Chapter Thirty Six
THIRTY-SIX
It just sits there overnight, sealed in its plastic wrapper.
You wake up frequently from anxiety dreams. But every time you check, you find the map right on top of the sleeping bag where Diana left it.
And when daybreak finally illuminates your tent like a lantern, and the island comes alive with birdsong, you take it out of the bag and carry it to the middle of your campsite.
Fran and Will are already up, organizing their packs and nibbling on handfuls of bitter, foraged plants.
“What’s that?” asks Will.
You set the map on a sizable rock and motion for them to come closer.
“I think it’s what we’ve been looking for,” you say.
Fran’s jaw drops when she sees it. You didn’t know people’s faces actually did that, short of severe injury.
Will leans in closer, gnawing on a bunch of greens.
The map is the color of raw honey, spattered with cobalt lakes that nearly glow in the morning light.
It’s been heavily worn, but the colors are still vibrant, and near the top of the map is a single red dot, made from a Sharpie who knows how long ago.
Fran reaches down and sets the tip of her pointer finger there.
“How did I miss this?!” she says. “Was it in his tent the whole time?”
“Yeah,” you say. “It was tucked away. But Diana found it last night.”
Fran gives you a strange look for a second, her brows nearly forming a triangle.
Then her eyes go back to the map, taking in the mottled surface and scanning a finger across the lakes.
Within seconds, she has found your island in a body of water called Long Gull Lake.
Then she leaves to grab her compass and a small twig dipped in mud.
When she returns, she’s lining up the base plate of her compass on the map and drawing a line to your potential destination with the mud.
Troy and Diana wander out of their tents as Fran works, yawning and hunting for something to eat.
They notice her and gather around, watching her position the compass.
She uses the ruler on the side to measure the distance to the dot in centimeters.
Then she finds the map’s legend and converts the centimeters to miles.
How she knows this basic map skill, you have no idea.
From there, she zeros out the compass and adjusts it for declination.
Then she lifts it from the map and aims it in the right direction like a magic wand.
No one has spoken for what feels like minutes, and you could probably wait hours if you had to. Fran is the only one with answers here. But she doesn’t keep you in suspense for long. Soon enough, she turns to all of you and holds up the map.
“Okay, party people,” she says in a monotone. “Here is the situation as I see it.”
Will immediately falls to the ground and starts doing push-ups.
“Will, what in the actual hell?” she says.
“This helps me focus!” he says. “Go on!”
Fran looks away from his rapid movements and puts her finger back on the red dot.
“Assuming this dot is the drop,” she says. “Which I hope to God it is. We have about eighteen miles to travel today. And that’s if we don’t take the trail but just go in a straight line, bushwhacking.”
“Bushwhacking?!” says Diana. “Who are you?”
Fran does not stop for this interruption.
“I doubt we’ve ever made it more than ten miles in a day, but I’m not sure I know where we started, so it’s all just a guess. Anyway, there’s also some water involved in this trip and paddling is faster than walking, so that helps a little.”
Will’s movements are getting quicker, and his face is bright red.
“Just tell us if we’re going to make it,” he says, panting. “Is there even a chance?”
Fran scrunches her nose.
“A slim one,” she says.
Will pops up next to you, breathing hard and cracking his knuckles.
“Okay, then. So what are we waiting for?”
“Well,” says Fran, drawing you in closer. “There’s just one more thing.”
You all huddle in a tight circle around the map.
“If the drop is actually here,” she says, landing on the red spot again, “and we take the water as far as we can, then we have to contend with this.”
You lean in and squint at where she’s pointing.
Most of the map is made up of lakes, a long chain of them that lets you hop from one to the next with the help of small portages.
But near the red dot, there appears to be a river cutting through the path, and not just a river, but one that bends in an odd way.
It’s almost a full circle that leads directly to your destination.
“What do you think it is?” says Troy.
You feel a shooting pain from the back of your head. You wince, and the answer arrives in the midst of the ache.
“That’s it,” you say. “It has to be.”
“Don’t say it,” says Troy.
“The Devil’s Loop,” says Diana.
“It’s not labeled on here,” says Fran. “But I mean…”
Everyone looks at the little squiggly blue line.
It’s almost like a question mark punctuating the end of your route.
Each of you is probably picturing some unique horror.
Something that terrifies only you. For you, of course, it’s heights.
A cliff to jump. A mountain to climb. You close your eyes and see the view from the top of the highest cliff at the quarry—the way the water below looked so far away, it seemed like an optical illusion.
You feel your heartbeat starting to pound.
“We could just take land,” you say. “Skip it entirely.”
“We could,” says Fran. “But it might be one in the morning by the time we get there. How long are these people going to wait at the site?”
“We don’t know that either way,” says Troy. “They might just drop the supplies and go. So why take the risk? It’s called the Devil’s Loop, people! The word devil is in it!”
“It’s true. They might be gone,” says Fran. “But…”
“But what?” Troy says.
“But that’s probably your anxiety talking.”
Everyone is quiet at that. You think about your last comment, and how you’re still hoping everyone will side with you and decide to go by land.
You’re hoping that you can take the long way, by trail, maybe crossing a couple of calm lakes, and find Silas’s colleagues waiting for you, making sure you’re okay.
But even as you imagine it, you know it cuts your odds in half.
“Fran’s right,” you say. “At least about me. I’m … afraid.”
Will is still next to you, breathing heavily from his push-ups. He watches you.
“Me too,” says Troy.
Will puts his head down.
“But…,” you say, “the whole point of coming on this godforsaken trip in the first place was to try to quiet that voice that tells us we can’t do anything, right?
I mean, I get panic attacks in movie theaters because of the dark and the noise.
I don’t feel good in crowds, even small ones.
And after my brother died, I couldn’t even ride a bike anymore without hyperventilating.
I mean, how much more am I going to lose?
What else am I going to give up if I don’t start to fight back a little? ”
“I hear that,” says Troy. “I’ve had panic attacks watching kids’ shows with my baby cousin. Like, the situations this talking dog was in were too intense for me.”
“Crossing a crosswalk,” says Fran. “Full-on attack. Couldn’t make it to the other side.”
“I fainted in a grocery store,” says Diana, “because the lighting felt weird.”
Will takes a breath, still looking at the ground.
“I had to lie down in the middle of a tennis match at State. I felt so scared, I just had to curl up on the court while everyone was watching. My dad was screaming at me to get up, but I couldn’t. They had to carry me off.”
He looks up at the sky and lets out a long breath.
“That shit was so embarrassing,” he says.
“Look,” you say. “Can we be honest for a minute? None of us are leaving here cured.”
Silence.
“Trees and fishing can’t cure anxiety disorder,” you say. “They just can’t.”
Now everyone is hanging their heads.
“It sucks,” you say. “I was pretty much willing to believe anything when I signed up for this. I thought I’d leave it all out here in the woods. But I think I knew all along I was stuck with this for life.”
“So what are you saying?” asks Diana.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been thinking about it wrong. Maybe we don’t need to be cured.”
“Did you not hear that list of pathetic situations?” asks Troy. “We’re broken toys. All of us.”
Everybody looks at you. You’re not sure how to refute that. But you take a moment to regroup.
“Okay, look,” you say. “Just think of it this way: The world outside these woods is totally screwed up. Can we agree on that? It’s burning, for one thing.”
Troy nods.
“People are getting shot by the police. There are wars. And pandemics. And so many people in charge of things are super racist and homophobic and awful. We work really hard in school just so we can have a boring life someday where we work even more just to get stuff we don’t really want.
At my school, we have to do active-shooter drills once a month.
I don’t understand how all these so-called normal people can go through all of this every day, feeling okay.
Like: What’s wrong with them?! Maybe we’re the ones having a normal reaction to messed-up shit! Have you guys ever thought of that?”
Your head is starting to pound again, the pain flaring up. But you take a breath.
“Say we have this forever, and there’s nothing we can do about that; can we just push ourselves a little more? We were stuck out here with nothing, and we figured out shelter, water, and food. We scared away a bear and dealt with a dead body.”
“I pooped in the woods,” says Fran
“We all pooped in the woods!” Diana shouts.
“And we did all that while fighting our own brains,” you say. “I think maybe that makes us strong. So maybe we can do one last strong thing.”
Troy holds his hand up, and you take a step forward to high-five him.
And that’s when it hits you again. Another wave of pain, this time with a hint of nausea thrown in.
Before you know it, you’re down on one knee.
Will immediately crouches and tries to steady you, but you’re a little on the wobbly side.
“Bro,” he says. “Are you okay?”
You feel clammy, and as you stand again, a deep chill runs through your body.
Your breaths come quickly. You’re sure, at first, that you’re just having a panic attack, which is a little funny given your big speech, but then you notice the throb coming from the back of your head, a pain that’s been slowly growing for days.
“Hey,” you say, sucking in a breath. “Can somebody check my head? I think maybe…”
When you put your fingers to it, the pain is so sharp that your words vanish before you can speak them. You close your eyes, and when you open them again, someone has hands to your head and is pushing your hair out of the way.
“Oh my god, Case,” says Diana.
“What?” you say.
“This cut does not look good.”
You ask her to describe it, and for a moment, she’s at a complete loss for words. Then she’s not, and the words that follow are not ones that you want to hear about a wound. They include “red,” “swollen,” “all messed up,” “ooze,” and “spreading,” not necessarily in that order.
“It’s probably infected,” says Fran. “That happened to my aunt once. She cut her leg on a rusty fence gate, and a week later she was babbling about chemtrails. We had to take her to the hospital.”
“Not sure that’s helpful, Fran,” says Diana.
“I feel like I’ve been stabbed with an ice pick,” you say.
“Look,” says Will. “Just sit for a minute. I’ll pack your stuff. We’re in the water first, so we’ll throw you in a boat.”
Everyone watches while you take a couple of deep breaths.
“It’s okay,” you say. “It’s okay. I think we’re just at a decision point.”
Concerned stares all around.
“A what?” says Troy.
“You know. From Choose Your Own Adventure books!” you say. “Didn’t you guys ever read those?”
“See!” says Fran. “He’s already hallucinating.”
“Case,” comes Diana’s voice. “Relax, okay? Just close your eyes and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“No,” you say. “I’m not closing my eyes. I’ll be fine!”
And then, of course, you close your eyes.