Illusory

Chapter 7

The plane shifted with a disconcerting squeak as I stepped through one of the holes in the wall and onto the singed carpeting. "It's not going to blow up," I told myself with obviously feigned confidence. "If it was going to blow up, it would have done it already." Another step forward brought another creak, and the next step brought a third. "Maybe I'll just fall through the floor instead," I muttered, though I pressed on in spite of my paranoia.

I headed through the curtain into what had been the economy-class area of the plane, creeping further and further back until I reached, beyond another flimsy curtain, the flight attendants' station. There were bits of food, packaged and otherwise, and bottles of water scattered all over the floor and counter, cupboard doors hanging open, and, to my delight, a few two-level metal carts pushed off to one side. I cleared a few pieces of debris from one of these carts and untangled it from the rest, then wheeled it out of the room. Getting it out through the hole in the wall proved to be a bit of a challenge, as the charred floor was too rugged for the wheels to cross easily, but I managed it.

"Oh, well, this is going to be a problem," I muttered as I stopped the cart beside Van's unconscious body. The cart was maybe two feet long, two feet wide, and Van was approximately four feet longer than that. I stared at the man for a moment, then at the cart, then back at the man, and I nodded to myself decisively. "I can work this."

I slipped my fingers underneath his armpits, gripping them tightly as I tried to haul him off of the ground. I struggled to get him into a sitting position, grunting and grimacing and all around sounding like a dying cow all the while, then I struggled some more attempting to get him into the air. "I can't even do a whole push-up without cheating," I panted, getting his ass a whole three inches off of the ground. "What the hell possessed me to try this?" I lifted him another two inches, then another inch, but my arms gave out before I could make it any farther, and Van dropped to the ground with a thud and a puff of dust from the dirty ground.

"Oh, shit," I said, dropping to my knees in the dirt beside him. "I'm sorry, Van!"

"Do you need some help, miss?" a deep voice suddenly asked from behind me, and I spun on one knee to find the source. It belonged to a tall black man, taller even than Van, who was frowning at me as if I'd just killed someone. He stood before a small, red pick-up truck, and I wondered how I hadn't heard him pull up. "Miss?" he repeated, and took a cautious step forward.

"Ah, yeah," I said nervously, lurching to my feet. I brushed my dusty hands off on my jeans and forced a smile. "My friend here has been hurt, and I was just trying to find a way to get him back to town."

The man's dark brown eyes slid to the half-tree that still lay at the edge of the woods, and his frown deepened. "Why didn't you just call somebody?" he asked, taking another slow step forward. He seemed to think that I really had killed someone. "I'm sure you have a cell phone. All young women have one these days."

I scoffed, affronted. "Excuse me, sir, but I'm not all young women. Besides, would I even have been able to get a signal up here?"

"More than likely," he answered, taking yet another step toward me. "Now," he went on, his tone just a bit more patronizing, "just tell me what happened, and I'll decide whether or not to call the authorities."

I scoffed again, hands on my hips. "The authorities? Do you think I'm the one who did this to him or something?"

"Well, you're the only one out here," he explained gently, though he held his hands out in placation as if he thought I'd snap and attack him at any moment, "and you appear to be trying to get rid of the body."

"The body?" I scoffed again, resting my hands on my hips and scowling at him. "He's not dead! He's just hurt. Something attacked him in the forest when we were trying to get to Merriclaw."