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to smile at him.
         And that was enough to make Mark the happiest man in the State of Texas.
         Hannah was able to communicate by scratching words on a notepad, using a pen Mark placed in her hand. She couldn’t see the pad, and her penmanship was horrendous. But Mark had no trouble reading it. It came close to matching his own handwriting.
         Nurse Ratchet had lot more experience dealing with intubated patients, and showed Mark how to communicate with Hannah by having her blink her eyes.
         Now, for more than an hour, they went through a series of yes or no questions to fill one another in on what happened.
         Mark asked, “Do you know how you crashed?”
         She stared blankly at him without blinking.
         No. She didn’t know.
         It had happened so fast, there was simply no time to react, or to even realize what was happening. One moment they were flying across the treetops, and the next they nosedived into the ground.
         Mark filled her in.
         “The doctor told me they finished the autopsy on the pilot yesterday. He died of a massive heart attack. They think he passed out and leaned on the control stick. He said that would explain why the co-pilot couldn’t prevent the crash.
         “Did you know that John didn’t make it?”
         Hannah blinked once.
         She knew.
         “Did you know that he probably saved your life?”
         She just stared at him, not understanding.
         “The rescue team said that John’s body was under the fuselage. Your legs were under it too, from just below your waist down. They said that his body was holding up most of the weight from the fuselage. That if he hadn’t been there your body would have taken the entire weight of it. It would have crushed your internal organs and you would have bled out.”
         Tears flowed from her eyes.
         Mark could have dried them with a tissue, but chose to kiss her eyelids instead.
         Hannah tried to mouth the name “Sami.”
         Surprisingly, Mark understood her.
         Maybe because he was expecting her to ask.
         “Sami is a wreck. Debbie and Karen are taking good care of her, giving her sedatives and tending to her needs. And of course Brad is there by her side. Debbie says her biggest worry is the baby. Sami’s prone to stress, and if this causes her to lose the baby, it’ll be ten times worse for her.”
         Hannah reached up and touched her heart with her right hand.
         “She already knows you love her, honey. But I’ll tell her.”
         He placed his own hand over hers.
         “They all do, honey. They’ve been crying for you and praying for you and Sami and Sarah every day.”
         Hannah’s pretty face took on a puzzled look.
         “Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, I forgot you didn’t know.”
         Hannah’s eyebrows became furrowed. She wanted to cry out, “What? Know what?”
         But she couldn’t.
         “Sarah’s missing, baby. Several days now. She went out into the woods to pick flowers and never came back.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 10
     
         The closest hospital to the compound was in the tiny hamlet of Eden.
         Far from being the paradise its name implied, Eden had been taken over by convicts released from a nearby prison just before Saris 7 hit.
         A misguided warden felt pity for the men under his care, and knew they would die of thirst if left in their cells when the prison was abandoned.
         So his last official act was to issue them a pardon, of sorts, and to open the gates to set them free.
         Had he thought things through, he’d have realized that the good citizens of Eden would pay a heavy price for his act of kindness.
         Most of the inmates scattered near and far. But a handful of the most brutal of the bunch