The Penance of Leather (Book 1): Ain't No Grave

by S. A. Softley

  “Oh God, oh God,” he murmured clutching his temples as he rocked back and forth. The seats groaned under his weight. That about did it for me. I decided I had to do something. I hoped that maybe there was a doctor on board. I reached up with my own unsteady hand and jabbed at the call button. The light turned on with a ding.

  “Need some help over here,” I called down the aisle, as though the button alone might not be enough.

  The other flight attendant on the plane came quickly down the narrow aisle from the forward section of the plane. She was young, in her mid-twenties maybe, with a slight build, not much more than five feet tall and a hundred pounds or so. Alone, she wouldn’t be much help if it came to moving the big guy.

  “Yes sir?” she asked kindly, official and proper through and through.

  “This man is sick,” I said, “he needs help.” She looked at him and flushed. And then she blanched. I looked back at him and could see why. His face had turned an angry shade of violet, his jaw was clenched and frothy white foam was bubbling between his exposed teeth. Still his hands gripped his skull in an effort to hold it together. His breathing remained ragged and heavy with an almost animal edge to it.

  “Sir, can you hear me? Can you tell me what’s wrong?” the flight attendant asked him, leaning over me. I took a deep breath and held it as though in preparation for a descent into deep waters. I could not breathe as she hovered over me on the aisle side and the suffering man consumed what little space and air I was allotted from the other side.

  “Ma’am, perhaps I could move…” I rasped, my lungs aching with the effort to speak while holding in as much air as possible; air which I felt was being positively devoured by the huge man and the diminutive flight attendant.

  “Please just stay where you are for the moment, sir, I’m sorry for the trouble” she said, half polite and entirely dismissive.

  “What’s the problem Anna?” asked the middle-aged flight attendant, returning with his cart in tow upon noticing the look of concern on the face of his co-worker. I felt entombed with the aluminum drink cart blocking the only aisle of escape and two flight attendants leaning over me, using up my thin air supply which puffed from the solitary nozzle dedicated to that purpose. The large man encroached ever further upon my territory with his unknown and mysterious affliction.

  “This man is ill,” she said in a hissing whisper, a subtle note of panic in her voice and he, as she had, paled. The faces of nearby passengers swirled around me as they turned in their seats casting furtive glances toward the commotion and I was at last overcome by the instinctual need to breathe. Reluctantly but forcefully, as one who is about to take the deathly gulp of water that is the last drink of a drowned man, I swallowed a mouthful of the heavy, crowd-polluted air that surrounded me. I was forced to gasp again as I looked into the face of the sick man. Capillaries had burst and dark blood appeared to have congealed within his eyes, staining the white sclera a dark crimson. The foam around his mouth had changed as well, becoming pink with flecks of increasingly violent red. A string of glistening scarlet spittle hung from his oversized chin. The male flight attendant hissed inward harshly, using up more of the air I had mentally apportioned for myself and rushed to the back of the plane.

  Sickeningly calm, his voice came from the intercom: “Hi folks, no need for alarm, but we have a small medical emergency on board. If there is a doctor or medical professional on board, could you please make yourself known to the flight crew, thanks and enjoy the rest of your flight.”

  Right before my eyes I watched the life drain out of the big man. A solitary ruby tear trickled down his cheek as his eyelids drooped. As though reluctant to permanently give up the sense of sight, his eyes remained only half veiled, an unseeing crescent still glistening like a red moon beneath his thin blonde eyelashes. His tortured breathing ceased and the foam in his mouth stilled. I sat and stared at the lifeless, disease ravaged body, forgetting for a moment my great discomfort and fear.

  “Sir?! Sir?!” the female flight attendant shouted, reaching over me to prod and shake the constituent flesh that had once been a man. Her voice shrilled with the fear that comes with being in the presence of a human body that no longer breathes. It’s different now, of course; now that there are so many dead, but in those days it had been rare to encounter a dead body. Many went their whole lives without seeing one. The experience reminded a person of their own mortality, a truth that the modern west had done their best to fight against and forget.

  They locked the old and senile away in hospitals, those dying of disease met the same fate. Every cause of death that could be eradicated had been and the mortality that struck everyone eventually was sterilized and hidden behind locked doors, white rooms and closed caskets.

  For my work, I’d needed wilderness first aid training and medical training… first responder type stuff. Through the fog of my panic attack, some of the training came back to me.

  “Sir, I’m trained in first aid and CPR, “ I said mechanically and in vain to the lifeless man beside me. My voice quavered slightly. “Would you allow me to assist you?” It was a phrase that had been drilled into me by the CPR instructor; a phrase meant to absolve the responder of guilt or wrongdoing. I shook him to provoke a response, but his head rolled away. I held his wrist in my own trembling hand but could not tell if the erratic surging I felt was caused by his heartbeat or by my own blood surging through my fingertips. I shook my head.

  “LOCPRESS,” I muttered to myself, the acronyms that I’d been taught coming back. “Level of consciousness, pulse, respiration, eyes, skin color, skin temp... SAMPLE. Signs, symptoms, allergies, medical history…” I couldn’t recall the rest at the moment. It didn’t seem to matter. The man was sick and had stopped breathing. It wasn’t as though I could ask for a medical history. Thinking was costing me precious seconds. Seconds that could save the man’s life.

  “Grab me the first aid kit, will ya?” I said to the woman flight attendant. While she hurried off, I turned my cheek to his mouth, feeling and listening for breath. I pressed my ear against his barrel chest. He was firmer than I’d thought, not so flabby after all. There was lean, hard muscle under that shirt. I realized that he would weigh even more than I’d quickly guessed by looking him over. It would be tough to move him. I listened carefully but couldn’t hear a heartbeat.

  I clenched my two fists together and tried with all my strength to press violently against his chest, the already overtaxed seat back rocked under the assault. It wasn’t working. He sprayed bloody foam against the headrest in front of him, but no life came to him. Thirty seconds passed with no response, then ninety.

  The flight attendant returned with the first aid kit. Somehow, despite the trembling and the panic of claustrophobia, which had begun to manifest itself as a disconcerting feeling of spinning vertigo, and a red haze that set in from the periphery of my vision, I managed to open the kit and tear up an alcohol wipe package, hastily mopping up the pink foam from his lips and nose.

  “Don’t you guys have an AED or something?” I growled in alarm. The flight attendant stared at me blankly. “An automated external defibrillator?” I explained, “They restart your heart. Is it even legal to fly without one these days?” She shrugged, her eyes wide like a startled deer. She was clearly traumatized. I wasn’t sure she was even hearing me. I turned away taking a deep breath. It’s not the woman’s fault, I reminded myself. If the airline skimps on everything as much as it does on cabin space and cabin furnishings, they’ve probably decided to save the hundred bucks or so on an AED hoping this situation would never arise. Hell, they probably scaled down the poor woman’s training as well. Wonder if they ever prepped her for an emergency like this.

  I took out the clear rubber mouthpiece and placed it tightly around his chin and nose. I wasn’t sure what the first aid operating procedure was on an aircraft but the man had been unconscious for at least a couple minutes by my count and likely hadn’t been breathing the whole time so I wasn’t about
to waste time moving the big guy into the proper position. I silently thanked the airline for at least keeping a proper kit; a kit that included the mouthpiece and a squeeze bottle to pump air through. There had been an Ebola scare a few years back and the last thing I wanted to do was give this guy mouth to mouth while he was bleeding and foaming all over. I tilted his head back to help the flow of air and began to squeeze the pump to fill his lungs.

  Two breaths. Three breaths. I could see his chest rise as I squeezed. I took away the mouthpiece and pounded his chest more, sending spittle, now more deeply red in colour, spraying out onto his lips and chin.

  I lost track in those moments of how long I went on, alternating between checking for a pulse, compressing his chest and squeezing into the mouthpiece, but at last I stopped and wiped sweat from my brow. There was just no way. It had been too long.

  Aside from the bright red splotches of haemorrhaged blood, his face and neck had become grey and waxy. His lips and eyelids had taken on a deep shade of blue. I cursed to myself for failing to check the time when I’d begun CPR, but I felt confident that I’d been at it for long minutes; probably more than half an hour. I distantly recalled that there was legally a minimum length of time that a responder had to continue before giving up once they had begun to administer CPR. I could not remember what that time limit was. Time limit or not, There was no use in carrying on. I was mentally and physically exhausted and the man was dead. Not a flicker of life remained within him. I was sure that no one could fault me for stopping. I’d tried. I really had.

  “Let me get to him,” said the flight attendant frantically. I blocked her with my arm.

  “It’s too late. He’s gone. There’s nothing you can do,” I said, trying to console her with my eyes.

  A woman seated in the row in front of me peered at us through the crack between the seats. Her eye widened and then she let out a whimper and turned back around.

  “He’s dead!” she whispered to the man in the seat beside her. The whispers were spreading throughout the plane.

  The flight attendant stood in shock, the dark mascara around her eyes beginning to smudge and smear. Sweat and tears cut dark streams from her hairline down her face, washing away powdery makeup like rainwater trickling through a desert. She stared at the dead man as though transfixed, as though silently willing him back to life using some divine art that was secret to all but her.

  “Ma’am,” I said after a time, as calmly as I could, “I wonder if I might change seats now.” The flight attendant jumped as though noticing me there for the first time, her horrified gaze broken.

  “Yes of course, sir,” she said, admirably returning to her previous professionalism. “I’m very sorry about all this, this is very… unusual.”

  “Not your fault, ma’am,” I replied, trying once more to smile, but there was nothing to smile about.

  “Would you be alright waiting just a few more moments while I open up a seat for you somewhere? It’s a full flight,” she added, apologetically. “It won’t be long now; the pilot is making an emergency landing at the nearest air field.”

  “That suits me fine. Thank you.” She walked back down the aisle, whispering quietly with the other flight attendant and then busied herself with finding a new spot for me. One of the passengers asked to know what was going on.

  “Please just be patient sir, we’ve had an emergency and we’re sorting it out,” replied the male attendant. The pilot came on the intercom.

  “Hello folks,” he said calmly in the pilot voice that must be issued to everyone who graduates flight school, “I’m afraid we will be putting down unexpectedly due to a medical emergency on board. Please offer your full cooperation to the flight crew at this time. We will be landing at Lac d’Hiver Regional Airport in approximately eighteen minutes. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The plane rocked slightly for a moment as the pilot changed course and began to descend. I unclipped my seatbelt and reached down for my bag, which was stored beneath the seat in front of me.

  The rest only comes in flashes; images; feelings. I remember a piercing scream, though it may have been my own. I remember feeling sharp knives rip into the flesh of my left arm, cutting deep into muscle. I remember the searing heat that spread slowly up and down my arm, as though travelling through my blood from the wound.

  I remember that same heat fading gradually until my veins felt ice cold. I remember feeling as though my nerves were dying off cell by cell until I was left with a chill numbness like frostbite without pain. Like when you sleep for too long on your arm and in the morning your arm acts as though it no longer belongs to you. Only there was no tingling to signal that soon the limb would reawaken, no painful return of blood flow to restore feeling and use.

  I remember many vague faces around me, though I can recall none of their features. They were shadowed; as though behind a veil or mist of scarlet. Faceless, nameless people. After that, everything went dark. I had no memory, not so much as an image, from the time between.

  Two

  I awoke from an empty, dreamless sleep. It felt like an electric shock, a terrible bolt that sparked me awake. I gasped, feeling as though I’d been trapped underwater, without air for long minutes. As though my oxygen deprived brain had slowly shut down and then, as my lungs began to inflate again, had snapped alert once more.

  For an unknown length of time, I existed in complete blackness and consciousness offered no respite from the dark. I waited to see if objects would begin to emerge, if some clue would show itself and reveal where I was and what had happened. I could not tell if I had gone blind or if there was simply no light to be seen. For a moment I fought down the panic rising inside of me. My gut told me that my worst fear had been realized: that I’d been buried alive, in a tiny coffin, deep under the cold ground. Some sixth sense told me that tight, unyielding walls closed quickly around me.

  Cautiously, I raised a trembling arm to feel around. Not a foot above my body, my arm encountered flat, solid resistance. Animal fear began to well up within me. I knocked. The wall above me was built from solid but somewhat yielding metal, perhaps aluminum. Both arms shot out, searching for an opening, but there was none to be found. I was inside a bare metal box, about human sized, with only a few inches on any side of me for extra space. I could not feel any hinge or seam. Not even the tiniest space to slide a fingernail between, not even a perforation to allow air to flow inside.

  A rasping scream emerged from my throat, animal and reflexive. I began to pound the sides of the box but didn’t have space to get any strength into my blows. The aluminum resounded and echoed metallically. It bent a little outward, but each time returned unharmed to its original state like a vibrating drum. I screamed myself hoarse, which wasn’t hard as my throat and mouth were dry and my lips cracked.

  Terror threatened to overcome me and relieve me of my senses, but I could feel some lurking darkness behind the fear that had never been there before. It was as though a terrible presence waited patiently; ready to take control of my body at the moment my rational thought retreated from the assault of my phobia.

  “I ain’t gonna panic…” I told myself aloud and forced myself back to a state of calm. I suppressed my raw screams. After a moment of quiet, I realized that something was not the same. I’d had this nightmare more times than I cared to count and yet this time something was missing. Something that made it real. Something important. It ate at me; forced its way into my conscious thought. I stilled my body, listening to the silence for a moment. I held my breath, waiting, though I didn’t know what I waited for. I held my breath a long time. Too long, it seemed, and the counting wasn’t helping as it usually did. The breath wasn’t calming me. Perhaps the box was playing tricks on my mind, I thought. My mind was racing and time felt slow. I forced myself to gasp, to take a deep breath.

  It was this, I realized, that had been missing from my claustrophobic attack. The desperate hyperventilation that comes from feeling as though one’s air supply i
s cut off. I realized while holding my breath that another sensation was missing.

  Usually during my panic attacks, all sound is drowned out by the loud roar of blood coursing through my ears. Usually, every beat of my heart can be felt pulsing through my body. There were times, particularly as a child, when I’d had serious concerns that my heart might just burst during these moments of fear. I can recall many times when the pain and pressure in my chest grew to an almost unbearable level. Twice I was hospitalized when my mother could not calm me and she feared I was having a heart attack or some other cardiovascular incident. My heart was not pounding this time. My body remained calm even while my mind did not. This was good. My body was keeping me from losing it entirely. I returned my focus to finding a way out of the tin coffin.

  I don’t know how long it took me or how many times I had to take a moment to prevent myself from losing control of my fears, but at last, and with much bodily contortion, I found my way out.

  It was a long while before it occurred to me that the exit might be at my feet rather than at my head or along the flat panel above me. There was not enough space in the box to flip myself in any direction and no light by which to see when I did try to lift my head and look down along my body. I felt along the wall with my bare toes and found seams that seemed to give a little when I pressed at them. At last I kicked with my left heel and felt a small gap flex with my right toes. There was a door there, I was sure of it. It seemed to be latched from the outside.

  I manoeuvred awkwardly into a position that allowed me to get three good, solid kicks at the door and the latch burst. I slid myself toward the opening, my hands sticking against the metal and found, to my surprise, that one small push sent me sliding out of the box. The smoothness of the motion startled me. I was on some sort of shelf with rollers, like a human sized cutlery drawer. The drawer opened into a larger shadowy room filled with vague shapes and forms. My eyes, having come from total darkness, needed no adjusting to make out some aspects of the room. The only light, an eerie dim red, shone murkily through frosted glass beside the silhouette of a closed door.