Two Alone Read Free Page A

supposed she should be grateful for t hat. The wind could get very cold. But wait! If there was no wind, where was that keening sound coming from Holding her breath, she waited.
    There it was again!
    She whipped her head around, listening. It wasn't easy to hear anything over the pounding of her own heart.
    A stir.
    She looked toward the man who was sitting in the seat across the aisle from hers. Was it just her wishful imagination or did the Loner's eyelids flicker? She scrambled back up the aisle, brushing past the dangling, bleeding arm of one of the crash victims. She had studiously avoided touching it only moments ago.
    "Oh, please, God, let him be alive," she prayed fervently. Reaching his seat, she stared down into his face. He still seemed to be in peaceful repose. His eyelids were still. No flicker. No moaning sound coming from his lips, which were all but obscured by a thick, wide mustache. She looked at his chest, but he was wearing a quilted coat, so it was impossible to tell if he were breathing or not.
    She laid her index finger along the top curve of his mustache, just beneath his nostrils. She uttered a wordless exclamation when she felt the humid passage of air. Faint, but definitely there.
    "Thank God, thank God." She began laughing and crying at the same time. Lifting her hands to his cheeks, she slapped them lightly. "Wake up, mister. Please wake up."
    He moaned, but he didn't open his eyes. Intuition told her that the sooner he regained consciousness the better. Besides, she needed the reassurance that he wasn't dead or going to die—at least not immediately. She desperately needed to know that she wasn't alone.
    Reasoning that the cold air might help revive him, she
    res olved to get him outside the plane. It wasn't going to b e easy; h e probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more.
    She felt every ounce of it as she opened his seat belt and his dead weight slumped against her like a sack of concrete mix. She c aught most of it with her right shoulder and supported him 'here while she backed down the aisle toward the opening, half lift ing him, half dragging him with her.
    T hat seven-foot journey took her over half an hour. The bl oody arm hanging over the armrest snagged them. She had to o vercome her repulsion and touch it, moving it aside. She got bl ood on her hands. It was sticky. She whimpered with horror, but clamped her trembling lower lip between her teeth and con t i nu ed tugging the man down the aisle—one struggling, agoni z ing inch at a time.
    It struck her suddenly that whatever his injury, she might be doing it more harm than good by moving him. But she'd come ibis far; she wouldn't stop now. Setting a goal and achieving it seemed very important, if for no other reason than to prove she wasn't helpless. She had decided to get him outside, and that's what she was going to do if it killed her.
    Which it very well might, she thought several minutes later. Sh e had moved him as far forward as possible. Occasionally he groaned, but otherwise he showed no signs of coming around. Le aving him momentarily, she climbed through the branches of the pine tree. The entire left side of the fuselage had been vir tu ally ripped off, so it would be a matter of dragging him through the branches of the tree. Using her bare hands, she broke off as many of the smaller branches as she could before returning to the man.
    It took her five minutes just to turn him around so she could clasp him beneath the arms. Then, backing through the narrow, spiky tunnel she had cleared, she pulled him along with her. Pine needles pricked her face. The rough bark scraped her hands. But thankfully her heavy clothing protected most of her skin.
    Her breathing became labored as she struggled. She considered pausing to rest, but was afraid that she would never build up enough momentum to start again. Her burden was moaning almost constantly, now. She knew he must be in agony, but she couldn't stop or he might lapse into