The Hearts Call-Chapter 3

Winds whipped loose dirt and ash around outside of a cave as Lizzy tossed and turned in her sleeping bag. Her face was dirty from days of being on the run without finding anywhere to get more water or clean up. A howl in the distance stirred her, causing her to open her eyes and look around. This was the hardest part of the day since the crash, waking up to find it was all real. It reminded her that her grandfather was gone, much like her father. If she couldn't find a way out of the hot zone and back to San Diego, Lizzy was all alone.

Sitting up against the side of the cave wall, Lizzy reached for the pistol she took off the body of the dead pilot, Jacob. Tears streaked down her face as it all set in for the dozenth time. She'd been on the run for days and the only time she found to even begin to grieve was when she would wake up in the mornings. She couldn't get the images of the crash out of her memory, the face of her grandfather as he gasped for air, the large branch of the tree sticking through his right lung. He could barely talk, other than to tell her to go before the craft caught fire and exploded.

She hated herself for leaving him, even though she knew, just looking at him, that he was too far gone to save in the middle of the wilderness. With tears streaking down her face then, washing the blood from her nose down her chin, Lizzy climbed out to check on the pilot. She found him gone already, no pulse and he wasn't breathing. The injuries to his head, even with the helmet on, were too great to survive. Lizzy grabbed his gun, making a cross symbol across her chest before climbing the rest of the way out as her grandfather yelled at her to "GO!"

After getting just fifty yards from the crash site the helo exploded behind her, the shock of it happening buckled her knees, sending her down to the ground sobbing. She laid there for hours, in shock, scared, and alone in the middle of Mt. Rainier National Park. Lizzy would have laid there forever, if not for the cold rain that started falling across the area. It had been five years and the rain still tasted different. It still carried dirty ash in it as it fell back to the earth.

She had crashed on the east side of Rainier. After finding shelter in the rocks around Rainier the first night, Lizzy began hiking her way out. She was injured, herself, and could not reach a top speed. Lizzy was making it about eight miles a day through the heavily burned out, rough terrain around the mountain.

In the cave on the western side, well below the point of the Liberty Cap, Lizzy had gone there as much to rest as she had to hide. There were people that were combing the area still, no doubt looking for the crashed bird. Like the rest of the western half of the country, even the people around Mt. Rainier were different now.

Three men on four-wheelers found her yesterday. She thought she was saved. Lizzy was wrong. As she sat in the cave she hoped against hope that none of them were still looking for her, that they'd taken their friend for help and returned to Fairfax, Ashford, Park Junction, or wherever they came from.

Tears streamed down her cheeks remembering when they found her, remembering how it turned out so badly. She heard the engines of their four-wheelers and followed the sounds, hoping to find help, to maybe get a ride into one of the neighboring towns. They stopped as soon as they saw her, rushing over to where she stood on the side of a hilly area, an area with nothing but burned-out trees sticking out of the ground, charred black pillars that reminded her there was once life there. Lizzy thanked them for coming. Looking back, she felt so stupid, so weak, for letting them know she was there.

Three of them arrived. One of them, his friends called Bill, was a medium-built man in his forties. He got off his ride first, coming over with a comforting voice. Bill asked her what she was doing out there, all alone? Why did she tell him she was alone?

"I was on a helo that crashed. We were running aid and rescue to the areas still suffering from the eruption," she told him.

Bill looked at her and she could still, as she flashed back, see the creepy dark brown of his eyes.

"Did nobody else survive?"

Lizzy teared up each time she remembered those men. She'd been on the run from them ever since that morning. The horror of shooting Bill stuck with her, haunting her nightmares as she tried to sleep, something she barely did since the trauma of the crash.

"Why!" she screamed in the cave, pounding her fists hysterically on the granite cave floor.

An eagle landed at the opening of the cave, his call unmistakable. It distracted her from remembering what happened, from remembering for the moment, that she'd lost her grandfather, been stranded in a disaster zone, and shot her would-be rapist. She got up and stumbled slowly to the edge of the cave entrance, her straggly dark hair being caught by a sudden rush of wind.

The wind felt good on her skin. She took in a deep breath, looking around the corners of the cave. There was nobody as far as the eye could see. The eagle just sat there, its little feathered head looking side to side as if it came to alert her to the fact that she could go on safely. Lizzy looked down at the beautiful, winged, creature, amazed at how close it let her get to it.

"Thank you, my friend," said Lizzy.

Lizzy picked up her gear and hoisted it over her shoulders. With the men gone she could attempt to start her way across country, to find some resemblance of civilization. She knew that from her location she was closest to the small city of Ashford. Lizzy didn't know what was there, or if there were any survivors, but knew she needed to look for supplies and hopefully a radio that worked. Standing at the edge of the cave, she looked up into the sky, seeing a glimmer of sunlight trying to burn its' way through the nasty gray clouds that had hung over the area since the eruption.

"Well, my little friend, what say we get the hell out of here?"

As Lizzy climbed down the bald eagle took off, soaring its' way into the sky high above Lizzys' location. As she started to head in the direction of Ashford, she smiled up at the majestic bird above her, as it too seemed to be circling around her but in a direction that was heading her way.

As she walked, her thoughts drifted, to that of her Jonny and the life she imagined she'd be enjoying if not for being separated by a continent and a disaster. She hoped that wherever he was, he was safe. After all that had happened, she was glad she'd left her heart-shaped locket with him to remember her by.