Adrift
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 7
Harry had been pleased with her comment, even if it had pissed off some of the adults. Tough! When Bess pointed out the birds, Harry had turned to look. It was a large flock, flying due south, quite some distance from the island.
Harry was quite unprepared for what happened next, in spite of dozens and dozens of self-admonitions that next time, whenever there was a next time, she’d be ready.
Lieutenant Riley stared hard for a second, and then put his hands to his mouth. “Gunny! Get those fucking people out of the water! Everyone under the trees! Shit’s coming!”
The lieutenant turned to the people standing around in groups. “Get under the trees! Get away from the water! Now! Run! Run! Run!”
People were scrambling from the lake, and others were looking around.
“Move, damn you all! Move! Run, damn it! Run!” the lieutenant was screaming, running towards the nearest crowd of people, waving his arms, starting to push and shove them into motion.
Harry looked again at the birds. What was so scary?
Next to her, Dr. Sanger cursed to herself.
Harry glanced at her. “Doctor, please?”
The woman stared out over the lake. “You can see their wings flap. They are five or six miles away and you can see the wings flap.”
Abruptly Dr. Murray said, “Oh, my God!” and without another word, he too turned and was sprinting for the woods.
Some people moved with alacrity, others shaded their eyes to look, but the Marines and others were pushing and shoving. The immediacy and urgency took hold and there was a general stampede towards the trees.
Dr. Sanger turned and started to walk in the right direction. “You go ahead,” she told Harry, when Harry started to walk with her. “I have emphysema. I’ve smoked too many packs of cigarettes over the years. There’s no way I can run.”
Harry looked at the woman, then looked back at the flock of not-birds. They had turned towards the aircraft and were coming fast. “Go girl!” the doctor told her, her voice urgent. “You run like the wind!”
Harry kept pace with Dr. Sanger, even though her mind was chattering with fear. “I hate my parents. Particularly my mom,” Harry said, trying to focus on the words.
“My dad is anal and obsessed with his work; nothing else exists in his universe except his work. Still, he left me with a few words of advice. The older I get, the more I think I’ve been lowballing him all my life. His most important rule: finish what you start. You’re no good to anyone, not even yourself, if you quit.”
“Girl, run!” The doctor hadn’t turned to look, but had to know they were losing the race.
Two young men came running towards them. “Need a lift?” one of them asked the botanist.
She laughed. “My idea of heaven! Being grabbed and dragged off by two buff, handsome guys!”
They ignored the joke. One of the two Marines simply picked up Dr. Sanger in his arms like a sack of grain and started jogging toward the trees.
The other hissed at Harry, “You better be able to run plumb fast, girlie!”
For the first time since they’d started away from the shore, Harry looked over her shoulder. The not-birds had covered half the distance between them. And that was how far she’d come getting to the forest. There were maybe fifty or sixty very large birds in the flock, coming closer impressively fast. Harry started trotting, keeping pace with the man carrying Dr. Sanger.
The other Marine cursed, “Girl, anyone can run faster than that! Let’s see some hustle!”
Harry glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and continued to keep up with the man with Dr. Sanger. There was sand for the first bit, then dirt, then the trees were close.
Harry was about ten feet from the trees when she saw the head Marine, standing just back from the edge. He wasn’t looking at her but behind her.
Harry resisted the urge to turn and look again.
She read too damn much, Harry thought. The Bible says Lot’s wife turned to salt when she turned to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah. Harry didn’t think she really turned to salt -- she just got killed when she couldn’t keep her eye on the ball.
“Commence!” The command was shouted, firmly and confidently. For a fraction of a second, Harry had no idea what it meant.
There was a wall of sound from in front of Harry as the Marines opened fire. She stumbled, and the Marine next to her picked her up and half-dragged Harry the last few feet. They kept moving further under the trees. Harry couldn’t get a good glimpse of what the men were shooting at.
Then something huge crashed through the trees a few feet away. Harry took one look at it and gulped. It was large, perhaps as large as her mom’s Lexus, at least the body was. The wings were much larger, perhaps fifteen feet long, each. This one twitched, shivered, arched its back, and died.
The Marine next to her looked at it, then said softly, “Oh, Grandma! What great big teeth you have!” The creature was more or less bird-like, except for a beak that was perhaps three feet long, lined with very large, very sharp teeth.
Dr. Sanger was on her feet again and walked closer to it. “I hope it tastes like chicken,” she said, looking at the Marine who’d talked about Grandma’s teeth. The two of them and several others close by laughed.
The Marine next to Harry turned around, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “Try to drop them a little further out, sir! They’re big nasties!”
The firing had already tapered off; now the guns were silent.
Becky Thatcher walked up and stood a safe distance from the creature, looking at it. Finally, she turned away and came to join Harry, Dr. Sanger, and the others. To Harry’s surprise, Becky Thatcher walked directly up to her and stood looking at Harry for a long second.
“If things hadn’t worked out; if those birds were a little faster, we’d have lost two Marines, you and Dr. Sanger. If you’d run as fast as you could, only two would have been at risk. Have a care when you take risks, Harry.”
Harry looked at the bird-thing again. All the karate in the world wouldn’t have helped, not even a little. “Sorry,” Harry said, looking down, unable to meet Becky Thatcher’s eyes.
“Don’t apologize to me, tell the man you nearly got killed.” Becky turned and walked towards the gunny, who was talking with the Navy woman.
Harry looked at the Marine she’d nearly gotten killed; she was still standing a few feet away. “I was stupid. I’m sorry,” she told him.
He smiled at her, “Sergeant Jack Pierson, Miss Harry. Piece of cake. The first thing off the aircraft was our stuff. The LT didn’t want to upset people with armed Marines, so we had the stuff back out of the way. Close enough to hand, though.”
There were calls then, “They’re going to have a meeting,” people were saying.
The Marine mock saluted Harry, “Hang tough, missy; you did okay.” His voice changed, to something completely different -- soft and gentle. “Marines, Miss Harry, we never leave our people behind. Never. Whatever it takes.”
The meeting was held under the trees.
Harry found Sandy, sitting with their suitcases and their music instruments some distance from where the others were gathering.
“I was afraid it might rain, so I put everything here under the trees,” Sandy told her. “I was so surprised when they started shooting!”
Harry decided that Sandy didn’t have a clue about Harry’s close escape -- and that perhaps knowing would be too much information for her sister. “There’s going to be a meeting; let’s go see what they have to say.”
They walked over to where everyone was gathering, around the base of a very large tree. Harry studied the group around whom the rest were clustered. Becky Thatcher and the two men from the flight crew, the Navy woman, the Chinese woman, the Coast Guard officer, the Marine officer, and the man they called ‘Gunny,’ the one that had ordered the others to shoot.
Harry wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but after a minute, the older of the two men from the cockpit stood to the front.
“My name is Tom Grant. I was First Officer of Flight 1011. As you undoubtedly have heard by now, my boss, Captain Roger Parker, died during the landing. Legally, from the time you board the plane until we reach our stated destination or the passengers disembark at a recognized airport, Roger commanded. When he died, that command devolved on me. I am in charge.
“Practically, of course, that’s absurd; my expertise is flying the big birds,” he paused and grimaced. “Maybe not the best metaphor just now.” There were nervous laughs. “So, I give you US Navy Commander Elizabeth Shumway.”
The woman officer moved next to Tom Grant. “I am a full commander in the US Navy, the same rank as an Army, Air Force, or Marine lieutenant colonel. I’ve held the rank less than a week. Before that, I spent four years as a lieutenant commander. We have made a canvas of the passengers; there are no serving military officers with a higher rank. Is there someone we missed?”
There was nervous silence. “Legally, according to the laws of the United States, in an emergency constituted civil authority may call upon the senior military commander present to keep order. First Officer Grant has stated that it is his desire that I should do so.”
There were nervous murmurs, but no one spoke. “With me are Coast Guard Lieutenant Tim Riley, Marine Lieutenant Jeffrey Pugh, and Marine Master Gunner Toby Howard. In addition, there are a number of additional people whose advice I seek.”
The woman was silent for a moment. “You will discern for yourselves soon enough. My principal advisor is Becky Thatcher. As the Marines are fond of saying: adjust, adapt, overcome. She is almost a week on the plus side of being sixteen years old. Her input is light years ahead of all the rest of you, combined.
“In addition to those mentioned, there is Mei Lei, formerly a field intelligence officer of the PRCA, that’s the People’s Republic of China’s Army. Doctors Margaret Sanger, Arnold Murray, and Rachel Rubin, the last, a true medical doctor.
“With Lieutenant Pugh and Master Gunner Howard are twelve serving US Marines; in addition, they have added two more men, formerly in the USMC. The Marines with Lieutenant Pugh were being deployed to Samoa, and they came with field equipment, including firearms.”
Commander Shumway stopped talking for a moment. Harry saw Becky Thatcher nod. The Navy commander, it seemed to Harry, sighed.
“We have a large freshwater lake a few hundred yards from here. We flew nearly eight hundred miles down its length; we might have seen the end of the lake in the north, but not in the south. That means we’ve seen nearly a thousand miles of coastline.
“Simple geography: there are no bodies of fresh water on Earth with that length of shoreline. None. Lake Michigan, the largest any of us can think of, has a north-south extent of about a tenth of that. There are no bodies of water, salt or fresh, on Earth, that you can travel as far as we traveled along the coastline without signs of habitation, particularly in the temperate zone. This appears to be the temperate zone.
“The unpalatable, but inescapable, conclusion is that we are no longer on Earth.” She waved towards the carcass of the beast. “Right now, some of the Marines are butchering two of the birds we shot down a short while ago. None of us has the knowledge to tell if they are warm- or cold-blooded; someone would have to take the temperature of one over several hours to be sure. Rectal temperatures. I, for one, would not volunteer for that task.”
There were a few titters of laughter.
“Before you laugh, know that the Marines fired nearly a hundred rounds. They scored four, repeat, just four confirmed kills. There were fifty or sixty of those things in the flock. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the teeth; at the interest they showed in us, to realize that these are predators. Meat eaters. Four, ladies and gentlemen. Just four. With a measurable fraction of our supply of ammunition. Ammunition for which there will never, ever, be a resupply.
“Gunny Howard and Lieutenant Pugh assure me that we do not have sufficient ammunition to deal with more than one or two flocks.”
Another pause. “This is not Earth. Those beasts weren’t robins. You, me -- all of us -- are here. Like it or not, this is where we are. What happens from now on will determine how this ends: good or bad.”
“I’m not a despot, not hardly. In my world, the military is controlled by civilians.” She grimaced. “Frequently, clueless civilians, but that isn’t as bad as it sounds.
“Our situation is such that we may have no time for debate about what needs to be done. Some decisions will have to be made quickly. Those decisions are mine to make for now. At some point in time, with luck and perseverance, that will change. Until then, I command.
“I will listen to your concerns, any of your concerns, when there is time. But I command. Unless I say otherwise, should something befall me, Lieutenant Riley will assume command. Mei Lei after him, Master Gunner Howard after her. Any of those, once in command, may amend this list.
“In regards to us, here. I am told that no one knows how predatory birds behave in flocks. Typically on Earth, predator birds didn’t flock. We have some elderly people and children, some very young, among us. Stay under the trees. Simply that. Unless you are told otherwise, do not go out into the open. Period.
“Becky Thatcher knows a great deal about a great many things. She tells me that cold-blooded predators average in size larger than warm-blooded ones. That the size of the land mass is a factor in the size of the predators and their prey. T. Rex did not dine on insect larvae. We have, at this time, not much of an idea what we share this island with. In the next few days, we’re going to learn more.
“But, the fact is, that we are few and this is a big planet -- at least as large as Earth.”
“I think larger,” that was Becky Thatcher, her voice flat and sure. “We’ve been here for nearly five hours. The sun has moved from nine o’clock to just before noon. The day here may be significantly longer than we are used to, perhaps a quarter to a third longer. Right now, there is no way to guess the full length of a day cycle until we experience it. Tomorrow, at this time, we’ll have a better idea.”
“Do not wander off,” Commander Shumway repeated. “From here on out, that’s rule one. If you go away from the rest of us, someone must know where, when, and for how long. Rule two is to take your fair share. We are all in this together. We will share everything.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.