Avery lay on his back and looked up at the stars, framed by green pine branches. There had been a storm earlier, during which he'd hid within his shelter, afraid that every gust would tear it apart. But that had passed now. The night was peaceful. Avery was not.
He didn't know how long it had been since things had gone wrong. It might have been a week or more. Either way, part of him knew it had been too long. He should have been found by now. He'd had to go too far from the crash site to find shelter. And with how they'd struggled to keep radio contact even before the disaster, the search team probably didn't even know where to begin looking. He might never be found.
He was surprised to find the thought didn't upset him very much. He supposed he'd already accepted it. He rolled over, the rustle of the sleeping bag and the crunch of the pine needles beneath it punctuating the still and silent air of the cold night. He stirred his fire back up, thinking that he should get more firewood. If this fire went out he might not be able to start another. Slowly, unsteadily, he climbed out of his shelter and limped into the trees. Aside from the occasional stab of pain, he couldn't really feel his foot. He didn't think it had refrozen, but he knew it was severely swollen, squeezed painfully inside his boot. It might be the circulation was cut off and that was why he couldn't feel it. He should probably be more worried about that.
He squinted, seeing by moonlight and the dim light of his fire, looking for fallen branches he could scavenge. He gathered a good armful, wandering a little further from his fire than he would have liked. The stand of trees was not very large, but it wouldn't take much to get lost in the state that he was in. He knew he should be more careful, but making himself care was getting harder. He'd eaten half of the last protein bar. He would need to find other sources of food soon, or begin starving. This worried him more than anything else, though even that was not much. He didn't want to die that way. If it came to it, he'd rather freeze.
He looked up, arms full of branches, at the clear dark sky. Blue black as ink, full of stars. Dan was dead, he was almost certain. He could feel it, a kind of hollow ache in his chest. But he didn't know how to process it. The grief he needed to feel wouldn't come. It loomed on the edge of things like a tidal wave building on the horizon but wouldn't break. He felt numb. What was he going to do if he lived? He'd wanted to spend the rest of his life with Dan. He knew ever making it into pro skiing was a long shot, but they would have climbed mountains together, had adventures. Even when they were old and retired and couldn't stand on their skis anymore, they would travel. Take a walking tour of Patagonia, or maybe somewhere easier on their old bones, like Italy. He'd wanted to stand next to Dan, both of them gray, fat and content, in front of some spectacular view, or some touristy monument, or even just the house they'd raised their children in together. He'd wanted to be with Dan at the end, looking back at their life in peaceful satisfaction. Instead he was standing in the snow, alone. Dan was dead, and Avery would probably join him soon.
What was the point of it all, he wondered? Arms full of wet firewood, he looked up at the stars and wondered if there was anyone up there looking down at him. If there was, he wondered how they justified all this. He wondered what their reasons were, if they had any, if they existed. Did something up there want this to happen to him, or was it all just random and totally out of anyone's control? He wasn't sure which option was worse.
A twig snapped in the darkness and Avery froze, staring in the direction the sound had come from like a deer in headlights. A squirrel, he told himself, backing slowly toward his camp site.
Another snap, followed by a low rumbling grunt. Not a squirrel. Avery kept backing away one step at a time. He watched the dark shape moving beyond the trees, foraging among the tree litter, its great shaggy back swaying in the moonlight. He'd never seen a bear up close. It was bigger than he expected.
Slowly, slowly, silently, he crouched by his fire and shoved the longest dry branch he had into the flames. His heart was racing. His pulse throbbed in his frostbitten foot. Maybe it would go the other way. Maybe it would just leave. Maybe not. The light of the campfire would draw it. But he couldn't risk putting it out. He crouched by his shoddy shelter and waited.
He had two options, both of which were dependent on what kind of bear it was. Up here, it could easily be any of the three North American bear species. A black bear he could probably drive off with shouting and waving. A grizzly it would be better to back away and act as non-threatening as possible. He honestly had no idea how to deal with a polar bear. Fear pumped in his veins cold as ice, waking him up. He watched, perfectly still and silent, as the bear, grunting and huffing as it dug in the leaves, ambled toward his camp and into the firelight.
It was the size of Dan's junky little Corolla, with deep russet fur, but that didn't mean much except that it wasn't polar. Black bears and grizzles could easily overlap in size and color. He kept waiting, until it reared up to drag its claws down the trunk of a nearby pine tree. Dish shaped face, visible hump on its back.
He sank quietly further back into his den. Grizzly. A black bear he probably could have managed. A grizzly he wasn't sure what to do about. The literature said to back away quietly if approached by a grizzly. Don't run, don't make yourself prey or a threat, just leave as slowly and sedately as possible. But Avery couldn't do that. He could barely walk on his frostbitten foot and if he left this stand of trees, he would die. Avery realized, with a kind of cold crystallization, that he did not want to die. He was going to live through this. He was going to be rescued. He and Dan were still going to climb mountains together, to wander the streets of Rome, to grow old together. He dug his teeth into that image of the future and resolved to never let it go. He reached out of the shelter and wrapped his hand around the end of the branch he'd shoved into the fire. He watched the bear with steely eyes as it ambled around his camp, sniffing for food and rubbing against the trees. The only food he had was half a protein bar, in a sealed plastic bag at the bottom of his supply sack. He prayed to whatever callous voyeur gods might be watching that the bear couldn't smell it because he could not afford to give it up.
He wondered if it could smell him. If it knew he was here, sitting in his shitty little shelter, watching it. He wondered if it had ever encountered a human out here before. Bears naturally avoided humans and their noisy, smelly settlements. But there were always idiots who fed the bears that wandered into their backyards, or didn't secure their trash cans, or otherwise let the bears get used to recognizing humans as a nonthreatening source of food. Once habituated, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. This one was awfully calm about Avery's camp. He wondered if he was about to face the consequences of someone else's irresponsible behavior.
When I live through this, he thought, and they put my incredible survivor story on TV, I'm going to go on a fucking crusade against people who don't show nature the proper goddamn respect.
He started working on his speech about irresponsible anthropomorphism as he watched the bear paw at his little pile of firewood, dangerously close. For the first time in several frigid days, Avery was sweating. It was coming closer to the shelter. Avery's grip tightened on the branch he had in the fire. He could lie here, pretend to be dead, and hope the bear went on its way. That was dangerous for a number of reasons. The grizzly could decide he wasn’t quite dead enough and take a swipe at him. Even a minor injury could kill him out here. Worse, it might believe he was dead, but push into the lean to with him to get at the protein bar in his supplies. He’d lose his only food, probably the other supplies as well, and likely be stepped on in the process. And considering the bear was anywhere between four and six hundred pounds, that alone could kill him. He had one other option, one that sounded an awful lot like suicide when he thought about it. But when every decision he made here seemed to inevitably end in death, what else could he do?
As the bear turned toward the shelter, Avery tightened his grip on the branch he had in the fire, pulled it out and, with a wild yell, stabbed the burning end directly into the bear's face.
It bellowed in pain and swiped out wildly with its long claws. Avery threw himself to the side, but he still felt them catch in his coat and tear. Ignoring the blossoming pain there he continued shouting and battering at the bear's face with the burning branch.
It didn't take much more for the bear to stumble backwards and turn to flee, its pained noises loud and frantic.
Avery, exhausted and terrified, limped after it briefly, shouting as loudly as he could. He watched until it had vanished into the trees, then stumbled back to his shelter, shaking. Frankly, it shouldn't have worked. He sent a grateful prayer up to the stars for his luck. He knew it likely wouldn't work for long. This was the bear's territory, and now it knew he was a threat. It would be back, and this time looking for a fight. He could only hope he'd be rescued by the time it tried, and plan to be ready if he wasn't.
For now he returned to his shelter and shredded his spare shirt to bandage the marks the bear had left on him. A relatively shallow swipe along his arm, back home he might have wanted stitches for them. But here he could only clean them out with a little of his water and wrap them in old shirt fabric, hoping for the best.
Still, he lay down once he was done, hungry but relieved, his heart still pounding. He loosened his boot and felt the blood rush back to his frostbitten foot. It hurt like hell and he rolled in his lean-to quietly swearing until he could breathe through it again. But even that pain was a relief. He was alive, and he intended to stay that way. He wouldn't give in to this place today. Maybe tomorrow, when that bear came back. Maybe the day after when the hunger really started to hurt. But for now, he was alive.