Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

“Prepare for the worst,” I said. “That’s my philosophy. At least know where the exits are.”

“You’re a rare type, then. Most people give no consideration to the worst-case scenario.”

She had come onboard late, a slight and lovely woman, maybe forty years old, her brown skin made utterly smooth by a veneer of makeup, her black hair permed into loose curls that framed a balanced face. She dared to wear a salmon-colored business suit that somehow worked for her — a happy color that relieved some of the fatigue visible around her eyes.

After stowing a small bag under the seat with worried haste, she had acknowledged me with a courteous nod and then closed her eyes, seeming to have fallen asleep before we reached the runway.

I was a different sort of woman than my new companion: a tall and rangy California blonde, casually dressed in a cream pullover and cargo pants. I hadn’t even bothered with makeup. I was on my way home, a fifteen-hour flight shared with strangers whose opinions and lives had nothing to do with mine.

I refolded the brochure and put it back in the seat pocket. “I’ve seen the worst case,” I told her. “More than once. I’ve learned to prepare.”

She cocked her head, her gaze distracted, a skeptical frown furrowing her brow. “If you can prepare,” she murmured, more as if she were wondering aloud than speaking to me, “surely it is not the worst case?” Her gaze shifted to meet mine then shot away again, as a self-conscious smile quirked her lips. “Ah, I’m sorry. I’ve overstepped.” She leaned back in her seat, dabbing a tissue against her cheeks, where a sheen of sweat seeped through her makeup. “My occupation leads to an unhealthy fascination with hazard assessments.”

“What do you do?” I asked with honest interest.

“Geek work. Engineering appraisals of biohazard containment procedures under laboratory conditions.” She settled her small hands one atop the other in her lap. “Modeling the worst-case scenario is just part of the daily grind, but it’s always been theory for me. No real-world tests. Not yet. And you? What experience has led you to always map the exits?”

“Call me a professional adventurer.”

I was a photographer and a mountain climber. For ten years, I’d scrimped and saved and sought grants, managing to get myself on expeditions around the world. Not all of them had gone well. I told her about a disastrous climb on Denali when an avalanche hit, taking out most of our party and leaving me with a broken arm. And another time on Everest when crowds of amateurs slowed our descent as a storm rolled in.

“I learned not to count on other people, because when disaster strikes, most of them panic. In the worst case? It comes down to everyone for themselves, and if you’re not strong enough to accept that, you won’t survive. My name’s Halley, by the way.”

“Anita.”

She offered her hand. Its warmth surprised me, almost feverish in its intensity. “Are you all right?”

Anita gave me an indulgent smile. “I have a severe nickel allergy.” Touching the far side of her neck, she drew my gaze to a mottled, red rash. “I was given a necklace that turned out to be … less than I thought. A slight fever is part of my allergic reaction. It should clear up in a few hours.”

“Not a worst-case scenario, then.” I kept my voice light, as if it was a joke, but I was uneasy. I didn’t want to spend the first week of my homecoming laid out by some exotic Asian fever acquired from a biohazard engineer. Too much irony in that.

Anita laughed again, though this time it sounded forced. “You must be thinking I’m the worst-case scenario for the passenger in the adjacent seat. Gloomy and ill.”

“No. Worst case would be if something went wrong and I was stuck sitting next to someone too big to push aside or climb over on my way to the exit. Everyone for themselves, remember?” I smiled like it was a macabre joke, but it was the truth, and judging by her somber expression, she knew it.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she said. “And stay in the air all the way to Los Angeles.”

“Best-case scenario,” I agreed.

I think it came to us both that we’d said more than we should have, and we retreated into silence.

I woke with a start. The cabin was dark: just the floor lights and a few reading lamps. The air was too warm, thick with exhaled breaths. A nervous whisper rode atop an ominous silence. Why couldn’t I hear any engine noise? I glanced down, to see Anita’s white-knuckled hand clutching the armrest between us.

“What the hell is going on?” My ears popped. “Are we descending?” I pulled out my phone to check the time, confirming that it was too soon to be landing, too soon by hours. We were hardly halfway home.

Anita turned to me, her shoulders hunched, reflected light glinting in her dark eyes, her lips parted to admit the quick, shallow breaths that mark the edge of panic. She looked to me like a hunted creature at bay, an impression reinforced by her words. “This can’t be happening. It can’t.”

“What is happening?”

“The engines! Listen to them. They’ve been cutting out, one by one.” There was a mad focus to her eyes as she added, “It’s a judgment. Against me.”

I pulled the buckle on my seatbelt and started to rise. “I’m going to go talk to someone. Where the hell are the flight attendants anyway?”

I jumped as a man’s voice, humble with apology, issued from the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an emergency.”

The plane was going down.

As the news sank in, passengers wailed, cried, prayed.

I re-buckled my seatbelt and put on my life vest.

Next I looked for the exit sign. It hung above the aisle, four seats ahead. If I survived the impact, I promised myself I would do whatever it took to reach that exit. The pilot had assured us our situation was known. Rescue was already on the way. We wouldn’t be in the water long. If I could get out of the plane alive, I’d have a good chance to survive.

Beside me, Anita kept her white-knuckled grip on the armrest, but she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t praying. She stared ahead at nothing. She’d assessed our odds in her first words to me, when she called the safety brochure terribly optimistic . “Anita.”

She turned. It was too dark to really see her face, but I saw her hand let go of the armrest. She took my hand; squeezed it, her palm even hotter than it had been before, hot and dry. “You’re a survivor, Halley. Do whatever it takes to live through this. Climb over me. Climb over anyone, but live. Someone has to, or it’s for nothing.”

For nothing?

I wondered what she meant … but I didn’t really care. It didn’t matter. In just a few minutes, all of us on the plane would likely be dead. “Put your vest on,” I told her. I helped her with it, buckling it around her waist.

Outside the window, there was only darkness. I pressed my forehead against the plastic pane and peered up, but I couldn’t see any stars. I couldn’t see the ocean below us. No way to know how much farther we had to fall.

The plane began to shudder.

People screamed — a chaos of animal noises that my fear-filled brain refused to truly hear, blurring and blending the sound with the roar of wind rushing past our powerless wings — all of it abruptly overridden by the pilot’s terror-edged voice, “Assume crash position. Assume crash position!”

I grabbed Anita’s hand. Then I bent at the waist, my head pressed to my knees and one palm braced against the seat back in front of me — a position that felt to me as useless as a prayer, but I prayed too. I held onto Anita’s hand and prayed I would be one of the survivors.