An Alaskan Vacation

An Alaskan Vacation

It was day 48 of the continuous Alaskan Summer Sun and Eric was still lost. His shelter for almost the last 2 months was nothing more than the torn fuselage of his bush plane that had crashed after an engine failure. The remains of his wife and only passenger lay a mere 10 feet from the wreckage, in a shallow grave.

They had been flying along the North Slope of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska as part of a wilderness getaway that Eric and his wife had done every summer for the last 3 years. He had just turned back to head towards Prudhoe Bay when his engine died without warning. With nothing but trees below them the landing was never going to be easy.

The aluminum skin of the small aircraft didn’t offer much resistance to the old hardwood trees of the Alaskan wilderness. During the crash a branch had impaled his wife after coming straight through the thin metal of her door. 3 feet of spruce had lodged itself into her shoulder, pinning her in place.

It had only taken 3 days for her to ask Eric to end her suffering. Eric rebuked her, saying that help would be there soon. The airport would notice he hadn’t returned and send a search party. In the meantime, Eric kept busy. He gathered firewood, found and boiled water, foraged for food, and set traps for small game. He forced her to drink and eat. He hid the limited antibiotics from their medical kit in her food. This went on for 15 days before the supplies of antibiotics ran dry.

On day 17 as Eric tried to feed his wife some of the scarce food he had been able to scrounge together, she refused. She looked him in the eyes and begged for death. The infection had developed at a rapid pace. She said her body was on fire and all she knew was pain.

By day 19 Eric had worked up the courage to ease his wife’s suffering but it was too late. She had passed while Eric was sleeping. Her eyes stuck half open, staring down at the wooden stake that had claimed her. Not knowing what else to do, Eric held a small funeral for the love of his life. After digging a shallow hole with a torn piece of aircraft aluminum he whispered a short prayer to himself and lowered her body into grave.

After day 20 and every single day afterwords Eric would hear a single voice over the aircraft’s broken radio. Only when the shadows were long from the Sun’s daily flirt with the horizon would he hear this voice. He convinced himself it was nothing, just his extreme hunger manifesting in strange ways. He had, after all, been giving all the food he found to his wife.

Day 26 and Eric had almost no energy to do anything. His stomach was a deep dark pit in which his very soul seemed to be sinking into. All he could focus his hazy mind on was food. Food and thoughts of his wife, whom he missed more than anything. Eric could no longer keep his mind straight. Thoughts of his wife and complaints from his empty stomach conjoined into a horrible plan of action.

Eric sat, staring at the impromptu grave he had created for his late spouse. It was day 32 and he wanted to see his wife again. Grabbing the piece of aluminum he had used to initially dig the 3-foot hole, he began digging again. This time was much easier though. A deep longing feeling in the pit of his stomach pushed him forward even when his muscles should’ve failed from exhaustion. After a few minutes, he once again looked at the face of his wife. Her features were somehow unchanged, as if they had been perfectly preserved in the Alaskan soil. Eric chalked this up to a possible layer of permafrost that must be just below, just out of sight.

The sun was setting on day 33 and Eric had a large fire going. His feast would soon be ready. It is what she would’ve wanted, he tells himself. He would want the same thing if the roles had been reversed. The idea of sacrificing yourself to feed your loved one is almost romantic, Eric thinks to himself as the flesh of his significant other crackles and cooks in the fire. This way they would be truly together forever. Her body incorporated into his.

It was day 48. Eric sat huddled in his shelter. The sacrifice offered up by his wife had run out a couple of days ago. He stood to look at her grave, the soil still disturbed after he had gone back and buried his wife’s bones. He tried thinking of her from before this horrible ordeal. His stomach rumbled.

Before he could finish his train of thought though, a sound caught his attention. A distant but instantly recognizable sound, a helicopter, and from the sound it was rapidly getting closer. He scrambled to find something, anything to get their attention. Searching for the survival kit which he knew contained flairs, he worried that he might miss his chance. The sound of helicopter blades was growing louder. If they overflew him and did not see him, it was over.

Giving up on trying to find the flares he turned and grabbed a piece of the airplane’s fuselage. Using as much strength as he could muster, he tore the thin metal from its frame, his hands bleeding from the sharp edges. The helicopter sounded so close now he turned his head to look for it.

He could see the helicopter now, using the aluminum as a mirror he attempted to catch their attention. Hoping the Sun’s rays would cooperate. At first, he couldn’t tell if it was working, he flailed the makeshift mirror about in a desperate effort to signal them. The helicopter flew out of his vision, shielded by the dense forest around him. Eric was about to give up when he noticed the sound of the helicopter was still growing louder.

A great gust of wind enveloped him as the helicopter appeared overhead. It’s approach shielded from his view by the forest. Eric shielded his eyes from the dirt and dust that the prop wash from the helicopter was kicking up. A blinding spotlight shone down on him, somehow eclipsing even the Sun in terms of brightness. The helicopter was all Eric could see or hear. Staring into the bright light of certain salvation Eric could swear he could hear another noise just beneath the sound of the blades, a rhythmic beeping that seemed to be in time with his heartbeat.

Opening his eyes he found himself lying in a bed staring up at white ceiling tiles. A ceiling fan lazily spun above him. Beeping to his left caught his attention. A heart rate monitor and an IV bag on a stand were connected to his arm. Turning his head to the right he saw balloons and cards with various versions of “get well soon” and “Hope to see you soon” scribbled on them.

A voice from across the room startled him.

“Sir, you are in the Kansas City Regional Hospital. You’ve been in a car accident.”

A nurse that he hadn’t noticed yet crossed the room to come to his bedside. She spoke again.

“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for a week. How do you feel?”

Before Eric could speak another voice was heard just outside the door, a familiar voice. Eric’s wife opened the door and upon seeing that he was awake, ran to him.

“Oh god I’m glad you’re ok!” She said while hugging him tightly “They wheeled you away so quickly in the ambulance I was terrified.”

Eric wrapped his arms around her, returning the tight hug. For some reason all Eric could think about while holding his wife was about how hungry he suddenly was.