Departure. A. Riddle G.
Those people are already dead. We can’t help them, but we can save the others.
Through the lingering pain of the crash and the numbing cold of the lake, I feel my nerves rising. I can do this. I have to. I try to remember Nick’s speech, to focus on the key phrases, running through them in my mind, pumping myself up.
If we don’t go get those people, they will never see or talk to their loved ones again.
No one else is coming for them. It’s us, here and now, or they die.
The floor below us is sinking faster, leveling off, but it still slopes a little, a ramp straight back into the darkness.
At our feet, bodies lie two and three deep in the aisles. Women, children, and a few men, most of them slim. Maybe half have life vests on. Not good. There must be thirty people here. My eyes have adapted to the darkness, and I can make out more of the plane now. There’s one row of business, all seats empty, then a dividing wall, and two sections of economy with three blocks of seats—two on each side, five in the middle. I scan the rows that face us. My God. People everywhere. Over a hundred. There’s no way. How long do we have? A minute? Two? Once the water starts pouring into the lower half of the fuselage, it will fill fast, reaching a tipping point past which the water will pull it to the bottom. We can’t save them all. Maybe—
Nick’s voice once again cuts off my panic before it can build. His face is expressionless—no sign of concern, no hint of panic. He sounds like a dad on a holiday camping trip, calm, to the point. He quickly assigns responsibilities to Bill and the seven other people helping inside the plane. Two men will stay at the end of each aisle, passing people with life vests out to the lines in the water. The other four conscious survivors will gather and place life vests on people before they go out.
“Under no circumstances are you to leave this plane. We need your help.” Nick points to the unconscious people in the aisles. “They need you. They’ll die without you. Got it?”
Nods all around. “Go. Work quickly.”
Mike takes off ahead of me, bounding over bodies, stepping on them, crushing them. I take a tentative step and lose my footing, catching myself on the nearest seat.
“Go, Harper! You can’t worry about stepping on them,” Nick shouts, and with that I’m running, every step a cringing mental effort. Finally my feet hit the carpeted aisle, and I race forward. Mike’s got the three seats on the interior, I have the window seats. He’s passing me, a body thrown over his shoulder, before I even reach my first aisle.
Water on my feet. I’m splashing forward, and I swear the water’s colder here. I had thought the angle would be different, the pool of water would only be at the back, but it’s like wading into a zero entry pool; with each step the icy water creeps up my legs another few inches. Where to start? I’m in water up to my waist now. Only the heads of the passengers rise above water here. Can they still be alive? Nick’s words echo in my head again: anyone underwater has already drowned. But their heads are above water. I push forward, to the last row where the water is still just below their chins.
I reach first for a teenager, his eyes puffy, black and blue, his face swollen and caked with dark blood. I extend my shaking hand, recoiling when I touch cold, hard flesh. I stand there for a moment, shock overtaking me, my breath flowing out in white streams.
“They’re dead, Harper!” Mike yells as he wades up the incline past me, another body over his shoulder. “The water’s too cold. Move up three rows.”
At the plane’s opening, the light seems dazzling now. Nick is yelling and pointing. Bodies go over the edge one by one, splashing. It’s working. I have to focus. They’re counting on me.
Focus.
Warmth. Warmth equals life. I press my hand to the nearest passenger’s throat quickly. Cold.
Then the next aisle. I can’t skip them. I won’t.
Four rows up, where the water’s just below my knees, my fingers wrap around a throat that’s warm, far warmer than the others. I press, feeling a faint pulse, and take a second to look at a white-faced boy wearing a Manchester United shirt. I shake his shoulders, yell at him, and finally force myself to slap him. Nothing. I unbuckle him, pull his arm to me, and lift him out. The incline and added weight is murder on my already racked frame, but I press forward, fighting for every step. Finally I reach the queue and lower him to a woman and an older man. They slip a yellow life vest around his neck and pull the cord, inflating it.
I saved that kid’s life. He’s going to live.
That’s one.
The people are going out fast now, one every few seconds. Nick looks back at me and nods. I turn and rush back down the aisle, stopping only to duck into an empty seat as Mike passes.
When I step back into the aisle, I feel something new: running water, pulling at my sneakers and splashing on my ankles. The passenger deck has dropped to the lake’s surface. How long do we have?
I race to the next aisle, but they’re dead. The cold flesh, the necks, go by in a flash now. I move rhythmically, automatically, reaching, touching, moving on. A few seconds later I pull the handle on the seat belt of an Indian girl wearing a Disney World T-shirt. Next, a blond boy in a black sweater, whose hand I have to peel from the hand of a woman beside him, perhaps his mother. I carry three more kids out, my arms and legs burning with every step. I’m spent. I worry I can’t go on much longer.
I push that aside. There’s no other option. I have to.
Mike grabs my forearm. “That’s all the kids. Adults now. You spot them, I’ll carry them. Okay?”
One, two, three people go up the aisle over Mike’s shoulder.
Every time I glance at the back of the plane, the faces jutting just above the water line are different—a new row of passengers being swallowed by the surging pool. We’re sinking, fast.
Mike wades toward me. “It’s going under. Unbuckle anybody alive and put a life vest on them. It’s their only shot.”
I rush from row to row, feeling, reaching, unbuckling. I have to go under to reach the life vests beneath the seats, and the water at the first seat is more of a shock than it was when I waded in the first time. At the fourth seat, I feel the plane under me shudder and roll. The sound of ripping metal vibrates through the cabin, and frigid water rushes over me. The wings. Something’s happening. Focus. I stretch, trying to unbuckle someone’s seat belt, but I can’t reach it. I duck under, and yes, I’ve got it. When I push up, my head doesn’t break the surface.
Panic. I reach up, around, desperately trying to feel for the surface, but it’s not there.
Through the dark water, I see a faint light: the opening. I work my arms and kick, trying to swim up to the light, but my foot catches on something. I’m stuck. I reach back, grabbing, but my fingers are lifeless, useless, as though I had slept on them. I try to yank my foot free, but it won’t come. I turn back to the opening, waving my numb arms, hoping someone will see me. A body with a yellow life vest drifts past me, blotting me out. I watch it float up toward the dim light of the opening, which grows smaller and fainter by the second.
HERE AT THE END, WHEN IT’S ALMOST OVER, I begin to understand what might have happened to this section of the plane. After it broke away from the nose, it spun 180 degrees as it hurtled toward the ground. The treetops around the lake slowed it down before it hit the water. It crashed tail first, and that probably saved a lot of lives: the impact threw people back into their seats instead of forward