Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  But to Mia’s ears, her father didn’t sound very sure of that at all.

  Her mom looked mad—whether at the situation or at Mia’s dad’s response, Mia couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she didn’t want her parents to start fighting again, before Aunt Nat even had a chance to see them back together.

  “They might know what they’re doing,” Mia’s mother muttered, turning away. “But they don’t know me.”

  She left the kitchen and came to sit beside Mia. The look on her face almost made Mia laugh, even though there was nothing funny about being stuck here like this, of course. But Mia’s mom looked exactly like Mia always felt when her mother was taking away her phone or refusing to let her stay by herself.

  Mia got to her feet, stretching her arms over her head. “Can I go downstairs?”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Natalie and Doug entered the woods soundlessly, heels down, then toes, staring at the ground as if their eyes were soldered to it. Doug paused to stoop and pick up two long pine boughs, which they used to check the forest floor before taking a new step, then clear away the tracks they’d left behind.

  It was a painstaking, excruciating pace to maintain, especially with the specter of Kurt rising from his sleeping bag and appearing beside them. They passed through stands of tangled, knotted brush and spied the stump forest, that giant’s set of checkerboard pieces, a short distance away. There came a glimpse of the conical peak of Kurt’s smokehouse; no time to think about that now. They’d made it farther than they had been since Kurt entrapped them. Natalie and Doug exchanged a single, silent nod of satisfaction.

  Doug took the lead, and the camp receded farther into the distance, the bodies of the huts disappearing from view, then the rims of their roofs, until finally there was no more cleared land to be seen and trees closed in from all sides. Natalie allowed herself to take air deep into her lungs; she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.

  A flat, golden pancake of sun lay atop the mountains, rounding into a dome and filling the sky. It seemed to bode well for the day ahead, and a giddy sense of excitement began to prevail as they shuffled along.

  Doug relayed the spoils of his raid of Kurt’s hut, speaking in an undertone of barely concealed joy. For their journey, they had snack bars, iodine tabs, even a plastic-shielded map that might cover the whole region; Doug would know as soon as he could take a good look at it. He had spotted the machete, lying upon a shelf, its blade glinting in the darkness. “I couldn’t think of a way to hide it, though,” he whispered. “And I thought Kurt would miss it right away.”

  Natalie nodded agreement, but she was lost in thought. Should they still try to follow the creek out? Or would the map point them to a better route? Water would conceal their tracks, allow them to put distance between themselves and Kurt.

  Doug had gotten ahead. Natalie swiveled, hurriedly brushing the ground behind her to rid it of tracks before catching up to her husband. The wispy green branch Doug was waving back and forth got stuck in something Natalie couldn’t make out.

  Fast as a lightning strike, Doug barricaded Natalie’s body with one arm, then came to such a sudden halt that he nearly pitched forward. When he turned back to look at her, his face was slicked with sweat and he was breathing hard.

  She still couldn’t see and mouthed, What is it?

  Silently, Doug pointed.

  A length of vine, viciously studded with thorns, was strung between the trunks of two trees. It ran at shin height for Doug, knee high for Natalie. Not only would the vine have snagged them, but when Doug probed the ground a few feet in front of the tripwire with the tip of his stick, the forest floor gave way to an ankle-snapping ditch.

  They stood in place, squandering minutes they didn’t have, unable to take another step. Kurt hadn’t exaggerated: this land was laced with mines.

  Finally Doug raised one foot, stepping to clear the taut length of vine before helping Natalie over. They veered to one side to avoid the hole. Then they continued on, stabbing at the ground with the ends of their sticks, using feathery needles to sweep away the signs they left behind.

  • • •

  They felt it before they saw, or even heard it. A fine, silver mist in the air that sprinkled their skin. They gasped and nearly laughed aloud. Proud, soaring mountains rose on all sides, but a slight slope in the landscape hinted at the creek’s nearby presence. Shuffling forward, checking the ground no less assiduously, they started to descend.

  Natalie’s shoe slid, and she slipped at the same moment that Doug touched the tip of his pine bough to the ground. Suddenly, the stick was sky-bound, hurled aside, and Doug’s strong hands landed on Natalie’s waist. He lifted her clean into the air—Natalie felt the sensation of flying—and she bit back on a scream, knowing that her shout would’ve carried. What the hell are you doing?

  Doug set her upon a hummock of moss-slicked rock, holding her there as if trying to glue her feet in place, while his own foot came down where Natalie’s brief skid had been about to send her. The spike was invisible when it punctured the bottom of Doug’s shoe, but Natalie saw it come up through the other side.

  • • •

  Doug’s hands left her body as if they’d turned to liquid. Natalie swayed for a moment on the hump of rock before regaining her balance.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Doug said, his tone relieved. “It must’ve missed me.” He paused to swallow. “You were about to step on it. Thank God I spotted it first.”

  Shock, Natalie thought, diagnosing the condition so clearly and swiftly that she must’ve been experiencing a similar state herself.

  Doug had prevented the spike from stabbing her, but getting close enough to move her away had brought him into direct proximity with the same patch of ground, while his momentum made it impossible to stop before taking that last lethal step. Had he known what would happen—the physics of the situation registering in some low-level way? Or had he acted on the purest, unthinking instinct to save her, giving no thought to his own fate?

  She stared downward, tears blurring Doug’s form into a series of wavering lines that were woefully, horrifically insufficient to block from sight the length of wood that protruded through the webbed straps of his shoe.

  The long, whittled dagger had come to a stop with its tip a few inches above the top of his foot.

  “Honey—” Natalie began, but her mouth was too dry and sandy for further speech. Fear flooded her, charged with unspent adrenaline. There was nowhere to run—not anymore—and no one to fight.

  Doug’s face had begun turning waxen, shiny, but his expression appeared merely perplexed. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Natalie fought to keep her gaze from traveling toward Doug’s foot. She stared off at the sun-washed sky, biting her lip as tears overflowed.

  Suddenly, Doug looked annoyed. “Ow,” he said, as if a bee had stung him. “That really hurts.” And he glanced down.

  When his back dipped, Natalie moved to catch him, forgetting to check the ground for traps. What did it matter now anyway? She lowered Doug carefully into a sitting position, then sank down beside him. She cradled his head in her arms as pain finally caught up to consciousness and Doug’s leg began to twitch.

  “Christ,” he groaned. “Son of a bitch. That bastard.” He reached toward his foot, but Natalie caught his hand in the vise of her fingers.

  “Don’t touch it,” she barked, and he lifted his eyes. “That stick—it’s cauterizing your wound. Or sealing it or something. We have to leave it where it is. We have to leave it alone.” She forced herself to look. The spike connected Doug to the ground, but only barely—most of its length had wound up in his foot.

  Doug started shaking his head, slowly back and forth.

  “Honey, we have no other choice,” Natalie said. Salty tears stung the back of her throat. “Maybe we can submerge your foot
in the creek. That would help with the pain. Although I’d be scared of infection—”

  Doug continued to shake his head, wildly now.

  “What?” Natalie asked. “What are you trying to say?”

  He reached for her hands. “You have to go on, Nat.”

  “What?”

  “Go on without me,” Doug said. “Get out. Use the creek like we planned.”

  “No,” Natalie answered simply.

  “Natalie!” Doug shouted, and panicked, she cast her gaze about the woods. “You won’t do me any good by staying. All you’ll accomplish is that we both die or get trapped here for good. When Kurt comes looking, he’ll find the two of us.” His leg kicked out, seemingly involuntarily, and Doug let out a long, low bellow of pain before he was able to clamp his lips shut. The motion had separated the stick from the earth.

  Natalie gazed at her husband, the familiar planes and angles of his face beginning to change now, altered by the burden of pain.

  Doug began trying to lift himself off the ground, using his good foot as a lever while keeping the hurt one immobile, and clawing around beneath the waistband of his shorts. He came out with a fistful of bars, which he handed to Natalie, along with one of the clay cups, a pouch containing four clammy tablets, plus the map in its lacquered coating.

  “Take this stuff,” he panted. “And go. Find a way out. Now go!”

  Doug’s voice sounded different too, stripped of all that had once made it his. Natalie got onto her hands and knees. “We need to move you,” she said. “You can hide beneath those branches.” She gestured toward a tree whose trunk was draped with green.

  Keeping the wounded foot motionless, Doug used the other one, as well as his hands, to lift his body a few inches off the ground. Natalie stooped and slid her hands beneath her husband’s arms, then began to pull him toward the sheltering tree.

  Doug’s body slid, and he moaned.

  “I’m sorry, honey!” cried Natalie. “I’m so sorry!”

  Rivulets of sweat poured down Doug’s face, hanging in droplets from his new growth of beard. He ground out words. “Just get me there.”

  She pulled him a few more feet, pushing branches aside when they came to the tree. Working together, they used the greenery to conceal him. Natalie ducked out from underneath. She couldn’t see any hint of Doug, not even a flag of color from his clothes.

  She bent over, peering inside to say—what? Goodbye? I’ll be back with help? I love you? Doug’s upper torso tipped, the trunk providing support as he leaned against it. “Go,” he said, sodden and sleepy. “Don’t think. You’ve got this. I know you do.”

  Natalie slipped out from under the embrace of the tree, and ran.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Kurt chose to allow Doug and Natalie enough time that they might grow optimistic, imagine themselves truly getting away, but not enough that such a thing would become a real possibility. It wouldn’t be likely, of course, no matter how much time Kurt gave them—he’d planted too many traps. But the couple might get lucky, weave a path that avoided the worst of his obstacles, and Kurt couldn’t have that.

  He had begun to suspect a certain rebellious intent on the couple’s part as early as yesterday morning, when they had all taken their meander through the woods. Natalie had been suffused with hope and promise, glowing with it like a bad sunburn. Clearly she and Doug were up to something, and the prospect of ferreting out what it was had made Kurt’s nerve endings tingle. He’d decided not to allow the two to sleep alone; what if they planned to attack Kurt under cover of the dark? He had even shown them his machete, all but put it on display, as if daring them to make such a move. The couple’s true strategy, however, made more sense, given their lack of strength and skills.

  What they were planning came clear to Kurt once the two began to treat him to their B-movie acting. Natalie’s injury had been self-inflicted, or else inflicted by Doug. No way had she rolled over on the ground, opening that cut on her cheek. There hadn’t been a speck of dirt in it.

  Kurt wondered what had been stolen from his hut; he would have to make a thorough check later. His machete still lay in its spot on the shelf, but he suspected the map he had lifted from a long-ago hiker was gone, which would pose a concern, should the couple get far enough to flee. Natalie, of course, couldn’t do a thing with the map, by her own admission. But that still left Doug. Kurt had observed some missing energy bars, although Doug had been judicious, leaving several behind. With a shiver of delight, Kurt wondered at which point the two would allow themselves a treat.

  He felt at a peak of power, his senses sharpened, not a shred of fatigue. It pleased him how easily the couple had bought his drugged act. After several seasons, Kurt had come to conclude that Scott’s Dash was apocryphal. Even if the plant did exist somewhere in the region, the leaves Doug had found were far more commonplace. Wild thyme, an invasive that made a spicy, pleasing tea, incapable of putting anyone to sleep.

  The couple would head toward the creek surely, intending to follow it out.

  Were it not for Kurt, such a plan might even have worked.

  The sun began to rise in the sky, wrapping the land in its gauzy glow. Kurt emerged from his sleeping bag, picking it up and smoothing it out close to Doug and Natalie’s place of slumber. They would all rest again together tonight.

  He started walking south-southeast out of camp, concentrating intently in order to spy the first blotch of blood or other sign of trouble on the ground.

  • • •

  Kurt had enough insight and self-awareness to know that the anticipation he currently felt had its roots in his childhood. His was a focus inculcated by his parents. Their psychiatric backgrounds meant they were both fascinated by the human psyche.

  Kurt’s parents had studied him with acute attention born of their school training, observing his every word and action, and reflecting upon it all with admirable professional distance. It took Kurt a long time to understand that his parents’ mode of relating amounted to an infinitely better type of love than the tempests to which lesser people fell prey. Ordinary love caused hurt and heartache; Kurt’s parents saw that all the time in their practices. Child abuse, domestic violence, divorce. Still, as a younger fellow, Kurt could remember hungering after more typical parent-child interactions.

  He had once asked his mother to read him a bedtime story, considering this a benign enough request. Didn’t most mothers read their children books, especially intellectual ones like Kurt’s, who placed a value on education and literacy?

  Besides, Kurt’s mother enjoyed reading herself—the only time Kurt had ever seen her display any sort of emotion was when she would pore over romances procured from the library or drugstore or supermarket racks. Kurt used to like to watch his mother read, because when she did, her face would lose its habitual smoothness. Her eyes would widen, her cheeks grow red, and her lips part as the stories swept her away.

  Upon hearing Kurt’s bedtime proposal, his mother had acquiesced, digging out a brightly colored picture book that Kurt hadn’t known they owned, then sitting down on the seldom-used rocking chair. Kurt had perched rigidly on her lap, his back upright, arms held aloft, while his mother began to read.

  The trouble ensued when Kurt sat back.

  In his memory, his small body had molded itself to his mother’s with a sensation he had never before experienced. So natural, so comfortable, his muscles relaxing from their customary guarded stance, which resulted, surely, from not knowing what about his behavior might provide fodder for speculation, as if Kurt were a specimen in a cage. He felt his mother’s breasts flatten against his back—such softness!—and then smelled something he’d also never known existed.

  His mother had a scent, flowery and sweet and warm.

  Kurt breathed in deeply, cuddling against his mother’s form. He forgot all about listening to the story. His thumb wandered up to hi
s mouth, even though Kurt had stopped sucking ages ago, when his parents began charting each incident, trying to see what prompted the need to self-soothe.

  Then his mother leapt up, whirling on him and fixing him with a look Kurt didn’t recognize, and never once saw again in all the years after.

  The storybook fell to the floor, while Kurt himself was rudely upended, landing beside the book. He thought for a moment that his mother must have smelled fire or sensed some other sort of danger.

  But she remained in the room, calm and contained, staring down at him. Though she did open and close her mouth a few times, failing at first to speak. Finally she called out, her hoarse tone giving way to a smoother one, “George, do come here.”

  Kurt stayed where he’d fallen, sprawled out on the floor, registering the fact that his eyes and cheeks had grown slippery for some reason, and wondering what label his parents would apply to this affliction.

  At the summons, Kurt’s father came hurrying down the hall.

  “Look at Kurt,” his mother instructed. “I believe he has developed an age-appropriate aversion to crying.”

  Upon arrival in the doorway, his father looked down at Kurt, who was fingering the slipperiness on his face while he attempted to stand up.

  “Trying to wipe away tears, is he?” his father queried.

  Kurt’s mother peered closer. “I wonder if this is a lesson learned from his peers? I don’t believe either of us has ever chastised him for such behavior.”

  “Certainly not,” Kurt’s father said. “That wouldn’t be healthy.”

  Kurt hadn’t made it higher than his knees. Hands splayed out on the floor, he stared up at his parents, as drops turned into rivulets, sliding down his cheeks and filling his mouth until he began to cough and sputter and thought he would drown.

  His parents looked on, nodding.

  • • •

  Kurt had walked farther than he’d expected, passing the deepest of the manholes he had dug, as well as several long lengths of tripwire fashioned from thorn-spiked vines. He began to feel a grudging respect for the couple—they had kept their eyes peeled at least—and also a growing sense of fear.