Surviving the Improbable Quest Read Free Page B

water. The next step is to get help. Allan has to get back to camp. There’s a cell phone there, there has to be. Allan takes a deep breath and rolls into the water then lifts himself up. The water isn’t moving very fast, but it has strength. It lifts Allan’s body as he pulls himself across. At the other side he drags himself out of the water. He’s still small and thin, but his arms are strong from being a powerful swimmer. He sits up and pushes himself backward. He turns his head to see where he’s going and then continues scooting backward.
    Grass and leaves swipe Allan’s arms as he scoots along. The vegetation wipes off the mud that has dried on his skin. On closer inspection he sees that it’s not mud. It’s a little pink and there’s a metallic smell to it. He scratches a glob of the goop off his forearm. It’s something else, something foul. The trees are caked with the pink stuff as well. Allan uses his hand to clean a wide swath off a nearby tree trunk. The trunk is white underneath. He continues to remove the substance off the trunk. The flood brought some foul chemical with it.
    Allan flips onto his belly. Dr. Jenny, his spirited physical therapist, showed him how to crawl on his knees, but he’d never bothered to practice. Now it seems that might be an alternative way to move. Allan pulls himself onto his knees. He picks up his left hip and leans forward on his arms. His limp, but heavy leg falls forward. He puts his weight on the knee. Then he picks up his right hip and lets it fall forward before returning the weight to it. In this manner, he begins to slowly crawl forward. Sweat drips off his forehead like his head is a rain cloud.
    If only he’d eaten this morning. There’s no protein bar, snack or drink in his pockets. They’re all in the pockets of his wheelchair. In desperation, he bends down and drinks from a puddle. It tastes bad, sharp, and stings the back of his throat, but it’s still water. So he drinks again and then rests on his belly.
    After crawling up a small slope, Allan rolls onto his back. He’s tired. His eyes burn. He can’t do this. He’s going to die along with his uncle. Will he be able to walk in heaven? Or will God provide a solid gold, diamond-studded wheelchair? Allan giggles at the thought of God sitting in his throne, “Can’t use your legs in heaven, but, hey, you don’t need them. You’ve got angel wings.” Allan laughs harder. He sees himself fluttering around on little wings as his legs flop like overcooked spaghetti. He can’t stop laughing. Head-splitting laughs roll out of his chest until his head thumps.
    After what seems like hours, but is only seconds, Allan settles down. He sits up and pushes his torso backward. He wonders why the image of little angel’s wings on his back is so funny.
    Without explanation, Allan’s thoughts move on. He notices his vision has blurred a little. Then he notices patterns dancing in the pine needles. They look like little skeletons locking arms and turning around and around in a macabre kind of line dance. All the pine needles look like this and then the pattern changes.
    Allan sees a bug lying on its back in front of him. He flips it over so its wings can fold out of its shell. As it flies away it leaves a trail behind it like one of those propeller planes that drags banners through the air. Allan rubs his eyes. Why am I seeing things?
    He pushes through a thick fern entangled by some type of parasitic plant that wraps around the ferns. On the other side is the largest, most beautiful flower he has ever seen. It has hundreds of tiny blue petals surrounding an orb of light-blue fur. He guesses the fur is actually pollen. The bulb is about as round as a softball. There are patterns in the pollen, and Allan is transfixed for a moment. The petals that encircle the pollen bud twitch as if the flower doesn’t like being stared at. Allan smells the flower hoping for a perfume smell, but instead sneezes. Pollen goes