Passengers
Copyright (c) 2011 by Summer Ericson
Smashwords Edition
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Visit the author at http://www.summerericson.com
Other Books by Summer Ericson
Hearts on the Run (Romantic Thriller)
Death was a fairly attractive woman in 12-B, an aisle seat on the flight from New York to London in the late spring of 1998. She had brown hair, brown eyes, high cheekbones, and wore a pair of black framed glasses that she used when reading a tattered romance novel. She smiled warmly at the flight attendants when they spoke to her and politely helped an older gentleman lift a heavy bag into the overhead compartment when he was too frail to do it himself. Of all the people on the plane, only Richard recognized her for whom she really was, and that was because he had seen her before.
He was walking down the aisle, heading toward the restroom, when he spotted her. The seat next to her was unoccupied, so he sat down beside her. She looked up at him as he stepped over her, smiling. He wanted to know what she was doing on this plane.
For a long moment, he said nothing, he did not even look at her, and she seemed uninterested in him as well. The passengers had grown quiet, the dull roar of the airplane engine drone lulling them into a stupor. Somewhere behind him, a small child was whimpering.
“I know who you are,” He finally said.
“I was wondering if you would remember me,” she replied, not looking up from her book.
A flight attendant wandered by and Richard ordered a scotch. The woman beside him asked for bottled water. Richard sipped his drink, trying to steady his nerves.
“So, who is it this time?” He asked.
“Who is what?”
“Who’s going to die?”
“No one that I know of,” she answered. “You feeling bad or something?”
He could not help but notice that she was half smiling. “I don’t think you would be here if someone wasn’t about to die.”
“I do have other interests, you know.” She said and returned to reading her book.
It had been almost ten years since the first time he had saw her. It was in a hospital emergency room on a snowy day in the middle of the coldest winter he could remember. The snow had piled up over a foot, and the ambulance that had come to fetch him from his office was slow in arriving. He had lain on the floor for a long time, concerned co-workers swarming around him, confused and panicking, not knowing how to handle a man with a heart attack. His chest felt like a vice was trying to hold it shut, and every time he drew a breath, he had been certain it would be his last. Every time, he told himself “Just one more and I can give up.” Then he would take another, and then another.
When the paramedics arrived and loaded him into the ambulance, he tried to thank them but he could not speak. They nodded to him and spoke to each other in hurried voices, but it sounded as if they were underwater. He remembers them putting a mask on his face, and that seemed to make the vice on his chest loosen a bit. There was a girl in the ambulance, no more than 6 or 7 years old. She was bleeding all over her nice dress, and her wailing nearly split his ears. The paramedics ignored her, as if they could not even see her. He remembered falling asleep at that point, and when he woke up, they were taking him out of the ambulance. The little girl was nowhere to be seen.
They had rolled him into the emergency room, and he could vaguely remember a lot of people standing around him as they worked to preserve his struggling heart. He remembered a lot of noises and voices, beeps and crying and shouting all around him. He had rolled in and out of consciousness, and every time he woke up, he was in a different room, with different faces hovering over him, some smiling, some grim.
Finally, he woke up in a room that was quiet and dark. No loud noises only a steady hum. A needle was in his arm, but it did not hurt. He was warm, and there was a soft pillow under his head. The only light in the room came from the open door that led into the hospital hallway. The movement of a shadow on the wall had caused him to turn his head, and that was where he had seen her standing in the doorway. Their eyes met, she had very pretty eyes, and her hair was shorter than it was now. She smiled at him, and he felt okay for the first time. He knew that she was not there for him then, but she had been close by just in case. She started to walk away, then stopped and turned around. A young girl leapt into her arms and Death pulled her close and hugged her tight. It was the girl from the ambulance, but her dress was clean again, and her hair was in a pink ribbon that was coming loose and would soon fall out. Death turned and smiled at him again, and then she walked away, the little girl still in her arms. Richard remembered crying at that point, before falling asleep again. When he woke up he did not remember the little girl or Death in the hospital until he saw her once more on the plane.
“What happened to the girl?” Richard asked.
“She’s fine. She’s with her mother now.” Death said.
He took another long sip of scotch. “Would you tell me? I mean, if you were here for me? Would you let me know?”
She looked at him, “Would it change anything?”
“Maybe, maybe I could change something, or stop it from happening somehow.”
“You’ve always had that ability,” She said. “But you know that it has to happen sooner or later.”
“Yes, but why now, why do I have to die now?” He demanded, growing louder because of the scotch. A man in a business suit sitting across the aisle stirred in his sleep.
“No one said that you were going to die.”
“Oh come on! You didn’t just get on this plane to take a vacation! You’re here to kill someone,” he said, trying to keep his voice low, but not succeeding very well.
She seemed to grow angry at this statement. “I do not kill anyone.” She replied. “I am just there to show them the way after they die. I don’t know how you are going to die, or when you are going to die. I’m not God, I’m just a guide.”
Her eyes had grown hard, and she was clutching her book tightly. Richard wondered if the author would be proud to know that Death read her book.
The plane suddenly began to shake. A few of the other passengers stirred in their seats, and the man sleeping across the aisle sat up and wiped sleep from his eyes, looking around nervously. The shuddering lasted for a long moment, then subsided. The man across the aisle grunted and pulled a blanket over his head and went back to sleep.
“Oh my God, that’s why you’re here!” Richard exclaimed.
She looked at him, puzzled. “What?”
“The planes going to crash,” he said. “That’s why you’re here, that explains it perfectly. Why else would Death suddenly decide to take a trip to London!”
She leaned in close to him. “Listen, Richard. I don’t know if this plane is going to crash or not,” she said in a whisper, then looked around to see if anyone heard her before continuing. “I don’t know why I am on this plane. I just go where I am sent, I don’t even know how I got here, let alone why. Maybe someone is going to die, maybe not. I’m not like you. I just can’t get up one morning and decide to go here or do that. I move from place to place wherever I am needed. No one ever asks me if I want to go or not, I am just there. No one ever gives me the choice of saying no. If something happens, I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault.”
She sat back stiffly in her chair and returned to reading her book. Her interest in the conversation seemed to be over.
Richard stared at her for a long moment, clenching and unclenching his jaw. The flight attendant brought him another scotch with a worried look in her eye. He took the drink from her and belted it back without a word and handed back the empty glass. She hurried off before he could ask her for another one.
His head was spinning from the alcohol. Her words had touched him in a way he had not expected. She seemed to be trying to get some form of sympathy from him. He tried, really tried, to see past what she stood for, what her presence meant, but he could not do it. Too many people in his life had been taken away. His father dead when he was only 3, leaving nothing but a bunch of sketchy images in Richard’s mind that may or not be real memories. His mother lingering long and hard on a rickety bed in a cold New York apartment, too weak to get up and call the landlord and let him know that the heat in her room had stopped working. The woman from the church who had discovered her body had tried to give Richard the details, but he refused to hear them. He had not forgiven himself for her death. A simple phone call and he would have known she was in trouble, and he could have saved her. But he hadn’t called.
The plane hit another pocket of turbulence and shook from side to side for a moment. Death did not even stir. Her eyes remained focussed on the book that she carried. Around them, a few passengers were startled awake by the shaking, and were worriedly looking out the windows, or whispering to each other in concerned voices.
His heart was racing and he could feel the pulse in his forehead. In the back of the plane, the young child began moaning and crying, scared by the bump that the plane had taken. Richard could hear the fear in the little child’s voice, and the comforting whispers of his mother. Richard wondered if someone was back there to comfort the mother as well.
Richard moved over to the window and looked outside. It was dark, and he could not see a thing. No lights were on the ocean below, no moon in the sky to illuminate the clouds. He was about to move away from the window when he saw a streak of lightning flash off to the south. Another and then another soon joined it. The plane rocked violently and a man in the front of the plane cried out, and the child in the back began wailing.
Richard looked at the Lady Death, but she was still frozen in her seat, not paying a bit of attention to what was going on around her, or not caring. He wanted to rage at her, shout at her, but he knew it would do no good.
He sat back down long enough to lean over to her and whisper “I can’t let you do this.”
She looked up at him, straight into his eyes. He saw something there he did not want to see. It was pain. For a moment, his heart stirred for her, then the baby wailed again. He shook his head at her and stepped over her into the aisle and began to head toward the cockpit.
The plane continued to shake, and the “Fasten Seat Belts” light was blinking off and on. As he passed through the coach section, he could see the fear that many of the passengers were carrying. A young couple clutched together in a tight embrace. An old woman was holding her rosary beads and saying soft prayers. A businessman was taking his fear out on the flight attendant, demanding that she tell him if there was a problem or not.
He would not let these people die. He would go to the cockpit and beg the captain to turn the plane around. If worse came to worse he would threaten the captain, maybe if there was a security risk on the plane, they would turn around just so they could hand him over to the police.
“Getting arrested is better than dying.” He told himself.
Richard was just about to enter the first class compartment when he heard a shriek from the back of the plane.
“Someone help me! My son’s not breathing!”
He spun about and saw a young woman holding a bundle of blankets, looking around frantically, and shouting for help. A rush of passengers went to her, and a man in a dark suit elbowed his way through them.
“I’m a doctor, let me through!” He shouted.
Richard looked for Death and saw her standing next to the mother in the aisle, resting her hand on the mother’s shoulder and watching as the doctor examined the child. Was she here just for the child? The look of sympathy on her face made him angry. The poor mother was about to lose her child, not knowing that Death herself was standing right next to her, pretending to care.
He quickly went to the back of the plane, but there was a crowd of passengers that was blocking him from getting through. He stood on his toes and peered over the heads in front of him. The doctor had his fingers in the baby’s mouth while the mother just shivered and tears rolled down her face. Richard noticed that death was holding the baby’s bare foot, stroking it with one finger as she watched the doctor work.
The plane shuddered again and there was a quick flash of light outside the windows. The lightning seemed to be getting closer. The plane tilted slightly, the pilot seemed to be taking the plane higher to go over the weather.
“We were going to London to see my parents,” the woman holding the baby sobbed. “He’s never seen his grandparents.”
The doctor leaned over and began to blow into the baby’s mouth and nose. The mom closed her eyes, her mouth moving as she said a silent prayer. Richard glared at Death, wanting to push through the other passengers and make her stop touching the child.
Their eyes met. Richard could see nothing but sadness. He shook his head at her, willing her to not take the baby. She just stared back at him, her hand never leaving the baby’s foot, never stopping her tender stroke.
The doctor stood up and suddenly the baby began wailing again. The mother collapsed in her seat, clutching the shrieking child, laughing and crying at the same time. The other passengers on the plane clapped and patted the doctor on the back and thanked him for saving the baby. Richard watched as Death leaned over and kissed both the mom and the baby on the forehead. The doctor sat down beside the mother, offering to ride with them the rest of the way.
Richard waited in the aisle for Death to return to her seat. When she approached, he took her by the arm.
“Thank you,” He said.
“For what?”
“For not killing the baby.”
She rolled her eyes. “I already told you I don’t kill anyone.”
“I know what you said.”
She started to move away from him, heading back toward her seat.
“Shouldn’t you be going now?” He asked.
She turned and looked him. “Why?”
“Well, I mean the baby lived, so you’re not needed here anymore.”
“That’s not for me to decide.”
He frowned. “Well, if you weren’t here for the baby, then who are you here for?”
“I think you should sit down.” She said.
“Why won’t you answer my question?”
“Well, I warned you.” She replied and suddenly the plane rocked to the side, throwing Richard over top of the passengers seated in the row near him. People screamed and the air masks dropped from the ceiling. The lights flickered off and on madly as the plane began tilting again, this time downwards. Richard felt all the weight leaving his body for a moment, and thought that he was already dead.
As the plane slowly leveled, Richard fought to untangle himself from the arms and legs of the passengers he had landed on top of. The plane continued to shake and the flight attendants were yelling for everyone to find their seats and wait for an announcement from the captain. The baby in the back of the plane was shrieking louder than ever.
“At least he’s still alive.” Richard thought.
He found his way back to his seat, his leg throbbing from having hit the arm of a seat too hard. His heart was racing a mile a minute and there was a familiar tightness in his chest. Lady Death was in her seat as well. He stepped over her and flopped down. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing, get his heart to slow down before something bad happened.
“Bumpy ride.” Death said.
“Yeah.”
There was a popping sound and the captain’s voice came over the cabin speakers.
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We’re sorry for the rough ride. To avoid any further trouble we are going to make an emergency landing in Greenland to inspect the plane and assess the weather before proceeding on to London. We should be landing in about an hour. The weather is still rough outside, so please remain in your seats with your belts fastened.”
Richard’s breathing slowed. He took in air through his nose and blew it slowly out his mouth. His heart calmed down as well, and the tightness in his chest began to fade. As long as his left arm didn’t start hurting, he thought he would be okay.
“Have you been taking your heart medicine?” Death asked him.
“Yes,” he replied.
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Well, most of the time.” He said.
“Too many people die of heart attacks. It can easily be prevented.” She said.
“Okay, okay. As soon as we get to London I’ll get the prescription refilled.” He said. He was watching her to see if her manner would indicate that he wasn’t in fact ever going to get to London.
However, all she said was “Thank you.” She settled back in her chair, but she did not read her book. Her eyes were fixed on the front of the plane. He tried to follow her gaze, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
The minutes passed by very slowly. Every passenger, even the baby, had grown silent. The captain’s words had scared them, and they were afraid that even a slight movement might cause a terrible tragedy. The lightning still flashed outside, and occasionally the plane would tremble, causing the hanging air masks to swing lazily back and forth.
“Do you remember my mother?” He asked.
“Yes.” Lady Death replied.
Richard didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure why he had asked the question.
“She didn’t blame you.” Death said.
Richard bowed his head. “Is she…happy now?”
“Very happy.”
Richard looked at her. She was pretty, but was this her true form? Dying was such an ugly thing, could it really be bundled up into a package that wears glasses and reads dime store romance novels? She seemed to honestly be concerned about the living, but she also acted as if death were nothing, nothing to be afraid of. He realized that maybe she was right.
“So it’s not that bad?” He asked.
“Not really. It’s much harder for those who are left behind. They don’t know how to adjust to a life where someone is gone, gone for good. Not just around the corner, but gone and never coming back. Death only scares you I think because you’re scared you will never see people you love again.”
“Well, will I see her again? My mother?” He asked.
“That’s up to you.”
The engines changed tone, they were slowing down. Richard realized that they must be getting ready to land.
“Ladies and gentleman,” It was the pilot again. “We are getting ready to land, the wind on the ground is pretty strong so please remain in your seats.”
The flight attendants hurriedly moved up and down the aisles, making sure that there were no loose bags on the floor and that all the seats and tray tables were up. Richard watched them with some interest. They were doing something that they had all done a hundred times before, but this time there was a definite sense of urgency, or fear, in their movements and their eyes. They were scared of dying. Richard didn’t know if he was scared anymore or not.
“Time for me to go,” Death suddenly said and stood up, ignoring the warning signs flashing around her. A flight attendant stepped around her, but paid no attention to her.
She reached down and touched Richard gently on the shoulder.
“Don’t be afraid,” was all she said and then walked up the aisle and into the first class cabin. She stopped in the door and seemed to be talking to someone, but he could not see who it was. After a moment she disappeared. Richard stood up to follow her, but a flight attendant scolded him and he quickly sat back down and buckled in for the landing.
He wondered what her sudden departure had meant. The baby had lived and the plane had not crashed, not yet anyway. Why had she been here? Where was she going? He wondered if he would ever know the answers.
He closed his eyes as the plane began to descend. There was no noise around him except for the engines. The flight attendants had returned to their seats and all the passengers were buckled in, nervously staring out the window or at each other, wondering if they were going to make it.
The plane shifted, seemed to almost skid to the left. Then it began to bank to the right, then began to level off again, the engines whining louder and louder. The floor beneath Richard’s feet was trembling. He swallowed hard. His heart was racing faster and faster.
A bolt of lightning arced outside the window near Richard. A loud crash of thunder and rushing wind struck the plane. It began to fall freely through the air, starting to roll. No one screamed, but he could hear a lot of sobbing.
He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the disaster unfolding around him. He wondered where she had gone. He wondered if she would be waiting for him. There were so many people on the plane with him. When they fell into the sea, would she have time for him, would she be there to show him the way? He tried to think of his mother. He wanted to see her again, to tell her that he was sorry. Death had told him that his mother had not blamed him, but he still wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wanted to tell her that he had missed her. He wondered what she would look like now.
The plane stopped shuddering, and there was silence. He wondered if it was over. Would he be on the other side now?
He opened his eyes. The plane was still in the air. The engines were roaring. There was still some shaking, but it was not so bad now. He looked out the window and he could see lights. They were the lights of some city he did not know the name of.
The plane touched down and streaked across the runway. He could feel the vibrations as the landing breaks engaged and flaps dragged on the wind, slowing the plane. There was fog outside.
After the plane stopped moving, no one said a word. Everyone was in their seats, as still as stones. In the seat next to him he saw a tattered romance novel that had been left behind. He tucked it into his pocket.
After what seemed like forever, the flight attendants told everyone they could prepare for getting off the plane.
Richard looked across the aisle. The man in the business suit was still sleeping. Richard stood up and shook him to tell him that it was time to get off the plane. The man did not respond. He felt the man’s hand. It was cold. He lifted the hand and then dropped it. It fell lifelessly down and the man’s head rolled back. The doctor passed by and stopped to examine him.
“He’s dead.” The doctor explained and then went off to find someone to tell.
Richard knelt down beside the dead passenger, holding his hand. When no one was looking he leaned over and whispered into the man’s ear.
“Don’t be afraid., she’ll take good care of you.”