The Longest Night

by K. M. Gibson

  “We’ll just wait here until they’re gone. Then we’ll get you some medicine.”

  He leaned against her heavily, his breathing slow.

  Her ankle caught a root from under the snow and she tumbled forward. Her landing was muted by the snow, at least two feet deep. It caught her and held her, surrounded her in a loving embrace. It would be easy for her to fall asleep there. Her eyes became harder to open and her arms became too weak to move. Death in comfort.

  But he needed her now. She lifted herself from the snow, re-situated the rope, and kept moving, fighting off the fatigue.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Catherine stated to herself. With those words, she felt the rush again. He really was alive. When the earthquakes hit, she knew implicitly that if she were never to see her mother again then there was no chance she would ever see him again either. Perhaps that was why her memory of him was so honed: because she knew if she let it go, it would be forever. Memory is all she was here for. It didn’t have to be anymore.

  Despite the fact she pushed herself forward, Catherine knew she had to rest, at least to get some food and water into her stomach. Otherwise, she might not be able to stand the next time she fell over. So she stopped again, put the tarp to rest by a thick tree and sat herself against it, letting her pack and her shotgun to drop from her shoulders gently. She fished around in the bag for her trail mix and ate quietly, gazing upon the man’s face from the indirect light of her flashlight.

  His head flinched gently to the side towards Catherine, and his eyes opened. “You must be hungry,” she said, grabbing her mix and a bottle of water from her pack before she shimmied closer.

  “Very,” he replied, and he perched himself up on his elbows. He flinched, something he tried to hide. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he ran a hand gently over his wound. She shot her eyes away when she was sure he was aware of her watching him, and held the bag of mix out to him.

  “I have food in my bag,” he said, reaching to the pack that was resting on his lap.

  “Oh. Um. When you were out, I had some granola bars.” She stared at her hands sheepishly. “I couldn’t help myself…I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said as he worked at the drawstrings of his pack. “I’ve been spoiled with our food supply at the park. I might have done the same, were I you.”

  He opened his pack, grabbed an aluminium bag and attempted to open it, but shifted awkwardly from elbow to elbow in the attempt.

  She watched him for a while, then reached over timidly, her hands brushing his as she grabbed both sides of the package and pulled it open. She withdrew her hands slowly, avoiding his eyes as she uncapped the bottle of water and placed it beside him.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly, and she flicked her eyes between her hands and his face, offering a small smile. She was afraid that she had made him uncomfortable by helping him, but as she caught small glimpses of his face, she found the same softness that puzzled her since their last day at the station.

  They ate in silence. She ate and drank with care, self-conscious of someone else seeing how she consumed. Once done, she delicately put her waste back in her bag.

  “I’ll change your dressings while we’re stopped,” she said. Without meeting his eyes, she moved closer and pushed away his coat and shirt. She carefully untied the rope, laying it aside as she removed the dirtied rag. Blood had dried all over his stomach, none of it fresh. It was a relief to see. She undid her cloak and tore another piece from her shirt, her face feeling hot as she looked at her exposed midriff. The winter air was biting but she could hardly feel it.

  “You’re so thin,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingers over the edge of her coat next to her exposed stomach. Something fast swept down to her gut. Her eyes shot up at his for only a split second before she averted them again and continued to fix his dressing, keeping silent.

  “Are you ready?” she asked as she replaced his shirt and coat back over his newly replaced bandage. She didn’t meet his eyes, but she saw him nod in her peripherals.

  She swung her equipment over her shoulders, buttoned up her coat, and stepped into the rein, fitting it over her hips once again. She pulled the tarp along steadily, neither of them saying a thing. The feeling still stirred in her stomach, and she clung to it, trying to keep it alive for as long as possible.

  She sat at her desk, running her hands through her long brown locks. Her laptop screen illuminated the room, and a cursor blinked periodically behind the last word she typed into the word document. Her story was nearly complete, but she couldn’t think of an ending. Would it be happy? Sad? Or would she think of an ending dissimilar to most, one that was more likely, more believable, less enchanted?

  1:53 a.m. She should have been working on her assignments that were coming due or she should have been in bed. School was but within a few hours. Even if she tried to sleep, she would lay there with her eyes closed, seeing new moments, tying together different arcs, hearing beautiful allusions. By writing her story, she felt that she was being drawn closer to him, becoming something more real. She knew that it was dangerous for her.

  There was a gentle knock on her door, and Catherine jumped in her seat, surprised by the sudden interruption. She hit the save key and closed her laptop swiftly, darkening the room.

  “Yes?”

  “Catherine, it’s two o’clock in the morning,” her mother said sternly through her bedroom door. “What’re you doing awake?”

  “I…” Catherine started, and swivelled in her seat, looking for an excuse somewhere in the dark. “Couldn’t sleep,” she finished lamely.

  She heard her mother lean against the door and sigh heavily. “May I come in?”

  She made sure that there was no possible way that her mother would know that she was writing. No one knew that she was working on a side project to begin with, save for her ex-boss. She deemed herself safe then gave her mother admittance.

  Her mother gently pushed open the bedroom door, a silhouette in the hallway. “You wanna talk?”

  Catherine hesitated. “Sure.”

  Her mother flicked on the light, stinging Catherine’s eyes and making her squint. Her mother moved to sit on the bed next to the desk. “Something has been wrong with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know you try to hide it, but something is taking you away from day to day things. And it’s been going on long before you quit your job.” She looked away – her mother didn’t know she had been fired.

  She leaned in close, studying her daughter’s face from an angle. “You’re different.”

  A weak retort bubbled in Catherine’s throat. That’s not true. I don’t know what you’re talking about. But as she listened to those things simmer on her tongue, she suddenly felt guilty for the way she’d been living her life, fathoming how true it really was. “I’m sorry.” Her words were watery.

  Her mother straightened on the bed, and sighed with an air of concern. “What is it that’s bothering you?”

  She looked to her desk, trying to come up with an excuse. She couldn’t tell her mother, nor could she tell anyone. But she chided herself; she was writing a book on what she held most dear, on who she was, and she would share it with strangers but not her mother.

  “Were you in love with my father?” Catherine asked suddenly, keeping her eyes to the floor. The moment she asked the question, she wished she could take it back.

  Her mother stiffened in such a way that Catherine could feel it. She turned away slowly and remained silent.

  “I know…you hate to talk about him, Mom,” Catherine said gently, suddenly feeling she had set off on the wrong foot. “But you’ve never told me anything about him, and sometimes I feel…I don’t really know anything about you.”

  The words came slowly. “I loved your father very, very much. So much so that I feel the same about him now as I did twenty years ago.” She turned to her daughter again, but Catherine still couldn’t summon the courage to look her
in the eye. “I’m sorry I don’t talk about him often, but I can’t. It still hurts, if you can believe me. Do you understand?”

  The tone in her mother’s voice made her look up at last. There was such a stony reserve in her mother’s eyes, but it was shaky, on the verge of crumbling.

  Would this happen to her? She swallowed thickly then asked: “Well…what was it like?”

  Her lips twitched in a bit of a smile. “Sublime.” A hint of defeat was in her eyes. “At first I thought it was a mental disorder, the way I cared for him. It didn’t seem like it was normal for anyone to be feeling such a way about someone. But it wasn’t perverse, or even abnormal. It was unfathomable in a beautiful sort of way. Looking back, I know it was.” Her voice quivered dangerously on the last words, and she looked away again.

  Catherine looked away again and closed her eyes. “That’s how I feel,” Catherine said weakly.

  There was a pause where her mother simply looked upon her, wondering. “There’s a boy?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Catherine choked on a short laugh. “I don’t know.”

  “Ah,” her mother replied slowly, knowingly. “I would advise you to get to know this person…but I know that everyone has their limits, and you shouldn’t go beyond yours. If you feel safe at a far distance, Catherine, then stay your distance. If it causes you pain, let it go. But if you feel happy feeling what you feel, then stay. Just don’t block everyone out at the same time.”

  Catherine still looked at the floor, and tears welled up in her eyes. Had she blocked out everyone? First her job, then her friends – even her own mother, the one person she loved?

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated weakly, breaking. “Don’t let me push you away.”

  Her mother’s hands were no stronger than hers, but she was able to pull Catherine easily to the bed to hold her. Catherine cried softly into her mother’s shoulder, letting herself go. “Don’t let me let you go.”

  “You’ll never get far,” her mother whispered as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “You’ll never get too far from me.”

  She had turned off the flashlight that was tucked under her arm and she placed it back into her pocket as the rising sun made black turn to blue. “We’re almost there,” she repeated to herself again, this time with a slur. “Keep going.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was awake or not, but there was no reply, regardless. Catherine watched her feet plunge into the snow and drag across the thickness of white. In, across, in, across. It was hypnotic, easy to stop thinking. Until she saw a familiar plunge in the snow where her tracks had been before. She looked up, recognizing the trees around her.

  She yanked the tarp more fiercely, breath coming quickly, a pressure in her chest. Within minutes, she rounded the trail, and in the early blue-lit sky, she saw the cabin standing guard before the long, still lake.

  The night was over.

  4: SONG OF SOLOMON

  She made the final lunging steps to the cabin and pulled the tarp right up to the door. When she let go of the rope it stayed imbedded in her hips. When she pulled it off a sharp, ripping pain made her grit her teeth. To her surprise the man was awake and met her eyes with half a smile when she turned. “You were lucky,” he said drowsily.

  “Yes,” she replied. She would have died without this shelter. He was lucky too. “Can you stand?”

  The man propped himself up on his elbows again and winced as he moved his legs, trying to lift himself into a sitting position. He yelped and fell down, gasping, a hand hovering over his wound.

  She knelt, dropped her gun and pack and pulled his arm over her shoulders. “Will you be able to help me?”

  He nodded, gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut.

  She pushed as hard as she could, and even as she started to lift him, she knew he was far too much for just her, she would surely injure herself, yet still she was raising him. He screamed, hissing through his teeth, stumbling to support himself. He leaned heavily on her, and somehow she turned him towards the door. She shot out her hand to shove the door open, punching it by accident, cracking all her knuckles. It stung, but she hardly had the time to pay it any mind. She stumbled directly for the couch and dropped him on it ungracefully. He gave a hoarse shout. She helped him right himself. Though it was cold her hands were slick with sweat in her gloves. “My first aid is in the bathroom.” She grabbed the small box from beneath the sink and hurried back, turning on her flashlight as she went. She sat beside him on the ruined couch, unlatching the lid to the box. She moved to collect some things, when his strong and steady hand covered hers.

  “I have some training,” he said with strain, looking her in the eye as she looked up at him with surprise. “If you can get a mirror, it would help me.”

  She didn’t respond immediately, but she nodded, and pulled her fingers out from beneath his hand.

  The shattered mirror standing across from the couch had a perfect shard sitting on the bottom corner. She plucked it from the mirror’s frame. The man had already sifted through the first aid box, and he removed the last item as she situated herself next to him. “Will it be enough?” she asked, her eyes on the kit.

  “Yes,” he said, lifting up the alcohol. A small bottle of vodka. “I’m surprised you didn’t drink this long ago,” he added with a pained laugh.

  She could scarcely smile. She twisted the cap off of the bottle for him as he held it up, and proceeded to timidly unbutton his jacket and lift his shirt. Her eyes stayed glued to her hands, trying to avoid his stare, for she was sure that her ghostly white skin was burning red.

  She untied the rope holding the rag in place and removed the cloth for him. “Will this be clean enough to wipe the blood off?” she asked, holding up the crumbled piece of shirt that had acted as his dressing.

  “Yes.”

  She wet down the rag with some of the vodka that he handed her and gently blotted at his wound with it. All of him coiled tight, he held his breath – she wanted to stop. Another small bout of blood gushed out and she quickly wiped it off.

  She put the bottle on the floor and positioned the mirror for him, flashlight in her other hand. He studied his reflection intently before pouring more vodka over the area. A low sound came from the back of his throat. She dabbed at the excess fluid dripping down his stomach, wishing she could have found him before he was injured.

  “All right,” he said, once his pain subsided. “Can you lace the thread in the needle for me?”

  The gloves came off quickly, discarded without care. It took her a few attempts to feed the thread through the eye, like the room was spinning fast. When she did succeed she gave it a liberal amount of thread to keep it anchored. The thought of it slipping away while he slid it through himself…

  She looked at him, needle held aloft. “Can you do this?”

  “Yes. Just hold the flashlight and mirror still for me.”

  “Okay.”

  She furrowed her brow and settled her bleary eyes on his wound. Be steady, steady, steady. She held the mirror shard so hard she felt it bite into her bare hand.

  He exhaled slowly then pushed the needle through his skin. He swallowed a yell. More blood. Then he was through. Again. Again. Tears were welling in his eyes by the time he finished the first stitch. They welled in hers to see it. As he sutured he used her knife to cut the excess string and carry on. By the fourth he was breathing again, albeit heavy. Soon he stopped giving any indication he was in pain.

  As he pulled the last stitch through, he let out a long sigh and let his head fall back, his hat tumbling off onto the floor. His hair was more shaggy than his beard. Ragged. A man who had been through Hell.

  She unbuttoned her cloak again and tore yet another strip from her shirt. Now it had shrunk considerably, and more and more of her belly was exposed. Somewhere in one of the dresser drawers in the bedroom was a never-been-worn sweater she was planning to wear, and so the state of her ever-shrinking shirt ma
de her anticipate it all the more. As she looked up to put the rag on his sealed wound, she saw him looking at her, that soft expression making the feeling in her stomach come to life again.

  She fumbled the rag onto his wound, and tied the rope gently around it, holding it in place. She let out her own breath slowly. “How long will that last you?”

  “Until we make it back to the park,” he replied, bringing down his stained shirt.

  She looked to his eyes, her face marked with confusion. “‘We’?”

  He returned her gaze, curious. “I wouldn’t leave you here.”

  She had never considered the possibility. In fact, ever since finding him, she hadn’t considered what would come for the future, what she would do, or what might happen after she saved him.

  “Would you come with me?”

  His face was so soft, and there was almost no trace of the hardness that Catherine had thought she had seen in the past.

  “Of course.”

  “All right.” He didn’t quite smile but he didn’t pretend it was of no consequence either. Then he closed his eyes and visibly relaxed into the couch.

  “Don’t fall asleep.” Catherine grasped his shoulder. “You should sleep in the bed. It’ll be better for your back.”

  “I’m not as old as I look,” he replied with a short laugh. As he sat up he flinched, balked. She grabbed onto his shoulders and he swung his arm over hers as she led him to the bed close by.

  He dropped, deadweight, onto the mattress as soon as he saw it, and she situated him properly. He was out cold before she took his boots off. She went back to the couch, grabbed the blanket, and draped it over him. For a moment she stood at the bedside. Then she sat next to him and rested her hand on his chest. A strong heartbeat, an even tempo. She took her hand away after his third breath, but she didn’t leave the bedroom for some time.

  Eventually she could hold out no longer. She returned to the main room and stumbled onto the couch. Her world turned black before she even hit the cushions.