by Amber Burns
“Can we please eat now?” Jess begged. She threw herself dramatically onto the blanket. “I’m starving. I totally did not expect that to take like, eighty-seven years or whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re on a picnic, you guys, so obviously we’re eating!” Anna sat down and began to unbraid her hair. “Take out the food, Nina. Time to get our picnic on.”
Nina stopped. She stared at her friends. Her green eyes widened, and she blinked.
“Hurry up. I’m freakin starving,” Jess whined, flicking a bug off the leg of her pants.
Nina felt her cheeks growing hot. She opened her mouth, then found she could not form words and quickly slapped her lips shut again. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly, grabbing at her stomach, trying to remain calm.
“Nina?” Jess said. “You totally didn’t leave the food in the car, right?”
Nina opened her eyes and stared at Jess.
“Why the fuck is it my responsibility to remember the food? Like holy shit, I drove us all the way here. How the hell is it my job to do fucking everything?”
Anna stood up quickly, her eyes fire.
“Look, Nina, it was you who demanded we order a catered picnic, and it was you who packed it all up in the car and everything, so I think it kind of sort of makes it your job to remember to bring it,” she said through a forced smile.
“What the hell! And I’m also supposed to carry it through this marathon of trees and shit? How the hell is that even fair?” Nina yelled.
“Well, how is it fair that we all had to listen to you complain the whole hike here?” Anna yelled back. “Maybe just don’t wear your stupid high heels in the woods and you would have a lot more fun, Nina!”
“Nothing about this is fun, Anna! I just came along because my mother is always talking about how important it is to have weekend hangouts with your co-workers, okay? I don’t want to be here, and I also don’t want to spend my whole freaking Saturday driving to the middle of fucking nowhere with people who are so totally ungrateful!”
The girls stared at Nina. Anna’s eyes were on fire. Jess’ mouth hung open in a disgusted snarl. Esme blinked.
“Whatever,” Nina growled. She threw her hands up in the air and turned around. “I’ll go get the food,” she announced. “So you guys all just sit pretty over there, alright? Take some fucking wonderful Insta pics and make sure not to tag me in them!”
“Hey,” Jess yelped as Nina began to trudge back to the path. “I am like, totally, totally grateful right now, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Like for real,” Anna called, her voice softer now. “We’ll be right here, okay babe?”
“I’m like, seriously hungry,” Esme whined.
Nina took a step towards the small incline and flopped forward, her heels catching and sinking in the soft dirt.
“Shit!”
She threw her hands up to the top of the short slope and dragged her body up and over the ridge. Her nails filled with dirt and she had to roll quickly in order to avoid losing a heel. She wiped a hand across her face, decorating her cheek with a smear of dark black mud.
“Whatever,” she grumbled.
Nina pushed herself back onto her feet and stood teetering atop her heels for a moment. Then she took a breath, narrowed her eyes, and plunged onwards, back into the dark green and brown world of the forest.
When she had put enough distance between herself and the girls she had left lounging in the grassy clearing, Nina began muttering out loud to herself.
“I just do not understand why I even bother,” she huffed, slapping a black fly away from her neck for the third time. “I mean, like come on, you guys. I totally drove you all the way here and did not even ask any of you for so much as a single nickel of gas money. And yea okay, I decided on the lunch, but that is only because you wanted to make freaking peanut butter sandwiches and how is that even acceptable? Like, are we three years old? No. No. So I’m sorry that I forgot one tiny little thing, because apparently, I have to do everything…” Nina’s complaints paused as he yanked her heel out of a small patch of mud. “Yuck… or else nothing gets freaking done ever, so like… oh, what the hell?”
A sheer rock face, taller than Nina and much wider, had presented itself to her, completely blocking the path. She stared at it obstinately for a moment, too stubborn to believe it could truly be there. There had definitely not been a sheet of rock clogging the middle of the path on their way from the car to the clearing. That was something Nina would have remembered, especially if she had had to slide down the rigid stone face in her skin tight tartan pants. She tapped her forehead pensively, her long nails making small clicking sounds as they bounced off her skin. Then she groaned and turned around and began picking her way through the leaves and dirt back towards the clearing, retracing her steps to discover where she had executed an incorrect turn.
“Okay. We went straight for about seven million hours,” Nina recalled their path aloud, tucking her brightly colored hair back behind her ears. “And I know we made one left turn and then another left turn.”
She stopped at a fork in the path and leaned forward, first towards her left, then towards her right, trying to get a look at each different tributary of the trail. They were near mirror images of each other, both lined with leaves losing their colors, and trees growing so close together they blocked out most of the day’s warm light.
“Okay.” Nina closed her eyes and pressed her soft fingers to her temples. “Okay.”
The forest flashed alternating shades of dark and light across her closed eyelids as she tried to envision the path she needed to take. After several moments of standing frozen in the forest, Nina opened her eyes and tilted her head back so that her green orbs met the slices of piercing blue sky that peeked through the tangle of tree limbs above. She breathed in through her nose and bit her lip. Then she spun on her heel, a mistake as she nearly toppled over, but caught herself just before she face planted on the muddy ground. With an exasperated sigh, she stalked down the path again.
“I’ll just keep walking,” she grunted to herself, swatting the low hanging branches out of her way before they slapped her flushed cheeks. “If I go in a straight line long enough, I will eventually get out of this shithole forest and end up back at the car.”
***
The light fell a deeper and deeper shade of green, tickling the toes of Nina’s precious stiletto heels with dusky kisses. On she marched, dragging her blistered feet forward, blinking angry tears out of her eyes, biting her bottom lip so hard she drew blood. Forward, first with intention, and then, as the hours wore on and the sky grew closer in shade to black than blue, forward blindly. She smacked leaves and bugs from her face with vicious slaps and stumbled shrieking as rabbits scurried across her path. When her stiletto finally cracked in two, she fell to her hands and knees in a haggard pile of tangled red hair, scratched and bloodied hands, and tears.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Nina screamed.
She pounded the dirt floor with her fists. She grabbed at her foot and pulled the shoe into her hands, leaving her bare toes resting in the mud. Desperately, she fished the fragmented heel from the place it had caught beneath a flat piece of stone. She held it in her shaking hands, tears pouring down her face. She cradled it to her chest. Then her soft complexion clouded over with anger. Her thick brows smashed downwards to frame her green eyes in a look so dark with rage it rivaled the falling night in its darkness. She raised her hand high and hurled the broken shoe across the forest. It shot through the air, tumbled past the branches of a tree, and fell to rest far away, somewhere beyond Nina’s vision. She sat silently for a moment, staring after the shoe, breathing, choking on her shuddering tears.
She sat that way for some time, until she had run her eyes dry. She let herself fall fully into the heaving of her chest. She grabbed at her waist and held herself as the sky faded from dusky purple to complete darkness. When at last her body stopped shaking with anger and frustration, she swallowed. She rubbed at
her eyes, clearing them of tears. Then she sniffed deeply and ran her stinging hands over her legs. That was when she felt something hard in her pocket. She froze. Her eyes jumped to life, and her heart began pounding against her chest so rapidly that her breasts trembled and her fingers shook. She shoved her shaking hand into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone.
In the chaos of getting lost she had completely forgotten she had left her cell phone in her pocket, not her purse. She pressed the round bottom at its bottom center, and the screen jumped to life; familiar, bright, as comforting as a smile from an old friend. Nina’s dirt-caked face cracked into a smile and she laughed. She slid her bloodied fingers across the screen, leaving a trail of smudged dirt across the device. She didn’t even care. The discovery of the cell phone so invigorated her that she found herself jumping up and onto her feet, one heel on and one heel tossed to die somewhere in this jungle of a forest. She punched the buttons on her phone enthusiastically, entering Anna’s phone number. Then she held the phone up to her ear, not even daring to breathe, waiting in anticipation for the relief that would flood over her as soon as she heard that first ring. She stood there, frozen but for the slight trembling of her chest, the shivering of her fingers against the bejeweled phone case. Nina sucked in her lips, knowing that the first ring would save her.
Nothing.
She blinked her eyes rapidly, staring straight ahead, mouth forming a straight thin line. She still did not breathe. She clutched the phone tighter against her ear, her knuckles turning white. In her mind, she saw two syllables take form. Just. Ring.
Nothing.
Nina wrenched the phone from her ear and stared down at the screen. She squinted at the tiny bars on the top of the display. Then her stomach dropped, and all the breath she had been holding in came flooding out of her, deflating her hopes.
No signal. No bars.
“What the fuck,” Esme had said. “No signal? Seriously?”
“Well yea, Esme, we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Nina had snapped back.
“FUCK!” Nina screamed to the sky.
Before she knew what she was doing, Nina was hurling the phone through the air, sending it dancing across the darkening forest. She heard it smack into a tree and land softly, somewhere in the dark depths of tall grass. She stood open mouthed, breath heaving her chest up and down, staring after her phone in disbelief at what her rage had just caused her to do. She remained frozen like this for a long moment, doing nothing but breathing, realizing the absoluteness of her situation.
After a long time, Nina fell back down to the ground. She thought about getting up again and trying to find her phone, but realized it would be a fruitless journey. After all, whether or not she had the iPhone in hand, she still would not be able to call for help; she still would not have any reception.
“Well yeah,” she said out loud, her voice flat and tired. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
A shadow suddenly fell across Nina. It draped itself over her shoulders and fell heavily over her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, and she sat up perfectly straight.
“The middle of fucking nowhere,” a low voice growled. “Poetic. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere; sure is beautiful, isn’t it?”
3
By the time Rowan had finished hanging the cured meat to dry, dusk had begun to tickle the tops of the trees. Rowan strung the last of the salted pig belly from the bits of twine, carefully securing it to the rafter. He tugged it, testing to make sure it was safely attached to the solid wooden beam. Then he stepped down from the chair, nodded to himself, and wiped his hands upon his apron. Flecks of rock salt caught in his beard and he chuckled, brushing them free with his muscular forearm. Then he hung the apron from a hook on the back of the kitchen door and headed outside to wash his hands.
Rowan ducked, bending his long, tattooed body to fit beneath the door frame. He began to walk across the lot, but after taking three slow steps, he stopped. The dusk was too beautiful, it commanded his attention. He paused and tilted his head up towards the glorious purples and pastel oranges that splayed themselves across the darkening sky. A half smile twisted its way onto his face, and he spread his arms and breathed in the beauty of the falling night.
“If you were a living woman,” he found himself saying. “I would hold you in my arms and kiss your dusky lips until you turned into morning.” The moment the words left his lips he dropped his arms and instinctively checked behind his shoulder, instantly embarrassed by his romantics. Then he caught himself, and laughed, his body relaxing. “There’s no one there, Rowan,” he chuckled. “No one to judge you. Not anymore.”
He grinned and picked the large white bucket from its silver handle. He swung it through the air, singing softly to himself as his steel toed boots traced the remainder of the route to the well.
Rowan dropped the bucket lightly to the ground beside him and set to work fetching water from the well he had worked so hard to dig. His arms worked the black iron pump, his arms surging with power, muscles flinching so that they made his tattoos look like they were jumping up and down. The water poured, cool and clean, from the mouth of the spigot, and Rowan pulled the bucket beneath the iron lips. He grinned with satisfaction as the bucket filled with water.
Walking back to his cabin, swinging the bucket of sloshing water gently back and forth, the dusky sky riding his shoulders, casting shadows across the ridges of his muscled body, Rowan could not help but smile to himself. He felt perfectly content. The wind kissed him lightly on the neck, rustled the hairs of his beard; the smell of fall hung thick and pleasant in the cooling air. He was about to open the door back to his cabin when he heard it.
A shriek, piercing and hair-raising, echoed through the forest, bouncing off the rocky inclines and getting caught amongst the top of the trees. Rowan dropped the bucket and turned, squinting, trying to discern the direction the scream had come from. There was no other sound for so long, just the simple sighing of the forest readying itself for another night, that Rowan began to wonder if he had not just imagined it.
“Is it finally happening?” he mused out loud, running his hand over his beard in thought. “Am I finally losing it? Has living out here all by my lonesome finally made me go a little mad? Could I really be imagining hearing things?” He frowned and strained his ears, trying to pick up the slightest scream or call for help.
But no sound came, none out of the ordinary, at least. After one more moment of listening, Rowan shook his head and shrugged. He again picked up his bucket and placed his hand on the door knob, ready to enter the coziness of his cabin once again.
“Uhhahhhhhghhhhhhh!!!!!!”
There it was again. Rowan set down the bucket full of well water and huffed. This time he walked towards the edge of his property, to the place where the trail he had carved through this portion of the woods began. He stood at the edge of the trail and cupped his hand around his ear, listening. He heard something else. A very faint:
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
He dropped his hand. The curse words had confirmed it, the originator of the cries was definitely human. Rowan turned on his heel and jogged back to his cabin. He threw open the door and grabbed his rifle from its place above the mantle. He gripped it in his tattooed fingers and again ran out the door. He ducked under the overhanging branches of a naked limbed tree and began to slowly jog down the trail and into the forest. Every few minutes Rowan would stop and pause, listening carefully for any other cries or yelps that might help him get a better sense of the direction he ought to head towards.
After jogging for about twenty minutes, Rowan began to catch the distant and faded sound of crying. The wind carried it to him, small wisps of shuddering tears. He began to slow his pace to a quick and sure-footed walk, his ears and eyes alert as night began to lay herself heavily upon the forest. As he walked onwards still, Rowan would catch snippets of tears, carried through the darkening sky. The further he got towards the h
eart of the forest, the louder the tearful cries became. Rowan’s eyebrows slanted downwards, and his eyes narrowed in practiced concentration. He gripped the gun and gritted his teeth. He felt his body tense with the effort of tuning in so deeply to all of his senses, his muscles twitched and jumped, sensing every movement that occurred in the darkening landscape that surrounded him. He, the hunter, the plaid-wearing, gun toting, tattooed bear, patrolling the grounds of his kingdom for whatever trespasser this might be, screeching painfully into the night.
It was after about an hour of walking that Rowan caught a glimpse of a light. It was a tiny, rectangular brightness, about a mile north of where he stood, he guessed. He squinted, confused. It seemed to be moving ever so slightly, or was it blinking? He began to stalk towards the light, body hard and ready, crouched towards the ground, concealed by the combination of tall grasses and dark night.
About ten feet away from the light he stopped. He took a breath and raised his gun, pressing the sight against his eye. He blinked, his dark blue eyes staring at the magnified image. He lowered the gun and uncocked it. Then he strode forward, bent, and picked up the cell phone.
