Uncharted Passage

by Julie Cannon

  Time after time Hayden came, each climax stronger than the last. Emily teased her, bringing her to the brink of climax, then backing off just enough to make her moan with frustration. Her body screamed with the sensations Emily brought out in her. Some were coaxed and others exploded of their own free will. Finally, when exhaustion claimed them both, they collapsed into each other’s arms, unable to resist as sleep closed in.

  Not a word had been spoken between them.

  Chapter Six

  “There’s people alive over here.”

  A voice woke Hayden and she struggled to climb out of the fog of slumber. Her left side was warmer than her right and something tickled her nose. She felt lethargic, her limbs heavy like they always were after a night of sex. Her eyes shot open. After a night of sex. Emily lay in her arms, her uninjured leg thrown across Hayden’s, a tan hand resting lightly over her breast. Just before dawn she and Emily had somehow managed to put their clothes back on before falling back into the sleep of exhaustion.

  Any other time, Hayden would have savored the moment, lying here with a stunning woman knowing they’d made love all night. But she didn’t get the opportunity. She heard the familiar sound of boots on the ground and a movement to her right caught her eye. A man and a woman dressed in khaki shorts and white shirts stood looking down at her. For an instant Hayden flashed back to the two men who had attempted to assault Emily the day before, but the bright red cross on their shirts registered like a beacon.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, almost ready to weep.

  “Are you two okay?” the woman asked. “We’re from the Red Cross.”

  Hayden could hardly find words. “For the most part, we’re okay. I’m Hayden Caldwell, U.S. Army Joint Readiness Training Center.”

  She felt slightly ridiculous, lying on the ground in filthy clothes, cuddling a woman but sounding like she was reporting for duty. The Red Cross pair seemed thrilled.

  “U.S. Army. Excellent,” said the man. “We need all the help we can get. Are you healthy?”

  “You want to enlist me?” With a dazed laugh, Hayden began to sit up, sorry to have to force Emily out of her deep sleep.

  “If you can walk in a straight line, we can use you,” the women said. “The situation is…unimaginable.”

  “I’m okay. A few scrapes here and there, but I was lucky.” She indicated Emily’s cut. “This woman has a pretty deep gash on her leg that’s gotten infected, but some medical attention will take care of it. The children aren’t hurt but they are hungry and thirsty.”

  “Come on, let’s get you into the truck,” the man said. “We’re heading back to the hotel.”

  “What hotel?” Hayden stood and extended her hand to Emily, who was now fully awake.

  “The Lam Koh. It was the least damaged and it’s been set up as a temporary hospital.”

  Emily stumbled as she got up. She moaned and fell into Hayden’s arms. “Fuck,” she murmured under her breath. The pain in her leg was excruciating. It had only hurt a little last night but, then again, all she’d felt was orgasm after orgasm in Hayden’s arms. Now she could hardly put any weight on it.

  “What was the extent of the tsunami?” Hayden asked. “Were other places affected?”

  “Everything was destroyed up and down the coastline,” the man replied. “There’s not much left standing near the beach, but the buildings farther inland are okay. Some of the survivors are saying the wave was at least fifty feet tall.”

  “Jesus.” Hayden lifted Emily into her arms as the other Red Cross worker crouched down by the children.

  She followed the man to a flatbed truck, bothered that she hadn’t had an opportunity to talk to Emily. There was no time now, and she’d have an audience of aid workers and survivors if she tried to have a serious conversation on the way to the hotel. The truck was filled with people with injuries, some serious. She lifted Emily up into the helping arms of another Red Cross volunteer, then the children were handed up.

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” Emily asked when Hayden didn’t immediately climb into the truck.

  “I’m not hurt, and there isn’t enough room for me.”

  Emily instantly lifted Victoria onto her lap. “Yes, there is. Please.”

  Hayden almost gave in to the frightened look on her face, but if the truck had to stop for a seriously injured person between here and the hotel, she would only have to give up her place anyway. She took Emily’s hand. “I’m fine. I’ll help out, searching around here until the next truck comes along. Don’t worry, I’ll find you. It’s not a big island.”

  She was not going to abandon her. They had gone through too much together, and after last night—well, after last night, Hayden never wanted to let her go. She gave Emily a reassuring smile and signaled the driver to leave.

  As Emily released her hand, the truck jerked into gear and started to move. Complete panic pinched her face. “Come as soon as you can,” she urged. “I don’t want to…lose you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Hayden called after her. “That can’t happen.”

  *

  The next thirty minutes were a blur for Emily. The increasing pain in her leg pushed any other thought from her mind. The ride was not a smooth one, the truck lurching and weaving in every direction as it made its way back to the beach. Several times they stopped and picked up more survivors, and both children sat on her lap to make room. She hated that she hadn’t had a chance to say anything to Hayden before they were swept away by the rescue team. There was so much she wanted to say to her. For God’s sake, she hadn’t even given Hayden her last name.

  Emily blushed. She wasn’t the type who slept with women before a proper introduction, at least not since her early twenties. In college she’d had more than her share of sexual interludes. She’d had lots of friends and spent most weekends getting drunk and getting laid. How she managed to pull out a solid A average and stay ahead in her accelerated classes was still a mystery to her. It wasn’t until one specific spring break in Mazatlan that she’d finally realized that her sexual adventures might someday get her in serious trouble.

  One morning, she woke with a terrible headache and what she could have sworn was an entire box of Kleenex in her mouth. When she pulled herself together enough to look around, she had no idea where she was and even less of an idea who was lying beside her. The woman was pretty enough, with dark hair tumbling across her bare shoulders, but then there was the other woman, lying on her side, also sharing the bed. She said something in Spanish that Emily did not understand, but the tangled sheets and the lustful look in her eyes told her they were not strangers. Maybe last night they were, but definitely not that morning.

  Ever since she’d awakened with two women and a white powdery substance on the bedside table, Emily had vowed she would never go to bed with a woman that she didn’t know at least fairly well. But making love with Hayden was different. Sure, they hadn’t shared life histories. She could have been a criminal, a con artist, or one of the high-class call girls that frequented the resorts on Khao Lak. But Emily doubted Hayden was any of those. She knew nothing about her, yet they had an almost immediate connection. She’d read numerous accounts of people thrown into life-or-death situations who had come together sexually. It was as if the only thing that mattered was feeling alive, sharing the bond of life with another human being.

  Her senses had been on high alert since the tsunami, and she knew Hayden felt the same. Their heightened reactions to each other were not surprising. Natural chemistry and the horrific conditions around them were as combustible as gasoline and fire. A flicker of disappointment burned in the back of her throat. Was that all? Had they simply come together in the night due to circumstances, or was something more profound at work? She sighed and held Victoria tightly. She was too tired to make any sense of her own emotions. All she could do was get through the next few days, and then she and Hayden would talk.

  When they finally arrived at their destination, she handed the childr
en down and slid off the back of the truck, falling in a heap on the ground. She was unable to walk and was finally helped by a pair of strong, dark hands. She passed the children over to a Red Cross organizer after giving their names and explaining what little she knew about them. She felt hot and weak, almost nauseous. Hunger was taking its toll, she supposed, and shock. Now that she was safe, she could almost feel the adrenaline draining out of her. The stranger practically carried her into the hotel as gently as he could and deposited her on a chair in a hall. People milled about, some covered in blood, others wrapped in bandages, and some with no visible sign of injury at all. But regardless of their physical condition, they all had the same dazed expression in their eyes. They had all witnessed more than anyone should and probably wondered, as she did, why they had lived when so many were taken.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, blending with beads of sweat. There was no electricity, of course, so no air-conditioning. The hotel lobby was like a sauna. She mopped moisture off her forehead and daydreamed about taking a cold shower. She wondered if there was some drinking water somewhere. Her leg burned, sharp pierces of pain up and down her leg. The pressure near the wound was so intense Emily thought her skin would explode if touched. Dark streaks radiated in every direction from the cut. Thick yellowish fluid oozed from the wound unchecked.

  Her throat hurt when she swallowed and her vision was getting fuzzy. Her head throbbed and she reached out a hand to steady herself, but there was nothing for her to grab onto to stop from sliding out of the chair onto the floor.

  A man floated toward her, out of focus. Emily blinked several times, a hard, cool surface pressing against her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  Emily felt like she was emerging from a deep dive and could see the surface but wasn’t quite there yet.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  It took a moment for her to be able to respond. The stranger helped her sit up and it was then Emily realized she must have fainted. Her cheek hurt and she winced when she touched it.

  “Everything will be okay.” The man helped her sit up and put a plastic bottle in her hand. “Have a drink.”

  “I need a doctor,” Emily said croaking out the words from her parched lips.

  “You’ll see one. There are a lot of patients.”

  Emily looked around, slowly, so as not to pass out again. Every breath she took was an effort, and even minor movements caused her head to roll. She fought off the blackness that threatened to swallow her again. She was so tired she wanted to simply give in to sleep, but she knew she had to remain conscious for as long as possible.

  “Okay.” She wrenched the cap off and drank in great, thankful gulps, the liquid spilling down her chin and onto her tattered clothes.

  “You’ll be fine,” the man assured her.

  “I need to lie down.” The people around her were starting to float through the thick air.

  If the man hadn’t held on to Emily, she would have slid onto the floor again. She moaned as a wave of pain shot from her leg and she started to shake. She wondered where the children were. She should have asked where she could find them after the paperwork was done. The next time she saw an aid worker she would find out. Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that they were someone else’s children and not her responsibility. But she had a feeling Hayden would be angry with her for not taking better care of them.

  The thought agitated her and she started crying again, but this time she couldn’t stop. She wanted Hayden to come and find her. Surely the next truck couldn’t be far away. Hayden would save her again. She would come to her rescue, get her the treatment she needed and the children back to their family. Hayden was her hero, and Emily knew she would never let her down.

  *

  Hayden followed the trail left by the aid workers and an hour later began to see more and more evidence of the destruction. There was barely enough room for the severely injured on the next truck she saw, so she chose instead to walk. The workers gave her two bottles of water and said it was about a mile to the beach. A mile? Was that as far as they’d needed to go? Hayden had originally estimated they were only a few miles from the beach where they were swept away, but since they’d walked for almost two days it was much farther than that. How could she have been so wrong? Surely they hadn’t walked in circles the entire time? She was well trained and knew they had been walking in a consistent direction, at least as much as they could. Nothing had looked familiar, but then again, nothing could. The tsunami had obliterated everything in its path, and what it didn’t destroy it made almost unrecognizable. They must have been carried miles inland by the force of the water. Either that or they had to walk so far around the destruction that time and distance increased their journey.

  Without the children in tow she made good time, but the walk was the worst of her life. Bloated corpses littered the ground. Many of the dead were clad in swimming suits or shorts and T-shirts, their flesh burnt by the sun. Bodies hung from the trees where rising waters deposited them in branches like debris. Palm trees lay flat on the ground, broken furniture littered the landscape. A railroad track was twisted like a corkscrew as far as she could see. The stench of decay was strong, and the scene only got worse as she approached the beachfront hotels, or what was left of them. Roads that were not blocked with debris were jammed with homemade stretchers made out of bed sheets and people sporting cuts, bruises, bloodied bandages, and broken limbs. All wore the mask of shock. Grieving families sobbed over dead and dying family members. Some vehicles were wrapped around the few trees that remained, while others were smashed and stacked on top of each other like Matchbox cars.

  Only the shells remained of buildings that once stood tall and proud in the tropical paradise. Support beams reached into the air like lone pillars in a war zone. A boat teetered precariously in what remained of a third-floor hotel room, its rear end protruding over the balcony. Hayden walked slowly by a pool filled with brackish green water. A small tourist bus floated in the deep end, a torn beach umbrella blocked the steps. She shuddered to think what was in the dark water that couldn’t be seen.

  Farther and farther down the beach Hayden walked, sidestepping blocks of cement, piles of wood, an assortment of shoes, a schoolbook, a tourist guide, and of course, bodies. Looters rifled through the pockets of the dead searching for anything valuable they could sell or barter for much-needed supplies. As far as she could see, the façade of every building had been shorn off by the force of the water, leaving only the shells of what once was.

  A soft breeze ruffled her hair. The sea to her left was calm, giving no indication of its anger and destruction two days earlier. Determined more than ever to help in any way she could, she headed for the village square but was unprepared for what she saw there. Row after row of bodies covered in white sheets lay neatly side by side. Men were spraying what smelled like disinfectant on the bodies. Their only protection was gloves and masks. The treatment was necessary to contain the spread of disease, but the mechanical way the bodies were sprayed made it all seem surreal.

  Inside the hotels that were still standing, cots lined every available space, leaving only a maze of narrow isles to walk. Dozens of people stood patiently in line a pay phone wearing the same dazed expressions she had seen all morning. Another line was for water, with people holding buckets, bottles, and anything that would hold fresh water. A motor scooter almost ran her over in its haste to get somewhere.

  The devastation and destruction was unlike anything Hayden could ever imagine. She would forever be changed by this experience. The everyday trials of life that she and her friends knew were trivial compared to this. Life was short, everything you owned and dreamed of could be ripped away in a heartbeat. Life was precious, and as she walked through the crowded streets, Hayden vowed never to take it for granted again.

  Chapter Seven

  “Colonel? Colonel Caldwell?”

  She spun in the direction of the voice calling her by her rank. So
meone here knew who she was. She didn’t immediately recognize the man approaching her, but his regulation haircut and confident walk told her he was military.

  “Jeffers, ma’am. Lieutenant Bruce Jeffers. Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “Yes I am, Lieutenant.” Hayden had no idea where or when she had encountered the guy, but she had a good memory for faces, and his square jaw and intense gray eyes were familiar.

  “You gave a talk to a bunch of us guys a few years ago at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, ma’am.”

  Hayden didn’t even bother to pretend she knew the young officer from that event. After twenty-three years in the Army she had met thousands of people, and there was no way she could remember them all. Instinctively, she slipped into officer mode. “Were you deployed here? Where is your CO?”

  “No, ma’am. I wasn’t deployed here. My wife and I came for our honeymoon. We were supposed to fly home today. I guess we won’t be going anywhere for a while.”

  A badly injured woman passed in front of them, bleeding profusely from her head. Returning her attention to the chaos, Hayden asked, “Where are they taking the injured?” She had no idea where Emily was and desperately wanted to find her.

  “Everywhere, ma’am. The hospital was badly damaged, so the aid workers have been situating them at the hotels that weren’t hit. A lot of folks have headed up into the hills in case of aftershocks and another tidal wave.”

  Aftershocks were common after a major earthquake. Hayden wondered if another tsunami was possible. The prospect was terrifying, and how would anyone know? There had been no warning for the wave that struck. “Do you know if any have been recorded?”