Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  Quentin turned to the girls, his movements becoming mechanical, automatic. He extracted Ashley from her seat, which was now barely attached to the fuselage, and lowered her to the floor. She finally quieted down. Aside from a sizeable cut on her shoulder, she seemed more frightened than seriously hurt. Reaching for Miranda, Quentin felt distant from his own body. The cockpit wall had forced Roberto’s seat back, trapping Miranda’s right leg. A jagged edge of femur protruded from her thigh, creating a disturbing bulge in her jeans. Lindsey tried to calm her as Quentin released her seatbelt and allowed her weight to settle on him. He started to lower her, but her ruined leg was caught. Her screams had been continuous, but to Quentin they now seemed secluded, unrelated to the task at hand. He twisted and tugged until the leg was free. When he finally put her on the floor, he realized her screaming had stopped.

  Chapter Five

  In the minutes or hours that followed, Quentin had no concept of the passing of time. He and Lindsey worked frantically to treat wounds that required skills far beyond theirs. Addison, Miranda, and Carlos needed a hospital with skilled doctors. Quentin, Lindsey, Bobby, and Ashley had minor cuts, which would heal if they could avoid infection. But Quentin was unable to find a first aid kit. The plane didn’t have one, or it had been ejected in the crash.

  Roberto and Russ were beyond help.

  Quentin’s mind reeled. Even if they were lucky enough to be rescued without further casualties, nothing would be the same again. He and Lindsey would have to face the parents of students they had promised to care for, but who now were dead, crippled, or emotionally scarred. And if Addison were to die… Quentin forced this thought aside in order to function.

  All that remained of the plane was a cylinder of fuselage. Most of the cockpit was destroyed. Even if the pilot had lived until the moment they crashed, he was certainly dead now. His crumpled body lay amidst remnants of the cockpit and baggage from the forward compartment. If Quentin had remained at the plane’s controls, he would be part of that debris.

  The young Indonesian man seemed mostly unharmed, but he did not offer to help. His girlfriend or wife was gone, her seat ripped from its anchors and ejected. She’d been literally torn from his arms. He wandered aimlessly around the wreck, apparently looking for her. The plane’s tail could not have been more than a few hundred meters away, but the forest was dense and no other wreckage was visible.

  Miranda’s skin was pale and clammy and she was in shock, alternating between unconsciousness and semi-lucid babbling. While she was unconscious, they forced her femur into alignment and tied her straightened legs against one of the plane’s seatbacks with a pair of trousers. Ashley bravely helped with these tasks. Ashley had a nasty gash on her shoulder, but they had tied a shirt around her upper arm and she was coping. Addison remained unconscious, and there was nothing they could do for him other than check for a pulse every few minutes.

  They set Bobby to work removing the seat cushions and any of the seat frames he could work loose. He seemed to welcome the chance to do something, and he tossed the seats one by one into a growing pile outside the cabin.

  Carlos sat at the rear of the fuselage, quietly nursing his damaged hand and staring into the forest. He hadn’t said a word, but he’d let Quentin inspect his injuries. Three fingers were crushed, the bones pulverized. Quentin simply wrapped the hand as tight as he dared with a Morning Star t-shirt. When he told him that his brother had died, Carlos shook his head and pulled away, unwilling to listen.

  When they had finally met the most pressing needs, Quentin considered the problem of the dead bodies. In the sauna-like cabin, their presence would soon become intolerable. He had to move them. He instructed the others to turn their heads and he carried out the task on his own. He was glad they weren’t watching, because Roberto’s legs were mostly severed at the knees, and they dangled and flopped bizarrely as Quentin carried the body out of the plane.

  Finally he stood some distance from the fuselage, the bodies of the boys and pilot at his feet, mostly hidden from the others by the base of a strangler fig tree. Quentin wiped the sweat from his face and swatted at the cloud of flies around him. The heat was oppressive, and they had no water. He looked up at the forest canopy and took note of what was arguably the largest obstacle to their rescue. The canopy appeared undisturbed. There was no gaping hole through which searchers might spot the wreckage. Would the search planes see them? Had the pilot even been capable of radioing that they were in trouble? Their flight hadn’t been a scheduled run. With the chaos in Wamena, dozens of unscheduled flights were leaving the highlands. Their plane may not even be missed yet.

  In frustration, Quentin kicked a mangled fragment of the cockpit. The wreckage flipped over and then it caught his eye. The metal appeared to have melted and mushroomed outward. Something about this brought back a scene from the crash Quentin had forgotten. As the pilot was dying, his feet had looked like this—like they had exploded. He stared at the metal for a moment but could make no sense of it.

  Quentin searched the debris and failed to find any portion of the instrument panel that might be the radio. The only communication devices they had were their smartphones and one of the walkie-talkies. The other walkie-talkie was in Lindsey’s pack in the lost tail of the plane. The smartphones required cellular network access, and the nearest cellular towers were in Wamena and the capitol city of Jayapura. They were probably a hundred miles from either location. Quentin tried his anyway but couldn’t pick up a signal. The walkie-talkie had a range of only a few miles. Perhaps they could use it if a search plane flew over. He tried it briefly to make sure it worked and quickly turned it off to conserve the batteries.

  They hadn’t heard any planes since the crash, which was puzzling considering a steady stream of emergency flights to Sentani would likely continue for some time. He moved farther away from the fuselage and paused, listening. At first all he heard were the incessant flies. Honeyeaters called in the distance, followed by reciprocating calls from other directions. A faint rustling in the leaves above drew his gaze in time to see something move in the canopy. He made out a dark animal, mostly hidden, probably a possum. Then another animal moved, a few meters away but in the same tree. He waited, but there was no further movement.

  Other than these natural sounds the area was silent. The crippled Twin Otter must have drifted miles from the Wamena-to-Sentani flight path. Probably to the west, since it was the left engine that had failed. The numb shock in Quentin’s mind began to give way to comprehension of the hopelessness of their situation.

  He scanned the forest in every direction. It was all the same—murky, emerald-tinted, and textured with buttress roots, twisting vines, and vertical trunks that disappeared into a sea of foliage. He couldn’t see more than thirty meters in any direction. The streaks of sunlight penetrating the canopy were now at a lower angle as the day faded away. What would the night here be like? Would Addison be alive in the morning? Overcome, Quentin sank to the ground, just out of view of the Twin Otter. His body shook once, startling him. It had been so long since he’d last cried. But he felt a tidal wave coming. There was no fighting it, but he did make a feeble effort to not be heard by the others.

  The tree kangaroo appraised the scene from above. It superimposed images of artifacts scattered about the area over a compendium of objects encountered in the past, but no matches were found. Mannerisms and gestures were likened to a database of known behaviors. Vocalizations, including the man’s stifled sobs, ran through audio comparison algorithms but failed to find their counterparts.

  The creature categorized the wreckage and survivors as new, unknown. These could be the ones they had been waiting for. Perhaps it was a misguided effort that had brought the strangers here, but that was of little importance.

  The tree kangaroo turned to a second creature clinging to a nearby limb, another mbolop. It grunted softly to draw the other’s attention and then gestured with one of its forelimbs. The other mbolop loosened its grip on the lim
b and gestured back an acknowledgement. It then bounded off through the canopy, leaping from one tree to the next. The first tree kangaroo remained, hiding amidst the foliage of the silkwood tree. Its clawed hand raked in a tuft of leaves, shoving them into its mouth. The creature chewed slowly, studying the sobbing figure below.

  After draining his pent-up emotions, Quentin felt the vigor of renewed resolve. He rose from the muddy ground and was startled by movement in the trees to his right. A human figure made its way through the dense undergrowth.

  “Hey!” Quentin stumbled over creepers and roots to close the gap between them. “Hey, wait!” The person paused. It was the Indonesian passenger. The man held one hand over a large bloodstain on the front of his shirt. Flies covered his hand and the stain, feeding on the blood. He looked at Quentin briefly and continued walking.

  “Are you okay?”

  The man stopped. “Murni, saya pergi ke Murni. Saya cari Murni.” He was ashen, staring at the ground, and he seemed not to notice the mass of flies. He then walked away.

  Apparently he was looking for the woman, named Murni. Her body was probably near the tail portion of the plane. If it were Lindsey, Quentin would do the same. So he watched the man disappear without trying to stop him.

  Quentin returned to the plane. With some seats removed, there was now more room in the cabin. Lindsey, Ashley, Carlos, and Bobby sat around the still forms of Addison and Miranda as if waiting for them to wake. The despair in Lindsey’s eyes told Quentin that things were no better.

  “How long do you think before they find us?” Ashley said.

  “I haven’t heard any search planes yet,” Quentin said. He considered this for a moment. “Listen, there’s no way to know how long it will take. It could be in the morning, or maybe not even tomorrow. I want you to remember something: you came on this trip because you weren’t afraid. You’re all tough. That’s why we’re going to get through this.”

  No one responded, so Quentin went on. “In a crisis the first thing to do is care for any injuries. The problem is, we don’t have first aid supplies. There had to be a first aid kit on the plane, and we know we have some supplies in our bags in the plane’s tail. The second thing to do is to find water and food. Lindsey, what did you have in your bag?”

  “I had a few things, a couple of water bottles,” she said.

  “So we have to find the rest of our stuff. There’s not much daylight left. I’ll search for the bags and first aid kit. You guys get this area ready for the night. Bobby, we’ll need seat cushions arranged for each person to sleep on.”

  Bobby nodded and stood up.

  Quentin considered the mass of flies feeding on the Indonesian’s blood and he looked at the torn edges of the fuselage. “If I find the other bags, we might have enough cloth to rig up something to keep the insects out of here.” The mosquitoes would get worse as the sun went down. They had taken Chloroquine for the last two weeks to prevent malaria and had planned to continue doses for the next month, but the remaining tablets were waiting for them at home. No other drugs or vaccinations were considered essential for the trip, but now that they were out of the highlands the risk of insect-borne diseases was greater. Besides malaria, there was encephalitis and dengue fever, and probably others Quentin hadn’t even heard of. Not to mention the risk of bacterial infection in their wounds, which could lead to gangrene.

  Quentin exited the plane and looked at the cracked branches above, trying to determine the plane’s path. His eye caught the glint of freshly exposed heartwood some distance beyond the wreckage. That had to be the direction. But the forest was remarkably dense, so he ducked back in and told Lindsey and the kids to listen for his calls.

  After moving into the forest he quickly lost sight of the plane. The understory saplings grew so close together in places that he had to force them apart. He made progress for perhaps a hundred meters, trying to keep a straight course. He felt isolated, vulnerable.

  “Can you hear me?” At first his call was followed only by the sound of flies.

  “Mr. Darnell, we hear you!” It was Bobby, his voice already faint and distant.

  He called back to Bobby to keep listening. He then pulled off his shirt, thinking of hanging it as a marker. Immediately the flies descended on the sweaty flesh of his back. This was insufferable, so he put the shirt back on. Scattered on the forest floor were long, rigid leaves of the sago palm. He gathered some of these and set them upright like a small teepee. Moving on, he stopped again when the crude marker was almost out of sight, no more than ten meters. He made a second marker, then moved ahead and made a third. Feeling some confidence, Quentin continued like this, trying to work his way in a straight line.

  After the fifth marker, he came upon a small clearing containing four sorted and neatly stacked piles of objects. There was a pile of bright red berries, another of yellow bird feathers, and another of iridescent blue beetle carapaces. The biggest pile contained hundreds of large brown acorns. In the center of the clearing stood an upside-down cone made of thin sticks, resembling a miniature hut. The floor of the clearing was a bed of green moss, meticulously cleaned of all debris except for the piles. For the briefest moment he thought the site might be man-made but then realized it was the bower of a male bowerbird. To convince females they were worthy, males created these impressive shrines of gifts collected from the surrounding forest.

  Something in the pile of acorns caught his eye. He stepped into the bower and picked it up. It was a small figurine, carved from a stone, an animal of some kind, perhaps a cuscus or tree kangaroo. It was stylized, like a totem carving, and the craftsmanship was striking. Its oval shape was close enough to that of an acorn that the bowerbird must have collected and classified it as such. Quentin’s pulse quickened. There must be a village nearby, perhaps with a radio and an airstrip. Encouraged, he dropped the figurine into his pocket and continued on.

  Before long, though, he’d constructed twenty markers and still had not seen the missing wreckage. The light was fading fast. They would have no first aid supplies tonight.

  In frustration, he called out, “Hello! Is anyone there?”

  A moment later, Bobby called out, “Mr. Darnell, we’re here.”

  Quentin suddenly felt disoriented. Bobby’s voice had come from ahead and to the right. Somehow he had almost doubled back to the plane. Defeated, he headed in the direction of the voice, leaving his trail of useless markers.

  Stumbling through the darkening tangle of vegetation, he called out again. Bobby’s reply didn’t seem much closer. Then he heard something else, like gushing water, but coming from all sides, and above. A drop hit his cheek and he looked up. Rain was making its way through the gauntlet of the canopy to the forest floor. The pattering became louder, and soon he was in the midst of a deafening downpour. There was no chance of hearing Bobby’s still-distant cries.

  Rivulets of rainwater ran down his face, reminding Quentin of his thirst. He found a large leaf and held it out flat with the pointed tip in his mouth. The rain gathered on the leaf and flowed onto his tongue. He called out, pushing his voice until it hurt, but he heard only the rain. He pointed at a tree in the direction he had last heard Bobby and then made his way toward it. Halfway to the tree he picked out another directly beyond the first. Then he picked out another beyond that. He continued this way, calling out periodically but hearing nothing in return. The rain only intensified. It became so dark that Quentin could barely see trees just in front of him. He would have to wait for the rain to stop. In nearly total darkness, Quentin found a tree with knee-high buttress roots at the base. He slid to the ground, his back against the tree and his feet pointing to where the Twin Otter should be. He sat there in the mud, waiting.

  Exhausted by the most traumatic day of his life, uncertain that their son still lived, and feeling very alone, Quentin drew up his knees and laid his face and arms over them. In only one day his life had been shattered. In spite of this, Quentin felt deep within himself a need to survive. Not
for his own sake, because the years of regret he faced were as daunting as this forest. Instead, he needed to live to ensure the survival of Lindsey and Addison, and the remaining students. For this reason, he would not give up.

  His guilt and conviction were finally pushed away by the sympathetic veil of sleep. In the gray moments between states of consciousness, Quentin saw his father, kneeling in the forest, sobbing. After years of believing he had brought enlightenment to the Papuans he so loved, he had witnessed the truth. It was the first and only time Quentin had seen him cry.

  Dad, I have failed too.

  Chapter Six

  Bobby awoke thinking someone had called his name. But he heard only birds chattering in the forest outside, and then another of Miranda’s moans. The plane’s cabin was now gray with the light of morning. The rain had finally stopped.

  He wiped his eyes and looked around. The others seemed to be sleeping. Miranda’s eyes were closed, but her moans never ended. Carlos was curled up at the front of the plane where his brother had been crushed. He had barely spoken since the crash. Ashley was stretched out next to Miranda. Ashley’s wavy hair was clumped and tangled, and Bobby stared at her, wishing he could see more of her face.

  Mrs. Darnell slept with her arm around Addison. Addison still hadn’t moved a muscle. Maybe he had died already during the night. Bobby was glad Mrs. Darnell had finally fallen asleep. He’d heard her crying through most of the night. They had yelled for Mr. Darnell until they could hardly talk. Then Mrs. Darnell had simply sat down outside the plane, soaked with rain. Finally, Bobby and Ashley had convinced her to move inside.

  Bobby wondered what his own mom would do if she were here. She’d probably be a basket case. She hadn’t wanted him to sign up for the trip—said it was too dangerous. But he’d worked hard for the money, and finally she’d given up when Bobby’s dad gave him two hundred dollars toward the trip. Bobby’s mom gave up on a lot of things, including his dad. He just wouldn’t grow up, she’d say whenever Bobby asked why she’d left him. Now his dad was going to college, and working two jobs. That seemed pretty grown up to Bobby.