Destruction

There once lived a girl in a vast and golden prairie. She had a sturdy cabin, an old rifle, and a shock of blue hair. Her name was Chloe Price, and every day she got up before dawn and rowed out onto the broad, dark river to catch fish for the day. Once the sun was up, she’d feed her chickens and tend to her garden, and she would fill the rest of her day chopping wood, mending clothes, and repairing anything that was broken. If she was lucky, this would keep her very busy, and she could go to sleep without having a single thought, all day.

She had found the cabin after endless travel, when she decided she could flee no further. It had been uninhabited but in good condition, with a roof of tar shingles and a foam mattress that had not smelled musty. Chickens had run wild in the grasses nearby, as if they’d been domestic but gotten loose. The wide, fertile garden behind the cabin had been overgrown with runners and weeds, but the most valuable find of all had been an upturned skiff leaning against the outside wall. Beneath it lay a set of fishing rods and a box of tackle.

Chloe took to the river like a new beginning. Something about going out on the water in the early morning soothed her mind. She would row a half-hour upstream, then draw the oars into the boat and cast her line far into the mist. The fish loved the morning as much as she did, and they danced and wove hungrily under the surface. The smooth grey of the water reminded her of absolutely nothing. Seasons passed. Generations of fish thrived and died in the cool waters of the river. Chloe kept on fishing.

In the distance, along the horizon, a delicate purple range of mountains was barely visible against the sky. Beyond them lay Arcadia Bay, which Chloe thought upon as little as possible. But she lived simply, and as time wore on she found herself increasingly occupied with past mistakes and things that might have been. Even on the river, she began to see the people she had left behind among the slack faces of the carp and salmon, and though she heard no voices she imagined she might. “Chloe,” they would have said. “Come back to me. You have nothing else.”

So it was that Chloe grew to despise her cabin. It had supported her when she was at her lowest, and on some level she hated that. It was an act of condescension—something she had never tolerated in her closest friends, much less from a building. She despised her boat, which eased her mind when she did not deserve peace, and her chickens, which adored her because they knew no better.

Her rifle, she hated most of all, because it had helped her escape in the first place. And yet, it was the only thing she took with her when she left. Some part of her had always known she could not stay alone out here forever. She could have tried to flee to a city in the first place, but she had not, because that might have been tolerable. It hurt out here because it was supposed to hurt, and eventually the pain became too much. She had to go back. The chickens went loose again. The garden was harvested and left to run wild. Inside the cabin, she made her bed, because it would have been a shame to leave it messy.

The boat, she took with her, since the river was the quickest way west. She rowed downriver for ten days, eating only fresh-caught fish to preserve her supplies. At night, she tied her little rowboat to a tree by the shore, and she’d lay down a mat and sleep beneath the stars. On the eleventh day she rowed into a great lake, and marvelled at how much larger the mountains had grown. It took her all of that day and most of the next to cross the lake. She skirted the shore, which was a smart choice, because otherwise she would have had to sleep on the water.

On the far shore lay a dark forest, and in the shade of the trees sat a figure. Chloe rowed closer, and recognized them. This would be a curious reunion. When Chloe made shore, she disembarked, and began unloading her supplies. The figure approached her, but Chloe did not speak, and eventually the other woman spoke first.

“Chloe,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Hey Victoria.” Chloe’s voice was rough with disuse. “I’m going back west.”

“I realized. You shouldn’t.”

Victoria Chase sported a tailored jacket, worn out but kept clean, and wore a rifle strapped over her shoulder. On her hip she wore a rapier, long and thin, with a tastefully ornate handle. The tip hung just off the ground and listed in the breeze off the lake. Her hair had grown long, but it was shiny, and seemed recently brushed. She looked disdainful in a way which belied a much deeper and more lasting exhaustion.

“I’ve tried staying away. There’s nothing for me out here,” Chloe replied. She did not face Victoria; she was busy packing up her things to continue the journey on foot.

“You could go to a city. You could find people, make a new life for yourself.”

“Did you?”

Victoria sighed, and went silent for a moment. “No,” she said, “I’m not sure I believe there are any cities out there.”

“We should have run into somebody by now, huh?”

“Yes. Exactly. Besides, I have enough to get by. I shoot elk, I grow vegetables. I keep a journal. She doesn’t bother me too much out here, and I leave her well enough alone.”

Chloe’s breath caught, and she spun around to face Victoria. “You’ve seen her?”

“Regularly. She mostly stays on the other side of the mountains, but I get the occasional visit.” She patted the hilt of her rapier. “That’s why I started wearing this.”

“I don’t give a shit about your sword, Victoria. How is she?”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Same as ever. Like I said: The sword is for her.”

“Where did you get a sword, anyway?”

“It’s a souvenir from my time as a competitive fencer. It was a gift—a novelty, once, since fencers tend not to kill their opponents. Now it saves me bullets.”

“Are you running out of ammo?” asked Chloe.

“I will, eventually. Then I suppose I’ll have to find another source of food.” Judging by the circles under her eyes, “eventually” might have been quite soon after all.

“You can have my boat and fishing rod, if you want. I don’t need them anymore.”

Victoria’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I… thank you, Chloe. That makes all the difference in the world.” She looked over the small rowboat, wide-eyed.

Chloe finished packing away her supplies, and began to walk into the forest.

“What are you planning on doing?” asked Victoria.

“I don’t know. But I’m done running away.”

“Most animals die when they stop running away.”

“Yeah, well. Pbbbfbbfbft,” said Chloe, making a fart noise with her mouth. “Better that than staying alone out here anyway.”

This seemed to strike a chord with Victoria somehow—Chloe supposed it must have been the mouth fart. “Can you wait five minutes?” asked Victoria.

“What for?”

“I guess I don’t want to be alone out here either. I don’t have a plan, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you.” She shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work out, well, at least I have a boat now. I may as well guide you partway as thanks.”

Chloe gave a grunt of assent, and before long the two were on their way. Victoria had packed an assortment of sundries, including the full remainder of her greatly diminished ammunition supply. An elk would feed a woman for a long time, but even so, Victoria had been forced to become a very careful hunter.

They had walked for two days when they first spotted Max Caulfield. She was sitting on the path, drawing circles in the dust with a stick. When Chloe saw her she froze, but Victoria kept pace and walked right up to Max. She hurried to catch up. What would Chloe say, when they spoke? What could she say, that she hadn’t said already? But then why did she feel so desperate to speak to her?

Max looked up from the ground. “Chloe! Oh it’s been so long!” she said. “I’m so happy to see you again. I’ve got so many things to”—which was as far as she got before Victoria smartly jabbed her rapier through her chest. Max coughed, and blood dribbled out of her mouth. “Always the lung, Victoria? You stuck-up… ggh…” then she leaned backwards and fell dead to the ground.

“Victoria! What the fuck!” Chloe grabbed the stock of her rifle reflexively, as if it would ward off the other woman. “You killed her!”

“What, and you haven’t? Have you forgotten? Did you get soft on me, Price?” Victoria knelt to wipe the blood off the blade on Max’s graphic tee. “It’s not safe to have them around. Besides, it’s not like we’re going to run out of Maxine Caulfields any time soon.”

Chloe let go of the gun, remembering the time she had, in fact, used it to shoot Max. “But she wanted to talk to me!” It had been a nasty shot, in the stomach, and Max had screamed as Chloe ran away. “She was going to say something!”

“Oh she was, was she? Something like, ‘Oh, Chloe! Oh, Victoria! I’ve been looking for you all over! Come back to Arcadia Bay with me. It’ll be just like old times! Here, let me call some of my friends, and we’ll grab you and throw you in a fucking sack and drag you down into hell with the rest of us!’” Victoria scoffed. “How long has it been since you’ve seen one of them? Did you run so far away that they couldn’t follow you? I envy that. They never left me the fuck alone.”

“I am going back to Arcadia Bay, Victoria,” said Chloe, tearing up. "We’re going to run into more of her. Are you going to butcher them all? Do you really think that’s fucking practical, Victoria? Or should we, I dunno, maybe talk to them like regular fucking people?"

“Oh you know PERFECTLY WELL that they’re not—” Victoria stopped and took a deep breath, reasserting control over herself. “They’re not ‘regular fucking people,’ Chloe, you know that as much as I do.” She sighed. “But yes, I take your point. I suppose that I can’t very well continue like this.”

She sheathed her sword, and turned to continue on through the forest. “But mark my fucking words, you’re going to regret this whole reconciliation thing. I’m only coming along because I have nothing better to do. And when this all falls apart, I’m going to go back to my little corner of the woods, and I’m going to eat fish and shoot elk and you’re going to come with me or else you’ll regret it for the rest of your goddamn life.”

They didn’t speak much for the rest of that day, or the day after that. But within a week, they’d begun to converse normally again, as there was little else to do. Perhaps they had grown more lonely than either would have liked to admit. The trees were dense, the underbrush was impregnable, and many of the signposts had rotted away, leaving unmarked forks in the path. Chloe was forced to admit that crossing through the forest might have been impossible without Victoria’s help.

“I got lost more times than I can count, back when I first came through the woods,” Victoria told her one afternoon. “Look at the map I made, look how many times I doubled back and changed direction. I decided it was a good thing, in the end. If it’s hard for me to cross through the forest, it’ll be even harder for her to find me here, right?” Victoria chuckled at her own optimism. “That advantage lasted for a couple years. By this point, I expect she’s got better maps than I do. At the very least, I have to hand it to her there. She can be very patient, when she wants to be.”

At night, the two of them would clear a space on the ground and erect the small tent that Victoria had taken with her. They’d each brought blankets, and they would assemble a little nest for themselves, unrolling blankets to lie on and blankets to curl up in and blankets which, rolled up, served as pillows. After a few days of sleeping like this, it became routine. They walked from dawn to dusk, and though the terrain was level, it was still exhausting. Going to bed quickly became Chloe’s favourite part of the day. When the tent was raised, the blankets were out, and their packs had been hoisted into the trees to protect them from animals, the two of them would crawl into the tent and huddle next to each other, falling asleep to the sound of one another breathing.

One morning, Chloe woke up to discover that Victoria had rolled over and wrapped her arms around Chloe during the night. She considered getting up but decided against it, and instead she stayed in bed, in Victoria’s arms. Eventually, she noticed a change in Victoria’s breathing, and realized that her tent mate had woken up as well. The two of them stayed like that for some time, feigning sleep, until Chloe shifted in place and Victoria pretended to wake up. She muttered something about sleeping in, and crawled out to prepare breakfast, leaving Chloe to gather the blankets alone.

They did their best to hunt and forage during the day, but they could not stay in one place for long, and so were forced to depend on their supplies. Both of them had brought a substantial amount of salted meat; additionally, Victoria had found a small orchard during her time in the forest, and Chloe had taught herself to pickle vegetables using some jars she’d found in the cabin. Even so, they were cautiously excited when they discovered the wreckage of an old 7-11 in a clearing.

“Thank goodness,” said Chloe. “I was worried that we wouldn’t have enough to make it through the mountains.”

“We don’t,” said Victoria. “We were counting on something like this happening sooner or later. That doesn’t mean this place is safe.”

Chloe shrugged and walked up to the building, stepping through a hole where the roof had caved in and disappearing inside. Victoria headed over to the front door and tried the handle, only to find it was jammed against a fallen shelf. She rolled her eyes, then she circled back around to the hole Chloe had entered.

The inside of the store was a mess, but they’d expected as much. The whole thing had settled on a slant, so all the freestanding shelves and displays had shifted to the far side of the building. The girls scavenged for protein bars and chocolate; all the real food had long since rotted in the refrigerators, but there was still plenty of junk food to be had.

“Hey Chase,” shouted Chloe from behind the counter. “Should I grab some cigarettes?”

“Yeah why not,” came the reply. “Might be the only chance I ever get to try one. I think I saw some liquor in the far corner, too, if you’re willing to help move some shelves.”

Their best find was a package of Back-to-School backpacks boxed away in storage, waiting for a September which would never arrive. They had backpacks already, but not large ones, and the supplies they had tied to the outside of their packs bounced and smacked into their legs as they walked. It was infinitely more comfortable to wear two backpacks than to carry the same amount of supplies with only one, and so the duo were in high spirits as they left the clearing and went back into the forest.

“I don’t think that store was here the first time I came through this way,” observed Victoria. “Maybe her influence is spreading. Or maybe I’m just getting forgetful.”

“Who cares,” said Chloe. “This rocks! I feel like the Hulk. I can carry so much stuff.” She reached into her pocket. “You want a cigarette?”

“Sure, fuck it.”

“Hey, you wanna make a fire tonight?” Chloe lit her cigarette, and reached over to light Victoria’s. I know we’ve been avoiding fires this far, but it’ll be fun. Really, what’s the chance she finds us? Like, zero percent. And even if she does, it was going to happen sooner or later."

Chloe cupped her hands around Victoria’s cigarette, and Victoria took a couple of puffs before letting loose with a series of hacking coughs. “Yeah, I—ghAK!—yeah you know what? A fire sounds nice,” she said after she caught her breath. “God, this is the worst. How do you have such a high tolerance for it?”

“My lungs are all scar tissue, babe,” said Chloe, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. “It’s like riding a bicycle, if bicycles gave you cancer.”

They had been in the shop all afternoon, and before long the sun sank down to the horizon. They scrounged around in the brush for dry sticks until Chloe stumbled over a fallen sapling and excitedly hacked it into pieces with her hatchet. By the time they had enough for a fire, twilight had faded, and Victoria lit the kindling in the eerie glow of starlight.

The fire grew quickly, and they sat together in front of it eating salted fish and apples. Chloe, with a sly look, slid a carton of convenience store wine out of her pack, and gulped down a couple glasses’ worth. She offered it to Victoria, and she accepted with a nod of thanks. She drank more demurely, but with an expert touch, putting back at least as much liquor as Chloe had in almost as short a time span. She even made binge drinking look good.

“You know, I’m really glad I ran into you,” said Chloe, taking back the carton.

“Because of my map,” said Victoria.

“I’d be fucked without the map, yeah,” said Chloe, after another swig. “But I don’t mean because of your map.”

“It’s been nice seeing you too, Chloe.”

They finished off the carton of wine and cracked open another. The fire was getting low, so Victoria reached over to the pile of sticks and threw on a few handfuls before propping up several fatter logs on top. Chloe leaned over and blew into the embers, and pretty quickly the fire was roaring, to the point where it was uncomfortably warm. Chloe felt a hand settle on top of hers, and looked up at Victoria.

“Oops. I was just, um. Moving away from the fire. Because it’s hot.” Victoria flushed and moved her hand onto the ground, bracing her palms against the earth to shift herself further from the fire. Chloe smirked and did likewise, shifting back until she was sitting beside Victoria again. They finished off their second carton of wine, and Chloe grew pleasantly tipsy. She discovered, much to her surprise, that she and Victoria were leaning against each other and had been for some time.

“What was it like,” said Chloe, “when you were first running away out here? Were you with anyone else? Did you get split up?”

“It was me and a couple of the girls from the Vortex Club—” here she broke into laughter, “—God, back when that was a thing. But we got ambushed, and we scattered, and I didn’t meet up with them again. That was before I had even made it through the mountains. I was on my own from there on out.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet up sooner.” Chloe stared out at the flames and the column of smoke which rose high between the pines. “It must have been rough, spending all that time out here on your own.”

“I mean, you would know,” said Victoria. “Unless you made it out in a group?”

“No, I was on my own too. It was rough. I… You know, it’s really meant a lot to me. That you’re here. I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”

She turned her head, and Victoria was inches away from her, staring into her eyes. Chloe put her hand on her companion’s thigh and leaned forward, pressing their lips together. Victoria wrapped her arms around Chloe and Chloe ran her hand up Victoria’s thigh.

“Nice to see you two getting along so well.”

They broke off the kiss and spun around. Max Caulfield sat across from them, on the other side of the fire.

“Don’t let me interrupt! Shoot, now I feel bad.”

Victoria lunged for her sword, which she’d left leaning against her backpack.

“Victoria, wait!” shouted Chloe, pleading, as she stared back at Max Caulfield through the haze of smoke.

“Yeah, it sure would be nice if you didn’t kill me, Victoria,” said Max. “It’s a really bitchy thing to do. Not that I expect anything less from you.” She turned to Chloe. “God, Chloe. How long has it been? I’m not good with time these days. Too long, for sure.”

“Hey Max.” Chloe’s hand itched. She wanted to scream. She was face-to-face with Max Caulfield again. Holy shit.

“So, don’t get my hopes up. Is this for real?” said Max, her gaze thick with anticipation. “Are you actually coming back to Arcadia Bay?”

Chloe sighed. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

Max squirmed with delight. “Oh, Chloe! You have no idea how happy that makes me. I’ve been so lonely. I sacrificed so much for you, but then you ran away.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not running any longer.”

Chloe looked over at Victoria. She was clutching the sheath of her sword, and her eyes darted back and forth like a cornered animal.

“Hey. We knew this was going to happen, right? It’ll be fine,” said Chloe. The tenderness that they had shared was gone; in its place was the raw feeling of a torn callus.

Max tried to talk to Chloe, but Chloe was preoccupied with Victoria, and each attempt at conversation floundered and died in silence. The fire burned low, and finally Victoria announced she would be going to bed. Chloe helped her set up the tent. They didn’t speak. Max watched nonchalantly, sitting on a fallen log. Chloe and Victoria arranged their blankets and crawled inside. Chloe hoped that some of the intimacy from before could be revived, but she didn’t know how to do it. Victoria pressed herself against the far edge of the tent, with her back to Chloe, and neither said a word.

Before they fell asleep, Victoria rolled over and whispered to her: “Let’s leave. Let’s go, as soon as she falls asleep. We don’t have to go to the mountains—we can go back to the side of the lake, and fish and hunt and garden. We’ll row upriver to your cottage and you can bring your chickens too. We don’t have to do this.”

Chloe sighed. “I need this to end. I can’t forget what happened, Victoria. This all happened because of me. I don’t know if I can fix things, but I can’t just let them be broken either. Do you really think you could go on avoiding her forever?”

“Alone? No. But I won’t be—not if you come too.” She looked into Chloe’s eyes, desperately. “Imagine us, together. We would be safe. We would be happy.”

“I wouldn’t be happy. I mean… Victoria, how many people really got away? You, me, a couple others? What about the rest of Arcadia Bay? Could you really just leave them there, if there was a chance you could end it?”

“What if there isn’t, Chloe? What if you go and it doesn’t stop?”

“Look at us! Have we gotten any older, since the storm? I’m still a teenager, Victoria. You’re still a teenager. It’s been years! This isn’t going to end on its own.”

“It may not end at all!” said Victoria, raising her voice despite herself. “And I can make my peace with that, so long as I’m not alone. You will too, eventually! But if you go back to Arcadia Bay, you might never be free from this, and neither will I.”

“I won’t give up on her.”

“And I’m supposed to give up on you?”

“No. You’re supposed to believe in me.”

When Chloe woke up the next morning, Victoria was gone.