by Darrel Bird
Part 3
Tessa awoke to look into the cold eyes of the man who had been sitting one seat over from her on the plane. Why was he standing above her? Then it came to her; the plane had crashed, and she was on the ground.
He walked away for what seemed like ages and then returned to where she was sitting. She thought he had a studious look on his face, but she couldn’t tell for sure through his graying beard, but his brown eyes were still cold and calculating as he watched her.
He had said they needed to get down off the mountain and had just begun walking away down the slope.
She didn’t know whether to follow him or not, she was still confused and her head hurt, but there was one thing for sure; she didn’t know anything, and he seemed to know things, so she had followed him.
By the time he spotted the cabin her feet were a lacerated mess, and she was wet from head to toe from falling into the pool.
The night before she had meekly crawled into the bed beside the man; the roomed chilled down quickly as the fire died down, and soon she was shivering uncontrollably as she felt cold she had never felt before.
She snuggled up to the strange man and immediately fell into an exhausted sleep.
In her dreams, she saw her husband vividly; they were riding the Matterhorn at Disney land, and the sun was shining brightly on a cloudless southern California day. She walked toward him as they slid to the bottom, but she couldn’t quite reach him; she reached out her hand for him, but he dematerialized and re- appeared on the submarine ride; he looked out the view window, but he didn’t seem to see her.
She turned to speak to her husband, but he was gone and in his place was another man.
“What do you want?” the man asked.
“I want my husband.”
“You can’t have him; you left, and he’s not yours any more.” Then he too disappeared.
She awoke with a start and then realized she was in a cabin in Alaska.