Survive

by David Haynes

  “Fuck you,” Jonesy replied. “You want to get yourself eaten by that bear, go right ahead, be my guest, just do it on your own time.”

  Olin laughed. “That’s better.”

  Jonesy caught movement from the corner of his eye. It was Lisa waving her arms. She lowered her rifle, aiming it to his left. Lauren waved too, beckoning them to come toward her.

  “He’s here, isn’t he?” Olin whispered.

  Jonesy listened. No birds, no wind, just heavy paws padding through the snow toward them.

  “We move now,” Jonesy snarled. He was just about as angry as he could ever remember being. Far worse than yesterday in the woodshed. Lad wasn’t just barking now, he was snarling, biting at his harness trying to release it. Jonesy had never seen the dog so agitated before.

  Olin shook his head. He tried to spring out from behind the tree but his clumsy feet got tangled up in the showshoes and staggered like an old drunk. Jonesy tried to grab him but the fabric slipped through his gloved fingers.

  Olin howled, firing three shots into the forest. “Come on, you bastard!” he shouted.

  A second later a louder report echoed and a high-velocity rifle round split the air between Jonesy and Olin. It singed the cold air as it passed between them. Olin ducked instinctively although the bullet had long gone by the time he lowered his head.

  “What the...” He looked accusingly at Jonesy.

  Olin straightened just in time to see a dark abyss, a ten-foot high chasm, spontaneously open up in the frost-covered forest fifty yards away. The bear was standing on his back legs at full height, and he filled the forest. Viscera dripped from his claws and what remained of the goat fell from his mouth as he bellowed. It was an incredible sight.

  Olin was awestruck. His mouth hung open. It was enough for Jonesy to grab him by the back of his jacket and drag him away. It looked like Lisa was aiming at him as he worked back toward her. He would hear the bear if it charged. Lisa fired again. There was a sharp crack, followed by the buzzing of the bullet as it ripped a trench through the air.

  Olin twisted in his grip trying to turn around, but Jonesy kept his eyes on Lisa.

  “She missed,” Olin said. “Twice.”

  “She wasn’t trying to kill it, just warn it away.”

  “Figures.”

  When they reached the sled, he turned, dropping Olin in a heap and leveling his own rifle, but the bear had gone.

  “Which way?” he asked Lisa.

  She lowered the rifle, pointing directly away from them. She looked down at Olin, shook her head and steered an angry-looking Lad toward home.

  “I’ll take the rear,” Jonesy said. He looked down at Olin who was laughing like a fool, folded double and rolling around in the snow like a child. The guy had almost got them all killed and thought it was a joke.

  21

  Olin vomited several times on the way back to the cabin. On the last occasion, an hour away from home, he collapsed face-first in the snow, spilling the meager contents of his stomach. Jonesy prodded him with his boot, telling him to get up or he’d lose the rest of his face to frostbite. Insensitive maybe, but he was still seething over the aborted hunting trip. That they were failing to bring something back with them was bad enough, but Olin’s actions had been reckless.

  Olin hadn’t moved when he kicked him a second time. And even when he knelt in the snow beside him, the man was impossible to rouse. Lisa helped him load Olin onto the sled while Lauren stood back, watching carefully but offering no help. Part of him wished he could be as cold as she was toward him. He wasn’t there yet but he was getting closer with each passing day. It wouldn’t be long before he couldn’t stand to be around the man at all.

  They reached the camp, pulling the sled to a halt outside the woodshed. Olin groaned, thrashed and rolled from side to side. He mumbled incoherently and tried to sit up, shouting at something in the distance. Something that wasn’t there.

  Lauren tugged at his arm but Jonesy ignored her. “Here or the cabin?” he asked Lisa.

  Lisa looked at him as if he’d just asked her to babysit a nest of diamondbacks. “Do we have a choice?”

  “Not if we want him to live.”

  “And do we?” she asked.

  It sent a chill down his already frozen back. Then she half-smiled at him. “In the cabin.”

  Lad pulled the sled over to the steps. Jonesy untied Olin and hoisted him onto his back. He had no choice but to grab his bad arm in order to lift him. When he did, he thought he felt skin sloughing away beneath the jacket. It almost made him vomit.

  Lisa led the way. “On the couch.”

  Jonesy lowered him as gently as he could. The man smelled rotten. How much of his behavior was down to the infection spreading through his body and how much was his normal personality? A twinge of guilt passed through him. He’d been through hell and now things were about to get even worse.

  “He’s burning up.” Lisa eased the balaclava over his head.

  Olin tried to bite her hand as she guided it over his chin. “Bitch!” he shouted.

  “Lisa!” Lauren whisper-shouted from the door.

  “What? What is it?” Lisa shouted back. “We’re trying to help him.”

  “He’s...he’s...”

  But Olin sat up with a face twisted with rage. The hollows in his cheeks looked full of oil, roiling oil.

  “You fucking bitch!” He’d been holding onto the Glock since he collapsed and now he pointed it at Lauren. “This is all your fault!” He screamed and pulled the trigger just as Jonesy grabbed the gun.

  Wood splintered around Lauren’s head as his shot went wide, into the thick timber door frame. She screamed and ran out of the cabin.

  Jonesy wrestled the gun from his hand and dropped it to the floor. “Jesus!”

  The cabin was filled with a deep but faint ocher glow as the fire moved toward its death throes. Olin railed against Jonesy’s hand as he tried to hold him still. There was still a lot of strength left in his body.

  “Any suggestions?” Lisa asked.

  Olin lifted his head. What was left of his face had a waxy sheen to it.

  “The gray-meat,” he said. “The gray-meat, please don’t take it all.”

  Then he fell back and was still. And silent.

  Jonesy put two fingers on his neck. “He’s still alive.”

  “I’ll put some wood on the fire,” Lisa said.

  Jonesy stood over Olin, staring at him. The man looked peaceful, as if he’d been in a war, but peaceful. Hard to imagine what kind of an ass he had been a few hours ago.

  “We need to look at his hand,” Jonesy started. “At his arm.” He turned away. “You saw how he was when I touched him earlier.” He shook his head. “The guy nearly jumped out of his skin.”

  Lisa pushed wood into the stove. Her face glowed in the glittering blush of the flame.

  “And if we don’t?”

  The comment, a repetition of her earlier remark, shook him. This time there was no smile to accompany it, no attempt to conceal her thoughts.

  “You don’t mean that,” he replied.

  She stared into the fire. The flames grew higher, licking her face, making shadow-puppets on the walls. She made no reply.

  “Lisa? You don’t mean that,” he repeated.

  She gazed into the stove for a few more seconds and then turned. “There isn’t enough food, is there? Not for four of us.”

  “If we ration it out carefully, if we...”

  “No,” she interrupted. “We haven’t worked hard all year to ration, to go hungry, to try and get through the next three months scratching around in the dirt. I can’t live like that. Not again.” She sounded close to tears. It hurt to hear her.

  “But if we hunt again, maybe we can track that goat, the one that got away, maybe his herd are close by?”

  “I could smell it,” she said.

  “What? The goat?”

  “That place. That other place. The cabin.” She turned her attention ba
ck to the fire. “When we were out there, I could smell the inside of it. I had my scope on the goat but all I could see were the walls, the bed, the ragged drapes. All of it, Jonesy.”

  He stepped toward her. “Don’t,” he said.

  “And if we had one less mouth to feed, we wouldn’t have to think about that place.”

  “We don’t have to think about it ever again.” He knelt beside her.

  “But we do, we always do and we always will.” She looked past him at Olin. “Especially now.”

  “Letting him die isn’t the answer. We need to help him.”

  “Do we?” she asked. “I mean, it’s not our fault he’s like this. That’s all his work. His and Lauren’s. Why should we have to pick up the pieces? Put our own lives at risk for them. For him.”

  “Because we’re good people,” he answered. “And I know this isn’t really you talking. You’re frightened, scared that it’ll all go bad again, but I won’t let anything happen to us.” He took her face in his hands. “I promise.”

  She stared into his eyes for a few seconds before pulling away and wiping her eyes. Jonesy stood up and walked back to Olin.

  “I don’t even know what we can do,” he said.

  Lisa followed him over. The man was unconscious. He looked terrible.

  “I think I do,” she said.

  *

  The first layer of clothing came away without much difficulty, but they paused before tackling the next layer. The outer clothes had clearly been an effective barrier in trapping the stench of Olin’s rotting flesh. It was pungent and stomach-churning.

  The clothes belonged to Jonesy but he would be happier if he never saw them again. He removed Olin’s second layer of trousers, then the fleece jacket and finally the plaid shirt. All that was left was the long underwear. It was doubtful Olin had taken it off once during the last two weeks, and intermingled with the reek of death was a sweet vinegary smell which was almost as bad.

  Jonesy looked down at the arm and the gloved hand. He could almost see the festering miasma drifting off Olin’s torso.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Lisa nodded but said nothing.

  He took Olin’s hand gently, holding it in his own, and tried to slide the glove off. For a second nothing happened and then came a noise. It was like someone greedily sucking on a Popsicle. The smell was about as far away from sweet and fruity as could be, though. Jonesy felt his stomach make a quick revolution as he tried to breathe through his mouth.

  The glove’s blue fabric had turned the color of one of Lisa’s terracotta pots. As he gently eased it away, the extent of the problem became evident. Olin’s hand was devoid of flesh. A blackened leathery substance slithered out of the glove on a river of bloody pus. Lisa retched behind him.

  The glove slid fully away, revealing Olin’s skeletal fingers. Up to his knuckles, the bones were like sharpened spindles. The rest of his hand was like his face, only worse. One large crater covered the back of his hand, curving around into his palm. The bones could be seen through what sinew was left.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and dropped the glove on the floor. The sound was hideous.

  The long sleeves of the underwear had been white. They were now gray. Beneath the wrist cuff, more blackened skin was sliding free.

  He turned around and looked at his wife. Her eyes were as wide as could be and her hands were covering her mouth.

  “I need to see how far this goes,” he said.

  Olin groaned and kicked his legs twice. How much pain must he be in, Jonesy wondered? Or maybe his flesh was dead and he felt none? He hoped it was the latter. Being flayed alive was too horrible to comprehend.

  He unbuttoned the underwear down Olin’s chest, relieved to see hair and no black skin.

  “I’m going to need your help,” he said without turning. “I need to try and slide this off.”

  A few seconds passed as he tried to support Olin’s weight on his own. “Lisa! Please?”

  A moment later she was beside him, peeling the underwear off Olin’s shoulders. “He’s burning up,” she whispered.

  Olin was on fire. The stove’s glow gave his skin the appearance of actually being alight but there was no mistaking how hot he felt. They slid the underwear down his arms, passing the bicep and the elbow but then stopped. It looked like Olin was wearing a gauntlet on his left arm, a black one that finished three inches above his wrist. The skin had a sheen to it, like oil. Tendrils of black ink wriggled beneath his skin. The gangrene was creeping up his arm, inexorably making its way to his heart.

  They both stared at it for a moment. Jonesy could think of only one way to stop it going further. If Olin had only allowed him to look at it sooner, they might not be in this position. He felt Lisa move away and even heard the cabin door open, but there was a terrible booming sound in his head that rattled his teeth. It made it difficult to hear or see anything beyond what was right in front of him.

  22

  Jonesy poured bourbon onto the ax head and held it in the flames. He repeated it several times. It was a delaying tactic, something to get away from what he had to do next. Using the ax was risky. There was a risk of bones splintering, of breaking further up the arm and the shoulder, of completely destroying his arms. But what else was there? The rusty chainsaw in the shed? He shook his head, the thought so utterly repugnant as to make the room spin. No, this wasn’t risky, it was...it was...

  “We could just leave it,” Lisa said. “We don’t have to do this. He’ll die anyway.”

  And the thought was there. The desire to do nothing was strong. As was trying to walk all the way to Big Six and get Wilkes to bring in the cavalry. But both options led only to Olin’s death. Left as he was, he might make it another couple of days, maybe even a week. Who the hell knew? Neither of them were doctors or had anything but the most rudimentary first aid training, but gangrene was gangrene was gangrene. It was the same thing all day long. Doctor or not.

  “What did Lauren say?” he asked. Again it was just a delaying tactic.

  “Nothing, she’s catatonic again.”

  “Makes a change. She’s not ducking out of this one. She can sit by his bed and look after him.”

  “He took a shot at her, Jonesy. Tried to kill her.”

  He ignored her. “Why us?” he asked. “Why’re we having to deal with this?”

  She pulled a bottle of antiseptic out of the cupboard. There was a bottle of antibiotics in there too. They were at least eighteen months old, probably double that.

  “Retribution? Punishment? Pick one.”

  He took the ax out of the fire. The wedge glowed red. “You’re going to need to tie that tourniquet tight.” He paused, looking at her. “I mean tight.”

  He looked back at Olin. The man hadn’t moved in thirty minutes but they tied him down anyway. He’d placed a tarp on the floor and another around him. His arm was tied to the chopping block. Jonesy closed his eyes. This was madness. Absolute lunacy. He took a step forward, his stomach churning, trying to climb up his throat and crawl away, to get out of this nightmare.

  He knew before he brought the ax down that nothing would ever be the same again. Just like it had never been the same after last winter. He’d always known the world could be a horrible place, savage and unpredictable and just when you thought you’d got a bead on it, it all changed again. Last winter had shown him that and now a new nightmare had opened up; a different one maybe but just as gruesome.

  He hefted the ax. Staying in Alaska, in this cabin, was now something he no longer wanted. He wanted to leave, to go as far away from this place as he could.

  Muscle memory kicked in. A year’s worth of splitting wrist-sized kindling focused his eyes. He bellowed like a bull and dropped the searing-hot wedge of steel onto Olin’s forearm.

  *

  Jonesy collapsed at the foot of the stairs. His arms, his face, his clothes, everything was covered in blood. Olin’s blood. He wiped a bloody bead of sweat fr
om his cheek. His brain kept telling him that this wasn’t real, that what just happened hadn’t actually happened. His head felt strange, his heartbeat muffled and far away, like it was buried under five feet of snow. Any moment now he’d wake up in their old apartment in Syracuse – sleepy and warm. Breakfast would be a short walk in the sun to Picasso’s for a pastry. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing the lie was the one his mind was creating and not what was happening right in front of him.

  The smell of burning flesh and blood filled the cabin, acrid, sharp and coppery. He wanted to throw open the windows, the door. He wanted to lift the roof off and let the snow fall on them and obliterate the blood.

  Lisa crouched over Olin. Her hands were as bloodied as his own. The tourniquet had taken the strength of two to pull it tight enough to staunch the flow. But it had stopped long enough for Lisa to wrap a cloth soaked in antiseptic around the stump and shove a handful of antibiotics down his throat. It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, but it was all they had.

  “What have I done?” he whispered. It was a question to himself not to Lisa, but she answered him.

  “You’ve given him a chance. That’s the best we could do.” She came over and sat on the step beside him. She put an arm around his shoulder. The only bright spot in all of this...this mess was that Olin had been unconscious throughout all of it. His pulse had been hard to find, but it was there, just. He was alive. For now.

  “Think he’ll make it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe. Guys like Olin have a pretty thick hide. He’s got that going for him.”

  She nodded. “What about his face? His toes didn’t look good either.”

  “No, no they didn’t. If there’s anything left of him by the spring, the doctors will have to fix him up. I’m not doing anymore.”

  He stared at the scene across the room. The blood was congealing on the tarps and the ragged lump of his arm lay in the middle of the blood-pond. It hadn’t looked much like a hand to begin with but now it looked like a prop from a bad Eighties horror flick. The whole place did.