Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

She pushed Daniel again. Still no response.

The smell of airplane fuel was everywhere and she realized that that’s what the sound of dripping was, fuel leaking from the tanks, which, she knew, were located in the aircraft wings.

But, where she was, she couldn’t see the wings.

As she went to push Daniel off her a third time, she noticed that his legs were trapped, pinned under the bracket of what remained of the seat in front of him. She would have to crawl round him.

She made a start and unfastened her own belt. It wasn’t easy. He was a big man. But somehow she managed to crawl out from under him. The small area behind the backseats was choked with luggage, four or five bags. She pushed two of them behind her, to occupy the space she herself had been sitting in, and she reached upwards. The way the aircraft had fallen meant that the side of its fuselage was uppermost, so that the emergency rear door opened upwards, to the sky.

Except that when Natalie turned the handle it wouldn’t budge. The shape of the fuselage had been distended and the action of the inside handle was jammed.

She was sweating now. The sound of dripping could still be heard. Did that mean there was the threat of fire?

“Hello? Hello?” Where was her father? Where was Eleanor? What had happened to Max?

No reply.

She was sweating. All over.

How was she going to get the emergency door open? There was no other way out. Even if she smashed the Comanche’s rear windows they were too small for her to crawl through.

The windows. Could she smash one, reach through, and open the emergency door from the outside handle?

Would that work?

She had no choice.

But what was she going to smash the window with? Her shoe? It was just a soft moccasin that had in any case come off. She had nothing else hard except the buckle of her belt and that wouldn’t do it.

“Hello? Hello?”

No reply.

She heard the yatter of some baboons. So long as it was just baboons.

Then she noticed that the window nearest the emergency exit had a sort of clip that enabled it to be opened an inch or two at its trailing edge, to let air in when the plane was taxiing in hot weather. Jack had opened the one next to it in Ngorongoro. She reached up. It too was jammed. Or perhaps it was rusty.

She tried again.

It wouldn’t budge.

She noticed it was fastened to the body of the plane by screws. If she could unwind those screws she could take off the clip and maybe reach through and turn the outside handle.

But she had no screwdriver. She pulled her belt off and tried the buckle, to see if it would fit in the groove at the top of the screws—there were three of them.

The buckle was too thick. She needed something finer.

More noise from the baboons, closer now.

She looked at the pieces of luggage. One or two had plastic name tags. She tore one off.

The first one was too thick.

So was the other one.

She had a pen in her pocket but that was no good.

Suddenly, there was a deep whoosh! sound and the baboons barked in chorus.

She heard the flapping of flames.

The airplane fuel had ignited.

The smell of fuel intensified but she still couldn’t see the flames.

But she knew she had to hurry. No one had come for her. She had to reach her father.

She had some coins in her pocket. They were too thick.

She looked at her watch. It was still working. It had gone five and would be dark before long.

As she looked down at her watch, she noticed the buckle on the strap. It was thin and it was metal. She took off her watch and reached up to the window.

As she did so she felt a searing pain around her middle and she swore. She was sweating all over again now and though she still couldn’t see the flames, she could hear them and she was beginning to feel the heat they were radiating.

She held the watch buckle to the head of the screw. It slid into the groove. Yes! The screw itself was maybe a quarter of an inch across at its head. The buckle was closer to an inch wide. Holding her fingers near the screw, she swiveled the buckle in a counterclockwise direction.

It wouldn’t budge.

She tried again. No luck.

And then suddenly the screw head budged. It had been rusted to the surrounding metal but she had broken the crust. The screw turned easily now and soon came away.

Sweating still, she tackled the second screw. It wouldn’t budge. She moved her fingers further away from the head of the screw, to give herself more leverage.

The sound of burning filled her ears. The front half of the aircraft was alight. What had happened to the people inside? There was no other sound. In her state, she didn’t want to think about it.

She strained at the screw.

The buckle broke but at the same time she felt the screw give way.

When the buckle broke, she dropped it and it fell down into the depths of the aircraft, and out of reach.

The second screw was loose enough for her to be able to unwind it with her fingers.

But how would she unwind the last screw?

She felt the bracket. It was loose. She took off her belt and pushed its buckle under the bracket, and yanked. The pain around her middle intensified. She yanked again.

The bracket came away from the wall of the airplane. She then threw the bracket away, took a deep breath, reached up, and pushed at the window.

It was stuck.

She pushed again, and again.

Each time she pushed, the pain at her middle worsened. But she had no choice.

She pushed again. Her eyes watered from the pain.

The window swung open. Only a few inches but enough for her to reach up again and put her hand and then her arm through the gap.

She reached round and gripped the outside handle of the emergency door. She pulled—and felt the bolt slide across.

She swore again, tears caking her cheeks.

Inside the plane she maneuvered two more pieces of luggage so that she could kneel on them. The pain around her middle slowed her down, made her sweat, made her cry, made her cry out. She bent her head and placed her shoulders next to the door. Slowly, she straightened her knees. Her back was on fire. She forced her shoulders against the door.

It was stuck.

She pushed again.

It remained stuck.

She pushed again, the sweat falling from her face in globules onto the luggage.

The heat from the flames was growing.

The emergency door flew open and a blast of hot air swept over her.

She stood up and turned.

Before her, the front half of the plane was ablaze and she stared in horror. No one could survive that raging wildfire. There was a smell of burning. With deepening despair, she realized it was the smell of roasting, of flesh, human flesh, her father’s flesh, being cooked by heat. Max’s flesh, Eleanor’s flesh.

She daren’t dwell on it, not now. She must act.

She took in her surroundings. The aircraft was on a sliding shelf of rock that ended in a line of trees that looked as though they followed the course of a dried riverbed. There were baboons in the trees and not far away, at the end of the rocks, she noticed a crowd of wild dogs. There must have been a couple of dozen of them, their tan and white fur catching the rays of the setting sun, their pointed ears erect, a sign of their alertness, their intelligence. They were watching, waiting, panting and growling, deterred only by the presence of flames and the heat generated. She tried to recall what Daniel had said about their habits, how successful they were at hunting, how their jaws were stronger than any other animal’s, how they ate their prey alive.

It was clear that the fire would spread to the rear half of the aircraft soon.

She dipped back down into the plane and undid Daniel’s seat belt. She pushed the seat bracket that pinned his legs and pulled them free. She wrapped her arms around Daniel’s chest, much as Jack had done when he rescued her from the river, and lifted him. Or she tried to. He was a big man.