I looked upstream. The water crested over rocks and turned white. The waves looked like razor blades and the cold air cut through me. I could see the shoals across the river. It was so far. I sat up on the rocks and stared at the shoals.
Sometimes, survival looks a lot like suicide. With my feet an inch from the water, I closed my eyes and slid completely in the river. The icy water crept into my hot wounds and dulled them. I clawed angrily at the water with my good arm, kicking and holding my breath to stay afloat.
Halfway across the river and far downstream from the bridge, my hand scraped some pebbles and I stopped floating. I quickly planted my feet and stood. I braced myself against the water, but I was weak. I shivered. My muscles were locked. It was the wrong shallows. It was not respite. I fell back in the water. My muscles were too cold and slow. My head dipped below the water. I thrashed to the surface and gulped the air. The water came over my head again. I felt the rocks at the bottom of the river but I couldn’t stand. I reached for the air but it was gone. Replaced by water, forever deep and frigid.
As I reached, a thick blade swiped my knuckles. I followed it with the current. It struck again and I grabbed for it. It dragged me upward. I grabbed for the surface and found the weightless air. I pulled my way up the blade, up a thin, cold shaft. It was a paddle.
“Audrey!” My face broke the surface. I sucked in air and water.
“Jack?” Her voice was nearly lost under the roaring water. I gripped the paddle tighter and she pulled me to the side of the boat. I shut my eyes and clung to the boat. She guided us into the reeds along the dark bank. My feet sank in the silt, and when I found the tree roots I climbed up and threw myself onto the soggy, sandy ground.
Audrey pulled the canoe to shore and swiped me with the paddle.
“You have to get in the boat.”
I did not put myself in the canoe. Something lifted me up, wrapped me in blankets and sleep sacks, and carried me to the cool, riveted floor. I fell asleep when Audrey told me not to, and I remember not wanting to ever wake up. There was a deep, aching pain inside, not from bullets or exhaustion or any worldly thing. I don’t know what that pain was, but it made me close my eyes and hide from the world.
When I woke, there was bright, endless sunshine. The canoe bobbed leisurely in the water. My head spun. I reached for the Winchester but it was gone. I remembered the river, the forever cold that had seeped into my bones. I figured the gun must be somewhere in the river. I raised my head and the barbed wire in my veins vibrated from my ankle to my shoulder. My head fell back to the cold boat floor. There was a new pack, smaller than the last, stuffed to the brim. The Remington was carefully placed underneath it. It was still bitter cold, I felt it on my face, but my clothes were dry and warm. My hands were wrapped in soft, thick gloves. My right arm was in a sling and my leg was numb.
“Last night,” I said, my voice hoarse, I strained and turned to face Audrey, but there was just an empty seat.
In spite of the pain, I picked myself up and looked all around the canoe, the river. Audrey was gone. I sat in the middle of a wide, lazy section of river. The canoe was cocked sideways, drifting with the cold wind.
For a while, I had been afraid of the walking corpses—Heathens as many of us called them. But I fought them face-to-face and saw there was nothing to them. At that point, what terrified me was to be alone. Not alone in the land of Revelation, not alone in wandering the trackless waste, but to be without Audrey. For a brief moment she had been with me, and I deeply enjoyed and missed it. I noticed a piece of paper tied to the new pack. I reached forward and snapped it off the string.
Mostly, it was blank like the flat waters and the feeling in my leg. But Audrey had signed it, and just under the signature she wrote, “I love you.” I said it aloud to hear the words. It was the first time I’d said them as an adult. It was the first time anyone had ever told me. It was the best thing she could have given me.