[Private to Jan Dahl: "How long before help gets here?" Bob asked.  He fumbled around patting his pockets for something.  "Can I borrow a phone to call my wife?"]

---

[Secret to Alison Candlewell; Kirsti Carpenter: Kirsti sees that it's 4:35 in the afternoon and she still has no signal.]

"Just keep an eye out for the flag," Alison said, looking back behind them. "I don't want to miss it. We don't need to get lost out here after dark."

---

[Private to Alison Candlewell; Kirsti Carpenter:
After another twenty minutes or so, Alison and Kirsti finally spot the flag and head off the trail.  Their earlier prints are gone, but with daylight, they can follow the now familiar slope in the direction of the plane.]

"I'm going to keep better track of time tomorrow," Kirsti said, turning off her phone and putting it away. She trudged along, breaking trail and keeping an eye out for their next landmark to find the plane.

"I'm sorry, but the phones don't have any signal here. I've tried but it's no good. Perhaps we could try again later." Jan smiled warmly.

"How long have you been married??" he asks, starting small-talk to get the man's focus. "Just you and her?? Or are there any little Bob's??"

[Private to Jan Dahl: "It's just us," Bob admitted, trying to see how bad he'd been injured by peeling up his blood encrusted shirt.  "They're coming, though, right?  Help is on the way?  They know where we are?"]

---

Alison followed Kirsti quietly, it had been a long hike and it had been a while since she'd had this much exercise.

"There's a few of us, not just us." Jan replies wishing he'd been able to move more of the dead outside.

"I'm sure they're on their way. We're in the snowline here, so it might take them some time."

[Private to Jan Dahl: "What's a few of us?" Bob asked.  "What happened to the others?"]

---

[Private to Alison Candlewell; Kirsti Carpenter: Kirsti and Alison look up and spot the plane where they expected to find it with a thin trail of smoke emerging from the top.  They guess there's maybe an hour before dark.]

"We're back!" Kirsti called out as they approached the plane. She tried to ignore the bodies still strapped into their seats as she crawled in, pushing her garbage bag ahead of her.

"You won't believe what we found," she started before seeing that someone had woken up. "Oh, glad you're feeling better.

"My name's Kirsti."

"I'm Alison," Alison added her own introduction.

"Bob," the man replied reflexively to the two women.  "Did you find help?  Is anyone coming for us?"

"We didn't find anyone," Kirsti replied, "but we did find something strange."

She paused to pull a coffee pot and some noodles from her garbage bag.

"We found an abandoned break room in the side of a hill with an elevator. It looks as though no one's been there for seven years and they left in a hurry."

"It was at the end of that trail we found," Alison added. "I'm pretty sure it was an old overgrown road and it does match how old the contents of the refrigerator were.

"No power, but it did have running water. Not sure if it's leftover pressure and will run out or if it's self sustaining. However, we did bring back a lot of bottled water.

"We were thinking the coffee pots might be used to melt snow and heat up water for the noodles."

She pulled out her own pot and poured a few of her bottles into it to get it started on the fire.

"A break room?" Bob asked, incredulous. "We're that close to a town? Why isn't help here now?"

Jan looked relieved at the return of tge girls, and remained quiet as they introduced themselves.

"Fresh water is good, we were... ah.. short. But Bob's right. If we're that close surely there must be something out there close by?? Lights we could head towards...??"

He sounded hopeful but knew the girls would have already said something if they'd found more.

"No town," Alison explained, "just a break room built into the side of a mountain. We didn't see anything else and the trail ended there.

"We looked around inside, but there wasn't anything we could find that said what it was for. No poster board, no work notices, nothing.

"Just a break room and an elevator going down. No level numbers, just a button going down."

"Just a break room in the middle of nowhere with an elevator that only goes down?" Bob asked.  "It has to be something!  Did they have a phone we could use to call for help?"

"No phone," Kirsti answered. "We were thinking we'd hike in the other direction tomorrow to see if there were any signs of this road going anywhere.

"Failing that," she shrugged and looked at Alison, "maybe see if we could get the elevator doors open and see where they go?"

Kirsti added some more wood to the fire to help heat up the coffee pot of water. They should probably collect some more wood before it got dark. She was really looking forward to noodle soup.

Realising how thirsty he was having only sipped at melted snow, Jan opens two of the bottles. The first he offers to Bob, the second he drinks himself.

"I'm not sure hiding beneath ground would beneficial if there are rescuers looking for us." He still felt there was a slim hope of being rescued.

But the thought of exploring a disused mine or something else would be a welcome distraction. And a shelter would be better than this... Tomb.

"We'll need a sled or something to carry our sleeping friend there. To prevent re-opening his wounds. How far is this shelter??"

"It was a little over a two hour hike for us," Alison replied. She tried to picture the hike pulling a makeshift sled through the snow and it didn't look easy.  A litter didn't look any better.

"We were thinking about the same thing if we moved there," she admitted. "Anyone looking might find the plane, but not us if we moved. We could leave a note on where we went, but it's not like we have a new address we can use. It looked like that place hadn't been found for at least seven years.

"That's why we thought checking in the other direction might be a better first step."

"I want to stay with the plane," Bob said resolutely.  "Anyone looking for us will be looking for the plane, not some shack in the middle of the woods.  I'm sure there's some kind of transponder or black box thing on the plane they can track."

"That sounds like a good plan," Alison said, agreeing with Bob. "We can continue scouting around while you watch out here for rescuers and keep the fire going. If we find anything, we'll come back for you. If rescuers appear here, you can tell them where we are.

"In the morning, Kirsti and I, and Jan if he wants to stretch his legs, can scout in the other direction for a major road."

Putting aside discussions of exploration until morning, they collected more wood, ate hot soup, and refilled water bottles with melted coffee pot snow.

Bob explains that he's the regional distribution manager for Budweiser.  He's flown into Las Vegas at least once a month for the past seven years and he's still coming to terms with what's happened.

He's resolute that unless they have some concrete solution, he's sticking with the plane.  He'll keep an eye on Stan as long as you leave him with enough soup noodles to last three days.  This would constitute about half a case of the two cases you'd brought back with you.

The night passes restlessly, but uneventfully.  Now is the time to decide your next moves.

Kirsti started cooking the last half of their bacon to get them started off on the right foot. If they were hiking in the other direction as far as they could go, they'd need the calories. She'd never thought more calories would ever be something she'd be worried about.

"Are you coming with us today, Jan?" she asked.