"One glance and the avalanche drops. One look and my heartbeat stops."- WALK THE MOON // Avalanche
The old guy is bothering me.
It's not in the way that he'll try to spend time with me or talk to me. He's bothering me no matter how close he is. I'll be talking to Alice and he'll be sleeping, but it doesn't matter. His very presence is getting to me.
And it's because we've met before.
It was the only unusual part of the three years I spent in Maine with my cousin while Alice was in Germany. It was like a bright flame amidst all the emptiness of that old house. It was strange but more interesting than anything I'd done those years.
And it's not like seeing an old man in Maine is weird. In fact, there were a lot of those.
But he wasn't an old man. He was 10 years old.
And that was seven years ago, just after my dad died.
And I didn't even get to have a chance to live with my mother, who felt it necessary to leave us right after we were born.
Everytime my eyes happen to glance in his direction, I try to deny myself of what I'm thinking. There can be plenty of people named Bob Fincher that are illiterate.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
"Janis, wake up."
"I am," my mouth grumbles for me.
We're sitting around the campfire. That's what I'm now remembering. Everyone is looking at me expectantly, as if they want me to say something, which I'm not used to.
Perry and Alice are sitting together, which I don't like, for whatever reason. I'm not stupid enough to officially like a dude after a day of knowing him, right?
"Janis, do you like the idea of leaving tomorrow?" Perry asks.
"Leaving?" I yelp, almost falling off the log.
Rolling her eyes at me, Alice asks if I've been listening at all. I want to sneer at her, but I know that'll only be childish.
"Yeah, I've been listening. But why aren't we leaving? Aren't we going to send up a signal? A flare or something? I thought we talked about that."
Next to Diana, who seems to be near crying, Guad begins to look testy, like I'm the reason she's tearing up. "We're surrounded by grassland, mountains, jungle, and who knows what else, which means no one is near us."
I raise an eyebrow. "So that means we should go out and venture into these grasslands, mountains, and jungles?"
Heavily getting angrier, Guad says, "I survived in the woods for seven years as a child." My stomach does a flip on the inside. He what? "So I'm going to be leading us to where we can find an easier way to escape."
Escape. He made it sound like we were stuck in some prison camp, or an evil lab. Something along those lines.
Honestly, the idea of trekking through the rainforest and the Andes without any professional help didn't sound like the greatest idea. I'd always wanted to do something like backpacking in the jungle, but never while stranded with an insufficient amount of food. That part never really came to mind.
But I find myself saying, "I'm not going to argue."
Guad seems a bit happier."So tomorrow. We can pack up in the morning."
Nodding, Perry seems to agree. "So we should get a lot of sleep tonight so we have the energy to walk all day tomorrow."
Looking excited, Guad smiles awkwardly and begins to kneel down and build a fire. In the time I've known Guad and Perry, I never thought they'd get along. But now the Chilean and the Californian grin back and forth at each other to the point where I wonder if they're both gay.
For the rest of the night we stay around the campfire and talk, which is nicer than it seems. Alice and Perry seem to have taken a liking to each other. It's not in a weird way. They're not making out on the log. I'd have to give Perry some readjustment if that were the case. Instead they sit and talk. They talk about books. They talk about school. They talk about everything.
I feel like they do more talking together than I ever have. I want to put it less blatantly, but I can't. I don't like it. I cannot like it. I don't want Alice to talk to Perry more than me. I don't want Perry to talk to Alice more than me.
It feels like I do nothing as people slowly make their way to the place where they're going to sleep.
Eventually it's just Alice, Mr. Fincher, and me around the campfire.
My hand involuntarily moves to Alice's thigh, where I can tap her a message. Throughout middle school we made a system where we could communicate without our foster parents knowing. Anything we haven't made up is said in Morse code. I think I'd be dead without the silent messaging.
I know him, I tap.
Excuse me? Alice taps back.
In Maine I met a 10 year old boy named Bob Fincher who was illiterate.
Hey, I thought you said your time in Maine was boring.
I glance to Mr. Fincher, who doesn't seem all that interested in the thigh tapping.
It was, I reply. But I met him there and now he's 72. Any answers?
Here, let me look it up. She looks at me and rolls her eyes.
Should I talk to him?
Sure. It's not like you'll get anywhere if you don't.
I nod and stand up instantly. It's time to stop whatever's happening. Sitting down on the log next to the old man, I survey him. Nothing is close to resembling the 10 year old boy besides his eyes, which are a deep and familiar blue.
"Mr. Fincher," I begin.
"Bro, call me Bob."
"Bro?" I repeat, raising an eyebrow. Shrugging, Alice walks over to us and sits down on his other side. I nervously glance to Guad and Perry, who seem asleep enough there on the ground.
"Oh, you know. I just try to catch up with the times."
"Who are you!" I burst out suddenly. My breath hitches, as if it disagrees with what I've just done.
"I'm Bob Fincher," he says.
"Really? Because you should be 17 and not 72!"
Alice glance at me anxiously. She knows as well as I do that neither of us have talked this loudly to someone we don't know.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Yes I would," I say certainly.
Bob shakes his head.
He won't crack, so I do the only thing I can think to. I begin to press. "Tell me."
"I am 17!" He exclaims.
No one speaks for a second, and I could hear a pin drop if there was one. The no one speaking time lasts for a few more minutes until someone does.
"Bob?"
Guad is awake.
...
"Why are you asking him these things?" He asks me, looking more and more threatening. Unlike in the day, he is not clumsy or awkward. He's lithe and not afraid to defend his friend.
"I need to know because I know him!"
Bob raises his hand and his blue sweater sleeve falls down to his elbow, letting me catch a glimpse of something like a tattoo on his arm. Then he lowers his arm and it disappears into the folds of his sweater again.
"I'll tell you," he says. "When I was 14, I was in San Diego with my mother." A glimpse of his mother comes into my mind. The only thing I know about her is that she's a jerk and Irish. "She was acting weird that day and now I know why. When I was 'out of her sight' for only a second, I was abducted by some dudes dressed in black. It wasn't pretty. By the end of the day, I was in a lab, needles piercing my arm. I had no idea what they were doing at first, but it didn't really matter because there was nothing I could do." He exhales, as if telling the story is exhausting.
"There was a serum that triggered my pituitary gland. I was turned into an old man. It was part of the plan of a guy named Jose Delgato. I don't know what he wanted it for, but I was his first test subject."
I thought most of this story was already horrifying, but it didn't prepare me for what I'm looking at. Bob lifts up his sleeve to show the "tattoo" I saw before. Except it isn't a tattoo. It's a barcode, printed on the inside of his forearm.
As if planned, Alice and I both gasp.
Guad mutters in Spanish something I can hardly pick up after three years of classes. It's something like "Too young to see this."
Bob is quick to let the sleeve fall. "I escaped the lab only a month after I went in. There was an earthquake and I found some plans on how to cure me from this, but I don't fully understand how. You have to scan my code or something."
Alice raises an eyebrow. "You mean with a barcode scanner? They have those on phones."
Looked confused, Guad says, "What?"
"Yeah," I tell them. "Alice, go get Perry's phone."
My sister doesn't object, as expected, and rushes to Perry.
As she's gone, all we can do is sit and wait.
"Sorry if I'm being weird," Bob apologizes. I shake my head. It's not his fault. I'm the one who came up to him.
"What?" A voice moans. Fear shoots through me. It's Perry.
...
So now he's in on it. There's nothing we can do.
It doesn't take long for Alice to scan the barcode on Bob's arm, making me feel like he's a library book. While she does this, Guad tries to explain everything to Perry.
"It says, 'apples,'" Alice tells us.
"The barcode? Does he need to eat apples?" Guad asks frantically.
"Have you not had apples for three years?" I ask Bob.
The old man shakes his head, his beard swinging from side to side. "How could I have apples down in Punta Arenas as a homeless man?"
No one objects.
"I'll go get apples from the plane crash," Perry offers.
"What?" I ask.
"Well aren't we going to cure him?"
Alice nods eagerly. "I'll go with you."
I watch helplessly as the two dash to the plane crash to search among the wreckage.
No one says anything as they're gone. In fact, I feel like none of us breathe until they get back.
Alice and Perry stand before us with apples in their arms. "Go ham," Perry says. Guad looks confused at this, but doesn't say anything.
Bob begins to eat the apples.
...
I can barely describe the last few minutes. He fell back the second he took a bite and began twitching in a horrible, morbid way.
Now he lays in the dark grass, and I can't see him. I don't know if he's cured or not. Is he 17 or 72?
He rises up, a figure emerging from some dark black sea.
He still has a beard, but this time it reminds me of a lumberjack beard. It's brown instead of white. The rest of his hair is brown also, just like seven years ago. His body is young and strong.
He is back.
Guad rushes to him first while Perry tries understand what's happening. He begins to babble to Alice and she tries to explain it to him.
"Bob Sawyer," Guad says. Is that his real name? I wonder.
He hugs his restored friend for a second. I watch them a feel a surprising hand on my arm.
It's Bob. He pulls me away from everyone else and into the dark.
"Janis."
"Bob."
"Why did you try to help me?" He asks. It's not in some accusing way, as if telling me he didn't think I'd do it.
"Because."
"Because why?"
I shake my head, not wanting to start one of those arguments. "I felt like I wouldn't be comfortable letting it go."
Bob breaks into a grin and does something unexpected. Something hardly any guys have done to me. He brings me into a hug.
It isn't full of sparks, like they say in movies and books. It's scary. My body feels like it's floating with fear. I never socialize, therefore I've never had a boyfriend. So guys don't frequently hug me or anything like that.
And I rhapsodize in my head about that kind of thing until he finally lets go.
...
The next morning we set off.
The walking is tedious and it makes me want to cut my feet off. We trudge over hills and valleys.
I stay with Alice most of the time. She and I talk about nothing in particular. School and what we don't miss about it.
The sky is open above us, as if saying hello.
The evening begins to set over us, the sun sets, but the day has a parting gift.
"What's that?" Perry asks, peering over a ridge.
The rest of us rush to him to see what he's talking about. Only Guad and Bob seem to know what it is.
What we're looking at is a collection of small, run down buildings down in a valley.
"That," Bob says, rubbing his beard just because he can, "is a mining village, my friends."