The Long Dark

so evident at that moment. It wasn’t the ills themselves driving my reckless behavior. It was precisely the inverse: it was the pursuits of ignoring those ills that were causing my problems and robbing me of any power I might’ve had to overcome them. Knowledge is power, and power is knowledge: a perfect square.
I had been meek my entire life. The process of wrestling the power back started that very moment. I accepted all the bad shit that had happened. It was what it was. Exactly none of it was my fault. I didn’t cause my mom to cheat and cavort. I wasn’t the reason we lived in abject poverty, and I certainly didn’t cause my mom’s boyfriends to abuse me like they did. I was innocent… I was innocent. I exhaled deeply.
Crunching snow could be heard from behind me. It was Titouan. Without saying a word, he came to stand beside me. “You okay?” he finally asked.
“I’m something,” I said, as I feverishly wiped at the tears still streaming down my face.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“What’s on your mind?”
He pawed at the snow with his foot. “These people hated me.”
Sensing he wasn’t done, I left him alone with his unfinished thoughts.
“My dad was an alcoholic.” Apparently, we were both having a moment of coming to terms with out shit lives. “He beat my mom and me growing up. My mom threatened to leave him, but he taunted her with: ‘where was she was going to go, and how was she going to live without him?’ I hated him. But you know what, I hated myself even more for craving his attention and wanting to make him proud. I was a shit student; a shit son; and now a shit person.” He turned to face me before finishing. “I have dyslexia.” He gave me a questioning look, I think, wondering if I was going to laugh or snicker at him before finishing. “I was in special-needs classes growing up. Can you imagine how my dad felt? It’s probably why he beat me. Why he beat that ‘worthless bitch of a wife.’ She made the mistake of giving birth to me.”
Without meaning to, I laughed. He shot me a hurtful stare. “Shit. Sorry. I mean… fuck, we have the same kind of shit on our minds, I guess.”
“I guess,” he said, unsure about what I was saying, but not asking for clarification.
“They hated someone else,” I told him.
“I guess that’s easy for you to say.”
“Yeah, it is. No doubt about that.”
He gave me a couple sideways glances. “Can I ask what you meant by what you said?”
“You’re turning into a human, I think.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I never wanted to be like my dad. It just sort of happened.”
“I’d bet an awful lot of people didn’t want to become who they’ve become, me included.”
He nodded.
***
Everyone loaded into the truck except Sam and me. As much as I felt sorry for having to leave everyone unburied and in their sorry states, we didn’t have a choice in the matter. It was past time for us to leave. Leaving, though, implies you know where you’re going. I didn’t have a clue about what to do next. I was hoping Sam would.
I waited for them to get settled before asking, “What now?”
Sam leaned against the front of the Ripsaw. “Shouldn’t we ‘clude ‘em?”
“Right now, I just want to hear what you’re thinking.”
“I know a place we might be able ta stay for a bit. It’s a decent trip outta town, but I reckon ‘at’s a good thang.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Sam smiled. “But?”
“We’re running from one place to the next. One of these times, we’re not going to be able to outrun them in this,” I said, patting the Ripsaw.
“What do ya have in mind?”
A plane crashed right before our rotation, causing us to be on lockdown at Wiley-Post Airport in Barrow. After we were finally allowed to leave the airport, we were told that a plane carrying some air force brass had crashed at another field in Barrow, to which I wasn’t aware of. When asked, we were told there was an old air force long-range-radar base, whatever the hell that was, and that the plane had crashed there. Luckily, there were no injuries. But we wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for that. It was still staffed, but it was more of a relic leftover from the Cold War.
“The radar base in Barrow.”
“The place where ‘em fellers crashed?”
“Yeah.”
He blew snot from each nostril in turn before offering his verdict. “It’d be first on the Order’s list, ‘ough. ‘Ey might be ‘ere in droves.”
“I’ve thought about that.”
“And?”
I patted the Ripsaw. “We can outrun anything in Barrow in this.”
“You just said our luck was goin ta ‘ventually run out, son. We got ‘at place I know. I doubt it’ll be on ‘eir list of places ta ‘tack, either.”
“We have gun--”
“It’d be like takin a bird dog coon huntin.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You thank Avery could handle one of ‘em rifles we got? How ‘bout Tit? ‘At’s what ‘at means.”
“I just think we need to know, that’s all.”
“Look, Bubba, I trusted you ‘fore, and I trust you now. You wanna go, we go. Don’t mean I thank it’s a good idea. ‘Cause it ain’t. But we go, son.”
“If it doesn’t look right, we go to the place you know. Agree?”
“Avery don’t get no damn gun,” Sam said through a crooked half-smile.
“If it’s bad as we think it is, both of them will have guns before this is over.”
“Jesus.”

Chapter 2
The weather was terrible. It wasn’t snowing as far as I could tell, but the wind was picking up snow off the ice and blowing it so hard we were dealing with a serious blizzard. If we hadn’t had the GPS, we would’ve been forced to wait out the storm back at the Patch, and no one wanted to do that. As it was, we drove blindly and depended on