Chapter 11
Arctic Ocean
Crash Site
A stinging slap of cold. Then darkness. As Kasey fought her way back to consciousness, her head throbbed.
Only twice in her life had she “seen stars.” Once, when she had fallen off her bike as a small child, and then again during high school, when she and a fellow outfielder had run straight into each other chasing the same pop fly.
But never had she endured anything like this.
It was all she could do to force her eyes open, and only then just to slits.
Memories rushed back in clusters—the terrifying descent, the plane slamming into the ice, the tumbling and lurching. She’d been thrown sideways. Her head had smacked something hard. And after that… nothing. How long had she been out? Seconds? An hour?
Everything was dim, shrouded in a hazy, acrid smoke that clawed at her lungs.
At first she saw only gray, a few vague silhouettes.
From somewhere, she heard crackling noises, along with a rhythmic creak that sounded like an old door swaying in the wind.
A woman’s screams, raw and desperate, pierced the air.
Kasey felt a wave of panic building in her chest. She forced it down. If she was going to survive, she had to regain control.
Her eyes stung as she blinked them wider and new sensations flooded in. Most involved pain. Her left leg was wedged agonizingly sideways. There was blood on her arm and a frigid wind clawed at every bit of exposed skin. Her joints were stiff, as if rigor mortis was getting a head start.
Not so fast, she thought defiantly.
Slowly her vision sharpened. The bright cabin lights were gone, replaced by a handful of what looked like tiny floods.
The emergency exit lights. She looked down at the floor and saw the amber strip of lights leading to the emergency exit, precisely as she remembered from her preparation.
It was undeniably comforting. She checked the cracked window beside her.
The blackness outside was incomplete, a dusky glow painted low on the horizon.
Plots of amber flickered in the distance, ground fires where shards of debris lay burning.
The fuselage around her was mostly intact, but when she looked behind, she was stunned.
The two seats behind her were empty. The strong young man with the tattoos.
A smartly attired Asian gentleman. They were nowhere in sight.
Behind that everything had vanished, the tubular fuselage sliced cleanly through as if by a guillotine.
She looked across the aisle for Chen but didn’t see him.
His seat was gone, nothing left but four fractured steel anchor points.
Looking toward the front of the plane she saw a partial human form, the lower half of one of the flight attendants, her uniformed legs and hips motionless on the floor.
The upper half of her body was buried beneath an avalanche of serving carts.
The carpet around her was drenched in blood.
The screaming she had been hearing fell to a low-pitched moan. Kasey knew she had to move.
With a surge of adrenaline, she twisted her leg. Pain flared, but the bone held. A cracked-open suitcase rolled away, and a half dozen festively wrapped presents spilled out.
Attempting to stand, she was restrained by her tightly cinched seat belt. She unbuckled it as a chemical stench of burning plastic came in waves.
Her leg was sore, but able to bear weight. She performed a quick self-inspection. A gash on her arm was the source of the blood, but the flow had stemmed. She put a hand on top of her head, and felt blood and a large knot. Her midlength hair, which had been in a neat ponytail, was matted and loose.
Looking aft again, she wondered where the back two-thirds of the airplane had ended up.
Snow flurries and smoke made it difficult to see, but she could discern a large fire in the distance.
It was hundreds of yards away. Nothing hot and bright, but low flames dancing across half a football field.
A giant furrow connected the two points, and the ice field between looked like a junkyard.
Walter had been in the mid-cabin. Where is he now? And what about Chen and Sky Fire? Could the Chinese have somehow caused this?
She pushed the speculation away. Regardless of what had caused this disaster, there were innocent people around her who desperately needed help. Kasey took a tentative step on the angled floor and wobbled. Three steps later, she was moving freely.
But as soon as she started moving, the cold began sapping her strength, challenging her will. She knew she was in a race against time. And the odds were dramatically stacked against her.