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Winter fell, and the snowstorms came thick and fast, especially up north. It was somehow fitting that the homestretch of the race was spent in the mountains and woods of Montana. Remind the racers that even as they drew nearer to the end, the harsh conditions wouldn’t ease up, right?
Mills and I knew we were behind. We’d sacrificed whatever edge we had over Rosewood to lose him. If we let him pass us, we’d be safe. At least for now. In such dangerous conditions, we knew there was no way he’d come back for us. Why make the trek twice? But it was darkening, and snow was beginning to fall, thick and heavy. We were nowhere near the next checkpoint. We decided to stop in a little mountain town on the edge of a forest, at least for the night. We were behind already, what could one night more do?
“You think we’re off course at all?” Mills said as we tied our horses to a post outside an inn.
“Nah,” I assured him, voice muffled against my scarf. It really was cold; even just standing still for a few seconds as we secured our horses gave way for little mountains of thick, powdery snow to build on our shoulders. I brushed Mills’ shoulders off for him and led him into the inn.
“But I haven’t seen any other racers for miles,” he protested, chewing his lower lip nervously,
“The course gets all willy-nilly in the mountains,” I said. In truth, I had no idea whether we were off-course or not. I had suspected that we were when we hadn’t been able to find the next checkpoint. But in the end, it didn't matter. Checkpoints were to gauge how far along you were, and who was ahead or behind. But if you skipped them, it didn’t add or detract from your final score. In fact, there was a roaring black-market secret trade in towns that held checkpoints; racers traded precious food and kisses and sometimes more for shortcuts. The shortcuts were often ruthless and dangerous, but wasn’t everything? Everyone lost sight of their competitive morals months ago. Including Mills and I. Yet we’d refrained from taking shortcuts; it was our first large-scale race, and we both thought it better if we stayed on course to the best of our ability.
“Guess so,” Mills replied. “Just worried,” he muttered.
“I know,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “But we’ll get an early start tomorrow and everything will be fine; woods days aren’t so bad, right?”
Woods days often provided refuge from racers like Rosewood, who’d marked us easy prey and made it their mission to take out some competition. Veteran racers, and even some newcomer champions, could be pretty vicious. But I could feel the uneasiness in Mills’ shrug. We were both thinking it; right now, seeing another racer would be a comfort. At least we’d know we were on track. If things got ugly, we could hold our own for certain. The sight of another racer would be welcome. But Mills let the subject drop, at least for the moment.
“Awful storm,” Mills greeted the man at the counter. It was warm in the inn, and there was a fire roaring beneath the mantel. I knew we’d picked a good place to stop. Snowflakes drifted past the windows; from inside, the little town looked like a candlelit painting. Past the village, the sky was pitch black, and all I could make out in the distance were the shadows of trees.
“You can say that again,” the man said. He had a smoker’s voice, but the smell was not on him. His eyes were earnest. “Gotta be upfront with you two kids. You’re racers, right?”
“Yeah,” Mills said, fidgeting a bit. “Why?’
“You got in just a little late,” the innkeeper said. “All the rooms are full. But I don’t wanna let racers go unhoused on a night like tonight. So I’ll let you in on a secret.”
I shuffled over to where Mills stood, sticking my hands in my pocket. What he was about to tell us seemed important, and I didn’t want to miss it.
“There’s a cabin just a little ways outside the village, in the woods. It’s only a little while from here on horseback. You can stay there tonight, no charge. Just be gone in the morning.”
So Mills and I thanked the man and stumbled back out into the storm. The wind was howling something awful, but the snow itself wasn’t yet anything to worry about. So we mounted our horses again, and set off toward the woods, letting street lamps guide us, for there were no stars in the sky.
After some while, we reached the snowy wood. Wind whipped at our faces, turning us red and raw. The further we got from the streets of the little village, the darker our surroundings became, until we could only see vague shadows of one another, black against the snow. We dismounted our horses and walked them through the woods, hoping the cabin we were told about was closeby.
“You’re shivering,” I muttered, walking closer to Mills. I felt like my hand was frozen to the reins of my horse.
“No shit,” he said, and I could hear a slight grin in his voice. “You think I might be a little cold?”
“We can start a fire when we get to the cabin,” I promised.
“You still got those matches?”
I felt around in my pockets for the precious box. Yes, I had the matches. My sigh of relief told him everything. We walked for a while more, until our legs began to hurt and our shoes were wet with snow. Here we stood, in this dark, unfamiliar wood, with nowhere to go. It was freezing cold and snowing, and our stomachs ached and our muscles twinged with pain, and our horses pawed the ground uneasily. There was a sense of dread in the back of my mind, in some primal corner of my heart.
Mills had lost his sarcasm. I slipped my arm through my horse’s reins and then wrapped Mills in a hug while we both stood for a moment, shivering.
“You know somethin’, Scott?” Mills asked me, his voice brittle and thin.
I shook my head; I was taller than him, enough so that my chin rested in his thick, bushy hair. He felt me say no.
“I think that fucker in the inn lied to us.”
And there it was. The bombshell I’d been too afraid to think about. It sent a shiver through me in a different way than the cold. The innkeeper had lied. He’d lied, and here we were in an unfamiliar forest, in a snowstorm, in the middle of the night. We had no idea if we were off course or not. We were tired and hungry and scared. I felt hot tears pricking in the corners of my eyes, and my arms went limp.
“Hey,” Mills said, released from my hug. He apprehended my hand in his iron grip and dug his nails into my palm. “Don’t cry, okay?”
“How did you – ?”
“We’re gonna be okay,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “Let’s get back on our horses and look for a cave or something.”
We did. And as wind whistled in our ears and snow drifted down over us, I let myself cry a bit, because I was only nineteen, and I was scared. This wasn’t like our rift with Rosewood. We could hold our own in a fight. We had a few knives, some matches – we could defend ourselves against any racer.
But now…now, we were truly alone. The last checkpoint we’d hit had been three weeks ago. We hadn’t seen any other racers in days. If we got lost, no one would know where we were. And what good were weapons against freezing or starvation? We couldn’t fight when the only enemy was our own isolation. So I let myself cry, but only when the wind was loud and the trees made it pitch dark, because I didn’t want Mills to see.
Finally, we reached a craggy structure carved where the forest met the mountain. It was a cave. I want to say relief flooded me, but it was just the blood beginning to pump through my body again as I dismounted my horse and went to stand with Mills. The buttons on my spine ached, my lips felt frozen. We were lost. But we had shelter, and so the primal creature in the back of my mind purred and curled up.
“This looks good,” was all Mills managed. So we bound our horses to trees outside the cave and went inside. I felt guilty leaving my horse in the storm. She pawed the ground nervously when I left her. I left my satchel on her neck to assure her I was coming back.
In the cave, Mills and I sat close together. It was spacious, but we couldn’t tell to what extent in the pitch darkness. I lit a match, illuminating the space around us. There was some strange smell in the cave, like rotting meat. But I was too tired to mention it.
“We should start a fire,” Mills said weakly, his eyes already half-closed. In the light of the match, I could see how truly awful he looked; his light brown skin was almost grey with the cold, and tears and snot were frozen on his face. I felt a twinge in my chest. I wanted to build a fire, I did. But we were already half-asleep, and the cold wasn’t so bad inside the cave. Mills and I huddled together for warmth, and because we both needed human affection. I put out the match on my palm, trying to return some warmth to my skin.
We slept, and the storm let up and the winds quieted outside the little cave. I awoke in the night – or I think it was still the night, it was pitch dark – and it was eerily quiet. Gently, so as not to wake him, I wrestled my way out of Mills’ arms and spent a few moments massaging the feeling back into my stiff limbs. Finally, I stood, my knees still weak and my calves still aching. But I stood, and I was steady enough to walk. I lit a match and I began to explore the cave.
It was wide open and empty; it may have been very deep, but there were walls of rock blocking off further exploration, for which I was almost glad. There was still dread building in my stomach, a familiar feeling now. The primal creature in the back of my mind was stirring. I uneasily made my way through the cave where I had slept minutes earlier. A shiver passed over me, and I felt so vulnerable. A stray wind blew through the cave, and for a moment, the flame at the end of my match grew, illuminating more of the cave. Then I saw it.
It was a large, dark mass in a previously unexplored corner of the cave. As soon as I saw it, I smelt it. It was like rotting meat, like some awful, bloody thing. Like a nightmare of rot and despair. Everything in my body screamed for me to run, but I instead got closer. My heart pounded in my chest, and my stomach turned over. How could I have slept through this smell? I held my match up to the mound of flesh, and gagged.
It was the mauled carcass of a black bear. Its fur was matted with blood, flies buzzing around it. I could see bones and gore and things I couldn’t have imagined I’d see when I lit the match. Immediately I put it out, my body and mind both screaming for me to run. Only my voice didn’t seem to work. All I knew was that whatever had done this to an adult black bear could do it to Mills and I too. I shook him awake, my throat dry and my words like whispers as I warned him of what I saw.
“We have to go!” I tried to scream. “We have to go now, right now, please, let’s go, Mills, I’m so –”
“What happened?” he asked, digging his nails into my arm. I couldn’t even feel it.
“There’s a – there’s a big, dead – dead bear!” I managed to get out, and I must have been babbling. But Mills didn’t question me. He grabbed what little we’d brought into the cave and followed me outside.
“There was a bear,” I said, taking great gulps of air. My lungs felt too big for my chest. “There was a dead bear in the cave. It wasn’t just dead, it had its insides all carved out. There were flies all around it, and I – whatever did that could do it to us too!” I burst out, hot tears building up in my eyes.
“Holy shit,” Mills said, looking a bit sick. “We need to go. We need to get out of these fucking woods.”
I nodded, trying to hold back from sobbing. I felt sick, and I was weak and tired and in pain, and I was so scared. I was so scared. We got on our horses and set off through the woods. It was still pitch dark, but I could see the blue light of dawn peeking over the mountains in the far distance. I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths as we rode through the forest.
As we rode, I managed to stop shivering. Still though, my heart pounded against my ribcage, and I couldn’t keep horrible things from springing into my mind. Guts unspooled and eyes pecked out and the smell of slaughter and –
We had been riding for what felt like forever when we reached another, bigger village. It was dawn now, the sky grey and blue and cloudy. I saw Mills’ face properly when we dismounted our horses and began to walk through the quiet cobblestone streets. His lips were blue, and again, my heart ached. I wanted us to find somewhere to sleep, maybe even eat. It was true I needed it, but I wanted it for Mills. I couldn’t stand to see him look ill. And he did look ill; I was sure we both did.
We stopped at a bar with rooms for rent above the restaurant. Once we tethered our horses to the posts outside, we lumbered into the bar. I thought it was just late enough in the morning that it might be open for breakfast, and it was. I hoped we had enough money to pay for food, however little.
“You two look like shit,” the bartender greeted us conversationally. “Racers?”
“Who’s asking?” Mills shot back cautiously. Even as tired and sick as he was, he kept his edge. I was about to say yes.
“Just me,” the man said, raising his hands in surrender. “We’ve been getting a lot of racers comin’ in here. The checkpoint’s in the town square. They go get it, and then come in here to rest. For the past three days, it’s been non-stop racers. I ain’t complainin’; they buy lotsa food.”
Mills and I exchanged looks. I could have kissed him then, myself. We were back on track. The checkpoint was close. We were out of the woods, both literally and figuratively.
“Yeah, we’re racers,” Mills said, pulling his scarf around him. He shivered.
“Ah,” the man said. “Thought so. Like I said, all my customers’ve been racers lately. Like them two.”
He gestured to a pair of concerningly young racers at the end of the counter, a boy and a girl. Neither of them could’ve been over seventeen. Briefly, I ruminated on how risky it was for children to be able to register for such a dangerous race. I thought back to the cave, and goosebumps erupted over my arms. Dread stirred up in my stomach again, and I swallowed it. No, we were safe. We were back on course. But I still couldn’t help but feel like a prey animal, running from some great creature which hunted me.
While I thought, Mills ordered us breakfast and two mugs of fiery whisky. I knew it was a bad idea to get drunk, but the way I felt, I was fairly sure it would just put me to sleep. Mills and I both needed it. So we ate like we were starved and drank like it was the last drop of liquid we’d ever see. Mills was negotiating with the innkeeper to get us a room, and I felt myself get up to go sit with the young racers. My limbs felt oddly heavy, and I all but collapsed into a seat next to them.
“Oh,” the girl said, her eyes very wide. “Are you a racer too?”
I found the strength to nod.
“I’m Juliet,” she said. There was a boy sitting next to her, but the way she was sitting made it very difficult to see him. I could see blond hair and stained gauze. Again, dread rose in my stomach.
“I’m Scott,” I said, my voice very weak. “How long have you been here?”
“Here?” Juliet scrunched up her face and rested her hand on the counter. “I arrived last night. Got the checkpoint and then slept here. There was an awful snowstorm just outside of town last night, so I wanted to be safe.”
Had it really only been last night? It felt like the snowstorm had lasted for days. But something about what she’d said bothered me.
“You arrived here last night,” I said. “What about him?”
“He’s not a racer,” Juliet said, her face hardening. My eyelids fluttered a bit, and I tried to wake myself up.
“He’s not a racer?”
“He’s not a racer,” she repeated. “He’s out of the race. They’re sending a convoy to get him soon. I’m saying goodbye before I leave today.”
Through the fog of my mind, I remembered something. The company behind the race would send a convoy to collect a racer if they were incapacitated during the race and they were able to be located. But this boy didn’t look incapacitated. I peered over Juliet’s shoulder, trying to look at him. He had shaggy blond hair, and very scared brown eyes, and his mouth was covered in bloody gauze. Fear spiked in my chest. I looked down at the hand Juliet had rested on the counter, and saw it was wrapped in gauze too.
“I think you should go,” she said quietly, pulling her sleeve over her bandaged hand. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I wanted very badly to ask what had happened to Juliet’s friend, but Mills came over and swept me upstairs.
“I got us a room,” he told me, looking extremely relieved. “But we only have a couple of hours, so we need to sleep. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. He chewed his bottom lip nervously as he looked up at me.
“You okay?”
I nodded yes, because I wanted him to sleep, and I wanted to forget about dead bears and bloody gauze and endless snowstorms. So when we entered our room, we both collapsed into bed and slept a dreamless sleep.
I was glad my sleep was dreamless. I didn’t want to face the things I’d seen again. When I awoke, I felt refreshed. The feeling was almost foreign. Mills was still asleep, and even though I was scared, I didn’t want to wake him. I padded down the stairs of the inn, back into the bar. Part of me wanted to hurry and get the checkpoint while Mills was asleep, just to get it out of the way. But what if he awoke and saw my horse was gone? My heart ached. I didn’t want him to think I left. So I sat at the bar, thinking.
As midday rolled around, traffic in the bar increased. More racers on their way to or from the checkpoint. I recognised one slightly older racer; he had intervened once at a checkpoint when Rosewood had confronted me. Mills was putting our names on the list, and I was alone, and this racer had walked over, the pistol in his holster glinting in the sun. He’d asked Rosewood if there was a problem, and the situation diffused. Afterward, he took me to meet his horse. I went and sat with him.
“Glory!” I heard myself say, my voice a bit stronger after plenty of rest and food. He looked up, his brown eyes a little melancholy. But he brightened when he saw me.
“Hey, Parker,” he said, offering a lopsided smile. I sat down next to him. “How’ve you been? That bastard leavin’ you alone?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We had to go off-course to finally lose him, though.”
“Asshole,” Glory amended. He still looked sad, so I peered into his eyes, drinking in every speck in them. He noticed me staring.
“But, you…went off-course?” he said, prompting me to continue. “How’d that go?”
“Oh,” I said, the dread returning. In the back of my mind, the primal creature stirred. If I told people about what happened, it would make it more real. I looked out the window of the inn; it was snowing again, and it couldn’t have been past than one o’clock, but the sky was already greying with the storm.
“What happened when you went off-course?” he asked again.
“My…partner and I,” I said, stumbling over words. “We got lost in some woods. Had to sleep in a cave during a massive storm.” I didn’t mention the bear. Glory nodded, his mouth slightly agape.
“You think partnerships are a good idea this far down the line?” he asked, looking a little sad.
“We’ve always raced together,” I said. “Since the start of the race. Neither of us wins without the other.”
“They won’t let you both win,” he said.
“We’re not going to win,” I said. In my mouth, the words felt oddly-shaped. Out in the open air, it was an odd admission. Immediately, I felt fear. Maybe Mills was going to abandon me at the end. Maybe he always planned to win without me. Maybe I was stupid for thinking we would finish together instead of winning.
Glory opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out.
“I had a partner for a while,” he said, managing a small smile. “For a few months. Wes. He left me behind. Said they wouldn’t let us both win.”
My heart ached. The primal creature wasn’t doing this to me; it wasn’t a worry related to survival. It was just a worry that I might lose someone I loved. I must have looked sad, because when Glory continued, he was blinking back tears.
“Anyway, it’s just been me and Reno for a while,” he said, offering a smile to keep the peace. “My horse, you know. And the course. Went off-course for a while, though.”
“You did?” I said. “How did it go for you?”
“Don’t remember much of it, actually,” he said thoughtfully. “Missed both the Colorado checkpoints, and that’s all I know. I guess I blocked out the rest.”
He finished eating and set off to snag the checkpoint, telling me he’d be back later. I went upstairs to wake Mills. As I walked down the hall, I heard something from within one of the rooms, just beyond the wooden door. My heart jumped, and I pressed an ear up against the wood to hear.
There was a crying sound, and some sort of snarling. I strained my ears, trying to catch any sounds of talking, but all I heard were the whimpers of a wounded animal. I felt sick, and yet, my hands scrambled for the doorknob. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. But there was no one around, and the door was unlocked, and suddenly, I was inside the room. It was just as cosy as Mills’ and mine, but immediately, fear gripped me, and the primal creature rose up inside me. It hated to hear other animals cry.
In the middle of the room, there was a large bed with a woollen comforter, just like in my room. However, curled up on the comforter was the boy I had seen earlier. His gauze was removed, revealing a terrible mouth with rows of sharp, reptile teeth. His cheeks had been split open to make room for more teeth, and blood spilled out from the gashes. I felt my gag reflex building in my throat, fear wrapping its brittle fingers around my heart and digging its nails into me. What was this boy? This creature? What was happening? I stumbled back in horror, and he saw me. His eyes were wide and brown, and very scared.
“Please,” he whispered. Everything in me screamed to run, to flee and never look back. But I felt frozen. It was all too familiar. Here he was, another dead bear. And there I stood, poised to run away.
“Please,” he repeated, his speech garbled by his reptilian tongue and his sharp teeth, not to mention all the blood in his mouth. “Is she…did I…did I hurt Jules?”
I thought back, somehow. I thought back to the girl he had been with, who told me he was out of the race. I thought of her bandaged hand. Yes, he must have hurt her. Didn’t he remember?
Glory didn’t, I thought. But it didn’t make any sense. What was happening? Tears rolled down my cheeks. I shook my head no.
“No,” I choked out. “No, you didn’t hurt her. She’s going to be okay. She sent a convoy for you. To pick you up.”
“I’m gonna die soon,” he whispered, and I knew from the sheer amount of blood that he was right. I could smell it in the air, all over the room. “You should go. You…you don’t want to see it.”
He was right, I didn’t want to see it. But I had seen enough now that it didn’t matter either way.
“Please…go,” he choked out. Colour was draining from his face. “Tell Jules…tell her I’m sorry…if you see her when the race…when the race is…over…”
I don’t think he was dead. But he closed his eyes at that moment, maybe unconscious. I stumbled out of his room and back to my own, where I collapsed into bed with Mills. He stirred a bit, and I think he must have smelled the scent of blood on me, because he bolted upright, terror in his eyes. I wasn’t bleeding, and I hadn’t touched the boy at all. The scent was so thick in the air it must have soaked into my clothes. I had the sudden urge to strip, even if I didn’t have anything else to wear.
“What happened?” Mills asked. He wasn’t groggy; he was wide awake, eyes frantic.
“It’s okay,” I tried to say. I tried to calm him, because I wanted him to rest. But he knew in one look that it wasn’t okay.
“What’s going on, Scott?” he said, the colour draining from his face.
“Someone,” I managed to say. “Someone, another racer…he got hurt.”
“Got hurt how?” Mills said, an edge in his voice that scared me.
“Don’t know,” I whispered. “But his mouth was all cut open and he – I think he attacked a girl he was with.”
“A girl,” Mills said, standing up. He paced around the room, head in his hands. “Not many girl racers.” He blushed. “The one you were talking to earlier, was it her?”
I nodded, feeling numb all over.
“What the hell is happening…?” Mills said. He hugged his arms to his sides. In that moment, I was struck by a wave of longing. I remember what I’d thought earlier when I was talking to Glory. I thought if Mills left me, I might die, like the boy in the bed in a pool of his own blood.
I shook my head, my mouth falling open. In truth, I had no idea what was happening. I looked out the window. It was snowing.
“We need to go,” Mills said. “We need to get the fuck out of here. We need to snag the checkpoint and hightail it out of this leg of the race.” His voice was higher than normal. “We need to go now.”
“Okay,” I managed. “Okay, let’s go now.”
So we left without a word to the innkeeper, carefully avoiding the room in which the boy had died when we walked down the hall. We rode to the town square and Mills went to put our names on the checkpoint list. I was alone. It was mostly quiet there, and the storm was nothing like the one from the day before. The snow drifted gently down, and there were no harsh winds. At that moment, I let a tear roll down my cheek. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was for the dead boy, or for Glory, or even for the bear. Maybe it wasn’t for any reason at all.
I saw something as I walked around the square. In an alleyway between little glowing shops, I saw Glory crouched. I approached him, but something in the back of my mind told me not to. I felt a familiar visceral feeling as I drew nearer.
“Glory?” I said. “What are you doing?”
He turned his head very slowly, and I felt every hair on the back of my neck stand up as he did. His eyes were wide and his jaw was slack, revealing cracks in his teeth. Horror shot through me and I stumbled backward.
“Can you help me?” he whispered. “There’s something in my chest, I can feel it.”
He held several small rocks in his hand. I was going to be sick. I forced myself to stay.
“Glory, what’s happening to you?” I choked out.
“I don’t know,” he replied, and his golden-brown eyes were so earnest. “I think it happened in Colorado. In the leg of the race I don’t remember.”
He was so lucid. He was still there. He had been carrying this with him since Colorado, and he was still himself. He was still the kind-eyed, sad-smiled racer who protected me from Rosewood. I will never forgive myself for it, but in my cowardice, I ran. I ran back to Mills, and I didn’t bother telling him what I had seen. I knew now it had to be something that was afflicting the racers. Maybe the bear was connected, maybe it wasn’t. But something was happening to the racers.
Mills and I rode for a long while, through forests and mountain roads and piny underbrush. But we didn’t see another racer until we reached a snowy wood at the base of a mountain and night was almost upon us. It was dark, and both of us were weary of approaching another racer, but he came to us.
“Good evening,” he said. “It’s a comfort to see racers here. It’s very easy to become lost in this leg of the race.”
“Yeah,” Mills said. Our horses slowed to walk beside him. He had dark skin and green eyes. I was able to make them out by their glint in the dim light.
“These forests are very dangerous,” he added. “Even I am fearful when I cross through the woods in these mountains.”
“What do you know about these woods?” I heard myself say.
“Strange things can happen to those who cross through these woods,” he said. I felt like my heart skipped a beat. The man sped up a bit. “I do not like to stop here,” he said. “I will see you on the other side.”
Mills and I nodded a solemn goodbye, and his figure grew smaller and smaller in the distance until he was gone. It was no longer snowing, and it was completely night now.
“Let’s not stop,” I said impulsively. “We slept earlier. Let’s just go all the way through.”
So we did. I thought more about what Glory had said, and felt sick. The last time I had seen him was so strange. What was happening to him? Had it been because of the woods? But, no, he had said it was in Colorado that it had happened. Maybe multiple locations had this power over those of us unlucky enough to stray off-course.
But then, what would become of us? Mills and I, we had certainly been lost in these woods. What would happen? Would our mouths split open, would we grow claws, would we become animals? In the darkest corner of my heart, a primal creature purred.
It was not snowing, not yet. But the wind howled and lashed at my face, and I felt vulnerable. In the cold, dark forest, I felt more like a prey animal than a man. I watched Mills out of the corner of my eye, wondering what he was thinking. A horrible thought struck me – what if he was thinking of leaving me? What if he was planning it already? What if he had been for months, and I, like a fool, had allowed myself to be strung along?
We rode on, and my chest ached. I felt weak. I slumped against the neck of my horse, tangling my fingers in her mane. I was so cold, and my stomach was growling. I was like a wounded deer, clinging to life as I bled out. Guts unspooling like the bear in the cave. Mills was going to leave me. I was going to die in the snow in the mountains in Montana.
I would never tell Juliet her friend was sorry, I thought dimly, closing my eyes. We rode on.
The night was long and cold. The wind bit at me. I felt like I was bleeding. My neck and back hurt, my legs and arms were stiff, my shoulders aching. I thought of Mills as the grey-blue light of dawn rose far, far off in the distance. I thought of his eyes, his gentle smile. Every freckle on his face. I thought of his cold hands and his blue lips. I wanted to cry, but the tears seemed to freeze on my lashes. My chest felt hollow and my stomach felt like it was eating itself.
The day bore on, and the sun rose higher in the sky, still obscured by grey snowy clouds. I drifted in and out of sleep, my hazy mind conjuring up images of dead things and nests in the snowy underbrush. I saw an image of Mills in my dreams, and I woke up gasping for air. I looked over to him.
He was slumped down over his horse, probably asleep. Our horses trotted slowly along, maybe they were asleep too. Maybe we were all sleepwalkers. My chest ached, my heart clawing against my ribcage and trying to get impossibly closer to him. I wanted to curl up, to nestle against him, like wounded animals in their underground nest clung to each other as they waited for death.
We rode on and on, until finally, our horses slowed and our stomachs growled, and we had no choice but to stop. We found shelter in a small clearing, and we built ourselves a little fire in the snow, moving through the actions like corpses. When the fire began crackling and dancing, we sat beside it and warmed ourselves. I could feel Mills looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“You’re sick,” he muttered into his scarf after a while.
“You are too,” I protested. It was true; his lips were blue again, his skin almost colourless. All the focus had left his normally sharp eyes. He scoffed.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re both sick. They’ll take good care of us when we pull past the finish line in Washington.”
I peered at him, blood rushing to my cheeks.
“We’re not going to win,” I said, casting my gaze down.
“I’d count us getting through these fucked up woods as a win,” he said.
“Yeah,” I breathed back.
“If we finish the race at all,” he continued. “We might as well have won.” He moved a little closer. I was visited by a mad desire to kiss him, but he looked so sick that I held myself back. I think it was the fever that sent the urge pulsing through me. Instead, I moved a little closer too, and I put my arm around him. He rested his head on my shoulder and for a moment, we both simply listened to the beating of each other’s hearts and the steady in-and-out breathing.
Somewhere, an owl hooted. The wind was calm. Snowflakes drifted down from the sky, but a little fall of snow couldn’t hurt us now. I drifted to sleep in front of the fire with Mills, ruminating on what had happened and where we’d go from there.
In the night, I awoke, and found Mills was not there. Immediately, I cried out, a sound of pain and despair. But I soon realised that Mills’ horse remained tied to the tree he’d bound him too earlier. Gently, I pet the horse’s mane, thinking. Maybe Mills had gone into the woods to relieve himself; yeah, that made sense. Still, fear crept over me as I tried to find my way in the dark; I didn’t want to waste precious matches. It was eerily quiet in the woods, and dread rose up within me, choking me. I heard odd scuttling and scampering as I traversed the unfamiliar land. I felt eyes on me from every angle, and I wrapped my arms protectively around myself. Here I was, the hunted. And my hunter, the whole world, enveloped me in this black wood.
A little ways away from the clearing, I found Mills. He was choking and spitting, some dark sludge festering in a puddle at his feet. I thought maybe he had thrown up, and it scared me, but I was almost relieved it was something so normal. He held onto a tree to steady himself as he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.
“I’m okay,” he spluttered. “Felt really sick, but I’ll be okay.”
My heart pounded weakly against my ribcage, and my legs felt shaky. I hated to see Mills hurt. In the back of my mind, something primal was crying.
“Are you sure?” I whispered, my voice cracking a bit. He nodded, choking a little.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “But we should go.”
He was afraid of what the other racer had told us. How long ago had it been? Only a day? It felt like so much more. We’d been in these woods for so long; maybe we were dying, like Glory and like the boy at the inn. I hated thinking they were dead. Some weak thing in me tried to swim up the surface, reaching its slender fingers up to touch my heart. It wanted me to consider that Glory might not be dead. That the boy from earlier might not be dead. That I might have imagined all of it. I’d rather mistrust my own conscience than believe this could be happening.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. He held my arm to steady himself as I led him back to where we’d tethered our horses. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he clung to me as we made our way back to the burned-out embers of our previous fire. We mounted our horses, and again, we were off. Time was beginning to lose meaning. It must have been the middle of the night, and yet, we rode.
The winds were unforgiving as we made our way through the trees, but we pressed on. Dawn had broken, its eerie pale light illuminating the sky, and we finally reached a snowy village. We were at the base of a mountain now, the woods must have taken us down. In truth, I had no idea what the geography of our location was. I prayed we were near the end of this mountainous leg of the race, but it was only a prayer. I helped Mills dismount his horse, and he leaned on me as we led our horses through the streets, to the town square.
We reached the square and I was disappointed to find that it was not a checkpoint town. Relief thrummed through me, though, when I realised that we were on track; in the square, there were stalls of vendors, hoping to sell to the racers (I wanted to laugh – didn’t they know we had no money left?) and beside the town hall, a wooden board with a map of the course carved into it. I turned to Mills, recognition glinting in his eyes. In the morning light, he still looked so unhealthy. But his eyes were sharp once again, and I felt some of the strength returning to my legs, and maybe we were going to be alright. I allowed myself this feeble hope, but it washed over me so strongly that I gripped Mills’ shoulder to steady myself. This one sliver of hope was like a decadent meal, like the richest wine.
We tethered our horses to a post at the edge of the square. There were a few patrons of the stalls, but none of them looked to be racers. Mills and I consulted the map, and we found something beautiful; we were near the end of the mountainous part of the race. There was one more wooded area, and then we’d reach the checkpoint that marked the end of the Montana leg of the race. We would be in Idaho.
I saw Mills’ eyes rove over the map, relief flooding his face. I was visited again by an odd desire to kiss him – maybe I could bring some colour back to his blue lips – but I tried my best to ignore the feeling. I pushed it to the back of my mind, where it sat with the dead bear and the dying boy and Glory. They all waited for me to come collect them so I could properly process them. The primal creature cried, it didn’t want to sit among them. I ignored all of it.
“We got any money left?” Mills asked me. I knew he knew the answer; we had spent the last of our money at the inn. I felt slightly sick remembering the inn, and I tried to focus on something else.
“We might be able to get some food at the next checkpoint,” I said carefully. There was a chance this was true, but it depended on who was waiting at the checkpoint, and who had already been there. Still, Mills nodded. So we mounted our horses again and set off. It was tedious and we were so tired, but we knew we would reach the next city soon enough.
As we rode, I flexed my fingers, trying to get my blood pumping again. I was so confident we would clear the forest in one day, that we would not spend another night in the woods. But even as our horses galloped valiantly, the sun sank in the sky and I knew we were nowhere near the edge of the woods.
“We won’t make it,” I wheezed out, unsure of whether or not my voice could be heard over the sound of hooves beating and wind whistling. “Not before nightfall.” My chest ached and my throat felt raw.
“We will,” I heard Mills say, but he sounded unsure. I stole a glance toward him out of the corner of my eye, my heart jumping when I spied him. I felt my face growing warm, heat rising in my stomach. I couldn’t think why, I must have been so feverish. The beginning snowflakes of the approaching storm sizzled against my cheeks. It was such an odd sensation.
As we powered on, the storm worsened. It was darkening, and our horses were slowing. We were getting tired earlier on, and so were our steeds. We could no longer go entire nights with no rest. My breathing was laboured, and my joints hurt. My head ached. I knew Mills must have felt it too, for he finally dug his heel into the side of his horse to bring her to a stop. The sky was dark, and the canopy of twisting trees above us blocked out what little moonlight strained through the clouds. As Mills and I tethered our horses to trees, my limbs all felt heavy and stiff. I moved slowly, as if in a dream. My jaws ached and my temples pounded. I felt hot all over, even in the bitter cold.
“I don’t feel well,” Mills muttered, lowering himself to the ground. I followed suit, and as soon as my body made contact with the wet snow, I felt dizzy. The intense change in temperatures thrummed through me, and I could feel blood pumping in my veins. My horse pawed the ground, and I could hear her uneasy breathing. In the back of my mind, the primal creature was snarling, drooling blood.
“You don’t look well,” I heard myself say, my voice sounding horribly far away.
“You don’t look well,” he returned. “I think your nose is bleeding.”
I reached my numb fingers up, dipping them in the warm blood dribbling from my nose. It was as I had suspected. A lump rose in my throat.
“C’mere,” Mills said, and I gathered up what little strength I had to come nearer to him. My heart hammered against my chest, trying to get impossibly closer. I thought then, I’d roll onto my stomach for him just to feel his heart against my back. If he asked me to, I’d do just about anything for him.
But he didn’t ask. He just cupped my face in his frozen hands, and the creature in the back of my mind purred. He met my eyes with his green ones. I felt something rising in the pit of my stomach. Such a strange sensation, such heat gripping me in such cold. I thought I might be thawing the little icy patterns that spiralled over Mills’ skin.
“You’re so warm,” he breathed. He laid his hand over my forehead. “You’re burning up.”
My jaw ached, my temples pounded. I felt hot blood dripping from my nose. I reached my hands up, my fingers scrabbling weakly against Mills’ hands. I wanted so badly to hold him. I wanted him, I wanted him.
I love you, Mills, my memories all said. My heart beat in time to a song his breath sang. We were built to be together, to be friends, to fit into each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I loved him. I love him. Everything in my body was harmonious for that one moment, and I stared at him with lust and hunger and love all entwined as one.
“I think you need to sleep,” he said clumsily, dropping his hands from my face. “I think we both need it, really.”
And he was right. But I didn’t want to sleep. My body was buzzing, I must have been trembling. I needed something.
But I agreed; of course I agreed. I would have done anything Mills asked of me. As we drifted off to sleep, I thought I heard him speak my name. But I was so feverish it might have been the wind, and I’d think it all the same.
Sometime in the night, I awoke. Mills was so close, and I could hear his laboured breathing. I could hear how sick he sounded, and my heart thudded in my chest. I could tell my sleep had been restless, even though I didn’t remember it. I was sweating and shivering, and I was somehow both tired and understimulated. I wanted to bite something, to claw something, to draw blood and taste it in my mouth. I licked my lips.
As soon as I recognised the feeling within myself, fear and nausea rose in my chest. What was this violence? This brutality? What was happening to me? What if I was going to die? Bile rose in my throat, and I forced myself to stand on shaky legs, stumbling off into the woods.
I had barely made it fifty feet from where Mills slept before I was down on my knees, emptying the contents of my stomach into the snow before me. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, and I think my nose must have started bleeding again. The wind was brutal, and the snow was so wet and cold. I was burning up, and everything hurt. I was dying. I was dying, I knew I was. I was an animal, and I was dying.
Dimly, through the haze of my anguish, I realised that whatever happened to the boy from earlier must be happening to me. I let out a sob, drawing in sharp breaths that hurt my chest and my ribs. As soon as I had finished vomiting, I stumbled even further from Mills, leaning against a tree. I rubbed my forehead against the rough bark, the buttons on my spine aching as I bent forward. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands, sobbing and snarling, trying to hold onto bits and pieces of myself.
Sharp teeth cut into my cheeks and tongue, and I knew it was over. It was over. It was over. The blood had started pouring, the primal creature was clawing and shrieking, and I was dying. For a moment, there were no tears anymore. Animals never cry. All I was aware of was my sharpening teeth, and the pain all over my body. I was only aware of myself, and my voracity.
And then a horrible thought struck me through the haze of pain and blood; I had seen Mills vomit earlier. The memory was foggy. How long ago had it been? Only a day or two, I knew, but I couldn’t remember. Mills knelt like I did, he was sick like I was. A sob wracked through me and I shuddered. What if he was going to die too?
The thought of it grounded me. I was so much more real, so much more human. I had the heart of a man, and it beat for my racing partner, Mills. He kept me human. I could continue being human, if I loved him enough. If he asked me to.
I let out an anguished sob, clutching my chest. It was like howling to the moon. But my teeth no longer hurt and my bones no longer ached, and I was granted one day more. Whatever was happening to me, I could stop it. I knew I could. Vomit the poison. Keep being human. For Mills.
In my heightened state, I only vaguely registered the sound of someone crashing through the wood toward me. But once I picked up on it, I was back on guard in a second. I could barely see in the pitch black forest, so I stretched my arms forth, trying to feel who was there. But then I heard Mills speak.
“Scott!” he called out, sounding wrecked. “Scott, please answer me!”
My fear melted away, and my heart jumped.
“I’m here, Mills,” I called back, wheezing slightly. “Right here…”
He found me in the dark, digging his nails into my hands. I wanted more. I wanted him. He was often so hesitant to touch; it drove me mad. I grabbed his shoulders and rested my head against his.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, his voice slightly higher than normal. I nodded, my heart hammering. I was okay. I would be okay.
“Something is happening to me,” I whispered into his hair. My speech was garbled, and I became painfully aware of it.
“You’re sick,” he breathed, bringing his hand up to feel the back of my neck. “You’re burning up, we need to get you help.”
Briefly, I remembered Juliet telling me she’d sent a convoy to get her friend. He had died. He had died and he had asked me to tell her he was sorry. Fear zipped through me, and I was so much more lucid. So much more myself.
It was something so strange, wasn’t it? I didn’t know what was happening to me. Maybe it was happening to all of us. Maybe just being in this race was turning all of us into animals. Maybe nothing was happening, and I was just cracking under the pressure. Still, some things kept me there, kept me lucid. Mills, Juliet’s friend’s request to me.
I blushed as I thought more clearly about Mills. It was true I felt something for him, and maybe in the darkness of the night, knelt in the cold, wet snow, I could admit that to myself. Not under his eyes, though. Not when he was this close. Maybe that was why we were always so far away from each other. I could admit what I felt to myself, but I couldn’t admit it to him. And even though it kept me sane, it was also my deepest shame.
“I’m okay,” I heard myself say, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
It was pitch dark, but I could imagine Mills’ face so clear in my mind. His wide eyes, his nervous frown.
“Okay,” he said, his voice wavering slightly. I gripped his shoulder to steady myself as we tromped back to our horses.
It was so dark still, it couldn’t have been anywhere near dawn. The wind whistled forebodingly through the trees, and I shivered. I knew in my heart of hearts that we needed to get back on our feet and ride through these woods. We would be in Idaho so soon, we would be safe. Even if just for a moment. We were so close to the end.
But when we reached our clearing, Mills practically collapsed, and I was so tired and so ill that I did not bother resisting the sleepiness overtaking me. I cuddled up to Mills, feeling his hot breath on my neck.
Somewhere inside me, the primal creature purred, and as I felt Mills’ heart beat steadily against my back, my mind quieted, if only briefly.