Meredith had never seen a crowd stampede before. There couldn’t have been more than a couple hundred passengers on board, but every single one of them was clamoring to escape the smoke pouring from the back of the cabin. Shouts of fire and smoke and help mingled with pleas for divine intervention and screams of sheer terror. Every so often, someone cried out in pain as men and women trampled each other in a vain attempt to outrun the smoke and flames.
The problem was clear. There was nowhere to run. And yet Meredith was one with the crowd, throwing off her seat belt, trying to race forward, forward, forward, away from the black smoke.
“West!” she recognized the panicked sound of a mother screaming. Justine?
“West! Has anyone seen my baby?”
Oh, no.
Where was he? Where was Justine’s little boy? He’d been right beside Meredith just a moment ago.
“West!” Meredith raised her voice to join the frantic mother’s. She grabbed the shoulder of a man in a business suit. “A little boy,” she panted. “There’s a little boy missing.”
The man looked at her with pity but then pried himself away from her grip and pushed his way through the frenzied crowd.
“West!” Justine’s voice was shrill, a terrified screech that made Meredith’s heart race in her chest.
God, please help us find him.
Her eyes stung, and the black smoke was surging closer, closer, closer …
Another scream as the plane lurched forward. This time it was Meredith. Meredith and every single other passenger on board the doomed flight.
“He’s bombed the bathroom,” someone shouted, and soon murmurs, shouts, and yells of bomb reverberated through every square inch of the smoke-infused cabin. A bomb? What did that mean? Bombs exploded, right? They didn’t just burn. Did that mean the danger was yet to come?
And in the end, did it really matter? You would die from smoke as easily as from fire as easily as from an explosion. And of course, nobody would survive a crash from thirty-thousand feet. It was a morbid thought, but it was all Meredith could focus on.
“West!” Over the shouts of all the other passengers, Meredith heard the mom calling for her little boy.
Meredith felt like she was going to be sick. She tried to escape into one of the empty rows of seats when she heard a faint cough.
West?
She knelt down and scooped up the small form huddled beneath one of the chairs. “Come here, West,” she urged. “Come here. I’ll help you find your mommy.”
He held onto the seat cushion and wouldn’t let go.
“West!” Justine screeched from the other side of the aisle.
“He’s over here,” Meredith yelled before a coughing fit seized her own lungs. She tried again. “Over here.” Her voice was so hoarse, she couldn’t make herself heard.
“Mommy!” West was crying. Screaming. Coughing. At least he was under a seat. Away from trampling feet. Whether instinct or divine guidance, he was probably in one of the safest places he could be right now. Of course, if the plane went down, nobody would be safe, but Meredith wouldn’t think about that.
“I’ll go get your mommy.” She wasn’t sure West heard her. Wasn’t sure she had even heard herself. The smoke had reached the front of the cabin now. Nearly blinding. Meredith had to grope her way through throngs of sweating, screaming, crying passengers, pushing herself to the other side of the aisle where she heard Justine’s voice clearer than all the others.
“West!”
“He’s over here.” Meredith grabbed Justine’s arm when she reached the frantic mother and had to give a yank to get her to follow. “He’s over here,” she repeated and shoved her way, elbowing, pushing, pressing through the crowd to get Justine over to her son.
Dear God, Meredith prayed, please don’t let me step on anyone. The thought sent a wave of fear and revolt crashing through her stomach. Meredith tried to find some place out of the way where she could be sick.
“Baby.” Justine was on the floor by her son, who still refused to let go of the seat. It was probably a wise idea to stay low and out of the aisle. The plane lurched forward once more. Meredith knelt down by Justine who was cradling West in her arms and sobbing. She rubbed the young mother’s back. Patted West’s sweat-soaked hair. Wondered if reuniting this terrified child with his panicked mother was the last good deed she would accomplish before God ushered them all into the throne room of heaven.