The Wall

As the sun rose, the wind eased and we could at least hear each other speak. We were so cold our lips were blue—every extremity felt like it was splintering and migrating away from the rest of my body. I honestly don’t know how we managed to keep walking, but we did. We found a cave not too far off course and made camp. We couldn’t make a fire; it would be too easy to spot, especially during the day. So we huddled together in our sleeping bags and tried to sleep, pressing ourselves into the shadows of the scooped-out cave that felt and smelled like the inside of a rotted carcass.

I thought I would have trouble sleeping, but after a night of walking, my body collapsed in dreamless exhaustion. I only awoke when someone was again shaking the life out of me.

“Rosa, wake up. We have to get moving again,” Careen whispered.

Pietre snored loudly, sleeping sitting up awkwardly, with his back pressed against the bare rock. I kicked him with my boot and his eyes snapped open, the sheen of purple still evident along his jaw where Careen had punched him. He rubbed his chin absentmindedly and winced when his hands brushed over the bruise. Smiling, he held his arms out to Careen and grappled her into an embrace. She fought him at first but then relaxed against his chest. My eyes started to sting for how much I missed Joseph and Orry. When I watched the two of them in their bizarre, dysfunctional relationship, I was jealous.

“I’m not sorry,” Careen whispered.

“I know, me either,” Pietre said.

When they’d finished snuggling, which I took to mean he’d forgiven her for hitting him, we started out for another night of walking. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them the entrance to the cave would not still be streaming water. I prayed for the rain to end.

I wish I hadn’t.

Our packs were heavy and we were so fatigued, but we kept moving, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other, stumbling every so often in the dark and following the red arrow on Pietre’s handheld.

It was still impossible to talk, not that I had much to say. Thoughts were rubbed clean from the constant outward assault on my senses. All our concentration went into not falling over, not losing each other or losing our way.

The world was black and slimy, the pale light of the handheld illuminating only the closest branches, slick with rain and slippery with moss. It showed us what direction to take but it didn’t account for tree roots and jagged rocks. The number of times we fell over in the mud or walked directly into a huge rock, seemingly placed there just to a

At the end of the second night, the rain eased and we all sighed in relief. Pietre even clapped me on the back happily. Pulling off his hat and ru

“What?” he said, looking boyish and self-conscious all of a sudden.

“Nothing, you just look different when you smile,” I commented shyly, instantly regretting it.

“I smile plenty,” he snarled, returning to his abrasive self. “Just not when you’re around.”

I shrugged. I’d expected that.

We’d been walking to the right of the jagged rock formation and dragged our sorry bodies up into another cave. This one was shallower and smaller, but at least it wasn’t wet and pelted with horizontal rain.

We ate quickly and shrank into our sleeping bags, lying touching each other. Normally, I would have objected but I was actually quite grateful for the warmth. Even though the rain had cleared, the air was so much colder.

My eyes didn’t want to open. My poor body clock was so back to front. Waking at dusk and going to sleep at dawn was killing me. My body ached from sleeping on the rock floor and I felt like I was frozen to it. I wiggled around and heard cracking and something sliding across my bag with a nylony ‘zip’. Careen had turned towards Pietre and her warmth deserted me.

I looked out the cave opening. It was still light. I blinked, unbelieving, and prayed for the rain to return.

A late snow.

The woods had been transformed to winter again. The entrance to the cave frowned to the outside, white iced around its mouth. Jagged icicle teeth gri

I shook Careen’s shoulder and she batted me away with the flat of her pale hand, smacking me the face. I punched her shoulder hard and she sat up with an irritated look on her face. But when she saw the snow, her face changed to utter dismay. What the hell were we going to do? It had been hard enough to walk in the rain in the dark. With icy rocks and roots to slip on, it was going to be disastrous.

Careen rattled Pietre. He sat up violently. “Crap!” he said and then he proceeded to curse for a good couple of minutes while we watched. His shoulders and head hunched, he kicked things around our tiny cave.

Finally, I’d had enough. “Will you shut up? There’s no point in getting angry—we have to keep moving.” Jolted out of his rampage, he took a deep breath and shrugged.

“You’re right, we…” The sound of metal slicing the air silenced us both. We turned our heads to the cave opening and saw a blade flying towards a young deer that had, surprisingly, not been scared off by Pietre’s cursing.

Pietre’s eyes opened wide in horror and his mouth fell open as the blade hit the creature in the throat, blood spurting out onto the fresh snow. The poor deer stumbled around uselessly, trying to shake the blade from its neck, and collapsed awkwardly against a tree. Sweet black eyes frozen like its surroundings, unblinking.

Pietre was furious. Angry whispers progressed to shoving as he manhandled Careen to her feet and shook her. “Have you got a brain between those pretty ears?” he spat.

“What?” Careen said bewildered, between shakes. We were genuinely baffled at his anger. I thought what she’d just done was awful but I didn’t understand why he was so upset? I thought he enjoyed this kind of thing.

“Do you think we can eat a whole deer, or even carry the carcass somewhere safe? You’ve just alerted every wolf in the area there’s a fresh kill waiting for them.” Pietre put his hands down and flexed his fists while he talked. “And once they’re done with the deer, who do you think they will come after next?”

Careen eyes became pools of alarm as she realized her stupidity. “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. Pietre turned his back to her and started shoving his things into his pack.

He swung around and jumped out of the cave, burying his legs up to the knees in snow. Bashing his way to the deer’s body, he grabbed it by the back legs and threw it into a branch. It was grotesque and as good a warning as any to get as far away from it as possible.

The sun had set. The blood was dripping down the tree trunk and pooling in the snow like a red ink blot. Pietre turned his head up to us, his eyes showing a hint of panic, and said bleakly, “We have to run.”

We ran in the darkest dark, bashing our way through trees and slapping branches. The snow had stopped falling but it was icy, cold, and slippery. Every time I put my foot down, I would think it was safe, only to find my heel digging into a sharp rock or a buried branch catching my foot and sending me flying face first into the snow. Every now and then Pietre would stop abruptly and listen, his ears pricked for the sound of a wolf following us. But we heard nothing, save footsteps crunching through the powdery snow and our own breathless panting.