16 Souls

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Seven Months before — January 21^st

Passenger Cabin — Regal 12

Normally, when Lucy Alvarez scored a window seat and the extra leg room of the emergency exit row, it felt like a small lotto win. One hour into the aborted flight of Regal 12, however, 22F had truly become the seat from hell.

It had taken Lucy less than a minute after the collision to regain focus and gaze out the window, directly into the windows of Mountaineer 6212. At first, everything was essentially black. But as Lucy’s eyes adjusted to the garish scene, every flash of the Regal 757’s red beacon illuminated anxious faces staring back at her, eyes pleading, lips mouthing words she could only imagine.

The captain’s explanation of why there was no way to reach them and bring them across that gap to the safety of the Boeing’s cabin made sense, but the logic was drowned out by the scream in her mind that those poor people had to be saved. No way could she just sit there and watch them die.

Both pilots, one after another, had come back and leaned in front of her to get a better view of the unfolding nightmare. Most of her fellow passengers had remained reasonably calm, but a tall, broad-shouldered man in his mid-fifties wearing a baseball cap and a checkered flannel shirt — the occupant of seat 21F just in front of her — had been doing a slow burn, muttering and becoming increasingly agitated. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and began pacing the aisle, arms flailing, gesturing wildly to the emergency exits; searching for allies who felt the same despair that was eating Lucy alive. But the man was frightening her, and she couldn’t trust him to be her voice. When he looked straight at her, she quickly diverted her eyes, partly out of embarrassment.

“Hey! Y’all! Are we gonna sit here like sheep and let those folks out there die? Come on, people, they’re less than twenty-five feet away from the window! There’s got to be some rope or cable or something we can use.”

“And do what?” a younger, owlish looking male had looked up at him and asked. “You heard the captain. It’s like a hurricane out there and even if we could weather the cold, there’s no way to attach a line or a cable even if we had one.”

“Hell, son, I’ve worked in Deadhorse in the winter,” the man replied. “Don’t be a pussy. There’s nothing on that wing you couldn’t handle in a parka,” he added, gesturing to the overhead. “They’ve got life rafts and all sorts of other equipment in this airplane and all we need is thirty feet of stout line and the determination to do something other than sit here. If we can get a line to them, we can bring them all across. Then it don’t matter if the damned thing falls off.”

One of the male flight attendants had approached quietly and now put a hand on the pacing man’s shoulder. Lucy could see the apprehension in the flight attendant’s eyes — the passenger was a half foot taller — and he turned on the crewmember now with a snarl.

“What do you want?”

The flight attendant’s voice was level and calm, his words precise.

“Sir, I have to ask you to sit back down and fasten your seatbelt. We all want to go get those people, but it is not possible.”

“Y’know, I just don’t believe that!” the man said, his face a study in contempt as he sized up the challenger.

“Well, sir, you can believe this with absolute certainty. We are legally under the complete command of the captain, and he has ordered all of us to sit down. Failure to comply…”

The passenger rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yadda yadda! I know the spiel. You’ll have me arrested if I don’t sit down.”

“Yes, sir. Something like that.”

“Well, buddy boy, I think instead of threatening me for trying to solve the problem, you and the crew should be tearing this plane apart to find enough rope or cable to use.”

“Sir, we’re not going out there. Stringing a rope or cable would be impossible.”

“Oh, you’re buying that pilot crap? Fine, you stay in. Find that rope for me and I’ll bundle up in my parka and do it myself.”

Two other flight attendants had quietly gathered behind him.

“I’ll inform the captain that you’re volunteering in case he changes his mind. In the meantime, back in your seat. Please.”

He hesitated, trying to stare down the flight attendant who wasn’t giving a millimeter. Finally, the passenger nodded and slunk slowly down in his aisle seat.

“I can’t believe the cowardice of you people,” he snarled, jerking his head around to glare at the passengers around him before muttering angrily to himself.

Such a boor, Lucy thought, comparing her fiancé’s impeccable manners to what she’d just witnessed. A deep feeling of guilt suddenly rose around her like dark smoke.

Manners? What about her manners? What if she didn’t survive this? She hadn’t even had the courtesy to say goodbye to Greg, she’d been so ticked off at him. He wouldn’t have a clue where she was!

Lucy pulled her smart phone from her small purse and checked the signal indication, aware she’d forgotten to turn it to flight mode. It was showing two bars, probably enough, and she punched in his number and waited. There was no ringing, but the circuit went instantly to his voicemail, indicating his phone was either not on or not within range of a cell tower.

Lucy listened to the familiar, warm tones of his greeting, then realized she had to say something into the digital recording.

“Greg, Honey, I’m… I’m sorry… I was really mad at you and I caught a flight to Orlando and now there’s been a midair collision and…”

She tried with moderate success to suppress a sob.

“…and I’m all right as long as we get down safely. Please try to call when you get this. I’m on Regal Flight 12.”

He was probably still in flight, she figured, and undoubtedly diverted somewhere else because of the storm, but she pulled up her calendar anyway to check on his original arrival time back in Denver, which showed as just after 5 pm. There was an app she’d recently downloaded which could track commercial flights and she triggered it now, keying in his flight number and finding it had arrived on schedule.

And he didn’t call! He probably had plenty of time before his outbound flight and he didn’t call?

The emotional racquetball continued, bouncing between anger, guilt, and fear. She’d been furious and essentially stormed out of town, but she hadn’t said a word to him and in the call from New York, she’d been as sweet as ever. He had no way of knowing of her insidiously long slow-burn.

Maybe his outbound flight was cancelled. Where was he going?

She’d been so impacted by the news of the lost weekend ahead that she hadn’t paid any attention to whatever he said about location. Wasn’t it Durango?

That’s right. Durango. And he’s probably in Denver right now and not answering. Something’s going on! He should already be at my place…

Guilt won the game, then the tears came.