Traumatized after witnessing the sudden death of his loving wife, emergency responder Travis Pates watches his life take a downward turn when he is suspended for drinking on the job. With no family, no job, and unable to sleep due to vivid and terri...
He felt the soreness in his body before his eyes opened. His vision dark and blurred and he feared he had been partially blinded until he saw the sun had set and the late afternoon had taken to night. His head throbbed but no worse than some hangovers he'd had, and when he moved his shoulder he found it tender, but unbroken. His ears rang with the wail of the engine, the silence of the forest deafening.
The helicopter rested on its side, wedged in a copse of sturdy pines twenty yards from him. He had been ejected and gave credit to the ferns beneath his body for his survival. Should he have landed on the rocky shore or out to sea he would've been killed.
Travis eased himself to a sitting position and saw Jonah four yards away doing the same. "Are you alright? Can you move?"
"I think so," Jonah replied, dazed. He groaned and with caution stood braced against Travis until he steadied.
A mousy squeak emitted from the helicopter and together they found Zahra still strapped against the seat. The sight of her covered in blood and chunks of dark gore made them fear for her and she insisted the blood was not her own.
"Get me out of here, I can't get these things off!"
Hearing the panic in her voice snapped them into action and they quickly worked to free her. The buckle was jammed and Travis used the survival knife in his boot to slice through the material. Due to the slant of the helicopter, Zahra tumbled into him and with Jonah's assistance, they lowered her to the peaty earth beneath the rain that washed the blood from her face.
Santiago was in the seat across from her. Travis wouldn't have noticed him, buried beneath the bundles of cords and belts that had become unfastened during the crash, except that Santiago had stirred causing the objects to shift and clatter. He had been unconscious and was now coming to, muttering words in his native language.
The weight of their movement caused the helicopter to adjust against the tree, dropping another six inches and stopping a foot above the ground.
Ren and Ox jostled awake and in the co-pilot's seat, Captain Danko called back to them.
"Is everyone okay?"
The answer came in a chorus of groans—dazed confirmations.
They were sore, scratched, bruised, but without critical injuries. They had been lucky.
"Can someone tell me what the hell happened?" Danko asked, rubbing his head.
"That pelotudo blew his god-damned head off is what happened," Santiago replied, releasing himself from the safety straps. He rubbed his shoulders as he crawled out of his seat, snatched his backpack from under him and slid out the gap in the side of the helicopter.
"That doesn't make any sense, why would he do that?" Zahra asked.
"Fucking crazy is why," Santiago replied.
Captain Danko slid out from the helicopter while Travis assisted Ren.
"We were bandaging up that gash in his arm when—"
Santiago made his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed his index finger to his skull, pantomimed pulling the trigger.
"—Pow! Blew his brains out all over the cabin. Look at this shit."
He used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his face but in the rain it only smeared, ran down his cheek.
Ox pressed his massive paws against the side of the helicopter and forced open the door. He spat blood then lowered himself to the ground.
"People don't go killing themselves for no reason. Something made him do it, something he saw."
"That doesn't make sense," Zahra's voice came horse and shaky.
As the others recapitulated the events before the crash, Travis felt around the darkness for another backpack. Each of them was assigned a single bag, in them a basic medical and survival kit, flares, a flashlight, space blankets, and a state map, plus other little miscellany.
"What could he have seen on an oil tanker that would make him kill himself?" Zahra asked in a skeptical tone. She withdrew a flashlight from her bag and when it wouldn't turn on she struck it repeatedly with the heal of her hand. A dim, flickering beam shined against the tree.
"Dios mío." Santiago looked into the darkness. The others fell silent. Travis craned his neck to see what had arrested their attention. Scratched into the tree trunks was the form of a winged insect, perhaps a moth or a butterfly. Dozens of them crudely engraved the size of Travis's hand, one carved for each tree.
"What the hell?" Travis muttered.
Zahra approached the insignia but did not touch it. The flashlight blinked. "What does this mean?"
Ren stepped beside Zahra.
"It means we're not the only ones here."
—
Thank you for reading chapter 13 of my novel Evilution!
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-L.K. Scott
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