Survive

by Alex Morel

  Bounty isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe what we found rummaging through the luggage (me) and bodies (Paul) left on the plane. We found four candy bars, a pack of gum (the old-fashioned sugary kind), cough syrup, sleeping pills (Paul pocketed those), Tylenol, a lighter, some plastic garbage bags from the snack service (for keeping stuff dry), two empty plastic soda bottles (Paul says we’ll fill them with snow and our bodies will melt them into water over time), a first aid kit, lots of non-working cell phones, one Sawtooth Mountain coffee mug, a camping lantern, a pair of sunglasses for me. And a second sleeping bag, which I immediately recognize as the end of my very short-lived physical experience with the opposite sex.

  I follow him back to the tail of the plane, the wind at our backs now, so we make good time. We stop outside. For the first time, the sky is clear enough to see the outside of our shelter. The tail of the plane remains intact. The little wing on the right side of the tail is jammed into the snow, and the left wing sticks out at a forty-five-degree angle. The rudder streaks toward the sky and looms tall over the ledge, like the top of a broken cross marking a wintry grave.

  I look at the bathroom door—it’s tilted sideways in the middle of the exposed circle that once seamlessly attached to the main cabin. The metal surrounding it is distressed; I imagine it having a voice and screaming from the pain of being ruthlessly torn from its body. Crooked and slightly indented at the middle, the door represents the flimsy line of protection between the wilderness and us.

  Paul pushes open the bathroom door and starts arranging all the stuff we found inside. I walk behind the tail of the plane and am hit by a toxic wall of spilled jet fuel. The snow is saturated with a bluish-green hue that streaks back from behind the plane. The winds, I think, must have pushed the fumes away from our cabin. I quickly cover my mouth and nose, but the stench is strong, and the combination of hunger and dehydration and the fumes overwhelms me. I begin to wobble, and Paul’s hand suddenly grabs my forearm.

  “Whoa—you can’t inhale that stuff at all. It’ll kill you.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “That’s one of the reasons we can’t stay here. If the winds shift, we’ll be inhaling jet fuel all day and night.”

  I nod, but I’m too weak to process the phrase “can’t stay here.” It rings in my mind, but I can’t quite bring myself to confront it or Paul.

  Paul walks me back and opens the door.

  “You first,” he says.

  I step in, and Paul has organized things like a little nest for us. It makes my heart warm. He climbs in behind me, and it is snugger than before. He’s so big and the tail so tilted and cramped that all we can do is lean against the wall together, in a semi-lying-standing position.

  We get settled in our bag and then Paul hands me the coffee mug filled with snow. We look at the rest of our loot, which I’ve laid out on the floor: basically candy bars, which I could eat by myself for one lunch, but that’s all we have and we’ll have to make it last.

  “Hold up the mug,” he says.

  He takes his tiny lantern, breaks the glass around the flame and lights it. It provides almost no heat, but Paul places the cup directly onto the flame and melts the snow.

  “Why don’t we just eat the snow?”

  “Like I said before, you’ll die. We’re already at risk for hypothermia. Eating snow will drop your body temperature even more. Eventually, we will use our bodies to melt the snow in these soda bottles, but we need water now. That’s more important than food by a long shot.”

  We wait silently for a long time as snow turns to slush and slush to water. I sip the warm water as it crests to the top. It is heaven in the form of water. I’ve never tasted anything as sweet in my life. I look at Paul as he takes his first sip and I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am, which is that I’ve never been truly thirsty before. I’ve never, by turn, ever appreciated how wonderful water is. I laugh, thinking there were days in the institution when I was so depressed that the thought of drinking or eating something depressed me more. That seems unimaginable to me now.

  We wait for more to melt. It is agonizingly slow. But each warm mouthful feels like a cup of heaven in your mouth and throat. We look at each other, understanding that each sip is sacred, not to be taken for granted.

  Then the light flickers for a few minutes and it dies. Fuck is all I can think. Paul’s face looks grave.

  “How long?” I say, my eyes cast downward on our last cup of water.

  “Who knows?”

  “Best guess?”

  “After the weather breaks, and not before then. I’d bet two to three weeks minimum.”

  I think of all the news stories about crashed planes and can’t help but wonder about the black box and GPS.

  “Shouldn’t they be able to find us with some kind of scanner or something?”

  “Like on TV? It doesn’t work that way. We are in the mountains and it’s snowing. There’s probably three hundred miles between us and what we’d call civilization.”

  “But still,” I respond. “They can find anything.”

  “Last year, a twin engine crashed somewhere I reckon was not far from here with four passengers. In the summer. It took them almost a month to find the plane. I mean, they can probably say it’s around here, but ‘around here’ is under a blanket of snow, in fields of evergreens, and perched one hundred feet below the top of a remote mountain.”

  After his speech, we sit in silence. I don’t know what to say or think. I want to believe that we will just be saved, but then I hear Paul’s voice and it sounds so clear and rational. He would know, right?

  “And the people?” I ask.

  “Pancaked on impact,” he says wryly. “We got a leg up on them there.”

  Two weeks on four candy bars and a cup of melted water as long as the butane in the lantern lasts. I calculate and don’t like the odds.

  “Can we make it?”

  “Possibly, possibly not. Two weeks is a long time.”

  “We’re a little protected here, but we’re too hidden; is that what you’re thinking? That this feels safe, but wouldn’t we be better off up there?” I ask, gesturing up the mountain.

  “Yes, you’re right. But getting up there will be tough. Do you think you’re up for it? It’s a nasty climb.”

  “I want to live,” I say weirdly. Oh my God, I must seem like a total freak to him. I look away and around our little room. He must sense my awkwardness because he squeezes my arm in friend-like way.

  “I can see that.”

  I nod, having been more honest with Paul than perhaps any person on earth. I think back on all my sessions with the Old Doctor, and I know I never told him that I out and out wanted to hit the switch. When I tried to do it before coming to the institution, I really wanted to succeed. I can see myself for a second, standing in the bathroom two nights ago, with destiny in my palm. I would never have hoped for a plane crash, and it saddens me more that others died, but I am so grateful for the second chance.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “About?”

  “The head—you know, the jokes. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t think it was; I just didn’t know what else to do. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”

  I rub one of his hands and then just hold it. In my heart, I believe this is the real Paul. Underneath those man-made veneers is a boy with a big heart who is afraid to be who he is. But why? I wonder. This is going to be okay, I think. Everything is going to be okay.

  Chapter 20

  I wake from a deep, dreamless sleep. I am tired but alert and rejuvenated. “The sleep of the just,” my grandfather used to say to me. At home, I was known for my sleeping prowess, able to leap past a whole day in a single nap. But I never felt well rested, just depressed and sluggish and empty.

  There is light poking through a crack in the door. My body is exhausted, but the little speckle of light pulls at me. I reach back to touch Paul, but I realize he is not there. For a moment I pani
c, and the thought that he has abandoned me makes my heart rate speed up. I quickly twist and turn around our tiny compartment. It takes me all of one-point-three seconds to survey the airplane bathroom—aka our survival bunker: toilet, check; sink, check; supplies, check; Paul, no check.

  Then I see a note propped up against a wool hat carefully positioned between the back wall and the latrine. The bottom of the note is slotted into the folded cuff of the hat so it acts like an old-fashioned letter stand. Written in black ink and typical male chicken scratch, the note is on a little piece of torn paper. The stock of the paper is heavy and lightly textured, like from a diary or an expensive, old-fashioned notebook.

  I pick it up and read.

  Solis—Off to survey—Stay put—will come back 4 u. P

  Beneath the hat, I spy a corner of the little black book Paul had tucked into the lining of his jacket during yesterday’s scavenger hunt. A flicker of memory zips through my brain and I recall the slightly pained look on his face as he stared at it momentarily. I pick it up, and even though every instinct in my body tells me not to open it, not to pry, not to violate his privacy or something sacred to him . . . I succumb. He looked so pained by it, I rationalize, perhaps I could help him. I am, I tell myself, experienced in the art of psychology. Just a peek inside, distill a little info, and then a diagnosis, perhaps followed by a cure? Anyway, I should know more about him, I reason. He could be anyone.

  I feel the cover with my hand first. The black leather is smooth and worn. I open it up and look inside. There’s a name carved into the inside of the leather cover, but it’s been scratched out. I can still make it out: Will Hart. For Paul is etched in blue ink below.

  Lying inside is a photo of Paul and, I assume, Will. They look like twins, but Will is obviously Paul’s senior by a year or so. The picture was taken from inside a hospital room and Will is in a blue hospital gown. Paul’s face is long and sad and beaten, but there’s stoicism there as well. I turn it over, and on the upper-right-hand corner of the photo, Will’s eighteenth birthday is written.

  All the pages in the diary are blank and pressed in a way that suggests the pages have never been turned. I fan through trying to find any signs of writing, but there’s nothing.

  In the back, I find a letter written on what my grandfather would have called onionskin paper. It is thin and practically see-through. Back in the day before email and texting, people used this stuff to save money on overseas letters. Did this stuff even exist anymore?

  I open the letter and read.

  Paul,

  I asked Dad to give you this after I died. I can’t believe I’m dead. I can’t believe I just wrote that. I bet you can’t believe you just read it. I wish I had something to say to you, Paul, like in the movies. The dead guy always has something to say. But I’m drawing blanks. I’m glad we always got along. We were different, but we were always brothers. I know Dad’s an idiot in a brilliant idiot way. He doesn’t get it. I know. I’ve heard you say that a million times. You know what he’s said to me a million times? Paul doesn’t understand, he’s a rock head. Well, you are both fucking rock heads. Do it for Johnny, Paul. You know what I mean. Do it for me. Be Dad’s friend for me. I love you, little man.

  Bye,

  Will

  p.s. Got you last.

  Bang, bang. My heart races.

  “Are you decent?”

  I tuck the letter in and close the book and place it back exactly as I found it. I lay my head down, as if his knocking and voice woke me.

  “Yes, sorry. Enter.”

  Paul pushes the door in and then pushes it shut, stepping gently beside my head.

  “Sleep is good, but we only have the light for so long. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Up the mountain to the plateau—where we can be seen. It isn’t snowing anymore—the weather broke. It’s our best chance.”

  “No. I can’t.”

  I probably can’t climb up a mountain, but what’s really soul-crushing at the moment is I can’t just do things without a plan. One day we were making a nest and now he wants to climb a mountain. I feel that old sense of paralysis that’s plagued me for years seep into my heart. Just don’t move, Jane. If you don’t move, nothing will happen, and that’s better than something unexpected happening.

  “You can. You will, unless you want to die alone in a bathroom.”

  He shuts the door and the tiny echo reverberates a kind of loneliness that’s just as terrifying as climbing a mountain.

  The ungrateful hardass has returned.

  “Wait!” I shout. “Give me a minute and I’ll be outside.”

  I get myself together, glancing briefly at the mirror. It ain’t pretty, but hey, there isn’t much competition up here.

  Paul stands with rope and climbing stuff around his shoulders. With his sunglasses and gear, he looks a little like a warrior set for battle.

  “Let’s talk about this for a second,” I suggest.

  “I’m not wasting time talking about this. Let’s go. We’ll die down here if we don’t. They won’t find us until the spring.”

  “I thought you said two or three weeks?”

  “Look.” He points up. “The plane landed on a ledge deep in a steep valley in a thick forest of trees. They’ll never spot us down here, and if they can’t spot us, they won’t send a climber blindly into a vast, roadless tundra. We have to be seen.”

  “But now?”

  “Good weather up this high is the anomaly, Jane. This might be our only chance for a week or more.”

  “Are there no other choices?”

  He shakes his head and turns toward a slope that rises a couple hundred yards behind the plane. It doesn’t look quite as steep as the rest of the valley for about one hundred feet or so, but then it gets really steep near the top and inverts for about ten feet. It’s those last ten feet that make my stomach twist into knots.

  “I can’t climb that,” I say.

  “Stop it. You will,” he says bluntly.

  “I’m not you.”

  “No, but you’ll die here if you don’t climb.”

  “That’s nice.” I snort.

  “It’s a fact.”

  “There are no facts,” I shout. I feel trapped and unsure. “You don’t know any more than I do. We could be saved in an hour or end up dying on that cliff because of your stupid facts.”

  Paul’s eyes heat up. And then they cool.

  “Die, then. It’s of no consequence to me. I’m not going to sit here and wait to die; it’s not my style.”

  My heart dries and crumbles in my chest and the tears start to well up. A big, sad lump sags inside my throat. Coldhearted bastard. I hate him. I hate him more than any being I’ve ever met in my life, including my father, who I’ve hated since the day he abandoned me. I point to the top of the cliff.

  “Don’t leave me, Paul,” I sob. And then fall to the snow on my knees. He stands over me for a minute as I cry.

  “You want me to take you back to the cabin?” he asks.

  I nod yes.

  “I’m not doing that. That’s what the fucking shrinks do, isn’t it? Enable you? That’s what you call it, right? Well, that’s fine in a hospital, where they feed you and take care of you. But not here. Stasis is death.”

  I hear Old Doctor’s voice echoing in Paul’s. I stop crying and look up at him and then back at the mountain.

  “That invert, I can’t do that.”

  “You’re only afraid of what you’ve never done. You’ll do it.”

  “I’m not afraid; I just can’t imagine it’s possible.”

  Paul looks up to the point in the wall where it pops out. “That thing? Oh, that’s easier than walking. You can walk, right?”

  Sarcasm. That’s the answer—a stupid joke. How is it that a boy can go from amazing to jerkhead in a single second?

  “I’m going first, so if I fall and die, you can feast on me until help arrives.”

  He says this with a smile.
>
  “I don’t like jerky.” So lame, but I had to say something.

  “Insulting me won’t change anything.”

  I stand there defiantly. He doesn’t say anything and then he looks up to the mountain, like he’s thinking about the climb. But just when I’m thinking I took him down a notch or two, he fires back.

  “Don’t think I don’t know your little secret too, Solis. You’d rather give up and be a victim than fight and lose. Easier to cry on daddy’s shoulder, isn’t it?”

  “Screw you,” I shout. “My father’s dead. And he was a piece of shit, like you.”

  I push past him. I can’t look at his face. I stare up at the inverted top, trying to will my courage up. I feel like I’m marching right toward the end of my life. How will I ever make it to the top of the mountain?

  Why try, I think. Old Doctor’s voice echoes in my head: “Because that’s what we do. We impose meaning on life.”

  Inside, something else is bothering me. That word, victim. Like a little dagger, Paul stuck me with it. I hate it, but I feel some truth in it. Fuck him—what does he know about it!

  “Let’s go,” I say as I brush by him and walk toward the slope.

  Chapter 21

  We don’t speak as we stand at the base of the climb. The weather is just above zero but overcast and the cloud line hovers just above the valley. I feel the sun bearing down from behind the clouds; it casts a slightly ominous light over the valley. The wind pushes us a bit, but there’s no snow, except what’s kicked up. We couldn’t ask for more pleasant conditions, at least by mountain standards.

  At the base of the wall, I look up to the top and realize that even the distance we crossed to get here hasn’t diminished the steepness and length of the climb. I want to look over at Paul and cry or beg him to turn around, but I push down the impulse. No more crying in front of the Bastard, which is how I will think of him from now on, I decide. I can’t give him that satisfaction.