Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Shock can be deadly,” Marna said.
Abbie picked up a pebble and tossed it at Marna.
Marna turned over, crawled behind the tree, and puked.
While she was waiting for Marna to finish, Sommer pulled her supplies from her pack to see what she had available. Abbie followed suit.
“I have one anti-diarrheal.” Sommer put the bubble package on a leaf.
“I have some pain pills and a decongestant,” Abbie said.
When Marna was back, swishing and spitting, Sommer looked over at Abbie’s packages of freeze-dried foods.
“Eating isn’t going to work. You’d have trouble keeping anything down.
But you can line your cooking pot with a bandana, pour your food in and your water, and let it cold soak, then lift and drain it to make a broth. ”
“That sounds like you won’t be around to help,” Marna said.
“I think you two should continue up to the summit, and while you set up your tents, I’m going to jog down to the stream and fill all the waterproof things we have and bring them up to you.” She held up a bottle marked BLEACH. “You won’t have to boil it.”
“It’ll taste like shit,” Marna said.
“With almost no bad bugs,” Sommer countered. “Focus on that.”
“Then what?” Abbie snatched up the roll of toilet paper—that she had lined out on her plastic mat with her other supplies—then she ran behind a sweet briar.
“Runny stool and vomiting, I think we have our answer,” she called.
“And I’m sorry to nature, but I didn’t have time to dig a hole. And I’m feeling too weak to care.”
“What are you thinking?” Marna asked Sommer.
“That it sucks we’re all on tight budgets. One of us should have a satellite.”
“We’ll pool our money for next time. For this time?”
Abbie was buttoning her pants with her roll of toilet paper under her arm as she came back to her spot.
“I’ll go get help,” Sommer said. “It was two days up only because we were enjoying nature, not because we worked hard.”
“I don’t love it,” Abbie said. “Selfishly, if Marna and I are both unable, then there’s no able-bodied person around. That feels dangerous. If something happens to you—let’s say you got halfway down and this hit you—there's no one there to help you get water. And we’ll have your bleach.”
“It’s not ideal,” Sommer said. “We can all agree on that. But people solo hike all the time. Look, I need to take my electrolytes and food with me. I’m sorry.”
“Of course you do,” Marna said.
“I’ll only take a day’s worth of calories.”
“Don’t leave your food with us. We won’t be eating it. I’d give you something out of my pack that’s easy to eat while you're walking, but you shouldn’t touch anything from my pack. Abbie and I are both shedding virus. You need to stay the hell away from us.”
“Who would have thought I’d be saved by whooping cough spittle,” Sommer murmured.
“I’m grateful you were,” Marna said. “It’s hopeful. Outside help is really the only thing that’s going to get us off this mountain.”
“Okay. We need to make things as easy as we can for you two. I’ll get the water, and then I’m heading out.
I trek down to the ranger station, then they’ll get rescue together, and we need to get back up.
At three miles an hour, if I push, I’ll be down in nine to twelve hours. So a twenty-four-hour turnaround.”
“If all goes to plan,” Abbie said.
“Shhh, Abbie, you know better than that,” Sommer scolded. “Don’t speak ill into existence. I still have a full-ish moon to light the way and my headlamp. It’ll be fine.”
“You’ve been hiking all day,” Abbie whispered.
“There are those athletes that do adventure races that are running the trails for days on end. When I’m done, I’ll reward myself with a cheesecake.”
“Nope,” Abbie moaned, then staggered to the sweet briar bush to vomit. “No mentions of food. And also, I’m getting worse by the minute.”
Sommer put on her N95 and a pair of Nitrile gloves.
She handed the leaf with medication to Marna.
“Break it in half and share. It might help a little. Give me your dry bags. I’ll head down to the stream.
You take what you can carry and keep heading to the summit.
It’s flat there. And it’s possible some other hikers will be around with a shaker of salt. ”
“That’s the dream,” Marna said, pushing to her feet and reaching for her pack. “Abbie, if you’re getting worse by the minute, we need to use what health we have left to get to the site and get our camp set up. Shove your things back in your pack and let’s go.”
Her hands in motion, Abbie moaned, “Why not stay here?”
“Can you imagine trying to sleep on this incline?” Marna asked. “We’d be hard for rescue workers to get to here. Up on the summit they could land a helicopter.”
“Is that what they’ll do? Medivac us out?” Abbie asked.
“Depends on the picture that Sommer paints.”
“I’ll make it good.” She turned to Abbie. “I don’t know what they’ll do. For sure, you’re not walking down this mountain any time soon. And it would be darned hard to carry you out.”
“But the upside,” Abbie said, snapping the lid on her pack, “if there were an upside to this, we would be surrounded by hunky heroes.”
“Yeah, super,” Marna said dryly. “Best case, they get there, and we’re covered in sweat, puke, and feces. Very romantic.”
“If that’s the best case,” Abbie said. “What’s the worst?” She shot a hand up her palm facing Marna. “Please, please, please don’t answer that, Marna. I already know.”