Departure

“No. I’m okay.” I glance up at him. “If I live through this, I’m going to get a gym membership, go every day. And no drinking until I can run a five-K without stopping.”

“That’s one option. I was thinking that if we live through this, a stiff drink will be my first order of business.”

“Excellent point. Post-drink, it’s straight to the gym for me.”

Nick’s staring at the stream of glowing lights, which have begun to converge like a swarm of fireflies on something beyond the trees, something I can’t yet see. His face is a mask of concentration. I wonder what he does for a living. Is it something like this? Crisis management? He’s good at it, comfortable telling people what to do, for sure. I’m not. I wonder how else we’re different, whether we’re anything alike at all. And I wonder why I’m curious at all, especially in the middle of all this.

“I’m ready,” I say, and we resume our jog, a bit more slowly than before. A few minutes later the forest gives way to open air.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I see.

About twenty people stand close together just beyond the tree line, on the shore of a lake that strikes me as odd. Its shoreline is too round and well-formed, as though it were man-made. But it’s the thing that rises from the lake about fifty feet out that terrifies me: a jagged dark hole like the mouth of a massive fish—the open front end of the main section of the plane, broken off roughly where the wings begin. One row of chairs faces us at the front of the passenger compartment, but they’re all empty.

The plane’s tail must be resting on the bottom of the lake. What’s holding up the middle, propping the ripped end up out of the water? The landing gear? The engines? Trees? Whatever it is, it’s giving way. The lower edge of the torn fuselage is about fifteen feet above the water, but it’s sinking a little lower every few seconds.

It’s chilly for mid-November. My breath is a white plume against the night. That water has to be frigid.

Movement inside the plane. A balding man runs up the aisle but stops at the precipice. He grips the seat back as he peers out, his face white with fear, trying to work up the nerve to jump. His decision is made for him. A burly younger man slams into him from behind and they tumble over the edge together, the second man’s leg catching briefly on a piece of twisted metal. He spins, hitting the water at an awkward angle but missing the first man. The movement pulls my eyes down to the water, and I realize that two other people are already thrashing there, swimming toward the shore. More who’ve made it are huddled together on the bank, shivering, drenched. I step closer, trying to discern what happened from brief snatches of shaky speech.

We hit the water going backward …

The force—I thought I was going to go through my seat …

I crawled across three people. All dead, I think. I don’t know. They weren’t moving. What was I supposed to do?

I wonder just how cold that water is, how long it will take to die of hypothermia out there.

A man in a navy sport coat appears in the mangled opening. He’s crouching at the edge, steeling himself to jump, when Nick’s booming voice echoes across the lake.

“Stop! You jump, and you kill everyone left on that plane.”

It’s bloody dramatic, but it’s got the man’s attention—not to mention mine and everyone else’s on the bank.

Nick steps to the water’s edge. “Listen,” he calls to the man, “we’re going to help you, but you’ve got to get everyone left alive to the opening.”

The man on the plane—around fifty, I would guess, a little paunchy—just stands there, looking confused. “What?”

“Focus. The plane is sinking. When the water starts pouring into the cargo hold below, it will pull the plane down fast. You—and anyone else still conscious—have got to work together. Wake up as many people as you can, then find anyone who’s alive but can’t move and get them to the opening. You do that, and we’ll do the rest. Understand?”

The man nods slowly, but I can tell he’s in shock. He can’t process it all. Nick seems to realize that, too. He continues, his voice calmer and slower this time.

“What’s your name?”

“Bill Murphy.”

“Okay, Bill. You’re going to get everybody alive to the opening, and then you’re going to wait. Everybody to the opening and wait. Understand?” Nick pauses, lets his words sink in. “Bill, is there anybody else conscious in there?”

“I think so … yeah.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Five. Ten. I don’t know. It’s dark.”

“That’s okay. Go and talk to them now. Tell them to help you get everybody to the opening and wait. Everybody to the opening and wait.”

Bill turns and vanishes into the darkness of the cabin. I move to Nick’s side. “What’s the plan?”

“Still working on it,” he says under his breath, glancing over at the crowd. There are about thirty people on the shore by now, bloodied people from the front of the plane and the shivering, wet survivors who’ve made the swim. He turns toward them, raising his voice. “Do any of you know CPR?”

Two hands go up, one reluctantly.

“Good. I want you to stand over here. Some of the people coming out may not be breathing. You’re going to do the best you can with them. If they don’t respond after the first attempt, move to the next person.” He looks back at the group. “Now, if any of you cannot swim, step over here.”

Another smart move. He’s making volunteering the default—if you want out, you have to step out. Six people shuffle over. I wonder how many of them really can’t swim.

A woman shivering on the bank speaks with equal parts fear and force. “I can’t go back into that water. I’ll die.”

“Me neither,” says a redheaded man beside her.

“You have to—please, my husband’s still on there,” an older woman wearing a yellow sweater pleads, her voice cracking.

“This is suicide,” says a long-haired teen wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt.

Nick steps between the group from the front of the plane and the wet survivors, separating them. “You all don’t have to go back in the water,” he says to the swimmers. “You’ll work with the folks that can’t swim, drying people on the bank.” He goes on quickly, cutting a few protests off. “But first, right now, you need to run back to the front section of the plane and gather all the blankets and the life vests. We need them both to save the people coming out.”

It’s a good idea. The blanket-to-person ratio in first and business class was unbelievable. There’ll be plenty. But I still don’t understand what his plan is.

“Besides, the exercise will warm you up and keep your blood pumping.” Nick claps his hands. “Let’s go. Right now. And bring back a dark-haired woman named Sabrina and the flight attendant, Jillian. Find Sabrina and Jillian, and tell them to bring the first-aid kit. Remember, blankets and life vests—all of them.”

Reluctantly the nonswimmers lead the soggy survivors into the woods. The rest of us—twenty-three souls, counting Nick and me—stand and watch them go. To our right, I can hear banging in the plane. Its bottom edge is now only ten feet above the water. I swear it’s sinking faster.

On the bank, an overweight man with a nasty gash down his face says, “We’ll never make it there and back, dragging someone else. It’s too cold. They barely made it across one way, alone.”

“That’s true,” Nick says. “But we’re not going to be in the water that long. And none of you are swimming to the plane and back.”

A chorus of muttered protests builds, gaining strength by the second as voices join in.

We’ll drown …

Wait for professionals …

I didn’t sign up for this …

“You have to!” Nick shouts, silencing the crowd. “You have to, okay? We all have to. We don’t have a choice. Listen to me. Somebody loves each and every person on that plane. They’re somebody’s son. Someone’s daughter. They’re mothers and fathers, just like some of you. That could be your son or daughter on there. Your husband or wife, waiting, unconscious, helpless. Right now someone’s mother is checking her phone at home, wondering when she’ll hear from her son. In another hour, she’ll start to worry, and if we don’t go get those people, she’ll never see or talk to her son again, and it will be because we were too scared to wade into that water and save him. I can’t live with that on my conscience, and I know you can’t either. It could just as easily be any one of us on that plane, sitting there, alive but unconscious, waiting to drown. And they will drown, without us. If we don’t help, right now, they die. No one else is coming for them. It’s us, here and now, or they die. That’s it. We didn’t sign up for this, but nobody else is here. No one will save those people if we don’t. Every second we waste, another person dies. There are probably two hundred people in that section of the plane, and their lives are in our hands. I have a plan, and I need your help. If you want to sit here on the bank and watch them drown, step out of the group.”

No one moves a muscle. Save for the faint commotion in the plane, it’s dead quiet. I take a breath, realizing I’ve been holding it while Nick spoke.

“Good. The first thing we’re going to do is make a fire. Who has a lighter?”