If The Fire Went Out

I looked timidly out at the snow. It was a pure, startling whiteness, covering every tree branch and blade of grass, plenty of feet deep. 

The trip wasn’t supposed to go this way. It was supposed to be fifty degrees and sunny the entire time. No one who came to camp had any snow appropriate gear; we had packed sweaters, long-sleeved hiking shirts, cargo pants. Everything you’d expect to need on a late winter camping trip in North Carolina. When the temperatures first started to drop, Kate told us to double layer. That was fine for a while. We had sweatshirts and fleeces, and a few layers of pants were fine for the thirties.

Then it got sub-zero.

When the snow started, Kate had directed us into the cave.

“It won’t last long,” she said, teeth chattering. “We’ll be out before the day’s end.”

And eight days later, we were still sitting around a campfire as the temperature continued to plummet. 

“I thought global warming went the other way around,” I muttered, going back to the fire and sitting down next to Parker. I leaned my head on her shoulder. She laughed and shoved me off. 

“I thought we were fixing global warming,” Claire said. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.

“We’re doing our best.” Kate dropped a few more pages onto the fire. “All we’ll ever do.”

There was a moment of silence. “I’m freezing,” Parker said, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“Aren’t we all.” I stood up and started to jog slowly around the huddled circle of five. Jackson got up and joined me. 

We started with fourteen. Two counselors, Kate and her co-leader, Alex, and twelve campers. On a backpacking trip in the blue ridge. Then Alex lost it and ran out into the snow. That was the third day in the cave. On the eighth, still no sign of him.

After Alex, the other campers started losing it too. Two of them broke rocks off the cave wall and stabbed themselves in the middle of the night. A handful more followed Alex out into the snow. They probably froze within an hour after they left. And three of them just died. Those were the worst ones, really. There was no one to blame for their deaths except cruel mother nature. The only one I really knew was Sammie. They had died from what Kate called “Being stuck in a freezing cold cave too long disease,” but I was pretty sure it was actually called hypothermia. 

Now there were five. Four campers - me, Parker, Jackson, and Claire - and Kate. 

“We need food,” Claire said. “We need more food.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing we’ve lost so many. We don’t use up as many munchies.” I sat down again.

Jackson snorted, and Kate shook her head at me. “That’s messed up, David.”

“He’s got a point,” Parker said.

“It’s still messed up.”

Jackson sat down next to me and sighed. “How have we deteriorated this much in eight days?”

“This is some real Lord of the Flies shit.” Parker laughed. “Claire can be Piggy.”

“Hey, I want to be the one with the conch shell,” Claire said in mock protest.

“Which one was that?” Jackson asked. “It’s been forever since I read that book.”

“I’ve never read it,” I admitted.

Parker stared at me with wide eyes. “I don’t think I can be friends with you anymore.”

We all laughed until Kate stood up abruptly. “I’m going to go get help.”

”What?“ I snapped my head up and stared at her in disbelief.

“Kate, you can’t!” Claire gasped. “You’ll just die! Like-” she lowered her voice. “Like Alex.”

“I have to. You’ve all obviously gone nuts” - she swept her arm to indicate the four of us - “and we’ll die without more food.”

“We can just eat David,” Parker said. I punched her in the shoulder.

“This is serious, guys.” Kate took her bag, where we had been keeping what remained of the food, and started digging through it. “After I take what I’ll need, you guys have four days' worth in here. I’ll be back by then. It’s a half day back to the trail, if I hurry, then a day or two down the trail to the ranger station. From there, I can call whoever I need to to get you guys out.”

“Kate…” Parker trailed off.

No one wanted Kate to go. It was terrifying. Kate didn’t really act like a counselor anymore - we were well past that - but she knew the most about the outdoors. She kept the fire going with pages from her bible. She rationed the food. She took care of wounds (if scraping your knee on the floor counted as a wound). She was our adult. Even if it was only for a few days, her leaving would mean that if someone got hurt or if the fire went out…

“I’m going.” Kate smiled at us ruefully. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Then she stepped out of the cave and onto the snow. 

###

Two days passed. No sign of Kate or her promised rescuers. We spent our endless time huddled around the fire, one person awake at night to keep the flame going, complaining about how cold we were. 

The second night, Claire was supposed to tend to the fire. When we woke up in the morning, Claire was gone, and the fire was almost out. 

“Claire!” Jackson shouted into the snowy landscape. He got no answer but the echo off the mountains. 

Parker looked up from tending to the fire. “That gives us a few more days of food, if we eat sparingly.”

“We have been eating sparingly,” I grumbled. She frowned at me.

We sat silently around the fire. Now there were three.

“Damn.” Jackson shook his head. “Damn it.”

“Are you damning Claire, or our situation?” Parker grinned. 

“All of it. The snow. You. David.”

“I second that,” I said.

Days passed. Claire didn’t come back, and neither did Kate. On the twelfth day, we were still sitting around the fire, being snarky and eating protein bars for meals.

“This isn’t doing us any good.” Jackson stood up and started to pace. 

“What will do us good?” Parker retorted. “We’re stuck here until Kate gets back.”

I snorted. “You say this like you know it’s going to happen.” 

“David-“

“No.” I stood up. “I’m…I’m going out.”

They both exploded simultaneously. 

“How the hell will that help us?” Jackson shouted. 

“I just.” I sighed and sat back down. “I dunno.”

“What if we all left?” he asked after a moment of silence. “What if we went out, to the trail, went to the ranger station ourselves?”

“How would Kate find us?” Parker countered. He looked at the floor and shrugged.

“That’s not helpful either.” I stood up and started to walk around the room. 

“Will you choose one place to be?” She snapped. I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Look,” she said, taking a deep breath. “The best thing we can do is sit in the cave and wait for Kate to come back.”

“What if she doesn’t come back?” I asked.

She smiled grimly. “Then we get to play in the snow until we freeze to death.”

That reminded us all how cold we were, and we started to shiver.

“This is crazy,” I said. “All of it. Being stuck in a cave for two weeks because of snow in fucking North Caroline.”

Jackson nodded.“It always seemed like something that happened in movies.”

“Well, it’s happening to us.” Parker held up Kate’s empty backpack. “And now we’re out of food.”

###

Kate didn’t come. Neither did anyone else. We spent a day in the cave, without any food, holding out hope that someone would come. They didn’t. So that night, the night of the thirteenth day, we came to a consensus.

“Break down the fire,” Parker told me. “Take whatever we can still burn.”

I nodded and kicked our already sputtering fire. It went out immediately, suffocated by the cold hardness of the cave floor.

“We need to conserve energy. We won’t be bringing a bag for anything else, why waste calories on carrying around a bag just for the fire?” Jackson asked, crossing his arms.

Parker scowled at him “We need a fire.”

“Not if we hurry,” he argued. “If we can get to the trail…”

“Then we’ll freeze at night. We need a fire.”

“But then we wouldn’t need it. Once we get to the trail, we’re only nine miles out.”

“Then we take the fire,” I interjected, “and leave the bag behind in the morning. We can easily do nine miles in a day.”

“It’ll be snowy.” Parker pointed towards the snow outside. “It’ll take longer.”

“Really? That’s-that’s snow?” I looked in mocking astonishment at the whiteness out the front of the cave. She frowned at me.

“We’ll still be able to do it,” Jackson said. “Besides, we won’t have to take snack breaks.”

I laughed as Parker shoved the remains of Kate’s bible into the empty bag. “That’s not funny,” she said. 

It was quiet for a bit. We were a triangle, standing around the last traces of our fire. We knew what had to happen next. We didn’t want to do it.

I looked outside, at the bright winter that awaited us, and sighed. “I guess we go now.”

“Yeah.” Jackson looked at his feet.

No one moved.

I turned to glance at Parker. She was gazing out at the snow as well, her lips pressed into a line. “Damn. This is sad.” She gave a shaky laugh. “We’re afraid to go outside.”

“With good reason,” I said, then took a deep breath and started towards the opening. “But we have to leave.”

“What if Kate’s still…” Jackson trailed off. “What if we miss her?”

“She’ll figure out what happened,” I said, toeing the line where rock ended and the snow began.

Another pause.

“Okay.” I looked back at them, glanced between their apprehensive faces, then smiled and took a step out into the snow.