Yesterday's Flight

by Martyn Ellington

  “Susan what you have here is really very good, and of course you’re right, this is a big step forward.”

  With that he felt reprieved, coming from Bruce that was as much as anybody could expect and as close to giving a compliment as he did and he got the reaction he hoped for.

  “Thanks, Bruce, from a cynical old sod like you that means a lot, but I think we should keep it quiet just for now.”

  Bruce agreed with her. “I think you’re right, the last thing we need is pictures of these two splashed over the internet! I’m going over to see Simon, you coming?”

  “Give me a minute, Bruce.” Susan replaced the lid and they restarted Bruce’s journey to site Charlie.

  The walk over was a quiet one. Neither Bruce nor Susan broke the silence. After giving a verbal pat on the back, Bruce wasn’t really sure he had much else to say to her and Susan didn’t want to spoil the moment. They stepped into the hangar. Instantly they were out of the sun’s relentless gaze and bathed in the orange glow that they had become accustomed to. Bruce wiped the sweat from his head with his forearm and headed through the air-conditioned environment towards the aircraft.

  As he did, he could see Simon standing on the wing, closest to them. He had grown in confidence since this whole thing had started and the awe and respect Simon once so eagerly showed Bruce had slipped away.

  Bruce didn’t mind this, at least now he didn’t follow him around like a lost puppy that continually brought him presents to show his loyalty.

  “Hi, Simon.”

  Simon turned, “Hi, Boss.”

  Bruce smiled a little, at least he still called him that.

  “Hi, Susan, how did the Smithsonian go?”

  Susan looked at Bruce, mindful of the conversation she had just had with him.

  “Ok, Simon, but more importantly, how are things going here?”

  Bruce and Susan looked at each other and smiled like two people who were planning a practical joke on some unsuspecting victim.

  “Well, we’re under the aircraft now, we have completely unearthed it, we have jacks under it to take the weight. We don’t know what condition the landing gear is in or how strong it is.”

  “What about the metallurgy samples they took?” Bruce, as usual, was direct with his questioning.

  “Should have those back in a couple of days.”

  He looked at Bruce and Susan, his eye’s widened, and just for a second Bruce could see that lost look of wonderment in his eyes again.

  “Wanna see under it?”

  Simon led them down the side of the dig under the airframe. More orange lights had been placed under the fuselage and even though it had dulled over time; what was left of the chrome finish reflected some of the light and bathed the whole area and against the colour of the desert floor: this was an eerie place to be.

  “We think the best way in is through the main cargo bay door. There are signs of wear and tear down the side of the fuselage and we think this is where they got in and out of it when they…..”

  Simon stopped and Bruce turned towards him, “When they what, Simon?”

  “When they, well we think they must have lived on it for a while.”

  Susan walked under the plane towards the rear. She took out her trusted soft bristle brush that any good palaeontologist carries with them and started to gently dust the bottom of the fuselage near the cargo bay door.

  Bruce watched her and he saw her face change, her expression changed from inquisitive to curious and then to shock. Turning her head to Bruce she gestured for them both to come over, pointing up at the fuselage directly above them they could see the dark splattered stains that they all knew was dried blood.

  “Guys, this is what I think it is, right?”

  “Looks like it, Susan,” came a heavy response from Simon, his words laboured.

  They could see the pattern the blood made where it was still visible. She knew enough about forensics and strike patterns to know that what was left under here represented a violent event.

  Simon rubbed the blood marks with the tips of his fingers.

  “Should we enter this at all, Bruce?”

  Bruce turned to him, “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “It could be a tomb, you know, it’s like the whole Titanic argument; some people say it shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “Really, Simon,” Bruce’s reply snapped out, “but, unlike the Titanic, we have no idea why this plane is here and if by some miracle the black box is retrievable; we might find out.”

  Simon knew he was defeated and decided to back down, besides Bruce was in charge so whatever his thoughts were on the matter they would have no bearing on the outcome and in the end he knew they would go in.

  Susan brought their attention back to the blood on the fuselage. “If we get a sample off this, you know we might just be able to find out who it belonged to!”

  Bruce nodded and turned his attention back to Simon, “When can we get the door open?”

  Simon drew his breath as if to indicate he was pondering and he needed a little moment to find an answer. “Well, we’ll need cutting gear and some kind of a support to hold the door once it’s removed.”

  “Ok,” replied Bruce, but Simon knew as the word came out of his mouth his reply wasn’t finished.

  “Ok, that’s what you need, what I asked is when?”

  “12-hours, Bruce, I’ll have you in.”

  Bruce and Susan turned and started to make their way up the side of the dig. They came out at the front of the plane directly opposite the flight deck windows. Bruce squinted and looked as hard as he could at the glass, but it was dirty, thick with eons of dust and rain and just for now the plane was holding onto its secrets.

  Bruce returned to his tent, closing the flap behind him and made his way to his field workstation. Sitting at the desk he opened the lid of his laptop, this was the part he didn’t care for, reporting in on his progress and dealing with the clones that made up the chain of command; most of whom he was convinced had no field experience and had ended up being his manager because of some piece of paper that declared beyond doubt they had the aptitude and ability to do the job.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Bruce finished his reports and moved himself over to his bunk. He set the alarm on his phone and lay back. The sun was still hanging in the sky and his tent was impossibly bright and humid but he was determined to get some sleep; he hadn’t much since arriving and it was starting to take its toll. He was feeling tired and fatigued; his temper was shorter than normal, even though he promised himself a while ago he would try his hardest to arrest it. He knew how to manage people and he knew that continuous shouting and growling at them wasn’t the way to do it.

  Simon stood a few feet away from the frame of the door as the cutting crew worked on it. The brace they had put in place to hold the door stood firmly against the wall of the dig and the desert floor under the plane. The cutters were nearly all the way round the frame of the door. He stood almost trembling with the anticipation of what secrets would be revealed once they got inside. With a shudder the door dropped a few centimetres as the cutters met midway on the top side, the brace now held fast, taking the full weight of the reinforced air-tight door. The crew Simon had hired knew nothing of what they were working on, after Bruce’s strict privacy and media blackout rules that had been stringently imposed since they first glanced at the tail section he knew it had to stay this way.

  He was desperate to lower the brace down but he had to clear the hangar of all non-essential staff and he must, without fail, get Bruce and Susan. Simon started for Susan’s and Bruce’s tents, leaving the hangar.

  The sun was suspended low in the evening sky, the paradox of this place was the heat in the day and the sheer cold of the night. They had already turned the air conditioning off in the hangar to allow it to capture the last heat the day offered that would keep it comfortable during the night. He reached Bruce’s tent first and opened the flap. Bruce was already pulling his pants
on, woken by his alarm a few minutes earlier.

  He had eagerly got up knowing that the deadline for Simon was almost up and the door would soon be off.

  “Simon, come on in, don’t be shy.” Bruce seemed in a better mood than the last time they had had a conversation.

  Simon smiled and continued in. “Well?” “The door is open,” Simon replied, he went on, “the brace is holding it shut for now, I wanted to clear the hangar first.”

  Bruce seemed pleased and he was.

  “Excellent work, Simon, ok, let’s go get Susan, I know she’s as excited as I am.”

  The two men left Simon’s tent. The sun had now almost disappeared, the generators had kicked in and the entire site now worked to the sound of diesel engines as they supplied the electricity to power the huge halogen lights that now floodlit the whole area. Even with these lights it was tricky going, the shadows cast by rocks and changing shape of the desert floor changed continuously making every step not much more than a guess.

  After a short walk they reached Susan’s tent, but this time Simon didn’t walk straight in; instead they shook the canvas flap and called her name. Instantly she replied, “Ok, Simon, I’m coming out.” After a few seconds she emerged holding a powerful hand light. Looking at the two escorts that had arrived she smiled. “Hi, boys,” as usual she was cheerful. Bruce couldn’t help but think that she played it up around him just to wind him up a little. “Let’s go see what we have.”

  The three of them made their way through the night towards the hangar. The large blue tent now seemed to glow a strange mixture of the blue fabric and orange lights that lit the interior, the unnatural radiance that resulted glowed in the pitch black of the night. Reaching the hangar they entered and made their way to the aircraft that now sat waiting for them, ready to reveal whatever strange events had put it there. The walk over from Susan’s tent had been a quiet one, even with her quips the response she had received from both Bruce and Simon had sent a very clear message to her that neither of them had the mind to continue with her jovial manner, this along with the always strange and surreal night time walk had left them all somewhat sombre.

  The three of them made their way down into the dig under the aircraft. The brace was a fairly simple piece of equipment, it was essentially a large and immensely strong metal frame that allowed the operator to lower the support frame up or down by a mechanical winding system.

  Simon took hold of the handle that operated it and began rotating it. The door shuddered just as it had all those years before when the passengers and crew had made their way in and out of the plane. As the seals split there was a rush of hissing air and the air that had been trapped for 65 million years rushed out, even from the distance they stood, the pungent smell caught them. All of them without exception retreated at the stench that met them. Simon looked at Bruce and Susan and took hold of the handle again. With a judder the door continued down away from the frame of the aircraft. Eventually the brace had lowered the door as far as it could. Simon attached the ladders he had placed nearby to the lip of the open door frame and shook them to make sure they were secured. He stepped back and gestured to Bruce as if to say, “You first.”

  Bruce smiled, a thought flashed through his mind that Simon had done that out of either respect for him as his boss, or because he was just too damn scared to go in first. “I think we should allow the air pressure and quality to equalize first Simon, give it ten-minutes then we’ll go through zone by zone.

  Bruce and Simon had already zoned the interior of the plane off using plans they had on all the major commercial aircraft that had been produced over the last thirty-years.

  Zone one would be the mid-to-forward cargo bay, this is where the door they had removed would lead them first. Zone two would be the mid-to-rear cargo bay. Zone three, the business class and flight decks; including the captain’s bunk and finally zone four, economy class and back to the rear of the aircraft.

  After the allotted ten-minutes, Bruce grabbed the first ladder rung and started the climb into the cargo bay. He was followed by Simon and then Susan. Bruce reached the top of the ladder and stepped into the hull. Switching on his maglite he shone it around the cargo bay, another light illuminated the bay as Simon joined him and then Susan. The bay lit up in patches forming shadows through the girder trusses that supported the floor of the passenger compartment. The shadows stretched and changed shape as they moved the lights around. The bay looked intact, in fact to Bruce he felt cheated, there was nothing at all that was unremarkable about it except the fact that all the luggage had been opened and he guessed by the lack of it that most of it had been taken or used by whoever had survived this and had used all the resources the plane had to offer them. Large luggage drums that had been cut in two were stacked by the door, Simon commented on the possibility that they could have been used for collecting fresh water.

  Bruce agreed with him and started to move towards zone two. Susan stayed in zone one. She carefully moved the luggage around; disturbing it for the first time in an eon, the thick dust that had collected on it floated slowly down to the floor, dancing in the beams of the bright white light that now flooded the cargo bay. Simon knelt down next to the cargo net, he decided that they must have used it to lower themselves down and climb back up. He picked up a corner of the net and stood up. Reaching up as far as he could he extended the net, “Bruce, look at this!” Bruce turned, he could see that the net was slashed and ripped; it looked as though someone had taken a sharp carving knife to it and thrashed it in a frenzied manner.

  Bruce took in a deep breath and slowly released it. Susan came and joined Simon and took hold of the other corner. Walking back away from him she stretched the net out, “Jesus,” she said, “this thing looks like it’s been torn to shit!”

  Simon nodded, “But by what, Susan? this is a nylon net, it’s made to be strong and tear-resistant; it’s meant to hold big weights in flight through even the worst turbulence.”

  Susan looked back at the net and then to Simon, “There is only one animal that would fit the evidence we have about how long this has been down here and it is…” She stopped.

  “Is what, Susan?” Bruce bellowed from further down the cargo bay.

  She looked back at the net and continued, “It would be a Velocirapter. It had a huge and very sharp claw on its feet; we believe it used it for tearing at its prey to bring it down and then cut it open. Bearing in mind how thick the skin of some if its prey would have been, this net wouldn’t be much of a challenge.”

  Bruce shook his head and looked down to the floor.

  “What is it?” Susan asked. “I still can’t get used to this and we’ve been here three weeks or so,” Susan answered with an unusually sharp tone, one that snapped Bruce back to attention and brought his gaze from the floor to her.

  “Well get used to it, Bruce, it’s the only thing we have to work with, you’ve seen the fossil with the tail section that we know came from this plane and you’ve seen the fossilised remains of John & Jane Doe at site bravo, we need to disband the disbelief and just deal with it!”

  Simon looked at Bruce, he had never heard anybody talk to Bruce like that and he had never heard Susan talk like that to anybody, but Bruce reacted well and thankfully so.

  As far as Simon was concerned, the last thing he wanted to be in the middle of, right at this moment, was a pissing competition between Bruce and Susan.

  “Besides,” she continued, “if Raptors did attack this net because they knew people were on this plane I only hope they didn’t get in!”

  Bruce turned and continued towards the back of the cargo bay, as with the zone one there was nothing unusual about it other than the fact it was here to start with. He turned back and approached Susan. “Look, we can let your team inch their way over this section later, we need to go up, I need to get to avionics, that’s where the black box is.” “Ok, Bruce, after you,” she replied. Simon let go of the remaining corner of the net and it fell heavily back to
the floor, plumes of ancient dust rose from the floor and spread across covering the area around their feet, the particles of dust streamed through the intense white light of their LED torches.

  They reached the short ladder that would take them up to the passenger compartment. Following Bruce, Simon and Susan raised themselves out of the hatch opening in the galley. Bruce helped Susan up and shone his maglite around. Simon and Susan did the same as they had in the cargo bay. The powerful lights streamed around the galley, illuminating it in circular patterns. The air seemed thicker up in the passenger compartment; it had a damp, almost putrid smell about it. It seemed warm and heavy and dust plumes floated through the air, highlighted by the bright torches. Simon raised the back of his right hand to his nose. “This smells awful!” Bruce raised an eyebrow and turned back towards the galley. They opened the cupboard doors and drawers. Everything was where they had expected it to be. Apart from the lack of cups and other kitchen cutlery there was nothing that struck them as bizarre.

  Bruce pushed the door release on the microwave oven, it clunked and thick dust that had collected over time fell from the face of the door as it swung open, inside it was clean and dust-free, the air-tight seals around the door had held the years of dust out. Apart from the absence of the courtesy light, inside the oven looked much like his did at home.

  Bruce turned to Susan, “How do you explain, why after all this time, the condition is so good? surely it should be all dust now.”

  Susan could offer no answer; not now, not right at this moment, she simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

  Simon pulled the curtain back that led into the economy class compartment. More flakes of dust and dirt danced and floated down to the floor through his light. “Bruce, I’m going into zone four.” “Ok, Simon.” His torch shone a stream of white light through the compartment like a warship’s searchlight; shadows formed as the light was blocked by the headrest on the seats that housed the blank LCD screens. He shone it up towards the overhead cupboards. The ceiling had traces of mould on it, but nothing he hadn’t seen on an aircraft that had simply just been left standing outside for ten-years or so. All the window blinds were down as they had noticed when they first unearthed it, there was no mess, nothing was out of place.