Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  Natalie could feel her body shutting down. For a while now, certain functions had been curtailed—no tears to cry, or trips to the bathroom, difficulty swallowing—but these changes were deeper, more profound. They took place at her very core. Natalie’s heart beat at a strange, uneven pace—terribly fast, making her twitch and turn on the ground, then hardly at all. She would start to drift off only to come to with a gasp, realizing she had forgotten to breathe. One of these days, hours, minutes, would she just stop, her body no longer taking care of what she’d never had to think about?

  She wondered whether Doug was experiencing the same issues. He was stronger than she because the water had rejuvenated him. He had gotten rid of the headache they’d both been suffering from for days; Natalie could tell by how freely Doug moved his face, without wincing or cringing. She should drink too, but aside from the risk she knew such an act to entail, Natalie also lacked the will for it now.

  What would it matter if she hydrated herself? Once they left this spot, they would be waterless again. And where was there to go? Even if right this very second the two of them had been plunked down on a real trail, they wouldn’t possess the strength to follow it out. They had already tried that approach, and succeeded only in wandering deeper into the wilderness, depleting their final resources.

  Certain of her symptoms had gone away at least, rendering Natalie a little more comfortable. Her sore cheek was numb, the flesh deadened. It might’ve been that she had no side to her face at all. Also, Natalie no longer felt hungry. That animal inside her gut had stopped scavenging, seeming to accept things and curl itself into a little ball. Natalie cupped her hands around her belly, quietly stroking the flesh.

  Doug’s voice sounded out of the dark. “The creek.”

  “I already told you.” She was surprised that her voice still worked. “I won’t drink.” Hers was the stance of a petulant child, one who should just give in already.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Doug replied, moving toward her through the shadows. “I mean, now that we know where there’s a creek, we can follow it out. Just like we talked about doing before. Water finds an outlet. And so will we.”

  “Doug.” If she’d had the strength, Natalie would’ve laughed. “You think I can hike? Climb over rocks? For miles and miles? Have you looked at me lately?”

  Silence.

  Natalie shifted effortfully onto one side, the knob of her shoulder poking into the ground. It hurt, but she was too weak to turn over again. After a while, that pain blended into all the others and disappeared, like a drop of dye in the sea.

  The idea snuck up on her from behind.

  “You go,” Natalie said. She had fallen asleep; she wasn’t sure for how long. Was Doug still lying beside her? “You drank. You have strength. Follow the creek out on your own. Send back help.”

  “No,” Doug said.

  So he was still here. How sure his voice sounded, how strong.

  “I won’t leave you.”

  It took a while for Natalie to pry her lips apart again. So much work just to get a few words out, one small bunch at a time. “Doug. I can’t walk. At all. I think you know that. I’ll wait here. You get help.”

  Doug stood up and walked off into the woods, his footsteps fading out.

  When he returned, Natalie realized she must’ve dropped off into unconsciousness again. Her eyes had crusted over, she couldn’t open them. She was blind.

  “I can’t do it,” she heard Doug saying.

  “Yes, you can,” she whispered, hoping he might be looking at her and see the resolve in her face. “It’s our only chance.”

  “Not without you, Natalie.”

  Her eyes smarted stingingly, this new pain particularly offensive since her vision had been stolen away. Then the lids came unglued, and Doug’s face swam into view.

  “I won’t leave you alone,” he told her.

  Two tears slipped out, the last leakage of her body. “You already did.”

  Something got decided, wordlessly, silent, in the untold amount of time that followed her statement.

  “Okay,” Doug said at last.

  He would depart at first light.

  He helped get Natalie situated a little more comfortably: a mound of pine needles for a pillow, a gnarled root for a bedstead.

  The woods closed in as sleep crept close and closer, a character out of some fairy tale of old, coming for the weak, the small, the helpless. Then the forest itself began to transform, turning into a malevolent creature, dangling leaves for hair, touching Natalie with long, reaching branches. She fought to shy away, but her muscles lacked all strength. She couldn’t move. Then it was upon her.

  Chapter Forty

  Kurt’s camp had grown from its meager beginnings into a place suited to the care and keeping of guests. But that didn’t imply by any means that he was ready. There was an array of things left to take care of, as well as the myriad tasks that accompanied social endeavors to attend to. First up, his appearance.

  After two years of hermit-like, mountain man existence, Kurt had stopped tending to what he looked like. There were no mirrors out here, and what would it have mattered if there were? Painful as the fact was, there had been nobody around to see him.

  That wasn’t true anymore.

  He knew that he must be unfit for meeting new people, and Kurt was well aware of all that went along with making a good impression. His parents had both been doctors—psychiatrists—and as a child, Kurt had been required to attend hospital fund-raisers and other functions, his mother coolly observing her son’s demeanor and behavior.

  Because he had been so well-spoken and charming at a young age, Kurt had learned to count his primary appeal as cerebral rather than physical. The way he talked—and more importantly, listened—to people drew them in, especially as he grew older.

  But the construction of the stick-and-daub hut in which he now resided, the constant lugging of water up from the creek in a vessel he had fashioned out of sunbaked mud, not to mention racing after prey—and twice, away from predators—had rendered Kurt pleasing of body too. His arms were humped with muscle; his shoulders formed a broad ridge; his stomach had been whittled into six flat plains. His eyes were bright with a look of alertness and command, while the sun had added colors to his dark hair and beard, reds and bronzes and coppery shades. Kurt’s ruddy hair flowed down his back, his beard formed a lion’s mane around his face.

  Ah, but his hair and beard. Those were the primary culprits, along with the state of his clothes. Kurt tended to stay in garments for a while, the only alternative being to don the sole pair of replacement pants and shirt he’d managed to come by, until both outfits stood up stiff with dirt on his body. When the weather allowed, Kurt preferred to wear nothing at all, which meant that his entire naked form was sun-bronzed along with the more customarily exposed parts.

  Kurt had raided the cabin that fell down after his first winter for supplies and implements, but a scissors hadn’t been among what he found. Thus, for this trim, it was either to be the machete he had stolen from a long-ago backpacker or else a dinner knife, which Kurt had patiently honed into something sharper, trying not to thin its blade.

  He cocked his head, checking on the sun in the sky. Before it sunk too profoundly, he would have to look in on the couple, assess their precise whereabouts and declining state of health.

  He sat cross-legged on the ground in front of his hut, combing out his freshly washed hair with his fingers. He began sawing the knife back and forth through the mass. Hair fell in a glossy pile around him. Kurt scooped up every strand; the material would provide insulation and cushioning come wintertime. It would be important to offer warm lodging to his guests, plus nothing could be wasted out here.

  Kurt wished he could see what his newly shortened hair looked like, whether it’d been hacked off unevenly, or formed a cap he could slick into so
me sort of shape. He wanted to look nice when company arrived.

  But there was still much left to do.

  He needed a supply of sand for filtering—the small camp pot he’d been able to lift from the hiker’s pack wouldn’t provide enough water for three, particularly when two were badly dehydrated—as well as poplar bark, ground and ready to be ingested. Poplar made a good substitute for aspirin, and the man and woman were sure to be in some pain. Kurt would have to be careful that neither of them was bleeding before offering relief—poplar thinned the blood—but he wanted the remedy on hand. He remembered what relief it had provided when he’d chewed the bark himself. He had since learned to grind it with a pestle fashioned from a small stone; the procedure increased the bark’s potency.

  The nearest stand of poplars was a good four miles away, a trek Kurt could make in forty-five minutes if he pushed himself, the strength of his conditioning undermined by the difficulty of the terrain. He decided that he would check on his visitors prior to setting out, but before that, he chose to take care of prettying up the hut. The crudest of structures felt like luxury to Kurt after the first winter he’d spent here, but that didn’t mean anybody else’s expectations should be set so low. His new residents could have no reason to be dissatisfied with their dwelling.

  Everything always took longer than expected without the shortcuts of man-made existence, and it was dark before Kurt finally got a chance to go in search of the couple.

  He moved lightly, almost weightlessly, through the woods. He knew to pick his way over sticks without snapping them, and how to let the balls of his feet come down before slowly lowering his heels so that leaves were pressed into a mat instead of crunching. He could approach prey so silently by this point that he was able to hunt with no weapon at all.

  When he reached a boulder a few yards from where the couple had lain down to rest, Kurt mounted it with the same ease as he would have climbed a ladder. Scuttling across the stone, Kurt got close enough to smell the sick, unwashed stink of the pair.

  They were in worse shape than they’d been just that morning, the woman all but unconscious, while the man strode around on that high, thin edge of false strength that portends a collapse. Kurt observed them from his post, crouching upon a muscled hump of rock while he worked to subdue his every breath and motion.

  The man lay down beside the woman, speaking in softer tones, and Kurt jumped noiselessly to the ground in one leap.

  They were making a plan to leave. The notion would’ve been laughable, given their state, except that after a few moments of largely nonsensical back-and-forth, the man agreed to a solo attempt. While he didn’t stand a chance of succeeding either, Kurt couldn’t let the pair be separated.

  He nearly grabbed both of them right then and there, two against one less of a problem when the one was Kurt, and the two were in this condition.

  But Kurt didn’t want to take the risk. Something unexpected might occur.

  Nonetheless, there could be no more delays, nor last-minute chores taken care of.

  He was going to have to act fast.

  Part Three

  Trapped

  Chapter Forty-One

  Natalie dreamt of water flowing downhill, of drops dripping from unstoppable faucets and bathtubs filled to brimming. Of the lakes and rivers she and Doug had crossed, their surfaces dewing the bottom of their abandoned canoe.

  Her lips cracked when she tried to open them. They bled, and Natalie lapped thirstily at the liquid, spitting ferociously upon tasting salt.

  She couldn’t have imagined thirst like this. It was a beast borne of the devil, punishment for some act so evil it lay outside nightmares, wartime, and prison cells.

  Her head throbbed as if a steel wire had been cinched around it and was being drawn tighter and tighter.

  Doug had been right. Natalie should’ve drunk from the creek. Now she was too weak to make it there, though it lay only a few yards away.

  Doug.

  Where was he?

  He’d left, she remembered. It must’ve been a while ago already. They had planned his departure for daybreak.

  The sun sat high in the sky, its rays pale and watery, providing hardly any warmth—or at least none that Natalie could feel. She was shaking all over, and a twisted scrap of cloth slid off her. It took Natalie a while to realize what it was. Doug had used the sling she had fashioned from her torn shirt as a sad approximation of a blanket. He must have draped it over her before leaving.

  Her eyes ached with wanting to cry.

  She had slept half the day away. How far had Doug gotten? Was he almost out?

  Then she began to hear moans.

  They were so loud, howls of sheer pain, that they could only have been made by a creature of great size, and one close to death.

  A bear perhaps, or a coyote.

  Wounded animals were dangerous, but Natalie had no way to protect herself from this one. She didn’t even have the strength to clap her hands over her ears to muffle the noise. If this beast came for her, it would spell the end, and perhaps that would be a relief.

  How long could suffering like this go on? Her own or the animal’s?

  Hurry hurry hurry was the chant inside her head. I’m dying, Doug, I’m dying.

  The woods began to shape-shift, mutating around her. The forked fingers of branches started to shed—no, pluck off their own leaves—as they reached in Natalie’s direction; lichen-covered rocks turned into enormous, scaled lizards.

  Then she realized that she was actually staring into the beady black eyes of a reptile. A small snake lay utterly still, inches from her face. Natalie looked at it for some time, lacking the will to feel either revulsion or fright. After a long delay, it occurred to her that she could eat this creature.

  If she just lifted her hand—oh, for the time when lifting her hand was a just—and pinched a spot behind the tiny triangular head, she could chomp from the tail end until her mouth met her fingers. Hot, pungent saliva flooded her mouth, a concentrate so undiluted, it couldn’t be swallowed.

  Natalie willed her hand to move, but it seemed to be paralyzed.

  She bore down, grinding her fist into the soil, unable to get it off the ground.

  The snake slid away, its unhurried wriggle and sibilant rustle seeming to say, It’s too late, it’s too late, it’s too late.

  It was too late for anything now. She’d be dead by the time Doug returned.

  She lay back, staring up at such an enormous swath of stars that it looked like the entire New York City skyline had been transferred to the heavens. What matters is not the number of breaths you take…

  Natalie wished she were back home in her apartment, surrounded by bromides and homilies. She loved her collection. Other than those little plaques and paintings, she’d never had much in the way of guiding words and wisdom in her life.

  The moans began anew, or perhaps Natalie just became aware of them again.

  Bellows and bleats of sheer agony. Whatever kind of creature this was, it was being tormented. By what?

  A shriek, then another moan, the latter somehow familiar sounding.

  That was no animal.

  It was Doug.

  Adrenaline triggered Natalie’s voice to work, jolted her limbs into motion.

  “Doug?” she called out, and got onto her hands and knees in the dirt.

  How long had it been since she’d been able to stand?

  She crawled in the direction of those terrible yowls.

  Doug hadn’t made it out. He wasn’t partway back to civilization, using the creek as a compass. What had stopped him? What went wrong?

  The answer hit her seconds before she saw him.

  The smell hit her, making things clear.

  Natalie used low-hanging branches to pull herself along, maneuvering around a stubbly young tree. At her usual level of
fitness, she would have simply crushed the slim trunk beneath her feet as she walked. As it was, the tree posed an obstacle nearly too significant to bypass. A few more feet and Doug came into view, squatting on the ground, hunched over and clutching his stomach, a pool of filth around him.

  Natalie stopped just short of him. She felt a sob fill her throat. “Honey?”

  A shudder racked Doug’s body, and he wrapped his arms around himself and let out a scream. The spasms continued, one after the other, seemingly unending, until Doug finally leaned over, spent, gasping, and covered in thick, oily sweat.

  A trickle of sludge added itself to the waste.

  Natalie bent over, retching, though there was nothing in her stomach to lose.

  “Guess—”

  A sound so familiar, she lifted her head. It was Doug’s voice, threaded, despite everything, with humor.

  “—you were right,” her husband said, and collapsed.

  Natalie extended her hand, trying to reach him.

  They lay on the ground, not quite able to touch, until footsteps began to thud nearby. Something was coming through the trees.

  “Easy now,” said a voice—or what sounded like a voice, though Natalie knew it to be just another hallucination, like trees that could strip off their own leaves, and lizard-turning rocks—before somebody stooped down beside her. “Easy does it.”

  Natalie was lifted by the strongest pair of arms she’d ever felt and lofted away.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Standing beside the field, Mia clicked on the link that PhotoSearch had sent her.

  The app displayed two pics side by side: the one Mia had entered and the one the app had found, which appeared on a school blog. Uncle Doug’s friend was a sixth-grade teacher at Brierly Academy named Mark Harden. It was kind of refreshing to see her mother be wrong, even if it was just about a name.

  Mia entered Mark’s name in the search bar, and let the little wheel spin. A few Google references to teacherly things came up. A fund-raiser at an off-off-off-Broadway theater company, some honor awarded by the board of trustees at the school. No Instagram account for Mark Harden, or Snapchat either. He was on Facebook and, unlike Uncle Doug, might see a friend request right away—this very second even.