The Last Fix by K. O. Dahl

thought about going for a wash in the water. It would be wonderful to rinse
away the taste of smoke from her mouth. But there didn't seem to be an obvious
path. The area between the road and the lake was a murky jumble of trees,
bilberry bushes and sharp ends of bare branches. She shuddered. She thought of
snakes, horrible coiled snakes slithering between the dead leaves on the
ground; she thought of spiders and huge anthills, crawling with millions of
ants, and she shuddered again.
        In
the end she opened the car door and staggered out on stiff legs. She hopped
around until the blood slowly returned to her sleeping leg. Ants in the blood.
It hurt and she bit her lower lip. She brought her heel down on a sharp stone.
It hurt so much she screamed 'Ow', then began to walk. She stumbled around the
car like an electric doll with stiff legs and limbs. Barefoot, she walked over
the cold, sharp stones and soon felt her circulation returning.
        All
of a sudden she heard a sound and stopped to listen. She stood quite motionless
and a chill crept up her spine. She stood like this for a long time, listening,
but didn't hear the sound again. At the same time she scanned her surroundings
to see what could have caused it. The night was grey, not pitch black, and in
the light from the moon and the stars she saw her shadow on the ground. The
only sound to be heard was the low rumble of the idling car engine. What was
truly black were the trees and the surface of the water struggling in vain to
reflect the stars.
        When,
at last, she was sure that she had imagined the sound, she decided to go down
to the lakeside. She walked down the road with care, looking for a path. And
caught sight of a wonderful flat stone she could stand on at the water's edge.
A cool gust of air blew against her ankles and legs as she approached. She
stopped, bent down, put her hand in the water and felt the temperature.
Lukewarm. In the dark she found the stone and went down on her knees. She
scooped up water and threw it into her face; it was not cold at all. She stood
up, peeled off her panties, kicked off her shoes and stepped into the lake bare-legged.
Her feet sank down to her ankles in the mud which felt like cool, lumpy cream.
It was unpleasant, but it didn't matter. It was only for two seconds. She
raised her skirt to her waist, faced land, squatted down and washed herself.
        What
was that?
        She
sprang to her feet and listened.
        A
sound. But what kind of sound?
        She
stood quite still listening. But now the silence was total, not even the sound
of Henning's car was audible. Just the sound of insects fluttering their wings
against the water broke the frozen silence. She suddenly became aware that her
skirt was bunched up around her waist, and she let go.
        Something
had changed. There was something strange about the silence. She tried to work
out what was different. She could not, but she didn't like standing there,
alone and exposed in the water. The deep gloom and the unbearable silence
caused her to feel a clammy sense of fear spreading outwards from the small of
her back, a fear which numbed her fingers, which drained her arms of strength,
which dried out her mouth and which stopped her breathing. As the darkness was
a summer darkness, she could make out the contours of rocks and branches
protruding into the air. A clump of black, impenetrable spruce trees blocked
her view of the road. It was not possible to see through the wall of spruce
foliage.
         Walk, she told herself, wade to the shore and go back to the car. But for some
reason she did not want to make any noise. Because, she thought, because… it
would drown the other sounds. Which sounds? She stood quite still
concentrating, but she couldn't hear a single thing.
         Shout, she thought. Shout for Henning\ But she couldn't make herself do that,
either. Instead she waded to the shore. She tripped and almost fell, but
managed to