by Marion Myles
“And if we get into trouble, we can use it to call for help?”
“Sure. Plus we have the ELT in the tail. That’s the emergency landing transmitter. If something should happen, it’ll send out a distress signal.”
“You mean if we crash?”
“Yeah, but we’re not gonna, so don’t you worry. I’ve flown in worse weather than this too many times to count.”
“I guess we always have our cells,” Liam said.
“Maybe yes or maybe no,” Rory said. “The service is spotty out here. You can blame it on the mountains.”
Through the windshield, Rebecca saw the fog was worsening and the storm clouds getting darker. “Can you see well enough?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” Rory said, battling to keep the plane steady. “I can always drop altitude if it closes in any more. Sometimes you just end up in a bad pocket of clouds.”
They didn’t talk for a time. Rory focused on flying the plane. Liam drank, and Rebecca clutched the arms of her seat and silently recited the elements of the periodic table in an effort to calm herself.
Outside it became progressively darker, and Rory sighed. “Okay, I’m not technically allowed to go higher than this, so let’s take her down some and see if we can find a better spot for flying.”
Rebecca’s stomach somersaulted when the plane’s nose dipped down. She focused on keeping her breathing slow and steady. Rory leveled the plane. As he leaned forward, he peered through the glass where the fog was, if anything, even denser.
“Wait, this isn’t right.” He tapped the GPS with his finger. “Jesus, the wind drift has taken us way off course. We can’t be…shit…”
He pulled back on the yoke wheel and the plane began to rise. A blast of wind hit them from the right side, turning them slightly as some of the fog blew away. When the mist cleared, the side of a mountain came into view, filling the windshield. It looked close enough to touch. Rebecca gasped, her hands clamping over her mouth while her eyes lifted, searching for the top. She couldn’t see anything but snow and rocks and a few trees.
“Come on, baby, let’s climb,” Rory said.
They closed in on the mountain, the plane shooting up higher and higher while Rebecca held her breath. Her heart was beating so fast she wondered why it didn’t blow up in her chest. There was no way they’d make it. They were too close. The peak of the mountain was only now coming into view way above them. The plane seemed to pause, the engines whining louder than ever.
“Holy shit balls,” Rory cried. He pushed the wheel and the nose angled down as they veered left. “We ain’t gonna clear it.”
Everything slowed. Rebecca looked over her shoulder and saw Liam clutching the bottle, his eyes closed. She noticed his beard needed trimming since it was encroaching over his lips. Her purse slid out from under the seat and skidded across the floor. Lip balm and Kleenex and her cell phone fell out through the zipper she hadn’t properly closed. She focused on Rory, the collar of his shirt turned under and the tendons on his neck like cords while his breath huffed in and out.
Then the wing beside her scraped against something and tore off, and she was thrown back against her seat hard enough to rattle her teeth. The plane spun. Her purse crashed against her foot. She smelled whiskey, strong and sharp.
They seemed weightless for a second, flying while already flying, and then her head slammed into the side of the plane. The wind howled from behind. When she turned to look, she was horrified to see the whole back of the plane had disappeared. Beyond the opening…the Earth spun crazily. Her eyes met Liam’s, wide with terror.
“Come on. Come on. Come on,” Rory chanted.
Then she saw the mountain, only the mountain, rushing up to meet them.
Chapter Seventeen
Rebecca winced at the scent of blood even before she opened her eyes. I’m at the hospital, she thought. This must be the longest shift ever because I never remember being this tired. Maybe I’ll just sleep for five more minutes. She vaguely wondered why the comm system wasn’t working. Where were all the pages for doctors and nurses?
Someone moaned. Then they moaned again. She realized it was her. Why was it so damn cold?
Her eyelids seemed to be glued together. When she brought her hands up to rub at her eyes, the pain that shot through her was so brutal and quick, she couldn’t stop the scream. The sound went on and on while her entire right side raged like a brush fire until, finally, she couldn’t feel anything at all.
When Liam couldn’t wake her, he jammed himself on the floor beside her seat and sat holding her hand. Rory was pushed halfway through the shattered windshield and pretty much stuck against the rocky face of the mountain, and Liam tried not to look that way because every time he did, it made him feel sick.
He could see Rebecca was hurt really bad. There was a lot of blood dripping from her head, and her right arm looked weird as if it wasn’t attached properly. Every time she moaned, it felt like someone was knifing him in the gut.
She had to wake up, she just had to. If she died, it would be his fault. Without him, she’d never have been on a seaplane flying across Washington State—which meant Rory’s death was on him too. Plus Marisa, of course. If only he hadn’t taken so much Oxy and passed out, he could have saved her that night.
Leaning in, he stared at Rebecca’s face. She was so beautiful. Long, dark lashes lay against her cheeks, and her bow of a mouth frowned slightly. He loved her nose with the slight upturn at the tip and the small but strong chin. He wished she’d open her eyes.
When they’d first met, he’d thought they were simply brown, but after a while, he realized they were whiskey swirled with cinnamon. Whenever he looked into them, he saw another shade, another fleck of color, until he began to think they were dolling out their secrets one glance at a time. He stroked a finger along her cheek and began to pray.
Rebecca registered the wind blowing across her face and cool water trickling down her neck. It felt nice. Soothing.
“Rebecca,” a voice said urgently. “Are you alive? Are you okay? Answer me.”
“I’m fine,” she mumbled. “So tired though.”
“Wake up. Don’t go back to sleep. We’re…I don’t know where the fuck we are. The plane crashed. I think Rory’s dead. I can’t stand to go near him, but he hasn’t moved once, and I’ve been awake for a while now.”
“Liam?” she asked, forcing her eyes open.
She realized she was covered in a layer of snow. When she carefully turned her head, Liam’s darkened form came into focus on the floor beside her. He had dozens of cuts on his face of varying size and depth. The left sleeve of his shirt was ripped and the knuckles on his hand bruised and bloody. When he reached out and grabbed her hand, she saw his thumb was hugely swollen.
“Be careful,” he said. “I think you messed up your right arm. I tried to move you to get a look, but you started moaning. I was afraid I was hurting you. You hit your head pretty hard too.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a shallow breath. “I think I might also have hurt my ribs. It feels like there’s a gorilla sitting on my chest. Can you help me?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Unbuckle the seat belt, and then I’m going to carefully slide forward.”
He steadied her left arm, and she eased herself forward, twisting toward him. The pain came in great crashing waves, each one bigger than the last. She sobbed.
“Stop. Wait. Don’t…Oh, God,” Liam said in desperation.
“I can’t stay strapped in my seat forever.” She gained another few inches, her hand squeezing hard against his. “Please, can you lift the armrest?”
Bit by bit, she swung herself around to face him. Her right arm hung uselessly down and rested on her thigh. Every breath was an effort.
“I can’t see that well, but it looks bad,” he said.
She heard his teeth chattering and only then registered that his hand trembled in hers. Turning toward the back of the plane, she saw the g
aping hole with bits of twisted metal around the edges. Outside, it was barely light, and the wind blew through. She understood why he was trembling. The chill was in her too.
The front of the plane had crumpled like an accordion. Rory was still strapped to his seat, but his head and shoulders were through the windshield. She couldn’t see the yoke wheel or most of the instrument panel.
“You have to check if he’s okay,” Rebecca insisted.
Liam’s eyes shifted to Rory and back to hers. “I don’t think I can. He looks dead.”
“Liam, please. He may need help.”
“Okay. How do I check?”
“Just shimmy up beside him and see if you can feel his neck and get a pulse.”
“Come on. The guy’s doing a face plant into a mountain.” When Rebecca only sighed and started to shift off the seat, he let out a hiss. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
He crawled forward and squeezed in beside the pilot, bringing his fingers to the back of the man’s head. Slowly, he worked his hand through the broken windshield.
“How does he feel?” Rebecca asked.
“Cold. His skin is stiff. Yeah, there’s no pulse.” When he pulled his hand back, he stared down at it. “Oh, gross. That’s a lot of blood.” He wiped it back and forth against his jeans.
“How long do you think we’ve been here?”
Liam crawled back and crouched down beside her. “I dunno. A while I think. I walked out the back and tried to look around. The snow’s crazy deep, and it’s friggin’ cold. The storm is still blowing.”
“They’ll be sending rescue people out to find us,” Rebecca said. “Remember Rory said there was an emergency thingy in the tail of the plane?”
“The tail’s gone. I couldn’t see it anywhere.”
“Oh…but, that’s bad. Do you think it landed anywhere near us?”
“No idea,” Liam said. She could see the fear in his eyes.
“What about our cell phones?”
“Mine was in my luggage. I didn’t want anyone, especially Jack or my sister, calling me. I felt in your pockets but couldn’t find yours.”
“I think it was in my purse. It must be on the floor somewhere.”
“It’ll be light soon and easier to see. We need to get more clothes on. Where exactly did you put the luggage?”
“Um…some of it went in a section in the pontoon. The left pontoon. The rest in compartments along the side of the plane near the back.”
He frowned. “I saw something that looked like it might be a compartment, but I couldn’t open it. Maybe the key is up there with Rory.”
Liam slid toward the back of the plane and disappeared into the darkness. Rebecca caught movement through the cracked window opposite her then heard metal creaking when he tried to open the pilot door. With lots of grunting and a few curse words thrown in, he managed to pry it partway open.
“I’ve got them,” he called out.
When spots filled her vision, Rebecca reached out with her good arm and steadied herself against the seat in front of her. Nausea roiled in her stomach, and she turned her head and vomited. The pain in her shoulder was suddenly so intense she couldn’t move or see or think. She vaguely registered Liam saying he’d found something before she passed out.
When she opened her eyes, it was light. Liam stared down at her. One of his eyes had blackened, and he had bruises on his forehead and down his right cheek. He wore an army green woolen hat and a plaid jacket, and he smiled dreamily and patted her face. She realized he was very drunk.
“Welcome back,” he said, the whiskey fumes wafting over her and turning her stomach.
“You found the booze?”
“Yep,” he said. “Only three bottles made it, but that’s still good news in my books. I also found some of my clothes and a sleeping bag and blankets. Some fishing gear. Oh, and a bag with a lot of chocolate bars and protein powder.”
“How about my first aid kit?”
“Negativo on the first aid and cell phones. On the good side of things, there was a box with a flare gun, and a bunch of flares…plus I hung a couple of tarps to block out most of the wind coming in the back.”
“How long was I unconscious?”
“The second time? More than a day. I thought you were coming to a couple of times, but all you did was open your eyes for a second and mumble, and then you were gone again.”
When she struggled to sit up, the pain had her crying out, and she sat sobbing and trying to catch her breath.
“Okay,” she said at last, exhaling in a whoosh of air. “So. We have some food, sort of, and clothing.”
“And whiskey,” he said, raising the bottle in a toast.
“And alcohol,” she acknowledged. “Can you tell where we are?”
“High up on a mountain. I can’t see anything but snow and ice and way far down are bunches of evergreen trees.”
“No one’s going to find us out here,” Rebecca said quietly.
“Course they are. They’re probably looking right now,” Liam said and took a defiant swig from the bottle.
“I doubt it,” she said. “Liam, listen to me. They may not even know we’re missing. No one was meeting us at the cabin. I’d been emailing back and forth with the caretaker. He had the place all stocked up for us, and he gave me the code to get in through the lock. It’s some kind of electronic dial-pad thing. We didn’t take the seaplane we were supposed to, and Rory is a one-man operation. We paid him with your cash. He never even filed a flight plan. Plus, I think we’re way north of the route people normally take to Lake Chelan.”
“Jack will realize we aren’t at the cabin,” he insisted. “We just have to sit tight and wait it out.”
“He will eventually. Though right now, he’s probably just glad I’m not calling him.”
“They’ll find us,” he said.
“I don’t suppose you happened to see any bottles of water anywhere?”
“Nope. Do you want some Jack Daniels?”
“I need water, and so do you, but I’m not going to fight over that right now. How about any containers we can fill with snow?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, good. Can you get them? As many as you can find and fill them up.”
“I guess.”
He heaved himself up and grumbling under his breath, went out through the curtain of tarps. A few minutes later, he came back with several Tupperware containers. Inside were fishing hooks, nuts and bolts, and other odds and ends. He emptied everything on the floor, pushing the pile up against the wall of the plane. Once again he disappeared out the back and returned clutching the containers, now filled with snow, to his chest.
“Now what?”
“We put them under the blankets, next to our bodies, until the snow melts. Then presto we have drinking water.”
“Pretty smart,” he said.
“I need you to do one more thing. I have to get this swelling down.” She gestured to her right shoulder and ribs. “I’ll put some of the Tupperware there, but I want to pack the whole right side of me. Are there any plastic bags or maybe another smallish tarp. Anything that will keep me dry when the snow starts melting.”
“Give me a sec,” he said.
She carefully shifted back down in the sleeping bag, her head throbbing and everything, but most especially her shoulder, aching. Closing her eyes, she breathed slowly through her nose and pushed back against the nausea.
“Hey, are you all right?” Liam’s voice was close to her. “Rebecca. Wake up.”
“I’m here,” she said opening her eyes.
“I put a lot of snow around you like you wanted.”
“Okay. Thanks. It’s pretty cold.”
“You’re shaking. I’m gonna get some more clothes and pile them on you.”
Her throat was dry, and her head ached. She felt around in the sleeping bag and pulled out one of the plastic containers. The snow had completely melted. Prying the lid off, she carefully tipped it and drank. The water tasted sta
le and earthy, but she didn’t care.
Liam returned with a pile of shirts and pants and started stuffing them inside the sleeping bag until she could barely move. “I found this hat. I think it was Rory’s. I thought you could use these socks as mitts.”
She passed him the Tupperware. When she pulled the hat on, she winced as her fingers scraped across the knot on the side of her head. Gingerly, she probed the area which was about the size of a lime and covered with dried blood. She must have hit her head pretty darned hard. Then she slid the blue socks over her hands.
“You need to drink water, too,” she said. “I’ve lost track of time. How long since the plane went down?”
“Almost three days. This is gross,” he said after taking a sip. “I’m not drinking this crap.”
“Liam. Stop being such a baby. You need fluids. Especially because the alcohol acts as a diuretic and dehydrates your system.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes, but he finished the container of water. “There, Ma Hen.” He held it out so she could see. “All gone.”
She worked up a smile. “Good boy. Now go and fill it up again.”
Even with the extra clothing and the sock mitts, she couldn’t stop shaking. When Liam returned with the plastic container, she reluctantly shoved it back into the warm bubble of her sleeping bag.
“The storm is gone,” Liam said. “So that’s good. It’ll make it easier on the rescuers.”
“I don’t think anyone’s even looking yet,” Rebecca said.
“Shut up. They’re looking.” Liam reached around and snatched up the bottle of Jack Daniels. Tipping it back, he swallowed several times.
“This cold is intense. I don’t suppose you found matches or a lighter?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“How about a shovel?”
He nodded. “Yeah. There’s a small one outside. Must have fallen loose when we crashed.”
“Maybe you should turn the plane into an igloo. You know, pile up a bunch of snow against the sides for insulation.”
“Yeah. I guess. But we’ll probably be rescued today anyway, so why bother?”
