I yelled, “It’s them!”
I could hear a few in the group asking why the plane was able to fly. Even though it was a 1964 model, it looked brand new, due to its show quality and the paint job that Mia had given it.
Mia circled the plane around and flew the road heading west. We were out on the road, and she waved her wings when she flew over us again. I knew she was also checking out the road to see if she could land on it. When she flew over the third time, I waved her off as I knew the wingspan of the plane was too wide to land on the road safely because to the east of our house power line poles lined the road. Landing to the west of our house would’ve been the safest bet, but she would’ve had to land going up an incline.
About that time, Tag came running out of MO’s bus. I yelled, “Tag, grab your keys!” He immediately did, and I was in the jeep waiting for him, sitting in the driver’s seat. He didn’t question it; he just tossed me the keys as he jumped in. I yelled at Wit to jump in but as he did, so did Kim and Red.
I drove like a madman to the entrance to our pasture that’s in front of our neighbor, Jake’s house. I spotted him in his yard, probably trying to figure out what the plane was doing.
I tore across the field going south. I was going fast enough; I heard Kim beg me to slow down. I just yelled, “Hang on!” What I was trying to do was check the field for ruts or ditches that rain may have caused. The area I was on was smooth enough, but there just wasn’t a big enough space for her to land due to the tall trees over Jake’s house. Also, there is a small hill midway down the field.
I raced down to our long field that was planted in soybeans. It was long enough, and the field ran east and west, but I knew there were parts of it that had some rain ruts in it.
Mia obviously had an idea of what I was doing as she flew over the field and started circling it.
After making sure that Angela was watching Lulu, Mo ran out to the field that we were driving in. I drove up to Mo and told him we’re looking for the smoothest area. He started running across the field and to the west side, checking the ground. I at the same time was checking the southern part of the field as I thought that would be the smoothest.
When I turned the jeep around, I could see Mo waving his arm. He had found the smoothest area on the west side that was running east and west. I lined up with him and drove towards him. It was as smooth as it could be for a soybean field.
I drove back to the east side and had Tag jump out to try to show Mia the beginning of her landing area. I told him to start waving his arms when he saw Mo do it. I then drove to Mo and told him to start waving his arms. Tag started doing the same. I knew Mia was a good pilot and she would know to land from the east to the west as the wind was out of the west, southwest. I then drove about 50 yards to the north of the intended landing area, got out of the jeep and started using an arm motion to show Mia where to land.
Now, if she only gets the message. After one more circle, she figured it out and flew to the east. The biggest negative was a small hill that pretty much ran the length of the east side, plus that hillside was wooded. She’d have to set up for a short field landing, come over the trees and set it down. I just prayed that her flight instructor taught her a lot about short field landings.
My flight instructor was an ex-crop duster. He put me through the paces on forced landings. I don’t know how many times I’d be flying along and he’d cut my engine and say, “What are you going to do?” There were several times he would allow me to almost touch the ground in some open field before he would accelerate the engine.
I just hoped Mia’s instructor did the same.
As Mia was approaching, I said, “Come on girl, give it full flaps.”
As she came over the trees, I saw she had the right speed and full flaps. Right after she cleared the trees, I heard her cut her engine. The Cessna floated to the ground.
When she touched down, I could see it was a rough landing, but the plane and Mia seemed to be handling it. It slowed down quickly due to the soybeans. About 200 feet from Mo, she came to a stop. By the time she did, we had already driven up to her.
Right when she shut off her engine, Carmen jumped out of the plane and came running to me jumping into my arms. I could see that she had been crying out of fear. As soon as she hugged me, she started crying again. I started reassuring her that she made it and everything was alright. In between the sobbing, she was saying how she thought they were going to crash. Again, I reassured her that she was safe.
Just about this time, Tag came running up out of breath. All he saw was this super, hot blonde, wearing shorts and with very tanned legs crawling all over me. Just about that time Carmen gave me a big kiss and grabbed me again with a bear hug. She grabbed me so hard that our bodies turned a bit. When we did, I was facing Mo, Red, Wit, and Tag, all with their mouths open and with a look of amazement. I just smiled and waved them off.
Kim had already run to the pilot’s side and was hugging Mia when I spotted them. I started walking Carmen over to Mia. When Carmen saw Kim, she ran over to her and gave her a big hug.
I walked up to Mia and gave her a huge hug saying, “Hell of a job, girl. I’m proud of you.” You could tell Mia was also scared, as anybody would be.
She grabbed me and hugged me back, “Oh thank you, Vince, for what you guys did. I’m so glad you’re a pilot and knew exactly what I needed. There was a plane that had crashed at the Harrisonville airport blocking the entire center of the runway. So, I decided to chance it out here. I thought maybe the road was wide enough, but then when I flew over and noticed the power lines on one end and the hill on the other, I wasn’t sure how to handle it. You made it a lot easier.” She then gave me one more hug, looked me in the eyes and said, “I mean it, Thank you!
While hugging her back, I said “You’re a good pilot Mia. You took care of business, and you did it well.”
She looked over at the plane, “I hope I didn’t mess up my landing gear.”
“They’re still upright. You did well. Anyway, we have a couple of mechanics that can check the plane out, and as soon as we get it up to the house, we’ll come up with some tie downs.”
Still, the guys were standing there with their mouths open. Mo realized what they were doing, and he burst out laughing with that famous Mo laugh of his.
Just about that time, Wit exclaimed, “Oh my god, you’re Donna from the show “Together.” I love you.”
Immediately, Mo added, “You’re right! I loved that show.” That broke the silence from all the guys, and everyone started laughing.
Just about that time, Brandy climbed out of the back seat and jumped over to Mia and gave her a big hug, saying, “Mia, I’ll never question your ability as a pilot,” then she dropped to all fours and kissed the ground.
We gave her a hug, and Kim said, “We don’t want to leave you out of all the hugging.”
Wit looked at Brandy as though he was looking at his dream girl and immediately walked up to her, “Hi, I’m Greg Witmer. They call me Wit.”
She smiled and introduced herself, then laughed saying, “I’ll give you a hug too. I’m on the ground now, so I’m ready to hug everybody.”
Finally, I advised, “Mia, your plane will be fine here for the time being. We’ll come back for it shortly. Let’s get you guys up to the house.” She agreed, even though you could still tell she was a little worried about it.
We grabbed what little they brought with them and Mia made the comment, “We couldn’t bring much due to our weight and balance.”
Carmen commented, “I’m glad we left a lot of clothes here.”
When Red heard this, he got a funny look on his face and started whispering to Wit. Since the girl’s backs were turned towards us, I reached over and shoved Red. He knew that I was telling him to shut up in a fun way.
He then whispered to me, “We have to talk.”
When we got to the house, Angela and Lulu were waiting outside. It took a couple of minutes, but Angela recognized Mia as
well. Lulu had never got to watch the show, so she didn’t know who she was.
“Why don’t you girls go on in and we’ll get the stuff out of the Jeep.”
I could see the guys were going to hang around to drill me with questions. And questions I got. How did we know Mia? I told them a quick story about meeting her in Vegas and how long we’ve known her.
The biggest grilling came when they wanted to know about Carmen and me. I told them that she was Mia’s best friend and when she started coming out with Mia, we became close friends. Well, that wasn’t good enough.
“You guys are more than friends. She was all over you,” Red said.
“We’re just affectionate that way. Like a very close family is and they’re part of our family.”
“Bullshit! Maybe a family that’s into incest.” Red said while laughing.
Mo even asked, “Come on Vince, are you telling us that you have never done that.”
I looked him in the eyes, “I’ve never done that. I’d never hurt Kim that way.”
Tag asked, “But you want to, don’t you?”
“Come on guys; I’m telling you the truth. We’re just close.”
Wit jumped in, “Ah Ha! You didn’t say you didn’t want to.”
“Ok, in a different reality, YES! I’d be all over that. I’m not blind,” hoping that would satisfy them.
Mo asked laughing, “You know you could have her, don’t you? I mean, just watching her, you can tell that she wants you.”
“No, she was just scared and happy they made it on the ground,” I said, knowing they weren’t going to buy that one.
They all burst out laughing, and Wit said, “Man you’re so full of shit,…. and Kim is ok with it?”
At that point, I just shook my head as though I was in disbelief and I groaned.
Then Wit wanted to know all about Carmen’s sister, Brandy. That question at least got them off Carmen. I looked at Wit, “Wit, she’s 32, a registered nurse and divorced.” Wit lit up like a Christmas tree.
Mo jumped in, “There you go Wit, she’s in your field of expertise too,” as he broke out with his classic laugh.
“Well, wait a minute Wit. She may not like an old man like Carmen apparently does,” Red commented.
Wit got a depressed look on his face, and I just responded, “Oh my God” and I turned around to walk to the house.
The comments kept coming plus I heard Wit say, “I still can’t believe you know Donna, or I guess I should say, Mia.”
As we walked to the back door, I finally stopped, “You know, it sounds like you guys are a bit envious,” and I started walking again with a huge smile on my face.
I could hear Tag say, “Hell yes, we’re envious.”
I stopped one last time and looked at all of them, “You guys haven’t realized it yet, have you?” They all looked puzzled for a moment.
“Unless someone does something stupid and tries to leave right away, you guys will be living with Mia Baroni, and Wit, you’ll be living with Brandy. Or at least on the same property.”
They all paused for a minute like they were thinking about it and they started making comments like, “We’re living with Mia Baroni!”
As we walked into the living room where the girls were, Mike came strolling out of the bedroom still half asleep due to the total exhaustion he had to be feeling. We all went silent as he walked to the kitchen barely acknowledging all of us and giving us a simple grunt of, “Hello,”
He grabbed a Dr. Pepper and then strolled back through. We all burst out laughing, realizing that he missed the entire event. He ignored us, not caring about what we were laughing about and walked to the bathroom.
We continued laughing about it when we heard Mike yell out, “Dad, do you know there’s an airplane sitting in the back field?”
At that point, everyone almost fell out of their chairs laughing so hard.
Chapter Sixteen
Vinita, Oklahoma
Paul had volunteered to work at the dispensary at the prison. It wasn’t the most glamorous job as it consisted of mopping floors and cleaning up vomit, urine, and every other body fluid you could imagine. But he worked the evening shift, which meant he didn’t have to worry about some of the mundane procedures that most of the other prisoners had to put up with.
Being a minimum security prison, the layout of the prison wasn’t anything like the previous prisons he had been in. In those, all the buildings that the prisoners had access to were inside of the fence, which was 12 feet high chain link fence that was electrified in places and topped with razor wire. The area across the fence was called “Dead Man’s Land.” If any prisoner was out in that area, they would be shot.
At this prison, you did have the fence topped with razor wire, but it wasn’t electrified. Outside the wire was where the track, the ball field, the canteen building, the maintenance shed, the administration buildings and the dispensary were located. During the day, prisoners were allowed to go outside the wire under guard supervision or at night if they had an assigned job.
Paul happened to be mopping the floor of the reception area where a television was on. He wasn’t paying any attention to it until he heard the Emergency Alert System tone and then suddenly the lights went out.
Procedures were that if there was ever a problem of any type, the prisoners were to stay in place until the guards escorted them to their cell.
If there was any delay or if there was a man missing, the S.O.R.T. team or Special Operation Response Team would take charge. They were equipped with full riot gear, M-4 rifles and orders to use whatever force they felt was necessary to secure the prison.
Paul, following procedures, stayed in place. He noticed that none of the emergency lights came on. Due to a tornado, they had a power outage once before but when it happened, the emergency lights instantly came on, and within 30 seconds the generators took over. The prison barely skipped a beat.
Paul stood waiting for the generator. Nothing happened. He could hear the staff running around, guards giving orders, and quickly a couple of flashlights came on.
Paul dropped the mop and sat down in one of the chairs as he knew, to a panicked guard using a flashlight; he may just interpret him as someone standing in a threatening manner with a stick or even a club.
“This is weird. Why aren’t the emergency lights coming on? Why the hell did the Emergency Alert Tone come over the TV right before the lights went out?”
A bright light hit him in the eyes, forcing him to turn his head.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked one of the guards.
“Staying in place.”
“Well, stand up. Come with ……….”
A loud woman’s scream came echoing down the hallway.
The guard yelled, “Damn it!” He grabbed Paul by the arm, pulled out his cuffs and cuffed him to the chair. “Stay here!” The guard then ran towards the scream.
Suddenly, a high shrieking sound was approaching from outside. Then a deafening explosion, followed by an intense flash and then the next thing Paul knew was he was flying through the air along with the chair. He hit something and then went black.
When he woke up, he was hit with intense heat and flames surrounded him.
“Where am I? What the hell is going on?” The reality of his situation slowly came to him.
The entire entrance wall was missing, and fire spread from outside into the building. He was covered with debris and had cuts from broken glass. He tried moving, but the chair that he was handcuffed to was sticking partially into one of the inner walls.
He had to fight to become completely conscious. When he finally became alert, he yanked on the chair ripping it from the wall. The heat seemed to be intensifying. He knew he had to get out of the building.
As he got up, he could see the guard’s body lying face down at the entrance of the hallway. He worked his way over to the guard who had been beheaded. The sight of the headless corpse caused him to almost vomit. Fighting the urge, he r
eached down to the guard’s keychain that was hooked to his belt. He grabbed the keys, finding the handcuff key and took the cuffs off his arm. He rolled the guard over and unhooked his leather utility belt which carried the guard’s firearm, flashlight, and radio. None of the internal guards carried firearms but this guard covered the outer perimeter, and all outer perimeter guards were armed.
As he looked down the hallway, he saw no movement and several bodies that were on fire.
He ran out of the building. When he got outside of the burning building, he saw a burning airplane engine which was obviously off a commercial airliner. He could also see burning parts of a large aircraft spread throughout the field.
As he ran through the debris, he noticed bodies still in the seats of the aircraft.
“Oh my God! Should I look for survivors?” The heat was so intense though that he knew he had to get out of the area.
As he finally made his way out of the burning scene, he looked back, and several of the buildings were in full flames, including the cell area. It looked as though one of the engines of the aircraft landed on top of the housing area. He knew he was lucky to be alive. Obviously, an airliner had crashed right on the prison site. If he hadn't been working, he would be dead or worse.
As he looked into the sky, it just seemed different. The stars seemed so much brighter. He realized that the glow that you’d normally see from city areas wasn’t there.
“There had to be a massive power failure!” He looked out to the nearby highway, and no cars were visible.
“What the hell is going on?”
He made his way to a hillside about 200 yards away which overlooked the prison but finally, he had to sit. Everything that had just happened started closing in on him. As the adrenaline started leaving his system, he almost collapsed. He laid there looking at the sky and then raising up and looking at the burning prison. He felt guilty for surviving and not staying to see if he could help anyone.
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