Departure. A. Riddle G.
fuselage, heavy as concrete, is finally pulling the center down. She’ll be on the bottom in seconds.
“Everybody out! Now!” I yell.
The last of the survivors who helped us pass the bodies out climb up the aisle and into the waiting line that stretches to the bank, where bodies lie in uneven rows. All the way to the fire, it’s a blur of yellow inflatables around bloodied, swollen faces, some bobbing in the water, others standing waist-deep, all working with their last ounce of strength. The horde hardly looks human, but they’ve been saints tonight.
The guy in the green Celtics T-shirt—Mike, I think he’s called—brushes past me, shivering, his head down. I grab his arm, searching the chaos around us. “Where’s Harper?”
Mike coughs and glances behind him. “I thought she already bailed.” He nods. “Yeah. I think so.”
“All right. I’ll make sure. Go.” I give him a push, and he walks to the edge of the plane and paddles into the frigid water.
I peer back into the abyss, but all I see are bodies, inflated yellow life vests around their necks, floating up toward me. I turn, walk back up the aisle, and scan the faces all the way to the fire, but I don’t see a slender woman with blond hair, no life vest. She’s not there. She didn’t get out.
Something bursts below me—a life vest, I presume. The spray of water hits my face like a bucket of ice water. I shake my head and focus, staring into the dark aisle. Another body floats past, and then I glimpse a figure, slim arms reaching above a seat. Then they’re gone, swallowed by the blackness.
My body reacts before I can even process what I’ve seen. I dive into the black water and swim through the flooded aisle, my hands gripping the backs of the seats that face me, pushing deeper, past bodies and floating objects I can’t make out.
It’s her. I can just discern her bruised face. Relief and fear war inside me. I reach for her outstretched hand, but the fingers don’t close on mine. She feels lifeless, and that stops me cold. I float there for a moment, panic overtaking me for the first time since Flight 305 crashed.
Then her arms move slightly, as if waving for help. She’s alive. Quickly, I move my grip to her forearms and pull, but she doesn’t budge. I close the few feet between us, wrap my arms around her in a bear hug, plant my feet on the seat, and push off. Nothing. It’s like she’s tied down, trapped. My chest is pounding now, either from lack of oxygen or from fear.
I drop lower, grip her just above her waist, and thrust out with my legs, giving it everything I’ve got, and we’re free, floating in the aisle, but she’s not moving. My chest feels like it’s going to explode, but I keep an arm around her and kick at the seats, propelling us up. She feels unnatural, like a rag doll in my arms. The sensation is sickening, but I keep going, the sparkle of the moonlight through the water brightening slowly as my limbs grow numb and panic consumes me. We break the surface, and I gasp for air. For a moment I lose her. I grab her before she can go under again, then kick with my last ounce of strength, but I can’t keep us above water. I’m spent. I try to suck in a breath, but I mostly get ice-cold water.
Voices around me, but I can’t make them out. I hold on to Harper, kick toward the shore. My legs don’t work. I’m limp in the water, something tugging at me. Water flows into my mouth, and I spit it up, choking. I shut my mouth and eyes and try to hang on.
I open my eyes again and see only yellow rubber, a life vest mashing into my face. I blink. Above me hangs a sliver of moon, stars brighter than I’ve ever seen them before. And then I’m on the shore, dragged by hands under my armpits. My head falls to the side, and I cough up water until I’m dry-heaving. I feel a blanket enfolding me, hands pushing, turning me toward the fire. The heat assaults me, scorching at first, the contrast to the cold nearly unbearable. Waves of heat wash over me, soaking through my skin to my shivering bones, each blast more bearable than the last. It’s as if I’m coated in layers of warm mud; it burns, but I can’t bring myself to turn away.
Seconds pass, or it could be hours; I’ve lost all sense of time. Hands grip me and lay me on my back, and I hear footsteps racing away, returning to the lake for someone else.
I roll over onto my side and search the camp. Harper is beyond the fire, on her back, Sabrina crouched over her, working feverishly on her still body. Sabrina’s eyes meet mine. I’ve seen that look before, when the doctor told us about the dead in first class. My head falls back to the ground. The stars fill my eyes again, and then they fade away.
IT’S EARLY MORNING WHEN I WAKE. I’M STILL by the fire, which has receded to half the size it was the night before. Bodies wrapped in blankets surround the fire in concentric rings, deflated yellow life vests scattered among them, as if it rained flattened rubber duckies last night.
I feel like I spent the last eight hours bouncing around a giant electric mixing bowl. There’s no one point of pain, just radiating waves of ache. I take a breath but stop short, trying not to cough. The crisp air hurts, too. It all hurts.
After I’d warmed up by the fire last night, I moved farther out, leaving the warmest space for those who needed it most. We should have built two fires; it’s far too cold out here, even for me.
Footsteps crunch toward me across the gravel bank, purposeful, quick strides, and then Sabrina is looming over me, scanning me with her intense eyes. “How do you feel?” Her accent is thicker this morning, her words more clipped. Or maybe that’s just her Doctor Voice.
I let my head fall back to the ground. “Fantastic,” I say, and cough.
“That’s unlikely. I need you to accurately report your symptoms. You might have internal injuries that I couldn’t identify last night.”
“Good news, Doc: all my internal injuries are psychological.” I sit up, surveying the camp. “Where’s Harper?”
“This way.”
I can’t help holding my breath as Sabrina leads me across the camp to the circle closest to the fire. Harper’s lying there on her side, her small body curled toward the fire, wrapped in two fuzzy blue blankets, her matted golden hair spilling over the top. She’s not moving.
“She’s alive,” Sabrina says finally. “But I don’t know much more. She wasn’t breathing when she was brought ashore. I revived her, but she was delirious. She may have permanent brain damage, or … As I said last night, any strenuous exercise was dangerous.”
“What do you think we should have done—nothing? Watched? Paddled out and told them we’d love to help but we can’t, doctor’s orders?”
“No. That is not what I meant to say. I only wanted to point out that her precarious physical state before the excess exertion and oxygen deprivation may have exacerbated any preexisting injuries, making a precise diagnosis more difficult.”
“Right. Well, since you put it that way …” I take a deep breath and rub my temples, trying to soothe my pounding head. Sabrina probably saved dozens of lives last night, and from the looks of it, she hasn’t slept herself. “Look, I feel like hell, and I’m sort of second-guessing the decisions I made last night.”
“The fault is likely mine. I’m well outside my comfort zone here.”
“Right. You could … work on the bedside manner a bit.”
“I don’t visit bedsides.”
“I gathered that. What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”
She turns and steps away from the fire. “I think you should get something to eat and rest.”
“Sandwich and a nap. Sounds