Chapter Seven: Carnage

Kate stared at the wreckage, nausea clawing at her. The last time she'd been here, she'd learned the truth of their situation. She'd met the plane's pilot. And then she'd watched him die.

That thing—whatever it was—had been only a shadow passing in front of the windshield, something heavy stomping through the brush. It was an unknown entity, an unseen terror. Then the glass had shattered, and the pilot had been ripped from the plane. The trees had thrashed back and forth for a moment before blood splashed the glass in front of her.

She remembered screaming, remembered feeling only blind terror and an overwhelming, dizzying need to escape. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the blood splashing the glass, could still see the corpse stretched across the tree branches.

She started shaking. She didn't want to be here. There was evil here in this clearing, evil and tragedy. She'd seen enough tragedy, and she could do without the evil. She wrapped her arms around her body and told herself shed be all right. Nothing was going to happen. That thing wasn't going to come back.

"Hey, Freckles, you in there?"

She shook off the haze and looked up at him. "What?"

"Been calling your name for the last five minutes. You've been standing there like a zombie."

"Well, here I am. What do you want?"

"Like I been saying. We need to check it out, see what's in there."

"I don't think so," she said, shuddering at the very thought. She wanted to get as far away from it as fast as she could. She was not going back in there. Not after what had happened last time.

"Use your head, Freckles. We got what? A bottle and a half of water left, plus a few packets of peanuts? That ain't gonna last us long enough to get back to the beach."

"There's probably nothing in there," she said.

"If we found stuff in that little piece of wreckage back there, what makes you think there's nothing in here?"

She didn't answer him. She didn't want him to know the reason for her reluctance was fear. She had to be strong. She had to hold it together. She wouldn't do anybody any good if she fell apart, and she didn't want to be the object of either Sawyer's anger or his pity.

"Tell you what," he said, heading toward the cockpit, "I'll search the damn thing and you can wait here. Yell if you hear the monster coming."

Kate watched as he disappeared inside the wreckage. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered. The temperature had a way of plummeting when the sun went down. That's why she was shivering. Not because she was terrified of being out here alone.

A twig snapped nearby and she whirled around, her heart leaping into her throat. Her breath shuddered in an out of her lungs. "Hello?" she said, but it was less than a whisper. She unconsciously took a step toward the cockpit.

Leaves rustled just to her right. She gasped, her eyes slamming shut for a moment. She took a deep breath before scanning the trees, but in the deepening twilight couldn't make anything out. Only gently waving branches and shadows upon shadows. "Is someone out there?" she murmured.

Her eyes darted back and forth, her hands held in front of her to defend against the unseen threat. Fear swam through her head. And when leaves crunched under approaching footsteps, she dropped the duffel bag and ran for the wreckage.

She climbed inside and leaned back against the first intact seat she came to. She leaned her head back and took several deep breaths. She was finally getting herself under control when the seat she was leaning against suddenly reclined and she found herself in the lap of a dead man. His eyes were open, his skin gray and cold.

A short scream burst from her lips. She jumped up and stumbled back, falling and hitting her head against another nearby seat.

Sawyer sprang up from where he'd been searching a suitcase several rows back and shined a flashlight in her direction. "Damnit, Freckles. What the hell are you doing?"

She took a moment to catch her breath, holding out a hand to block the light that shined into her eyes. She hoisted herself to her feet and said, "I think there's someone out there."

"What are you talking about?"

"I heard someone moving around, in the trees at the edge of the clearing."

"Did you ask who was there?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I did. Nobody answered." She didn't add that she hadn't spoken loud enough to be heard from more than two feet away.

"It was probably a rabbit or something," he said dismissively. "You spook too easy."

She glared at him. "It wasn't a rabbit, alright?" I heard footsteps."

He looked at her for a moment, then turned back to the suitcase. "Freckles, we been hiking through this damn jungle for almost twenty-four hours and haven't seen nobody."

"That doesn't mean someone's not out there."

Without waiting for a response, she reached up into the overhead compartment above her. It was empty. She sighed, dropping her arm down to her side. She glanced at Sawyer, wondering how he could be so seemingly nonchalant about all of this. The bodies...the smell...the fear.

How could he not be afraid? She was fighting just to hold on, to keep the fear at bay, to forget about the last time she'd been here. But Sawyer seemed to take it almost in stride. She wished she had his calm.

But could it be a front, she wondered suddenly, watching as he shifted a body off of a suitcase in the aisle. His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing until they were almost closed. He pulled several shirts and pairs of pants out of the suitcase and tossed them over a nearby seat.

Kate realized she was staring and immediately looked away. She didn't need to stare at him. She distracted herself by opening another overhead compartment and extracting a suitcase, helping with the grim task of sorting the belongings of the dead.

She was placing three bottles of water into a backpack some time later when a spark caught her eye. She looked up, and in the dim light saw a woman's hand partially covered by a light blanket. Her own hand shaking, she lifted the blanket to reveal a sparkling diamond engagement ring. Reluctantly, she lifted her head, and looked into the face of a woman who would never see her wedding day. She'd been young, somewhere in her twenties, with long brown hair.

Kate sat down with a thud, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning back against a seat across the aisle. She clutched her knees and dropped her head down, every breath she took sucking more of the foul air into her lungs.

A short time later something soft hit her leg and fell to the ground. Almost afraid, she opened her eyes and looked down to find not something threatening, but an ordinary bandanna crumpled at her feet. She looked over at Sawyer, but he had already gone back to his task as if nothing had happened. She looked at him for a minute more, then picked up the bandanna and tied it around her face, blocking out the worst of the smell.

She shook her head, absurdly grateful for the gift, and went back to work.

When he was sure she wasn't looking, Sawyer looked up at Kate. When she'd fallen to the floor moments ago, he'd looked from her into the face of a woman who could have been her twin. It was more than a little spooky. He'd tossed her the bandanna not out of some sappy sentimentality, but simply because if the smell was affecting him, it was sure to be affecting her.

He gritted his teeth and continued his search. Three days in the sweltering jungle had not been kind to the bodies left behind in the wreckage. Any idiot who'd ever watched a cop show knew what happened to a body that was left out to rot. And that was saying nothing of the effect having a couple dozen bodies confined in a closed space where the temperature bordered on unbearable.

He batted at flies as he ripped apart an old T-shirt and tied the remnants around his face. Damned if he was going to take the smell while she wasn't.

Not that she wasn't suffering. Even in the dim light from the flashlight he could see her shaking. This vulnerability she was showing surprised him. He didn't suppose she let herself be weak very often, and never in front of anyone else. That was fine with him. He wasn't a comforter. He wasn't the type to offer hugs and flowery words.

If they were back at the beach, he'd bet his ass the doctor would comfort her. That's who he was, Sawyer thought with a shake of his head; the protector, the hero. Well, he could kiss Sawyer's ass. Being a hero wasn't everything. It wouldn't save him in the end.

By the time they were done searching everything but the cockpit itself, Kate had calmed down. She'd worked resolutely, searching and sorting everything they could find. They'd decided to leave the clothes and shoes behind; they just couldn't carry the weight on their own. They had found a few more bottles of water and a stash of peanuts and crackers. Too bad they were both too nauseous to eat anything.

"We need to check the cockpit," he said.

She looked from him to the cockpit behind him and shook her head. "There's nothing in there."

"Freckles, you weren't looking for supplies when you were here the first time. You were only looking for the transceiver."

"Well, if you want to search it so bad, go ahead. I'll wait outside."

Sawyer watched as she grabbed the backpack she'd loaded supplies into and slung it over her shoulder. She glanced at him, then turned and made her way out of the wreckage. The flashlight beam followed her as she climbed down out of the mangled plane.

He went into the cockpit, instantly taking note of the shattered glass and bloodstains. Maybe they weren't all so crazy, he thought, though he had no idea what could have caused that damage. Something big.

He found a small first aid kit behind the pilot's seat and bent down to pick it up.

"Sawyer!"

Kate's voice filtered up to him. He whirled around, aiming the flashlight back through the plane. But the voice had come from outside the plane. He rushed out of the cockpit, snagging his own backpack on the way, and stumbled his way down the aisle, past the bodies, and out of the wreckage.

Kate stood in the clearing, standing ramrod stiff, her hands clenched into fists. He looked past her to the duffel bag she'd brought with her from the first piece of wreckage. It had been dumped, its contents strewn across the ground.

"A rabbit didn't do that," she said.

That much was obvious, Sawyer thought, shining the flashlight across the clearing and back and forth through the trees. A rabbit hadn't turned the bag upside down and spread the contents around. A human had done this, searching for something.

"What did you have in that bag?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Some clothes, a bottle of water, a couple of books, some teenager's journal. Nothing that anyone but the owner would care about, and whoever owned this stuff is dead."

He folded his arms and contemplated that while she gathered everything up and put it back in the bag. She knelt down to zip it up and looked into the forest beyond him. Her fingers stilled on the zipper and her eyes went wide. She slowly rose to her feet and opened her mouth.

Then she screamed.