by T. S. Ward
Maybe it’s when I walk down the hall to my brother’s room where he was supposed to be sleeping. Maybe it’s when I wander the house and check every room.
Or maybe it’s when I’m sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest on the floor, between the couch and the coffee table, staring aimlessly out the front window. When he walks back into the house.
“Ghost?” He says, dropping scavenged supplies onto the ground. “You good?”
I nod slowly. Stiffly.
He shakes his head. “You aren’t.”
“Then why bother asking?” I snap at him.
“Because the way you respond tells me more than you do. It tells me if it’s something I should leave alone or something to talk about. So,” he sits down next to me. He has to push the coffee table a little further away just to sit cross legged. “Tell me. What’s going on?”
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and breathe out. “No. No. I don’t want this to turn into what’s wrong with Ghost? I don’t want to be pitied.”
“Oh, it isn’t pity. It’s concern. I know this.” He taps a finger against my arm, against my forehead. “This. I know there’s a lot going on and everything’s a mess and it’s hard to stay ahead of it. I know. I understand. It’s getting to me, too. You can talk to me if you want to. Any time. I’ll listen.”
I’m quiet for so long he gets up and walks into the kitchen. I hear a noise of shock, some clatter, and then he’s coming back as he pops a piece of cold bacon into his mouth.
“Did you—” He chews, swallows, and holds his hands up. “You found bacon. You made bacon.”
“You said we were going to leave today. Figured it would fuel us.”
Why is there this twisting, sick feeling in my gut? Why is it always there? Always growing?
“Thought you were still asleep when I woke up. Spent all day waiting for you. And that’s fine, I mean, what the hell else am I going to do other than sit around waiting for you? What else can I do? I can’t even defend myself with my goddamn…” I breathe out sharply.
He comes closer and shakes his head. “Rethink that. You certainly didn’t need my help fighting off five grown men and a kid.”
“Yeah, just wait until next time.”
He sighs. “Thank you, Ghost. Bacon’s good.”
I look at him and shrug. “Yeah, whatever. Bacon’s always good on your birthday, isn’t it?”
“Oh,” he murmurs. Oh, right.
He walks over to me, reaches down, and waits until I give in and set my hands on his. He pulls me up. Puts his hands on my shoulders as he hesitates, and then he smiles, hugs me.
“Thank you. Thanks for remembering. I’m sorry.”
I wait for him to let go, and then nod toward the kitchen. “Go on. Go eat your bacon, old man.”
We end up splitting it, even though I already had half. We end up putting the music back on, making fun of my brother’s taste in it, and drinking the last of the alcohol he left behind. And we dance. Stupidly. Half-hearted on my part, and Soldier just acting like a big goof in an attempt to make me laugh—which works. Shit like that always works.
And everything seems good again. Like it always does.
But there’s still that worry that never leaves me, that feeling that nothing like this ever lasts long, and especially not for me. It’s the smoke on the horizon. Ever-present. Threatening. A wildfire that at any moment might catch the wind and come barreling straight for me.
I can smell the smoke.
Day Fifty-Eight
The deer stands on the hill.
Bits of grass hang from its mouth as it chews peacefully. Mist coats the small glade, hangs low around me as I lie, waiting, sights set on the animal. We’ve only caught rabbits with a few traps I’ve set, and even those took days.
This deer will be a damn delicacy.
Better than just straight up rice.
I watch the early morning sun catch like little fires in the colour of the deer’s fur. Feel my heart beat calmly in my chest against the earth. The rifle in my hands, pressed against my shoulder.
“Hold steady,” my dad’s voice whispers in my ear, in my memory. “Take your time. Watch your breathing.”
I take the shot.
It echoes with a sharp pop across the valley. Birds take flight from the trees and bushes. I watch the deer drop to the grass, and relief floods through me. I give her a moment, wait to see if she’ll get back up, and then I’m on my feet, moving in.
I sling the rifle over my shoulder.
The grass is wet. Cold. Pale yellow. Almost the same colour as the deer.
I kneel down next to it and set a hand against its waning warmth.
“Well. Looks like one of us ran out of luck. Better you than me, really, so, thanks, I guess.”
Field dressing works best for me. I’ve already pushed myself too hard the past few days to carry out the full weight of a deer, especially with a full day’s hike to get back to Soldier. So, I lay out my shit. Get the deer onto its back, head up higher on the hill. Tie the legs to keep them out of the way. Core and cut. Entrails out. Flip her over to drain.
And then I sit. Wait. Clean my knife.
It takes what feels like hours to get back to camp, dragging this thing on a tarp with rope. Over every rock and root. I’m close to collapsing by the time I get the thing strung up.
I stand back for a minute, chest heaving, sweat coating my skin.
Stretch, Ghost. You’re gonna regret it, idiot.
But I don’t. I don’t listen to myself. I walk down to the river, clean myself off, and drink some water straight from a tiny waterfall. I set up traps between the trees just in case something comes for the meat. And then I climb into my hammock, and pass out. Entirely too pleased with myself.
Day Fifty-Nine
I wake up to rattling cans.
My heart hammers—mostly afraid of bears, or another big guy. I unzip the hammock, grip the gun and poke it out, and then peek out into the dawn. Chilled air hits me.
The deer is hanging there. The trees creak gently.
A shadow struggles to lift its feet over the wire, pulling the cans that are hanging up in the trees. It falls and snaps its arms when it lands awkwardly.
Not worth a bullet.
I try to move, to get up, but there’s a sharp pain cutting through my back and what feels like an iron-brand fist gripping my spine.
“Fuck me,” I growl, take a breath, grit my teeth, and flip myself out of the hammock.
I land on my chest. The impact knocks the wind out of my lungs. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I push myself up, jaw clamped down tight against the pain. One leg doesn’t respond. Doesn’t move. It’s numb from the hip down. The swelling makes my lower back soft.
I get up and draw Soldier’s knife, limping over to the flounder. The blade sinks easily into its cerebellum, twists, and scrapes against the bone.
There isn’t time for this bullshit.
I should have stretched, even briefly, but it isn’t the pain that’s bothering me. It’s the leg. It’s the lack of feeling, the lack of response, the barely being able to hold myself up with it. I remember waking up unable to feel either of my legs, unable to move, the concern of the doctor, and the screaming panic that tore through me. The use came back slowly, gradually. I was certain the entire time that it would never be normal again.
I want to scream, but where there’s one, there’s many, and I need every ounce of energy I have to get this deer cut and packed. All of my anger, all of my fear, all of this rage and determination—I channel it into the job before me.
“Alright. Alright, Ghost,” I tell myself. “Keep it together.”
It takes way too long to cut the deer down, to slice it up, to wrap it individually, and get it packed up. It takes way too long for all of this.
The sun rises and bears down on me well before I’m packed and on my way. The meat won’t last if I don’t get back soon enough, so I gamble everything on whether I can keep this leg
under me or not. On whether I can get by hobbling on just one, holding onto trees, and with all this weight.
It isn’t smart. At all.
Pretty sure I fucked up big time.
I make it a few yards before I trip. Fall. Struggle to move under the bag. Breathe. Don’t panic. I push myself onto my side, pull my leg out from under me, and unclip my bag, rolling back onto my stomach as the weight leaves me.
This isn’t going to work. I cannot continue like this.
“What can you do, Ghost?” I breathe out, growling as I slam my fist against my thigh over and over. “Fucking goddamn stupid garbage ass body—”
“Now, you calm down,” says my father’s voice in my head. “You’re going to get up off your ass and walk out of here. You’re going to make a splint, and walk your idiotic ass all the way home, you hear me?”
When I busted my ankle on a hunt, that’s what he said. He said fuck off with the tears and fix your problems. Because no one will do it for me. Because no one will ever do anything for me. Make your own damn dinner. You want money? Go get a job.
A splint. That’s what I need. To keep my knee straight.
I find some sturdy sticks, tear up a t-shirt, and tie it tight around my knee. Find a tall stick to put some weight on as I walk. I grit my teeth, hoist the bag back on, and get hiking.
I keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.
The trail looks the same. Feels so much longer. Just rocks and trees and dead leaves, everything repeated. The trail markers feel farther and farther apart every time I pass them.
I have to distract myself with every step.
“You’re a goddamn fool, Ghost,” I mutter.
“You’re a complete idiot,” I say.
I dig the stick into the dirt, grab a tree, haul myself up a hill. Do it again. Do it again.
“No one is going to help you.”
The stick slips against a rock coated in rotted, wet leaves.
“No one is coming for you.”
The sun goes down fast.
I should have been back by now. I should have been walking back into camp triumphantly, head held high, shouting about who’s best at keeping us alive.
“But you’re not,” I tell myself, “You fucked up real good, and that clears the scoreboard, doesn’t it?”
I don’t stop. Not to eat. Not to piss. Not to breathe.
“Breathe when you’re dead,” I huff, and then laugh at the thought. “You’re a ghost, Ghost. Already dead.”
I pull my headlamp from the pocket of my jacket, tug it over my head, flick it on. Adjust it so that I can see the ground under my feet. So I don’t trip so close to camp. So I don’t bash my skull in when I’m so close to getting back.
Imagine—seeing the cabins through the trees as I bleed to death, ruining this meat that Soldier needs to live, only to have him find me crawling with maggots and flies right at the treeline.
By the time I start recognizing terrain, it’s been dark for hours. By the time the trees start to thin out, I’m hearing noises.
A branch snaps next to me.
I whip my head around, light shining stark on the tree trunks. Everything looks grayscale. A goddamn jump-scare of a biter lurches out of the woods at me. Grayscale, too.
I try to dodge, drop the walking stick, and pull the knife from my hip. My hand fumbles for the clasps of the bag, and I worm out of it, dropping it to the ground. I shove a hand against the thing’s chest as it gets close.
“Alright, fucker. You wanna go? Let’s go.”
Its jaw cracks open, and this horrific scream spills out of it. I am chilled to the bone, startled by it so much I flinch away from it, and barely catch myself with my bad leg.
What the fuck—it screams again. High pitched. Echoing. Ear-piercing.
Motherfucking banshee.
I panic and slash at its throat. The scream cuts off. Air wheezes and spits out of the wound. As it rears its head back, its eyes catch in the light. Clouded over and gray. Unseeing. The thing is blind, but it can hear me, and it can probably smell me.
I shove it again and grab the walking stick awkwardly, dead leg stretched out, and crush the bastard’s skull in with the stick.
Another scream comes from the trees.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
I rush back to my bag, groaning as I pull it from the ground and slip it back over my shoulders. There’s so much pain and stiffness I can barely do that, but I have to. No one’s coming to help me.
I move faster, breathing hard. Panic gives me tunnel vision. All I see is trail. All I see is forward, forward, forward.
Another banshee stumbles onto the trail ahead of me. It screams, and I scream back. Its head turns to me, arms hovering out to the sides as if it’s about to take flight. The thing starts at me, and I scream again, ramming the end of the stick against its chest. It crushes through rotted flesh, slips between ribs, and the banshee slides forward on the stick.
I push up, shouting with the effort. The weight of it gives as it falls to the ground, and I wrench the stick out. I slam it down into the gnashing teeth and the gargled foam that spills from its mouth. I nearly fall with the weight of the bag.
Tears flow over my cheeks with the pain surging through my back. I wipe them away with dirtied hands. Knock it off, Ghost. Forward, forward, forward.
A light breaks through the trees ahead of me. Moving closer. Soldier. Like some goddamn salvation.
Relief floods me, overwhelming relief. So much that I decide right then I’m going to kiss him. Limbo be damned. Living in the woods the past five days be damned. Any and all reservations, I swear, that man—
It’s a banshee. A banshee with a goddamn headlamp.
I’m too tired for this shit. In too much pain. I keep walking toward it, raise the knife, and sink it into its eye. Clawing hands tear at the sleeves of my jacket, and then it collapses.
The forest is silent.
My hands are shaking. My entire body is shaking and tingling, buzzing. Should have eaten something. Should have stopped. Should have given up on the deer. Should have stretched. Should have brought Soldier with me.
Should have, should have, should have.
Another light in the trees ahead of me.
I breathe out and adjust my grip on the knife. My hands are slick with banshee blood and I can barely see against the light. It’s messing with my eyes. I hold the knife up, ready to strike.
A hand grabs my wrist, another arm blocking the knife as I swing it down, and then the knife is ripped from my hand.
“Ghost, hey!” Soldier’s voice. Soldier. “It’s me, it’s Ben.”
I stumble into him, a hysterical laugh rising up in my chest.
He takes my bag from me and slips an arm around my waist. “I heard screams. What happened? You good?”
“Banshees,” I rasp out.
We break through the trees as another scream sounds near us. Soldier starts moving faster. The asshole banshee comes screeching from the trees to the right, and Soldier lets me go. He rushes it, kicks it in the chest, and sinks the knife into its head when it falls to the ground.
I keep walking. Keep moving. If I stop, I won’t be able to start again, so I keep going, limping, barely keeping myself up with the stick as I follow Soldier to the closest cabin.
But then it’s the stairs that get me. The stairs that stop me.
“Soldier,” I say, hoarse, “Soldier.”
He comes back without the bag, eyes falling to the splint. He jumps down the steps and grabs me around the waist again, helping me up and into the cabin. He sits me down before closing the door and barricading it.
“Guess who got the bacon,” I mumble, falling back onto the bed, eyes closing. “You gotta fix it up. Like—I showed you. You…”
I pass out before I can finish whatever the hell I was about to say.
Day Sixty
My ears are ringing. My stomach is growling, eating itself, devouring and all-consuming.
Faint light hi
ts my eyes, and I fight it. Don’t want to give in. Don’t want to wake up. I feel like I haven’t slept in days. I feel like I got hit by a train, and this bed feels like a stone slab.
My leg has feeling again. I can move it, wiggle my toes in my boot.
Soldier left me where I fell, but he’s still here. He’s watching the windows as he packs the last of the venison into the ice box.
I must have only slept an hour. Maybe two. Maybe less. Probably less. Feels like minutes, or seconds.
I groan when I try to move, but even that sounds weak and pathetic. Especially considering I cannot move. There’s no strength left in me. All I can manage is my toes, but at least there’s that. At least the feeling isn’t gone for good. At least that damn leg isn’t useless, even if the rest of me is.
Soldier crosses the room with a canteen and some rabbit jerky. He sets them down and holds out a hand to me. “Glad you’re awake. Didn’t want to be the one waking you up.”
“Now why’d you want that?” I ask, gripping his forearm with one hand and his shoulder with the other.
“You’re dehydrated. And I can hear your stomach growling from across the room.”
He pulls me up, and I grit my teeth, reaching for the makeshift splint. I try to work my fingers into the knots, but my arms are so goddamn weak and it only frustrates me.
“Here, let me get that. Drink. Eat.” He pushes the canteen into my hands and starts pulling the knots apart. He’s careful. Gentle about it.
I talk between drinks, between bites. “How many more were there? I only saw one on the entire time I was out and it sure as hell didn’t scream at me. Where the fuck did they come from?”
“Haven’t seen any more,” he says. He lifts my knee to take the splint away. “Or heard any. What happened to you? How bad is it?”
“I’m fine,” I say, and take a bite of the rabbit. It’s tough. Occupies the mouth. But Soldier gives me a look, that don’t lie to me head tilt thing, and waits until I’m done. “Slipped on a wet rock. Just need to sleep it off.”
