First Light

by Bill Rancic

  He wanted to weep. He wanted to fall on his knees and scream into the wind, but there was no point. It would be a useless waste of precious energy, and he needed all he could manage.

  He had only two choices: go on, or go back.

  Next to him, Bob struggled to stand up in the wind and took in the scene below, dim in the fading light. “Well,” he said, taking in the scene, “looks like we’re fucked.”

  Daniel didn’t answer. As usual the old man had a way with words.

  There was no use feeling sorry for himself; he had to get about the business of survival. He started gathering wood for a fire, looking for a good place to bed down until dawn and fighting off his own sense of desperation. Darkness would be coming soon.

  He spotted a conifer a little way down the slope. Underneath it, the snow was less deep and the branches of the tree, weighed down with heavy snowfall, would help protect them against the wind and the threat of exposure. He could dig down into the snow and use it to build up a wall against the wind, then maybe line the pit with branches to keep them off the cold ground. If he was lucky, he might even be able to manage a small fire pit to warm their cold hands and feet and faces. With a shelter and a fire, and wrapped in the extra coats and blankets they’d brought, they might make it until morning.

  The last of the light was fading. In the morning, he’d have to go down to the creek and follow it, and there was no way to know where it led. It wasn’t a great plan, but the alternative—waiting at the wreck until they were found—wasn’t a solution, either.

  “Come on, Bob,” he said. “If we’re going to last the night, we’d better get a fire started.”

  18

  For a long time after they’d left, Phil stood outside the fuselage and watched the small, dark figures of Daniel and Bob making their way up the side of the ridge, going quickly at first, as if anxious to get to the top, then more slowly as the way became steeper and more difficult. When they were finally obliterated by distance and snow, Phil shuffled inside to the place where Beverly was tending to the sick and injured and sat down next to Kerry, who lay still, her lashes dark against her cheeks, tucked under a layer of coats and blankets. He didn’t want to think about who those coats had belonged to originally, which of the dead passengers had brought this red parka, that black wool overcoat. It felt wrong to be glad of the extra coats, but he was, if only for Kerry’s sake.

  He picked up her hand and peeled back her gloves, then his own, to check for frostbite—her skin was icy cold and pale. Phil rubbed her hands vigorously between his own for a minute or so each, hoping the friction and the movement would increase her circulation. Then he tucked her hands back under the blankets and touched her forehead, her cheek. Her skin was softer than he’d anticipated, her forehead unlined with worry or age. He envied her that—her youth, her beauty. Her hopes, her future. And she was carrying Daniel’s baby.

  Phil felt a surge of jealousy so big and ugly it nearly threatened to overwhelm him. A baby was a permanent thing, a connection between Kerry and Daniel that could never be severed. They were bound to each other forever, and even if Phil had thought he could manage it, he couldn’t get in the way.

  “Kerry, can you hear me?”

  Just for a moment it looked to him like her eyelids fluttered, the pale bluish skin moving just millimeters. His breath caught—but then nothing happened. She was as still as before, like a wax statue of herself. Even the fact that he could sit so close to her, be close to her, didn’t offer him any relief. He couldn’t help her.

  He felt the anxiety of the past few days turning to despair, like gravity pulling him down. There was no way Daniel and Bob were going to find help, no way they’d make it to a road, a town. They’d probably freeze to death on their first night, away from even the flimsy shelter offered by the wreckage of the plane and the body heat of fifty other people. No—the survivors were lost in the woods, invisible to the searchers, who must be beginning to doubt if there were any survivors, who might even now be starting to think about how long they could afford to look before giving up the search.

  For the first time since the crash, he thought, Maybe it would be all right if we were to die out here. Maybe there are worse things that could happen than closing your eyes and slipping away peacefully in your sleep.

  As soon as he thought it, he looked down into Kerry’s face and knew it was wrong to give in. She deserved to live; her baby deserved to live. Phil was only feeling sorry for himself again. The search parties would not give up after only three days—sooner or later the snow would stop, the skies would clear, and they’d be found. Of course they would; no one would give up the search for a commercial jetliner with a hundred people on board. The only question was whether the rescue would be soon enough.

  He knelt down beside her and pulled a piece of her hair out of the corner of her mouth. Just looking at her, he could hardly tell that she’d been injured; only a bruise just under her hairline, over her ear, gave any indication of what had happened to her. Then again, Phil himself had barely more than a bruise to mark his own injury, and he knew it was more serious than it appeared. It was the third day since the crash, and he was more tired than ever: he felt the pressure growing in his belly and knew something in him was broken, something slow to manifest but definitely painful and possibly dangerous. Even standing to go outside to piss was getting more and more difficult; by tomorrow morning he might not be able to stand at all, period.

  God only knew what the doctors would find when he got back to civilization. If he got back to civilization.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Bev said. She was sitting near Kerry’s head, rubbing an IV bag back and forth between her hands like she was trying to will it back to life. They’d found two intravenous bags in the medical kit, both frozen solid since the crash, and a single tube and a couple of needles. The cold had made even the simple act of running an intravenous line nearly impossible, but Bev swore she could get the line started if they could get the liquid sufficiently warmed up.

  Beverly tucked the icy IV bag into her armpit like Daniel had shown her and said, “You look like someone walked over your grave.”

  “Maybe someone did.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was just wondering if it would make any difference.”

  “If what would?”

  “Staying alive.”

  “Well,” she said, her mouth twisting up at the corners, “I think most of these people would like to see their families again. I know I would. My husband and kids must be out of their minds worrying about me. I don’t even want to think about the rest of my family.”

  Phil shook his head gloomily. “That’s just it, though. I don’t have a wife or kids. If I didn’t come back, would anyone really care?”

  Beverly gave him a significant side-eye, and Phil could almost feel her weighing her words. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit of a pessimist?”

  “People mention it from time to time, yes.”

  She grinned. “There’s nothing that says just because your wife died that you couldn’t remarry. You could have a family still. You’re what, forty?”

  “Forty-two.”

  “Plenty of time.”

  As if he could just snap his fingers and make it happen. “It’s not that easy for me. I don’t bounce back that fast.”

  Beverly gave a small half-laugh that reminded him so much of Emily that it startled him. “You really enjoy feeling sorry for yourself, don’t you?” She switched the IV bag to her other armpit. “I thought it was just the crash talking, but now I’m thinking this is really who you are. A real Eeyore.”

  “Who?”

  “The donkey from Winnie-the-Pooh. The one who’s always walking around feeling sorry for himself.”

  “I do not enjoy feeling sorry for myself!” He felt a surge of anger so fierce that it actually made him warm, the first real heat
he could remember feeling since the crash. Who the hell did Beverly think she was? He didn’t need a shrink, didn’t need her psychoanalyzing his worst traits, his ugliest fears. His wife had died. He’d survived a plane crash. If he didn’t have the right to a little self-pity after that, who did?

  “Sure you do.”

  “Jesus. Who do you think you are?”

  “You think that because you’ve lost people, that gives you the right to be ugly, to be selfish, when the truth is that you can’t live in this world and not lose someone you love. It’s not possible.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I heard you and Daniel talking. This plane isn’t private, you know.”

  “Great.” His face burned, as he considered how many people might have heard him talking to Daniel, saying out loud his most shameful secrets.

  “You think your losses are special,” Beverly went on. “Different from everyone else’s. That you’ve suffered more.”

  “I never said that!”

  “Not in so many words, no, but you wallow in self-pity like a pig in shit. You lost your wife. All right, that’s unfair, it’s horrible, but everyone loses their spouse sooner or later, don’t they?”

  “Emily was only thirty-five!”

  “Who gets to choose where and when? Nobody.” Beverly was talking loudly now, half the eyes of the plane on her. “Your plane crashed. That sucks. But look around you: everyone you see was in that crash, too. Not just you. You’re just acting like you were the only one. You survived. You didn’t die. A lot of people died, but not you.”

  “I know that. Thank you, Oprah.”

  “Do you? Do you really think your wife would have wanted you to sit around moping for the rest of your life, making yourself miserable, making the people around you miserable?”

  “I am not making other people miserable.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” She looked from him to Kerry and back, her expression full of the weight of judgment.

  Phil exploded. “Fine! I make people miserable! Maybe I even think you’re right, on some level, but what good is it going to do me right now? I could die any minute out here.”

  “Before you die, would you consider thinking about other people’s feelings for a change and give me a hand warming up these bags? Some of us do have things to go back to.”

  He took one of the bags from her. “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “I’ve had it with pity parties just now. Sorry. Maybe when we get rescued I’ll be in a more tolerant mood.”

  She gave Phil that same significant look and kept rubbing her IV bag. He was surprised to see her hands were shaking, only a little, but noticeable enough: Beverly was afraid, too, though she was trying very hard to hide it. She was as scared as the rest of them, but she was still doing what needed to be done.

  Then Phil was ashamed, deeply ashamed of himself. Here was a woman who had a husband and children back home, a sick mother whose deathbed vigil she was missing. A woman who’d put aside all her own worries and strains and had taken on the burden of caring for the sick and wounded single-handedly, and he was moaning to her about his own loss, about lacking purpose? For a moment he looked at himself as she must see him, thought about himself as she must think about him, and he didn’t like what he saw and thought.

  He was afraid—but he was supposed to be afraid. Being afraid, in this situation, was just good sense.

  You never did understand what it meant to be one of the lucky ones. It was Emily’s voice, teasing, never letting him feel too sorry for himself for too long, never letting his misery get the best of him for more than a moment. She’d always balanced out his worst qualities, kept him on an even keel. Without her, he’d let himself sink so far down he barely even recognized himself anymore. She’d be ashamed of him, if she could see him now, wallowing in self-pity “like a pig in shit,” Beverly had said. She’d tell him to grow up, get a grip.

  You still have plenty of living left to do. If you’re still breathing, then you’ve got something to go back to. You know that, don’t you?

  Do I? Phil thought. What would that be?

  The small voice said, Yourself.

  The light outside was changing, growing dimmer, and Phil thought maybe it wasn’t only Daniel who was able to do something, who could do something to help them all survive.

  His hand crept forward for the clear IV bag Beverly was holding and took it out of her hand. He looked at it for a moment, the clear liquid frozen into a block near the bottom of the bag. It’s something at least. It isn’t despair.

  He put the IV bag in his armpit, the warmest place he could think of. The bag was freezing cold, a little jolt to his senses. Immediately Phil began to shiver, a little at first and then more and more. “This is just great,” he said. “You and I will probably end up with hypothermia before we get the IVs thawed.”

  “Probably,” she said, her mouth turning up at the corners.

  “And we’re out of food.”

  “Yep.”

  He took the bag out of his armpit and glared at it. “We need a fire for this job,” he said. “With a fire we could get the bags thawed in no time.”

  She gave him another look and said, “We tried the fire yesterday. There wasn’t anything dry enough except some pieces of paper, and we burned most of it.”

  “Not all of it. There are still the seatback magazines. The wood we brought in might be dry enough by now.”

  To his surprise, Beverly actually smiled at him, a genuine smile that broke over her face like the sun coming up. “If you really manage to get a fire going, the folks around here will elect you king. Just be careful, okay? I have too many patients as it is.”

  “Hey,” he said, “a little confidence, please?” She looked up at him and rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling.

  He stuck the IV bag in the waistband at the back of his pants and approached the back of the plane for the firewood they’d stacked against the fuselage the day before in the hopes the wood would dry enough overnight to use. There was a good-sized pile of it, deadfall branches and a few larger pieces, some as long as Phil’s leg. They might burn a good long while.

  He started picking up pieces and dragging them outside. A few of the passengers came out to see if they could help, first Kecia and Amber, the flight attendants, then Alice and her little boy, Zach. Kecia stood hugging her oversized coat around herself with her one good arm, giving Phil a skeptical look. Beverly had splinted and wrapped her broken arm when Daniel had brought her back from the tail section, and though she had to be careful of her injury, she still knew a lot of things that had been helpful the past few days. Phil was glad she’d lived.

  Now she asked, “You really think that wood’s dry enough?”

  “We can’t wait anymore. The temperature’s dropped since yesterday, and we need to get the IV bags thawed out or my friend in there is going to die of dehydration.”

  “All right,” said the flight attendant, thrusting out her chin in a determined way that made Phil like her more already. “What do you need?”

  Phil thought for a second. He wasn’t used to people looking to him for answers, and he’d grown accustomed to letting Daniel make all the decisions about survival matters since the crash, but Daniel wasn’t here now. Phil would have to rely on his own judgment. He only hoped it would be enough.

  “First things first. We need a lighter, if that’s possible,” he said. “Can you ask around to see if one of the other passengers has one? If there’s one in one of the bags?”

  “There shouldn’t be any lighters in the bags,” said the other flight attendant, the one named Amber, “because the TSA doesn’t allow them. But let us see if any of the passengers has one on them.”

  “What about me?” asked the boy, Zach. He’d been bored all morning, driving his mother crazy because he didn’t like being cooped
up inside the fuselage. She kept telling him it was too cold outside, but the kid didn’t care—he hated sitting around in the dark with a bunch of mopey adults, and Phil didn’t blame him. The prospect of activity, even something as simple as starting a fire, interested him greatly. “What can I do?”

  Phil put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and said, “Bring me as much paper as you can find. Books, newspapers, the magazines from the seat pockets. Bits of cardboard. Anything you can find, I want it.”

  The boy grinned and dashed off. His mother stopped for a moment, opening her mouth as if to ask something of Phil. Then she followed her son into the plane. “We’ll be back,” she called over her shoulder.

  Phil walked around the open end of the fuselage, looking for the best possible place in which to build the fire. It should be sheltered from the wind, and close by—Daniel and Bob had made two crude pairs of snowshoes, but they’d taken the rest of the shoelaces and the duct tape with them in case they needed to make repairs, so there was no way to make another pair, and that fact limited the remaining passengers to the area around the crash site. Just as well, really, Phil thought—they should all stay close. When the rescue came, they would need to be ready, and that meant they needed to stay together.

  At last Phil picked a spot near the side of the plane. It was on the northeast side, the most sheltered place possible. Next he’d need to get rid of all this snow; a fire would turn it into a wet, soggy mess. He used the side of his foot to dig a spot in the snow, going down and down until he’d removed all traces of snow and reached the dirt beneath, and though it was painful and his injury bothered him, he didn’t complain, for once. He scraped at the ground until he had a good bare patch going, raw icy earth the gray-brown color of mouse fur. He broke off the smallest branches of the dry wood and made a little tent of it in the bare patch.

  He looked up at the sky. The snow was lightening a little, but the clouds were still thick and heavy, and he worried that even if they were able to get a fire going, it wouldn’t last in this weather, that the snow and the wind would smother it. But it didn’t matter, they were going to have to try. Phil was determined not to think the worst, not anymore.