“We should keep going,” says Sue-Ellen, hoisting herself to her feet. Kei stands next, offering me his hand.
And we start walking, Kei and I in the lead, with Sue-Ellen trailing close behind.
“Fuck!” Sue-Ellen’s cry pierces the stillness of the afternoon. I turn to find her wincing in pain. Her leg has slipped down between two rocks. “Fuck, this really fucking hurts!” she wails. She pushes with both hands into the rock to dislodge herself. She looks up at me, her face rigid with terror. “Fuck!” she gasps. “I’m stuck!”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sue-Ellen is frantic, panting.
“Guys, I’m stuck! I’m really fucking stuck!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’ve got you,” Kei says, as we make our way slowly over to her. She looks up at me, pleading. I wrap my hands around her shin below her knees and pull, trying to dislodge her leg. She grits her teeth and moans. All the colour has drained from her face. Her leg doesn’t move. Kei tries, letting me catch my breath, but he also has no luck. We try to clear away some of the rocks, but they, too, are stubbornly unyielding.
“Help me, please help me!”
“We’re trying!” I glance around, my eyes landing on a large branch sticking up out of the rocks. I make my way over to it and drag it back to use it as a lever. Kei looks at the stick, then at me, and shrugs. Not exactly the vote of confidence I was hoping for. I jam the stick down and pull it back with every bit of strength I have. As I lean my body weight into it, I can feel it starting to splinter. I keep pulling until suddenly it snaps, sending me sprawling back onto the rocks.
“Fuck!” I yell in frustration, hot tears stinging my eyes. I press myself up, rubbing my lower back, which took the brunt of the fall. No blood, which is good, but there will be one hell of a bruise.
Kei appears with an extended hand to help me up.
“What are we going to do?” Sue-Ellen sobs. “What are we going to do?”
“Try to breathe, okay?” Kei tells her, then turns to face me. “Let’s just take a minute, figure out our options.”
I sit down and press the heels of my hands into my eyes. My façade of bravery is starting to show its cracks, and I feel like I’m about to lose it. Kei squeezes my hand.
“Let’s wait. Maybe someone will pass by in a boat or something.” Even as I say the words, I know it’s ridiculous. In the two weeks that we’ve been here, I haven’t seen one single person from the outside world on or near the lake.
Kei shakes his head. “That’s not—”
“I know.”
I twist around to look at Sue-Ellen. She’s sobbing soundlessly. Then, meeting my eye, she blows out a shaky breath.
“You’re going to have to go without me.”
“No!” I say, shaking my head. “No way. We can’t leave you here. What if—what if we pour some water on your leg to make it wet, maybe it will slide out.”
Again, Kei gives me a doubtful shrug.
Sue-Ellen nods. “Okay. Yeah, okay. Not our drinking water, though.”
“No,” I agree. We all only have about half a bottle left. “I can, like, scoop some lake water with my hands, and—”
I don’t bother finishing this ridiculous sentence.
“Let me try moving the rock again,” Kei says. “I’ll go at it from another angle, see if I can get better leverage on it.”
He tries from a different angle, and then another one. I search for another stick, something bigger and stronger. We pull her leg, her arms, one at a time and then both. I pull with my arms around her waist, under her shoulders. We hammer at the rock with other rocks to try and break it. I dribble as much water as we can spare from our bottles on her leg, hoping, wishing, praying it will slip free.
But nothing works.
We sit, wordless, all of us lost in our own fears. The sun feels less intense, which would be a relief if it didn’t mean the darkness was coming.
“You’ve got to go,” Sue-Ellen says, her voice cracking.
I start to make noises of objection, but Kei speaks up.
