McKenna took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Even though the last thing they’d done last night was fight, she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He’d left his things behind, hadn’t he? Including the water bottle? He couldn’t be so angry that he was willing to undertake a suicide mission. Maybe if she sat tight and waited, he would come walking back through those trees.
She pulled out the packet of salmon jerky and ate two pieces, though she could easily have devoured the last of it, despite the awful fishiness. She took a few careful sips of water because who knew how long it would take to find another source.
After just enough food to make her realize how completely ravenous she was, she lay back on the tarp, closed her eyes, and waited.
And waited. And waited. And waited some more.
She couldn’t bear it—the way the sun was rising, and how she was unable to do the only thing that ever made her feel better: move.
Sam didn’t seem to be coming back, though hours passed. Maybe he was lost. Maybe he had deserted her. Either way, she couldn’t sit here for the rest of her life, or the rest of her life could be considerably shortened.
Gathering up her things, she forced herself away from fear and toward determination. I will see my family again. I will get back to the trail and walk the rest of the way to Georgia.
In the widest stretch of dirt leading off between the trees, the closest thing to a path, McKenna could see Sam’s footprints. She set off to follow them. At some point, the footprints stopped; they didn’t disappear, just tapered off, blending into a confusing assortment of other footprints. For a moment, the multiple prints comforted McKenna—this must be a part of the woods where other people had walked—but she quickly realized they probably belonged to her and Sam from yesterday. They must have been going in circles, like those kids in The Blair Witch Project. Courtney had made McKenna watch that movie, and McKenna had rebelled against the blatant attempts to terrify her, refusing to lose a wink of sleep remembering the over-the-top images. Now, five years after watching it, she finally felt afraid. What could be worse than walking in circles through the woods, trapped, never finding your way out? She wondered if that movie had taken place in the Smoky Mountains.
She stopped, shrugged off Sam’s pack, and took a very tiny sip of water. The loss of the other water bottle and filter was brutal. Thank God she had the iodine tablets, but they would only help if she found a new source. Having only one bottle meant she would have to find a new source every thirty-four ounces. She remembered laying all her gear out on her bed back at home, surveying it with Lucy. The giant water jug she’d filled and then pronounced too heavy to carry. Of course she’d been right, there was no way she’d have made it this far with all those gallons. But just now, the tiniest bit of water wetting her dry lips, she remembered how carelessly she had glugged all that water into her bathtub, the sound it made, and the bubbles that formed under the collapsible plastic. To live in a world with a roof, always a few steps away from a faucet, seemed like a luxury only found in dreams.
“Sam!” she called at the top of her lungs. The sound bounced back to her in an almost echo, the forest especially still after such a loud noise. Nothing.
“SAM, YOU IMPULSIVE ASS! ARE YOU OUT THERE?”
More of nothing, just nothing, not even creatures rumbling behind the trees. It made her feel something too close to despair to think about her house, or her family. Or even Sam. So instead she decided to think about the stuff she had brought along, the stuff she’d carried all this way and left at the campsite yesterday. Her Keen sandals, her worse-for-wear-but-still-cute skort, the compass she hadn’t learned how to use, the bird book, the copies of Walden and The Ice at the Bottom of the World. Her cookstove and pot, plus her gloves and her cash and the Visa whose bills went to her parents. The stuff of survival. In her mind, she apologized to every last item, swearing with grim determination that she’d get back to it.
“Compass, Keens, books,” she muttered as a sort of mantra, walking furiously, the second-nature rhythm of one foot after the other. “I will get back to you.”
• • •
But hours later, exhausted, the sun breaking her heart as it started its trip to the other side of the world, McKenna didn’t know if she’d made any progress at all. The patterns of trees and branches, the lack of a path, the trunks of trees: it all looked the same. When she could see through the trees, it was only layer upon layer of lush mountains that would have been beautiful if they hadn’t represented an endless expanse for her to stay lost in.
The campsite could be steps away or it could be miles. If she had that compass now, she would definitely figure out how to use it. She imagined it in the palm of her hand, the gorgeous brass weight of it, pointing her back to the trail.
She refused to think about Sam, in his duct-taped sneakers, without water. Wasn’t that his own doing?
The only high point of the day came when she found a stream. In that moment she’d experienced something like joy, downing what was left in her bottle and then filling it back up. The water looked so clear and felt so cold, she was almost tempted not to waste iodine tablets. She thought that was something Sam would do, she could almost hear his voice next to her, making fun of her for thinking such precautions were worth bothering with. You’re going to die of thirst waiting for the pills to work.
She plunked the tablets into the bottle defiantly, then rested for thirty minutes, grateful for the one bit of technology she had left: her watch. Then she drank long and deep, replenishing herself before dipping the bottle again, filling it to the brim, and adding two more tablets.
• • •
Hours later, the sun had made its final bow, and McKenna trudged on in darkness. She heard an owl in the distance, and stumbled over a tree root, landing in the dirt, catching herself with her hands and scraping her palms. Sitting up on her knees, she gave it one last try for the day.
“Sam!” she yelled. “Sam! Are you out there?”
The forest answered with that same infuriating stillness, the birds all gone to bed, the crickets and frogs all gone for the winter. McKenna pulled her cap down over her ears, and reached for the sweater Sam had left behind, not bothering with the tarp or food, but forcing herself to take a few swallows of water before closing her eyes. Sleep rushed in at a remarkable pace, the full force of her mental and physical exhaustion taking over.
Then, from somewhere off in the distance, a sound. Almost like a voice, like someone calling out. She sat up and listened, waiting for it to come again.
“Sam!” she called into the darkness. And then, from her diaphragm, as loud as she could: “SAM!”
Nothing. It must have been her imagination. Or the owl. She lay back down and fell into a dead sleep almost before her head hit the cold, hard ground.
• • •
Twelve hours earlier: Sam sauntered away from where McKenna lay sleeping. Every ten feet or so, he stopped to mark a tree. If felt like something McKenna would do, taking precautions. It took him longer than he thought it would to find water; by the time he reached the mountain stream, the sun was high in the sky. He peeled off his wool coat and knelt down, cupping his hands and slurping the water, then splashing it onto his face before drinking more. It tasted cold and perfect and clean. Then he baited his hook and dropped the fishing line. Much as he’d enjoyed the water’s temperature, now he hoped it wasn’t too cold for the fish.
As he waited for a bite, he imagined McKenna, who must be awake by now. Maybe she’d be making a fire, confident he’d be bringing back breakfast. He tried to remember if they’d brought matches with them when they left their campsite.
Finally something bit, but when he pulled it out, it was a tiny trout. If a ranger had come along, he would have written him a handful of tickets—for fishing out of season and without a license, for keeping an undersized fish. Which would have been fine with Sam because then the ranger
could lead them to safety, and Sam wouldn’t pay the tickets anyway.
It had to be close to noon by now, so one undersized trout would have to do. He’d already left McKenna alone too long; she’d be getting antsy and worried. Sam killed the fish with a knife through the eye. He’d always thought it was mean the way his father and brother would let the fish flop and gasp their way to death, drowning in oxygen.
The last tree he’d marked had been about ten paces back. The question was, from which direction, exactly, had he taken those paces? The trees surrounding the stream looked more alike than he wanted to admit.
Over there—that tulip tree, he was sure he’d walked right past it. He hooked the fish to his pocket and headed that way. Three or four trees down, a magnolia, he’d made one of his etches there, he was sure of it.
Time ticked by. He walked from tree to tree. Here! He was sure he’d made the mark on this oak, a piece of bark freshly shaved, revealing pale white wood underneath. But when he walked in the direction he was sure he’d come from, noting the sun’s position in the sky, he realized the mark might have been natural, made by a squirrel or woodpecker. He should have thought of a more distinctive way to mark the trees, something more clearly man-made.
“McKenna?” he called, hoping he was closer than he realized. All he heard in reply was a rustle, some little rodent running away. The air was cold but Sam brushed a clammy film of sweat off his forehead. He should have taken another drink of water from that stream. Noticing a patch of edible violets, he ate a handful, then pocketed a few more handfuls to give to McKenna along with the fish. Not much of a breakfast, but still a breakfast—with protein even—to keep them going until they could find their campsite.
He wondered: How long would she wait for him? Sitting tight, being still, was not her specialty. It wouldn’t take her long to decide he was lost and come looking for him.
After what seemed like a few hours, he decided to scrap the plan of finding his way back to where they’d slept. No way McKenna would still be there. By now she’d have marched off in full rescue mode. Picturing it made him smile a little. He’d do what she was doing—try to find his way back to their first campsite with the fire pit. They’d either meet up there or bump into each other on the way.
Turning around in the right direction—he was sure of it now—he set out walking, feeling bad that McKenna was stuck carrying the pack, and also wishing they hadn’t lost that second water bottle.
Every once in a while he’d call out, “Mack!” but it was so depressing not hearing any reply that before long he stopped. He found an ash berry tree and ate a few handfuls, but that, along with the flowers, only made him hungrier. If he hadn’t eaten anything, his body would have clicked into that mode of no expectation, which he was pretty familiar with by now. But the thin flora opened up his stomach to the idea of food without doing much to satisfy it. He wouldn’t eat the fish, though, he was saving that for McKenna, and anyway he had no way to start a fire. He went ahead and ate the berries, since he was pretty sure she didn’t like them anyway. Then he continued walking. He’d find McKenna by late afternoon, and they’d eat the fish together.
• • •
Sound travels strangely through forests, with rock walls and trees of varying heights. Sam thought he heard McKenna’s voice, but when he called back, he didn’t get an answer. Either the wind was carrying sound in his direction but not vice versa, or he wanted to hear her voice so badly that he thought he had.
By the time the sun sank to late-afternoon level, the fish had started to stink. Sam sat down on a fallen log and pulled it off the hook to examine it. His head was dizzy with dehydration. His hunger had reached the bearable point where his body was tamping down the sensation, but he knew he was going to have a hard time continuing on without any calories. This did not make the idea of a raw trout any more appealing, but he took out his knife and cut into it, picking out flaky pieces of flesh and downing it like pills, not chewing, just trying to get the protein into his body. Directly across from where he sat there was a small ring of mushrooms growing out of the dirt, yellow mushrooms with little brown flecks. He thought they might be blushers. The caps were a little small, but maybe that was because of the altitude. Sam threw what was left of the raw, semi-rancid fish aside and plucked a couple mushrooms from the dirt. He’d only eat a couple, enough to keep him going.
About half an hour later, as he tried to figure out what he’d actually eaten, his brain wasn’t making the right connections. Trees started multiplying.
“Who the hell put so many trees in this forest?” he said out loud, and then laughed. He tried to lean against one, but it turned out to be the one damned spot for miles without a tree. He stumbled, crashing sideways. When he hit the ground, he heard it, very clearly this time:
“SAM, YOU IMPULSIVE ASS!”
He knew he was out of it enough to hallucinate McKenna’s voice. But he probably wouldn’t hallucinate the impulsive ass part.
“Mack,” he yelled, but the voice that came out of his dry throat was a sad little squawk. His stomach churned. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get to his feet. When he opened his mouth to try again, instead of McKenna’s name, out came a steady gush of vomit. He turned onto his hands and knees, retching, until his body had completely emptied. Then he crawled a few feet away and collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Time had done a funny slide. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been out here. It was both good and bad that he’d puked, getting rid of the poison, but also getting rid of any nourishment, any fluids. He felt bone-dry. He was exhausted and depleted. He needed to get up.
The mushrooms may have left his body, but they hadn’t quite let go of his brain. The sun widened and narrowed through the trees. He imagined it jeering at him. A big joke.
For the first time in his life, something mattered, and Sam had managed to screw it up so royally. If McKenna were here she would point out how well he’d done all those months on the trail, and now that he’d gone off it, everything was going to hell. But it wasn’t McKenna, it was the sun that went ahead and scolded him.
“You thought you were invincible,” the sun said. “You thought the rules didn’t apply to you. You thought you were smarter than the whole damn world.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered, and when he passed out, it felt like falling straight through the earth, letting it close on top of him, covering him up forever.
• • •
Later—he wasn’t sure how much later—Sam opened his eyes to flatter light and a clearer head. He took a moment to blink up into the trees, feeling relieved that he was still alive, and then dismayed at everything he would have to do to stay that way. He was so tired.
Still, he got to his feet and did the only thing he could think of. He started walking. He thought about calling out to McKenna again, but remembering the earlier croak of his voice, he decided to preserve his energy until he knew she was close by.
Sam himself was wrecked. And yet his body moved, doing what it had been doing for so many months now, moving forward. Sam thought that if his heart stopped beating right here, his body would keep walking, one foot after the other, until his flesh decayed, peeling off his bones, his skeleton continuing its never-ending march.
Jeez, he thought. You’re turning into one of your own damn ghost stories.
Paying attention to the darkening sky and the dropping temperature, Sam waited until the last possible moment to untie the wool jacket from his waist and button it to his chin. He wished he’d taken McKenna up on her offer to buy him a hat. Not to mention boots—the duct tape was flapping on the ground as he walked. He wished a lot of things, none of which would do him any good as the sky got dark.
“Mack!” he finally called out. The sound of her voice was the only thing that could convince him to keep moving. The sky was so damned dark, no houses, no electric lights anywhere to light it up
. He started to sink to the ground again, he would just lie down for a quick nap and hopefully not freeze to death.
And then he heard it again. “Sam! Are you out there?”
He scrambled to his feet. Damn. McKenna needed to yell again. Didn’t she know that? Once for him to hear. Then again for him to figure out the direction she was calling from.
“MACK!” he yelled. “Mack, is that you?”
No answer. He walked a few feet forward in the dark, planning on calling out again, but before he could gather his voice, he was plunging downward. So instead of saying Mack, he just kind of screamed, his back scraping against rocks and roots. He couldn’t tell how far the drop was.
He landed with a horrible pop—the noise a snapping branch would make, except in this case the snapping was somewhere inside his body, in the vicinity of his ankle.
She must have heard him. “Sam!” This time it rang out, clear and definite.
“Mack,” Sam said, the sound pitiful. Maybe he could’ve mustered it, if he really tried, but he didn’t want to draw her toward him and bring her tumbling down the same rocky incline. Stay where you are, Mack, he thought. Don’t risk your life searching for me. I’m fine right where I am.
As if he’d summoned them, a pack of coyotes picked up from somewhere in the woods, their yips rising over one another’s and up toward the moon. McKenna would hear them and think she’d imagined his voice. She’d be tired, her mind playing tricks on her.
And then the pain moved from his ankle to shoot through his whole body, taking over, leaving no room for other thoughts or even worry. For the second time that long and horrible day, Sam passed out cold.
McKenna woke up floating above a clear, wide lake. Her first impression, when she opened her eyes, was that she was right on the verge of plunging out of the sky and into the water.
The Distance from Me to You Page 19