Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller (8 page)

20

I wake up when something crawls over my shin. I leap to my feet. A spider the size of a man’s hand is stuck there, an inch below my knee. I give my leg three hard shakes and the thing somersaults and lands upside down on my foot then scutters away beneath a bunch of leaves. I know these things—they build tunnels underground with trapdoors. I think of them all there, lying in wait, beneath the place where I slept.

I dash away before it comes back, glancing around at the failing light in despair. How could I have been so damn stupid to sleep so long? Valuable daylight hours have been lost.

I hurry over the undulating terrain, following the rise and fall of the hills, hoping to find one substantial enough to give me a vantage point across the forest before nightfall. But disappointment waits over every knoll. There’s just more of the same laborious, rolling territory. I tell myself not to give up, that one more mound could mean the slope of a steep hill or at least a break in the trees.

But by the time it’s dark I’m forced to admit I’m wrong, and have to take shelter in the concave of a thick-trunked tree. I sit shivering, watching the white eye of the moon blink at me, and wonder how much longer I can go on like this. The nights are getting colder and all I have is this rag of a dress. It’s a miracle I haven’t succumbed to hypothermia already. And the lack of food? How long can I walk without any real sustenance? Then I remember the precious plums I so carelessly abandoned back in the spiders’ lair, and feel even more useless than before.

I pick at the crust on my throbbing left foot and think of the Uruguay soccer team and their 1972 plane crash into the side of an Andes mountain. I think about how they were completely alone, how everyone thought they were dead, how no one was looking for them, what they did to survive. They made it out, didn’t they? After how many failed attempts? I must be my own plane wreck in the Andes survival story. I will get out. I will make it back. I will live to tell.

*

I wake in the half-light with leaves rattling above my head. Rain. Some of it reaches me down here and I lick my arms. The moisture feels good. Fresh. I sit up and cup my hands to catch the drips but that does nothing except make my palms wet.

I need a container. There’s moss growing in bushels at the base of the trees so I reach over and slide my thumb under a thick piece and separate it from the bark then place it out in the open rain. Minutes later, I retrieve the sponge and suck. Not much, but something.

Crouching, I collect six more moss chunks and begin laying them out. I’m going to be in wet clothes with wet hair but at least I’ll be hydrated. I wonder if this is the way it’s going to be from now on, lurching from one survival crisis to the next, if it’s always going to be a double-edged sword. You can have water but it means getting hypothermia. You can have food but it means eating deadwood and insects.

There’s a sudden noise. Movement to my left. A pair of eyes flash. My heart leaps. He’s back. Rex is back. I open my mouth to scream then stop when I see the rabbit.

Its pelt is dripping and soiled. The pathetic creature blinks at me in disinterest. I realize I’m drooling. I’m disgusted because I want nothing more than to kill the rabbit and suck the flesh from its tiny bones. Could I really do it? Kill a living thing? Eat it raw?

My stomach moans. I lean forward, lift my hand over the rabbit’s head, bring it down hard. Miss. The rabbit flees. It’s fast, but so am I. In fact, I can hardly believe how fast I can run, that I had this energy in me at all. But I know it won’t last, that my legs will soon buckle, that the adrenaline will soon go.

I close in. Ahead the rabbit leaps over roots and rocks. Less than a stride now and I will be able to bring my foot down on top of its head. But the rabbit veers left and I lose sight of it.

I round the corner and see a small cave.

My heart does a little leap. The rabbit is trapped. Soon I will eat.

Moving forward, I stop dead in my tracks. Out of the mouth of the cave steps a dirty gray wolf. The wilting rabbit jolts between the wolf’s jaws.

I duck behind a boulder and pray the wolf hasn’t seen me. The animal is large, the barrel of its chest broad. A thick black stripe runs the length of its spine to the tip of its tail. He lifts his nose to the wind then drops the rabbit to the ground like a sack. Another wolf emerges to stand beside the alpha, then four more of various sizes, wide-circling the meal in the dirt.

Then the alpha begins. The others join him. There’s the sound of cracking bones.  
 

21

A strange thing happens. I feel alive. Acutely alive. My mind is on one thing only. Food and the fact it’s highly likely there will be some back there in the den. I forget the pain and the soreness, the discomfort and the cold. I think only of the possible food and how I can get it. The wolves might be more physically powerful than me, especially in a pack, but I can outthink them. I am the one with the human brain.

For an entire day I watch them, careful to keep myself downwind. I arm myself with rocks should they come after me. But they never notice I’m there.

They have no set routine and stick close to the cave. The alpha takes prime spot on top of a flat rock to bask in the weak autumn sun. The others rest under trees or occasionally roughhouse in the dirt. In total, I count seven wolves, including a mother with two rubber-limbed teenagers, whom she is forever kicking away from her drooping teats. There’s also an outcast of sorts, a male with a withered hind leg, who skips around the fringes of the pack in a curious lopsided gait.

Twice the pack goes out to hunt. Twice they return with nothing. Then late in the afternoon on the second day, one of the smaller wolves drags a mauled carcass of a bighorn sheep back into camp. The others gather, and I watch from a distance, salivating, as they tear into the meat.

When I come back the next day, the sheep remains are gone, most probably dragged into the den for safekeeping. I sit there in the bushes wondering what to do. I lift my hand. It’s as bony as a bat’s wing. This is my third day without food. The plums are a distant memory, and the little water I’ve managed to harvest will not keep me going much longer. I need to carry on south as I had planned. That sheep meat would give me the strength I need to make the journey. I just have to work out how to get it.

The next day my luck turns. Just before sunrise I hear howls. I rush from my shelter to the den. When I get there, the wolves are all gone. I’m not sure why—whether some prey has been spotted or another pack is threatening their territory. Whatever the reason, I need to hurry because there’s no telling when they’ll be back.

In the dim light, I cross the camp and reach the entrance of the den, pausing there to check over my shoulder. I crouch down and go inside. The first thing to hit me is the odor. Pungent, fatty, like meat left too long, mixed with a ripe canine scent. I wait for my watering eyes to adjust to the dark. But with the sun yet to rise, it’s difficult to see anything. From what I can tell, the den is more dugout than cave, with the wolves burrowing further back into the side of the hill.

Unable to stand, I duck-walk a few steps and find myself in total blackness and am forced to poke blindly at things with my fingers. I touch a pile of something, grab two handfuls and pull them out into the emerging daylight. Sticks and bones, old, all shapes and sizes, with the odd patch of fur that could belong to a rabbit, rat, or raccoon. But no meat.

On my knees, I venture in further than before, patting the cool dirt ground as I go. The space gets tight and my shoulders brush against the curved, hard earth. Reaching, I feel out the little wall coves the wolves have excavated.

The smell of meat becomes overwhelming. I’m close. But abruptly I come up against the end of the den and can’t go any further. I pause. It has to be here somewhere—the odor is just too strong. My hand hovers across the ground, fully expecting to knock into the carcass, but I can’t find anything. I feel out the back wall, thinking maybe I missed a cove. That’s when I lose my arm in a hole. A tunnel really.

I look over my shoulder. By now a bulb of light glows at the entrance. If they find me in here I’m as good as dead.

I face the tunnel. It’s pitch black and tiny and I won’t be able to turn around but what choice do I have? I need food.

I lie down on my front and snake through the opening on my belly. My arms extended out front, I reach into the darkness. Something runs over my spine and I bang my head on the ceiling. I should turn back. Get the hell out of here. Find some berries. Take my chances in the woods.

But I’m close, I know it, so I shimmy in further. The burrow gets tight and I have to squeeze through, angling my shoulders just right, my hips scraping against the hard dirt walls.

I hear something. Oh God, a bark. Distant, but a bark nonetheless. I have to hurry.

I reach out one final time and my hand lands on something sticky. I stretch for it. My little finger hooks around an arch of bone. I sniff my fingertips. Put some to my lips. Grease. Blood. Meat.

More barks. Closer this time. I’ve got to get out of here. Grabbing the rack of meat, I flatten myself against the ground and move backward. But I’m stuck. I turn my shoulders. It makes no difference, I’m wedged in tight.

Outside the barking gets louder. My heart races.
Hurry. For God’s sake, hurry.
I twist my body but the tunnel seems to shrink and it’s so black and I’m getting dizzy and I think of the dirt grave and the wolves and the sound of breaking bones. They are going to find me. They will tear my flesh like cloth.

I tell myself I’ve got to calm down or I’m going to pass out. I tug and tug and finally my shoulders come free. Snaking backward, dragging the meat across the ground, I emerge from the burrow and continue the rest of the way on my knees. Finally I’m close to the entrance, and there’s enough room to move up to a crouch.

I turn around.

There’s the alpha, hackles raised, looking at me. Close behind, the teenagers nod and squeal. They look at the meat in my hands. I edge forward. The alpha snarls, his gums as pink as a radish. To my left there’s a barren leg bone I pulled from the den earlier. I grab it and hold it out.

“Easy.”

The sound of my voice stills them but then they start to bark and growl much louder than before. They come closer. I throw the bone at them, then stones, a fistful of dirt.

“Get away!”

All I have left is the meat, so I throw that too. It lands by the mother wolf. The others turn to sniff it, leaving enough space for me to get out and run.

I thrash through the bush and it’s not long before they are on my heels. Apart from the loud, steady thump of their footfall, the wolves are silent, no barking or growling, just a focused, determined energy to bring me down.

I round the bend at the rear of the cave and veer left, hoping to see something I can climb. Instead I’m faced with a hill. My chest contracts. I’m blocked in. I turn to face the pack.

A sudden loud clap echoes through the forest. Landslide, I think. Then a second clap rings out and I realize my mistake. Not landslide but gun.

22

The wolves scatter. I spin around, eyes raking the forest. Rex is back. He’s back and come to take me away. I look and look, my breath locked in my throat. Try to see him in the shadows. Nothing.

Another shot rings out. I remember, then, how this place plays tricks on you, how sound bounces and skids, makes you believe things are closer than you really think.

What if it’s a hunter and not Rex at all? What if it’s my big chance to get out of here? I run toward the sound. Pray it’s the right direction.

“Hey! I’m lost. Help me!”

Too quickly I’m breathless and forced to bend at the waist and place my hands on my thighs. Then. Voices. Laughter. I cup my hands to my mouth.

“Hey!” I call. “Help!”

I stand listening then hurry forward. Soon I breach the tree line into grassland overlooked by a gray rock mountain. Below the mountain, a river, too wide and fast to cross. On the opposite site of the clearing, there’s a Jeep and what looks like an elk tied to the roof rack.

I wave my arm. “Hey!”

The Jeep fires into life. Black smoke jets from the exhaust.

“No! Wait!”

Gears grind and the Jeep rolls forward. I yell and run.

“Stop! Wait!”

But the Jeep just drives away.

*

I stand there uselessly in the tall grass as the two red eyes disappear into the woods. My legs shake with rage. How could this happen? They were so close. I was so close.

“What do I have to do!” I snatch tufts of brittle grass, throw fistfuls at the woods. “What the fuck do I have to do!”

The grass blows back in my face. But I don’t care. I pull out more, tugging stems with both hands, ripping grass from its lodgings, hurling it into the wind. I’m out of control, tearing and pulling, throwing anything I can get my hands on, rocks, stones, pinecones.

I stop and look down at my palms. Both are streaked with blood. I lift my head and blink at the pines. This place. I don’t know who I am anymore.

I drop to my knees. I stay there for the longest time. Overhead a hawk wheels. I watch it with watering my eyes.

*

Maybe they’ll come back. This is what I’m thinking as I sit in their former campsite tipping the remnants of canned beef stew into my mouth. I use my finger to peel around the inside for gravy then place the empty can on the side with the others. Four in total. Beans and mini franks. Spaghetti-Os. Another beef stew. Lima bean casserole. All of them mostly empty, apart from scraps, congealed and clinging to the bottom and sides. There are other things, too. A blue tarp, sticky with animal blood, three plastic bags, a purple Bic lighter, two sticks of beef jerky, two empty soda bottles, and beer. Three cans of Budweiser. Two full, one three quarters empty. And, of course, nearby is the pounding river, with all that fresh water. In the morning I’ll find a safe place to climb down and retrieve some, maybe even bathe. But for now I drink the beer and watch the fire I built from the smoldering ashes the hunters left behind.