Charlie's Requiem Novella

by A. American

Kevin had just a few seconds left and the trees were coming up at him more quickly than he had hoped. It was looking more and more like they were going to come up short.

  “500 feet,” Perkins said solemnly. “400, 350, 300, 250, 200.”

  As the final seconds ticked away, Kevin could see that the tree line was going to get to them before the water. The headwind was strong and their airspeed had gone down rapidly. He checked his trim wheel and found he had a bit more he could drop it. He spun the wheel drum back, dropping the trim tab down as far as it could go, raising the nose of the aircraft a few more feet. He had done all he could and as the altimeter read 100, he saw that they were just short. The tree tops loomed in front of him, rushing at the window like a freight train. He said a quick prayer and thought of his wife and daughter. They weren’t going to make it!

  Lake Conway Estates

  Jorge loved his house. Raised in Orlando by a poor Mexican immigrant family, his father had a small landscape company and his mother worked housekeeping at Disney World. He grew up in a large Catholic family with four brothers and three sisters. With the help of their church, they all went to St. John Vianney Catholic School. Private high school was financially out of the question so the eight children all attended Oak Ridge High School where he excelled in both baseball and academics, taking AP classes in English, Calculus and Psychology. Jorge was one of seven out of eight siblings to get a Bachelor’s degree or higher. He attended Rollins College in Winter Park on a partial baseball scholarship, just a few miles from where he grew up in Southeast Orlando. He worked his way through school getting jobs bussing tables and cutting lawns. It was hard work but like most students that had to work for their education, he rose to the top of his abilities. Jorge walked out of college with a degree from one of the finest business schools in the southeast United States. Within eight years, he had risen to vice-president of an international bank where his finance degree brought him a well-deserved position and salary.

  Today, Jorge Vasquez walked out onto the deck of his house that overlooked Lake Conway. He had purchased the home earlier that year from a foreclosure list at the bank and now at 30 years old, he stood next to the lake, drinking a well-deserved beer, proudly looking over the back yard where a boy from poor Mexican immigrants had made it to a level that his parents could not even dream of. He thought of the years at Rollins where rich kids from rich parents sent their children to get a rich-man’s education. It was a ticket into a club where the wealthy took care of each other. The education was top notch and the company he kept was thick with money and prestige. Jorge never really fit in with most of them. Not that they weren’t nice enough to him, but there was always an undercurrent to their relationships. When your classmates were named Chip, Matt and Craig, the name Jorge never really seemed to fit. But Jorge didn’t hate them, it just all seemed too easy for his fellow classmates. It’s not like it was their fault being born into wealth, but Jorge knew he deserved to be where he was. He had earned it.

  With the stock market closing at 4 p.m., Jorge slipped out of the office after finishing his reports. His drive to the new house took less than 20 minutes. He relaxed with a cold beer, thinking about tonight’s plans. He was meeting his latest girlfriend, Maria. She was the first Latino he had dated since graduating from college. His dark complexion, deep brown eyes and athletic physique really got him any woman he wanted. The past eight or nine years found him with various girlfriends, all of which you could classify as wealthy and blonde.

  Maria, on the other hand, was from a family his parents knew. Jorge had decided to get serious about his private life. The idea of having a wife and children were now starting to poke at his subconscious mind. His mother had been bugging him for years, but like many things in life, it all came down to timing. Now was the time as far as Jorge was concerned. His co-workers were mostly married and a couple of his fellow vice-presidents were working on their first kids. Maria, to date, had been everything he could ask for and more. Tonight they were going to dine downtown with couples from his bank. It was to be the first introduction Maria would have into his business life. He knew she would be a hit. She was intelligent and successful, just like Jorge.

  As he gazed over the water, there was a growing feeling of something Jorge just couldn’t quite comprehend. A thought or an awareness was gnawing at him that things were wrong. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to look at the time and he saw that it had died.

  “Damn,” he said to the phone. “I thought I charged you.”

  Jorge turned to go back into his house when he felt a presence descend over him. In a flash, he could feel a pressure that was overwhelming. He realized suddenly that the world was eerily quiet, almost like a tomb. In a fraction of a second, his athletic instincts told him that something was dramatically wrong. He remembered the same feeling from high school. Although a standout in baseball, Jorge played football as a defensive back. Once, he remembered defending the opponent’s wide receiver on a deep fly route to the end zone. There was a moment when he heard the crowd roar and he knew that the ball was in the air and coming his way and he now had that same sinking feeling. That’s when he knew something was wrong. There was no noise. Nothing at all. Normally, cars could be heard whisking along the road nearby. The only sounds he heard now was a lone mockingbird blasting out its call.

  Then, a building presence of what he could only describe as a wave of air began to quickly grow, and a low, deep rumble was coming from the front of his new home. Jorge stood looking at the back of his house, wondering what could possibly make such a deep and frightening noise, when he saw the nose of a huge jet plane cresting over his roofline. It enveloped the sky above him as it majestically crossed over his head, seemingly touching the top of his house. He could almost reach up and brush the bottom of the aircraft as it passed over his head and dropped out of the sky. He was too stunned to move as the magnificent beast blasted through the vegetation behind his beautiful lakefront home.

  Just as quickly as it passed overhead, the jumbo jet was through the copse of trees that lined the water, gliding toward the opposite side of the lake. The engines hanging from each wing miraculously cut through the live oaks that hugged the edge of the water, cutting a swath of small branches and leaves and leaving behind a hole in the canopy above. Jorge ran to the water’s edge as the enormous metal bird slowly descended towards the surface of the lake. It was a sight he would never forget, especially since he didn’t know if the beast would come down in time to avoid smashing into the homes on the opposite shore.

  Delta Flight 2181

  Captain Stillwagon could hardly believe it. His jet passed through the canopy of trees and was lined up to settle down onto the lake underneath him. The big bird kept gliding over the water, seemingly afraid to touch the glassy surface. Kevin began to worry that we was overshooting the lake and would pancake the plane and all aboard into the houses on the rapidly approaching shoreline.

  “Kevin!” the first officer shouted, pointing to the opposite shore.

  “I KNOW!” he shouted back.

  Captain Stillwagon spun his trim wheel forward, lowering the nose of the plane. It was a delicate maneuver. If he dipped too low, the nose of the craft would bury itself into the water and the tail would flip over in a somersault maneuver that would at the least, place the plane upside down. At the worst, and most likely, the plane would break apart.

  The nose of the jet dipped toward the water, its nose down position dropping the jet more rapidly than before.

  “Running out of room,” Landrey shouted. “Half a mile to the shore!”

  Kevin flew by feel, finally spinning the trim wheel back when he felt that the jet was ready to settle into the lake. As the nose started to rise, the plane contacted the water. First it skipped a bit, until it settled enough to have the engines grab and drag them to a rapid stop. From contact with the water to its final position float
ing in the lake, the jet traveled just over 300 yards, about half the normal emergency stopping distance seen on land.

  The passengers and crew had been thrown forward when the engines caught the water, but the incessant screaming by the flight attendants to “bend over and keep your heads down” had resulted in most passengers having little more than a black and blue mark across their wastes.

  Kevin exhaled. He realized he hadn’t taken a breath for the past minute. He looked back to his right to examine the wings. The craft was floating! As he was looking out the right, Landrey leapt from his seat and stared out his left side window, and began to laugh.

  “Check it out, Skipper!” he giggled as he pointed out the left side of the windshield.

  “Tell the flight attendant to have them depart the plane on the left!”

  Kevin leaned over to his co-pilot’s side and smiled. The left wing was there, butting up against a dock that sat on the northern shore of the lake. The passengers were already flowing out onto the wing, the emergency exit having been opened. The first of his “souls” tiptoed out onto the wooden dock and waved back at the cockpit. Kevin closed his eyes and said a prayerful thanks.

  First officer Landrey opened the door to the cockpit as Kevin got on the overhead phone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. This is the termination of flight 2181, La Guardia to Orlando. Please exit out the left side emergency door and make your way to the dock at the end of the wing. This is Captain Stillwagon thanking you for flying Delta Airlines!”

  The cabin erupted in a deafening cheer. Landrey looked back at Kevin and smiled.

  “Nice job, Sully!”

  The two of them waited for the passengers to disembark the plane, making sure to check the aircraft before leaving themselves. They were the last people off the ship.

  All were ashore within 10 minutes, but were confronted with yet another problem. No one had a working cell phone. Kevin smiled and patted Tyler on the shoulder.

  “What a day,” he said. “At least the worst is over.”

  Little did he know!

  Chapter 7

  Day 1

  Charlie

  Kirkman Specialty Clinic

  Four of us left the office and walked down the road to the local Publix supermarket. Two of them were new to the practice but thankfully, Janice joined our group. She and I were about the same age and had spoken at length a few times over the past year. She was sweet, and as southern as you could get. She was from Alabama.

  As expected, the store was just as dark as all the other buildings we had passed. We went up to the sliding electronic front doors that had been manually pushed aside. A young man held up his hand to prevent us from entering. A crowd of customers sat in the parking lot, grimly checking their phones and sitting on the hoods of their cars.

  “Sorry, closed.” He said in a terse voice. “Electricity is out and we can’t let anyone in.”

  “We’re from Dr. Kramer’s office,” I said. “Are you Mr. Wayneright?”

  “No,” he replied. “He’s in the back.”

  I looked back into the store and I could see flashlight beams crisscrossing the aisles. Well, at least they worked, I thought.

  “Look,” I said with a smile. “Could you go get him? I would really appreciate it if you could do that for us.”

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Wayneright is busy. We have to tape up the freezer doors and coolers so the food doesn’t spoil. He can’t break away now.”

  I continued to prod the young man, pleading with him to just reconsider. I tried to reason with him, beg him and even flirt with him. Seeing that I am a poor flirter, I didn’t get far with that.

  Janice was standing behind me, listening to the conversation. She quietly turned around and unbuttoned her lab jacket. She fussed with something under her scrub top and quickly pulled out her bra. Her scrubs were tight to begin with, and once her bra was gone, her chest swelled out and made the top even tighter. Her cleavage was barely contained by the stiffened material. She stuffed her bra into her lab coat and slung the coat across her forearm. She did a little primping with her hair and eased into position next to my right shoulder.

  “Oh… Please…” she said with a thick, honey-laced southern accent. “We have patients that are just suffering at our office. I know the doctor has check writing approval here. We brought a check; or you could add it all up and send the bill with me. Then we can just go back and help those poor souls.” She gently bit her lower lip when she finished and gave him a kitten-like smile. That was so over the top! I thought. He’s going to have us escorted out of the parking lot.

  Until that moment, I never appreciated the power that an unleashed pair of breasts had over a young, heterosexual man. The poor kid never had a chance. He never raised his eyes above her neck.

  “Ah… sure.” He stammered. “I’ll go check.” He spun around and entered the darkened building.

  “Holy crap!” I said to Janice. “I never thought that would work.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. “More times than not.”

  “Well you have more to work with than I do,” I replied.

  “Honey,” she said as she worked her southern accent again. “It’s not the size. It’s the promise of what’s past the fabric that holds their attention!”

  We both laughed as Janice put her lab coat back on, covering herself once again.

  Within a minute, Mr. Wayneright came to the door.

  “Sir,” I said. “Dr. Kramer asked me to speak to you directly. He gave me a list of things he needs at the office right away. He said you could help.”

  “Sure,” he said in a hushed voice. “Go around back and I’ll let you in. I can’t have the others outside see that I’m making an exception for you. Just go around to the right and I’ll meet you at the loading dock.”

  He left, and the poor lust-struck boy returned to guard the door. Janice slid up next to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, making sure to press her chest lightly against his.

  “You are the sweetest thing,” she cooed.

  As we started walking down the sidewalk and around the building, she looked over at me, smiled and said, “You never know when I might need him again.”

  “So why is Mr. Wayneright so accommodating?” I asked.

  “Dr. Kramer saved his dad,” Janice said simply. “He did a coronary CT scan based on some obscure symptoms and found an aortic aneurism. His dad had emergency surgery that day. If Dr. Kramer hadn’t found the ballooning blood vessel, it would have ruptured and Mr. Wayneright’s father would have died instantly. I don’t think any other cardiologist could have put those symptoms together and ordered that scan.”

  “That’s why I like the man,” I replied. Everyone just nodded their heads as we rounded the corner and saw the open door.

  Mr. Wayneright turned out to be the store manager. He led us into the darkened store and looked at the list the doctor had made. Most of the items were canned and dried food. He also had us shop for over the counter medical supplies like Band-Aids, Advil and Tylenol as well as a lot of feminine products. I wasn’t sure why those were important. We filled up four carts to the brim and rolled them to the loading dock. Mr. Wayneright estimated the cost of the haul and Janice filled out a signed blank check. He gave us a written receipt, and we rolled our carts by the back of the building and out onto the highway. We managed to avoid the prying eyes of the people in the parking lot and made it back to the office without incident. There were a lot of raised eyebrows as we sauntered down the thoroughfare. It really felt strange to walk in the middle of the street pushing a shopping cart, bypassing idled cars and trucks that should be traveling at over 40 miles per hour.

  We were unloading the items in the break room when Dr. Kramer came in to see if we had accomplished our mission.

&nbs
p; “We’re back, and Mr. Wayneright said to say hello,” Janice said.

  “Looks like you’ve gotten everything,” he happily replied.

  “Sure did,” Janice shot back. “But I was wondering what these backpacks are for?”

  Dr. Kramer had us pick up any backpacks that were available. There were three black ones left in the school supply section and we grabbed them all. They were more book bags than backpacks; so we took them, given no other good options.

  “They’re for the future,” he replied without further explanation, and he left the room. We all just stood and stared at each other, none of us knowing quite what he was talking about.

  The next few hours were mostly boring. A couple of people from the street made their way to the office, but Dr. Kramer told them to wait with their cars. We brought a hose out to the side of the building and provided water to any that wanted it; but by the evening, most had wandered off to wherever they could find shelter. A hotel down the street soon filled to capacity while most folks started to walk home. By midnight, the street was mostly clear and we settled down to get some sleep.

  Dr. Kramer had us wash out and fill as many containers with water as we could find. Trash bins and kitchen pots were sterilized and used to hold water. We kept them in one of the surgical suites. Every sink was sealed with plastic wrap and surgical tape, then filled to capacity. Dr. Kramer explained that the water pressure would likely give out as the theme parks and hotels nearby drained them.

  I settled down next to Janice on the floor of the reception area. Along with the waiting room, it was one of the few areas with carpet. The rest of the building was covered with surgical tile to enhance sterility in those areas. I fell asleep sometime after 2 a.m., awakening several times as people about me snored or shifted to find a comfortable position. I lived by myself, and other than an occasional overnight guest, I slept alone. All those bodies moving about prevented any significant rest.