The Upright Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

legs apart, arms thrashing. Acceleration was halted by a full-body collision with a smallish tree, at which point he lost the flashlight and his bottle and was twisted and spun onto his side to slide the rest of the way via every rock in theground. It was over quickly, and ended with him landing smack on his face with a crunch that knocked every last breath out of him.
    He groaned, a low and desperate sound. When he could, he shrugged off the pack and rolled over onto his back. The pain in his chest was so intense he let out an involuntary whistle. This hurt a lot more than the fall from the car. His right side felt as if someone had poked a spear in it and was encouraging a child to swing off the end. His balls ached too, pain rising to a hot little hollow in his lower abdomen.
    After a little longer, he sat up. He ran a tentative hand down his side, not looking, just in case, but didn’t find anything sticking out. He saw the flashlight lying ten feet away, glowing dimly in undergrowth, and crawled through cold mud to retrieve it. His vision was slightly doubled, but this had been the case for the last couple of hours so he wasn’t unduly worried.
    Retrieving his light source felt like a step in the right direction. It seemed he’d fallen into a wide rocky gully, designed to hold a decent spring-thaw stream but now home to a thin trickle, which he could hear from ten feet in front. Otherwise it was quiet. Very quiet, and very cold.
    He decided he’d gone far enough. Tonight would do. There didn’t have to be a tomorrow after all. School’s out a little early, that’s all.
    He pushed himself backward until his back was against rock. Then pulled the pack up between his knees and opened it. At least one of the remaining bottles had smashed—the bottom of the bag was soaking and sharp, and the smell smoked up around his face. He shone the light and saw there was no way he could just shove his hand in. He upended most of the contents out onto the ground instead. It took a while, but he found the packs of sleeping pills.
    As he laboriously pushed each pill out of its individual foil pimple, laying them in a pile on a useful nearby leaf, he swam through an internal checklist.
    Lost, check. Drunk, check. Christ yes. Great big check, in red.
    He’d paid his motel bill, mentioning in passing that he was heading back up to Seattle. Check.
    Anyone out hiking when it was this cold would have to be out of their fucking mind, and it was midweek, out of season, and he’d headed away from known trails. Check.
    Push, another pill. Push, another pill. He peered at the pile. Was that enough? Better make sure. He kept pushing. An overdose wasn’t weak if done the way he was doing it. It was manly.
    Oh yeah.
    The car would be spotted tomorrow, perhaps, and in a day or two someone would investigate. Not on foot but from the air, most likely, a desultory grid pass at best. On his last day in Sheffer Tom had bought clothes and backpack in autumnal colors, to make it even less likely that some passing plane or helicopter would be able to spot him. If he’d shelled out for some proper hiking boots too then his ankle wouldn’t hurt so much, but it hadn’t seemed worth it. Just went to show. Always get the proper equipment.
    Anyway, a check in general. Checkety check.
    As the pile of pills grew, he was surprised to find that he didn’t feel afraid. He’d thought he might, that the proximity of the act itself might make him panic, that he would fight death as she had. He found he merely felt very, very tired. Somewhere in the journey from the car to this random gully he’d lost any remaining sense of his life as a process. It had become simply an event; this event, in this place, now. It was dark, and getting late. It was for the best. It was okay.
    He was already very cold, his fingers thin and unmanageable. He started taking the pills, a couple at a time, washed down with more alcohol. He fumbled a few, but there were plenty. He took a