Alone in the Woods

by Rebecca Behrens

  Alex handed me her tote, and I placed it next to the pile of my belongings. She pulled off her towel too. Then she raised her arms and worked her way out of the sweatshirt, handing it to me.

  I held it in my hands, then pressed it to my chest, like I was hugging it goodbye. It was such a dumb thing, feeling sad about leaving a sweatshirt behind. For a moment, I considered putting it on. How much weight would it really add? But that would be foolish. We needed to be as light as possible if we wanted a chance of floating to safety. A sweatshirt would soak up heavy water. The only thing we could carry with us was the life vest, because that was itself a flotation device, and who knows if we’d need it to save our lives.

  I folded it up and placed it next to my backpack, tracing the outline of the wolf one last time. Lupine lover! Dorky, yes, but I still loved that sweatshirt.

  I would also be okay without it.

  Next to me, Alex was saying goodbye to her phone. She pressed the home button one last time and then lovingly set it on top of my sweatshirt. It was oddly comforting that our two prized possessions were sticking together.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I picked up one side of the tube, and Alex took the other. We slowly waded into the river. The water swirled around our ankles. Even though the sun was out again, we’d never warmed back up. My legs were already numb to the frigid temperature.

  We walked until the river came up to our thighs, when the current began tugging at us. Even though we both were holding tight, we were barely strong enough to keep the tube from floating away. “Do you think you can climb on?” I asked.

  Alex nodded. I tightened my grip on the tube. “I’ll hold it steady. One, two, three, go.” She grabbed the edges and wiggled her way on top. The tube squeaked and sank an inch deeper into the water. Once Alex was in the middle part, I took a breath, then jumped to hoist myself up and over the edge. Without my feet planted on the riverbed, the current immediately snagged the tube and pulled us into the downstream flow.

  I wasn’t quite on; my hands clung to the side of the tube, but my lower body was adrift in the river. I squirmed, struggling to kick my way up. With me dragging one side down, the tube began to take on water. “Help!” I glanced at the bumper sticker, still stuck on tight but with the waterline creeping closer to it. If the sticker fully submerged, it might fall off despite the nail polish sealing it to the plastic. Then we’d capsize.

  Would we be strong enough, then, to fight the current? If not, would the one life vest be enough to save us both?

  Alex grabbed my elbows and yanked me upward. I kicked furiously, then pulled my knees up to my chest, until finally I was inside, curled up in the puddle of the sunken middle of the inner tube. We were barely afloat but still moving swiftly with the current.

  I glanced back at the spot where we’d entered the water, and I watched the neat little pile of our belongings fade. It was another cairn, marking that we’d been there. That we’d made it out of the woods. Then suddenly the cairn was out of my view, and it was just us, alone with the river.

  Twenty-One

  For a while, we huddled in the middle of the tube, taking turns shading each other’s faces from the sun. I don’t know how you can be so cold in blazing bright sunshine, but we were still freezing. I shivered like a wet cat, but Alex had stopped altogether. Not good. We clung to the life vest like it was a security blanket. Occasionally, I’d lift up my head to study the forest surrounding the river. Hoping that I’d see a cabin, or a hiker, or a sign. Maybe even the pickup point for a tubing trip. Instead, all I saw were tall grasses and endless birches, pines, and maples, dotted with the occasional sandstone cliff.

  Alex had fallen asleep somehow, with her face mashed against the inner curve of the tube. At least—I think she was sleeping. Her eyes were shut, and when I accidentally kicked her shin, she didn’t flinch or yelp or anything. “Alex?” I pressed my fingertips to her wrist. Her pulse was present but really weak. Although I wasn’t sure that I was checking it correctly. Alex didn’t budge even when I tried to recheck it by pressing on her neck artery.

  When someone has a concussion, you have to keep them awake. I didn’t know if Alex had one, but she had a head injury, and I wanted to keep her safe regardless. So every few minutes, I’d poke her with my numb toe until she finally grumbled at me.

  My stomach churned. The choppy river wasn’t helping with that, either. Every few seconds, the tube would spin in a new direction. I leaned over the side and heaved, but for better or worse, nothing came up. The tube bounced and rocked in the current. Water sloshed into the bottom, keeping our lower halves soaked and cold. I couldn’t feel my toes anymore, even when I used them to rouse Alex, so I shifted to rest my feet on the edge of the tube. Big horseflies landed on my outstretched legs, but I didn’t have the energy to swat or kick them away. I just let them bite me, like some kind of human all-you-can-eat buffet. I doubted there was any unbitten skin for them to feast on, anyway. Considering all the mosquito bites and the ticks, it was a miracle I had any blood left.

  As we floated and the afternoon dragged on, I felt sicker and sicker. My stomach really hurt, like when I had the stomach flu. Two more times I thought I was going to throw up, but the nausea taunted me just below that level. Occasionally the bottom of the tube would brush past a large rock or fallen log in the river, which would poke us. I crossed my fingers that the tube wouldn’t get another tear. A hole we couldn’t patch would be the end of us. I sank back against the side, where the plastic felt warm, or at least warmer than the river water. Alex’s sunken eyes were still closed, her breathing regular but shallow. I nudged her again to keep her on the right side of the sleep-wake divide.

  There was a strange noise from downstream—a roar, but not like a bear’s. The roar of fast-moving water. Rapids. A sign we actually might be back on the Wolf River—its lower part has lots of spots where people do whitewater rafting when the water level is high. Even the part we’d been on for our “lazy river” tubing experience had one or two sets of baby falls. I pulled myself up to look. Sure enough, only a few feet ahead, the water churned. We were headed straight for the froth.

  “Alex, hang on!” I shook her shoulder. Finally, she blinked up at me, her eyes struggling to focus.

  “Rapids,” I said, just as we hit them.

  Water sloshed into the tube from all sides. I clutched Alex, and her hands seized my arms. I groped at the bottom of the tube for the life vest, in case we got knocked out—or capsized—and needed it to save us. Jagged rocks surrounded the tube, and I wished more than anything for a helmet, imagining what would happen if we whacked our heads, then went underwater. The tube jolted again, and I screamed, although the roar of the water drowned me out. Alex whimpered next to me. It felt like being inside of a washing machine, as the tube twisted and spun and we dropped along with the river. If there had been anything in my stomach, I definitely would’ve thrown it up. We bounced again, both screaming. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  And then, suddenly—miraculously—the tube was floating lazily once again. Both of us still safely inside, although the middle was so full of water that we were submerged up to our belly buttons.

  We sputtered and gasped, crying with pain as the frigid water swirled around us. My fingers, mottled with cold, stayed curled around the life vest, refusing to let go.

  I spun to check the sticker. Still stuck on, but at least a third of it was underwater. The adhesive on one corner was beginning to peel off. We didn’t have much time left before the sticker would stop sticking, and nail-polish reinforcement would be useless while everything was wet.

  Alex and I huddled together. She kept closing her eyes like she wanted to sleep. And she still wasn’t shivering, despite how cold it was now that we were drenched. I longed to have something to wrap around our shoulders. I wished we’d kept the towels with us, or at least my sweatshirt. But even if we had, that stuff would all be soaking wet and would probably
only keep us that way. Alex groaned and rubbed at her temple, sporting a budding rainbow bruise.

  How long could we keep going? At what point should we abandon the tube, try to get out of the water again? Our tube wouldn’t survive another set of rapids, and after all the rain, the water level was high—there would be more ahead. But I didn’t know if we would survive on land, either. We had no supplies. We were in swimsuits, and I was barefoot. Like this, we wouldn’t make it through another night. We’d die of exposure.

  I lay back against the tube, letting tears roll down my cheeks. Next to me, Alex was limp. Her eyes were still closed, her expression pained.

  I was so tired, so hungry, so thirsty, so cold. My thoughts became hazy. I didn’t have a plan. The river was going to take us, wherever it wanted. I didn’t know what to do other than give ourselves over to its flow.

  Twenty-Two

  When I heard the music, I thought it was inside my head. It had been so long since we’d heard any sounds that weren’t from nature: singing birds, whistling breeze, crackling underbrush, howling wolves, churning river. The last human-made noise we’d heard had been that plane—which never had come back looking for us. Hearing a melody and lyrics, a sure sign of people, was jarring—but the music was so faint, I knew it must only be a memory. Especially because I was hearing an oldie, that same “Electric Slide” song the DJ had played at the pool party. That scene drifted back in my head, and it was so real, I could almost smell the burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Hear the laughter of kids doing the water-balloon toss. It was bittersweet to be remembering that particular day, which should have been such a good one but ended up being kind of a bummer. Discordant is a good dictionary word for it. Slightly out of tune. A lot of the summer had been that way.

  The memory was only getting stronger. The sounds of music and laughter grew louder, although the “Electric Slide” had ended and the melody of the next oldie was unfamiliar. Can you even remember a song you’ve never heard? I blinked up at the blue sky above the river. The music and smells didn’t stop when I opened my eyes. I’m definitely hallucinating.

  The scent of food was killing me. I tried to focus on anything else that I could—the ice-cold water sloshing around my legs, Alex’s labored breathing, the sea-sickening wobbliness of the tube as it struggled to stay afloat—but the scent wouldn’t fade. It intensified. I didn’t think I could take smelling it—even in my imagination—for one second longer. Maybe this is what happens when people die of exposure. They go a little mad toward the end.

  I raised my head from the sinking edge of the tube, to see if I could find something to distract myself from the imaginary food smell. Nothing but trees to my left. When I looked to my right, I saw it.

  The party.

  A gentle bend in the river lay ahead, and alongside it was a low-lying area cleared of trees. Some kind of park or a campground. There were a few rustic picnic tables near the water’s edge. A distance behind them, a barbecue grill.

  I wasn’t imagining the scent of burgers and hot dogs (and hopefully veggie patties). I wasn’t imagining the oldies playing. I wasn’t imagining the laughter.

  A dozen or so people milled around, holding sweating cans of soda and plates piled with picnic food. They were smiling and dancing and enjoying the late-summer afternoon along the river. They hadn’t noticed us yet, I didn’t think.

  “Alex!” I croaked, shaking her awake. “People! There are people?” Unless I’m hallucinating them too.

  “What?” She rubbed at her eyes and struggled to sit upright.

  “Hey! Hey! Over here!” I called. But my voice was so weak, and the breeze was strong enough to carry it away. The music drowned any sound we made. Our half-inflated tube hugged the opposite side of the river from the party. I reached my arms in the water, trying to paddle that way.

  “Help us! Please!” Alex tried to shout, but she could only cough it out. I kept paddling. What if we passed by this park and they never noticed us, never came out to help? Nobody was looking toward the water—they were all focused on their food.

  “We have to swim for it,” I said to Alex. I grabbed the life vest and worked her arms into it, then snapped the buckle. She needed it more than I did. “Hold on to me.” I reached for her hand. Our palms squeezed tight, just like when we used to do the lake jump.

  I rolled off the tube and into the river with a splash. The current was strong, but I fought it, kicking my legs harder than I ever thought I could. Alex fell in after me with a louder splash. The life vest barely buoyed her above the surface of the water. She grabbed the stretched-out strap of my suit and clung to it, as I furiously kicked and did my best to propel us toward the people. She took a deep breath. “Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice finally competing with the music.

  A woman wearing a baseball cap suddenly looked up. Her burger dropped to the ground. She mouthed something like, What in the world? Then she pointed at us and turned to shout at the others, “Someone’s in the water!”

  The guy next to her climbed up on a picnic table for a better view. His jaw dropped. “It’s those missing girls!”

  Everyone else turned to gape at the river. Then it was like an official had started a race, and they all dashed toward the water, shouting instructions at one another. My legs were losing energy. I didn’t know how much longer I could kick or tread. Our heads bobbed above the surface, dropping below every few seconds. I sputtered out a mouthful of river water. I clung to Alex. I kept trying to move us closer to them, but the current was dragging us away.

  The baseball-cap woman and the guy splashed into the river, still in their hiking clothes and shoes. They began swimming toward us. “Hang on, girls, we’re coming for you!”

  I kept kicking, even though the water was pulling me down. Alex coughed and flapped her arms to tread. Her hand squeezed mine tight. I sank below the surface again. Underwater, everything was eerily quiet and murky. I wanted to kick myself back up. But I couldn’t figure out how.

  Then I felt Alex pulling me up. Fighting for us. I broke above the surface, gasped in a breath, and my legs started kicking again. The effort to help me had been too much for Alex, whose grip on my hand was loosening. I hooked my arm around her, to make sure she wouldn’t go under now that I was up. Even with the life vest and with both of us treading furiously, we were barely hanging on.

  But we were Team Alexelyn once again.

  Then an arm appeared. It swooped around my chest, guiding me through the water with strong, confident strokes. A woman’s voice said, “You’re okay, girls. It’s all going to be okay.” I kept kicking; I couldn’t stop till we were safe. The guy was next to Alex, helping her swim. Once we had help, we moved quickly toward land.

  When I felt the pebbly shore beneath my bare feet, I knew it was true. We’d made it out of the woods, and out of the river. We’d actually saved ourselves.

  I took one triumphant step out of the water. And then I collapsed.

  Twenty-Three

  We didn’t really have a lot of last-morning-at-Buttercup-Lake traditions. Everyone was always busy cleaning the cabin and packing up the cars. I would take an extra minute in every space, from the aerie down to the living room, to soak up the musty cabin smell and the old family photos and the trinkets that represent years of family—and friend—memories. The last night’s campfire scent would linger on all my clothes. I always wanted to bottle that up, take it home with me, so I could sniff it in the dead of winter when summertime seems so far away. By the time our parents would say, “Pee one last time if you need to, and then everybody into the cars,” I just walked out the door. (Well, after peeing. It’s a long car ride.) I never wanted to glance back at the lake or Allard’s Roost, not even for one farewell look, because that’s a little too sad.

  “There’s always next year,” Mom would say, and that was usually my comfort.

  Next year isn’t always the
same, though—I know that now. Things, and people, can change. Will change.

  Because we were still recuperating, Alex and I weren’t helping with the cleanup or the packing this year. Instead, we sprawled on the Adirondack chairs on the patio. Munching on leftover doughnuts that her dad had driven all the way back to Minocqua to get us from Paul Bunyan’s Cook Shanty. The cold front had passed, and it was summery warm again, especially with the severe-clear skies and sunshine. Of course, we were covered up from head to toe—my peeling sunburn and Alex’s poison ivy rash were going to take a long time to fade and heal. Same with all the scrapes, bites, gouges on my ankles, and Alex’s rainbow-bruised goose-egg bump on her temple.

  Apparently that picnic spot along a branch of the Oconto River—we hadn’t actually found our way back to the Wolf River but a mile or two east—is rarely used. You can’t park right by it but have to hike in for half a mile along a secluded forest trail, so even though it’s a very pretty area and there are grills (and even an outhouse), many days nobody is there. It is purely luck that we happened to be drifting by on a beautiful Friday afternoon when the extended Simpson family was having “Simpson Fest”—their unofficial family reunion to celebrate a relative visiting from Seattle. Karen Simpson was the baseball-capped lady who had spotted us and jumped into the river, along with her brother, Jack. Once they pulled Alex and me out of the water, and after we both fainted, they carried us along the trail to where their cars were parked. Then they called 911 to explain what had happened. (No cell reception in the picnic area.) By then I had regained consciousness, and apparently I kept apologizing for interrupting their party. It’s all kind of a blur to me.

  Karen was a nurse at a nearby health center, so she could tell we were both suffering from hypothermia. It doesn’t have to be wintertime cold for you to get it—hypothermia develops whenever your core body temperature drops below ninety-five degrees. Which, after days and nights lost in the forest, wet and basically wearing only swimsuits, ours had. I don’t remember much of what was going on while we waited for the first responders to arrive. I do remember Karen, and the other adults, clucking about “what rough shape” we were in. But also telling us how “amazing” it was that we had survived and found our way to safety.