Destinations
A personal note – my good computer with all my story stuff on it had a hardware crash. I'm using a little old junk system. Then when I went to rebuild a post I had written I ended up throwing it away and writing a completely different scene. That's what caused the delay.
She was carrying a medical bag and was pretending to be a doctor. Everyone thought she was a doctor and they thought it was a medical bag. It was a suicide bomb with a hidden detonator. She was really an Afghan terrorist for Al Qaeda. Security even inspected the pills in her bag when she entered the White House but they didn't find anything. Then she switched bags with someone else and went to the White House bar to get a drink.
Unfortunately for her, the doctor whose bag she had switched also went to the bar. She saw him just a few feet away. She couldn't run out. The best she could do was turn away and cover her face as it exploded, ripping five people to shreds right in front of her.
Juliet stirred, still on the airplane. "We are approaching JFK now," the flight attendant said to her. "Please fasten your seatbelt and restore your seat to the upright position."
She looked out the window. It was still dark outside the plane. It was disgustingly early. She tried to think of the last time she'd gotten up at this hour. She had to go back to a 7th grade school trip to Disneyworld.
By the time the plane landed, she could see the rising glow of the sun in the East. It would be a new day, and it would be one not just in the USA but in New York. For the first time since New Zealand, she actually felt hungry.
It was her fault, she knew. She shouldn't have acted like an ass that night. If she had talked Dad into letting her stay at home then Bridget wouldn't have been slashed up by Siobhan. Thank heavens at least the baby was healthy.
They landed at Terminal 8. She found the scene to be surreal as she went down the moving sidewalk. The airport was full of empty seats and closed stores. A short woman was cleaning the waiting areas as a boom box blasted Spanish music. Nearby, a little man was pushing two giant mops. She took the elevator down to baggage claim. Then when the elevator opened and she walked up to the moving sidewalk it wasn't moving at all. Nobody else was on it so she took it as her own private highway to the other side as she walked underneath the runways. Then she took the elevator at the other end.
Welcome to New York said the sign by the exit doors, with a monstrously ugly giant cartoon apple by it. Ha, ha, she thought, so cute it made her sick. But there was one sight that she was so glad to see immediately past Security, and that was the McDonald's in the food court. She got a Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and a large mocha with nonfat milk. As good as the Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles looked, she didn't want to risk getting sick from it like she had from that Burger King cheeseburger.
Finally she reached baggage claim, and then wondered why she was bothering to stop there at all. She didn't like anything she had left in the bag. Still she waited as she ate and eventually her bag came.
It was a bit chilly and windy outside as she waited at the taxi stand but the day was turning bright and beautiful. When a cab driver pulled up for her and asked her where she wanted to go, she briefly debated but her answer came out "Bellevue Hospital."
