Hal wasn’t a Minnesota native. He’d officially moved to Duluth six months earlier from Long Island, New York when he rented an apartment. That was the story shared with potential voters. The truth was the night before the fateful evening flight northwest was the first that Hal spent in his temporary home. Minnesota only required that a candidate for federal office reside in the state by the time of the election. For Hal, most of his district, rich with lakes and forests, was still unknown and unexplored territory.
The reason for the trip was kept mostly under wraps. The secrecy was the explanation for flying after dark. Hal was due to meet with an old Brentwood family friend at his private estate near the Canadian border.
Hal’s father, the architect of his son’s political destiny, insisted, “Treat him right, and a big contribution is yours. Flattery. That’s the way to get what you want. You’re carrying the Brentwood name, son. I trust you.”
If elected, Hal would be the first Brentwood in three generations to enter the halls of the U.S. Congress. It was the next step in his father’s plan to firmly plant the family among the ranks of the politically powerful. From there, the Brentwood wealth would spiral upward with the sky as the only limit.
Hal didn’t have any specific political ambitions. He lacked any goals at all. It was too easy to go with the flow and let his father choose the path. He learned as a young child that inspiration and anticipation only led to disappointment and sometimes punishment.
Hunter did his best to keep up a lively line of conversation during the flight. He’d flown plenty of times at night in the past, but he hadn’t done it for almost two years. An aging body and three medications for high blood pressure and cardiac disease made Hunter prone to nodding off in the evening on his couch at home. He knew talking to Hal was essential to block any drowsiness as they headed northwest out of Duluth.
“I heard you broke off an engagement about 18 months ago. How’s romantic life now?”
Hal wished they could go back to Hunter’s inane rambling about NASCAR races and celebrity gossip. He didn’t relish a conversation focused on personal matters. The engagement came about through a series of bad decisions. Hal didn’t have the stomach to relive it all.
“Uh, I’m good. I’ve got this campaign going on, so dating isn’t in the cards for now. That’s all in my rearview mirror. Its history.”
Hunter glanced at his passenger before returning his attention to the plane’s instruments. “You’re a virile young guy. Maybe a good woman is what you need to give you that extra spark on the campaign trail. I see all those women standing by their husbands on TV when they celebrate a win.”
“What about the husbands with their wives who just got elected?”
Hal didn’t get to hear the answer to his question. Fate took the reins. While he stared out the small plane’s windshield watching the endless pine forest flash by, Hal saw something that chilled him to the bone.
After three loud clunks that rocked the entire plane, the turboprop’s propeller froze with one blade pointing up toward the heavens. Hal instinctively gripped the sides of his seat and turned his head to face Hunter.
“That’s not supposed to happen. Is it?”
“No—Fuck!”
Hal’s world suddenly became quiet. Is this what it’s like before the end? Seconds earlier, the roar of the engine filled the cockpit. It was loud enough that he’d had to shout back and forth with Hunter in their previous conversation. Now an eerie silence enveloped both pilot and passenger.
For a moment, while the plane proceeded to glide through the air without any power, Hal wondered whether they might survive. Perhaps Hunter was skilled enough that he could gradually bring the craft to a safe landing. Hal remembered watching paper airplanes in flight at boarding school. They rarely ever crashed nose-first. Instead, they gently drifted to the floor.
When the plane suddenly lurched into a nose-down dive, unbridled fear took hold. Hal wanted to scream, but his throat was too dry. He yelled, “Hunter! Help!”
“I’m trying to land her the best way possible. Pray for a clearing down there. We don’t want to land in the trees.”
Crash in the trees is more like it. This will not be a landing. For a split-second, Hal felt thankful that they weren’t slamming into the side of a mountain or a cliff jutting out along the shores of Lake Superior. His next thought was that one of those scenarios might have been best. The impact would bring a sudden and final end. It would be too devastating to allow for pain. Hal would have no consciousness to witness the hell of death in a blazing ball of fire or an explosion.
Hunter radioed the control tower in Ely, but there was nothing they could do. Not knowing how many seconds he had left, Hal turned to face Hunter and said, “I forgive you. I don’t think this is your fault. I want you to…”
A deafening roar filled the cockpit when the plane smashed into the tops of ancient pine trees. A hellish screech followed as thousands of branches scraped the plane’s metal body.
The stop was hellishly abrupt and would have killed Hal upon impact if he’d not belted himself securely into his seat. Seconds later, white-hot pain took over. Explosions inside his brain tortured Hal. He’d never experienced anything like it. Unbridled agony wracked his entire body.
One tiny corner of Hal’s mind inexplicably fought to maintain consciousness. At least I’m alive. Hal slowly and gingerly turned his head. He was the only one of the two crash victims who was fortunate enough to be still breathing. He gasped in horror at a sight so terrifying that he forgot his pain for a moment.
A large pine branch pierced the windshield and helped bring the plane to a halt. It also slammed into Hunter’s body and pinned him to the seat. The blow crushed his chest and most likely brought instant death. Hunter’s face froze in a soundless scream.
The only other thing Hal remembered about Hunter after the crash was the blood everywhere.
Somehow, through the white-hot painful torment, Hal was conscious enough to think about the danger of fire or explosion. He began to unbuckle the belts that held him fast to the plane’s passenger seat. It would typically be a simple process, but his hands were numb, and Hal wasn’t positive that all ten fingers were still intact.
For all of the precious minutes that it took to free his body, Hal envisioned a massive clock counting down the seconds to his impending demise. Periodically, the thought faded to black, forced there by another wave of excruciating pain.
Finally, the belts released their hold. Hal reflexively reached out for the door of the cockpit to discover that it was no longer there. With all the force he could muster, he turned his head to look. He could only see through what felt like one corner of his left eye.
Hal didn’t know whether the obstruction of his vision was due to swelling, caked-on blood, or something else. He didn’t have time to dwell on that. Escaping from the plane before it exploded was his first duty.
A grunt crossed with an animalistic howl escaped Hal’s lips. He pushed for all his worth with the knuckles of both hands. Finally, his body lurched to the edge of the seat, and he tumbled to the ground. The force of the descent stole his breath. He sputtered and coughed until oxygen finally started to flow back into his lungs.
Lying flat on his back, Hal tried to open his eyes as wide as possible. He forced himself to blink until the field of vision grew larger. Turning his head to the right caused another bolt of pain to rocket through his head and knocked him unconscious.
Five minutes later, Hal awoke and panted in short, sharp breaths. He didn’t know how long he was out. It felt like an instant, but it could have been an hour. He fought to open his eyes and tried to make sense of what he saw.
Fern fronds stood inches from Hal’s face, and they reminded him of the ones his grandmother grew in her immaculate woodland garden behind her massive cottage back in the Hamptons. She often harvested a few of the first fiddleheads that rose in the spring as a vegetable to serve with her famous pot roast.
One le
ather dress shoe lay on its side a few feet from Hal’s face. Two or three shirts scattered on the ground to the right of the black Oxford. Hal’s vision was too blurry to make the count certain. He didn’t know how the items got there, but perhaps the force of the crash landing sent all of the luggage flying.
Sit up. I should try to sit up. Then I might know more about how bad I’m hurt. Hal followed the thread of his thoughts like a man clinging to a rope as it hung off a cliff. He tried to raise his head, and then he stopped immediately. The sudden sensation felt like a sledgehammer to the skull, and Hal nearly blacked out again.
An irresistible urge to cough swept up from deep inside. Hal started to hack, and the effort brought up bright red blood that spurted onto his chest. Horrified by the sight, he lay back. I’m ready to go.
Hal lost all of his ability to ascertain how much time passed. He’d either been asleep or unconscious again. When he woke up, Hal’s position hadn’t changed. On the edge of blacking out, he felt like he was trying to keep his face pressed to a window. He struggled to maintain a focus on the world of the living beyond the glass while an unknown force attempted to drag him into a black, bottomless abyss. Hal knew that if he decided to let go, he’d never return.
There was no light. Hal’s grandmother didn’t beckon him from beyond. All that he sensed was a yawning black hole with ghastly tendrils that reached out of it. They wrapped themselves around Hal’s waist and tried to pull with an overwhelming gravitational force. He did his best to dig his fingertips into the forest floor to hold on and not give in.
Hal’s breathing grew weaker, and he sensed that he was falling. Perhaps, he thought, he could sleep for just a few more minutes to recover enough strength to continue the fight. As his eyes started to close, he thought about his ex, Gina. She would be happy to see him expire. They’d started well, rushed into everything, and then it all got ugly. Impossibly foul.
It got so bad with Gina that Hal stopped wanting to think about women.
He hung close to his buddies in the boardroom. Along with four other ridiculously wealthy guys only recently out of college, he was part of the junior pack, three of them sharing that suffix as part of their given name. Hal knew that the relationship with Gina was doomed forever when he saw a happy gay couple in a TV commercial and wondered for a moment whether he’d be more pleased with one of the guys on screen. They brought back hidden desires from teenage years that Hal thought he’d successfully buried forever.
Hal’s eyes flashed open again. He’d nodded off. He felt lucky that he wasn’t dead. How do you know for sure that you’re alive or dead or whether there’s something after? Cold, icy fingers crept up Hal’s spine blotting out the pain for a moment. He wondered whether he’d expired after the crash, and the pain and the silent forest were aspects of his purgatory.
Maybe the rulers of the afterlife were having a heated discussion about Hal’s ultimate destination. It was his just desserts for being such an asshole in life. Everyone always said that he cared little about what happened to anyone but Hal Brentwood. The truth was he didn’t care much about that either.
The fear of eternal torment renewed the fight in Hal. He needed more time to redeem himself. He didn’t know how it could happen, but without more days, months, and years, he had no chance.
Hal lay flat on his back and stared into the dark canopy of the pine trees. It was still night, and he assumed that he would ache from hunger if he’d slept a full day away. Hal tried to seize the moment with his thoughts. He needed to assess the damage. The pain still throbbed behind his eyes and in every muscle that he knew, but it was slightly weaker than before.
As he lay motionless, Hal battled to will all parts of his extremities into motion. He wanted to know whether they functioned or not. His right leg appeared to be mostly undamaged. The muscles ached like after a particularly punishing session on the Elliptical in the gym, but the pain wasn’t unbearable.
The left leg was a different story. An attempt to bend the leg caused Hal to scream once more. The knee wouldn’t move, and the effort sent an agonizing sensation to his brain. Hal lay still once more fighting to breathe.
Hal’s left elbow wasn’t much better. He bent the elbow at an angle of perhaps five degrees. The resulting pain sent him back to the edge of the abyss. In a weak, strangled voice, Hal yelled, “Help!” before he blacked out one more time.
“Are you awake? Can you hear me?”
It sounded like someone calling to Hal from behind a door or under a foot of water. It was a muffled voice, but the words were clear. Hal didn’t know whether it was real or a dream. He forced his eyelids open.
More words sounded from behind the door. “There you are. Don’t move. Speak if you can.”
Hal’s vision was blurry, but he recognized a face, a human one. It was a man approximately his age. He was handsome, with a dark wave of hair falling over his forehead. He looked kind, like Hunter. Poor dead Hunter.
“Take it easy. Don’t speak if it’s too hard. I’m here to help. My name’s Gabe.”
Hal wanted to communicate. He tried to say the pain was the worst he could ever imagine. Hal had questions. When he saw another person who looked so vibrant and alive, he knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t going to give up.
After the impact of the crash, Hal’s voice sounded more like rocks rubbing on sandpaper than the deep, resonant tones he’d had since high school. Fixing his gaze on Gabe’s eyes through all of the pain, swelling, and tears, he uttered the words foremost on his mind. “Please don’t let me die.”
3
Gabe
There was a survivor, and he could speak. Gabe didn’t know how close Hal was to dying, but any hint of life was worth the fight to save him. If the plane were going to explode, it would have already happened. Hal survived that. Perhaps he could survive the wait for transport to a hospital.
The crash was horrible, but it was over. With the fire danger gone, Gabe knew that he didn’t have to move Hal until more help arrived. Letting him lie still minimized the possibility of causing more injuries.
The man lying on the ground would have been strikingly good-looking in almost any other circumstance. He had a strong, chiseled jawline and deep-set eyes. The accident left him with blood caked on his face and two of his limbs lying askew in unnatural poses.
It was the first time Gabe met the man campaigning to represent him in Congress. The peril Hal faced made the encounter intensely intimate to Gabe. They were already well beyond a mere handshake.
Without further assessment, Gabe didn’t know whether Hal was likely to die soon, or if he could survive and recover to live a normal life. The consciousness, no matter how weak, was a good sign after so much time passed since the plane first hit the ground.
Bones and muscles in legs and arms could heal over time. They were mechanical injuries. More concerning was the possibility of damage to the nervous system or vital internal organs.
Gabe gently placed a hand on Hal’s cheek. He didn’t speak about life or death. He learned to avoid a direct approach to the topic in his training.
“I’m here to help.”
The tiniest movement of Hal’s lips showed that he was trying to smile. It was an expression of both appreciation and acceptance. Then he lost consciousness.
A familiar sensation filled Gabe’s chest. It was like a fist gripping his heart. It happened every time a victim succumbed during one of his calls. He feared that Hal was slipping away. Fortunately, his heart didn’t stop, and his breathing continued.
“Hal, come back to me. Wake up. Don’t go.”
While he waited for what felt like an eternity, Gabe began to swab at Hal’s face and try to clean up the mess of blood. The caked-on fluid blocked Gabe’s ability to get a closer look at the injuries. He slipped one hand between the back of Hal’s head and the ground gently cradling him. Fortunately, he felt no signs of trauma to the rear of the skull.
A rattling cough suddenly wracked Hal’s body, and his eyes flu
ttered open once more. One word, “Hurts,” escaped his lips.
Gabe knew from his previous experiences that one of the best things he could do for accident victims in peril was to be himself. He could share his personality. Gabe liked to talk and tell stories.
The details of Gabe’s adventures could engage the thoughts of the person lying close to the borderline with death and keep them from losing their fight. Anything Gabe could do to take Hal’s mind off his situation might help.
While he kept a close watch on vital statistics and checked to make sure that Hal wasn’t actively bleeding anywhere, Gabe began to talk about what took place earlier in the evening. He kept the tone of his voice light.
“Do you know that singer Larry Liston?”
Hal’s eyes were open, but it wasn’t clear that he focused on anything. When Gabe laughed out loud, Hal blinked, and Gabe saw more life in his gaze.
“Yeah, he’s a funny guy. He sings all of those crazy songs about loons and tourists. I don’t know whether you know them at all since you’re not from here originally.”
After completing the work of cleaning off as much of Hal’s face as he could, Gabe cradled Hal’s jawbone in his right hand. It was firm, and he gently rubbed the perimeter of Hal’s chin.
Gabe kept up his monologue and tried to engage his audience. “If you don’t know him, you should have gone to the concert with my buddy Brandon. He went with his boyfriend, Levi, and Elle, the amazing friend that neither of us really deserve. Seriously, she is all that. When Brandon and I broke up, she supported both of us. Can you imagine somebody who could do that?”
Hal was silent, but Gabe felt a slight movement in his jaw, and he thought he saw an attempt at a smile again.
“Oh, by the way, if you’re going to make speeches on your campaign and you need security guys…” Gabe’s words faded out when Hal’s eyes started to close again. Gabe leaned in close. “No, no, no. I promise not to talk about work. I won’t let you go. Stay with me. More help is coming.”
Crash: Northwoods, Book 2 Page 2