James did as he was instructed and Quinton looked at his dials out of habit despite the fact they were currently useless. Once he reminded himself of this, he instead chose to look out of the cockpit’s wide, glass window. Now that the plane was descending, he could see the bulbous clouds below more clearly. They seemed unending, letting no light from below make it through. Which was why Quinton thought it inordinately strange when he saw several bright lights coming from above the plane.
He craned his neck to get a better viewing angle and saw that more than a dozen glowing spheres had appeared in the sky. They seemed to be falling, like meteorites, but Quinton knew that wasn’t what they were. He knew that, because they were falling too slowly, not free-plummeting the way a lump of space debris would.
“What the hell is that,” asked James, suddenly noticing.
Quinton stared out at the descending lights and wondered that himself. The way they moved was almost gentle, as if they had some great purpose that could not be rushed. It was then that a blinding light also filled the cabin.
The two pilots cried out and shielded their eyes, holding onto their chairs as they fought to stay seated. Mere seconds later, the light had gone again, and Quinton opened his eyes. The lights outside were still falling, but something inside the cabin had been altered. Something unexplainable.
Quinton looked down at his instruments with horror as he realised that they were no longer there. All that remained was a blackened husk of metal where dials and equipment used to be. The smell of ash lingered in the air, and Quinton felt dizzy as he realised something else.
His dizziness turned to panic.
The engines had stopped. They were going down.
Outside, the bright lights continued falling like stars, Angels from heaven. The plane fell faster.
WINTER BEFORE LAST
The drive had been a long one. Bristol was a long way from Stoke and the Boxing Day journey had been slow and cautious, the roads slippery with ice and slushed snow. Harry hated winter, hated the cold. In the summer, people came together – BBQs, festivals, zoos, and theme parks – but in the winter people stayed away from each other, wrapped up warm and ignored the outside world. Winter was the season of isolation and loneliness. Yet, out of all the dreary winters of Harry’s life, this one had been the best. Sure it was damp, icy, and grey; sure he had spent the last week with his wife’s condescending parents; and sure he was itching to get back to work, but this winter was great for one reason: Toby.
Of course he had spent several Christmases with his son already, but those had been interspersed with work and commitments. This year his furniture business was successful enough that he had been able to leave the running of it to his cousin and take a massive ten days off to spend with Toby and his wife, Julie. It had been total bliss to watch his son open his presents on Christmas morning, ripping open the packaging on his new bike and then moving on to the wrapped-up Nintendo DS beneath Julie’s parent’s tree. He’d never seen his son so happy, and he had never been so happy himself. What Julie had gone on to tell him that night had only made the day even more special.
He still couldn’t believe she was pregnant.
“You paying attention?” asked Julie, sitting on the passenger seat beside him.
Harry turned to her and smiled. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just so happy. Life is pretty good, huh?”
Julie smirked and shook her head at him. “I think you had a better Christmas than little man.”
Harry glanced back at his sleeping son on the back seat and agreed. In fact, he may have had a better Christmas than anyone.
“Anyway,” said Julie, “you should have come off at junction 16. You just missed it.”
Harry shook his head, annoyed with himself. “Bugger it. Okay, I’ll come off at the next one.”
Julie mumbled something under her breath and Harry just about heard her.
“Did you just call me a fish head?”
Julie shrugged. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”
Harry huffed. “Oh, really? Well it sounded like you called me a fish head.”
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”
“Well, that’s rich, coming from a dog head.”
Julie hit Harry in the arm, causing him to swerve slightly. “Cheeky sod.”
“Whoa! Watch it, woman, you’ll have me in a ditch.”
Julie laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to endanger your perfect driving record.”
“Always pays to be safe. Baby on-board.”
Julie looked back at her son and smiled. She was so beautiful as a mother. There was something about her now, that Harry loved, which had not been there before Toby’s birth. It was something unexplainable to anyone without a child of their own.
Harry was just about to say, I love you, when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. The sight was followed by a lot of chaotic noise.
“Shit!” Harry saw the vehicle on the opposite side of the motorway swerve. It careened across several lanes and came crashing up against the central reservation several yards ahead. His stomach fluttered and he thanked God for the near-escape, but then the speeding vehicle cartwheeled into the air, flipping the balustrade upon impact and hurtling, end over end, down the other side of the motorway; the lane that Harry was occupying. Harry would have liked more time to react, but before he even thought to swerve out of the vehicle’s path, his entire being seemed to shudder as his consciousness was battered from his body.
***
Harry opened his eyes and then closed them again. A light had burned his eyes and he had to flutter his eyelids until the dull aching went away. He found himself staring at a blank white ceiling with a small, tinted window looking out at star-filled sky. It was a vehicle; the back of a van perhaps. When a paramedic appeared in his field of view, Harry realised he was lay in the back of an ambulance.
The woman’s name badge read: Penelope. “Hey there,” she said. “Everything is okay. You’ve just been in an accident.”
Harry shot up on the stretcher. “My son…my wife?”
The paramedic tried to ease him back down but he resisted. “There are people trying to help them right now.”