Samantha had blood dripping from her nose. “Thanks, Tom. My arm is hurt. Can you carry Lucy? Please?”
“Of course.” Tom took his handkerchief, dabbed the blood from Samantha’s nose, and gave her the cloth to help stop the flow.
Tom smelled smoke and was fearful the wrecked section of the plane would catch on fire. He carried Lucy past the restroom to the emergency escape door and opened it. Tom looked out the door and saw the floor was about seven feet above the ground. The inflatable slide didn’t deploy.
“Bill, come here, please.”
Bill moved quickly. “Darn, we need to lower the women and injured to the ground. I’ll lower them if you can catch them.”
Tom handed Lucy to Bill and then climbed out of the door before lowering himself to the ground and asked for Lucy. Bill took her by the arms and slipped her into Tom’s arms. Tom looked at Lucy. “Please stay right here while we lower the others.”
“I will. Please get my mommy down,”
“Bill, lower Samantha first. Watch out for her arm.”
Bill couldn’t lower Samantha due to her injured arm, so she sat on the floor and slid off into Tom’s arms. Tom caught her and their eyes locked for an instant. She said, “Thanks. Maybe you’re not as big a jerk as I thought.”
Tom bit his lip and thought, And maybe she’s not the worthless bitch I thought she was. Yes, she is a bitch but perhaps not worthless.
Tom asked for Granny B and the other women first, and then the men before he helped Bill climb down. Tom and Bill walked to the other end of the tail section and saw several people still trying to climb down. They jumped in and helped five more people escape when Tom heard a faint cry for help. By this time, smoke rolled from the open end of the tail section, but Tom climbed up and into the jagged entrance.
He saw an elderly lady blocked in her seat by a large bag that had fallen from the overhead luggage bin. He tossed the bag out of the opening and then carried the lady to the door. Bill and another man helped lower her to the ground. Several people clapped when Tom passed the lady to the others, causing Tom to blush.
He looked around the broken tail section and began tossing all of the bags and luggage out the escape door and the front opening. Tom found his family’s get-home-bags and felt a big relief. The bags contained three days’ supply of food and other survival items that could be carried onto a plane. Their bugout bags were in the plane’s cargo hold and contained their carry pistols, knives, and more survival equipment. Granny B and his grandpa had always stressed being prepared, even on vacation.
Tom climbed down from the fuselage and saw Jackie tearing into the luggage stored below the flight deck. “Hey Sis, find anything usable?”
“Yes, Granny B’s and your bugout bags are here beside me.”
Tom looked around and saw it was safe to secretly take his 9mm Glock from his bag and tuck its paddle holster in his waistband under his shirt. It made him feel a bit more secure, and he’d needed that. “Give Granny B hers and secure yours when you find it. You know the old saying, ‘I’d rather have one and not need it than need it and not have one.’”
Jackie grimaced. “We need to get some of these folks to help us scavenge before our section, or the middle of the plane catches on fire.”
Granny B heard her and yelled, “Attention! I need your attention!” A small crowd gathered around Granny B. She said, “We need to search the luggage for anything we need to survive.” It surprised her when most of them balked. It had never dawned on her that these folks didn’t know the crap had hit the fan.
A woman raised her voice. “The rescue teams will be here any minute! We don’t want to disturb any evidence the FAA will need to recreate the crash!”
Granny B’s head shook, and she blew a wild strand of her gray hair away from her eyes and banged her fist on the underbelly of the plane. “No one is coming. Do you hear any sirens? The plane crashed because we ran out of fuel. Chaos and anarchy are about to erupt all around us. We need to get our butts in gear and get away from here to a safe place.”
Only a few people pitched in to help sort through the luggage. One woman complained about Granny B prying open a suitcase. Granny B responded tersely. “Call the police if you don’t like what I’m doing, but if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll kick your scrawny butt.”
The woman ran away.
Granny B reached into her get home bag and found her prized Colt Defender .45 ACP. She smiled, looked around, and tucked the pistol and paddle holster onto the top of her pants. She whispered to herself. “When all else fails -.45 ACP because sometimes short fat and slow will git ‘er done.”
Her favorite pistol was heavy and only held seven bullets plus one in the chamber. Still, she knew whatever or whomever she shot would hit the ground. Then she reached back into the bag and pulled out her backup weapon. It was a Ruger LCR 22WMR Lightweight Polymer Frame Carry Revolver. She stuck the small pistol into her pants pocket. The little gun only weighed sixteen ounces and held six bullets but packed the wallop of the .22 Win Mag bullets. She could draw it quickly from the DeSantis pocket holster and accurately hit any threat within fifty feet. Granny B stuck an extra two magazines for the Colt in her back pocket and felt a bit safer.
