Route 66

11 Survival

My eyes fluttered open to the oppressive heat of the sun, its relentless rays already bearing down with a fierce intensity.

What time is it? I'm so thirsty.

I swallowed a couple times, attempting to wet my throat, and then gently tapped Annette's shoulder. Her disoriented eyes popped open as she said, "We must have overslept...it's so dang hot!"

"Would do anything for a drop of water...just one drop," I said.

Annette sprang up and said, "Let's start walking, hopefully the coyotes have already eaten."

"I'd go through a hundred of them if I was sure there was a glass of water at the end."

We left the car and squinted down the dirt road which appeared to have no end.

"Isn't there water in the engine?" I asked.

Annette nodded and said, "There is somewhere but I don't think it's safe to drink and don't know where to find it."

"Would poisoned water or thirst kill us first?"

Annette ran her dry, chaffed fingers through her tangled hair and said, "I don't know Veronica...I just don't know. Come on."

She forged ahead down the barren path, but after what felt like an eternity, my vision blurred and dizziness overwhelmed me, causing me to collapse to the harsh desert ground as Annette's distant voice reverberated in my mind and said, "Can you get up, honey?"

I turned my head to the side and there was Annette kneeling beside me appearing exhausted and worried.

Nodding, I posted my hand to the earthen clay as Annette slid her arms under my shoulders and hoisted me up. Things were coming into a clearer focus as my hearing returned to normal.

"I think I'm ready, don't know what came over me, felt so weak..."

"You can do it Veronica, I know you can."

The next two hours were grueling as the sun beat down on us. Usually with this type of heat sweat would have been dripping down our bodies but now, having gone a day and a half without any water, there was no perspiration. Heat stroke was a real danger.

Every now and then we'd see tarantulas crawling beside us and if I hadn't been so thirsty would have wondered if they were edible.

Within two hours, we stumbled upon a junction of three equally-sized dirt roads hoping one of them might miraculously lead us to the main one.

"Can we take a break?" I suggested.

"No, let's keep going, gotta keep going," Annette mumbled.

What was that?

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something blue which caused me to glance over to the right. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was it a large patch of water?

"Look!" I yelled.

We both hoped against hope that it wasn't just a mirage. I couldn't judge the distance very well, was it fifty yards...a mile...five miles? I sprinted towards it with wild abandon and heard Annette following but the sound of her feet became increasingly distant.

I was so focused on reaching that blue patch that I didn't notice something peculiar that normally would have stood out. When I first started my frantic run there were dark clouds forming way off in the distance near the horizon, but rapidly growing larger.

Have you ever had the experience of looking at something like a hill and misjudging the size and how long it takes to get there? By the time you finally reach the "hill" it turns out to be an enormous mountain.

It was that way now with the patch of blue water. I thought it would take only a couple minutes to reach but it turned out to be more like fifteen, which had me realizing that it was actually a good sized lake.

I was limping more than running and the ominous clouds were almost directly overhead casting a massive shadow over the desert. Had I been thinking rationally I would have realized that rain couldn't be far behind and there would have been plenty of water in a couple minutes but in my present state, scarcely noticed.

Almost there...almost there...

I could hardly breathe and my body felt like it was on fire but thank God the sun had disappeared, although I didn't think about why.

Splaaash!!!

I sank into the lake's refreshing embrace, savoring the soothing coolness that eased the burn on my delicate skin and drank like never before, but barely had a moment to relax when a deafening thunderous crash shook me to my core.

Torrential rains drove into my face like darts when I surfaced and suddenly saw Annette waving and yelling at me from the lake's edge as a thunderclap muted her.

The pitch black sky was being ripped apart by bolts of the brightest lightning you could ever imagine but in the moment of silence that ensued between the chaos, Annette's frantic yells made sense.

"Get out Veronica! GET OUT!"

It took me a moment of confusion to grasp why. Then it hit me, you never go out into open water in a lightning storm and this was a storm to end all storms, but out in the desert?

As I frantically stumbled towards the shore, a colossal bolt of lightning struck me from the heavens, the deafening blast echoing like nothing I've ever heard.

It's impossible to accurately describe what happened in the next half second. It was like the greatest pain and the most pleasurable euphoria both at the same time. It's as if a billion sub atomic scalpels had dug down into every fiber of my body and reshaped them.

This was surely death for me.