Flame of Fall

A short story of trial and surprise as a woman struggles to survive.

The air was light and cool and the breeze swept the scents of fall past the trail with a chill. Sally wiped the sweat from her brow and held her hand above her eyes to block the evening sun. She could see the valley below turning colors  of flame and citrus as the year started to come to a close. Too bad Ben isn’t here. Her fiancée would love the colors you could see from all the way up here. She couldn’t wait for the wedding next week, since she knew she was in love with him more than she had ever been  with any other man.  

Sally’s friends had decided to take her on a hike in the Adirondacks after finding she had never hiked before. She was reluctant to come due to being slightly out of shape (she had to admit too many snacks and too much desk work had caught up with her). Sally had told them to go on ahead after she had fallen behind one too many times. She was embarrassed to keep slowing them down, and so she stopped trying to catch up and stood to catch her breath. She also had to pee.

Sally had never gone in the woods before. I really hope I don’t wipe with poison ivy….is there even poison ivy here? She questioned herself but went ahead off the trail to a distance she thought safely out of sight.

As she was walking Sally was thinking about the beautiful ivory wedding dress she tried on just the other day. It had a heart shaped bodice and a short train with some lace details around the edges and hand-beaded work on the bottom that looked like shining stars trickling down it. She loved the dress and was dying for the day when she could wear it down the aisle. Her fiancée would love it and she could imagine the look on his face on their wedding day. He was on a hunting trip this weekend with his best man; something they did every year around this time, and she missed him already.

By the time she had found a spot to do her duties, Sally figured her friends had reached the top of the mountain. Screw that, she thought. I’ll just text them to meet me back here on their way down. After pulling up her hiking shorts she pulled out her phone, and the battery signal flashed red.

“Crap, no service,” she mumbled. And no battery. Damnit.. Oh well, I can just wait on the trail. They know me well enough to realize I am waiting for them.

She looked up and turned to head back in the direction she had come. This way, wait….no, this way…. She looked around her again. She couldn’t see the trail! She started to panic and as she tried to remember the way she came from her vision narrowed and the trees started to all look the same. She couldn’t remember how long she had walked to get there. She started panting, her breath short. She decided to head one way that looked familiar. After fifteen minutes of running she still didn’t reach the trail. Sally realized she was in trouble.

Now she knew she was lost. She had never been the shouting type, but in her fear and panic, she yelled.

“HELP! Em, Brit, Sara, can you hear me!?” She waited for a reply.

Nothing but the sounds of the forest and skittering animals could be heard. She was startled by the silence of the forest. She started hearing noises that she hadn’t heard before…whispering leaves, cracking sticks, rustling in the brush and groans as the wind moved through the trees. It seemed as if the forest were speaking to her, warning her of the rapidly advancing night.

 

The sun was setting, leaving purple and gold streaks in the sky, and it was getting colder by the minute. Sally shivered and wished she hadn’t handed off her coat to Sara earlier. She slumped at the foot of a large pine with her head between her hands.

Amidst her moment of panic, Sally wished that Ben were there. He would know what to do. She remembered one time he had been talking to her about the camping trips he took as a child. Moss always grows on the south side of the base of a tree, and once when he had lost his way he found the way back by looking for the moss.

That’s it! All I need to do is look for the moss.

She had seen on the map that the trail they had taken went up the south side of the mountain, curving just to the east. She wished she had a compass, but she had never used one let alone owned one. This was all she could think of.

Sally looked around at the trees. They all had moss, but it was on all sides, on every tree the same. It was almost dark now and she knew she must find somewhere to sleep because it would get very cold at night. So, she did as she saw from watching shows on TV. She made a small stick lean-to under a fallen tree and covered it with moss and leaf litter and then climbed in and shivered herself to sleep, wishing she could just be home with Ben, having dinner and laughing about the day’s turmoil.

Early in the morning Sally woke up. For a moment she forgot where she was and what had happened as the light filtered through the fog and brought her to reality. She tried to move but her body was sore from lying on the ground in the freezing night. Her backpack held some water and a little food from the previous day and she knew she should save it despite her complaining stomach.

Sally knew her friends would be worried sick by now since it had been nearly 12 hours since they last saw her. She pondered staying put in the same place, but some fierce gut feeling propelled her to keep walking, to find the nearest piece of civilization. Maybe if she just walked in a different direction she would find the trail or a road or something.

So Sally walked, and walked, and walked until her feet were wet from trudging through streams and sore from walking for what seemed like many miles. She had spent nearly most of the day walking and now she had no water and no food left in her pack.

She was sure she would reach refuge soon, but heard running water to her left somewhere. Her mouth was dry and her muscles ached from overexertion. Dehydration urged her to travel in the direction of the running water. After a fifteen minute walk the sounds of gurgling liquid were getting closer. Finally, water! She could hear it and could see where the trees thinned to make way for the river. She broke into a run. She had never been so thirsty in her life, and the water lured her to it as if singing a siren’s song. She burst through the trees hoping to simply jump face-first into the cool water, but instead found herself with nothing beneath her; no small stream bed was there to meet her, only air with water twenty feet below.

Once her brain caught up with the moment her arms flailed out wildly hoping to grab some purchase. The rapids rolled and boiled below her. Her hand found something, a root jutting from the edge, and clamped down with all her remaining strength.

“Aahh,” her breath left her lungs quickly as her weight pulled her arm out of its socket and she hit the side of the cliff hard. She swung her good arm up to grab the root before her other arm gave out. She was now  above the water, hanging by one hand with the other dangling limply at her side. The pain from the disconnected socket was shooting through the left side of her body now, but she knew if she let go of the root she would likely drown from exhaustion. Her grip was slipping and the root didn’t seem as if it wanted to hold her weight for much longer. Her only option was to pull herself up.

Sally knew how much it would hurt, but anything would be better than drowning here. She couldn’t die now. So she lifted her inured arm over the side of the ledge and gave enough pressure to swing her leg up onto the edge. The pain was enough for her to drop her arm again, but with her leg on the ledge, she used the rest of her strength to roll herself upward to safety. She lay there panting, her whole body exhausted, unable to move, and covered in mud.

The situation donned on her. I am never going to get out of here….how could I be so stupid?! Why did I ever leave the trail? I just want to be home. She imagined sleeping in her bed and having coffee with breakfast. Her boring office job seemed like a blessing compared to her current situation.

Fighting seemed futile to Sally at this point, and despite considering herself a strong woman, she started to cry. The tears cleared a trail on her face through the dirt and mud, and she fell asleep where she lay.



There was a conversation happening inside. Her mother and father argued.

“You never told me about her.”

“I didn’t need to tell you Miriam. There’s nothing else to say. I don’t love you anymore and there’s no way I could have known this would happen.”

“What do you think this will do to our daughter?! Do you want her to have a broken family?”

“...I am done talking Miriam. She will be fine.”

The trees were whispering to her while the soft fall wind blew through them. She liked to imagine that was the way trees talked, since after all they couldn’t move on their own and didn’t have mouths. Sally heard her mother calling her from somewhere that seemed too far away. But the pile of raked leaves, plump with playful potential, begged her to stay. She was warm with her red wool sweater, boots and earmuffs. The cold would not deter her from her outdoor adventures. With a running leap, Sally was flying and then crash-landing in the pile of dry, crackling leaves. When they surrounded her she felt safe and warm, but she remembered her mother calling and headed home.



The light woke her from her sleep, and brought her back to reality. Tiny birds were chirping everywhere around her and dew had settled on the ground during the night. Her shoulder was so swollen now that even tiny movements sent jabbing pain signals to her brain. Sally knew what she had to do. She would have to set it back in its socket if she were to keep going.

Reluctantly, but slowly and deliberately Sally got up off the ground and walked to the closest patch of trees. When she found one with a fork in the branches at the right height she used her other arm to lift her limp one up between the forked branches. She balled her fist and braced herself. Putting her foot on the trunk of the tree she pushed out quickly.

She let out a scream when her injured arm was pulled, but the force was enough to set the shoulder back to normal. The pain lessened now, and she felt slightly relieved. Maybe she had the strength to make it out! She felt scratching in her throat so she swept her hand over the dew-covered grass and licked the water off her hand. She did this until her thirst was satiated, and then gathered herself to stand and walk again.

Sally hadn’t eaten for two days now and after solving her dehydration the hunger hit her full-force. She wished it wasn’t so late in fall since otherwise the woods would be full of edible berries, but they had long since been eaten by wild animals or dropped to the ground. After searching for a good while she decided the efforts were futile, and she had no idea how to kill or catch wild animals for food like Ben did. So, she kept walking.

…

Ben wondered if he should try to find cell phone service. He knew Sally had gone hiking with her girlfriends and knowing her she would be pissed if he didn’t call. He had been hunting with his best buddy for a few days now, but they hadn’t had any luck. He thought the area must be too heavily hunted.

But still he and his best man waited silently in their tree-house, breath slowly condensing in the cold air like tiny clouds dispersing from their lungs into the cold evening. They were patient as they knew from the packed ground that the deer traveled through here regularly.

He gnawed on a piece of beef jerky and held his rifle steady. He had the feeling something would come soon. Then to his right he saw something moving in the bushes. He cocked his rifle and took aim to the spot.

…

Sally let her mind wander as she walked. She needed the distraction. She was afraid now, afraid of dying, afraid of losing everything so quickly, over something as stupid and unlucky as this. She was very dirty, but she imagined the mud kept the mosquitoes from eating her alive

As she was walking she spotted something red out of the corner of her eye. There were some small berries on a bush just off in the distance. She was following a fairly well packed game trail, so it would be easy to get to the berries. As she came closer she discovered they were raspberries! She collected a few and stuffed them into her mouth. They seemed to be the sweetest thing she had ever eaten, and she got down on her hands and knees to find more berries underneath the leaves. The bushes scratched at her with their thorns, but she didn’t seem to care.

As she was gathering she heard a click  amidst the quiet hum of the forest. It was definitely a man-made sound, music to her ears….She had found someone!

Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

 

She glanced quickly to find where the noise had come from, but before she could croak out a shout a loud piercing bang reverberated through the woods. Sally felt some distant pain in her stomach, and when she looked down there was blood, crimson as the darkest fall leaves, soaking through the mud and grime that covered her.

 

She collapsed under the bushes, and the last thing that entered her brain before she died was the sight of a single fall leaf, the color of flame and blood and memories. The trees whispered, but the forest was silent.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading! Review and I will return the favor!

Reviews

[Marie]

This is long, but pretty good. I found Sally to be smart, tough, likeable, and I ws hoping she would make it through.
I don't think this segment is necessary. It disrupts the flow of the story and doesn't add to the action.

There was a conversation happening inside. Her mother and father argued.

“You never told me about her.”

“I didn’t need to tell you Miriam. There’s nothing else to say. I don’t love you anymore and there’s no way I could have known this would happen.”

“What do you think this will do to our daughter?! Do you want her to have a broken family?”

“...I am done talking Miriam. She will be fine.”

[MindIsAnOcean]

Thanks for the review! I will definitely consider just taking that part out :)