Ryan
I open my eyes at the sound of the irritating
creeeeak from the refrigerator door. A figure is silhouetted by the light emanating from the appliance. I stare blindly at the person standing in my kitchen. With a start, I realize it's the girl from the woods, conscious, alert, and roaming my house in the middle of the night. I quickly sit up, grab the ski mask, and pull it over my face. She squeaks in surprise. I grimly wonder what that little shriek would sound like had she seen my face. Or what's left of it. I scowl, grateful the mask hides my expression.
"Oh," she says. "I didn't see you there." She's still wearing the clothes I put her in. Her long dark hair is a tangled mess and her pallor looks sickly, but that might just be the greenish hue the aurora is casting on her face. Remembering the look on her face when she asked if I changed her clothing still makes me feel sick inside. I tried to be as respectful as possible and I wish I could put the memory out of my mind entirely, but that's proving a little more difficult than expected. Despite being extremely ill, dirty, and a little smelly, she was the first female I've seen in years. And she's not hard on the eyes.
I try to focus on anything but the image of this girl partially undressed in my arms. I don't even know how old she is. She could be a teenager! She could be in high school! That thought makes me shudder.
I try to search for anything to say to her, but my mind is blank. This was much easier when she was unconscious. When she spoke, she didn't need to be answered. When she looked at me, she didn't see me, except for that time when she screamed after I closed the curtain. Even then, there was something vacant in her expression, like she was conscious but not really all there. I'm glad I wore the itchy mask, but in her fevered state, I don't think she was truly aware of anything she saw. What little she did say during her delirium was disturbing. Though most of her words were mumbled, garbled, and at least partially Spanish, I made out something about death and killing and running away. She seems very sure that someone wants to kill her. Why she believes that is beyond me. How she ended up unconscious outside my cabin, in the middle of the county with the lowest population density in the United States, is yet another sign that I must be cursed.
She's standing at the fridge, which has now closed, staring at me.
"Hungry?" I ask. It's obvious that she is, but it's the only thing I can think of to say. Her staring is making me uncomfortable. No one has looked at me since the day I set foot in this cabin, only a few months after the battle that left me crippled and scarred. In my current state, I attract stares like rotting food attracts flies. That's part of the reason I chose to forgo all human interaction, at least for the foreseeable future.
"Um - yes. I'm sorry I woke you up." She takes a small step forward and I realize she'd been pressed against the door of the fridge, cowering away from me.
I frown. I suppose the mask isn't doing me any favors, but am I really that terrifying to her? If she's going to wander around at all hours of the night, I may need to start wearing the mask 24/7. That thought is a rather unpleasant one. The scarred flesh the mask hides has very little feeling and isn't bothered by the itchy fabric, but the same is not true of the healthy skin on the left side of my face.
I stand and walk slowly over to the fridge. Like earlier in the bedroom, she watches me with much more scrutiny than I'd like. It makes me feel more aware of my limp and my crippled arm. As I approach her, she moves a few steps away, just out of reach.
"A sandwich ok?" I ask, looking at her sideways. She nods mutely. I pull out bread and jam, close the fridge, and retrieve a jar of peanut butter from the cabinet. I fumble with the bread bag, which is a little difficult to open one-handed. Along with most of my fingers, I lost much of the dexterity in my right hand in the explosion. I can perform simple tasks that only require the use of a stiff index finger and thumb, but not much else. The knowledge that she's watching me struggle with a task that a five-year-old could complete makes me more nervous, more tense, and even less capable of making a decent sandwich. I want her to go away. I throw the sad excuse for a PB&J together quickly, looking forward to her absence when she returns to the bedroom. I hand her the plate with the sandwich on it.
"Thank you," she says quietly. I grunt in response and head back to the couch. To my disappointment, she sits at the kitchen table instead of going back to the bedroom.
"What's your name?" she asks. I freeze, then turn toward her slowly, eyeing her. There's no way she could recognize me with this mask on, right?
"Ryan," I say reluctantly, pausing to determine if any spark of recognition flashes in her face. Nothing. "Yours?"
"I'm," she stops, looking at me for a few moments before continuing. "I'm Ana. A-Analise, uh, Gillman, actually."
She scratches at the back of her neck and looks extraordinarily uncomfortable. There's no way that's her real name. Silence fills the space between us. She returns to her sandwich and I stare out at the forest. My mind returns to last week when I was out there chopping wood. Or rather, trying to chop wood. I was right-handed before the explosion. Relearning how to do everything with my left hand has been a slow and frustrating process. Chopping wood left-handed has been a particularly hard skill to master. It takes about four times longer and is three times as difficult, but I've found it's a good way to clear my head. The physical exertion and concentration required leave little room for thought.
That day, I'd been trying to ignore memories of my ex-fiancee, which persist in tormenting clarity. Her honey cream hair. Her sapphire blue eyes. Her luscious red lips. Her complete and utter betrayal. I'd been hacking away at a tree for several minutes when I felt someone watching me. I'd thought it was impossible and that I must finally be losing my mind, given the extreme statistical unlikelihood of running into another person in these woods. But the feeling was so horribly unnerving that I couldn't stop myself from spinning around to look. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. A girl, this girl, was standing under a pine tree, staring at me.
Her thin jacket didn't look nearly warm enough for this weather, even with the warmer temperatures recently. The jeans she wore were dirty and soaked through. Damp and stringy dark brunette hair hung limply down her back and her skin was pale, her lips nearly blue. Dried blood was visible at her temple. Even though I wasn't wearing the mask and everything inside of me was screaming that I should hide my face from her, I just kept staring at the girl as she stared blankly at me. I had begun to wonder if she was even seeing my scars when her large brown eyes suddenly flickered shut, her knees buckled, and she fell to the ground.
"Why are you wearing that mask?" Her unexpected words pull me from the memory.
"What?" I ask.
"The mask. Why are you wearing it?"
She must not have seen my face that day under the tree. Or she can't remember like she can't remember how she got here. I feel a slight bit of disappointment. Perhaps part of me was hoping that she had seen my face and that she didn't find it as off-putting as everyone else seems to. As I do.
Lost in this reflection, I am silent for too long. She frowns. "Am I not supposed to ask?"
"I was injured in Afghanistan."
"Oh. I'm sorry." She sounds surprised. I can see the wheels turning in her head as she tries to puzzle something out. "Thank you for your service," she says finally.
I scoff. "A lot of good it did." I joined the US Army thinking I'd make a difference in the world. Like I could make it a better place, for the safety of America and civilians being oppressed by regimes. Like I could single-handedly fix conflicts in the Middle East if only I could shoot all the bad guys. Like global politics could be simplified to moral extremes, where the good guys are always right and the bad guys are always bad. I couldn't have been more ignorant.
And look what it got me. All of my friends died, including my best friend, and I saw countless civilians die. Some at my own hand. Some were innocent. Some were not.
"How did you come to live here?"
"How did you come to live here?" I instantly regret my reflexive words as she visibly recoils. I was feeling snappish after her first question and took it out on her. I feel like a jerk. "Sorry."
"I can't remember what happened. I know I was in a helicopter, but I can't remember what happened after that."
"You said someone was after you. Could that have something to do with it?"
She abruptly stands and walks to the window. I frown at her sudden refusal to speak. When I didn't want to answer her question, I at least spoke to her. I didn't ignore her existence.
"Who is Johnston?" I ask, remembering the name she asked about the first time we spoke.
"He's my han-," she stops. "My uncle," she finishes. I can feel my frown deepening. I get the sense that this Johnston guy is definitely not her uncle. This girl has a lot of secrets. Welcome to the club.
She stands at the window and looks out for a few minutes in silence. Frustrated, I turn my attention to the peaceful night sky.
"Is it like this every night?" she asks, her question finally sounding genuine and not like a covert interrogation.
"No. Auroras are most common in spring, but it only happens after solar storms. And you can't see it through clouds."
"I could watch it forever."
"The sun is coming up pretty soon. I'd like to get some more sleep while I still can." I'm not really that tired, but I'm irritated with her and ready for her to go back into the bedroom. I'm already looking forward to the day she leaves the cabin.
"Oh, I'm sorry. That's your bed, isn't it? You can have it back."
"No, it's fine, I just," I sigh. I want you to leave me alone. "I'd like to go back to sleep."
She looks back at the night sky before walking back to the bedroom. "Thanks for the sandwich," she says. I don't respond.
When I hear the door to the bedroom shut, I sigh quietly in relief and pull the mask off, setting it down nearby. I lie back down and close my eyes, but sleep doesn't come. Perhaps it's the knowledge that this girl - Ana, I guess - is awake, alert, and capable of invading my privacy. When she was unconscious, avoiding her was easy. Now, she could suddenly appear at any time.
What will I do if she sees me without the mask on? I have distant, vague memories of my short time at Walter Reed and the few people I saw there, but clear as the sun in a cloudless sky, the image of Saph's expression twisted in horror at the sight of my face pops into my head. Glaring at nothing in particular, I throw off the blanket I've been using and sit up. I won't be going back to sleep tonight. Looking for something to occupy my time before the sun rises, I pull my rifle and handgun out of the gun cabinet and set to cleaning them.
I hear a noise come from inside the bedroom. I pause, the barrel of the rifle in my left hand and my polishing cloth in my right, and listen. Nothing. Did I wake her up? I frown. Maybe I'm hearing things. I return to polishing the gun.
March 28
I take another swing at the tree. It's about as effective as the last five swings were, but it's an excellent way to channel frustration into action. The itchy ski mask detracts from the therapeutic experience. After this Ana girl leaves, I think I'm going to burn it and dance over the ashes.
What would Saph think of Ana staying here?
I can't stop myself from letting out a harsh, sharp laugh at the thought. Saph would be furious if she knew I had a girl staying with me. She was definitely the type to get jealous over an ex moving on. I savor the thought of her feeling betrayed, abandoned, jealous even. I feel my mouth twist into a grim smile as I imagine Saph feeling the way she made me feel. I grip the ax and prepare to strike the tree with another blow.
TayjaI look out the big window in the living room. At the treeline, I see Ryan trying to chop one down. It's not going particularly well for him. I've never watched someone fell a tree, but I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to take twenty minutes.He's definitely not an old man. Despite his injuries, he still seems to have plenty of power behind his swings and a surprising amount of energy. His coordination, however, certainly leaves something to be desired. He said he'd been injured in Afghanistan, so how old would that make him? If I remember history right, the war in Afghanistan started after 9/11, so he's probably no older than mid-fifties. That's still old enough to be my father.Ryan stops and drops the ax. I'm startled out of my thoughts. Is he finally going to give up? He stands still for several long seconds, just staring at the tree he's been hacking away at. He turns toward the cabin and I duck behind the curtain instinctively. When I hazard a peek, he
RyanI've been staring at the same page in this book without actually reading any of it for the last fifteen minutes. I hear her quiet footsteps approach. I look up to find Ana watching me. Suddenly I wish she'd go back to avoiding me, as unnerving as that was."You said you have stuff delivered." Her voice is quiet and devoid of her earlier cheerfulness."Yes," I say, noticing she looks agitated. Is my presence that unpleasant for her?"So other people come here? Do people know you're out here?""A few," I say, confused until I realize how to make my problem go away. How to make her go away. She can't have recognized me, so there's no good reason to keep her here anyway. The solution is beautiful in its simplicity. "The next delivery will be soon. I'll arrange for you to be picked up and you can get back to your life. Just please don't go telling people about me. I came here for peace, like you said, and I don't want to lose that.""No," she says
TayjaSometime later I wake to find a sandwich sitting on a plate on the coffee table in front of me. Ryan is nowhere to be seen. I sit up and see a note sitting next to the plate. It reads:went fishingback after sunsetThe handwriting is atrocious and his note looks as though a child wrote it. I wonder if he wrote this with his stiff, injured right or his non-dominant left. Either way, I have the cabin to myself for the rest of the day. I look around for a clock and find a small one hanging on the wall opposite the kitchen. 1:34. I don't know what time the sun sets this far north at this time of year. I might have six or seven hours until he comes back.My gaze snaps over to the door. That could be six or seven hours that I'm alone. Icy fear creeps into my mind. Bad things happen when I'm left alone and unprotected. I stand warily and step slowly over to the door. I reach out cautiously and try the knob. It turns. I pull. The door opens.I slam
RyanTwo weeks have passed since I carried Ana's unconscious body into the cabin. Ever since she mentioned the helicopter crash, I've been spending all the daylight hours out looking for it under the guise of hunting or fishing. I take the key to the cabin and the key to my desk drawer with me. There are things in that drawer that I'd rather no one saw, myself included.As I head out on my ATV for the fourth day in a row, I again try to figure out which direction she came from. My last three days of searching turned up nothing. She was in pretty bad shape when I found her, but I have no idea how mobile and healthy she was right after the crash. How far could she have walked in the snow, in these temperatures, in the clothing she was wearing?Sometimes I wish I still had access to the internet to answer obscure questions such as these, but otherwise I don't miss the internet much at all. When I moved up here, the equipment and services required to establish an inter
TayjaThe next morning after breakfast, Ryan asks me to come outside with him. I frown as I remember my last experience leaving the cabin. I haven't gone outside since that day almost a week ago and I don't plan on doing so again in the foreseeable future."Just for a minute. I want to show you how to use the rifle.""Why?" I ask, moving closer to the door. If this makes him more likely to let me keep the gun with me, it's definitely worth it."I'm going to let you hold onto it today.""What about the bears?" I ask, remember his earlier reason for taking the gun with him."I'll be fine," he says, leading me to the edge of the porch. "This is a Mosin Nagant. It's Russian. They were designed over a century ago and were used by the Russian military through World War II. They are very reliable."He shows me how to load the gun, how to use the safety, and how to fire it. He makes me repeat everything he did, then he produces two earplugs from a p
RyanAfter breakfast, I stand outside in the spot where the reception on my sat phone is the best, holding Ana's list in my hand. I've been dreading this call even more than I usually dread calling Joe. Just as I'm about to dial his number, I hear the sound of a helicopter approaching. I duck behind the cabin as the chopper flies over, heading in the direction of the crash.Despite my resolution not to leave Ana alone in the cabin again, I went back to the crash site again yesterday morning to see if there was anything I missed or anything she left behind. But as I was driving up, I heard noises indicating human activity. I killed the engine in my ATV and crept up to the site as quietly as someone with a crippling limp can. The crash had been discovered. Police officers, US Marshals, Mountain Rescue, and even news station employees were swarming all over. I quietly returned to my ATV and drove home as fast as I could.I punch Joe's number in and call.
TayjaI wake to hear a helicopter hovering above the cabin. Terrified that I've been found, I jump off the bed and hide in the first spot I can think of: under the bed. In retrospect, this definitely wasn't a very original hiding spot nor was it a particularly good spot to wedge myself, as it had very limited egress options. Never underestimate the idiocy of blind panic.After a few terrifying moments, the whirring of the helicopter grows louder, then the sound becomes more distant as it flies away. I remain huddled under the bed until I hear a knock on the door."Ana?"I'm still unused to hearing that name. Ever since my little sister started talking, everyone's been calling me Tayja. That's what she said when she tried to pronounce Anastasia. It sort of stuck. I'd been spelling it Tasia at first, but soon discovered I could use the more exotic letters y and j to achieve the same pronunciation with a sp
Ryan"You what?" Ana breathes. Her eyes are saucers.I hadn't planned to tell her about the scene I found in the woods, but I also couldn't come up with an explanation for the firearms that would satisfy her."It was last week. I found a helicopter about fifteen miles from here. I think it's the one you came from. You had a bump on your head when I found you. Somehow you escaped the crash with just that injury and made it here."Telling Ana this bold-faced lie is much harder than I would have expected it to be. I hate deceiving her. She deserves the truth. But if I've learned anything about Ana over the last three weeks, it's that she can't handle this truth. It's a blessing she doesn't remember the incident on her own."Why did it crash?" she asks."It's hard to tell. The news said it was probably bad weather." Another blatant lie.Ana's face goes from pale to white