For the first time, the pilot showed a little compassion, gathering Laila up in her arms, not caring about the oil that still clung to her, fingers smoothing down oil-slicked, sand-filled hair. Neither of them said anything for some time and Laila nestled herself closer to the woman, clinging to her until the trembling stopped. The muscles weren't so bad. Comforting, after a fashion. Then the pilot began to lead Laila away from the sight, still holding Laila's head to her chest.
That man. He must have died horribly and though Laila had to admit that she wasn't the most empathic of people, even she could see that and pity the man. It had looked as though something had carved away the flesh from only one side of his body. One side, only bone, with scraps of rotted cloth draped over the off-white skeleton, the other side as though he could stand up and walk away. Clothing intact. Flesh only slightly losing its colour. Face looking like he had fallen asleep, though the grimace on one side of the mouth proved otherwise.
"Are you okay?" The pilot placed both hands on each side of Laila's face, lifting her chin and looking into Laila's eyes. "Don't look back. Just wait here. The tower isn't that far now. I'll only be a moment, okay?"
Laila bobbed her head, not wanting the pilot to stop holding her. The pilot's hands slipped from Laila's face and the woman strode away, back around an outcropping of jungle that hid the worst of the scene. Laila looked back, because of course she did, and saw, still, several of the bodies of the Japanese soldiers. The same battle, the pilot had said, but it couldn't be. It simply couldn't. That would be like something out of a movie and movies were only stories. There was another explanation. There had to be.
When the pilot returned, she had found the rifle she had dropped in order to comfort Laila and held it with ease. The butt cradled across one elbow, hand near the trigger, finger extended and sitting beside the half-circle of metal, but not in it. The other hand held the barrel, pointing it downward. She looked magnificent and feelings began to billow inside Laila at the sight. Inappropriate for the time, but she had no control over it. The pilot looked as though she knew exactly what she was doing. Commanding. In control. Not a flicker of emotion crossing her features.
"I think ... I think I should go back to the beach." She sounded determined. If only her body believed her. "Yeah. I'll just ... I'm going to go back. Wait at the camp."
"I don't think that's a good idea. It'll be dark soon and the tower's nearer. You'll get lost." The pilot looked to the sky and then back to Laila. "I'm going to that tower. You can do what you like."
In an instant, the pilot had turned from a human, compassionate woman, to cold and hard once again and she knew she gave Laila little option. Oh, she could stamp her feet, protest, seethe and blow and screech that she was going back, and basically act like the spoiled brat everyone (usually correctly) thought she was, but she wasn't stupid. She knew she couldn't survive alone in this jungle.
Her eyes skipped back to the bodies and she swallowed. Not that here seemed any less dangerous, but at least here she had someone with a gun that looked like they knew how to use it. Maybe she should get one, whether she could shoot or not? No. Again, she wasn't stupid. She'd have more chance of shooting the pilot or, worse, herself before she managed to shoot anyone else. Any thing else. Her shoulders drooped and she gave a sullen nod which was all the pilot needed.
"Good. Near as I can tell, were less than a click from the objective." She thrust out a straight-handed arm, pointing the way, before pointing at Laila and then behind her. "You stay on my six ... I mean, stay behind me. Any trouble, any at all, you drop and cover. You flatten yourself down on the ground, cover your head with your hands and you do not look up until I say so. Clear?"
"As Waterford crystal." The pilot didn't even blink at the reference. "Yes! Alright! God! You're so bossy!"
"Bossy might save your life." The pilot turned away, raised the rifle and then glanced back over her shoulder. "Or would you prefer we hold hands and skip through the flowers? Stay close. You see anything, you yell, and then ..."
"Drop and cover. Yes. I got it." Laila felt blood rush to her cheeks at what the pilot had said and then muttered to herself. "There aren't any flowers."
The trek through the jungle started with Laila struggling to keep up once more, even though the pilot had changed how she walked to this kind of lowered, half-crouch type of thing and Laila almost fell several times. She knew. Laila wasn't certain she had made it that obvious. Perhaps a lingering look here, a tuck of the hair over her ear there, nothing Laila could say everyone could have picked up on, but the pilot knew that Laila found her attractive, despite the really, far-too-big, but surprisingly comfortable, muscles.
So she found her attractive! It wasn't as though it was against the law! The pilot had those incredible eyes, to start with. And tall. Good qualities if you didn't consider how much of an ass the woman was. Speaking of which, that way the pilot walked really showed off her backside in those tight pants and Laila coughed as she caught herself staring for far too long. Look at the ground. She felt safer staring at the ground and watching where she put her feet, except her eyes betrayed her, lifting to look at the pilot, mouth curling into a smile to join that facial betrayal.
When the siren sounded, Laila almost shrieked that she wasn't staring, but the pilot had already reacted, grabbing Laila by the shoulder and thrusting her down to the jungle floor. It sounded like an early warning system, blaring and rising and falling in a harsh, yet mournful sound that battered at Laila's ears. Someone was alive on this island! Someone at the tower, probably. Laila had to fight between her desire to get off the island and her preference to staying alive to be able to do so.
Then another sound erupted. A deep throb at first, resounding and reverberating in her chest, but it passed through the octaves and keys until it became an ear-piercing whine that soon passed beyond hearing, yet Laila could still 'hear' it, rattling against her inner ears, throbbing in her bones. A sound that soon became painful and the pilot's advice about covering her head soon sounded like a pretty good idea. Her hands pressed against her ears, but it couldn't hold out the sound.
Her insides felt as though they were about to melt and she clamped her eyes closed because it looked as though the entire island had started to become invisible. The plants fading, trees becoming insubstantial, the ground becoming water below her feet. She heard a scream, as clear as though she wasn't assaulted by sounds, and another too. A scream that sounded like the pilot, but it couldn't be her because she was the brave one and brave people didn't scream.
Silence. It came in an instant and only the two screams and the howling of the early warning system broke it. When even the siren became silent, Laila heard the other scream stop and then her own, coughing as she touched at her throat. Whatever that was, it had probably ruined the rest of her tour, if she ever returned to it. Tentative, she opened up her eyes to see everything solid once more, especially the pilot. She pointed at the pilot's upper lip.
"Blood." The word seemed far too loud in the silence following the strange noise.
"You too." The pilot lifted a finger to her lip, dabbing at the blood and rubbing it between finger and thumb. Then the pilot looked down at the ground. "Water."
Only a small puddle, but of course Laila now sat in it. She touched the surface of water that wasn't there a moment before. Alright, things had become a little weird and hectic, but she would have noticed the water. Even though her shoes were ruined, she would still have thought about the damage water would make, it was an instinct. Especially salt water. Surprising herself, she had touched the tip of her tongue to the wetness upon her fingers. Sea water, but they were a good distance from the sea now.
"What's happening here?" She reached out to touch a nearby tree. It seemed solid enough. "Did you see ...?"
She stopped. Of course the pilot didn't see things becoming invisible because that would be insane and Laila was many things, but she was not insane. The sound was probably some test the people at the tower made and the water was already there, they only hadn't seen it in the panic at the noise. That was it. That was what it had to be. Except the pilot had noticed the water first. The pilot didn't notice things that were unimportant.
"We should keep going." The pilot dabbed at her lip again, frowning, but the line of blood had stopped trickling out of both their noses. For the moment. "If there's someone in that tower, they'll know what's happening because this ... this isn't natural."
Without waiting for Laila to reply, the pilot spun on her heel, raised the rifle to her shoulder and rose up to that half-crouch once again, passing through the trees and the undergrowth as though it didn't exist. Another 'click' the pilot had said, but that made no more sense to Laila than anything else on this island, whatever a 'click' was, and she had started to get more and more aggravated. Strangely enough, not against the pilot, though. The more time she spent with the woman, the more Laila started to appreciate that no-nonsense attitude, especially considering everything they had found so far.
The pilot made the only bit of sense in this crazy place, where cars 'from the future' sat on beaches, abandoned, and soldiers from a war that Laila had only ever heard of in passing, she got the idea it was a big one, had both killed each other years ago, but only killed each other a few hours ago. Where sirens blared their noise to warn of the island about to disappear under their feet and where a noise could make them bleed out of their noses. And she hadn't even started at the beginning, with the crash and Genna's death. Poor Genna. Laila wondered if this weird place would preserve her body like those Japanese soldiers.
But the pilot. The pilot made everything seem explainable. She made it seem possible that they could get off the island and back home. Oh, Laila was no fool, she knew she wouldn't change when she got back, she'd still act the singing princess and probably never see the pilot again, but they weren't back home yet. Steady. Solid. Reliable. Infuriating and unapproachable. Dependable. That was the pilot. If only she could act a little more human. Just a little. Maybe a little feminine? Probably asking too much with that.
"We're here." The pilot dropped to a lower crouch, waving for Laila to lower herself beside her. Then she stood to her feet and set one foot out from the edge of the jungle. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I don't think we're getting help from anyone here."
The pilot stepped out and Laila followed to see what the pilot meant and she could tell, straight away, that the pilot was absolutely right. They would find no help here, in this rundown, abandoned base that seemed more rust and broken concrete than anything else. The tower looked a wreck, the dish listing, pointing toward the mountain rather than space, and looked about ready to crumble into dust at the slightest touch or loud sound. Wire fences surrounded the compound, where abandoned trucks sat with wheels with only shreds of rubber where once tyres sat, and an old, faded, battered sign sat beside a security gate, the arm snapped off.
"Eldridge Base." Laila wiped the dirt from the sign to read more. "US Navy - Top Secret"
Another set of fingers traced over the name of the base, the pilot narrowing her eyes, concentrating, before blowing annoyed air from her nose and shaking her head. Beyond the wire, more signs pointed once-white arrows this way and that and Laila's heart skipped to see the words 'air field', but if it was in a condition even half as bad as the base itself, they weren't escaping that way any time soon. The sign, though, still held the pilot's attention.
"I don't know what it is. This name ..." The pilot tapped the base's name with her short, well-tended fingernails. "It rings a bell in my memory. I just can't think what it is. Doesn't matter. We should be able to find shelter for the night, at least."
It was as though they had both forgotten the siren that had only recently sounded. If it hadn't come from here, where had it come from? And did that mean there was someone alive on this island? Another, newer base? They needed answers now more than ever, because, if the island did disappear again, Laila didn't want to end up swimming in the middle of the ocean.