“Yeah, me too.” Harland said with a deeper gravel to his voice. “She was a good woman who was retired from the military two days when she just didn’t wake up. She was only fifty-four, way to young.” Harland paused, then cleared his throat and regained his composure. “Generator is down that hall, too. For now, I’m only going be running it every couple hours. So for the next couple days, the air might get a little stale and we’ll use lanterns. Just as precaution in case we get hit again. It’s an inverter generator so it has some parts that can be hurt by an EMP.” Again, he moved to the far corner by the living area. He turned the knob on a door and pushed it open. “Sleeping room. Two bunk beds. Sleeps four. Don’t know how much sleep we’ll all get. I do suggest, as a doctor, you two rest. Your bodies will be feeling that plane accident soon. I have medical supplies, I’d rather not waste pain killers on bumps and bruises. You start hurting, I have some booze that may help.”
“Thank you for this,” Kit told him.
“Yes, thank you.” Abe repeated.
“Not a problem. I’m happy to have you. It would kind of suck being by myself down here,” Harland said. “Hey, you hungry? I’m hungry.” He inched to the kitchen. “Before all this started I made a cheeseburger casserole. Thought I’d have it the whole week. I make a mean cheeseburger casserole. Since fridge space is limited to that little box over there what do you say I fix us up a plate?”
“I would like that,” Kit replied.
“Me too,” said Abe. “Would you mind if I checked the storage for something to wear?”
“You go right ahead. Betty marked the boxes.”
“I’ll check for you, too,” Abe said and then left the room.
Kit followed Harland over to the kitchen area and slid in at the table while he pulled out items for the meal. “What kind of doctor are you? A GP?”
He appeared to search the wording, his first word flowed out of his mouth almost like a groan. “Well…. A general practitioner is vague. But yeah, for the last couple years I was mostly a GP. Before that, most of my career, I was a Pediatrician.”
“Really? A Pediatrician?”
“What?” Harland placed a pan on the stove. “I don’t look like someone you’d take your kids to?”
“You look a little gruff…” Kit held up her hand. “No offense.”
“None taken. Kids loved me, just so you know.” He leaned toward his casserole and took a whiff. “Smells good. Hope you’re hungry.”
“I am. I feel guilty being safe and for eating.”
“Why is that?” Harland asked.
“Because I’m alive in here while my family is…”
“You can’t change right now where your family is, or what happened. No amount of obsessing is changing their destiny. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow. After a few days, after radio contact, we can gauge what’s happened. Then go back on and look. They were taken from that plane, just like you. Where they are now is where they’re going to stay.”
“I am trying to remember that.”
Harland handed her a glass of what looked like wine and then a small plate of his casserole. “How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts, ribs, back, they all hurt. They’re nothing compared to what my heart feels though.”
With an ‘hmm’ and a nod, Harland sat down. “I can imagine.”
“My mother was home in Seattle with my daughter who is pregnant. I don’t know if they got the warning, if there was one, or even if Seattle is still standing. She lifted her glass and took a sip of her wine. “Add that to me having no idea what happened to my son or brothers. My son and brothers were only two and three rows behind me.”
“I thought…” Abe’s voice entered the room. “I thought you said your brother was in the back.”
“One of them was,” Kit replied. “I had two brothers on the plane. One was three rows behind me.”
“Oh my God.” Abe walked more toward the kitchen.
“What?” Kit asked.
“Yeah, spill it,” Harland said. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know if I know anything. Just… after they carried you out some guy was pretty frantic and grabbed me. He asked about you, I guess he thought you were dead. I told him you were fine, He looked relieved, but I didn’t have time to talk to him since I assumed he wasn’t your son and I was looking for your kid.”
“What did he look like?” Kit asked with a slight rush of excitement to her voice. “Do you remember?”
“Um sort of. Middle age, probably fifty. Stocky, bald, I remember that.”
Kit gasped in shock. “Was he wearing a yellow golf shirt?”
“That… I can’t tell you.”
“It had to be Regis,” Kit said. “It had to be. Why else would some stranger ask about me? Did anyone else ask about people being brought off the plane?”
Abe shook his head. “Not to my knowledge.”
“This man, was he hurt?”
“Actually, not at all.”
Kit placed her hand on her chest and sat down. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know for sure if it was your brother.” Abe joined her and Harland at the table.
“I know.” Kit nodded. “I feel like it probably was. I also feel so much better. I mean a lot better.”
Kit did. Neither Harland nor Abe asked why she felt better. More than likely they assumed it was because her brother was possibly not only alive, but unscathed. That was part of it and also that it was more than likely Regis. If it was him, and Kit was certain it was, then that was the best person to be standing unharmed. Instantly she felt her son was safe because Regis was there. He took the big brother role very seriously. He was always the protector, the one to make sure and shoulder the burden that everyone was all right. He did that his entire life. Kit was positive, that Regis would do all he could to find out about Zeke and Mark. He would do everything in his power to find out what happened to them, even if it took staying behind.
TWELVE – Last Second
Red Sweater woman was twisted as if she didn’t have a bone in her body. Her legs were behind her head, and she was the first passenger from the tail end that Regis stumbled across. The sight of her frightened him because he knew she was seated next to Mark.
She could have been Regis and he knew it. Had she taken Mark’s bribe of fifty dollars, he would have been in that part of the plane, in that seat.
How did it happen? How did the plane break in three? That was exactly what it did. The clear sky once filled with stars was now blackened out by what Regis could only figure was smoke. It made it impossible to see anything. Even the spotlight on the stand by the biggest section of the wreckage seemed to disappear, depending on which angle he walked.
He had to keep track of that light. The radiation suit was back in the plane and it was his only guidance to getting near the road, because the main cabin of the plane was on the highway. The nose, which included the cockpit was somewhere else and the tail end was four hundred feet away. Tossed aside and forgotten about, that end left a mine field of debris that Regis tripped over.
Each passing minute seemed like an hour. They dropped him off close to the debris field. But in the night, it Regis was searching blindly, even with the flashlight.
He moved slowly, swinging his flashlight left to right. Being especially careful in his search after seeing Red Sweater woman. He stopped every few feet and checked that orange card. It was only a matter of time before it shaded in and let him know that radiation had arrived.
If Red Sweater woman was there, Mark wasn’t far away.
It didn’t look or feel good to Regis.
There was no discernible sound, or movement.
He feared the worst for his brother.