Then, suddenly she felt the entire vehicle flip up and over, and Poppy closed her eyes as cupboards flew open and dishes and glassware came flying out. She held on to the table leg for dear life as the upended trailer finally skidded to a stop.
There was utter silence for about a minute as Poppy slowly opened her eyes to survey the damage. The whole trailer was on its side. She heard Matt groaning but could not immediately see him.
“Matt! Matt!” Poppy cried. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’ll live,” he moaned. “I think.”
Poppy clambered to her hands and knees and made her way up to find Matt attending to Timothy, who was sprawled out across the front seats, unconscious, a deep gash in his forehead.
“He cracked his head against the windshield when we flipped over. He’s out cold,” Matt said.
“This is the third vehicle in a week you’ve destroyed,” Poppy playfully admonished. “But thank God, this time it was to save our lives.”
Matt grinned, then climbed over Timothy’s body and kicked open the passenger’s-side door, which was facing up, allowing Poppy to crawl out. Matt followed behind her, and once they were outside the air-conditioned mobile home, it quickly became apparent they were in the middle of nowhere, a blinding, unrelenting sun beating down on them with stifling temperatures well above a hundred degrees and still rising.
“My bag is in the trailer with my phone,” Poppy said.
Matt pulled his own phone out of his pocket. The screen was smashed but it appeared to still be working. He held the phone up in the air. “Nope. No service.”
“Then we’re stuck here,” Poppy said, suddenly worried. “With no one around for miles.”
Matt turned around and climbed back inside the trailer. Poppy could hear him rummaging around.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer at first, but emerged a few seconds later. “I was hoping to find some bottled water in the minifridge, but no such luck.”
“They probably didn’t bother restocking since we wrapped shooting in the desert and were doing a company move back to the resort,” Poppy sighed.
“What do we do now?” Matt asked, blocking out the sun with his hand as he scanned the vast, endless desert.
Poppy walked around to the back of the trailer. “We can follow the tire tracks back to the main road.”
“That has to be at least a ten-mile walk. In this heat, with no water, we’ll never make it,” Matt said solemnly.
Poppy didn’t respond.
She knew they had no other choice.
When the same thought finally hit Matt, they grabbed each other’s hands and began the long, brutal trek back to where they had come from under the scorching sun and nothing around for miles.
Chapter 51
Poppy followed behind Matt as they staggered through the endless sand past rock formations and cacti, the wind, which had started to pick up, whistling and gusting. Poppy had brought along a neck scarf which she used to mask her face from the grit and dust. Her mouth was dry, she felt light-headed, no doubt from dehydration, and as far as the eye could see, there was nothing ahead of them but cracked land, crumbling rock, and mountains in the far distance that never seemed to get any closer. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on, and began contemplating a scenario where she would find some cover behind a rock where she could find respite from the harsh sunlight and rest awhile, allowing Matt to continue on ahead to seek help unencumbered by her. She had not reached that desperate point yet, but she was getting awfully close.
Her impractical shoes were not designed for desert trekking and her ankles throbbed with pain, but taking them off and walking barefoot was not an option because the dry baked earth would sear the soles of her feet.
The cutting wind suddenly picked up speed, battering them relentlessly. Poppy stumbled and fell to the ground, covered in dust, and licked her cracked lips to try to moisten them, even a little bit. Through the blinding sandstorm, she could see Matt running back to get her, grabbing her hand, hauling her to her feet, then leading her forward until they reached a large rock near what looked like a dry creek, circling around it and ducking down together.
Matt huddled with Poppy, grabbing ahold of her scarf, which looked like it might loosen and fly away from her face, holding it in place to protect her. They crouched next to each other, clinging to each other for what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes until the sandstorm subsided and there was a heavy silence.
“Sit tight, I’ll be right back,” Matt said, standing up and circling back around the rock.
Poppy closed her eyes and her head drooped forward. She pretended she was back in her brand-new house cooking Sam dinner. She was grateful that the shadow of the rock was at least offering some shelter from the unrelenting rays of the sun. She was sitting quietly, meditating, trying hard to focus on the task at hand, surviving this journey, when she heard a strange sound.
A rattling.
Poppy froze, holding her breath.
She opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with a long, thick rattlesnake, only inches from her feet. Its triangular head raised, its catlike pupils locked on Poppy, the brown-, gray-, and rust-colored scales curled up, the end of the tail vibrating with a stark warning. Poppy stifled a scream, trying not to move a muscle, hoping the snake might just slither around her and go on its merry way. But the rattler had already identified Poppy as a threat and was rearing back to strike. She knew if the snake bit her with its poisonous
