Two Nights Ago
I crawled out of the smoke, coughing and hacking, and onto the forest floor. It was as different as night and day, from choking to breathing. I was just about to stand when a thickly calloused bare foot stepped on my hand, crushing it. Above me, a man stood with a baseball bat. As he wielded it, about to bring it around, I heard a gunshot and a dime-sized hole miraculously appeared on his cheek. The man blinked, uncomprehending and the bat slipped from his hands. Then, like an imploding building, he slunk straight down.
Time sped up and Dirk ran past as Max reached down and pulled me to my feet. “C’mon, Ruthie!” He pushed me onward, hands on my back, never leaving my side. The rest I can only describe as something out of a war movie. Sounds didn’t match the action, a kaleidoscope of disjointed images, trees ahead, adults behind, screams and commands. It was terribly exciting and I had to remind myself I wasn’t watching this on screen; I was in it.
I don’t know why I didn’t feel the same earlier, but is it wrong to say that living on the edge, between life and death, was exhilarating? I almost don’t want to admit it, but I was so alive. My fingers tingled, a crazed giddiness spread from within me, and I ran and ran.
Dirk, I saw, wasn’t running away. He was running toward them, playing solider, bullet casings flinging from his gun, a lethal pinball, moving from one adult to another, getting so close he could play tag if he wanted. Gun raised, he delivered a coup de grace over and over. I like to think he was putting them out of their misery.
The woman with the butcher knife charged him. Dirk took a stance, taking aim, a cocky grin on his face. “Bring it on,” he said and pulled the trigger.
Click, click.
He was out of bullets. The woman kept coming. Freaked, Dirk threw down the gun and ran. Once again, adrenaline fueled me, throttling me forward, and I jumped through the undergrowth, the forest a blur of green and brown. I was on a manic high. Simply surviving brought forth its own endorphin rush.
I nearly stopped when I saw the figures ahead of us. What were they doing just sitting there? Dark, spectral, and larger-than-life, they huddled in a haphazard fashion. Then I remembered this was Dirk’s father’s sculpture garden. It was less a garden and more a strange juxtaposition of steel and wood. He specialized in creating Wicker Men, scarecrow-like creatures made of metal scraps, held together with thick bolts. Seams crisscrossed, arteries of soldered metal. Where there should’ve been hands and fingers were shards, now stained with bird droppings and rust. I never came here, because they reminded me of evil totem poles. I’d stumbled upon them once as a kid, walking around, and thought they were ghosts made real. Students in the drug scene never came out here, either, as stories made the rounds of bad acid trips. I never knew much about art, but had to wonder what kind of person would put so much time and effort into these gothic creations.
But they provided cover. I stopped and hid behind one, standing flush against it, my breath shallow and swift. The sculpture towered over me at nearly seven feet, arms of metal outstretched coming to a dull point.
The fingers.
I hung on them like at a jungle gym, using all my weight, trying to break one to use as a weapon. For once, my weight worked for me, as the finger slowly bent. To my right, the woman with the butcher knife sped toward me.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I intoned as the finger bent more and more.
I could see the woman getting closer, and the more I tugged, the more the sculpture’s iron bone cut into my skin.
Any second the woman would strike.
Almost there.
Almost –
The woman whirled in front of me, the knife held high and I caught sight of her teeth, bared like a rabid dog, and just as she swooped the knife down, the shard broke off and I lunged forward into her stomach. For a brief moment, it was as if we were hugging. She stopped, dropping to her knees, and her hand-sewn dress bloomed red. She looked down at the shard embedded within her, encircling it with her hands.
Her face clenched and so did mine, imagining her pain.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
She looked at me, all her anger gone and asked beseechingly, “Why?”
She pressed her hands against the shard, attempting to pull it out.
“No,” I said and as I squatted next to her, she shied away from me, worse than a frightened puppy. I placed my hands over hers. “You’ll bleed out.”
Just then, Dirk ran over with a broken shard of his own and plunged it into her neck. The hilt sank to her collarbone. The woman fell sideways, shuddering on the ground.
I stood and rushed him. “Why did you do that?”
“Like my daddy always told me, ‘Dead folks don’t sue.’” He prodded her body with his foot. The shuddering had stopped. “Looks dead to me.”
“You didn’t need to kill her!”
“No? What about them?” He pointed to a couple more adult bodies that lay in the grass, and I was relieved I couldn’t see their faces or their fatal wounds.
“She wasn’t a danger to us,” I said.
He shrugged. “Don’t feel bad, Ruthie. You did good. You’re a natural.”
No, I wanted to scream. I would never be a natural at this. “Ever stop to think there might be a cure?”
“There’s no cure for what I’ve seen.”
“I’ve seen worse than you.”
“Then what are you arguing for?”
“Because who knows how long this’ll last?”
He looked down at the woman’s body, still and lifeless. “Not long enough for her, I guess.”
I pushed past Dirk, toward Max. He looked shell-shocked and I hugged him. He was so skinny, I could almost touch my elbows behind his back, and I felt his heart fluttering next to mine. That’s when I saw the shard in his hand. It, too, dripped with blood.
“I had to kill them, Ruthie. I had to.”
I wondered if killing was becoming easier for him. For all of us. “I know.”
Beyond him, my brother’s legs splayed on the ground, his body leaning against a sculpture. He didn’t move and in that moment, I felt very small.
“Theo!”
I ran and fell at his side. His face was bloodstained, his face more angular, sharper somehow—different—but his eyes met mine. I said, “Thank God you’re alive.”
“Just tired, Ruth.”
“Shake your legs for me, okay?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“Then give a shake.”
“Are you mom-ing me?”
“I guess I am.”
His foot wiggled.
Satisfied he wasn’t injured, I leaned next to him, sharing breaths.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“Surviving.”
“Are we?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m not so sure.” He gazed at me. “You don’t look so good, either,” he said.
My knees and elbows were smeared in dirt, and my hand ached from where the man had crushed it. A small cut ran across my other hand where the rusty shard had sliced skin.
Great, I thought. Now I had to worry about tetanus.
“I’ll be okay.”
“We can’t keep running,” he said. “We’ll run in circles.”
He was right. The island was only so big. There were also more adults than kids. It would be a war of attrition and they had the numbers. The experience. The everything.
I looked in the distance and saw the plume of smoking trailing into the sky from the burning cabin. “I’ve got an idea.”
I stood next to the cabin or what remained of it—an ashy, burning pile—positioning myself with the wind, trying to avoid breathing in smoke. The strategy didn’t work. The wind shifted, blowing soot in my face. Trying to wipe my face clean, I only managed to smudge the blackness more. Between the flickering embers on the ground, I tentatively grabbed a burning piece of wood. It was some kind of broken-off beam and I held it like a torch.
“We need a pile of leaves and twigs.”
Dirk asked, “What for?”
“We’re gonna start a forest fire.”
“You know we’re in the forest, don’t you?”
“It’s to send a signal.”
Dirk laughed derisively. “Like smoke signals?”
“No, the fire. Someone’ll see it. A plane or maybe as far as Seattle. They’ll know something’s wrong.”
Max said, “What about the adults on the island? They’ll see it first.”
“They will,” I said. “But so will everyone else.”
Dirk hesitated, but must’ve found the idea sound, because he began pushing leaves and small branches together in a new pile. Soon after, we all raked the forest floor with our hands, hauling armfuls of debris. The pile grew by inches until it stood nearly level with my waist.
Dirk asked, “Can I?” and reached for the de facto torch. “I always liked starting fires.”
“Not creepy at all,” said Max.
I handed Dirk the burning beam. He let loose some kind of Tarzan meets Viking yell and tossed it into the pile.
I think we all expected it to explode in a whoosh of light and heat. I’d seen Christmas trees on fire, and they went up exactly as the saying goes.
But nothing happened.
The torch just lay there. Surrounded by leaves. Doing nothing.
If anything, the beam began to flame out. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Theo said, “You’re smothering it. It needs air.” He got close to the pile, careful not to burn himself, doing some sort of Boy Scout surgery to repair it. Still no fire.
Theo stood up and shook his head. “It’s too wet. Look at my hands. Everything’s damp.”
“…but the cabin!” Dirk stammered.
“They used gasoline. And that thing was decades old. Dry as a bone.” He saw my disappointment and tried to comfort me. “It was a good plan, though.”
Good plans meant nothing if not executed. Had we done anything right?
“You’re right,” I said, sounding dead inside. “We can’t run forever.”
“Ruthie. Look at me.” I did. “Let’s stop. Just for tonight. We need sleep.”
I was operating on fumes. Looking at them, they were, too. Bags under their eyes, barely standing straight. If that’s how they appeared, I was glad I didn’t have a mirror. My body moved by a foreign energy, there was no other way to explain it.
“We’ll take shifts,” Theo said. “I’ll go first.”
None of us argued.
We walked a good distance away, in case the smoke attracted any more adults. As we lay near a grouping of trees, Dirk said, “How long are we protected?”
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“I mean, what’s to stop the virus from infecting us?”
“Maybe it already has,” Max joked.
“That’s not funny,” I said. “I figure if it hasn’t happened yet, then it won’t.” It was just a guess, but I wanted to believe it.
Max chewed the inside of his lip. “You sound real convincing.”
I closed my eyes, taking in a blanket of black and I must’ve fallen asleep quickly, for it seemed as if only minutes had passed before Theo was nudging me. “Ruthie, your turn.”
He didn’t have a watch, so I had no idea how long he’d actually stayed awake, or if he’d waited at all. I was about to ask for more time, but looking at his face told me he needed sleep more than I did.
“Okay,” I said.
“You have to stand up, Ruth. You’ll fall back asleep.”
Damn older brothers and their logic. I stood up, cold after sweating in my clothes. Theo hunkered down in the spot I just left. “Ohhh, nice and warm.”
“Thanks for rubbing it in.”
“Whenever you think it’s time, wake up Max.”
“It’s time now.”
He smiled at my weak joke, and I swear, he fell asleep the moment his head hit the dirt. It was just me and the forest. Me and the stars. I watched as Theo, Max, and Dirk slept. How peaceful they seemed. My tribe. The night was quiet, the air cool and here was a slice of calm. I don’t know how much later, maybe minutes, maybe an hour, but as I looked up, I saw pinpricks of light streaking across the sky. It was a meteor shower. In school, I learned it was called a “celestial event,” and it seemed bizarrely fitting. Miles above, comets, probably no bigger than a grain of sand, were entering the atmosphere, burning into nothingness, leaving a beautiful trail in their wake, while down here, people were dying, souls escaping. I wondered if any cosmic entity was gazing down at Hemlock Island and whether those souls left the same kind of beauty seen from afar. I doubted it, and yet, I hoped.
I so hoped that what we were doing was worth it.