Hypoxia: A Thriller, page 8
What the hell was going on in this plane?
After a few minutes of turbulence, the pilot came on over the PA system.
“This is the captain speaking from the flight deck. Everyone, we’re just experiencing some slight chop, so stay seated.”
Sky knew that the message was meant to be reassuring, but a sickening realization came over her when she heard the voice. It was the man she’d just met at the front of the plane—Lucky. Why would a deadheading pilot announce himself as a captain? It was unmistakably him. Sky would have remembered that odd voice anywhere. This was wrong. This was dead wrong.
Had anyone else noticed what happened to their flight attendants?
Her palms began to sweat profusely as the engines revved, taking the plane above the weather system. A sickeningly familiar feeling began to come over her as the plane continued to ascend higher and higher. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see what the other passengers were doing, but she could hear some of them cry out in distress as oxygen masks dumped onto everyone’s lap.
“Sorry about that, folks,” Lucky said over the PA system. “Just a malfunction. Stay in your seats, and we’ll get a handle on this.”
“Shit!” Sky’s heart started pounding wildly, as her synapses fired.
She knew what this was. Adrenaline shot through her body. The plane had been taken. And she realized how they planned to incapacitate the passengers.
Hypoxia.
These guys were depressurizing the plane. In a fit of panic, Sky grabbed the three oxygen masks in her row, as well as those behind her. She knew that each mask had only a limited amount of oxygen, maybe twelve minutes a piece. The plane continued to lurch forward, and now some of the passengers started to scream.
“Mommy loves you,” she heard one of the passengers saying.
A baby started wailing. Sky fitted one of the masks around her face, began the flow of oxygen, and started to silently sob. How had it come to this? The air around them became colder, and she hugged the blanket closer to her body. This was one scenario she’d never prepped for, never even dreamed of. After cheating death so many times, on so many mountains, Sky realized that her death on a commercial aircraft would serve as the ultimate irony.
The plane leveled off, and the cabin was now almost completely silent. Most people probably hadn’t even had time to put on their oxygen masks—the whole thing happened so quickly. Sky ducked down, frightened of being seen by whomever was orchestrating this madness. A strange calm began to descend upon her, perhaps the result of the pure oxygen circulating throughout her body. She would welcome death with open arms.
Her father’s words on Everest came back to her. “It’s about training, Sky. Everything in life is about training. When you’re in an anxiety situation, fall back on your training.”
But what was her training? In the depths of despair, she struggled to string together a meaning for this particular conversation. Her training had never prepared her for a moment like this.
Several minutes passed as Sky thought about her situation. The cabin continued to drop in temperature, becoming more frigid by the second. She switched out oxygen masks. Then the anger at herself started to mount. Why did she collect all of these masks? It would only end up prolonging her misery.
And then there was a noise. Sky could hear the swishing sound of someone shuffling down the aisle, and the slight whisper of something. Probably an oxygen mask. Concerned that her own oxygen mask was making noise, she planted herself facedown across the three seats and then pulled the blanket over her head. Like a passenger who’d been sleeping the night away, then passed out.
Please go away. Please go away.
She willed the person to go away as the swishing continued. She could hear him—or her—getting closer. Sky stilled her body, holding her breath. For what felt like several minutes, she could sense that the person was standing right next to her. They definitely wore an oxygen mask, the faint whisper of the machine echoing throughout the silent plane.
Why had she taken the masks behind her? In a panicked frenzy, Sky realized that the person might notice the missing masks. For a minute or so, she continued to hold her breath, her heart pounding in her ears. Begging for oxygen.
And then she let her training take over. Something in Sky’s sense memory connected to the anxiety-ridden state of her freezing, oxygen-deprived body. She’d been through this before.Visions of Everest flashed through her brain. The flow of oxygen stopped, and there was no way she could grab another mask. Too much movement.
The memories of a university study they had done on her came flooding back. She had the ideal physiology for mountain climbing, it had turned out. Similar to a sherpa. If there was oxygen in the air, Sky could suck it out. She was faster and more efficient.
She was on the mountain again, and she had to be her own rescuer. This wasn’t the only avalanche she’d encountered, and she would dig her way out or die trying. A cold chill descended down her spine as she made calculating decisions. There was someone right next to her, someone who wanted to make sure that everyone on the plane was dead. And she was in striking distance with a great advantage.
Surprise.
On her survivalist show, they’d covered attack situations. What if she ambushed this person? Just took them out on the spot? There was the flight attendant galley behind her, full of makeshift weapons. Probably a fire extinguisher she could use to bash in their head.
But as soon as Sky had resolved to do it, she heard the gentle swishing start again, and the restroom door clicked open and shut. The person had gone to take a piss.
She gasped, her lungs screaming as she took in the first full breath of several minutes. But there was no oxygen. The cabin was still depressurized.
Damnit.
Her lungs ached, and she began to feel light-headed. Sky’s heart continued to pound wildly as she fumbled in the blanket, searching for another oxygen mask. Would she have enough time before she passed out?
Then her fingers found their way to one of the masks. Her face was turning blue as she covertly placed it on her mouth and tugged at the strings.
Heaven.
She breathed in the pure oxygen, and her entire body cried out in relief. The color came back to her face as she brought the air into her lungs. After she took three miraculous breaths, she could hear the toilet flushing in the john.
The door clicked open, and Sky held her breath once again. But this time the swishing went faster and farther. The person was gone. She allowed herself ten full breaths—ten life-saving gasps—before she went back to plotting.
There were two dead flight attendants, possibly more. She figured that there had probably been six flight attendants total on the flight. Plus two pilots and the creepy good-looking guy. By default, she had to assume that everyone except for the fallen flight attendants was involved. Maybe even some passengers.
And it seemed like they were all in the cockpit. She wondered if The Swisher had been sent back to check on everyone. To make sure that they were all dead or passed out. Sky’s body shivered violently as she attempted to run through possible outcomes.
The good news was that they were taking the plane somewhere. That much was clear. They weren’t going to crash it. Her best bet was to wait it out. To make them think she was dead like everyone else, until they landed. Then she’d have to escape somehow. That would be the difficult part.
That and making it through the rest of the flight. Sky’s purloined oxygen masks had about forty-eight minutes of air left in them, collectively. It all depended on where they were taking the aircraft. For a second, Sky contemplated taking her cell phone out of her pocket. Would the GPS work at 40,000 feet?
Then she decided that was a terrible idea. Besides, she should save her battery. She might need her phone when they landed. The plane remained silent as she switched out oxygen masks. The next crisis became her core temperature, which she could tell was rapidly dropping in the freezing plane.
Sleep was a temptation, but Sky knew that the only way to stay alive was to stay awake. Who knew what they would do with the bodies when the plane landed. The thought of it was terrifying.
There were about two minutes left on her last mask when the plane started to descend.
Shit.
Were they landing already? She wasn’t prepared for that. There was only one way to check. Sky counted to sixty seconds, carefully listening to every tiny noise. It seemed like no one was back there. What would Pemba say?
“Sometimes you take a small risk to avoid a bigger one.”
She had to know whether or not they were landing. As soon as she popped up her head, she realized that the window had frost on it. If she tried to clear it off, they would notice. The more oxygen-rich air was helping her to think better. From experience, she guessed that they were under 10,000 feet altitude. She could feel it in her bones. Survivable air, warmer air.
But the lower altitude also meant The Swisher might come back soon. She had to make her move quickly. Peering out from under the blanket and then popping onto her feet, Sky immediately felt like she might pass out. Shock was a factor, and she became light-headed. For stability, she grabbed the seat in front of her and got her bearings for a few seconds.
In a minute, it would all be over. She just had to go up a few rows and do it. Practically crawling, Sky made it up the aisle—two rows in front of the seat she’d claimed in back. She climbed over the bodies of the three poor souls in that row, sitting on top of the man who had the window seat. His glasses were fogged over, his face was blue, and his skin was cold. Sky could tell that he had been gone for a long time, probably soon after the initial ascent. She tried not to look at him as she used her fingernails to chip away at the frost on the window.
In a matter of seconds, she was able to see outside. Beneath them was only the beautiful blue sea, with no land in sight. They weren’t landing. Not yet.
Sky climbed back over the three people, hastened back to her seat, and assumed her death pose under the blanket again.
It was lucky that she did. Within sixty seconds, The Swisher was making their way down the aisle again. As she listened carefully to the footsteps, she could tell that it was just one person. And then she could hear them stopping in front of the row she’d just been in.
Shit.
She’d hoped that they wouldn’t have noticed the missing frost on the window, but it seemed that luck was not on her side. Now an ambush seemed like it could become a necessity.
It was the voice that did it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the woman said, probably looking at Sky’s handiwork on the window.
It was a woman. She could take a woman. Everything in her soul screamed one word.
NOW.
Inching out from under her blanket, Sky silently got on her hands and knees, facing the aisle. She would knock the bitch off her feet. And then she heard the woman turn around and walk towards the front of the plane.
She was probably going to report the situation to her superiors, Sky figured. Quickly, her mind calculated the possibilities. There were no makeshift weapons around. This was going to be a job for an unarmed woman. And she didn’t know if The Swisher was armed herself. But the more time that passed, the more likely the woman was to get back to the cockpit. And Sky couldn’t have that.
The seconds passed like hours as she leaped out of her seat and into the aisle. Using every fast-twitch muscle in her body, she jumped onto the woman’s back like a tiger hunting her prey.
“Ah!” the woman started to yell, but Sky quickly grabbed her mouth and gagged her, tearing at the delicate skin under her nose.
“You fucking murderer!” Sky breathed into her ear.
The surprise attack threw the woman’s balance off, and Sky could see her horrified expression as the front of her body flew forward, directly into the path of a raised armrest that had not been put down.
SNAP.
The woman’s body cushioned Sky’s fall, and Sky gracefully popped back onto her feet. She stood there, gasping for air and marveling at her incredible fortune. Life was all about angles. And this woman’s neck had hit the wrong one. Sky stepped forward and turned the limp head towards her. Two terrified, frozen blue eyes stared back at her like marbles. It was the blond flight attendant who’d given her the blanket in first class.
“Well, I’ll be damned yourself,” Sky said, trying to ignore the tremendous impact of what she’d just done.
She dragged the blond flight attendant, who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, down the aisle. The galley would be a good spot for her—it was darker.
Sky shoved the body on top of one of the other fallen flight attendants.
“Serves you right, bitch,” she said. “One down, maybe six to go. I’m ready.”
It was tough to arrange the body just right, so that it wouldn’t fall down. It was like trying to perfectly position a sack of potatoes.
“This is not as easy as it looks in the movies,” Sky muttered, annoyed.
Then a man shouted to the back of the plane, through the first-class curtain.
“Everything good back there, Helena?”
Crap.
Sky couldn’t remember what Helena’s voice sounded like. But she had to at least try.
“Yup! Everything’s worked out according to the plan,” she called out in a somewhat singsongy voice.
“Excellent. You stay back there while we’re landing. Activate the slide. Then hop out and start organizing the ground crew. They’ll board the plane from the front and then toss the bodies off the slide. We need to get out of Elba airspace within forty-five minutes.”
“You got it!”
Elba? Where was Elba again?
“Alright, don’t fuck up!” the man joked. “You do a good job on this gig, and Fogarty will put you on the next one.”
The next one?
“Got it,” she called back. “Don’t fuck up.”
These people were truly the worst. Vicious murderers with a bad sense of humor. But it was the first time she’d heard a name for a responsible party. Fogarty.
She wanted to know how long it would be until they landed, but too much talking would increase the likelihood of being discovered. It wouldn’t be long. And, in the meantime, she would crawl back under her blanket and wait for more visitors.
Chapter Fifteen
15
They didn’t come. Sky’s heart pounded erratically as she crouched under the blanket, waiting. As she willed herself to calm down, the plane started to slow. The landing gear came down and Sky realized that the most difficult part was about to begin. She wanted to scream as the thought suddenly occurred to her that she was inside a huge coffin.
Surrounded by two hundred dead people. Innocent people, people who thought they were just taking a trip to Paris. Most of them seemed like tourists. Sky hadn’t paid much attention to any of them. Too wrapped up in her own world, her own chaos. Too tired.
She forced herself to focus on the task at hand. There was no other way. As soon as she felt the landing gear deploy, Sky was off to the galley to pluck the jacket off of Helena’s body. It was small, but it would fit. And it might, just might, put off the ground crew for a few minutes.
The wheels hit the ground. Usually this was the best part of a flight, the acknowledgment of having traveled safely. Not in this case.
“Deploy the slide, deploy the slide,” Sky muttered in the galley, pulling on the ill-fitting flight attendant jacket. “I wonder if…”
To the right of where she was standing in the galley, she noticed the small door. When she got closer, she saw the instructions. Just pull the silver handle; that was all.
The aircraft continued to taxi. A few minutes later, the plane was enveloped by total darkness.
“Crap!” Sky muttered.
Like she needed another challenge. They obviously had pulled the plane into some sort of hangar, making her escape a thousand times more difficult. She would never get out of this alive. Never. And the worst part was that they would torture her for what she did to Helena. There was no question of that.
In a fit of anxiety, she decided to check the pockets of Helena’s pants. It was a last-ditch effort. But it was a successful one. As her hand closed around the revolver, she thought she might weep from grateful ecstasy. Sticking it into the pocket of her oversized cargo pants, Sky steeled herself for the next phase of her nightmare. Getting off the plane and out of the hangar. Or wherever they were.
Then the plane stopped moving. There was an eerie silence as the engines cut off. Lucky’s voice came on over the PA system.
“Helena, we’re a go.”
Bam!
She pulled the lever for the emergency slide, and it went off like a charm. The sheer explosiveness of the slide’s inflation was impressive. But she had other things to worry about. Like the men waiting right below the plane. Standing next to a dump truck. Sky almost vomited at the thought of what they were going to do with all of the bodies.
“Stay calm, stay focused,” she whispered to herself.
The three dead flight attendants were so close to the slide that she could fling them down herself.
“I got the first three!” she shouted to the men, who nodded.
They believed her. They had yet to call her out as a fake.
Helena was the first to go. Sky dragged her body to the slide and let it fall down. One of the men caught it and tossed it into the truck. This was encouraging. They didn’t know who Helena was.
When Sky went to lift up the second flight attendant, she had to stop herself from screaming. The woman’s throat had been slit. Blood rubbed off on Sky’s stolen flight attendant jacket as she pushed the woman down the slide. The third flight attendant, a man, was the heaviest and therefore most difficult to move. Using her core muscles, Sky gritted her teeth, dragged him to the slide, and pushed him down.
Now it was her turn. Crossing her arms over her chest, Sky hopped on the inflated slide and dropped down. When she got to the bottom, one of the men reached down and pulled her up. He had a beard and an American accent.
