I don’t even know where we go, I don’t know which turns we make. I can barely see in the dark and neither can Jonah, and I’m sure neither can my cousins. We’re just behind them, and then we’re surrounded by them, the smallest stampede. Our footsteps are swallowed by the growl of the mountain.
Our panic, our fear, our sudden flight of survival is nothing in the face of this. It is an impossible roaring, it is world-altering, the sound of it is everything.
Anyone who saw this from the ground would hear nothing but silence.
The woods cave in, being overtaken by the rush of mud and snow, and I don’t know. I don’t know where it stops, where it will end, if we will all be swallowed and this is it, it’s the end.
I’m freezing and I’m hot all at once.
But I’m moving.
We’re all moving.
Not as fast as the mountain.
We crash through the trees, we go, we go, we go.
Until the deafening rumble quiets.
Until the woods slowly, slowly still.
Until we can step out of the falsely protective cover of the trees and look down the hill and see that we are out of its path, and it’s a path no longer being carved anyway.
Until we can breathe.
I’m trembling everywhere, and my throat hurts. My head hurts. None of this feels real. The adrenaline is so intense that now that is the loudest sound I can hear, and I can’t push past it. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them. Shut again, so hard it hurts. Then open. I exhale. It comes out in stops and starts.
Jonah’s breath is ragged beside me. I can feel his whole body shaking.
He squeezes my wrist, and then his grip loosens, like he physically can’t make his fingers loop.
Without him forcing me to stand, I don’t.
I collapse.
I think I remain conscious.
I don’t think I actually pass out. But if I laid money on it, I’m not sure I wouldn’t come out at a loss.
No one says a damn thing for seconds, minutes.
We are all just breathing, touching our own skin to make sure we’re alive. Staring into the darkness to try to puzzle out what the fuck just happened, to confirm that it’s real.
That the earth we had just been standing on is gone.
That the mountain, like one of those crazy videos on YouTube, just came down around us.
“Head . . . head count,” says someone. Tzipporah. It has to be. Who else would it be?
No one says anything for a solid minute.
“GODDAMMIT, HEAD COUNT,” she says.
And Lydia starts crying.
Sam says her own name, and Lydia sobs hers, and then we all follow, person by person.
Lydia is still sniffling.
We all gather together in a huddle, and Tzipporah makes us say our names three more times before she’s satisfied that we’re all here.
Thank G-d.
The trees, which seemed so much smaller earlier, seem huge and dark now, suffocating. Like binding and shelter all at the same time.
“Can we . . . can we get back to the truck?” says Lydia.
Oliver says, “No way to know, man; do you even know where we are?”
“No.”
“It’s dark,” says Jaxon. “We’re all turned around; there’s just . . . there’s just no way we make it down tonight.”
“What the hell was that?” says Jolie.
Sam says, “Mudslide. It’s been so dry and then the rain; I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I didn’t think about it. I just figured Cool. Rain. Means we can have a fire. I didn’t . . . I should have figured . . .” She starts crying and Tzipporah wraps her arms around her.
“Why doesn’t someone call for help?”
There’s a collective rustle as people check their phones. But no one has service. I mean, of the, like, three of us who didn’t leave phones in the cars or lose them in the chaos or leave them back at the campsite.
Sam says, “DAMMIT.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s going to be fine. It’s one night and it’s cold, but we all have our coats. We have supplies. I mean, a couple bags, right? Who’s got a bag? I have one.”
“Me,” says Jolie.
Sam says, “I got one.”
Oliver hugs Lydia in close to his side and says, clearly trying to cover up panic that cannot be covered, “No. No, no, this is bullshit. I’m not staying up here tonight. Lydia and I aren’t. We can’t. All we need to do is just, like, retrace our steps—”
“Retrace?” says Tzipporah. “How, exactly? There’s nothing TO retrace. The mountain ate it.”
“And it’s dark now,” Sam pipes in.
Lydia starts shaking. “We could hike around a little. Look for like a ranger station or—”
“We are not. Getting anywhere. Tonight,” says Jaxon.
Lydia sniffs.
“I’m not a fan of this either,” he continues, “but doing anything other than staying put right now is suicide.”
It’s silent for a solid thirty seconds.
That’s a shockingly long time in the city.
In the woods, alone in the cold, it’s an eternity.
“Okay,” I say. “So we start another fire. We can do that. We take turns keeping it alive and this will be like . . . an adventure. In the morning, we find the cars and we go home. Okay?”
Jonah is looking at me. He’s quiet, contemplative. Coming down from everything, probably. Then he stands and simply starts gathering wood and pine needles.
Some people feel comfortable making plans. Me, that’s me. I need a plan, I need steps A through Z, and I need to lay it out.
Jonah is someone who needs to act.
A couple cousins join Jonah in the gathering, and when the plan is underway, I can breathe.
It becomes clear to me, in the silent aftermath of everything, just how cold I am. Just how dark it is. Just how much my muscles suddenly hurt.
I blow out a shaky breath. We just . . . we just survived a mudslide.
Someone—who cares who—pulls out a lighter and ignites the growing pile of kindling.
It starts small; it really is cold out, cold enough to discourage even flame.
We all move toward the fire, everyone shivering and scared and tired and freezing and just . . . just wondering.
Wondering too many things that feel dangerous to put to words.
I wind up between Jolie and Lydia. Jaxon is on Jolie’s other side and he’s practically hovering over her. He’s protective; he’s always been like that with her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen siblings love each other so much.
She’s fine.
But he’ll be like this until we’re out of the woods.
Literally and metaphorically.
“My ankle hurts,” says Lydia. She’s fourteen but suddenly she seems so much younger than so many of us. I want to protect her.
I say, “Yeah, I sliced my hand open running. And my calves are killing me.”
She nods and scoots closer to me on a log a couple of the cousins rolled over here. She lays her head on my shoulder.
I can feel the worry in the camp.
It’s just one night; we really will be fine. I think. I mean, I’m pretty sure. How far can we have run? We can’t be that turned around; it’s just that it’s so freaking dark and we’re all running on a combination of adrenaline and absolute exhaustion.