Departure

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.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_644cdbe6-b4db-5992-917d-e7a90c15b052)

Nick (#ulink_644cdbe6-b4db-5992-917d-e7a90c15b052)

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 where the seat backs would have snapped their necks. The bottom of the plane has been propped up by something. Trees would be my guess. Whatever it is has finally broken free, and so has all hell. The water in the 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.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_1b1783bc-84a4-5640-8958-9963fc30fdbc)

Nick (#ulink_1b1783bc-84a4-5640-8958-9963fc30fdbc)

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.