“Saved! Oh thank God! If I stay in here, I’ll be all right. Just stay put.”
Sounds good to me, champ.
As he took a moment to calm himself and catch his breath in the safety of the cabin, Jesse couldn’t believe what had happened. He was in a forest so remote, so expansive, that even a downed airplane couldn’t be found. And yet, he had somehow come across it. His heart sank as he realized it meant he was lost in a place that even searchers couldn’t find when they were trying to.
“Maybe there’s a flashlight or something in here! Maybe even a gun!” Jesse moved his hand on the seat cushion, finding nothing since the plane had nosedived at such an angle. He felt along the floorboard and found nothing of substance, only some papers. He slid between the two front seats, his hand finding the throttle for balance. Jesse pulled his legs through and planted his left foot on the instrument panel just above the left yoke. Now completely in the front of the cabin, he felt along the floor. In the black chill of night he concentrated on what his finger tips were telling him. He traced smooth, knobby limbs that must have—
He paused and slowly moved his fingers along the surface of the limb he held until he came to the end and felt four long, cold, jointed extremities.
“SHIT!”
Jesse jerked back, trying to compose himself, realizing that whoever had flown this plane head first into the ground was still here with him, or at least his remains were. His heart felt as if it would beat completely out of his chest. He was sure that any creature around would be able to hear it.
Something did.
The most bone-chilling scream imaginable rose from just beneath him. The sound of claws scraping against metal raked slowly across the underside of the fuselage. Jesse groped, feeling for something, for anything. He felt along the floor on the passenger side and found something hard...headphones, he thought, as he tossed them aside. He continued rummaging in a panic and grabbed something oblong, somewhat round. He placed his fingers in three openings positioned like eyes on a bowling ball, only––.
“A fucking skull! Shit!” Jesse shrieked as he dropped the skull and shut his eyes, fighting through his terror. He continued to feel around for something useful, but found nothing but bones. He felt along the dashboard and raised his hands to the windshield, which was still largely intact. There he found fabric, a bag of some sort. He detected pockets along its side and a zipper on top. The pockets had papers...maps he assumed. A flight bag! Jesse tore open the zipper and fumbled inside feeling for anything hard. A gun, a flashlight. Anything. His fingers went to the bottom of the bag and felt something very cold and very hard. About six inches long, tubular. A fingertip felt for a switch, finding it. “A flashlight!” he said. He pulled it out and pushed the switch, but the light didn’t respond.
“Damn it...c’mon!”
He smacked the light against his hand as he always did when trying to coax more life out of a dying remote control. He switched it on and a light flickered forth. His hands quaked violently as he steered the flashlight to his left. In the utter darkness, the light reflected brightly off the glass and plunged him into momentary blindness, but not before an image of what was reflected in the glass burned into his mind’s eye. Two glowing orbs. Only, he hadn’t seen them through the glass. No. They were reflected by the glass. Behind him!
As his vision returned he swung the flashlight around to the passenger door and reached for the handle, remembering only now that it still hung open. There, glowing in the blackness were two slits, yellow eyes, each the size of a silver dollar, perched on the branch at the door’s entrance.
The night yielded one final blood-curdling scream, and it came from Jesse.
Chapter 10
Blake walked through the front door of his A-frame home just as Angelica hung up the kitchen phone. He breathed in the nostalgic smell of southern cornbread and smiled. Angelica’s eyes dropped, her lips not returning his smile as she said simply, “Hi,” with no discernible inflection.
Hmm, gonna be one of those nights, Blake thought to himself as he strolled through the kitchen. The kitchen opened into an extended family room with a stone-walled fireplace on the far end. The dark, hardwood floor throughout gave the kitchen and family room the shape and appearance of a long and narrow alleyway. Blake plopped on the sofa and grabbed the remote. “Who was that on the phone?” he called to the kitchen, hoping for an innocuous way to break the ice.
“Rose.”
Blake didn’t want any drama, any stress. Couldn’t handle any more stress. In that moment he realized that he just wanted a sanctuary with Angelica. Just the two of them, the way it had been when they first got married. The way she said she wanted it to be and the way he—yes, he too now wanted. “Hey, you wanna watch a movie tonight?” Blake managed a smile with the question that Angelica couldn’t see, but she picked up on the tone. She turned her head from the stove back to Blake.
“Sure!”
Blake admired Angelica’s ability to forgive and forget as much as he was jealous of it. He hadn’t found a way to do that in life no matter how hard he tried, but Angelica didn’t even have to try. It took no effort and seemed unfair to him. “You can pick it out,” Blake said partly to be generous, but mainly because he just didn’t care.
Angelica drained potatoes in a colander over the sink. The evening was starting to get better and she thought of asking Blake if he wanted to help with dinner but quickly thought better of it. She put the potatoes back in the pot and cut off some home-churned butter, adding it to the pot with one hand as she grabbed the hand mixer with the other. On numerous occasions, she had thought of getting an electric hand mixer, but could never bring herself to do it. She just cranked her grandmother’s hand mixer and slowly drizzled warm cream into the potatoes.
The phone rang. Angelica put the mixer down and answered since it was next to her.
“Blake, it’s for you.”
The stress boiled in Blake’s gut and billowed to his chest almost instantly. He had no idea why he got upset so quickly, but tried to calm himself by taking a deep breath. He rarely got a phone call at home and sure as hell didn’t want one now when he had mentally checked out for the day. If it was a telemarketer, Blake swore to God that he’d let him or her have it.
Blake walked to the phone, footfalls heavy on the hardwood floor.
“Yep,” Blake answered. There was nothing on the other end of the line, only a faint scratching sound. “Hello,” Blake said.
“Blake,” the voice on the other end was out of breath and difficult to understand. “You got--a g-- -p h-re!”
“What? Who the hell is this? You’re breaking up,” Blake said.
“You gotta get – here!”
“Who is this? Jesse?” Blake tried lowering his voice, but there was no place to hide.
“No -t’s Terry. I on-y got one b-r on my ph-ne. Y-u gotta get up --re now,” he said gasping for breath.
“Damn it,” Blake began, then tried to compose himself in front of Angelica. “What is it that can’t wait til tomorrow?”