Alaskan Nights

by Nadia Scrieva

  * * *

  When Brynne woke up, she stretched out languidly, feeling well-rested for the first time in recent memory. She had not realized how overworked she had been at Andrew’s café until this moment. Waking up and not needing to immediately rush to work felt like an incredible blessing. Rhonda had been right. She really did need a vacation. Even though this trip was incited for a practical purpose, she was finding great enjoyment from being on the road with one of her dearest friends. This realization brought a smile to her face.

  Despite their differences, and their trouble with an almost-romance that could never fully blossom, Callder had always been, and would always be a good friend. She felt safe and comfortable traveling with him. She felt deeply contented to know that he was in the room with her, only a few feet away. Or was he? She listened for the sound of his breathing—or snoring—and was startled to be greeted with a heavy silence.

  “Callder?” she asked, sitting up abruptly. Her first thought was to worry that he had gotten into some sort of trouble. Her second thought was to acknowledge that of course he had gotten into some sort of trouble. A flurry of images of possible mischief ran through her mind as she got up and moved to the door. She remembered the way Callder had hungrily eyed the hotel bar on their way into the building. She knew she should try to find him as soon as possible to mitigate whatever damage was being done.

  Brynne rushed out of the hotel room and headed for the staircase. She ran down one floor and headed directly to the bar. Upon arriving, she saw that the area had already been deserted. The waiters were cleaning up a plethora of cloudy glasses that had once contained gallons of liquor. Brynne felt a moment of pity for their tedious task (one which had been hers not so long ago) but her main focus returned to who exactly had consumed those gallons.

  “Excuse me. I’m looking for a young man,” she told them with a frown. “He’s about 6’2” with brown hair. Very loud, always saying really stupid things.”

  “Oh, yeah. He was here, but he left just after last call. He went upstairs with a girl.”

  “A girl?” Brynne asked, her eyebrows clenching. “What girl?”

  “She said she was a singer in an indie rock band, staying with us for a few days to perform a concert. I think she’s in the fancy suites on the top floor.”

  “Thanks,” Brynne told the waiter, heading over to the elevator. She aggressively and repeatedly punched the arrow point upward. When the elevator came, she moved inside the suspended box and continued to jab her fingers at the numbers she required. “What are you doing, Callder?” she muttered to herself, looking around at the empty enclosure for wisdom. Glaring down at the increasing digits which indicated floor level, Brynne exploded out of the box as soon as the doors opened. There were only a few doors on this special penthouse level, and one of them had been left ajar. Laughter and music filtered through the crack, and Brynne marched forward and shoved the door forward.

  In retrospect, she should have taken a moment to prepare herself for what she was about to see. Even taking a breath would have been nice. But when she saw a dark-haired woman sprawled out in Callder’s lap and giggling drunkenly, she felt the involuntary urge to heave the contents of her stomach. This was followed by the urge to ball her hands into fists and beat the woman into the ground until she was as flat as a pancake. Brynne stared at the woman’s multiple piercings and tattoos with detest, using everything about her as a fuel for her growing hatred.

  “You slut,” Brynne hissed, moving forward to grab the back of the woman’s hair and pull her away from Callder. “You stupid slut.” However, as her fingers clenched around the greasy black strands of hair, she noticed something that instantly transmogrified her fury into concern. The bucket of insults that had been ready to tumble off her tongue froze in mid-speech. Her tongue curled back into her mouth, and she swallowed down the bitter taste of jealousy and anger.

  Brynne’s eyes had fallen on a pair of slender needles that were scattered on the ground near the couple. Seeing this, she was able to acknowledge that the hazy look in Callder’s eyes was not just from his drunken stupidity, but something more dangerous and potent. She did tighten her grip on the woman’s black hair and pull her away from Callder, before reaching out to slide her arms around Callder’s torso and yank him out of his chair.

  “Oh my god, you’re so heavy,” she grunted as she tried to drag him out of the room.

  The movement of his body walking forward without his consent stirred Callder out of his foggy state. “Hey, Brynne? Baby? What’s up?”

  “You did some kind of drugs with that strange woman,” she told him angrily. “Honestly, Callder, what were you thinking?”

  “Oh.” He blinked, seeming to remember. “Sweetie, it’s cool. She’s a singer. Don’t you know? Music people have the best stuff.”

  “You could get sick… or even worse,” she whispered, pushing him against the doorway. She reached up to wipe some tears away from her eyelashes. “Don’t you care?”

  “I care about you,” he told her, “but I don’t care about myself very much. So, whatever.”

  Brynne grabbed Callder’s shirt and dragged him over to the elevator. “Careful, Callder. You’re starting to use words. Don’t you remember? You’re not big on words. But I’m really starting to understand your actions.”

  The elevator arrived, and Brynne tossed Callder into the cabin. He slumped against the wall, dizzy and disoriented.

  “Brynne,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry for…”

  “Save it,” she barked.

  He clutched his head, groaning. “No, really, I…”

  She shook her head in refusal to listen. “Just answer one question: Why do you do the things you do?”

  He nodded, falling against her shoulder as she helped him out of the elevator. “Here’s the situation, B. My dad died when I was very young. My mom went crazy and got locked up in an insane asylum. I don’t have any memory of the event, but people say she tried to drown me in a bathtub. I figure that with my luck, I’m going to go crazy and die too. So, while my mind and body are still in one piece, I might as well live my life. I don’t care if you don’t want to be a part of it. But I really wish you would.”

  She paused in the center of the hallway, turning to look at the giant drunken, drugged man on her shoulder. She pushed away her pity and compassion, and found the hardness that lurked in her middle, protecting her core. She nodded.

  “That’s all very well, but I can’t deal with this anymore.”

  Callder blacked out for a few minutes, and when he came to, he found that Brynne had laid him out in bed, and was tucking him in. He grabbed her sleeve. “What? You can’t do what anymore?”

  She ignored the five-minute delay on his response, and scowled. Even in her vicious expression, there were hints of tenderness. “Why do you think my dad is in prison, Callder? He’s an alcoholic. He gets crazy violent and stupid, and I grew up with that man. Even so, I know he’s a good guy at heart. And I love him. I don’t want to go through that with you as well. I don’t want to watch you destroy yourself, because that would destroy me. So, thanks for everything. But I’m done here.”

  “I can… be better,” Callder mumbled halfheartedly into his pillow.

  “I’m sure you can,” she said, leaning down to place a kiss on his cheek. “But it’s not my problem anymore. Goodnight, Callder. Goodbye.”

  Chapter 6: The Infinite Highway

  Sitting in a new rental car, Brynne held a map spread out in her lap. She spun a pencil over it, and waited until the tip stopped moving. It pointed south. She had been able to access some of the saved up tip money which had been sitting untouched in her bank account. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to feed her and get her an economy rental car. She was just uncertain of whether she should go forward or backward. She had promised her family that she would show up and help out, but the truth was that she could not magically find $10,000 to bail her father out of jail. She would be useless to them, other than work
ing at the shop and doing basic chores around the house. She was not exceptionally skilled at either of these things.

  Looking at the map, Brynne knew that she was physically closer to Seattle. She had not even completed half of the trip home, and it would probably be less time consuming, less expensive, and less frustrating to head back down south on the highway. It would be humiliating to face Andrew again and have to ask for his forgiveness, but she knew that Rhonda would help her out. Alternatively, she could head home. It would be humiliating to show up at her parents’ house and confess that she hadn’t done as well out in the “real world” as she had proclaimed to have done. To explain that she didn’t have enough money to help out with her father’s problems, but that she would try her best to pull her weight, and maybe take back her old job at the bait shop.

  She spun the pencil again, and it pointed north.

  She had promised that she would drive home, and ignoring all other factors—ignoring Andrew and Callder, and work, and money—she should be true to her word. The thought of driving all that way through the mountainous wilderness somewhat scared her. She had done it once before, but at eighteen, the world had seemed a whole lot more conquerable than it now was at twenty-two. Now the maps gave her shivers; they were too vast, the distances too far, and the hours too many.

  It had seemed easy with Callder beside her. It had seemed fun.

  She twisted the key in the ignition, and placed the car in gear. She knew that she needed to stop thinking and start driving. Maybe the picturesque slopes and jagged peaks of the Rockies would inspire and heal her, and give her the answers to her questions as she navigated between and around them in her little blue automobile.

  * * *

  Brynne could not afford to rent a GPS along with her car, so she was navigating the old fashioned way. Luckily, she had grown up feeling comfortable with a map in her hands, and had frequently impressed her father with being able to locate civilization after a remote nature hike. As she dragged her fingernail along the curves of the roadways, she tried to anticipate how much longer it would be until she reached the next closest big city. Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon seemed to be light-years away on the map. She had already pulled over to take naps in two different gas stations, but it felt like she was making absolutely no progress.

  The trip only seemed to be getting longer.

  She often wished she had taken up Rhonda’s offer to purchase her a plane ticket. She was not sure why exactly hopping into a red Ferrari with Callder Murphy had seemed like such a good idea. Her mother was right of course. The boy was pure trouble. Sighing and turning her eyes back to the road, Brynne focused on the never-ending yellow lines which indicated her infinite path on the Alaska Highway.

  Behind her eyes, however, she saw a movie playing where Callder was sitting beside her and grinning wildly. His voice echoed in her mind, making disgusting jokes that made her want to laugh until her stomach hurt. She could feel the presence of his ghost beside her, and she desperately wanted to reach out and grasp his hand. She felt so alone. Perhaps the warmth of his life force beside her and the strengthening effect of his touch were worth the negative side effects…

  A movement in the darkness up ahead caused her eyes to narrow. Brynne blinked away the cloudy film that had glazed over them, and squinted at the figure being silhouetted by her headlights. She saw a pair of innocent dark eyes and a stricken expression of fear. Brynne crunched her foot down on the brakes, gasping loudly. Her heart skipped a beat.

  It was far too late. The baby deer seemed to know as well, for it did not even try to move. It seemed to stand with a stoic sense of nobility as it accepted its fate. Brynne pulled on the steering wheel, trying to swerve away, but to no avail. The corner of her bumper slammed into the fawn’s tiny body. When the car stopped moving, Brynne found her fingers locked around the steering wheel, and her eyes shut tightly.

  It was a moment before she could take a deep breath and survey her surroundings. She saw that her car was stopped diagonally across the middle of the highway. Luckily, there were no other cars on the road. She forced her foot off the brake, and tried to navigate safely into the shoulder. She could not see the deer anywhere on the road. There was a chance that the creature had escaped; she had not felt the impact.

  Getting out of her car, Brynne stumbled across the highway with shaky legs. She held her breath as she approached the dark lump in the moonlight. Lying in the shoulder of the road, with its slender legs bent under its body, the deer looked as though it had only just gone to sleep. There were no visible signs of damage on its body. Brynne ran to its side and fell to her knees beside the deer.

  “Are you okay?” she asked gently, her hands hovering over the delicate creature. The deer’s eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead. Its expression was woeful, yet wise and accepting. She pressed her hands against the deer’s small body, feeling for signs of life. The fur was soft and warm, and she could swear that there was a faint heartbeat under her fingers. The torso quivered with feeble breaths, giving Brynne a bit of hope.

  “You’re going to be fine,” she said weakly, caressing the deer’s velvety coat. “I’m going to take you to someone who can help.” She reached out and slipped her hands carefully beneath the deer’s body, lifting it against her chest. Only when her hands were fully around the creature’s torso did she feel the wet, sticky blood on the deer’s underside.

  “Oh, god. Oh, god.” Struggling to turn the creature over so she could get a good look at the injuries she had caused, Brynne instantly knew that they were fatal. If the baby deer was not already dead, it would be dead within seconds.

  Brynne felt tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she told the fawn as she continued to pet its back in a soothing way. “I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me.” She sat there for a few minutes, crying and feeling an awful combination of guilt and sadness. She leaned down and pressed her cheek against the side of the baby deer, allowing her tears to soak its fur. She wished that there was something, anything she could do to change this, or remedy her mistake.

  Finally, accepting her helplessness and responsibility, Brynne was overcome by an urge to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. She needed to forget the awful sight before her. She shakily rose to her feet, and ran back to her rental car. She climbed inside and started the car, and placed her hands back on the steering wheel. As she drove away, she noticed that her hands were still covered in blood and fur.

  She wanted to go home.

  It was in that moment she realized that she was not sure where exactly her home was. Was it in Alaska with her parents, or in Seattle with Andrew? This knowledge, or lack of knowledge made her cry harder. She reached down to grab the map, and accidentally smeared blood across the very area she needed to see. The mess was quickly escalating into an even more stressful disaster. She hated herself a little bit for what she had done. She almost wished that a giant eighteen-wheeler truck would smash into her little rental car, and flatten her the way she had bulldozed the poor, innocent deer.

  Closing her eyes, Brynne released a sob. Although her mind did not know where her home was, or in what place and with what people she belonged, her body instinctively knew the answer. When she picked up her cell phone, her fingers automatically dialed Callder’s number.

  “Brynne, thank god… I didn’t think you would ever want to talk to me again…”

  “I need to see you,” she told him, between her sobs. “Can you please come?”

  The voice on the other end of the line did not even hesitate. “Where are you? I’ll be right there.”

  She exhaled with gratitude. Her home was not Soldotna or Seattle. Her home was not her family, or her co-workers at the diner. Her home was on the road with Callder.

  Chapter 7: The Reasons Why

  Brynne had been standing by the sink and running hot water over her hands and furiously scrubbing them for half an hour, but she could not seem to wash off the scent of death. It was
only a deer, but it had deserved to live as much as any person. Perhaps more than most people. It had been innocent; completely innocent. She had finally been able to stop crying when Callder had found her on the outskirts of Whitehorse, and thankfully, he had been able to check them into a motel for the night.

  She had no money left whatsoever, and she did not fancy another night spent sleeping in her car on the side of the road. She did not think she could get to sleep after what she had done. She pumped a little more soap into her hands, trying to clean away the memory of the poor animal’s final breath. She was so upset that she did not hear the gentle knocking sound that was meant to get her attention.

  However, when Callder entered the bathroom and slipped his arms around her stomach, she did notice. He hugged her firmly from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head and looking at her reflection in the mirror. He locked his arms beneath her chest and planted a kiss in her hair.

  “You are not a murderer,” Callder told her in a completely serious voice.

  Brynne smiled for the first time since she had left him. She had missed his ability to make her heart feel light, even in the worst of situations. “I know. I know it was an accident, but I still feel sad. If you could have seen the baby deer, Callder. It was the cutest little deer I’ve ever seen.”

  Some of Brynne’s blonde hair was matted against her face, and Callder reached up to brush it off her cheeks. He gently continued to comb her hair back with his fingers, pressing his lips against her temple, and then her cheek, and her ear. He continued to cradle her close and try to soothe her wounds.

  “I’m just glad that you’re safe,” he told her. “If it had been a larger deer, or a moose, or a bear, your car could have been damaged and you could have been hurt. I would gladly sacrifice the cutest baby deer in the world for your safety. I would chop him up and put him on an altar so that pagan gods could drink his blood…”