D. Thomas - Backlash

The river made a slow left hand turn followed by a short straight section. Lewis prepared for the gentle right hand turn that followed. At nearly the last second, he realized the right turn went nowhere. The river actually made a nearly 90 degree turn to the left, leaving the helicopter rocketing towards a sheer wall. Samantha let out a loud scream as they hurled towards impending doom.

“Watch out!” Gonzalez shouted, involuntarily leaning to the left as if she could help steer the helicopter away from the approaching wall.

Lewis nearly threw the helicopter completely on its side as he banked, hoping to somehow make the turn. An alarm began to sound as they narrowly missed the wall. Multiple alarms actually, and the instrument panel lit up with little red lights. Lewis had managed to set off every warning system the chopper had. There was one particular gauge that caught his eye: fuel. “We’re out of gas!” Lewis yelled to the back. “Unbuckle and get ready to jump!”

Gonzalez and Samantha were both clearly terrified but quickly unbuckled and crawled to the door, trying to steady themselves as Lewis continued his bumper car approach to flying. “Jump!” Lewis yelled from the front as they entered another short straight stretch of the river. All the girls really did was let go, allowing Lewis’s driving to fling them out the door into the river below.

Lewis had unbuckled as well and was preparing to jump. He turned to the dead pilot and said, “She’s all yours,” before pushing him forward, using the deceased man’s body to pin the cyclic in position to keep the doomed chopper moving down the river. Lewis also pulled the collective all the way up as he leapt out the door, hoping that maybe he had given the helicopter enough lift to act as a decoy for a while.

Lewis bicycled his legs for the entire 50-foot fall, fighting to maintain his upright position. He was thankful for the forward momentum from the flight, as it carried him past a section of jagged rocks, allowing him to splash down in the center of a large pool. He pushed off the bottom, resurfacing in time to see his abandoned helicopter as it nearly cleared the canyon wall.

It was an impressive show really. The pilotless aircraft was climbing upward at a reasonable rate, flying much smoother than when Lewis was at the controls, slowly turning to the left. Had the turn been to the right, the chopper would have made it. Instead, the bent left skid caught on the rock wall, sending the helicopter cart wheeling onto the small plateau above as the rotor blades shattered, sending fragments flying in all directions. A loud explosion followed by a rising plume of black smoke confirmed the final demise of the Bell 206.

The helicopter carrying Pierre’s men had pulled up before entering the extremely narrow part of the canyon, and was slowly circling the wreckage above as Lewis back paddled in the current, waiting for the girls to catch up. The gunmen were on their fourth circle when Lewis spotted one of the men hanging from the doorway, pointing frantically as Samantha and Gonzalez swam across the far side of the pool. The two other gunmen who shared the doorway raised their rifles, but were unable to fire as the helicopter’s continued circle took them back out of view for a moment.

“Other side!” Lewis shouted, waving his friends towards a grassy bench ahead, bordering the river where the narrow gorge widened out into the more typical canyon topography. They would be sitting ducks in the river. While the bench itself wouldn’t provide much protection, there was a small log cabin not far from the bank. The thick grayed walls of the dilapidated cabin were far from ideal, but they represented the only available shelter in the area. “Get to the cabin!” Lewis added as he put his face in the water and began powering across the growing current.

Samantha and Gonzalez had also spotted the gunmen and neither needed any further encouragement to seek shelter. The helicopter had reappeared over the rim of the canyon as the girls reversed course and swam away from Lewis towards shore.

Bullets splashed all around the final three members of Stonewood’s original team as they neared the gravel bank of the river. Lewis caught the others, allowing all three to exit the water together, ducking and sprinting to the abandoned homestead they hoped housed some sort of miracle. Otherwise, it would become their crypt.

A bullet grazed Lewis’s left shoulder as he dove for the open doorway to the log cabin, shoving Gonzalez and Samantha through ahead of him. Additional bullets tore into the old logs around the doorway, but none were able to penetrate the hand-cut behemoths that must have been floated down the river to build the cabin over a hundred years ago. The roof too, though partially collapsed, was made of the same giant logs, providing temporary protection from the gunmen.

“Is everyone okay?” Lewis asked as he rolled off Samantha’s legs and stood up to look for something to block the open doorway.

“I was fine until someone tackled me,” Gonzalez began before noticing the wound on Lewis’s shoulder. “My God, you’ve been shot!” she exclaimed, getting up and moving towards Lewis.

Lewis glanced at the blood on his shirt sleeve then quickly probed the injury. “It’s actually just a scratch,” he said. “I have never been a big fan of being shot, but I guess that’s what I get for not properly carrying you across the threshold,” he added with a wink. Gonzalez could only roll her eyes and shake her head.

Samantha groaned as she got to her knees, rubbing her forehead. “I hit my head on the corner of this stupid board,” she said with disgust, kicking at the sharp edge of a partially buried piece of wood. A hollow echo sounded when she stomped her heel down on it.

Lewis glanced back in the direction of the hollow sound before returning his attention to a pile of logs that must have once been a large table. “Let’s get these up against the doorway,” he said to the others. “They should buy us some time to figure out some kind of plan.” He still had Pierre’s revolver tucked into his waistband but with only two bullets, it didn’t seem like it was going to be much help. He needed to think of something fast.

The three worked quickly, stacking the logs across the opening where the cabin’s door once stood. Bullets continued to pepper the walls and roof of the old structure but none made it through. Lewis began to wonder if their attackers might simply run out of bullets and go home. As the last bits of the broken table were placed in front of the door, Lewis could hear the helicopter land in the meadow outside. Seven armed men were about to swarm the cabin.

With their stronghold secure for the moment, Lewis surveyed the rest of the small cabin for anything they could use as a weapon. The only items he found were a couple of rusted cans of soup and a short metal pipe — not exactly an arsenal.

Lewis turned his focus to the hollow-sounding board Samantha had discovered in the corner. Perhaps it was a buried box of assault rifles. Some quick digging with the pipe revealed the board Samantha hit was actually just one of three boards making up some sort of wooden lid. Lewis pried at the lid with the pipe. At first it wouldn’t budge but after a few frantic tries, the lid creaked upwards a couple inches, which was enough for Lewis to slide the pipe in, allowing him to use a lot more leverage.

“They’re coming!” Samantha whispered nervously. Lewis too could hear the approaching footfalls outside the cabin. It wouldn’t be long before the gunmen simply toppled the barricade and came in shooting.

“Jennifer, take this and buy us some time,” Lewis said to Gonzalez as he handed her the nearly empty revolver.