The Longest Night

She stopped in front of the gas station. She stared through the open door, the inside shrouded with an impenetrable black, waiting for Dave to stumble through, his chest blown apart and his eyes still watching her. That gleam.

The man groaned and she started, giving the doorway one last glance. She snaked through the cars carefully, putting it away. Keep it dead.

She had to stop for the night. Fort McMurray was only hours away, but she could not move any farther. She had to make a distinct plan of how she would walk through the city to the hospital unnoticed. It was a ridiculously futile task, but she had to. She had to.

She tried to feed him, but he wasn’t conscious enough to help her. She tried to help him relieve himself. She eventually was able to get him to move for her, and she held him down a slight slope by hooking her arms under his, but she almost dropped him down the snowy hill. Getting him back to the tarp was even harder, and she almost thought she wouldn’t make it. She tried to keep him warm through the night, wrapped tight around him. The sweat started to soak through his coat. He shivered copiously. Every time he moaned, it was long drawn out.

By morning, she set out again. Another grey day. Meagre snowfall as if there was no urgency to their pilgrimage. The pain in her hips and legs was overbearing but what was worse was what she imagined waiting for them at the end. Nothing at the hospital. They would be ambushed before they could get there and be eaten. He would die (No no no don’t think like that). She would have to walk right down the middle Fort McMurray and she would die. If she was successful in the hospital, though, then there was getting back out unseen. It was bleak. It was all there was.

I will not stop now. I will never stop.

Then they were there.

With each step she took she looked in every direction. They were in the middle of the road, with vantage points in each direction, with which they could be being watched now. There was no way to go around the outskirts to the hospital because the river blocked the way and the only bridge across the Athabasca was through the middle of the city.

He shouted as if surprised in a dream. He jerked violently and pulled on the tarp. She slowed and looked over her shoulder but did not stop. “Where are we?” he asked hoarsely.

“We’re outside of Fort McMurray.” She had to swallow to wet her bone-dry throat. “How do you feel?”

“Is there a hospital nearby?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to take me there.”

She nodded, though she knew he couldn’t see. She was afraid that if she spoke aloud, she would let her fear show, and both of them would share the unspoken truth about it.

When she crossed the bridge she slowed down significantly. Without having to tell him he tried to muffle himself. She saw no signs of life. The same cars were still there, and although the bodies that had floated in the river were long gone, it was as if she were looking into an eerily accurate painting. The snow had grown thick over the winter, but it only made it easier for her to drag the tarp along the debris-ridden road.

The next hour was unending. With each passing minute he grew louder. Her pulse raced. Someone would hear them and they would die. She looked around frantically the entire way. She saw no one but she felt as if hundreds of eyes were upon her.

The green signs above the highway read “Hospital Street.” She pulled hard on the rope, breaking into a slow jog to make it up the off ramp. She could feel new wounds break under the rope, blisters burst and blood ooze with each step, but it was easier to ignore the sting the closer she got to the hospital. Once she cleared the off ramp, she turned left at the intersection and headed down the street.

There was a crowd in the distance on the farthest end of the hospital. Her heart dropped through her stomach and she dropped to the ground with it, quickly finding cover behind a vehicle. She waited for a moment, then dared a peek around the corner of the car. They didn’t seem to have seen her. Whatever they were talking about had them heated. The ambulance entrance was closest to her, farthest from them. She kept crouched, keeping to cover of abandoned cars. She didn’t dare stand until she had passed the wall, then jogged to the garage.

She turned on the flashlight and clutched it between her teeth. The garage was full of derelict ambulances. The tarp scraped against the dirty ground loudly, making her wrought with worry. Her light panned over a decayed body hanging halfway out of one of the ambulances. Beyond that were two swinging doors. As she braced against them and pushed, a gale of dust hit her in the face, giving her fleeting hope that no one had been here in a long time, and hope was waiting for her further in.

The windows were dirty but enough daylight passed through them for her to see the beds lining the walls carrying corpses years old. Most of them had sheets covering their faces, but some were left naked and open, and she had to point her eyes to the floor. She put her flashlight away in her pocket again and looked into each room she passed, searching for something she could use for him.

“Take me into an ER,” the man said in gasps.

“I’m trying.” She turned down the first hall on a chance. The doors at the end were stained with blood on either side. As she passed through them she had to shut her eyes tight.

She turned into the first room. An operating table sat in the middle. Cabinets lined the walls. She pulled the tarp next to the table and dropped the rope. Oh, her hips. A fresh wave of blood flowed down her thighs.

“I need you to find a syringe and some penicillin.” He gasped and held his breath, knuckling the tarp.

Catherine rushed to the first cabinet. It was locked. She let her equipment slide off her shoulders and grasped the shotgun in her hands. Ensuring the safety was on, she beat the butt end against the lock. She started to snarl with each strike until the lock gave way and broke. The gun clattered to the ground as she tore open the doors.

No penicillin. No penicillin. No fucking penicillin.

Catherine began shoving bottles out of the cabinet, letting them crash against the ground when she deemed them useless. Near the back of the cabinet, she found a bottle with a series of codes and formulas on it, with the word Adrenaline written near the bottom. All that there was.

Please.

She tore open drawer after drawer, some flying out of their spaces and spilling across the floor. The second last one had several syringes wrapped in paper, and she took a fistful and returned to his side.

“Help me take my coat off,” he whispered faintly, struggling to sit up on an elbow. She grabbed the collar of his coat on either side and slid it off him. He groaned viciously, trying to keep himself raised enough for her to take the coat off properly. When she pushed it off of his shoulders, he fell back on top of it.

“Now, I – I need you to poke the needle through the top of the vial…and pull the plunger back.”

Catherine hurriedly unwrapped the needle and did as he bid. When it was about half full, she stopped, looking to him. Sweat trickled down her brow.

“Push the plunger a small bit and”—he hissed, his face gleaming with sweat—“make sure there are no air bubbles in it by tapping it.”

She did so. “Now?”

“Do it.”

Catherine hesitantly slipped the needle into the crook of his arm. The air seemed to soften noticeably as she injected him, even though he kept shouting when she did it. A little relief trickled into her, and she felt her hope coming back in droves. He is safe now.

“Don’t stop,” he said. She didn’t.

The syringe was inevitably empty then, and she pulled the needle out, covering his arm with her hand, putting pressure on it. Her eyes squeezed shut as she thought intently: We did it, you are safe, it is over.

His eyes rolled around the room. She held his shoulder to anchor him to the floor so he could regain his bearings. She hovered over him, uncertain.

A few minutes passed. He tried to roll to his sides, but he was too weak, and he always fell onto his back again. As her reserve began to slip with each passing second, her hand went from his shoulder to his hand, almost subconsciously, and she squeezed it encouragingly as her heart pounded.

Suddenly, his breath shuddered, and he lay still. Ice filled her head to toe. Her eyes grew wide and unimaginable pressure clamped down on her spine. But he took in a breath slowly and held it, opening his eyes to stare into hers.

She squeezed his hand. A broken smile crossed her lips. She hadn’t realized tears had pooled in her eyes until she felt them spill forward down her cheeks.

He gasped and flinched but did not look away. The way he was looking at her…all at once, he was returned to her; there was no virus, no earthquake, nothing stopping her. She was revived.

“Catherine.” He sighed quietly. “I remember you, Catherine.”

It was slow, spreading out from the cavity of her chest, but at the same time the feeling was so sudden that she couldn’t register it at first. Her eyes widened and her mouth parted, breath stolen, belief compromised. Just like when she found him there, out in the open, waiting for her to see him again after two long years. More tears fell from her eyes as a sob escaped her. A smile stole its way into her face again.

Everything he had said with those words…she was unbound. She bent and let her lips brush against his briefly before kissing him. She shut her eyes and shook to hold back her tears. Then she felt the barest of movements and he was kissing her too. It was barely a second. His last breath slipped from him, warming her face briefly before leaving her with cold.

She froze. Dread. Dread when she realized what had happened. The fact was there but the meaning was nowhere to be found.

Like a winter that quietly and carefully ends a life as the nights grow longer. She opened her eyes slowly, keeping her parted lips resting on his. The floodgate opened. No more pain. Free.

“Come back,” she wanted to say, but there was no strength left for her to draw upon to speak. Her hands slid gently across his shoulders, up his neck, through his hair, over his face. Come back, come back. He was there, but he was gone. She had lost him again.

She cried out, a sound so laden with despair that she felt she had struck herself. She drew in, her centre a black hole, and collapsed. She clutched at his collar, rubbed her cheeks against his cheeks, his eyes, his lips, his chin, spreading her tears over his stubble-ridden face. Please come back. I remember you too.

All the times that her words were left unsaid…If she had come across him sooner, if she had just taken him directly to the hospital, if he had never left the park to do his work…each passing second amplified the last, for she knew death would never come when beckoned.

She shook her head vehemently, as if someone stood next to her narrating the events. Her hands clutched his face, trying to cling to her memories; seeing him at the station, finding him wounded in the forest, huddling for warmth. Shaving him. Kissing him. They were moments all so recent, so close, but they were gone. Gone.

“Come back.” She gripped onto him desperately, crying into his shoulder. “Come back…”

Her cries were just loud enough for her to not hear the footsteps approaching or the door open wide.

She opened her eyes slightly and saw a man standing in the doorway. She bolted upright with a choked gasp. He stood with his hand poised on the door, his eyes trained on her with a wild, primal hunger. She was the doe and he was the hunter – he took a step, her hand shot to her boot and yanked at the knife but it caught on the inside and she pulled it again until free. He was there before she was ready – he swiped at the knife, sending it across the room, then punched her hard. The time between being struck and landing was nonexistent; she woke on the floor, sparks flying behind her eyes. They cleared to reveal the shotgun lying before the cabinet, not six feet from her. She reached and kicked but went nowhere. He stood over her, wrapped her hair around his fist, and lifted her up.

She shrieked as he dragged her away, flailing with all her might. When he let go of her she swung her fists wildly. Steel-toed boots stood on either side of her shoulders. The smell. Dirt, death, blood and decay. His strong hands grabbed her small wrists, wrenched them back, then lunged for her throat.

Her hands made fists, and she threw them at his neck and face, trying to hit him hard enough to knock him away. He craned out of her reach and smashed her head into the floor.

Everything went quiet except for the distant, vague ringing, and the world became a kaleidoscope of bleeding colours. This could be it. Please let it be it.

Her eyes were bulging out of her head as she hooked her hands onto the collar of the man’s thin, bloodstained windbreaker. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with matted blonde curls and round facial features. The face of Death.

Her eyes rolled back into her head and she lost her grip on his collar. Her hips bucked up reflexively and her legs shot straight out as her lungs burned for air and she battled to die.

She could barely hear it but he could. His grip did not loosen immediately, but his head shot up in the direction of the swinging doors, listening. It started with a shout from outside, then a raving scream, then a gunshot. A chorus of yells and bellows followed, and more gunfire echoed in the distance. He let go of her and ran through the doors, bursting through them and whipping down the hallway to the main entrance.

She felt the world slipping away just before he let go of her neck. The sudden access to air caused her to gulp more air than she could take, and she coughed hard. She rolled to her side and stomach acid blasted out of her mouth.

It didn’t work. She was still here. No more.

The knife. She could this time. She perched herself higher off the ground and turned. There, between her and the knife, was his body. His face had already changed, life long departed. Why was I left behind?

There was a sudden rush in the hallway heading towards the ER, and she was near sure that it was her attacker and the others from the street were coming for her. So she kept her eyes on him. It had all been about him.

Two men burst through the swinging doors and aimed assault rifles at her. She did a subtle double take; they looked at her with an expression of shock that she was sure she mirrored. Her eyes were wide as she watched them, but she did not make a move to surrender. Initially, she was too stunned to do so, but she was also thinking that if she did, there would be no chance left for her to die.

One of the men glanced over at the man’s body and his eyes froze. “Oh, shit,” he whispered.

The second man followed his companion’s gaze. “Fuck!” he shouted, lowering his gun. Realization pricked at her spine and made her fingertips tingle.

The first seemed to ignore her as he approached his body. He knelt down beside him, lifting up his weathered shirt where a bloodstain marked it. He looked over the rope and the rag, then moved them aside very gently, as if he were afraid of hurting him. “Looks like a laceration.”

“Recent?” the other asked with a semi-choked voice. He did not turn around to face the room.

“No, it’s been patched.”

Her ears suddenly pricked. There were shouts and occasional gunshots. Many of them.

“Were you helping Jeffries out?” the man kneeling down by the body asked. She did not answer, rather stared at him, unblinking. His name was Jeffries. His name.

“How can we tell she’s not one of those cannibal fuckers from outside?” The other man stepped back into the room and motioned at her.

“She obviously wasn’t eating him. It doesn’t matter anyway, we’re taking in the people who surrender.”

“I don’t see why.”

“You do too see why, get a grip,” the man retorted, looking back over his shoulder at his partner with strict features. “You will follow our orders to the T. Understood, private?”

“Yes sir,” he replied in a hard and quick voice.

Soldiers.

The first man looked back at her, his expression softening again as he met her eyes. “We have a base up north, in the national park. I don’t suppose Jeffries told you that?”

She could not say a word even if she had tried.

Whatever he saw there threw him, and he did not ask twice. His eyes fell on Jeffries’s pack sitting at the foot of the tarp, and he undid the front flap, reaching his hand in and searching through it. His hand rested on something, and he paused briefly before pulling out a vial. “Here they are,” he said. “He actually got samples. He did it.”

Too much weight. She was sinking, her head too heavy to hold. Two boots came into her sight. “Come with us.”

One of them got her to her feet, and she went, passive. At the door she started to resist. She was reaching for his body – Jeffries – but she was a child in the soldier’s arms. “Don’t worry, we won’t leave him here,” he said. He guided her gently through the door and she committed Jeffries’s face to memory before he disappeared.

She cried hard. The officer was forced to carry her along when she went slack in his arms. His grip on her was precarious so he lowered her to the floor where she dissolved into a miserable puddle. “Come on,” he muttered, uneasy. “We have to go.”

When she didn’t move, he fit his arm under her legs and picked her up. She buried her face into his chest and clutched at his jacket. Whenever she squeezed harder, the man always muttered halfheartedly, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

The light of day pierced her eyelids like needles, and she turned her head and opened her eyes to view the scene, her tears ceasing. A pickup truck with Wood Buffalo National Park painted on the side sat rumbling in the parking lot with two large vans. Soldiers were herding thin, ragged derelicts into the backs. A few bodies lay scattered on the road, splayed over the red snow. Dead. He is dead.

The private carried her to the nearest van and clambered in the back. “We found her inside,” he said to the nearest soldier as he put her down. “She was with Jeffries.”

“Where’s he?” the other asked. The first shook his head, a grave and detached look on his face.

“Shit.” He shifted from foot to foot, folded his arms, dropped them, sighed, swore again. “I thought he’d be back within a couple of days. I wonder why the fuck he came this far south?”

“I don’t think Doctor Anderson knew he’d come all the way down here either.”

“Maybe that deer didn’t escape, then,” the other offered. She inclined her head, eyes locked onto the soldier. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? He was hyped up about that project.”

“Man…we come out here to find a friend and his animal and we find a city full of people. You know what? Fuck the deer, it’s dead. I hope Reid gives the orders to go home, especially after Jeffries.” He looked over the people sitting in the van. Cannibals and victims alike were crammed shoulder to shoulder. There would be no starving anymore, there would be no more enemies, there would be no need to fight for a life. The two soldiers left for the hospital, the engine drowning their voices.

The deer. It was so vital that they sent a unit of soldiers out to find it and Jeffries. Jeffries. He was looking for it for research and she killed it and left it on a hill somewhere to rot. The image of his body discarded on the hillside was etched into her eyes and it would not disappear.

Adults and children alike were in the van as well. Who were the feed and who were the feeders was transparent. All of them had their eyes diverted to the floor, as if they were contemplating all they had done and could not meet each other’s eyes with those thoughts in mind. Her eyes fell on the man next to her, whose sight slowly lifted from the floor to her face when she looked at him. His blonde curls were more golden in the open daylight, and his round features more pale and less threatening without shadows on his face. He was the ghost of a man who had choked her minutes before.

He winced, seemingly unsure on how to act or how she would react to him. It was hard for her to discern how she felt. If anything, she was just so tired

She turned away to lean her head against the wall. There were no more enemies. No good guys, no bad guys.