Jacqueline Druga: Under the Gray Skies

“We apologize for the inconvenience,” a woman announced over the PA. “At this time, we ask you to take a seat. The flight will board momentarily.”

A quake. A delay.

People groaned and moved to the seats.

I looked at the monitors and watched as every single flight changed to ‘Canceled’.

Not delayed.

“What the hell?” My words were cut short when another tremor hit, it was followed by another hard shake.

Then I saw it on my sister’s face, almost a revelation, like she knew or remembered something. I didn’t ask her about it at that moment, I should have.

Was it a keen instinct? Did she read something on the news that foretold of disaster?

“Something is wrong. Let’s go,” Lindsay said. “We aren’t leaving any time soon. We need to head out before everyone else does.”

“Oh my God, is this the big one?” I tossed my backpack over my shoulders.

“Really?” Lindsay looked at me as if I were nuts and shook her head.

“What about our luggage?” I asked, trying to keep up with her pace.

“Our luggage? My luggage. Yours is over your shoulder. Let’s just move.”

We did. We walked at a fast pace, weaving in and out of people moving in the same direction, quickly passing them by.

I kept looking around. People stared at the monitors, checked their phones. We… just moved.

Finally, we made our way to the tram system and waited with a large group of people.

“I don’t understand why we’re leaving?” I asked.

“I have lived here for years and never felt anything like that. There may be something bigger coming,” she said. “I don’t want to be here if there is. I’d rather be home.”

That made sense.

There were always other flights.

The doors to the tram slid open and we moved inside. Even if at that moment we opted against leaving, we didn’t have a choice. The people behind us pushed us in and we boarded with their momentum.

We stood next to each other holding on to the vertical bar, close to the windows, when the tram began to move.

Just as the speeding tram emerged from the tunnel and rounded the rails outside, all power was lost and the tram slowly moved along the tracks until it stopped between the terminal and parking lots

Mumbles of confused voices filled the tram at a high decibel.

“Oh my God,” Lindsay said, and grabbed my hand.

She was staring out at the city.

What? What did she see?

I finally looked.

I don’t know what she saw, but what I witnessed was terrifying. A huge, billowing gray cloud blocked everything on the horizon, even the sky. It plowed our way faster than any wave of water could. I had no idea what it was, what caused it or what was behind it, all I saw was the massive gray cloud eating everything in its path.

It seemed to get bigger, contorting in a menacing way. The closer it drew I could see debris within it, swirling around.

We were trapped.

High above the ground on the rail.

Trapped.

People banged on the doors, trying to open them. Where were they going to go?

Covering the horizon, all that we could see was that gray cloud rolling our way.

I clutched Lindsay’s hand tighter.

My heart raced, I didn’t breathe, and for some unknown reason, I wasn’t scared. Because I knew… no debating it, no reason to be frightened, there was nothing to be done.

I braced for impact.

It took all of twenty seconds for our fate to arrive. It seemed longer, like in slow motion. It moved closer, bigger, I held Lindsay tighter and it hit us like a huge truck slamming into a car.

The impact caused us to jolt back as glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. I saw from the corner of my eye at least three people fly out the broken windows. I felt the pressure of others ramming into my back, but it was brief. Before I too flew out, the tram lifted and my body sailed backwards slamming into the car load of people behind me.

Was I holding Lindsay’s hand at that moment?

We flipped around inside the tram like cement in a mixer until we fell to the bottom when it hit something. The ground perhaps? Or a building? Bodies flew about the cab as the tram began a high speed roll. I imagine many were ejected. I banged around only a few times that I could recall. After that, nothing.

I don’t remember stopping, or the last time I saw, or touched Lindsay.

I just remember opening my eyes, totally surrounded in black.

It was my own dark womb. Small and snug like a baby in utero, I was able to turn and move my body enough where I could be in a comfortable position. The fist size hole in the debris was my escape, but unlike a baby, there was no way I was getting through that hole. None at all. Unlike the uterus, my space was cold. Oddly cold.

For the first three days I sat there crying, still holding my sister’s hand, screaming out for help. I had removed a T-shirt from my backpack and placed it over my face as a protection from the dust. It irritated my throat and my lungs. Finally, I stopped screaming.

There was no noise out there. Where were the rescue workers? Every time there was any sort of natural disaster, rescue crews were always sent immediately to the scene. What made this one different? Why were there no sounds of trucks, men shouting, or dogs barking as they sniffed through the wreckage?

There was none of that.

Only total absolute silence.

Nothingness.

Had I been thrown so far away from it all that for some reason we weren’t even in the scope of a possible rescue? My sister’s hand deteriorated, creating a stench that I ended up getting used to. Still, it broke my heart. In a dark space, there’s only time to think. I started thinking of my family, her family. Our children. My son, Evan was at Boy Scout camp, that first week. My husband was on a vacation, not only from work, but from me and my oldest daughter, Jana. She had just gotten her driver’s license. She must have sent me thirty texts a day while I was gone.

Thinking of her made me pull out my phone.

It was dead. Not an ounce of power.

I imagined my family around the television, watching the news, wondering if I was dead, or alive.

Lindsay’s family was only a few miles from the airport. Undoubtedly, they had been caught in whatever occurred. That was the million dollar question, what did occur?

I thought about that as well.

‘The Big One’ came to mind until I remembered that cloud. Was there a terror attack, was the city bombed? It reminded me of the videos I saw of the huge cloud when the Twin Towers fell in 2001. Only this one was stronger, bigger and faster.

What possibly could have happened to make that much of a huge debris field?

I kept going back to nuclear war. A bomb went off nearby, or something powerful like that. That scenario played in my head, making me fearful of leaving that hole.

Of the very little knowledge I had about nuclear weapons one thing I knew for certain, they caused lack of power because of the EMP, which caused no phones to work and deadly radiation.

If a nuclear bomb went off, it was a ‘no win’, catch twenty-two situation. I either stayed in that hole and died, or left and died.

No matter what choice I made, radiation would harm me. Either way I was screwed, and probably dead.

My sister joked about my packing abilities. I didn’t pack like a survivalist, I packed like a thrifty mom taking her kids on a long flight. Of course, I was… sans the kids. In the end, it was the same difference.

My carry on backpack was my survival bag for the flights on the no frills airline. It was one of those that charged you for everything. Four dollars for coffee and a cookie, two bucks for a bag of chips.