by Danika Stone
“It’s fine. Good to know that your family’s screwed up too.”
“I guess so,” she said, and turned her attention back to the fire. “Maybe everyone is messed up, at least a little bit. I mean, if you look close enough…” Her words faded. That was what bothered Vale about talking about her family. No matter where you came from; no matter how good your family looked on the outside, everyone had baggage.
“So Valeria Shumway’s secret weakness finally reveals itself…”
Vale shot him a dirty look. “Ash…”
“Knows everything about camping, but not so good with real-life humans,” he teased.
“Don’t be a jerk.” She laughed.
“Oh, I’m not judging. There’s a reason I stick to gaming. Lets you focus on strategy and skill in a controlled environment rather than forcing you to make small talk with people you don’t know.”
“But you talk to everyone, Ash. You’re friends with, like, the entire school population.”
Ash snorted. “Thanks.”
“You remember that first day in kindergarten?” she asked.
“Uh … barely.”
“You walked right up to me and introduced yourself. Your full first, middle, and last name.” Vale giggled. “Oh God. Do you remember what you were wearing?”
Ash groaned. “Please don’t—”
“You were wearing a suit! A tiny little three-piece suit, and your lunch kit looked like a brief—”
“Stop.”
“—case, and you were all prim and proper, and I just…” Vale broke into a gale of laughter. Her memory of tiny Ash was a perfectly crisp photograph, and it was so unlike the gamer she knew now, she hardly knew how to reconcile the two of them.
“I’ll have you know, my mother dressed me that day,” Ash said dryly.
“But it—it was a—suit—” Vale laughed harder.
“I came over to you,” he said, “because the teacher was freaking me out with all her rules.” Ash shook his head. “I figured you were safe ’cause you looked like you knew what you were doing.”
“Back in kindergarten?” Vale’s giggles continued. “Ah … the power of deception. I was terrified.”
“Nah. You were solid, even then. I could tell.”
Vale grinned and wiped tears of laughter from the sides of her eyes. “Thanks, Ash.”
“I’m a very good judge of character, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
Ash pulled out a piece of gum from his pack, unwrapped it, then paused. He broke it in half. “Want some?”
Vale’s mouth flooded with saliva. “I … yeah. Is that okay? Do you have enough?”
“Last one. You might as well enjoy it too.”
She took the piece from his fingers and popped it in her mouth. “God, I don’t even like this flavor, but it’s so good.”
Ash chuckled. “Here,” he said. Vale looked up to see him holding out the wrapper between two fingers. “We need that for the prison lighter, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Vale tucked it deep into her pocket. All joking aside, fire was the difference between life and death. Hunger could be ignored for the time being. Cold would kill, and controlling the fire was trickier than Vale expected. The wood in the valley by the lake was wet from the snowfall, and the campfire threatened to go out unless she tended it constantly. She shivered and added another piece. It sizzled and smoked before bursting into flames. Ash, a short ways away, was caught up in his own thoughts as he too fed the fire.
As the hours of darkness lengthened, the temperature dropped and new snow began to fall. Vale shivered. Some primitive part of her mind had begun to recognize that they needed to move. Though she knew there must be a rescue being staged at this point, she and Ash had walked for hours without the other members of their group. They could be many kilometers off track. With the area so densely wooded and animal tracks crisscrossing the snow, it would be difficult to see them from above. They were lost. And as much as she’d hoped for it, this lake was clearly not one of the Twin Lakes. It was in a solitary valley with no trails as far as Vale could tell. To wait here meant being trapped by the winter snows. They hadn’t arrived yet, but they would. And that would make getting out of the mountains next to impossible.
Vale tossed the last branch of wood they’d gathered into the fire and looked up. “I think tomorrow we should head south.”
“South again? Why?”
“Because this isn’t one of the Twin Lakes.”
“It could be,” he said wistfully. “We haven’t searched the entire valley. There might be another, bigger lake somewhere.”
“No. If there was another lake, then the rescuers would already be here. Twin Lakes is where they’d start looking.”
“But we don’t know that.”
“No one is here, Ash. We’re alone.” She let out a tired sigh. “We probably should have stayed where we were.”
“I thought we were close to Twin Lakes,” he said. “All right? That’s where the class was headed when we got lost. It seemed like a good guess at the time.”
“I never said it was your fault. We both decided to come into the valley.”
Vale waited for him to answer, but he hunched his shoulders and stared into the flames instead. The fire around which they both sat had dwindled down to embers, the bits and pieces of wood belching out smoke that made Vale cough. She reached for a piece of firewood, but the pile was down to twigs.
With a grunt, she climbed to her feet. “I’m getting some more wood.”
“I can help.”
Vale glanced back over her shoulder. “No, Ash,” she said tiredly. “It’s my turn. You stay warm.”
Away from the firelight, the landscape fell into velvety blackness, shadows morphing with the indigo spikes of trees. Vale grabbed a pine bough and tugged, but it was a green branch and it wouldn’t tear free.
“Come … ON!” She jerked, and her hand slipped on the needles. Vale stumbled back and came down hard, her ankle twisting underneath her. “Ouch!”
“Vale…?” Ash’s voice came from the direction of the dying fire. “You okay over there?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I just tripped and…”
Vale’s words died in her throat as something large—as big as a human, or bigger—rustled the bushes on her other side. Her breath caught. Don’t move. Don’t make a noise! DO NOT DO ANYTHING! For a few long seconds, the animal stayed in place, the sound of its woofing breath announcing its presence. Then it turned away. The sound of breaking branches marked its departure into the forest.
Vale’s mind was a white scream of terror.
“Vale…?” Ash called again. “You still there? I … I think I heard something.”
She scrambled to her feet, took two steps toward the fire, and her ankle gave out. Pain shot through her from foot to knee, and she fell back to the ground. Vale hardly noticed. Got to get back to the fire! She struggled upright and lurched forward, limping. Back to camp! When her ankle threatened to give out again, she caught hold of a nearby branch. Need to get back to safety! She hobbled forward the last few steps and tumbled to the ground in front of the low-burning fire.
“What happened to you?”
She looked up at Ash with terrified eyes. “S-something in the trees! I-it’s big. Really big!”
“A cougar?”
“Don’t know. I think it might be a bear.” She crawled the last few feet to the fire, her fingers numbed by snow.
“Whoa! A bear?” Ash gasped. “Are you fricking kidding me?”
“I wish I was! We need to build up the fire. Build it big! And we’ve got to keep it going all night.”
Ash stared into the blackness that surrounded them. “You’re sure you saw—”
“I don’t know for sure it was a bear, but it was big, all right? I saw it break through the brush. It huffed at me.”
“That’s it, then … That’s our boss fight.” His eyes widened, and he spread his hands wi
de. “The big finale, a game’s last rung before you win. The final challenge you have to conquer before you can take the prize.” He gestured to the valley and the trees around them. “We’ve been sitting here, thinking our fight was about being lost, but that’s only half-true.”
“It … it is true, though.”
“But there’s more!” He stepped closer. “The bear is our boss fight. That’s what we have to survive.”
Vale swallowed hard. “I really hope not.”
“But—”
“If we try to fight a bear, we’re going to lose, Ash. Both types of bears are too strong.”
“Types?”
“Black bears are the smaller of the two, but they’re still way stronger and faster than a person. You might be able to use a stick or something to scare them away, but it would be dangerous. As for grizzlies…” Her voice tightened as the panic returned. “You can’t win against them, Ash. The best thing you can do is to just play dead and hope they stop attacking.”
“Boss fi—”
“No! Just no. This isn’t a game, Ash!” She grabbed the remaining twigs near the fire and threw them into the flames. “We need a bigger fire. We need it now!”
Ash seemed like he was going to say something else, but he closed his mouth and nodded. “All right,” he said, climbing to his feet. “I’ll get the wood. You sit here.”
“Don’t!”
“One of us has to get the wood, Vale. There’s no other choice.”
“But—”
“Just sit here. I’ll be right back.”
Vale wrapped her arms around her knees, fighting the urge to cry. She wanted to go home. She wanted to climb into her own bed and pull the covers up to her neck and play with Mr. Bananas. She wanted to text Bella and tell her about the worst hike of her entire life. Instead, she and Ash were stuck out in the woods. Vale was hungry and tired and her ankle was messed up. She was lost.
Now there was something in the woods.
Ash returned with a handful of branches and set them down beside her. “Here,” he said. “You’re good with the fire. You build it up again.”
“But—”
“I’ll get more wood.”
Vale watched him head back into the darkness, a sick feeling in her throat. But a few minutes later, he was back with a heaving pile of branches tucked under his arm. Ash might not know a lot about camping, but she had to admit he was a good worker.
“Thanks,” Vale said as he tossed the branches down.
“No problem.” And then he was off in the woods again.
After four more trips, they had a pile as big as their shelter and a brightly burning fire next to it. For the first time since Vale had heard the animal in the woods, the tightness of her chest began to ease. When Ash came back the last time, dragging the tangled mess of a stump—roots still attached—from a long-dead tree, she gave him a wan smile.
“That’s a lot of wood,” she said.
“Well, you said we’ve got to keep the fire going all night. Right?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“We need wood, then.”
He tossed a few more branches onto the pile and took his seat on the damp ground next to her. For a time, they stared at the fire, the only sound the snap and pop of pine sap in the embers.
“Your leg,” he said. “Is it okay?”
“It’s my ankle, actually, and yeah. I think so.” Vale rolled up her pant leg and winced. Her ankle was purple. “Er … maybe not.”
“Can you walk on it?”
“Slowly.”
“You should ice it,” Ash said. “Bring the swelling down.” He grabbed a handful of snow. “Here. Hold it against your ankle.” He placed the snowball against her skin, and Vale yelped. “Sorry,” he said. “That bad, huh?”
“Uh … yeah.” She put her hand on the snow, holding it in place. The pain slowly eased. “Thanks for thinking of that.”
“No biggie.”
Vale chewed her lip. “I kind of screwed things up for us, didn’t I?”
“What d’you mean?”
“I can hardly walk. That’s going to be an issue tomorrow.”
Ash let out a tired sigh. “Sprains are never as bad once you’ve iced them. When I hit my first growth spurt, I was clumsy as hell. I’ve done in my ankle more than once. We can bind it up tomorrow morning when it’s time to get out of here.” He grabbed the scarf—the one he’d been wearing as a hat—and unwound it from his head and neck, then handed it to her. “Here. This should work.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. I’ve had sprains that look way worse than that one does.”
“Thanks, Ash.”
“It’s fine.”
“Just take the thanks, okay?”
He chuckled. “Fine, then you’re welcome.”
Vale took a slow breath and blew it out. “Look, I’m … I’m sorry for what I said before. I didn’t mean to say coming here was your fault.” She looked up, finding Ash watching. “I thought I saw two lakes. I did. And it was a good idea to come here.” She picked up a handful of kindling and tossed it into the fire. “Besides. We’ve got fire and water now, right?”
“Right.” Ash nodded. “Your ankle feeling any better?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Ash moved closer to the fire. “Thanks, Vale.”
“For…?”
“For knowing what to do. For reading books and listening to Perkins and Holland in class. For knowing about bears and stuff. For just…” He laughed. “For getting the two of us through this.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
* * *
Debra Shumway hadn’t slept since yesterday. She couldn’t. Not with Vale, her youngest child, lost in the woods. Thinking of Vale brought a new surge of tears. Debra sniffled and pressed a wad of damp tissue against her nose. She’d been crying since the midnight phone call, but this evening’s discovery had made it ten times worse.
“We’ve got the first reports back from the searchers,” Constable Wyatt said, shuffling the paper on his desk. “Things are no longer so clean cut.”
“Meaning what?” Debra asked.
“There was a heavy snowfall in the area last night,” the officer continued. “Our original concern was hypothermia, but today we … have new concerns.”
“New concerns?” Brad said.
“Yes. This afternoon, a searcher entered the valley north of Avion Ridge. They found evidence that Vale and Ash spent the night there.”
Zara Hamid sat up straighter. Ash’s mother had barely said a word since last night, though she’d written notes in a small tattered journal the entire time. Debra admired her calm, though she didn’t understand it.
“North?” Brad repeated. “But I thought the searchers were looking in the area south of Twin Lakes.”
“They were,” the officer said, “but a helicopter on its way out of the park passed over Avion Ridge and…”
Debra looked from her husband to the officer. “And what?”
“And they saw evidence of a possible campsite.”
Debra’s breath caught, her heart pounding so hard she felt dizzy. “But that’s good, right? I mean, if they made a camp, then they probably had a fire. And if they had a fire, they could have survived—”
“Ma’am, when I told you to prepare for the worst, I meant that.”
“Then what?!” Debra cried. “What did you find? What—?” Her voice broke.
In the chair next to her, Ash’s mother, Zara, reached over to Constable Wyatt’s desk and pulled out several tissues from the box. She offered one to Debra and dabbed her eyes with the other. It struck Debra—in a strangely disconnected way—that although Zara seemed calm, she was barely holding it together. She too was close to breaking.
“A team headed into the valley north of Avion Ridge late this afternoon,” Constable Wyatt explained. “The searchers found the camp. There was a lean-to. Lots of footprints in the woods, and, er…” The officer clenched and
unclenched his hands, as if uncertain what to do with them. “They also saw there’d been an avalanche.”
“But it’s only October,” Brad said. “There can’t be enough snow to cause something like that.”
“Actually, no. There’s been snow in the upper regions of the Rockies for weeks now. It started late September, and with yesterday’s turn in the weather—rain followed by the snow—the conditions were primed for a slide.” Constable Wyatt tugged at his collar. “That’s what I called you here to explain. When the team went into the valley, they found tracks. Two sets, actually.”
“Ashton,” Zara whispered.
“Yes, and Vale’s too,” the officer said. “They followed their tracks south into the trees and up the ridge to the south.”
“Tracks…” Debra’s fingers tightened around the tissues in her hands, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. “So Vale and Ash are trying to walk out. They’re trying to get back to Twin Lakes.”
“That or Waterton. Yes. That’s what the searchers figured anyhow,” the officer said. “It seems they’d made a camp the night before, but it looks like a cougar spooked them.”
Debra gasped. “A cougar?!”
“There was a kill found, not far from them. A deer—” Constable Wyatt rushed to explain. “Not a person. But it was near where they were sleeping, and my guess is that Vale and Ash decided to get out when they saw it. They headed due south, right into an area primed for a snowslide.”
Debra glanced over at Zara. Ash’s mother had an air of rigid control; her jaw was tight, but her eyes glittered with tears.
“But … I don’t understand,” Brad said. “If they were alive this morning, then they’re probably still okay. Right? It’s almost freezing now, and if they’re both moving, they should be okay. The searchers could—”
“Sir, their tracks go right into the path of the avalanche.”
Zara made a choking sound.
“Oh Jesus,” Brad muttered.
Debra covered her mouth, fighting the urge to scream. “No … no, no, no!”
“We have men and women on the ground now; they’re going through the entire slide, square foot by square foot, using poles to search for bod—” Constable Wyatt cleared his throat. “We’re doing everything we can to find them.”
