The Ghosts of Hexley Airport

by Cross, Amy

  “I didn't quite catch that,” the voice said. “Repeat. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Can you hear me?” she shouted, stepping away from the cart and onto the snow-covered expanse of tarmac that led toward the runway. “Please, you have to be able to hear me! You have to stop all the planes!”

  She waited, but now all she could hear over the radio was static.

  “Stop the planes!” she shouted, with tears in her eyes as she watched another flight roar into the sky and disappear from view. “Please, you have to hear me! I'm right here!” She waited, but she still heard nothing but static. “I'm dead!” she yelled. “I know I'm dead, but for the love of God, you have to hear what I'm saying!”

  “I hear you,” the voice said suddenly, as the static cleared. “What's your radio call-sign?”

  “There's no time for that,” she replied, feeling a rush of relief. “You have to ground every plane right now! Especially any that are going to London!”

  “I'm sorry, but who is this again?”

  “My name is Casey Monroe, but that's not important right now. You -”

  “Casey Monroe? Are you part of the security team, Casey?”

  “No! I mean, yes. I mean, I was. It's a long story, but -”

  “Where are you? How did you get this radio?”

  “I need you to listen to me,” she continued, trying to stay calm as she hurried toward the runway. Already, another plane was taxiing into place, getting ready to take off. “There's a man named David Harper and he's on one of the planes. He's sabotaged it so that it'll crash. I can explain everything later, but right now I need you to ground all the flights.”

  “Say that again?” the voice replied. “I'm not sure I quite -”

  “There's a terrorist on one of the planes!” she yelled, figuring she had to get her point across as quickly as possible. “There's a bomb! Someone's going to bomb a plane!”

  She watched as another flight took off, but now she could at least hear several hurried voices on the radio, discussing the situation.

  “Casey,” a different voice said suddenly, “my name is Bob Myers and I'm the head of -”

  “You have to ground every plane!” she said firmly. “David Harper is on a plane that's going to take off for London, and if it takes off then all the people are going to die. He's sabotaged the deicing equipment, the plane'll go down just like the one that crashed ten years ago.”

  Another flight was already at the end of the runway, getting ready to take off.

  “Ground the flights!” a voice called out suddenly over the radio. “I don't know what the hell's going on, but we've received a threat and we have to ground every flight!”

  “His name's David Harper,” Casey continued, “and -”

  Before she could finish, she watched in horror as the next plane began to speed along the runway.

  “You said you were grounding them!” she shouted. “Stop!”

  “All traffic at Hexley is now grounded,” a voice said over the radio.

  “DSE1058 has already been cleared,” another voice added. “Repeat, flight DSE1058 to London has been cleared for takeoff. All other flights are holding.”

  “No!” Casey screamed, watching in horror as the plane roared past. “That's the one! That's the plane he's on! Stop it!”

  She could hear lots of voices over the radio now, but the plane sped into the distance and finally lifted up, rising into the cold morning sky even as the voices began to sound more urgent and concerned.

  “I just spoke to the deicing supervisor,” a man said suddenly on the radio. “He's confirmed that someone seems to have tampered with one of the lines. There's some kind of timer system with a receiver.”

  “A passenger named David Harper is listed as traveling on flight DSE1058 to London,” another voice said. “That's a Millenizoom plane. It's the only one of theirs we have at Hexley right now.”

  “Casey,” yet another voice added, “DSE1058 took off a couple of seconds ago. It was delayed by the deicing procedure, but it was the last plane to get up before the order went out to ground everything. There was no time to stop it.”

  “Tell them to land again!” she shouted, hurrying through the snow as she headed toward the runway. “Tell them to get back down right now!”

  “Millenizoom flight DSE1058,” another voice said over the radio, “this is the control tower, we need you to return to the runway immediately. Repeat, we need you to return to the runway due to a security situation.”

  “This is DSE1058,” a different voice replied, against a loud background hum, “we're just beginning our ascent. We have no problems on this end, can you confirm the reason for -”

  “Land!” Casey shouted. “Land now! Turn back! You don't have much time!”

  “What's going on?” yet another voice asked. “Why there hell is there some unidentified maniac on the radio?”

  “Get that plane back down!” Casey told them. “Someone's sabotaged the deicing equipment! It's the same thing that happened ten years ago! It's going to be the exact same crash!”

  For a moment, several voices spoke over one another as the panic spread. People were shouting over the radio, and Casey watched with a mounting sense of horror as the plane got further and further away, barely visible at all as it rose higher into the cloudy sky. And then, finally, she saw the plane turning toward the south and leveling out, as if the pilots had aborted the climb and were trying to head back toward the runway.

  “All other traffic has been halted,” a voice said over the radio. “DSE1058, the runway is all yours. Repeat, you have clearance to land. No restrictions.”

  “Stay low!” Casey yelled, watching as the plane flew just a couple of hundred meters above the forest. “Your wings are going to freeze! You need to get -”

  “We're experiencing trouble with one of our engines,” the pilot said suddenly, and now an alarm could be heard ringing in the background. “Repeat, engine two is faulting. Request emergency landing and -”

  Before he could finish, another alarm began sounding across the radio.

  “We're now experiencing difficulties with our landing gear,” he continued. “Be advised, I can't be sure that our landing gear is deployed.”

  As voices continued to discuss the situation over the radio, Casey shielded her eyes from the snow and looked out into the rapidly-worsening storm. She could just about make out the lights of the terminal building, but bad weather had closed in rapidly and she could only make out faint, brief hints of the plane in the distance as it continued to fly low over the forest and came back around toward the runway. She could hear the engines, though, as well as the sound of sirens in the distance as emergency vehicles scrambled to meet the incoming emergency landing.

  “This is DSE1058,” the captain's voice said suddenly, sounding more worried than before. “Can anyone on the ground see whether or not our landing gear is down?”

  “Negative,” another voice replied, “we are unable to determine at this point. If you come past the control tower, we might -”

  “We don't have time for that! We have triple engine failure. Repeat, three of the engines are down and the fourth has intermittent power outages. I'm bringing her down to the -”

  A sudden burst of static cut him off.

  “DSE1058, do you copy?” another voice yelled. “DSE1058, this is Hexley control tower. Come in, please.”

  “Come on,” Casey whispered, shivering as she waited for some hint of the plane to appear in the white sky. “You have to land.”

  The radio static continued to swirl, and after a moment Casey spotted a large, dark shape rushing closer through the snowstorm. Instinctively taking a step back away from the edge of the runway, she watched as the shape roared past, although it quickly faded into the snowstorm and disappeared once more from view. And then, from somewhere off toward the far end of the runway, an almighty crunching sound filled the air and shook the ground with such force that Casey stumbled back and dropped down onto
the ice. The sound grew louder and louder, before ending as suddenly as it had arrived. Now the only noise came from the approaching sirens.

  “DSE1058, do you copy?” a voice said finally over the radio. “DSE1058, are you -”

  “They're down!” another voice yelled suddenly. “Southern end. Repeat, southern end! Tell the emergency crews they're going the wrong way!”

  Scrambling to her feet, Casey began to run along the edge of the runway. Flashing blue sirens were already getting closer in the distance, but a moment later Casey stopped as she saw the distant orange glow of flames rising through the snow, accompanied by plumes of thick black smoke. For a moment, the sight reminded her of the night her friend Elly had died, and she froze as she remembered how she'd completely failed to save her.

  “Not again,” she whispered, watching as the flames continued to flicker in the distance. “Please...”

  Sirens filled the air all around as snow came down, and finally Casey forced herself to start running again. She kept going until she felt as if her lungs were about to burst, and then she kept running anyway until suddenly she spotted a dark, smudge-like figure up ahead. Coming to a halt, she stared with a growing sense of horror as a couple more of the ghostly figures appeared, then more, and then a dozen and two dozen until it seemed as if figures were slowly making their way through the snowstorm. Frozen to the spot, Casey could only watch as the figures edged closer, and finally one emerged from the storm with wide-open, shocked eyes.

  Blue sirens were flashing in the distance.

  A moment later, the snowstorm lifted just a little, just enough for Casey to see that the figures were stunned passengers trying to find their way from the crashed plane. Behind them, the flames were now clearly coming only from one of the engines, which was still running while the others had been shut off. As the snow cleared a little more, Casey was finally able to make out the sight of the plane, which had come to a rest sideways-on to the runway, tilting slightly thanks to a deflated tire on one section of its landing gear. Members of the cabin crew were helping passengers out using an emergency slide, and now ambulances and fire crews were arriving on the scene.

  “Engine two is still going!” a voice yelled in the distance. “We can't shut it off! Keep everyone well back! Engine two is hot!”

  “Are you okay?” Casey asked, hurrying to the nearest passenger but seeing no sign of injury. Once she'd made sure that the woman was unhurt, she made her way to the next passenger, then the next, until she found a woman leading a little girl away by hand.

  “Are we going to take another plane?” the girl asked, her voice tense with fear as she clutched a toy bear.

  “Not today, Gemma,” her mother replied. “Maybe not for a while. We can use trains more. Trains are good.”

  Letting go of her bear, the girl clung to her mother's arm as they stumbled away.

  Casey continued to make her way through the stunned crowd, although she found that nobody seemed too badly hurt and that most of the passengers were suffering from nothing more than shock. A few had broken down into hysterical sobbing fits, but ambulance crews were leading them away and more emergency workers were arriving with every passing minute. As she wandered through the ranks of the walking wounded, however, Casey couldn't help looking at their faces, searching for one face in particular that she knew had to be among their number.

  And then, finally, she saw him.

  David was up ahead, having been one of the last passengers to leave the stricken plane. A steward ushered him away before turning to help someone else, but David seemed somehow dazed, as if he couldn't believe the sight of all the people being rescued around him. As snow continued to fall and the burning engine roared nearby, David simply turned and looked at his fellow survivors. His mouth hanging open and his eyes filled with shock, he seemed genuinely lost and disappointed.

  “David!” Casey yelled, stopping a few meters from him. “Over here!”

  It took a moment before he seemed to recognize his name being called, but slowly he turned and met her gaze with blank, expressionless eyes.

  “Did you really do this?” Casey asked, as if she still hoped that there had been some kind of huge coincidence. “David? Did you really try to bring down this plane? Are you...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Everybody please move back!” an emergency worker shouted nearby. “Please follow the teams who will take you away from the runway!”

  “Did you do all of this?” Casey continued. “Did you try to bring down a whole plane, just so you could...”

  Again, her voice trailed off. The words wouldn't come. The awful realization of David's actions seemed trapped somehow, as if it was failing to force its way past Casey's innate belief that nobody – no matter how pained or traumatized – could ever do something so terrible.

  “You did,” she whispered, with tears in her eyes. “You tried to kill all these people, just so you could die the same way as your wife and daughter. What's wrong with you? How can you be so...”

  She searched for the right word. Evil? Cruel? None of them quite seemed to fit.

  “I just wanted to see Tammy again,” he replied, his voice filled with shock. “It was the only way to make the pain go away. I've been living with these ghosts for ten years, and I couldn't do it any longer. I had to get away!”

  “Like this?” Casey asked. “All these people would be dead if you'd succeeded.”

  “I wanted to see her again,” he sobbed, taking a step back. “Don't you understand? It was my fault she and Jennifer were on the first plane. I had to see Tammy again!”

  And then, slowly, he turned and walked away through the snow, still muttering to himself as he headed back toward the plane.

  “Stop!” Casey called out, hurrying after him. “Someone stop that man! He sabotaged the plane! He's the one!”

  No-one paid any attention. As Casey stumbled through the snow, following David as he headed back toward the plane, she tried to make the emergency crews listen to her, but they acted as if they couldn't hear her at all. She begged and pleaded, and even tried grabbing a man's arm, and yet nothing seemed to work.

  “Somebody stop that idiot!” a steward yelled suddenly. “Hey! Dude! Get away from there! It's not safe!”

  Turning, Casey saw that David was walking straight toward the still-burning engine, and a flood of terrible realization began to rush through her chest.

  “David, stop!” she screamed. “David! Wait!”

  Stopping just a few meters from the engine, David turned to her as the wind ruffled his hair and caused his tie to flap rapidly. He offered a faint smile, before stepping backward until the misfiring engine yanked him off his feet and sucked him straight into the turbines. Casey screamed and slipped, reaching out toward him, but she was far too late as David disappeared into the burning engine.

  A loud spluttering and rattling sound erupted from the casing, before a vast cloud of ground meat sprayed out from the engine's rear section, splattering the snowy runway with an arc of blood and meat and bone chunks that spread well beyond the rear of the plane. And as the engine finally spluttered to a halt, a kind of pinkish-red slush was already starting to dribble from one of the panels, falling down onto the snow and ice below.

  London – FIVE former bosses at Hexley Airport were charged last night in relation to the near-tragedy that occurred at the airport two weeks ago.

  The five are accused of covering up serious security problems, and two are facing additional charges relating to the misappropriation of government funds that were supposed to beef up patrols. Prosecutors say the three men and two women took advantage of loopholes to run the airport's security at a bare minimum. Investigators are also said to be considering the possibility that local political figures were involved in a backroom deal to loosen security procedures at the airport.

  A preliminary report from the local police confirms that flight DSE1058's near-miss was caused by the actions of an airport employee named David Har
per. Harper, who committed suicide by leaping into one of the plane's misfiring engines, is said to have tampered with equipment at the airport's deicing platform. Investigators are considering the possibility that his actions were in some way linked to the disaster that took place at Hexley a decade ago.

  Meanwhile, police sources say they're no closer to identifying the mysterious voice that warned airport chiefs what was happening and saved the plane from disaster. The female voice was heard over multiple radios, but nobody has yet come forward to claim responsibility. A spokesman for the airport's new operators told this newspaper: “We very much want to find this person and thank her. She's not in any trouble. We just want to honor her bravery, and obviously we'd also like to know how she learned what was going to happen.”

  Claims that the woman's voice resembled that of an airport employee who died in the Hexley Disaster ten years ago have been labeled “unhelpful” by airport sources.

  Epilogue

  One year later

  Wincing a little as her hip clicked, Lizzie pulled the duvet aside and climbed awkwardly into bed. She puffed and groaned as she settled down, before switching the lamp off and leaning back against the pillow. Staring up at the dark ceiling, she hesitated for a moment with tears in her eyes.

  “Goodnight, Casey,” she whispered finally, just as she'd whispered every night since the disaster all those years ago. “Wherever you are. I miss you so much.”

  She paused, before Casey slowly leaned closer from the darkness and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Goodnight, Mum. I miss you too.”

  Reaching down, she squeezed her mother's hand. And for a fraction of a second, she felt a faint squeeze in return, before Lizzie closed her eyes.

  ***

  The signal box suddenly blinked red, its light burning through the freezing night air. Ice was clinging to the side of the box, although most had been scraped away earlier by the maintenance team, and the automated system inside the box was counting down to the moment when it was supposed to return to green. When that moment arrived after a couple of minutes, the light duly turned green again, as light snow continued to fall from the dark sky above.