Abbie swallowed loudly. “Okay.”
“I can certainly haul water up,” Sommer said. “And we can certainly boil it. But with violent vomiting—”
“And an asshole that functions as a geyser,” Marna tossed in.
“—water isn’t enough. You need sodium and potassium.”
“The likelihood of keeping any water down is slim,” Marna said, “no matter how much water Sommer was able to haul. Also, the longer she’s around us and our things, the more likely it is that she’ll join our merry little band of norovirus incubators. Then for sure we’re shit-up-the-creek.”
“So we keep drinking and hope enough stays in.”
“Abbie,” Sommer said gently. “Without electrolytes, the more water you drink, the more likely you’ll get hyponatremia, where there’s too little sodium in your body.”
“Which does what?” Abbie asked.
“Fun stuff,” Marna said. “Like seizures and death.”
Abbie glowered. “Stop with the ‘and death,’ Marna.”
Marna opened her eyes just enough to peek over at Abbie. “Honestly, I hope I can.”
“What do you think the risk is, Sommer?” Abbie asked.
“Of having norovirus on the trail? You can’t walk out. That’s for sure. But being up here in the camp? Severe dehydration, which is your biggest risk, leads to low blood pressure, and that can cause heart issues, confusion, weakness, shock.”
“Shock can be deadly,” Marna said.
Abbie picked up a pebble and tossed it at Marna.
Marna turned over, crawled behind the tree, and puked.
While she was waiting for Marna to finish, Sommer pulled her supplies from her pack to see what she had available. Abbie followed suit.
“I have one anti-diarrheal.” Sommer put the bubble package on a leaf.
“I have some pain pills and a decongestant,” Abbie said.
When Marna was back, swishing and spitting, Sommer looked over at Abbie’s packages of freeze-dried foods. “Eating isn’t going to work. You’d have trouble keeping anything down. But you can line your cooking pot with a bandana, pour your food in and your water, and let it cold soak, then lift and drain it to make a broth.”
“That sounds like you won’t be around to help,” Marna said.
“I think you two should continue up to the summit, and while you set up your tents, I’m going to jog down to the stream and fill all the waterproof things we have and bring them up to you.” She held up a bottle marked BLEACH. “You won’t have to boil it.”
“It’ll taste like shit,” Marna said.
“With almost no bad bugs,” Sommer countered. “Focus on that.”
“Then what?” Abbie snatched up the roll of toilet paper—that she had lined out on her plastic mat with her other supplies—then she ran behind a sweet briar. “Runny stool and vomiting, I think we have our answer,” she called. “And I’m sorry to nature, but I didn’t have time to dig a hole. And I’m feeling too weak to care.”
“What are you thinking?” Marna asked Sommer.
“That it sucks we’re all on tight budgets. One of us should have a satellite.”
“We’ll pool our money for next time. For this time?”
Abbie was buttoning her pants with her roll of toilet paper under her arm as she came back to her spot.
“I’ll go get help,” Sommer said. “It was two days up only because we were enjoying nature, not because we worked hard.”
