Susanne Novan - Driven

"You need to help me. We have to start CPR but with this broken arm, I can’t do compressions. If you can do them, I’ll work on mouth-to-mouth, okay?"

"What about her?" Dylan asked, pointing to the platinum blonde head that peeked out from beneath the solar blanket as she awkwardly knelt down beside Johnson.

"Dead to the world. C’mon, Dylan, I need your help."

"Alright," Dylan replied shortly, getting into position and placing the heel of her hand on the lower third of his sternum as Norton knelt at his head and tilted his head back, opening his airway. "Ready?"

Nodding, Norton bent her head and delivered two quick breaths. Coming up, she nodded to Dylan, who began compressions, counting each one out in a

slow, liquid rhythm. After two rounds of compressions and rescue breathing, Norton called a halt and felt for a pulse.

There wasn’t one.

"Shit. Ok, start again."

Several more rounds continued in the same vein. With the same result.

They were getting ready to resume when Dylan stiffened and cocked her head, listening.

"What is it?"

"Helicopter."

"You’re kidding, right?"

"No, listen."

As Dylan continued compressions, Norton looked up through the leafy canopy, then grinned when she saw a large searchlight playing back and forth in

slow arcs over the ground. "They found us!"

"Not yet they haven’t."

Taking a deep breath, Dylan briefly rested all of her weight on her injured knee and lashed out behind her with her good leg, impacting the stuporous body of the blond bimbo behind her.

Said bimbo rolled over from the force of the blow, and remained where she lay, completely out for the count.

"You sure she isn’t the one we should be doing this to?" Dylan asked, eyebrow raised as her hands continued to press down on Johnson’s sternum.

"Hey, that was some powerful shit I gave her."

"You sound like a streetcorner drug dealer." Dylan gratefully took a rest as Norton breathed for Johnson. Looking behind her, she noticed Cat’s huddled form near the fire. She looked up, still tracking the circling helicopter. Shit. I don’t wanna do this. She needs her rest. Damn.

"Cat!!"

Hodge fought her way up through layers of fevered images, horrifying and terrifically sharp in their intensity.

"Cat!!"

It was as if she was swimming, and the nebulous voice calling out to her was some bizarre lifeline. She headed toward it as the dizzying dream images

conspired to lay false traps for her consciousness.

"Cat! Wake up!!"

Her eyes snapped open and she quickly, without realizing it, rolled to her feet, balanced on the balls like a fighter ready for attack.

Then the nausea hit, sinking its claws into her belly and twisting.

Dylan was saying something to her—screaming it, really—but she couldn’t understand the words over the sick thumping in her head and the queasy

accompaniment of her guts. To take her mind off of both, she squinted, trying to determine, through a fuzzy and vapor locked mind, exactly why Dylan was

kneeling by Horace Johnson and why she was pressing his chest like that.

The answer hit her like a ton of rubble, and she stagger-stumbled her way over to Dylan’s side, bighting back the urge to collapse into a shivering ball only with the greatest of wills.

"Oh my god! Is he…"

"Never mind that," Dylan bit off, resuming her rhythmic compressions. "There’s a helicopter out there looking for us. Grab the spare flashlight and try to flag them down, okay?"

"Um…yeah. I can do that."

"Still nothing," Norton said, feeling for a pulse as Dylan paused.

"Cat?"

"Yes?"

"Hurry."

The urgency in Dylan’s voice cut through the fever-fog, and Cat jumped to, bending quickly to scoop up the large flashlight and running out into the forest.

When she tipped the light upward, she realized that the canopy above was much too thick to allow the beam to penetrate, so she continued to run forward,

half-remembering another large clearing they’d passed through earlier that night. Or this morning.

Or whenever it was.

Finally, the overhead canopy broke and she strode out into the large, roughly circular clearing, and swung her flashlight upwards in large, beckoning arcs.

"Hey!!" she shouted, knowing they couldn’t hear her, but some part of her needing to try. "Hey! We’re here!! Hey!!!"

The shouting touched off another coughing spell, this one so silent that it doubled her over and almost caused her to lose her grip on the flashlight. As she gasped for breath, she feebly waved the light, praying desperately that they would see her and respond.

A moment later, the helicopter’s huge searchlight blinked on, then off, then on again, and a thin rope lolled out of the open door, followed quickly by a man

clad in an orange jumpsuit who shimmied down the rope and to the ground.

"Oh," Cat gasped, "thank you god. Thank you."

When she was finally able to straighten, she saw the man hit the ground and come running toward her, bulky duffel in his hand. "Miss? Are you alright?"

"Yes…my friends…back there…hurry!"

******

Dylan didn’t bother disguising her sigh of relief as the rescue worker displaced her position at Johnson’s side and pulled out the automatic defibrillator he had in his duffel. Within a matter of a minute, he had the electrodes taped to the man’s still chest. A second later, he read off the rhythm, and a message which didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know already. A soft hum as the machine powered up, and he looked around, making sure no one was touching the

patient.

"Stand clear," ordered the defibrillator in a robotic voice. A second later, Johnson’s body jumped as the electrodes fired.

"Asystole. Check for pulse," the machine then commented, letting them know the first try had failed. "Check for pulse."

"Nothing," the rescue worker replied, confirming the mechanical diagnosis. "Let’s try again."

Another soft hum, another charge, and Johnson’s lifeless body jerked again.

"Houston," the man said softly, "we have liftoff."

The small group, hurting and tired and bedraggled as it was, brightened considerably.

"He’s not out of the woods yet," the rescue worker cautioned, "but…you guys probably just saved his life."

With that, he looked up and around, and his eyes widened, and he jumped to his feet quickly. "Aren’t you…?"

Dylan nodded.

"And you’re…."

Cat nodded, a little surprised that she’d been recognized.

The man’s face split into an enormous grin. "Wow. My wife’s gonna be so jealous when I tell her I met Dylan…." His smile faded as a blush stole up his cheeks and ears. "Oh my god…I met Dylan Lambert!! I can’t believe it!!"

The sound of a throat being softly cleared broke the young man from his haze, and he looked back down at the team physician, who was still crouched at

Johnson’s head.

His response was cut short by the helicopter’s pilot jogging into the clearing, bulging equipment bag slung over one broad shoulder. He nodded at them all, then knelt down by Johnson, assessing the downed man and talking quietly to his partner. Then he stood, looking the group over carefully.

"Ya’ll aren’t dressed for camping. How’d you get all the way up here?"

"Plane crashed," Dylan succinctly stated.

"Isn’t that why you’re here?" Cat asked, puzzled.

The pilot shook his head. "No. We were following the SOS signal. We get ‘em all the time from campers who get lost or stuck up here. Not a friendly place to be, if you get my meaning."

"It’s not as if we had a choice." Norton’s mildly chiding voice filtered up from the ground.

"We didn’t hear of any plane crashes in the vicinity." The pilot was more than a little defensive.