Lone Star Renegades (7 page)

Collin waited until her feet disappeared into the darkness beyond.

“
Move it, Sticks, this shit is heavy!
”
Humphrey yelled.

DiMaggio nodded his agreement. Collin, like Tink, crawled in headfirst. There was enough light to see Tink moving around. She
’
d come to a stop.
“
I think you were right. We
’
ll have to move down first before we can move back up. There
’
s a big metal shed blocking the way.
”

“
Yeah, try going down.
”
Collin watched as she moved a few smaller items
—
a plastic lawn chair and a mailbox
—
out of the way. This time she went through the opening feet first, slowly lowering herself until she found something unseen below to stand on.

Collin transferred the Maglite from his hand to between his teeth and began to follow her. Only her head was now visible. Looking back at Collin, Tink
’
s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars.
“
Oh my God!
”

“
What? Did you cut yourself? What is it?
”

“
I felt something move.
”

“
There
’
s a lot of stuff
…
things are going to move
…
shift around.
”

“
No, Collin! Something alive. It had fur.
”

He saw Tink trying to look down at her feet through all the clustered stuff.

“
Just keep going. Probably a squirrel or something.
”

“
It
’
s the
‘
or something
’
that scares me.
”

Collin watched as Tink disappeared. The sound of metal objects being pushed aside let him know she was okay.
“
Finding a way through down there?
”
he asked, maneuvering his own feet into the narrow opening.

“
Yeah. There
’
s actually more room to move around in, once you get down here. Come on down.
”

Collin wasn
’
t having quite as easy a time maneuvering as Tink, but he eventually got into the open space where she was waiting. He took the Maglite from between his teeth and played the beam around them.

“
There. We can crawl back up the other side of the shed, right there,
”
Tink said.

Collin saw what she was referring to.
“
What is that?
”

“
I think it
’
s a jungle gym, lying on its side.
”
Tink half crawled, half slid, over to the metal bars and began pulling herself up through the lattice of rounded metal.
“
It
’
s like a ladder
…
easy-peezy.
”

Collin followed right behind her. As she climbed nearly straight up, he was prepared to follow when his flashlight caught something in its beam: two intensely bright green eyes thirty feet away.

“
You know, it might help if you
’
d shine that light in front of me so I can see where I
’
m going,
”
Tink said, looking down at Collin. Curious, she followed the beam of the light.
“
Oh shit. What the hell is that?
”

“
Probably a cat. Just keep going.
”
She began climbing twice as fast as before.

Collin too climbed fast. What he hadn
’
t mentioned to Tink was that he
’
d seen, in the dim light, more than something with two eyes. The partial face wasn
’
t that of a cat
—
or a squirrel
—
or any mammal he was aware of on Earth. This creature looked like a person
…
a man
—
but one covered in fur. A wolf man. His mind flashed back to the old black and white Lon Chaney movie.
“
Keep going, don
’
t stop,
”
Collin urged.

“
You think?
”
Tink retorted.
“
We have a problem,
”
she said.

You have no idea
, Collin thought.
“
What is it?
”

“
The wing. It
’
s right above me and I can
’
t see a way
…
wait. Okay, I can crawl off to the side here.
”

He heard her kicking again and then the sound of something heavy falling.
“
Tink?
”

Nothing
…
Collin
’
s body tensed.
“
Hey Tink
…
you okay?
”

Still nothing.

Finally her voice came,
“
I
’
m fine. I think I found a way through here.
”

“
I
’
m coming.
”
Collin got to the underside of the wing and listened for Tink. He again held the flashlight between his teeth and noticed the beam was vibrating. Had he ever been this scared in his life? There was a creature lurking nearby, probably hungry, and Tink had chosen a path that went right in its direction. Collin crawled through the debris around him double-time. His knee hit something hard and an intense pain shot through his leg. He looked down and saw his pants were ripped and there was blood.
Crap!
He touched the wound with his right hand and assessed the damage. Probably could use a few stitches, but he
’
d live.

There was a noise to his left. He pointed the Maglite in the general direction. All he saw was more junk.

“
I
’
m on the wing! I made it!
”

“
Good, hold tight
…
I
’
m coming.
”
He wiggled through an area that wasn
’
t much wider than his own body and wondered how the other guys, all quite a few pounds bigger and heavier than he was, would make it through here. Eventually he pulled himself through and, sure enough, found the back edge of the wing.

“
What was that down there, Collin?
”
Tink
’
s voice was barely a whisper. He saw her feet. He wiggled out of the shaft he
’
d just maneuvered through and held up his hand.
“
Give me a hand, will you?
”

Using two hands, she pulled until Collin was able to crawl up onto the wing.

“
Answer me!
”

“
I don
’
t know.
”
He got to his feet. The plane was crushed
—
at least half of it was. The passenger railcar took up the space where the rear of the plane used to be. Collin and Tink exchanged glances.

“
They might all be dead, Collin. They may have all moved toward the back of the plane and gotten crushed.
”

Collin had to duck his head. Above them, an eighteen-wheeler
’
s big aluminum trailer lay on its side. It slanted upward, propped onto the top of what remained of the 777
’
s fuselage.

“
Let
’
s see if anyone
’
s home.
”
Collin sidestepped a metal file cabinet and moved over to the jetliner
’
s emergency exit. He looked in through the little porthole window. There were still cabin lights on. He pounded his fist against the door
…
bang bang bang
.

Within seconds there was movement inside.
“
I see movement,
”
he said. It was still too dim inside to see who was in there.
“
It
’
s me
…
Collin. Open the door!
”

He heard excited murmuring
—
elevated voices inside. Then came a series of sounds, like the latch mechanism being worked, and the door, now unsealed, was pushed outward. Collin and Tink stepped backward as the big door swung open. The first person to greet them was Lydia. She rushed into his arms.

Chapter 9

Lydia pulled away. “Are you the only one left? Did the rest …” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Did Darren … die down there?”

Collin’s heart sank, but his face gave no indication of his disappointment. “No, Darren’s fine. Same with Humphrey and DiMaggio. As you can see, Tink is fine, too. We lost Tami, though.”

Lydia brought a hand up to her mouth as if choking on what she had to say. “There were a few back in the tail section. They were getting ready to go below. Bobby Lopez, Ryan Mansfield, and Brianna Gould … all are dead. They’d have to be dead, right?”

Collin nodded and did the quick math in his head. They’d started out with somewhere around forty-eight kids. About half of those didn’t make it off of the bus. Now, with Tami gone, along with the three in the tail section, there would be twenty kids left. At this rate, it seemed all of them surviving the day would be a stretch.

Collin noticed that although she had taken a half-step back, her palm was still resting on his chest. She looked so scared and vulnerable, he wanted to pull her in close … tell her everything was going to be all right, even though he knew things couldn’t get much worse.

“I’m scared, Collin. We’re all scared … I miss my parents. Are we going to die?”

“Nah … we’ll be fine. Someday you’ll be able to tell your grandkids about your adventures in space.”

She nodded but clearly didn’t buy the mini pep talk. “What do we do now?”

“We need to get everyone out of the plane. There’s too much heavy crap on top of it … sooner or later, it’ll cave in, like the tail section. Can you have everyone collect their stuff and gather here on the wing? I have to go back down … help the others come up from below.”

“You’re going back down there?” she asked, looking somewhat exasperated.

“Believe me, there’s nothing I’d rather do less.”

* * *

It took the better part of an hour to get Darren, Humphrey, and DiMaggio, as well as the weapons and duffle bags, transferred up to the wing. The latter aspect was pretty much left to Collin and DiMaggio to do on their own, since Darren and Humphrey said they’d rather leave everything behind than take on that extra work. While Collin checked out his still-oozing knee, which had begun to throb, he told DiMaggio what he’d seen—what he thought he’d seen, anyway. At this point he was less and less sure. He was fairly sure the mind played tricks on someone under this kind of stress. Just the same, they both kept an eye out for something furry and green-eyed.

Collin, thankful for his own forethought, brought the automatic weapons up last. There was no way he was going to leave them lying around for Darren and Humphrey to grab up while he was climbing around under tons of junk metal. What the survivors had done, though, was rifle through the bags of clothes—much of which were now haphazardly strewn all over. Tink was in the process of repacking things when Collin lifted himself over the top of the wing and sat with his legs hanging over the edge. DiMaggio passed up the heavy duffel, holding the weapon cache. Collin looked up when he noticed someone standing behind him. Surprised, he saw it was Bubba. He had on a pair of green army pants from the baggage supply, but they were clearly too snug for him around his thick legs.

“Hand it up,” he said.

Collin momentarily debated if he should oblige him but figured the big guy had little idea what was in the duffle bag anyway. Bubba took hold of the handles with one hand and lifted the duffle up and away.

“What the hell you got in there?” he asked, now using both hands to carry the bag to the center of the wing.

Collin waited for DiMaggio to reach his hand up and, when he did, Collin pulled him up next to him on the wing. DiMaggio was sweating and out of breath. In the background they heard Darren’s voice.

“Listen up, everybody. Gather round … chop chop,” he said, waving his hands in toward his body.

Collin and DiMaggio ignored the directive, preferring to stay seated where they were. Lydia moved in close to Darren and he swung an arm around her shoulders. Several of the guys who’d been inside the plane came out and were now huddling around their quarterback. Collin noticed Bubba stayed where he was. He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “What’s this about, man?”

Darren combed his fingers through his long hair and smiled. “It’s about what we’re doing next. We can’t have everyone going off in their own direction … we just need a few minutes to strategize.” Some of the cheerleaders were speaking among themselves, which brought a loud
shush
from Humphrey.

Darren glanced over to Collin and continued: “The jetliner isn’t safe, as we’ve discovered. So we need to move our base to a new location. For now, we can stay back in the railcars.”

“Uh … railcars are full of a bunch of dead guys,” Clifford Bosh said, looking like he wanted to vomit.

“Well, we’ll have to move them out of there … won’t we?” Darren said.

“What about food? All the food’s still here … on the plane,” Garry Hurst added.

Darren chewed his lip for a second before looking over to Collin.

After several long beats, Collin said, “If we limit the number of people going in and out of the plane, that might be okay.”

“And to drop a brick?”

“Yeah, same thing. Get in and out of the heads fast. Limit the amount of people inside the plane at any one time. That’s my suggestion, anyway.”

“Good. So that’s what we’ll do. Let’s get moving. Everyone needs to help,” Darren barked.

As the group started to disperse, Collin, DiMaggio, and even Bubba stayed put. Humphrey took a step closer. “You got a problem, Sticks? You too important to heft a few bodies?”