Suicide Forest (32 page)

She accomplished the feat of paling and
blushing at the same time, her face draining of color except for
rosy patches on her cheeks. “I—I just found it this morning, after
breakfast.”

I took the box from her and shook out the
contents. Two of four bar-shaped cookies emerged.

“Were they good?” I asked.

“You can’t judge me, Ethan,” she said
quietly. “You have no right to judge me.”

“I’m not judging you,” I lied.

“I was so hungry,” she said. “I found it
this morning, and I was so hungry. I just took a little bit. I was
going to share it with everyone, but it tasted so good. And—and I
put it back. I was saving it in case someone really needed it.”

“Neil needed it,” I said.

“Will you stop with Neil! Look at him—he
can’t eat anything. He’ll throw it up again. Then it goes to waste.
Like you said, he might not even…he might not even survive.”

I stared openly at her. Was I really hearing
this? This wasn’t the Mel I knew. She had a heart of gold. She
always put others first. And now she was hoarding a vital resource
and willing to throw Neil to the wolves to appease her hunger?

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, and
her voice warbled, as if she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t do
that. It’s not my fault. I was hungry. And it was
mine
.”

“Enjoy the rest,” I said.

“Fuck you, Ethan! You can’t judge me. You
have no right.” The tears began to spill. “You would have done the
same thing. If it was yours, you would have done the same
thing.”

I didn’t say anything. I wanted her to
go.

“I’m the smallest,” she went on. “Everyone’s
bigger than me. You have more fat reserves—”

“Shut up, Mel. Okay? Just shut up.”

She glared at me, biting her lower lip.

“Do you want some?” she asked.

I looked away from her.

“I’ll divvy it up now.”

“Do what you want.”

She took the remaining two cookies from my
hand and broke them into four even pieces. “Look—for you, Nina,
John Scott, and Neil. I won’t have any more.”

I stared at the brown chocolate-flavored
pieces in her hand.

I said, “Give mine to Neil.”

“Don’t be—”

“You heard me.”

“Right—because you’re Mr. Noble.” She shoved
away from me. “Fuck you, Ethan. Fuck you. I hope you starve.”

I
watched Mel
return to the others and dole out the CalorieMate. I couldn’t hear
what she was saying—I was a good fifty feet away—but I imagined she
was telling them where she’d gotten it from. Then she went to Neil
and tried to feed him. Despite what I’d told her about Neil needing
food, I didn’t think the cookie would do him any good. It would dry
his mouth out more than it already was. And even if he somehow
swallowed it, he would, as Mel pointed out, likely vomit it up
again. Nevertheless, I had been angry at her deception. I had
wanted to hurt her.

I rubbed my eyes.
What was happening to
me?
It was just a goddamn cookie. We had much more important
things to deal with.

I went back to contemplating our next move,
and the dilemma that we now had more bodies to evacuate than
capable hands to transport them. Because even if we left Ben and
Tomo behind, Mel, Nina, and me couldn’t carry both John Scott and
Neil. Which meant we remained where we were for yet another night,
or we left one of them behind. Staying put, I believed, was out of
the question. It had been nearly thirty-six hours since any of us
had anything apart from whiskey to drink. Neil, if he survived the
night, would be in critical condition. The rest of us would be weak
and sluggish. So we had to act, and we had to act now rather than
later, while we still had our energy and were thinking clearly.
That meant leaving here. But who did we take? Neil or John Scott?
Both needed medical attention immediately, so the question became,
who needed it
more
?

I heard a snapping sound from somewhere
behind me and spun around.

I searched the trees, half expecting to be
confronted by a crazy man barreling down on me, but all I saw was
green and green and more green.

Deciding what I’d heard had been a falling
acorn or pinecone, I returned my attention to the dilemma at
hand.

Neil or John Scott?

It was 2:37 p.m.

I
told Mel and Nina
I needed help with something back at camp and led them away from
John Scott and Neil. When we were out of hearing distance, I
stopped and said, “We can’t waste any more time. We have to leave
now if we’re going to have any hope of getting out of the forest by
nightfall.”

“The three of us can’t carry both John and
Neil,” Mel said. She was stone-faced, and I couldn’t tell if she
was still bitter because of the way I’d treated her, though I
suspected she was.

“That’s the problem,” I agreed. “And it
leaves us with only one option.” I hesitated. “We leave one of them
behind.”

She blinked. “Leave one behind?” She lowered
her voice. “There’s no way we’re leaving anyone behind.”

“Yes, I agree,” Nina said. “We cannot.”

“What other choice do we have?” I said.
“Keep waiting for the police? We have to seriously consider the
possibility they’re not coming, at least not today. You want to
stay another night in this forest with some crazy killer out
there?”

Mel chewed her lower lip. Nina pulled
compulsively at a lock of her hair.

“It’s not right,” Mel said softly.

I held up my hands. “If you have any better
suggestions, I’m open for them, please.”

“One of us can go,” she said. “You, me, or
Nina. It’ll be faster, just one person—”

“I’ve thought of that. But there’s no way
I’m letting you or Nina, or even both of you, run off on your own
with this guy in the forest. Nor am I leaving you two behind.”

“So you won’t leave us, but you’ll leave
Neil or John?”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Mel?” I
said, the last of my patience gone. “I wouldn’t leave anyone behind
if it could be helped, but it can’t. Now, if we get lucky, and get
out of here quickly, we could be back within a matter of
hours.”

“And if we’re not lucky? If we get
lost?”

“They will die,” Nina stated. “At least Neil
will. He is already dying.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Neil’s dying. Whether we
stay here, doing nothing, or we attempt to leave and get lost, he’s
a goner. Our only hope is we
don’t
get lost. We get out of
here. We bring help back.”

“How do we find the way back here?” Nina
asked.

“We’ll make a trail. Two of us will carry
the litter, the third will leave a trail of branches or
something.”

“How do we decide which way to go?” Mel
said.

“I’m going to climb the tree,” I said.

“
You
will?”

“It’s the only way.”

“You’re scared of heights!”

“Mel, unless you want to climb the fucking
tree, then quit it, because there are no other options—”

A loud noise cut me off midsentence. Nina
sprang straight to her feet while Mel and I made it into half
crouches—a freeze frame of three people about to run for their
lives.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered. It
had sounded like someone banging a baseball bat against the trunk
of a tree.

No one replied.

I grabbed my spear, which was beside me.

Knock-knock-knock
.

I started toward the banging, wondering what
I was doing. My spear seemed absurdly insubstantial. What if the
guy had a pistol or machete or crossbow—

KNOCK-KNOCK
.

I stopped in my tracks and almost melted
with relief.

Twenty feet up the trunk of a nearby cypress
was a bright green woodpecker. Its gray head swiveled toward me,
revealing a red mustache and yellow bill. The head ticked this way
and that, then returned its attention to the hole it was
excavating.

Knock-knock-knock
.

I pointed and said, “It’s just a
woodpecker.” I wanted to laugh, but my nerves were too jacked
up.

“I will kill it!” Nina said, stepping out
from behind the tree where she had hid. “It almost gave me a heart
attack.”

Mel picked up a small branch and threw it,
though it came nowhere close to the bird. “So there
is
life
in here,” she said.

“I saw a deer too,” I admitted.

“When?”

“This morning, right after I woke up.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You were still sleeping. Then we realized
Tomo was missing…” I shrugged. The deer didn’t matter. “Anyway,
look, it’s already three o’clock. We’re running out of time. We
have to get going.”

“We cannot abandon someone!” Nina said
stubbornly.

“Christ, Nina, are you listening? There is
no choice! If we stay here, Neil’s going to die, then John Scott,
then us. Yeah, us too. You think you feel bad now? Imagine how
you’ll feel this time tomorrow without any water? That’s if we
don’t find you hanging somewhere in the morning.”

She blanched. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, Nina. But every second we waste
debating this is a second less daylight we have. Okay? So the
question isn’t whether we stay or not. We
are
leaving. The
question is: who do we take with us?”

“I suppose you want to leave John then?” Mel
said.

“I think Neil’s condition is more
critical.”

“You don’t want to take John because you
don’t like him.”

“My personal feelings have absolutely
nothing to do with any of this right now.”

“I want to take John then.”

“Now you’re choosing based on emotion.”

“I am not.”

“Then tell me why we should take John Scott
over Neil?”

“John’s in pain. Neil’s not. And we don’t
know how bad John’s leg is. It’s still bleeding. If his blood
pressure drops too much he can pass out or go into cardiac
arrest.”

“Nina?” I said.

“I will not choose.”

“Stop fucking around, Nina! John Scott or
Neil?”

Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I didn’t
think she would answer. Then, very softly, she said, “John Scott. I
think we should take John Scott.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He’s younger,” she said simply.

I wanted to argue with them, tell them they
were making a mistake, they were risking Neil’s life, but we had to
leave. The choice had been made.

I
went to explain
to Neil what we were doing while Mel explained to John Scott.
Neil’s skin was papery, his mouth slightly open. He made that wet,
phlegmy sound with each brittle breath.

“Hey, Neil. It’s Ethan. Can you hear
me?”

He didn’t respond.

“Neil. You hear me?”

He opened his eyes, stared vacantly at me
for a moment, then closed them again.

“Listen,” I said. “John Scott’s had an
accident. He fell from a tree. His leg is pretty bad. Anyway, we’re
going to take him out of here right now so he can get some help.
But then we’re going to come straight back for you. Do you hear me?
We’re coming straight back.”

He didn’t respond.

“It might get dark,” I went on. “But you’ll
be fine. Just stay beneath your sleeping bag. And don’t go
anywhere. This is the most important thing. Don’t go anywhere at
all, otherwise we might not be able to find you.”

I didn’t think Neil had the strength to go
even a dozen feet in any given direction, but I wanted to make sure
he stayed put if he experienced a miraculous recovery while we were
gone.

“Neil? You hear me?”

He didn’t respond.

I found his hand beneath the sleeping bag
and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll see you soon.”

I got up and went over to the others. Mel
seemed to be arguing with John Scott.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“John’s not thinking clearly,’ Mel said. “He
wants us to take Neil.”

I looked at John Scott in utter
surprise.

“He’s worse off than me,” he said, his voice
firm. “I can manage on my own for a night.”

“Don’t be a fool, John,” Mel said. “You’ll
bleed to death if you don’t—”

“Then you better stop dicking around and get
a move on.”

“We’re not going to—”

“You heard me.”

“John—”

“
This is my choice!
” he snapped, and
that ferocious determination was back in his face. “My fucking
choice. Okay, Mel? Mine. Not yours. End of discussion.”

For a moment Mel seemed about to defy John
Scott’s altruistic assertion of free will, but the blaze in his
eyes—a cocktail of intensity and pain and resolution—made her
reconsider.

“Yo, Ethos?” he said, turning those feverish
eyes on me.

“Yeah?” I said.

“You really going to climb that tree?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded in what might have been approval.
“Don’t fuck up.”

We
stood at the
bottom of the fir John Scott had attempted to climb, looking up,
way up. He fell from it, yes, but it was still the best candidate
around. This time Nina made the stirrup with her hands, and with
Mel pushing me up by my rear, I was able to surmount the lowest
branch on my first attempt.

I raised myself into a semi-stance, holding
onto nearby branches to brace myself. The trunk was a foot from my
face. It was thick and scaly with deep furrows and scarred with
resin blisters. These emitted a sharp, spicy odor that mixed with
the rosemary aroma from the matte-green needle leaves.

I began to climb.

From the ground looking up the branches had
appeared to grow evenly from the trunk in a ring-like fashion. But
it quickly became apparent they were produced in a series of
whorls, spiraling upward. I might be a big guy, but like John Scott
I was fairly agile and able to bend in and out of the branches to
progress at a decent pace. My hands quickly became sticky with
resin while several small twines protruding from the branches like
nails punctured my flesh, drawing blood. I noticed all kinds of
gnarls, knots, holes, and other imperfections in the bark that had
been invisible from far away, and for whatever reason these made me
think of the old red oak I used to climb as a kid back in
Wisconsin. I had spent hours at a time in the oak, collecting
acorns to use as weapons against imaginary intruders, peeling back
bark to watch the metallic blue and green shield bugs go about
their business, or just gazing at the panoramic view of my family’s
fifty acres and the Victorian farmhouse on the horizon, all
gingerbread, turrets, gables, and shingles.