Bear

By Winona Wendy Joy

A passenger flight from Nome to Los Angeles goes off course and crashes in the wilderness of Alaska. The crash site can’t be found, and, after several weeks, all hope for survivors is gone. Several months later, a thirteen year old girl, named Jada, bundled up in raggedy clothes, walks out of the forest followed by a giant Grizzly. Jada walks up to a bear fence and is shot by an old hermit named Ben, who is aiming at the Grizzly. Ben calls authorities, and Jada, in a coma, is airlifted to a hospital. Ben, being sick at heart, visits the hospital every day until Jada is identified and her divorced parents come together to her bedside, and Jada wakes up to a whirlwind of questions: The doctor tells her she’s pregnant and wants to know when that happened; airline officials want to find out what happened during the crash, if there were other survivors, and how far she walked from the crash site; and local reporters are hot on the story of her unbelievable survival during the past six months alone in the wilderness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Western Grebe Publishing
• Release date: Aug 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370401338

Winona Wendy Joy

I am writing my fifth book. It will be on Smashwords soon. I'm sure you'll like it, a MYSTERY!I live on the coast of Oregon, alongside a raging creek with seven fish ladders just outside the door. Makes for the most lovely, crashing water sound. My boyfriend, Author/Writer, David Seed opened up the world of writing for me. He has several published books on Smashwords.com.

Book preview

BEAR

by Winona Wendy Joy

Published on Smashwords

by Western Grebe Publishing

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2016 Winona Wendy Joy

Smashwords , License Notes

Thank you for buying this ebook. It is licensed for your personal enjoyment and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you want to share this book, please purchase another copy to share. If you’re reading this book and didn’t buy it, please buy a copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty-

About the Author

Chapter One

When the Pilot told us to fasten our seat belts, his voice sounded a little odd, but he couldn’t be scared, could he? I did as I was told and so did all the rest of the passengers sitting in the jumbo jet. None of us had any idea that the next five minutes would alter our lives beyond comprehension, and forever.

We would be dead, alive, unconscious, in pain, or dying. Most of what happened to us depended on where in the plane we were buckled in. His voice over the intercom didn’t sound upset or scary, it actually sounded calm and reassuring. They probably had to practice acting and talking calmly in pilot school.

Looking out my window, I could see snow covered peaks, and forests, seemingly for miles.

Just twenty minutes ago, we had left Nome, heading south. I knew the flight could not be too lengthy, because we had already been served drinks and food.

Being alone on the flight was a regular occurrence for me since my parents divorce. I would be continually flying back and forth between Nome and Los Angeles, at least until I reached eighteen, and was out on my own. All this because my parents each still wanted to be part of my life, that’s what they said. The truth, I thought, was they really did want me to be part of their lives. As far as I could see, I was the one main bright spot in their dreary days. A child is always fun to be around, at least for a little while. Being shuttled back and forth was a built in reminder of how long each parent could stand to actually parent me.

Oh, yeah, the airplane. It begin to wobble. Sort of what they call turbulence, but this was the worst I had ever experienced. Then I felt cold fear, like never before on a plane. I got my purse, put my head through the strap and across my body, just in case the air turbulence got worse and jiggled the plane so much my purse could get lost. I put on my heavy wool winter coat, the new, long one. I wanted to be ready for anything and I didn’t want to lose my stuff. If I could have stood up to get my carry on bag, I would have done so, but the whole situation was too wiggly.

Re-buckling my seat belt, I thought, how it would be to be dead. Maybe nice. No living person knew how it would be, so neither did any of us on this plane. We all just have to go to deadville and see for ourselves.

All kinds of stuff begin to fly around inside the airplane. It was wobbling unstably like being driven on an old fashioned, clothes washing washboard. Passengers were yelling, crying and one guy kept saying, the F word, over and over again. I wasn’t allowed to swear yet, so I didn’t. I just looked all around at everybody else, being scared all by myself. The lucky people were the ones who had someone with them, sitting right next to them. They didn’t have to die alone, like me.

Now, I heard some grinding noise, even louder than the airline attendants who were continually yelling for us to stay calm. They also said over and over for us to stay in our seats and seat belts. And that everything was under control. I thought: Right, lots of luck with that one. As if anyone could get out of their seat and as if anything was under control.

Glancing again outside, I could see we were nearer to the tops of the trees than I had ever seen before, except for taking off from the ground. It was then that I knew for sure we were going to crash. Now, I was petrified. Just watching, I knew we were going to get slammed, by something. A hill, a mountain, most definitely trees and the ground.

I leaned over, hugging my knees, trying to protect my head. Before leaning over, I even pulled the plastic privacy blind down to cover the window, not wanting glass in my face, and not wanting to see the ground coming up at me either. I put on the heavy wool hood attached to my coat to protect my head further, I hoped. I wound my wool scarf around my hands a couple of times, because I didn’t have time to put it around my neck or to put my gloves on. They were in my coat pockets, and there was a large man sitting next to me, so I wasn’t able to get my hands into my coat pockets to get my gloves out.

I could see he was praying the Lord’s Prayer. Sweat was dripping off his forehead and face. He looked at me and said, Don’t be scared, little girl. It will be all right. Then he frantically took a little white pill, kinda secretly.

I knew it wouldn’t be all right. Anyone here in the plane knew it would never be all right again. I could actually smell the fear and panic. It was in the air. I was breathing it too. Not only smelling it, the worst thing was I could feel the fear. Hearing all the panic and crashing sounds made it all the worse. There was scraping noises along the sides of the plane, and I surmised we were hitting tree tops; we weren’t even beginning to slow down, that was the feeling of it. I was so scared now. My eyes were shut, as I was leaning over my knees, trying to make myself into as little a ball as possible.

The front of the plane hit something hard, causing a huge jerk, then a slowing, and a thud as loud as thunder. Then, on the other side of the aisle, a giant tree trunk smashed into us, tearing metal away. People were screaming. I heard my neighbor still saying the Lord’s prayer, over and over. He kept losing his place, and then he would just start saying it again, only now any ol’ where, not caring where he’d left off in the praying.

I couldn’t breath because I just knew I would be dead in a minute, scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen or how it would be. Some stuff must have hit me on the head, because then I saw nothing but black. When I became conscious again, I did think I was dead because everything was so black.

Probably because my eyes were still shut tightly. I was most likely scared of what I was going to see if I opened them. Now, there was an intense smell of gas like lighter fluid. It was just about overpowering. There was no more loud screaming, just a few moans and groans. I think I heard the swearing guy say once more a last F word, then after awhile all was relatively quiet.

~~~***~~~

Coming to...seeing that the plane had crashed and I was still alive was more of a shock than if I had died in the crash. I kinda even thought, why me? Why would I be left? No rhyme or reason to it.

Opening my eyes, I saw total devastation. I could just barely see down the aisle, by lifting my head up, but stuff was on my back, so I couldn’t sit up, so I most definitely couldn’t get out. So much blood, chaos, and things all over inside the plane that my mind couldn’t register. Like tree branches. I even saw a bird’s nest with three tiny eggs inside it, wedged between two small tree limbs tightly. Some part of my mind marveled that the bird’s nest with the eggs in it were in perfect shape, but the entire plane a wreck. Hard to comprehend it all.

The left side of the plane was ravaged. Open air, sky, trees and ground could be seen close and far off. Most of the passengers who were sitting on the left side were gone, out of sight, strewn about on the ground probably. The final slam had killed them on impact, or maybe the plane ran over them.

I sat on the right side of the jet. It fared practically no better than on the other side of the aisle. I saw under the crush of metal and debris people who were smashed to death, some were in pieces, and some were all askew, not looking real, but like scare crows with limbs sticking out in the wrong places.

For an unknown reason, I seemed to be all in one piece. Stuff was on top of me, but I could feel all my limbs, torso and head. All of it seemed to be all right. I couldn’t understand it. Then it came to me, if I hadn’t curled up into a little ball, I too would have been clubbed to death by either the plane itself, luggage, trees, or just anything flying around inside the plane, as we hit.

I could hear crying and a little talking. Not English though. Worried, now, that there would be no one to help me, not if they didn’t know the meaning of the word help, even if I yelled it.

There was a tiny bit of room, now I could just about sit up and see down the main aisle better. So I pushed as much stuff off me as I could, but not being strong enough to get the roof off the back of my seat, I thought I might go down instead of up. After all, I could see daylight near my feet. Then I rested a few minutes, I would try to get up and out soon. I was so tired.

~~~***~~~

Maybe I blacked out for quite awhile again, because it felt like a long time later that I heard a man’s voice calling: Is anyone in there? Call out if you can hear me.

Then was when I began to yell, Help, here I am. Please come help me out.

I heard stuff being pulled from the roof, and then I saw a face. A man, kinda middle aged, was looking down at me as he was throwing debris off. When it was cleared overhead, he said, Give me your hand, and I’ll pull you out. I stuck my hand up, and he pulled.

Soon, I was on the ground outside. So glad to get out of there, smelling all that gas, I didn’t want to burn to death. Smoky air was all around outside, some stuff burning all along the way of the wreckage, but it wasn’t where I had been sitting, thankfully.

With my purse still slung over my body, coat on, the one with the hood, thank God, and a warm thick hoody was on underneath my new heavy wool coat. It was cold. Good thing I had been wearing my fur lined boots with extra heavy wool socks. There were patches of snow on the ground here and there, mostly around the base of trees where shade kept it from melting.

The man, looked at me and asked, Are you all right, any bleeding?

No, I think I’m okay. I could still stand up, I was conscious, and I could walk. I did just that. I walked over to a big tree trunk, and brushing the snow away with my foot, I sat down and looked at the plane.

Why do you think this part up here didn’t catch fire? I asked the man.

Lost most of it’s fuel by the bottom being ripped off along the way to actually stopping, is my guess. And the wings were sheared off way before we came to a complete stop, so a lot of the fuel was already gone from the main part by then, he replied. Then he added, Don’t light any matches though.

Then he was off, probably seeing if others were still alive. I was sure some were still alive or they were in the process of dying. I still heard sounds coming from the plane. So much pain in the air. Coming in waves and waves over to my ears as I sat under the tree without any pain at all. Made me feel kinda guilty, and certainly sad. I was in shock as to what had just happened to all of us. Only a few minutes ago, we were all on our way to somewhere. Most of us were flying towards home. We never dreamed today, that most of us would really get to our forever home, I bet.

Chapter Two

Not many survived the impact. A few of us did, but the people with injuries, which were most of them, didn’t last long. We ate food from the plane and from all the luggage, that was strewn around and inside the wreckage. For the first few days, we were just trying to stay alive, and we were trying to make a plan.

Only the guy that hauled me out was without any injuries and myself. Just lucky, I guess. Or maybe not.

After about a week, no one else was left, only us two. We talked daily, but not much. Finally, our plan was to try to walk out. He told me that most of Alaska was out of the range of satellite service and that if they ever found this