Sharon Sala - Going Gone

Cameron Winger was on his way out of the Federal Building, buttoning up his coat as he went. He ducked his head against the blast of winter wind as the door swung shut behind him. Tiny flakes of snow lit on his hair like bits of white lace on black satin. He was a tall man with features more refined than his attitude. He didn’t like the word no and had no tolerance for ineptitude. He squinted when he was deliberating a decision until his green eyes were barely visible, and there was just the tiniest hint of a dimple in his right cheek. He’d been with the FBI since college and never once regretted the decision.

He was on his way to his car when his cell phone rang. He glanced at caller ID and frowned. Why was Laura’s sister, Sarah, calling him?

“Hello?”

“Cameron! Thank God you answered!”

His gut knotted when he heard the panic in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“Laura’s plane never landed. It went off radar late yesterday evening.”

The world stopped. Cameron felt the bitter bite of winter on his face as he turned away and closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Laura was everything to him. Then he took a deep breath and made himself focus.

“She was coming back from that convention in L.A., right?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know where it went down?”

“All I know is they’re setting up search and rescue somewhere around Denver. Can you go? I’m in Canada. Someone needs to be there for her, and I can’t get there fast enough to do any good.”

“Absolutely.”

“Keep me informed?” she begged.

“Of course,” he said, and made a U-turn on the sidewalk, resisting the urge to run as he headed back into the Federal Building.

* * *

It took over an hour, but Laura finally found all four cell phones, then, one by one, her hopes were dashed as she failed to get a signal.

“Can you believe it?” she muttered, talking to Marcy as if she could still hear. “Four phones and not a single signal from any of them.”

Marcy had nothing to say.

At least during the search for the phones she’d found a first-aid kit, some snacks and two bottles of water. She put the food and water in the farthest corner of the plane, away from the bodies, then made her way to the tiny bathroom. There was no getting around bodily functions, but she had to leave the door open for light so she could see.

When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she stifled a horrified gasp. When she sat down on the commode, she groaned from the pain, and when she got up, she groaned again.

The cut in her hairline had bled into her scalp while she was passed out, leaving her white-blond hair with garish streaks of red. Now it was freeze-dried to her skin and nothing short of multiple scrubbings was going to take it out.

Her face was normally heart-shaped but was swollen on one side more than the other, and her lower lip was puffy and bruised. Her eyes, normally blue, reflected the pain she was suffering to the point that they were almost gray. She was dressed like a scarecrow with all the layers of clothing, but considering the danger of her circumstances, her appearance wasn’t worth further consideration.

She stumbled as she came out of the bathroom, grabbed at a seat to keep from falling and then winced from the pain of the added jolt. After a thorough search through the first-aid kit, she found a few butterfly bandages and used them on the cut in her scalp. She chewed and swallowed three extremely bitter aspirin, hoping they were enough to offset the steady throb between her eyes. Used one wet wipe to clean some of the blood from her face and hands, then managed to open one of the bottles of water and took a drink.

It hurt terribly to inhale, and she was guessing her ribs were either broken or severely bruised. She dug farther into the kit and found a couple of ACE bandages. Reluctantly, she removed enough clothing to wrap up her rib cage. It hurt like hell in the process and as soon as she was done, she dressed hastily, shivering from the encroaching cold.

Her next problem was finding a way to get warm. There were three other suitcases that had been tossed about the cabin, and she went through them one by one, digging out the contents and tossing anything usable toward the tail section. Once the suitcases were empty, she began arranging the clothing until she had made a nest for herself within the pile.

Exhausted and reeling from so many aches she could hardly breathe, she crawled into the middle of all that fabric, then pulled the coats and the blankets she’d found around her. Secure within her makeshift bed, she tried the phones again, praying to get a signal. Tears welled as she finally accepted it was a lost cause.

It was quiet outside now, and she thought about the animals, hoping they were gone. The wind rose in an eerie wail that mirrored her despair. She was staring at one of the tiny windows, telling herself that any moment the face of a rescuer would appear and look inside, and she would be saved.

When it began to snow, it added another dimension to the danger she was in. This would slow down search planes, and if the snow was too heavy, the planes would never be able to find the wreckage of a white, snow-covered plane from the air.

Sometime later the animals came back, once again scratching at the outside of the fuselage. Listening to them snarling and yipping as they tried to dig their way inside, she guessed they were wolves. Despite the fact that the extreme cold had all but stopped decomposition of the bodies, she was sure the pack could smell them.

Wanting to see what she was facing, she got up, moving quietly through the cabin toward the cockpit to look out. Just as she reached the doorway, two huge wolves suddenly leaped up onto the nose of the plane and begin digging at the cracked windshield, trying to get to the pilot’s body. The sight was so startling that she screamed.

The unexpected sound took the wolves by surprise, and they spun about and leaped out of sight. Though she knew they would be back, it was the first visual she had of how truly trapped she was. Even if she wanted to try to walk out, she would never be able to outrun them.

In a panic, she slammed the cockpit door shut. She couldn’t make the wolves go away, but she didn’t have to see them again. As she turned to walk away, she heard a click and turned around just as the door swung open on its own. Once again she was faced with a new fear.

Logically, she didn’t think they could break through the windshield, but just in case, she needed to know there was a boundary between them and her that they couldn’t breach. She tried to push some of the loose debris in front of the door to hold it shut, but it wasn’t substantial enough, and the seats, which were heavy enough, were bolted to the floor.

When the two wolves jumped back up on the nose of the plane and began digging at the windshield again, she screamed and slammed the door, then used her body weight to keep it closed.

“Oh, God, oh, God, please! Don’t let this be the way I die,” she cried, sobbing hysterically.

Her fingers were so cold she could barely feel them as she buried her face in her hands. Her sister slid through her mind as she choked on a sob. What if she never saw Sarah again?

And Cameron—there was no way she could describe what he meant to her. She’d been enchanted with him almost from their first meeting, and as the months went by, she’d begun dreaming of a happily ever after with him. Now she didn’t know if she would see tomorrow.

She could hear the wolves still outside the cockpit and more that were surrounding the plane, digging and yipping and whining. She grabbed a piece of metal and began beating it against the inside wall.

“Stop! Get away! Get lost! Leave me alone!” she screamed.