Turbulence-2-13
2005 Words
Kennedy bit her lip. Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long for Grandma Lucy to fill in the uncomfortable silence.
“God has amazing plans for you, but until you learn to surrender to him, until you fall on your knees and beg the Holy Spirit to guide you in every decision you make, you’ll always feel like there’s something missing.” She patted Kennedy’s hand. “It’s a lot to think about. But when I look at you, I see someone who has so much potential, someone who could do so much to advance the kingdom of God. That’s the call you have on your life. To shine his light in a way that everyone around you will recognize the truth of the gospel.” She smiled. “And I think you and I both know that can start with your roommate whenever you’re ready.”
Kennedy had known those words were coming even before Grandma Lucy spoke them. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”
Grandma Lucy’s eyes crinkled softly. “Here’s what Paul says to the Corinthians. He says, I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. That pressure you’re experiencing, that prompting in your heart that you felt when you saw Willow about to get shot, that’s the Holy Spirit. He saved your roommate from death. He didn’t have to. He’s given both of you a second chance. I suggest you don’t waste this one.”
Kennedy nodded. Grandma Lucy was right. She hadn’t said anything Kennedy didn’t already know, but somehow it felt different hearing it from her.
“I just wish I had that kind of boldness,” she admitted.
“We can pray for that right now,” Grandma Lucy offered and raised one hand heavenward. “Father God, precious Jesus ...”
Her prayer was interrupted by a high-pitched wail coming from the wall directly behind her seat. Kennedy crouched down and covered her ears.
From his confinement behind her, General let out a hair-raising laugh. “Didn’t I say you were all about to die?”
CHAPTER 18“What’s going on?” Kennedy asked the flight attendant who rushed past her.
“Smoke alarm,” he shouted and pulled a fire extinguisher out from a cabinet.
“Don’t waste your time,” General chuckled. “It’s too late for any of you now.”
The flight attendant gave him a half-hearted kick and then flung the bathroom door open. Thick, black smoke poured out from the lavatory. Kennedy’s eyes stung, and her lungs were momentarily paralyzed.
“Get to the front of the cabin.” The flight attendant waved them away. Kennedy reached across the aisle for her backpack.
“What about me?” General asked, fear lacing his words for the first time.
“You shut up.”
Another low chuckle. “I deserved that, I suppose. Just remember, I did this for my kids.”
The flight attendant didn’t respond. Kennedy grabbed Grandma Lucy’s hand, and the two stumbled down the aisle.
“Fire!” As soon as word got out in the cabin, half the passengers jumped out of their seats and lurched forward as one chaotic, undulating mass.
Thick, black smoke choked the air as everyone tried to scramble forward at once.
“Stay calm!” Grandma Lucy shouted behind Kennedy, but even her authoritative voice couldn’t carry over the din of the panicked passengers.
“Folks,” the captain announced over the PA, “I understand there’s a situation in the back, and we’re doing what we can to touch down as soon as possible. When we land, we’ve got to exit the aircraft in a calm and orderly manner. It’s going to be a fast descent, so I need you all to come to the front of the cabin as far away from the smoke as you can and get yourselves buckled in.”
He may as well have been speaking to himself. Even if Kennedy wanted to move, she was pressed on all sides by people struggling to surge ahead.
“He’s trying to kill us!” a woman shouted.
“I can’t see anything!”
Grandma Lucy put her hand on Kennedy’s shoulder and used it for balance as she stood on one of the empty aisle seats. “Listen, all of you!” she hollered, and the din diminished slightly. “The captain is getting us on the ground. We’ll land in just a few minutes and then we’ll get off this plane. Right now, there will be more injuries if we all scramble ahead like this. So grab a seat, buckle up, and if you haven’t made peace with God yet, I suggest you ask him to forgive your sins in the name of Jesus.”
“We’re going to die!” someone shrieked. Even if Kennedy could find an empty seat, there were too many bodies pushing against her. The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see Grandma Lucy standing on the chair. Had she fallen? Would she see her alive again? She wanted to duck down, knew the air would be cleaner the lower she got, but with the crowd this frantic, if she ended up on the ground there was no way she’d get up again.
The smoke stung her eyes. Kennedy was completely blind now. Her sinuses burned, and she pictured black, sticky tar caking to the epithelial lining of her respiratory tract.
God, help me.
Someone elbowed her in the face. She stumbled back, but a mass of passengers pressed against her from behind. Grabbing her hair, trying to propel themselves forward.
A scream. Not of fear, but of pain. Someone was hurt. Kennedy shot her hands out, trying to regain her bearings. The sea of people had carried her so far she had no idea where she was or if the emergency exits were in front of her or behind. She pried her eyes open, but the smoke was too thick to see anything.
“Let go!”
“Get off!”
“Help!”
The screams were as haunting and terrifying as anything Dante could have dreamed up in his Inferno, and for a time Kennedy’s mind could only focus on one coherent thought: This is what hell must be like.
“I can’t breathe,” gasped a woman next to her. Kennedy tried to reach out to find her, but as soon as she repositioned her arm someone elbowed her in the gut.
In the midst of the chaos, passengers shouted for one another, calling their loved ones by name.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t see you.”
“Are you ok?”
Kennedy had to conserve what air was left around her. She was already dizzy. Was that from the fear or the lack of oxygen? If she fainted, if she lost her footing for just a moment ...
Someone scratched at her face. “Let me through!” A passenger tried to climb up Kennedy’s back. She struggled to shove him off.
God, don’t let me fall.
Where was Willow? Was she safe? Would she make it? Would any of them survive?
General’s voice ran unchecked through her brain. You’re all dead. He had planned everything. This was his end game.
God, I don’t want to die.
Where was Willow?
The passengers pressed ahead, like a legion of lemmings with only one collective thought. With the plane still in the air, Kennedy could only guess where they expected to end up.
Willow. She had to get to her. God had given them a second chance. Grandma Lucy had said the same thing. Would God save her roommate from the gunman only to have her perish in a fire?
“Willow?” She tried to call out, but she couldn’t take in enough air to give her voice any volume. “Willow?”
She had to be somewhere, but where?
Dear Lord, show me where she is, and I’ll do anything. I’ll say anything. Just let her be ok and get us both out of this alive. Please.
Back. Somehow she knew she had to go back. But how could she with all the passengers pressing against her from behind? And why would she want to go where the smoke was the thickest?
God, are you sure?
The impression was there just the same. She had to find her way out of this maddening throng.
She didn’t care about the bruises she’d sustain from being prodded and pushed from so many sides. She didn’t worry about the germs she was contracting by pressing herself against so many strangers. God, make a way for me. She envisioned him parting the bodies around her like he did for Moses at the Red Sea, but that’s not what happened. Still, she eventually managed to shove her way to the outskirts of the frantic throng. Safe from the crowd, she dropped to her hands and knees, as much from exhaustion as from a desire to find breathable air.
“Willow?” She was somewhere nearby. Kennedy knew it. Or was that wishful thinking coupled with smoke-induced delirium?
“Willow?”
“Yeah.” The voice was frail. Faint. Accompanied by a small cough.
“Where are you?”
“Over here.” It was like playing Marco Polo inside a cloud of tear gas.
Kennedy reached ahead with her hand until it clenched a warm, sweaty palm. She could hardly speak, from relief as well as smoke exhaustion. “Are you ok?”
“I can’t move.”
Colorful spirals fired through Kennedy’s optical nerve. She would black out any minute if she didn’t get more oxygen.
“My necklace,” Willow explained. “I fell, and it’s stuck against something. I can’t get it loose.”
Kennedy probed with her hands until she felt the leather string that held Willow’s travel size air purifier. It was hooked to the bottom of the seat and twisted so there wasn’t room to slip it over her head.
“It’s going to be ok,” Kennedy promised, wondering if her last words to Willow would prove to be a lie. She fumbled with blind, clumsy fingers, but every time she tried to free the string, it wound up tighter around Willow’s throat.
“We need to cut it.” Kennedy would have tried her teeth, but she couldn’t pull on it without choking her friend. “God, we need to cut it.” She sounded like Grandma Lucy praying out loud like that, but she was well past the point of caring what Willow thought of her faith. She swept her hands around on the floor until she felt a purse beneath one of the seats. Her fingers trembled as she unfastened the clasp. All she needed was a pair of scissors. A nail file. Anything. Why couldn’t the passenger have carried a Swiss army knife in her purse? Stupid TSA regulations.
“I’ll have to pull it,” Kennedy told her, wincing when she thought about how hard she’d have to yank to get the necklace to break free.
“I don’t care. Just get it off.”
Kennedy’s breaths came out in worried, choked sobs. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t strong enough. What if the strap cut into Willow’s skin before the necklace gave way? What if she choked her friend to death?
“Just get it off,” Willow begged.
Kennedy could feel the heat from the back of the cabin. She didn’t have the lung capacity to let out the cry that welled up from her throat. God, please. She whispered a silent prayer and yanked with all her might. Willow’s head jerked forward and banged Kennedy’s knee, but the strap itself held fast.
“I’m sorry,” Kennedy squealed.
“Just get it off.”
Kennedy braced herself and pressed one hand against Willow’s head to keep it still this time. Ok, God. You performed miracles in the Bible. You performed miracles in the lives of so many missionaries. It’s time for a miracle now. She thought about Grandma Lucy’s boldness. Could she conjure up that degree of faith? “In the name of Jesus,” she whispered to the necklace, “I command you to break free.”
Another yank, so hard Kennedy grunted from exertion.
Nothing. The leather held fast just like the last time, except now Willow didn’t respond at all. Had she blacked out? Was she ...
Kennedy leaned down, and her own purifier swung and hit Willow in the face. She grabbed the device to throw it over her shoulder when she felt it. The leather was tied in the back. She ran her hands along Willow’s strap until she felt the bulky knot.
“I’ve got it now,” she assured her, but Willow still didn’t respond.
God, you can’t let her die. You need to give me just one more chance. I won’t chicken out again, I promise. Please?
Kennedy slid the leather out of its knot. Her friend was free, but Kennedy couldn’t rejoice.
Willow’s body lay perfectly limp.
CHAPTER 19Kennedy planted her fingers against the small dent in Willow’s neck. Please let there be a pulse. Please let there be a pulse.
There it was. Slow and weak, but at least Willow was still alive. Kennedy leaned down, throwing off her own necklace after the purifier hit Willow in the face again. “You’re going to be ok.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped onto Willow’s body as the plane lurched, flinging Kennedy to one side and then the other. Howling wind roared through her ears. The cabin floor jostled violently.
From the window Kennedy made out the vague flashing lights of an ambulance.
- Writer
