Off Road

by Raelyn Drake

  All the while, Tanika didn’t notice a thing and kept up her nonstop chattering. Wyatt was more of the type to enjoy being around friends, but he didn’t really feel a need to talk to them constantly. Usually he was grateful that Tanika could pick up the slack in their conversations, but at the moment the constant buzz was starting to get on his nerves.

  “So,” he interjected when she paused for breath. “What should we do about water?”

  “Right?!” Tanika exclaimed. “I have been so thirsty for the past hour, but I didn’t really want to bring it up because obviously you’re in the same boat, and complaining about it didn’t seem like it would help much.” She indicated her empty water bottle hooked to her bike and frowned. “I mean, we already used my portion. But you still have some left.” Then she spotted Wyatt holding up his empty water bottle. “Wait, what happened.”

  “Your patch didn’t actually stop the water bottle from leaking. I’m completely empty as well.” Wyatt tried and failed to keep the accusation out of his tone.

  Tanika looked at him cautiously for a moment but didn’t take the bait. “If we can find a way to get water, we can fill up my water bottle and share,” Tanika offered.

  “But how do we find water?” Wyatt asked, exasperated.

  “I guess we look for some sort of body of water, like a pond or a creek,” Tanika said, scanning the woods around her. “And just hope we stumble across one?”

  Another drop of cold water hit Wyatt’s neck and slithered down his back. He realized that it wasn’t just the water blowing from the trees—it was actually sprinkling. Great, he thought. Just what we need. But then an idea came to him. “I guess we could try to tie up my poncho between the trees and use it to catch rainwater,” he suggested.

  Tanika held out her hand. “It’s hardly even drizzling. It would take us ages to collect enough water that way. Being thirsty is terrible, but I don’t know if we’re that desperate yet. Wouldn’t it be better to keep moving and try to find a way out of here? The longer we wait around, the more likely it is that we won’t make it back before it gets dark.”

  Wyatt tried to swallow, but his throat felt too dry. He had to agree with Tanika. “Okay, then we keep moving, but we try to find a source of drinkable water.”

  Tanika gasped. “I just realized,” she said, her words coming out in an excited jumble, “there was that creek. Back near the park entrance, like a five minute bike ride along the main road from the visitor center.”

  “Yeah, I remember it,” Wyatt said. “We had to go single file to pass by those hikers that had stopped to take pictures on the bridge going over the creek. But how does that help us out here?”

  Tanika continued, “If the creek has its source further up the mountain, and then flows south to eventually ends up near the visitor center . . .”

  Suddenly, Wyatt understood. “Then we would just need to follow the creek and it will lead us back to the bridge,” Wyatt finished. “That is genius, Tanika! But which direction do we go? I have no idea where the creek is in relation to where we are now.”

  Tanika bit her lip. “I know you’re not going to want to hear this, Wy, but I think we need to turn your phone on. If we can consult the trail map—”

  “But if my phone is still wet then there’s a good chance that it will be busted entirely,” Wyatt interrupted her. He knew it was unreasonable, but he felt his face flush with anger. How was it fair that Tanika could forget her phone in the car and then expect him to ruin his own phone?

  “But if your phone works then we have a chance to look at the trail map and maybe find our way out of here,” Tanika snapped.

  “And if it doesn’t work, we’re back to square one,” he shot back.

  Tanika scowled. “Do you mean if your phone doesn’t work because it’s broken, or if your phone doesn’t work because you’re too stubborn to try turning it on?! We need to try something, Wy!”

  Wyatt fumed but couldn’t think of anything to say. Deep down he knew she was right.

  He would feel like an idiot if they had to spend the night in the woods only to discover that his phone had been working the whole time. He dug it out of his backpack pocket.

  There was no way to tell just from looking at it whether it had dried out enough to turn on. He held his breath as he as he held down the power button and let it out as a sigh of relief when the screen lit up.

  “Thank goodness,” he muttered.

  “Should we call for help first?” Tanika asked.

  Wyatt shook his head slowly. “I have absolutely no service out here. And I don’t have data access either, so I can’t message anyone.” He opened the screenshot of the trail map.

  The map wasn’t detailed enough to figure out exactly where they were just by looking, but if they could figure out where they had left the intermediate trail, maybe they could work their way backward.

  “Okay, here is the trail,” Wyatt said, tracing the blue line with his finger. We must have left the path before we reached the black diamond trail, because we never saw a sign for it.” He pointed to the yellow line that branched off from the blue one. “We had biked pretty far from the overlook up here,” he said, pointing to the symbol on the map closer to the top of the mountain. “So we were somewhere in between those two landmarks.”

  Tanika peered over his shoulder. “Look!” she said, stopping just short of jabbing the screen with her finger in excitement. “This spot here, where the trail twists left, goes back to the right, and then there’s a chain of three jumps. I definitely remember that part, and it was right before we ran into the part of the trail that was washed out. So we must have left the trail somewhere around here.” She pointed to a bend in the blue line.

  Wyatt grimaced when he saw how close they had been to the actual advanced trail. If they had just walked their bikes a little farther . . . but it didn’t do them any good now to think about that.

  “And there’s the creek,” Wyatt said. “You were right, it starts higher up in the mountain, then snakes down and around before crossing the bridge here, near the visitor center. So assuming we’re somewhere in here”—he indicated the large gray “off limits” area—“we just need to head south until we hit the creek, then follow it east until we reach the bridge. From there we can join up with the main road until we hit the visitor center.”

  Tanika froze suddenly. “Wy, look, you have a bar,” she whispered, as though she were afraid the cell service would bolt like a frightened animal if she spooked it.

  Wyatt’s heart skipped a beat. If he could make a call, they might be able to get out of this mess without even having to find the creek. The number for the park ranger was listed at the bottom of the trail map.

  Hands shaking, trying not to move the phone too much in case it could only pick up the signal in this one square inch of space, he dialed the number.

  Just as he pressed “call,” the low battery warning flashed, and the phone started to shut down.

  “No, no, no, no!” he muttered. How had he not noticed that the battery level was critical when he turned it on? He desperately tapped the screen, but the phone powered off anyway.

  He pressed the power button again, but there was no sign of life. “No, no, no, oh please, c’mon, please work.” But he knew it was no use. He tried to resist the urge to chuck his phone against the nearest tree trunk.

  Tanika’s eyes were wide. “Look, Wy—” she started quietly.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Tanika, okay?” Wyatt snapped. “We have a better idea of where the creek is, sure. That’s great. Doesn’t change the fact that now we have absolutely no working phones. If we had waited, maybe we could have gotten to some place with better signal and actually called for help.”

  “I didn’t think—” Tanika started.

  “Yeah, well maybe you should have done some more thinking before you forgot your phone in the car,” Wyatt said. “Again.”

  Tanika’s mouth pressed into a flat line. Her eyes flashed, but there was hurt mixed w
ith the anger.

  Part of Wyatt wished he could take back what he said, but another overwhelming part of him was too tired and thirsty to care.

  “We go south to the get to the creek, right?” Tanika said through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt muttered. “Then we follow it east.”

  “Let’s get going then,” she said. “Before we die of thirst, preferably,” she added bitterly.

  “We should stay quiet so we can listen for sounds of running water,” Wyatt said, unable to bring himself to meet her eye. “We might be able to hear the creek from a distance.”

  “Good,” Tanika fumed as she grabbed her bike and started walking. “I wasn’t planning on talking to you anyway.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next hour passed in agonizing silence, broken only by their heavy breathing as they climbed up ridges and picked their way carefully down slopes, occasionally slipping on an especially slick layer of dead pine needles in the evening glow of the setting sun.

  Wyatt tried to ignore the fact that his arm was still bleeding and a dark red blotch had soaked through the bandage. Between that and how thirsty he still was, Wyatt was thankful that Tanika didn’t seem willing to break her silence. As much as he hated to admit it, Wyatt was pretty sure he was the one who had overreacted. But he wasn’t in the mood to apologize for being a jerk. So silence was easier.

  When Wyatt finally heard a low burble almost beyond the edge of hearing, he hardly dared to believe it. Maybe it was just his pulse pumping in his own ears. Finding the creek drastically increased their chances of making it out of the woods, Wyatt knew. And after the series of bad luck that afternoon, he found it hard to believe that they had found the creek in under an hour.

  But Tanika seemed to have heard it too because she stopped suddenly, her eyes lit up as she turned to Wyatt, her anger with him temporarily forgotten.

  In a split second the excitement in her eyes changed to horror, and she stared over Wyatt’s shoulder at something behind him. Her mouth dropped open, and she looked like she wanted to scream but was too afraid to let it out.

  Wyatt felt his blood run cold as he slowly turned his head to see what it was that had scared Tanika. And he didn’t like what he saw.

  A mountain lion was crouched on a rock about thirty feet away.

  As Wyatt’s breath caught in his throat, his mind raced wildly. They had passed right by it without seeing it. How had they not noticed? It definitely had noticed them.

  The mountain lion stared intently at them, but Wyatt couldn’t tell if it was sizing them up as prey, or if it was just curious what they were doing in its habitat.

  Wyatt felt frozen, and he heard Tanika’s voice as if from a long way off.

  “Wy,” she was saying, her voice a low, urgent hiss. “Wyatt, what do we do? I can’t remember what you’re supposed to do if you see a mountain lion.”

  Wyatt thought he’d heard something about mountain lions somewhere, but fear had turned his mind to sludge and he couldn’t seem to think of the advice, let alone get any words out.

  They had both turned slowly to face the mountain lion, and that sparked a memory for Wyatt. “Whatever you do, don’t turn your back on it and don’t run,” he croaked, “or its instinct will be to chase us.”

  “What else are we supposed to do?” Tanika prompted.

  “I, I don’t know,” Wyatt said. Why couldn’t he think? His frustration at being frozen with fear only made it harder to move, and his heart seemed to thump wildly against his bruised chest.

  The mountain lion crouched lower, its tail twitching slowly, almost lazily. It put a tentative paw forward, easing toward them smoothly. One step, then another—never taking its eyes off them.

  “What’s it doing? What does that mean? Wyatt, is it going to attack us?” Tanika asked so rapidly that her words smooshed together.

  Wyatt scrunched his eyes shut, trying to remember what they were supposed to do. And then it clicked. His eyes sprung open. “We need to look big and scary. That way it will know we’re human and not prey. Humans aren’t worth their time. Mountain lions don’t usually attack humans.”

  “Usually?” Tanika squeaked.

  The mountain lion had moved again, closing the distance between them. Fifteen feet away, it stopped and continued to stare at them. Wyatt was all too aware of the powerful muscles that rippled under the mountain lion’s fur whenever it moved. That thing could pounce and take them down easily if it decided they were prey.

  “How are we supposed to be bigger and scarier than that thing?” Tanika asked.

  Wyatt’s throat was tight with fear, but Tanika’s focus was keeping him from completely losing it. “Uh, we’ve got to—you’re supposed to—we need to make a lot of noise, raise our arms over our head, and try to be loud enough to scare it off.”

  Wyatt found that was easier said than done. In that moment, his panicked brain wouldn’t let him do it. Every instinct was telling him to run and hide or to freeze and hope the predator didn’t see him. Running from it would be a death wish, but shouting at the mountain lion seemed just as foolish.

  Tanika’s voice cut through the foggy woods as she began to sing. It was just something they had heard on the radio as they were parking that morning, but she belted it out. She quickly unclipped her bike helmet from the handlebars and tapped it against her bike to make a loud clanging noise.

  “Wyatt, make some sort of noise,” Tanika said, then continued to sing loudly.

  Wyatt couldn’t remember the lyrics to the song Tanika was singing, but her bravery calmed him down enough that he managed to join in with a song that he did know. And although he couldn’t match Tanika’s volume and confidence, the combination of the two songs made a loud jumble of noise that the mountain lion didn’t seem to enjoy. It started to back away from them. But it didn’t look scared, just mildly annoyed.

  Wyatt felt a little ridiculous singing at a mountain lion in the middle of the woods, but it boosted his courage.

  At last the mountain lion seemed to give up, and it slunk back into the bushes. It turned to look at them once more, but Tanika sang louder and the mountain lion continued to head back the way it came. It moved leisurely, as if it had decided they were too boring to waste time on.

  Wyatt wanted to sigh with relief, but he hardly dared to breathe. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that the mountain lion wouldn’t come back.

  “That was so intense,” Tanika said, grinning widely.

  “Why are you smiling?” Wyatt asked in disbelief, keeping his eyes on the place they had last seen the mountain lion. “That thing could have killed us!”

  “I know,” Tanika said, “but we scared it off! That was such a rush. Better than landing a really good jump on your bike.”

  Wyatt wanted to point out that the mountain lion hadn’t been scared of them, but he was glad that she seemed to have forgotten how much of a jerk he was earlier, and he didn’t want to start another argument with her.

  She scanned the woods around them. “So . . . how long do we have to wait before we can keep going?”

  Wyatt was still trying to relax each muscle that had tightened up in fear moments before. He couldn’t understand how Tanika didn’t even seem phased. He rolled his head around to loosen his neck a few times before responding. “Uhh, I think since the mountain lion headed off in the other direction, we’re safe to keep walking. We just need to make enough noise this time. And watch our backs.”

  “I think we’re almost to the creek, at least,” Tanika said. She pointed suddenly at the trees, grinning again. “Look! I think I can see it!”

  Wyatt squinted the way she was pointing and could just make out rushing water in between the trees. And for the first time in the last few hours, Wyatt felt like grinning himself. They finally knew where they were again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The creek flowed swiftly between its banks. Wyatt licked his chapped lips at the sight of so much water.

  Tanika unhooked her
water bottle from the side of her bike and unscrewed the top.

  “Wait,” Wyatt said, “we can’t just drink that water.”

  Tanika stared him down. “I’m thirstier than I’ve ever been, and we escaped a mountain lion to find this creek in the first place.”

  “But we could get sick if we don’t disinfect the water,” Wyatt insisted. Although, the longer he thought about his own thirst the less of an argument he felt he had.

  “It’s moving water,” Tanika reasoned. “Sure, if this was some gross, muddy pond, we’d have something to worry about, but look at how crystal clear the water is!”

  “It’s still going to have bacteria in it,” Wyatt protested.

  “And besides,” Tanika continued, “there is no way that we have time to stop and disinfect it. We’re running out of daylight as it is.”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said reluctantly. “I guess you’re right. Disinfecting it would involve us building a fire—”

  “Which we would have no way to light,” Tanika interjected.

  “—and boiling the water for ten minutes—”

  “Which would mean finding a container to boil the water in.” Tanika rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Wy, we need to get our priorities straight.”

  Wyatt gave a defeated sigh. “Okay, go ahead, but only take small sips. And don’t blame me if you get stomach cramps later.”

  Tanika was already dipping the water bottle in the cool mountain creek before Wyatt had finished his warning. They passed the water bottle back and forth, drinking as much as they dared, then they filled the bottle again and packed it up.

  The mountain creek was so cold that the water gave him a brain freeze, but Wyatt didn’t think water had ever tasted so good. And Tanika was right—they didn’t have the time to play it safe or do everything by the book like he would have preferred.

  “So now we just follow the creek out of here, right?” Tanika asked.