Death Flight

by Melissa Yi

  I woke up when I heard the pilot speaking. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain James Mesaglio. Thank you for your patience during this ... unusual flight. Because of the large northern weather system, we were stuck in a holding pattern above Chicago before we elected to continue on course. We anticipate landing shortly at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport. Please return to your seats, buckle your seat belts, and prepare for landing."

  The plane erupted into applause. Business class, economy class, it didn't matter. We whooped and whistled. Even Gideon's barking seemed like part of the chorus.

  We'd survived one man's death, another man's seizure, and not one, not two, but three would-be murderers. We didn't need any more drama before we made it home.

  Ninety-nine percent of the time, we were enthralled by the minutia of our own lives. Should I have sushi or sashimi? Should I swipe left or right? Or, in Tucker and my case, Have you memorized the latest studies? Did Dr. Callendar hammer you because you couldn't regurgitate the normal range for the oral glucose tolerance test in pregnancy?

  Me too. When we'd boarded, I'd fretted about Tucker vs. Ryan. Right now, all I could feel was profound gratitude that all three of us were alive. We'd work the rest of it out.

  Alessandro buckled up behind us. Trina listened to music on her headphones, maybe mentally composing a new song. Basso Profundo tried to wedge his legs behind the seat in front of him.

  I made sure my steel water bottle was tucked inside the seat pocket in front of me, focused on one thing: get me off this plane.

  I grabbed Tucker's hand and amended my prayer.

  Get us off this plane safely. Along with everyone else. If you have to take anyone, take out the ones with zip ties. Amen.

  I was breathing too fast. I started to slow it down. I closed my eyes.

  Something dinged. When I opened my eyes, the seat belt light blinked at me.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, the seat belt sign is illuminated," said Linda overhead. "Please return to your seat and fasten your seat belt. I repeat, return to your seat and keep your seat fastened until the plane has come to a full stop."

  Take your seat, idiot. What is wrong with you?

  My nose twitched. I could smell something. It wasn't dog, dog feces, or human sweat. It was acrid.

  "Do you smell smoke?" I whispered to Tucker.

  He nodded slowly and, disobeying Linda's orders, unbuckled his seat belt.

  I laid a hand on his thigh. "Hang on. Tell Linda." I pressed the button for the flight attendant. With any luck, we both had oversensitive noses.

  "The matches," I murmured. "The ones you had at, uh, LAX." I was blushing again. "Did you—where are the matches?"

  "I left them with Marina," he said. "She's the one who gave them to me, along with the candle."

  God bless perky little Marina. It meant no one could have stolen Tucker's matches and lit the plane on fire.

  "It could be something electrical. We can't just sit here," he said.

  "You can't go running around screaming 'Fire' either."

  Pascale answered the call bell. "May I help you?" She offered us a wilted smile. I couldn't blame her.

  "I smell smoke," I whispered.

  "So do I," said Tucker, louder than I would have liked. "I'm happy to help you look for a source."

  "No, don't do that!" she said. "Let me tell Linda." She rushed to the front of the plane.

  "See?" I hissed at Tucker. "You don't go strolling around the plane with a fire extinguisher in your hand. Follow the protocol."

  "Forget protocol. We have to put out the fire."

  "Give them a minute." The smell seemed to grow stronger. "Okay, don't make them panic. Get up quietly, and just ... sniff around."

  Tucker hurried toward economy class and pulled back the curtain. The smell billowed into our cabin, stronger now. The air looked hazy too.

  I swore up and down and back again, but no one heard me. Someone shouted, "Fire!"

  "Is it the engine?"

  "Are you serious?"

  "Can't you smell it?"

  "Oh, my God."

  The Portuguese dad dashed toward us.

  Why was he abandoning his family? My heart clenched, but the dad pounded past us, up the aisle, and launched himself at Compton, leaning over Basso Profundo in order to yell directly into his face, while Pascale tried to split them apart.

  "I didn't do it!" said Compton.

  "You were asking for a lighter!" Pascale said, her hair slipping out of her bun.

  "Yeah, for later! The 420's legal here!"

  Compton must be talking about marijuana. It seemed ridiculous to fly all the way to Montreal to get it. They grow it in California, and isn't it legal in some states, too? But if you're rich enough, maybe it's worth flying across the continent to get a new buzz.

  The Portuguese dad switched over to his native language in order to curse more effectively, ignoring Pascale, who was telling him, "Go back to your seat!"

  "I know you can't smoke on a plane. I'm not some foreigner who smokes all over the place," said Compton.

  The dad reached for Compton's throat.

  Compton raised his ziptied wrists defensively before Basso Profundo knocked the dad's hands away. "That's enough!"

  "We've got to get to the fire," said Tucker in my ear.

  I hesitated. What if these guys strangled each other?

  "The big guy will stop them. The fire might kill all of us. Let's go!"

  We sprinted back to economy class, where the smoke was definitely worse now. You couldn't even smell feces anymore, although Gideon was barking away, making his presence known.

  The air had turned greyish. I could see Tucker's face, but it was hazy.

  People were coughing. Some of them were wheezing. The baby was coughing a tiny, helpless baby cough.

  "Get me off this plane!"

  "We're going to die."

  Topaz yelled, "Don't worry! My guru said I'm not going to die on a plane!"

  I gritted my teeth, and someone slung back, "Shut up about your guru."

  "Girl, if he ain't here, I ain't listenin' to him.”

  Mrs. Yarborough started screaming from the front, her trademark scream that perforated your ears and rattled your spine.

  I clamped my hands over my ears. No wonder Tucker had rushed to help her at the airport. She was the human equivalent of a five-alarm fire.

  "Attention everyone, this is your captain speaking. Given the situation, we are going to do our best to land this plane. Please remain in your seats and remain calm as we prepare for landing."

  As if to punctuate his words, the plane juddered and thumped. A red light strobed overhead, and a real fire alarm spiked our ear drums. We could barely hear the pilot say, "Flight attendants, please prepare for landing."

  Prepare for landing? When there was a fire?

  "Sit down," said Tucker. "I'll take care of the fire."

  I snatched his arm. "You will not."

  He tried to shake free. "Hope, I've got to do it."

  "You know nothing about fires. You stay with me. You are mine."

  He hesitated. He'd told me that himself before, and now I flung it in his face. "If you try to play the hero, I will throw myself across you. You can't drag me across the plane. You're not allowed to lift anything, let alone a full-grown woman."

  "Hope—"

  "Absolutely fucking not, Tucker." I held his arm so tightly that I indented the skin.

  He blinked. I knew I was hurting him. I didn't care.

  He said, "No one else is going to do it, Hope."

  He was right.

  "I'm not letting you go. You are not a fireman." I was the heroine in Tam Lin, maniacal in my determination, despite the screaming and the shouting and the high-pitched praying swirling around us. He was my line in the sand.

  "Hope."

  That wasn't Tucker. The voice was deeper and further away.

  I peered through the haze. Herc's face emerged from the chaos at the back of the
plane. He said, "I'll do it."

  "Stay in your seat, sir!" cried Linda, who stood between us, holding a fire extinguisher in one hand and shooing him back to row 33 with the other. "This is a case for airline personnel."

  "I'm an airline mechanic," he said, reaching for the fire extinguisher. "Give me that."

  "Are you an Avian Air employee?" she said, but she handed it to him anyway.

  He strolled back to the bathroom on the right and pushed open the folding door. Black smoke billowed into the hall.

  I threw myself on the ground, covering my nose with my shirt. So did Tucker.

  People were hacking, especially the baby.

  Do we have any Ventolin? Do we have pediatric aerochambers? I'm going to have to get that kid breathing again.

  More ghastly noise from the ShapeR ScreameR in the front.

  A man's voice rose above the fray, also from business class. "'The time has come.'"

  "Sit down, sir," called Pascale.

  "'So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.'"

  Hail. The snow storm, or "northern weather system," was playing into Compton's mind.

  Even through my T-shirt, I could smell something new, not precisely smoke, but something dark and off and wrong.

  The baby shrieked. This time, it sounded like a condemnation.

  The plane shuddered. We plunged in the air.

  Someone gasped. Someone else started retching.

  My stomach quailed.

  I had faced death before. I'd worried about my imminent survival, as well as Tucker's or Ryan's. But this was the first time that I might die en masse. Somehow, this was more terrifying, feeling the panic rise in the plane like a palpable force, from people who would claw and kick and kill.

  If we were going to die now or in two seconds, every single one of us would take the extra two seconds. I thought of the claw marks on the walls of the gas chambers.

  Mobs are never pretty, and this time, we were trapped in a container in the air with three murderers and a fire.

  A woman in front of us began to pray loudly. "Help me, Jesus."

  "'Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.'"

  A hissing noise broke through the cabin. It sounded like something was leaking. I prayed that it was the fire extinguisher, but what if the plane had broken a crucial piece?

  A chemical smell permeated the cabin.

  My heart nosedived, along with the airplane. I had to swallow to make my ears recalibrate.

  Linda stumbled over us to get to the cockpit while a woman yelled, "What is happening!"

  The smoke seemed to thicken.

  "'As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them!'"

  An abrupt scream cut toward us. Not Mrs. Yarborough, because this one shot from the back of the plane.

  I struggled to see through the smoke. That scream meant danger.

  "'For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.'"

  My mind shot toward Joel J, giving "one hundred percent" to his work. He had been put to death.

  "Everyone needs to take their seats and put on their seat belts," said Magda. Her low voice trembled.

  That silenced Compton for a moment. I dared to take a tiny breath of smoky air before he yelled, "'Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour!'"

  An answering scream arose from the back of the plane, like a cougar sounding a warning.

  Topaz piped up. "My guru says that the splendour of the world shouldn't distract you from your higher purpose."

  We were going to die. We were going to crash to our doom with a planeload of idiots.

  The plane tilted, pitching me and Tucker toward the cockpit. Why, oh why hadn't we stuck to our seats with our seat belts?

  I relinquished Tucker with one hand so that I could grasp part of a seat and stop the slide. He did the same.

  We still gripped our other hands together, even though the plane plunged at such an angle, we were like children poised to roll down a hill, if the hill were airborne and on fire.

  "'And the LORD saith unto us—'"

  The airplane's engines roared. I could feel their vibrations through the floor.

  "'—Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth—'"

  The engines howled.

  Something snapped outside the window. I cringed. Pieces of the plane breaking off?

  Tucker's chest started to heave. He didn't smoke or have asthma, but since 14/11, he'd had more trouble with his lungs.

  "'I did not come to bring peace, but a sword!'"

  Compton's voice grew closer. I lifted my head from the smelly blue carpet to gauge his position. Would he shiv us with his plastic knife while we lay on the bloody carpet like Joel J?

  The wheels bumped on the ground so hard that we bounced back up into the air before we hit the ground again.

  I managed to partially cushion my head with my arm. Still, my vision pinwheeled.

  Did we—

  Are we—

  The pilot hit the brakes. The air outside the plane shrieked as he drew to a slow, careful stop.

  We landed.

  Alive.

  40

  "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport. If you want to adjust your watch, it is 3:05 a.m. local time.”

  Captain James Mesaglio was drowned out by whoops and tears. The baby alone made enough noise for triplets, and Gideon tried to win the award for World’s Loudest Dog.

  Tucker offered me a hand. I took it as I stood up, my knees and head only somewhat wobbly.

  The cheering rose another decibel. I smiled and winced at the same time.

  "The weather in Montreal is overcast, and the temperature is 14 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus ten degrees Celsius."

  Tucker breathed more easily. The smoke had cleared, and we'd get off this plane soon. Or in ten hours, if they held us for a forensic investigation. Whatever. We were alive.

  “Thank you for your patience during the most … demanding flight I’ve ever seen. On behalf of all our crew, thank you for choosing Avian Air as your airline this holiday season."

  The bathroom door folded open as Herc carefully made his way out. "All clear," he said.

  The cheering grew delirious, overriding Mrs. Yarborough at the front of the aircraft.

  Herc held up his enormous palm for silence. When he got it, he said, "Someone set a bunch of paper towels on fire in the sink, the wastebasket, and behind the toilet."

  Magda gasped. "A fire is the worst thing—"

  Topaz spoke over her. "No, fire is for purification."

  A few people shouted in disbelief, but most of us gawked silently as she continued, "My guru talks about it all the time. He holds a special ceremony for the people who have reached the third chakra, or who have become stuck there."

  "So you set the fires," I called, before I coughed. Smoke was hard on the vocal cords.

  "Of course! Can't you feel it? There's so much anger and hate in the air."

  "There's even more if you're setting the plane on fire," said Tucker, and it sounded so much like me that I nearly smiled. We'd made it. I felt joyful, even though Topaz needed a brain transplant.

  Topaz waved her hand. "I wouldn't have let the airplane catch fire. I started lighting incense until I decided we needed more Manipura for a true transformation."

  "They blamed that poor guy—" Tucker broke off coughing, too.

  "The preacher? Please. I'd never lend him my lighter. He's dangerous, you know?"

  She was as oblivious as ever. On my psychiatry rotation, we graded people on their insight and judgement. I usually give patients "i
mpaired," but Topaz had just won the "zero" prize.

  "Your fires were out of control." If I kept my voice low, I didn't cough as much. My eyes watered, though.

  "Well, I didn't want to tell anyone. You're not allowed to take your lighter out of your pocket when you're travelling. I could've gotten in trouble."

  A sharp, short scream rocketed from the rear of the airplane. This time, I turned to look.

  When Herc had gotten up to tend to the fire, Staci Kelly had tried to climb out of her seat and escape, literally over her dead husband's body. However, since she was ziptied with her hands behind her back, in heels, she'd pitched into her husband’s lap. Then the plane had hit such a steep angle that Joel J's body had tented over her, pinning her in place.

  Elizabeth waved to us from seat 33C. She'd silently taken over for Herc, guarding Staci Kelly and keeping us safe.

  Maybe Tucker was right. Maybe the good people could still win small victories as we worked in concert to repair the world.

  While we sat on the tarmac, awaiting the police, Tucker toasted me with a beer. "So in the end, we had a woman who loved her dog more than people—"

  "Not uncommon," I said, thinking of Roxy's silky, black ears. My heart expanded in my chest, making me feel less trapped in the belly of this airplane as I gulped down some apple juice. The juice made me think of Mr. Yarborough, who was still not seizing.

  Tucker ignored my segue. "She was willing to kill for her dog. You think she knew that he might have had a family, and even a dog?"

  "I doubt she was thinking anything beyond Gideon. Most of us aren't thinking when it comes to things that we love." I glanced at him.

  He grinned, and I looked away. It was still so fresh. I'd told him I loved him countless times post-hostage taking, but he'd been sedated and post op and puking for part of it. Not too romantic. This felt like the first time that we could canoodle as well as debrief.

  "Right. So we had the dog-loving people killer," he said.

  I flinched. Gladys was still calling for Gideon.

  "And we had the woman who loved money and fame more than her husband."

  "That's even more common." I frowned. "I guess that's why I feel sorrier for Gladys. She seems kind of—well, dumb, and she's going to jail, whereas Mrs. Yarborough will lawyer up. Then she'll get off, or have time reduced because she's mega rich and she looks old and frail."