by Raina Ash
Once the sun turned the sand a deep orange hue, they packed the camels and set off. This time, Paul’s camel rode beside Allison’s.
“Does your tailbone hurt as much as mine does?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I hate it.”
“This might be my first and last camel trip, though it is spectacular out here.”
“I agree.”
Noah guided them to a large dune and helped them to the ground. “Right,” he said. “Ever surfed waves before?”
“I used to in college when I lived out in California,” Paul said.
“What?“ Allison said. “You don’t look like someone who surfs.”
“And you don’t look like someone who travels by herself, yet here you are.”
She made a face at him.
Noah showed them how to surf the dune with perfect technique. Paul followed suit and only fell near the bottom. Allison took her turn, slipped right away, and tumbled to the bottom. Her entire body was covered in sand and Paul couldn’t stop laughing. Noah suppressed his grins.
They surfed a few more times (Paul and Noah, not Allison) and then continued on. Around midday, Noah stopped his camel, forcing the others to stop as well. “Let’s pitch a tent and break from the sun. We might reach the oasis late today.”
“An oasis?” Allison said. “That sounds fun.”
“It’s bewdy bonza.”
They put up a tent large enough for all three of them. Noah warmed some canned soup on a small electric burner and passed out bowls. While Paul and Allison finished eating, he stepped outside to study the sky.
“I’m worried,” Noah said, “that a storm’s coming. If it is, we’ll stay here and try to reach the oasis tomorra. We’ll leave as soon as it’s passed, even if it’s night.” He checked his satellite GPS.
“Should we pack up and leave now?” Allison said.
“Not yet. Ya okay if I check ahead? Shouldn’t be gone longer than fifteen tops.”
Paul and Allison looked at each other. Paul shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll finish eating and rest our sore butts.”
Noah smiled. “Kay, I’ll return soon.” He checked to ensure the three remaining camels were tied securely to a post, and then he rode off on Sheila. Allison tried to ignore the uneasiness in her gut as she watched him go.
“I’m going to nap,” Paul said. “So please don’t make a lot of noise.”
“There goes my drum practice,” Allison said.
He ignored her and situated some pillows on the ground.
Allison walked out of the tent to stretch. The sky looked hazier than before and she squinted into the distance. She couldn’t see Noah anywhere. The other camels were all resting and chewing on something Noah gave them, so she returned to the tent and stretched out on her back. She pulled out her phone and took a selfie, then a picture of the camel she could see from the tent opening. She hadn’t taken many pictures so far and resolved to take more throughout the day to remember her crazy trip.
She at least needed something to post on Facebook that appeared like she had the time of her life. A picture with Noah would be perfect. When people asked about who the hot guy was, she could be vague and leave it up to their imaginations. She’d gush about the romantic night they spent under the stars and how awesome it was to ride camels (no butt soreness at all). And how she wasn’t scared to be out in the middle of nowhere because she loved the adventure. She smiled to herself, thinking of some fun descriptions to go with her images. A picture of a camel’s butt was a must.
She leaned out the tent and could hardly keep her eyes open. The wind picked up and sand blew into her face. She wiped at her eyes trying to minimize the grit. The camels made weird groaning noises.
Paul rolled over. “What are you doing to the camels? I can’t sleep.”
“I’m not doing anything.” She rubbed at her eyes.
He crawled to the tent opening. “Where did all this dust come from?”
“It must be the storm Noah mentioned. I think it’s been longer than fifteen minutes. I hope he makes it back soon.”
Paul glanced at the camels and closed the tent flap to protect them from sand. As he tied it shut, a strong gust of wind hit the side of the tent and Allison let out a startled cry. The roof shook violently, fabric flapping against the wind, top threatening to blow off and leave them exposed.
Paul’s eyebrows furrowed. “I think this is a sandstorm.”
“Sandstorm?” Allison said, raising her voice so Paul could hear. “So, well, Noah should make it back okay, right?”
“He has a GPS, so he should. But the question is when. These storms can sometimes last for hours.”
“No way. It can’t be-” Allison’s sentence ended as an even stronger gust of wind hit the tent and the roof blew away. She instinctively grabbed her phone and shoved it in her pocket as sand swirled around. A thousand tiny little needles scratched her exposed skin. She couldn’t open her eyes and fumbled around to find her sunglasses or anything to cover her face.
“Hey,” Paul yelled against the howling wind. “Here. Come over here.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the side. He covered them both with a blanket and they huddled against the part of the tent that was still standing.
Allison’s heart pounded, and she wiped frantically at her face to clear off dirt. Her fingers only smeared more dirt across her cheeks and into her eyes. She used the inside of her shirt, which was still clean. Her eyes watered and stung.
Panic swelled in her chest. The blanket smothered her and she couldn’t breathe. “I need to get out of here,” she cried. She tried to pull the blanket over their heads but Paul yanked it down and tucked the corners under his legs.
“Stop it,” he said. “You can’t go anywhere. There’s nowhere to go.”
“I can’t breathe. Please, I need air.”
“Yes, you can,” Paul said. He took a breath as if to show her. “You can breathe. See? I’m breathing and so are you.”
Allison shook her head. She was going to suffocate. She was going to be ripped apart by the storm. She was going to go blind from sand in her eyes. The world swirled around her. She just needed to take a deep breath in some fresh, clean air.
“What was that you told me about Antarctica?” Paul said.
She turned her head to the side and squinted at him in the dim light. “What?”
“Antarctica. You said it was the world’s largest desert.”
“Yeah, so who cares about that right now?”
“I’m asking because that’s interesting, isn’t it? We think of deserts as being sand but Antarctica is all frozen. Are there any other frozen deserts? What about Iceland?”
Allison looked at her thighs. Her breath was unsteady. “I don’t, I don’t think so. It’s liveable. There’s a volcanic desert there, but it’s not all desert.”
“I didn’t know there was a volcano there.”
“Yeah. Iceland has volcanoes. The area called the Highlands is ash and more dry and hard to cross. You didn’t know that?” The shaking in her hands eased a little.
“No, I didn’t know that. I’ve always wanted to visit Iceland. Do you ever see yourself visiting Iceland?”
Another strong gust of wind hit the tent behind Allison’s back and flung her forward. She screamed and shut her eyes.
Paul held her shoulders firmly, yelling above the storm. “Hey, have you ever been to Iceland?”
“I never thought about it,” she said.
“What was that?”
She raised her voice. “No. I’ve never been.” She calmed her shaking hands and took a few deep breaths. Paul was right. She could breathe. She didn’t want to think about the sandstorm or the fact that Noah wasn’t with them or that she couldn’t hear the camels anymore. She didn’t want to face the reality of where she was.
Allison grabbed the blanket and held onto it, looking at Paul. “Where are some places you’ve traveled?”
Paul relaxed. “Um, I’ve been to Ge
rmany and China.”
They continued to talk about random places in the world and facts about countries for as long as they could. An eternity passed. They both fell silent when their voices went hoarse. Exhaustion crept into every section of her body. She couldn’t think and she couldn’t process her emotions. She was numb. Drowsiness washed over her, despite needing to pee. Without thinking, she leaned against Paul and rested her head on his shoulder, holding onto his arm for comfort.
He took in a long breath and let it out. “I wonder if it’s almost night time,” he said. He pulled her into a hug so she could rest her head in the crook of his neck. He brushed sand off the side of her face.
Allison nodded off, sand whipping around her outside the blanket. When she woke, she was lying on the ground, a blanket covering her head. She stretched and yawned and sat up feeling strangely refreshed. For a moment, sleep made her forget the circumstances, and she stared into the distance. The sky was a pale gray from the setting sun. It was stunning. Then her memory returned with a jolt. Her heart raced, and she shot to her feet. “Paul?” she said, glancing around.
“Over here.”
She turned to see him standing next to a camel.
“Welcome back,” he said. “Good news and bad news. Two camels ran off. That’s the bad news. The good news is the remaining camel is the one with supplies. Alfred. I think that was his or her name.”
Allison trudged over to Paul and looked at the camel lying on the ground. “That’s good, right?” she said. “I mean, we have water and food, so that’s good. We’ll wait here for Noah and we have enough supplies to make camp. But he should be back any minute, right? So we won’t have to wait here long.”
Paul looked at the setting sun, concerned. He opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when he saw the fear in Allison’s eyes. He closed his mouth and nodded. “Yes. Noah will be back soon and everything will be okay.”
“Right. Everything will be okay. Noah will return and we’ll skip the oasis and head back to town. No harm done. He wouldn’t abandon us out here. That would be cruel. All three of us will head back soon and tomorrow we’ll be back in a riad or even a small house in the village where there’s shelter and running water and maybe even WiFi. A village could have WiFi, right?”
Paul opened one of the bags on the camel and dug through the contents. “The village we started at had WiFi.”
Allison nodded to herself and paced around the tent. She couldn’t see the tent roof anywhere, but a few of the sides remained. Her body reminded her she needed to pee and if it didn’t happen soon, she’d pee her pants. She started walking towards a small dune, thinking she could climb to the other side to have some privacy.
“Hey,” Paul yelled. “Where are you going?” He took a few steps towards her, sounding panicked.
“To the bathroom.”
“Don’t go that far. Stay around here, okay? If that storm comes back-” He walked to a random spot a short distance from the tent. He dug a small hole with his hands. “Pee here. I’ll look away.”
Allison glanced at the dune. It was kind of far. She sighed and followed Paul’s directions. When finished, she walked back to the camel and helped Paul search through the large bags for another tent. They found one and set it up before the sun set. Paul discovered an LED lantern and searched for food packs as Allison started a fire on a starter log. They’d have a couple hours of flames, which would be long enough to eat and ruminate over their predicament.
Neither of them had much to say. They sat in silence and ate soup, both worn out. Allison got up to fill her water bottle with the water from the supply pack. Paul stopped her before she untwisted the cap.
“Wait,” he said. “We should conserve water.”
She didn’t want to conserve water. Doing that meant Noah might not come back. She didn’t want to face being lost in the desert.
Noah will come back for us, she told herself. We’ll be fine. This is fine.
She stared at the water bottle long enough that Paul stood and walked over to her. “This much, okay?” He filled it with water less than halfway. “It’ll prevent you from waking up in the middle of the night to pee, okay? That’s a good reason to conserve water. Do it for that reason and everything will be fine.”
“Right, that makes sense. We’ll be on our way tomorrow.”
They both sat down to watch the fire burn out, returning the world to blackness. They curled up on opposite sides of the tent and fell into a restless slumber.
Chapter Eight
MORNING CAME. Allison dreamt she was at home with Mocha, petting his soft fur and watching old episodes of Friends. In her mind, she was home and expected to see her nightstand and her bedsheets. Instead, she saw a dusty canvas roof and her back ached from the firm bedroll. She sat up and glanced around.
The pit of her stomach fell. She wasn’t at home. She was somewhere in the Sahara desert with a man she’d only known a few days and no direct path back to civilization. Her body froze. She didn’t want to get out of the tent and see the limitless desert surrounding her, dunes ready to devour her whole. But just like at work, non-action didn’t solve problems.
She swallowed her fear and ignored the uneasiness in her gut and left the tent. Paul was sitting near the pile of ashes from the fire, poking it with a stick. The sun was already up but a cool breeze blew through the air.
“Morning,” she said.
“Oh, hey,” he said. The cheerful tone in his voice sounded forced. “How did you sleep?”
“I had a nice dream, then I woke up here.”
He nodded. “If you’re hungry, I found oatmeal. We could start a fire and cook some.”
“I’ll have another bar. Do we know how much food is left?” She sat down on a blanket and looked at the camel. There was a small bowl of water near Alfred and a pile of grasses and grains for him to eat. She pointed at the pile.
“Oh, I found the camel’s food or what I hope is food. For us, we have a week’s worth of meals, three per day. They’re not full meals, and we’ll be hungry a lot, but it’s enough to sustain both of us. Water is limited. Maybe three days left of that.”
Allison grabbed a bag next to her and looked through it for no reason. It was full of first aid supplies. The bruise on her arm ached. It was dark purple and tender, but her skin wasn’t broken. “We shouldn’t be out here long, so it’s not a concern. I’m expecting Noah to return at any moment.”
Paul leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s not a good expectation to have.”
“He knows where we are. He has a GPS. He wouldn’t abandon us.”
“I agree that he doesn’t seem like the type to disappear, but we don’t know if he’s okay. He was in that storm, too. He might be injured. The GPS could be broke. He could be turned around and went back to the village. If everything was okay, he would’ve returned by now. The longer we wait here, the more we risk running out of food and not being able to make it back on our own. Thank god we still have a camel.”
“I think it’s stupid to wander around. Noah will be back. Soon. We just need patience. We have no idea where we are so it’s better to wait for someone to find us.”
“You didn’t hear me, Allison. I said one week of food, three days of water. Once water runs out, we’re done.”
Allison stood and searched for a bag with energy bars. She unzipped a few before finding the right one. She peeled back a wrapper and took a bite. “We’re staying here for Noah,” she stated and stomped back to the tent.
“You’re being emotional,” Paul called after her.
She sat on the bedroll and pulled out her phone. The signal was still dead. The battery was at forty percent, so she powered it off. As long as her phone had power, she was still connected to the world. She remained in the tent alone for several hours, leaving only to pee outside in a hole. Paul sat under a small shade canopy he assembled next to the tent. Neither of them spoke. Around midday, Paul flung the flap of the tent open.
“We’re going,” he said. “It’s been more than enough time for Noah to return. We’re officially stranded and need to get our heads clear so we can find our own way back.”
Allison turned away from him. “We’re staying until someone comes for us.”
“Do you hear yourself? You’re acting like a child. Fine.” He let the tent flap close.
Allison heard the shifting of sand as he walked around. The camel grunted, and she heard bags being drug away from the tent. She rushed outside. Paul was securing the supply bags to Alfred.
“What are you doing?” she said, grabbing a bag and flinging it away as Paul reached for it. “You can’t leave me here.”
“Really? You’re way too dramatic, Allison.”
“I think I have a right for concern when someone is running off with the food and water I need to survive.”
“I’m not a monster. I’m splitting the supplies. You want to stay, you can stay, but I’m taking the camel and leaving. When I get back to the village, I’ll send someone to help you.”
She rushed to Alfred and grabbed the rope connected to his neck. “You can’t walk off with our camel without discussing it with me.”
“The longer we wait here and fuck around, the closer we get to the point of no return. Two days from now, if we’re still lost, we’ll have one day of water left. One day. Run out of that and we’re fucked. It may not be blazing temperatures out here since it’s fall, but we can still die, Allison. Unfortunately, we need food and water to keep living and, if you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a fucking desert.” Paul grabbed another bag and flung it on the camel.
The camel grunted again and Allison stroked the side of its neck. It looked at her lazily and blinked, not a care in the world.
“Stop cussing at me and be decent. You’re not the leader. You can’t just run off.” Her voice sounded small. Please don’t leave me here. Please stay with me.
“Yes, I can. I have the right to save myself. I’m leaving whether you come with me or not. You have supplies.”