Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Loren Rhoads @MorbidLoren @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Harsh to Us is Home to Them
by Loren Rhoads

The long flight in the little plane had lulled Alondra to sleep. She woke as the pilot banked sharply to the left.

She was warm in her nest of arctic wear and fleece, the sleeping bag pulled over top of everything. The fur of her hood limited what she could see, but the pilot circled once more and the angle of the plane allowed her to look down on the ghost town below.

Except that the weathering buildings below were still inhabited. A huge, yellowed mound of fur watched the circling plane from the porch of one home. Another polar bear stood in the opened doorway of a second house. Other bears peered from sheds and garages, heads swiveling to watch the plane come around.

They were making a third circuit when the little plane lurched. It felt as if they’d struck something. The plane juddered and danced, no longer able to fight the wind. The nose tilted downward. The pilot fought with the controls, cursing, but the thrum of the right engine had fallen silent.

Although she was padded by her snow gear and strapped firmly into her seat, Alondra felt her breath coming faster and faster. She hardly had voice to pray. “Boreas, King of the Winds, guide us safely down…”

The ground rushed upward at them. With a horrible crunch of metal, the plane’s belly struck the tundra. It slid along the ground, smashing past boulders. Alondra couldn’t get the breath to scream before they came to an abrupt halt.

When she came to, the world had stopped moving. Only the wind yowled around the plane, thrusting knifelike fingers through the shattered windows. Alondra plucked at the crash web but couldn’t get the buckle to respond. She dug around under her cocoon of blankets until her hands found each other. She clawed off one glove and fought the crash buckles until they gave way.

“Kevin?” she called. “Are you with me?” She couldn’t see him around the pilot’s chair, but there wasn’t any movement up there.

Polar bears could smell humans up to twenty miles away, he’d told her, depending on the wind. Had they traveled twenty miles before the crash? Would the bears be ambling toward her even now? If they decided to sprint, they could reach speeds up to twenty-five miles an hour. If they wanted, they could be here soon.

She kicked at the window release until it finally popped loose. She had to find the shotgun before the bears arrived.