Karina Halle - Donners of the Dead

As the sky turned purple with dusk and cast a lilac glow on the snowy trail, we’d been walking for eight hours and I couldn’t go another step. Everything was painful, everything burned—my legs and feet felt foreign to me; I never knew they could hurt so much.

Jake, determined to reach the nearest cabin, picked me up and threw me over his bad shoulder. I wanted to protest, to fight it, to keep walking, but there was nothing I could do. I was all out of strength.

I put my faith in him and let him carry me, all while trying to keep conscious. My view was the wet-looking snow on the ground, and it was too awkward to raise my head and look at anything else so I concentrated on the sounds and smells. I expected to come across the putrid smell of them at any minute, rendering our escape futile, but it didn’t come. Instead, we found the cabin. We found shelter.

“This is a sight for sore eyes,” Jake said. I could hear the exhaustion in his voice, none made easier by carrying my frame.

We went inside and he gently lay me down beside the blackened fire pit. I sat up and looked around while he took off his pack and fumbled for matches. It was late afternoon and there was enough light coming in through the one working window door to illuminate things. It wasn’t as cold either, and I had hoped the snowbanks between the cabin and the outhouse had melted some.

At that thought, a pitter patter began to sound on the thin roof. Rain.

Jake cocked a tired eye to the ceiling. “Looks like the snow is over for now. We’re that much closer to River Bend.” That filled me with a dangerous spark of hope—we had a chance. Unfortunately it all hinged on whether we could make it through the night. I wanted to keep going, but I knew that neither of us had it in us.

He turned over the logs in the pit until he got a few that weren’t charred and started a fire. Soon the cabin was warm and toasty while the rain fell heavier, dripping through the roof in some places. There was something almost romantic about the scenario, like a scene from a romantic poem, but even though my heart and body yearned for Jake with a startling ferocity, the fear and exhaustion was too much.

My stomach growled noisily. I eyed Jake in embarrassment.

He smiled wearily. “I wish we had something more to eat. I’m famished too.” He looked to the window. “Not sure what I can scrounge up in this weather. I think most animals are taking shelter.”

“Don’t go,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.” The need to have him close to me outweighed my empty stomach.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t think I can handle being alone,” I said. “I don’t think I can handle much of anything anymore.” Heat pricked behind my eyes, and before I knew it, tears were falling down my cheeks, salty on my lips. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried and yet I was suddenly doing so in front of Jake.

“Hey, now,” Jake said softly. He got up and sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He gently brushed my tears away with his thumb and then kissed the wet trails they’d left behind. His lips were so warm and soft and made my heart flutter with gratitude and hope.

“Sorry,” I sniffled.

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry about,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth. He tucked my hair behind my ears. “You’ve been dealt a rotten hand in life, Eve. There’s plenty to cry about.”

“So have you,” I said.

“I have,” he said in a low voice, giving me a nod. “But that’s only more the reason why I wouldn’t leave your side. I need you too. I reckon that might seem silly to hear from a grown man, but the truth is that I need you very much. In this short time, you’ve given me purpose. To love you. To protect you.”

To love me? I stared at him in shock. He loved me? How could that be?

He only smiled at my expression. “I think we all need a chance to cry sometimes, don’t you?”

My heart was still beating over the word love . “Have you cried?”

He nodded. “I’m done crying though. I reckon your pretty tears are enough for the both of us.” He unraveled the animal hides and spread them out on the ground. “Here, lie down and rest. I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll keep you safe.”

I don’t even think I got a chance to say thank you before I promptly fell asleep.

Iwas back at River Bend, sleeping in Uncle Pat’s hayloft. It was dark outside—dark as sin, and the sound of crickets filled the air.

I slowly got to my feet and breathed in the familiar smell of hay and wood and manure. It felt good to be back, as if I’d never gone anywhere, as if it had all been a realistic dream about blood, snow and a man.

Monsters.

I was about to head down the ladder when a strange sound caught my attention.

I walked to the edge of the hayloft and looked over the edge.

All the animals in the pens were gone. The house was completely black. My mother stood with her back to me in the middle of the paddock, muttering the same phrase over and over again.

She was speaking!

I tried to call after her but my throat froze, keeping my voice inside. Now I was the mute one.

I found my way through the dark, climbing down the ladder, and stealthily made my way towards my mother. I didn’t want to scare her, and yet something deep inside told me to approach with caution. Perhaps it was the strange, sour smell that was growing more pungent by the moment.

When I was close to her I finally began to make out what she was saying.

“You need to find it,” she whispered. “What’s out there.”

“You need to go. You need to find it. What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

“What’s out there.”

She kept repeating this over and over again in ragged little whispers.

Finally I found my voice.

“ What’s out there?” I asked.

My mother stiffened and fell silent. The straps of her bonnet blew in the breeze. I stared at her back then down at her hands. They were paler than snow and dripping with blood.

“Mother?”

“You know what’s out there.”

I shook my head, wanting to reach out for her but being too afraid. That horrible aroma was growing stronger and there was something so terribly wrong about all of this.

I eyed the dark house. “Where is Uncle Pat?”

“They’re all gone.”

“Where did they go?”

“They were consumed.”

I nervously wrung my hands together. I’d lost all feeling in them. “They got consumption?” I asked carefully.

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

She turned around to face me. Her eyes were blue and blank, her skin pale grey. Blood was smeared around her mouth. “I consumed them.”

She smiled, and instead of having teeth, there was a row of gleaming eyeballs like bulging white grapes.

I woke up with a jerk and had to gasp for my breath. It was dusk, with only a faint, grainy light before me. I heard a faint dripping sound and Jake’s steady breathing, and had to take a few moments to bring myself back to the present.

It was a shame the present wasn’t much better than my dream had been.

I rolled onto my back, feeling the ache throughout my body and stared up at the ceiling. We could have only been sleeping for about an hour since there was a bit of natural light left. As scary as the dream was, I felt sleep pulling me back under, my body and mind aching for solitude. I could only hope that I would find it in a dreamless state.

I was in a half-asleep limbo when I smelled it. I couldn’t figure out whether the odor was in my dreams or in real life, but from the way my skin prickled with gooseflesh, the way the hairs stood up and my chest felt full of ice, I knew to trust my body. It knew the difference between the dangers that were real and the dangers that weren’t.