I Am Still Alive, page 22
“Then pee,” Raph says.
“Seriously?” I arch an eyebrow. I have to think about the right facial expression to make, it’s been so long since I interacted with a human being.
He laughs. “Fine, then. You can have a little privacy.”
I try not to look hopeful and anxious. I figure I have even odds of either man accompanying me. If it’s Raph, I’m screwed.
“Don’t take her too far,” he says to Daniel. “And turn your back while the lady relieves herself.” He looks at me. “Happy?”
I glare at him. Daniel nods. He rests his pick on the ground and comes over to help me to my feet.
He avoids my eyes. I try to catch his gaze, but he stares stubbornly to the side.
I walk beside him into the trees. I can still hear Raph swinging away at the hard ground. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Scrape. But soon I can’t see him through the trees, and Daniel stops.
“I’ll, um, turn around,” he says, repeating Raph’s instructions like they’re his own idea.
“You have to untie my hands,” I say. I keep my voice matter-of-fact, even attempt to sound a little shy.
“What?” he sounds alarmed.
“Um. Girls have to squat,” I say. “I can’t exactly balance with my hands tied. Basic biology and center-of-gravity stuff. Plus it’d be hard to pull my pants down, and unless you want to do that—”
“No, no, all right,” Daniel says, his cheeks turning red.
Behind him, something moves in the woods. Something low and dark and four-legged. Bo? Or, more likely, the wolf-dog. It slinks toward us step by step.
Daniel steps up to me. He tugs at the knots a moment, curses as he catches the side of his nail, fumbles a bit more, and then gives up.
He looks really young close up. Early twenties, maybe. I feel older than he is, even at sixteen. Or am I seventeen now?
“What day is it?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“I’ve lost track,” I say. “What day is it?”
“Uh. February sixth,” he says. “Monday.”
“Guess I missed Christmas,” I say. And my birthday is in November, so I’ve missed that, too.
It’s weird, realizing I’m seventeen. That I’ve been seventeen for months. I should be waiting on college admissions and feeling the effects of senioritis. I can barely remember what school was like. It’s so surreal to think about it’s almost funny. A day dictated by bells and classes, hallways crowded with other people my age.
I always liked school. I can’t remember why, now.
Daniel flicks open a knife and sets it against the ropes. Wait, I tell myself. Wait, and then move.
There’s a rock at my feet. Small enough to lift. Large enough to hurt.
Daniel cuts through the rope. It takes some sawing to get through, but then I unwrap my hands quickly.
“Thanks,” I say. I want to add, Sorry.
He gives me a tentative smile and turns away.
I lunge. He must hear the movement, because he starts to whip back around, but I bring the rock up in both hands and swing it as hard as I can at the side of his head.
Something crunches at the impact. Daniel’s hand seizes up, squeezing a shot off into the ground. He drops to his knees. I don’t wait to see if he gets back up.
I run.
I RUN DEEPER into the woods. I have seconds before Raph follows, and the snow means I’ll leave tracks, but it’s the only hope I have.
Get away. Get armed. Get to the plane.
Branches whip past my face. Pain stabs through my ribs, but it isn’t the worst I’ve felt, not close. Just bruises, and the painkiller is still blunting the sharp edges of it.
Footsteps crash behind me. I don’t dare turn around.
A shot rings out. Then another. A bullet strikes the tree to the right of me, bark and splinters of wood exploding from the impact point. But Raph is firing blind; I had a decent head start on him.
I know the woods, know where there’s a creek I can run up, ice that won’t leave tracks.
I know where the snow will be patchy on the ground because the trees make a thick canopy above, and where the deer trails drive furrows through the underbrush.
I just have to go faster.
Snow starts to fall, pelting down out of the sky to cover up my tracks. The sound of Raph’s crashing through the woods fades behind me. I halt a moment, taking stock of my surroundings.
I could switch back here and cover my tracks. I don’t want to lead him straight to the cabin.
I set out again, picking my route carefully. Raph yells, cursing at me. Hard to tell how close he is. The trees should keep him from spotting me, but I stay low just in case.
I hook back for a few minutes, then loop around behind where I think Raph is. I’ll go wide, and come back into the cabin from the far side; it’s the best way to be sure I’ve lost him.
I slow to a jog, then a walk. My breath is sharp in my throat. I’ve started limping, and deep breaths make my ribs scream. I don’t know how much damage I’ve done to Daniel.
Head wounds are fickle. I know that. Sometimes you can take a spike to the brain and live forty years. Sometimes you get tapped and die.
I didn’t tap him, that’s for sure. I knocked him out. Maybe cracked his skull.
Definitely cracked his skull. I felt it give.
Maybe I killed him.
I’d set out to kill him, but now I’m worried I’ve done it. I remember him digging his paddle into the water, throwing Raph’s aim off as Bo barked on the shore.
He saved Bo, and I might have killed him.
The pilot might die, too. I might have killed two men, and I didn’t really mean to. Except that I did. Except . . . except that I pictured it like killing a rabbit, like killing a deer. I never admitted that I’d have to look in their eyes. I never thought they might talk to me.
It didn’t occur to me until now to wonder if Daniel has parents, has a family or a girlfriend. If he regrets getting involved with Raph. If the pilot has a daughter.
But maybe they aren’t dead. Maybe I haven’t killed anyone. Not yet.
I’m glad, and angry at myself for it. I want to be empty. But I’m filling up again with fear and with guilt and with feelings I can’t even name.
I stagger up to the cabin. I half-expect Raph to step around the side with his gun aimed at me, but it’s as still and silent as ever. I walk around the side of the cabin and halt, breath caught in my throat.
The snow is red with blood, leading up to the front steps.
Bo lies sprawled at the door, his head on his paws. He lifts his head weakly when I appear. His tail thumps against the stoop.
I rush forward. “Oh, honey,” I coo at him. He licks my fingers. His fur is matted with blood, and I don’t want to touch his side in case I hurt him, but I run my fingertips lightly over his fur.
He snaps when my fingers find the bullet hole, but he pulls his head away from me when he does. I’m not afraid he’ll bite me. It’s been a long time since I was afraid of that.
The bullet went in at the back of his neck, by his shoulder, half-obscured by the bite from the wolf-dog. There’s a lot of blood, but he’s breathing and he’s alive.
I tell myself he’ll be all right. He’s too tough to die.
I step over him to open the cabin door and then coax him inside. Even though I can feel the time I have left before Raph finds me slipping away, I pause to give him a whole heap of rabbit meat while I wash off the blood. I tear up blankets and tie them around the wound.
It’s hard to get the bandage to stay in place, hard to convince Bo to let me wrap him up. I have to loop long strips around his neck and his chest, over and over again, and by the time I’m done the bandage is bleeding through and I have to change it. And all the while I’m waiting for footsteps outside.
It feels dangerous to be there. Exposed. Easy to stumble across, even though I know how hard it is to find anything, even something the size of the cabin, in these woods.
I tell myself we’re safe. That Bo will be all right.
I don’t believe any of it.
I don’t have a plan. A goal, sure, but that’s not a plan. Of all of the scenarios I imagined, none of them ended with me leaving Bo behind. The bullet’s still lodged somewhere inside him, and he’s still bleeding. He whimpers every few seconds. His breathing is shallow. He’s lying on his side, watching me like he expects me to fix it, but I can’t.
This is all my fault. If I’d just shot the pilot, we could have gotten in the plane. We could have left. Bo would be fine. I’d be sipping hot cocoa by now.
Raph is coming for us.
He could just leave. Maybe he should. But he won’t. He’ll come after me. And I’m not even sure he’ll care about getting the crate at this point. I’ve lied to him once. He’s not going to let me do it again.
He’s going to come for me, and he’s going to kill me. Unless I kill him first. Or unless I get away.
Until now, I’ve had a choice. Revenge was a choice. I could have left the crate, stayed hidden, waited for summer and Griff. Taken my chances with the wild. But it’s not a matter anymore of choosing between Raph and the winter. Raph isn’t going to leave me to the elements and hope the forest kills me before someone comes to save me. He’s going to hunt me down and kill me.
It’s getting dark. My eyes are good at night and the sky is clear, which means light from the moon and the stars. Raph’s eyesight won’t be that good. He hasn’t been out in the wild like I have. He’ll need light, and that will make him easy prey.
Prey. Like a rabbit or a fox or a deer. That’s all.
Prey that can bite back.
I can do this. I can kill him. I can get us home. Get us help. And if I don’t, then—
Then I made it this far.
I PACK A fresh bag, since Raph took the one I had. I bring a little food. A knife, fishing line, things that might be useful. I take my bow and my quiver of arrows, and then, after a long debate in perfect silence, I walk outside and find the grenades.
When I stored them, I wrapped them in cloth and plastic to keep them dry. Now I unwrap them, two round, dark blotches. Deadly fruit.
I put them in my bag slowly, take them out again, consider. I have seen enough movies to understand the general principle of how they work, but there are still unknowns. I can’t be certain how far I’ll have to throw one, how much damage it would do. But Raph has a gun and all I have is a bow. I need some kind of advantage.
In the end I only take one. I feel safer that way, like there’s less of a chance I can screw something up.
Bo drags himself out of the cabin. I send him back in with a snap of my fingers and a scowl. I can’t shut the door. If I don’t come back, he’ll be trapped in here. But he can’t come with me, not in his condition.
I have to do this by myself.
He keeps trying to follow me. Finally I sit in the doorway, Bo stretched out next to me, and stroke his side until he drifts into a fitful sleep. Then I creep away.
This time, he doesn’t follow.
My fingertips are gummy with blood from his fur. I rub them off in the snow, hands shaking. He can’t die. He can’t leave me alone. He wouldn’t. He won’t.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going yet. To find Raph, that’s all. Before he can find me.
I walk without much purpose and realize I’m heading back to the blackberry patch, where I saw him last. As good a place as any. I keep low and go slowly. Keep my ears trained for any rustle or sigh, but it’s like the whole forest has hushed up for the night. Tonight belongs to us, the human interlopers.
It’s the first time in weeks I’ve felt like something that doesn’t belong out here, that isn’t part of the forest, at least in some small way. The forest doesn’t care that I’ve been here for so long, that I’ve become part of its every day. It won’t help me just because I’m less of a stranger than the men with their plane and their guns.
I creep closer to the edge of the clearing and spot the remains of Raph’s search for the crate. The heater still pumping out warm air. The hole, barely more than a few inches scraped in the hard ground. And Daniel, lying on his side with one arm twisted awkwardly under him. I watch for a long time, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. Dead. My fault.
The uncertainty, not knowing if I killed him or not, was sickening. This is nothing. A pang of regret, less for killing him than for the fact that he’s here at all. If anything, I’m relieved to have the answer.
I killed him. And now I know that I can kill a person. A human being.
I walk toward the north end of the lake. Out on the ice, the plane crouched, waiting. Maybe Raph is there. Guarding it from me. Maybe he’s searching for me, and the forest will take care of him. It takes back what it can. Daniel’s dead body or Raph’s living one, it won’t care.
But I won’t be that lucky.
When I get close to the old cabin I make a wide circle, searching for signs of Raph. The only thing out of place is a fire down by the shore. In its light, the pilot sits leaning against the same rock as before. His eyes are closed. My rifle is across his lap.
I unsling my bow from my back and put an arrow to it. He’s too far away for a good shot, and I don’t trust him not to wake up if I try to creep closer, but I can’t just leave him there. Not if I want to go for the plane or go after Raph.
I lick my lips. I have to risk it.
Then I see a shape across the clearing. Bone-thin, slinking through the trees. The wolf-dog, hungrier and more desperate than ever after a desolate winter. He tests the air with his nose. The moonlight glints off his eyes, a horror-movie effect that sets my hair on end.
The pilot jerks. Not asleep, then. And he’s seen.
“Git,” he says. He lifts the rifle, but it shakes and dips in his hand. Even his voice is weak.
He squeezes off a shot. The wolf-dog flattens itself into the ground but doesn’t retreat. A second shot goes wide and splats into the snow and dirt. The wolf-dog advances.
You have two bullets left, I think.
The pilot shoves to his feet. The wolf-dog is mad, crazy. The pilot’s got to put one through its head or its heart, and fast. It advances, moving swiftly over the snow. The next shot catches its flank and it howls in pain—and flings itself forward.
The pilot swears loudly. He whips the barrel of the rifle up, trying to track the wolf-dog’s movement, and the fourth shot rings out. Snow bursts behind the wolf-dog.
It keeps coming.
The pilot’s finger tightens.
Click.
I look away, but I can’t block out the sound. The pilot doesn’t scream, at least, but he fights, and I hear the blows of his fists against the wolf-dog’s side, the wolf-dog’s barking, the sound of cloth and skin tearing.
Then there is silence, and I look up again. The wolf-dog stands over the pilot’s body. Blood splashes out over the snow and stains the wolf-dog, muzzle to shoulders. His breath hisses out in clouds of steam, and the blood steams, too, thickening in the air.
A growl rattles between the creature’s teeth, and it looks at me like I might try to take the meat it’s won.
I draw my arrow back, aiming carefully. The wolf-dog comes forward. Gravel scrapes under its paws.
It charges. I release.
My aim is better than the pilot’s. The arrow catches the wolf-dog in the chest. Its momentum carries it forward, but it’s already dead or dying, and its legs collapse. It falls, bleeding, its blood mixing with the pilot’s. By the time I reach it, it’s stopped breathing.
I glance at the pilot, look away quickly. But not before his empty eyes catch mine. I start to move away, but I stop. Force myself to turn back. I swallow against the sour taste in my throat and approach the torn-up corpse.
The rifle lies on the ground, half under him. I grab the strap and pull. The body rocks toward me, then back as the rifle slides free. I swallow. Not done yet. I reach into the pocket of his coat, and I’m relieved when my fingers touch cold metal right away. The keys. I pull them out and back away two steps, staggering with my eagerness to get away from the body.
“I didn’t kill you,” I say. “This isn’t my fault.”
His gray-blue eyes stare sightlessly at me. I turn away.
My hands are shaking as I drop the keys into my pocket. And then my fingers close around the cold metal of the last bullet. Wherever Raph is, he’ll be coming here now, drawn by the gunfire. I have minutes. Seconds.
The plane is unprotected. I hesitate, indecision clutching at me as it did before. I can stay and hide and fight, or I can run for the plane and hope I get to it before Raph catches up to me.
I look at the pilot, at the wolf-dog. Standing your ground gets you killed.
The faster I get help, the faster Bo gets help.
I run for the plane. My bag slaps against my back. I load my rifle as I run. One shot. The one I’ve been saving. I hook the strap over my shoulder opposite the bow.
I see him coming down from the tree line when I’m halfway across, but it’s too late to stop now. Out here in the open I’m too vulnerable.
I fling myself across the ice and haul at the plane door. Unlocked unlocked unlocked, yes—it opens.
I pull myself into the seat, slinging my bow into the seat beside me so I’ll have room. I stare at the instruments and dials. I’ve practiced everything about getting to the plane, but I haven’t actually practiced taking off, and suddenly everything I know rushes out of my head.
Checklists, I think. But I don’t have time for safety.
I can do this. Put the key in. Turn everything on. Nav. Radio. What else? My mind is blank. Steering lock. I pull the pin, hands shaking. And everything else is gone, and it doesn’t matter because I’m out of time.
All I can do is start the engine. Start the engine and move because there’s no time for anything else.
