Chương 169: CDM 3, Chapter 45: 0 Days Without Incident

A little over 30 minutes later, much of my mental clarity had returned. My body shivered, and my thoughts were still foggy, but I felt like myself, like a person who had a corporeal form, like something alive.

"We should get him to a hospital," de Saint argued from the driver's seat.

"UPMC is still at least 45 minutes out."

"I'm getting better," I said, my voice hoarse.

"You can slow down. Be nicer to my new wheels."

"You look like shit," Megan said, frowning.

"I'm shaking a little less, though."

"Are you still cold?"

"Yeah, but really. I don't feel like I'm going to die." Megan scowled.

"Give me the rest of the drive," I pleaded.

"If things look bad when Pittsburgh is in sight, we can go to the hospital."

"Alright, fine," Megan relented.

"If you start feeling hot or loopy, you better fucking tell us."

"Pinky promise."

"So we're pretty sure Uncle Gray isn't going to die on us, yes?" Giago asked.

"Looks that way," Megan replied.

"We got the holy water in him pretty quickly."

"Hot damn!" Giago yelled, his eyes seeming to replay the encounter.

"That was fucking wild, boys. And girls. Women. Ladies. I mean equals."

"It's fine," de Saint assured him with a glance in the rearview. Megan seemed to finally relax as well.

"We were told wisps were gnarly, but Jesus Christ. How the hell is a little ball of light so strong?"

"And fast," Hornby added.

"They covered 15 yards like that," he said, snapping his fingers to emphasize his point. Giago shook his head, his eyes still downcast like he was focused on a memory.

"Getting Wraith Touched when those fuckers are around is a death sentence. Good thinking, you guys, on scooping up our archer so quickly."

"I too say that was good thinking," I added, my voice quivering just a little bit. Everyone in the van laughed.

"What do you dudes say to stopping to get Dorion some hot tea?" Nathan asked, turning in the passenger's seat to address the rest of us in the back.

"We'll be coming up to a diner in about 10."

"How hungry are you?" Megan asked in reply.

"Huh? I'm thinking entirely about our boy. Wouldn't hot tea be good for him?"

"I could take a tea," I said.

"See? If we're stopping, we might as well pick up some food too, but that's purely a bonus benefit." Megan rolled her eyes.

"Oh, don't fucking act like you're not about to get yourself a giant milkshake," Nathan retorted.

"I could murder a peanut butter chocolate shake right now," Hornby echoed. Then he cleared his throat, composing himself.

"But yes, Gray is the priority. Thoughts and prayers to you. And tea." I waved a hand.

"It's fine. My stomach is feeling a bit upset anyway."

"So the wraith-runs are real?" Giago asked. De Saint said, "What's that?"

"Diarrhea," Nathan answered.

"We called it the 'runny bunnies' growing up," Hornby offered.

"It was 'the squirts' in my house," Giago added. Megan held up both arms.

"Okay! We get it. That's enough." Guy stroked his long silver beard with one hand and tapped the ash off his cigar with the other.

"Y'all look like hell. Rough night?"

"We hunted wraiths last night," de Saint replied.

"And ran from will-o'-the-wisps." The old outdoorsman clucked his tongue.

"I'm glad to say I never had the displeasure of encountering one of those. So Gray is Wraith Touched, not hungover?" I nodded.

"We're going to be in the field a bunch today," Guy said as he lifted the door on his garage.

"I can get you a little shovel and a roll of toilet paper to take with you."

"Thanks," I said.

"If it were me, I would have no-showed this one and stayed by a bathroom." I made a mental note of that. I would have much rather stayed home than make a trip out to Carlisle to run around in the woods.

"You're getting lost and found today," Guy said, passing out folded maps and compasses. Then he did another round with satellite phones.

"We only talked about using compasses last time," de Saint added.

"No opening the maps!" De Saint reluctantly reversed her one open fold.

"Experience is the best teacher," Guy continued.

"I'll drop you off, and then you're going to find your way to Pavilion 5. It's still early enough in the season that no little shit stains will be having a birthday party. I hope." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Hornby and Giago seemed unperturbed. Nathan and de Saint were clearly distressed. Megan just looked tired.

"Don't worry. I'll come get you before the sun goes down. Unless you get really, really lost. Then you might be fucked, so try not to do that." The last items he distributed were bandanas for blindfolds.

"Remember what we talked about. Get your cardinal directions figured, and then look for landmarks. These are all orienteering maps, so this should be easy."

"Are we doing this as a group?" de Saint asked.

"Or pairing up?" Guy laughed.

"You're on your own, kiddos." I might have been able to argue differently before, but now I was certain that Guy and McDouglas shared the same teaching philosophies. As I climbed into the back of a van and blindfolded myself, I very much wished that were not the case. When I was a kid, my second-grade teacher dedicated a morning to teaching us what to do if a kidnapper put us in a trunk.

We talked about looking for an emergency release, but if there wasn't one of those, we could tear the corner of the trunk carpet down and kick out the taillights. While that lesson was going on, I debated whether I could remember the route someone took even if I couldn't see it. I reasoned I'd do pretty well at counting the turns and would be able to recite them back. Second-grade Dorion was very wrong. I lost track in minutes.

When it was my turn to get out of the van, I pulled the blindfold down and saw nothing but forest.

"Show me your sat phone," Guy said, taking my blindfold. I held it up.

"Full battery. Good. See you at Pavilion 5." Guy clapped me on the back and walked back to the driver's seat. I looked up and down the dirt tire tracks Guy used to get here in the first place. Guy laughed and shouted over the hood of the van.

"Yeah. We came from that direction. It won't help. This road doesn't go anywhere near Pavilion 5." Minutes later, I was alone in the woods with a compass, a map, a satellite phone, and a big bottle of water. I unfolded my map. And a little shovel with some toilet paper, but you don't want to hear about that. Guy was an asshole. He scratched out all of the names on the map. Trails, roads, creeks–not a single proper noun in sight.

Eventually, I realized those wouldn't have actually helped me because I knew nothing about this part of the state. Okay. I could be anywhere on this map. The biggest landmark was a creek to the west. Depending on where I was now, I might run into any number of landmarks. If I kept an eye on my elevation, I could start to narrow down where I might be. The compass showed me north. I took a few extra seconds to fix those directions in my mind and started to hike.

What were the chances I could get there before Hornby and Giago? Nathan and de Saint were smart enough to logic their way through this, but they weren't used to being in the wilderness the way two Army vets would be. Hornby also had Divine Rest, which was equivalent to an hour of sleep at his level, so he might have the edge over Giago. My real competition was Megan, who also had Divine Rest. The only advantage I had over her was longer legs.

She was definitely smarter, and she probably had more hiking experience too. I started to jog. And immediately regretted it. After a pause, I breathed deeply and went back to jogging. I couldn't tell you why, but I was certain I had to beat Megan. When I came out of the woods, entering the clearing around Pavilion 5, I spotted three people already at the picnic tables. God damn it. One of them was Megan. The other two were Giago and Guy.

"I've been here for about an hour," she announced when I got close.

"Giago beat me by 20 minutes."

"I told you he would still try to run it," Giago said, speaking to Megan but looking at the sweat soaked into my shirt.

"That had to suck."

"It did suck."

"How many stops did you have to make?" Megan asked.

"... two."

"We guessed way too high. Lowest among us was Giago. He bet it would be 4."

"Learn anything while you were out there, Gray?" Guy asked.

"And I bet 7. You looked pretty green this morning."

"Reading terrain seems like the real game changer," I answered.

"Why do you say that?"

"I had to go looking for a landmark, but if I had a decent view and could picture what I saw as a topographical map, I could be unlost immediately." Guy nodded sagely.

"Finding that view can be tough sometimes, so you're only partway there. The rest of the way is walking four lines of your map in one direction and using that to figure out where you are. Only so many places on your map will have that exact topographical fingerprint."

"That's some Jedi shit," Giago said. Megan and I agreed.

"It's just practice, is all. Not magic. Not being an idiot helps too. If you can tell when you're going downhill or uphill and can solve one of them Where's Waldo? books, you can do it just fine."

"Any tricks to figuring out that feel for elevation?" I asked.

"Getting that right sounds like the hardest part."

"Measure your gait. You should know exactly how much distance you cover with a stride, and then you want to get measurements for uphill and downhill too–little pro tip for you there because that changes your stride length. Then get yourself a handheld altimeter and quiz yourself while you're on the trail. Make a guesstimate about how far you are above sea level and check it to see how close you were. On top of that, get used to counting your strides. Do it all the time.

Make guesses about how many steps from the shitter to the sink. Things like that." Megan took a drink from her water bottle.

"You're counting your steps all the time?"

"Hell no," Guy scoffed.

"I can eyeball elevation pretty damn good, but I'm not running ops no more. I rerouted the step-countin' power and use it for trying to remember if I took my fucking meds this morning."

"But you used to always do it," Giago said.

"Yep. If you get an eyeball on the floor plan, you can do it with your eyes closed. Makes you faster than hell when you're doing a sweep too." I had met dozens of old men like Guy–former soldiers, fighters, and crawlers. Though their primes were far behind them, you could see the men they used to be, like it was an afterglow that followed them for the rest of their lives. If I found Guy a bit scary now, he must have been an absolute monster when he was young. Megan whistled loudly and started to clap.

Nathan strolled across the field.

"How the fuck did you guys get here so fast? Did you run or something?" When no one replied, he shook his head.

"You guys are crazy," Nathan said.

"Why would you run that whole way?"

"I wanted to be first," Megan answered.

"Giago beat me."

"I wanted to beat Megan," I admitted. Guy shrugged when Nathan looked his direction.

"I never said a word about this being a race. A little competition is good for you, though." Nathan looked around.

"Are we worried about Rainy?"

"She'll be fine," Guy said. An hour later, Hornby and de Saint came out of the forest, chatting to one another.

"How long you been waiting?" Hornby asked.

"Nathan got in an hour ago," Megan answered.

"Told you they'd turn it into a race," Hornby said to de Saint. De Saint shook her head.

"I thought it was a very pretty hike." Hornby nodded.

"Sure was."

"You knew you couldn't win," Giago poked.

"Hell no," Hornby replied.

"I coulda whipped all y'all, but it wasn't a race. After last night, I'm sure as shit not running through the fucking woods." I considered how I felt. Hornby and de Saint were definitely smarter than the rest of us.