The Longest Night

She pulled him to his feet. They dragged like logs on the pavement, shoes scraping along, as if in protest. Her arm and shoulder hurt from dragging him. Distant roars kept her rushing on quicker. Perpetual grip of fear caught her under its foot, holding her down. Throat ached to scream.

“We need to hide for a while, that’s all,” she told him. “We can go to our favourite theme ride. Remember? It drove you nuts.”

Didn’t say a thing. Scared her more than the screams from far away.

They had come here on their honeymoon. They never went as children, so she insisted they go. The first ride they chose was this, and he had been turned off of the whole vacation after it. But it was a happy time, she knew. They had walked amongst families with their children, who ate Mickey Mouse-shaped lollipops and hugged their Donald Duck stuffies, while they held hands, wondering on a family of their own. The trees had leaves so green, and the sky was so blue with clouds of yellow, ivory and silver. The breeze was warm; laughter danced on it. Even though he had hated the theme ride, she saw the small smiles on his face, saw the peace that lived there.

Now the park was littered with junk and memorabilia. Old, rotten food, park maps, ripped stuffed toys, torn and scattered. A sad memory. Of the people that became God’s hounds, the ones that hunted her and her husband now. She squeezed her eyes shut as she dragged him along.

“You holding up?” she asked again, knowing the answer.

“My chest hurts,” he wheezed. Tripped over his feet trying to stand, stumbled with her. They got back up again. Continued on.

When they did get into the theme ride, they walked along the paths to the side until they found some boats. They rocked gently from side to side, seemingly calm, undisturbed by the world surrounding it.

“Just like in the car. Just stay low, they won’t see us.” She lowered him down, being careful not to drop him from her weakened arms. He slumped on the floor of the boat, resting against the bench. His head tipped back, too weak to hold it up.

This is where we die, she thought. They will destroy everything, then us. Make us watch.

She sat next to him, wrapping her arms around him and rubbing his shoulders. Before this had happened, they lived normal lives. Now she knew they would deserve the fate that awaited them. All of them did. She knew it would happen to him soon, but she hadn’t accepted it. She never would.

“We’ll just wait here until they’re gone. Then we’ll get you some medicine.”

He leaned against her heavily, his breathing slow.

Catherine was sure that the man was still asleep, for the trip was ever so silent. She pulled the tarp along slowly, considering the ordeal she had had pulling him up the slope with pride. Then her ankle caught a root from under the snow and she tumbled forward.

It would be easy for her to fall asleep there. The snow embraced her with soft arms; her eyes became harder to open and her arms became too weak to move. Death in comfort.

But he needed her now. She lifted herself from the snow, re-situated the rope, and kept moving, fighting off the fatigue.

“We’ll be there soon,” Catherine stated to herself. With those words, she felt a rush from her head to her heart. He really was alive. When the earthquakes hit, she knew implicitly that if she were never to see her mother again then there was no chance she would ever see him again either. Perhaps that was why her memory of him seemed so crystal clear: because she knew if she let it go, it would be forever. Memory is all she was here for. It didn’t have to be anymore.

Despite the fact she pushed herself forward, Catherine knew she had to rest, at least to get some food and water into her stomach. Otherwise, she might not be able to stand the next time she fell over. So she stopped again, put the tarp to rest by a thick tree and sat herself against it, letting her pack and her shotgun to drop from her shoulders gently. She fished around in the bag for her trail mix and ate quietly, gazing upon the man’s face from the indirect light of her flashlight.

His head flinched gently to the side towards Catherine, and his eyes opened. “You must be hungry,” she said, grabbing her mix and a bottle of water from her pack before she shimmied closer.

“Very,” he replied, and he perched himself up on his elbows. A flinch crossed his face, something he tried to hide. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he ran a hand gently over his wound. She shot her eyes away when she was sure he was aware of her watching him, and held the bag of mix out to him.

“I have food in my bag,” he said, reaching to the pack that was resting on his lap.

“Oh. Um. When you were out, I had some granola bars.” She stared at her hands sheepishly. “I couldn’t help myself…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said as he worked at the drawstrings of his pack. “I’ve been spoiled with our food supply at the park. I might have done the same, were I you.”

He opened his pack, grabbed an aluminium bag and attempted to open it, but shifted awkwardly from elbow to elbow in the attempt.

She watched him for a while, then reached over timidly, her hands brushing his as she grabbed both sides of the package and pulled it open. She withdrew her hands slowly, avoiding his eyes as she uncapped the bottle of water and placed it beside him.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and she flicked her eyes between her hands and his face, offering a small smile. She was afraid that she had made him uncomfortable by helping him, but as she caught small glimpses of his face, she found the same softness that puzzled her since their last day at the station.

They ate in silence. She ate and drank with care, self-conscious of someone else seeing how she consumed. Once done, she delicately put her waste back in her bag.

“I’ll change your dressings while we’re stopped,” she said. Without meeting his eyes, she moved closer and pushed away his coat and shirt. She carefully untied the rope, laying it aside as she removed the dirtied rag. Blood had dried all over his stomach. None of it fresh. It was a relief to see. She undid her cloak and tore another piece from her shirt, her face feeling hot as she looked at her exposed midriff. The winter air was biting but she could hardly feel it.

“You’re so thin,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingers over the edge of her coat next to her exposed stomach. A very powerful wave swept down her lower stomach. Her eyes shot up at his for only a split second before she averted them again and continued to fix his dressing, keeping silent.

“Are you ready?” she asked as she replaced his shirt and coat back over his newly replaced bandage. She didn’t meet his eyes, but she saw him nod in her peripherals.

She swung her equipment over her shoulders, buttoned up her coat, and stepped into the rein, fitting it over her hips once again. She pulled the tarp along steadily, neither of them saying a thing. The feeling still stirred in her stomach, and she clung to it, trying to keep it alive for as long as possible.

She sat at her desk in her room, running her hands through her long brown locks. Her laptop screen illuminated her dark room, and a cursor blinked periodically behind the last word she typed into the word document. Her story was nearly complete, but she couldn’t think of an ending. Would it be happy? Sad? Or would she think of an ending dissimilar to most, one that was more likely, more believable, less enchanted?

1:53 a.m. She should have been working on her assignments that were coming due or she should have been in bed. School was but within a few hours. Even if she tried to sleep, she would lay there with her eyes closed, seeing new moments, tying together different arcs, hearing beautiful allusions. By writing her story, she felt that she was being drawn closer to him, becoming something more real. She knew that it was dangerous for her.

There was a gentle knock on her door, and Catherine jumped in her seat, surprised by the sudden interruption. She hit the save key and closed her laptop swiftly, darkening the room.

“Yes?”

“Catherine, it’s two o’clock in the morning,” her mother said sternly through her bedroom door. “What’re you doing awake?”

“I…” Catherine started, and swivelled in her seat, looking for an excuse somewhere in her pitch black room. “Couldn’t sleep,” she finished lamely.

She heard her mother lean against the door and sigh heavily. “May I come in?”

Catherine made sure that there was no possible way that her mother would know that she was writing. No one knew that she was working on a side project to begin with, save for her ex-boss. She deemed herself safe then gave her mother admittance.

She gently pushed open the bedroom door, letting light spill into the room, silhouetting her form in the hallway. “You wanna talk?”

Catherine hesitated. “Sure.”

Her mother flicked on the light, stinging Catherine’s eyes and making her squint. Her mother moved to sit on the bed next to the desk. “Catherine, something has been wrong with you.”

“Oh?”

“I know you try to hide it, but something is troubling you, taking you away from day to day things. And it’s been going on long before you quit your job.” Her eyes darted away – her mother didn’t know she had been fired.

She leaned in close, studying her daughter’s face from an angle. “You’re different.”

A weak retort bubbled in Catherine’s throat. That’s not true. I don’t know what you’re talking about. But as she listened to those things simmer on her tongue, she suddenly felt guilty for the way she’d been living her life, fathoming how true it really was. “I’m sorry.” Her words were watery.

Her mother straightened on the bed, and sighed with an air of concern. “What is it that’s bothering you?”

She looked to her desk, trying to come up with an excuse. She couldn’t tell her mother, nor could she tell anyone. But she chided herself; she was writing a book on what she held most dear, on who she was, and she would share it with strangers but not her mother.

“Were you in love with my father?” Catherine asked suddenly, keeping her eyes to the floor. The moment she asked the question, she wished she could take it back.

Her mother stiffened in such a way that Catherine could feel it. She turned away slowly and remained silent.

“I know…you hate to talk about him, Mom,” Catherine said gently, suddenly feeling she had set off on the wrong foot. “But you’ve never told me anything about him, and sometimes I feel…I don’t really know anything about you.”

The words came slowly. “I loved your father very, very much. So much so that I feel the same about him now as I did twenty years ago.” She turned to her daughter again, but Catherine still couldn’t summon the courage to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry I don’t talk about him often, but I can’t. It still hurts, if you can believe me. Do you understand?”

The tone in her mother’s voice made her look up at last. There was such a stony reserve in her mother’s eyes, but it was shaky, on the verge of collapsing.

Would this happen to her? She swallowed thickly then asked: “Well…what was it like?”

Her lips twitched in a bit of a smile. “Sublime.” A hint of defeat was in her eyes. “At first I thought it was a mental disorder, the way I cared for him. It didn’t seem like it was normal for anyone to be feeling such a way about someone. But it wasn’t perverse, or even abnormal. It was unfathomable in a beautiful sort of way. Looking back, I know it was.” Her voice quivered dangerously on the last words, and she looked away again.

Catherine looked away again and closed her eyes. “That’s how I feel,” Catherine said weakly.

There was a pause where her mother simply looked upon her, wondering. “There’s a boy?” she asked.

“Sort of,” Catherine replied.

“What’s his name?”

Catherine choked on a short laugh. “I don’t know.”

“Ah,” her mother replied slowly, knowingly. “I would advise you to get to know this person…but I know that everyone has their limits, and you shouldn’t go beyond yours. If you feel safe at a far distance, Catherine, then stay your distance. If it causes you pain, let it go. But if you feel happy feeling what you feel, then stay. Just don’t block everyone out at the same time.”

Catherine still looked at the floor, and tears welled up in her eyes. Had she blocked out everyone? First her job, then her friends – even her own mother, the one person she loved deeply and unconditionally?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated weakly, breaking. “Don’t let me push you away.”

Her mother’s hands were no stronger than hers, but she was able to pull Catherine easily to the bed to hold her. Catherine cried softly into her mother’s shoulder, letting herself go. “Don’t let me let you go.”

“You’ll never get far,” her mother whispered as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “You’ll never get too far from me.”

Her eyes followed her feet in the brightening darkness. She had turned off the flashlight that was tucked under her arm, and she placed it back into her pocket as the rising sun made the black turn to blue. “We’re almost there,” she repeated to herself again, this time with a slur. “Keep going.”

She wasn’t sure if he was awake or not, but there was no reply, regardless. Catherine watched her feet plunge into the snow and drag across the thickness of white. In, across, in, across. It was hypnotic, easy to stop thinking. Until she saw a familiar plunge in the snow where her tracks had been before. She looked up, recognizing the trees around her.

She yanked the tarp more fiercely, breath coming quickly, a pressure in her chest. Within minutes, she rounded the trees, and in the early blue-lit sky, she saw the cabin standing guard before the long, still lake.

The night was over.