Perfect Strangers

by Dani Atkins

  ‘This is going to hurt like hell,’ Logan said, scooping up a handful of clean white snow.

  ‘And that’s why they threw you out of medical school,’ I said, going for humour, because if I didn’t I was afraid I might just start crying again. ‘You’re not meant to say that to your patients.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just know we have to get it cleaned up, otherwise it could get infected.’

  ‘Just do it,’ I said, gritting my teeth.

  ‘Look at me, Hannah,’ Logan said quietly. ‘Look into my eyes. Keep them fixed on me and don’t look anywhere else.’ In another place, in another time and situation that might have sounded like quite an enthralling and enticing invitation. But when a man is about to run handfuls of freezing cold snow over your bloody grazed torso, it doesn’t have quite the same appeal. However I did as he requested, fixing my pain-drenched eyes on the emerald green intensity of his, as he tended to my wounds.

  ‘At least it’s stopped bleeding,’ he said, after carefully swabbing my side dry with something that I was rather afraid was a pair of Bob’s boxer shorts. The snow had actually been blissfully numbing, and when Logan squeezed a long white length of antiseptic cream onto his fingers I thought perhaps I might not feel the touch of them either as he smoothed the soothing ointment on to my skin. I was wrong. I felt it with every single damaged nerve ending. Each rib seemed to reverberate beneath the delicate sweep of his fingertips, as though my body was an instrument that he was about to play.

  At his instruction my arm was resting on his shoulder as he worked, but when I went to lower it, he stopped me. ‘Hannah, we need to get rid of all the clothing that has blood on it.’

  I looked down at the torn and stained remains of Bob’s ruined sweatshirt lying at our feet beside the crackling fire. Despite the lack of clothing, heat from the flames had kept me reasonably warm, but an entirely different kind of fire flooded through me when I felt the touch of Logan’s fingers on the width of narrow elastic at my back. ‘There’s blood on this too.’

  I looked down and saw he was right. A deep rusty-brown stain had spread like an ink blot through the fabric of my bra. It had inched through the material, starting beneath my arm and creeping over the gauzy lace at the bottom of one cup.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, and could feel myself blushing like a nervous teenager. ‘Oh. Of course. Right. Yes . . . okay then.’

  ‘I’ll look the other way,’ Logan said chivalrously, twisting his body around and staring out at the still black expanse of the lake.

  It’s one of those things that we do several times a day without thinking, that particular little act of contortion that allows us to unhook something we can neither see nor feel. But doing it when your side has been scraped raw and your hands are trembling from cold, fear or some other emotion you’re too frightened to name, is just about impossible. I couldn’t do it, and it didn’t matter if I struggled for the next half hour or so, there was no way I was going to get the stained undergarment off without his help.

  ‘Logan,’ I said softly. He turned, and the light of the fire seemed to reflect in his eyes in a way that made me suddenly think of stars in an inky black sky. ‘Can you help me, please.’

  His fingers were surprisingly warm as they touched the skin of my back. His hands went to the clasp and unconsciously I held my breath. It was suddenly very quiet and I wondered if he was holding his too. He opened the clasp with practised ease. Not his first bra then, I thought, and didn’t like the way that observation made me feel. Perhaps I could have managed the rest without him, now the fastening was opened, but he didn’t stop there, and I – who had more than enough opportunity to say ‘I can take it from here’ – said nothing at all.

  Almost reverently he slid the straps from my shoulders and eased the flimsy garment down my arms. I quickly crossed them to cover my exposed breasts, but not before I’d seen his eyes go to them. My breath was coming a little more raggedly and beneath my hands I could feel the skin of my nipples tightening in reaction. That’s the trouble with bodies . . . they have an annoying little habit of giving away far too many secrets.

  Logan bent and picked up the scrap of lace that still bore the heat from my body and bunched it within his hands. ‘I’m going to bury these by the lake,’ he said, also retrieving the sweatshirt and hanging it over his arm. ‘Why don’t you pick out something of Bob’s to put on while I’m doing it?’ He didn’t turn around or look back as I got to my feet and began to rummage through the pile of salvaged clothing. He was respectful of my privacy and showed no inclination to look back until I had covered myself. That was good. It was considerate, honourable, and highly admirable. It was also just a little bit disappointing.

  ‘Do you want to do the honours?’ I asked, nodding my head towards the backpack. My bloodied clothing had been buried, as deeply as could be achieved with the frozen terrain, and Logan and I had both drunk enough boiled hot water to temporarily fool our stomachs into thinking they were full. The backpack was at my feet, but I lifted it up and held it out to Logan.

  ‘No. You do it. After all, you did spot it first,’ he reminded me, his eyes twinkling. I drew the bag back towards me, but before unlatching the flap I reached for the leather-backed name tag strapped to the handles. ‘Vincent Morris,’ I read solemnly. ‘From Iowa.’ I kind of wished I hadn’t done that, because plundering through the belongings of yet another person whose family were probably grieving for their loss felt almost indecent, like we were grave-robbers or pirates.

  Logan reached across from the other side of the fire and laid his hand over mine. ‘If it was me, and I couldn’t use the stuff myself, I’d at least want someone else to benefit from it,’ he said, perfectly reading my mind in that slightly uncanny way he kept doing.

  ‘I know,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I just hope that he and Bob are sitting together in some hotel bar right now, talking about their lucky escape and waiting to catch the next flight on to wherever it was they were headed.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what they’re thinking . . . but if I was with them, I might possibly suggest that we all take the train next time.’ Logan really did have a curious knack of being able to make me laugh a good deal more readily than I would have thought possible, given the circumstances. A lingering trace of a smile was still on my lips as I flipped open the top flap of the bag. Surprisingly the backpack appeared virtually undamaged, and had been carefully packed by someone who’d probably seen many over-zealous baggage handlers tossing luggage into a hold. I released the plastic toggle slider from the drawstring tie, and began to delve among the private belongings of Mr Vincent Morris.

  Bob, I had decided, was a businessman. A salesman perhaps, on yet another routine trip. Vincent Morris was quite a different type of traveller. He was younger and clearly loved the great outdoors and hiking. And if one day, I was ever lucky enough to meet him, I was going to thank him most sincerely for that. The first item I extracted from the bag had been carefully stowed for protection inside two thick pairs of walking socks. To be honest, I was thrilled enough with the socks, so finding a fully functioning and extremely powerful flashlight carefully wrapped inside them was like winning the lottery on the same day that you’d just scooped the jackpot at Bingo.

  I let the beam play across the snowy clearing, watching it cut through the darkness like a searchlight scoping for prisoners. Or bears. I snapped the light off, anxious not to waste the precious battery. From the small collection of clothing, I guessed that Vincent was probably only in his early twenties . . . and in all likelihood single. ‘Oh,’ I said, pulling several well-thumbed magazines out of a side pocket. ‘I believe this reading material might be more to your taste than mine,’ I said with a tiny grimace as I passed the glossy periodicals to Logan. He took them with a small grin. ‘Oh, Vincent. Really?’ he said with disappointment.

  I laughed, but part of me was extremely glad Logan’s eyes hadn’t lit up with delight. I remembered once asking William, a very long time ago, if that kind
of thing ‘did it for him’. I think I’d probably read something in Cosmo, or somewhere, about how a well-adjusted modern woman should have no problem with her boyfriend reading explicit pornography, and I was probably trying to convince him that I could be that woman, could be that understanding. Except I couldn’t, not really, and there’d been considerable relief on my face when William had pulled me into his arms and gently nuzzled the sensitive skin of my neck. ‘Now, why on earth would I want to shut myself away in a room with a load of photo-shopped pictures, when I have something far better right here in my bed,’ he’d said throatily. ‘I’ve got everything I’m ever going to want or need right here. I don’t need to look elsewhere.’ But ultimately, that too turned out to be a lie, because clearly he had looked elsewhere, and for quite a while, right under my nose, and I’d never once suspected a single thing.

  ‘They might come in handy if we need to light another fire,’ Logan suggested, proving yet again that he was just about as different from William as it was possible to be.

  The next few items related to Vincent’s slightly more reputable pastime, and certainly went quite a long way to redeeming him in my eyes. I laid the water flask, the compass and the multi-tool pocket penknife on the ground between us, as though I’d just uncovered buried treasure. Which in a way, I had.

  ‘Now, those really could be of use,’ Logan declared, looking down at the small cache.

  ‘This too,’ I said, laying a first-aid kit, far more sophisticated than the one Kate had provided, alongside the other items.

  ‘Is there anything else of use in there?’ Logan asked, his voice eager. My eyes were alight with anticipation as I once more delved into the bag, feeling like a child in possession of an enormous Christmas stocking full of goodies to unwrap. My fingers fastened on a large cellophane-wrapped box that I plucked from the depths of the bag. It was a duty-free size carton of cigarettes, and I pulled a small face of disappointment. Logan however looked delighted, and that made me even more disappointed. I hadn’t pegged him as a smoker.

  ‘Vincent,’ Logan said censoriously, addressing the backpack as though the essence of its owner was embedded in its fabric. ‘These are very, very, bad for you. And I can’t tell you how delighted I am that you don’t believe in heeding the Surgeon General’s explicit health warnings.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Logan looked at me meaningfully. ‘If Vincent has packed these, then there’s a good chance he’s also going to need—’

  He didn’t need to finish his sentence, I had already got it. My hand rummaged busily deep into the backpack, like a heron searching for an elusive fish. I brought it out with a triumphant cry. For a moment neither of us said anything as I held the lighter up like a trophy. I shook it, and heard the butane fuel slop pleasingly within. It was practically full.

  ‘Well, this might very well change what we decide to do next,’ declared Logan. I didn’t need him to explain what he meant by that. We were on the same wavelength. Vincent Morris had given us the ability to move from the place we had fallen to earth. Thanks to him, we now had the means to light a fire, to find our way in the dark, and a knife with more functions than I could even begin to guess at. I made myself a quiet promise then, that when I eventually got out of there, and packed my next suitcase, I was going to make damn sure it had something a whole lot more useful in it than just two weeks’ worth of toiletries.

  ‘There’s a couple more things at the bottom, in plastic bags,’ I informed him. ‘They’re quite heavy.’ I pulled the carriers out and saw the bright red writing on them beside the easily recognisable emblem of a maple leaf. ‘Traditional Canadian Souvenirs’ the bag advertised. I tipped the items out onto the ground. Each was well-wrapped in thick layers of protective brown paper packaging.

  ‘My money’s on a ceramic model of a moose,’ guessed Logan. ‘Or a paperweight with “I Heart Canada” engraved on it.’

  I smiled down at the package on my lap that I had just unwrapped, and held it up for him to see. ‘Maple syrup,’ he said longingly. I could scarcely reply because I was salivating so much. ‘I don’t suppose Vinnie has a stack of pancakes in there by any chance?’

  I laughed. ‘No, but these come pretty close,’ I said unwrapping two boxes of maple-cream-filled cookies and a packet of something called Maple Taffy, whose name I was prepared to forgive because it looked absolutely delicious.

  ‘You’ve gotta love a guy with a sweet tooth,’ said Logan happily.

  We probably should have been a little more circumspect and rationed out the haul as scrupulously as we’d been doing with the chocolate squares. But there was so much to choose from, and we were so very hungry that it was hard not to sample a little of each of the edible souvenirs Vincent had purchased.

  I was still sucking on my fourth piece of maple candy when Logan and I bedded down for the night. As before, Logan had insisted on taking the first watch and fire-building duty. I hadn’t been asleep long before the noise woke me, a single long lamenting howl piercing the quiet night. I sat bolt upright, my hand scrabbling for the torch, but Logan reached it first. The first sweep of its powerful beam revealed nothing. There was no further noise, no baying lament, so it was impossible to tell if the sound we’d heard had been close by, or not. I scrambled to my knees, my hand unconsciously gripping Logan’s arm in fear.

  ‘Surely, if this is an area where bears live, then a wolf wouldn’t come close.’

  Logan turned and looked at me over his shoulder. ‘Is that comment somehow meant to make me feel any better?’

  I considered what I’d said, and whispered back my reply. ‘No. I guess not.’

  My level of panic was coming down from a boil to a simmer when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, something that had momentarily been caught in the passing beam of the torchlight.

  ‘What’s that? Over there. Beyond the lake. I thought I saw something glitter . . . or shine.’

  Logan dutifully directed the beam where I was pointing, and yet again I caught a brief flash of something greenish-gold reflecting back at us. Eyeshine. It was quite a nice word actually . . . for something so utterly terrifying. Even as the skin on my arms broke out into gooseflesh, I could have recited to anyone who cared to listen all I knew about the peculiar phenomenon of how the eyes of certain vertebrates reflect eerily in the dark. If you wanted, I could probably dig deep and pluck out the Latin name for the layers of tissue at the back of their eyes that makes this happen. But frankly . . . who cares? What was important was that there was something, some creature, on the other side of the lake staring right at us.

  Logan got to his feet, and as I was still unwilling to relinquish my hold on his arm, so too did I. He tried to disengage my grip, but I was having none of it.

  ‘Do you think it’s a bear or a wolf?’ I whispered, trying to decide if there was an answer I would prefer, and realising that they were both equally terrifying.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he whispered back.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked as he began to step away – quite foolishly, in my opinion – from the safety of the fire.

  ‘I don’t know yet. But sitting still and waiting for whatever it is to get bold enough to stroll a little closer, doesn’t seem like a good option.’

  Neither did walking towards it with nothing to protect us except a torch and a dubious homemade spear. But I didn’t think he would listen if I told him that.

  ‘Go back to the fire,’ he urged, bending down to pick up a large flat stone from the ground, and then another.

  ‘No way. We do this together, or not at all.’ I still wasn’t entirely sure what ‘this’ was, but I was definitely not going to skulk back and hide behind the protection of the flames while he faced God-knows-what was waiting for us out there.

  Logan swept the torchlight from left to right over the far shore of the lake and back again, like a Super Trouper at a concert. Nothing showed up in its beam.

  ‘Perhaps it’s gone,’ I suggested hopefu
lly.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he replied darkly. I wasn’t sure I liked this pessimistic side of him, although part of me knew his caution might be the only thing standing between our safety and danger.

  ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ he said, and without stopping to explain his intentions he lifted the hand holding the large flat stone and hurled it across the lake. I heard it clatter down on the opposite side. He lifted the second stone, walking closer towards the target area and aimed again. It was a long distance across the lake and the chances of hitting anything in the darkness were slight, but I quickly realised that probably wasn’t his intention. All we really needed to do was make enough noise to scare whatever was there away. I bent to the ground and gathered up my own collection of stones. I couldn’t throw as far as he could, and my injured side made it difficult to achieve any distance, so most of my volleys ended with small plopping sounds as my ammunition fell into the lake. But then, by sheer dumb luck, one of us managed a throw that somehow found its target. A single sharp yelp rang out across the water, followed by a clattering sound of feet on stones. Whatever it was that had been silently stalking us from the lakeside shore, had gone. At least for now.

  Neither of us slept well for the rest of the night. But at least that meant there was less danger of the fire going out.

  ‘We’re going to leave here tomorrow, right?’ I asked, poking the already blazing kindling. ‘You’re not still going to say we have to stay put, not after this?’

  Logan sighed deeply before answering. ‘Everything I’ve ever heard or read says you should stay put. There’s a real danger in wandering off and getting totally lost.’

  ‘We’re lost anyway,’ I reasoned. ‘And it seems to me if we stay here, there’s more real danger in ending up as someone’s midnight snack. And don’t forget, we’ve got Vinnie’s compass now, so at least we won’t be walking in circles.’

  ‘And why exactly would we have done that?’