Desolate The Complete Trilogy

3



I slowly sat up and took in my surroundings. The scene in front of me was pretty much as I expected. All I could see earlier were treetops, so naturally now all I saw were tree bottoms. Um, tree trunks. Lots of trees. I was definitely in the jungle.

Oh, and the thing I was strapped to? You probably guessed by now it was just a stretcher. I’m sure I was strapped to it for my own safety, not out of any malicious intent, but when you’re alone in the jungle it’s hard not to feel resentment for the thing that kept you prisoner for over a day.

To my right was the wreckage of an airplane and things slowly started to come into focus. Although it looked like I was in a natural clearing in the forest, the plane had plowed through plenty of small trees and vegetation when it hit the ground and skidded to a stop. It was about thirty feet away and I was currently sitting in the path it made before it stopped and partially burst into flames, from the look of it.

The dead thing. I turned to my left and immediately regretted it. It was a woman, was being the proper tense, even in the present tense, because she was quite dead. She was sprawled on her back, eyes open, staring at the sky. Her chest was covered with dried blood. A cockroach or some other kind of nasty jungle bug crawled out of her mouth and I gagged.

She was wearing a bright yellow all-in-one outfit. A HAZMAT suit, I would hazard (ha!) a guess. She wasn’t wearing anything on her head, so I questioned the effectiveness of the outfit. She must have taken off a face mask and the hood at some point.

My outfit? I was decked out in light blue hospital scrubs and a pair of those socks with built-in rubber strips on the bottom. Not a bad footwear choice for slick hospital floors, but really shitty for my current location.

Taped to my left hand was an IV line, but it wasn’t connected to anything. The back of my hand was covered in dried blood; the line must have gotten pulled out of the IV bag at some point. I slowly pulled out the needle.

The pain from my crotch was still kicking so I knew that needed my attention next. I panicked for a second, thinking of the bug crawling out of the woman’s mouth. I pulled the front of my pants away from my body and checked out everything downstairs. It wasn’t a bug, it was a catheter. I gathered my courage and slowly pulled it out. Not the most pleasant feeling I’ve had down there. It actually hurt like hell and I was convinced I was about to be showered with bloody urine once the tube was free, but it was far less dramatic. Once it was out, I fell immediately better. Certain I was free of all medical contraptions, I decided it was time to get off the stretcher.

I got to my feet and stretched my muscles a little, once again angering the stomach-wound gods and making me grimace with pain. I lifted my shirt and found a bandage. It looked pretty old and nasty, and I decided it was doing more harm than good at this point, so I carefully peeled it off. There was an angry wound with fresh stitches where I had been impaled by that thing back at the research station. Somebody with an MD after his or her name must have patched me up. I was grateful for that, but I had a feeling I would still have a prescription for painkillers if I was anywhere other than the jungle. It was still sore as hell.

I just stood there for a while, making sure I wasn’t about to go lightheaded and bang my head on a rock or something. I was curious about the dead woman and wondered what she was doing so close to me. I noticed slight indentations in the ground that led away from the stretcher toward the plane wreckage, and I realized what happened. This woman had dragged me from the plane as far as she could before she died. I had no idea who she was, but the thought of it touched me and I started to tear up again.

Man, I’m doing a lot of crying in this story, aren’t I? Gimme a break. Let’s see how well you’d do in this situation, tough guy.

I felt bad just leaving her there, rotting in the sun, covered in flies, so I managed to pick up my stretcher and sort of lay it on top of her. It wasn’t as ideal as a blanket, but it covered her face and I was glad about that.

I gave her a little nod of respect and slowly made my way toward the plane in my slipper socks.