Dane's Storm

by Mia Sheridan

  “Two days,” she said.

  Two days? I’d been unconscious for two days?

  “Where?” I asked.

  She sniffled softly and when she spoke, her voice sounded bleak. “We crashed. Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  I felt her nod in the dark. “I pulled you off the plane and built a shelter nearby. I thought . . . I thought the rescue crew would have found us by now but it’s been storming for two days . . .”

  Reality slammed into me and for a minute, I wrestled with the knowledge that we were on a mountain in some sort of makeshift shelter. A cave? No, something was flapping softly above us, as if the roof was made of something lighter than rock.

  Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, and then another. It made the hairs on the nape of my neck rise. There were monsters here, prowlers in the shadows.

  My hands moved over her body. “You . . . are you injured?”

  “No. I have a bruise from my seatbelt but that’s already better. It barely hurts.” She paused. “I ate a whole bag of pretzels the first morning,” she said, misery and what I thought might be guilt lacing her tone. I struggled to understand the change of topic, her point in telling me about pretzels, and finally grasped that she must have been rationing food once she realized our rescue wasn’t . . . Oh God. Two days. We’d been in the snowy wilderness alone for two days.

  “Black box?” I rasped.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know what that is.”

  “Back of . . . plane,” I said, the words fading.

  “Oh,” she breathed. “The back of the plane isn’t there.”

  “What?”

  “It . . . it was torn off or something. It’s gone.”

  Gone. I noted some faraway sense of alarm, but I felt warmer with Audra pressed against me like this, her peanut-laced breath ghosting across my skin, and the Tylenol beginning to help my head a little. I drifted . . . “We’ll . . . be okay,” I said, wanting to promise more, wanting to reassure her, wanting to soothe the hopelessness I heard in her voice, but so tired . . . so tired.

  All was silent for a moment before I heard her say very softly, “I guess we’ve already survived worse than this, right?”

  I swayed between reality and sleep, her words repeating in my mind. I knew what she meant. The grief of losing our son. With the last of my energy, I took her hand in mine under whatever was on top of us, keeping us somewhat warm. “I don’t . . . think we . . . survived that time, Audra. I don’t think we survived at all.” And then sleep pulled me under and I didn’t resist.

  **********

  Light hit me and I blinked my eyes open slowly, lying still as I took in the details around me. I was lying on the ground between two boulders and there was something above me. Is that carpet? I frowned in confusion.

  I stayed still for a few moments, allowing my mind to clear, the memory of what I thought was probably the night before coming back to me. My head still hurt, but not quite as badly as it had, and my leg seemed to feel a little bit better too. I had to take a piss so badly my bladder was aching. When I realized the space next to me was empty, I called Audra’s name, the sound a soft croak. With effort, I pulled myself to a sitting position, grimacing at the onslaught of pain. Christ. Help.

  I sat still for a minute as I got my bearings, squinting at what appeared to be garbage bags hung in front of an opening where light streamed in around gaps at both sides. Pushing it aside, I crawled out into the open space of a snowy forest, my hands hitting the icy ground. Hissing in a breath, I gripped the side of one boulder and pulled myself slowly to my feet, being careful of the sharp ache in my leg. Once my head had stopped spinning, I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, my breath pluming in the frigid air.

  Shafts of sunlight streamed through gaps in the trees, bouncing off the snow, causing it to glitter and sparkle. Leaves rustled, I heard a few birdsongs high above, but mostly it was silent. Silent and still. “Audra?” I called out again, my voice clearing slightly.

  I heard crunching footsteps to my right and a second later she appeared through a break in the trees, her arms wrapped around her body, a shirt tied over her hair in a makeshift hood. She had what looked like black plastic over her shoes and tied around her lower legs. When I looked down, I saw that I did too. As Audra drew closer, I saw that her cheeks were rosy with cold and there were dark circles beneath her eyes as though she hadn’t slept much recently. Of course she hasn’t. When she spotted me, she made a beeline in my direction, approaching me quickly. “Are you okay? You shouldn’t be up.”

  “Had to pee,” I said, my bladder thrumming again and reminding me of my overwhelming need to relieve it.

  “Oh.” She pointed off behind me. “I’ll wait here to make sure you’re all right.”

  I nodded, heading deeper into the trees, then I lowered the waistband of my pants—and peed, almost groaning with the relief. When my bladder was empty, I lowered my pants further, needing to see my leg. I pulled up whatever Audra had used to tie the material being fashioned as a bandage and then peeled back what I could now see was a pair of Audra’s underpants. For a moment I just stared at my leg. Jesus, she’d . . . she’d stitched me up? I released a long, slow breath, my heart squeezing at the thought of her sitting in the deep snowy silence and stitching my leg while I lay unconscious. If not for her, I’d be . . . Audra. My God. My head was swimming, and not just with the concussion I surely had.

  What had she endured?

  The stitches were slightly crooked, but evenly placed, a large knot at both ends. My skin was pink at the edges of the wound and oozing a bare bit of blood, but mostly, it looked good—clean and uninfected. I replaced the bandage and pulled up my pants, returning to where Audra still stood near the opening of the spot we’d apparently been sleeping in for the past few days. “You stitched me up,” I said, my voice holding the awe I felt.

  She nodded. “There was a piece of metal embedded in your thigh. You were bleeding . . .” She let out a shuddery breath. “You were bleeding so much. I washed it out with alcohol first and then used a sewing kit. I did the best I could. I was shaking and so . . . so cold.”

  I stared at her for a moment, horrified that she’d had to do what she’d done—and alone. But . . . proud. God, the feeling flowing through my body right now was pride . . . in her. “Thank you.”

  Our eyes held for a moment and then she nodded, whispering, “You’re welcome.”

  “Tell me everything,” I said.

  She released a breath. “Okay, let’s go sit somewhere.”

  **********

  “Those fucking birds,” I murmured after she’d given me her account.

  Audra made a sound in her throat. “I thought we were going to die.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  Her eyes met mine. “No. Not yet anyway.”

  I released a breath. “We’re not going to die. They’re going to find us.”

  “Can you remember where exactly the damage to the back end of the plane started?”

  “The whole back end is torn off starting behind the second row of seats.”

  I swore softly and then groaned. “The black box, the part that can be tracked, was in the back of the plane. I imagine no one’s been able to get a plane in the air to search for us because of the storm. We just have to hope that black box isn’t too far from where we are because wherever it is, that’s where they’ll be searching.”

  Audra’s chest rose and fell on a big intake of air. “How long do you think?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I could say. We don’t have a way to look at the weather report.” I squinted at the sky. “The cloud cover today would make it damn hard to conduct a decent search.” Shit. “Let’s hope for tomorrow or the next day at the very latest. We have enough food and water. We’ll be okay. And you built a damn good shelter. Today we can work on it a little bit more.”

  Audra groaned. “Two more days? God.”

  “I’m not thrilled
about it either, but I’m glad to be alive.”

  She nodded her head jerkily. “Me too.”

  “All right then, let’s get that shelter of ours as airtight as possible and then we’ll have a delicious dinner of pretzels and watered-down soda.” At that, she smiled. It was gentle and soft, but what made it so incredible was the faith I saw in her expression.

  She trusted me.

  Something that had once been my greatest pride and joy.

  Something I never thought I’d see in her eyes again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Audra

  We spent the next few hours reinforcing our shelter.

  I’d found two tall boulders next to each other in the forest area at the top of the hill and used the piece of carpet and some garbage bags on top of them to create a place to sleep. It was flimsy, but usable, and though I was immensely grateful that Dane was now conscious to help reinforce it, I was also proud that I’d managed to make one at all.

  As we worked, I thought back to that night and a shiver ran down my spine, not from the cold, but from the terror and loneliness I’d experienced. But I also remember thinking that Luella Townsend had been wrong. The words she’d uttered at the hospital all those years ago had never left me, and they came back to me then.

  She’s such a tiny thing, Dane.

  My body might be small, but it was strong. I was strong. I had managed to get us both to shelter despite the odds, and something deep, deep inside where I stored the broken pieces of me, felt as if it was being knit back together.

  Dane had the idea to break off branches and weave them together to create a thicker doorway than the one I’d managed to create, attaching the garbage bags to the backside using dental floss from my cosmetics bag since I’d used all the thread on his leg. I had to admit, the heavier, waterproof door not only did a better job of keeping out the wind and cold, but now we wouldn’t have to listen to the incessant flapping of the garbage bags.

  I watched Dane work, watched as he stood back and assessed the shelter then broke more small branches from the tree and stuffed them between the small crack at the back where the two large rocks butted up to each other. He looked focused, intent, but I also noticed that his face was pale and his hands were shaking even though we’d both donned socks as mittens.

  “I think we should take a break. You don’t want to overdo it, Dane. You’re suffering from a head injury and just had surgery.” I shot him a teasing smile and he chuckled.

  “Speaking of my recent surgery, I need to clean the wound. You did an amazing job of closing it up, but I need to make sure it doesn’t get infected or I’ll be in trouble.”

  I nodded. “Let me do it. It’s easier for me to reach.”

  I flushed his wound with more of the alcohol while he gritted his teeth, tipping his head back with the pain. “Jesus,” he hissed. “That hurts like a bitch.”

  “I’m sure it does. Even when you were unconscious, you flinched.”

  His expression was still pained, but I recognized a deeper distress in his eyes. It hurt him to think of what I’d gone through while he’d been unconscious, and something about that pulled at an old internal scar. I had a job to do, though, and so I focused my attention on Dane’s wound.

  I poured a little bit of the cold water over it, catching the runoff with a sock. He looked woozy and appeared to be shivering, whether from the cold or from the pain of his injury, I wasn’t sure, but I covered him with the blankets, pulling them to his chin.

  “Will you lay down with me?” His voice was soft, and he didn’t open his eyes.

  I hesitated for a moment. We’d slept side by side for the past two nights, me wrapping my body around his in an effort to share body heat, but now that he was awake, things felt . . . different. There was no choice, though. If we were going to survive this night—and please, God, let it be the last one—then we were going to have to snuggle. Snuggle sounded like the wrong word. It sounded comfortable and like a choice. This was forced snuggling, which seemed like a contradiction.

  Dane squinted at me, only one eye open and though his face was pale, his expression was somewhat amused. “It looks like your brain is working hard enough to spark fire. Please continue.”

  I huffed out a breath. “Funny. Scoot over a little.”

  When he did, I lay next to him. He turned so he was lying on his good thigh, spooning me and bringing the blankets around us to form a small cocoon.

  His breath was warm on the back of my neck and his words brought more warmth to my chest. “Tell me that story again.”

  “What story?” I whispered, even though I was pretty sure I knew the one he was referring to.

  “The story about the Indian chief.”

  I paused, a refusal rising from my throat, but I swallowed it down. What could it hurt? It was just a story, and maybe it would help us both fall asleep.

  And so I told him about the chief and his great sacrifice, a man who loved a woman so deeply that he chose to give his very life in protection of hers. After I finished we were both quiet for a few minutes, me drifting . . . drifting . . .

  “This reminds me of our pond,” he whispered. “Under the blankets while it snowed.” His voice was sleepy. His words brought a faraway feeling of distress, but I was so tired I didn’t stop him, just let him ramble softly in my ear. Part of me was simply so happy he was awake and okay and that I wasn’t alone. He sighed behind me, pulling me even closer, sharing his heat. He’d always been so warm . . . like a human furnace. Big and warm and protective. “I loved you so much,” he said and the words jarred me, piercing.

  I whimpered, too tired and warm to pull away. “Dane,” I whispered. A warning? A plea?

  You shouldn’t. Please don’t. It hurts to remember.

  Dane was quiet for a moment, but then he brought his sock-covered hand up and smoothed it over my hair as if he knew what that one word had carried. Loved. “And you loved me too.”

  Yes, I thought, drifting toward sleep again. Yes.

  “Was there anyone else after me?”

  His voice came to me like a dream, slow and heavy, and I thought, No, Dane, never. There’s only ever been you. He turned his face into my neck, but I didn’t think my lips had formed the words.

  **********

  When I woke again, light was streaming through the tiny spaces in our shelter, creating a muted, dreamy glow. I was mostly warm, since Dane was sleeping pressed right against me, his arm around my waist. As the sleepiness lifted and reality flowed in, I felt something hard and probing at my lower back and I stilled completely, afraid to move a muscle.

  “It’s an automatic response,” he said, his voice thick with sleep. “I’m in no condition to use it. Don’t worry.”

  I paused, then pulled away. “I wasn’t worried,” I mumbled as I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face. I looked back over my shoulder and Dane had rolled onto his back and was wearing a pained grimace.

  “It can’t hurt that badly.”

  His eyes moved to me and narrowed slightly. “Oh, it can. But my headache is the worst of my painful conditions this morning.”

  “Headache aside, you look better. Your color is good—from what I can tell in this light. Should we get up and see what delicacies we have for breakfast?”

  He moved slowly into a sitting position, seeming to test his head further by tilting it one way and then the other. He didn’t grimace again so I took that as a sign that it felt okay with movement. “I could really go for some peanuts and maybe a few pretzels.”

  “Well then, buddy, it’s your lucky day.”

  A few minutes later, we each ate a ration of pretzels and peanuts, the small bit of food seeming to make my stomach angrier than before—growling in protest when I stopped eating. “Do you think this will be the day?” I asked, my breath pluming in the cold morning air. I glanced through the break in the trees above us to the gray sliver of sky, thick with clouds.

  “Dear God, I hope so,” Dane said, but as he glan
ced upward, his expression didn’t look hopeful. He placed the last peanut in his mouth and chewed slowly. “Damn, it almost hurts worse to eat such a small amount.”

  “I know.”

  “How much battery do you have left in your cell phone?”

  “Not much. Sixteen percent. Why? Do you think we could find service somewhere up here?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then why . . .”

  “I want to hike down to the plane today and see how stable it is. I have an idea.”

  “What?” I asked. He had to be delirious. “I told you what it was like getting out of there. It’s too dangerous, especially now that I can see it’s shifted without any weight in it at all.”

  “I know. I’ll check it out first, I promise. There are a few things I want to try to get out, especially if we might be here another day. We can’t just sit around going crazy.”

  I didn’t even want to contemplate being here another day, but he was right. It was better to do something than to sit and stare at the empty sky. And if that something helped us make it through another night with even a little more comfort, it was worth a try.

  I brushed my teeth with my trial-sized toothpaste and a handful of snow, wondering if we could eat Crest if things became desperate. I shut that thought down, refusing to ponder how dire our situation would have to be before we dined on toothpaste. Still . . . I was careful to only use a smidge of the paste to clean my teeth and I noticed that Dane did the same. Funny, though neither of us mentioned it.

  This morning seemed colder than the one before, and I wrapped a shirt around my head, tying the sleeves around my nose and mouth, loosely enough that I could still breathe. Dane wrapped a shirt around his head as well but didn’t cover his face.

  “Okay then, let’s do this,” he said.

  We walked out of the clearing and to the top of the hill where we both stood for a moment looking at the plane. The wind howled, gusting past us in icy lashes, stronger than it’d been on any of the previous days, despite the snowstorm. “Follow behind me, okay? In my footsteps if you can. It’ll be less work, and if there’s a hole or something, I’ll step in it first.”