After Grace

16. Miles To Go

"What're you doing here?" I asked Vicki. The children had stayed by the car at her instruction.

"Annie ran away. She didn't believe us when we told her you left, she said you wouldn't. She thought you were in danger."

"Tell her I'm fine. Take them back."

"I don't have the gas to take them back, and she's right here, tell her yourself," she said, looking at me with curious eyes. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing happened, it's just not safe for you to be here."

"You told everyone we couldn't survive on our own and look at you now, you've never been so-"

"I can take care of myself," I said. Vicki stood back and turned to the children.

"It's too late now, we can't turn back." She turned and started walking back to the car. I remained. She looked back at me. "Let's go," she said. "We're burning gas."

#

We drove in silence, I sat in the front watching the mounds of untouched snow pass by in waves. From the reflection of my window, I could see Annie's eyes drift from the scenery outside towards the back of my head. "Turn there," I told Vicki. She followed my direction as I read them off the map.

"What's that?" she asked, reaching for the map. She pulled Halter's drawing of the wolf from where I had hidden it in between the pages of the atlas. "It's nice, did you draw it?"

I took the sketch back and buried it in the book again. "No," I said. We turned into a dirt road in the woods and followed it until the car finally ran out of gas. I recognized this as the same road we had used to get to the gas station where Joseph and I had come with Harry and his son searching for food. I knew it had only been weeks but it felt like years.

"Guess we're walking," Vicki said, putting the car into park.

"I can get us there. It's not that far," I told her.

I led the way into the forest. One by one, we filed down the snowy hills, each of us carrying a pack of supplies. The mud grew less sturdy as we moved downward toward steeper climbs. Camden's foot flew out in front of him and he fell on his back. He struggled to grab something so he wouldn't roll down the hill. Annie and Vick darted out from either side and snatched him before he could go any further.

"Are you okay?" Vicki asked him and helped him to stand. She wiped the mud from his jacket, he nodded.

"We're almost there," I said. "Let's keep moving." Annie looked at me through narrow eyes. Whoever she was seeing now, it was someone she did not know.

We arrived at the camp site as the sun was beginning to set. It was empty. They had left sometime in the last few days by the looks of it. The tracks had mostly been buried by the snow.

"What now?" Vicki asked.

"They would have stayed by the river, it's their only source of water," I told her.

"In which direction?"

"It veers south behind us, they wouldn't have gone that way. We'll go west."

"That's where the cannibals are," Annie said.

"They're walking right to the slaughter," Vicki lamented.

"We'll move until it's too dark to go on, then we'll camp," I told them. "We have to hurry."

We moved faster than before, stopping only once an hour to eat and drink. The forest which had always been home to me felt alien now. Behind every shadow I felt a presence, invisible eyes looking out, watching. Night fell all at once, a darkness so thick I could barely see an inch in front of me.

"We'll camp here tonight," I said when we found a clearing.

"I have blankets," Vicki said, pulling them out. I took mine and walked toward the river.

"Shouldn't we stay close?" Vicki asked.

"I am close," I said.

She slept beside Annie and Camden in the tree-line, I lay by myself on the sandy shore watching the clouds break apart overhead. Beyond them I saw no stars, no moon, just a vast, empty black.

#

"Help," I heard Annie say on the brink of tears. She pushed my shoulder to jostle me awake. I opened my eyes and saw her standing over me. It was dawn, though the sky was still mostly dark. She held up her hand, her fingers were glazed red. I jumped up, now fully up.

"What happened?" I said, patting my hands over her, searching for a wound.

"I'm sick," she said and looked down, I followed her eyes to a long thin stain running down the leg of her pants. "I'm dying!" she cried again, panic shaking her voice.

"No, it's okay, you're not sick," I told her. "Come here," I said, hugging her. I felt her body relax under my hands, quickly, I pulled back and stood. I led her to the water and put her hand in the river, scrubbing the blood off her fingers. "Did Vicki bring more clothes?" I asked. She nodded. "Wait here," I said and stood up to find the bags but Annie wrapped her fingers around my hand.

"I'm scared," she said, tears starting to build. I wanted to hold her, to tell her it was okay.

"I'll get Vicki," I told her and pulled my hand from her grip. As I walked into the tree line, I could hear her starting to cry.

#

As the others ate the squirrels I had killed, I dug through Vicki's bag and found what I was searching for, scissors and a lighter. I took the items with me and moved behind tree-cover a few feet away. I ignited the lighter and brushed the flame over the scissor blades.

Pain stung my cheek as I pulled at the knots on my stitches. I slipped the scissors through the gap between the stitches and my cheek and cut the wire. Over and over I cut the stitches until they were entirely gone and all that remained was a scar.

"Do you need help?" Camden asked behind me. He took me by surprise but I didn't let it show.

"It's done," I said and walked back to the others, Camden followed but he didn't talk to me again.

We trudged on, following the river for another full day. Every now and then I would hear the children whispering to each other, Camden would ask questions about me, Annie would lie to him, saying I was just tired or in pain. Vicki served as their guardian, following us from the rear.

I took point, moving ahead of the group, following the tracks in the dirt, eyes always forward.

As the sun was about to set on our second day of following the river, we heard the bustling sounds of people building themselves a new camp. I stopped and took a breath as I realized I was much more anxious than I thought I would be. I raised my hands over my head, the others did the same, we walked through the brush and into my camp.