The Longest Night

by K. M. Gibson

  She rested her forehead on her drawn-up knees, taking large breaths as the room closed in. It had been dark outside for hours by now, and they would be knocking down her door at any minute—

  When she heard the distant buzz of shouts and cries, she snapped up. A lump grew in the pit of her stomach. She crawled off the bed and approached the front door slowly. Each step was weighted. With a shaking hand, she gripped the handle, opening it by a sliver.

  From where she stood, she could see clearly out to Thickwood Boulevard. There were flames, flares, flashlights. People brandishing things in their hands like weapons. She froze behind her door, peering out fearfully at the scene. Whatever it was that they discussed at their nightly meeting had led to their militant desires and blood-thirsty demeanour spilling over. They were not going to have a simple discussion with the people across the river.

  Catherine ran around the house, gathering whatever she could carry, including a spatula and old newspaper. Her body tingled as she slipped out the back door and crept across the yard. She was the wife from “Judgement Day,” and all the people with torches and weapons were no longer people.

  The distant sounds of a struggle, or a preempt to one, reached her from the south. She sneaked through the back alley, then headed up the block to the next road. At the mouth of the street she listened for others. Nothing. Nothing. Go. She darted across the street and headed towards the corner store at the end. She had no hope that there was anything edible left, but she couldn’t leave without trying to scavenge something.

  The doors had been shattered long before. She had to carefully duck through the lower gap, making sure not to cut herself on the shattered glass. She ran right to the front counter and tried the hatch to the cigarette display. It snapped up, revealing an entire carton of lighters. She slipped her pack off her shoulders and began to stuff them in by handfuls. Beside the counter was a stand filled with batteries, and she shoved packages of AAs and Ds in frantically as well. All the racks of food were bare, but small trinkets stood like relics on their shelves: aftershave, women’s toiletries, small toys for a dollar, cheap paperbacks. She swept a bit of those off the shelves into her bag too.

  She rounded the corner of the last shelf and started toward the back. She stopped dead in her tracks the moment she saw the man standing at the end over the half-eaten body, blood covering everything. His eyes glowed and his teeth gleamed. Her hands lost feeling and she nearly dropped her bag. She almost didn’t run away. The moment he moved she threw herself at the door.

  “Come back here!” he shouted, his voice contorted with the most terrifying sound she had ever heard. He lunged, colliding with the half empty battery rack as she ran by it. A blood curdling scream filled her lungs when she felt his hand brush her coat. She scrambled out of the broken window clumsily and cut through the dishevelled parking lot, heading west down the empty road, not daring to look back over her shoulder to see if the cannibal was chasing her. The only thing she could hear was her feet pounding on the pavement and the blood rushing past her ears.

  “Come back HERE!” he shrieked as she tore through the trees on the other side. Past the thicket was an empty field, then forest, forest forest, always running, even after she had long left the outskirts of Fort McMurray, left the horrible screams and brutalities behind her.

  She tried not to remember what had happened, but she found that the screaming had subsided long before she stopped dwelling on the past. When she carried on with her hike it was with a heavier step.

  It had been a six week ordeal. Days after her escape she came across the cabin on McClelland Lake, just a few kilometres from the settlement of the same name. Most of the food in the fridge had spoiled, but in the pantry were boxes of macaroni and cheese, cans of tomato paste, graham crackers and marshmallows, and canned rhubarb and strawberries. On the porch, she found packs of potato chips and a few flats of bottled water. It was a treasure trove that lasted her months.

  The cabin was small. One bedroom and one bathroom (which, of course, no longer worked), and the living room and kitchen were connected as one. The house was left relatively unchanged, save for a hole she had carved through the roof above a fire pit she had made in the middle of the living room floor. During the summer, she would collect vast amounts of water from the lake and boil it. Not as good as the bottled water, but she knew to save those for more special occasions. Save. Bide. Preserve. Remain afloat. Survive.

  Baths were far and few between, but when she did bathe, she used a generous amount of dish soap wiped herself down by the fire with a rag. Every time she washed, she saw clearly just how much she was wasting away. In her mind’s eye, she still looked like the healthy Catherine from years ago, back when she was a young, naive student. But as the firelight bounced off her sheet-white skin, she couldn’t help but recognize the veins and bones that were plainly visible now. Her hips, knee and elbow joints moved under constraint of her tight weathered skin, and her ribs created valleys on her body which hadn’t existed before. Her eyes appeared to have sunk to the back of her head, underscored with dark rings. She caught a glimpse of herself in the cracked mirror across from the fire as she bathed, and she stared, fragmented and broken. Who is that? she thought. She ceased to exist; only her withered shell remained.

  Why did she keep going? Perhaps it was only her natural preservation outlawing the thought of death. Perhaps it was because she knew that if she was dead, she could no longer revisit the memories which she held dear. Her childhood. Her mother. Him.

  The desire to feel. Her memories were flashes of light that no one else would experience. They would never be recorded for the benefit of anyone else. Suicide? She couldn’t bear to fail again. But maybe she truly was too scared to die. His face, his eyes on hers…she never wanted to lose that image, no matter how pointless it was to hold onto.

  Time sped up as she meandered, looking down at her feet. She was lost in old thoughts of that time, unable to leave them behind. When the sun was sinking low again, she was dragged back to here and now. Little daylight for travel in the winter, time so precious. She decided she would make camp the moment the sun rolled below the horizon. It meant at least another hour of travelling. She came across a slope and stepped precariously down it.

  A muted groan caught her attention. She turned her head slightly and threw herself off her step, letting the deer and sack drop off her shoulders. She grabbed the gun as it slipped down her arm, pulled it into her grasp and aimed it on the man in the clearing. “Don’t move!” she barked in a scratchy, alien voice. She hadn’t spoken a word in weeks; her throat might as well have been clogged with dust.

  The man who was seated in the snow froze. His back was to her. He wore a hat and a long coat, both midnight black, making him stick out harshly against a sea of white. The seam down the back of his left sleeve was split, down spilling out. He had a large pack on his back, with a machete tied to the side.

  “Get rid of the knife!” she shouted, her voice breaking. She was forced to clear her throat.

  His hand came across his side and he clumsily undid the throng holding the blade to the bag. He groped for it as it fell behind him, then he weakly threw it away with a pained grunt.

  “Turn towards me!” she demanded more clearly, shifting her grip on the shotgun.

  He planted his hands in the snow beside him and began to drag himself around very slowly, breathing with constraint. She spotted blood staining the white snow. She had a white-knuckle grip on the gun until she saw his face.

  Weakness spread in her arms and legs. She fought to stay standing. She lowered the gun and straightened.

  It couldn’t be.

  His laboured breath billowed like thick smoke. His coat was open, revealing his blood-soaked shirt underneath, but despite an injury his face was soft.

  She let the shotgun slip from her grasp. She walked down the slight slope of the valley with slow, misplaced, apprehensive steps. As she approached him, he winced, but his eyes never left hers. He watc
hed her so intently that Catherine felt that he was looking right into her thoughts and reading them.

  She came to a stop by his side and fell to her knees. His brow was still strong, resting over hard eyes with a long elegant nose surrounded by soft, masculine cheeks, underlined by thin lips and an angular jaw, which was covered in a short and relatively clean beard. She looked over his face, studying the small details. It was as if he never had left her on the platform.

  It’s you.

  He let out a ragged breath, his eyes rolled, and he fell back into the snow. Catherine looked him over. The blood stain. She touched it gently, studied his unconscious face, felt her heart cramp.

  She ran hurriedly back up the slope like a newborn foal to her shotgun and bag, and brought them back down. On the way she tore open the sack and pulled out a plastic tarp, a line of rope, water, and a hunting knife. She fanned the tarp out beside him. It fell slowly, too slowly for her urgency. Her hands fought with the cap of the water bottle. Once opened she pushed his shirt up and poured water over his injury sloppily. She then tore off a strip of her shirt with shaking hands, folded it, and placed it against his stomach. Cutting off a piece of rope, she tied the bundle securely to his waist.

  She moved over to his head and took hold of him by his arm pits. She grunted as she hauled him upwards with all her strength and dragged him onto the tarp. He was unbearably heavy for her but she made sure to let him down as gently as possible before picking up his feet and moving them onto the tarp as well. She cut holes in the tarp and tied each end of the rope through the makeshift grommets, creating a rein for her to pull the tarp by. It was when she had tied the last loop that she realized she could not carry her equipment, the man, and the deer at the same time. She looked over to where she had dropped it, and without a second thought’s hesitation, threw her bag and shotgun onto her back, pulled the rope over her head and onto her hips, and left the game behind.

  Manoeuvring through the trees proved difficult, and slowed her progress immensely. But Catherine had never felt more determined, alive, nor more driven since the disaster. For the first time in two years, she smiled.

  3: THE LONGEST NIGHT

  Catherine found a clearing and set the rope down to begin making camp. The sun seemed to set more quickly than usual, and she had to work swiftly to set a fire before it was completely dark. Though her hips were sore from where the rope lay stress on her, she moved about as if she had a full day’s rest and a hearty meal.

  Occasionally she would pause to stare at him as if she were caught off guard by his presence. At any moment, she told herself, she would turn and realize that he was never there, that she was meeting her wits’ end, and she had fabricated him. But he was always there when she looked, and she would feel her heart warm when she did.

  Soon her fire was burning steadily, and by the time the stars appeared, the flames were large enough to keep them warm. She pulled the tarp close and sat next to him. The side of her face closer to the fire did not feel as warm as the side of her body closer to him.

  Eventually, with gnawing anticipation, she gutted her pack for rations. All she had left was the box of crackers she had just salvaged and half a bag of granola mix. She’d been counting on that deer to get her through the next couple of weeks, but it didn’t matter now. She had enough to survive off of back at the cabin, and she could cut rations until she got there. She’d done it before. But before she hadn’t been dragging a well-fed man around on a tarp. Being delayed a day or two hadn’t crossed her mind, and therefore she hadn’t planned for it properly, but how could she have ever prepared herself for something like this? The chances…

  A well-fed man. She stared at him, thoughtful. Propriety was overwhelmed by hunger and she rolled him onto his side, carefully undoing the drawstrings to his bag and peering in.

  Her insides dropped as if she had just won the lottery. Granola bars, instant coffee, cans of beans, water, a water filter, cooking utensils, pots and mugs. What surprised her most of all were the tools. She had no idea what they were or what they were for, but from the looks of them, they were designed to house and measure a sample.

  Why did he have them? How?

  She would have put more thought into this mystery had the food not been shouting at her so loudly. Grabbing a fat granola bar, she tore the plastic wrapper off and devoured it. She moaned softly. Chocolate chips.

  There was more, and she wanted to help herself to it all, unbearably so. But she calmed herself and closed the bag. From her own pack, she grabbed her bottle of water and took a sip, rinsing down the remainder of one of the best meals she had had in a long time.

  She put her bottle away and rolled the man full on his side. She quickly removed the bag from his shoulders, placed it at the foot of the tarp, then gently laid him on his back again. She rested her hands on his shoulders after she righted him, and she took a moment to glance him over. It was hard to move away from the feeling. This was the reason to be alive. He was real.

  She coaxed her hands away, then pushed his cloak aside and lifted up his shirt. His midriff was irritated from the rope being tied so tightly around it, and the rag that covered his wound was soaked through with blood. She tore another strip from her shirt and redressed the wound, then studied her shoddy handiwork. There was more she should do and something wrong she must have been doing. The past two years had been hers by luck. Her first aid knowledge was as sparse as her rations. But she didn’t need to know much to understand that he had a poor chance of surviving if she didn’t treat his wound soon. There was a needle and thread at the cabin, as well as some alcohol for cleaning. Now she wished she had taken the kit with her, at least just this once. Maybe she could travel nonstop to McClelland Lake. That meant travel by night, if she could make it work.

  He gave a mild shiver, a muted groan. She stared. Still asleep. Still shivering.

  She stood and grabbed the head of the tarp, dragging it into the tent. The fire’s warmth still reached them there, but it wasn’t enough. Taking out her second blanket, she fanned it out over him. Then hesitated.

  Of all the concerns she had had, embarrassment now trumped them all. Catherine would not be able to sleep outside the tent without the blankets. It would be for survival, it would be to keep each other warm. She felt it in her belly, and it kept her pinned, hovering, so hesitant.

  To delay the inevitable she secured her goods and his, disassembled part of the gun like she knew how to clean it then put it back together, checked the perimeter twice, checked their bags were well secured again, then took care of the fire. There was nothing left for it. In the darkness she felt better about it. If he did wake, he wouldn’t see.

  Timidly she climbed into the tent and under the blanket. She did not move for several minutes, but when his shivers got worse, she shuffled until her hip touched him, then she moved his arm, climbing into the crook. Finally she rested her head on his chest and slowly placed her leg and arm over him ever so shyly.

  He continued to convulse gently, occasionally calling out. Eventually he stilled. The entire time she was wrapped around him she felt as if she was violating a fundamental rule that of course everyone knew not to sully. She sorted through these justifications as her eyes grew heavy, and mid-thought she slipped into an unprecedented sleep.

  Catherine nervously made her way down the steps. She had never ridden the trains. School used to always be within walking distance. Now it was off to university: time for adult responsibilities and new faces. Unfamiliar territory.

  There were others there that were most obviously going to their first day of post-secondary as well. Being in a collective made her feel more secure but she still took the most open and free spot, keeping her head down.

  Since she was early she grabbed a free paper from the stacks behind her, as she eventually would do almost every morning at the station, in order to pass the time. Another group of people came down to the platform and she looked up to see if there was anyone she may know. Her eyes fell upon s
omeone from the back of the line, and her eyes flickered in a slight double-take. He was talking to another man animatedly about something.

  Stop staring.

  She looked at the words on the page. As she attempted to decipher the same sentence for the third time, she found herself focusing on the argument again. She tried so hard not to stare. Instead she listened to his every word as he crossed her path. His voice was deep and smooth. It demanded attention.

  “It’s not a matter of ethics. It’s a matter of scientific approach. They simply don’t know up from down in our field. We could end up with disastrous results if they don’t even bother to consult another firm.”

  The other man made a reply, but Catherine could barely hear what he said. She dared a glance from her paper. Each step he took seemed perfectly placed, so justified. His eyes were hard, dark and framed by an equally firm brow, as if he wore an impenetrable outer shell and would not let anyone in.

  The two men came to a stop by the schedules, under the inactive heat lamp. The second man finished his rebuttal, and the stranger’s face only seemed to get harder.

  “Even if that’s the case, they’re risking results for budget. What good will come of that? They’ll have to do it over again anyhow. Their screwing around could end the project. Everything we’ve been working on…”

  The second man once again fell deaf on her ears. She continued to watch the first closely, to study the side of his face that she could see, as if she were determined to find any betrayal of thought.

  Eventually the southbound train pulled into the station and the two men boarded. She watched him as he was swallowed by the crowd of passengers, and she let out a breath, shaking her head.