by Richard Bard
“We’re going to crash in 4 minutes and 15 seconds,” I said. “That’s if we hit the highest peak. But if we make it to the valley, we’ll crash in 6 minutes, 24 seconds.”
Timmy gulped, and his eyes darted this way and that, settling on something in the rear of the plane. He grabbed me by my backpack’s shoulder strap and started running. “This way,” he shouted. Ahmed and Sarafina raced to keep up. We gathered beside the pallet closest to the rear door.
“Now listen up good,” Timmy said. “Because I don’t have time to explain this twice, and each one of us has gotta move superfast if we want to live. First off, did you find any life vests?”
“What—?” Ahmed said.
“No time,” Timmy yelled. “Life vests, life vests!”
Sarafina’s face was white. “But—?”
“The plane is descending,” I said. “It. Is. Going. To. Crash.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Timmy scrunched his shoulders and held up his hands. “Well?”
“I saw life vests in the front,” Sarafina said breathlessly.
“Get as many as you can. Alex, you help her.”
I ran after her and heard Timmy say to Ahmed, “Help me with this chute pack.”
We returned with two dozen inflatable life vests. Timmy and Ahmed were cinching the parachute pack to the top of the five-foot-tall pile of cargo on the first pallet. When they were finished, Timmy snapped open a pouch on the top of the pack and pulled out what looked like a smaller chute pack connected to a thick line. He left it on top of the pile.
“Inflate the vests and lay them out here,” Timmy said, pointing to the eighteen-inch space between the cargo and the edge of the pallet, made narrow by the series of webbed straps that held the cargo in place. “Divide them evenly on each side.”
A part of me knew what was about to happen but I refused to think about it. I pulled the red tab and the first vest inflated in an instant. I laid it down in the space. Sarafina did the same, setting hers next to mine. Her eyes were as big as saucers. As we worked, my internal clock kept track of the countdown to the mountain peak altitude.
Two minutes, 50 seconds...
“Did you find any spare straps?” Timmy asked Ahmed.
“Only a bunch of seat belts for the web seats.”
“Get ’em. I’ll finish with the chute.”
Ahmed hurried off. Timmy finished what he was doing and moved to a control panel by the rear ramp. He made several entries on a screen there, and each time he hit the Enter key he grumbled. When Ahmed returned with the belts, Timmy pounded his fist on the wall and came back to the pallet. By then, Sarafina and I had finished laying out the vests.
“Do you have anything warm to wear in there?” Timmy asked, pointing to my backpack.
“My hoodie.”
“Put it on. You guys, too.”
Ahmed and Sarafina grabbed their packs. Ahmed had a hoodie like mine and my sister had a sweater. After dressing, we slipped our packs on over our clothes. In the meantime, Timmy had cinched a harness of some sort around his chest and waist.
“You first,” Timmy said, guiding me toward the vests on one side of the pallet. “Wedge yourself between the vests and the straps.”
My heart was racing but I moved into place and lay on my side. Timmy helped to reposition the vests around me like bubble wrap around a fragile vase. Then he grabbed one of the seat belts and wove it through a pallet slat and around my waist. “Give me a hand,” he said to Ahmed. My brother tightened another one around my thighs while Timmy cinched a third over my chest. I felt like wrapped sausage. My legs were quivering and I wanted to pee.
“You’re next,” Timmy said to Sarafina, motioning to her spot.
“Please no, please no,” Sarafina mumbled, lying down on the edge nearest the back door. Her head was close to mine and we locked eyes as Timmy finished wrapping her up. Her lips made a tight line and I could tell she was doing everything possible to keep from crying.
One minute, 15 seconds...
“Ahmed, get behind the pallet,” Timmy said, moving to the panel that controlled the rear doors. He made an entry and suddenly a top section of the slanted rear ramp opened inward to lie flat against the ceiling. The rush of cold air made my ears pop. A moment later, the bottom ramp swung down until it was level with the floor, and the roar of the motors and the rushing wind filled the space.
Timmy released two clamps at the front of the pallet and got behind it to help Ahmed push it onto the ramp.
The pallet rolled to a stop, and I heard Sarafina’s frightened voice over the wind. “W-what’s happening?”
The sky behind her was foreboding. “Keep your eyes closed,” I yelled.
“Slide into your spot,” Timmy ordered to Ahmed. “Quickly!”
“This will work!” Ahmed shouted from the opposite side of the pallet, where Timmy was helping him strap in.
A moment later, Timmy hooked a safety line to the harness he’d put on earlier. It was connected somewhere behind me. He reached over Sarafina, grabbed the small chute pack from the top of the pallet, and moved carefully to the end of the ramp. He was so close to the edge that it made my knees feel watery. He hooked the pack on a hook suspended above the ramp and it looked like the wind wanted to suck it outside. A thick bungee cord connected it to the main parachute pack on top of the pallet.
“This is going to happen very fast,” Timmy yelled over the noise. He walked out of sight behind me and reappeared by the control panel. After he entered a command on the screen, his finger hovered over the Enter key.
“I wish this thing had a timer!” Timmy shouted, with a wide-eyed stare toward the trailing edge of the pallet where a row of life vests waited for him. And that’s when I realized he hadn’t set up any seat belts for himself.
I shouted, “But—!”
“Close your eyes and hang on tight!” Timmy yelled. His eyes met mine and his face was grim. He nodded, and I suddenly understood the sacrifice he was making. I gripped the straps tight but there was no way I was going to close my eyes. I nodded back, memorizing the features of his face.
Fifteen seconds.
He tapped the display.
There was a tug. The inside of the plane vanished, a rush of wind whipped across my face, and my stomach felt like I was on the first drop of a rollercoaster. Sarafina’s scream pierced the wind.
The pallet tilted sharply and one of my life vests came loose and spun out of sight. We swung in the opposite direction and the moonlit shadows of a mountain peak rushed by beneath us. Then there was a swoosh overhead and a lurch pressed me into the pallet. I looked up to see that three parachutes had blossomed above us. The pallet settled into a gentle seesaw.
“Yahoo!” Ahmed yelled.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Sarafina chanted.
I was relieved, too, but when I looked toward my feet and saw that Timmy wasn’t strapped beside us, my stomach went hollow. The sound of the airplane disappeared as I said a silent prayer for him. That’s when I felt the pallet jiggle.
“Who’s doing that?” Sarafina cried out. “Stop it!”
“It’s not me,” Ahmed said. “Alex, are you okay?”
The jiggling became more persistent. It felt like something was tugging at the bottom of the pallet. I shifted my shoulders around, peeked over the side, and my heart leaped.
“It’s Uncle Timmy!” I yelled. He was climbing up the tether attached to his harness.
“Stay where you are,” he shouted. Finally, he pulled himself onto the pallet like a drowning man into a lifeboat. “Dudes,” he said breathlessly, “I can’t believe that worked!”
A moment later, tree limbs snapped, branches lashed across us, and everything went black.
Chapter 6
THE FIRST THING I FELT was the tingle from the mini, prying open a locked memory.
I’m in the underground facility on the island, standing on the special chair with a bulky skullcap on my head, connected to the grid of pyramids t
hat ringed the planet. My brain is being bombarded with images and information, and I’m overwhelmed as hundreds—no, thousands of drawers in my mind are being filled. I slam them closed one after another, doing my best to send a message of my own to the pyramids’ makers, trying to convince them to leave us alone. But it’s a losing battle. My brain feels like it’s on fire and I know the overload is killing me.
Then my dad’s mind is suddenly there, his thoughts joined with mine, his energy fueling me.
In the end, it works. My message is received. The pyramids disappear into space and the threat to our planet vanishes with them, but the packed drawers in my mind are still there, ready to burst open. I seal them tight, because a part of me knows they contain something bad.
“Alex,” Sarafina’s voice was soft, as was her hand brushing my forehead. “Please wake up.”
I opened my eyes to find my head cradled in her lap. Her expression brightened and her lips parted in a smile.
“He’s awake,” she said, and Ahmed and Timmy entered my frame of vision. I was thrilled to see them. It was still night, and the thick umbrella of foliage beyond their faces flickered and danced from the flames of a campfire.
“You okay?” Ahmed asked.
I wiggled my arms and legs. “Uh-huh,” I said, sitting up too fast. It made me dizzy. I reached back and felt a tender lump behind my ear.
“Take it slow,” Timmy said. “You just survived a heck of a drop.” He examined the lump. “It’s not bleeding. Do you remember what happened?” He was looking at me the same way the nurse had when I fell off the jungle gym at school. She’d asked me a bunch of questions. I didn’t say much because I rarely did, and she’d told Mom on the phone that I might’ve had a concussion. I’d felt fine but Mom made me stay home for two days anyway. The worst part was, I hadn’t been allowed to play video games.
“We’re in China,” I said. “A hundred and fifty miles from where they took Mom and Tony, and maybe Dad. The plane was going to crash so we went skydiving on a pallet. We hit the trees, end of story.” I wasn’t sure Timmy was convinced, so I pushed to my feet, picked up my backpack, and added, “Oh, and next time try not to be late to the party. Climbing up the rope kinda rocked the boat.”
It had been a long time since I said that much in a single stretch, but sometimes words were necessary.
Timmy sighed. Sarafina rose and gave me a long hug while I took in our surroundings.
“The plane crashed a few seconds after we dropped through the trees,” she said. “We heard the explosion.”
My first thoughts went to the pilots and guards. They’d been bad men, but did they deserve to die? Were their families wondering about them right now? We didn’t mean to kill them but we still made it happen. My stomach felt queasy. I thought back to the stories I’d overheard about Dad and Tony and the others and how many people had died because of them. If the deaths had left scars on them, I hadn’t noticed, though sometimes during our get-togethers the adults would move to the den and have a quiet drink together. They’d seem a little sad afterward but it always went away soon enough. Somehow they’d put it behind them, and I hoped I’d be able to do the same. I put the memory of the four dead men in a drawer of its own, but for some reason it wouldn’t close all the way. At least for now.
Even though it was the middle of the night, it was warm and humid. The ground wasn’t damp but it felt soft. I heard the gurgle of a stream nearby. There was lush vegetation everywhere and the trees were higher than a three-story building, their upper branches intertwined to block out the moonlight. Clouds of insects danced just out of reach of the flames from the campfire.
“I told you he’d be all right,” Ahmed said with a pat on my shoulder. He had a mosquito bite on his chin. “Now let’s get back to checking out the cargo.”
Four of the six plastic crates were already hinged open. There were a few pieces of straw packing material on the ground around them, and even more around the perimeter of the campfire, which must’ve been started with the straw. The open containers contained military supplies, which the others had lined up on the tarp that had been used to cover the cargo. There were canteens, belts, vests, backpacks, flashlights, binoculars, flares, and a few other things I didn’t recognize. Timmy had already exchanged his loafers for a pair of boots. A smaller wooden crate had been nestled among the others. The lid had been pried off and six bottles of whiskey were inside, plus a bunch of CDs.
Ahmed gasped when he opened the fifth container. He reached in and pulled out an assault rifle, handling it with the same reverence a mother would have for her newborn baby. I recognized it immediately from the Spider game as an AK-47. It looked comfortable in my brother’s hands, and I remembered him telling me about the training he’d received from Uncle Tony when they’d been on their way to rescue us from the island. As Ahmed stood there sighting down the weapon, with the pistol from the plane still tucked in his belt, the angles and planes of his face seemed to grow sharper. It made me feel uneasy. Sarafina edged closer to me.
There were five more rifles. Timmy set them aside to access the twin metal containers beneath them.
“That’s gotta be the ammo and magazines,” Ahmed said eagerly.
Timmy opened the first one to find a row of bulky cell phones lined up in foam cushioning. “Thank you, Jesus,” he exclaimed. “They’re satellite phones.” He pulled one out and opened the battery compartment. It was empty, and he quickly snapped open the second metal container. “The batteries must be in here.”
“Or the ammo,” Ahmed said.
But all they found were more phones. They rushed to the final crate. Timmy snapped open the clasps, whisked aside the straw padding, and pulled out a box labeled mre.
“What’s an MRE?” Sarafina asked.
“Meal Ready to Eat,” Timmy said. He dropped the box on the ground and pulled out one after another until the crate was empty. “They’re all MREs,” he said glumly.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Ahmed said, the AK-47 dangling loosely at his side. “What good’s an assault rifle with no ammunition?”
“Or a sat phone with no batteries?” Timmy asked.
Ahmed paced. “What idiot packed these crates? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that a gun has to have bullets.” He shook the weapon in the air. “Without them, this thing is worthless. They didn’t even pack a bayonet with it. At least that would’ve been something. And a cell phone with no batteries? Are we being punked right now? Is this just a bad dream? Or are we really stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to call for help and no protection? After all we’ve been through, isn’t it about time we had a little good luck for a change? I mean, come on, we’ve been kidnapped, drugged, and carted halfway around the world. Our parents and friends have been taken and we’re…”
My sister and I exchanged a glance and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. Ignoring Ahmed’s rant, we dropped to our knees and each ripped open a box of MREs. They were filled with vacuum-sealed bags.
“I’ve got spaghetti and meatballs and pound cake.” She was beaming.
“Mac ’n’ cheese,” I said, hugging the bag to my chest. It was my favorite.
Ahmed continued, “Why does this kind of stuff always happen to us? It’s not like we deserve it. Heck, we saved the world, didn’t we? What more—”
He hesitated when Sarafina stood and waved one of the bags of food in front of his face. “Brownies,” she said.
It was his soft spot and she knew it. It wasn’t her usual method for stopping one of his rants but it worked just as well. His gaze darted from the bag to her and then down at me. Finally, he bowed his head. “Sorry.”
Timmy pulled out several packets of MREs and fanned them out like a big deck of cards. “Dudes, at least we won’t go hungry.”
“First off, I’m not a dude,” Sarafina said, ripping open the bag and handing Ahmed one of the brownies. “Secondly, we need something to heat them up in.”
Ahmed stuffed t
he brownie in his mouth, his cheeks bulging as he chewed. He set the rifle down and ripped open another bag. He peeked inside and grinned, as if he’d needed to see for himself that there were plenty of brownies available. Then he grabbed one of the canteens and unsnapped the canvas cover to reveal the cooking pot the canteen was nested in. He said, still chewing, “We can cook in these. And we can get water from the stream.” He popped another brownie in his mouth.
I liked how they pulled together. It reminded me of the way my dad was with his friends. I guess things weren’t as bad as they’d seemed. We had food, water, and if I could get a look at the stars I could keep us heading in the right direction to find our parents. Maybe we were finally in for some good luck.
Timmy had just opened a bag of pound cake when a deep-throated growl echoed from the trees.
The hiss of thousands of insects stopped, and it seemed as if the world held its breath along with me.
Then a second growl joined the first.
“Bears,” Timmy whispered.
The growls were short and angry but they didn’t sound like they were getting closer. Sarafina and I huddled by the fire while Timmy and Ahmed worked frantically around our camp. They’d already stacked the cargo crates in a semicircle behind us. It wasn’t much but it made me feel safer. Timmy rushed from the darkness holding another armload of branches and sticks. He lowered it quietly onto the pile next to the campfire.
“Keep feeding them into the flames,” he whispered. I nodded and he raced after the beam from his flashlight and disappeared into the trees on the far side of the clearing.
We tossed the sticks one at a time into the fire. Several of the branches still had dead leaves sticking to them and the flames engulfed them with a hiss of crackles and snaps. The fire grew and we inched back to avoid the heat. Bears don’t like fire, Timmy had said, so we hoped the roaring flames would keep them away.
Ahmed used his pocketknife to peel strips of bark from a nearby tree. The bark appeared softer than I imagined it would be and he peeled away another large layer. He brought over a double handful and dropped it beside the two branches he’d already gathered. They were thicker than a broom handle and about half as long.
