Crash Chapter 19

"Angel"

Randy's POV

I forget about the entire rest of the world and just sit there, frozen in place on the couch. The phone rings, but I ignore it. The machine gets it. I hear dad's voice. He's saying something (I don't know what). Probably "pick up the phone if you're there Randy". Eventually he hangs up without me having even moved an inch. All I can do is watch the airplane. All I can think about is what could be going on inside that craft.

Dad calls back a few minutes later. Again I ignore the phone and the answering machine. About half way through his message, the plane is flying over a huge field about twenty minutes outside of Detroit and takes a sharp nosedive. I pounce for the cordless phone and sharply tap the "talk" button with my thumb.

'Dad, I'll call you back in a minute' I say, my eyes still glued to the screen when the plane crashes. I force myself to close my eyes, and then go to the garage and get in and start up the Mustang. I grip the steering wheel a little bit harder when I realize that my hands are shaking either from fear or pain. Or maybe it's a mixture.

I get a few minutes down the road, and hit the button that activates the hands free cell phone thing dad installed in the Mustang a few years ago. 'Call The Toolman' I command shakily.

After a couple of rings, dad answers his phone.

'Have you heard about the bombings and the plane?' I ask.

'Yeah, that's why I called you' dad says.

'Are you watching the news right now?' I ask.

'No, I'm on my way home' he says.

'The plane that Lauren is on just crashed in a field about twenty minutes outside of Detroit. I'm going there in the Mustang right now' I tell him.

'Randy, I don't think that that's such a good idea' dad protests.

'I don't either. But there's something telling me to do this, some voice, and it's just too powerful to disobey' I explain.

'I think I know the field you're talking about. I'll meet you there. I'm going to call and tell your mom what's happening on my way' dad says.

'Okay, I'm going to hang up now so I can focus on driving' I tell him. I need to focus all my attention on driving. I probably shouldn't even be driving right now.

I drive for about ten minutes uninterrupted, then see a barricade for roadwork of some sort set up. Who in their right mind would be doing roadwork in the middle of November in Southern Michigan?

I drive the mustang through one of the signs, and drive through the maze of road construction equipment, thinking that any minute, some police officer is going to see me and arrest me, but not really caring either.

About five minutes down the road from the road construction, I run into another obstacle. There's a barricade of police cars set up. I quickly assess my options here. I can either get out of the car and hope that the police officers will either be too busy to notice that I just broke through their barrier or let me through, or I could drive down the embankment and around the barricade. I decide to go with the latter of the two, and take off. I almost immediately have to cut down my speed once I hit the surface of the embankment because, thanks to the rain, the entire slope is slick and muddy.

I see the wreckage of the crashed plane as I get closer to the bottom of the bank.

I slam on my brakes and do a donut when I see and a hear a fleet of fire trucks, ambulances, and first responders coming up behind me. I don't let this delay me, however. I put the pedal to the metal while the rescue people are still working their way down the slippery slope. Hey, I've broken just about every other law imaginable, why stop now? I come within an inestimable distance from the aircraft and get out of the car just as the first responders start toward the plane.

I start surveying the wreckage. The plane is broken directly in half. The front half is burning wildly, save the cockpit, and the back half appears to be flame free. I start to run to the plane, then think better of it.

Fire fighters begin working to douse the flames on the front half, while police officers start searching the back half. I keep my attention trained on Lauren's section, hoping to see something, anything that could mean there are survivors.

I'm so intently watching the scene that I don't even see dad come barreling down the slope. He gets out and walks over to me and starts to say something, then stops like he doesn't know what to say.

All of a sudden, something happens that causes the supervising fireman start barking orders into the walkie talkie thing that police use. Then the smell of the jet fuel gets even heavier in the air. Police officers start rushing out of the back half of the plane, and another fire truck prepares itself for battle. I grab dad's arm and make a dash for a nearby ambulance. We reach its safety just as I hear an explosion. Even from my current position on the ground, and even with the ambulance blocking my view, I can see huge columns of flames shooting up in the air. My blood runs cold when I calculate in my mind where the flames are shooting up from.

Lauren's POV

Miraculously, I'm still alive even after the plane crash. I hurt just about everywhere, and I'm sure I have some injuries, but I can't differentiate the pain enough right now to tell what could possibly be injured.

After an amount of time that is unknown to me, some police officers begin coming into this section of the plane to see if there are any survivors. From the way it sounds, I'm the only one. (I've had my eyes closed, I don't know why, since the plane crashed). I open them now, and a police officer sees me doing so.

'We have one over here' he hollers to the rest of the pack.

'Miss, can you feel your legs?' he asks.

'I don't know, I'm…it all just hurts' I mumble.

'Alright, we're going to get some paramedics in here real soon' the police officer says.

'Can you tell me your name?' the officer asks.

'Lauren Johnson' I reply.

'Inform the chief that Lauren Johnson is the only survivor back here.

Before anyone gets a chance to do this, someone on the walkie talkies orders everyone off this section of the plane immediately.

'No! No, don't leave! Please!' I scream over and over again, suddenly finding my voice. Before anyone can say anything back to me, fire starts erupting everywhere around me. One spurt even engulfs the police officer who was talking to me.

As the fire rages on and gets stronger, it somehow miraculously never gets close enough to me to harm me.

"How is this happening? What could possibly be keeping this fire from devouring me?" I think.

-I am- a voice says out of nowhere.

'Who are you?' I ask.

-You wouldn't believe me if I told you-

'I'd believe just about anything right now' I say, laughing for some reason.

-I'm an angel, sent by God-

'Not that I don't believe in God, but I must be hallucinating' I say.

-I told you you wouldn't believe-

'But why me? There's so many other people on this airplane that could've been saved, that God could've chosen to keep alive. Why me?' I ask.

-God has His reasons. There's something very important you must do-

'What about the bombers?' I ask.

'They are already at the gates of hell, facing down Satan himself-

'What is the important mission I have to do?'

-I'm not allowed to say. You'll know what it is when the time comes.-

I notice then that the fire is getting closer and closer to me.

-Lauren, I need to get you out of here. I can't hold off this fire much longer-

Then I see someone appear right in front of me. He looks like he's over seven feet tall, has blond hair, is dressed all in white, and…has wings on his back. I start to ask if he's the one that I've been talking to, but the answer just comes to me before I get a chance to. He walks over to me, picks me up, and carries me through the fire, through the solid structure of the airplane, and then lays me down about fifteen feet away from the inferno.

-I have to go now, Lauren-

'But I didn't even get your name'

-Bingo-

For a second, I think he's being smart, then realize that Bingo is his name. Oh.

'But how will they find me here?'

-They will know to look. God has seen to all that already. Farewell for now, Lauren Johnson. Remember what I said.-

A heavy mist surrounds his body, and when it clears, Bingo is gone. As soon as he's gone, paramedics, first responders, and police officers come running around the plane to me.

A/N: I wasn't lying when I said things would get weirder in this story.

Read and review to find out what happens to Lauren. I'll just say this: This story isn't over yet, and it isn't done getting a lot weirder yet either.

Thanks for reading.

-Yours truly, Randy Taylor