Lynne Heitman - Hard Landing

What was normally a two-minute walk seemed to take forever as I put my head down and trudged into wind. I stopped now and then to look around for Dan and to make sure I was still alone out there. Someone could have been right behind me and I wouldn't have heard him.

Stepping into the outbound bag room and out of the shrieking wind brought relative calm and deep silence. I stood inside the doorway, searching for my radio and trying to get some feeling back.

"Kevin, come in. Kevin Corrigan, come in please." It was hard to talk with frozen lips.

Bags were everywhere-on the piers, on the floor around the piers, and at the ends where they'd dumped off into huge, uneven piles that clogged the driveway all the way to the ramp-side wall. The bag belt had apparently run for a while before someone had figured out the crew had abandoned ship.

"This is Kevin. Go ahead."

"Do you have an update?"

"Partial."

"Call me on my cell phone."

"Roger."

It took seconds for him to call. "The troopers are busy," he said.

"Busy?"

"Everyone's occupied at the moment by an aircraft excursion."

"Whose?"

"TWA had one slide off the runway, so there's a bunch of them down there. Apparently the roads coming in and out of this place are a nightmare, so all the rest of them are on traffic control."

"Traffic control? Did you tell them what's going on?"

"I told them, but it's a pretty wild story, you have to admit."

I pushed a clump of half-frozen hair out of my eyes and would have gone to Plan B if I'd had one. I'd been counting on help from the troopers.

"They said they'd respond as soon as they could break a unit away. I'll keep calling them."

"What about Big Pete?"

"His wife doesn't know where he is, but she says he's got a beeper. She doesn't have the number, but Victor does, if you can believe that. I'm waiting for Vic to call me back."

"You haven't heard from anyone, have you?"

"Does Lenny count? He's upstairs hyperventilating. He sounds like he's going to have a heart attack."

"Good. Nothing from Dan?"

"No, but Johnny Mac called for you. Did you hear?"

"What did he say?"

"He talked to Terry and he says you should go to the other bag room-inbound."

"Goddammit." I was in the wrong bag room. I hung up, put up my hood, and went back out into the storm.

The door to the inbound bag room was a heavy steel slab, but it might as well have been balsa wood the way it whipsawed back and forth in the storm. I found the brick doorstop and used it. I wasn't sure that it would hold, but it was dark in there and dim light from the ramp was better than no light at all.

The heavy air trapped within the four concrete walls had smelled of plaster and paint and turpentine when I'd met Big Pete there. As I stepped through the doorway and around the drop cloth, the same one that had blocked my way last night, I couldn't smell anything. Hoping not to go any farther, I cleared away the anxiety that had lumped in my throat and called out, "Dan?"

The only response was the swishing of the tarps as the wind pushed in through the open door behind me.

To turn on the lights I had to find the fuse box, the one Big Pete had showed me. I wasn't sure I could remember where it was. I was sure that it was farther in than I wanted to go. I called again for Dan and listened. Nothing.

Damn.

I pushed the hood off my head-the better to sense someone coming at me from the side-then took a few edgy steps. I tried to feel left and right with my hands, but my fingers were numb from the cold. I used my palms to guide me, brushing them along the heavy drop cloths as I moved, trying to visualize the narrow corridor that they made. I could almost feel the darkness thickening around me as I moved deeper into the silence.

"Dan, are you in here?"

I leaned forward trying to hear, took a step, and landed on something slick. My heart thumped into my throat and stayed there as my foot skated out from under me. I made an awkward, spine-twisting grab for something, anything to keep me from going down, and for the longest moment I hung backward over the cement, clinging to a tarp that couldn't possibly hold my dead weight. Adrenaline kicked in as I pulled myself upright, driving my heartbeat into a wild, demented rhythm that made me dizzy. I leaned over, hands on my knees, and took a breath. Then I took another, and another, breathing deeply until the stars in front of my eyes had faded.

Even bent over with my head that much closer to the cement, it was too dark to see what I'd slipped on. But I had a sinking, sickening feeling that I already knew. I held on to the tarp as I slid my foot back and forth, trying to feel what it could be. I wanted to believe that it was oil or grease or some strange lubricant that only felt like blood, but the rational part of me wouldn't go for it.

I pushed aside the tarp I'd been squeezing, angling for some light. The second I moved it, it gave way from whatever had anchored it to the high ceiling. I slipped out of the way-barely-as it crashed into a heap. Everything in me said to bolt, but I was transfixed because without the tarp to block it, a slant of light had fallen across my feet. The light was dim, but enough to show that it wasn't a pool at all that I was standing in, but a thick stream that flowed along the floor under the drop cloths-a thick stream with a deep red hue.

This time my breath couldn't make it out of my chest. I kept sucking in air, fighting for oxygen, but nothing came out. I started creeping back, moving until I was backed up flat against a wall. There was so much blood. I stared at it, and all I could feel was a miserable, stinging pain in the tips of my fingers. They were starting to thaw out.

I reached down for my radio, held it close to my lips, and pressed the button, squeezing until I thought the housing would crack. "Dan Fallacaro, come in please." My tongue was too big and my mouth felt as if it were coated with chalk. "Dan, are you out there?"

Static.

I tipped my head back against the wall. This was the wall where Big Pete had found the fuse box, right? It had to be the same wall. If it wasn't, what else was I going to do? Slowly, I began to feel my way toward the place where I thought the box was. Once my knuckles scraped against the box's open door, it wasn't hard to find the heavy switches behind it. The first one I flipped turned on the overheads.

I closed my eyes, waited for them to adjust to the light, and opened them again. All around me were the blue tarps. I couldn't see farther than four feet in any direction. The dark stream at my feet had turned to vivid red. It was coming from the direction of the bag belt. I turned myself that way, pushed aside the first tarp, and made myself move as far as the next. The motion was slow and forced, jerky and detached because I was afraid-terrified-to go forward.

"Dan, if you're out there, please respond." My breath vaporized as I tried the radio again. The static seemed to go right through me. I was coming apart inside. My eyes burned as I pulled aside the next plastic curtain. I thought about Michelle.

"Please, Dan, please."

I wondered what she looked like, if she had his green eyes. I called again, I think I did, as I approached the last curtain, and tears were coming because I knew he wasn't going to answer. I lowered my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I hadn't prayed to God in fifteen years, and I pictured him in his heaven laughing at me as I tried to now.

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee…

I opened my eyes. My white running shoes were smeared with blood. My head was pounding, about to explode. The longer I stood there, the harder it was going to be.

… and I detest all of my sins because of thy just punishment…