| |
If Kimmie had been able to plan her escape better, she would have left earlier in the month, before the termination dust fell, before the nights grew so frozen. Thankfully, it was clear out, and the moon kept the woods illuminated, but without the cloud covering, the night was bitter cold. She and her brother had no protection but a light windbreaker and one tattered blanket, and they were lost.
Kimmie was certain of it. She’d long lost track of the time, but it seemed to her that by now the moon was already on its way down in the sky. Which meant she’d been walking for several hours along the path she thought should have led her back to the Glenn Highway, and she had no idea where they were.
“Let’s stop here for a minute, Buster.”
Pip hadn’t made any sounds for quite a while, no whining or whimpering. He’d stumbled a few times until Kimmie started to worry he was falling asleep while he walked. She tried carrying him but had to put him down every few minutes.
This wasn’t going to work.
She was sweating beneath her jacket, even though her exposed face and hands burned with cold. She couldn’t keep this up. It was too much for her. She was too tired.
She stopped to listen. If she could just hear one car or truck heading down the Glenn, she’d know which direction to turn. She’d been straining her ears for what felt like hours, but the Glenn was hardly traveled at this time of night, especially this far past tourist season. She heard the occasional rustling of wind, which only meant she had to brace herself for another onslaught of icy chill. Her legs ached, the pain in her feet reminding her that she and her brother had been walking way longer than they should have. How far was she into the woods now? She might be a hundred yards from the Glenn and wouldn’t know it in this darkness, or she might be miles in the opposite direction.
What would happen if they didn’t find their way out? She was too exhausted to carry Pip any farther. Each time she stopped to rest, she had to guess which way she’d most recently come from. Her mind was foggy, and even though it was convenient that Pip wasn’t complaining or acting scared, she was worried by his complacency and her own mental confusion.
She held her brother close, and he nestled his cheek against hers. Her face was so cold she could hardly feel his skin. A moment later, his deep breathing told her he was asleep, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up beside him in their makeshift bed of spruce needles and forget herself until morning, but it was too cold. Neither of them would survive a night outside. Not if they stopped moving.
She watched her brother sleep, wondering how long she should wait before waking him up again. He needed his rest, but then again so did she. The problem was if she stayed here too long, she might lose the motivation to ever get herself back up. Then what would happen? Winter was closing in fast. What hikers would come out this way in that kind of weather? And the trappers who ventured this deep into the woods come wintertime might not even find their bodies if they were buried in snow or devoured by scavengers.
She tried to free herself from these oppressive fears, but they kept pressing in on her, weighing down on her chest, constricting her lungs until she felt like she could hardly breathe.
She had tried. God was her witness how hard she had tried. And in the end, it wasn’t Chuck who did her in but this blasted cold and her own pathetic sense of direction. She thought of stories she’d heard of other unfortunate souls who met their demise in the Alaskan wilderness. Some were within a mile of the cabins or shelters or cell phone towers that might have saved them, but they had died nonetheless.
She couldn’t let that happen to her and Pip. She had to find the energy to keep on going.
But not yet. After a short nap, she’d find her second wind. For now, she needed to rest. Just a few minutes, then she’d wake up.
Kimmie shut her eyes and let the heaviness and exhaustion sweep over her mind and carry her consciousness away into a merciful nothingness.