The gnawing man fell to the floor as a laptop Bobby found came crashing down across the back of his head. The man twitched a moment then stopped moving completely. The woman with the gnawed out neck, fell forward and her head rested against the back of the seat in front of her. A girl, no more than seven years old, screamed sharply as she thought the dead woman was staring at her as the blood dripped from the woman’s neck and onto the floor. Bobby stood over the man’s body, breathing heavily, and trying to gather his thoughts to make sense of
what the fuck just happened.
Everyone’s attention quickly changed from the blood thirsty, growling passengers to the fact that the plane is falling out of the sky at a rapid pace. Someone must do something or they will all be dead soon. Bobby stood over the man who had eaten away at the woman’s neck, holding the laptop and ready to give him a good whack again if needed. The emergency oxygen masks jolted out of the bottom of the overhead compartments. Someone screamed that everyone is going to die and the bloodthirsty people must be terrorists. Most of the other passengers, who were not screaming, froze stiff in their seats out of sheer terror they were going to die in a horrific plane crash over Tennessee. The man with the trucker hat grabbed Bobby’s shoulder. Bobby, thinking it was another crazy person ready to tear away some of his flesh, flung the laptop around. The man with the trucker hat ducked, barely escaping a crashing blow from it.
“Fuck,” said the man as he ducked. “I’m not one of them. Come to the front. You got to help me.” He grabbed Bobby’s arm and pulled him down the aisle.
“What’s wrong?” asked Bobby. He looked around at the other passengers as the plane shook as though they were in a car, bouncing down a graded road with no shocks.
“You seem like the only person not frozen stiff or eating anyone.” The man pushed the flight attendant out of their way. She continued to scream. “Something’s wrong with the pilot. We got to get in there and stop it before we all die.”
Bobby’s face turned pale as he realized that the plane
is
going down. The pilot’s voice that came over the intercom only moments before echoed through his mind. He watched the man with the trucker hat kick the door to the cockpit several times. It finally burst open after the seventh kick. The sight inside the cockpit was gruesome and at that moment, Bobby felt like there would be no hope of landing in Nashville safely. There was nothing in the little cards in the back of the airplane seats that said what to do in a situation like this. The next thought that ran through his mind was seeing Eddie grown up and in college. He thought about Nikki for a moment. He felt his life flash before his eyes and felt disappointment that it was not a very good life. Bobby told himself there would be no way he will die today, not in an airplane, 2,000 miles from his family.
“Oh my God,” the man with the trucker hat said, as he rushed into the cockpit. The co-pilot chewed away at the pilot’s face. Most of it was nearly gone. The co-pilot’s face dripped with blood and it ran down his neck and soaked to the front of his shirt. The co-pilot ignored Bobby and the man with the hat. “Get the fuck off of him,” yelled the man with the hat.
Bobby snapped out of his dazed faze of confusion and shoved the man out of his way. He leaped in the cockpit, put the co-pilot into a headlock, and pulled him back into the aisle outside of the cockpit. The co-pilot kicked and growled, blood dripping from his mouth. A piece of meaty flesh hung from between his teeth. Bobby squeezed tighter around his neck as they fell backwards with the co-pilot landing on top of him. The co-pilot kicked his feet and gasped for air. Bobby held him in a chokehold he learned in boot camp when he was in the Marines and wouldn’t let go. The co-pilot’s eyes bugged out and his body stiffened at one last breath he took in and then feel limp. Bobby held on for what seemed like an eternity, not sure if it was safe to let go. The co-pilot stopped moving completely.
The plane shook more and took a deeper dive. The co-pilot’s lifeless body bounced off Bobby. The passengers in first class screamed louder at the sight of the co-pilot. It added to their already intense deathly screams, knowing they are likely going to die in a matter of minutes. The man with the trucker hat grabbed the pilot and shook him. “Are you alright?”
“I...can’t...see.” The pilot gargled on his own blood and stared ahead, not looking at anything. He raised his shaking hand and pointed to the microphone hanging from the instrument panel. “Call...this...in.” His hand dropped quickly. He surely won’t be alive much longer with his blood gushing from several bites on his face and neck.
“Relax buddy,” said the man. “I’m going to do the best I can to help you. My name’s Troy Olson. You’re going to be alright.” Troy patted the pilot on the shoulder. He lifted his hand and grimaced at the sight of the warm blood on his palm. He quickly wiped it on his pants.
Bobby rushed into the cockpit. “Holy fuck.” He looked at the pilot and then to Troy. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“He’s still alive. Maybe he can still fly it...He pointed to that mike right there. Said to call it in.” Troy pointed to the mike. Their only hope. A microphone that could call into to someone to help land the plane. Hopefully, someone will answer.
Their attention quickly turned from the pilot as the sunlight blared through the windshield. They were out of the clouds now and could see the city of Nashville. The tallness of the L&C and the “Batman” building looked close enough to throw a baseball and knock out one of the windows. They had dropped over 30,000 feet in a matter of only a few minutes, long enough for a few passengers to have their faces eaten and the pilot to lose most of his. Bobby looked around and decided to sit in the co-pilot’s chair. Troy grabbed the microphone and pressed in the button on the side.
“This is Troy Olson. Hello. We are going to crash.” Screaming from the passengers behind them became intensely louder. A few all the way at the back of the plane screamed, “We’re going to die.” Troy and Bobby looked at each other, then to the instrument panel. The frequency was set to INTERCOM. Troy quickly flipped it to TRANSMIT and pressed the button again. The buildings were closer now. Bobby looked out the windshield and could see cars backed up on the interstate. He noticed smoke coming from several small buildings and houses.
“This is Troy Olson. Is anybody there?” Troy let out on the button. The radio remained silent. “Hello. Can you hear me?” Troy let out on the button again. Still silence.
“Why aren’t they answering?” asked Bobby. A strange sense of terror over took his body as he thought about the plane and smoking buildings below. No one is answering because there is no one to answer, he thought.
“I don’t know, but I’m not dying today.” Troy grabbed the pilot and shook him. “Wake the fuck up. You’re going to land this fucking plane.” The pilot fluttered his eyes and did his best to stay alert. He could not speak, he just gargled and blood dripped from his mouth. Bobby thought that if the pilot’s face was not shredded the pilot could pass for being drunk. Such a silly thought at a time like this.
Troy noticed the pilot taking control of the plane. He turned quickly, took the closest seat, and buckled himself in. Bobby buckled his belt and put his hands over his face. “God help us,” said Bobby. He and Troy prayed that the pilot was actually trying to control the plane and land it, not just grabbing onto something to keep from leaving this world in a bloody mess.
The passengers screamed and screamed. The plane shook vigorously as if a child were shaking a toy airplane and flying it across his play pin. The pilot, looking on the edge of death, succeeded in leveling out the plane and steered clear of the buildings in downtown. The landing gear barely missed a big sign labeled
LP FIELD
. Bobby felt like his heart was going to explode as he peaked through his fingers, watching the pilot struggle to steer the plane to his left. They were now only 100 feet from the ground. The pilot turned back to his right and pulled the yoke up. The nose lifted high and all that appeared in the windshield were the clouds. The pilot pushed the yoke down and fell forward on it. Bobby pulled his hands from his face and grabbed the instrument panel. The wide lanes of an interstate suddenly appeared in the windshield.
The initial touchdown of the plane along the interstate flung the passengers forward in their seats like rag dolls. The screaming stopped as soon as the wheels touched ground. Everyone froze stiff with a death grip on the armrests of their seats. Any tighter and they would surely tear through the cloth and plastic. The plane vibrated and shook and luggage bounced out of the overhead bins, falling on people and in the aisle. The lights flickered on and off and on and off. The sound of the jet engines and the crunching of vehicles underneath the plane echoed over and over again. Bobby stared out the windshield, shocked and amazed, at the cars and trucks that were not moving. They just sat there, waiting for the plane to hit them. He moved his eyes from the cars and saw a bridge up ahead and a sign reading
CUMBERLAND RIVER
. He gasped for air and felt like he held his breath in until it was all over. A loud crash came from underneath the plane and an explosion on the right side shook the plane harder. The landing gear had collapsed and the right two engines exploded into a ball of fire, taking out most of the side of the plane with it. The plane dropped to the ground and slid like a sled closer to the split in the interstate just before the river. Bobby covered his face and screamed. Troy screamed just as loud. The screaming from the back of the plane grew louder as passengers on the right side burned alive. There was nothing they could do as they were locked tightly in their seats.
The plane finally stopped inches from the mouth of the river. A stalled semi-truck in front of the plane blocked it from going any further. There was not complete silence, but Bobby felt as though it were when the plane finally stopped. The crackling and roaring of the fire from the right side of the plane intensified as Bobby struggled to undo his seat belt. He couldn’t believe he was still alive. He looked back at Troy.
Troy pulled his trucker hat off his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I can’t believe we made it.” Suddenly another explosion shook the plane. Screams from the coach section rocked through to the cockpit and quickly stopped. The remaining passengers burned in a ball of fiery jet fuel. “We need to get out of here fast,” said Troy.
Bobby leaned over to check the pilot’s pulse.
“Is he still alive?” asked Troy.
“No,” said Bobby as he jumped out of his seat. “He’s dead.”
“Fuck.”
Bobby and Troy pulled the cockpit door open and immediately closed it when the ball of fire tried to swoop its way in.
“We’re trapped.” said Troy.
Bobby turned and noticed the windshield sparkling with spider web like cracks all across it. He raised his leg and kicked it. It splintered and loosened.
“Hurry up,” said Troy as he held the cockpit door closed. “The fire’s getting closer.”
Bobby kicked the windshield again. This time it went flying off the front of the plane and landed on the truck below. “Come on. Let’s go.” The two men crawled through the opening of the windshield and slid down the front to the top of the truck’s trailer.
“We better hurry. It’s probably going to explode,” said Troy. They jumped off the top of the trailer and onto the roof of a compact car next to it. They shimmied through several stalled cars and made their way off to the east of the interstate. They ran as fast as they could, but the force behind the explosion lifted them from their feet and threw them forward several yards onto their faces. The plane went up in a ball of flames as if it were an explosion of a ton of dynamite.
Bobby landed face down in the grass and put his hands over his ears. Massive chunks of debris rained down around him and Troy. The front half of a car landed just fifteen feet in front of Bobby. Troy looked at him just as a burned torso landed between them. It lay there with part of the head dangling from it, smoking and crackling like wood in a fireplace. Bobby lay on the ground staring at the torso. His thoughts raced fast through his head. His blood pressure was nearly through the roof. His teeth had chattered and felt like they were shook loose from the explosion. He waited what felt like hours before he turned over to see the wreckage. He looked over to Troy who had already turned over and was sitting on his butt. Bobby studied the look on Troy’s face. He thought he looked like a child watching a horror movie. A child seeing the gruesome slaying of another human being just before the child was supposed to go to bed. Bobby turned his attention from Troy’s face and turned over, leaning back on his hands. His jaw dropped to his chest and his eyes opened wide enough that they could have rolled out of his head and down to the ground. He wanted to believe he was having a horrible nightmare, but he was not. Everything just became reality and would be scarred into his mind for the rest of his days.
Thick black smoke rose from the burning wreckage scattered across the interstate and the trees behind where Bobby and Troy sat. The plane had been reduced to a pile of twisted metal and cars and trucks had been ripped in two and were thrown like toy cars across every which way. They were two luckiest men still alive after the chain of events that ended with them sitting in the grass surrounded by charred body parts and shards of steel. The tops of the trees behind them blazed with fire along with the trees on the other side of the interstate. The smell of the burnt flesh and nostril singeing jet fuel that filled the air made the two men cough and breath heavily on the side of the road. All but two of the 206 passengers aboard flight 1423 incinerated in the explosion, Bobby and Troy being the only two.