What They Left Behind

When Gennie became aware of her surroundings once again, she felt as if there was something weighing down on her. She was finding it very difficult to breathe. It took her several minutes to realize it was because Ben was on top of her. She tried to push him off, but couldn’t. She attempted to shake him awake, but he wasn’t responding. She panicked when it occurred to her that he might be dead, and she hit him a few times. She was relieved when she heard a soft moan coming from him.

  “Ben,” she said. She was surprised at how slurred her speech was. “You have to get off me. I can’t breathe here.”

  “Oh,” he said, in a garbled voice. He slid off her onto the ground below.

  Gennie heard some birds chirping and could smell and feel the mossy ground below her. They were outside, somewhere in the woods. Even though her head felt like a pile of bricks had hit it, she managed to sit up. She felt light-headed at first, but after a few minutes, it went away. The woods weren’t too dense, being mostly made up of scrawny looking pine trees and brush. Gennie could see the sun’s rays peeking through the forest. They were coming from the east and the sun was only about halfway up in the sky, so that meant it was morning. Gennie remembered it was about three o’clock in the afternoon when she confronted Bryan. They could have been here all night. She imagined Bryan thought they were dead, which was why they were probably dumped here. If it was the next day, that meant it was Sunday. They would have to find out where they were and get to the Dougherty’s so they could go on to Seward. Gennie wasn’t too worried. They both knew their way around the woods and she imagined they weren’t far from home. Bryan wasn’t known for thinking very far ahead. They could probably walk back to Willow in half a day at the very most.

  Gennie looked over at her brother. He was still lying helplessly on the ground. She didn’t realize how bad his condition was. His face was covered in purple bruises, one of his eyes was badly swollen and he was only able to open it halfway. His lower lip was split and a thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

  She scooted over to him and lifted up his head. She wiped the blood off his mouth with her shirt.

  “Do I look as bad as you do?” she asked him.

  “I don’t think so,” Ben replied, “though I haven’t seen myself in a mirror lately. Do I look as shitty as I feel?”

  Gennie chuckled. “Probably.”

  “We should find a road or something,” Ben said. “Get to a hospital.”

  “Do you think you can walk?” Gennie asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to try.”

  “I’ll help you sit up,” Gennie said. She put one of her arms underneath him. His head looked a little wobbly and he put one of his hands to his forehead in order to stabilize it.

  “Dizzy?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I think this is going to take a while.”

  “I’ll try to get up first,” Gennie said. Leaning on a nearby rock for support, she managed to lift herself up into a standing position.

  “That wasn’t too bad,” she said. “I’ll help you up now.”

  She took one of his arms. With her help, he pushed himself up until he was standing.

  “My head’s not liking this,” he said. He leaned on her slightly for about a minute or so.

  “Doing better?” she asked him.

  “I guess so,” he said. “Does this place look familiar to you?”

  Gennie looked around. “Not at all.”

  “What direction should we go in?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I wish we had a compass or something,” Ben said.

  “Well, the sun’s facing east, so maybe we could go in that direction and just see what we hit.”

  “Usually east means more wilderness,” Ben said, “but since we have no idea where we are anyway, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

  They trekked through the woods. Through the ground was muddy and they didn’t have shoes on, it wasn’t difficult for either for him. They went barefoot outside quite often in summertime and they had been through thicker brush than this. They walked for an hour and still there was nothing. They were both getting hungry and thirsty but there was nothing to drink except for a few shallow muddy puddles filled with mosquitoes. There wasn’t anything around that looked particularly appetizing, though if worst came to worst they knew which plants they could eat and which they couldn’t. It took another hour of walking before they came upon a small spring.

  “Let’s rest here,” Ben said, breathing heavily.

  They scooped up the water using their hands and took large gulps. Gennie never thought plain water could taste so good.

  “I’ll try to find something we can eat,” Gennie said. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be walking before we find some real food.”

  “All right,” Ben replied.

  Gennie tried to stay within sight of Ben. She pulled up some edible plants, like cattail from an open marshy area, fleabane and musk mallow. She had two large handfuls of them before she walked back to Ben.

  “Here you go,” Gennie said, putting one handful of the uprooted plants into his lap.

  Ben didn’t look very enthusiastic about his breakfast, but ate the plants anyway.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Now we don’t have to eat each other.”

  “Good,” Gennie replied. “Because you don’t look too tasty, especially in the shape you’re in right now.”

  After they finished eating, they walked for another hour. The trees became sparser and the brush thicker. Suddenly, they stepped out of the brush onto a worn path leading up a hillside.

  “There’s got to be people around here,” Ben said. “Let’s follow the trail.”

  About fifteen minutes later, the forest came to an abrupt end. In the clearing was a log cabin. It wasn’t abandoned, but it was obvious no one was home either.

  “Must be a vacation home or something,” Ben said. “Let’s see if there’s a window we can get into.”

  “You want to break into somebody’s house?” Gennie said.

  “Well…I wouldn’t put it like that. I just want to go inside and borrow some of their food, maybe take a bath and stuff like that. I don’t think the people who come here are going to notice.”

  “It’s a bad idea,” Gennie replied, “but I’ll do it. Let’s not mess anything up, okay? If there aren’t any windows we can open, don’t try to break any. And we have to clean up our mess before we go.”

  “All right,” Ben said.

  They looked for windows to the cabin but there weren’t any. The front door was padlocked.

  “I guess we’re out of luck,” Gennie said.

  “Not so fast,” Ben replied. “I bet they have a key lying around here somewhere, in case they get locked outside.”

  “To the regular lock, yes, but I don’t think there’s a key to the padlock hanging around.”

  “You never know,” Ben said. “Let’s look.”

  They looked in the obvious places, like under the welcome mat, underneath rocks, and in between the small pile of logs stacked up in the back of the house. They found nothing.

  “I think they have the keys with them, Ben. We better just give up and move on.”

  “I want to look some more. Maybe they buried it somewhere.”

  “Ben! What are you going to do? Dig up the whole yard? And what are you going to dig with?”

  “Maybe there’s a shovel somewhere.”

  Gennie groaned.

  “If you don’t get moving, I’m leaving here without you!” Gennie threatened him. “It’s completely stupid to keep on looking!”

  A breeze blew in, just strong enough to rattle the wind chimes hanging on the one lone tree in the yard. When Gennie looked at one of them, she saw something small and silver in the middle of it, something shaped exactly like…a key! Gennie ran over to the chimes.

  “You’re not taking off on me alread
y, are you?” Ben said. “Just give me five more minutes at least.”

  “No Ben. Look here.” She took the key off the hook that was in the middle of the chime.

  “That’s different,” Ben said. “I wonder if they did the same thing with the padlock key.”

  Gennie reached under a second wind chime and pulled it out. “It looks like they did.”

  “And you said we would never find it,” Ben replied.

  Gennie gave him a playful shove. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be digging up the entire yard.”

  They unlocked the cabin and went inside. It was cool and dark. There was a small kitchen with no running water, just a hand pump. The bathroom consisted of a plastic floral shower curtain concealing one corner of the cabin. Behind it was a metal tub and a portable toilet. They noticed there were electric lights, so Gennie went outside to see if there was a generator somewhere. There was one out in back. Gennie filled the generator with the gas stored next to the woodpile, in case they wanted power that night. She went back into the cabin and saw Ben checking out the kitchen, seeing what there was to eat. There was a small refrigerator, but it was unplugged and empty. Ben opened up a very large cabinet in the kitchen. It was completely filled with canned food and pasta. They had enough food to last them quite a while. On the opposite side of the cabin there was a queen sized bed and a large wardrobe. Gennie opened it and it was full of women’s and men’s clothes. Neither of them knew if they would fit, but they would try them on just to make sure.

  “I think I’d like to take a bath first,” Ben said. “I’m totally filthy, especially my feet.”

  “All right,” Gennie replied. “It probably isn’t something we should do every day though.”

  Gennie pumped water into a large stockpot she found underneath the counter, while Ben started the wood stove. Ben brought the pot over and put it on the wood stove to heat it up. It took about an hour for the water to get lukewarm and Ben, getting impatient, took it off the stove and poured it into the tub.

  “Get some clothes for me, will ya?” Ben shouted from the bathroom. “Make sure they’re not too square either.”

  “Well, I hope you like plaid,” Gennie said, “because whoever lives here owns a ton of it.”

  Gennie chose the only non-plaid shirt in the closet, a blue polo. She also grabbed a pair of jeans.

  “I got your stuff right out here,” Gennie said to the closed shower curtain. “I’m going to hang it on the railing.”

  “Okay,” Ben said.

  After washing her feet in a small bucket filled with cold water, Gennie decided to take a nap while Ben bathed. She didn’t realize how tired she was until she hit the bed. The feather pillows under her head and the down comforter enveloping her felt like heaven. It took her mere seconds to fall asleep.

  Ben woke her up some time later. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah,” Gennie replied groggily. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “There’s no clock in here so I have no idea. It’s night time though.”

  Gennie sat up and shook her head.

  “I was planning on making green bean casserole. They have a ton of canned green beans, fried onions and cream of mushroom soup here.”

  “They must make that a lot. I mean, what else do you do with fried onions?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday.”

  “Well, anyway, green bean casserole sounds good.”

  Ben made the casserole and they both devoured it. They had their meal on paper plates so they wouldn’t have to do dishes. Afterwards, they found a deck of cards in one of the kitchen drawers and played a couple of games. When they both got tired, they went to bed. Gennie felt uneasy wearing her female counterpart’s nightgown, so she just took off her clothes and slept in her bra and panties. Ben did the same, except he was wearing a pair of the owner’s clean underwear. It appeared the man of the house didn’t wear pajamas. Ben had to pin the underwear on both sides, though, because they were much too wide for him. Gennie laughed when she saw him.

  “It looks like you’re wearing a diaper,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Ben replied. “I think the guy that owns this place has to lose some weight. He’s almost the same height as me but he’s about twice as wide.”

  “I think the girl is too,” Gennie said. “She’s got really big clothes.”

  “We’ll have to thank them for letting us use their house,” Ben replied.

  “I hope they won’t be too upset about it,” Gennie said. “I don’t know how I’d feel if some girl came into my house and looked through all my stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t care,” Ben replied, “as long as they didn’t break anything.”

  Ben shut the single oil lamp in the bedroom off and they settled down to bed.

  “Well, this has been the worst day of my life,” Gennie said.

  “How come?” Ben asked.

  “How come! We got the crap kicked out of both of us, we were dumped some place probably miles from civilization and we don’t even know where we are!”

  “You’re talking about yesterday,” Ben said. “Today wasn’t so bad. At least we’re not sleeping outside. I thought that we would have to.”

  “Still, we don’t know where we are. If only there was a phone, so we could call the Dougherty’s.”

  “I figure maybe in about two or three days, when we don’t look like we’ve been in a boxing match, we’ll find the nearest phone, look them up in the phone book and give them a call. Maybe they can pick us up as soon as we figure out where we are.”

  “We’ve got to be in Alaska somewhere,” Gennie said.

  “Maybe we’re in Canada,” Ben replied. “Bryan had enough time to drive there. Besides, he’d want to put us in the most out of the way place available, so we wouldn’t be able to come back easily.”

  “He probably thinks we’re dead,” Gennie said, “He wouldn’t have dumped us in the woods if we weren’t.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Ben replied. “Maybe he thought that we weren’t, but that if he put us in the middle of nowhere, we’d freeze or starve to death because we didn’t have any supplies with us.”

  “Why do you think he did that?” Gennie asked quietly. “I know he didn’t like us, but we’re his brother and sister.”

  An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, joining a chorus of crickets. Gennie couldn’t see Ben’s face in the pitch darkness but she did hear him sigh.

  “I don’t claim to know what’s going on in his head. I was surprised he acted the way he did. I thought he was going to be happy that we moved out.”

  “I did too,” Gennie said. “I remember what he said to me when I told him though. ‘Who’s going to make my supper then?’”

  “Oh, he didn’t want to lose his servants, I see.”

  “Well, he lost us now,” Gennie said, growing angry. “You know, I can’t wait to go back home…with a whole bunch of cops waiting to arrest him. He’s going to get what’s coming to him in a big way.”

  “I’m not sure I want to go back,” Ben said. “I want to start a new life. I don’t want to see him ever again.”

  “Don’t you want him to get his due?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t need to be there. I think I’ve had enough of him for one lifetime.”

  “You’re just going to go straight to Seward?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, for a little while.”

  “What do you mean, for a little while? I swear I never know what the heck you’re up to.”

  “Well, while I was taking a bath, I was thinking about what I want to do. Alaska’s a great place, but I’m not going to get too far here. I have to go somewhere else.”

  “You’re going to drop out of school. Alaska’s as good a place as any to do that.”

  “I was thinking maybe I would stay in Seward for a couple of years, but then eventually I would go to California.”
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  “What would you do there?”

  “I don’t know. I’d get myself a job and stuff.”

  “And what about me? Do you plan on leaving your only sister behind?”

  “I thought that promise we’d made when we were five years old was a bunch of crap?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Okay, not exactly like that, but that was the gist of it.”

  “Do you want me to go with you to California?” Gennie asked.

  “If you want to.”

  “I don’t really want to go there. I’d rather stay in Alaska.”

  “Then stay in Alaska.”

  “But we’ll be apart!”

  “We can write letters or talk on the phone.”

  Gennie sighed. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I think it would be the best thing for me.”

  “So, you’re going to get a job in California?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to open my own restaurant up.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.” He gave his sister a hug. “Well, we better go to sleep. It’s probably getting late.”

  “Okay,” Gennie said, “goodnight.”

  Hours later, Gennie had a bad dream and woke up crying.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Ben asked.

  “Bryan ran you over with his truck,” she sobbed. “I ran to you, but you were dead. There was blood everywhere and your neck was broken.”

  Ben held her close and rubbed her back. She cried into his bare chest.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Ben said. “It was just a bad dream.”

  “But it seemed so real!” Gennie replied.

  “You’ve just had a rough couple of days. I think if you go back to sleep, you’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t want to go back to sleep!” Gennie cried.

  “All right then,” Ben said. “I saw some hot chocolate mix in the cabinet. I’ll make you up some.”

  He went into the kitchen, and using a flashlight, he made her some hot chocolate.

  “You want some marshmallows in that?” Ben asked. “There’s an unopened package in the cabinet.”

  “Sure,” Gennie said. The bad dream was fading away. She felt better already.

  “There’s some graham crackers and a couple of chocolate bars here. Do you want to make some s’mores?”

  “Who can say no to them?” Gennie said.

  They toasted the marshmallows using wood skewers and put them inside the wood stove. They really enjoyed their after midnight snack.

  “I’m glad we found this place. This beats the heck out of eating cattails and plant roots.”

  “This is definitely tastier than what we could get outside,” Gennie agreed.

  When they were done eating, they went to bed again.

  “Feel better?” Ben asked.

  “Yes,” Gennie said. “Thanks.”

  Ben shrugged his shoulders. “It’s nothing.”

  Chapter 5: June 24