Monstrum

by Ann Christopher

  That’s it.

  I exchange glances with An and Maggie, both of whom have dropped jaws, and turn to Gray. His grim expression reflects my fear as he sinks back into his seat and buckles up again. A boy’s voice calls out from somewhere in the back of the plane.

  “What kind of announcement was that? Why didn’t they tell us anything?”

  Looking around, I see nodding heads and hear a rumble of agreement. Before this dissent can develop into anything bigger, though, the voice of Coach Murphy, who we just call Murphy and who’s in charge of my fencing team, rises over the crowd.

  “Why don’t you pipe down for once in your life, Axel Hendersen?” Murphy’s Irish accent sounds, on a good day, as though he’s got laryngitis: deep and raspy. Today it sounds like he’s been snacking on razor blades, but I’m still glad to hear it because he’s my favorite teacher and he doesn’t take BS from anyone. If the occasion calls for cracking heads together, Murphy’s your man. “Give the captain half a second to check his displays and whatnot, why don’t you? Calm yourself.”

  “It’s kind of hard to be calm when strange crap starts happening right when we’re flying over the Bermuda Triangle, Murphy,” replies Axel.

  A long, heavy silence follows this mention of the Bermuda Triangle. Apparently Axel wasn’t the only one thinking about our location, even if the rest of us weren’t ready to say it aloud. I want to laugh and call Axel a superstitious idiot, but fears are collecting in the back of my mind, swirling and settling into a nameless terror. Planes and boats have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

  Or were those only urban legends?

  Right now, looking out at the black sky, the legends don’t seem so ridiculous after all.

  “Shut your superstitious trap and sit quietly before I decide to give you detention for the rest of the semester, Axel Hendersen,” Murphy snaps.

  Axel shuts up.

  The flight attendants, a male and a female, materialize from somewhere in the rear of the smallish jet and hurry up the aisle. Our American history teacher, Mr. Stroh, is grim-faced and hot on their heels, and I remember that he’s also an EMT. I wish I was. Sitting, waiting and feeling useless aren’t things I’m particularly good at, and I worked as a lifeguard at my pool last summer, which means I’m certified in CPR.

  “What’s going on?” I ask quickly as they pass, with no real hope for an answer.

  “Nothing to worry about,” says the female without breaking stride or looking my way, and then they all disappear through the curtain divider that leads to the cockpit beyond.

  “Well, then,” I mutter. “I feel better already.”

  Gray snorts and thumps my arm with his fist. “Just wait,” he murmurs. “Don’t get yourself worked up. I know how you are.”

  Which is his diplomatic way of saying he’s seen me in the midst of one of my panic attacks (during winter finals, if you must know), and doesn’t want a repeat.

  I nod, take a steadying breath and try to follow his advice.

  “Forget the weather,” says a whiny new voice. It’s Esperanza Torres. A slice of her pretty face appears between the seat backs directly in front of us. “What about the food service?”

  “Wow,” I say. “Clueless much?”

  A bit of Macy Sparks’s face—also pretty—appears next to Espi’s. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I know, right?” Espi says. “The sky’s dark. Big deal. The plane’s still flying along just fine.” She shrugs, like that’s the end of it.

  “Yeah, but why?” I ask. “Aren’t you worried that the pilot may be sick? And what about the weather? Is it some ocean tornado coming or—”

  “Who knows?” Espi flaps a manicured hand at me. “You all chew on that. I’ll chew on these chips.”

  With that, she rattles a couple small bags of potato chips in my direction before passing one to Macy.

  Now is so not the time for these two clowns. “You do that, Esp. And when you’re done with those, drink your little juice box. I’m sure your mommy packed one for you.” I jab my thumb over my shoulder toward the back of the plane, where Espi’s mother is sitting. “The rest of us will talk about more important things, like whether there’s been a nuclear strike.”

  Espi and Macy frown at me and disappear into their seats again.

  We settle into an expectant silence for a few seconds. There’s still no sign of the flight attendants, and the sky is scarier than ever.

  The darkness outside feels like it’s seeping into the cabin, closing in on us. This hint of claustrophobia gives my anxiety just the kick-start it needs, and I obsess over all the bad things that could happen if, say, we’re caught in some horrific storm—I don’t care what Sammy says.

  Lightning could hit the plane, causing an electrical fire that engulfs us all in this glorified tuna can.

  Or the lightning could cause a spiraling crash.

  Or a midair explosion.

  These nightmare scenarios fill me up until I can’t control it. My breath becomes shallow. My pulse thrums erratically. My heart pumps out beats, but all I feel are the beats it skips. Opening my mouth, I try to get a little more air without actually panting—

  An gives me a nudge. “You okay?”

  No. I’m absolutely not okay.

  “Yep.” Stubborn pride forces me to lie and smile reassuringly. “Fine.”

  An gives me a suspicious once-over but turns back to the window and stares at the relentless black.

  Trying to manage my fear, I reach for the necklace I never take off and the stone that lies right between my collarbones. Closing my eyes, I rub the oval aquamarine between my thumb and forefinger and focus on my lungs’ rise and fall. The ritual always helps relieve the tightness in my chest so I can breathe easier.

  Thank God I have my necklace. Mona, my adoptive mother, gave it to me a year ago, the week before she died. I was sixteen. Her death made me a triple orphan, because at that point, I’d already lost my birth mother at age three (car accident) and my grandmother at five (complications from diabetes). My father (asshole), who was never involved in my life, was happy to sign off on Mona’s fostering and then adopting me when I was seven.

  Mona and I had nine awesome years together. And then cancer came for her, probably because people who love me and take care of me have big targets on their backs.

  Cancer is a royal bitch.

  Mona did a couple amazing things for me before she died. For one, she helped me with the paperwork to become emancipated so I could stay in our condo and finish high school without having to move ... God knows where. I don’t even know. Probably back into foster care.

  The other amazing thing is this necklace. She put it on me and said her spirit would always be with me. I smooth the gem, wanting to believe that, but I sure could use the actual Mona right now. She’d say something reassuring, and I’d pretend to believe her.

  “Hey, Sammy,” Gray is saying, and I tune back in to the world around me. “How many people are flying this thing, anyway?”

  “Two,” Sammy replies. “Pilot and copilot.”

  I frown. That doesn’t seem like a lot of people to keep this big metal bird up in the air. Or enough people to save our butts if something goes wrong.

  “Hang on,” I chime in, thinking vaguely of news coverage of a plane crash I saw not that long ago. “I thought there was a whole bunch of people in the cockpit. At least four.”

  “On a small jet like this?” Sammy asks tightly. “Two, tops.”

  Just then, the flight attendants reappear at the top of the aisle.

  A chorus of questions rises to greet them:

  “Is the pilot sick?”

  “Is this a terrorist attack?”

  “Are we still over the water?”

  “Will the flight be diverted?”

  The woman leads as they start their determined march to the back of the plane. She raises her hands for silence but does not, I notice, look anyone in the eye as she speaks. “There’s going to be another annou
ncement,” she says, her voice calm but loud enough to be heard over the murmuring. “Right now we’re doing a cabin sweep, just as a precaution, to make sure everyone is buckled and all the carry-ons are secure.”

  Everyone murmurs uneasily as they put their stuff away. Soon she’s level with me in the aisle, checking Gray’s side of the plane first, opening and then slamming his overhead bin, and then the one above me.

  She does all of this without looking any of us in the face, and that, suddenly, is too much for my frazzled nerves to take. Without giving myself time to think, I grab her forearm.

  Her muscles are strung tight, so it’s like I’ve grabbed one of the marble statues at an art museum. Caught, she has no choice but to look at me and see what I want. Her eyes are a vivid hazel, and her cheeks are flushed.

  Her name tag says Emily. Staring at her face, I get a sudden jolt of what she’s feeling: stark fear, ruthlessly repressed. I’d had a generic question on the tip of my tongue—is the pilot okay? or, this happens all the time, doesn’t it?—but now there’s only one thing I want to know:

  “How bad is it?” I breathe. “Are we all about to die?”

  Emily wants to lie; I can see it in the way she blinks and looks away, pressing her lips together while she considers her words. In the end, she leans down to whisper in my ear.

  “What’s your name?” she asks.

  I hesitate, thrown by the vibrating urgency in her voice. “Bria.”

  Emily pulls her arm away from my grip and squeezes both of my hands in hers. There’s a paragraph of silent communication in that squeeze: that we’re both scared; that we’re in this together, whatever it is; that she trusts me to do what needs to be done.

  She draws back just enough to stare straight in my face, and her steady hazel eyes take up my entire field of vision. “Bria. We’re doing everything we can to keep you safe, but I need you to stay calm and help your friends stay calm. Can you do that for me? It’s important.”

  I find myself sitting up straighter and nodding, which is pretty funny, because it’s not like I’m going around with a red cape and a big red S on my chest or anything.

  “Let’s go, Emily,” says the male flight attendant behind her. His name tag reads, Gordon. There’s no mistaking his impatience, especially when he puts a hand at the small of her back to scoot her along. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

  Emily winks at me, and I release her hands even though I don’t want to. When she moves on, I feel like the last person on earth. And then I have one supremely unhelpful thought. The joke’s on Emily, isn’t it? Too bad she doesn’t know she’s recruiting help from a kid with an anxiety disorder and weekly panic attacks.

  “What was that?” Maggie demands. “What’d she say?”

  “Nothing.” I shrug and work on looking irritated. I don’t like to lie, but what else can I do? Announce that we all need to stay calm because something really bad is happening? “She totally blew me off.”

  Maggie buys it, but Gray eyes me from across the aisle. He’s got one brow raised, which tells me he knows I’m lying, even though he couldn’t have heard what Emily whispered to me. But I shake my head and, luckily, he doesn’t pursue it.

  “Come on.” An is furiously thumbing her cell phone. “Come on.”

  “You know there’s no service,” I gently tell her.

  “I know. But I could really use my mom’s voice right now.” She lowers the phone and swipes at the tears in her eyes.

  I think of Mona’s singsong and the way she answered the phone every single time I called. Is that you, baby? she’d ask, with so much excitement ringing through her voice you’d think she was receiving a call from Jesus himself.

  “I know how you feel,” I quietly tell An, but there’s no time for a walk down woe-is-me lane.

  While the others kids grumble and the flight attendants continue their cabin sweep, I focus on the plane and try to recall the safety video that I ignored earlier in favor of flipping through my magazine for the latest developments in neurosurgery. Yeah. That was time well spent.

  My nearest exits are just one row away, in front of Macy and Espi. There are two, one on each side of the plane, and I can see the huge handles, which seem self-explanatory. I think there are inflatable steps or a slide or some such when you open the door. The aisle has track lighting that leads right to the exits. My seat cushion is a flotation device. That’s about all I can remember. Let’s hope it’s enough. The overhead speakers chime again.

  Everyone excitedly hushes each other, and we listen in dead silence.

  “Passengers, this is First Officer Rizzio again. Everything is just fine, but Captain Cummings is feeling poorly, and the weather outside has taken a turn, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. So I’ve radioed ahead to Miami, and we’re going to make an unscheduled landing there. Meanwhile, I need you folks to—hey!”

  His voice rises to a shrill shout that makes all of us jump.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Oh, my God,” An whimpers. She grabs my forearm and digs into it with her sharp little nails. “What’s happening in the cockpit?”

  “Stop!” yells Rizzio, and in the background I can hear another man’s agitated voice, but I don’t know if it’s Mr. Stroh or the pilot. “Put that down!” Rizzio yells. “Put that—”

  Shocked and helpless, we listen to the clear and unmistakable whoosh as something heavy is swung through the air, and a sickening thunk as it makes contact with what I can only assume is Rizzio’s flesh.

  And then we hear a wail that’s high-pitched, raw and animalistic. It sounds more like a dog being kicked than a noise a human being is capable of making.

  Several people cry out, and a girl in the back screams and begins to sob.

  “What should we do?” someone shouts. “What’s happening?”

  “Mami!” Espi appears over the back of her seat, her face tear-slicked and twisted as she scans the back of the plane. “Mami!”

  “I’m here, baby,” her mom answers. “Sit quiet for me, okay? Calm down.”

  Snuffling and wiping her cheeks, Espi nods and collapses back in her seat.

  We sit, frozen with horror, as the wailing coming from the speakers finally trails off into one whimpered word:

  “Why?” It’s Rizzio’s voice, followed by the wet rasp of his labored breathing. Another voice—Mr. Stroh’s?—is murmuring in the background, but his words are garbled and distant, and I wonder if he’s been attacked, too. “Why?”

  I’m gasping and trembling, and my fumbling hands need a couple of tries to undo my seat belt, but I’m determined to do something. I use the back of Espi’s seat to heave myself to a standing position, and it’s anyone’s guess whether I mean to run, screaming, to the bathroom and barricade myself inside, or try to help those poor men in the cockpit.

  An grips my arm even tighter. “No!” she says. “It’s not safe!”

  I have no plan and no weapon, but all I can think about is those poor men being attacked in the cockpit while we all sit around and listen.

  “We—we have to help,” I say. My voice is wobbly and weak.

  Apparently I’m not the only one who’s had this thought. Gray is already halfway in the aisle ahead of me, and Carter accidentally bumps me as he hurries to follow him.

  Before any of us can get anywhere, though, the flight attendants come charging up the aisle and nearly mow us down.

  “You three,” shouts Gordon, his expression ferocious as he shoves us out of the aisle. I stagger and land on my butt, back in my seat; so does Gray, which blocks Carter from getting anywhere. “Sit down and buckle up,” Gordon continues. “We’ll handle this.”

  Axel’s father runs up the aisle to the flight attendants. Tall, red-faced and burly, he’s just the kind of guy you’d need in a situation like this. “I’m coming,” he says.

  “Dad,” calls Axel from the back. “Dad!”

  Mr. Hendersen pauses long enough to point at his son, who looks like he wants to fol
low him. “You sit your butt down, boy,” he barks. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be right back.”

  With that, the three adults run through the galley and toward the cockpit just as a cheery new voice with a southern accent comes over the speakers.

  “Good afternoon, folks. Captain Cummings, here.” In the background, moaning sounds are clearly audible, but the captain ignores them and speaks louder. “Welcome aboard, and thanks for flying with us today. Flight time is an hour and forty minutes, so we’ll get you to Atlanta right quick. The temperature there is a hot and sticky ninety-two.”

  “Oh, my God,” I say. I can’t breathe. Terror has collapsed my throat to the size of a coffee stirrer, and I strain for air, openmouthed, like a fish on a line. An’s fingernails are still biting my arm, and across the aisle, Gray is rigid and pale.

  Sammy stares at me over his shoulder, white-faced. “He’s insane.”

  I can only nod. Then I hear rattling and pounding, and realize, in a tiny, still-functioning corner of my brain, that the flight attendants and Mr. Hendersen are trying to break into the cockpit.

  “It’s locked,” Gordon yells. “We need one of the food trolleys! Hurry!”

  The three of them rush into the galley. They’re out of my line of sight, but I assume they’re looking for weapons and something to use as a battering ram.

  Meanwhile, fear and paralysis keep the rest of us silent. By this point, I’ve all but forgotten about the weather, but I glance desperately out our window, hoping . . . I don’t know what I’m hoping for. To see city lights beneath us? The lights from several Air Force jets scrambling to intercept us and get us to a safe landing?

  But there’s nothing other than that black void in every direction.

  “We’re next in line for takeoff, so we’ll be on our way in the next couple of minutes, and we’ll have a light snack once we reach our cruising altitude,” Captain Cummings continues over the speakers. He’s still speaking in the upbeat but slightly bored tone that pilots always use, as though this is his third routine flight of the day and he’s ready to get home for a shower and a beer. “We’ll start the drink service in just a few minutes. I’ll let you know when you can get up and move around the cabin.”