The Distance from Me to You (24 page)

Her face had become so familiar to him. More familiar even than the trail, this place he'd been living for so long, because unlike the trail, McKenna's face didn't change. It stayed the same sweet, freckled, blue-eyed face, only the expressions varying. Right now she had one that he hadn't seen before, a new kind of worry. He could read her thoughts, about how they had to get moving, they had to use the daylight.

For so long, she'd been waking up and walking. Sam knew it hadn't occurred to her yet that there wasn't a point anymore. Finally they'd come to this little place where they could lie down and rest.

Rest and wait for the end. Maybe it would be peaceful when it came.

“Sam?” McKenna said. Behind her, the dog barked. The tick was gone from above its eye. McKenna, taking care of everybody.

“Mack,” he said. And he drifted away from her.

• • •

He could see light on the other side of his eyelids. Something shining in through this world of pain. A voice. It sounded familiar.

“Sam?”

He wanted to take his hand out from under the tarp, close it tight around hers, feel her bones beneath his grip. But he couldn't move. This pain in his ankle had turned into a blanket laid on top of him, compressing every organ in his body. His breath would only come out in short raspy bursts.

“Sam?”

Other words, following his name. Hopeful, urging words. She wouldn't admit what she must know: Sam was done walking.

“Mack,” he managed to croak out. “If you want to walk, you're going to have to leave me.”

“No way.”

It was the last thing he would ever have to do, so he gathered the little strength he had left. He sat up on his elbows, looked at her, and concentrated on making his face very grave, his voice definite. He'd have to convince her, otherwise she'd just sit with him until the end of time.

“Listen,” he said. “This place, this hut. Whoever built it, it's bound to be a landmark, right? The rangers will know about it. If you can get back to the trail, it's not like before. You can tell them where I am. You can send them back to get me.”

She looked dubious. At the same time he saw it, the antsiness, the need to get out of there, to move.

“I can't walk,” Sam said. “And you can't carry me. If you don't get help, I'm going to die here.”

That was it. The magic words. She nodded. He let out a breath and lay back, feeling like he'd just run a marathon on his wrecked ankle. McKenna handed him the water and the last of the PowerBar. He took a sip but said, “No. You eat that. You'll need the energy.”

Something had come over her. She ate it without protest then said, “Maybe Hank knows the way out. Maybe if I follow him.”

Sam laughed. The life this girl had known, and all the endless optimism it had given her.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

“You take the water,” McKenna said. “I mean, drink a lot. Who knows how long it'll be, before we can come back with more.”

Obediently he let her lift the water to his lips. He drank and drank. Then he lay back and listened while she gathered up the things she needed. He felt her lips on his forehead, and was glad she didn't say
I love you
. That would have sounded too much like
good-bye
.

He lay on the tarp, listening to the sound of her leaving, the sound of her low voice talking like that stupid animal might know what she was saying.

Sam's body shuddered.

It came out of him like a fountain, every drop of water he'd managed to get down. When he was done puking, he used his last bit of strength to roll over to the other side of the hut.

“Safe travels, Mack,” he said.

Or maybe he just thought it. Time began drifting, floating, a kind of darkness that filtered in and out. It became very hard to know or feel anything.

It didn't seem possible
to McKenna that they had walked this long.

Maybe it was just exhaustion and hunger—subsisting for days on what, put together, would constitute one tiny meal. But she was convinced that if someone had been watching their progression from the lake to the hut, they would have seen her and Sam walking in circles, the same paths, the same streams.

Hank seemed to know where he was going, crashing determinedly through the trees. Sometimes McKenna had to turn sideways or take off the pack altogether to follow him.

“Hank,” she called, pulling on her pack after squeezing between two gnarled birch trees. She scanned the stretch of tree trunks ahead of her. No sign of him.

“Hank!”

The sound of rustling, galloping back to her. He sat in front of her, staring up and wagging his tail. McKenna knelt and patted him ferociously. He licked her face. She questioned, for the thousandth time that day, the wisdom of following a feral
dog who would probably take off when he realized she didn't have any food left to offer him.

“If I could think of something else to do,” she told the dog, “I would do it.”

Hank nudged her pack with his nose, as if asking for food. She shook her head. “Nothing there,” she told him, and petted him again, hoping affection would be enough to keep him beside her. She got up and pulled the pack on. Hank bounded off into the woods and she did her best to stay with him.

Uphill. They definitely hadn't gone down an incline this steep. At the same time, she wasn't sure of anything. Her whole life, McKenna had never been hungry. Well, that wasn't true. Once she and Courtney had done a terrible fast together, drinking nothing but a concoction of vinegar and lemon juice for days. It was miserable, but at any moment there was a refrigerator in the next room, a convenience store on the corner, a restaurant down the street. What a mockery of life that stupid fast seemed now. If she was lucky enough to get back to the world, she would never diet again.

The climb leveled off, and Hank stood waiting, as if he now knew that it frightened her to lose sight of him. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks, Hank.”

When she got her breath back, she took a step, signaling that she was ready to walk again. Hank took off. What must Hank eat when she didn't feed him? Squirrels and rabbits? She wondered, if he caught one, would he bring it to her, and would she have the stomach to rip off a piece of raw meat for
herself? At this point, she thought she would. As she walked, her eyes raked the ground for any sign of vegetation, anything that might pass as food. The only thing she saw was the occasional withered mushroom. Maybe at some point she would have to risk that. But she wasn't there yet.

Up above, a cloud drifted and then settled in front of the sun. The sun itself was already making its move toward the other side of the world. Another day of walking, of moving, without getting anywhere. It would be another night of hunkering down until exhaustion surpassed terror. Would she just continue this way until she died?

Back at the hut, was Sam already dead?

A sob rose in her throat. She couldn't consider that. She was so tired. And so hungry. From behind the trees ahead, Hank barked. She stumbled forward. And there it was.

Their campsite. Hank sat right beside McKenna's tent, the rain flap firmly in place. There was the fire pit with the charred remains of the fire they'd built. There was the stretch of sand where they had laid their sleeping bags, and slept so peacefully without knowing what lay ahead. It seemed like a million years ago.

“Hank!” McKenna said. “Good boy. Good boy.”

Truly she had never been so thankful for anything in her entire life. Even as she looked around, she refused to let despair sink in over the fact that she had no idea which direction they'd hiked from when they'd first come to this place. She still didn't know how to get back to the AT.

But she would worry about that later. Inside that tent sat her red pack and the food they'd left behind to sustain them over the next days, plus a water bottle, full to the brim. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the zipper of the tent. Hank burst through the flap, straight toward the pack, wagging his tail, ready for the food she had inside it. McKenna's fingers shook again as she unzipped her pack and plunged her hand inside to pull out a plastic baggie filled with granola bars. She unwrapped one and gave it to Hank, who swallowed it in two bites. McKenna's first couple bites were equally urgent and ravenous, barely chewing, choking down the nourishment. Then she took a sip of water and lay back on the cool nylon floor. Hank sniffed at the baggie and she unwrapped another bar and fed it to him. The sleeping bags she'd thrown into the tent so carelessly, days before, might as well have been feather beds. She gazed up through that beautifully familiar ceiling, not thinking about anything, just eating, replenishing, swallowing.

Food. Calories. The abatement of hunger and more than that, the cessation of starvation. She was going to live.

She closed her eyes, the physical relief in the slight bloat of her belly was so strong she thought she really might start to cry.

From outside the tent, she could hear a noise building—far away at first, only vaguely familiar, and then more and more distinct. It took a few seconds for her mind to place it, the slow movement of rotors. McKenna sat up as the sound came closer.

A helicopter.

She scrambled outside and looked up. It wasn't close enough
to see yet, but it was coming closer, and it sounded low, maybe even low enough to see her out here in the clearing, with no trees to obscure the view.

The new infusion of calories merged with the biggest shot of adrenaline McKenna had ever felt. She jumped up, waving her arms back and forth.

“I'm here!” McKenna yelled.
“I'm here!”

There was no indication, that anyone had heard her, and of course how could they over the noise of the rotors. The helicopter flew in the opposite direction. McKenna dove into the tent and grabbed her pack, searching frantically for matches, willing herself to calm down so she could focus on what she had to do. The stack of kindling that Sam had built still sat beside the fire pit, she arranged it into a tepee as fast as she could. And then, with nothing else that would catch as quickly, she grabbed
The Ice at the Bottom of the World
. Ripping out pages but preserving “Her Favorite Story,” McKenna stuffed the papers into the tepee and lit them. She could still hear the helicopter's rotors, their noisy beat and whir. It headed back in her direction as her little fire emitted the thinnest wisp of smoke. The helicopter dipped down lower, but then headed away from her again. Was it looking for something? Was it looking for
her
? Again she jumped, waving her arms.

“I'm here!”
she yelled, because she needed to say it, even though they couldn't hear her.
“I'M HERE!”

And then she sat down. Even if the people in the helicopter did see her fire, now rising higher as she fed it more pages,
why would they think she was anything other than a wayward camper, building a fire to cook dinner? Why had she never bothered to learn the simple signal (she guessed it was simple, since she didn't know what it was) for SOS? Even if they
saw
her, they might just interpret her jumping and waving as excitement over the sight of a helicopter, a silly kid.

McKenna thought all these discouraging, despondent thoughts. And then she stood up and waved and jumped and screamed till her voice couldn't scream anymore, and her throat felt as rasped and ruined as every other part of her body. By then the helicopter had flown away, with no sign that it had seen her, let alone recognized that she needed help.

McKenna collapsed on the dirt beside her fire, gasping and panting. She didn't move until after the rise and fall of her chest had finally subsided, and the sky had become dark except for the stars. She stared up at the same view she and Sam had watched together just a few nights ago, back when they were immortal. Mere hours ago, she'd been convinced that all she needed to do in this world was get back to this spot, this campsite. Reunited with her stuff, she'd remember the way back to the trail and get help to find Sam. Everything would be all right.

“Hank?” McKenna said, suddenly remembering how she'd found this longed-for spot.

Nothing.

“Hank?”

She sat up. From the moment she'd heard the helicopter's
rotors, she had forgotten about the dog. Probably all of her running around and screaming had terrified him. She walked over to the tent and looked inside, hoping to find him cowering there. It was empty. Sorrow and panic, her new familiars, seized her chest.

“Hank,” she said, her voice too destroyed to call out. She had no idea how to get to the trail. She and Sam had hiked for hours to get here. And also, she felt guilty. How smart Hank had been, to lead her back to this spot. She imagined the dog, a hound after all, following her scent through the woods, and then over rain-worn miles to find her. And all McKenna had done by way of thanks was feed him a few stale granola bars and terrify him.

She remembered then the three cans of Iams she'd been carrying over Sam's protests. They had pop tops. McKenna got one out of her pack and cleared her throat.

“Hank,” she said, in a sweetly high-pitched voice. “Come here, Hank!”

She unsealed the lid with as much of a
pop
as she could manage. On cue, Hank bounded out of the trees, skidding to a stop at her feet, tail wagging, all forgiven. A noise that McKenna had completely forgotten existed, a laugh, prickled out of her wrecked lungs. She knelt down and fed Hank by scooping the congealed meat out with her fingers, and letting him lick a handful at a time.

Lucy had told McKenna on numerous occasions that physical contact with animals lowers blood pressure. McKenna
would have to tell her little sister, if she ever saw her again, that she was right. Gross as it may have looked, this ritual with Hank calmed her down, slowed her heart rate. When she was done, she gave the can to Hank, who flopped happily beside the remains of the fire, licking and chewing the last drops. All McKenna wanted to do was eat some more of the food she didn't have to cook—the second packet of awful salmon jerky, the granola bars and dried fruit. But she knew she had to save those things for the walking she'd have to do the next day, and maybe the next. Who knew how far she'd have to go, how long, and when she'd next be in a place where fire was possible. So McKenna forced herself to build up the fire. She cooked a pack of Alfredo noodles and ate them directly from the steaming pot, trying not to think about Sam on the floor of that hut, wishing she could share every bite. If it hadn't been for the thought of him, the freeze-dried Italian cuisine would have been the most delicious thing McKenna had ever eaten in her life.

When she was done, she cleaned up her campsite. She even hung her food, because she hadn't gone this far to get mauled in her tent by a chocolate-loving bear. She did everything the way she had when she'd been alone on the trail. Sticking to a strict ritual of
the right way
was the only thing left that made her feel safe.

She lured Hank back into the tent with another small bit of jerky, not willing to risk his being gone in the morning. She might be exhausted, her whole body beaten up from the
outside in, but at least her stomach was full. Even though her heart felt too dark to admit it, the truth was McKenna still had hope.

• • •

Back at the hut, Sam's stomach was not full. He couldn't remember the last time he'd peed. He couldn't remember much of anything. There was a girl, her face would swim in front of his, but it would change into different people he'd known, sometimes men, sometimes women. He'd come to hover in a space between sleep and waking. At points he felt sure someone was holding him, a scent like lavender would surround him, and a hand pushed back his hair. His mother must have held him like this, right? That's what moms did when you were sick. Maybe it was a spirit person, nursing him back to health, and soon he'd stand up and walk out of here.

Where was
here
, anyway? Was it day or night?

He fell asleep, without dreams, and then opened his eyes to remember everything, his body so full of pain he wished it would crack open, a thousand little pieces for nobody to find.

Sleeping was best. Second best was that space in between, the different faces, the hands stroking his head.

Sam didn't have the strength to ask the question that kept running through his head, not panicked anymore, just wondering:
Is this what it feels like to die?

• • •

McKenna woke before first light. No time to wait for the sun to come up. She unzipped her tent right away and Hank bounded
out. Before packing everything up, she fed Hank, then filled Sam's bag with his few extra pieces of clothing, his tent, the bird book, his sleeping bag. She wished there were a way for her to carry his pack along with her own. Leaving it there on the ground, like a piece of his body, was almost like saying good-bye to him all over again.