The Bus Crash

The bus crashed in my sleep so I don’t really even know what happened. I woke up and it was quiet. Deathly quiet. I know because there was a dead woman on top of me. I pushed her off and tried to stand up but the bus was on its side. The windows were busted out so there really wasn’t anywhere to put my feet. Eventually I found some footing and crawled out the back hatch. It was cold, raining and I was surprised it wasn’t snowing. Undoubtedly it was going to start soon…

We’d left the resort to head back down towards the airport since our flight was scheduled to leave at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. Since this was rural China there was a good chance we wouldn’t even be missed until we missed our flight. It would be a minimum of 12 hrs before they even started looking for us.

Of course there was no cell service, but I turned on the flashlight to see if I could find anything useful. There was a small first-aid kit and flashlight but of course the batteries were dead. At least they were triple-A’s. I steeled myself and climbed back into the bus to look through the passengers and luggage figuring someone surely had a music player or something that ran on batteries. I scored a couple sets, though the toll on my dreams was going to be severe. I won’t even try to describe what I had to do to get those damn batteries.

I was reaching into a coat pocket when the body beside me moaned. I damn near fucking freaked right then and there, but the girl sat up in a fog and then she damn near freaked.

“It’s ok! It’s ok!”

I tried to comfort her but she was clearly going into shock. I helped her up and looked her over. She wasn’t too banged up. She was tiny – not even 5 feet tall and probably 75 pounds or so. I’m 6’4″ and outweighed her 3-1. I helped her to stand and we looked around for the warmest clothing we could find. I was pretty much out of luck due to my size so I found my suitcase in the luggage compartment and basically put on everything I had brought. When she wasn’t looking I stripped a nice leather coat off a woman – or what was left of her – and gave it to the girl. I had no idea how old she was. Maybe teens? I never could tell, and Asians were notoriously hard to judge in terms of age. Whatever – she was in good shape and could get around on her own. She had on zebra stripe leggings and decent boots. Her strength was coming back and her eyes were clearer. We gathered some food and water and tried to climb up the steep slope to the road but it was just too slippery.

“Do you speak English?” I crossed my fingers.

“Little bit. You speak Mandarin?” she looked at me through her long black bangs.

“Sorry.” I shook my head.

“Americans never can.” I shrugged, knowing she was right.

“I’m Steve. And you?”

“Ping Lee. Thank you for saving me.”

“I didn’t save you. You woke up on your own.”

“No, you dumped water bottle when you were going through those pockets. If you hadn’t I not wake up. I would have died in the cold.”

“Sorry.”

“No. We have better chance together.”

I wasn’t so sure but decided to just go with it. There was no doubt she was better off with me, but what was I going to gain from dragging her around? I was probably better off alone. But I couldn’t abandon her. She’d be dead within a few hours from exposure. I held out my hand and she took it. Her grip surprised me as she used my hand for balance while she climbed down to my level.

Ping pointed down into the ravine. “Follow down to river. Find town downstream.”

At that moment the rain changed to snow, falling in flakes that you could almost hear land with a dull thud.

We hiked in silence while the cold soaked into our bones. Finally we were on the valley floor alongside a decent sized river. Hours later I jumped over a small stream that fed into the river beside us. I turned around to catch Ping but she looked at me and rolled her big almond eyes. There was a log across the stream 20 yards down the path and she intended to walk over it. I could sense that she had an amazing sense of balance but half way across the log – it was more of a twig really – it snapped, dropping her full length into the foot or so of water in the bottom.

“Shit!” she screamed as she got up from her icy resting place. “Shit shit SHIT!”

I knew what she was thinking. She was going to die of hypothermia. Quickly. She looked at me pleadingly with the fear welling up in her eyes.

I yanked my coat off and wrapped her with it, holding her against me.

“Come on, we have to hurry.”

A little further down there was a path leading off into the trees above the valley and we followed it hoping to find something, anything that would give us shelter.

“YES!” I shouted. “Look there”! A small fishing cabin stood amidst a stand of trees. I broke out a window pane and opened the door, ushering Ping’s shivering body inside. I knew I didn’t have long.

In a few minutes I had a fire stared. Ping was shivering in a corner wrapped in every blanket I could find in the place. I filled a pot with water and scrounged up some tea bags hoping to heat her from the inside too.

When I looked over she was turning blue and had stopped shivering. Uh oh, that wasn’t good. She was still conscious but had lost all will to fight.

“Ping, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

I took her hand and it felt like the dead passengers on the bus.

“You have to trust me, ok?”

“Sure thing Steve. Do whatever you want.”

I wasn’t quite certain what she meant but I quickly tossed off the blankets and started removing her clothes. She was as limp as a rag doll. I stripped myself and grabbed the blankets making a bed as close to the fire as I dared. I faced her into its warmth and curled up behind her, pulling her cold lifeless body hard against my chest. At least she was still breathing.

I awoke some time later. The fire was roaring warmth into the cabin and Ping’s color was back almost to normal. Her back was warm against my chest and I sighed in relief.

The morning sun streamed in through the windows, burning through my eyelids like a laser.