The New Wild Read online

  Before Deb starts our first lesson, she narrows her eyes. “You listening? Don’t waste my time,” she warns. “We need to get through this fast.”

  “Yes! I’m going to listen to every word,” I reply, nodding furiously. She is, after all, my only hope.

  “All right then,” She assents, setting her mouth in a thin line. “What’d they teach you over at Camp Astor?”

  “Not enough to keep myself alive,” I say, thinking back to the fires we started with kerosene, and the dinners of instant soup and s’mores.

  She shakes her head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She stands, clasping her hands together. “Okay then, let’s start with the basics. Fire.” She hobbles inside the house and returns with a rock and a knife. “Go out there and gather up some dry twigs and grass,” she says, pointing to the woods. I hesitate, dumbfounded. “Quickly!” she orders. “We have a lot to go over.”

  I scramble to my feet and, a short while later, I return with a little pile and place it on the porch.

  “Well don’t bring it up here,” Deb says. “You think I want to set the whole place on fire?” She rolls her eyes and points to the yard. “Out there, in the fire ring.”

  “Oh! Right,” I say.

  She bends over and brushes away the ashes. “Now,” she says, bending down, “this is your basic jumpstart, which is what the boys at Campstravaganza World won’t tell you because they want to sell you all the gear you ‘need.’ I assume you’ve never done this before.”

  I shake my head. “None of it. I haven’t done any of this shit.”

  “Watch your language, young lady,” Deb snaps.

  “Sorry,” I murmur lamely.

  “Now, where were we? Right. If you learn the basic tenets of making fire, you shouldn’t have any trouble, as long as it’s dry. This is your flint and your steel,” she holds up the rock and the knife. “And what you brought is your tinder—to catch the sparks—and your kindling.”

  “Kind-ring?”

  “Kind-ling, the tiny bones that make up the big fire.” She looks at me like I’m an idiot, and I’m starting to feel like one. I look down at my feet. “That’s all right,” she says, “I don’t expect you to know anything. So, you take the knife and beat the backside of it against the rock like so,” she says. “See those sparks? Do it over and over and over again, quick, quick, quick, and let the sparks shower down onto the tinder.”

  Soon, a little smoke starts rising from the pile.

  “Sometimes you’ve got to blow on it a little to get things going.” I crouch down and blow as hard as I can.

  “Whoa, Nellie, a little softer. Fire doesn’t take well to hurricanes.” Deb bends over and does it herself until little flames hop from the tinder. “Then,” she says, “you slowly add kindling wood until it catches. Not too much, though. You don’t want to suffocate it.” Soon, there’s a nice tidy blaze warming my lower half.

  “Amazing,” I say.

  “It’s not so hard. You’ll get used to it after a while,” she says.

  “I doubt it.”

  “You will.”

  Deb takes me through the process of making river and lake water safe to drink: you either boil it over the fire or filter it several times through a dirt and rock sieve made out of old coffee cans with holes in the bottom. She tells me how to make shelter in a pinch, how to forage for non-poisonous edibles, and then goes out to a pen in her yard to grab a chicken.

  “You’ve got to know how to kill a bird,” she says. My heart sinks, but I know she’s right. I have to do it.

  She hands the tiny, squawking fowl to me. Its feathers are soft to the touch, its body warm and quaking. It knows its life is almost over.

  “This is all a whole lot easier with an axe, but I’ve only got one, and you can’t take it,” Deb says, handing me a steel knife.

  Jesus. I shudder at the thought of killing this chicken. It’s going to be so bloody. But then I consider going days without something decent to eat, and I feel my stomach cave in.

  Deb tells me to grab both of its legs together in my left hand. For several minutes, I hold it against my chest like before and try to calm it down. Its wings flap for what seems like forever, but then it relaxes. “Okay, chicken, I’m sorry, but it’s time,” I say. I tie its feet together with some twine Deb hands me so it doesn’t run, and lay the bird down on a fallen log. I throw my left arm over its wings to hold them tight against the wood. My hands are already shaking; if it moves too much, this will be uglier than it has to be. I brace myself, fingering the handle of the knife, and on the count of three, plunge the blade into its neck as fast as I can. The chicken freaks out and I want to let go, but I know I need to put it out of its misery. I clamp the bird down with my knee and saw until its neck is cut through. Blood gushes everywhere, and for some reason, I’m surprised to find it’s warm. In a matter of seconds, the chicken’s head is 100 percent decapitated, but its feet still struggle, its wings still flap. I hold the body by its feet, letting the blood run out of its neck. The bird’s wings continue to flap as blood pours out of its gullet. Deb says the flapping helps drain all the blood, but it’s totally freaky. Finally, the spout slows to a trickle.

  I’m almost too nauseous to continue. My face is twisted up in disgust, but I try not to squeal more than I have to.

  Deb looks at me with something that amounts to awe in her eyes. I guess she didn’t think a city girl could get through that. I’m not sure I thought I could get through it, either.

  “Wow,” she says. “You did it.”

  I want to bawl. That was awful. That poor chicken!

  “Thanks, I guess,” I say meekly. At least it’s over.

  “The hardest part of killing a chicken is plucking the feathers,” she says. “It’s easier if you can dip the body in some boiling water first, to loosen them. But if you can’t, you’ve just gotta keep tugging until it’s done.”

  My head’s starting to spin. I don’t know how I’ll make it all the way to Oregon.

  “What do you do when you see a mountain lion?” Deb asks.

  “Uh, die?”

  She chuckles. “You have to know this stuff Jackie. I’m not going to let you leave my sight if I don’t think you can hack it.”

  “You’re nice, Deb, but I’ll make it. I have to.” I exclaim.

  “Nice has got nothing to do with it,” Deb admits. “It’s purely selfish—I don’t want you weighing on my thoughts.”

  “Well, thanks anyway.”

  “Don’t thank me until you see the whites of your mom’s eyes.”

  “I hope she has eyes,” I mutter, sulking. I’d be so destroyed if I made it all the way to Oregon only to find she’s a rotted corpse.

  “Don’t think about that now, baby.” Deb says gravely. “Oh, and stay away from snakes, spiders, anything rabid. Basically, if it looks scary as heck, don’t go near it.”

  “I think I’m gonna puke,” I say. I really do feel nauseous. Not sure if it’s how I actually feel or if it’s just my thoughts wringing my stomach like a wet towel. Either way, barf-ville, here I come.

  “Sit down, child, you’re turning green,” Deb says, taking me by the shoulders and lowering me onto the grass.

  I don’t sit, I lie flat over the earth. Deb is standing over me, a concerned look in her eyes. The smell of smoke is taking me right back to yesterday, to the massive eerie destruction of it all, to that life-is-over feeling of being truly alone. I don’t know what I’m thinking, going west by myself. Whitman licks my face. Deb brings me a mug of water.

  “It’s going to be okay, kiddo,” she says. “You can stay here as long as you like.”

  I keep picturing my mom’s face at the airport. I can still smell her perfume. Every hour I’m away from her is another hour she’s wrecked with worry. She almost had a heart attack the night I blew my curfew by twenty minutes. I can’t wait another hour more than I have to. It may take me six months to walk home, but I have to get going. Now. And that’s what I tell Deb.


  I get up. It must be noon, the sun is right above us. “Listen, baby, stay one more night. We’ll set you off at dawn so you’ll have a full day of light. And in the meantime, I can show you more of what you need to know. You ever catch a fish?”

  “Yes!” I say, a little too impatiently.

  “With your bare hands?”

  I shake my head.

  “We still have a ways to go, child. Now listen close.”

  We spend the rest of the afternoon going over every little thing: how to treat a spider bite, how to evade a grizzly. There’s no way I am going to remember it all. By sundown, I’m so exhausted I crash onto the feather mattress Deb set up on the living room floor. My mind is going a mile a minute, I’m so anxious to get out and get home. Whitman saunters over and curls up next to me like she can sense my nerves. I bury my face into her thick fur, and the slow rhythm of her breathing lulls me to sleep.

  Before I know it, Deb is shaking my shoulder as the sun is warming up the sky. Whitman helps out by planting a wet one right on my mouth. That gets me up quickly.

  “Get up now, child. It’s your day. I packed some things for you.” Deb gives me the knife and flint, a small copper pot with a lid, the dead uncooked chicken we killed, and a scratchy, wool blanket covered in dog hair. I love it.

  “Deb, I don’t know what I would’ve—”

  “Oh, you would’ve done fine,” she says, though it’s completely obvious to both of us I wouldn’t have. Her phony confidence does make me smile. “See? You’re feeling better already,” she says.

  “It’s all smoke and mirrors,” I say.

  “Well, I’m not worried. You’re still here for a reason, don’t you go forgetting that. Mother Earth spared us once, I think she’ll keep you safe now.” Her eyes are kind and calm, and I know I’ll always remember them.

  She gives me a giant hug and tells me I can always walk right back here and stay with her as long as I need.

  “Thanks, Deb,” I reply, but I know I have to go.

  “I mean it, kid.”

  I salute her as I slowly wind my way out of her garden and into the woods. She smiles at me, but I can see sadness in her eyes.

  * * *

  The sun beats through the trees, casting its dappled shadows over everything. I reach down to Bernard’s compass, still hanging around my neck. I lift it up into the sunlight, prying open the lid. It’s still perfectly intact. Against the flat of my palm, the dial wobbles its way toward north. I face that direction, then pivot on my heels forty-five degrees to the left until I’m facing due west. Home.

  The world has really changed. When I got to Camp Astor, I noticed a sparrow or two—that was it. Now, on the charred, pebble path that used to be Interstate 449, I see strange creatures everywhere: chipmunks with bright pink tails, an adorable baby gopher with the coloring and spots of a leopard, a bird a bit larger than a hummingbird with a neon-green pompom on its head and red tail feathers. I can’t believe this.

  The foliage has transformed, too. Before “it” happened, all the greenery was dry and wilting in the summer heat. Now it’s thick, lush, and filling the air with a sugary scent. The jee-bows dot the landscape; tiny ones even peek out of the cracked pavement. They’re white when I first see them, but as I get closer, they turn deeper and deeper shades of red, like they can sense my fear. It’s amazing. I would give anything for my camera right now. If I make it home, nobody’s going to believe the things I’ve seen.

  I’m well out of the woods now, walking by what used to be a big box store. Mom and I used to spend lots of time in shops like that, getting stuff for the house. My heart physically hurts when I think of her, of the memories we share. This store to my right is still a box-shape, but now it’s a big, soot-black one with vines growing over it, cramming their spiraled tendrils into the cracks. I wonder what Mom would think of that.

  All of the sudden, there are bubbles floating all around me, just like the glassy shimmering ones I used to blow when I was six. A big one bobbles past, and I see a sheer image of a sycamore tree inverted in its sphere. I lean in a little closer for a better look. A dragonfly darts out of nowhere—pop!— and the sycamore is bigger than life, standing an inch away from my nose, rooted in the earth. I step back, bewildered. For a second, I think I’m hallucinating. I run my fingertips over its scratchy trunk. What is going on? My heart pounds in my chest. Maybe these bubbles are just like the dandelion seeds that float through the air in spring, carrying their pretty parachute seedlings to germinate in the earth. I picture a wise old woman blowing the bubbles the way I used to blow dandelions, making a wish as she does it. My heart is beating so hard I think I might go ahead and have a heart attack, but this stuff is so cool I would hate to die and miss whatever trippy stuff Mother Nature still has up her sleeve. I wish Sarah and May were here with me to see this—they would love it.

  Squinting at all the other bubbles floating around me, I spot a cherry tree inverted in one. I grab a twig from the ground and pop it. It’s only a moment before it, too, is fully grown, cherries ripe and dangling in the breeze like they’ve been doing it every summer for decades. Crazy.

  I pluck one off a branch and pop it into my mouth. It’s juicy and incredibly sweet. I run my fingers through the branches and yank off handfuls of cherries. Soon I’ve eaten so many, so fast, I think my stomach is going to explode. Their pink juices run down my chin. I shovel as many as I can into my duffel. My mom adores cherries—especially the organic, non-cancer-causing ones—and I can’t get enough of them, either. But I can’t believe they came from a tree that came from a bubble.

  It’s so quiet out here that time passes in breaths, not seconds. A wind comes and ferries the rest of the bubbles away to burst in some other place. I can’t hear anything but birds and leaves rustling, and occasionally, my own heart thudding. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this alone. I start picturing Bernard walking with me.

  “Dude, I haven’t popped so many cherries at once in my life.”

  “Har dee har har, very funny,” I’d say, cracking up.

  “Can we find a soy burger tree? Because I’m really, really going to eat my hand.”

  “Don’t eat your hand.”

  “But it would be so delish!”

  “Bernard, stop. I’m going to puke in my mouth.”

  I hear someone yell. At first, I think it’s my imaginary Bernard, wailing in hunger. Then I hear it again. It sounds like it’s coming from the forest ahead of me.

  “Hey!” I yell as loud as my lungs can manage. I wait a second for a response before desperately shouting again, “HEY!” But there’s no answer. I must be hearing things. I need a break, but I keep walking. I’d do anything to see Mom and Bernard again. I need to find another person, preferably someone with a horse and buggy, a tricycle, something. There must be someone, besides Deb, left alive to help me.

  That’s when I see the branch stump. The trees are all in perfect shape now, so it stands out like a sore thumb. It’s about halfway up the trunk and looks like it was sawed off. The branch, which would be lying nearby on the ground if it had fallen off the tree, is nowhere to be found. It’s not much, but I take it as a sign of life.

  I keep going, eyes alert for another human being. A pear tree that must have plopped out of a bubble stands nearby and I pluck a few. I’m appraising several more, already chomped to the core and discarded in the grass, when something big and brown runs out from the brush. I’m so startled by the noise that I immediately fall back on my ass in the brush, nearly hitting a pointy boulder in the process. My heart pounds, but it’s only a deer. I let out a long sigh. I need to learn to freak out less if I’m ever going to make it.

  A few miles farther, I pass what remains of a chicken coop next to a tiny blackened ranch house. Someone, or—I shudder to think, something—has opened the gate, and most of the hens are squawking around the area. I steel myself, chase after the biggest one I can see, and try to scoop it up from behind like Deb taught me. It’s impossible! Every t
ime I get close, it bolts. They’re all squawking and flapping their wings like crazy. I finally get ahold of one by its foot but freak out and basically throw it into the air. I sigh, and repeat steps one and two, but still don’t even get close. Thank God I have the chicken Deb and I killed together in my pack, or who knows when I’d eat protein again? These fuckers are fast. Still, the adrenaline rush you get chasing them is alarming, considering they’re totally non-threatening animals. I swear on the grave of this stupid chicken in my bag that I will do anything—literally, anything—to not run into anything bigger. Or anything with teeth.

  The sun sinks lower in the sky. It must be about four or five o’clock. I’m terrified to go to sleep alone. I consider setting up camp in a clearing of aspen trees when some bubbles ferry past, each carrying something different. One’s got a weeping willow shimmering inside; another holds a fig tree. I charge after the willow, thinking it’ll be nice to sleep under one, then reach out and pop it and then the fig tree bubble for breakfast. I’m so absorbed in them I almost don’t see it, stuck in the side of an already-established old tree, so shiny and implausible it could be a mirage.

  An axe.

  I yank the ax out of the tree trunk and swing it around. Holy balls I love this thing! I’m picturing myself now, Last of the Mohicans—Last of the Stumptown Girls, really—kicking ass and taking names with my blade of steel. I’ll fight bears left and right, take down poultry with one deft blow. The axe is heavy in my hand, the blade perfectly sharpened. My heart skips a beat. I feel like I’m queen of the forest.

  Bubbles float all around me. I spot a rose bush bubble, and I pop it in a heartbeat. Its petals are Pepto-Bismol pink, and unlike every other rose bush I’ve ever seen, it towers over my head. The roses themselves are the size of fists.

  Using Deb’s trusty knife, I cut a handful of blooms and weave myself a crown to shield my face from the sun. Goddamn, I must look hilarious—covered in dirt, ganglier by the minute, bubblegum-pink petals as a hat. But who’s going to see me now? It’s been hours, and nothing’s keeping me company but the deer periodically cutting through the woods.