Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (15 page)

With a new focus the strength of his steps grew. More and more anger appeared in his eyes. JB knew what to do, and he knew how to do that. The time was of essence, he couldn’t afford to lose it. There would be another day to dream about salvation from above, that night he had to save himself.

Two more hours passed. JB walked straight all that time in hopes of finding anything helpful. At least he thought that his path was straight. The severe cold and constant movement made his limbs go numb. His hands got so cold that he couldn’t feel his fingers, never mind move them. The bamboo sticks were glued to his grip. His arm was still hacking the vegetation with the same eagerness, but the gangster wasn’t sure it would last much longer.

It was so darker there than he could imagine in his worst nightmare. It wasn’t visual images that directed Bridgers, but intuition. He wasn’t tired, although his athletic experience told him to stop for a pause. He didn’t want to, though. JB knew that it might be a long break. His body would probably shut down right away, that would be a bad thing since he was one step away from hypothermia. The loss of consciousness would lead to pneumonia, and then to death. JB had to find a proper place for a camp before taking a break. A dry and warm one just as he planned.

When choosing a direction to go, JB went towards the mountain, which he saw from the crash place. The place looked like some kind of an island to him. Mostly because of JB's memories from 'Lost.’ But since the airplane moved through the Atlantic Ocean just before the crash, it made sense. So the higher ground seemed an obvious choice, scoping wise. The only thing he didn’t account for was the distance. He planned to be on the top in several hours, now it felt more like a several days of travel. At one point, Bridgers realized that the mountain wasn’t an option for a quick solution. It was time to start looking for a shelter right in the jungle.

The task wasn’t easy. The rainforest became wet and cold promptly. But there was no other obvious choice. All that time JB was tearing forward through the jungle, leaving thousands of feet of a green nightmare behind. Now he had to slow down, to search for new direction. He finally stopped to look around. The rain curtain made vision impossible, same for the noise which blocked all other sounds. JB tried to focus, to look through the rain.

Initially, his idea seemed pretty pointless to him, but he did it anyway. He froze motionless to concentrate on one spot in front of him. The falling droplets, millions of them, made the effort almost impossible, covering everything else behind them. It initiated something inside Bridgers, a challenge against nature. He strained even more to focus on the far view that wasn’t hidden behind vegetation.

At once it felt like the droplets got even bigger and moved slower as they were purposely getting into his way. That was irritating. JB felt a sparkle of anger. He wasn’t adapted to stuff like that, no city person was. Bridgers took a deep breath and raised his sight up, where a partial clearance of the dark-grey sky was. He looked carefully. All of the thoughts of failure were left aside. The picture was getting clearer with each next second. The rain didn’t seem that severe anymore. Soon something came up to his sight, a dark silhouette of enormous size. He raised his view up to identify that object. It looked like a huge tree. The rest of the trees seemed like dwarfs compared to that one. It became his new direction.

After an approximate distance to the tree was measured, JB squeezed his stick harder and rushed on. He ran through the jungle as a wild animal, avoiding the largest obstacles and smashing anything that he could. His feet were caught in the ground ivy from time to time, and he fell occasionally, but that was nothing. The hope of gaining a shelter was much stronger.

The darkness and the speed wouldn’t let him take a good look around, to see the trees or the shrubs closely. Nevertheless, the felt some kind of hostility. A great danger was in that rainforest. JB could sense it. He wasn’t an expert in the jungles’ vegetation, but some of the plants seemed weird. Lots of the twigs were too thick and had sharp thorns on it. One wrong step could be fatal. With all that net-like ground ivy and flesh-cutting branches, some of the plants seemed predatory. The deeper the jungle was, the more JB hated it.

The big guy kept running through the dark jungle. It was all the same: a thicket of plants, the cold, the rain. The process of cutting through became a small craft of JB's. His concentration of the path was holding. But some issues with his vision appeared over the time. Everything looked similar there, so eventually JB’s sight went blurring. Soon crisp silhouettes of plants, rocks, and other objects smudged all together. He lost his focus. But he was afraid to stop, the tiredness could drain his last muscle power. If so, Bridgers would be stuck there for good. He couldn’t stop.

The giant tree was close, just a little more to go through. At least, JB was telling himself so. The man’s eyesight kept getting worse. All he saw by that time was a dark trace of that bamboo stick of his. Vertigo consumed his head. His thinking ability descended too. A break was vital, but his feet wouldn’t stop, not even slow down.

Soon Bridgers realized that he had lost control over his body. It felt strange to him since he had a great deal of self-control. Something made him do that, something interfered with his consciousness.

His speed was impressive but too high to control the movement. The body can’t move without the brain’s supervision. And his mind was certainly dealing with something else at the moment. In few a seconds, vertigo got interrupted by a sharp pain in his right leg. JB had stumbled on a large root of a tree. He snapped back to consciousness in a few feet from that spot, lying in a puddle of dirt. Half of his face was drawn in filth, and he didn’t felt like getting up at once. The pain in his leg was bearable, but mostly because of its freezing temperature. He stopped after all.

Thousands of large droplets were falling on the puddle's surface where JB lay. They were continually splashing the water and dirt flew straight into his face. The mud got everywhere: in his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Breathing seemed impossible. He had to put himself together, to get back moving.

Shortly after the fall Bridgers felt better. He rolled on his back and moved the backpack aside from under him. He opened his eyes to look at the clouds that produced that enormous mass of falling water. That rain was at least a half of JB’s trouble, but, still, he admired the beauty of it. He was lying in the dirt preparing to get up. When Bridgers raised his head to look around, something strange caught his attention. There was no thicket in front of him, yet there was plenty behind. The nearest ground was covered with an extensive root network. And not a single tree was there. Except one, the very tree JB was seeking to get to. He looked up to see that magnificent giant. It overcame any expectations.

Jerry got up. When standing, his right leg hurt a lot more. Nevertheless, he didn’t care about that at the moment. The tree occupied his focus entirely. When he had looked at that gigantic thing enough, he walked towards it. Limping up through the dirt puddles his gait looked quite clumsy.

The overall structure of the tree resembled an oak. It had a similar silhouette, a mighty thick trunk and a wide spread of branches and leaves. Yet, it was much greater than an oak. The branches started pretty close to the ground, not further than ten feet or so, and the lower layer of those lay almost parallel to the ground. It reminded JB a mushroom with all those dense leaves as a solid cap.

When coming closer, he got caught up so much in exploring that he even dismissed the absence of the rain there. The sound of it still was there, but it didn’t pour on Bridgers anymore. Dry grass was under his feet. He looked back, the rain was still on, and never eased up. JB couldn’t believe that even such dense foliage could keep so much of water in it. It was another mystery that he would deal with. But another time, perhaps.

When done with his observation, the big guy paid attention to himself. The amazement on his face switched to discontent after examining his own appearance. He was wet, the dirt got everywhere; under clothes, in pockets, in cornrow braids. His t-shirt had tears in it, but his pants were thick enough to not suffer much. Each uncovered part of his body had scratches and bruises on the skin. Nevertheless, he didn’t feel that bad. Just needed to get some warmth.

There was lots of dry wood around. Jerry gathered some bark, twigs and dead leaves in a fire pit. It looked pretty solid to him. The only thing that concerned him was how to light it up. Then he remembered the gift from the bartender, the branded gas lighter. He took the thing from the bag. To his surprise, the backpack was dry inside. The first several tries of lighting the fire failed. But with JB’s insistence the lighter worked after all. Soon he had a sweet heat source to rest around.

The night went deeper and deeper, the rain kept going. Jerry sat near the fire, with his back resting on the tree’s trunk. He watched the jungle for a while. From where he was then the rain didn’t look that menacing and aggressive. It seemed comforting and pleasant now. The heat protected JB from the wind, he wasn’t cold anymore. He took off his clothes and shoes to put them near the fire for drying up. Then he paid attention to the injured foot, the toes hurt but weren’t broken. As always JB was glad for his choice of footwear. Those gumshoes could really take a hit.

Each minute spent in warmth brought Jerry more and more peace. The pain got dimmer. And the sound of nature was lulling him to sleep. Everything seemed better now. JB passed out.

Two days before…

A headache. A weak, but very palpable headache was the first thing El felt when she awakened. The girl couldn’t think, her eyes were closed, and she didn’t realize yet that she had woken up after the crash. There was no clarity in her mind, no thoughts, just a soft continuous tinkling persisting in her head. She finally woke up.

El was confused, she didn’t get where she was or what had happened. She couldn’t even fully feel her body. Something alien and irritating started calling for her unfocused attention. A soft light flashing reached her optic nerves through her closed eyelids.

The consciousness was gradually coming back. She felt it was time to get up. With a bit of struggle, El opened her eyes. It was hard to accomplish but she gave her best try. Her eyelids were shaking and didn’t want to listen, perhaps it was her subconscious that wasn’t ready to face reality yet. Soon, her eyelashes went separating and her vision returned. The picture still was unclear, she needed time to adjust to the situation. There wasn’t nearly enough light in that pitch blackness. There were some random light flashes that occasionally emerged only to disperse just as easily. She needed some more time.

Within a few minutes of staying still the sight of the girl, along with her other senses, fully restored. El took a good look at those flashes that had wakened her. The source was not far, several feet away, it was a short circuit from swinging cables that hung out of the ceiling. For some reason, El felt relieved.

She remembered Tina, who was supposed to be somewhere around. The light from that sole dim source didn't nearly suffice to have a clear view. El moved up on the cushion to feel the next seat with her fingers. She found the bag, it was right there. After some time of searching inside the blond took out her cell phone to use it as a flashlight. This new light source opened the nearest space to her. El looked at Tina. The brunette was unconscious.

Seeing her friend like that made El worry. Tina kept deadly silent, not a single noise from her. For a moment, El thought that her friend didn’t breathe at all. She scanned her carefully to see if there were any injuries. Tina seemed fine. El almost calmed down, but then she found a big bruise on the other side of Tina’s forehead. A large stain of blood stretched from it, throughout the head to the neck. It looked like she was hit by something heavy. El looked down to find a suitcase at Tina’s feet. There was luggage lying everywhere, this one could have fallen from the shelf above. The injury didn’t seem deep though, several stitches would fix everything.

El put her hand on Tina’s shoulder to give her a small shake. She leaned towards her ear to say something.

“Hey, Tina? Tina? Please, wake up. Hey.”

The girl kept trying to wake up her friend for nearly a minute. She took her time, not rushing to increase the effort. With all that concern for her close one, El completely forgot about herself. The blond had no idea if she was injured like Tina. Perhaps the thought of being left alone there was a much worse scenario for her.

Tina’s arm shifted. In a few seconds, the brunette woke up with a sudden greedy impulse to breath. Her eyes opened wide and her face looked so terrified that even El gained a part of that state.

“Hush-hush… It’s okay, dear,” El rushed to comfort the girl.

She put her hands on Tina’s face and moved her head closer. Tina was so confused that she didn’t even know where they were or what had happened. Only the familiar smell of El’s perfume brought some sense of safety to her. The light from the phone appeared to be too sharp for the unadjusted eyes of the girl. She moved her hand up to dim the light. El saw what that was about and removed the cell phone.

“Hey, how are you?” she asked.

“I… I’m not sure,” her soft whispering voice answered. “My head is spinning. It is hard to breathe.”

The girl tried to shift upwards, but with the first movement a sharp strike of ache flashed through her head.

“Ah-h-h!” she cried painfully.

El hugged her friend right away to make her feel better.

“Don’t move. You’ve been hit hard on the head. You need some rest.”

“Is it bad?” Tina asked, then sat back and closed her eyes preparing for the worse.

“No, I don’t think so. You'll be alright, just try not to move much.”

“How do you know that it’s fine?”

“Remember those first aid lessons?”

“Yeah?”

“One of us was listening, you know,” El smiled.

Tina ironically smiled in return.

“You’re lying about the injury. They taught us good.”

In a few minutes the brunette's pain passed and she felt much better. They kept sitting tight, neither of them thought of trying to get out yet. The students had no idea what was going on anywhere out of their seats, or what to do. Only an occasional flash and sparks from the damaged cables reminded them that there was something else besides them.

It was quiet in the plane, no talking, no fuss. The girls were afraid of going out there, but staying in one spot wouldn’t be a solution either. At some point, their fear grew so high that it made breathing much harder. But right out of the blue a beam from a flashlight blinded them. It was like a beam of lost hope. They accepted it as a good sign.

The source of light originated from the head of the plane, not far from the entrance to the first class area. A man’s silhouette appeared in the light. Another person was following him from behind. When those people showed up, El lifted her hand up and waved as broadly as she could. Tina wanted to participate but felt weak, she didn’t have enough energy. El tried to shout out, she couldn’t because of the voice loss. All she managed to push out were a whisper and rattle, just like when she talked to Tina. The blond thought that if she didn't scream right away she would miss the chance, and they both would be left there forever. She panicked. Only after some time  she realized that the lights were aimed directly at them. They had been noticed right away.

A group of people came in from the main entrance, El couldn’t see how many exactly, but it seemed to her like five or so. They were moving slowly, with great care, as if they were afraid of something. In about a minute, the first one of them came closer. The sight-blocking flashlight made it impossible to recognize his face. On his arrival to their seats, the man put the flashlight down and paused a few seconds. He put his hand on the seat’s back to lean on it and moved his face closer to the girls. They finally could see the man. His face looked pleasant, the soft light reflected from the floor revealed a strong jaw along with bulging, manly cheekbones and small eyes. After scanning the face, El noticed his uniform, he was the captain. The girls were relieved.

“Hello. Are you fine?” the pilot asked.

“Am-m… Yes… I guess so. Are you?”

El had lots of questions, but it all mixed up in her head. She couldn’t express any of them.

“Can you move?” the captain asked switching his sight between El and Tina.

“What happened?” the blond asked.

“We crashed. The instruments are dead. We need to leave the plane quickly. A short circuit caused the fire, it burns out the air. Soon it’s going to be impossible to breathe at all. We have to leave the fuselage in case if the flames reach the fuel tanks. So, can you move?” the pilot repeated his question.

“Yes, I think so…” El responded. She turned to Tina, who nodded showing her affirmation too.

“We have to hurry then. There is not much time.”

With the captain’s help, the girls started moving. The questions of the crash were put in the background. The top priority became to survive, doing any actions necessary. They quickly looked at the seats to take the most important stuff and kept following the instructions.

The captain led the group to the exit, where others waited on them. They were ready to move out when El stopped near the door to the first class area.

“Are you okay?” the stewardess asked the student.

“What about them? Aren’t we going to take them with us?” El asked looking at the ruined passage to the first class.

“We’ve checked it earlier. No survivors there,” the captain said.

“How can you be so sure? Is there a possibility?”

“The plane crashed ten hours ago, there are thirty-three survivors, including you. All of the others are outside. I’ve checked the first class area personally, using the entrance from the cabin. All of the passengers there were dead. We came back here to make sure that we’re not leaving anyone behind. You are the only ones alive,” the captain put his hand on El’s shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, but all others have died.”

“Let’s go, El. We have to go,” Tina said, helping her friend to start moving.

They were climbing down the angled passage, in the tail’s direction. The plan was to go out through the baggage compartment, using the hatch of the chassis as an exit. Judging by captain’s confident maneuvers, it wasn’t his first time that day doing so.

When the plane was behind, the small group of the last survivors joined the big one outside. The people looked desperate, but after seeing only two new passengers with the search group, it became even worse. There were other students among the survivors; Eugene, Fred, Alex, Vladimir, and Vitaliy. El and Tina joined the others right away.

A fuss emerged around the passengers. A woman was trying to run back to the plane, but a couple men stopped her.

“Let me go!” she screamed fiercely.

“Ma’am, you need to wait here! We have to stay away from the fuselage for our own safety,” Skyman tried to reason with her.

“You haven’t found my daughter!”

“Where was her seat?”

“Right next to mine, in front of business class.”

She handed the pilot her ticket to check it out. But it wasn’t necessary. People looked at the fuselage, which had an enormous dent in it, right where the ‘business’ and ‘first’ classes met. The pieces of the plane’s sheathing were missing and damaged. It seemed clear that there were no survivors. Yet, no one had the courage to say it out loud.

The captain looked at Ellison with remorse.

“No… No,” the woman spoke, shaking her head in denial. Her eyes filled up with tears. “My daughter is not dead.”

Just as Skyman made a first move up towards the woman to calm her down, the stewardess stepped up.

“Josh, can I see the ticket?” she asked the captain.

“Sure,” he gave away the paper.

Everyone stared at the stewardess.

“Captain, there was no C-2 seat in the plane. I mean, when we went in to evacuate the survivors, some of the seats were missing, along with the passengers. I think, they could’ve been torn out while the plane was going down,” the stewardess turned to the woman. “Ma’am, what is your name?”

“Ellison.”

“Elison, I’m Kate,” she introduced herself. “Do you have your daughter’s picture?”

“Yes, right here…”

Ellison looked around to find her purse. She spotted it in few feet away on the ground. Then used her phone to show a photo of her daughter to the stewardess.

“No, she wasn’t among the dead passengers. I saw all of them,” Kate said when handing the phone back.

“What? So where is she?”

Skyman saw an opportunity to set up an order once more.

“Please, don’t worry yet, ma’am. If her seat flew out from the plane during the fall, she might be okay. The seat could’ve landed on a tree or on the water. It could happen.”

“Yeah, I saw a video once, where the guy was skydiving. And his parachute wouldn’t open, so he fell into a bush and survived,” some man from the group said. “He broke his leg or something, though…”

It wasn’t much help for Skyman, but he had to remain confident, even if he didn’t believe in miracles himself.

“We are going to find your daughter, mam.”

“Mia. Her name is Mia.”

“We are going to find Mia, Ellison. I promise,” he put his palm on her shoulder. “Now we all have to be strong. It’s not a time for panic. We all need some rest.”

The darkness was thriving in the night. Not a single star could be seen behind the cloud cover. Yet the passengers were looking up at the sky, knowing that the stars were there somewhere, shining, not even suspecting what was going on there, on the ground. The metal giant lay at the end of the passage, which it had dug out earlier. Surrounded by the jungle. Dozens of trees were torn into pieces and left behind on the braking track. The nearby ground was full of metal shreds and various stuff from the plane's baggage.

The group of people gathered around the fire camp to have a rest. They kept a safe distance from the fuselage but stayed close enough to not get lost in the woods. A warm wind blew, playing its symphony on tropical plants. It was quiet, peaceful. Still, the place caused uncertain feelings inside of each one of them. Like something strange, or alien even, filled the air. Something that made their skin shiver from time to time. Suddenly, out of the blue, a cold chill rolled through the glade. It was freezing to the bones. And in a few seconds it disappeared. It was a warning, they weren’t alone there, something else was around, something evil. They all felt it, but none had the courage to speak of it. Whatever that was, it felt the presence of the strangers. They weren’t welcome. What was that place?