He reached around her waist, grateful for her small size, and pulled her from her seat. He lifted her over his shoulder into an awkward fireman’s carry and struggled to his feet, hoping he wouldn’t accidentally force her head into the deadly black smoke and kill her while trying to save her. The distance from the seat to the smashed windshield was only a couple of feet, but debris covered the flight deck, which was already tilted at an awkward angle, making solid footing impossible.
Shane stumbled to his knees. The woman’s body slipped off his shoulder and he caught her. He felt weak and disoriented. The heat was intense and relentless, and he shambled forward again. He thrust the woman’s head and upper body out the smashed windshield, her lower body still trapped inside.
Behind Shane, the woman’s cockpit seat burst into flames. He knew the male crewmember’s seat would follow suit any second now, and his clothing would likely ignite next. He pushed against the wreckage with his feet, his legs feeling rubbery and insubstantial. He reached for the window frame and pulled his body through, wheezing and coughing, choking down fresh air, amazed to still be alive.
There wasn’t room to turn his body in the window frame like he had done on the way into the plane; the female victim’s body took up too much room. So Shane wriggled through the opening, dropping head-first out of the plane. He twisted as he fell, trying to drop onto a shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t slice his head open on the wreckage. He landed with a crash that jarred his body but left him uninjured.
The night was crystal-clear, and as he breathed deeply he felt as though his lungs had been scoured with steel wool after sucking in the superheated air of the plane’s interior. Coughing and hacking, he stood and reached back into the doomed aircraft, grabbing the woman by the legs and trying to lift her clear of the window frame. The left leg of her jeans was soaked with blood and he lost his grip.
He wiped his hand, smearing blood onto his clothing, and tried again. This time he grasped the belt loops of her jeans and used them to pull her body upward. He was at an awkward angle, making lifting her difficult. He glanced inside the cabin, shocked at the sight. Flames engulfed the interior, tongues of orange racing toward the unconscious woman’s legs.
He was out of time. Giving up on lifting her clear, Shane locked his arms under her armpits and dragged her body through the opening. He worried her already injured leg would be sliced open further by shards of glass and metal but could not afford to waste any more time.
Her body pulled through inch by inch, the resistance substantial, as if the aircraft was releasing its final victim only with extreme reluctance. Her knees cleared the opening with a ripping sound that Shane could hear clearly even above the roar of the fire.
Then she was free. They tumbled backward, away from the wrecked plane, landing in a heap on the forest floor. Shane rolled the woman’s body gently off his, then crouched next to her and hefted her once more onto his shoulder. He struggled to his feet and began moving as quickly as possible away from the aircraft toward the road.
He had lost his flashlight in the confusion and pictured himself stumbling around blindly, lost in the near-complete darkness, the woman dying because he might be within ten feet of his car and never know it. At the edge of the clearing, Shane stopped and took one last look at the devastation of the crash scene. It was a sight he knew he would never forget.
Then he turned and plunged into the darkness.
18
Shane was panting like a dog when he finally reached the road. His legs burned and his back throbbed and the dead weight of the unconscious woman slung over his shoulder felt like a thousand pounds, rather than the one hundred or so she probably weighed.
He stumbled out of the thick brush, grateful to have found his way out of the wilderness. The road was brightly lit by the full moon, in stark contrast to the impenetrable blackness under the canopy of trees. Shane peered in both directions, looking for his car. There were still no rescue vehicles in sight, although he could hear sirens off in the distance. Whether they were heading in this direction, he couldn’t tell.
Far to the north, Shane spotted an indistinct lump at the side of the road and decided it was probably his car. He had taken great pains to walk as straight a path as possible on the way back to the road and had still missed the Bug by at least an eighth of a mile. He sank to one knee, gulping fresh air, trying to catch his breath while still holding the crash victim.
He wondered how much damage he was doing to the young woman by carrying her. Moving her at all was a calculated risk — if she had suffered a broken neck or back, he could be causing irreparable damage — but leaving her at the scene of the crash and waiting for rescue vehicles that might arrive too late had been out of the question. If her injuries didn’t kill her, the northern Maine chill might. Even this close to June, on a clear night like tonight the temperature could easily dip below freezing.
Shane staggered to his feet. He half-walked, half-trotted to his car, reaching it after what felt like half an hour but was probably no more than five minutes. He yanked the passenger door open and lowered the young woman onto the seat as gently as he could. Blood dribbled out of the gash in her leg, but the flow seemed to have slowed. He lowered the seat back as far as it would go and reached into the rear of the vehicle, feeling around until he found the heavy winter coat he kept for emergencies. He secured the still-unconscious woman with the safety belt, and then propped her injured leg on the coat. He slammed the door closed and sprinted around the front of the car, dropped into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.
He wheeled onto the empty road, then glanced at his injured passenger and blinked in surprise. She had awakened and was staring at him. Her eyes were open and she watched him intently, but she had not moved.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, not wanting to frighten her. “You were in a plane crash and I’m taking you to the hospital.” He cranked the temperature knob to the right, knowing the resulting rush of air would barely qualify as lukewarm.
Her eyes fluttered and Shane thought she was about to lose consciousness again but she didn’t. “Major Wilczynski,” she said weakly.
Shane shook his head. “You were the only survivor. Everyone else in the cockpit was dead. I’m sorry.”
She lay back on the seat, eyes closed, then bolted upright in a panic, groaning and holding her head the moment she did. She steadied herself and reached into the back pocket of her bloody jeans and withdrew a tattered envelope. “Thank God,” she muttered, collapsing back onto the seat.
In the distance Shane could hear the scream of sirens growing steadily louder. The rescue vehicles were beginning to home in on the crash site. Shane wondered whether he should turn around and wait for them. Maybe handing this woman off to an ambulance crew would be wiser than driving her to the hospital himself.
But they were less than five minutes away from Bangor proper, less than ten minutes from the hospital, and as someone who had grown up in this remote area, Shane knew how vast the wilderness really was. The rescue crews could be well within earshot and still not find the site for twenty or thirty minutes. Or more.
He flipped on the Bug’s dome light and glanced repeatedly at the injured woman as he drove. Blood continued to leak from her thigh. Her jeans were covered in it, some half-dried and crusted, the rest glistening wetly in the dim light. Her skin color was a shocking white, not surprising considering her blood loss. He decided he was doing the right thing.