The
colors in the sky had begun to shift less than an hour after taking off in the
sleek solar aircraft. The bold and vibrant blue had slowly drained away, giving
way to a pallid and lifeless green grey. Storm colors. Jack eyed the changes
carefully. They were still far from any cloud masses and Jack had yet to spot
lightning, but something told him landing was in fair order. They’d already
passed one airstrip several minutes before, but Harold had urged that they move
a little farther on to see what was on the horizon and make good use of their
mobility.
The
craft was surprisingly nimble and easy to fly. It responded well to Jack’s
fingers as he plied the throttle this way and that, getting a feel for the
plane. It was agile and eager to be in the air, despite its unwieldy wingspan
and modest speed. Jack had been watching the airspeed indicator when they’d
taken off–it had needed only sixty miles per hour to attain liftoff. Not bad
for a three-man craft, Jack thought. Now they were moving at approximately
ninety miles an hour, which was slow compared to the jets Jack was accustomed
to in the old days, but still much better than slogging through the woods on
foot.
“Harold,
how far did you say the next airstrip was?” Jack asked over his shoulder.
“It
should be right over the next ridge once you pass the lake,” Harold said. Then
added, “Why? Are we landing?”
“I
think so,” Jack replied.
“Why
would we do that? I say we keep going until we absolutely have to land. Put
some distance between us and them, you know?”
Jack
was shaking his head. “It’s best not to chance it. We’ve been in the air for an
hour, the distance should be enough.”
“But
the sky’s perfectly clear. I don’t understand–“
“Yeah
but the color is strange. Neither of us really understand the weather patterns
here, but this doesn’t look like clear skies to me. Best to land and wait it
out,” Jack said with finality.
The
cabin went silent. Suddenly a high pitched noise filled the small space as a
gust of wind whipped against the plane, rolling it to the right and pushing it
stiffly aside. Harold made a noise through gritted teeth. Hyde whimpered. Jack
released the throttle, deciding not to fight the wind. He was unsure of how
much tension the aircraft’s wings could endure. If he pushed it too hard he
risked fracturing the struts, a problem they were in no way equipped to deal
with.
Jack
let the wind carry the plane off course for several seconds, then gradually
reclaimed control. The plane lurched into the air as the wind slipped back
beneath its wings. Harold and Hyde braced themselves as their stomachs plunged.
“What
was that?” Harold demanded once the nausea had passed.
“Just
a little turbulence. Shifting wind currents could mean a storm.”
“Well
then, we need to think about landing,” Harold said, as if he’d been insisting
on this course of action all along. Jack wanted to glare at him but kept his
focus on the controls.
“Hyde,
see if you can locate any backpack-looking things back there. They might be
under the seats,” Jack instructed. Hyde did as told, feeling under his seat
with the tips of his fingers.
“What
am I looking for?” He asked, his terror manifest by a wire-thin trembling in
his voice.
“Parachutes,”
Jack said.
“Parachutes!
Why?” Harold said quickly. “You don’t expect us to…”
“It’s
just a precaution. If you find them, strap into them. I don’t know this plane
and I don’t know these storms. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Hyde
continued searching. He kneeled on the cabin floor and reached his arm all the
way back under the seat but found nothing but a small plastic toolkit. Next he
tried peeling back the carpeting on the floor. Nothing. Finally, a plastic
panel behind their seat backs opened to reveal a pair of black, rectangular
packs with straps and plastic buckles.
“Jack,
I found them. But there are only two,” Hyde said, his voice catching.
“That’s
fine. You two put them on. I don’t expect to need them.”
The
sky was darkening. Distant flickers of lightning could be seen in faraway storm
clouds to the west of the craft. Jack leaned forward in his pilot’s seat,
staring down at the tops of trees. There, in the distance, was the hazy, grey
outline of a large body of water.
“There’s
the lake,” Jack announced. “We should be there soon.”
But
Jack’s fleeting optimism was interrupted by another gust of wind, stronger than
the first. It came from the rear of the aircraft and caused the plane to tilt
downward and plunge. Harold and Hyde placed their hands on the ceiling of the
cabin, pushing against it as the gravity vanished. It took all their strength
to keep them in their seats. The weightlessness was terrifying.
Jack
nosed the aircraft down to gain speed, pushing air back under the wings of the
plane and allowing it to stabilize. In another thirty seconds the cabin
normalized but they’d lost nearly two thousand feet of altitude. All three were
breathing hard.
“We
should’ve never listened to you,” Hyde spat angrily at Harold. “We should’ve
just landed back at the first strip when we had a chance!”
“Don’t
pin it all on me, boy, it was the pilot hotshot that insisted to fly this
deathtrap!”
“How
stupid do you think we are?” Hyde yelled. “You were the one that pressured him
to keep going!”
“Well,
Jack claimed to be a pilot! How was I supposed to know he was incapable of
handling a little inclement weather?” Harold scoffed.
“Both
of you just shut up,” Jack grumbled. He was only vaguely aware of their
argument as he struggled to keeping the plane level. It was becoming
increasingly difficult as the winds shifted, battering them from new and
terrifying angles. The wings creaked and groaned as they twisted into unnatural
shapes. Jack held his breath in dread as the left wing was caught by a sudden
draft and plied upward, though it quickly sprung back to its original shape as
the wind passed. Jack’s relief didn’t last long. He knew time was running out.
He need to find the airstrip, and fast.
***
Naomi
watched her husband pack his backpack from across their bedroom. She saw in him
dogged determination that she’d not seen in many years, and it both fascinated
and frightened her. He’d been home barely one day, and here he was, ready to
leave again. He needed rest. He wasn’t thinking logically.
“Charlie,
I know how bad you want this, but it’s crazy to leave now. The sun is down and
the wind is picking up. It sounds like a storm is coming,” Naomi gently
pleaded.
“They
took a poor brother’s plane, Naomi. They killed animals. They stole from us and
lied to others. I need to take responsibility for this,” Charlie said flatly as
he stuffed a few pairs of socks into one of the pockets of the bag.
“How
is this taking responsibility? What do you expect to do?”
“I
expect to find them and stop them before they cause any more damage.”
“But
they’re in a plane! You’re on foot! What can you do?”
“Yes,
they’re in a plane and eventually they’ll have to land. There are airstrips
just north of where they took off. I’ll visit every one of them if I have to.
Then I’ll put a stop to this.”
“How?
What will you do? Handcuff them? Throw them in prison? What?”
Charlie
paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “Naomi. I know this is hard for you
to understand. Adrina is doing well, and I’m so happy for you. But there are
two–no, three–men on the loose out there, and they’re on a rampage. And two of
them–they came back here, in my center. This is all on my head. I need to do
this. I can’t just sit around and wait for more calls from strangers telling me
what awful things they’ve done.”
“That
isn’t just your center, Charlie. If you’re going to blame yourself you might as
well blame us, too. We all had a part in what happened there.”
“You
know what I mean, Naomi. My name is on the building. When there’s a problem,
I’m the one that gets the call.”
Naomi
got up from the bed and walked over to her husband, placing her hands on his
carefully. “Look, babe, I know how hard this is for you, but you keep thinking
this is your fault and you’re wrong. It’s not. They are free moral agents, just
like you and me and every other human that ever lived or will live. We can’t
force them to do the right thing. We can’t make those decisions for them.”
“Oh,
I don’t expect to change them,” Charlie said with a sardonic laugh. “I think
it’s far beyond that now. But I do expect to contain them. This is damage
control, plain and simple.”
“What
are you so afraid of, Charlie?”
“More
things than I can even begin to describe for you. What if someone tries to stop
them? What if someone gets in their way? What will they do? Need I remind you
that one of those men is a trained killer? Who knows how many people he’s
stabbed or shot or tortured.”
“He
was,” Naomi corrected gently. “It’s
in the past. You don’t know that he’ll do it again.”
“And
I don’t know that he won’t do it again, either.”
“Don’t
be anxious about the next day, dear,”
“I’m
not. I’m anxious about right now, and I’m going to do something about it. I
can’t just sit here and wait it out. I need this to be behind me.”
“Ok,”
Naomi finally said, giving her husband a tight squeeze. “I’m letting you go on
one condition. You take me with you.”
“Naomi,
I don’t think–“ Charlie began, but Naomi put a finger to his lips.
“I
said one condition. Take it or stay. But I’m not going to go another day
without my husband. I need you, you know.” Naomi stared deep into her husband’s
eyes, glimpsing his strength and tenderness all at once. She leaned close and
kissed him softly.
“What
about the kids? And Adrina?” He asked.
“You
say it like they’re children, Charlie. They’ll be fine. They can stay. Daniel’s
more drained from this than he’s letting on and needs some rest. Adrina’s been
pretty quiet lately, too. Sophie can look after her.”
Charlie
mulled over this for a few moments. Then he shrugged. “Ok. But we’re leaving
tonight.”
But
Naomi was already headed for the closet, where she kept her outdoor gear.
***
Madeline tossed and tumbled above the treetops as the
storm worsened. Thick droplets smacked against the windshield and smeared
across the glass windows. Jack fought the controls, looking desperately at the
ground for any signs of a tarmac. Even a stretch of grass, really. Anything
would do. But he had to get her down and quick.
“Can’t
you do something about the turbulence?” Harold whined. “Maybe fly above the
storm?”
“No,
if we fly too high we’ll never find the airstrip. We’ve got to keep low and keep
our eyes open.”
“I
think I’m gonna be sick,” Hyde moaned. Jack couldn’t blame him. They’d been in
serious turbulence for nearly twenty minutes with no signs of improvement.
“Sorry,”
he said. “Nothing I can do about this. Just hang on as best you can.”
“Why
didn’t we just land at the last strip,” Hyde grumbled. Jack agreed but didn’t
respond. There was no sense in pointing fingers now. They could sort that out
once they were safely on the ground.
“I
guess that’s just one more thing we have the professor to thank for,” Hyde
added snidely.
“I’ve
had just about enough of your sniveling,” Harold glowered. “I had no way of
knowing about this storm. It came out of nowhere and you know that just as well
as I. Now perhaps you can manage to keep your mouth shut for the rest of our
flight, hmm?”
“Yeah,
that’s convenient. As usual, you’re the one calling the shots until we run into
trouble, and then you shift the blame. You’re a coward.”
“How
dare you say such a thing,” Harold hissed.
“And
another thing: I’m sick of you always talking down to me! You think you’re so
much smarter than the rest of us just because you went to some uppity college.
Well guess what, no one cares!”
“I
didn’t just go to some college. I was a professor at Cambridge, one of the most
accomplished universities in the world. Not that I’d expect you to know that.”
“What’s
that supposed to mean?”
“You
said it yourself a few days ago–you’ve never left your country. You barely got
around to leaving your little backwater hometown. You’re a typical American,
isolated and ignorant to the world beyond you. Have you even heard of
Cambridge?”
“Yeah,
I’ve heard of it. Just because I never went there myself doesn’t mean I don’t
know anything. I’ve seen pictures.”
“Oh,
that’s just swell then, I’m sure you learned a lot from pictures. I hear it’s a
fabulous way of learning for those with limited attention spans.”
Jack
had abandoned all attempts to diffuse the conflict. After all, anger was easier
to accept than fear. They were simply coping with a trying situation.
“I
was talking about photographs, not pictures in some book,” Hyde said.
“And
where, might I inquire, did you ever encounter photographs of my university?”
“We
had ‘em lying in a box in our house. They belonged to my mom. She visited there
on a summer trip with friends. They had planned to visit some other areas too
but she sprained her ankle and they had to cancel the trip.”
Harold’s
face changed as he looked suspiciously at the teenager next to him. “She
sprained her ankle?”
“Yeah,
why? You gonna make fun of my mom now, too?” Hyde challenged.
“What
year was this?” Harold said, ignoring the taunt.
“I
dunno, why do you care?” Hyde said with a scowl.
“1979,”
Jack said from the front of the cabin. The mood in the small space had changed
and Jack’s keen senses hadn’t missed it. He was approaching the lake now and
hoping the runway was just on the other side. He was counting on Harold’s
memory.
“Your
mother’s name…” Harold said slowly, his voice barely audible above the
whistling wind. “Was it Fiona?”
Jack’s
heart skipped a beat. His eyes went wide. It took every ounce of composure to
keep from whipping his head back to stare at Harold and force him to repeat
what he’d just said. For a few brief seconds, he saw nothing beyond the windshield
of the cockpit. No grey skies, no tree line, no lake, no storm head. There was
only a face. His mother’s face. Then there was Hyde’s voice.
“Wait.
What? What did you just say? How did
you… What is this? What are you trying to do? What’s going on?” Hyde was slower
to piece things together, but Jack and Harold were locked in stony silence.
“Hyde,”
Jack said in a slow, measured tone that his brother could hear from the back.
“There’s something you need to know about Mom. She lied to us.”
“What?
What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘she lied’?”
“About
her trip to Europe. When we were little she always said that same old
story–that she tripped down a flight of stairs and sprained her ankle and
that’s why they left early. But that’s not the whole truth.”
“What
do you mean? Why would she lie about something stupid like that?”
“Hyde,
listen. Our mom had a drinking problem. She was like that even when she was a
teenager. You know about her trip to Europe with her friends after high school.
Well, on one of the first days after landing in England, they toured through
Cambridge and found a pub near the campus and started drinking. She met a guy
that seemed to like her. On the way out of the bar she tripped and twisted her
ankle. The guy took her back to his dorm, where things escalated. She woke up
the next morning with a swollen ankle and a hangover. She couldn’t remember
much of what happened, but after a trip to the hospital she and her friends
decided to cancel the trip and come home.”
“Ok,
fine, whatever. I don’t see what the big deal is. So what, she was just out of
high school and looking for some fun.”
“Hyde,
you’re not getting it. Mom got pregnant on that trip. She never knew the guy’s
name, never even remembered what he looked like. But I think we just found
him.”
Hyde’s
face contorted as he pieced it together. “Wait, you’re saying that this guy…” Hyde trailed off and shook
his head in disbelief.
“Heavens,
you look so much like her,” Harold said quietly.
Hyde
was silent for a few moments, but when he spoke again it was a thin hiss
through clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother.”
“It
was just one night. One stupid night. I had no idea she was–”
“I
said stop it!” Hyde screamed, his voice almost deafening in the small cabin.
“Hyde,
you need to pull it together! This is not the time or the place,” Jack yelled.
Hyde fell silent. When he spoke again his voice had changed. It was calmer, yet
insidious, a leaking gas valve waiting for a spark.
“Jack,
don’t you see? This is the reason that everything went wrong. If he hadn’t
left, things would’ve been different. Mom would’ve never had to raise me on her
own. We wouldn’t have had to struggle so much. I probably wouldn’t have gotten
so sick. And she would’ve never met James… It’s all because of him.”
The
tone of his voice sent chills up Jack’s spine. “You can’t know that, Hyde. Mom
was young and reckless. You can’t blame it all on Harold.”
“Sure.
Sure I can,” Hyde said. His voice was cold and icy. Jack heard the crack of
bones meeting flesh as Hyde’s knuckles crashed into Harold’s face. Harold
moaned as a trickle of blood leaked from his nose and through his fingers. He
lifted a hand to shield his face and managed to fend off Hyde’s second blow,
which slammed into the cabin interior. Hyde howled in pain and fury.
Jack
turned his head and glimpsed the chaos. Fists were flying. Both men were now
bleeding and battered, clawing at each other as the plane rocked back and forth
in the turbulence.
“Stop
it!” Jack screamed, but Hyde and Harold seemed determined not to notice. Jack
leaned forward in the pilot’s seat, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of
the runway, but there was only the bluish-black glaze of lake water staring
back at him impassively.
“Help!
Jack!” Cried a muffled voice from behind. Jack turned again, beginning to
panic. Harold was struggling to push Hyde away with both hands. Hyde was
propped against his seat, pushing with his legs against the side of the cabin.
In the hand of his outstretched arm, Jack spotted it–the glistening blade of
his pocket knife.
“Jack,
please! He’s going to kill me!” Harold pleaded. His voice came through in
gurgles and spats, his throat caught in the clutches of Hyde’s other hand. Jack
glanced one last time at the trees and the water and the sky and then squeezed
himself around the seat and into the fray. He deftly disarmed Hyde with a sweep
of his arm and then wound his bicep around the boy’s neck, hoping to cut off
his circulation and render him unconscious. But a sudden draft from below the
plane threw the cabin into confusion. The plane banked and pitched downwards,
headed straight for the trees. Hyde was still squirming, still trying to fight.
Harold
was screaming. Jack turned to face the front of the craft and realized why.
Outside the windshield, there was no sign of sky or clouds. There was merely
the endless expanse of black water. The planed had dipped downward and they
were headed straight for the lake.
