They hit with a force so hard that all the air in her lungs rushed out. She flew forward, the seat belt biting into her flesh, her teeth clacking together. Her eyes closed against their will. A rain of glass shattered in on them as something huge splintered through the windshield. It sliced through the side of her face, and after she reached the full restraint of her belt she slammed back violently into the seat. Every bone jarred, every muscle strained.
Sudden silence took over her world. She tasted blood. She sucked in a deep breath, and a sharp pain wracked her chest. The world felt calm, unreal. She opened her eyes, looking around, not comprehending. Where was she? The plane. The storm spiraling them out of control . . .
She snapped her head toward Gordon but couldn’t see him. The splintered trunk of a dead tree lay between them. It had speared the windshield and now took up most of the center aisle.
She reached down with trembling hands and unbuckled her belt. “Gordon?” she whispered. She rose up from her seat, trying to see over the trunk. Gordon lay back in his seat, mouth open, blood streaming from his nose, eyes closed. His side of the plane had crumpled inward, smashing his left leg against the twisted metal. His breathing was shallow and rapid.
“Gordon?” she breathed again. He didn’t stir. Her face stung, and as she reached up to her cheek, her hand came away red and sticky. Hands trembling, she reached for her door handle and managed to get it open. Her head spun. Her door was undamaged, so she climbed out with relative ease. At once she sank up to her thighs in something cold and white. From the survival manual she’d been reading, she recognized it as snow. She’d never seen it before, and the cold wetness of it instantly sucked the warmth from her body. She shivered as she stepped around the back of the plane, trying to reach Gordon’s door. Sinking deeply with each step, she tried to steady herself. Each breath brought a renewed agony to her chest. The cold air stung her face and lungs. Around her hung dense clouds, so thick she could barely make out the area around the crash site. Beyond ten feet, the swirling mists hid everything. It looked like they’d crashed on some kind of rock ledge, with the plane’s nose tilted upward. It had slid to a stop beneath a slight overhang of stone, and a dead tree in front of the ledge had gone right through the cockpit.
Teeth chattering, she reached Gordon’s door. It had torn off in the crash and lay nearby, dented and twisted. She reached him, already feeling the cold and wet seeping in through her boots.
“Gordon?” she said quietly. Tentatively, she reached a shaking hand through the open door and touched his shoulder. He didn’t stir. Blood seeped from his left leg, soaking his jeans. The tree had struck him in the head and sliced up his right shoulder, smearing the ancient dead wood with red.
She could smell methane seeping into the air, and it made her gag. She moved from one foot to the other, rubbing her arms. Her breath frosted in the air, and her nose had gone numb. Gordon wasn’t waking up. The sun would soon set, and temperatures would dip well below freezing. If she didn’t do something, they’d die of hypothermia. She had to make a shelter, build a fire. But she couldn’t risk an open flame here with the methane hissing out. She had to move him.
Staring down at his leg, she saw that it was pinned between the seat and the crumpled cone of the plane. She reached down, finding the lever that controlled how far forward the seat rested. Pulling it, she slid the seat back, gaining enough room for his leg to ease out.
Now she could see more of his wound. Something white and red glistened through a slice in his jeans. She leaned closer, seeing that it was his leg bone, splintered and exposed. Maybe it was good that he was unconscious right now. Dragging him out of the plane was going to be painful.
She felt him over for other injuries, but didn’t find any. Hooking her hands under his arms, she carefully slid him toward the door. Then she lifted his injured leg and placed his left foot delicately in the snow, followed by his right one. When he was halfway out of the plane, his head slumped, but he still didn’t wake. She grabbed him under the arms again and dragged him out of the plane, looking for a snow-free place to set him down. To the left of the crash site, the overhang continued for about fifty feet. Directly underneath, the rock was void of snow, so she pulled him toward it. The outcrop would protect them from some of the wind, and she could build a fire there.
Gordon wasn’t very heavy, but lugging him that far made every breath pure agony. She’d definitely cracked at least one of her ribs, she thought. The blood on her face had started to freeze, crusting over her cheek and ear.
As she dragged him along, she thought of all the corpses she’d moved over the years. Now she hauled someone living, someone she was trying to save instead of incinerate. She
