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  “Okay, Wiener,” Isaac said finally. “I guess you’re in charge of the cafeteria.”

  “Good.” Oscar put the pudding cup back in the cooler. “Does everyone have their packs?”

  Surprisingly, everyone did. Mine had been wedged under a pine branch, and it took several tugs to free it, but thankfully, nothing ripped. There were only a few scuff marks on the fabric, and although the aluminum frame was dented in places, it wasn’t broken. The zipper still worked, and all my stuff was inside. I hugged it to my chest with a silent prayer. Thanks, Dad.

  Oscar divided everything into four even piles. There was an extra apple and granola bar.

  “You take it,” Chloe told him. “It was your idea.”

  Isaac had succeeded in getting the tent up, but it must have been missing a few parts, because the roof sagged in on one side, and there was a large tear all the way down to the bottom. Who is going to sleep in it? Are we supposed to flip a coin?

  I sneezed three times in quick succession.

  “You okay?” Oscar asked, concerned. “Allergies?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “It’s probably dust or . . .” The taste of burned wood coated the tip of my tongue, spreading down my throat—just a small tingle, but enough to make me cough. I turned to face the breeze. Light but steady.

  “Or what?” Oscar touched my hand. “What is it?”

  What is it? What is it? What is it?

  There was only one thing it could be.

  “I think its smoke.”

  Day 3

  Twilight

  “Smoke?”

  “I can smell it. Like a campfire.” I sniffed again. “But more.”

  “You think?” Oscar inhaled deeply, lifting his nose with his eyes closed, like an animal trying to catch a scent.

  Isaac walked the perimeter, which wasn’t far, given how the fallen limbs had us penned in. “It’s probably a fire,” he said after completing a circuit.

  “You mean a campfire?” Chloe asked hopefully.

  “It was a campfire,” Isaac said. “But now? With the windstorm?”

  “Do you think it started a forest fire?” Oscar asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  I sniffed again. “What if it’s coming this way?”

  Isaac picked up his pack. “With our luck, it probably is.”

  “So what do we do? Go back out on the lake?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Chloe said. “We have no boat.”

  Isaac nodded, agreeing with her for once. “If the fire does come, we’d get surrounded. And we can’t stay in the lake that long. The water’s too cold.”

  “So how do we know where to go?” Oscar’s voice climbed an octave. “We’ll get lost out there.”

  “Ouch!” Chloe rubbed the top of her head. “Something bit me!”

  Isaac backed up, startled, his eyes on the trees. “Jesus fucking Christ!” The panic in his voice pulled the skin tight on my neck, goose bumps sprouting instantly on my arms.

  “What’s that?”

  The treetops—what was left of them—were aglow with fireflies, blinking and fading in the increasing dark. But these fireflies were orange and cherry red, not halogen yellow. Giant clumps of light, like a cluster of thick snowflakes, drifted and swayed above us.

  Oh my God. What is happening?

  A bright orange ember turned black as it hit the ground by my boot.

  “That’s not a campfire.” Oscar grabbed his pack and handed me mine. There was still a large pile of clothes on the ground. “Stuff as much in as you can,” he ordered. “Now!”

  Sweatshirts, swimsuits, a towel, flip-flops, a belt. I shoved things in without looking. “What about the cooler?”

  “We can’t carry that! Take the food out!” Isaac stuffed a metal pot in his bag. “I can’t fit any more in mine.” When he zipped it shut, it bulged like a deformed tumor on one side.

  Chloe ran past me. “It’s coming! Which way?”

  Smoke tickled the back of my throat. “Not into the wind.” Another ember must have landed on me, sizzling as it made contact, because the skin behind my ear felt like someone had pinched it. I swore and pulled my cap down over my head.

  Isaac sprinted past me and hurdled over a log, heading near Chris’s tent. I didn’t want to go that way, but it was the only direction we could go. Was it north? To my left was the lake. I knew we were camped on the south end, because I remembered the spot marked on the map. There were other campsites dotted around the lake; some we had passed on our way here. How far away are they? A half mile? Two miles? We hadn’t seen anyone, but someone could be there now. Is it their fire? Are they okay? Did trees fall on them, too? Does that mean the wind is blowing north? North by northwest? Isn’t that a movie title?

  “Emma!”

  I jumped. Oscar shook my shoulder. “C’mon! We have to go!”

  “I know.” How long was I standing there like a nitwit? “Where’s Chloe?”

  “She’s already gone.” Oscar pointed.

  A wave of heat hit my back, pushing me forward. Oscar had the first aid kit strapped over his shoulder. “C’mon, Emma! We can’t stay any longer or we’ll be trapped!” He grabbed my shoulder straps and tugged me forward, like a dog on a leash that doesn’t want to go. I went forward reluctantly, turning my head when I heard a popping sound. A snap. Snap. Crackle. Pop. Just like the cereal. Just like a fire. This is a fire. A campfire. A giant campfire that we’re inside of. We’re the meat, ready to be cooked.

  A plume of hot smoke descended over my face, searing my tongue and throat. “Oh!” I pulled my shirt over my face as I scaled the trunk to the other side, carefully stepping with my boots, hoping to feel firm ground and dirt, not a soft quivering mess of human parts. I couldn’t stay here even if I wanted to. It would be horrible to burn, I realized. Is that worse than drowning?

  “Faster!” Oscar barked. “Watch your hands! Watch your feet!”

  The heat grew on my head and butt, but my pack shielded the rest of my back. How hot could something get before it spontaneously combusted? I moved faster, but it didn’t seem fast enough. We couldn’t run. Instead, we jumped and scrambled over fallen limbs liked panicked squirrels.

  How far had we gone? It didn’t seem like we were making good time, not with each of us carrying an extra twenty pounds of gear, maybe more. I doubted we could have gone more than a mile. I banged my shin against a stump, barely feeling it.

  The light brightened when we stumbled into a clearing, and the lavender sky, speckled with stars, was clear above us. Long grass waved purple-feathered tops across the field, and I chased Oscar to the center, only stopping when he suddenly pulled up and bent over, hands on his knees. He panted heavily, breathing in hard, wheezy bursts.

  “You okay?” I sounded weirdly calm. We were lost in the woods, trying to escape a forest fire, and we’d just lost two people in our group. The other three were dead. We were definitely not okay. “Side ache?”

  “I’m not much of a runner,” Oscar heaved.

  The wind was stronger in the field. I faced into it, then turned until I felt it at my back. “We should go this way.” I took the first aid kit from him. “I can carry this for a bit.”

  I thought he might protest, but he didn’t stop me when I slung it across my shoulder. “Do you think they came this way?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  Ahead of us was d
ark; the fire’s glow behind our backs. I could hear the snapping as it ate up the ground. I brushed my fingertips over the tall grass; it would burn like straw. It would go like crumpled newspaper. “Let’s go. Can you still run?”

  “Jog maybe.”

  “Okay. Follow me.” I rolled into an easy jog, heading for the dark wall of the woods. We wouldn’t be able to move that quickly through the trees. “We just have to run faster than the wind.” Only after I spoke the words did I realize how impossible it sounded.

  * * *

  We found Chloe by herself, crying.

  At first I thought the moaning was the wind. Or the gasping we made as we ran, trying to stay ahead of the fire. We cut strange paths through the trees, trying to estimate the direction, sometimes stopping and turning so we kept the fire at our backs.

  The moaning rose and fell, depending on the direction we moved through the trees. But one thing became certain—it was getting louder. It took me a few minutes to realize the noise was coming from a person. At least, I hoped it was a person.

  “Chloe?” I threw my arm back, but Oscar was right behind me, and I hit him in the chest.

  “Ow!”

  “Shh.” I put my finger to my lips, which was pointless. Oscar couldn’t see me. I could barely see my hand in front of my face. “Listen.”

  Nothing. Chloe was ahead of us. But did she go the same way?

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Wait.”

  The sound came again. A muffled sob.

  “Chloe?” I wasn’t shouting, because I was afraid of waking something up, which was ridiculous. Stop watching all those zombie shows. You’ll rot your brain. I had laughed when my mom made that joke, and she wasn’t even trying to be funny.

  “Chloe!”

  After three heartbeats came the reply. “Emma?”

  “Here!”

  “Help me!”

  I spun in a circle, attempting to triangulate the sound. “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. I tripped.” It sounded like she was trying very hard not to panic. Her voice was rough with pain. “My ankle hurts bad. I can’t walk!”

  “Okay!” I yelled. “We’ll find you!” She couldn’t be that far away. “Oscar and I are here! Just keep making sounds or something.”

  More quiet crying, but I still couldn’t tell the direction.

  “Chloe? You have to be louder so we can find you!” Oscar called. “Can you sing or something?”

  “Sing?” I turned around, but he was just a faceless outline behind me. It was a good idea. A weird idea. “What song?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  It was quiet. Then . . .

  Ring around the rosie

  A pocketful of posies

  We moved forward slowly, and Oscar held on to my shoulder. Chloe’s voice was clear, and it grew louder, an eerie echo piercing the darkness.

  Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

  Well, that’s appropriate, I thought as I stepped through a pale stand of aspens, then immediately caught my foot on a clump of uneven ground and went sideways. Off balance, I pitched forward a few steps as the terrain sloped away underneath my boots, dipping down to a small ravine. This must be where she tripped. If I had been running, I would have. We must be close. I grabbed an aspen trunk to steady myself.

  “Chloe?”

  A dark shape huddled on the ground about ten yards away, slowly rocking back and forth. She stopped, turned her head up. “He left me.”

  “Who?” Did she mean Isaac?

  “He left me,” she mumbled again, more to herself. “He left me.”

  Oscar crouched down. “Where does it hurt?”

  “My ankle.” Chloe exhaled a rippled breath when Oscar put his hand on her leg.

  “What about here?”

  “No. Just the ankle.”

  “Did you hear a pop?”

  At the sound of the word “pop” something fizzed and buzzed in my ears, causing my vision to narrow into a pinprick and my mouth to fill with saliva. I pressed my fingertips to my eyes and flared my nostrils. Don’t faint now.

  “I don’t think so.” He undid the laces and eased her boot off. Chloe sucked in a whimper when Oscar found the bad spot.

  After a minute he said, “I don’t think anything is broken. Just a bad sprain.”

  “I’ve rolled my ankle before. I’ve sprained it before,” Chloe said. “But this is way worse. I can’t even put weight on it.”

  “I know,” Oscar nodded. “It’s a really bad sprain. A third degree, I bet.”

  “How many degrees are there?”

  “Three.”

  “So it’s the worst.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great,” Chloe said through gritted teeth.

  Oscar put her boot back on carefully, keeping the laces loose. “I can’t believe he left you.”

  “I can.” I couldn’t help myself. “That’s what cowards do,” I added. Period. Exclamation point.

  “Emma,” Oscar began. “We don’t know if—”

  “Know what?” I was suddenly enraged. “We don’t know that he’s exactly the type of person who would save his own ass first?” What kind of person leaves a helpless person behind? A gutless, worthless coward, that’s who. I bit down on my lip. What kind of person lets her little sister die?

  The same kind.

  Me.

  “Lucy . . .” Something bright and hazy washed over my face, a roar building in my ears. Suddenly I couldn’t see a thing.

  A second later I felt Oscar grab my shoulder. “Emma!” He shook me, rougher than I thought necessary. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m right here.” I blinked, but the words didn’t sound right. It sounded like fight her. I was sitting in the leaves, something damp soaking through my pants. I must have fallen down.

  “Who’s Lucy?”

  “What?” I looked up. Oscar’s pale face in the dark woods stood out, his eyes bright with worry.

  “Are you all right? I can’t have you spacing out on me! You need to focus.”

  “I am.” I rubbed my eyes. The smoke had found us again. “I’m here. I’m fine.”

  “Okay,” Oscar said. “You carry the supplies. I’ll carry Chloe.”

  Oscar shed his supplies, and we helped her up. With three packs and the first aid kit I was loaded down like a mule, and I staggered sideways until I got the weight distributed. Now we would be traveling at a snail’s pace, and if the wind picked up, there would be no way to outrun it.

  Oscar squatted down, and Chloe leaned over his shoulders. “One, two, three.” With a grunt they were up, Oscar looking much steadier with the extra weight than I did. “All right, lead us out, Emma.”

  I did, swaying and tripping forward in the dark as fast as I could, calling out hazards as I found them, and listening to the sound of the world as it burned down behind us.

  Day 3

  Night

  I ran (more like trotted), my hands out in front of me like a blind person. But my hearing rose to the next level. The sound of crunching leaves, Oscar’s heavy breaths behind me, Chloe’s painful gasps.

  My throat was raw, tongue swollen so it was hard to swallow. How much farther could we go? We’d been running all night. A branch jabbed my side, making me jump sideways, only to have something else poke me in the shin.

  “Ow!” I stopped suddenly, leaned over, forgetting that I had three packs on me, and almost landed on my face. I turned sideways at the last second, landing heavily on my shoulder, and wound up on my back, stuck like a turtle in its overturned shell. I stared up at the hole in the canopy of trees. Bright three-quarter moon rising with wispy clouds passing across. Too bright to see stars. Or maybe the clouds were really smoke.

  “Emma?” Oscar was suddenly standing over me, with Chloe’s face peeking over his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” I said, and turned my head to check. “I just fell.” I slipped my arms out of the backpacks and rolled onto my hands
and knees. “I’m just tired,” I admitted. “And thirsty.”

  “I know.” Oscar helped Chloe slide down off his back. “Me too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe sniffed, sitting in a lump on the ground. “Me and my stupid ankle.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “It could have happened to anyone.” It still could, I thought.

  Oscar leaned back against a tree trunk, catching his breath. “Do you still smell any smoke?”

  I sniffed. “No, but I can’t tell anymore.” I put my face against my sleeve. “My clothes reek, though.”

  “What do we do now?” Chloe wanted to know. “I hate that I’m slowing you guys down.”

  “You’re not,” Oscar reassured her; he didn’t say what we were all thinking. If Isaac were with us, we’d be able to move much faster. “We can’t move very quickly in this dark anyway. There’s no trail and it’s too dangerous. We don’t even know where we’re going.”

  “I wish we could see the stars.” My tongue was still swollen in my mouth, my ears radiating heat, my chest constricted, and sharp stabs punctured my back with every breath. I took a swig from my canteen, trying to swallow the sensation away. “We could at least find the North Star and use it as a compass.”

  I rotated around, looking for a breeze, something to give me a clue what direction I should take. “I don’t know where we should go. For all I know we’ve been running in circles.”

  “Well, we should try to keep moving,” Oscar replied, but he didn’t budge from his resting spot. “We need to keep going.” From the heavy sound of his words I knew he must be exhausted.

  “For how long?”

  “Until morning, I guess.”

  It would be hours before dawn. There was no way we could run or even walk all night, especially while carrying someone. “No,” I said. “We don’t have enough water to keep going, not at this pace.”

  “Then what should we do?” Chloe’s voice was strained, ashamed to be the burden.

  “We should find a place we can rest,” I said.

  “But what about the fire?” Oscar pushed off from the tree.

  “Then we’ll have to run again,” I said. “We can take turns keeping watch, but we really need to rest. If we keep going all night, we won’t have the strength to get away if it comes. We need to find a place that won’t burn.”