Preservation - 03

by Phillip Tomasso

  “What?” Charlene said. “There was another plane?”

  “Yes, another plane.” I nodded. “We talked to them. A big plane that was headed north. They wouldn’t tell us where, but they were up here in the sky with us. Things are bad, may get worse, but we’re not alone. We’re not. There is a chance we can fix this. Rebuild. Start over. Dave, everything's not lost. It’s not.”

  “There’s no hope, McKinney.”

  “There is. It’s dim, but it’s there.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think--”

  The plane must have hit a pocket of turbulence. We dropped quickly, and tipped left then right.

  Dave lost his balance and fell into Sues.

  She wasted no time wrapping her arms around him, attempting to pull him toward her mouth. Dark drool dangled from her lower lip. Her clouded-over eyes were open wide as she prepared to bite him.

  I’d fallen back and into Charlene, who went down under my weight.

  Allison looked stunned and paralyzed. She held onto her seat belt with both hands, as if making sure it was tight around her waist. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Honey, are you okay?” I said, and struggled to regain my balance. “Dave!”

  “Fine. I’m fine,” Charlene said.

  Dave locked his hands with Sues, like they might play that childhood game where you bend fingers back until someone screamed pinochle to end the pain and torment. This was no game. I felt thankful Dave was fighting back, if only to maintain his own survival.

  The plane rocked, tipping to the left side.

  Dave’s head, his neck, were a breath away from Sues’ wide-opened mouth.

  Then I thought, he’s going to let her bite him. I found my feet and ran as best I could toward them, the crowbar raised.

  The plane teetered back and forth before finally leveling out.

  The teetering knocked me toward the opposite side of the plane, next to the last seat in the row Allison sat in. I fell hard, my elbow hitting the side of the first crate. Pain shot both up and down my arm. The funny bone. I was not laughing. Tears filled my eyes. “Dave!”

  As I managed to get onto my knees, the gun fired. Sues’ head flew back as bits of hair and skin, skull and brain painted the inside plane wall in a graphic spattering.

  Dave dropped the gun. He lay flat on his stomach.

  I scrambled over to him, and lifted his head. “Dave?”

  He was crying, lips quivered, his hands were balled into fists. I placed his head on my lap, and held it there. I kept his head in my lap while he cried.

  Chapter Nine

  “Chase!”

  I looked up. Erway called from the cockpit. “Charlene, can you see what they want? Tell them, ah, tell them what just happened back here.”

  She walked cautiously, slow and steady steps, from the back of the plane to the front. “I got it, Dad.”

  Dave’s crying had stopped. He kept his head on my lap. I don’t think he had it in him to move. I made eye contact with Allison. She chewed on the skin around her thumb and shook her head.

  Everyone seemed ready to give up.

  “Dad, they said we’re low on fuel. The Pittsburgh International Airport isn’t far. Elysia wants to try to make it there and land.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Charlene relayed my agreement. “She says we should all get buckled in again, because it could be a rough landing, if we have enough fuel, and it could be a fuck of a time if we don’t.”

  “Charlene,” I said.

  “Just telling you what she told me.”

  “Go strap in next to Allison.” I lifted Dave’s head off my legs and set it down gently. I stood and walked over to the crates. Behind the first one was a tarp. I pulled on it. It ripped on one corner that had been stuck under the edge of the pallet. It would still suffice. I draped the tarp over Sues’ remains.

  I slipped my arms under Dave’s, and lifted him up. “You’ve got to help me, buddy. We need to get you into a chair.”

  “Want me to help, Dad?”

  “No, keep that seat belt on.” I stood, kept my arms under his and dragged him toward the front area of the plane. There was no way I could lift him into a seat. “Dave, you’ve got to help me, man, okay?”

  I didn’t expect any response, but Dave placed his hands on the seat and hoisted himself up and into it. I grabbed the ends of the seat belt and secured him in place. “We’re getting through this,” I said.

  “You guys buckled in?” Erway said.

  I went to the cockpit.

  “Why aren’t you seated,” she said. “Go, get locked in. We’re not going to make the airport.”

  “Palmeri?”

  “Fuel’s just about gone. We’ve got too much distance to cover. I thought we might make it, but now, I’m not so sure.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m keeping an eye out for I-79. Figure if there’s a good stretch of open road it might work.”

  “Our expressways were littered with abandoned and disabled vehicles,” I said. “Couldn’t even drive on them. How are we going to land a plane?”

  “Go put on your seatbelt.”

  The plane shuddered. I looked back. Palmeri had her arm up, throwing toggles and pushing buttons on the panel over her head.

  I sat between Allison and Charlene. “How is he?” I motioned toward Dave, as I buckled the belt.

  “What’s going on up there?” Allison said.

  Dave sat with one arm folded, his face buried in a hand. I thought he was going to take his life. I actually feared he’d been a heartbeat away from blowing out his brains. We needed a break here, a chance to regroup.

  “Chase? What’s going on up there?”

  “We’re just low on fuel,” I said, hoping it sounded light and non-important.

  “Are we about to crash? Did they tell you that? That we’re going to crash?”

  “Palmeri’s not sure if there’s enough fuel to reach the airport.”

  “So we’re about to crash. I knew it. I knew getting in this thing was like signing our own…” She stopped talking, cut herself off, and looked over at Dave.

  “Palmeri knows what she’s doing. She’s going to land us somewhere just as safe,” I said. “We don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Running out of fuel a million miles up in the air? Why would I worry about that? I mean, what did Palmeri tell us? She had a hundred hours of flying experience in what? A Cessna? I’m not worried, Chase. I’m not freaking out.” She crossed her legs, folded her arms and turned her head. Then, she unfolded her arms, uncrossed her legs and looked directly at me. “Where is she planning on landing the plane, Chase? Did she tell you that?”

  “I-79,” I said.

  Charlene rolled her eyes, as if silently calling me crazy for being so honest. Then she sighed for punctuation.

  I didn’t know where we were over Pennsylvania, or how far the airport was. I didn’t know how long we flew in silence waiting to land. I kept looking at Dave, and then at Sues. I held one of Allison’s hands, and one of my daughter’s and felt guilty.

  “We’re going to be landing!” It was Erway, a shout from the cockpit. Part of me wanted to go look out a window. There were a few, but none near where we were seated.

  Allison and Charlene both squeezed my hands. I squeezed back and stared at Dave. He hadn’t moved, his face still in his hand.

  The plane bounced up and down as we began the descent, tipping left and right. I closed my eyes tight and remembered things I wanted to forget.

  # # #

  I’d gathered up some things and stuffed them into a duffel bag. I looked around the bedroom. Looked at the items on the dressers. It felt surreal. My stomach, knotted, threatened to explode. That was what had made it real. Too real. I was going to be sick.

  I walked with my bag into the living room which held a big screen television, sofas and a recliner. With the exception of a large clock that matched the motif, an arr
ay of framed photographs of Charlene and Cash decorated the walls.

  Charlene stood there staring at me. I sat on the sofa and placed her on my lap. I thought at the age of nine, she’d never understand what was really going on. She’d know something was wrong, but it wouldn’t mean anything to her. It wouldn’t impact her.

  I looked at Julie, who was on the loveseat with Cash on her knees. She couldn’t meet my eyes, and looked away. She wasn’t going to say anything. It was going to be up to me to explain. I hated her. I really did. I hated her for so many reasons, but right now, I hated her most for this.

  “For a little while, honey, Daddy’s going to go and stay someplace else,” I said. Toughest words to ever come out of my mouth.

  I expected her to say, “Why, Daddy?” or “Okay, can I play now?”

  Charlene’s head just dropped and the tears were immediate. “No,” she said.

  I put my arm around her little shoulders. She fell into me and cried.

  Cash looked at his sister and touched a finger to his mouth, like he was thinking. He was only four years old. “Mommy?” he said.

  “Daddy and I need some time apart,” she said. Cash wasn’t going to get it. He couldn’t. Not at four.

  “Daddy isn’t going to leave,” he said.

  Charlene shook as she cried. Her tears felt hot as they soaked through my shirt. “No, Daddy. I don’t want you to go,” she said. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  I wasn’t going. I wasn’t leaving. She was making me. I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t point fingers. The kids didn’t need that. They didn’t need to be in the middle of anything, especially shit caused by their parents. “I’m not going far.” I was crying, too. Hard. I held my daughter, and couldn’t wipe away my tears.

  We stayed that way, on the couch, holding our crying kids for nearly thirty minutes. Cash cried himself to sleep.

  When I stood up, Charlene in my arms, I kissed Cash on the top of the head before Julie laid him down on the cushions.

  I hugged Charlene tight. She wrapped her legs around my waist, like she knew what was next. That I’d have to set her down, and about to walk out the front door and leave. That I was going.

  “I’ve got to go for now,” I said.

  She squeezed me with her legs. Her arms around my neck cut off my air.

  Julie put her hands on Charlene in an attempt to remove her.

  I spun away. “I got this,” I said, seething.

  “Stay with us, Daddy.” It was whispered over and over in my ear.

  I don’t remember setting her down, or handing her over to her mother. I don’t remember walking out the door and getting into my car. My brain blocked out that portion of the memory. A possible defense mechanism that kept me from losing my mind. I don’t remember anything until I found myself in a gas station parking lot buying my first pack of cigarettes in nearly a decade.

  Their voices begging me not to go, and to stay home with them has haunted me from that moment on. It reoccurred in nightmares. I heard it always for years. Still hear it all of the time, and it is always like a machete chopping through my chest and splitting my heart in half.

  Then their mother was a zombie on a bed, crawling toward me. I was swinging the edge of a shovel at her head. Her skull was splitting open and spraying gunk all over hardwood floors.

  Chapter Ten

  I opened my eyes when my stomach dropped. I opened them wide. My mouth was open wide, as well. I think Charlene and Allison were both screaming, but it was hard to tell for sure over the sound of my own screams. I didn’t think the descent should have occurred so abruptly. The plane jostled up and down and from side to side. We were either hitting pockets of turbulence, or we were not just low on fuel, but out.

  Someone yelled, “Brace yourselves!”

  I still held both my daughter and girlfriend’s hands. I knew I might be squeezing too tightly, but could not help it, could not stop. I was scared; terrified. The fact that it felt like we’d been falling for several minutes, and continued falling, was disheartening to say the very least. With each foot we fell, we picked up speed. I wondered if my stomach would stop dropping. It didn’t. Catching my breath was difficult, except for screaming. And we continued to, what felt like plummeting towards earth.

  I kept thinking about the landing gear. Did it go up when we took off? Had it been lowered as we fell? Were we pointing straight down? Would we just smash and explode on impact?

  Closing my eyes and keeping them closed made the most sense. I couldn’t do it. I needed to see what was happening. I did not like not being in control. Sitting back here and not up at the controls irritated my OCD.

  I turned my head to look at my daughter. Her eyes were tightly shut. Her mouth was pulled down into a frown, and then opened wide into an O. She might be screaming, but I couldn’t tell. I could not hear her over the whine of engines. I wanted to hold her, hug her. She shouldn’t die this way, should never have to live through something this catastrophic either. No one deserved it, but she didn’t deserve it the most.

  Allison’s fingernails dug into the top of my hand and drew blood.

  Then we smashed into the earth. The seatbelt pulled tight against my waist, and I felt the air launched from my lungs in a pained gasp. My head rocked back, slammed into the wall of the inside of the plane. Something exploded through the floor of the plane only a foot away from Sues’ corpse, protruding up like a malfunctioned missile. The plane tipped to the left, toward her. I knew what it was that stuck up from the base: part of the landing gear. Despite being bounced back and forth, I saw the wheel. It wasn’t rolling. It was, instead, wedged. Sparks like fireworks sprayed inside the plane.

  We were spinning and sliding along the ground.

  We hit something hard. This sent the plane spinning in the opposite direction as simultaneously rivets popped and metal tore as the left part of the hull ripped open and peeled away from the plane. Everything and anything loose was sucked toward and out the opening.

  We continued to spin, shake and bounce. I saw something like welding sparks split the nighttime darkness, and realized I was looking at the wing tumble and roll away. This felt surreal and seemed to unroll in slow motion. All I could think was, did I just see the wing severed from the body.

  Thankfully, seatbelts held us securely in place.

  I didn’t think we’d explode since we didn’t have fuel. This did little to calm the fear and flooding emotions.

  Then…it was over.

  We’d come to a grinding stop. My ears rang. The sound of metal on, what I believed to be asphalt reverberated between my ears. I thought I might be deaf, and that the screeching might never subside, but we’d lived through a plane crash. Only thing I could think, ironically enough was, “Add that to my bucket list.”

  # # #

  Despite wanting to sit still, eyes closed and take deep breaths until my heartbeat slowed to normal, I unfastened my seatbelt and dropped to my knees in front of my daughter. “Charlene,” I said.

  She did not move. Eyes closed. My heart almost stopped. “Char?”

  I put my hands on her shoulders, and gently shook her.

  Her head lolled from side to side. “Honey?”

  “Chase?” Allison winced. Her hands fumbled with her seatbelt. She seemed unable to unfasten it. I saw the blood on the part of the plane behind her head. She must have smacked her skull good.

  “Daddy,” Charlene said.

  I unfastened her belt, leaning forward to hug my daughter. “Scared me, honey. God, you scared me.”

  She was crying, her fingers curling into fists in my hair.

  Allison managed to get free of her belt, stood, and fell forward.

  “Alley,” I said, and had to reluctantly pull away from my daughter. I knelt beside Allison. “Hey, Alley?”

  Her eyes were open. “I got dizzy.”

  Had to be a concussion. I wasn’t sure how to verify it. Too dark inside the plane to check her eyes, wasn’t sure what I’d look for
even if there had been better lighting.

  Dave.

  I looked to my right. Dave was just getting out of his seat. He looked as battered and beaten up as I felt. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

  Dave shrugged. “I guess. How are you guys? Allison?”

  “A little woozy,” she said, and laughed.

  Charlene stood up, stretched out her legs. “Should I check on our pilots?”

  “I’ll do that. You stay with your dad.” Dave walked past us, not with steady legs. His knees wobbled and he held his arms out for balance. He may have hit his head as well. Two concussions. Fucking wonderful.

  Charlene knelt on the opposite side of Allison. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” I said. I figured we were someplace in Pennsylvania. I don’t think we made it to the Pittsburgh Airport. If we did, we’d just done a job to the tarmac.

  “Ah, Chase?” Dave leaned into our area of the plane and waved me over. Couldn’t be good. Being cryptic wasn’t going to hide anything from Allison and Charlene, either. One or both of the pilots were dead. I knew it without going to look in on them, and they knew it. I stood up and walked toward the cockpit.

  “What have we got?” I said.

  He shook his head. “It’s not good.”

  I walked past him and peeked into the cockpit, and nearly shrank back a step. A shiver slid down my back as if a skeleton’s icy finger had traced my spine.

  I did not expect to see so much blood.

  “Don’t worry about me, not me. Check on her.” Palmeri sucked in a deep breath and winced.

  I reached around as best I could and placed my fingers on Erway’s neck, feeling for a pulse. I pressed my fingers hard against clammy skin, blood soaked skin. “I’m not getting anything,” I said. I didn’t remove my hand. I moved to a different location, tilted my head to the side and closed my eyes, like that might help me feel for the pulse better. It didn’t, I still could not find one.