Umbilical

Chapter 4 In The Shadows

A beam of sunlight broke through the canopy and reflected off the shiny blue-black feathers of the crow. It's beady, little eyes curiously followed Lara's every movement as she cleaned herself up. Aware of it's gaze she turned abruptly and looked right at it.

"What do you want?" she managed to whisper.

The bird tilted it's head quizzically to the side and shuffled it's feet on the branch as if it understood. It did not seem intimidated in any way. She narrowed her eyes and scowled at it.

"Little bastard!" Lara mumbled.

She cleared her throat a few times and swallowed painfully. Try as she might, she couldn't manage more than a hoarse whisper. Her vocal chords were definitely damaged. Her wound was aching horribly. She grabbed the bag and changed the bandage. One of the staples had come loose in the struggle, so she had to replace it. It could have been worse. Much worse! She didn't want to think about what she did or how it felt. It was self defense. She didn't have a choice. Lara tried to suppress the deep set sense of unease that was building up under the surface. She was alive and she had a plan. Falling apart was not an option. She had to make her way back to the site of the crash. Those other savages were going to go back to wherever they came from eventually. They were her only link to Kali. She eyed the body again, this time with some concern. Someone could come looking for him. Time to get away from here. Wait! Don't be stupid!

Grudgingly she approached the corpse, reached down and pulled out the knife. There was a rough sheath, attached to something resembling a handmade belt around the brute's waist. She wrestled it off him and forced herself to do a quick search of his body. It was revolting. The stench coming off of him was not caused by decomposition. That had not set in yet. It was the stale but potent smell of layers of dirt, bodily fluids and excrement caked on top of each other. There were a couple of crudely made leather pouches attached to the belt. One contained a bunch of small rocks and a worn rope sling. The other had some pieces of dried meat in it. Lara discarded them immediately. After what she had witnessed at the beach she couldn't chance eating them. The only other thing of use she found was a small knife made out of some sort of bone. It was surprising sharp so she decided to keep it. She couldn't help but wonder what this meant as she carefully washed the knives in the stream. He had nothing on him that even remotely resembled modern tools or technology. How secluded was the community these savages came from? Did they really have no communication with the civilized world? 

The crow managed to startle her again as it suddenly swooped down from it's perch and landed on the body. It stared at her, tilting it's head this way and that, then finally cawed loudly as if issuing a challenge. Lara almost laughed at it's bold antics.

"Fine. Whatever, you can have him." she said, shaking her head.

The laugh was quickly stifled by an expression of disgust as the bird eagerly began to peck at the remains of the brute's face. It picked out little bits of meat, cartilage and brain tissue and greedily gobbled them down. She turned away and started fusing with the crude belt until she found a way to fit it to her significantly smaller waist. The big hunting knife fit snugly back into it's sheath. It was surprisingly heavy but the weigh of it against her hip felt reassuring somehow. Tracking the savages back to their main camp was a daunting prospect. It wasn't even a real plan but it was all she had. Lara slung the duffel over her shoulder and briskly started walking back towards the beach.

The sky hung low and menacing over the rippling waves. Lara gazed forward as the icy depths of the ocean swelled and swept lazily over the beach as if they were trying to swallow the landmass. As far as the eye could see there was no other coastline. The Pacific ocean? Yeah. Definitely. She shivered as the chill morning breeze cut through the fabric of her clothes. Feverishly she wracked her brain about where they must have crashed, cursing the fact she hadn't looked at the onboard map before it all went down. There was no way to be completely sure, or if there was, she couldn't think of it. Her gaze turned inland for a moment. Not much was visible over the high treetops of the forest but in the distance there was a small mountain range with snow capped peaks. Had they somehow reached the mainland in Alaska or was this some beach in Canada? It had to be one or the other, right?