Flight #116 Is Down

by Caroline B. Cooney

  A hefty woman named Robyn was actually running triage.

  On top of each patient’s tag was writing space, and on the bottom were rip-off color strips. Robyn fastened tags to a button, a sleeve, a wrist. “Yellow,” she said of one patient, ripping away the green strip and letting it fall to the ground.

  “Red,” she said for the next, ripping off both yellow and green.

  “Black here,” she told Heidi, who obediently ripped off green, yellow, and red, leaving that passenger with a tag and a black strip.

  After a dozen taggings, Heidi understood.

  A man who said his name was Gorp was sorting the patients like boxes for shipping: red guys here, yellow guys there.

  “Why’s he named Gorp?” Heidi asked Robyn.

  “It’s all he eats.”

  “What is?”

  “Gorp.” Robyn had better things to do than define nicknames, and she moved on.

  Heidi was not clear. What was gorp? Some sort of fish? A European breakfast cereal?

  Heidi and the doctor leaned against a wall, out of the way, sipping hot coffee. There was a whole group of people serving food from Heidi’s kitchen. One of the patients whispered. “I’m thirsty, please; give me something to drink,” but the doctor said no. “You’re going into surgery as soon as we can get you there,” he said. “Empty stomachs are better.”

  Heidi hated that. The poor man was wetting his dry lips with a dry tongue. Couldn’t they do something for him? Maybe he could at least suck a Popsicle. Mrs. Camp had always been a great believer in the restorative power of Popsicles.

  “We’re waiting for the helicopters now,” said the doctor, who had lost interest in the thirsty patient. “We’ve got a bunch we could airlift out. We have too many wounded for any one hospital to handle, and we’re not particularly near any hospital anyway.” The doctor looked pensive. “’Course, helicopters have a limited usefulness. Weather has to be right. Wind. Lots of times an ambulance is quicker.” He frowned, and said to Heidi, “I could use another coffee, honey.”

  She took off to fetch it for him, thinking that she did not like that doctor much. He wasn’t doing anything else, he could have gotten his own coffee. Going past Robyn she said, “Could the thirsty man at least have a sip of water?”

  “Ice chips.”

  A woman of few words. Heidi liked that in a person. In the kitchen she flipped the exterior refrigerator door switch to CRUSH and stuck a cup under the opening. Instantly she had an inch of crushed ice for her man.

  Mrs. Camp, wrapped in her robe, was giving orders, “Tuna fish,” she was calling. “Frozen bread! Cans of soup! Get a move on. What are you people doing, anyway?”

  The beautiful girl declined to get involved.

  Heidi had learned her name. Darienne. The girl pronounced it leaning on the last syllable, making it rich and foreign. She had actually complimented Heidi on the furnishings and paintings of Dove House.

  “Make sandwiches at least, Darienne,” said Heidi sharply, leaving with her ice chips. “Everybody’s been here a couple of hours and we have plenty to go.”

  The coffee shop, either being neighborly or being drafted, had come with every single food item they possessed at that hour on a Saturday night, mostly doughnuts and a whole lot of coleslaw. There weren’t very many takers on the coleslaw. But they had several loaves of frozen bread, which Mrs. Camp was defrosting. There was not much left to make sandwich filling with now. Mrs. Camp tried to hand Darienne the peanut butter.

  Darienne asked where the television was.

  Heidi thought surely there was a plug somewhere to force Darienne’s fingertips into, give her a much needed jolt. Here they thought the dog bite would whip Darienne into shape, but no, it had just put Darienne into a suing mode: Darienne sounded as if she were in court quite regularly, suing the entire world for getting in her way.

  “Teenagers,” said one passenger with loathing. He stared after Darienne as she walked toward the Gallery, looking left and right for a TV. “They’re all like that. Teenagers today are disgusting. The most self-centered, worthless generation America has ever produced.”

  “And their music!” said another passenger. “These kids nauseate me.”

  Heidi was outraged. “I beg your pardon! What about me?” she demanded. “What about Patrick?”

  “There are a few exceptions,” the first passenger said, “but as a rule—”

  “Darienne’s the exception!” yelled Heidi. She caught Mrs. Camp’s eye on her, warning her to be courteous, and Heidi put the eye right back on Mrs. Camp. Mrs. Camp grinned. Heidi relaxed a little.

  Heidi took her ice to her patient, but he had been moved. She found him in the front Gallery, in a yellow row, awaiting ambulance space. Beneath her father’s prized artwork lay patients on stretchers, on thin ambulance blankets, and some right on the cold, hard, black-and-white marble. Kneeling beside her patient, Heidi, said, “Here are some ice chips to suck on. They might help a little.”

  He opened his mouth as if he were a baby expecting pureed peaches to be spooned in. Heidi shook a little ice onto his tongue. “Mm, mmm, good,” said the man, grinning. It amazed her that everybody seemed to find something to grin about here.

  She handed the cardiologist his coffee. He did not say thank you and he did not bother to look at her, either. She hated him now.

  Ambulances in the courtyard inched up to the door. She kept her eyes on Robyn, who was making the triage decisions. What did Robyn see that told her which person to send next? What if Robyn was wrong? How could Robyn live with herself if she guessed wrong?

  Mr. Farquhar squatted down beside her. “Come with me a moment?” he said.

  She smiled at him. “Sure. I’m not doing anything right now. It’s all sort of gotten beyond me. There are so many people here.”

  He nodded, but he wasn’t listening. He was not a guidance counselor. Propping Heidi up was not on his list. When they were out of the Gallery and away from any patients, Mr. Farquhar said, “Heidi, I need that big key ring you and Patrick had. We’ve got to open a different barn door.”

  She could not imagine why he had to take her away from triage to say that. “Sure,” she said. She frowned slightly. “But—the barn has no heat, Mr. Farquhar. You can’t put people in there. I mean, it has been cleaned out since we stopped keeping horses, but still—it’s not clean.”

  He looked at her without expression.

  How specific did she have to be? Manure had lined those cement floors. Nobody with wounds could—

  “For body bags,” said Mr. Farquhar quietly. “Can’t put them in the house with the survivors. They’ll keep in the barn.”

  Like frozen meat, thought Heidi, and suddenly she was unbearably tired.

  Saturday: 7:14 P.M.

  In the airport the families had begun pacing, had begun asking questions, had gotten cups of coffee-to-go at the little booth-style canteens at the end of the corridors, were flipping magazine pages without reading the words.

  Shirl thought there really were an awful lot of airline personnel swarming around. People in those neat, attractive uniforms: the gentle, almost invisibly plaid wool; dark, charming silk at the throat: scarves, flowers, ascots, or regulation ties. Everybody was slim and neutral. Their faces were slim and neutral. Their voices were slim and neutral.

  They formed almost a cordon around the waiting families and friends.

  They seemed to be exchanging signals with their eyebrows.

  She felt queerly surrounded. Like a fort.

  Her hair knew something was wrong before she did. It prickled. Her scalp shivered.

  The magazine pages stopped turning. The coffee cups were lowered. Talk dried up. One by one, the waiting group saw what Shirl saw.

  There was something eerily un-American about it; as if they were going to be rounded up and deported for crimes they would never understand.

  A pleasant-looking woman with gray hair spoke into the microphone at the ticket desk. Shirl’s heart began be
ating arrythmically. She had strange cramps in the backs of her legs.

  Sitting too long, Shirl told herself casually. Need to get up and walk around.

  In a slow, uninformative voice, the woman divided her speech into easily grasped short segments. “I’m going to ask everyone … waiting for Flight One One Six … to follow us … to the banquet room at the airport hotel.… It’s a short walk … down the corridor … and to the right.… Airline staff … will lead the way.”

  Airline staff were already gently prodding, corralling people, using fingertips on shoulders and palms on the center of backs.

  In gasping, fish-dead silence, people took the first few steps forward.

  Shirl had difficulty standing.

  A heavyset man holding a balloon bouquet stumbled next to her. Shirl took his arm. He gripped hers tightly. But he didn’t seem to see her. His collection of silver and cartooned balloons bobbled in front of them.

  Shirl closed off her mind. She would ask no questions. She would not say the terrible words.

  It was out of the question.

  It could not happen.

  Not to your own sister.

  No.

  The plane had been rerouted. Yes. Snowstorms. It had landed in Canada, perhaps. Or Baltimore. Yes.

  Yes, it was nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Saturday: 7:30 P.M.

  Outside Dove House came the volcanic explosion of rotors.

  Life Star was here. What a fabulous name! It gave life; it shone of stars and eternal skies. Another Christmas word.

  The helicopter had landed a good half mile away, in the farthest possible corner of the pony field. The “pad” was illuminated, but with what light Heidi could not imagine. Even the Invader Lights didn’t glow that far.

  She ran to the back porch, where in summer, white wicker rockers with pretty plump cushions sat in a long leisurely row. There she watched the first stretcher being toted through the wreckage, across the fields, over a stream. She knew that stream. Deep enough to soak every boot that went in it. She shivered for them.

  Rescuers’ fingers were numb. Bulky layers of clothing were soaked. Everybody had fallen several times. Kneecaps and ankles were bruised and tired.

  As they neared the helicopter, the stretcher bearers ducked down, and even at this distance, Heidi could see the rotors flinging wet wind into their faces. And then she could see something else. Where she had pictured a hospital under the rotor—space for dozens—Life Star had room for two stretchers.

  Two.

  No more than the ambulances!

  What was this nonsense of taking two at a time? We’ll be here forever, Heidi thought. Two by two, like animals in the Ark. We don’t have time to save the world two by two.

  But I’m not saving anybody at all, she thought. I’m just standing on the porch, gawking, while other people do the work.

  She went back in, went up to Robyn for work, and Robyn without comment handed Heidi an IV bag to hold aloft so it would drip into the vein of a passenger. Heidi looked into the patient’s eyes. It was a girl about her own age. “Hi,” said Heidi inadequately. “How are you?”

  Both she and the patient giggled nervously.

  “Pretty good,” said the girl. Her speech was slurred. It sounded like, Pree guh. “I thought I was a goner for a while,” she added. It sounded like, Thaw wuzza … goner … frile. There was something terrifying about the words, as if a person whose lips could not move would soon have a heart that did not move.

  The girl’s tag was red. It had a tiny symbol: a rabbit running. It meant—hurry up! Move this one next!

  Quick like a bunny, thought Heidi. She had had a nanny once who used to say that all the time, when Heidi was getting dressed, when Heidi was getting in the car, when Heidi was eating a snack. Quick like a bunny.

  But there were too many people with red tags for everybody to be taken quick like a bunny.

  “I’m Heidi,” said Heidi.

  The girl’s color was dreadful. It almost seemed lavender; a pastel shade, not a color human beings of any race normally came in.

  “Carly,” whispered the girl. She smiled. With a great effort she said clearly, because it was so important, “I’m on my way home.”

  “That’s great,” said Heidi. She had never felt so inadequate. Robyn paused next to Carly’s stretcher. An ambulance must have arrived. Robyn was choosing the two patients to go on it. Heidi was sure they would take Carly next. Anybody could see that Carly was in desperate shape.

  But Robyn shook her head fractionally to the attendants and passed Carly by. Two other patients were lifted onto stretchers. Both were also reds. And they, quick like a bunny, were hospital bound. But it’s been a long time, thought Heidi. It’s been more than an hour and a half. That’s not quick like a bunny.

  The girl’s hand was cold, but so was Heidi’s. “Do you want another blanket?” said Heidi. “Carly?”

  Carly murmured something. Her lips curved slightly. Almost a smile.

  Heidi said, “Carly, I’m here.”

  “My sister,” said Carly.

  “I’ll talk to your sister.”

  “Tell her,” said Carly.

  “I’ll tell her,” said Heidi.

  Carly smiled.

  Tell the sister what? thought Heidi. What is her name? What do I say? Tears shaped like big puddles, thick pudding-y tears, filled Heidi’s eyes and spread over her face. Carly didn’t see. She and her soft smile were somewhere else. “Hang on, Carly,” said Heidi over and over. “Hang on. You can make it.”

  Saturday: 7:55 P.M.

  Daniel had been telling Mrs. Jemmison about his family for an hour. He knew because she told him the time whenever he asked. He also knew by now that she did not know about Tuck; she had just said that to be kind. “It wasn’t kind,” said Daniel. “I want to know.”

  Mrs. Jemmison asked somebody else to go up and find a thirteen-year-old boy and see if he was hurt and if so, how much. Daniel knew they would not tell him the truth, if it was really bad.

  “Your mom and dad sound like great people,” said Mrs. Jemmison. “’Course I know we’ll be in touch, them and me, talking about this. I’ll be your number-one visitor in the hospital, Daniel. Your mom and dad, we’ll have them over for dinner.”

  I forgot Mom and Dad are divorced, thought Daniel. I forgot about Linda and the wedding.

  Around him the Jaws ripped metal away. People finally being moved from their crushed agony screamed in new agony. People swore, and stumbled, and cursed the weather and the cold and the ice.

  Daniel thought, She asked about my family and I told her. Because they still are my family, no matter how many Lindas and weddings there are.

  He thought, But I don’t have time to tell Dad that now. I don’t have time to tell him I’m sorry about all the things I said to him. I’m going to die.

  “Mrs. Jemmison?” he said. His voice was going to go on him. He could feel his throat starting to thicken and his chin get weak. “Would you tell my mom and dad something for me?” He willed himself not to get all sentimental and mushy while he gave her the message. He said, “Tell Dad it’s okay about Linda. Tell him I love him. Tell Mom—” he knew what Mom would want to know. That she had raised a good kid; that he loved her and would do his best.

  My best isn’t much now, Mom, he thought. Just breathing. That’s my max. He said, “Tell Mom she did good. I’m all right.”

  He knew that Mrs. Jemmison knew what he was saying; not that his body was all right; not that he was surviving the plane crash all right; but that his life had been all right.

  Ten

  SATURDAY: 7:56 P.M.

  After they finished the run, Laura’s crew cleaned the ambulance while the driver headed back to Dove House. They had to stop for gas because the dispatcher said that the local hospital was already overloaded; their next run would be all the way to Hartford Hospital. The first time she went out on the ambulance, Laura had been amazed to find out the first thing you
did coming back to the barn was put gas in the tank. Somehow you didn’t think of ambulances like that; they just came; you didn’t think of maintenance.

  But, in fact, as much time was spent cleaning, restocking, checking lists, and double checking gas, oil, windshield-wiper fluid, and so forth, as was spent actually transporting patients.

  This time they carried the two stretchers into Dove House, where Robyn, a hundred-years-ago girlfriend of Laura’s father, was running triage. Laura stepped into Dove House and thought it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen in her life. The marble gleamed, the paintings looked like those in rich museums, and the stairs were meant for Cinderella. Laura could not even imagine what it must be like to be Heidi Landseth and live there all the time.

  Robyn directed them to take a woman who had been virtually stapled to the ground by a long metal rod. She had been carried up to the house with the rod still in her, the wound sealed front and back, and her body propped at a tilt with rolled blankets. Laura could not imagine why the woman, whose entire body was lacerated, was not dead. Robyn obviously felt the patient had a solid chance. A plastic tube had been inserted into the patient’s nose and down into her throat to keep her airway clear, and an oxygen mask, like a little see-through pyramid, rested over the opening.

  The patient’s teeth were chattering and she was shivering uncontrollably. Laura recognized the jacket that was tucked around her: it was a Nearing River High School team jacket. She took it off gently and replaced it with a cotton thermal blanket. The jacket back read FARQUHAR.

  Patrick had wrapped this woman in his jacket.

  He must be frozen by now, thought Laura. She hoped Patrick would see her, would know they were on the same team at the same hour, that he had trained Laura well, and with any luck develop a crush on Laura.

  It was not the kind of house with a peg on the wall to toss a dirty jacket on. She threw it to Robyn instead, and then she and her crew mate carried the patient out of the beautiful hallway and into the windy, smoke-stinking chill of the courtyard.

  Laura locked the stretcher in place in the ambulance and held the woman’s wrist gently between her fingers to take a pulse. A bracelet fell back against Laura’s long, manicured nails. It was a charm bracelet, with silhouettes of children. Four children. Laura could not help tilting each charm and reading the names and birth dates. This was the mother of Sarah, Matthew, Joshua, and Stephanie. The oldest was fifteen.