Tara was sure the plane was going to crash. It bucked up and down and side to side, as her fingers dug into her arm rests and her teeth grinded against one another like tiny tectonic plates.
“We’re all gonna die!” her mother howled, then cackled as she gave Tara a hearty pat on the back of her white-knuckled hand.
“Don’t worry honey, you’re way more likely to die in a car wreck than a plane wreck,” she said assuringly. “Unfortunately, we do have the shuttle ride right after this, so . . . RIP.”
She chuckled again and Tara grimaced at her. Looking around at the other passengers, Tara noted that none of them were screaming or muttering frantic prayers under their breath. In fact, they seemed fairly at ease. Her mom seemed to have taken that to mean that the shaking and shuddering of the tiny Beechcraft 1900 was normal. Tara took it to mean that she was on a plane with a bunch of idiots.
But a couple of minutes later, a single, lonely airstrip came into view outside Tara’s window as the pilot brought the Beechcraft around, lining it up for a landing at Alaska’s Golovin airport. Five minutes and one bumpy, hair-raising, terrifying touchdown later, they were on the ground.
Whoever coined the term “the middle of nowhere” may well have been talking about Golovin. Wedged between Golovnin Bay and Golovnin Lagoon on Western Alaska’s Seward Peninsula, the city was a footnote on most maps. Most of the population was native Alaskans because it was a place you started out, not a place you ended up. Less than 200 people called Golovin home and very little money flowed in or out of the city.
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But Luxoid’s new R&D installment would usher in loads of prosperity to the place—or at least that’s what they’d told Tara’s mom during the job interview. Tara wasn’t exactly sure how that would work, given that they seemed to be hiring a whole lot of people from outside the local community. Nor did Tara have any idea of what exactly her mother’s job would be at the company. A three-month contract at twenty grand a month was the proverbial offer she couldn’t refuse—but Tara thought she could at least have asked what she’d be doing or why they were so eager to bring her and her daughter all this way, despite her lackluster resume and arrest record.
“Smell that fresh Alaska air,” her mom said, as she stepped off the plane and surveyed the desolate landscape. “You’re gonna love it here.”
“It looks like the set of a low budget post-apocalyptic horror film,” Tara replied.
“Yeah,” her mom agreed. “You love those.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, they’re great.”
“Glad you think so,” Tara posited. “Depending on what you signed to get us here, you could be playing a starring role in a zombie outbreak that wipes out the planet.”
“They’re not going to make me into a zombie.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because you’ll shoot me in the head before I turn.”
“Damn right I will.”
“Wow. Just like that, huh? No sobbing and second-guessing?”
“There’s no time for sentimentality when you’re coming for my brain.”
“Wow. Nine hours of labor and for what? An ungrateful brat who won’t even give me one bite of her brain.”