From Within (18 page)

“Did you see that?” Lea yelled out to the others.

“Yeah,” Will said. “It sounded like it crashed right over there.” He pointed towards the woods. “We should see if anyone needs help.”

“Come on,” Alejandro yelled.

Alejandro rushed into the woods before anyone else had moved. Seeing him enter the trees, the others started to run towards the crash site as well.

“I won’t be able to keep up,” Lewis yelled. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

Beth yelled back to him in acknowledgment. She was last to run towards the woods and she was trying to keep up with the others.

Alejandro stopped to scan the area. He was breathing heavily from the sprint. His eyes fell on the tail of an airplane about another hundred yards ahead. Will and Lea caught up to him. He looked back and saw Juana and Beth not too far in trail.

“I can see the tail of it over there,” Alejandro said while pointing at the aircraft.

Beth and Juana joined them and they slowed their pace. They were all getting tired from sprinting. They slowed even further from their jogging pace to a walk for the last ten yards, now all nearly out of breath. The plane hung above the ground about six feet. It was upright. The mangled wings wedged into the surrounding trees.

“It doesn’t look promising,” Alejandro said in between gasps of air.

“We still have to check,” Juana said to her husband.

“I know,” he replied. “I wasn’t saying that we shouldn’t.”

As they stepped forward, a metal on metal groan emitted from the airplane. They stopped and took a few steps back, sensing some sort of danger. The groaning got louder and the plane suddenly dropped the last six feet to the ground. Silence immediately followed along with a rolling cloud of dust emanating in all directions away from the plane.

“I’m glad we weren’t trying to climb up in it right then,” Alejandro said after a few moments.

“We should be fine now...I hope,” Will said. “I bet the door is on the other side.

They walked around the plane and found the opening in the side. The door having been sheared off in the crash. Will walking up to the opening and stuck his head in. He looked left to all the passenger seats.

“I don’t see anyone back here,” Will said over his shoulder.

He lifted his right leg up to the floor and placed his hands on the inside of the opening. As he started to pull himself into the airplane, Alejandro called out to him.

“Just be careful! We don’t know if this thing is going to light on fire or maybe explode.”

Will chuckled. “I think things usually only explode in the movies.”

“You never know,” Alejandro said sarcastically.

“I’m trying to remember...I don’t remember hearing the engines running when the plane passed by us,” Will said.

“I don’t think they were,” Lea said in agreement.

“Maybe it ran out of fuel,” Beth added.

Will nodded and turned around back inside the plane. Now that he was inside he was sure there were no passengers. He turned to the right and could see a shoulder. He stepped forward up to the pilot’s seats. There was a man slumped forward and against the side of the plane in the left seat. The right seat was empty. Will took the man by the shoulders and straightened him back up in the seat.

“Hello?” Will said to the man as he shook his shoulder.

No response. He figured that he was dead. He grabbed the man by his wrist to check for a pulse. He felt one and it felt normal to him.

“Hey guys,” he yelled while still focusing on the man, “there’s someone in here and they are alive. Come help me.”

Will felt the plane rock from side to side as the others climbed in. Alejandro arrived at his side.

“Wow,” Alejandro said, “he doesn’t look too beat up for having just crashed an airplane.”

“Hopefully nothing major is broken,” Will said.

Will unbuckled the seatbelt around the man’s waist. Will stepped further into the cockpit by the right seat.

“Grab his under his shoulders and lift and I’ll get his legs,” Will said.

“Oh, of course,” Alejandro said, “make me take the heavier end.”

Alejandro wrapped his arms underneath the man’s armpits and lifted. As soon as he did, Will stepped in and wrapped his arms around the man’s legs at his thighs. They were both grunting and the brought the man into the cabin. They set him down in the aisle. The three woman had stayed out of the way and searched the several rows of seats while Will and Alejandro pulled the man out.

“Oh my gosh!” Lea said as she saw the man.

“What!?” Beth said in surprise.

“What is it?” Juana asked.

Everyone was looking in between the man and Lea.

“That’s Marcus Braden,” Lea said. “From the news!”

“What?” Will said in disbelief.

“Look at him,” Lea said. “It’s him!” She pointed down at him.

Will tilted his head slightly. “Maybe...I don’t know.”

“It’s him. I’m sure of it,” Lea said.

“Either way,” Beth said, “he needs some help...whoever he is,” she said sounding frustrated.

Beth knelt down next to the man and felt his wrist.

“His pulse seems normal,” Beth said.

“That’s what I thought too,” Will said. “Not that I’m an expert.”

Beth lifted each of the man’s arms checking them and his sides for any bleeding. She opened his suit jacket to do the same over his mid-section. She then moved along his legs. She pushed down lightly on the front, back, and sides of his legs to see if any blood would dampen the black suit pants.

“It doesn’t seem like there is any blood,” she said. “It also doesn’t feel like any of his limbs are broken. I could be wrong, though. I’m guessing he was knocked unconscious in the crash. Worst case scenario is that his neck or spine is broken. I’m not sure how we will be able to tell until he is awake.”

“I’m not sure either,” Will said. “I also don’t have a clue what we’d be able to do for him if it is.”

They all looked down at the man. No one spoke for a few moments.

“Should we try to wake him up here?” Juana asked. “I’ve heard you aren’t supposed to move someone who has a broken neck.”

“True,” Beth said. “But what other choice do we have? Ya know what I mean?”

Juana gave her a confused look.

“I mean that we can’t get an ambulance up here. I don’t think there are any ambulances even operating in the area anymore. If his neck or spine is broken, are we just going to leave him here on the floor of this plane? We’ve already moved him once.”

“Oh, okay,” Juana said, “I see what you are saying.”

“I tried waking him when I found him,” Will said. “He didn’t respond at all.”

“Well, I think we should take him back to our camp,” Alejandro said. “Lay him on something more comfortable. Maybe splash some cold creek water on his face to see if he wakes up.”

Will grunted. He was thinking about the distance they needed to carry the man.

“We’ll need some support on him from everyone to get him that far,” Will said. “He’s fairly heavy.”

“What about making a stretcher?” Alejandro asked.

“Hmm...good idea,” Will said. “I didn’t think of that. There should be plenty of materials from this plane that we could make one real quick.”

They all searched around outside and inside the aircraft to try to find something to build a stretcher. They all reconvened by the opening to the aircraft after a few minutes of walking around. Lea and Beth stood in the opening having had stayed in the aircraft to check inside.

“There’s a section of the tail that has broken off,” Juana said. “It looks like a control panel or something. I think it’s big enough for him to lay on. We would just need to find something to tie him secure.”

“There’s some rope in here we found,” Lea said pointing a thumb to Beth. “What’s weird about it is that it’s tied to the controls. It looks like he must have cut it away to control the plane.”

“Whoa, what!?” Will said

“Yeah,” Beth said, “it’s really weird. I think someone was trying to kill him.”

Will climbed up into the plane and looked into the cockpit.

“Wow, I didn’t even notice this before when we were pulling him out,” he said holding a piece of the rope. “There’s some blood here on the floor too. I think you are right, Mom. Someone was trying to kill him.”

“Why would someone want Marcus Braden dead?” Lea asked.

“If it’s Marcus Braden,” Will said.

“It is! I swear!” Lea countered loudly.

Will laughed and shook his head. “We better get to work on the stretcher,” he said.

Alejandro and Will picked up the horizontal piece of the tail that was laying on the ground. They lucked out that it waited to fall off until the aircraft made its final drop from the trees to the ground. The flat tailpiece had some weight of its own, but the two figured that with everyone helping to hold the weight that they would be okay with the man secured to it. They placed it on the ground near the opening in the aircraft’s side. Will inspected where the piece had broken from the rest of the tail. He reached in and yanked out the snapped cabling. He hoped to lighten it as much as he could.

“We might be able to use some of this cable as well to secure him if we don’t have enough rope,” Will said holding up the wad of cable he had extracted.

“We won’t need it,” Beth said. “We found the rest of the rope that had been used to tie up the controls.”

Will saw the rope his mother pointed to and shook his head. He was still baffled by the strangeness of the situation that had been dropped in their lap. Will climbed back into the airplane to help bring the man out. Alejandro stood on the ground by the opening waiting to take the man. Will and Beth scooted the man carefully across the aircraft floor until his head was right by the opening. Alejandro reached in and grabbed the man by his shoulders.

“Alright,” Alejandro said, “jump out and be ready to grab his legs. I’m gonna start pulling him out.”

Will stepped around the man and jumped out next to Alejandro. As the man began to slide out, Will wrapped his arms around his legs again.

“Got him,” Will said.

They lowered him onto the flat tailpiece.

“Now all we need to do is secure him down,” Alejandro said. “Don’t want him sliding off,” he said with a smile.

Beth brought the rope over. They gauged the length they had and determined it was enough to cut in half to make two ropes. One would be secured at the man’s chest and the second would go around his legs. Once they had wrapped the rope around him and tied it snuggly, they determined where everyone would stand. Alejandro and Will decided they would take the two corners nearest the man’s head. They figured that part of his body would be heaviest. Beth and Juana would lift abeam his waist across from each other and Lea would lift on the end by his legs.

“Don’t anyone hesitate to say they need a break,” Will said. “It would be better off to have to rest several times than to drop him. He could get more injured if that happens.”

They did a countdown to hoist him up equally. They held the position for a few moments to make sure everyone had a good grip on the tailpiece. The started shuffling along. They rested every few minutes and made it back to their clearing after about ten minutes of walking. Lewis spotted them as they breached the tree line. He rushed over to them after noticing the body on the makeshift stretcher.

“Let me take over for someone,” Lewis said. “You all look tired.”

He replaced Beth, who he thought looked the most exhausted from the trek.

“Thanks,” Beth said as she backed away.

“How far away was the crash?” Lewis asked. “You all were gone for quite a while.”

“It’s not too far in,” Will said between grunts. “It was just that we had to come up with a stretcher. He’s unconscious. Hasn’t been awake at all since we found him.”

“Oh my,” Lewis exclaimed as he examined the man. “He looks like Marcus Braden, that newscaster.”

Will let out a laugh, “Alright, alright,” he said looking back at Lea, “I guess there’s a slight chance I’m wrong.”

Lewis raised an eyebrow in confusion. He looked back and forth between Will and Lea.

“There must’ve been some discussion on this already.”

“Yes,” Lea said. “I’m positive that he is Marcus Braden. Will won’t accept it.”

“Hey!” Will said. “I just said that I could be wrong.”

He looked back at Lea again. She narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her face at him.

Marcus opened his eyes a few millimeters. His head throbbed. Why? A thick haze hung over him. He remembered being groggy before. When was that? His vision was blurred and his eyes were barely open but he could still see some blue sky. He started to take in more information in between the waves of pain in his head. He was hearing muffled voices. He was also moving. His brain was too confused at the moment to process the information it was receiving.

He shut his eyes again and tried to think through the events that led him to where he was now. He had been on a flight. He slept for most of it. He had woken up and...nothing. He felt deep inside that there was something important he should be remembering but just couldn’t get to it.

He felt like he was moving; was he still on the airplane? Was he caught in between dream world and the real world?

Wait
, he thought.
Why could I see blue sky
?

Scenes began to flash through his thoughts. It was as if he were watching a movie. He saw himself on the airplane. He was flying. This amused him. Did he have a subconscious desire to be a pilot? The scenes continued. He was awfully close to the ground. He was...crashing?

All at once Marcus realized this wasn’t the dream world. This was a memory. He remembered it clearly now. His last memory of the tumbling aircraft came into focus. He was in a crashing plane right now. His eyes flew wide open. He tried to sit up. He was being held back by something. He looked down and saw he was bound by ropes. He couldn’t even move his arms. He hadn’t noticed his surroundings yet. He started to panic and thrash. The voices around him became clear.

“Whoa, whoa! Keep him steady.”

“It’s alright man! We are helping you.”

“We have to set him down. I’m losing my grip.”

Marcus looked around at his captors. He was definitely no longer on the King Air. He remembered the tumbling final moments. Why was he no longer on the plane? Was he dead?

“What is this? Where am I?” Marcus asked with fear covering his face.

“You were in a plane crash,” a woman told him. She was kneeling down next to him. “Do you remember that?”

Marcus nodded his head.

“Does anywhere hurt? Do you think anything is broken?” she asked.

“Why am I tied up?” Marcus asked, ignoring the woman’s questions.

“We made a stretcher for you,” a young man said. “We carried you back to our camp. We didn’t want you to fall off.” He bent down and started untying the ropes.

“Are you hurt?” the woman asked again.

Marcus considered the question for a moment. “My head is killing me.” He shifted around as the ropes loosened. He winced. “I may have broken a rib or two it seems,” he said through a contorted expression.

“We could probably wrap your chest with something to keep your ribs from moving,” the young man said. “These ropes may work if they are comfortable enough. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Marcus. Marcus Braden. You may have seen me before on the news.”

The young man smiled. “Yeah, that’s who I thought you were.”

A young woman that stood next to the man smacked him in the arm.

*****

He was so thirsty. Marcus drank and drank and drank. There was still a lingering drowsiness. For now, he was wrapped around the chest with the rope. He noticed it was the same rope that had secured the yoke in the airplane. The rope prevented bolts of pain in his chest. It wasn’t the most comfortable brace. The group told him they would come up with something better. They had examined his chest and come to the conclusion that he had two to three cracked ribs. They all seemed to remain in place. Marcus figured he was lucky that none of them separated. His hand had been wrapped with a bandage as well. He was lucky that was the extent of his injuries.

Marcus liked this group. He learned each of their names fairly quickly while they patched him up. They were all very helpful to him. They seemed to have a cohesion with each other that he didn’t experience any longer in his career life. They had lit a fire and said they were going to cook him some food. They all gathered around a fire on stumps and tree trunks.

“I think they drugged me,” Marcus said.

“Who drugged you?” Will asked with a look of surprise on his face.

“The CMA,” Marcus said. “Central Management Authority. It’s now my employer. Well...I guess ‘was’ is the more appropriate word.”

“Why would they want you dead?” Will asked. “I’ve been wanting to ask you about it. It looks like someone was trying to kill you by what we saw on the inside of the plane.”

“Yeah, I figured that out too,” Marcus said. He forced out a single laugh. “A little bit too late. When I boarded the plane earlier today I had a soda. I almost immediately fell asleep. There was no fighting it. I woke up to an open door and crazy wind and no pilot. The controls were all tied up and the fuel had just run out. I don’t know what woke me up. Maybe it was God. I felt groggy and confused. That’s why I think they drugged me with that soda. I still feel a little bit of the grogginess wearing off. I had to cut the rope away from the controls with a can. After that, I did what I could to keep the aircraft from doing a nose dive straight into the ground. I guess it worked.”

“I bet it was a smooth landing,” Alejandro joked.

“Yeah...I settled it into those soft, fluffy trees,” Marcus joked back.

Everyone laughed.

“So,” Will said, “that brings it back to the same question; why do they want you dead?”

“How long have you all been living out here in the forest?” Marcus asked.

“We just got here,” Will said. “Why?”

“So you know about the CMA camps all over the place?” Marcus asked.

“Yeah. We’ve decided to avoid them. I have a bad feeling about them. Historically, camps like that are a good way to pick up some nasty sickness.”

Marcus nodded. “I suppose they are. However, that is not the main reason you want to avoid them at this point in our history.”

“Why?” Alejandro said as he leaned forward, now more interested in the conversation.

“Because they are going to be slave labor when this whole transition of the country is done,” Marcus said.

“What!?” Will exclaimed. “Slaves?”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Marcus said. “The goal is to annihilate pretty much everyone else that didn’t go to the camps. I’ve seen a list of bombing sites. It looked like every major population center in the United States.”

No one spoke. Everyone was now in shock from the conversation. Jaws dropped open. Eyes were stuck open wide.

Marcus broke the silence. “I found those things out and I guess they didn’t trust me. Rightfully so. I was spying for a group that is planning on fighting them...somehow.” He paused. “If you all just got up here, where were you before?”

“Uh,” Will began. He was still processing the information. “Uh, we were down the mountain a little closer to Oakhurst.”

“Oakhurst? Where’s that?” Marcus asked. “And why’d you leave there?”

“Oakhurst is near Yosemite,” Will said. “We-”

Marcus cut him off, “Yosemite?” he said with a surprised tone. “I’m in California?”

“Where did you think you were?” Will asked.

“I guess I had no idea,” Marcus answered. “I was headed from Colorado to Los Angeles. I assumed I wasn’t that far from Colorado Springs. I didn’t know how long I was out from the drugs. Anyway, I interrupted you. Why’d you leave?”

“No worries,” Will said. “We were actually at our homes. My mom and I live outside of town on some property and Lewis is just down the road from us. We’ve all been holding out there. A large group came in and sent us on the run. We had been in town a couple of times since all this started and that group went through the whole town. They destroyed it. Raided everything they could find and then burned it down. There’s a good chance when we go to check out our homes that they will be a pile of charred ruins too.”

“Well that makes sense,” Marcus said.

“What does?” Will asked.

“I had also found out just this week that millions and millions of people have already died,” Marcus said grimly. “Disease, rioting, you name it. The CMA doesn’t care because they want most of the people dead anyway. They are just telling people that they are fixing everything.”

“Wow,” Alejandro said.

“We had wondered why no one showed up to the town. Not even the news,” Will said.

“They aren’t going to allow something like that to be on the news,” Marcus said. “They started censoring what I’m allowed to say the day after they took over the country. I had to go along because I was spying for the ARF.” Marcus paused for a moment. He realized he hadn’t told them about the ARF in full. “The ARF is the American Rights Foundation. I think they have some patriotic military forces that have joined with them. Anyway, I had no idea so many people had died. I had no idea that cities all over the place are destroyed. They kept it all from me. They probably assumed that I would say something about it on the news. I’ve been running around covering stories about CMA operations and how much they are helping people and other worthless stories. The whole country is crumbling around us and we are broadcasting rainbows and butterflies. Anyone watching probably thought I was an idiot.”

“We were wondering if it was just our town or if it was more widespread,” Alejandro said.

“With that amount of people dead it sounds like it’s widespread,” Will said and then turned back to Marcus. “You probably don’t have to worry about anyone thinking you are an idiot.”

“Why is that?” Marcus asked.

Will forced out a laugh. “I bet the only people watching are the people in the camps.”

Marcus thought about that and laughed as well. “I bet you are right.” Marcus paused for a moment and shook his head. “Those poor souls. They’ll be slaves to a new government.”

The news of annihilation ate at Will. He didn’t want the conversation to move on to anything else.

“So, this bombing,” Will began, “when is it going to start? Are they just nuking the all the big cities? Do you think we’ll be safe here?”

“Whoa, whoa whoa,” Marcus said. “One at a time.”

“Sorry,” Will said.

“It’s supposed to happen in the spring or summer,” Marcus said. “The document I read didn’t have any specific date. The reason I was in Colorado Springs, though, was because all the important people in the CMA were going to Cheyenne Mountain. It’s a military base that’s inside of a mountain. I was told it was for some big meeting. I have my worries that they are hiding out there while the bombing starts.”

“Oh,” was all Will said in return.

“It won’t be nuclear bombs,” Marcus said. “The document specified that. It makes sense. If they want to use the people in the camps to rebuild things how they want then they wouldn’t nuke the country. It wouldn’t be habitable for them either.”

“So, what about people like us? People hiding out in the wilderness?” Alejandro asked.

“No idea,” Marcus said. “My best guess is that they’d eventually try to find everyone they could. The document talked about ‘reeducation’. I assume that means that people like you all that avoided the camps and probably people in the camps that don’t want to go along with their plans will be indoctrinated. If it didn’t work...they’d be killed. They don’t want a rebellion on their hands. If you think about it, they must have been waiting for the country to be in the situation it was in.”

“What do you mean?” Will asked.

“Huge division in beliefs across the country,” Marcus said. “People wouldn’t just protest, they would riot. Every single issue would polarize people in some way. The economy has been bad for years. States were broken apart. I don’t think they could keep track anymore of newly created states...or regions. There were plenty of areas here in California that claimed to no longer be a part of the state or even the country. See, it’s all prime for what the CMA is doing. They started off by presenting everything as a solution. Once that step is complete, they remove what they don’t need and hit reset. Boom. Now there is a more manageable amount of people and the Central Management Authority is the new government and they control every aspect of everything.”

Marcus had become a bit too animated and held his chest at his cracked ribs for a moment.

“There has to be something we can do,” Will said with a growing look of panic in his eyes. “We can’t just let them kill all these people. It’s almost as if everyone is making it too easy for them.”

“Maybe they are,” Marcus said. “I’m sure people ran to those camps. How could they have known?”

“What about that other group you said?” Will asked. “They might have military on their side. Are they doing something?”

“The ARF. I hope so,” Marcus said. “I was only told so much from them. They didn’t want me to know too much if I was found out. I assume they have something planned.”

“What if they don’t?” Will asked urgently.

“Don’t what? Have a plan?”

“Yeah!” Will said. “We have to do something. We can’t just let them kill off nearly an entire country. There are hundreds of millions of people here.”