by Jeremy Bates
No, I wouldn’t let myself think that. She was coming. She would be here any minute now—
My dad was staring at me.
I was so startled I cried out and toppled backward.
Then, just as quickly, I scrambled forward.
“Dad?” I said.
“Where’s…your mother?” His voice was dry, raspy. He spoke softly, as if each word was an effort.
“She went to get help. She’ll be back soon.”
“When…?”
“When did she go? This afternoon, about eight hours ago.”
“Eight…?”
“She’ll be here soon, Dad.”
“Water?”
“Here.” I grabbed his water bottle and tipped a bit of water into his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His tongue slithered over his cracked lips, probing for every last drop.
“More,” he said.
“Mom said we have to save it—”
“More!”
I poured a bit more into his mouth.
“More.”
“Mom said—”
His hand moved amazingly fast, snagging my wrist
“Ow!” I cried.
“Let go,” he said.
I obeyed. The bottle toppled onto its side. My dad released my wrist, retrieved the bottle, and finished what was left.
He smacked his lips weakly. “Where’s yours?” he said.
“I— It’s finished,” I lied.
“Show me.”
“It’s all gone.”
He tried to grab me again, but I scuttled out of the way this time.
He maneuvered himself onto his elbows. In the firelight his face was a severe mask of strained muscles and hard angles. Sweat beaded his skin, making it shinier than ever. His dusty eyes swept the area, locking onto my water bottle, which was propped against my backpack a few feet away.
He held a shaking hand toward it. “Give me it, Brian.”
“Mom said we have to save what we have.”
“Give it!”
I hesitated. Under normal circumstances I would never oppose my dad’s wishes like this. But my dad wasn’t acting like my dad. He was acting like a stranger.
“Brian,” he said more gently, as if realizing he was scaring me. “Please. I’m…de’drated.”
I retrieved the water bottle and handed it to him. He finished all the water in two gulps, tossed the bottle aside, and lay back down. He closed his eyes.
“Dad?”
He didn’t reply.
“Dad?”
Nothing.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“I’m not your fucking dad, Brian.”
I stared at him, confused, waiting for him to explain what he’d meant. But he didn’t. He fell back to sleep almost immediately, once again making that slurpy breathing sound.
I’m not your fucking dad, Brian.
In the nightmare my dad and I were in some kind of treehouse, a big one like in the Return of the Jedi, only ours was a lot closer to the ground, and bad people were trying to climb the tree to get in. I could see them huddled together below, conspiring. My dad kept shouting orders at me, getting angrier and angrier because I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do. At one point he got so mad he hit me. When he tried to hit me again I knocked aside his arm with mine and realized I was stronger than him. I shoved him to the ground and told him to stop hitting my mom. I was telling him this in a reasonable voice, but I was shouting too. A part of me kept waiting for him to say he wasn’t my dad, for him to tell me to go away, but he never did. He just kept yelling at me to stop the invaders—
I woke to blackness, disorientation, my dad hissing dangerously, telling me to wake up.
“I’m awake, Dad,” I whispered. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Bear. There.”
His words zapped me like an electrical shock. I looked in the direction he was looking, past the still-burning fire. I didn’t see anything but darkness.
“Where…?”
A forceful expulsion of air startled me, louder than that which any human could make. A second later I saw the bear. I had been staring right at it, though it was little more than a black patch against the black night.
Holy crap! I thought, sucking back a mouthful of dread.
My mind reeled.
Why’s it just standing there?
What’s it doing?
I wanted to ask my dad these questions, but my throat was suddenly too small, my tongue too thick.
“Brian?” my dad hissed.
“What?” I managed.
“Scare it away.”
Scare it away?
“I can’t.”
“Brian!”
The bear—which had been investigating my mom’s backpack, I realized—now swung its huge round head toward me. Its eyes shone silver. It snorted and made deep throaty sounds while pawing the ground with its long claws.
“Go away!” my dad said, waving his arm weakly. “Ga! Go away!”
The bear lumbered into the firelight. Its short glossy hair was a bluish-black, and it was skinny, with disproportionally large shoulder humps. Its ears stood erect and rounded, its muzzle narrow and grizzled brown, ending in a broad black nose.
It roared, flashing yellow canines, which dripped with saliva.
My bladder gave out. I barely noticed.
“Ga!” my dad croaked. “Go! Scat! Brian!”
The bear roared again, shaking its head from side to side.
Instinct screamed at me to run away, but I knew I couldn’t. If I ran, the bear would chase me, like dogs do. And bears were fast. Someone once told me they were faster than people. So it would catch me, rip me apart, eat my guts.
“Go away!” I yelled, flapping my hands madly.
The bear reared up on its hind legs and roared a third time, reminding me of a bear I had seen at a circus a few years ago.
This gave me a crazy boost of courage—it’s just a stupid animal—and before I knew what I was doing I was springing toward the fire. I snatched a burning stick from the flames and threw it at the bear. It bounced off its head.
The bear chuffed, as if surprised.
I flung another stick, then another, shrieking nonsense all the while.
The bear started huffing and clacking its teeth while backing away. Euphoric with anticipated victory, I scooped up a smoking log and heaved it at the monstrous thing. When it struck the ground it exploded in sparks.
The bear fled.
“Will it come back?” I asked my dad, who was staring in the direction the bear had gone.
“More wood, fire,” he rasped. “Now!”
I chose a big fat log from the stockpile and dumped it onto the bed of smoldering ashes. For a moment I was afraid I had ruined the fire. But then flames appeared, licking up the sides of the log. I added some smaller sticks and dry pine needles and anything else that would burn. As I was doing this I detected an icky, sulfuric smell. A moment later I noticed that my hands and forearms were waxy smooth. I’d burned off all the small dark hairs when I’d stuck my hands in the fire to grab the log.
My dad rolled onto his side and began coughing. It sounded like he had a really bad cold, like he was hawking up phlegm…and then I saw it wasn’t phlegm, it was blood.
“Dad!” I rushed to his side, but he shoved me away. Finally he stopped coughing and eased himself onto his back, groaning with the effort. His mouth was smeared bright red, as if he had been pigging out on strawberries. He folded his hands together on top of his chest and closed his eyes, looking eerily how my dead grandma had looked in her coffin at the funeral home.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
He didn’t reply, and I wasn’t sure whether he was ignoring me or sleeping.
“Dad?”
Silence.
I checked his pulse. It was faint, but beating.
That night seemed to stretch forever. I had never been so frightened or jumpy in my life. Every unexplained sound s
ent my heart galloping. I knew bears were supposed to be more scared of people than people were of bears, yet the one that had attacked us was awfully skinny, which meant it was probably sick—and desperate. It wouldn’t hesitate to eat my dad and me. I was one hundred percent sure of that.
As the minutes inched by, I found myself wondering what I would do if the bear returned and I couldn’t scare it away again. I could run. But what about my dad? I couldn’t leave him here…could I? Yet what else could I do? He couldn’t walk. I couldn’t carry him. I’d have no choice. I’d have to leave him.
And he isn’t really my dad.
I frowned. Was this true? After all, my dad had been sick when he’d told me this. He’d had a fever. Maybe he didn’t know what he was saying. Maybe he was…what was that word? Delirious? Yeah, he was delirious. Of course he was my father. I looked like him, didn’t I? That’s what my mom was always telling me. “You’re just as handsome as your father, Brian. You’re going to break a lot of hearts one day.”
I went over to my dad, knelt beside him, and studied his face. My frown deepened, because now that I was looking at him, really looking at him, I didn’t think I resembled him at all. We both had dark hair, and we both had eyes a comparable shade of gray. But that’s where the similarities ended and the differences began. Like his eyebrows, for example. I’d never paid any attention to his eyebrows before. They were thick, tilting upward at the outer ends. My were thin, arching in the middle, like upside-down smiles. And his nose was long and straight. I touched mine, which curved slightly, like a ski jump. And his jaw and chin were square. Mine were oval. And his head was proportioned normally to his body, while mine was too big. It’s why my friends sometimes called me Bighead, or Humpty Dumpty, or Brian the Brain, even though I wasn’t that smart.
“Dad?”
He didn’t reply.
“Dad?”
No reply.
I pressed my ear to his parted mouth and heard his wet, raspy breathing, almost like he was gargling mouthwash. I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t.
I was angry.
“Why don’t I look like you, Dad?”
No reply.
“Why haven’t you ever liked me?”
No reply.
“Are you my dad, my real dad?”
No reply.
“Why do you hit Mom?”
No reply.
“I’ve heard you. When I’m in my room, and you think I’m sleeping, I hear you yell at her about Geena dying, and hit her. I hear her cry. She tells me the bruises are from other things, but I know they’re from when you hit her.”
No reply.
“I don’t think you’re my dad.”
No reply.
“I don’t think you are.”
I stared at him for a long, silent moment, then went back to the fire to keep watch.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because when I opened my eyes the sun was high in the sky and it was warm, the way it had been yesterday around lunchtime.
Squinting, I glanced about for the bear, half convinced it would be hanging out somewhere nearby, watching me. It wasn’t. However, I was startled to discover about a dozen crows perched in the bare branches of the old, twisted tree. Every one of their beady black eyes seemed to be trained on my dad and me.
When had they arrived? And what did they want?
My dad? Did they know he was dying? Were they after an easy meal?
“Go away,” I told them.
They remained, staring greedily.
I tossed a stone at the closest one. It cawed, which almost sounded like a bray of witchy laughter.
I turned my attention to my dad. He was in the same position he’d been in earlier, only his hands were no longer clasped together on his chest; they were sprawled to either side of him, as though he were making lazy snow angels in the dirt. His skin appeared pale, sickly, almost yellow. His face seemed thin and older than usual.
My hands were itching and I scratched them absently, thinking about how hungry and thirsty I was, and how there was no food or water.
And where was my mom? She definitely should have been back already. She’d been gone for almost a full day.
“Mom!” I shouted, my voice cracking and echoing throughout the chasm.
She didn’t answer.
“Mom?” I repeated, though more to myself this time.
I picked up the water bottle my dad had tossed aside and upended it to my lips. No water came out. Not a drop.
I looked at the river. My mom had warned me not to go near it. She’d said it could sweep me away. I didn’t doubt that. But I didn’t have to go in it very deep, did I? I could stop at the edge, just close enough to fill the water bottle…
My ankles began to itch. I snuck my hands beneath my pant cuffs and scratched—and realized the skin there was lumpy. I yanked my hands away as if I had been bitten. I rolled up the cuffs.
Red splotches marred my skin. They resembled puffy red birthmarks.
Poison ivy!
“Shoot!” I said, resisting the temptation to scratch more. “Shoot!”
“Water…”
I snapped my head toward my dad. His eyes were open but hooded.
“You drank it all!” I said.
“Water…”
“There’s none.”
“River…”
“Mom told me I can’t go near it.”
“Brian…” He cleared his throat. “I need…we need…water…”
“I promised Mom I wouldn’t go near it.”
“I’m lying.”
I frowned at him. Lying about what? About not being my father?
Something shifted inside me. Hope?
“Water…” he said.
Lying or dying? I wondered. Maybe he said he was dying…
That something inside me vanished.
“Brian…”
“What?” I griped. I felt hot, tired, confused.
But he had closed his eyes again.
The minutes ticked by. The sun beat down on the back of my neck. I worked my mouth to generate saliva, then swallowed with difficulty, as if my throat were clogged with a roll of pennies. I rubbed my hands on a large rock that jutted from the ground, thinking that by doing this I wouldn’t spread the poison ivy to other parts of my body. I rubbed my ankles on a different part of the same rock. I tried not to think about my dad who wasn’t my dad dying, or the crows, waiting to fight over his corpse. I tried not to think about the long, bleak day ahead of me, or about spending another night here if my mom didn’t return.
I tried not to think about any of this, but in the end it was all I could think about.
After a bit, I got up and went to the river.
My mom had been right. The mossy rocks were slippery and sharp. I kept to the pebbly ground when I could and only stepped on the rocks when I had to. Then I was at the edge of the river. I had become so used to its continuous drone I had stopped hearing it, but now it sounded as loud as a million bees buzzing in unison. And it was moving so fast! I glanced east, then west, searching for a calmer section, but it was swift-moving and frothy for as far as I could see in either direction.
I stood on a large slab of rock that sloped downward into the water at maybe a forty-degree angle. I lowered myself to my bum, then butt-hopped forward. Stretching my right arm as far as I could, I submerged my water bottle into the rushing water, pointing the mouth upriver. The frigid water stung my hand and tried to tear the bottle from my grip. I held onto it tightly until it had filled up. Then I raised it in the air triumphantly.
That wasn’t so hard, I thought.
Tucking it in my pocket, I attempted to fill my dad’s bottle next. Almost immediately, however, it slipped from my grasp. I cried out in dismay, lunged forward—instinctively, stupidly—and skidded down the rock into the river.
I was waist deep in the freezing water before I knew what was happening and still sliding on the slick surface of the rock. Then my feet touched flat g
round. I tried to stand. The current yanked me along with it, away from land.
“Dad!” I shouted. “Help!”
I was pin-wheeling my arms, trying to keep myself upright.
“Dad!”
I could see him by the fire. He was propped up on his elbows, watching me.
“Dad! Help!”
He didn’t move.
I flailed toward shore. Top heavy, my feet shot out from beneath me. My head dunked underwater. I opened my mouth, to cry out, and swallowed icy water. Then I was moving, pushed and dragged by the current. I somersaulted, didn’t know up from down. My eyes bulged with fear, but I couldn’t see anything…or could I? Yes, the sky! It was rippled and blurry and blue. I reached for it, kicked and kicked.
My head crashed through the surface of the river. I sucked back a mouthful of air and spat it out again in a fit of coughing. My throat burned. My lungs ached inside my chest.
As I struggled to remain afloat, I gagged on more water, gasped for air. My body suddenly felt as if it were made of lead. I was going to sink. I was going to drown—
I smashed into a rock. I tried grabbing hold of it, but it was too slippery, there were no handholds, and then it was behind me.
The river spun me twice, and when I was facing forward again another rock reared up in front of me.
Somehow I managed to clasp onto this one and not let go. Water crashed over my shoulders, roared in my ears.
The rock that had stopped me, I noticed with relief, was the first of several that protruded from the water in a line like well-worn molar teeth.
Moving from one to the next, I made slow but steady progress toward shore until I could stand once again.
Thankfully the riverbank here was not as steep as where I’d slid in, and I was able to clamber onto dry land, where I collapsed onto my chest and spewed my guts out.
Back at the campsite my dad was still propped on his elbows, still watching me.
