Author's Note: Thank you so much to Cherylann Rivers and Erin Jordan for your reviews, it's keeping me moving on the new story I'm working on as well as posting this one!
CHAPTER 3
Smoke. Black greasy coils of it, slinking amongst smoldering seats and twisted bulkheads scattered like the dollhouse of a disgruntled toddler. A pervasive, roiling stench coated the debris, choking the crackling flames that had produced it; invading the few bodies that had as of yet refused to submit, leaving them gasping, grotesque fish. A fraction of the forms stirred, drawing the sickening heat into charred lungs. The majority remained still, their crisping flesh one more obstacle between the ever growing fire and the elusive freedom of cold air. The burning remnants of a jet airliner and a dozen rescue vehicles spewed flame, heat, darkness, and despair skyward from within a perimeter that surely enclosed one of Dante's circles.
A little further left... Laura groped out blindly, her hand closing around jagged metal that seared into her palm. An overwhelming wall of sound encroached on the sliver of space around her; groaning metal, the roar of the flames, an occasional shriek, and far distant sirens all competing to assault her ears. She was flat on her stomach, a slab of some sort angled a few feet above her head, making getting even to her knees an impossibility. One arm length at a time she pulled herself hand over hand along the floor, rerouting around each unseen roadblock as she collided with it. The fire fought her for every inch, tempting her with surrender into the darkness. She knew if she'd been alone she would have yielded to that escape already, but she wasn't. Not really. Not as long as her husband and sons were waiting for her at home.
Another inch. The floor was getting hotter, forcing Laura to increase the speed of her slither, ignoring the embers and fragments that bit into her skin. The largest intact section of the aircraft was also the main source of the inferno, that wreckage dozens of yards from the smaller segment where she struggled for air.
Her nose bumped against something again, the textured surface interrupted regularly by smooth ovals. Although it was curving below her body, she was certain that it was the upper section of the plane, some of the windows oddly intact. She trailed both hands over the wall with increasing urgency, unable to find a way around. Eventually the seeking quest of her fingertips gave way to pounding fists and tears. There wasn't any place else to go.
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"Hmm. I love it up here when it snows." Beth McCullough stretched her arms backward over the headrest of her seat, gazing out the windshield at the white tipped pines and pristine mountain vistas. Something about snow always looked so new and clean. Heck, it even smelled clean.
"Which is precisely why we're here." Benjamin laughed, amused as always at how much his supposedly adult spouse enjoyed every aspect of playing in a winter wonderland. He opened his car door, shaking his shoulders in a dramatic shudder. "Awfully cold for November, though. Let's get inside and I'll get a fire going before we bring in the luggage."
Beth nodded, glancing into the backseat. The girls were both slack jawed in slumber, Amy resting against the window and Laura leaning as far into her brother as her car seat allowed. Joe, however, was predictably awake; watching. "Do you want to wake your sisters up?"
"Ok." His face seemed to have so much more to say than that, but he settled for the single word. Amy piled out of the car, giggling when she sank nearly to her knees the second she stepped off the gravel roadway. Joe stared at that for a moment and opted to piggyback Laura, the preschooler's feet dangling against the back of his knees.
"I can carry her, if you want." Beth held her hands out, but didn't step toward him. Whoever had given the child that black eye had left him with a more than understandable wariness. She wasn't surprised when he shook his head. "Have you ever played in the snow, Joe? We have some sleds, heavier coats, even some skis if you want to try."
"Maybe, ma'am." Joe slid Laura off his shoulders onto the wide planks of the cabin porch, steadying her when she took a drowsy lurch. He gave Beth a long appraising look before taking a deep breath and lowering the armor a notch. "I made a snowman once."
Beth jumped on the opening, hoping to finally start a conversation with the boy. She was aware of Ben in the periphery, toting wood in through the backdoor and giving her some room to talk to the children. "Did you make him very tall? I can never get the balls rolled big enough to go more than two snowballs high, so mine always come out sort of stunted."
"The snow here is too dry." Joe kicked a toe at the powdery stuff.
Beth waited to see if he would elaborate, then spoke when he didn't. "What do you mean?"
"It's not sticky. Warmer snow is sticky."
While warm snow sounded odd, Beth knew what he meant. The larger, heavy snowflakes that fell when it was thirty degrees or so did make better clumps. "We get that sometimes. This powder is nice for skiing, though."
Joe stopped Amy's exploration of the side woods with a glance, fingers barely twitching and yet still communicating for her to stay close before he answered Beth. "I've never tried skis."
"I'll show you in the morning if you want. You said the snow here. Did you build your snowman somewhere far away?"
"No, ma'am. I meant exactly right here. We've always lived close by, but this is our first trip up into the mountains." Joe paused to calculate the distance to his sisters, discovering Amy and Laura had both plopped down on their backs, arms and legs scissoring to make snow angels. Before he could stop it an univited grin snuck across his face. "They didn't get to help with the snowman, they weren't old enough. Maybe we should do that tomorrow."
"But it snowed a lot last year-"
Joe interrupted her, the smile gone. "Last year we were with a different family. No snowmen."
He scooped Laura out of the snow and beckoned to Amy, abruptly ushering them both just inside the door.
By the time Beth caught up, all three of them were out of their shoes and Joe had his outer shirt off, scrubbing the melting sludge off the floor. "Joe? Sweetie? You don't have to do that. This floor's seen a lot worse than a few drips."
She took a chance, taking the shirt from his hand and helping him up. His arm instantly tensed under her hand, but he didn't pull free. "I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. You don't have to tell me, but have you lived with a lot of families?"
Joe shrugged slightly, his answer bleakly matter of fact. "Four if you count our folks. The first foster family was great, the next one sort of so-so. This last one and our parents, not so good."
"Is that what happened to your eye?"
His fingers brushed against the puffy bruise before he looked pointedly from Beth to his sisters and back again. "I fell."
"I see." And she did. The girls didn't know what had happened, or at least not all of it. "So how about Amy and Laura? Do they fall much?"
"Not if I'm around. I'm clumsy enough for all of us."
Amy glanced up, her six year old face older. "You aren't clumsy, Joey."
The shrug again. "When I need to be, I am." A noise at the door stiffened his spine, the guarded shield again in his eyes.
Benjamin walked in with the bags, suddenly aware he'd shut down a conversation Joe needed to have, but it was too late to go back outside now. "Everybody ready to get some sleep? I hate to say it Joe, but Beth and I were expecting all girls for this little venture, so we'll have to figure out some sleeping arrangements. There's a double bed and a double trundle in the loft and two twins down here. How about Laura and Amy sharing the trundle, Beth can have the double, and you and I will take the twin beds?"
Joe ran through the permutations in a matter of seconds. He was perfectly comfortable sharing a room with his sisters, especially since he'd have the treat of his own bed, and almost spoke up to suggest that. Children upstairs, grownups down. The loft was open, though, the front side a mere rail, and therefore it had no door to lock. If he stayed down here, then maybe Mr. McCullough would have no reason to climb those stairs. Beth would be with the girls and there didn't seem to be a way around that, but she was definitely the lesser threat. Besides, Amy knew to scream bloody murder if anyone came near them.
"Yes sir, that's fine." Joe picked up his bag and walked toward the bedroom, his breath darting more with every step.
Amy noticed, more aware of the last few years than her elder sibling realized. She plucked at his sleeve to stop him. "We could all sleep in here by the fire. Maybe there are sleeping bags or something?"
"I'll be fine, Amy." The ten year old squared his shoulders, resigned. "It's just another night. I'll be fine."
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"Hey, Finn, look right there!" The firefighter pointed leftward, his bulky protective gloves decreasing the accuracy of gesture. "Do you see that?"
His partner hesitated, his flashlight feebly searching the cloying smoke. Finally he nodded and plowed forward, the visible patch of flesh resolving into a slim hand as he got closer. It was a woman's hand, soot and scrapes almost blending in with the surrounding trash, but the light beam glinted off a diamond band. He knelt, shaking his head at the amount of debris they'd need to shift to extract the body. Most of the plane's passengers were in the larger segment of the wreckage and would never be recovered at all. The heat there was simply too intense for even bones to survive. Here along the edges of a debris field that stretched a half mile, the rescue workers were still removing a scant number of corpses and an even smaller number of survivors, many of those their own coworkers injured in the secondary explosions. He stripped out of a glove and wrapped his fingers around the abraded wrist. "Mike! Get some more help! She's alive!"
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"Hardy residence." Joe held his breath and willed his stomach to stop an uncontrolled plummet to his toes, the Chicago area code blinking at him from the caller ID. "Yes... she's my mother."
Frank charged into the room, skidding to a stop when he saw his brother already clutching the phone. Joe's face looked intensely anxious, not devastated nor relieved. He didn't know anything yet.
"Is she ok?... No, that would be my father... Fenton Hardy. He's on his way to Chicago by car... Yes, he's aware of that..." Joe paced in a tight circle, clammy palm repetitively swiping over the denim of his jeans.
Frank tried to piece the conversation together from Joe's half, mouthing questions at him at a frantic rate. "Who's that? Is Mom ok? What are they saying? Are there more survivors? Joe?"
Joe turned his back, shutting out everything but the male voice on the phone. "No, I'm not. Please, if you could... I know, but... my brother's here, he's eighteen, maybe you could... She's my mother, please, if you can tell me anything... Of course... I understand... It's 631-555-4363..." He dropped the phone to the foyer table, spreading both hands flat on the cool wood, head hunched between broad shoulders.
"Joe?" Frank raised a tentative hand to his brother's arm, unnerved by the long silence. "They didn't tell you anything, right? Joe?"
His sibling shrugged away from the contact, mindlessly wandering to the couch. He stared at it, his mental processes taking some time to recall what it was for. Eventually he sank into the cushions, knees tucked up under his chin. "Only that they had 'significant news' regarding Mom and could only notify whomever was legally responsible for her. ...Frank? Is that a polite way of asking for next of kin? 'Cause I don't think I can stand it if Mom's... if..."
"We can't know that." Frank sat as well, hiding his face in his hands for long seconds before meeting Joe's eyes. "We wait. Give him time to call Dad."
The next twenty minutes crawled at a glacial rate, transforming the scene in the room to stone. Both brothers stared at the continued rescue efforts on TV, not really seeing anything. At the top of the hour they pounced on the phone by unspoken agreement, but the sound that met their ears only served to crank their anxieties higher. The tiniest snippet of hello could be heard before static drowned out their father's exhausted voice. Repeat attempts fifteen and thirty minutes later were no better.
The mantle clock ticked, the TV screen flickered, the last of the sunlight filtering through the bay window slid away; neither brother able to combat a growing numb silence. The words of the news anchor had long since congealed into a meaningless drone, so Joe almost missed it when a number of names began to scroll up the screen.
"Wait, turn it back up." Joe tapped Frank on the hand when he didn't respond.
Frank glanced at the remote curled in his fingers, vaguely surprised to find it there, before adjusting the volume.
"...Again, the Chicago Police Department and the FAA have issued a joint statement. While twenty two passengers have been confirmed dead, their names are not being released at this time. An additional eighty seven passengers, crew, and rescue workers are presumed dead, although the remains have not yet been identified. Fourteen passengers and one flight attendant have now been extracted from the wreckage and are being transported to area hospitals. Reports of their injuries range from minor to life threatening and we will provide additional information as we receive it. While the names of all of the survivors are not yet available, we are able to release this partial list as their families have been notified..."
Samuel McInnis
Dillon Tucker
Melissa Chilton Tucker
Anthony Tucker
Jacob Kohler
Eve Rabindrin Mayfield
Felicia Dzeren
Laura McCullough Hardy
Viktor Rivis
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to be continued...
