Zone

by Jack Lance

  There were none.

  ‘OK, people,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to work. We have ten minutes.’

  The crew spread out, as directed.

  Only Devin stayed with him. ‘You were going to point someone out?’

  Before an emergency landing, the crew often selected a few strong men among the passengers, able-bodied persons, who could offer a helping hand during the evacuation. As one such volunteer, Aaron wanted the man who claimed to have flown a Cessna.

  He grabbed one of the flashlights in the galley, switched the light on, and aimed it at the broad-shouldered man.

  ‘There he is,’ Aaron said.

  ‘I see him,’ Devin responded and started walking toward the man.

  Aaron’s motto was that if people remained calm and proper procedures were strictly followed, the odds of everything turning out all right rose exponentially. Now, however, he feared that this situation would end very badly. He held out slim hope that Jim Nichols would be able to restart the engines. In fifteen minutes or so, he would have to ditch the plane. How could that possibly turn out all right?

  Aaron tried to not answer his own question, deciding instead to take a quick look in First Class and on the upper deck, to see if he could find Sharlene. He realized he belonged with his crew, but at the moment he had Sharlene on his mind. And in his heart.

  He strode quickly toward the nose of the aircraft, pointing his flashlight this way and that, checking the galley and bathrooms. Nothing in First Class. That left Business Class. He ran up the stairs and into the throes of chaos.

  Mara and Ray were telling the passengers to get up and find seats downstairs. Aaron noted that Danny DeVito was making trouble, blathering all kinds of rude and fatalistic remarks. Other passengers took steps to avoid him, treating him as though he were a leper.

  When Danny spotted Aaron, he pointed at him and seemed about to storm toward him. Aaron was in no mood to argue with him or anyone else. He turned his back on the man and walked back down the stairs.

  In the Tourist Class section, many passengers had already donned lifejackets. They stared ahead hollow-eyed, each lost in the horror of his own thoughts like prisoners on death row in the final moments before execution.

  Aaron had searched the entire plane. He hadn’t found Sharlene, and she hadn’t been present during their most recent briefing, minutes ago.

  She was letting down the rest of the crew.

  Either that, or something bad had happened to her.

  The only thought left to Aaron was that she had collapsed and had gone back to the crew bunks. It was the only place on the aircraft where he had not yet searched.

  But when he went to check out the crew bunks, he found the area deserted.

  By now he was truly worried.

  Something had happened to her.

  Think. What did I miss?

  He had last spoken to her just after the engines failed. No, he corrected himself. He hadn’t spoken with her then. He had spoken to her. She hadn’t said a word. He had last heard her voice when he told her about the navigation and communication problems in the cockpit. At that time he had no idea the engines were about to fail.

  Later he had been stopped in section E by the stout man who claimed to be a pilot; and after that, for an inexplicable reason he had started feeling queasy. Devin had seen her by the bathroom stalls. And after that, she had apparently disappeared into thin air.

  Despite himself, Aaron still entertained the notion that Jerrod Kirby had grabbed her and somehow disposed of her. It was an utterly ridiculous notion, he realized – but what was not ridiculous was that on more than one occasion tonight he had sensed that Sharlene had seemed to want to tell him something. She had wanted to confide in him, but for some reason she hadn’t.

  Because she thought I wouldn’t listen, he thought fleetingly.

  It wasn’t that far-fetched.

  I didn’t listen to Pamela when she needed me most, and I didn’t listen to Sharlene, either.

  Suddenly, Aaron felt consumed with guilt.

  Pam’s situation had spiraled out of control in a terrible way. He had sworn that would never happen to him again.

  But apparently it had. And Aaron had no solution or inspiration about what to do next. None at all.

  He returned to the passenger cabin. The empty seats in Tourist Class were being occupied by Business Class passengers, who were coming in one by one. He hadn’t yet spotted Danny DeVito.

  The pressure on his ears increased. Princess was fast losing altitude. Aaron glanced outside, but couldn’t see the ocean through the window.

  He had no idea what was down there.

  We shouldn’t be here.

  Ray approached him. ‘We’re ready, Mara and I. The upper deck is empty.’

  ‘Well done,’ Aaron said. ‘How did it go with Danny?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The short guy with a big mouth.’

  ‘Oh, him. It took a while, but we finally convinced him to come along.’

  ‘That must have been a trick, since he’s such a prick. Did he say anything?’

  ‘If he did, I wasn’t listening.’

  Aaron put his hands on his hips. ‘Have you seen Sharlene?’

  ‘No,’ Ray answered. ‘Can’t you find her?’

  Aaron sighed. ‘No.’

  He checked his watch: 5:39. The time the crew had been allotted to prepare for a crash landing was nearly up. Despite the movement of passengers into seats, the cabin remained eerily quiet. The engines had not come back on. That meant that Jim would soon be initiating an emergency landing and it was likely there would be casualties. Worst case, the impact would kill them all.

  Rosette reported all preparations complete.

  ‘Then take a seat and strap yourself in,’ Aaron said. ‘It could happen any moment now.’

  He crossed to the nearest phone and called Jim Nichols. ‘The cabin is secured.’

  ‘Good,’ Jim said. ‘The engines haven’t responded, so we’re going to ditch. I estimate we have another six or seven minutes. One minute before we ditch, I’ll give the emergency stations order by blinking the seat-belt sign twice …’ Jim hesitated. ‘Provided that button still works, of course.’

  Now that he had spoken with the captain, Aaron realized how little time was left to find Sharlene. Worse, he didn’t know where else to look. He had searched everywhere. She was no longer on board.

  That’s impossible.

  Was it time for him to start stepping beyond his own boundaries?

  Something about the plane made her disappear.

  He was deadly close to believing that.

  He picked up the PA handset. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing in a few minutes. About one minute before we do, the seat-belt sign will flash twice. Please assume the emergency position as soon as you see those two flashes. Lean forward with both hands on top of your head and brace yourself against the seat in front of you. After we have landed, immediately leave the aircraft through the emergency exits. Leave all personal items behind. And please don’t inflate your life vest until after you have left the plane.’

  Even now there was no sign of panic or hysteria among the passengers. Some of them were praying, others were writing goodbye notes or just staring in horror.

  For the first time, Aaron allowed himself to consider the possibility that he could be dead in a few minutes. He was going to have to accept the unacceptable, that he would be unable to say goodbye to Sharlene. She was the love of his life, although he had known her for so brief a time.

  He used the final seconds to do a quick check. He noticed that one of the female passengers hadn’t taken off her high heels. When he spoke in no uncertain terms to her, the frightened woman quickly removed her shoes. Aaron stuffed the pumps in an overhead bin.

  Then the seat-belt sign dinged once. Twice.

  Aaron ran to his station, sat down, fastened his seat belt, and in one movement took the phone of the public-address system. He looked u
p, opened his mouth to yell ‘Brace!’, but—

  A soaking wet figure stood in the dim light in the aisle, right in front of him. She was pale as old snow and had long ebony hair. He thought he saw small sparks of fire in the depths of her charcoal-colored eyes.

  ‘You abandoned me,’ Pamela Drake gurgled, and more muddy water poured from the corners of her mouth.

  Aaron’s throat became clogged and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  ‘Brace!’ he screamed, finally, into the public-address system. ‘Brace! Brace! Brace!’

  He kept his eyes closed, waiting for the horrific impact.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Destination

  When the Princess’s air speed had dwindled to 190 knots, Jim Nichols extended the flaps. Their altitude was 8,000 feet. Any moment now they would clear the cloud cover, and then he would finally be able to see what awaited them down under. Jim decided not to further delay his final briefing.

  ‘Greg, Ben, here’s what we’re going to do.’ He cleared his throat and struggled to keep his voice calm. ‘We’ll keep trying to restart the engines until we reach 3,000 feet. If that doesn’t work, and I doubt it will at this point, we’ll focus on our landing. Greg, switch off the air conditioning and close the outflow valves on my signal.’

  The air-conditioning system employed two outflow valves to control air pressure inside the cabin. Since these valves let the air out of the plane, they had to be closed before ditching to prevent water flowing in. After ditching, if all went well, the Boeing 747-400 would function as a boat; and with any luck it would stay afloat long enough for the passengers to get out.

  ‘I’ll bring the nose further up, reduce our speed to 140 knots, and extend the flaps to maximum position. After we’ve determined wind direction from the waves, I’ll turn our nose into the wind. When we’re almost down, I’ll lift the nose about ten or twelve degrees to stay airborne for as long as possible, to allow us to hit the water at minimum speed. I’ll try to land parallel to the waves. After that, there’s not much more I can do beyond trying to keep the wings horizontal.’

  Jim bowed his head and continued. ‘The tail end will hit first. The drag of the water will cause the nose to drop. If it becomes submerged …’

  He left the remainder of the sentence for his copilots to finish.

  ‘What happens after that is a mystery,’ Ben commented grimly.

  ‘We could have fires breaking out on the wings,’ Greg warned, ‘caused by lashing power cables. And we might have flames on the water as well.’

  Jim shrugged. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that.’ He paused, then he said, ‘You know what? I’ll eject the fire extinguishers into the engines while we go down. That way we can be sure it won’t happen.’

  ‘OK,’ Greg said.

  ‘Other questions?’

  The copilot shook his head.

  ‘You, Ben?’

  ‘No,’ he said tersely. How that one word was spoken conveyed Ben’s deep frustration that Jim had not opted for the general restart.

  Am I going to be the murderer who kills everyone on board after all? Jim wondered bitterly. He was expecting Jody’s voice to answer that question in the affirmative, but she said nothing.

  ‘Greg, keep trying to get the engines going.’

  The copilot continued giving it his best efforts. The brief silence that followed was interrupted by a piercing series of beeps: You’re flying too low, it screamed in alarm, and the landing gear has not been deployed.

  ‘I’m turning off the alerts,’ Jim said.

  He pushed a few buttons. ‘Ground-proximity gear override. I’ve also selected the flap and terrain override,’ he said when he was ready.

  The phone rang.

  ‘The cabin is secured,’ Aaron Drake reported.

  ‘Good,’ Jim said to him. ‘The engines haven’t responded so we’re going to ditch.’

  That wasn’t entirely true, because Greg was still working on it, but he was no longer expecting a miracle. ‘I estimate we have another six or seven minutes. One minute before we ditch, I’ll give the emergency stations order by blinking the seat-belt sign twice …’ He groaned softly. ‘Provided that button still works, of course.’

  Soon after his conversation with Aaron, Princess cleared the cloud cover.

  Jim held his breath.

  The aircraft shook slightly. For a moment they saw nothing through the cockpit windows but an indistinct mass of steel-gray.

  What in hell is down there?

  Jim didn’t want to imagine the catastrophe that would befall them if what was beneath them was land and not sea. The fatal crash that would inevitably ensue would be one that even God in all his omnipotence could not prevent.

  But what were the odds that they would find, at this precise moment, a stretch of land in the immense Pacific? It would be like finding the proverbial needle in a field of haystacks. Then again, this night had been one of multiple surprises and implausible outcomes.

  A black surface loomed.

  Ah, Jim thought, just the sea, after all.

  He heaved a sigh of relief.

  Greg hadn’t seen it. He kept working the fuel valves, trying valiantly to restart the engines. With no success.

  At 3,000 feet, Jim called it quits.

  ‘You can stop trying now, Greg.’

  ‘Dammit!’ the copilot cursed in despair. It was the first time Jim had ever heard him swear.

  ‘Air conditioning and outflow valves,’ Jim said.

  Greg executed the evolutions. ‘Air conditioning off, outflow valves closed.’

  ‘Flaps 20.’

  ‘Flaps 20,’ Greg confirmed.

  The aircraft shivered as the flaps extended even further.

  Jim decreased their speed to 140 knots, the minimum flying speed. The sea drew closer and Jim believed he saw white foam on the crests of waves. A few more seconds and it would be over.

  In those last few desperate moments, Jim envisioned his home and garden. He saw himself, outside in the sunshine, with Cara and Natalie. Laughing as young girls do, they were chasing each other and a bouncing ball, playing some kind of game he didn’t recognize. In recent months he had noticed that his daughters were intent on things he couldn’t fathom.

  I’m coming home and then you can tell me all about that game of yours.

  Cara and Natalie were side by side now, smiling radiantly.

  Then, suddenly, their smiles vanished and they fell over. Dead.

  A woman appeared behind them.

  She looked like Jody, but she wasn’t.

  Murderer! She growled, and he heard the word as distinctly as if she had shouted it at him from a few feet away.

  Jim felt like he was waking up from some sort of nightmare. He glanced outside into the early morning darkness.

  Look at the water. Whatever else you do, don’t let waves wash across the nose. If that happens, it’s over. I’m not going to let a wave get on the nose. I’m going to land on top of the waves.

  He pressed the button to illuminate the ‘Fasten seat belts’ light twice.

  Suddenly he jerked forward in his seat. Not far ahead, in line with where the aircraft was going to strike the water, he spotted something.

  Jesus, what was that? He felt spasms of panic coursing through him.

  They were going toward it no matter what, all 353 souls on board.

  The Princess of the Pacific could no longer remain airborne.

  And Jim Nichols had just spotted their final destination.

  Interlude IV

  The woman in the bathroom mirror had sunken cheeks, and dark circles beneath her glassy eyes.

  She saw the woman take a small white bottle from the shelf beneath the mirror and twist the cap off. Dozens of pills were inside. The woman in the mirror cocked her head for a second, listening to ‘Going Home’, a favorite song emanating from the stereo system in the living room.

  The woman in the mirror would not waver. She had resolved to do it as soon as t
he song ended.

  She saw how the woman in the mirror put the bottle to her lips, lifted her chin, and spilled the pills on to her tongue.

  The woman swallowed them all.

  For a while, nothing happened. The living room was silent. The song was over.

  The woman in the mirror considered playing it again, but suddenly she started feeling very ill. She couldn’t breathe. Her fingers cramped as she clasped them around her mother’s necklace. Then she collapsed.

  Suddenly it was completely black around her. From somewhere, she couldn’t determine where, she heard a sharp rumbling as if from a looming thunderstorm. She was not alone.

  Where was she? What was hidden inside this darkness?

  She wanted to get away from here! She needed to get away from here!

  She felt herself sliding backwards. It simply came over her, beyond her control, and immediately afterwards she moved from the darkness into a brightly lit sterile room.

  She could see herself below, in a hospital bed. Three doctors were standing around her. There were computers, monitors, all sorts of medical implements.

  Light as a feather, she floated beneath the ceiling.

  As soon as she realized this, she collapsed on top of her own body, lying there with eyes closed. Upon impact, she felt a small electric current …

  … and she took a gasping breath.

  The doctors she had just seen from above were now gazing down at her. They started chattering excitedly, and one of them stuck a hypodermic needle into her upper arm. She felt pain, but was too dazed to cry out.

  Later, she learned what had happened after she swallowed the pills. Her friend Nance Partington found her. If Nance hadn’t had a key to her apartment, and if she hadn’t come by when she did, Sharlene would have died. As it was, the fact she survived was a miracle. Although the doctors pumped out the contents of her stomach, they briefly lost her. For fifty-seven seconds she was clinically dead.