by Bill Rancic
Kerry leaned against Daniel’s shoulder and drifted off. She seemed genuinely excited about the flash-wedding idea, if a little surprised, and he was pleased with himself for coming up with it, pictures of Kerry in her wedding dress flitting through his head. God, she’d be so beautiful. She was so smart and capable, the kind of woman who made him feel smarter and more capable just because she loved him. He’d never had much luck with women before he met her; he’d had a string of bad relationships with women who couldn’t deal with the fact that Daniel was always on the road. They were always calling, demanding he check in at all hours of the day and night. He’d finally given up on finding someone who wouldn’t need to be reassured constantly of his affection for her, who had her own mind and her own life and wasn’t afraid to live it. At least until he met Kerry, who’d knocked him over not just because she was beautiful, but because she didn’t need him to tell her he loved her every moment of every day. She knew that already, and knowing it made it more true than just saying it ever could.
That thought was like a wedding vow: she knew that he loved her, and her knowing that made it real again and again. That would be what he would say to her on their wedding day.
He kept picturing the surprise on the faces of the people at the Hancock Observatory, the laughter of their friends and family, who would be in on the scheme, all of them getting away with something. Kerry’s mother wouldn’t like the flash-mob idea—she had visions of the family church decked out with flowers, all the neighbors and relatives in attendance—but she was so eager for Kerry and Daniel to make it official that she’d get over her disappointment before long, he was sure of it.
More important than all of that was the idea that they’d be together for good, finally, just the way he’d always wanted it. Jobs might come and go, friends would drift in and out of his life, but Kerry was the only thing Daniel had ever really wanted for himself. He couldn’t believe his own good luck that she wanted him, too.
A sudden lurch of the plane jolted him upright. He sat up and looked out the window, where the clouds closed in around the plane, thick and gray.
He didn’t have the slightest idea where they were; the northern provinces of Canada were mostly a mystery to him. Were they over Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, maybe Alberta? It could be any of them. He knew a little about the Alberta tar sands because Petrol had an operation there, but as to anything else, he was totally mystified. He looked to see if he could catch a glimpse of a town or a road, but below them there was nothing but thick, dark-gray banks of cloud, closing in around the plane, condensation clinging to the clear surface of the window.
As he watched, he could have sworn he saw the condensation beginning to freeze. No, he was sure—the water on the window was turning into crystals. But that wasn’t supposed to happen. They’d been sprayed with deicer before they’d left the airport. He remembered it distinctly, because the captain had shut off the air for a few moments while the crews worked outside, to keep the passengers from breathing in the chemicals. It should have been enough to keep ice from forming on the plane’s surface. Except there was definitely ice forming on the window.
Then a stream of thin gray smoke was coming from the engine on the left wing, a little at first, a wisp like a smoker exhaling. Or was it even smoke he was seeing? He couldn’t be sure. The air here was so heavy with clouds and snow that the so-called smoke might be just a bit of condensation gathering around the engine, a little bit of water in the air coalescing around the jet intake.
The grayness thickened and grew darker, blowing out from the engine and behind them in a long sputtering stream. The longer he looked at the engine, the more he was certain that what he was seeing was smoke.
“Umm,” he said to Kerry, “that doesn’t look so good.”
She opened her eyes and looked out the window, to see what he was seeing. “What—?”
Then the engine burst in a sudden eruption of sparks and yellow-orange flame. The plane lurched to the left and shuddered as great quantities of heavy black smoke started pouring out of the engine.
“Oh God,” Kerry said, clutching the armrest. She caught Daniel’s eye, and he saw his own sense of dawning fear on her face.
Around them a general murmur went up, mild at first (the word “turbulence” rumbled its way through the cabin a few times), then more alarmed as people leaned over to look out the portside windows of the plane at the flames and smoke over the wing. The plane made a sudden turn and banked wide to the right, turning back the way they’d just come.
Near the front of the cabin, one of the flight attendants was picking up the intercom and saying something to the pilot on the other end, then looking at her co-worker across the aisle. There was fear on their faces. Then the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, and Daniel could distinctly hear the nervous crack in her voice, “as you probably noticed, we are experiencing some engine trouble. The captain has shut down the affected engine for the time being, but we still have two more engines, both in good working order. We are not in any immediate danger. However, as a precaution only, the captain is turning around to make an emergency landing in the city of Whitehorse. If you could please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened, we would—”
Another lurch, this time to the right, as the right-hand engine erupted now in flames. Somewhere in the cabin someone screamed. Daniel watched the flight attendant pick up the intercom once more, heard her say something frightened to the captain, though the words weren’t clear. Daniel reached over and grabbed Kerry’s hand. “It’s all right,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “We’re all right.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the flight attendant, “the captain says we are going to have to make an immediate emergency landing. He asks that you all assume the brace position, with your feet flat on the floor under your seat and your heads against the seat back in front of you. Please look to the front and we will demonstrate the proper positioning—”
The plane lurched again, the last engine screaming under the strain of keeping the aircraft aloft; from somewhere Daniel heard someone reciting a “Hail Mary” and realized it was Kerry, her eyes shut tightly, her mouth moving in a whisper around the words she’d learned long ago, as a girl in Catholic school: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . .”
I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this is happening. They were inside the clouds, sinking fast, the ground invisible below, mist and ice whirling past the darkened windows. Like being blind.
The flight attendant continued, “Place your hands on the seat back over your head, one hand holding the wrist of the other arm. If you cannot reach the seat back in front of you, tuck your head forward over your knees—”
Another lurch. Out the window, Daniel could see the clouds break; the ground was very close now, getting closer. What alarmed him the most was the realization that there was nothing down there, nothing but wilderness. Not a house, not a road, not a light—nothing. They were in a damaged plane going down in the wilderness of far northern Canada in the middle of a December snowstorm.
“Please remember the location of the emergency exits. Those of you seated in an exit row are reminded that you have agreed to aid all passengers in exiting the aircraft safely. Once we’ve come to a complete stop, please exit the aircraft in an orderly fashion . . .”
Exit the aircraft in an orderly fashion? Is she serious? It would be pandemonium, assuming they even survived, not to mention that there was no shelter, no help anywhere nearby. The inside of the aircraft was likely to be the only safe place for them all down on the ground in this weather. None of them would really have the first clue what they were dealing with.
The treetops were getting dangerously close now, the earth bunched into hills that had seemed low from the air, now rising in humps like the backs of elephants covered in white snow and dark trees. The sky
was low, the wind high, snow coming down heavily all around them. It would be cold out there, bitterly so. And no warm hotel to hide in when the cold got to be too much. Even if they survived the crash, they were going to be desperately, life-threateningly cold.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is happening.
The flight attendant had said the captain had radioed their position to Whitehorse. Daniel had no idea how far away the city was, but as long as someone knew where they were, he thought, it would be all right, they’d spend a few hours inside the plane, it would be all right, it will be all right.
Next to him Kerry was still whispering her Hail Marys. “Hold on,” Daniel murmured to her, leaning forward to brace himself against the back of the seat in front of him. “We’ll get out of this.”
“I love you,” she said. “Remember that. I love you so much.”
“We’re going to be okay, Kerry. I promise you.”
“I love you, Daniel,” she said, her voice shaking. “Say it back to me.”
“Don’t. Kerry—”
“Please.”
He clutched her head against his shoulder and said, “I love you. More than anything.”
The hills were close, then closer, tops of the trees were just below them, thick and black and heavy with new snow. The wings of the plane were brushing the treetops, the engine whining, people around them praying and breathless with fear. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . .
Then the world exploded.
A loud crash, then a sudden, violent lurch. The sound of tearing metal. The feel of cold on his back, wind in his hair, cold down the neck of his shirt and around his ankles. Then darkness.
The plane had broken; he was vaguely aware of light and air behind him, and the sound of screaming. A child was screaming, and not just a child, but the entire plane was screaming as they waited for the ordeal to stop, while Daniel could manage nothing more explosive than a gasp for air.
Everything rattled. The walls, the seats, his teeth. Everything.
Any minute now. Any minute now and we’ll stop.
The air went white with snow. Braced as he was against the seat in front of him, his head down, Daniel could see nothing at all but his own knees and swirling snow, his black leather oxfords next to Kerry’s knee-high boots. The sight of Kerry’s feet reassured him even more than the child’s continued screams. She was still there, Kerry was still there beside him.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on . . .
But the plane didn’t stop. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare do anything except hold on and breathe. They jolted and bounced, the overhead bins popping open and luggage falling down around them, the sound of tearing metal and plastic and people crying out all around them. Something heavy fell on his head—a suitcase, someone’s carry-on—and something else small and hard. He was wet and cold and sticky, as if liquid had fallen on him. Someone’s drink, maybe.
Beside him he heard Kerry say, “Oh shit, oh shit,” as their seats lurched and loosened. Then the seat pulled free from the floor and flung Daniel and Kerry forward into the seat backs in front of them, dumped over like rag dolls in their plastic chairs, his whole body thrown forward, then backward as the plane suffered one last massive jolt and came to a sudden and violent halt.
Finally they came to rest in a heap on the floor of the plane, battered and bruised and panting as if they’d just finished running a marathon.
But he was alive. Of that, he was certain.
Daniel could hear nothing but the roaring in his ears, his limbs trembling with a rush of adrenaline. They were still strapped into their seats, surrounded by loose pieces of clothing, suitcases, shoes, plastic cups, shredded pieces of metal, oxygen masks, bits of Plexiglas window, foam insulation, and the heavy feel of the suddenly cold air, the snow greasy around their feet. Around them they could hear people crying and calling to each other, the Petrol team members and the passengers they didn’t know. One woman was calling frantically, “Zach? Zach, where are you? Zach, I can’t see you!” while Daniel fumbled around his waist for the strap of his seat belt, lifting the buckle up and off, gasping for air. He hoped beyond hope that Zach was not the boy he’d heard crying, who wasn’t crying anymore.
“Kerry,” Daniel murmured, touching his belly, his ribs, his arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be broken, though his knee ached where he’d hit it against the seat back, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath or stop himself from shaking. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
“Are you all right?”
No answer. He felt like he was falling, like the earth was not at all solid under his feet. Kerry was hurt—maybe badly. He needed to get the heavy seats off them. Daniel braced his feet against the carpeted floor of the plane and pushed upward until the seats fell backward, away from the spot on the floor where Daniel and Kerry had landed. For the first time he could breathe. He could see Kerry lying on her side on the floor of the cabin, curled up into a fetal position, still in one piece, as far as he could see, though there was blood coming from one corner of her mouth, and she had the beginnings of what would probably become a fairly sizable bump near her right temple, about the diameter of a quarter.
His first thought was that it could have been worse. Much, much worse.
He wouldn’t think of all the things that could go wrong with a head injury: concussion, hemorrhage, memory loss, mood swings, loss of motor function. All his years working in crisis management had given him plenty of experience with head injuries. He had to get her awake, get her talking, and the sooner the better. But he wouldn’t think about the worst-case scenario, not yet.
“Kerry,” he said. “Babe. Look at me.”
“Unnnnh,” she said, which didn’t exactly fill him with relief.
“Kerry, wake up. Open your eyes, Kerry. Look at me.”
As he stood over her, trying to wake her from what he hoped was only a faint, Daniel felt more helpless than he ever had in his life. He brushed her loosened hair away from her face, revealing her bruised and bloodied mouth, twisted at the corners in a grimace of pain. Anything could have hit her temple in the crash—flying debris, the arm of the chair as it came loose, a cell phone. It didn’t matter what it was; she needed to open her eyes, look at him, recognize him, speak to him. She had to be all right. They were supposed to be getting married in a little more than two weeks, for God’s sake.
“Kerry,” he said again, her name sticking halfway up his throat.
Her eyes fluttered and opened, but they were glazed, fixed on nothing. She swiveled her head around to look at him, and he was relieved to see that her neck, at least, wasn’t broken. What he feared was not the snapping of bones, which would heal, but the breaking and bruising of her mind.
“What happened?” she asked. “How long have I been asleep?”
“You weren’t asleep,” he said, touching the side of her head where the contusion was. “You hit your head in the crash. You passed out for a minute. I’m worried you may have a concussion.”
“Oh.” At least she wasn’t particularly upset.
“How do you feel?”
“Dizzy. A little bit dizzy. And tired.” Her eyes fluttered closed again and she said, “God, I could go right back to sleep.”
“Don’t sleep, Kerry,” Daniel said, the relief he’d felt a moment before fading. She had all the symptoms of a rather serious concussion, and God only knew when help would arrive. “Kerry, don’t go to sleep.” He helped her sit up against the wall of the fuselage, gently rolling her head back and forth between his hands to check the movement of her neck. “Does anything hurt?”
“A headache. And my mouth hurts. I think I banged my mouth on something,” she said. He looked up to see her mouth streaked with blood, her teeth red with it. “I think maybe I broke a tooth.”
“You did. Two of them, it looks like.
” The bottoms of her two front teeth were ragged and bloody, giving her expression a vampirish quality, and he reached up with the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood away.
Just then the flight attendant came rushing down the aisle, checking on each passenger in turn. She stopped at Kerry and Daniel and said, “Are you two going to be all right? Can you walk?”
“I think so,” Kerry said, her voice still slower and thicker than usual—he could tell she wasn’t thinking clearly. “Do you need us to get out of the way?”
“We need to get the emergency exit open,” Daniel said, standing up. “Get all these people outside to safety.”
The flight attendant gave him a strange look and said, “Are you kidding?” She nodded toward the back of the plane.
Daniel stood and looked up over the tops of the seats: the cabin was nearly unrecognizable. Many of the seat rows had pulled free and were lying willy-nilly around the floor, along with vague dark shapes: a drink cart that had come loose from the galley near first class and rolled backward into the aisle, airline pillows and blankets, coats and bags from the overhead bins. Every single oxygen mask had been released from the ceiling and now hung like empty IV bags in the air over the survivors, vaguely sinister and medicinal. After all the years he’d listened to flight attendants tell him how to put on an oxygen mask in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, there’d been no time in the crash to do so.
Around him people were crying, people moaning the names of friends and loved ones, people begging for someone to help them. “Please,” someone cried out from the front of the plane. “Please, I’m stuck.”
But the thing that really caught Daniel’s attention was the fact that just two or three rows behind them the entire rear half of the plane was missing. The fuselage had broken off just behind the wings: there was nothing back there but a gaping hole where the tail of the plane had been, and snow and wind blowing down the length of the cabin. Daylight was illuminating the back portion of what was left of the cabin. Daniel could make out the shape of a pine tree, broken halfway up its length by the impact of the plane, standing not ten feet away from the place where he stood. The snow was several feet deep and still blowing in hard.