Page 1 of Entwined

Prologue: Liz

Monsters can be scary, imaginary creatures like vampires, werewolves, or succubi. But they can also be people who do terrible, unspeakable things.

Most of the world thinks of the Donner party, the ninety-person group of pioneers who got caught by an early blizzard at Donner Lake around Halloween of 1846, as monsters. They may not be the most famous group of cannibals in the world, but they certainly are in the United States.

You probably can’t study them without wondering whether you’d do the same as they did in those circumstances. Most people today can’t even imagine what it would be like to endure the starvation, hypothermia, and deprivation they did. For those who left the camp on December 16 to seek help, seventeen of their strongest members, things only got worse. Much worse. As a blizzard froze many of them to death, and a wrong turn sent them down a funnel in the center of the Sierra Nevada mountains, it was even odds on whether they’d die of hypothermia or starvation first. Only seven of them survived that month-long trek, and only because, after consuming their own shoes and snowshoes, they consumed all but one of those who didn’t make it.

On February 18, the first relief party finally returned to the two camps at the base of the mountains, but due to difficulties of both weather and animals, they were only able to save a scant handful of the seventy people still waiting. By that point, most the survivors had nothing left to eat. They were also nearly out of wood to burn, and those left largely lacked the strength to even locate or cut more wood.

On March 3 another rescue group came, but thanks to the onset of another brutal blizzard, more than a dozen of the people they set out to save wound up at the bottom of a twenty-four foot deep snow pit instead. They were left there with three days of firewood, no shelter, and no food. Two died almost immediately—an older brother and a mother. The despair those remaining eleven emaciated and frozen pioneers must have felt is practically unfathomable.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Not one, or even two, but four separate paid rescuers walked by that pit and just kept going. They must have decided that the people yet alive at the bottom of that macabre pit were a lost cause. Or perhaps they were worried that any attempt to save the hopeless, godforsaken people below would simply cost them their own lives.

They were out of fire to burn. Out of energy to cut it. Out of hope for the future. They had all but given up when the last few rescuers made it to that terrible pit. Two desperate fathers who had made it over the summit in that horrible December trip had paid two men to help them go back, in the hope that they might rescue their remaining sons. They passed the pit, hopeful that when they reached the lake camp, they would find their children.

They didn’t know that both their sons had already perished.

The eleven people in that hole, two adults and nine children, were alive in part because the adults had begun to feed the flesh of the deceased mother and brother to the children.

The rescuers saw the two partially consumed corpses at the top of the pit, and they saw that none of the eleven remaining survivors had the energy to climb out of the pit, much less travel any distance. Two of the rescuers had been offered money from the fathers to bring a child back out—fifty dollars was a lot of money at the time. They each chose a small child and carried them out on their back.

They can’t be blamed for taking only one—anything more would have seriously jeopardized their own lives.

But John Schull Stark was the third man, and he was not your average twenty-year-old. He was massively large, extremely strong, and he was a man with strong morals. He would not leave without taking every last survivor out with him.

They had ninety miles yet to travel, through mountains covered in deep snow. A blizzard could hit any time, and traveling with any nine people would be difficult, but most of the survivors could not even walk. John Stark could have decided those people were monsters for consuming their fallen companions in those desperate circumstances, and returned home alone. He hadn’t come for a monetary prize. He had come to do what was right.

But when he saw that the father, mother, and seven children (several of whom were not theirs, but whom they were caring for) were about to be left behind to die, he resolved not to leave a single one. He carried all nine of the remaining survivors out of that pit, along with his pack of supplies for one. He could only carry two of them at a time, so during long stretches, he picked two up, climbed ten or fifteen yards, dropped them off, and went back to do the same with the others.

Alone, he saved them all.

The accounts of the survivors say that Mr. Stark made jokes the entire time, never once complaining or criticizing them. When they apologized for being a terrible burden, he joked that they were so light that he could carry them all, if only God had given him a broader back.

Monsters and heroes, you see, often go hand in hand. In fact, no hero truly exists without a monster to slay. It’s the reaction to the situation that determines who is a monster and who is a hero.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve referred to the dragons who invaded Earth as monsters.

The moniker certainly fits the creatures who have burned, electrocuted, and attacked mankind without provocation. But recently, I’ve begun to wonder about monsters with increasing frequency. When desperate times come, to what lengths will I really go? What kind of person will I reveal myself to be?

A monster?

A hero?

Sometimes I worry that the only thing determining the answer is who’s telling the story.

1

Liz

Girls don’t like me.

They never have.

Maybe it’s because I’m not very girly. I don’t understand the point of nail polish. I never wear makeup. I’d rather punch a guy than flirt with him. And I’m much more comfortable doing burpees than I am trying on clothes at the mall.

When I got older, I hoped this might change, but when I met the wives and girlfriends of the guys at the gym, they hated me too. They never said that specifically, but I could hear their snide comments, and I saw their glances. Their feelings were clear.

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