In the Lone and Level Sands (14 page)

“Yeah. We’ve got a man with both legs
broken.”

“We’re going to set this scrap over the pit
so you guys can walk over the fire. It won’t be easy, especially if
you have to carry someone, so be careful, okay?”

“Got it. Thank you all so much!”

“Hey, we’ve all been through a rough time,”
Layne said.

“You were on the plane?”

“Yeah, we’re from the other half. We have
over a dozen survivors. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t
know if anyone’s coming.”

The woman soaked in the information. “All
right. I’m Katie.”

“Layne. Be careful getting down here!”

Katie turned and headed into the darkness.
When she emerged, she and a young man were carrying a middle-aged
man by the rear, his arms draped over their shoulders. He was
moaning fiercely, a stream of blood ran down his head. One of his
legs was broken internally, the other had a compound fracture.
Blood poured from where the bone was sticking out of his skin.
Layne tried to avoid looking at it.

“Are you going to be able to get him down
here?”

“I think so,” Katie said. “How much weight
can this thing hold?”

“Enough, I hope.” Katie was struggling to
lift the injured man, who was nearly twice her size. “Want me to
come get him from you?”

“Yeah.”

Layne started up the makeshift ramp, and it
tilted slightly from side to side. He met the others halfway up and
took the man from Katie, who headed back up to the plane to remove
some weight from the ramp. Very carefully, they carried the man to
the ground. Dex and one of the other men had already made a
stretcher out of some scrap metal and seatbelts. Layne hadn’t
expected anything but attitude from Dex, so he was impressed. They
very carefully placed the man on the stretcher.

“You’re going to be okay,” Layne told him.
“The worst is over.” The man groaned.

A girl in her late teens made her way down
the ramp. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she stopped on the ramp
to clear them of tears. Layne was nervous, but she made it safely
to the ground. Katie started down next, but there was a loud groan
as the ramp fell from the severed metal of the plane, but caught on
a lower layer. Katie nearly fell.

“Katie, run!” Layne said. Katie started down
the ramp. It shook violently, then fell, and Katie jumped. Layne
caught her and threw them both backward as the ramp landed in a pit
of fire and metal. Katie was looking backward at it, like she
couldn’t believe she’d made it. Then she looked at Layne beneath
her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry.” She got up,
then helped him up.

“Don’t be. I’m glad you made it.” The two
joined the rest of the group.

“Think we can get this ramp back up?” Dex
asked.

“Why the hell would you want to?” Layne
said.

“To get to the cockpit. Maybe find the black
box, play the tape, figure out what went wrong.”

“You think it’s just a regular tape deck in
there?” the young man who had helped carry the injured man
said.

“That’s a job for the authorities,” Layne
said. “Right now, what matters is that we get everyone to
safety.”

“Where to, then?” Katie asked.

“We set up a camp by our section of the
plane. I don’t know about all of you, but I’m tired as hell.”

“Definitely,” the teenaged girl said.

“If we’re lucky, someone will find us during
the night,” Layne said. “If not, we’ll find
them
in the
morning. We just survived a plane crash, so we’re at least lucky
enough for that.”

Layne led the group, with Katie close behind
him. He gathered that she had taken leadership on her end of the
plane, as he had on his, yet she didn’t seem to mind his
suggestions of what to do, and he was glad to have her help. Layne
was surprised how well people could get along under horrific
circumstances. He looked down at Alex’s bracelet, and his eyes
teared up.

“An old friend give you that?” Katie asked.
Layne shook his head.

“A new one.”

The survivors mostly tried to save their
breath as they followed the trail of wreckage, but now and then
someone spoke to distract the others from the bits of plane and
people.

“I’m Dexter,” Dex said as he walked by the
teenaged girl. Layne figured they were maybe three years apart,
age-wise.

“Lacie.”

Layne wondered if Dex could have been any
more obvious about hitting on her, but he also wondered if Lacie
even noticed; she looked like she was a million miles away. It was
like her mind had stayed on the plane, sailing clean, and was now
landing in Seattle and wondering where the hell the rest of her
was.

“Her grandmother died in the crash,” Katie
whispered.

“Poor kid,” Layne said.

The group reached the camp, where the other
survivors were gathered around a fire. Several stood up to see the
group’s return and to greet and help with the new survivors.

“You actually found someone!” Jessi said.
Layne saw Kara wasn’t with her, and looked to find her sleeping on
the emergency slide, near the unconscious woman.

“Yeah, and we had fun getting them out of
there, too.”

“Why’s that woman tied up?” Katie asked.

“We had a bit of an incident after landing,”
someone said. “She freaked out and bit some guy, who ended up dying
because of it. We did that as a precaution.”

People started talking. Layne wanted to tell
them all to relax, that everything would be okay, that the worst
was over and they’d be found soon. Instead, he walked over to a
clear spot a few yards from the campfire, lay down on the grass,
and fell asleep.

****

When Layne woke up the sun was just rising.
He was surprised he didn’t sleep for days. Groaning, he sat up and
looked around. People were sleeping in various positions across the
area, some on luggage or padding, some covered with makeshift
blankets. Dex was sitting, wide awake, near the fire. Layne stood
up, got dizzy and almost fell down, then collected himself and
headed for the campfire. He plunked down next to Dex.

“You look like a billion bucks, babe,” Dex
said.

“That’s funny,” Layne said, “because you
look like shit.”

Dex laughed. “You fell asleep before telling
us what to do last night. We had to figure it out on our own. Isn’t
it strange how as soon as things go to shit, people have to be told
what to do? We’re like a bunch of sheep, man.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like you managed.”

“Yeah. A few of us took shifts keeping an
eye out for rescue. Didn’t see anything all night, not even in the
sky.” Dex threw a branch onto the fire. “We may have to go looking
for them.”

“We can’t all travel, not like this,” Layne
said. He was still tired, and he couldn’t remember what it felt
like to not be sore.

“You wanna know what’s weird?” Dex said.
“What’s really bugging me?”

“What’s that?”

“The news
loves
plane crashes. Their
choppers should be all over this place, but there’s nothing.
Nobody. With today’s technology, I’d think the plane had a GPS, an
emergency signal, something to let people know it went down. Even
if not, wouldn’t Seattle freak out when the plane never showed up?
They should’ve found us hours ago.”

Layne hadn’t thought too much about it. They
were in the middle of nowhere, but they had to be along the West
Coast, probably somewhere in northern California, maybe even
Oregon. People couldn’t have been too far off.

“It gets weirder,” Dex said. “A few of us
have cell phones. They were off for the flight, but we checked a
few times since our wonderful landing. They aren’t working. It’s
like the signals are all shut down.” Layne thought for a while.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation
for it all,” he finally said.

Dex faked a laugh. “Thank you very much,
Agent Scully.”

Layne spent the rest of the morning trying
to decide which way he and his party should head to find some help
as the rest of the survivors woke up one by one.

One of the first to rise was Katie. She
wasted no time approaching Layne, and sat down next to him.

“That guy who broke his legs isn’t doing too
well,” she said. “If we don’t do something soon, he’s not going to
make it.” Layne looked over at the makeshift stretcher. The man had
been made comfortable, and Layne was surprised to see that the
others had even set his legs, but blood had soaked through the
clothing wrapped around his puncture wound.

“I’ll try to set out as early as I can,
then,” Layne said. He had hoped to rest before hiking in search of
rescue, but that was a dream that died quickly.

More survivors woke up, and Layne figured
that waiting for more was just wasting time. He gathered the ones
who were awake into a group.

“I’m going to head out and look for someone.
We have to let them know we went down, and get someone out here to
help us.” As much of a pain in his ass it all was, he was still
thanking God they hadn’t crashed on an island. “Who all wants to
come with—”

A loud scream tore through the air,
disrupted the conversation, and woke everyone who hadn’t already.
All heads turned to the source and saw that the woman who had
freaked out on the plane was awake. She started thrashing about,
trying to pry her hands free from the cord. Jessi quickly took Kara
from the woman’s reach. As she did, the woman noticed her and
lunged, trying to bite at both of them. She instead tripped on the
slide, rolled to the ground, and then sat up and tried to gnaw her
way through the cord on her wrists.

“What the hell is wrong with this lady?” Dex
asked. “She’s completely fucking lost it!”

“I don’t know,” Layne said.

The woman was still trying to gnaw her way
through the cord. Nobody wanted to get close to her. She stopped
chewing and looked at the crowd staring at her. Then, she stood up
and let out another of those screams. She didn’t sound hurt or
angry, but like she couldn’t figure out how her vocal cords worked,
and a scream was all she could shove out of her throat. She
returned to the cord binding her hands. After a few more chews it
snapped, and her hands were free. She immediately hobbled toward
the crowd of people. Two of them dove to get out of her way.

“Layne, look out!” Jessi said. The woman
headed for him, arms outstretched. Layne grabbed her by the
underarms as they fell backward, the woman snapping at him the
whole time. When he landed, Layne rolled his legs upward and kicked
the woman over him. She somersaulted, and then sat up.

As Layne got to his feet, the woman dove,
grabbed one of the survivors, and sank her teeth into his leg. He
screamed and beat his fists against her head. She slowly tore a
chunk of flesh from his leg. Another survivor approached, wielding
a bar to strike her with. The woman turned and lunged, bit his
throat, and started tearing at it. He only gurgled as he fell to
the ground.

“Someone take her out!” Katie said. Layne
ran toward the woman, who was shambling toward another
survivor.

“Hey!” Layne said. The woman turned and saw
him, lost interest in the other man, and started her strange
shamble toward him.

“Layne!” Dex said.

Layne turned to see Dex toss him a metal
bar. Layne caught it and spun, swinging the bar. It struck the
woman in the side of the head just as she was upon him. She was
knocked to the side, where she rolled down a small hill and stopped
moving. Layne was breathing deeply, and he could see blood on the
end of the bar.

“Thanks, Dex—”

There was a loud moan, and Layne saw the man
whose leg had been bitten now hobbling toward him. The man whose
throat was torn was crawling, scraping his way along the ground. He
stopped halfway to Layne, dead from his wound, but the other man
kept his relatively fast-paced stumble.

“I don’t want to have to—” Layne couldn’t
even finish. He swung and gave the man the same fate as the
woman.

Layne looked around, breathing heavily,
adrenaline pumping through his veins. He looked at the bloody bar,
then threw it to the ground in disgust.

“What… Just what the fuck is happening?”

People were staring. Until then, Layne
hadn’t shown any sign of losing it. He realized this, but he
couldn’t seem to hold it together anymore. The stares of the other
survivors weren’t helping.

“I’m a person, too,” he said.

“I forgive you for that,” Dex said. If that
didn’t break the tension, the man with the broken legs crying out
in pain did. All eyes went to him as he started writhing on his
stretcher.

“Someone, please, help me,” he said.

Layne headed over to him. “I’m going to take
a group of people to go find help.”

“We can’t do that,” Katie said. Layne looked
at her. She looked pale.

“Why not?”

“He has an infection. He won’t live that
long.”

The group exchanged glances.

“How do you know?”

“Look at his leg. I’m no doctor, but
anything that looks like
that
can’t be good.” She pointed.
There was swelling around the wound, and red lines were working
their way across his skin.

“You’re right,” Layne said. “We have to take
him with us.”

“Then maybe we should all go,” Jessi said.
“There’s no use in the uninjured ones staying back here. A town
can’t be too far away.”

“All right,” Layne said. “Everyone, pack up.
We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Layne walked over to the group’s pile of
salvaged luggage and looked for anything that might be of use to
them. A few other survivors joined in. They found a few bottles of
water, a flashlight, and some crackers. Dex joined shortly
after.

“You know what I’ve been thinking, man?” he
said.

“What’s that?” Layne said, trying to focus
on his search.

“These people, they start freaking out every
time they get bitten. It’s almost like they’re… I don’t know,
zombies, or something.”