I laughed at Tracy’s horror-stricken face, and soon Brian was as well.
“Yes, but we’re teaching her how to cook like a gourmet,” Brian said, kissing her on the temple.
She calmed and took one last bite. It was good, I hadn’t expected it, in fact, I was going to ask her later on what she’d used for the batter.
“Well, I have to get going,” Bill said, “It’ll be dark in another hour or two. Get a lot lighter up here,” he said.
“Thanks for staying for dinner,” Tracy said, the perfect hostess.
“Thank you, ma’am, that hit the spot. Hopefully, I won’t fall asleep at the wheel,” he said tipping an imaginary hat.
We all stood and followed him to the dock. He reassured us that he’d be out in four days to check on us and again early in the next week. We all said our goodbyes and watched as he fired up the plane and waited for it to warm up before he taxied away from the dock. The takeoff was just as graceful looking as it felt like when I rode with him, and soon he was soaring. He circled the lake briefly and, as the plane climbed, I realized that out here, there was no pollution and you could see forever.
“Looking for the northern lights?” Tracy asked me, bumping me with her hip.
“No,” I said, “Just thinking how far you can see out here,” I told her, annoyed with the contact.
* * *
Bill radioed in that he was heading back. He’d made the trip a thousand or more times. Other than reminding himself to pick up his medicine on the way home, it was the end of a nice day. He knew the last man he’d dropped off was partial to the other man’s wife; he’d seen it and it worried him some. The only reason he mentioned it in the fly-in was that he’d noticed him eyeballing her before she’d left with Brian.
“Probably an old girlfriend,” he muttered to himself, making the airplane climb.
As he started into the cloud layer, a flash of light had him squinting and then his radio went silent, the soft static no longer filling his ears, and then it hit him. He felt the pain in his chest immediately and he reached for the barf bag he kept for the passengers and puked. The crushing pain in his chest was horrible. After a moment’s hesitation, and with one good arm, he turned the plane around slowly.
He rubbed at his chest; the scar from his pacemaker implant bugged him from time to time, but his chest felt hot, and the spot under the scar seemed to be the focal point of the pain. He threw up again and squinted through the worst of it. If he could get the plane landed again near the folks he just dropped off—
Bill slumped over, his body weight pushing the control stick of the plane just enough.
* * *
“He’s turning around?” Tracy asked.
“Maybe he forgot something,” Brian said kissing the top of her head.
“Maybe he’s gotta use the john again,” Jordan said and I grinned.
Tracy shot him an annoyed look and looked at me. Suddenly my face was stoic and I managed to avoid her seeing me share the grin.
“I don’t know why he’d come back. The plane was pretty cleaned out when he dropped me off— “
“Oh, my God!” Tracy screamed.
I saw the airplane suddenly start to nose down, the right wing starting to dip.
“What’s he doing?” Jordan asked, his voice matching the same worry I was feeling.
“He’s going to crash,” I said softly, praying I was wrong.
There was literally nothing we could do but watch helplessly as the plane came in and hit the water half a mile from us, at about a twenty-degree angle. The nose hit first, followed by the right wing. The whole plane cartwheeled, sending up great geysers of water as parts of it literally disintegrated. We ran halfway back from the end of the dock, expecting to get hit with something, but by the time the water settled, the dock made it intact. The plane, not so much.
I jumped into the first aluminum boat that had a five horse pusher and pulled the ripcord. It smoked a bit but fired right up. Jordan and Brian jumped in with me without a word. Tracy just stood there on the dock, silent tears streaming down her face. Jordan threw off the line and I opened the throttle.
The plane was sinking, but how fast was hard to determine. Part of the fuselage was attached to enough of the airframe for the pontoons, but not by much. The other half had been torn away on impact. The front section where Bill sat was still above water, but only barely.
“Make it go faster,” Brian screamed.
“It’s already got the pedal to the metal,” I screamed back.
We’d only been in the northern part of Canada for an hour and suddenly the motor and the wind seemed as loud as the crash of the plane. Luckily there was no fire. Within a minute, I was guiding the boat to the side of the plane and Jordan nearly leaped out of the boat and onto the leg of the pontoon. What was left of the fuselage was on its right side, the left-hand pilot’s door out of the water by less than a foot.
“You stay with the boat,” Brian instructed and I nodded. He jumped out of the boat into the water and swam up to the pontoon as Jordan opened the pilot’s door.
His legs dangled in the air as he leaned in and I screamed in horror as the plane rolled under the waves. I’d let the boat idle but now I was moving it slowly closer to the bubbling area where it had been. The amazing thing was that the water was so clear, I could see straight down to the bottom, and it wasn’t very deep. I could see my two friends struggling with a third figure, and I killed the motor in case they came up underneath me. I debated jumping in but suddenly Jordan pushed off the plane, surfaced then took a breath before diving again.
As if choreographed, Brian and Jordan grabbed Bill’s coat and pushed off and started to swim up. I reached my arms down into the water as they broke the surface, grabbing Bill. Brian blew out his held breath and panted for a second as I tried to pull him in. I couldn’t do it. He was too heavy for me to do it by myself without tipping the boat over.
“I need help,” I said, gasping.
“Hold on,” Jordan said, “I’ll hop in from the back. Brian, hold onto the front. Tom, you keep hold of Bill.”
“I got him,” I said, and I grabbed Bill.
I felt the boat rock more than I was comfortable with. The back dipped and I saw that Jordan had levered himself into the back, and he crawled quickly up to the front left side as I held onto Bill’s wet form. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, but I did keep his head out of the water.
“Ok, Brian, go to the other side and hold on so we don’t tip the boat,” he instructed.
I’m glad he was the one taking over because my mind had gone blank. Of everything I’d ever prepared for, I was drawing a blank and I was hating my inaction and lack of conscious thought.
“Ready,” Brian called and together Jordan and I hauled Bill up by the arms.
“He’s not breathing,” I said checking.
The boat rocked again and Brian had pulled himself in the same way that Jordan had.
“Pulse?” he asked.
“Yeah, slow and thready,” I told him, “And he’s bleeding from a dozen places. I think his arm is broken,” I said looking at the funny angle his hand was sticking out from his coat.
“Get us back to shore,” Jordan said, “I’ll do CPR.”
Now I understood why Jordan didn’t lock up like I did. As an EMT, he’d literally done this thousands of times. I quit kicking myself as Jordan and Brian started assessing Bill’s injuries as I drove the damned boat back to the dock.
“Is he ok?” I asked them.
“He’s breathing again,” Jordan answered just as Bill turned his head and puked then took in a big deep breath.
The smell of lake water and coffee made me feel sick to my stomach as well, but I didn’t puke. I couldn’t afford to. I’d thought of myself as the better-prepared guy on the trip, but what did I know? I could do barely more than play chauffeur here.
“Go in hot, Tracy will throw a line,” Brian told me and I just nodded.
I left the thr
ottle open, not caring about the wake, and cut it off as I got near the dock. A little 5 horse pusher can propel the boat to speeds upwards of a fast walk, but that was about it. I grabbed the line Tracy tossed to me and pulled the boat to a stop then tied it off as the other two picked up Bill and put him on the dock to check him over.
Bill groaned and retched again. One thing I’d missed in the crazy boat ride was the fact that they had pulled his shirt open. The area over his heart was discolored under a scar, and I wondered if that was from bruising from CPR.
“I didn’t think you were supposed to move him?” I asked them, confused.
“We’re alone out here,” Tracy told me.
I just nodded and ran towards my buckets that had been left on the wooden deck of the cabin. I could at least bring the first aid supplies I’d packed away, even if I only knew how to use half of them. Jordan would know what everything was. I’d found a trauma kit from Emergency Essentials in a kid-sized backpack; I’d packed the rest of my first aid stuff in it, then wrapped it in a large 5 gallon Ziploc bag and sealed it.
I should buy stock in Ziploc, seriously.
“What you got?” Jordan asked as I was ripping the lid off the bucket and pulling out the bag.
Brian was talking softly to Bill who was responding, his words so low I couldn’t make them out.
“Trauma kit,” I said ripping the bag open when I couldn’t open it normally in my panic.
Jordan looked at me and nodded, giving me a wry smile. He’d always teased me about how overboard I go in prepping, how I should learn to use all the gear I buy and shelve as a just in case. Truth was, I do learn it but medical stuff wasn’t high on my list when I could be gardening, hunting, or fishing… the latter the reason for us finding ourselves so close to the Arctic Circle.
Without speaking, Jordan opened the pack and laid everything out to get a feel for what it all was. I got the disinfectant pads out and tore them open with my teeth and handed them over to the guys as they worked.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Brian.
“There was a flash of light and his radio died. Then… I think he had a heart attack. I don’t know how he’s still alive to be honest.”
“Me neither,” Jordan said, his hands flying through the supplies.
He’d used butterflies to tape a head wound closed instead of using the sutures I had in the kit. I’d ask him about that later on, but instead, I got out the plastic inflatable cast for isolating broken bones. Brian saw that and nodded. I kept it uninflated as I slowly threaded Bill’s arm through it. He stiffened up and moaned. I worked slowly, gently, so it wouldn’t hurt until I had his arm in there from wrist to elbow. Absently, I noticed that they were doing chest compressions again. I was about to lean over and inflate it when Jordan tapped me on the shoulder. I didn’t look up until he almost pushed me over, tapping my shoulder again.
“He’s gone,” Jordan said.
“What?” I asked, looking up.
Bill’s color had gone, almost to gray. Jordan and Brian looked sickened, and I realized I’d heard a sobbing behind me. I turned my head and saw that Tracy was there and realized I’d been hearing her soft sobs for some time.
“I… He quit breathing a minute ago and we lost him.”
“Can’t you keep doing CPR?” I nearly screamed.
“We did. I think he had another heart attack. The shock alone would have killed him, but look,” he said pointing to Bill’s chest.
I stood up, every muscle creaking in my body, my knees making a popping sound. He was pointing to the same bruised spot I’d noticed earlier.
“His pacemaker got fried somehow,” Jordan said, “It was only a matter of time.”
“That’s not a bruise?” I asked.
“No, that’s a pacemaker scar. I’ve seen enough of them to know. I just never…”
“He said the radio went out right before the heart attack,” Brian said.
It hit me then. I’d been prepping for this exact scenario, yet here I was in the north woods of Canada, a thousand miles north of mid-Michigan where I called home. All my food, guns, and backup plans… two hours by plane and thirteen and a half hours by car away. I pulled out my phone and it was blank. I tried the power button. I felt somebody lean into me to look and wasn’t surprised to see it was Tracy, her sobs quieted.
“Do you have your phone with you?” I asked her.
“Just for taking pictures, there’s no signal up here.”
“Is it charged?” I asked.
She nodded and pulled hers out and flipped it open. After a moment, she handed it to me with a puzzled look on her face. I hit the power button and it didn’t turn on.
“What does this mean?” she asked me.
I took a deep breath and looked around. Everybody was staring at me. One more big deep breath and I told them what I was thinking. For once, Jordan didn’t mock or ridicule me.
3
“An EMP?” Brian asked, “Like in those doomsday movies?” he asked.
“You said he saw a flash of light high up in the sky, then his pacemaker quit and his radio went out,” I told him.
“Why didn’t the plane just die?” Jordan asked.
“Remember the reason why we couldn’t all come out here? The Otter is down. They fly 40 or 50-year-old airframes. The electronics in them were probably the only modern thing inside of them,” I said guessing.
“That makes sense,” Tracy said surprising me, “My daddy quit working on our cars in the mid-eighties when he said that the modern electronics were just too confusing. It’s why he kept up his old beater until last year.”
“How are we going to get home?” Brian asked, pulling Tracy into his lap.
I didn’t know. We’d gone over that aspect more times in the last thirty minutes than I cared to admit.
“The company will fly another plane out here to get us, won’t they?” Jordan asked.
I don’t know why he was asking me, but I shook my head.
“I don’t know, they were waiting on the part for the Otter. If it was an EMP, I don’t think Fed-Ex is going to be delivering it anytime soon,” I told them soberly, despite being on my third beer, “I think it’s a wait and see type of thing.”
“Wait and see? So like… What do we do?” he asked.
“Pretend this is a fishing trip, wait our two weeks. If they have somebody picking up stranded anglers, I’m sure they’ll miss the first two check-ins. If they do, then we’ll know for sure.”
“This is not funny,” Tracy said, suddenly looking at me angrily.
“I never said it was. Do you know what we have here for tools, besides what we brought?”
“There’s a shed out back with a lock on it,” Brian said. “Bill told us it was for maintenance supplies and stuff.”
I nodded and dug in my backpack. I pulled out a small silver device that almost looked like a staple gun. I pulled out the picks and put one in the lock pick gun and gave it a few experimental clicks.
“What’s that?” Jordan asked.
“Lock pick gun,” I told him grabbing the tension wrench that came with it and stood.
“What are you going to do?” Brian asked me, an eyebrow raised.
“See if they have any shovels in the shed,” I told them.
“Why?” Tracy asked me acidly.
“Do you want to smell Bill 2 weeks from now?” I asked her sharply.
“They’re going to be here soon,” she said.
“Fine, I’ll dig the hole, and in three days or a week you can lay Bill to rest and fill it in,” I said stomping out.
* * *
The lock pick gun is actually a pretty simple device. It’s basically a master bump key that’ll work on anything but a car’s ignition. It doesn’t weigh a whole lot and if I would have remembered that I had it in my backpack I probably would have removed it to save on weight and bring in a little more supplies. It would have probably saved me enough weight for half a dozen simple snares.
; With dinner, the plane crash, and the wild trip out to the middle of the lake, I really hadn’t had a chance to look around the property much. I literally went from the lake to the cabin. Following the door to the right, I went towards the back where the outhouse was and immediately saw the small shed. It was probably 8’x4’ at most, sided and roofed with t-111 plywood, painted a dark green. It would blend in with the background and was hard to see in the fading light, but I was looking for it.
A simple brass lock was holding the door closed. I could probably have just removed the screws on one side and opened it, but I already had the gun out. I put it in and pulled the trigger several times and used the tension wrench on the bottom to put pressure on it. I felt the three tumblers in the lock click open when I pressed the handle on the gun one last time and was rewarded by being able to turn the keyway, clicking the lock open. I took the pick off the gun and put that and the tension wrench in my wallet so I wouldn’t drop or lose them then opened the door.
Inside was shingles, old flashing, some large pieces of plywood scrap and a multitude of hand tools including several shovels, probably for digging new holes for the outhouse.
“Hey man,” I heard Brian ask me, “I know we’re all on edge here, but you’ve been real shitty about Tracy for a while now.”
“What’s your point?” I asked him, somewhat startled by him sneaking up on me.
“That’s my wife,” he said softly, anger evident in his voice.
“Shouldn’t have married my ex then,” I told him, something I shouldn’t have had to say.
“Is that what this is about? That was like, twenty years ago; I didn’t even know you then,” Brian said.
I grunted. We’d worked together on some jobs, became friends. Started hanging out. By a weird twist of fate, I’d never met his wife Tracy until almost six months later and I’d realized who she was immediately. I’d been trying to play it cool and for the most part, Tracy had too, but I spent almost 17 years not even thinking about her and then suddenly she was back in my life again.
“We’ve been friends for a few years now, you’re just now figuring this out?” I asked him, acid in my voice as I pulled a few shovels out.
Northern Lights: A Scorched Earth Novel Page 2