Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  “Unless that bastard is the one who comes,” Doug said harshly. He shot another look around. “And even if he doesn’t, that’s one more day when we’ll be getting thirstier. And more hungry.” He grabbed Natalie’s wrist, tugging her in the direction they’d come from. “We have to find that trail while we’re at our best. Don’t you see that?”

  Natalie let herself be pulled, then stopped and dug her Norlanders into the dirt. Water shoes for bushwhacking through terrain rougher than any she’d known could exist. She hadn’t put her boots on back at the tent last night. Why would she have? She’d thought they had plenty of time to prepare for today’s hike.

  You’re in this mess—and it certainly qualifies as a mess now—because you agreed. You always agree. To hike instead of paddle out. To come into the woods on your honeymoon.

  To marry Doug in the first place.

  That wasn’t true. That was revisionism talking in the wake of last night’s disaster, which wasn’t even Doug’s fault. But maybe if she’d opposed him more. Let more of herself out. She needed to do so now. This might be the last chance she’d have to effect their fates.

  Natalie turned away from her husband so fast that air burned the left side of her face. Her wound pulsed like a live thing now. “We’ll never find a trail in all this space,” she said firmly.

  She expected a confident Yes, we will in response, but Doug sounded desperate when he said, “That trail can’t be more than three, maybe four miles from where we are right now. And even if the way we came last night isn’t completely visible, we should be able to detect signs of it. Branches we broke. The sight of the—”

  Body, Natalie mentally filled in. It was true, she thought, cold and focused. If they could find that body—assuming the man with the gun hadn’t returned to drag it away—they’d be in good shape. A corpse made a hell of a landmark.

  “Okay,” she agreed at last. “But we walk slowly. Carefully, not in a frenzy. We look for indications that we were there.”

  Doug nodded.

  “And we conserve resources,” Natalie went on, issuing instructions in a way she never had before. “It feels like it’s going to be warm today. We should avoid working up a sweat, burn as few calories as possible.”

  Doug nodded again before taking her hand and leading Natalie back toward the place where they’d spent the night.

  The rock felt like a dinghy, the only source of safety they had in the world. She didn’t want to leave it behind. As they passed by, Natalie reached out to stroke stiff fronds of lichen on the rock’s surface. She had trouble letting go, lifting her hand reluctantly before taking a breath and striking out into the deep-green sea.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It took two more days before Mia got the chance to make the trip to Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug’s apartment. Her dad was in curriculum-planning meetings all afternoon, while her mom was so stressed about the extra shifts she’d had to cover—that woman Shelley was still out—that she actually agreed to let Mia spend time alone.

  Avenue C was a whole other world from the Upper West Side where Mia lived, and she had always appreciated its frenzied nature when visiting Aunt Nat. Aging buildings no one bothered to fix up; bodegas that sold burner phones and cashed checks and spewed out Lotto tickets instead of having salads and bottled water on offer. One man wore what looked like a squirrel suit, even though it was like a thousand degrees out. Another, handing out flyers, was dressed as an enormous red pen.

  Mia took one of the pieces of paper just to be nice. Didn’t these guys get paid by how many they gave away? She didn’t get why they didn’t just throw them all into recycling bins then. She crumpled up the flyer as she approached Aunt Nat’s apartment.

  Even the climate was different down here, warmer and more humid. Maybe because there were fewer blasts of chilled air from stores and apartment buildings. In this neighborhood, doors were propped open to try and get whatever breeze there might be, circulating hot air for hotter. Mia’s skin grew slimy during the walk from the subway.

  Cars were crammed along every inch of street, some borrowing space from the sidewalk, and honking for no apparent reason. They didn’t seem to want to go anywhere. One guy sat scowling on the hood of a slick, dark sedan that was parked so close to Aunt Nat’s stoop, it looked ready to drive into the building.

  Mia pushed past a man hanging out on the steps, more rudely than she would’ve done uptown. The man sent her an annoyed look, stumbling a bit as Mia brushed by. He clopped back down to the street as if one leg was giving him trouble.

  “Sorry,” Mia called out. She felt bad now, jostling the man with special needs. There was a kid in her class who walked like that. He had one leg that was shorter than the other. Marshall, his name was. Other than the leg issue, he was actually kind of cute.

  Mia dug out the keys from her pocket, then found the one that opened the front door. She climbed the steps to the fourth floor, huffing a bit in the sweltering stairwell, unlatched all three locks and let herself inside, before falling onto Aunt Nat’s couch with a huge exhalation of air. Actually it was Uncle Doug’s couch, big and rough and beige. Mia let out another sigh. The apartment was stuffy and hot, providing hardly any relief from outside.

  She went over to the fridge and got out a bottle of fruit-flavored water, letting the cold liquid refresh her as she took a look around. This apartment was, like, schizophrenic, Mia thought, crossing to a little stand of drawers and examining the objects placed on top. A vase with silk flowers, a plaque with painted swirls and inspirational words, and a small painting of an angel, all right next to a super-high-end wall-mounted TV. Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug’s tastes were so different. That couch with its feedbag upholstery alongside a cherub that was supposed to be flying but looked to Mia like it had a skewer stuck through its butt.

  The cherub had been set on a pile of papers to hold them down. Mia riffled through each one. Mostly reminder notes about the wedding—call caterer, change shrimp!—but also a brochure for something called Off Road Adventures, which planned trips in the Adirondacks. Maybe the one Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug were on right now.

  There were tons of photos scattered around, mostly of Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug. Their heads poking out of an orange tent, grinning maniacally at whoever was taking the picture. The two of them getting splashed on a raft, oars held high, water dripping. Standing on a cliff at sunset with their arms around each other. Eating at a restaurant—six photos at six different restaurants actually. Mia could just imagine what this place would look like once the wedding photos had come back. She spotted one picture of herself when she was younger. And there was her mom, looking awfully young too, nothing like her usual commanding self. Mia stared at that shot for a while.

  No picture of Uncle Doug with his besties, though.

  She turned and headed for the bedroom. If there was anything to be learned about Mark or Brett here—and it was striking Mia as increasingly unlikely that there was; her idea seemed pretty stupid now actually—it would be in the apartment’s other room.

  The living room was a mix of her aunt and uncle’s things, but the bedroom had stayed pretty much the way it’d been before Uncle Doug moved in. A Shabby Chic duvet on the bed; framed posters with sayings hung on the walls. Aunt Nat liked painted words of wisdom.

  Sometimes the end is only the beginning written in script across a scene that showed a path through the woods dead-ending at a view of the ocean.

  Blech, Mia thought.

  She opened the drawer in the bedside table on Uncle Doug’s side, but there was no old phone in there—just some pens, a paperback, and, eww, a box of condoms. Mia shut the drawer as if it were a hot pot handle, gingerly, using just the tips of her fingers.

  Aunt Nat’s night table drawer yielded better results—there were some photos that balanced the whole Natalie-and-Doug show in the living room at least. Mia picked one up, feeling a bolt of recognition.
Aunt Nat with the pretty women who used to comment on her Instagram account. They were standing in front of a store with the most amazing dresses in the window. And there was a selfie of the three of them, faces sunburned, toasting with bottles on a beach. Plus a few more, nights on the town kind of thing. Aunt Nat looked sadder in these pics. Kinda lost. She looked like a little girl.

  Mia wandered over to the closet, fingering the hangers before crouching down. There was a cardboard box on the closet floor, its flaps slotted shut, and a message scrawled in marker across the top.

  Doug, don’t open!

  Mia picked up the box and carried it over to the bed.

  Inside, there was a cellophane-sealed package of ivory wrapping paper and one of those clusters of ribbon that looked like a little girl’s ringlets. Underneath sat a leather-bound album. Aunt Nat hadn’t finished it yet, a few trimmings and a drugstore envelope of photos remained loose, but there were pictures and mementoes affixed to the inside pages. Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug on various outdoors expeditions and eating at more restaurants, plus receipts for things whose importance Mia couldn’t determine, greeting cards, a matchbook cover, even bits of shellacked shells pasted to seascape stickers for a cool 3-D effect. More sayings written in Aunt Nat’s twining script.

  Love is what was missing. Love is the glue. Love is what I found when I met you.

  Mia hoped Uncle Doug would like his album despite the gloopy poem. She herself loathed scrapbooking.

  She hit the lottery on the next page, though.

  If at first you don’t succeed, Mia thought.

  Ugh. She was the one thinking in sayings now.

  There was a picture of Uncle Doug, Mark, and Brett standing in a bar, arms slung around each other’s backs, overflowing glasses raised. Aunt Nat clearly didn’t mind photos of friends—she had preserved this one for Uncle Doug. So why were all of hers shut away in a drawer?

  Mia dug her phone out of her pocket and snapped a shot of the photo. She took a close-up of Mark’s face and another one of Brett’s.

  They were both so good-looking. Mia imagined scrolling through pics on her phone at school next year and pausing at this one. “Oh yeah, those were just some guys I hung out with at my aunt’s wedding,” she’d say, and all her friends would squeal and press her for details.

  Mia nestled everything back in the carton exactly as she had found it and got up to leave the apartment. As she walked through the living room, she came to a sudden halt.

  Something had changed.

  She hadn’t made a mess, left anything out of order, but as her gaze roved over the furniture, Mia saw what was different, and her skin broke into a thousand needle pricks. She felt like she had that time her mother had taken her to an acupuncturist to help with a truly grody headache.

  Mia snatched another look around, but the apartment appeared to be empty. There was a clear path between her and the door, which Mia chose to walk toward now, fast, almost running. She took out her phone. She should’ve texted her mom before she’d left home. Then she would at least know where Mia was right now.

  Mia took a second to engage the lock before racing down the stairs, sweat breaking out all over her body. Nobody lurked in the stairwell—she made sure to check each time before taking the next flight of steps.

  Still, there was no denying what she’d seen. One of the ugly beige couch cushions, slowly rising up, returning to its full loft, as if somebody had only just gotten up off of it.

  Had someone come in, then gone out again while Mia had been examining the scrapbook?

  Her skin still felt covered in scaly prickles; despite the disgusting heat of the day, she shivered. She didn’t want to enter the relative cool of the subway; she would feel safer aboveground on the packed street under the blazing sun.

  Mia stood outside the door to her aunt and uncle’s building, thumbing in a text to her mom, with a few minor adjustments to camouflage her timeline.

  think i left something at aunt nats going to get it then will come right back home

  She was about to press Send when two men sandwiched her, one sliding her phone smoothly out of her hand, the other contributing a soft, spiraling hiss.

  “Shh,” he murmured. “Just be quiet now. Then we’ll give you back your phone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  By dusk, Natalie and Doug had to accept that they weren’t going to arrive at the trail or their original starting point. They’d walked all day—which had indeed been hot, even worse than Natalie had feared, the sun drilling through the canopy of leaves in sharp spikes, slicking their bodies with sweat—and at first it seemed as if they were on the right track. They kept arriving at trees whose leaves looked shorn in a way that only their racing bodies could have produced. The route felt familiar: its switchbacks, twists, and turns.

  They even found a branch broken off at exactly Natalie’s cheek height. She and Doug had taken a few moments to line the protruding stub up with her face, Natalie biting back a screech of agony when her skin grazed the wood. Doug’s mood after that had made the pulsing pain worth it, though. He’d been excited, swinging her hand as they trudged through underbrush, climbed over stones, and ducked beneath leaning logs, expecting to come to their tent or their packs at any second. They were going to be all right. A little thirsty and hungry and scratched up, sure. But Doug’s decision to set out walking had been the right one, as Natalie must see now.

  Around the time twilight began its slow, grudging ascent in the sky, that mood was gone, erased along with any feelings of familiarity toward the landscape. They were in a wood that seemed at once different from anywhere they had trekked before, and terrifyingly the same—the whole of the wilderness as featureless and indistinct as a Stepford wife.

  “The man with the gun might’ve moved the body,” Natalie said. They had both sat down to rest on a fallen log. Brush on the forest floor scratched their bare skin. Their legs were a mess, Natalie observed. Red and covered in welts, bug bites too. “That would explain why he came back in the first place. And maybe he took our stuff—he wouldn’t want that spot to stand out in any way. So that’s why we haven’t seen anything.”

  “Possible,” Doug replied.

  He hadn’t spoken much for a while now. Natalie wondered if his mouth felt the same as hers did: dry and fuzzy with fear.

  Not fear.

  The thought was delivered to her brain as if by a spike.

  Her mouth felt fur-lined because after just one day, Natalie was already experiencing the effects of an unquenchable thirst. While the wound on her face contributed its own high, shrill note to the song of discomfort and dismay. Bringing her hand anywhere near her cheek was akin to touching a glowing coil on a stove. And yet the injury took a backseat compared to the direness of the situation they were confronting.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Natalie said. “We’d better find a place to lie down for the night.” She took a look around, and hot as she felt—oh, for a way to cool off, clean up, wash out her wound—she shivered. Low lavender light penetrated the forest, lending everything an eerie cast. What creatures lived in these woods so far from any trail? Who, or what, might be out here besides them?

  “We have to stop anyway,” Doug said, averting his gaze. “I have no idea how we’re going to deal with that.”

  Natalie turned in the direction her husband was facing. She swayed for a second on her feet, then closed her eyes.

  Whatever geological event had produced the chasm from which they’d set out hiking earlier that day—the place where they had scanned the view and seen what seemed to be the whole of the Adirondack Park—had continued wreaking havoc, lo these many miles away, creating a gully, a gutted-out cleft in the earth, which looked impossible to skirt or descend or in any way bypass. Trees as sharp as skewers filled the rift, the sides of which pitched at a slant that had to be forty-five degrees or steeper. They would’ve need
ed ropes, not to mention climbing skills.

  Natalie looked at Doug. “We’ll find a way around it in the morning,” she said, through lips that felt like caterpillars, puffy and fat.

  Doug looked away from her, his expression bleak.

  “There’s got to be one,” she said, and after a long time, he nodded.

  • • •

  Natalie woke before light began to creep into the eastward sky, hunger biting at her belly. The need for food had nibbled at her throughout their long day of walking, but now that need had teeth, sharp and uneven.

  She and Doug had fallen asleep against the log. Moisture from the ground had seeped into their shorts and dewed the backs of their legs, but the temperature was still high enough that Natalie didn’t feel chilly. She tried to wipe her skin dry, sluicing wetness off with her palms.

  Greedily, she licked her hands.

  Natalie got onto her knees. The tops of ferns and nearby forest leaves were dappled with drops. She crawled forward, lapping up the scant beads of this moisture too, before forcing herself to stop and reserve some of the blessed liquid for Doug.

  As she sat and blinked up at an acre of stars, growing inured to the sounds around her—crickets chirping, frogs cheeping, the sinking footfalls of nocturnal creatures—she became aware that Doug was starting to wake.

  His breathing sounded uneven; when he first opened his eyes, they glowed like embers, threaded with red.

  “How far do you think we walked yesterday?” Natalie asked.

  “Hard to say.” Doug’s voice came out raspy.

  Natalie gestured to the dewy leaves, and Doug’s eyes sparked. He bowed his head, licking the green surfaces thirstily, almost panting.

  “We probably walked for at least nine hours,” he said once he’d imbibed all there was to be had. “It was almost dark by the time we stopped. Figure we made three miles an hour, maybe a little less, since we were bushwhacking—”