Survivor Girl

by Erin Teagan

“Reckless.”

  “People love you though, Dad. They love the show. That’s what matters. That’s what you’ve said all along.” Now’s not the time to talk about this. As angry as I am about what this show has done to our family, about the lies and the separation, he’s still my dad.

  He groans, reaching for his leg. “If they love me for being someone I’m not, do they really love me at all?”

  His words hit me in the gut.

  “I don’t want to be remembered as a fraud.”

  Clouds are moving in and clumping together, and a streak of fear runs up my spine because it almost looks like smoke. The sun is gone.

  Dad is drowsy again, dozing off, and I lift his head from my lap and gently slide out from under it. I kick a boot into the soft earth, pushing myself halfway up the gully wall to peek at the swamp around us. I strain to listen and hear a faint beating sound in the distance. Is that the helicopter? Does that mean the others have been rescued? And we’ll be next? I look back at Dad, sleeping now, pale and sweating.

  I climb up the muddy wall and an unnatural heat settles over me. When I look out, there is smoke in the distance, inching toward us. I don’t see flames, but there’s a creeping red glow, close to the ground, moving like lava.

  Peat fire.

  Just like Adam said. The fire has gone underground. And we’re directly in its path. A tree falls in the distance and I watch in horror as it catches fire after hitting the ground.

  “Dad!” I dive back into the ditch, half sliding, half tumbling. I shake him and he barely stirs, flapping his eyes open for only a second before drifting off again. “Dad! The fire’s back!”

  I’m spinning around, looking for anything that can save us. How long do I have? Where can we go? How far to the lake? I grab Dad by the arms, pulling them over his head, trying to move his dead weight. He jerks awake, the movement agony to him. “Dad! You have to help me! The fire!”

  I get close to his face. “You’re Survivor Guy, Dad. You can get us out of here. What do we do?”

  He’s quiet.

  “What would your writers say to do?” I’m yelling at him, shaking his shoulders. “What would Grandpa do?”

  There’s a loud THWAMP! and the ground vibrates. Another tree fall. The peat fire must be eating the roots of the trees.

  I grab Dad under his arms. “We have to get out of here. Help me!”

  But I can’t even budge him from his spot in the mud. And I know I’m running out of time, my face burning not just from panic but from the heat of the fire. I try gripping his hands, pulling his arms over his head again. We move an inch. I pull again and Dad shrieks with pain, but we move another inch. I pull faster and harder, ignoring his screams. Can someone die from the pain of a broken leg?

  The gully is filling with smoke. I cover my mouth with my shirt, but I need both hands to pull, so I let it fall from my face and try to take shallow breaths. The smoke envelops me, and I feel claustrophobic. I can barely keep my eyes open, the smoke stinging and burning. I pull Dad toward the puddle in the middle of the gully that I hope will turn into a creek and lead us to the lake.

  The splint Claire made for his leg starts to unravel. I stop to tie the netting tighter, reposition the sticks so they’ll stay. We need to move faster. “Dad, can you use your good leg to lift your body off the ground when I pull? Ready?”

  He’s quiet, not really talking, but the next time I slide him toward the watery ground, he bends his good leg and helps push. We move almost a foot, my eyes tearing from the smoke. I can’t believe this is happening.

  The earth is getting muddier, slippery, and it’s harder to find footing and pull Dad through the muck. And the gully is too narrow to risk staying put, too close to the fire that has reignited around us, no longer creeping, but leaping into flames. I tug at him again and again and again, blocking his yelps from my eardrums, hoping Claire can fix him up, knowing the fire will mean certain death.

  The muck becomes a puddle. I drag him through it, in the direction I think the lake should be. And the puddle turns into a bog. The bog a stream. Chocolate water, our savior.

  When the water is up to my waist, I try to float Dad next to me, but he’s kicking his good leg, dragging his bad leg on the floor of the creek, and can’t relax and lie back. I heave his weight onto my shoulder and I count each step, telling myself I can take one more, my muscles threatening to collapse. The water is deeper, almost to my chest. Our gully is now a narrow interior ditch. We must be getting closer to the lake, and yet the fire seems to have grown; the heat feels unbearable on my face. I worry that as the wind picks up, the flames will be able to reach us. So I keep us moving.

  “Dad?” He’s not answering.

  It’s hard to keep him above the water. He’s slipping from my shoulder and I’m not strong enough to hoist him onto my back.

  “Dad, on the count of three hold your breath,” I plead. He doesn’t respond. “One! . . . Two! . . . Three!” I dunk us under the water and maneuver him onto my back, pulling his arms over my shoulders as we come back up, sputtering, spitting. I stagger. He is so heavy, his whole weight on my back. I take slow steps, wondering how the rescuers will find us now that we’ve moved. Wondering if I will have to sleep another night in this Dismal Swamp. How will I ever get us through this?

  The flames are smaller now, burning out around us, the fire moving on. But the smoke is thick and choking.

  And then suddenly, the water becomes too deep to keep my footing, the muck beneath me falling away. I lurch forward, the weight of my dad pushing me under. I can’t find the bottom of the ditch again. It’s like a giant hole has opened up underneath us and I’m kicking at nothingness, holding my breath, my lungs burning for air. I try to roll Dad off my back, but what if I lose him in the chocolate darkness? I pinch him hard in the side. Kicking. Flailing.

  I pinch him again, and I feel the weight on my back lighten, just enough to get myself oriented, put a foot on the soft swamp floor and stand upright. But Dad is thrashing, his body still submerged, unable to stand on his damaged leg. I grab him, hoist him up, and reach for a thick root sticking out of the side of the ravine. He’s coughing. We’re both coughing. Gagging on the smoke-filled air.

  “Leave me here,” he whispers.

  “Never.”

  And then he drifts into unconsciousness again, his eyes closing. And I’m Survivor Girl. One girl, no camera, miles and miles of unforgiving wilderness.

  I just wonder how this episode will end.

  Thirty-Five

  I move more carefully now, slower, spooked from our near drowning and dizzy with thirst and fear. Dad is so still, I can finally float him on his back. I hear a splash in the water up ahead. My knees weaken and I bring him closer to me like he can offer some kind of protection.

  “Isabel?” he says, eyes still closed.

  “Ali. It’s me, Ali.”

  There’s another splash, and I picture a thousand-pound alligator swimming toward us. And I have nowhere to go, the banks of the ditch still glowing with fire, Dad in no condition to help.

  The smoke is thick and has settled on the water, making it impossible to see more than a foot in front of me. But I hear the splashes getting closer. Rhythmic. It’s a good swimmer, whatever it is. I take steps backward, pulling Dad with me. But, really, what’s that going to do? Delay the inevitable by a second?

  I scream. It’s loud and shocking in the quiet of the forest. Dad flails in alarm. “Ali?”

  “Hello?” someone calls from the smoke. “Is someone there?”

  “Me! Me! I’m here!” It’s a human. An actual human voice and not a man-eating alligator. “Help!”

  The tip of a rowboat appears in front of us. “We’re right here!”

  “Are you with Survivor Guy? Are you injured?”

  I see a face now, wearing a white mask.

  “My dad,” I say, keeping him afloat with one arm, latching myself onto the boat with the other so it can’t go anywhere. “My dad has a broken
leg. He needs to get out of here.”

  “We’ve been looking for you.” The man opens up a bag and pulls out two more masks. “Put these on.”

  I take one and slide the other over Dad’s head. His eyes are still closed; he probably doesn’t even know we’re getting rescued. We get him in the boat first, the man hauling him up by his arms and me cradling his legs. I get pulled in behind him. The man lays Dad out on the floor of the boat as best he can and covers him with a foil blanket. I sit on the other plank seat with a foil blanket of my own, shaking even though I feel warm. The man hands me a granola bar and a jug of water, but it’s like I forget what I’m supposed to do with them.

  “Is everyone safe?” I ask. “The little girl and her mom? Adam? Jake?”

  He pats his walkie-talkie. “Heard they landed a few minutes ago. Had trouble getting them out with the fire restarted.”

  “What about everyone else on the helicopter yesterday?”

  “Fine, other than supremely worried about the rest of y’all.”

  Relief. I move my mask to take a drink of water, feeling the coolness all the way to my stomach. “Can you tell them my dad needs an ambulance?”

  He nods. “Already taken care of.” He whips out the walkie-talkie and says, “Heading back with two survivors.” I cough, my eyes watering. Survivors.

  “I’m Robbie-Jay, by the way,” he says, turning the boat around and paddling us through the smoke. “Glad I found you guys. The fire’s gone out of control. In the peat now.”

  I straighten. “Robbie-Jay?” I open up my foil blanket, showing him my shirt. “Like this Robbie-Jay?”

  He slaps his knee. “Well, I’ll be darned. Mama said that was y’all lost in the swamp. She knew it. Said you had no preparations for this wild place.”

  “But—she gave me your bug helmet, and said you had it on your last day,” I tell him. “I thought you were dead.”

  Robbie-Jay laughs. “Yessir. Wore it on my last day. My last day as assistant to the assistant park ranger, that is.”

  “You weren’t attacked by a bear?”

  “Nope.”

  “But—”

  “Saw a bear once or twice, though.” Robbie-Jay paddles us out toward Lake Drummond, where the smoke is less dense. “These parts are chock-full of animals. Nothing like the Great Dismal Swamp.” He clears his throat, his eyes gliding over the destruction. “Nothing like it.”

  I watch the swamp pass as we move along the water, out of the interior ditch and across the lake. So much devastation. Just a few days ago, this place was a jungle of green and yellow. The lake alive with fish, the air buzzing with black and yellow flies. And now, everything is so quiet. The trees are mostly black picks sticking up from the soot-covered ground, a few of the biggest and tallest ones still sprouting green leaves at the top, a reminder of what it was like before.

  “Did you know these waters are healin’ waters?” Robbie-Jay says, lifting a paddle, the water running off it. “Olden days, folks used to come fill jugs of it to cure their ailments. Thought it cured everything. Great-Grandpappy cured his foot fungus with one soak here in the lake.”

  I grimace.

  “With time, these waters’ll do their job, you just wait. Heal this place good as new.” He sniffs. “Good as new.”

  But what if there’s so much damage, not even time can heal it? I think with an ache in my chest. Then what?

  I nibble on my granola bar, watch Dad to make sure he’s breathing, and sip the water. Much of the swamp is hidden by smoke, but as we round out of the lake and into the small canal that leads back to the boat launch, I think I see something. The smoke is thinner here, the brush still intact in some places. I look into the woods again, searching, and there she is. A black mountain lion standing on the bank of the lake, partially hidden by the trees, her pink sparkle collar unmistakable.

  I open my mouth to say something to Robbie-Jay, but she’s off with a flick of her tail, pouncing back into the swamp.

  Her swamp. Her freedom.

  Thirty-Six

  “You’ve got some buddies back at the launch,” Robbie-Jay says as we finish the long paddle up the canal, the end of our ordeal in sight.

  I touch Dad’s head. “We’re almost there.” I can see the boat launch where we first entered the swamp. It seems so long ago.

  “Got treated on site for smoke inhalation because they all refused to go without you to the hospital.” Robbie-Jay smiles. “And a few others who were rescued last night. Argued they had to be here in person to see you two come out safe.”

  We paddle into the boat launch area, where the trees are full of leaves and wildflowers are popping up through green grass, untouched by the fire a few miles away in the swamp.

  We come to a stop with a thump against one of the dock bumpers. Jake is there, hand outstretched to pull me out of the canoe. And I’m so surprised and relieved and happy to see him that I nearly burst into tears. Behind him, Claire waits on the grass next to Rick and Adam, Isabel in her arms. There are at least three fire trucks, four ambulances, and just as many police cars in the small parking lot. My foil blanket drops into the water and someone fishes it out for me and someone else hands me a new one, and part of me thinks I’m still in the swamp during the fire and I’m dreaming. Have I been eaten by an alligator? Is this the afterlife?

  Jake hugs me tight. “Glad you’re a better Survivor Girl than a soccer player.”

  “Archery.”

  “I know, I know,” he says, squeezing me tighter.

  “Do you think Mom knows what happened?” I push away from him, my eyes stinging with all that I have to say to her.

  A rescue team shoves through us to get to Dad before he can answer me. They’re moving so fast and I wish I could ask them if he’s going to be okay, but my mind is buzzing and numb, and my hands are shaking, spilling my water bottle.

  They put Dad on a stretcher and his eyes flutter open for a minute. Just enough for him to smile at me. Jake runs with the rescue team to the ambulance. And then an EMT takes my elbow and we follow behind them and I sit in my own ambulance—in the open-doored back of it, not on a stretcher—and they replace my little white mask with a heavy plastic one that sounds like breathing and spits out a fog that tastes sticky-sweet. I close my eyes for a second and when I look up again, Adam is there, pulling my blanket tighter, sitting next to me. And the memory of the last time I sat on the back of an ambulance washes over me: Harper’s seventh birthday party at the fire station.

  I jump when the ambulance next to me turns on its siren. It drives away and my heart beats double time because I know it’s Dad in there. Adam squeezes my shoulders and I wipe my eyes.

  And then Claire is kicking Adam out and sitting next to me, hugging me so hard my mask gets knocked off. “I’m so proud of you, Ali. You put your own life in danger to save your dad. To save Isabel. Thank you. Thank you,” she repeats again and again, until the medic in her takes over and she checks my eyes and listens to my heart and holds my wrist while she whisper-counts to herself. She peels off the old bandage on my head and swaps it out with a clean one.

  “Your dad’s going to be okay,” she says when she’s done. “They’re taking him to the local hospital and most likely they’ll medevac him to a bigger one. He’ll need surgery on his leg. We already know that.”

  I spot Adam back by the canal, next to Rick, and are they standing closer together than normal? Is Adam laughing?

  “Isabel?” I ask, my voice muffled behind the oxygen mask.

  “She might need a few stitches on her ankle,” she says. “The EMTs checked her out and gave her crutches until we get to the hospital. She’s never been happier.”

  “And the animals?”

  Her smile drops. “Saved all but one.” She looks at the ground, wiping her forehead. “They had to leave Pudding behind.”

  Adam is walking back up to us, orange juice and a white paper bag in his hand.

  “I think she’ll be okay,” I say.

 
Isabel hops across the grass on her crutches and Adam stops in front of her, reaching inside his bag and pulling out a giant chocolate chip cookie. Isabel squeals and hobbles off with it.

  “There’s this little old lady with pastries over there,” Adam says, squeezing in on my other side. “I’ve already had like three cinnamon rolls.” He hands me the juice and opens up the bag, revealing giant pastries.

  I take it from him, reading the stamp on the front. SWEET TREAT BAKE SHOP, NOT EVERYTHING’S DISMAL IN THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP. “Look!” I point from my muddied and bedraggled shirt to the bag. “That’s the lady that gave me this shirt! Betsy Sue! Robbie-Jay’s mom!”

  “Where’d you meet her?” Adam asks, taking a bite of doughnut.

  I sip my juice and put my mask back on. “It’s a long story.”

  We watch Isabel as she hops off a rock one-legged on her crutches, holding her cookie.

  “She said you told her the Wild Things story until she fell asleep.” Claire takes a chocolate éclair from the bag. “That’s her favorite book.”

  “Mine too,” I say. “When I was her age.”

  “Well,” Claire says, “I just hope you and Adam know that what you did last night—and Ali, what you did today—was just amazing.”

  Isabel bounces over. “Can I have another cookie, please please please? Look, I’m an eagle!”

  She flaps her crutches like a massive bird, balancing on one foot and nearly taking out an EMT who gets too close. “I don’t think that’s how you use crutches,” I say.

  “You’ve had enough cookies, little one,” Claire adds.

  Isabel grabs my hand. “Do you want to come live with us in our new house?”

  I look at Claire. “New house?”

  “Being on the Survivor Guy crew was a great experience, but”—she pulls her daughter into her lap, her crutches falling to the ground—“I’ve got more important things to think about. Like kindergarten.” She kisses her on the cheek.

  Isabel makes a gross-out face and immediately wipes it off. “I’m not a baby, Mom, I’m like five years old.”