Lost at Running Brook Trail (17 page)

“This is a pathetic picture,” Kimberly said.

“For who?” Elaine asked. “Not for the flies.”

“It’s sad for the deer,” Kimberly said.

“Maybe so, but we’re mutually dependent on each other. It’s sad but if the deer didn’t die, the insects wouldn’t have food. Anyway, we shouldn’t be inhaling this stuff for too long.” Elaine didn’t know what would happen if they kept inhaling the smell, but she was sure it couldn’t be good. They were suddenly aware of huge black birds circling overhead. They would want their piece of the dead meat.

“This is a little unsettling,” Miriam said. “I’ll see this picture in my mind for a very long time.”

“It’s life and death,” Susan said.

“It’s give and take. And I don’t want to be part of the taking process when the other animals get here for the rest of the deer.” Elaine figured wherever there was a dead animal, there were living, hungry ones.

“How long do you think it’s been dead?” The grass had been broken and bent where the deer lay and a dark, stained spot marked the underside.

“Long enough for it to smell and for the insides to be gone.” Elaine slowly backed away from the scene. This was a disconcerting part of nature that they had not expected to see, but then they had not expected to be out here alone, off the beaten path.

As they turned to leave, more black birds were circling.

“What’s going to happen to the rest of it?” Susan asked.

“There are those birds.” Elaine pointed to the sky. “Then bears and other animals will finish the rest.”

“Bears!” Kimberly shouted. “And we were standing there gawking? I don’t want to see another bear anytime soon.”

“I told you guys to come on, didn’t I? But we couldn’t stop staring. It’s like the most fascinating scene ever.” Elaine stole a glance backward. The flies were still buzzing.

“I’ve seen squirrels flattened out like pancakes on the road. I’ve never seen that,” Miriam said. “It’s good that when we got here, we saw insects instead of bears.”

“Maybe the other animals came by already. Who knows? But it’s not something we want to find out.”

They stopped occasionally to look behind them until they could only see the scene in their mind’s eye. Eventually the buzzing faded away too.

“How does your stomach feel?” Elaine asked Susan.

“It’s kind of weird, but it doesn’t feel too bad. Do you think other deer were around when this one died?”

“Probably.” Elaine considered. “But they’re used to this. Animals are smart about the nature of life. Plus what’s left after the flies and the bears are finished decomposes and goes back into the earth to enrich the soil. It’s kind of eaten up both ways.”

“Cycle of mutual dependence,” Susan said. “We never did find a container.”

Evening was approaching. It was probably close to four o’clock, but they refused to look at their watches. Their watches reminded them of how much time they had spent out here and the endless amount they might have to spend before they were found. The swish-swish of their boots in the grass was the only thing they heard now. They were quiet, their minds still on the dead deer.

“Do you hear that?” Miriam asked.

“Hear what?” Elaine responded.

“I hear twigs breaking and heavy breathing behind us.”

They stopped and listened intently. They heard nothing. All was quiet. They turned to look behind them and saw only the trees and grass.

“It’s probably your imagination,” Elaine said.

“No, it sounds like we’re being tracked by something taking deep breaths.”

“Bloody hell.”

They came to the dense area and began to walk faster. They almost broke into a run, although they had no idea what they were running from. Sunlight filtered here and there through the thick foliage and gave their journey a dreamlike quality. The tall trees reached into the heavens above while they scrambled below.

Miriam was sure of what she heard. “I can still hear it.” She walked fast ahead of the group, navigating through slender specks of sunlight.

“I don’t know what you’re hearing.” All Elaine heard was their collective hard breathing and their boots on the soft ground.

They reached the mighty tree with the far-reaching tendrils. If anything, it seemed to have grown bigger. Miriam overestimated one of her steps and went tumbling face down over one of the roots. Unable to break her fall, she’d instinctually thrown her hand out.

“I think I hurt my hand!” she cried out, the thing chasing them momentarily forgotten. “It’s my left hand! This hurts!” she rolled onto her back, tried to get up with the support of her right hand and dropped back down with a look of defeat. “I hurt this hand before playing soccer. I fell on it and it hurt.”

“So what did you do?” Elaine asked.

“Nothing, it stopped hurting on its own. It was just a sprain.”

“They say sprains don’t go away, so it’s aggravated now,” Elaine said.

“How bad is it?” Susan asked.

“Pretty bad.” Miriam flexed her left wrist, using her right hand to support it. “Why did this have to happen now?” Her breath came in rapid gasps, and she felt her chest tightening. “This useless trip when I should be at soccer camp, and now my hand hurts like hell!”

“Maybe you should try to focus on something else,” Elaine said.

“What do you expect me to do? My hand hurts. What do you want me to focus on?”

“Sorry, I just don’t want you to become moody. I was just saying it’s mind over matter.”

“Do you have a sprained hand, Elaine?” Miriam didn’t stop for an answer. “No, so what are you talking about mind over matter? I’m the one who’s feeling this!” She vigorously kicked out at leaves and shrubs.

“Careful of poison ivy.” Kimberly ran her hand slowly across her face. “Elaine said that if it gets on your boots and you touch it, it might affect you if you’re allergic. I don’t see any here, but it’s dark here.”

“Elaine knows every darn thing about this and about that, and here we are still in these godforsaken woods. We’ll probably be here tomorrow too, searching for this and that and finding nothing but carcasses and parasites.” Miriam’s breath was ragged now. “And this is all because Kimberly had something in her shoe.”

“Are you blaming me for your sprained wrist?” Elaine pointed to her chest with her index finger. “One, you said you sprained the same wrist before playing soccer. Two, you tripped over a tree root. I get that you might be pissed, but please find something else to be pissed off at.”

“Can’t you see that I’m in pain? I’m in pain!” Miriam said between gasps.

It sounded like a wheeze to them. Her face grew redder and she began crying.

Elaine bent over Miriam and put her hand on her chest. “Relax, take it easy.” She repeated this for a while until Miriam breathed easier and stopped crying.

“Now you say it,” Elaine said to Miriam. “Try to take slow, even breaths.”

“Relax, relax, relax.” Miriam closed her eyes and repeated the words until she felt more relaxed. Her breathing was back to normal, and she’d regained her normal complexion.

“You should stop working yourself up for nothing. You can’t be upset over every little thing. You make mountains out of molehills. You’re going to have a heart attack if you keep this up.”

Miriam wiped at her eyes and held her arms up in acquiescence. The other three stood over her. This lying down on the ground had been the soccer pitch all over again, only this time the culprit was the root of a tree.

Elaine stretched out a hand and pulled her up. “Good thing it’s not the hand you use.” She brushed a fleck of dirt from Miriam’s face.

Miriam was immediately sorry for her outburst. She was frustrated, and “foot in mouth disease” always got the better of her when she felt this way. Her hand hurt, and it was affecting her feelings. Miriam had always been intolerant to pain, and its ability to get to her had always brought about a self-loathing and anger that she seemed to have no control over. The self-hate always came after she’d already had an outburst.

They continued on, deftly navigating the corded roots of the trees, blending in with the abstract patterns of light and dark.

They left the density and came back to the grassy trail and bright sunshine.

They came upon where the wilted poison lay, more scorched now but no less dangerous.

“Kimberly, check your Storm to see if we have a signal.” Elaine knew they were all on edge. When they’d been walking in their large pack only yesterday, they didn’t even have to see each other; they could afford to be preoccupied with their own notions of how things were supposed to be. Now here they were together, and they had to pay attention.

“Miriam has the phone.”

Miriam dug into her pocket and found the phone. She handed it to Kimberly, who pressed a button and shook her head.

“It’s almost pointless to look at this,” Kimberly said. “This phone is totally useless.”

“It’s not the Storm; it’s where we are. It makes for good light and as long as there’s battery power, there’s always the possibility we might stand somewhere there’s signal,” Elaine said.

They stood above the cave now. Looking down they saw the wild, vast wilderness. This bird’s-eye view gave them an oblique perspective of where they had slept and now where they were returning to.

Without warning Susan started laughing hysterically, doubling over and holding her belly.

“Looks like she’s going back to how she was earlier, when she was out of it,” Kimberly said.

Susan continued laughing. “You know what we were running from back there?” she asked between bouts of laughter. “From what was in our heads.”

“She’s not out of it,” Elaine said, “she’s right. We were running from ourselves. The carcass got into our heads, like the feeling you get after you see a scary movie. After the movie is finished, you’re left with dark thoughts and yourself, and that’s a bad combination.”

“Why would a dead deer be so scary?” Miriam continued to flex her left hand.

“Maybe it’s all those things getting into and invading its body.” Susan laughed so hard she cried. “All those outside things that were gnawing away at its insides and it just lying there powerless. Maybe that’s what’s so scary.” Susan wiped away tears and held her head in her hands. “That’s what so scary; that something—a living thing—can be subjected to such collapse.”

“I thought I heard something. I was certain we were being chased.”

Still, Miriam thought, maybe it was her imagination. That garish spectacle had created this confusion between reality and fantasy. She’d been alarmed without any genuine cause. If anything had been following them, they would have been caught already.

“We sure were moving to get away from our shadows. Good thing you fell or we’d still be running.” Susan had stopped laughing. Miriam’s declaration that they were being followed had sent shivers speed-skating down her spine. Their fear had gotten the better of them.

“I sprained my hand in the process.”

“Sad to say, but that’s a better outcome than what was in our minds,” Susan said.

The afternoon sun shined brightly, casting huge shadows across the vast wilderness. There was little sound as they made their way along the path to sit in front of the cave.

A slender slice of sunlight continued to sidestep the half-moved rock to shine through the gap into the entrance of the cave.

Combustibles
 

E
laine shared the smashed-up blackberries between them. They were a little dried up from being left out in the sun, but there was enough juice to stain their fingers a sweet inky black. The blackberries were all the sweeter because they had so few to consume. The foursome busied themselves with a seed spitting competition to see who could spit one the farthest. But nobody knew who won the competition because no one checked when the seeds fell.

“You should put more alcohol on yourself,” Elaine told Kimberly.

“You have to do it for me. I can’t see my face. I’d have to wash my entire face with it to get to the rashes.”

The brilliant sunshine suddenly gave way to an overcast sky.

“Something’s happening. The sky’s changing.” Miriam looked up and flexed her wrist. “This thing is a nag.”

“What?” Susan asked.

“My wrist.”

“You’re nagging it by rubbing it too much,” Susan said.

“Susan’s right.” Elaine rubbed more alcohol on Kimberly’s rashes. “You should leave it alone. Sprains don’t like aggravation.”

“It makes me feel better when I flex it.” Miriam held her left hand with the right but without flexing.

“Maybe right when you’re doing it, but not after you stop.” Elaine was finished with Kimberly’s face. She sopped the hands with the soaked alcohol-filled tissue. “If you don’t leave it alone and be gentle with it, it’s going to hurt you more.”

“Okay, it’s a natural reaction to flex it, but I’ll resist it. I’m no sucker for pain.”

The sky gradually darkened. The trees and shrubs swayed in the wind.

“I don’t like this.” Susan had that look of dread that she wore the previous day when she was about to enter the cave for the first time.

“It’s spooky how everything can change like that”—Elaine snapped her fingers—“around here.” The sounds of the wind rushing through the trees reminded her of loud cymbals shivering before the crescendo. It would probably be beautiful if they weren’t so exposed to the elements. But it only heightened their fear of the unknown.

“It’s all dark.” Kimberly unconsciously scratched at her face while watching some of the smaller trees waving in the wind. It sounded like a mighty giant was whistling, moaning and groaning.

They stood up and looked around. Everything had turned dark grey.

“Sounds like someone’s in pain.” Miriam resisted flexing her hand. It was bruised and a little swollen.

“I feel raindrops!” Elaine stretched out a hand, looked at it and then wiped water away. It began to drizzle heavily enough for them to wipe moisture from their faces. They were running toward the cave when the first flash of lightning and boom of thunder crashed down on them. When the light hit the cave’s walls, it seemed that the drawings took on life.