“I think if we just tell them that we found someone they’ll have to comb the woods again. Maybe they’ll do a better job this time. Now which way should we go?”
Jess pointed off in what seemed to Chris like a random direction. “I think north is that way,” she explained. “The sun is sort of toward west in the sky and we’re a little past noon, so it should be setting. I think.”
“Told you that you were the better survivalist,” Chris responded. He gave a grand hand gesture as if to suggest ladies first. “Would you like to lead?”
They began to head in the direction Jess had chosen. She hoped she could get them back to the lake. Following the shore to help would be easy.
Chris followed as close as he could to Jess as she limped along. “So who do you think put that girl there?”
“Can we not talk about that?”
A silence fell between them. The sun slowly dragged itself across the sky. The woods no longer felt welcoming and serene. Instead it felt like every patch of shadow was a spot someone could easily hide in. It felt like eyes were watching from everywhere. Every thick, luscious bush and group of old, wide trees could offer a surveillance spot.
“Do you still think we’re heading the right way?” Chris said as he flopped down onto a fallen log for a rest. He was certain their injuries had slowed them to maybe a mile an hour and he couldn’t even guess how far it was to the lake from where they were. If they’d picked the wrong direction, even by a few hundred feet, their walk could become hours longer.
Jess leaned back to look up at the position of the sun. “I think we must be. The sun is even lower toward west.” She took the wadded up jean wound covering out of her back pocket and then sat down next to him. She placed it in a small pile of leaves.
“Shit. Did you just set that on the ground? Now that’s going to be even dirtier.”
Jess gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m not putting it back on. It doesn’t matter. And you weren’t about to use it on yourself were you?”
Chris rested his elbow on his knee and then rested his forehead on his hand. “I don’t know. I didn’t really expect to be lost in the forest like this. I was going to use everything we had for whatever we needed.”
Jess shrugged her shoulders. “Well, too late now. So whatever. It’s not like we’re going to be in here much longer. We have to be getting close to the lake.”
“How’s your ankle?”
Jess tugged down the edge of her sneaker. Her shoe had been pooling blood for a while, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. It looked like despite the constant motion of walking there was a scabby cover forming. It hurt and still continued to throb, but it wasn’t so painful she couldn’t push herself to walk. “I’ll live.”
Chris lowered himself off the log onto the ground and put his back against the rough bark. “I need to sit a while. I need a break.”
“We need to find water,” Jess stated as she turned her bloody hands back and forth looking at the red-brown stains. “I want to clean my hands.”
“More important, we need to rehydrate.”
“Well, yeah,” Jess smiled. “That, too.”
“Remember when I said you were the better survivalist?” Chris laughed.
Jess began to laugh, too. It felt weird to laugh after they’d seen a dead girl and then nearly both died. It felt so weird she laughed harder. It felt like madness to find it so funny. After tears streamed from her eyes, she managed to calm herself.
“You’re such a jerk,” she said hitting him lightly on the shoulder.
He looked up at her, suddenly very somber. “Is it just me or do you feel cold?”
“No, I feel warm. Hot. It’s like eighty degrees here in the shade.”
“I don’t… I don’t feel real great,” he said laying his head back on the log. He blinked his eyes several times.
“Honey, what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m…”
“Chris! Tell me! Tell me what to do!”
“Maybe… shock.”
“Shock? What do I do for shock? What do you need me to do?” She’d heard him tell her before how people would come into the hospital hours after an accident suddenly going into shock. It didn’t surprise her with the heat and dehydration, but it made her no less terrified.
“Tired,” Chris groaned.
She prodded his shoulder hard and shouted, “Am I supposed to let you sleep? What do I do?”
“Mmm…”
Jess’s heart began to race. A medical emergency and the only person qualified to deal with it was blacking out. “Chris! Chris! Answer me!”
He didn’t say another word and she shook him just a little. His head flopped forward with his chin to his chest. She positioned it back against the log like a rock-hard pillow. Tears started to stream down her face as she lifted one of his eyelids, but his eye was rolled back.
“Chris! What do I do?” She clawed her fingers into her scalp as she screamed with frustration. “What do I do?”
Her body felt numb and she knew what was coming next. It was familiar and terrifying territory and once again the one person who could help ground her was propped up unconscious next to her. Her mind began to simultaneously shut out voluntary normal thought and instead her whole world collapsed around her. A darkness grasped her soul and instantly she felt herself dying from the inside, fearful and alone in her own dreadful place, despite the sweeping sunshine streaming through the trees.
Jess fell onto her side among fallen pine needles. Her sobbing was uncontrollable and took the breath straight out of her. She was having a panic attack. The second one of the trip, but this time she was alone and trapped. She clutched at her arms and felt the gravity of the whole universe rushing in to crush her to pieces. She felt her impending death and the deepest shades of despair. Her heart simultaneously raced and felt like it had stopped beating.
It took a long time, but she finally crawled her way up and out of her own personal hell. Her heart felt like it was irregular and fast and deadly, but she assumed it was the fading of her nerves screaming throughout her body. She lay still for a bit. She traced her fingertips over a particularly orange dried pine needle as she tried to regain herself.
Panic attacks weren’t just scary. They physically hurt and psychologically destroyed her a little more every time. As she came to her senses properly, she began to inhale and exhale rhythmically and regularly. Her heart and chest hurt, but her lungs were so happy to have oxygen in correct and comfortable amounts.
She wondered if she’d laid there for two minutes or two hours. A check of her watch told her it had probably been at least a half hour, but it had been a long time since she’d checked her watch so it was all speculation.
As far as she cared, it was late enough that the sun was beginning to truly set and her husband was still completely knocked out. She checked his breathing and his heartbeat. He was breathing more normal than hers, and his heartbeat seemed like it was probably fine as well though she wouldn’t have a clue if that was an accurate assumption.
She sat up next to him, uncertain of what action she should take, if any. No one would even think they were missing until their checkout in three more days. She doubted anyone walking by their campsite would notice their absence unless park security was trying to check back with them about anything.
As the daylight faded, the sky overhead exploded with a rainbow of beautiful natural colors. It was always gorgeous when this close to nature. It wasn’t blocked by a multitude of big tall ugly buildings and their glaring lights. It was like the city wanted your focus and damned if you wanted to appreciate what little nature there was in the urban landscape.
The sky was already violet receding into navy as Chris stirred. He didn’t wake up, but he grunted and twitched a hand. Jess stared at him, hoping that her enthusiastic feelings would telepathically make him wake up. Chris quieted again and Jess wondered if she should try to wake him. With the way he’d been complaining about his back
, she wasn’t sure if she should move him to a horizontal position or if this was better because it left his spine in the same spot without a lot of jostling.
“Please be okay,” she whispered to him.
It was full dark by the time Chris woke up. Jess couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face. She thought she knew what “dark” was, but she hadn’t really thought about how pitch black it really was because she had become so accustomed to streetlights and flashlights to guide her. She only reacted because she heard Chris mumble incoherently.
She pulled out one of the phones and turned on the flashlight option. The bright white light blinded Chris who put his hand up to shield his eyes.
“Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
He recovered for a minute. “Why’s it so dark out here?”
“Oh, babe, it’s night. You passed out and I…” She bit the words back, afraid it would trigger her again. She shined the flashlight toward the ground, but it was nice to have some light after sitting alone in the dark waiting for him.
Chris rubbed the back of his head a moment. It was uncomfortable from laying against rough bark for hours. He leaned forward some and found that his back still hurt significantly, but it didn’t feel any worse. “I think we maybe both went into shock. I didn’t think you were hurt that bad, I thought it was just the situation was just too much at once for you, but I don’t know. Maybe you even have a concussion.”
He tried to stand, but felt stiff and spent time bending and straightening his legs instead. He continued, “We need to drink water. Clean water.”
“We can’t really walk around in the dark, can we?”
He pushed himself up off the ground and rested on top of the fallen tree again. He had pins and needles in his legs and feet and moved around to try and stop the fire he felt. He grimaced with the effort, but as feeling came back, he stretched his arms up and felt his back crack. It wasn’t a bad sound or feeling and it seemed to relieve some tension and pressure. He was certain he shouldn’t be moving like that after an accident. It was the same kind of thing he’d yelled at patients in the past for, but now that he was in the moment, he realized just how satisfying it felt.
“I’m so happy you’re awake,” Jess said from her seat on the ground. “I couldn’t sleep and I absolutely hate being out here at night. This is not at all my cup of tea.”
Chris reached out to help her up. She still put most of her weight onto the log with her other arm, not wanting to stress his back, but he provided balance as she stood. “Still no signal? We walked so far.”
Jess lit up the screen again. “We just aren’t getting anything out here. It’s really starting to piss me off. We pay our phone bill, but one little trip to the lake and suddenly the whole place is practically a dead zone.”
“It’s the way these old-fashioned small towns are. The companies don’t put cell towers where everyone is so spread out. I mean, how many people you really think camp here at any given time? Two hundred? Three? Plus, a lot of these people are looking to disconnect.”
“So what do we do though? Right now?”
“I guess, we probably shouldn’t head out in the dark,” he replied, not thrilled with the idea any more than her.
“We’re staying here then? Tonight? All night?”
“We have to.”
Jess scooted in closer. “Do you feel like sleeping?”
“Not anymore.”
“Me either.”
Jess turned off the phone’s light and pocketed it again. They held each other, a tangle of arms. After a while, Chris suggested they could maybe try to nap. Sleep would help. Genuine, deep sleep. He wasn’t sure they’d get any, but the less exhausted they felt the better they would be at walking in the morning.
Pressed tightly together, they laid in the dark latched onto one another. It had cooled down significantly in the late hours. Jess felt a little chill, but she could also feel the blood and sweat plastered to her skin. It was uncomfortable and itchy and she could only imagine the shower that she’d have had if they’d made it back in the evening. She could practically smell her shampoo with a hint of mint. A trip the hospital didn’t even feel as important as the need to be clean.
Their surroundings smelled heavily of pine and damp earth. There was a little dew on the ground, but only just enough to give the soil a vigorous earthy scent. It was a good, natural smell that on any other given night, they would have loved, but instead it only served as a reminder of their failure to escape.
Without realizing it they each dozed off into an unsettled slumber. It had been an exhausting day and it had been topped with dangerous injuries. With nothing to focus on besides their partner’s breathing, it was deceptively easy to fall into a mental trance and then slip into unconsciousness. Without visual stimulation, their eyes had closed to shut out the fact that they were completely blind.
Jess and Chris each fluttered their lids open at the sound of movement. It was like a shuffling. It was unusual for either to be a light sleeper, but their survival depended on it and their minds had been careful to keep them just barely aware of the world.
The shuffling stopped and there was perfect silence in the absolute dark. Jess gripped Chris with a fervor as he put his arms around her more securely. She put her forehead to his and began to take a phone from her pocket. She wanted to turn it on, see the world around them, and deal with the situation accordingly. At the same time, she didn’t want to know. Man’s primal instinct has always been a fear of the dark and she was more than in tune with those ingrained genetics than she ever had been.
Speaking in a nearly inaudible whisper, she said she was going to turn the light on. His nodding moved her head the same way, as if syncing their agreement. The flashlight was active and blindingly bright. The beam shook with the movement of her hand. It passed over the ground, then the base of the trees.
At first, she was certain it must have been an animal and they had scared it off. A deer could have been walking through, maybe a raccoon prowling the night, or possibly an owl flapping its great strong wings as it moved up to the farthest branches.
That’s when the beam hit a foot. Jess trailed the light upward toward the rest of the figure. The person was on the ground, seated against the base of a tree. Jess’s beam shook even harder as she saw the blood, the face, the hair. It was the dead girl from the picnic table.
Jess let out a gasping cry and covered her mouth with her other hand. Chris let go of her and immediately shot to his feet.
“Give me the light,” he said.
Jess willed herself to hand it over. It was nearly impossible to allow herself to be engulfed powerlessly back into the blackness, but she managed to place the phone in his outstretched hand. She cowered against the fallen tree. She was trying so hard to contain the screams that wanted to erupt from her mouth. Tears clouded her eyes as she watched the light move closer to the girl.
Chris knelt down and felt for a pulse. He wondered if she somehow wasn’t dead. She looked extremely dead. Everything about her was slack and she was so pale there couldn’t possibly be a heartbeat, but he’d seen miracles before and needed to know. He reached up to feel her throat, but reconsidered when he saw how torn up she appeared. Taking her wrist instead, he felt for a pulse. As he predicted, the girl seemed to be positively deceased.
He stood back up and shined the light around some more. There were some drag marks near her where she’d been positioned by the tree, but with everything else so undisturbed he assumed she must have been carried there and dropped.
He flashed the light around wildly. Someone had to be nearby. A noise had woken them and while he supposed it was possible for a wild animal to have been at her corpse, he didn’t feel that was the case. The beam passed over nothing.
Suddenly he felt a panic like he needed to race to Jess. He was certain the light would shine over her terrified face and then with a slight upward motion he’d illuminate someone. It was going to be someone with a knif
e, he was certain. He whipped around, illuminating his weeping wife curled into a ball on the ground. He moved the light up, ready to attack and destroy.
The beam hardly lit up the woods behind their fallen tree. Chris continued his search. At some point the light would show a face, a body, a weapon. Instead, he found himself turning in frantic circles.
Someone had to be toying with them. Why else leave a dead girl and depart? Mental torment was definitely on the menu and they were being served a great big helping. Jess was taking the brunt of the invisible menace’s torture. He was proud that she’d had the courage to turn on the light, but once he’d taken charge, she was a lost cause. She was a whimpering heap and he was worried she was simply broken beyond repair.
He hoped she was stronger than that, but it was certainly understandable that she’d lose her shit over a dead girl showing up in the middle of the night. The whole day after they’d strayed from the path had been one long road to an overflow of emotion.
Chris knelt down next to Jess. He put a hand on her cheek and brushed back her hair. Her mascara was absolutely everywhere on her face. She had her hands curled up into tight little balls over her mouth. There was a monstrous fear in her eyes like nothing he’d ever seen in her before.
“We’re going to keep walking,” he said. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
Jess shuddered with a rattling sob, but unfurled one of her hands and let Chris take it. He pulled her up and hugged her so tight to him that he practically engulfed her with his larger form. She blew out a heavy breath. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hand and snuffled once.
“I got makeup in my eyes. Fuckin’ burns.” She let out a single pathetic laugh and wiped at her face again. Chris let her have a moment. He kept the light on her. She was so tiny and frail in the white glow.
Normally he thought of her as strong and powerful. Any other day, she was a warrior goddess. A petite amazon among women. She could leap tall buildings in a single bound or beat up a mugger with her bare hands. Now, she was simply Jess, the scared girl wearing the matching wedding band to his own.
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