When We Were Lost Read online

  He glanced behind, surprised by how far he’d already climbed. And seeing the rump of the plane from this vantage point, and the cluster of people standing in front of it, he knew for sure that none of them should have survived. It would go down in the books as a freak occurrence, like that flight attendant who’d survived a plane being blown up at thirty thousand feet and had landed safely in deep snow.

  He pushed on, increasingly conscious of the wall of noise around him, the birds and other animals, but mainly insects, that filled the jungle they’d crashed into. For all those creatures, nothing had changed, and sooner or later—starting with the bodies first and then the wreckage—all evidence of this crash would slowly be absorbed back into the landscape.

  Finally he reached the top, but it didn’t provide him with much satisfaction. The other side of the ridge descended into a deep, forested ravine before rising up to even steeper hills beyond. He took a quick look behind at the landscape beyond the tail of the plane, undulating and densely jungled, more low hills in the distance, a vast expanse of green stretching as far as he could see.

  Then he turned back to the valley and it took him a short while to see the rest of the plane, far below and far enough away from the ridge to suggest it hadn’t simply slid down the slope but had catapulted away from it and belly-flopped onto the valley floor. It looked flattened and crumpled, the paint charred as if a swift fire had engulfed it before burning out.

  He wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get to the wreckage from there, but he knew without moving from the ridge that there was no one still alive in it. Miss Graham with her fear of turbulence, Jack Shaw with his long legs, Maisie McMahon with her undisclosed health problems—they were all dead. So was Olivia, who’d complained of Chris annoying her, and in so doing, had saved his life and cost Miss Graham hers.

  In a way there was something wondrous about it, the random movements that had determined who would live or die, including the movements of the plane—if it had traveled just one yard more before hitting that ridge, Tom would have been down there in that blackened wreckage with them.

  He remembered a family he’d seen during boarding, probably Costa Rican, with two daughters. One had been about his own age and Tom had noticed her first because of how pretty she was. Her sister had been much younger, maybe only eight or nine, clutching a soft toy.

  He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of those two girls being down there among the dead was hard to accept. He hadn’t known them, would probably never have seen them again, yet in some way it was harder to comprehend they were dead than it was Miss Graham or the others.

  A seed planted, that maybe they weren’t dead at all, that they were trapped down there hoping to be rescued. Maybe that was why he’d thought of them, why he’d climbed this ridge in the first place, because this was what he was meant to do, he was meant to find them.

  The feeling was so strong and filled him with such urgency that he took a step forward without meaning to, then another, down the slope, sensing there was no time left to lose. He glanced quickly at the distant wreckage, meaning only to remind himself of the direction he was heading in, but the sight of it stopped him short and brought him back to his senses.

  The wreckage. Nobody was alive down there, not the two sisters, not Miss Graham, nobody. That truth hit him harder the second time, seemed more shocking somehow—how could all those people simply be gone?

  He thought of Miss Graham and the way she smiled encouragingly when someone was making a point in class. He thought of others, kids he’d only known as faces around school. All of them were gone.

  He didn’t want to think about them at all, didn’t want to imagine the final terrifying moments that had left the wreckage pancaked against the valley floor like that. So he turned away from it, staring blankly at the trees off to his left instead, staring for some time before he realized he could see a body.

  It was wedged in the branches of a tree a short way below where he stood, checked blue shirt, blond hair. Having spotted one body, Tom scanned the trees for more, but there weren’t any others that he could see.

  He set off toward the boy but the descent was trickier on this side and the trees had not been flattened. By the time he got to the tree he was aiming for he was lost in the dappled half-light of the jungle and the body was almost out of sight above him. He recognized him—Charlie Stafford, a kid Tom had known a little, looking unhurt but too much at peace.

  There was no way Tom could reach him, but even at that distance, looking at the strange angle and pose of Charlie’s body, there was no question that he was dead. Even if Tom got him down, he couldn’t bury him. And with the insects swarming around, he guessed nature would take its course whatever he did.

  Charlie had once borrowed a pen from Tom, and had said hello every time he’d seen him after that. So they’d hardly known each other, but still enough to make Tom wonder how Charlie could be suspended up there now, present and absent at once, still possessed of that clean, healthy look, but the easy smile and the likability and the friendliness all gone.

  Charlie had often looked deep in thought, a dreamer, and yet whatever had occupied his mind, it all seemed pointless now. Here he was, thinking nothing, and he would never think or dream or plan again, never again snap out of his own little world as they passed in the hallways and say, “Hey Tom, how’s it going?”

  Slowly, sadly, Tom turned away and made his way back up onto the ridge. He sat there, looking down at the crash party and the wreckage and at the scattered trail of debris and the unyielding jungle stretching out beyond. And with the thought of Charlie still lodged in his mind, he felt an odd relief that he had not gone to find those sisters.

  He reached into his pocket for the bottle and took a small swig. The water was already warm and yet felt incredibly refreshing running over his tongue, down his throat. He didn’t think a simple drink of water had ever felt so good.

  It wasn’t just the water, either—as hot as he was, as exhausted by the climbing, bruised by the thrust into the seat belt, as troubled as he’d been by the sight of the wreckage and of Charlie suspended in that tree, he was suffused with a strange sense of restfulness and well-being. Maybe that was a reaction to the shock too, but right now he felt he could have sat contentedly on this ridge forever.

  He wouldn’t be able to stay, of course. He’d have to join the others, as much as he sensed he’d be better off on his own, and as ill-equipped as he felt about being part of a group.

  With that in mind, he wondered if they had a plan of action yet, or if they’d even thought about it. Maybe they were just killing time until the rescue party arrived, but judging by this landscape, it would be a long time before that happened.

  With that thought in mind he looked at his watch again, knowing they could not be where they were meant to be, but he was once more distracted by something below. It still seemed Joel was holding court with all the others standing around him. Or all but one. Because someone had left the group now and was walking up the hill to where Tom was sitting.

  She stopped where he had and also picked up a bottle of water, and then continued on toward him. It was Alice Dysart, who was actually in all the same classes as him, though he didn’t think he’d ever spoken to her. And he wondered if she’d just broken free like he had, or whether Joel had sent her to bring Tom back, because to people who thought Lord of the Flies was a survival manual, it was probably vital that they all stick together…

  CHAPTER 6

  Alice seemed to climb without much difficulty, an easy balance about her, as if she found walking up the slope no more taxing than a flat path, yet it seemed to take her a long time. And the effort of doing anything in this humid blanket of heat was apparent in the damp patches already appearing here and there on her T-shirt.

  She threw glances at the debris as she walked, but didn’t look up at him at all. It meant he was able to watch her progress. Until recently she’d always worn her fair hair long but she’d had it cut short, perhaps specifically for this trip. She was pretty, although he didn’t think he had any more in common with her than with any of the others.

  She’d almost reached the top before she stopped and finally looked at him and smiled. “You must work out. You flew up here.”

  “You made it look pretty easy yourself.”

  “Didn’t feel like it.” She opened her bottle and drank some water. “They’re already driving me crazy, and I think it’ll be a while before anyone comes.” She looked around at the dense growth surrounding them.

  Reminded again, Tom looked at his watch, checking that it was working. It had been his dad’s watch, and it had never let him down in the couple of years his wrist had been big enough to wear it. But if it was right, it really didn’t make any sense at all, not unless they’d been through a wormhole.

  “I saw you check your watch earlier—what’s wrong?” He was surprised that she’d noticed, in the same way that he was surprised when anyone really noticed him at all. But before he could answer, she said, “No, tell me in a minute. I want to see what’s over that ridge first.”

  She climbed the rest of the way to where Tom was sitting and then he stood to join her as she scanned the canopy beyond and spotted the wreckage.

  “Oh,” was all she said, the word little more than a sigh, and she looked depleted now, exhausted by the sight in a way that she hadn’t been by the climb up the hill. Tom remembered she had a boyfriend—Ethan—on the football team. Maybe that was why she’d climbed up here. “Well, it must’ve been quick—that’s something, I guess.” If she’d been trying to comfort herself, it clearly hadn’t worked.

  Tom nodded. “Sorry about your boyfriend.”

  She turned and looked at him. She looked on the verge of tears and her thro
at was tight but she pushed through it, saying, “Ex-boyfriend. I thought everyone knew we’d broken up.” He didn’t respond and she nodded, acknowledging that Tom wasn’t everyone. And perhaps because Tom wasn’t everyone, she stared out at the landscape again and said, “I’m not even sure why I went out with him in the first place. I mean, we didn’t have anything in common, but…” She ground to a halt.

  But. That about summed it up. “I’m sorry anyway.”

  “Thanks.” She sighed deeply and turned away from the wreckage in the same way Tom had. Likewise, she let her vision drift across the view in front of them before stopping with a double take. She pointed and said, “Oh, my God! Is that a body?”

  “Yeah, it’s the only one I could see. I went down there but he’s high up in the branches—I couldn’t get to him.”

  “Who is it?” She sounded nervous, like someone who didn’t really want an answer.

  “Charlie Stafford.”

  He thought he saw relief in her expression, perhaps because it wasn’t someone she knew, even though there was no doubt that they were all dead anyway.

  “I didn’t know him. How weird.” Even without her spelling it out, Tom felt he understood what she meant, that it was strange to think she hadn’t known him and would now never get the chance.

  He thought about Charlie himself, wondering why he’d never bothered to have a proper conversation with him. Maybe they really did have only that borrowed pen in common, but they might have become friends if Tom had made an effort. Either way, he’d never know now.

  Alice turned her back on the body and said, “I’d rather not think about it. Do you think that’s selfish?” Tom shook his head but she still frowned, not looking convinced. Then she pointed at his arm. “Why do you keep looking at your watch?”

  He glanced at it again, not even really taking in the time shown there. “We crashed about half an hour ago, and the sun just came up, so it’s around six in the morning.” Her eyes opened wide, perhaps remembering when they were supposed to arrive. “Exactly. We were supposed to arrive last night at ten p.m. local time, eleven p.m. our time, but we only just crashed, which means we kept flying for another six or seven hours.” He pointed at the wreckage far below them. “I’m guessing that’s why the fire burned out so quickly, because there was no fuel left.”

  “But if we reached Costa Rica and kept flying for seven hours…”

  “We’d be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The pilot must have changed course.”

  “Like that Malaysian plane.”

  “Like that Malaysian plane. That’s why I was checking my watch, because it’s set to the time back home. It’s just getting to be time for breakfast.”

  She looked distracted by that final detail, probably thinking that her family would know by now, would be distraught and waiting for news.

  Quickly, to take her mind off it, he said, “It means we’re somewhere in South America. Costa Rican time is an hour behind us, but I guess my watch is just about right for where we are. So we’re some place in the same time zone as back home, and looking at this landscape…”

  “So we’re in South America. But if the plane flew for an extra seven hours, we could be anywhere—Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia…” He nodded when she paused. “We could be anywhere,” she said again, her voice full of resignation and all the things that didn’t need to be said.

  If the pilot had changed course on purpose, he’d probably turned off the plane’s transponders, just like in that Malaysian plane. If they’d flown for seven hours off radar, they could be anywhere within hundreds of thousands of square miles, and even with satellite data to help narrow down the search, the rain forests of South America were probably as tough a search zone as any ocean.

  There would be no rescue party, he was certain of that now. He’d already sensed they might have a long wait, but unless someone had actually seen or heard their plane cutting through the early morning dark, they might as well have vanished off the face of the earth.

  Right now, they would have become a mystery, filling news bulletins all over the world. But this was the reality of that mystery—most of them were dead, and the survivors would have no choice but to find their own way out of this vast and undoubtedly hostile jungle.

  She sat down, almost where Tom had been a few minutes before. He looked back down the hill. They were still all just standing in a huddle, their focus on Joel, who seemed to be above them on a box or something.

  Tom sat down near her and took a small swig of water, conscious now that they would need to conserve their supply. He’d always imagined Alice being talkative, perhaps only because she was normally with a group of other girls who were more than talkative, but she seemed happy to sit in silence.

  The two of them watched as nothing happened below, as the landscape whispered and hummed around them, as the sky remained relentlessly empty.

  They’d been there a few minutes before she finally said, “What do you think we should do?”

  It hadn’t really occurred to him until now. He’d already accepted that a rescue wasn’t likely, that they’d probably have to make their own way out, but he hadn’t given any thought to how they might do that or if it was even possible.

  “Make a camp, I guess. Wait here for a day or two, maybe three, just in case. Then make a plan for getting out.”

  From the corner of his eye he could see her nod, then she said, “Think the others will see it that way?”

  As she asked the question, Joel’s raised voice reached them, apparently bringing order after one of those brief crescendos of noise from the group.

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t care what the rest of them do. I’ll give it three days tops and I’m heading out.”

  “If you do, I’ll come with you.” He turned and looked at her, surprised that she would want to go with him. She shrugged, looking embarrassed in some way, though he wasn’t sure why. “It’s just… we have to get out.”

  “Okay. It’s a deal. Three days.”

  “Three days.”

  Chris emerged from the group down below, not drifting away as they had, but walking with purpose. After about twenty paces he stopped and looked up before waving for them to come back.

  Alice waved in acknowledgment. She stood then and turned, waiting. Tom stood too, but for some reason he felt the need to let her know that he was deadly serious.

  “Three days, no more.”

  She nodded, and they set off down the slope.

  CHAPTER 7

  They stopped on the way down and Tom retrieved his backpack from the burst container. Alice’s was one of those that had fallen onto the slope and she picked it up, checking it for insects before slipping it over one shoulder. Tom stopped a second time, scooping up the carton of bottled water.

  The rest of them were still all talking more or less over one another, but they fell silent as Tom and Alice approached, and they were still a few paces away when Chloe said, “What happened to the rest of the plane?”

  Her tone was so urgent that Tom wondered if she’d had a close friend or boyfriend in the front section, or whether she just wanted desperately for everyone to have survived.

  Alice said, “It’s wrecked. They’re all dead.”

  Chloe looked stunned and there were gasps and stifled outbursts from some of the others too. A couple of people simply broke down and started to cry. Tom found it hard to believe that any of them could be totally stunned by the news—sad, maybe, but not shocked. This was the real shock: all of them, standing here, breathing. They had to have guessed what had happened to the rest of the plane, but the confirmation of the fact seemed to hit them harder than the crash itself.

  Once again, Joel rose above them, saying, “Did you check the wreckage?”

  He’d always seemed to have that debate-society, future-politician tone, but his voice had developed an extra edge of authority now, leaving no one in doubt that he’d taken on the mantle of group leader.

  It irked Tom in some way, and perhaps Alice too, because she sounded defiant as she said, “No, we didn’t. It’s a big valley, and the plane’s way down in it.”