Chapter 18 Mischa #2
In my delusional mind, Austen seems surprised he will not be sleeping next to me.
???
We do yoga in the morning with the girls. Then Austen and I head out to fish again. It’s a very hot day. We wade into a cool, tree-lined crevasse just off the main river. We hear an enormous boom in the distance, then another. The black darts vanish from the river as the noise spooks them.
“They must be close, Kane and William,” I say.
Austen agrees. “They mustn’t have caught anything. Billy doesn’t quit until something is dead.”
Twice more we find a spot and the shotguns go off. It seems almost like clockwork. Another hour goes by and BOOM!
“GODDAMMIT BEE!” Austen screams up the serene valley. “YOU ARE SCARING THE FISH!”
“Let’s go spend time with the girls,” I laugh.
We come back empty-handed and they boo us. Austen swims in the cool mountain lake with the others. I stay in the shallows because I have a burst eardrum, and the doctor said I can’t.
“William and Kane are late,” Austen says, near sunset. “They are returning from near the snowline,” he says. “An alpine grass field called The Wilderness. Billy never comes back until he kills something.”
He tries the radio and gets the cabin in the mountains. The hikers staying there go check the book for us, and Will and Kane left at dawn. They should be back by now.
We collect driftwood and pile it up far downwind from Hayden’s tent. We light it after dark and Austen looks to the hills.
“They should have been back hours ago.”
“They are less than a mile away,” I insist. “Their gunshots stopped us fishing. If they had been on the shore we might have seen them, they were that close.”
???
At Midnight Austen tries the radio again with no luck. It’s a beautiful clear night and we watch the mountains. Then I see it. A flare, over the peaks.
“There!” I point.
“What does that mean, though?” Amelia asks.
“It’s a distress signal,” Austen says. “They’re up in the Alpine Pass. It’s freezing up there.”
“Why don’t they use the radio?” Hayden asks.
“How far away are they?” I ask.
Hayden shrugs. “About twenty miles.”
“How is that even possible?”
“They must have been so turned around, they’ve been walking away from us all day,” Austen says.
“Well let’s go!” I say, and grab a jacket.
“What? No,” Hayden says. “It’s too dark. We’ll call it in for Air Rescue to deal with. I promise you, Billy is staying put, and knows we are too. We’ll go at first light if we have to, and we’re gonna need sleep for this.”
Isobelle looks at him. “You’re not supposed to give a fuck.”
“This is different. I always give a shit about stupidity. We’re in a forest bigger than Switzerland; I’d actually prefer my chances with a needle in a haystack. Everyone needs to go to bed.”
“I can’t sleep,” Sabrina says.
“You should,” Hayden tells her. “It’ll be okay. We’ll start early.”
They girls see sense. Austen gets up and hugs Sabrina and Isobelle and the two head inside.
Hayden calls Search and Rescue and tells us to sit tight. Then he and Amelia leave for the long walk to their tents further down the lake.
Austen grabs blankets and beds down on deck. I get up to leave and he grabs my wrist.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Austen doesn’t look at me. “Yes,” he says. “I’m fine.”
“I should go,” I tell him.
“Stay,” he says.
“I can’t.”
“Stay. You’re my best friend. Stay.”
Austen nestles into my arms and I hold him.
“Okay,” I relent.
We make an impromptu bed on the lounge set. We lie down and watch the stars.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Austen asks.
“He was just over the river a few hours ago. How much trouble could he be in?”
“Maybe it was someone else.”
“He’s part of you,” I say. “Does he feel gone?”
“Not at all,” he says. “I feel his heart beating close by. He’s just around that bend, fast asleep, all cuddled up warm and content. I keep trying to wake him and he keeps saying he’s tired, and telling me to fuck off.”
“Sounds like him.”
“But I’m probably imagining that and my life is about to be over.”
We lie in silence. Then Austen looks at me.
“What?” I ask.
“How long do you think it’s gonna take to get over me?”
I sigh. “Some days I’m more optimistic than others. Especially as I loved you even after I drowned and crossed over to the afterlife. But not in a gay way,” I sneer. “As a best friend.”
Austen guffaws and I do too.
“What if I kill myself, I mean, you know, if Billy dies?”
“Then I’ll never get over you.”
“I’m going to miss you,” Austen says, “when you hate me. I’m going to miss you and I’ll never admit it. But not in a gay way.”
“Whatever it is, is it really that bad?”
“Depends who you ask.”
“I won’t then.”
Austen scoffs. “Yeah.”
“Whatever you did.”
“I didn’t do anything, but if you ask I’ll say I did.”
“Why?”
“Because the truth is worse.”
He turns on his side to me, and I turn to him.
He curls into me and I put my arms around him and kiss the top of his head and rub his back.
We stay like this for a long time and I know neither of us is getting any sleep.
In the sheltered silence of the amphitheater, I hear a shifting sound that crunches more and more like footprints as it gets closer. We get up and look along the shore.
“Sabrina!” Austen calls. “Isobelle!”
There’s a flashlight getting closer. When it gets close enough, Austen shines his torch and the light hits Hayden’s face and he flinches, then shields his eyes.
“Look what I found,” Hayden says.
“Hi baby,” William says.
The light goes to him. He’s carrying a deer on his back. Kane is behind him with a wild boar.
“Thank God,” Sabrina sighs.
Austen wails and climbs over the side of the boat. He can’t reach the rock, so he just drops from the boat into the water. He is talking and I can’t understand a word of it.
“What is that?” I ask Isobelle.
“Creepy twin language,” she shakes her head.
Austen is up to his armpits wading over. He leaps on William. The weight of the pack, the deer, and Austen makes him stagger. Kane helps him take it all off while Austen sobs uncontrollably. Will tries to pull Austen back together as he comes undone.
“No no no, baby,” William shushes him and says something indecipherable. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
“Where did you find them?” Isobelle asks Hayden.
“My tent,” Hayden says, a little too dryly.
Oh shit, I think he caught them.
“Honestly, we were only going to have a nap,” Kane says. “We were so tired we never woke back up.”
“The flair?” Sabrina asks.
“That wasn’t us,” Kane tells them. “I think it was the other hunters we passed. The chopper will be looking for them. You might have saved their lives.”
A few minutes later the rescue helicopter roars past on its way to the mountain. Everyone at our camp is excited, nobody wants to go straight back to bed; there’s a lot of conversation to be had.
Austen’s still beside himself, relieved, but hysterical.
Soaking wet too and refusing to be pulled away from William, so we smother him in blankets.
It’s William’s job to calm him down while the rest of us have hot chocolate.
He’s gulping for air with a nose blocked with tears.
William finally pulls him in like I had done.
Austen curls up into him like he had with me, and spasms with sobs.
Will kisses him on the head and Sabrina puts another blanket over him.
Soon, Will holds up two fingers like a peace sign to Isobelle just like Austen did yesterday morning, but then swirls his index finger.
She nods and goes inside and gets Austen a small juice.
We all already have drinks, but Austen drinks it, and soon passes out.
I’m going out on a limb here to assume she spiked the drink and Austen took it willingly.
The helicopter flies back overhead. After that everyone turns in for the night. I don't want to leave Austen alone, even though William is beside him. Kane beds down nearby, so his head is near theirs. I take the other couch.
Kane and William have a few words with one another after lights are off.
“I feel like such an idiot,” I hear William say.
???
I wake up in the middle of the night to pee.
When I lie back down, I hear a soft scratching.
I think it's like, an animal or something. I turn the torch on and point it to the noise. Kane is sleeping, Austen is sleeping, but where’s William?
The noise is gone. I move the light around and jump out of my skin when I see Will, sitting in the corner, holding a sketchbook and pencil.
“Jesus!” I jump. “Will?” I change to a whisper, “What are you doing?”
“Drawing,” he says.
He’s not looking at the paper, he’s staring ahead. It was fucking pitch black a minute ago. I wave my hand in front of his face. He’s sleepwalking. Sleep-drawing. What a freak.
“What... what... what... are you drawing?”
“William.”
“Can I see?”
He lets me take it from his hands. I look at the picture of Austen.
In the picture he’s with the Koala. I flip back.
Some evil, hollowed-out eyes in heavy black and crimson pen.
.. then an old building... there’s one of Sabrina, naked, but tasteful.
An artistic study of her. The next page is her too, naked again, lying down, looking up, biting her lip, and in the next one her mouth is open and screaming with her face in a pillow like oh my God William is fucking Sabrina.
The sketchbook is snapped away from me and I jump again. Kane closes it and puts it on the sofa.
“Time for bed,” he tells Will, then lies him down on top of the pictures. “You never saw that,” he tells me.
Jesus. I can never unsee that.