3
The surging crowd forces Jillian to focus. She spreads her arms, but her voice fails her. I can barely hear it over the crowd.
I step into the aisle in front of her and shout, my own voice louder and clearer than I expect. “Stop. People, stop moving, you’re hurting that woman! Listen. There. Is. No. Fire.” I say each word more slowly and quietly than the last, infusing the crowd with calm. “Okay? No fire. No danger. Relax.”
Save for a few shoves, the crowd settles. All eyes focus on me.
“Where are we?” a woman yells.
“England.”
The word ripples through the crowd in hushed tones, as if it were a secret.
Jillian moves from behind me and steadies herself on a chair.
All at once, the survivors begin hurling questions at me, like the press corps in the final seconds of a White House briefing.
“Help is on the way,” I find myself saying. “Right now, the key is to stay calm. If you panic, people will get hurt, and if you’re responsible for harming other passengers, you will face criminal charges.” I pause and then add for good measure, “The media’s going to find out who caused trouble after the crash, so you can also expect to be on the morning news.” The threat of public humiliation—most people’s greatest fear—seems to do the trick. The uproar subsides, replaced by suspicious sidelong glances, as people wonder if their neighbors will rat them out for bum-rushing the exit.
“If you’re in pain, stay where you are. If you have internal injuries, moving is the worst thing you can do. Emergency personnel will check you out when they arrive, and they’ll decide when and how to move you.” Sounds good, anyway.
“Where’s the captain?” an overweight middle-aged man asks.
Luckily (or unluckily), the lies keep coming: “He’s coordinating with emergency personnel right now.”
Jillian gives me a confused look. She seems to be trying to decide whether this is good news or a lie. I wonder how much help she’s going to be.
“Who are you?” another passenger yells.
“He’s just a passenger, same as the rest of us.” Looks like the drunken jerk in 2D survived, unfortunately. He stares at me with glassy eyes. “Ignore this clown.”
I shrug. “Of course I’m a passenger—what else would I be? Now listen up. Anyone who can walk, we’re going to leave the aircraft in an orderly fashion. Take the nearest seat, everyone, and wait to be called. This young lady”—I nod to Jillian—“is going to open the emergency exit, and when she calls your row, do what she says. If there’s a doctor on board, come see me immediately.”
Jillian opens the left exit door at the front of the plane, and I hear the evacuation slide inflating. I stand beside her and look out. The slide snags on the trees around us, but it will get people to the ground, six or seven feet below us. The plane’s nose is still a few feet off the ground. This entire section is being held up by trees, but it feels stable enough.
“What now?” Jillian asks, her voice low.
“Start taking people from the back off first.” I figure that will minimize the plane’s shifting.
Five minutes later a line’s forming at the slide, and the picture becomes clearer. It looks as if everyone in first class survived, but a lot of folks in business—perhaps half of the twenty or so—aren’t moving.
A woman with shoulder-length black hair, maybe in her early forties, pauses at the threshold next to me. “You asked for a doctor?” She has a slight accent—German, I think.
“Yes.”
“I . . . have an MD, but I’m not a practicing physician.”
“Yeah, well, you are today.”
“All right,” she says, still hesitant.
“Jillian here is going to give you a first-aid kit. I want you to survey the remaining passengers and prioritize treatment. Anyone in immediate danger first, then children, then women, then men.”
Without a word, the doctor starts making her way through the cabin, Jillian at her side. I man the exit, making sure that people are spaced out enough to get down the slide without colliding. Finally I watch the last passenger make her way down: the elderly woman who was almost trampled. Her feet touch the ground, and an older man, possibly her husband, catches her hand and helps her up. He nods to me slowly, and I nod back.
From the galley between first and business classes, I hear the clink of glass bottles and an angry voice: 2D berating someone.
I step back there to find Harper standing across from 2D, her face pained. He’s got a dozen mini bottles lined up on the slanted table. Half are empty, and 2D’s unscrewing the cap on a Tanqueray.
“Stop drinking those,” I snap. “We may need them for medical care.” We could run out of antiseptic before help arrives, and liquor would be better than nothing.
“True. They’re caring for my medical needs right now.”
“I’m serious. Leave those and get off the plane.”
He grabs the corded plane phone theatrically. “Let’s have a round of applause for Captain Crash, the mini bottle Nazi.” He fakes the roar of a crowd, slugs back the bottle he’s holding, and wipes his mouth. “Tell you what,” he says, slurring a little. “Let’s compromise. You can have these bottles as soon as I’m done with them.”
I step toward him. Harper moves between us. A firm hand on my shoulder stops me.
It’s the doctor.
“I’ve finished,” she says. “You need to see this.”
Something in the doctor’s tone rattles me a little. I give 2D a hard look before turning and following the doctor, Harper at my side.
She stops at the seat of a middle-aged black passenger in a business suit. He’s propped against the wall, dead still, his face covered with dried blood.
“This man died of blunt force trauma to the head,” the doctor says, her voice low. “He was bludgeoned by the seatback in front of him and the bulkhead to the side. He was buckled in tight, but the chairs in the business section aren’t as far apart as those in first class. The whipping motion of the descent and crash was deadly for the weaker and taller passengers, anyone whose head could connect with the seat in front. He’s one of three fatalities.” She motions to the rest of business class, where seven people are still seated. “We’ve got four who’re alive but unconscious. I’m not optimistic about them. One, I wouldn’t want to move. Three are pretty banged up, but they might be okay if we could get them to a hospital.”
“Okay. Thanks, doc.”
“Sabrina.”
“Nick Stone.” We shake, and Jillian and Harper introduce themselves.
“I wanted to show you this,” Sabrina says, “because we’ve all likely suffered some head trauma. It’s imperative that all the survivors keep their blood pressure within a normal range. Any of us might have asymptomatic head trauma, which could result in stroke or cerebral hemorrhaging if we’re excited or exert ourselves.”
“That’s good to know.” Now what? The three women are looking at me expectantly, waiting for guidance.
My first thought is of the main section of the plane. If business class fared this poorly, I can’t imagine what economy is like, where the seats are closer together and the whiplash as the plane broke up and crashed would have been far more deadly. If there’s anyone still alive in the back half of the plane, they’re going to need a lot of help.
“We need to find the rest of the plane.”
Blank stares.
I focus on Jillian. “Is there any way we could contact the people back there?”
She shakes her head, looking confused. “Phone’s dead.”
Phone. “What about your cell phone? Do you know the staff at the rear? Their numbers?”
“I do.” Jillian pulls out her phone and turns it on. “No signal.”
No luck with my phone either.
“I live in Heidelberg,” Sabrina says. “Maybe . . . no, I’ve got no service either.”
“I’m on EE,” Harper says, but she too has no service.
“All right,” I say. “I’m going to go look for them.”
“I’ll join you,” Harper says.
Jillian volunteers as well, but we decide that she should stay with the remaining passengers until help arrives. While Harper gathers supplies, I notice an Asian man, young, maybe late twenties, seated in business class, hunched over a glowing laptop screen that shines bright in the otherwise dark cabin.
“Hey.”
He looks up, scans my face quickly, then resumes typing.
“You need to get off the plane.”
“Why?” He doesn’t bother to look up.
I lower my voice and squat to look him in the eye. “It’s safer on the ground. The plane feels stable, but it’s propped up by trees that could give way at any time. We could roll or drop quickly.” I motion to the torn metal behind him, where there are still intermittent sparks. “And there may be a risk of fire. We’re not sure.”
“There’s no risk of fire,” he says, still typing, his eyes moving quickly side to side. “I need to finish this.”
I have a feeling his work can wait, but Harper is at my side now, handing me a bottle of water, and I decide to fight the battles I can win.
“Remember,” Sabrina says, “any excess exertion could be fatal. You may not be in pain, but your life could be in danger.”
“Got it.”
As we leave, Sabrina moves to the young Asian man and begins speaking quietly. By the time we reach the exit, they’re practically shouting at each other. Not a doctor-patient relationship. They know each other. Something about the scene doesn’t quite sit right with me, but I can’t think about that now.
At the bottom of the chute, three people are hunched over on the ground or leaning against trees, holding their heads. But I saw at least two dozen people exit. Where is everyone? I stare into the woods.
Slowly I start to make out glowing lights bobbing in the forest, moving away from the plane—a stream of people spread out in the darkness, a few running. The light must come from flashlight apps on their phones.
“Where’re they going?” I ask no one in particular.
“Can’t you hear it?” says a woman sitting on the ground right next to the chute, though she doesn’t lift her head from her knees.
I stand still, listening. And then, in the distance, I hear it. Screams. People crying out for help.