NIGHTMARE SCENARIO
Chapter 2
Things aren't getting a whole lot better for our favourite aviophobe.
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Dean's head swam; unable to rationalise what he had just seen, his mouth worked silently, mindlessly; "Oh God; oh God; oh God; …" A verbal manifestation of the overwhelming fear that was rapidly consuming him.
He leaned forward to take another look; hoping against forlorn hope that his panic-crazed mind was playing tricks on him.
But luck would never be that kind; saucer wide eyes stared at the empty seat. Where the hell was the freakin' man? This was ridiculous! The sonofabitch had been there when this stupid damn bucket took off. A cursory glance around the cabin didn't make him feel any better; the space was tiny, and there was certainly nowhere a man could secrete himself out of sight of any other passengers.
The pilot had simply vanished.
Dean swayed as the walls of the cabin closed in around him; the tinny whine of the engine growing louder and louder, drilling through him; a mocking, vibrating drone which filled his head, and bore down on him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He pressed his hands over his ears, letting out a hoarse cry as his knees buckled underneath him.
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He reached across and grasped Sam by the shoulder, raggedly shaking his sleeping brother; "S'mmy" he hissed frantically through clenched teeth, "wake up, c'mon". When there was no response, he shook harder.
"Dude;" his strangled voice more of a plea, "Sammy, wake the hell up!"
Sam continued to snore peacefully, his head lolled limply onto his shoulder in the wake of his brother's attempts to wake him.
Blind panic tightened it's grip and Dean's breath tightened with it, becoming harsh, rasping gasps; He rose on weak, trembling legs and grabbed Sam harder by the shoulders shaking him frantically, violently; battering him against the padded seat back. "Wake up, Sammy," he wailed, "Please God, damnit dude, wake up, what's wrong with you?"
His frantic cries tailed off into gulping sobs and he sunk limply onto the cabin floor; white knuckled fingers still gripping fistfuls of Sam's shirt as blackness claimed him.
Oblivious to the drama going on within it, the little plane continued it's journey, propeller buzzing merrily as it rode the gentle breeze onwards towards it's destination.
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Green eyes fluttered open hazily and, from his position sprawled on the floor, they focussed on Sam's feet. It didn't take long for the hideous reality of their situation to flood back into Dean's woozy mind, in all it's queasy glory. Clambering shakily back into his seat; he could feel himself slowly unravelling as the agony of fear tightened around him in an ice-cold grip.
He despised himself for it.
"Sammy, he whispered; "please, dude, what the hell's wrong?" He clutched his sleeping brother's limp hand, "C'mon man, I need your help."
He stifled a stray sob; "Sammy, I'm scared."
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Dean knew that it was down to him to get them out of this mess; he had to get a grip. There was something terribly wrong with Sam; his brother needed help, and he wasn't going to get it stuck up here in this stupid plane. Dean focussed on that fact; he grasped it like a drowning man might clutch at a piece of driftwood.
That fact would make Dean strong; it would give him a purpose. It would get them on the ground safely.
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Gripping the back of the pilots seat, Dean staggered into an upright position; his eyes tightly closed, just looking out of that windshield made his head spin, turning his guts to ice water.
He patted Sam's knee, "S'ok Sammy, I'm gonna get us down;" he swallowed convulsively, "we'll get you to a doctor just as soon as we get landed." The tremble in his voice betrayed the fear behind reassurance he tried so hard to convey.
Clambering clumsily into the pilot's seat, he toppled over as the plane lurched across another air pocket, bashing his nose against the window and finding himself suddenly staring wide eyed and unblinking over a wide expanse of desert, a dizzying two thousand feet below him.
He gave a choking cry and burrowed himself back into the seat, fighting hard to regain control of his breathing, to suppress the visceral panic which was threatening to rise once more. Forcing himself to open one eye, he gave a queasy groan as he saw the expanse of desert again; this time through the plane's windshield.
Squirming uncomfortably in the seat, his shirt clung to him, drenched with sweat; the cabin was rank with the sour odour of his terror. He dug his nails into his palms, focussing on the pain to give him something else to think about other than what he could see in front of him. He swallowed convulsively as nausea, his constant companion on this freakin' trip, crept over him again; all the while muttering breathlessly to Sam to hang on, he'd have him to a doctor real soon.
Dean exhaled long and slowly; "right, c'mon Winchester, pull yourself together". He palmed the sweat and tears from his face with a trembling hand, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.
He reviewed his entire knowledge of planes and flying which was limited at best. The plane hadn't plummeted to the ground yet; that was good. That means it must have some kind of autopilot mechanism engaged; but if Dean's limited understanding was correct, although autopilot could keep the plane in the air, it couldn't land the thing. You still needed a human for that. Okay, that wasn't so good.
"Right, I must be able to make some sense out of all this crap" he muttered, eyes scanning the flight deck; anything to avoid looking out of the windshield. The myriad of dials, levers and buttons had him gaping in confusion and he suddenly had a first inkling of the magnitude of the task ahead of him.
Swearing at himself as the tears of fear and frustration threatened again, he wiped his face aggressively, "C'mon you friggin' girl; Sammy's sick, he needs you to keep your pathetic whiny ass together."
He reached out to the handset of the radio hooked to the flight deck, and fiddled with it, pressing buttons and yelling into it at the top of his voice. In a brief moment of clarity, he suddenly realised; headsets! All pilots wear them when they fly; perhaps they need them to make the radio work. Twisting in his seat, he found the pilot's abandoned headset and, slipping it on, he began his attempt to make contact with the outside world once again.
Relief rolled across him like a tidal wave when he heard a voice crackle into being through the hissing interference.
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"This is South Valley Airfield. Over."
Dean could have wept. "Help me, oh God, please help me;" he blurted, "I'm in a plane, my brother's sick, I can't w-wake him. Our pilot's gone and-and there's no-one who can fly the friggin' plane. Don' know what to do. Please h-help me; don' know what to do..."
"What do you mean your pilot's gone? Over."
Dean became increasingly agitated; "He's gone, disappeared; he-he just ain't here any more."
There was a pause on the other end of the radio. "What's your flight designation and route? Over."
Dean hesitated to compose himself; he sure as hell wasn't going to let this man hear the panic in his voice; "We're heading for some freakin' godforsaken shithole called Hogscreek," he announced.
"What is your aircraft? Over."
Oh, for heaven's sake – it's shit, that's what it is! Dean scanned the flight deck searching for some kind of clue; under the circumstances he guessed that 'a freakin' pile of flying crap' wouldn't really help this man. After what seemed like forever, he spotted the information he needed engraved on the top of the flight deck.
"Um, a Cessna 172, I think." He took a shaky breath, as he fought back the rising nausea, "look, please, I need your help, my brother's sick … this is taking too long."
"Where did you say your pilot was? Over."
"I don't frickin' know,' snapped Dean, "sonofabitch was on board when this-this piss poor pile of shit took off and now he's gone, an-an' I don't friggin' know where ..." His last vestiges of his pride departing, Dean was painfully aware the pitch of his voice was rising along with the panic which was taking a relentless hold of him again, he was breaking down, unravelling, and each time it was becoming harder and harder to get a grip of himself; "please, p-please help me," he pleaded; "there's no-one to fly the plane. Please we need your help, I-I don't know what to do."
Dean guessed that the guy on the ground either thought he was a raving nutjob or that he, himself, had iced the pilot; furthermore, he really didn't care. If getting to the ground safely meant a welcome delegation from some two-bit, hick local law enforcement or the funny farm, that was fine by him. That was a problem he knew he could deal with.
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The voice sounded again; this time gentler, more informal. "Okay buddy, I'm Peter," it said, "what do I call you?"
"Dean;" he replied quietly, "Uh, I'm Dean."
"Okay, Dean, can you look at the fuel gauge for me? It's a dial close to the centre of the control panel."
Dean scanned the flight deck briefly, "yeah, found it," he replied.
"What does it show, Dean?"
Dean squinted at the gauge, "Uh, it's pointing between the red and the yellow bit of the dial."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the radio which Dean didn't like the sound of one bit.
"Okay, Dean," Peter's voice sounded serious, "I'm not sure where you are, I think you may have gone off-course since you, uh, lost your pilot." He continued, calmly yet urgently; "you don't have much fuel left, about twenty minutes worth."
Dean could feel himself starting to panic again; "So-so, what do we do?"
There was a pause before the radio crackled into life again, "Okay Dean, I need you to listen very closely to me, I'm going to talk you through bringing your plane down."
The shock of the words hit Dean like a punch to the gut. He keeled over, retching violently as sheer terror wrung his guts out with an ice-cold grip.
He fumbled with the radio, dropping it into his lap; hands shaking so hard he could barely press the button.
"No, no way," he gasped through clenched teeth, "I can't – I-I can't do that. I can't even look through the friggin' windshield without pukin'. Please, I can't do it. You've gotta help me some other way."
"There is no other way to help you Dean." Peter stated matter-of-factly, "I'm really sorry, but I don't have time to do this gently. You have twenty minutes before your fuel dries up and I don't need to explain what that means. If you want to help your brother, you need to pull yourself together, and listen to every word I say."
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tbc
ps: don't worry, Samfans, Sam does see some action as of next chapter ...
