by Marion Myles
Back inside the plane, she retrieved one of the plastic containers from her sleeping area. After measuring out a scoop of the mocha protein powder, she dumped it into the water, snapped on the lid and shook until it was combined.
Taking a sip, she frowned then gave a half shrug. It sure didn’t taste anything like the smoothies she normally made with berries, greens, bananas, and flaxseeds, but she could choke this down…no problem. Her eyes met Liam’s, and he lifted a brow in question.
“We need to start eating,” she announced.
“What is that?”
“It’s a smoothie. Can’t you tell?”
“It looks like water drained from a puddle of mud,” he said.
She lifted it and tipped the container side to side. “This here is twenty grams of protein. I forget how many carbs, and most of our daily requirements of vitamins and minerals.”
“Thanks. but my stomach says no way, Jose. What else you got?”
“We each have thirty-five chocolate bars. and there’s a bag of trail mix to split. You need to start with water first,” she advised. “Try and get at least two cups into you in the next hour.”
She wiggled into her sleeping bag and, nestling some clothes around her chest to give her arm extra support, settled back sipping the smoothie while Liam reluctantly drank some water.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she said. “We should decide on a timeline. At a certain point, if no one comes, we’ll need to walk out of here.”
“Why do you keep saying they won’t come?” he demanded, tossing the empty plastic container aside. “Jack may not like me personally, but I’m kinda a big deal as far as his bank balance is concerned. And Siobhan.” He turned his head and shrugged. “God knows why…but she looks out for me as best she can.”
“Of course she does. You’re her brother.” Rebecca paused. “It’s not that they won’t send out the alarm and rally the troops, but I think, location wise, we’re so far away from where they think we should be that they’ll never find us. Have you actually stood out there and looked around? It’s serious wilderness. We’re the proverbial needle in the haystack.”
“But what about the emergency transmitter thing?”
She sighed. “We don’t even know if it was working properly, let alone where it is now. I don’t think we can put all our hopes on that. Machines fail all the time, even the well-maintained ones. Rory was a nice man, but from the looks of the interior of his plane, I don’t get the feeling he was super conscientious.”
His eyes, blazing with emotion, flicked back to hers. “This is your fault. I was happy to stay in Seattle and wait until the first seaplane company, the one we were booked on, could fly us to the cabin.”
“I know,” she said, mortified when her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to get you away from the city. I was terrified you’d get your hands on narcotics. You barely survived the OD. I couldn’t stand for you to do it again.”
“Don’t cry your crocodile tears,” he snapped. “You were going to leave me. I remember everything that happened, and you couldn’t wait to dump me at the cabin and take off.”
“Only because you clearly don’t want to get better,” she said, dabbing at the tears with her sleeve. “I couldn’t see the point in it. Besides, wouldn’t you rather I leave than hang around for six months just so I could scoop up a million dollars of your money? I was trying to do the right thing.”
He scowled and stared at her through narrowed eyes. “I can stop if I want.”
“Liam, no. You can’t,” she said softly. “It doesn’t mean you’re weak-willed or anything like that. This is a really hard thing to do. People fail all the time. If you truly wanted to quit, it would require all your energy and focus for a long time and even after, you’d have to be forever watchful.”
“Anyway,” he said after several beats of silence. “I vote we don’t leave the plane.”
“Okay. Now that I know we have some food, I’m willing to wait for two more days. Three max. Then we’ve got to try and walk out of here.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall of the plane. “And if I say I’m not leaving?”
“I guess we split out the food and I go alone. Either way, Rory needs to be buried. We can’t just leave him stuck through the front of the plane. It’s not right.”
Liam didn’t say anything.
Rebecca finished her protein drink and once again wished for pain medication. Settling back and making herself as comfortable as possible, she counted her breaths. She envisioned a transparent rippling force field surrounding her body and the pain as stabbing, red-hot knives. Increase shields to full strength, she imagined Captain Picard saying on the bridge of the Enterprise. And in her mind’s eye, she saw the blades of the knives bouncing harmlessly off the shield.
“I’ll bury him in the morning,” Liam said. He grabbed the empty Tupperware and went out through the flaps of the tarp.
* * * * *
It was not easy freeing Rory’s body from the wreckage of the plane. Rebecca did her best to keep the crumpled door open while Liam struggled to pull the pilot out.
“This is the weirdest and creepiest thing I’ve ever done.” Liam panted after pulling the body onto the snow.
“It looks like he might have broken his neck,” Rebecca said. “I hope that’s what happened because he would have suffered very little.”
“Where should we put him?”
Rebecca pointed farther along the ledge to the place where it started to widen. “I think that might be nice. There’s a good view of the valley and that other mountain, and he’d be sheltered too.”
“Okay. I’ll start digging.”
“This is going to sound ghoulish, but he doesn’t need that coat. I’m going to check his pockets in case he has something we can use.”
“You won’t hear an argument from me.” Liam picked up the shovel and made his way through the knee-deep snow.
Kneeling beside Rory’s body, Rebecca unzipped the jacket and pushed her hand into the front pocket of his jeans. They were empty. The jacket, however, had an amazing bounty. The first thing she pulled out was a Swiss Army Knife.
“Holy cow. Look what I found.” She held it up in front of her. “This will be really useful.”
There was also an almost full pack of Juicy Fruit gum, some cough candies and in the hidden inside pocket, a pack of Marlboro Lights and a blue plastic lighter. She immediately flicked her thumb over the wheel and gasped when the tiny flame sprang up.
“Oh my God. Liam. We have fire. Can you believe it?”
He dropped the shovel and pumped his fist in the air. “Yes. This is a good day. Thank you, Rory.”
“I’ve never been so happy about someone’s smoking habit.”
She insisted Liam dig as deep as possible. The top portion of snow was easily moved, but as he went down the layers, it became more and more difficult. He stripped off his jacket, handing it to her before stepping back down into the hole. She gladly hugged it around her, absorbing the residual heat from his body.
“Come on, this has to be good enough,” he said a few minutes later.
“I guess it’s okay. Especially for right now. I mean, it’s not like the snow will melt in the next few weeks.”
“I’m betting there’s snow year-round at this elevation. We’ve gotta be up nine or ten thousand feet.”
They walked back to the plane and Liam laid a small tarp beside the dead pilot. He rolled the body onto the canvas, removing the jacket as he did so and passing it to Rebecca. Then using the tarp as a makeshift toboggan, he pulled Rory along the top of the snow to the grave site.
“Should we say something?” Rebecca asked once Rory lay in the hole.
“Um…sure. You go ahead.”
“Okay. Well. Rory was a nice man. Very friendly. He loved flying and fishing and staying at his cabin. I hope he’s in a good place.”
“Rest in peace,” Liam said, making the sign
of the cross.
Once the grave was properly covered, Liam crawled back into the cockpit and poked around. The only thing he found was the tablet with a smashed casing. When he pressed the power button, it didn’t respond.
He climbed up on the plane and attached the tarp, letting it hang down over the front, in the hopes it would block the cold stream of air flowing in through the broken windshield.
“Wow, it’s pretty dark,” Rebecca said once they were back inside. “Maybe we should uncover one of the windows or something.”
Liam stared at her for several beats then spun on his heel and stomped back outside. Within a minute, the window opposite her was clear of snow and providing plenty of light.
He tapped on the glass and his voice filtered through. “Is that good enough?”
She nodded, then realizing he might not be able to see her, added, “It’s perfect.”
“Don’t ask me to do anything else,” he warned when he returned inside. “My to-do list is officially completed.”
She inspected Rory’s jacket. It was black and puffy and felt like it might be down. She turned to Liam. “Do you want this?”
“I’ve already got a coat, and you don’t so I’d say you get the honors.”
She attempted to slide her good arm through the sleeve, but since she could barely hold it with her other hand, it kept slipping to the ground. When it fell for the third time, Liam growled.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” he snapped.
Snatching the coat from her, he held it open so she could push her left hand through then leaned over and wrapped it around her injured collar bone and zipped her up.
“Thank you,” she said then smiled. “How do I look?”
“Like you’re wearing your daddy’s jacket.” He watched her face go blank. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m tired. Think I’ll lie down for a while.”
“I hear that. I’m beat too. Must be the elevation kicking our butts.”
Hours later, the sun was sinking when Rebecca slipped outside to pee. Fat snowflakes floated down from the sky. Beyond the second mountain, the clouds swirled darkly. Temperatures were definitely dropping and the cold bit across her cheeks and made her eyes water. She didn’t linger, quickly seeing to her business and filling one of the empty containers with snow to bring back inside.
“We’re going to make a fire when it gets dark,” she announced to Liam.
“Oh goody. We can roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories.”
“Have you eaten anything yet?” she asked, ignoring his comment. When he shrugged and rolled over onto his side facing away from her, she hissed out a breath. “Liam. You have to eat. Here. I’ll get the protein powder.”
She managed to carry the bulky container over to him. When he didn’t move, she kicked him lightly with her foot. “Get up and make a smoothie.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, “and you’re going to want to back off because I’m not in the mood to deal with you right now.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
He lurched to his feet, the blankets flipping off him and falling in a messy pile on the ground. His face twisted into an ugly sneer. He hated himself for lashing out at her, but he couldn’t seem to stop. With the booze gone and the anxiety and fear circling like vultures, he wondered if he might be on the edge of a breakdown while she seemed intent on making him feel worse.
“It means you’re a bossy, know-it-all bitch. From now on you take care of yourself, and I’ll worry about me. Oh, wait, that’s right. You need help with practically everything, don’t you? So I guess I’ll take care of you and me. And in case you’ve forgotten, you’re the one who stranded us here in the first place. So stop ordering me to eat or drink or dig a hole or whatever else you’ve got swirling around in that brain of yours.”
Her mouth hung open in shock. He sounded so furious and full of loathing.
“Okay, I won’t—”
He cut her off. “Don’t even talk to me right now. I can’t stand to hear your snotty, superior voice. From now on, you stay on your side of the plane, and I’ll stay on mine.” He pointed to her sleeping bag. “Now get over there and stay put.”
She tossed the protein powder toward the food supplies and carefully lowered herself into the sleeping bag while Liam stood there staring at her and clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he whirled around and disappeared through the flaps of the tarp. She could hear him stomping around outside, the snow crunching with every step.
Suddenly she realized it had been almost forty-eight hours since he’d run out of whiskey. Oh yeah, he must be really hurting by now. It was no wonder he was practically psychotic. She shook her head. It was only going to get worse before it got better.
Rebecca wanted to hate him for saying what he had and more for being an alcoholic in the first place, but all she felt was a deep sympathy and something approaching sorrow. This entire situation was hard enough to deal with let alone while going through detox.
When he finally returned and bedded back down, she held her tongue. They passed through the night without exchanging another word. No one made a fire.
Chapter Nineteen
The next morning was the first time since the accident Rebecca could remember waking without a crashing headache. She carefully probed the lump on her head. It was still tender though much smaller. Her hair was caked with dried blood, and she longed for a shower. And a pair of clean underwear.
Outside, it was still snowing, and it looked like five or six inches had already accumulated on the ground. Clutching her bad arm to her chest, she determinedly trudged beyond the plane, past Rory’s grave, and slowly struggled up the rise.
The ground swept up farther until she found herself in an open section. She stood for a moment trying to choose between down or up before finally deciding the higher she went, the better the vantage point. She kept going, following the slope up and around the mountain. After what seemed like forever…but was probably about fifteen minutes, she found an excellent place to view the surroundings.
Since she’d walked partway around the peak from where the plane had crashed, she now looked out over an entirely different area. Being directionally challenged and with the sun obscured behind the thick cloud cover, she had absolutely no idea which direction she faced.
All she knew was that the second mountain was at her back. Way off in the distance, she could see another smaller mountain. In between here and there, the land was full of hills and flat areas that might possibly be lakes. It was heavily forested. For the life of her, she couldn’t see anything that resembled a building or a road.
How could there be nothing? It didn’t make sense that all this land was literally uninhabited. She knew, for a fact, there were two cabins somewhere out there. Her rental cabin and Rory’s fishing retreat. And if there were two, there had to be others. How the hell was she going to find them?
Rebecca sat for a time, the snow numbing her legs and butt, while her collar bone stabbed knives of pain and the ribs forced her into taking shallow breaths. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so full of fear and despair.
Casting her mind back, it seemed impossible that only two months ago she’d said goodbye to her mother. So much had happened. Most all of it bad. Now there was every possibility she would die out here in this vast wilderness. And her father, damn him all to hell, would outlive them both. Talk about the cruelties of fate.
The return trip seemed to take twice as long, and she was never so glad to see her sleeping bag. Bracing her arm, she closed her eyes and drifted for the next few hours while letting her body recover from the trek. Finally, deciding she should follow her own advice, she forced herself out from the warmth, digging around until she found the container of protein powder.
Since the only thing she’d eaten yesterday had been a smoothie, she also grabbed a box of Smarties. Tonight she’d have another chocolate bar and maybe go a little crazy and throw in some trail
mix. Good times for sure.
Liam started moving. They still hadn’t spoken since the awful exchange of the night before. When he shifted off the covers and crawled to his hands and knees, she looked away. It wasn’t likely he felt much better than yesterday. Worse would be her bet.
This was confirmed when he lurched to his feet and rushed outside. She could hear him retching. It went on for ages and must have been horrible since he had nothing in his stomach. When he came back in and collapsed on his bed in a heap, his face was sheet white and his eyes glassy.
Okay, I’ve got to help him, she thought, and pushing out of the sleeping bag, brought him a container of water.
“Here, sip this slowly. If you keep drinking, some of the symptoms will improve.”
He didn’t say anything. She left the container beside him anyway, and after a while, he followed her advice. She continued bringing him water over the next few hours then—when she judged he might be ready—handed him a box of Smarties. He sucked on them one by one, and gradually some color came back into his cheeks.
“You look better,” she said.
“Still feel like shit.”
“Hang in there. I can only imagine how hard it is.”
His eyes found hers, and she saw the shame. “What, no lecture about addiction?”
“No lecture,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re having a crappy enough time as it is.”
“Good,” he grunted, then lay back and closed his eyes.
He was still shaky the next morning, but the day after that, she could see he was feeling somewhat better and decided it was time to broach the subject that had been occupying her mind night and day.
“Liam, we crashed six days ago. The only planes I’ve seen are commercial airliners flying at thirty thousand feet,” she said. “No one’s coming. We’re going to have to rescue ourselves.”
When he didn’t respond, she sighed and handed him a container of the protein powder and water. He took it and started drinking without complaint.