by Will Hubbell
"Is this the rock you were talking about, Con?"
"Yeah, I couldn't get it up."
"No wonder. It looks like most of it is still buried."
From inside the plane Rick could hear Joe moan, "Oh God, I hate digging."
"Then let's get it over with," said Con.
Joe turned on another flashlight and searched for their digging implements. He supplemented them with a table knife and a fork. "I thought we'd get high-tech," he said, showing them to Rick and Con. When they went outside to resume digging, their flash-lights illuminated a landscape of gray ash enveloped in darkness. All the fires were gone, and no orange glow relieved the perfect blackness of the sky. For all they could see, they could have been lost in a cave. The effect of the burnt landscape was equally oppressive. Joe at-tacked the ground with his spoon. "I want out of here." They dug methodically, aware of the danger of pushing their bodies in humidity that had more than made up for the drop in temperature. Con made her hole wider and wider, trying to find the edges of the rock. Rick, lying on his stomach, finally scraped the foot at the end of the landing leg. Only the front part of the leg was uncovered; the rest was still encased in dirt. Joe's hole was the larg-est, but he had the largest area to uncover.
Under an unchanging sky, they found it impossible to gauge how long they worked. Only the soreness in their bodies provided a vague measure. Otherwise, each mo-ment blended with the last into timeless drudgery. Pro-gress was slow. They worked until hunger and fatigue forced them to rest and eat. Despite their efforts, they were still far from done.
Only marginally rested, they resumed digging, and the work proceeded even more slowly than before. Con was beginning to feel it would never end when something hit her bare foot. The sensation was repeated on her leg. She shined her flashlight on her leg and saw a spot made by a drop of water, a raindrop. She assumed the spot was black because of the soot and ash that covered her. How-ever, as more drops began to hit her, she saw the rain itself was black. The others noticed it, too.
"Is this goop rain?" said Joe.
" 'Fraid so," said Rick.
"I suppose it's black from smoke and dust," said Joe.
"With a little acid thrown in," replied Rick.
"Should we be out in it?" asked Joe.
"Well, I'm going to keep digging," said Con. "I hate this place." The few scattered drops increased in number until there was a steady rain. The water was warm, but it was gritty and it stung the eyes. Con dug with her eyes closed, opening them only occasionally. When she did, the black rain made for an eerie sight. The rain's inky curtain swal-lowed the flashlight's beam. It transformed Joe and Rick into watery chimney sweeps, bathed in liquid soot. The ashy ground soon became a sticky puddle of black muck. So this is the shower I yearned for, thought Con. The rain made the digging easier as it softened the baked earth. Con found that she could widen her hole more quickly. At last, the earth came up in large spoon-fuls, and she wished they had thought of bringing water from the river. That would be unnecessary now, for the rain came down in torrents. Con was able to uncover the stone. It was water-smoothed and over two feet in di-ameter. It rested against the plane's leg, covering part of the foot. Con began to dig around the stone's edges, hop-ing to find a surface to grab. As she dug, it became ap-parent the rock was nearly spherical. Lifting it was beyond her strength and would probably require all three of them.
The water that had aided Con's digging turned against her as the stone disappeared beneath its rising surface. Further digging only brought up thin, watery, black mud. Water, mud, and ash began to fill the hole. Con looked around and saw Rick and Joe were in the same predica-ment. Joe's hole resembled a large puddle. He attacked it furiously, using both hands to fling water and mud. The rain filled it faster than he could scoop. When the side he was working on began to collapse into the hole, Joe flew into impotent rage. He slammed his fists into the sodden earth, splattering himself with muck. As if to mock him, the rain fell even harder.
"We've got to stop," said Con, shouting over the rain.
"We're so damn close!" Joe shouted back.
"Digging's only making it worse," said Con.
"Con's right, Joe. We're going to have to wait out the storm."
"We waited out the heat, and look where that got us," retorted Joe. The rain came down with such fury the holes vanished under a sheet of black water. Joe's head slumped in res-ignation. "Okay," he said, "it's got us beat for now." They stood in the rain and tried to rinse the ash and mud off themselves. The effort reminded Con of her bath in the muddy river. Then, they entered the plane and searched for dry clothes among the jumbled supplies be-fore turning off the flashlights and changing in the pri-vacy afforded by total darkness. This was the third time circumstances had forced them to abandon digging out the airplane. They sat listlessly in the darkness as the rain pelted their shelter with in-creased fury. Con turned on her flashlight and shined it on the clear portion of the plane. The soot-darkened rain made it almost opaque. She turned off the light, feeling depressed and defeated.
Rick felt in the dark until he touched Con's hand. "Ev-erything will be fine," he said.
"Stop saying that!" said Con more harshly than she intended. "I'm not Sara, so don't act like Pandit! You don't know how things will turn out! So far... so far ..." She halted on the verge of crying. "... nothing's gone right."
Joe's calm voice came out of the darkness. "He does know how things will turn out."
"How?"
"Out there in that hell, without the benefit of shelter or understanding, are little creatures—our ancestors. He knows they made it. That means we can, too."
"Those were rats," said Con.
Rick piped in, "Rodents hadn't..."
"Don't get scientific on us," said Joe. "Con, the im-portant thing is to have hope. If you give up, you're doomed. If you believe everything will be fine, it's self-fulfilling."
"I was unaware those were such magic words," replied Con with a sarcastic edge. Joe didn't rise to the provocation. His voice remained calm. "It's not the words that count. You count." When Con didn't reply, Joe turned on his flashlight and began to rummage through the disordered supplies. "Let's see if we have anything that goes with dinosaur meat." Joe looked through their hastily collected foodstuffs. He reflected that if Pandit had been a worse cook, their supplies would have been more ample. Pandit, who be-lieved in fresh ingredients, eschewed plastic food pouches. The only one they had contained peaches. He put it aside along with another item and brought out a box of crackers. "This should cheer us up," he said with-out irony. The crackers, accompanied by the charred dinosaur and the last of the bottled water, served for their meal. Joe kept his light on so they could see as they ate, though it lacked the festive quality of a campfire. The crackers were limp, and the meat already smelled faintly of decay. Despite that, Con ate heartily. As Joe had hoped, the food lifted Con's spirits some-what. Still, she found her surroundings dismal. The sloped floor of the plane required them to use their clothes and other supplies to make a level surface to sit or lie upon. As a result, their trampled "floor" was as-suming the character of a rat's nest. The last cloth gar-ments they would ever own were damp and stained with mud and soot. Con's companions were even more dirty and disheveled. Judging from the way Rick and Joe looked, Con was glad she didn't have a mirror. She re-solved that if clean rain ever fell, she would take a shower in it. Joe turned off the flashlight when they finished eating. No conversation followed in the dark as the rain contin-ued to fall steadily and heavily. They were all tired, and the oblivion of sleep seemed particularly inviting. One by one, Rick, Joe, and Con found its refuge.
CON AWOKE IN the timeless dark. It was still raining hard. She had no idea how long she had slept, but she felt rested. Her spirits were improved also. Joe's right.
she thought, / need to maintain a positive attitude. She grabbed a flashlight, then tiptoed to the front of the plane. The meat was stored there. The sweet odor she had de-tected at the last mea
l was stronger now. Nevertheless, her stomach grumbled. / won't eat until the others do, regardless of what Joe said. Ignoring her hunger, she placed her flashlight close to the transparent fuselage and turned it on. Its beam illuminated the rain running down the plane's skin. It was clear. She turned out the light and sat down in a seat.
Joe whispered in the dark, "What's up, Con?"
"I was checking the rain. It's clean now. I thought I might take a shower in it."
"That sounds like a good idea," said Rick.
"Let Con go first," said Joe. "The showers are defi-nitely not coed."
"I wasn't suggesting ..." began Rick sheepishly.
"Glad to hear it," said Joe.
The darkness gave Con privacy to undress before she left the plane. She exited into the downpour. Her first impression was how strange it was to be unable to see. She remained within touching distance of the plane, for touch was her only guide in the perfect darkness. It told her that she was standing in water over her ankles and the hard-baked ground had dissolved into mud. The rain felt pleasantly cool against her skin. It fell with stimu-lating force. She lifted her head back and let the heavy drops massage her face. Opening her mouth, she drank. The rain had a slightly sour taste.
Con used her hands to try to scrub herself clean. What I wouldn't give for a bar of soap and some shampoo. When she was grabbing things for their escape from the island, it never occurred to her to take some. 1 just always took them for granted. Objecting to their perfume seemed idiotic to her now. Perhaps I can figure out how to make some at our new home.
Someone turned on a flashlight inside the plane and light spilled into the darkness. Con whirled quickly to see if anyone was watching her. No one was. Once she determined that, she turned her attention to the newly illuminated landscape. As far as she could see, there was water. It gave the impression she was standing in a shal-low lake, except that a lake had no current. All the debris that floated upon the water was moving slowly in one direction. Con realized she was standing in the river. The light went out, returning Con to the dark. As she tried to wash her back, she thought of Rick. His strong, rough hands would make quick work of the task. She found the idea of him touching her like that pleasantly exciting. Joe would object, she thought. It occurred to her that her own father would object only because Rick was the help. He'd have no qualms about someone like Peter Green doing it. Con shuddered; the mere idea was repulsive.
Con finished washing, entered the dark plane, and dressed. Joe and Rick took their turns getting clean. She thought briefly of shining her flashlight on Rick as-a joke, but when she imagined Joe's reaction, she decided it was a bad idea. After Rick and Joe returned and dressed, Con turned on a flashlight. Everyone's clean faces and bodies marked an encouraging resurgence of civilization. Con's hunger reasserted itself. "We should probably eat that meat before it spoils more," she said.
"I don't think so," said Joe gravely. He went to the rearmost part of the plane and retrieved a flat object wrapped in a fairly clean shirt. "Not on your birthday!"
Joe whisked off the shirt to reveal the half-baked cake, covered with peaches, as he and Rick sang
"Happy Birth-day." Con looked stunned for moment, then hugged both Joe and Rick.
"Rick told me that today's your birthday, assuming it is day." Con didn't know whether she was going to laugh or cry. She felt like doing both. "I... I don't know what to say."
"Say," said Joe, "that it's the happiest day of your life." 25
FOR A BRIEF, SHINING TIME, CON'S WORLD WAS COM-
prised only of love and the sweet taste of peaches. As a chef, Pandit would have been appalled by the ruinous state of his cake. Half-baked and moldy, only the peaches had rescued it. As a man, however, he would have been delighted by its effect. None of his creations ever produced more happiness.
"When we get to our new home," said Con, "we'll grow our own wheat, and I'll learn how to bake." Rick was starting to explain how grass, and therefore grain, had not yet evolved when Joe cut him short with a sharp look. "I'll make you an oven," said Joe. "We'll have cakes sweetened with honey."
"I'll bake you and Rick cakes for every birthday," said Con.
"That's going to be a lot of cakes," replied Joe.
Encouraged by Joe, Con's happy talk of their future home continued. Rick abandoned his scientific objectivity to join in creating this bucolic vision. They would raise birds for their eggs and catch fish in the ocean. There would be fruits and vegetables. The world would be safe, purged of the fear-some dinosaurs, to be inherited by the meek.
Yet while Rick participated in Joe's kindly conspiracy, his thoughts were drawn to the river outside. By the time he and Joe had finished washing, the water level had risen to just below their calves. The current had increased also. Rick sur-reptitiously looked outside and confirmed that the river had continued to rise. Eventually, the sound of water rushing against the plane became something he could no longer pre-tend to ignore.
"We should place all our stuff on the seats in the front part of the plane," said Rick.
"Why?" asked Con.
"I want to look outside, and it might get wet when I open the door." The grim present replaced the idyllic future as they moved their gear and clothes to safety. Rick took a flashlight and stood in front of the door. "Someone better close the door as soon as I'm outside." Con rose and positioned herself next to the door button. Rick hit the button and jumped as soon as the opening ap-peared. Water poured into the gap in the fuselage and Con struck the button immediately after Rick cleared the plane. The wall became whole again, leaving a foot of dark water in the rear of the airplane.
Rick slipped when he landed and fell with a splash. He stood up quickly and signaled that he was okay. The slanted plane resembled a sinking boat, with Joe and Con peering out as its passengers. The dreamy look was gone from Con's face, replaced by concern. So much for cheering her up, thought Rick despondently.
He turned his attention to the most pressing matter at hand—the state of the plane. Ducking beneath the surface of the water, Rick felt for the holes they had dug. They had completely filled in with mud. He experienced the helpless frustration humanity always felt whenever nature destroyed the fruits of toil. Anger and despair seized him, and he had to fight from their grip. / must assess our situation, he told himself. He forced his thoughts into an objectivity that coun-terfeited calmness. Giving a reassuring wave to his audience in the plane, he waded out into the rainy darkness.
The airplane rested on a small rise, and Rick took care to stay on its crest as he headed uphill. Upon the crest, the water reached only to his knees. If he veered either left or right, the water quickly reached his waist Staying on course was not easy. The muddy bottom was slippery, the way was crooked, and the current applied a steady pressure against him. The drowned uphill path was a gradual one, and Rick was forty hard-won yards from the plane before he was free of the river's grasp. He shined his light, trying to gauge the extent to which the formerly sluggish and shallow stream had grown, but the driving rain defeated his efforts. The flash-light's beam petered out without ever revealing an end to the water. It's probably filling the valley, he surmised. Rick tried to remember where they were in relation to the valley. He recalled flying over its broad green expanse. If his recollec-tion was right, the river had grown mighty indeed. With the rain unabating, it would grow mightier still.
There were only two possibilities: They could wade to high ground to sit out the rain or they could attempt to fly free from the river's grip. The latter seemed like a hopeful course. The hard-baked earth had become soft mud. Perhaps the current has even scoured away some of the dirt, thought Rick. We might break free. It would be worth a try.
The prospects of escape filled Rick with anxious excite-ment as he returned to the plane. He hurried back as fast as he could. As he fought against the current, it felt stronger, and the water seemed higher. When he was a few yards from the plane, the opening automatically appeared and Rick cursed as he
saw water pour into the fuselage. He entered the plane as fast as possible and closed the door. Standing ankle deep in water, he peered at Con and Joe perched in the front of the plane. They said no words to him. It was unnecessary—their agitated looks expressed it all.
"Joe," said Rick, "we might be able to fly free from this place."
"I don't see how," said Joe. "We're still buried."
"The river's softened the ground, maybe even washed some of it away. I think we should try to blast loose."
Joe shook his head. "This craft is built for endurance, not power and speed." He looked at the water that submerged the rear part of the cabin. "All that ballast won't help either."
"We've got to try," said Rick urgently. "The river's rising fast. If we can't fly out, we'll have to abandon the plane for high ground."
"Leave the plane?" said Con in dismay.
"Either that or drown," said Rick grimly.
"Okay," said Joe, "I'll give it a shot." He walked to the pilot's seat and dumped the gear upon it on the floor. Some of it slid down into the water. When Con started to fetch it, he said, "Leave it. It won't matter, whatever happens."
Con and Rick stuffed the clothes remaining on the other seats into duffel bags before sitting down. Joe flipped a switch, and the seats grasped their sides and shifted position to compensate for the tilt of the aircraft.
"Here goes nothing," said Joe, as he pushed a button.
The river beneath the wings boiled, and muddy water splashed against the underside of the plane. Rick felt a vi-bration and, for a glorious instant, he thought they were breaking free. The vibration stopped as Joe turned off the engines.
"Can't you try again?" asked Con is a disheartened voice.
"I'm sure I felt something," said Rick.
"What the hell," said Joe in a dead voice. He pushed the button and the river boiled again. He left the engines on until all hope was extinguished. They were stuck.