Since we had no air marshal, and presumably no doctors onboard, I knelt down next to the body, checking the pulse.

Nothing. Big surprise there. My hands came away coated in a slimy layer of something melted I didn't even want to think about. I scrubbed my hands with sanitizer.

"Did you find anyone?" I heard the evangelist saying behind me.

I frowned. "In a manner of speaking."

I brought him closer to the bathroom so he could see. "If this is the rapture, what is that?" I said, pointing to the irradiated looking corpse.

Osteen responded by quoting some passage from Revelation about the wicked being struck by disease, which really didn't have anything to do with our current predicament.

"Dude," Jack said as he stared over my shoulder. "This isn't a rapture, this is a freaking X-File!" The tone in his voice was one of amusement, not fright.

The plane shook violently, and I heard a sea of inhuman sounding voices moaning and singing tunelessly all around the plane. The windows flashed with brilliant light.

Time to get back in the pilot's seat.

"I knew it!" Osteen cried. "This plane is flying straight to hell!"

He dropped to his knees, kneading his fingers together. "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy."

As I passed through the blue confetti patterned seats in coach, I glanced through the windows.

I didn't see any angry fires, nor did I see the spirits of the damned. All I saw were...waves, streams of liquidy golden light, like rainbow geysers spouting from the surface of the sun.

I turned my head just as a brilliant burst of light as intense as a sun flare filled every surface of the cabin.

When the light normalized and I resumed staggering back toward the cockpit, I suddenly noticed that all the seats were full.

With dead radiation burned corpses.

Maybe this was the plane to hell.

Someone screamed that they couldn't see. Apparently the flare could cause retinal damage.

I was only one man, and not a doctor, so I pushed onward. Blind people and corpses were nothing compared to a potentially catastrophic plane wreck.

When I got to my chair, I discovered a dead body in the copilot's seat.

I just shook my head and checked the controls.

Damn solar flare.

The compass, gyroscope, radio, everything. It was all fubar. I would have to eyeball the flight until the disruption tapered off. It was a wonder the autopilot hadn't flown us into a building, or worse.

The banshee wailing continued as the solar flare rippled all around me.

The cockpit door came open, and a woman stepped through.

Hattie.

I sighed. I was going to die with all this deception on my conscience, I thought.

The stewardess seated herself on the armrest of Copilot Benson's chair, careful to avoid touching the body.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

I swallowed. "Hattie, I don't think we have very long to live. There's something I want to get off my chest, and I've been meaning to tell you about it for a long time."

She nodded. "You're married. I know."

My jaw dropped. "You knew?"

She gave me this look like I were stupid. "You're a terrible liar. That bullshit with the ring? Those clumsy explanations? Or how about the fact that you didn't want to go out with me at such suspicious times? February 25th, for example. I was this close to saying congratulations, but I wasn't sure if it were the anniversary or your kid's birthday. You come to work looking dead tired a few weeks before may, like you've been helping junior cram for graduation or something, and then you blurt names like Chloe and Irene."

I stared at her, speechless. "You knew. All this time. You knew and you didn't tell me."

"You're the one that kept trying to hide it."

I felt like my brain was short circuiting. "B-but why would you put up with me? Why would you keep coming onto me if you knew?"

She leaned closer. "Maybe I enjoy a challenge. Maybe I like playing games. Maybe now that the truth is out, we can play some new ones."

And then she kisses me on the mouth.

Suddenly pulls away, eyes wide in alarm. "Plane."

I stared at her, wondering if this were the new game. "Plane?"

She jabbed a finger at the window. "Plane!" she screamed.

I turned my head right and saw the Frontier Airlines jet carrier barreling straight for the nose of our craft.

"Fuck...me."

"Take care of the plane first," Hattie blurted.