She came back out with a stretcher for her partner.
“Let’s get clear.” In three ferry loads, they put another couple hundred feet between them and the now engulfed engine. They stood in the ashen forest with their salvaged gear and her partner on a stretcher. Jess waited, but even now that they were relatively safe, she didn’t slide into shock.
“How bad is the road up to here?”
She looked at him like he was an i***t, which wouldn’t surprise anyone, him least of all.
“I mean for an ambulance.”
“We don’t—” then she looked grim for a moment and glanced down at her partner where he lay strapped into the stretcher. “I don’t even know where we are. Visibility was near zero for the last hour.”
Jess clicked on the radio, “Candace? Jess here.”
“Wondering when you’d get off your lazy a*s and
