Day arrived. Loud repetitive noice of wheels screaming through concrete. Cars drove over head. My back creaked and popped as I shifted. Stiff from a motionless night sleeping on stones. Gray morning. Jason sat down by the river edge waiting. I watched as the sun flickered across the river’s quick-moving angry surface. Last night’s storm brought torrential rains raising the water level to a dangerous current and flooding the shorelines. Our original path was to wander the shallows for a day or two until reaching home. Now, with the water levels high, that route seemed impossible.
Warning this story contains adult
language
We boiled water and cooked some rice and debated our option to cross over the bridge to the north bank and follow westward through the woods. Trampling a few hours into the dense wet brush began to discourage our progress and soon we met our dead end. A thick dark stream raged through the woods. What was a shallow slow moving jumpable creek yesterday, now flowed over six feet across with the foaming black current with last night’s downpour and farm field run off. Neither of us needed a cow shit bath at this point.
Cornered by the raging waters, impossible to leap across we meandered along side the stream back to where it flowed into the main river. We needed to make up time. We had little food left and we were in the middle of nowhere with no one for miles in any direction. And, no one knew where we were.
“Lets float.”
“What?”
“Like on a log or something.”
“Uh… sure. I guess.”
“We’re fucked otherwise. I’ll find a big tree and we’ll hang onto it and float down the river.”
“Fuck it. Why not.”
“We’ll put all our clothes and stuff in the garbage bags and inflate them. It’ll help us float.”
“This is so dumb.”
“I know.”
I found a large dead tree and drug it to the river. I whacked my hatchet sideways into the thick log as a makeshift handle to hang onto. We undressed down to our boxers and pushed off, Jason on the left side of the log, I hung on to the right for dear life as the current swept us along. The inflated garbage bags helped maintain buoyancy as we managed to hop along off the bottom of the six foot deep river. The shoreline raced along either side.
“Fuck yeah!” We were really moving at the swift pace of a jogger. Hours passed. The day passed. A gravel boat landing zoomed by on the left. A couple kids played on the shoreline as a man fished.
“We should stop on a beach.”
“Yeah.”
But no beach presented itself. Dust crept over the sky and a strange flock of white winged creatures flew out to us from the shoreline. The fairy insects circled around us a half a dozen times and flew off.
I took it as an omen. Nothing but bush and grasses lined the shorelines.
Floating into the sunset the blanket of night fell upon us. Teeth chattering, both my legs began to cramp up and lock in an upwards position. I was no long able to stretch them out or kick.
“Fuck man. I have to get out of the water. I’m freezing. I think I might drown.”
With the last bit of energy I let go of the log and struggled to the moving shoreline. I grabbed branches and grass slowing myself and pulling myself up out of the water through brush and thorn I managed to get out of the treacherous current and weeds. Jason spun in circle now unbalanced on one side of the log. He let go and swam to the north shoreline about a hundred feet downriver from me.
Blood mixed with water ran down my legs as I shivered as if having a seizure surely purple pale in complexion. I ripped open the garbage bag I had clung onto to save my life and found still dry clothes.
“Jason!”
“Yeah?”
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“You?”
“Still alive. Cold as fuck.”
We put on some clothes and met at the top of the embankment.
“Dude, I thought I was a goner.”
“Good thing you weren’t”
“Right.”
“Now what?”
“I don’ t know. Walk north through the woods.” I pulled out my compass. “There’s a county road that runs parallel with the river east and west. If we walk straight north we’re bound to reach it eventually.”
“Cool.”
“I think.”
“Not cool.”
We fought our way through thick and thorn, pine and brush. Everything wet and dark in the creepy woods where no one goes. Hours we walked to stay warm with wet squishy shoes and socks.
“I think we need to camp. It’s like the middle of the night.”
“Yeah man. I’m tired as fuck. This is starting to suck.”
We gathered small sticks and wet wood from from forest floor. I pulled out my pack of matches. Half of them gone.
“Damn dude. I hope we don’t freeze to death.” With chattering teeth we huddled around the smoking kindling down to our very last match.
“If this doesn’t work, we’re seriously fucked.”
“Light that birch bark. It’s our only hope.”
With that last match a flame sparked and we fed the fire crackling into the cold silent darkness. Alone. Unable to sleep shivering around a wet wood fire we took turns dozing off for a few short periods of time. Someone always awake to maintain the fire. Wet socks hung on branches drying above the flames.
Yellow white light pierced through the canopy. We survived the longest night. The nightmarish forest became a chatter of birds and majestic tranquil grove. I took out my compass. We put on dry socks and continued north.