6

JEREMIAH HEARS THE crowd’s growing voice surrounding him. Number nine is rocking at the top of the wheel. He pretends to study the gearbox, as if there’s something wrong with it. How could he have been so fucking stupid?

He takes a deep breath. Rubs his eyes. A verse from the Bible, one he has written in his AA book, comes to him.

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

“Shit,” he says, ready to take his chances. He can’t leave them up there any longer. It’s already been more than three minutes, and the assholes stuck in the tubs are beginning to act stupid. Throwing shit down at the laughing crowd. Maybe I deserve whatever I get, he thinks. He moves to release the brake. Stops.

Someone is screaming.

Jeremiah spins, scans the crowd. The folks waiting to get onto the ride. To feed the great wheel. Some of them are still chatting. A few of them look outright horrified. Two of them are pushing away, through the tight group. A woman is knocked down.

There’s a… whining noise.

A few of the kids in line are holding cell phones to the sky. He’s not sure if it’s an offering or a prayer.

He turns as something drops in front of him. The platform shakes. A white-faced teenager. He jumped from one of the lower-hung tubs. Number thirteen. What the hell?

“Hey!” Jeremiah yells, but the kid is running. “Hey!” he yells again.

Now the crowd is backing away. The screams are becoming more prevalent. The whining sound growing louder. Jeremiah looks wildly at the sky, tries to see what they’re all on about. Toward the ocean. Toward the moon. But the wheel is between him and IT. Whatever IT is.

He ducks under the rim of the wheel, steps onto the opposite side of the platform. Twelve feet of dimpled metal flooring followed by a giant gearbox the size of a compact car, then a fire lane that runs the length of the pier. Beyond that, there’s nothing but a wooden handrail and the great sea facing due south. Jeremiah searches the sky. It doesn’t take long. He sees it now. Sees what many of them have already seen. Knows why the kid jumped from number thirteen.

Holy hell, he thinks. It’s a goddamn airplane.

MARY CAN HARDLY breathe. She’s never been so happy. Rob is sitting beside her now and they’re clutching at each other’s hands, almost desperately. His fingers still shake. Hers now, as well. They’re so young. Children deciding to become adults. Partners. He kisses her again.

“So it’s a yes?” he says, swiping at his wet cheeks with the palm of a hand.

“Yes,” she replies, and laughs.

“I…”

Rob starts to speak. Stops. His eyes flicker off hers, focus over her shoulder.

“Rob?” She hears it now. From behind. A noise so loud… she can’t believe she hadn’t heard it until this very moment. “Rob?” she says again, not daring to turn.

His eyes are wide. He looks to her, then over her shoulder once more. The screams from below more evident. Mary’s terrified stare won’t leave his face. She’s petrified.

“Oh, shit,” Rob mumbles, dreamlike. Then, “Mary?” The inflection of a question. As if she’s just arrived here. He grabs her hands tightly. His face twisted, grotesque. A snarl. His eyes pure terror, brown irises being devoured by white. “Mary!” he shouts, and she is so startled and flushed with fear that she can physically feel the blood draining from her face. “Oh no, Mary!” he sobs.

The noise fills the air. The roaring of an engine so loud she can barely hear him scream her name. She can’t take it. She turns.

A plane.

Coming right at them.

Fifty yards out she’d guess. A private plane. The ones that are always running into phone lines and crash-landing on golf courses. It’s dipping and swaying, as if being throttled by a hurricane.

She stands, bangs her head against the metal top of the gondola, yells out in pain. Sits back down. He clutches at her, drowning. “Mary!” he screams, as loud as he can, because now the world is nothing but that sound. That engine, so loud her teeth chatter.

IN THE CESSNA, the cabin rattles. Wind whips through the open vent window. Frank makes one last effort to steer the plane. His only thought: Toward the lights. His soused mind tells him the lights are the runway. The lights are safety.

His mind flickers, goes out. Passes out. A mercy. He lurches forward. His body – never buckled – gives up, slumps forward. His chest flops into the controlling wheel, slams it down.

He dreams of the life he’d hoped to have as a child. Those hazy thoughts of a bright future while playing baseball with friends. Girls strolling through the outfield. A summer day. Nothing but hope in the grass beneath his worn sneakers.

In Frank’s dream, the sun explodes like a nuclear bomb. His teeth fall out, then his eyes. He grabs at his face, catches bits of himself like falling debris. He has no time for fear. A flash of light wipes him from the fantasy like a bug from a windshield.

MARY SCREAMS. SCREAMS until her throat goes raw. The plane consumes the sky, only seconds from smashing into the giant wheel. As she claws at her cheeks, she sees other riders climbing from the gondolas in front and below them. One guy jumps toward the ocean from thirty feet up. She has time to watch him fall short. Crash into the pier. His body seems to snap in half. He flops into an ‘L’ shape upon the planks, unmoving. A woman in a yellow dress dangles from one of the lower ones, half-in, half-out, crying. She drops with a shriek.

Rob grabs Mary, pulls her away. He’s yelling at her: “Get down! Get down!” She’s thick-headed. Confused. Rob’s on the floor of the gondola. Weeping. Pulling at her. She understands but casts one more look toward the plane. She stares, transfixed. The plane whines ever louder, screeching like a banshee falling on its prey. Mary waits to die.

Suddenly, the propeller of the plane dives downward, as if slapped away by God. No longer coming right at them, it’s shooting down like an arrow toward the pier.

It’s going to miss us.

She grabs Rob, yanks at his arm. “It’s turning!” she screams at him. His wide eyes flicker, register her words. He shoots to his feet, eyes searching. He sees it cutting down and away. A boulder dropped from the sky.

He looks down. The plane so close as it cuts away they can feel the heat from the engine wash over them. The smell of oil. They watch as the plane crashes into the back of the restaurant next to the Ferris Wheel. Flames erupt from the point of impact. They hold on as the whole wheel shakes. Shrieks of horror and pain and death fill the night.

Mary has a split-second to think how lucky they are. They had just been in that restaurant eating fried shrimp, not an hour ago. Now the building is decimated. Caved-in. Burning.

The second and third explosions steal her relief. Twists it into fresh terror.

THE CESSNA SLAMS into the rear of Buddy Tub’s. The fuel of the plane does not immediately erupt upon impact. The kitchen crew and approximately a dozen patrons are killed instantly. As the plane spins and rips apart, one wing swings like a massive machete, tearing through the midsections of two line cooks and the steel of an industrial stove. Gas hisses into the air from a cut line, catching a spark from the engine and blowing the cockpit. A ball of fire disintegrates the plane interior – including Frank – before blowing out the glass of the surrounding windows.