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Authors: Caroline B. Cooney

Flight #116 Is Down (7 page)

BOOK: Flight #116 Is Down
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He was not going to be a traffic monitor. No way on earth. Let some other poor Junior do that.

Patrick flew into the courtyard and jammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt with a satisfying rubbery screech.

He felt as if he were in a foreign country, with this immense bricked expanse to park on, this cold and frozen fountain, this crazy shingled house with tiny glittering windows, like postage stamps on a gray page.

There was nobody there.

For a moment he was outraged; furious; homicidal.

It was a joke, a game, he would kill whoever …

And then he smelled it: the fuel.

He heard it: the screams.

And he saw it: flames cresting the roof of the mansion.

Patrick jumped out of his truck and raced across the courtyard, losing his footing on the slippery brick. He hopped over a low stone wall and ran out onto the grass.

Below him lay the largest thing he had ever seen.

A huge plane.

Window after window after window: tiny rectangular black spots on an immense white body.

Like a Christmas card: gleaming white and winking colored lights.

For a moment Patrick could not identify why it did not really look like a plane. Then he realized that the section had no wing; the wing on his side had been torn away and was flaming hideously and noisily where it had fallen.

It was not the house that was on fire, nor was it likely to be. The distance was considerable and the ground between was rain-soaked.

Jet fuel, he thought. How many thousand gallons would they have on board? Depend if they were at the end or the beginning of the flight, I guess.

He remembered vaguely that you didn’t use water on fires from fuel. But he was not trained in the Fire Department; he didn’t really know anything about their techniques or equipment. Foam, he thought vaguely, and didn’t know if Nearing River was equipped for that or not.

Patrick had never been in a plane. He was stunned by the size of the thing: not so much the length as the breadth: the circumference of the smashed plane was unbelievable.

Remaining sections of the vast plane were upright: so high up that Patrick could not believe that, either; they would need two-story ladders to get people out.

Other parts of the plane littered the landscape like a Beirut bombing.

And eerily, an overlay of silhouettes; people were walking around down there.

People lived through that? he thought.

Patrick forced himself back to the truck. His legs were weak. He hated himself for those weak legs. He picked up his scanner and struggled to think of institutionally correct things to say. Nothing came to mind. “It happened, all right, Mom,” he said. “I think it’s a 747. It fills the whole field. And some of the woods. We’re gonna need everything we’ve got. It’s bad. Some of it’s already on fire.”

“Right,” said his mother, still calm. She made the calls without skipping a beat, including the Mutual Aid calls to every town in the area. If her son said they needed everything, she would call everything in.

Patrick left the truck, jumped over the stone wall again, and found himself with an elderly woman, obviously from the mansion, wearing a hooded, lined raincoat over a long pink bathrobe. She had forgotten about her feet and was still wearing fluffy little pink slippers. “Plane,” she whispered, pointing. “It’s a plane.” Putting one hand over her mouth, she made little, contained barks of horror.

Patrick knew how she felt. No amount of training had prepared Patrick for this. Accidents happen one or two people at a time; a single car; a single heart attack; a single fall downstairs.

We’re “the uh-oh squad,” thought Patrick. We have absolutely no idea what to do except stand there and go “
uh-oh.

Patrick had been trained as a First Responder. But he had never reached an accident or attended a patient without a crew of other, experienced people. He had never seen anybody who was burned.

Burned? thought Patrick. Incinerated.

He stared at the huge piece of plane and wing, which was the black center to screaming, frenzied flame.

He understood then what was screaming.

Not the fire.

I’m First,
he thought, and for a moment he was entirely paralyzed.

Six

S
ATURDAY: 5:44 P.M.

Laura recognized the tone on Ty’s scanner instantly: the electronic singsong of their own frequency. Although she had been a volunteer only four months, she slid right into rescue mode: her body stiffened, her ears pulled ahead of the rest of her senses, she tuned out the rock tapes being played, the laughter and the talk. She absorbed the dispatcher’s voice.

“Plane crash,” it said. “All units.”

Patrick’s mother was on, a very calm woman, a woman Laura admired and wanted to be exactly like.

“Rockrimmon Road off Old Pond Meadow,” said Patrick’s mother.

Laura raised her eyes, bringing sight back into her world. She and Ty were the only rescue-squad people at this party. She didn’t even like Ty. Brains of a baked potato. “You have your truck?” she demanded. Of course he had his truck. A guy like Ty, he wasn’t a man without his wheels.

“Come on,” he said, “where’s your coat?”

They didn’t even remember the party; they were yanking on their coats as they dashed over the porch, down the steps. Ty’s truck was blocked in by several cars.

“Plane crash!” whispered Ty, shaking his head. He didn’t go back into the house to ask people to shift cars. He drove his truck right over the lawn instead, bumping over the curb and into the street. Ty loved doing stuff like that. Everybody suspected he was the one who did wheelies in the football field and ruined the turf each year, but nobody could prove it.

“Trucks,” he said proudly to Laura, meaning every complimentary thing there was about vehicles that ordinary obstacles couldn’t stop.

Ty’s truck sported enough lights to dock the QE II: a row of blinkers on the top of the cab, an interior light that spun in circles, flashers attached to both headlights and taillights.

“All units,” Laura told Ty, “does not mean you should signal outer space.”

Ty hated girls who put down his pride and joy. If they hadn’t been on the way to a crash, where duty called, he’d dump Laura by the roadside.

He didn’t let himself get bogged down in irritation at Laura. I’m not going to be immature just because she is, he thought, pleased that he was better than she was. He rehearsed in his head, going over procedures, eliminating panic, questions, and fear.

They whipped past traffic that pulled over to the right for them. At two intersections, they met compatriots also rushing to the ambulance barn and the fire department. In a few minutes they were part of a veritable parade of volunteers.

“We’re Juniors,” said Ty briefly.

There was no need to amplify that.

Juniors ran the town by day. But it was night, and they would be elbowed out by every adult who showed up; and tonight, with this amount of excitement and desperate need, every adult was going to show. Adults that hadn’t contributed a single hour in years were going to show. People whose training certificates had run out during the Reagan Administration were going to show.

Anger stiffened Laura.
Don’t you butt in ahead of me just because you’re older.

I won’t give them a chance, thought Laura. I’m going in no matter how old the people are ahead of me. So there.

Ty pulled into the correct entrance for the barn, so that departing ambulances wouldn’t end up fighting opposing traffic just to leave their own barn. Laura leapt out of the truck even as Ty was looking for a parking space. The first ambulance had left, the rescue truck had departed, the paramedic’s vehicle had left, but the second ambulance was still there. Laura raced over, praying to be the fourth, not caring in the slightest about Ty. She wanted a piece of the action, not a piece of hanging around hoping for a later ride.

“Fourth?” said the driver. He had the ambulance in gear, ready to roll; he was just waiting for a full crew. She could actually see the adrenalin behind his eyes, in the hand that gripped the wheel. A plane crash! They were all wildly excited.

“Fourth,” said Laura, leaping in back.

The doors slammed, the ambulance pulled out, and Laura ducked her head down to keep from meeting Ty’s eyes as she left him behind.

Saturday: 5:44:30
P.M.

Daniel could not tell how badly he was hurt. He knew only that he could not move. He sorted through the possibilities. He might simply be pinned down. Things were definitely resting on him. In that case, rescue workers would lift them off and Daniel would hop up and away.

On the other hand, he could not move his toes or his fingers. He might have a snapped spine. In which case he was paralyzed; he was going to be one of those people you saw on TV talk shows who had conquered their paralysis and played volleyball from their wheelchairs. He would never date, he would never sleep with a girl, he would never play baseball or sail a boat or even run in the door.

Tuck, he thought.
Where’s Tuck?

Saturday: 5:45
P.M.

Carly was still in the plane, still in her seat. Her seat had moved, however, as if it had never been bolted down. She was crushed between two large pieces of carpet; carpet lined with steel from the way it felt: horrible curling knife edges of metal had burst into her right arm. She could not bend her head enough to look down at her gut, but she could see that blood was slowly covering her knees. She could hear the rain, a civilized patter of normalcy, and if she raised her eyebrows really high she could catch a glimpse of the rain a few feet ahead of her.

I didn’t die! thought Carly. Oh, wow. The plane crashed and I didn’t even die. She wanted to tell the flight attendant. Guess what, Betsey! I did what you said and I made it!

Something soft lay in her arms. It took quite a while to figure out that it was Shirl’s sweater. She hugged the sweater, pretending it was her sister. She held little conversations with the sweater, saying
everything will be all right now.

The wind changed direction a little later and hurled some of the rain at Carly. She was terribly thirsty after all those peanut snacks and tried to tilt her face enough to drink the rain, but though it caught in her hair and diluted the blood on her knees, she could get none in her mouth.

No pain, but a lot of blood.

I’m in shock, thought Carly. I’ll feel the pain later. I don’t mind feeling pain later. I can hear people moving and working. We aren’t all dead. Wherever we landed, help is coming.

She even smiled. It was still a good day. She was still going home. It was just going to take longer.

Carly hoisted her eyebrows and tilted her neck as much as possible. She regretted it. What she could see into was dripping.

Dripping water?

Or fuel?

As soon as the thought entered her mind, along with the thought came the smell. Fire. Somewhere there was a fire. Was it getting closer? Was that water in front of her? Or was it jet fuel, waiting for a spark?

Carly closed her eyes.

Just let it be quick, God, she said to Him. Just when it goes, make it go fast. Don’t let me feel it. Please.

Saturday: 5:46
P.M.

There was a man at the top of the hill, standing with his legs spread and his hands on his hips. He had an official air of one surveying the scene. Mrs. Camp had come out and was standing next to him, plucking on his coat. Heidi ran up, thinking, He’ll know what to do next.

But I know him, she thought. What’s he doing here? He’s in my study hall.

Her mind gave way, overloaded, and she skipped thinking about how somebody in her study hall was also an official on her hillside. “Heidi,” she said to him.

He nodded. “Patrick.”

It was weird, but his nod cleared her head.

Until the nod she had hardly been able to remember the location of her own house, but now her thoughts raced in logical rows: she was a computer. “I’ll get us flashlights,” she said, running to the back porch. The house was equipped with what her father called Invader Lights: spotlights in the gardens, in case they heard prowlers and wanted to expose them. Heidi flung the switches.

The rear hill lit up like a stadium.

The dogs were barking insanely. Winnie and Clemmie were like microphones with squeals. Fang was hurling himself against the door, trying to get out. She managed to keep all three dogs in while letting herself out, a triumph that occurred only a few times a year. Where’s Tally-Ho? she thought, running back to Patrick and Mrs. Camp.

With the Invader Lights on, the crash was vividly outlined. It might have been machine guns over a period of years that had done all that damage. Metal debris, screaming victims, pieces of seats and human and tree. Immense curved plane divisions. By the reflecting pool lay a snowbank of airplane pillows.

Smoke, stinking and hideous, leaped like escaping souls from the burning wing.

Saturday: 5:47
P.M.

His feet did not move.

Patrick was stunned. This could not be how he would react in a crisis: freezing up. He tried to take a deep breath and found that even filling his lungs was no longer a simple task. He forced himself not to imitate the horrible shocky noises the old woman was making. The girl Heidi was drenched, her ski jacket coated with ice, so she glittered like a rock star on stage. He took the flashlight from her, said, “Come on,” although in fact she was already going, and then he was going, too, and once he took the first step he was fine. Action had begun.

Fear and fascination filled his veins, like some new kind of blood: a dizzying, whirling blood; he was transfused with it. A wild, clear excitement possessed him again: the adrenalin pump he’d gotten driving here: as if he were superman, could do it all, could do it forever.

In the woods where there was no fire, at least twenty people were up and walking around. Remarkably, an entire section of plane had landed rather easily. But from here, way below the house, the wrecked plane seemed horrifyingly close to the fire. The stench hit him like a blow to the head: nauseating, charred.

BOOK: Flight #116 Is Down
5.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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