The Adventures of Jeremy and Sophie Buckheit

By Valerie Trigeminal 

The Following was written in the notebook found at the site next to the bodies, July 16, 2009 

-Idaho Department of Natural Resources 

-Doesn’t that tree look like a monk standing there? 

-I can’t believe you lost the keys. 

-And the leaves have a lime tint, like mint. 

-Jesus. 

-I love the way the sun splashes on the green. 

-I want to talk about the keys. 

-What? 

-You weren’t listening to me at all. How are we going to get the mail? You can copy my apartment keys, but we have no duplicate of the mail key. How are we going to get the goddamn mail? 

-Oh wow – the mist rolling over that peak – Jeremy you have to look – stop with the sour face. 

He finally glanced out the passenger side window. His eyes jumped and he sucked in his breath. His cheeks flushed. It was fantastic. 

-Man, he said, that is amazing. 

-I don’t think there is anything better than this drive on 90. As we get out of the city and you look back, the huge glass and steel behemoths rise behind us and fade away. Then we motor over the mountains, and see such grandiose scenery. Then the wide wheat fields of the Palouse, immediately followed by the jagged divide near Coeur d’Alene. 

-It is really awesome. I reached over and grasped his arm. His hand rested on the stick. I could feel his pulse; this launched in me a desire to lean over and lie my head on his chest to hear his heart. His heart is soothing, massive, like a tiger’s or a cheetah, with that burst of energy at 70 mph in the savannah. The blood must flow like the gush of a river flooding through sandbags. I wonder what animal has the biggest heart. 

-What animal has the biggest heart? 

-I don’t know, an elephant? 

-Maybe a whale.

 -Yeah, probably a whale. 

-What about a shark? they never stop moving. They must have a huge heart. 

-Could be. So do you want to talk about your keys? 

-Remind me to look that up when we get there.

-Your. Keys. 

-No, the biggest heart – on the internet – the computer the Bed and Breakfast has. 

-All right, so you’re not worried about the keys at all? You’re just going to sit here and ignore me. God, I love you Sophie. But sometimes. Jesus. 

-Listen, I said, finally exasperated, it’s more my problem than yours, my boss is going to fire me because it’s the only set we had. I don’t want to fight about it. Let’s just enjoy the trip. 

-Let’s retrace your steps. 

-God, Jeremy. 

-Where were you when you last had them?

-The store. 

-Where were they?

-My pocket. 

-Goddamnit – how did you know they were in your pocket? We need to go through every thought you had. 

-I felt them in there when I went to pay for all this stuff. 

I pointed to the back seat: a can of Pringles, two bundles of wood, a gallon jug of water, some easy cheese and Ritz crackers, some wine and paper towels. 

-All right, then you got home and they magically disappeared. Did you cast a motherfucking spell on them? Did they vanish through some goddamn black hole like that guy on Heroes. What the hell happened? 

He was getting nasty, and simply trying to make me angry. Every so often it was one of his favorite tactics. It was the testosterone. We handled our anger differently. But I could see in his eyes what he really felt. And he was all show. I’d seen him unleash the fury on a guy and it was completely different. His eyes would turn black. But when he’s yelling at me, his eyes still wanted me and loved me and I loved him for it. When I was mad at him my tirade was like a tornado sweeping through inflicting damage with no mercy. And it was normally uncontrolled, I could twist and squash his heart in under 5 min. Have him think that he is completely unloved, unwanted and the quintessential example of human waste. But his anger was like a thunderstorm, like ones from home where I grew up in the Midwest, with the smashing of thunder and tossing of trees. But calm again in minutes. And no serious damage done. 

-Sophie, for god’s sake you are spacing out like a moron. So that was the last time you remembered where they were? 

-Yes. 

-Goddamnit, maybe we need a key chain with a GPS device in it. Or the size of a chair. But we’d probably find the chair in the toilet or the trash. Christ, one time your keys were in the goddamn trash. 

-Jeremy, come on, let’s enjoy the scenery. 

-You’re going to put me in an early grave. 

-Don’t say that. 

The storm was over before it got started. His face transformed back to normal color. Like the break light in front of us switching off. He realized he was out of line, and at that instant the color left, his face, knotted and grotesque, smoothed out like dough. 

-Don’t worry about it, I said, we’ll find them. 

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, said he was sorry a few times and drove on in silence, absorbed by the beauty of the mountains ahead. After a while, when we were talking about the best and worst guitar players of all time, with him staunchly siding with the blues masters and Jimi Hendrix as usual, and me putting forward the notion of Jerry Garcia, he caressed my knee to reassure me. It wasn’t needed, or even an essential ritual, but I loved him for it anyway. He became more adventurous, teasing me with his hand, reaching up my thigh. We were always attracted to each other on these drives. The close quarters capsized our hormones. Maybe it was the freedom of leaving the city for the weekend. Maybe humans are more sensual in the dry cool winter. Or maybe it is wearing bulky comfortable clothes. When his hand rubbed my corduroys, and my sweatshirt, maybe the friction of more cloth on the skin was the catalyst. But sometimes it was better than the heat of summer. When I’d have on a tank top sweating and it was more animalistic compared to the coziness of winter. And sometimes messy. The sheets soaked with sweat. I reached around and pulled a fleece blanket from the backseat so we weren’t exposed to the truckers. I put my hand in his lap and undid his pants. And for the next 50 miles we went crazy. I knew I could get him excited no matter his state of mind. 

Afterward he talked about how I smelled. Then the subject changed to vultures and hyenas. 

-I love you, I said. 

-I love you too, he said. I kissed him on the cheek. 

-Horse! Horse! Horse! He shouted pointing at a field where three horses grazed. It was a favorite car game of ours he learned from his grandmother. If you see a horse and call it first you get them in your ‘stable.’ The person with the most horses at the end of the trip wins. But if you spot a cemetery first, you get everyone’s horses in the car. On the interstate, it becomes less relevant than two lane roads when the game devolves into a game of cemeteries. Jeremy loved to tell stories of his grandmother with poor vision, in the middle of the rosary on a long car trip suddenly shouting out ‘cemetery’ before anyone else realized it was there. She either was attuned to the dead, or she simply had traveled on all the roads before and remembered the cemeteries. 

As the sun set, we changed to the alphabet game. I was saved by a Dairy Queen on the letter Q. We had to stop playing around Spokane because we drove straight into a blizzard – the snow came down in driving sheets. The traffic from people going home from work was brutal. Like a satin screen fluttered in front of the car. It was complete white out. 

-Man, I checked wunderground, this shit must have come down from BC. We weren’t supposed to hit anything. 

-But it’s been snowing all week out here. 

-Yeah, but it wasn’t supposed to snow this weekend. Man, I was hoping we’d get to ski in nice weather on all that snow. 

-Maybe it will clear up tonight. 

-It is really coming down. 

We had to slow the car to a crawl. On the side road we could see taillights in the ditch from cars that spun out. Semis were pulling off to the shoulder and calling it a night. 

Intermittently the snow had drifted or had been plowed into the ditch in piles nearly as high as our car. It took us 2 hours to drive to Coeur d’Alene from Spokane. Jeremy said it was only 30 miles. The problem was that we had to go another 50 miles up past Sandpoint to our bed and breakfast. 

We stopped for gas and to clean off the car on the north end of Coeur d’Alene. It was getting near 8 o’clock. The snow specked the windshield under the roof over the pumps as it blew in bursts, swirling around the car. We figured we’d be up at the bed and breakfast by now, relaxing by the fire and eating dinner. We were starving. There was a restaurant next to the gas station so we decided to go in. We ran under dim lights blocked out by the snow, drifting in the wind and spilling through the parking lots like sand. Only one other couple was in the restaurant and the staff was standing around talking about the weather, surprised when we walked in. We sat down at a booth. 

-We’re you guys coming from? Asked the waitress as she rushed over, eager to have more topics for their conversation. 

-Seattle. 

-Jeez. 

-Yeah, left at 2. It’s been bad since Spokane. 

-Well, I can assure you it probably is. Where you headed? 

-Up to Schweitzer.  

-Goodness, well at least you’re not heading towards Montana – there’s a roadblock on the interstate and they’re not letting anyone go over the divide. 

-What about heading north up 95 here? 

-I haven’t heard about a roadblock, but it is snowing all the way up into Canada. 

We ordered coffee and some pasta because the restaurant seemed to have an Italian theme to the menu. She walked back to tell them about the crazy people all the way from Seattle. The walls were covered with wood paneling inside, nature paintings and animal heads adorned the walls. It was cozy – the kind of place that had booths. 

-I don’t know, Jeremy said finally, looking out the window with that morose expression of someone at the mercy of dreary weather, but we should probably stay here tonight. 

I was in complete agreement – after we ate, we drove down the road and went into the Best Western. The man behind the front desk looked weary, tired and unhappy with the turn of events as well. 

-Completely booked, he said, I’m really sorry, you can head over to the other side of town and try it there. 

-Well, what do you think? said Jeremy when we got back outside. We’re on the road right here that leads up to Sandpoint. And before we went in and asked I saw a snowplow head up it. We can follow him. Is it okay to go on? We were there last year, so we know where we’re going. 

I just gave him a kiss on the cheek and we piled in and jumped back on the road. The plow was probably 15 min ahead of us but the road was slick and about 4 inches deep already. At Hayden we saw another Hotel but kept going. The car rocked over slush and ice like a boat smashing into waves. I was proud of Jeremy though, he kept it around 10 mph, and didn’t do anything crazy. The snow was so high we felt like we were gliding through a tunnel. I massaged his shoulders as we went. We never caught the snowplow and we never saw another car on the road. 

We decided to say a rosary as we went. In the glow of the dashboard, Jeremy looked like an intense serene statue out of the Louvre. We went to France for our honeymoon and we would stare at the Seine for hours, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine on the street. I wished I had a cigarette then, but we had both quit. Jeremy wanted one too. I felt perfectly safe though, fully aware we were traversing some of the most violent weather in the world at that moment in time. He could feel my eyes, ‘I love you’ he said. He touched my shoulder and we soldiered on. 

When we reached Lake Pend Oreille and rolled slowly into Sandpoint, the town greeted us like a sanctuary - a welcome change from the constant concentration required in the country snow. It was about midnight. The town was completely desolate, with the snow coming down in the yellow streetlights like a forlorn nuclear fallout at the edge of the universe, the climactic aftermath of an alien war. Sandpoint is a beautiful town, with a lot of money, and under normal circumstances a high-end resort. We thought we should try and find a hotel. But now we knew we were only a few miles from our destination north of town so we weren’t too discouraged when every hotel sign lit up ‘no vacancy.’ All the hotels must have been full either from the rush of skiers capitalizing on the snow, or because they just flipped the sign on because they didn’t want the nuisance of dealing with visitors this late in this weather. 

-I don’t feel like stopping, said Jeremy, at this rate we’ll be there in an hour, and what’s another hour? 

-I have to pee. I said. 

-Can you hold it a little while longer? Nothing is open. 

-I think I can. 

And so we left civilization, winding up out of town towards the ski area and hopefully a warm comfortable bed. After we were on the road about 45 minutes Jeremy started to panic. We both knew the ski area was on the left and our Bed and Breakfast was off a dirt road to the right. But all the signs were plastered with snow and we weren’t sure if we passed the ski area, although at the rate we were going, we should have. After about 10 more minutes, he stopped the car in a swath of snow piled up to just above the bottom of the doors. There was a turnoff to the right we barely missed, a road covered with deep snow. It looked familiar, but the road sign was too high to wipe off to check if it was the correct road. I squatted and peed, the steam rising up between my legs like the soothing warmth of a thermal hot spring. 

-Get on my shoulders. 

-All right I said, pulling my pants back up. But as I got on top, we teetered and fell back in the ditch. Jeremy thought this was great. My face covered in white, my cheeks burning from the cold and he tossed a snowball at my chest. I picked up a pillow sized pile and dumped it on his head. We rolled in the snow for a few minutes laughing and tickling and laughing. Exhausted, we laid back and made crater deep snow angels until we realized the snow wasn’t getting any less deep and we should get moving. 

The road seemed to be to the right and we took it. Slamming our Honda through thick drifts. The front wheel drive Accord more than pulled its weight. The B and B was only a mile or two down this road. We rounded a corner where it seemed it should be, but we couldn’t see anything but trees and the steep slope off my side. As the tires struggled through, sounding like a fat man on a mattress, a pang of fear poked my chest. I had a thought in an instant of pure anxiety. An overwhelming fright about how we’d get out of here if we did take the wrong road, and in that instant, the sound of the tires intensified to a rumble. But it became clear quickly that it wasn’t just the tires. The back end of the car toddled off the road as we whooshed off the side as a pounding avalanche rushed across the road. The car teetered and tossed, rolled and spun and helplessness filled the air. Violent pungent helplessness, the scent of a slaughtered bleating goat or the stench of a trash compactor and then we halted. All of the windows were white. I was dizzy, lurched and threw up the pasta I ate on the floor. 

-Holy Shit! Said Jeremy. Holy Shit! Holy Shit! We’re Buried! 

And he instantly threw his shoulder into his driver’s side window. Four or five times. He gets claustrophobic. And that moment after being consumed by snow must have been unbearable for him. Myself, I was a study in pure shock. My eyes fixated on the glove compartment and I could see the blurry vision of vomit below my point of fixation and a glare of white above it from the snow covered windshield felt like being inside a volleyball. 

-We’re going to suffocate! Screamed Jeremy, and the driver’s side window cracked and snow cascaded in like cotton balls and he scooped it out. He grabbed my hand, jerking me from my trance. 

-Dig! 

We began digging. 

We threw piles of snow back into the car and cleared out the snow on the driver’s side with our hands. Jeremy made his way to the trunk of the car – but I wasn’t getting very far because the snow kept caving in and my hands were cold. Then the snow caved in on Jeremy and he had to dig himself back to the driver’s side window. 

-We need to put our ski clothes on, he said. They were piled in the back with everything else. And we put on our thick gloves, hats, neck warmers, shells and pants. Jeremy even put his ski goggles on. He was terrified. He was taking short quick breaths, most likely concerned about using the air. We went back to digging. But neither of us could make any headway before everything would cave in on us. 

After a while it was obvious we wouldn’t suffocate. Jeremy took out his cell phone but he couldn’t get any service. I couldn’t either. And after a couple hours, my hands were raw and I just wanted to sleep and think about it in the morning. And Jeremy seemed to agree because his activity slowed until we finally went back in the car window. I went to the back seat avoiding the vomit. Jeremy sat in the driver’s seat. His breaths became more regular. It wasn’t as cold when we weren’t using our hands to push snow around. And we both drifted off to sleep. 

I had tremendous dreams while I slept that first night. One was a cartoon nightmare. Smurfs engaging in debauchery. Gargamel and He-Man in a kung fu battle. The transformers and the animaniacs in a modern horror film, with chainsaws. Space Ghost riding Scooby doo. Another dream was a backyard barbeque at my parent’s house in Wisconsin. We were enjoying some ribs when commandoes parachuted out in the cornfield, and they slowly made their way through the corn. We could see the tops of the corn swaying as they neared us and then whiz, the bullets started picking off my family members, my dad’s head caved in from a bullet to the brain, my mom was slaughtered with rapid machine gun fire as she fell into the clothes on the clothes line, her blood mixing with her canary yellow dress and the jeans. That was when I woke up. I woke Jeremy up and he was disoriented. It was dark where we were but it felt like I had slept the full night and it should be light. 

-This Idaho scenery sucks, he said. And that made us both laugh. 

-Check your phone again, he said. We got out the phones and we didn’t have service again, but we saw it was 9 AM. Goddamnit, Verizon didn’t work up here last year either. Well, we might as well shut them off. Maybe they’ll work when we get out from under the snow. We were both hungry. I reached back for the Pringles. 

-We probably shouldn't scarf these down, said Jeremy stopping my hand, in case it takes a while to get out of here, we want to have some food. 

So we each had a few Pringles, regretting the decision to get Pizza flavor while having them for breakfast. I went to wash down with the water. 

-No, no water. We might need it. 

-Jeremy, we are surrounded by snow. 

-Oh yeah, well, yeah, go for it. 

Then we resumed our digging. To no avail. We were able to clear out the side of the car a little so it wouldn’t cave, and we opened the driver’s side door to create some more space. We peed around the driver’s side door. The urine cleared a small area and then froze to make a sort of door mat. Jeremy had a run for a while from the top of the car, but every time he kept pushing up through the snow he was getting it in his mouth and face and eventually had to backtrack to me and the car. We ate all the Pringles that day. And drank all the water. The next day we decided to ration the easy cheese and crackers. We had two sleeves of crackers, 20 in each sleeve. We figured we’d bust out of there in three days. So we were each allowed 7 crackers a day, 6 on the third day. 

On day 2, with no water, we had to eat the snow. And then we were able to clear out more area – just by eating it. Each cracker I had was delicious. But Jeremy was upset with my liberal interpretations of easy cheese usage. That night we had sex standing up on the area where we peed. I was eating snow, and facing away from the car and Jeremy came up behind me and we lowered my snow pants. It was wonderfully animalistic. 

The following day, Jeremy was much more concerned and agitated with our situation. He decided we needed to work more as a team when clearing the snow. He would clear some from the top and toss it down to me and I would pack it in around the driver’s side door. We did this for many hours. Then came another frustrating collapse. So we devised a plan to pack it around where he was moving it, so as to build a tunnel better. And this worked for a few feet, but that collapsed as well. 

The day after, Jeremy wanted to make a torch like in Indiana Jones. He took one of the logs and wrapped his undershirt around it. And lit the undershirt. However, the smoke consumed us and we put it out right away for fear of suffocating. 

We tried to dig in every direction, but never had luck and it always collapsed. By the fourth day, urgency had set in. All we had left to eat was easy cheese and we were beginning to feel weak. We dug like maniacs, like groundhogs on steroids. The next morning, I went to put the easy cheese to my mouth and heard the dreaded gargling sound that indicated it was running out. Jeremy got out a jackknife he always carried. It was a present from his advisor for finishing business school. He tore the easy cheese can open. And we ate from the corrugated insides while licking the salt from the inside of the crackers wrapper and the Pringles can. That was breakfast. 

By eating the snow and peeing, we were making more room on the side of the car. We didn’t pee by the door anymore. As the car was becoming our home, and the space outside the driver’s side our porch. 

I won’t say we gave up digging when the food ran out, but after two frenzied days without food, our energy was sapped. We sat on the porch discussing many topics. One day Jeremy brought up his first visit to Wisconsin. 

-Do you remember? he said, I was definitely not the type for your dad. He wasn’t interested in a philosophical discussion and he definitely didn’t care about music. I really had nothing to say to him. 

-It was great when you made the effort to go out and work with my brother though. 

-I can still see the maggots in that cowshit. 

-I’m sure you can. 

-I didn’t realize until that trip that you went deer hunting with them. 

-I used to love it when I was little. I was a pretty good shot. 

-I was impressed by that. 

-I think dad warmed up to you eventually. He was crying throughout the wedding. 

-Probably because of the guy you were marrying. 

-Come on, you two ended up hitting it off. 

-Well, he liked that I was an outdoors guy. And I just asked him a lot of questions about your farm. 

-But I know he hated your glasses. 

-Well, it’s certainly not the style to wear these in Wisconsin. 

-Imagine this is the porch on the farm. 

-I know, I was just thinking that. 

-And over there is the clothesline, the corn. 

-Man, that would be fantastic. 

I love Jeremy so much. About a week after the food ran out, Jeremy had another fit of energy and tried to shovel himself out. He got pretty far but then was stuck in the snow, I had to dig in after him. And then we mainly sat on the porch, sleeping and holding each other in our arms. And telling each other that we loved each other. 

-Do you like deer meat? he said one day. 

-Yeah, it’s a little gamey for sure, but it isn’t terrible – especially when you put it in a stew. 

-Would you eat a deer if it were here? -Jeremy, don’t do that, it’s not funny to imagine food… 

-No, I mean, if it were here, could you cut it to eat the best parts. Like imagining that the farm is here. 

-Yes I can cut a deer. 

He started crying. 

-Maybe tomorrow one will come by. 

-Stop it Jeremy. 

-I love you so much. It’s more important for you to live. Like deer. That’s why some years they pass the regulations that you can only shoot a buck. Because one buck can impregnate many females, but if there is only one female and many bucks, it’s a threat to the population. Women and children first. 

-Jeremy, let’s talk about being back in Seattle. 

-Okay. Making love on our bed. One of those nights where I’m too tired and you make me. Or I have to tell a bunch of jokes to get you in the mood. 

We were both suddenly sexually excited, but we hadn’t eaten in days and could barely move. We managed to do it in the driver’s seat of the car. And the vomit on the passenger floor didn’t bother us. The stench had stopped days ago. Jeremy was so frail and he must have thought the same about me. Every part of my body was clenched in a spastic cramp and it was difficult. And I was so hungry, when he was about to come, I pulled myself off of him and let him go in my mouth. But not as much came out as I hoped and it wasn’t very satisfying. Afterwards we fell asleep sitting outside the car again. 

When I woke up I reached over to talk to Jeremy, but he was very cold. So I covered him up with a blanket. 

Later he wouldn’t talk to me either. His neck was caked with black goo. And I thought it must be some reaction from him not eating. And I knew we had to eat. And that is when two miraculous things happened. A deer, frozen and stiff appeared in our camp. It must have been buried in the avalanche with us. The jackknife was sitting next to it, so I cleared away the snow and placed it on its belly to cut out the chops. And I ate one cold and raw. Each mouthful gave me strength and nourishment. Have you ever worked outside all day, maybe gone hiking or skiing, with no break for lunch, and then come in for a big meal at night? It was as satisfying as that, except times 1000. And I gave some to Jeremy because he wasn’t able to move on his own. And I helped him chew it. 

The second thing that happened was I decided to clean. Jeremy had soiled himself and I could smell it, so I took some of the paper towels and cleaned him. And then I decided to clean the car from my vomit. And as I was cleaning out the passenger side floor, I noticed, gleaming under the seat, the keys. I ran out to show Jeremy. 

-Jeremy I found the keys are you happy? I said. 

He could barely respond he was so excited. And I put my thumb and forefinger at the corners of his mouth and could see that he was happy. 

 And that is the end of the story of what happened. Jeremy said I should write it down now that I have energy from the deer meat, in case anyone finds us and I have trouble talking like Jeremy. He has also suggested that I keep a journal. So I will. 

Day 23? 

 I have put a question mark because I’m not sure how many days have elapsed since we’ve been buried. We left Seattle around 2 pm the week before Martin Luther King, Jr. day, 2009. So it must have been Friday, January 9th. By my calculations it is February 1st. I had to forcefully feed Jeremy some deer steak today. He is still having difficulty chewing. But I can’t blame him, the meat is tough. 

Day 24 

I had Jeremy read my story. I propped it in front of his face and turned the pages for him. He thought it was very accurate. But I don’t think he liked the way I portrayed his anger with the keys. You could tell that he didn’t think he acted like that. But that’s easy for him to say after they’ve been found. 

 Day 26 

 Sorry diary for missing yesterday, but I made another attempt to dig us out of here. I didn’t get very far and Jeremy was no help at all. I have to take care of him all day long now and I don’t know how many excursions I can attempt with him in the state he is in. But the deer is good. I think all the time about when my dad bagged a 12-point buck when I was 10. We cut it up in the garage and had deer that whole year. I spent that whole summer barefoot with a piece of deer jerky in my mouth. But after a while, eating deer meat gets old and there was only so many creative things that my mother could make with it. We had deer steaks and vegetables. Deer burgers. Deer and rice. My favorite was always deer stew. Because the juices would get in with the meat and make it tender. And to eat a piece of potato floating in the stew with a little meat on it was scrumptious. We ate stew a lot because it was all of our favorites. Usually with carrots, potatoes and celery. But my dad, god bless him, was so stoic my whole childhood. I never heard him raise his voice once. He was a man among men – would just work in the field, come in on the old tractor covered in mud with a smile on his face every day. And one day he came in and looked like it was a particularly hard day. He was tied and hungry. And mom was making some deer steak with a side of corn. And he had one bite of it and spit it out. And my brothers and I were also dreading another night of deer. And dad said, ‘Well dear, I think you can throw out all that deer.’ And we all started laughing. Then he grabbed the phone off the hook. This was before cell phones, and we had a rotary, and he flipped through the phone book and ordered two large pepperoni pizzas from the restaurant in town. This was a rare treat – especially in the summer. And we cheered. And he told me I could go with him if I wanted. He didn’t ask my brothers, just me. And we got in the old F150 and drove to town, back in about 40 minutes with the pizza. I felt like a queen, walking triumphantly in the house with dad holding those pizzas. It might have been the best meal I’ve ever had. But I still have a place in my heart for that stew. I wish I could make it now. I started a fire with the wine, but it sizzled out quickly. Jeremy and I got drunk and ate anyway. It is amazing how much the alcohol hits you when you’re not eating a lot. I threw up again. What is it with me and throwing up? 

 Day 30 

Jeremy is making me angry. He’s having difficulty swallowing his food at all times. And it is getting a little disgusting. He wants me to perform surgery on him, but he doesn’t take into account that I only had one semester of nursing school and I am not the most qualified to be performing surgery. 

 Day 35? 

I take care of Jeremy day and night. I’m hoping he gets back to normal. I love him so much. I have finally decided after many days of deliberation to perform the surgery. I need to detach his head from his body and do a body transplant. This will help him eat as he is essentially paralyzed from the waste down. And I think it inhibits his chewing. We are going to try it in the morning. I have found a new body for him. And it will help him talk and he will be able to eat. 

Day 37 

Yesterday I performed the surgery. In detail, I sterilized his jackknife with our lighter. The I proceeded to saw through the throat and detach his head at the junction between the C3-C4 vertebrae. I then quickly placed the head on the new body, staked in the snow. To give him more freedom for speaking, I was able to explant the front of his face. His face can be transferred between his stasis body, staked in the snow and his moving body. He is now free from his paralyzed body. 

 Day 50? 

I must confess, knowing we are trapped has been surprisingly erotic. Jeremy and I have taken full advantage of his new body. He is sexually excited all the time. He can’t be on top, so I am on top always. And I caress his face while I ride him silly. I love him so much. But he can’t have orgasms. He is just hard all the time. And it is wearing me out. I am completely satisfied with his new body. But when I put his face on his moving body, we have to eat at separate times and wait each other’s turn to talk. I asked him if he liked his new situation, and he couldn’t have been happier. He danced gleefully throughout our camp. Our energy is great. It feels as if I’m eating twice as much. I must be getting used to it. And we may make another attempt to get out. The deer will last a while longer. But it is hard now that we are eating for two. Jeremy eats a lot. I’m trying to get him much healthier. Soon we will be at the niblets. And it is getting more difficult for me to eat only one thing all the time. And I’m sure it’s difficult for Jeremy. 

Day 60? 

We have made several attempts to get out. I fear we have gorged too much on the deer. All that is left is some of the meat off the left arm. I think we will eat it tomorrow. Jeremy and I play cards all the time now. But he beats me. He laughs hysterically a lot, and this cracks me up. He seems incredibly healthy. We have long make out sessions – the kind where your lips hurt afterwards. I haven’t experienced anything like that since high school. 

Day 82? 

We have been out of meat for over a week. I gave most of the last parts to Jeremy because we need his strength to make another attempt to get out. But I don’t feel cold anymore. I just told Jeremy I don’t feel cold. He says he doesn’t either.

This story was originally published along with Owloween and Morceaux in a set of horror thrillers: Three Bones