Chapter 2: Mayday

Jake Long had an almost sleepless night.

"They'll calm down soon!" his father had said once he'd told his parents what happened that evening.

Now, 9 hours later he 'woke up' and held his head in his hand. It was 5 am. In one hour they would be leaving. It was too early in the morning to call Trixie or Spud and Jake knew that contacting them would never work.

Spud left the house at exactly 6am. It was still dark outside but he had already called Trixie to arrange a meeting in front of Jake's house. When he met her, near to Jake's house, they talked about that what Jake said.

"I'm pretty sure Jake didn't mean that." Spud said.

"Yeah, you're right." Trixie answered. "We were wet, frozen and tired so we overreacted."

"Do you know what time the flight departs?" Spud asked.

"No... I don't even know which airline it's leaving from" Trixie said. "I could ask my mother… but she's landing in two and a half hours at JFK"

"Oh, where'd she go this time?"

"Heathrow, London." Trixie answered, but her mother could only help her if Jake and his family were flying with InterFly Airways, so it was a gamble anyway.

Jonathan Long handed his wife, Susan, the five plane Tickets. They were due to travel via InterFly Airways to Lisbon. Jonathan was really excited for his first trip to Europe. "Jakeroo, Haleyooo... come on. The plane is not waiting!"

With a wide smile on her face, Haley walked down the stairs. "Jake is already outside."

This surprised her parents but they could see their son through the window. Susan left the house and sat down next to Jake, who looked around sadly. "Jake, you okay, it's very cold out here."

"I'm waiting for Trixie and Spud so they can apologize." he answered.

"Why are you so sure that they'll come?" his mother asked.

"I know them." he replied simply. "When I make mistakes... they always come back. I guess I'm just a bad friend."

"No! Of course that's not true!" Susan said and wrapped Jake up in a cuddle. Just seconds later, the van of the Airport-Shuttle-Service stopped in front of them. "The car's arrived!"

At last Spud and Trixie had made it to Jake's street only to see Jake and his family drive away in the shuttle.

"Nuts!" Trixie said. "What now?"

"TAXI!" Spud shouted as a taxi passed them like he had never lifted his hand. "Idiot."

"Now how are we going to get to the airport?" Trixie asked.

Meanwhile Jake was looking at the display on his mobile. Spud and Trixie's numbers were on the screen. His finger was lying on the green call button immediately he pressed it to call Trixie. She didn't pick up and it went through to Mailbox. Spud was the same! That disappointed him much more.

They hadn't realized that they both had left their mobiles at home. Jake could already see the terminals of the John-F.-Kennedy Airport when Trixie and Spud finally got into a taxi.

"Hey, I remember you..." the driver said with a strong accent. "I got 600 Dollars from you for one ride and a 6 Dollar tip!"

Trixie and Spud remembered. It was the same man. "Great... JFK... please!"

"Thanks to you, my wife has a new ring on her finger... this ride is free!" the driver said.

"Thank you!" Trixie said. "That's one less problem."

At the airport, Check-In and the security check went very fast. Fu Dog was in an animal-box on the way to the cargo area, which he didn't liked, and the rest of the family were standing near the gate and watched the plane.

"Isn't that the airline Trixie's mom works for?" Haley asked.

"Hmmm..." Jake murmured a reply.

"But it's not the same type?" she asked further and once again Jake made just a 'Hmmm' noise.

The plane was a Boeing 767-300 with the white, yellow and red colours of InterFly Airways. In red letters 'InterFly' stood over the windows while the tail had the big yellow letters 'IF' written on it. Two men in pilot-uniforms walked around the plane and made the last checks. It began to rain outside and dark clouds covered the sky. It was 8:30am, but still dark outside.

The pilots finished their round and the inside the gate was opened. Passengers walked through the long 'Finger' to the airplane. Jake followed his family wordlessly through the tunnel next to him his grandfather.

"Jake... I know you're sad. But I promise you... I'm pretty sure that your friends have already forgotten what happened." the old man said to Jake when they arrived at the door.

"I even couldn't apologize!" Jake said when the flight-attendant next to him greeted them.

"29G, on the other aisle, enjoy your flight!" she said.

Jake, smiled back to her. 'You're lucky, when you do something wrong you can just fly away. Okay, I can do that, too… but you have to. And I just can do!' he said in his mind.

Jake walked down the cabin, between tourists, business-people, and random people before he reached his row. His parents and his grandfather had the seats in the middle of the cabin while Jake and Haley sat in a two seat row at the window. Haley was already sitting in seat 29G which was by the window.

Jake didn't think about. He simply took the blanket, the pillow and the headphones, which lay on every seat, and sat down on seat F... on the aisle. Haley wondered why Jake hadn't started a fight for her window seat, like he normally did. She realised that he had to be really depressed. The cabin smelled like plastics and each seat had a personal screen. Haley pulled out the 'InterMag', the airline magazine, out of the bag in front of her and started to read it.

Meanwhile, Trixie and Spud jumped out of the taxi and ran into the terminal. On the big information monitors they saw the flight to Lisbon, in big letters 'Boarding completed' stood behind them.

"Too late." Spud said, shaking his head.

Depressed, they walked up some stairs and over to the other side of the building where they could see the airfield. The only thing they could see was the 767 slowly driving away. Trixie began to wave, hoping that Jake could see it... he didn't.

"Goodbye!" They both said, knowing that Jake couldn't see or hear them.

"Well... as we're here... we can welcome my mother when she returns." Trixie said and sat down on a bench to stare at the Arrivals screen in front of her.

Jake didn't notice the security-video, the take-off, or the turbulences after. They had been in the air for almost an hour now. He was woken up from his little world when Haley asked him something.

"Can you let me through?" Haley asked again, as a woman in a colourful dress behind him stood up.

"Hmmm... What?"

"I asked you to let me through... so I can go to the toilet before they serve the drinks." Haley said.

Before Jake could say something a loud bang scared everyone.

In the cockpit, the pilots were surprised by the loud explosion and the ringing alert. The first-officer realised that the plane began to make a turn to the left and steered right. Than he saw the fire-alert in the left engine was blinking.

"Fire in engine 1!" the pilot called "MAYDAY...MAYDAY... IF351...Flight level 330, Fire in the engine, I repeat fire in the engine!" no answer. It was like the radio was dead. The pilot began to get worried. His colleague pressed the button for the fire-extinguisher, but that had no effect. The pilot screamed into the microphone again. "MAYDAY... IF351..."

The plane was more falling than sinking at this point. A flight attendant and the woman in the colourful dress were smashed through the cabin. People where pressed into their seats and through the windows on the other side, Jake could see flames. His parents screamed while his grandfather stared speechlessly into the air. The pilots, meanwhile, had successfully gained control of the dropping plane. The plane made aturn and was flying west, but they were still over the ocean. The coast of Maine was not too far away.

"Maybe we should try to contact Bangor! The runway is long enough there!" the first officer said and pulled out some flight maps. The plane was over the Englishman Bay now, 65 miles east of Bangor.

Carefully the pilot steered the damaged and burning airliner through the air. Then there was a loud bang... the engine had exploded again...

Meanwhile, a young man was with some friends on a trip in a little boat on Patton Cove near Roque Island. He was filming their trip with his camcorder. One of his friends just handed him a drink when they heard a loud bang in the sky.

"What was that?" one of them asked.

"Hey look there!"

It looked like a burning barrel was falling from the sky. Just seconds later a big airliner appeared, falling upside down and almost vertically to the ground. In shock the man pointed with his camcorder to the jet. The left wing was on fire and the engine was racing down somewhere else. In fear the four men saw how the 150 ton plane hit a glade on the hill of Roque Island... leaving just a gigantic fireball... fuelled by thousands of litres of fuel...

In the air-traffic control centre...

The man at the screen was confused when he saw the IF351 disappear.

"IF351... please answer!" the controller said but he got no answer. He tried again, with no response. He then decided to call another plane. "Oceanic 4459... Do you have any contact with InterFly 351?"

"Halifax Centre... Oceanic 4459... we could see an explosion not far away. And we can see smoke rising from an Island." the pilot of the Oceanic jet said.

"Oh my gosh!" was all the controller could say.

400 miles away... Trixie and Spud walked through the halls of the airport, thinking about themselves, their friendship with Jake, and many other things. While they stared at an advert for a big Russian airline Spud began to talk.

"You know... yesterday night I..." Spud began.

"What?"

"Hmm... nothing." he said and they continued to watch various adverts of airlines.

Trixie looked outside again and saw an InterFly Boeing 747-400 arrive and park at a gate.

"That has to be mum!" Trixie said.

She often picked up her mother from the airport so she knew how it worked here. She knew where her mother would leave the plane; she knew how much time would pass and where she would arrive. Together, with Spud, she walked through the masses of people to the arrival area. When they arrived, she checked her watch.

"5 minutes, 10 maybe." she said simply. But it took longer. All passengers where already out... through the windows they could see that the plane was already prepared for the next flight, but where was her mother? Finally Trixie saw some InterFly flight attendants in their dark-red uniforms leaving the safety-area. All were talking and looked like they had cried.

"What's going on?" A confused Spud asked as he looked at the eight women.

Then Trixie could see her mother, who looked sad and shocked. She talked with her colleagues like she was afraid of something. Then she saw Trixie standing there and waving. In surprise Mrs Carter pulled out a tissue, dried her face and walked over to her daughter.

"Trixie... what a surprise!" she said and hugged her daughter. "What are you doing here?"

"Mum I... have you been crying?" Trixie asked.

"Erm... yes. I just got the message that another one of our airline's planes has crashed. It looks like nobody survived."

"Oh my gosh!" Trixie said and hugged her mother. "I'm so sorry... wait... WHICH PLANE?"

"Trixie? What happened?" her mother asked, scared, when Trixie and Spud watched the information-screen with the departures written on.

Another plane to Lisbon was boarding right now. Another one would depart in the evening.

"Trixie... is someone you know flying somewhere today?"

Trixie agreed in fear: "Jake... and his family! I don't know... which flight or which airline... they're going to Lisbon."

Her mother's face went pale and she almost got a heart-attack when she heard that. "Trixie... Trixie... the plane... that crashed... it was on the way to Lisbon!"

"...No..." Trixie said in shock. "NO! NO... the other flight! HE MUST BE ON ANOTHER PLANE!" she shouted. Her mother hugged her again.

"Trixie! Trixie calm down!" her mother said and saw Spud for the first time. Spud sat down on a bench in shock and staring at the celling. He was shaking his head.

"Wait! Calm down! I'll just ask... they'll tell me! Just wait!" Trixie's mom said as she ran to an information desk.

Trixie and Spud followed her as if they were in a trance. They saw her mother entering the little room behind the desk and using the phone to call the company. They had just arrived when her mother left the little room and looked at them with horror.

"I'm… I'm…so sorry!" was the only thing she could say now.

Trixie slowly sank to the ground and fell on her knees, tears running out of her eyes. Spud felt like he was going to become senseless. In shock he looked up, seeing that the light directly over him wasn't working. Seeing, for a short moment, the shadow of the person who had attacked him in his nightmare... before he had let out an excruciating scream.

The people in the terminal looked in shock at the two teenagers, when at the same time, a fire-fighter found the half burned passport of Jake's sister.

End of Chapter 2

It happened. Please review. I promise that the end of the story will surprise everyone.

Just for information: All airlines used in this story are fictional. Similarities to real existing companies or to living people are totally random. The plane used in this story does exist but is not to be spotted. InterFly came from the German computer game 'Emergency2'.