Lost Valley: The Escape

by J. T. Cross

  Kate rested her hand on Luc’s back. “Don’t mind Chuck. He’s just having a hard time accepting what happened at Ishki’s.”

  “I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t experienced it.”

  Kate stood back up and groaned as she straightened her back.

  He looked up at her. The look on her face told him she was in pain. He began to worry that maybe she had done more damage to herself than he thought. She had taken that hard fall the night before.

  He laid the bottle on the ground next to the rock and stood up, looking into her eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Remind me never to ride off the side of a mountain again,” she said with a slight grimace.

  “I’m so sorry about that, Kate. I should’ve known better than to have us traveling in an area like that at night. I was letting my worry for the kids cloud my vision.”

  He put his arms around her and held her while he gently rubbed her back. He felt the strongest urge to tell her he loved her, but thought the timing was wrong.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said and wondered why he hadn’t told her what he really wanted to say.

  Kate turned and noticed Chuck was watching them. She looked back at Luc then pulled away.

  “So, where do we go from here?” she asked.

  He gestured to the far end of the lake where it emptied down into a river that flowed to the east. “We need to follow that river deeper into the valley. We should get going.”

  They got back on the quads and Luc led them around the east side of the lake until they came to where the water emptied into a basin and from there flowed into a small river.

  He carefully led them around the basin and then began traveling east along the northern side of the river. He recognized the peculiar golf-ball-sized stones that made up the riverbanks. They were the same ones he had seen in the vision.

  Now that he was actually there, riding along the river, things didn’t look right. He began having trouble trying to remember the details of the vision as they related to that part of the river.

  The more he tried to figure out why things seemed wrong, the more the memory of the vision seemed to retreat. He slowly came to a stop and Kate and Chuck pulled up next to him.

  “Is everything okay?” Kate asked.

  “Things don’t look quite right to me. I’m not sure we’re even on the right river,” he said. He concentrated and tried to force himself to remember exactly the way the river looked in the vision, but he couldn’t.

  “Maybe you just need to relax and stop trying so hard,” Kate said. “Why don’t we just keep riding and maybe you’ll remember something?”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  He turned around to look at them but noticed a flash of light to the west. Something about that flash seemed unnatural, he thought. Manmade. He took out his binoculars and tried to find the source of the flash.

  “I have the strangest feeling we’re being followed,” he said to Kate and Chuck.

  They both looked back over their shoulders for several seconds then turned back to Luc.

  “I don’t see anything,” Kate said.

  “Neither do I, anymore. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone back there,” he said.

  “Maybe there are other people in the valley trying to find the helicopter,” Kate said.

  “If they’re the people we saw at the airport, I think we better steer clear of them,” Luc said.

  “Oh, come on, Luc, you’re not going there again, are you?” she said.

  He put the binoculars away and said no more. He took off with Kate and Luc following. From time to time, he looked back but saw nothing.

  As they continued along the riverbank, he began to relax. He purposely stopped trying to remember exactly what the river looked like and how it felt to fly over it in the vision.

  As they rode deeper into the valley, the river began to widen and the number of trees increased, moving closer to the river. Still, things didn’t look quite right. They continued riding beside the river until it had widened to double its original width.

  All at once, he understood what was wrong and stopped. Kate and Chuck slammed on their brakes to keep from running into the back of his quad.

  Kate looked at him with an apprehensive expression. “Please tell me you remember something.”

  “I do. We need to cross over to the south side of the river. That’s what’s wrong. We’ve been riding on the wrong side. That’s why it hasn’t looked familiar.”

  He pointed to the other side of the river. “I traveled along that side in the vision. I’m sure of it.”

  Luc stood up on the quad’s foot pegs so he could see farther downstream. As he gazed out over the river, he saw that it narrowed back to its original width within a short distance. He turned and studied the river where they had stopped and came to the conclusion that they were probably at the river’s widest point.

  “I doubt we could find a better place to cross,” he said to Kate.

  He watched Kate and Chuck study the river and observe the water flowing over and around the river’s many rocky obstacles.

  “If we stay on the highest parts of the riverbed, we shouldn’t get pushed around that much by the water,” Luc said, pointing out a path he had mentally charted across the river.

  “Remember Luc, I can’t swim,” Kate said.

  “It’s barely a foot deep. Watch how I do it,” he said and accelerated into the water. They watched as he began the crossing, steering around the large boulders and staying in the shallow areas.

  As Luc reached the middle, where the river was the deepest, he found himself being gently swept downstream as the quad’s tires lost traction. He stood up on the foot pegs, accelerated, and steered slightly upstream to counteract the force of the current and was able to continue to the other side with little problem.

  Kate started across shortly after he reached the far side. He turned to watch her. The look on her face told him she wasn’t having a good time. He began to feel bad that he hadn’t thought to ride her across himself.

  When she got to the middle, Luc saw her begin to be swept downstream very slowly. The same thing had happened to him and he had simply accelerated away from the middle. Luc watched as the look on her face changed from that of concern to absolute panic.

  “Help,” she screamed. “It’s got me. It’s carrying me away!”

  He had never seen her react that way and it surprised him. Jumping off his quad, he ran into the water and yelled out to her. “Steer toward me.”

  On the opposite side of the river, Chuck was off his quad, standing at the edge of the water, motioning her to continue on toward him. “Give it some gas!” he yelled out.

  But she didn’t. Rather, she appeared to be frozen, unable to do anything in her panic. The river continued to drag her slowly downstream.

  Luc couldn’t understand how such a simple crossing could have gone bad so quickly. His heart began to race as he realized she was being dragged closer to where the river began to narrow and grow deeper. If she got pulled into that area, she would be in danger of drowning.

  He immediately thought of running downstream and diving in and pulling her to the edge, but then the ATV would be lost in the deeper water.

  After a brief moment of thought, Luc knew what he needed to do. Running back to his quad, he turned on the winch and quickly pulled out the remote control, putting it into neutral. He grabbed the end of the cable and began pulling it out into the river as he ran splashing through the foot-deep water in a desperate attempt to meet her at a point just beyond where she was.

  As he ran toward her, he realized the river was pulling her downstream faster than he had expected. He began to worry that the winch cable might not be long enough to reach her. “Ride to me,” he yelled.

  He saw her suddenly turn the wheel in his direction and gun the ATV. Her rear tires spun sending up a stream of water into the air. T
he quad lurched in his direction as it gained traction on the riverbed then held steady for a few seconds longer until he reached her. He grabbed the front utility rack of the quad just as he ran out of cable and was yanked backwards.

  The force of the water tried to tear the ATV from his grasp and he felt as if his arms were being pulled off. He groaned as he threw every ounce of strength into pulling it close enough to attach the hook. Slowly, he managed to pull the quad closer until the hook was mere inches away from the front rack, but then the progress stopped.

  He looked at her and felt a feeling of desperation take over. “I can’t get it any closer,” he yelled.

  The look on her face changed to one of determination as she snapped into action. Leaning out over the handlebars, and grabbing his wrist with both her hands, she pulled.

  With her strength thrown in, the distance began to decrease. With a final effort between the two of them, Luc hooked the end of the cable onto the rack.

  He immediately raised the remote up into the air and pressed the In button. The ATV began to be reeled back upstream toward Luc’s quad. He looked at her face. It was ashen. Slowly, her expression changed to reveal a picture of gratitude and relief.

  When they reached the riverbank, he helped her off the quad and held her for a moment. “It’s all right now.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said, pulling away and walking over to a small boulder where she sat down and stared at the ground in silence. He went over to her.

  “Kate, you did great.”

  “I didn’t. I had a major panic attack out there. I froze. I could’ve fouled up everything. That’s not the way a pilot is supposed to handle emergencies.” She began to cry.

  “Kate, you did your best.”

  “I’m so embarrassed,” she said between her sobs.

  “Don’t be, we all have our Achilles’ heel. Yours just happens to be water.”

  She took a deep breath and held back her tears.

  “When I was eight, my cousin drowned in a small river near her house. I saw it happen. I’ll never forget the look on her face just before she went under.”

  “How awful! That must’ve been tough,” he said and sat next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders.

  “It was horrible. After that, I was petrified of the water and drowning.”

  “I’m going to teach you to swim as soon as we get back to Fairbanks. I promise you, we won’t stop until you feel good about the water.”

  She was silent. He pulled back and looked at her. The corners of her mouth began to curl up a little bit as an embarrassed smile spread across her face.

  “Okay,” she said softly as she glanced up and looked around. “Did Chuck get across okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Luc said turning and looking back upstream where he expected to see him but didn’t.

  Luc quickly stood and checked the tree line behind them that ran along the upper riverbank. Chuck definitely wasn’t there either. He ran to his ATV, grabbed his binoculars, and scanned up and down the river. After a few moments, he came to the solemn realization that Chuck was missing.

  Chapter 6

  Christie woke with a jolt, her eyes wide open but vision blurry. She raised her head and looked out over the small conference table that she had slept behind. The cabin walls and seats slowly came into focus.

  For a moment, she didn’t recognize the surroundings, but the confusion faded quickly, replaced by panic and the stark reality of the crash. She sat up and stared forward at the cockpit.

  The memory of Jim and Philip’s deaths filled her mind, as did the previous night’s battle against the marauding dire wolves. She closed her eyes and swallowed, pushing the thoughts away. She had to keep her focus. It was now all about keeping the children safe until Luc or someone else came for them.

  She slid out of the booth and stood up, stretching her aching muscles. Her head suddenly began to throb. She reached up and carefully touched the large bump on her forehead. She had never before hit her head that hard, and she hoped it wasn’t a serious injury.

  She pulled several bottles of water out of the emergency supply locker and opened one, drinking down several swallows as she walked to the hatch and looked out the window. The sun had come up and it appeared that the wolves were gone. There was no trace of Lackland’s body, and she imagined the same was true for Philip’s.

  She watched Marcus sleeping on the carpet. He was covered by a blanket and using his rolled-up jacket as a pillow. She went up to him and gently touched his shoulder.

  “Marcus, wake up,” she said softly, not wanting to startle him. She gently roused him until he woke. He looked around and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Hell of a night, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah.” She handed him a bottle of water, and he drank it.

  “Are the wolves still out there?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so; at least I can’t see them through the hatch window.”

  “Good.”

  For a moment he was quiet, and she assumed he was deep in thought.

  “You remember the little village we saw from the air, just before we crashed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I think we should try and get to it this morning. There might be people there who can help us.”

  “Luc told me no one lives in these northern mountains. The villagers only go into them to hunt.”

  “He could be wrong. I’ve seen small cabins from the air, and that’s what they look like. Somebody must’ve built them.”

  She looked at Marcus, wondering about his decision. He seemed to be a confident and intelligent man. She had no idea if it was the right or wrong thing to do. Either way, she considered him the captain of the ship and decided she would follow his directions.

  “Okay, I’ll get the kids up,” she said. She gently woke Kelly and Stuart and gave them each some water.

  She tore open a package labeled Mainstay Energy Bars. She wondered if they were chocolate flavored like the protein bars they had eaten the day before. She handed a bar to Marcus then opened three others for Kelly, Stuart, and herself. She took a bite of hers. It reminded her of the lemon-flavored Girl Scout cookies she had sold as a child.

  “Are we going home now, Mommy?” Kelly asked between bites.

  “No, not yet. We’re going to take a walk to a little village we saw before we crashed.”

  “Are there people there?” Stuart asked.

  “We hope so,” Marcus said patting him on the shoulder.

  Christie took a piece of paper from her notebook and quickly scrawled a message:

  Philip and Jim were killed in the crash. The rest of us are okay. We were attacked by wolves last night but fought them off. We saw a village to the south just before we crashed. We’re going to try and find it and get help.

  Christie, Stuart, Kelly, and Marcus

  She took the paper and speared it on the nozzle of the fire extinguisher that was clipped to the bulkhead at eye level on the wall opposite the hatch door.

  She walked to the back of the cabin and opened the supply cabinet. She gathered up several bottles of water and a second package of energy bars and placed them in the small backpack. She picked up the pistol and zipped it up in one of the side pockets. She carried it up to the front of the cabin and laid it on one of the seats.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  “You’re quick,” Marcus said and walked to the back of the cabin.

  She watched as he filled the larger backpack up with items from the supply cabinet. When he was done, he brought it to the front and placed it next to hers, and then he went to the back and returned with the other pistol.

  He looked out the hatch window. “I don’t see any wolves, but just in case...” He cocked the pistol. With his left hand, he unlatched the hatch and pushed it open and out of the way.

  She watched as he hopped out of the hatch and onto the ground. With the gun pointed in front of him, he moved out in
to the clearing and looked around the area. He turned back toward her. “Looks like they’re gone.”

  He carefully lowered the hammer and climbed back into the cabin. He opened his backpack and stowed the gun away.

  Kelly walked up to the open hatch. “I’m glad the wolves are gone. I don’t like them,” she said as she stared out the door.

  “Kelly, get back from the door,” Christie said.

  “It’s too far to climb down,” she said.

  Marcus knelt down behind her. “I’m going to go down first, and then I’ll help you out. Okay?”

  She smiled up at him.

  Marcus stood just as the front of the helicopter was suddenly lifted sharply upwards. The movement was so unexpected that Christie screamed and instinctively looked down, grabbing the seat next to her in an attempt to keep her balance.

  The front end of the helicopter began to bob up and down at a severe angle and she struggled to stay on her feet. She looked up just in time to see Marcus tumbling straight at her. The two went down, landing on top of Stuart.

  “Ouch, you’re hurting me,” Stuart yelled out.

  Marcus rolled off of her and she was able to get back on her feet. Using the backs of the seats to pull herself forward, she climbed her way back up to the front of the cabin.

  She didn’t see Kelly anywhere. In a panic, she looked in the cockpit then under the front seats. “Where’s Kelly?” she screamed.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus yelled back.

  “Where’s my baby?” she whimpered, her voice trembling.

  She moved to the hatch, and grabbing either side of the doorway for stability, she stared down into the clearing and saw Kelly picking herself up off the ground.

  “Marcus, she fell out. She’s outside!”

  “Don’t worry we’ll get her,” he said, and began working his way back up to the hatch.

  Christie suddenly felt the floor drop out from under her. The helicopter fell. For a moment, she felt almost weightless until it collided with the ground and she hit the floor. “What’s happening?” she yelled.