Doomsday Apocalypse

by Bobby Akart

  “Red cord! We can’t see anything. Where are the lights?”

  Cort shoved his iPad into the seat pocket in front of him and felt underneath his seat for the life vest.

  The flight attendant continued. “Pull the cord to inflate your life vest after we land. If you can’t find the cord, blow into the mouthpiece next to your shoulder. There is also a whistle that can be used to attract attention. Remember, don’t inflate your vest before landing! It might puncture upon impact.”

  “Impact? Are we gonna crash, Dad?” A young boy clearly couldn’t grasp the gravity of the catastrophe they were facing.

  Cort found the pouch, but the strap holding it together was stuck. He quickly unbuckled his seat belt and dropped to his knees to wrestle with the straps. He retrieved it and then noticed the elderly women next to him were dazed and confused.

  He tried to remain calm, for his sake and theirs. “Ladies, don’t mind me, but I’m going to pull out your life vests. We’ll figure them out together.”

  Cort could feel the plane take a sudden turn downwards, and the flight attendants began to yell, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”

  Cort put on his life vest and assisted the women. He told them to tighten the strap, but not too tight. They didn’t need to feel constrained while swimming.

  He then positioned their arms to illustrate how to maintain the brace position.

  “Lean forward like this,” he began, bending at the waist as far as he could. He turned his head to the side, although he could barely make them out in the dim light provided by passengers who were using their phones to video the impending disaster. “Then clasp your hands behind your head, interlocking your fingers. Try to tuck your elbows against your thighs. Okay?”

  He could barely hear their responses between their crying and the other panicked passengers.

  Brace! Brace! Brace!

  Cort closed his eyes and prayed to God to take care of his family in the event he didn’t survive. He repeatedly told Meredith and Hannah that he loved them, hoping that somehow the universe, which had dealt him this bad set of cards, would deliver the message on his behalf.

  While others prayed or screamed in panic, Cort’s body relaxed and he smiled, allowing the memories of his family to fill his consciousness. He was at peace with his fate.

  That was when the plane plowed into the water.

  Chapter 37

  Mercedes-Benz Stadium

  Atlanta, Georgia

  “Ethan! Ethan!” Skylar screamed for her brother as chaos engulfed the stadium. At first, the young girl was confused by the sudden turn of events. Three security personnel ran in front of her between the barriers and the stage and then quickly climbed the stairs to interrupt the performance. They ushered Beyoncé and Jay-Z off the stage first, and then the other dancers followed close behind.

  Dumbfounded, Skylar looked around for her brother to see if he knew what was going on. That was when the announcement to evacuate came. At first, the people around her were quiet, and then they became angry. They started shouting at the stage despite the fact that nobody was on it.

  The hostility began to frighten her. One moment, the crowd was cheering, swaying back and forth to the beat of the music. The next moment, the stage was emptied, the concert was cancelled, and the fans were told to leave.

  Those on the floor in front of the stage, both high and drunk, immediately took exception.

  “Come back out here!”

  “Hey, I paid for a full concert!”

  “I want my money back!”

  The mob was pressing toward the stage, mashing those along the steel barriers to the point they were screaming in agony. Skylar was one of them. She was the youngest and smallest of anyone else around her. Most of those who were waving their fists in anger and inching forward didn’t see her. Her attempts to scream for Ethan went unanswered.

  Skylar didn’t know what else to do, so she found a way to climb over the barrier. Using the back of a man who’d fallen over next to her in a vomiting fit, she stood on his back and hoisted herself onto the barrier and flopped over to the other side, landing on her back with a thud.

  The impact knocked the breath out of her for a second, but then she recovered just as a huge push from the crowd shoved the barriers forward a foot or more. Skylar scrambled out of the way and crawled toward the black skirt that covered the underneath structure of the stage. She stood and looked in the direction of where she last saw Ethan.

  Everyone was pushing and shoving as those at the front of the stage wanted to exit the building, but many others were pushing forward to voice their displeasure at the concert’s cancellation. It was a massive scrum that was being won by the angry mob.

  Skylar recognized one of the girls who had approached Ethan earlier by her purple hair. She ran toward the group of girls and then noticed Ethan’s black locks. Skylar cautiously approached the rail and screamed his name again. This time he heard her.

  “How did you get in there?” he shouted.

  “I had to climb on top of a man and then jumped over. Can you jump over?”

  Ethan looked around and started to wedge his way through a group of four young men when they got mad and pushed him back.

  “Check yourself, man!” one of them yelled angrily.

  “I need to get to my sister. Let me through.” Ethan was determined.

  “Let me help you, boss man,” the man said threateningly. He grabbed Ethan by the shirt and pulled him forward, throwing him downward until his head struck the post of the steel barrier. Blood immediately gushed from his forehead and streamed down his face.

  The gang of four burst out in drunken laughter. “Look at this freak show, man. This ain’t a Megadeth concert. You’ve come to the wrong place, punk.”

  The men began to kick Ethan, who’d curled into a fetal position to avoid the onslaught.

  “Leave him alone!” shouted Skylar, which only drew more laughter and ridicule.

  “Oh, baby sister gotta take care of you?”

  “Or maybe that’s his girlfriend?”

  “She’s a little young for you, man!”

  The men kicked Ethan again until they abruptly stopped—when the lights went out.

  Chapter 38

  Six Flags Great Adventure

  Jackson, New Jersey

  Many of the riders on Kingda Ka at that moment were unaware that the power had been lost to Six Flags and the surrounding area, as they had their eyes clenched shut from fear. They didn’t realize anything was wrong until the forward momentum of the roller coaster cars designed to carry them up and over the curved top came to a sudden, bone-jarring stop before it entered the two-hundred-seventy-degree spiral to the bottom of the ride.

  That was when the sincerely terrified screams filled the air, not the ones that were adrenaline-driven just seconds before. The eighteen-passenger coaster was stuck, pointed straight down, forty-five stories in the sky.

  The sense of fear was as old as life on Earth. It was a fundamental, deeply wired reaction that evolved into a complex, existential anxiety in humans. There was a big difference between a high arousal state during a daring task, such as the rush of the passengers on Kingda Ka that New Year’s Eve, and primal terror as one realistically fears their death.

  The fear that overtook those eighteen passengers started in the brain and spread throughout their bodies in the blink of an eye. Their brains became hyperalert, and their breathing accelerated. Heart rates reached dangerous levels, and blood flow increased to the bodies’ muscles. All of these physiological effects occurred much faster than the brain was able to communicate the ramifications of what caused the fear.

  That fact had now hit the group of riders nearly simultaneously. Some continuously screamed at the top of their lungs while others broke down in fits of sobs and wails. Others went into shock, their bodies’ response to the fear preventing them from rationally comprehending their fate.

  Then there were two people who had lived through a traumatic experie
nce already, and whose bodies understood catastrophic events as a result. Further, they had seen death in their jobs and were fully aware of when their lives were at risk.

  Angela and Tyler, like the others, were frightened as the coaster came to a halt, but then their minds processed the situation, drawing from their past experiences. They were not falling, and they assumed safety measures were put into place that prevented them from detaching from the rails.

  The worst case, in Tyler’s mind, was that the coaster’s brakes would fail, and they’d go sailing downward until it ran out of steam or ran into other parked coaster cars at the ride’s station. Not good, but better than falling forty-five stories to their deaths.

  First, he comforted his wife. “Angela, don’t worry. We’re gonna be all right. They have safety measures in place.”

  She nodded and managed a smile. “Let’s help the kids.”

  Kaycee was already in the process of calming her brother down when both Tyler and Angela reached forward to touch their children’s shoulders. The heavy restraints kept them pressed against the back of their seats for safety reasons, but the ability to make contact with their kids helped both parents and children cope with the danger.

  “Kids,” began Tyler in the calmest voice he could muster under the circumstances, “listen to me. It’s going to be okay. We’re secure in our seats, and the coaster is just temporarily stuck. They’ll have the power back on soon.”

  Tyler had to raise his voice over the screaming passengers behind them and the people on the ground, too. The reality of the power outage was beginning to set in.

  Angela continued to comfort the kids while Tyler looked around Six Flags and beyond. The power was out as far as he could see. He then remembered his cell phone going blank. He looked down to the ground, where he could barely make out a crowd below them. At over four hundred feet above ground, they looked like ants, perhaps smaller.

  What immediately struck him was the lack of illuminated cell phones recording the event for YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. That was impossible, he thought to himself. Today, people recorded a dying man in the street before they thought to call 9-1-1 to get help.

  “Angela, can you reach your cell phone?” he asked, interrupting her conversation with their children. Between her soothing tone and Kaycee’s big-sister approach, J.C. had relaxed and was sitting calmly in their front-row seat.

  “Yeah, hold on,” she replied casually.

  “Um, no problem there,” Tyler quipped.

  Angela reached into her hip pocket and pulled out her iPhone. She pressed her thumb to the screen to unlock the display.

  Nothing.

  She tried it again, this time attempting to press buttons on the side of the device to elicit a response.

  It was still not turning on.

  “Here, but it’s not working. Tyler, it was fully charged when we left the truck, and I’ve barely used it except to FaceTime Brett.”

  Tyler tried to turn around and look to the coaster passengers behind him. Some had stopped screaming and turned their cries of despair to shouts of help. None, however, were using their cell phones to place calls.

  “Dad, why aren’t they helping us?” asked Kaycee.

  “There’s more to this, Peanut. Somehow, I think our ride isn’t the only problem. The power is out everywhere.”

  Angela leaned over to Tyler and whispered, “EMP?”

  “It has to be,” he replied. “The first thing I look at in a power outage is my phone. It’s not just ours. Plus, look around. Do you see any lights anywhere? I mean in the buildings, the cars, anything?”

  “No,” replied Angela despondently. “How the hell are we gonna get off this thing?”

  Tyler closed his eyes and answered the question honestly, “I really have no idea.”

  Chapter 39

  Six Flags Great Adventure

  Jackson, New Jersey

  “We have to get off here!” a man shouted from the back of the coaster. “This thing could fall off any minute!”

  “Yeah, nobody is coming to help us. I think they forgot we’re up here!” a younger man added to the panicked situation.

  “Why aren’t they helping us?” a woman wailed her question in response.

  Tyler hesitated to respond at first, and then he felt the coaster cars begin to wiggle as the panicked passengers became agitated. He needed to calm them down.

  “No, it won’t fall off!” he yelled. “Everyone, please listen to me. I’m a firefighter and I’ve been trained for these situations. The roller coaster is safe, and the cars are firmly attached to the rails. They are not going to fall off.”

  “I don’t believe you!” one of the men shouted back. “If it was safe, we would never have gotten stuck in the first place.”

  “I agree,” said the other man. “Plus, the power is down everywhere. It’s freezing cold up here. We can’t wait forever!”

  Tyler was growing frustrated because the other passengers were buying into their hysteria. “There’s nothing we can do but wait.” He paused and then asked sarcastically, “Do you see a ladder anywhere?”

  One of the know-it-all men quickly responded, “Yeah, over there in the middle of the rails. If we could make it to the platforms, then we could climb down.”

  “You ain’t Spiderman, mister,” said one of the teenage girls behind Tyler.

  “Well, I think I can make it. What about you, buddy?” the mouthy know-it-all said to the younger man who had agreed with him previously.

  “Um, I can wait for a little while, I think,” the young man responded after taking a look at the risky option.

  The group quietened down for a moment, bringing a sense of relief to Tyler. The coaster was no longer being jostled, giving the other passengers and his children an opportunity to calm down as well.

  Angela leaned in to him. “Do they make a ladder truck that will reach up here?”

  Tyler grimaced and shook his head. “The longest I’ve heard about exists in New York City, and they’re only ten stories. I saw a video of some passengers being rescued from a coaster in Japan once, but that was only ninety feet off the ground. We’re four times that, at least.”

  “Chopper?” asked Angela.

  “Most likely. Probably a Coast Guard rescue unit with a basket. They’re equipped to handle two people—the rescuer and the rescued.”

  They paused their conversation for a moment as the men in the back continued to discuss their bail-out options.

  “They’re idiots,” said Angela as they eavesdropped on the conversation. “They might be drunk too.”

  “It’s New Year’s, wouldn’t surprise me at all,” added Tyler.

  “Ty, why wouldn’t they have a means to release the emergency brake so we can just coast to the bottom?”

  “I thought about that. First, there are probably additional braking mechanisms at the end of the ride to bring us slowly into the ride’s station. They may not be working because of the power outage. If they’re not, the other cars would be in the way. We’d come around the last bend and crash into them at Lord knows how fast. Fifty, sixty miles per hour? We’d be killed.”

  Angela nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. “Maybe they’re in the process of moving the cars off the track. But there is still the matter of releasing the emergency brake. If it’s electronic, it won’t respond. If it’s manual, somebody’s got to climb up here to do it. These rails are built like ladders, but that’s a heckuva climb. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Me either,” agreed Tyler. “My guess is that the Coast Guard will be brought in at some point. Keep in mind, we’re not the only people stranded on a ride in this park. And, depending on how widespread this outage is, they may have bigger problems.”

  “Agreed,” said Angela. “What do you think we’re looking at?”

  “Several hours, maybe more,” replied Tyler.

  The words were barely out of his mouth when one of the teen girls behind him started yelling. “Hey, everybody! The fi
reman said it may take hours until they rescue us. We have to wait on a helicopter from the Navy or something.”

  “That’s not what I said!” shouted Tyler. “We need to remain—”

  “Well, that’s all I need to hear,” said one of the men at the rear of the coaster. “I’m not sitting up here all night. We’re gonna use these pipes to make our way over to those platforms. It’s like shimmying down a pole. No problem, right, mister firefighter? You guys do that in the firehall all the time.”

  “No!” shouted Tyler. “It’s not like that at all. Just wait. We can sit here as long as it takes, right?”

  The coaster started rocking back and forth, causing several of the passengers to scream. The man didn’t respond to Tyler but instead began pushing against the U-shaped safety bar, which held his torso against the seat.

  “Push, honey!” he shouted to his female companion.

  Tyler couldn’t turn to see what they were doing because of the restraints and the high-back seat.

  “Stop it!” he shouted, to no avail. The man kept pushing the bar forward. As it snapped back, he’d push even harder, and eventually, it gave way, as did all four safety restraints in his car.

  A bone-chilling scream filled the air as the two passengers in the car with the man panicked in terror. They were dropped forward toward the car in front of them until they crashed into the back of the seats.

  “Hey, sorry about that,” the man began to apologize. “I didn’t know …” His voice trailed off as the two college-age kids yelled for help. They were holding onto the restraints of the other car in an effort to avoid falling over the top of the inverted coaster.

  “Jim! You have to help them get back in the car!” a woman hollered at the man.

  “I can’t reach them without crawling around the side,” he immediately responded.

  “Then I’ll do it!” she yelled back at him.