Silent Wilderness

Relieved she took out her phone to call.

“I hate to let anyone know that I am lost on the grounds where I work and I’ll never live this one down. I take enough ribbing as it is about being the only female in our unit. Now they will think I am just another helpless female who can’t get along without a male to guide her. Okay who shall I wake up? I should wake up Dan. That would serve him right with all the trouble I had tonight. But the only number I have is his office and I am sure he is home in bed by now. And I am certainly not calling ‘old Romeo Rafael’. Now wouldn’t he get a charge out of that?

Oh how I hate to wake him and his family but the only one is Mac. Just as she was ready to hit the speed dial for Mac she heard voices.

“Great!” She was relieved. “Surely they can point this lost woman in the right direction.” As she rounded a corner she was faced with a large open space. “This must be the new production area that Mac has been telling me about.” She thought and then shook her head. “I can’t be touring this facility when I need help getting out of this place.”

She looked around to find where the voices were coming from. Then she saw several men in the far corner. As she walked toward them ready to yell out she heard that the voices were getting louder and angrier.

“I gave you the information that I promised now give me the money I was promised? I need to get out of here,” yelled one of the men.

“Do you think we’re crazy? There is no way we are going to let you leave. You know too much,” an evil grin crossed his pock scarred face.

“You lousy double-crosser I gave …” A look of stark fear shone on his face as the two other men grabbed him.

Sam stood glued to the spot as the two men held him struggling to get free. Then she saw the glint of a knife as it was plunged into the victim. She must have screamed because the two men swung their heads around with a stunned look of surprise when they saw her.

She and the two men froze in shock as they looked at each other. Gathering her senses, she turned and ran just as the two men realized that she had witnessed the stabbing.

“Now what?” one of them yelled as they left the dying man and chased after her.

She heard a shot being fired just as something whizzed past her head. They were coming after her and she knew that she could not outrun bullets. It was in the middle of the night and she was not sure of where she was in the vast building complex. She just ran. Where could she go? She found herself taking turns that somehow seemed familiar. Then she noticed that she was retracing her tracks.

“This must be the way I came in.” She was frantic. There was no one around to help. As she exited the building she noticed the Cessna 150 that she had just landed.

“My God, dear God,” she prayed as she ran toward the plane, “What can I do?”

The only escape she saw was the plane with a malfunction radio and very little gas. “Well, here goes. It’s in your hands now, Lord. I hate to put you in this spot but You are all I’ve got.”

She almost stalled the plane as she pulled back too steep as it lifted off. Then she took the customary left turn to circle the field so that she could head west. When she made the turn she looked down and saw flashing blue lights headed toward the building she had just left.

“I must have triggered the security system as I wandered through the building.”

“Steady now Sam,” she told herself as she trimmed the plane to fly itself and cut the engine in case the killers knew she had taken the plane. She searched the map for a place to land before she ran out of gas.