Perfect Strangers

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Is it—?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied urgently, giving me his hand as I began to rapidly scramble over his body to get out of the bed. My feet somehow found my trainers, but I wasted no time with the laces. I didn’t stop for any other item of clothing, although I made sure I paused long enough to grab the waiting box of matches beside the cabin door. This was what they’d been left there for. By the time my hand was on the door handle, Logan had struggled into a sitting position, and with a herculean effort got to his feet. He swayed alarmingly for a moment, before grabbing onto the wall to steady himself.

  ‘Go, Hannah. Don’t wait for me, there’s no time.’ I flung open the cabin’s door and gasped at the blast of icy air that came in with the morning light. It had snowed lightly overnight, and I panicked for a moment when I saw the thin powdery unbroken surface. Had it ruined our beacon? At the edge of the porch I paused, my eyes scanning the skies. I could still hear the sound of approaching rotors, but there was no sign yet of the aircraft in the crisp clear sky.

  ‘Hurry, Hannah,’ urged Logan, who had somehow managed to cross the floor with the aid of the oar crutch, and was now standing behind me. I nodded and turned to run towards the pile of dry grasses and kindling that we had constructed for this very moment. ‘Wait,’ he suddenly cried, just as my feet were about to fly down the steps. Logan’s free hand reached behind my neck and pulled me towards him. His eyes were alight with excitement and something else, which I couldn’t easily identify. His kiss was both hard and brief, giving my lips no time to respond. But they were still tingling from the pressure of his mouth long after it was over. ‘Go now,’ he said, smiling. ‘This is it.’

  My feet crunched through the thin white crisp topping on the snow, as I ran to the beacon. I pulled off the waterproof jacket we had laid over it with an exaggerated flourish, as though I was a magician doing a big reveal. The first match wouldn’t strike. After three attempts I threw it down onto the snow in disgust, and pulled out another. The second match lit on the first swipe, but a sudden gust of wind came and swallowed the fledgling flame before I had a chance to touch it to the grasses.

  The helicopter sound was getting louder, and I knew if I couldn’t get the beacon going there was a very good chance they wouldn’t see us at all. I glanced back at the cabin and saw that Logan was slowly and precariously beginning to descend the steps, no doubt intending to come to my aid.

  ‘It’s okay. I’ve got it. Stay there,’ I shouted, afraid that any activity might start his leg bleeding again. My voice reached him easily across the thirty metres that separated us. He stopped gratefully, and I turned back to the kindling. There’s some sort of superstition regarding the third strike of a match, it goes back decades, but there was nothing unlucky for us about match number three. I cradled the flickering flame with my palm and brought it up to the crisp dry grasses, where it tasted them hungrily and found them to its liking. The fire caught instantly. We’d constructed the beacon with great care. Each tiny dry stick had been perfectly positioned and after six days of practice in the art of fire-making, we finally got our reward. The beacon caught instantly, immediately throwing up a rewarding plume of smoke into the air.

  I looked back at Logan. He was still making his way slowly towards me, stopping every few steps to catch his breath. He must have been in agony, having to walk on that leg, but you’d never have known it from the smile on his face, which I could see quite clearly, even from this distance.

  I spotted it first. A tiny black speck in the sky, flying towards us, following the path of the river. I glanced at the fire, which was now well and truly alight, then bent to pick up the jacket that had covered the precious sticks to keep them dry. I ran down to the water’s edge, dragging the jacket behind me. From this position I hoped the rescue helicopter couldn’t fail to be able to see us. Logan had stopped walking and was standing some twenty metres from me, smiling encouragingly.

  I started waving way too early, long before they would have been able to see me, I’m sure. With the cuff of the jacket firmly gripped in one hand, I swept it in a manic arc backwards and forwards through the air with such frenetic abandon it’s a wonder I didn’t take out my own eye with the zip clasp. The jacket flew impressively through the air, a black swooping flag, semaphoring my desperation, against the snowy backdrop. Would it be seen by the crew of the helicopter? Or would the fire’s trailing grey snake of smoke, sidewinding upwards, be caught by the binoculars I could only hope were trained our way?

  The helicopter flew overhead, deafening me with the roar of its engine. There was absolutely no point in calling out. Only an idiot would think their voice could be heard over the noise of the rotors. But I screamed like a teenager at a rock concert, anyway. When the helicopter passed directly over, and then beyond us, I dropped to my knees as though the blades slicing through the sky had felled me. How had they not seen us?

  ‘Nooooo!’ My cry sounded like the wail of an animal.

  ‘It’s okay,’ shouted Logan, still looking skyward. ‘They’re just circling, they’re coming back around.’ He pointed up and I saw he was right; the aircraft had executed a large sweeping circle and was now heading back towards us. ‘They’ve seen us, Hannah.’ Those four words would echo through my heart for a very long time. But I didn’t know that then.

  The helicopter hovered above a small relatively flat area to the right of the cabin, which looked way too small for it to be able to land on. Fortunately the pilot didn’t appear to agree with me, and after a few agonising seconds, it began to buffet through its own powerful downdraught to the ground. I stumbled towards it, half running, half hobbling, uncaring of the painful blizzard of whipped-up snow that stung me like arctic hornets and enveloped the descending craft in a white cloud. When the runners finally touched the ground and the pilot powered down his craft, the helicopter appeared out of the snowy tornado, like an illusionist’s grand finale.

  Two figures in orange jumpsuits leaped lithely from the craft while the rotors were still spinning, and ran towards me, their bodies crouched beneath the blades. The man reached me first, although his colleague, a young woman with flame-red hair, was only half a stride behind him.

  ‘Hannah Truman, I presume,’ the man declared, as though he’d been waiting his entire life for just such a chance to paraphrase Henry Stanley’s famous greeting.

  ‘Are we ever glad to see you,’ cried the woman, flinging her arms unexpectedly around me. She said something else, which was hard to decipher over the sound of someone sobbing noisily. I looked around to see who it was, then realised embarrassingly that it was me.

  ‘We’d practically given up all hope of finding you alive,’ the man admitted. His eyes were awash with relief. I wondered then just how close we’d come to the point when the authorities would have decided to call off the search altogether.

  ‘How you’ve managed to survive for this many days is nothing short of a miracle.’

  ‘Were there many . . . ? How bad was it . . . ? Were there many survivors?’

  The two rescuers exchanged a look, which told me the toll was high, yet I still gasped when I heard the number who had perished in the crash.

  ‘We thought that number was certain to increase by one,’ admitted the man, sadly. ‘But somehow you’ve defied all the odds and have managed to make it.’

  ‘By two,’ I corrected, my voice still sober as I realised just how incredibly lucky Logan and I had been.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You said the toll would have increased by one, but it would have been two. There are two of us here. We were together at the back of the plane when it broke away. Me and one other passenger: Logan Carter.’

  I spun around and swept out my arm to indicate the man who’d been standing just twenty metres from me a few moments ago. He was gone. I turned back to the search and rescue duo and interrupted a look of extreme concern on their faces.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman carefully. ‘Forgive me, but are you saying that there
was someone beside you on the plane, right before the accident? Someone who also survived the crash?’

  I was frowning, at her question and also at the vacant space in front of the wooden shelter where Logan should be. Where was he? Had the pain from his leg forced him to return to the cabin while the helicopter was landing? Why didn’t he tell me?

  ‘Hannah . . . are you sure about this?’

  I turned back to her distractedly. Concern and irritation at her ridiculous query sharpened my tone. ‘Am I sure about what? That he was next to me? Of course he was. We were both strapped into our seats when the tail of the plane crashed into the lake. But we both made it. We’ve been together this whole time.’

  All right, the look that passed between them was definitely worrying me now. ‘Logan!’ I yelled, ‘Logan, where are you?’ I looked towards the cabin, fully expecting to see him come hobbling out on to the porch. I fixed my eyes on the open doorway, searching for him in the shadows. ‘I don’t know where he’s gone. He was right there a minute ago.’

  ‘Right where?’ asked the man carefully.

  I pointed at the place where Logan had been standing as their craft had put down on the snow. ‘There,’ I said emphatically. ‘Surely you must have seen both of us when you were landing?’

  The woman seemed to hesitate for a very long moment before answering me. ‘Actually, no, we didn’t. We only saw you.’ She looked at her partner, a question in her eyes. I saw him subtly nod. ‘We were only looking for you, Hannah.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked, turning back to the cabin and beginning to walk towards it with an urgency I couldn’t explain. ‘Logan! Logan, where are you?’

  I felt the woman’s hand on my shoulder, slowing me. I shook it off far easier than I could her words. ‘It means we’re not searching for anyone else. You were the only passenger left on flight 418 that was not accounted for.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ I refuted. ‘Your information is wrong. There are two of us here. Come this way, I’ll show you.’ But only the man followed me, after quietly instructing his partner to go and get the lists. The redhead disappeared back towards the direction of the helicopter.

  ‘Why don’t you show me where your friend was, Miss Truman?’ he asked, falling into step beside me. His smile looked genuine enough, but I recognised his tone. It was humouring; it was the kind of voice you reserved for those who needed to be handled with great care and delicacy, because something within them was extremely fragile and vulnerable. I stomped across the snow as quickly as my painful leg would allow, reaching in seconds the spot where Logan was last standing.

  ‘He was right here,’ I declared, my voice beginning confidently and ending in confusion. The man looked down at the clear unmarked snow in front of us, his face eloquent. He needed no words, although his eyes spoke volumes. I looked around me, in bewilderment.

  ‘It must have been over there, then,’ I said, pointing a short distance away to my left, although I knew I hadn’t been mistaken. This was definitely where Logan had been standing. Fully aware that he was now indulging me, the way you would a toddler on the cusp of a tantrum, the man said kindly, ‘Yes, I’m sure that must be it. Shall we just check it out?’ I threw him a look over my shoulder which told him I knew exactly what he was thinking. But he was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

  It took less than five seconds to realise that the snowy ground at the second spot was as unmarked as the first location had been. Logan couldn’t have been standing in either of these places, for there were no footprints showing his passage.

  ‘I don’t understand. We were both right here. We heard the helicopter; he was right behind me when I ran out here to light the beacon . . .’ My voice trailed away, perplexed.

  ‘So where is he now?’

  I looked angrily at the man in his silly orange jumpsuit. ‘I don’t know.’ I saw the woman had now re-emerged from the helicopter and was walking back towards us, carrying two clipboards beneath her arm. Perhaps it was the sight of the helicopter that gave me the answer that I was looking for. I almost laughed out loud that I’d not thought of the simple solution first. ‘It must have been the snow. The snow that was churned up when the helicopter landed. That’s what must have covered his tracks.’ The woman opened her mouth to say something, but I caught the imperceptible shake of the man’s head, silencing her before she could speak. Obediently she closed her mouth.

  Thankful to have solved one mystery, that still left me with another. Where was Logan? And why wasn’t he answering me?

  ‘Logan! Logan! Logan!’ I was still calling his name as I went as quickly as I could up the steps of the cabin. I saw the tracks in the snow as I passed them, but I refused to acknowledge what they were telling me. We were too far from where the helicopter had landed for anything here to have been covered by the displaced snow. There were still clearly defined footsteps leading away from the log building. One set. Mine.

  I barrelled through the open door, my eyes sweeping left to right, scoping every corner of the small room searching for answers in the empty shelter. I turned to the two rescuers who had followed me into the cabin. ‘Look, this is ridiculous,’ I said, aware that their eyes were full of a sympathy I was nowhere near ready to accept. ‘He was right here. You have to believe me. We slept there, side-by-side, last night,’ I said, pointing at the cot. All three of us looked at the bed. They didn’t need to say anything, because tears of confusion were running down my face, so they knew that I saw exactly what they did. There were two pillows on the bed, one bearing the clear indent of a head – mine – was up against the wall. The second pillow, on which Logan’s head had restlessly twisted and turned all night, was smooth, plump and bore no sign of anyone having slept on it at all. Also, the dressing gown which had covered us both was rumpled and scrunched up on the side by the wall, yet was tucked neatly beneath the mattress on Logan’s side. He’d made the bed? A helicopter had landed outside; rescue was finally, amazingly, and unbelievably here . . . and yet he had stopped to make the bed? It made no sense. None. And yet of course, it did. Or at least it was starting to. But I wasn’t there yet.

  ‘He must be behind the cabin. He might have collapsed or something,’ I said, and although the man and the woman both fell into place behind me as I hurried from the building, I think they could hear the doubt and uncertainty tainting my voice.

  The area behind the cabin was deserted. Of course it was. However terrible it would have been, part of me had been secretly hoping that we would find Logan there, passed out on the snow. That would have been horrible, of course, but this was worse. So much worse.

  I was properly crying as I looked down at the marks still visible in the snow beneath the light overnight fall. A thin trail of pink showed through where Logan had been bleeding after the wolf had attacked him. But although his track was still clearly visible, my own had completely disappeared. I followed the trail like a bloodhound back around the side of the cabin.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t understand it. He couldn’t have gone very far. He was injured; his leg was badly hurt. He was limping.’

  ‘You’re limping,’ corrected the woman.

  I shook my head to dismiss my own, much lesser, injuries. ‘No. This is just a bruise. Logan’s leg is really hurt. He was attacked by a wolf. He’s lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘Like that?’ questioned the man. I followed the trajectory of the finger he was pointing down towards the bottom of one leg of my jeans. It was stained a dark rusty brownish red. I frowned. How had so much of Logan’s blood ended up on my own clothing? Was it when I’d helped support him back inside?

  ‘You’ve hurt yourself. Perhaps we should take a look at it,’ offered the man kindly.

  ‘No, I told you, it’s just a bruise.’

  ‘Let’s just see anyway,’ said the man mildly, leading me to the bed and gently lifting up my leg.

  The injury was easy to access, because the seam of my jeans was somehow open from he
m to knee. All three of us gasped when the man lifted the two sides of fabric apart. I think my gasp was the loudest.

  ‘What did this?’ asked the woman on a hushed whisper.

  I couldn’t answer her, because I was still shaking my head in denial, unable to comprehend what my own eyes were telling me. What they’d been telling me all along.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ said the man, gently lifting the sodden blood-stained wound dressing away from the imprint of the wolf’s teeth.

  But I had, of course. Except the last time I’d seen those injuries they were on Logan’s leg, and now they were on mine.

  ‘Show me them again,’ I demanded. The woman obediently handed over the two clipboards. One with a blue plastic covering held a list, a pitifully short one. I ran my finger down the line of unknown names, pausing only briefly by my own, with the question mark parenthesised beside it. I ran my finger back up the names and started all over again. Donna Broomfield had made it. Good on you, Donna. And Malcolm Dudley would also be returning to his family and friends. A huge relief all round for the Dudley family. But there was no name, not a single one in the C section of the alphabet. There was no Logan Carter. Not there, anyway. I found his name easily enough – it was on the second clipboard, the one covered in red.

  My finger ran, almost reverently, over his name. Logan . . . how is this possible? I looked up at the woman, who was blurry behind my tears. ‘He can’t be dead. He just can’t be. He’s been with me. He saved my life, over and over again. I wouldn’t have got through any of this without him.’

  The woman’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as she looked for an explanation I would be able to live with. One that wouldn’t keep me up at night for decades to come. She came up empty. ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all she could manage. It was the best anyone was ever going to be able to give me.

  I took one last sad look around the cabin. ‘I’d like to go now. I’d like to go home. I want to see my family.’

  They strapped me into the helicopter seat, as though I was now incapable of performing even the most basic of motor skills. I hadn’t realised that I was still hanging on to one small shred of hope until we’d risen high above the cabin. My eyes were staring fixedly on the small derelict shelter, hoping – ridiculously – to see Logan come running from it, or from the surrounding trees, frantically waving his arms and signalling for us to come back for him. I stared through the helicopter windows, not even allowing myself to blink in case I missed him. My eyes watered from the strain of looking for him, and then watered all over again as they finally realised he wasn’t there to be found. He never had been.