Yesterday's Flight Read online

  As Bruce got closer he could see her stance change. No longer did she look like a Nazi guard patrolling the prison camp in one of those Second World War movies; where the allied soldiers had a duty to try and escape and the guards were all too dim to see the obvious tunnels and tonnes of earth falling from their trouser legs during the exercise break.

  Now her stance had changed. She now almost resembled an owl or a bird of prey stalking its quarry just before it leaves its perch and swoops down. She stood almost to attention, frozen, her hands held up to her mouth, then slowly she made her way into the dig crater. As she dropped out of sight, Bruce reached the edge. He was just about to shout her to get her attention when he saw what it was they were all looking at and he too stopped dead.

  Gathering his thoughts again he slowly made his way down into the dig until he found himself standing next to Andrea.

  “This is what I think it is, right? Andrea” “Yes, Bruce, it is.” In the rocks, deep in the crater of dig bravo lay three human skeletons, buried purposefully and lined up side by side.

  What made this grave all the more amazing and in fact worrying, was that they weren’t bones they were looking at but fossilised remains, bones slowly replaced by the calcium in the rocks around them over millions of years until the bones themselves became rocks.

  Bruce turned to Andrea, “How can this be? A piece of tail section found alongside a dinosaur skull and now this.”

  For once this tenacious woman was speechless, she just simply looked at Bruce and shrugged her heavy shoulders. “These are human remains? I mean, they are not early man, right?” Bruce was desperate for Andrea to tell him they were early man, not man, as we know him today, maybe Australopithecus or Homo heidelbergensis. Bruce thought of these two because they were the only ones he knew and right now he’d take anything, anything apart from what he already knew was going to be the answer. Andrea turned to Bruce and as she did, a chill tumbled down his spine. She didn’t need to answer; he could tell by the look on her face. “No, Bruce, these are modern men - homo sapiens,” she paused, “you and me, Bruce, you and me.”

  Time again seemed to stall as if on purpose; it was giving him time to take in what he was seeing. He had always had trouble understanding the time relativity law. A college friend had got the closest to explaining it to him one night in a bar in Massachusetts whilst he was at M.I.T.

  “Put your hand on a hot poker and a second seems like an hour. Put your hand on a hot woman and an hour seems like a second.”

  But this was now, this vacuum of time that he stood in right here, right now, this was time-relative.

  Suddenly his concentration was shattered, like a rock smashing through a pane of glass in slow motion. It was Simon, “BRUCE!” Bruce turned and scurried out of the dig running over to the third dig (dig charlie) where Simon and Susan had been working. He reached the edge and clambered down the side leaning back on his left hand with his body at an angle pushing his feet out in front, taking baby shuffle steps.

  Bruce was not an athletic man. He loathed the whole gym working out culture. He really couldn’t understand why people would pay what they paid to join a gym, drive there in the car, exercise while staring at the TV screen on the treadmill and then drive home again. He figured there are two elements of that he could do for free, drive home and stare at his own TV screen without the ‘pain in the arse’ treadmill.

  Bruce reached Simon, who looked even more excited than usual, but unusually he also looked confused. Simon turned to Bruce, “We’ve found what that the piece of tail section belongs to.” Bruce looked down and there in the dirt, directly beneath his feet laid the outline of a Boeing 737, still mostly buried apart from the remains of the tail that was now projecting out of the dig.

  Simon looked at Bruce, who had a look of utter disbelief on his face, his eyes visibly trying to deny the image before him, his mind clearly trying to un-see what he had just seen.

  Bruce turned to Susan Lavey, “How long before this can be uncovered, Susan?”

  “I’m not sure Bruce.” She had a tone of uncertainty about her. Nervously she bit her bottom lip and turned to Bruce, “I don’t think we’re the right team to do this.”

  Bruce raised his eyebrows and looked at her with an expression of disappointment. “Look, Susan, until we know what’s going on here, I think its best that we don’t call anybody else in, just do your best and get this dug up or uncovered or whatever it is you say so that I can look at it.”

  Susan wanted to argue with Bruce. She was normally in charge and knew how to do her job well, very well in fact and she wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, but she just nodded and turned away. The fact was, Bruce was right, they couldn’t risk this getting out - not yet and she understood his frustrations.

  Like her, he didn’t like not knowing or understanding things. She stopped and turned back towards him. “Bruce, I know a guy, I’ve used him sometimes. He provides specialist equipment for large dig sites, we can trust him. I should call him, we’re going to need what he has.”

  Bruce nodded but as she left he added, “So long as you CAN trust him, Susan!”

  She didn’t reply; she simply walked away and headed for her tent.

  Bruce turned his attention back to Simon, who had now moved closer to the sunken aircraft. He stepped gingerly onto the left wing, its metal surface only just visible beneath a layer of very fine desert sand. “Simon, this is the main priority now, get everyone from site alpha and do whatever Susan tells you to, from now until I say; you work for her.” Simon looked back, “Ok, boss.”

  Chapter Two

  Lynsey and Holly were making coffee in the galley when the vibrations started. By the time the intense hot light hit them, and the aircraft lunged and pitched, Lynsey was already falling back, her hands clasping at the galley counter but they were unable to gain any purchase on its highly-polished surface.

  The coffee she had been holding was now in full flight, she watched it as if it was in slow motion, the waxed cardboard mug tumbling through the air. As the coffee escaped, it formed three dimensional droplet shapes as it left the cup.

  Holly was in mid-air, heading backwards, her arms and legs flailing and reaching out as if to grab at some imaginary rope that only she could see.

  It was when she made contact with something hard that her sheer panic was soon forgotten and replaced by the intense heat and pain she felt as her left arm hit the wall-mounted fire extinguisher.

  Her radius took the full brunt of the force. It snapped instantly, sending the most excruciating and agonising sensation she had ever felt radiating out.

  Holly landed in a heap, and by the time her head had hit the floor and her eyes had focused on the blue carpet, with its red and yellow squares, the plane had returned to normal flight.

  “Holly! Holly! are you ok?” Lynsey could see Holly sitting crumpled against the bulkhead. She sat against it and bent forward. Her blonde hair had come forward completely covering her face.

  Lynsey could see her right arm cradling her left. Holly looked at her through her tangled hair; her eyes streaming, swollen and red. She reminded Lynsey of a small child who stood before her mother holding out an ‘owie’ hoping she could make it all better.

  Holly slowly removed her right hand with growing fear in her eyes. She looked at the wound and Lynsey could see instantly the dark patch spreading across her blue blazer. Heading over to where Holly sat, Lynsey helped her to her feet and gently removed the blood-soaked blazer. The deep red of her blood contrasted sharply against the ultra-white blouse she had washed and starched the night before; to make sure it was as white and as crisp as it could possibly be.

  Reaching for the scissors, Lynsey cut the arm of her blouse off at the bicep. Holly gasped and looked away. She couldn’t stand to see the wound in her arm, the gash was deep, and Lynsey could see her bone and could see without the need for an X-ray that it was severed in two.

  “Ok honey, it’s not that bad; we’ll soon have t
his cleaned and sorted.”

  Lynsey tried to sound convincing but she knew there was little she could until they landed and got her to a hospital.

  “Ok, this might sting,” Lynsey warned Holly, but only a split second before, she poured the antiseptic over the wound. She didn’t want to give Holly time to pull her arm back and out of the way. The antiseptic stung. Holly recoiled the stinging sensation was intense; she imagined that this is how it would feel to be stung by a thousand wasps at once.

  “HOLY SHIT!” Holly clamped her teeth and drew her breath backwards, hopping up and down and clenching her right fist as hard as she could.

  “Ok, hon, nearly done. I’ll dress it now and then we’ll get you to hospital as soon as we touch down.”

  Lynsey finished the dressing and helped Holly to a seat in business class which was just through the curtains that separated the galley and passenger compartments.

  “Now, you get comfy in here and I’ll go see what happened and check on the passengers.”

  Lynsey gave Holly some pain killers, covered her with a blanket and left her to settle down in the soft leather recliner.

  By the time William had regained consciousness from his deep slumber, the event that woke him was over and the aircraft had returned back to its normal flight but he could tell as his brain started to distinguish between dream worlds and reality that something had happened; an event had taken place because of the way the other passengers were behaving and because the oxygen masks had deployed. He had woken up to mass hysteria.

  Sarah was sitting bolt upright, her hands gripping the arm rests, her knuckles shining red against her pale white - almost transparent - skin, sweat running freely down her brow. The oxygen mask straps that held it in place around her face were embedding themselves into her skin and leaving red lines against her pale complexion.

  As William stared at her he could see her pupils increasing in size. He looked harder at her, she was almost taking on the appearance of a Manga character. A thought bolted into his mind. He suddenly realised that everyone was wearing their oxygen masks, everyone but him!

  He grabbed at it and missed. He panicked and felt for a spilt second like someone drowning and reaching for a rope life-line that was floating in water but was just out of reach and kept moving with the surface movements.

  Grabbing again he managed to catch it in his left hand pulling it furiously towards him he placed it on his face and started to breathe deeply. He put his right hand on Sarah’s left hand to reassure her and her grip started to release. She turned to him, her face streaming in sweat. Her breathing was shallow and fast, her throat gagged as it tried desperately to get a lungful of air. She looked terrified and immediately they made eye contact.

  She released her right hand and threw it around William’s left shoulder; burying her face into his chest. She hung on to him like one of those baby monkeys William had seen on the National Geographic channel.

  After what seemed an eternity - but in fact was only a few seconds - William realised that the aircraft seemed to be flying steadily and straight. He placed his right hand on Sarah’s right hand that was attached to his left shoulder and gently pulled it away. “It’s ok, ok, I think were out of it now.” Sarah slowly lifted her head and returned to her normal seating position.

  “Sorry, I don’t normally dive into men’s arms like that but errrrm, well, it was kind of, you know!”

  The colour was slowly returning to her face and her eyes seemed to be back to their normal size.

  “Don’t worry, I think we were all a little scared by that, that whatever it was.”

  “Turbulence, sir.”

  Lynsey’s calm and professional voice reassured and convinced them both with just two words, but she decided to continue with the mandatory corporate speak that had been drilled in to her during her training.

  “Sometimes we hit isolated pockets of turbulence and it can have an effect on the aircraft as indeed it just has, but I assure you, these planes are designed to handle much more than that and everything is now fine.”

  She smiled at them both, just for a little extra encouragement, and moved on to the next passengers.

  “There we go, Sarah, nothing to be worried about, just a little turbulence.

  “If that’s little I’d hate to go through gigantic!”

  William smiled and although he wanted a quiet flight, the idea of turning his back on her now seemed contradictory to his self-imposed high standards of manners. He hung his gaze on Sarah for a little while longer and smiled softly, “I think it’s time for a drink.”

  David made sure the flight deck door was secured and locked when he left. He made his way back through business class and pulled the curtain back that led into the galley. As he did he could see Lynsey helping Holly on the other side.

  Lynsey had her back to him and although he wanted to go across and offer what help he could, he knew that he needed to ensure the air frame was intact. He turned to his left and pressed the button that summoned the lift that would take him down into the cargo hold. Once in place he opened the door and pressed the descent button. The lift jumped and started its short trip down under the passenger compartment. There was a clunk and the lift settled in place. He opened the glass door and stepped out. In the cargo hold he could hear the steady reassuring hum of the under-wing engines. He placed his hands on the fuselage and felt a comforting gentle vibration.

  He knew, through years of flying, if an aircraft was sick a good pilot could not only hear it, but he could feel it as well and at this point the aircraft felt fine. He gave the metal a gentle tap as if to say well done - like you would a faithful dog after giving it treat.

  He sighed and moved forward. “We were lucky down here,” he thought; everything seemed to be tied down and secured.

  He moved to the avionics bay. Entering, he had a cursory look around, though this was Steven’s department, really, everything looked fine. “No alarms or red flashing lights, I’m happy with that,” he said softly to himself.

  He turned and headed back out of the avionics bay with a satisfied smile on his face, reflecting his good fortune so far in his inspection. He turned to carry on and then stopped in his tracks, “Steve?” he was calling out to the black shoes that were sticking out from behind the last bulkhead, “Steven?” He shouted towards them then the thought dawned on him, he’d been so preoccupied with everything that had happened in the few minutes, looking for Steven, his co-pilot hadn’t even occurred to him. He started forward and turned behind the last bulkhead at the rear of the aircraft and found himself looking down on his co-pilot. His body was lying limp and David could tell instantly that he was dead. He had seen enough dead bodies while serving with the RAF in the Falklands to know.

  He looked at the lifeless body in front him. His legs seemed to be how they should be, but it was when his gaze reached his upper body that David pulled away and turned his head.

  Regaining his composure, he knelt down next to him. He had to feel for a pulse, though he knew it was pointless. Steven’s left shoulder was completely dislocated; his arm lying at an unnatural angle across his body like a discarded rag doll that had been thrown to the floor when it no longer held any pleasure for the child playing with it. As he suspected there were no signs of life, his head was turned at an impossible slant, his lifeless eyes were dull and had a glaze over them and the colour in them had all but disappeared. They looked blankly towards the ceiling in the cargo bay, the skin around his neck didn’t seem to fit, like a badly wrapped present that was an awkward shape, there just seemed to be too much of it.

  He could make out the shapes of vertebrae as they protruded under the skin as if they were trying to find a way out. The skin was gathered and nipped and was already turning a dull yellow colour. David surmised that Steven must have been thrown across the cargo bay during the ‘event’.

  He had hit the corner of the bulkhead, dislocating his shoulder and moments later snapped his neck on the support bar of the
passenger compartment. The last thing he would have seen was the ceiling as he flew through the air.

  David reached over and pulled his eyelids shut and then did the only thing he could with the body, he simply secured it and covered it. He stood for a short while. He didn’t offer any prayers. David was not a religious man, he had no faith in the traditional sense and had no feelings for any greater powers or almighty beings that play with us for their own amusement.

  He wasn’t really sure what he should say or do. He didn’t really know Steven, he had only flown with him once before when he was training. He seemed ok, a nice guy he had thought, but beyond that he had no thoughts or opinions on him, in fact when asked his opinion by the instructor, David had simply said, “He seems ok, he knows what he’s doing, I guess. What’s my thoughts? I don’t have any; I kind of know nothing of him!”

  At that, his thoughts turned instantly back to the aircraft now flying itself in a circular holding pattern above Yosemite National Park.

  With a heavy sigh he pushed himself back to his feet and headed for the lift that would take him up to the passenger compartment. He stepped out of it into the galley and stepped back in to business class where he saw Holly resting, covered in a blanket.

  “Sorry, captain,” she said softly - half smiling and half wincing.

  “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “I got thrown across the galley when we hit that turbulence,” Holly said. “I’ve broken my arm, but I wasn’t brave enough to look at it.”

  David gave her his best, “You’ll be fine,” smile and headed back onto the flight deck. He sat back in his seat and took a deep breath. He placed his headset on. “Mayday! Mayday! this is flight 993 American Air Cruises, we have hit bad turbulence and sustained casualties over…” sccchhhhhhhhhh…