Eerie (12 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The Luftzeug

“Love is a fire that burns unseen.”

- Luís Vaz de Camões, Rimas

When Hailey approached Tage on graduation day to offer him congratulations, he looked straight through her as if he couldn't even see her. Then Mina appeared and like a kid in kindergarten, she poked her tongue out at Hailey as Tage wrapped his arm around her.

Tage wasn't the only man snubbing Hailey. She hadn't seen or heard from Fin in over two months, and her dream man, well, he was giving new meaning to the phrase “keeping a low profile.” Hailey was starting to think he was just a figment of her imagination after all.

And then there was Tomas. When her bathroom mirror disappeared, her phantom hair-dresser had disappeared with it.

Thankfully, Uncle Pix clapped her on the shoulder, startling her out of her trance before disbelief turned to self-pity.

“Congratulations, dear.” Pix lifted her off the ground in a great hug.

“Thank you,” she said with a bittersweet smile, imagining Holly standing next to him as he put her back down.

She didn't feel much like celebrating—or existing—without her. Hailey needed a change of scenery.

August first couldn't come soon enough.

Hailey laid out all the things she wanted to take to Alaska and set her little purse next to it, scratching her head.

What she really needed was a stuff-shrinker, she thought as she surveyed her pile. There was no way she'd fit all this into one purse-size bag.

Shaking her head, she picked out the absolute necessities.

When it was all said and done, she barely got her micro-duffel closed over: one hand towel, a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, a comb, a toothbrush, one pair of jeans, three t-shirts, one sweatshirt, socks, undies, and her laptop.

That's one strong zipper
, she thought, deciding she'd just have to buy everything else she needed once she got to Alaska.

She grabbed the only picture she had of her and Holly dancing together from her bedroom mirror, tucked it in her back pocket and left.

After the thirty-minute drive to the airport Pix hugged her like he was never going to see her again.

“Uncle Pix, are you alright?”

“Right as rain, dear,” he said with a hoarse voice. “I'm so proud of you.” He gave Hailey her “luggage.”

“Bye,” she breathed with a brave smile, waving as he drove off.

She turned around, took a deep breath and walked inside the terminal.

There were several trembling and ashen-faced travelers about Hailey's age standing inside, but they each had a pile of luggage next to them. Some had several clear plastic bins, which were filled with sheets and blankets, pillows and comforters, parkas and boots, hairdryers and curling irons; others had giant duffle bags and snowshoes and skis.

Hailey's jaw fell.

Nobody had “one piece of luggage—purse size.” Her heart splashed into her stomach. What's worse—all of them carried a winter coat and a sleeping bag separate from their bags.

This was bad.

She looked around for a sign or airport worker or anything that could direct her to where she could find a Luftzeug representative.

As she scanned the area, her eyes fell on a young man with multicolored hair and trendy eyeglasses, who was standing in front of a mountain of luggage, clutching a large silver envelope in one hand and holding onto a bulging duffel bag with the other. He looked exactly how Hailey felt: absolutely terrified.

Hailey crept up to him.

“Are you heading to Bear Towne?” she said, and he started. Loudly.

“Oh God, why?” He retreated away from her, clutching his swollen bag against his chest as if she were going to steal it.

“I just . . .I'm going too, and I was wondering if you knew where we were supposed to wait to board the Luftzeug.”

“No.” He looked at her like she had warts, and then he turned his back on her.

That worked well to chase her bravery away.

With her mouth clamped shut and her one, small bag, which held absolutely nothing, she strolled to the window and surveyed the tarmac. Shining like a new penny in the summer sun, a glittering, bronze-colored private jet sat next to the terminal with the words, “Bear Towne” emblazoned in silver lettering on the side.

This was going to be the best 10-hour flight ever.

Hailey smiled, breathing a sigh of relief just as a terrible racket screeched behind her. A troop of tall, thin men, all wearing gray flight suits and full-face gas masks marched through the terminal, pulling several pallet jacks behind them. Stopping at each terror-stricken student, they loaded pile after pile of luggage onto a cart, shrink wrapping their load as they went. When a cart grew to six feet high, one of the flight suits would wheel it out of the terminal. They did this several times before they approached Hailey.

“Luggage?” one of them asked her in a muffled almost mechanical-sounding male voice, and Hailey saw he wore a Bear Towne patch on his shoulder.

“This is my luggage.” She held up her purse.

The flight suit made no move to take it and seemed to be staring at her, though she couldn't tell because of the gas mask.

“Where's the rest?” he asked her in a voice laced with static.

“This is it—this is all I brought.”

Despite the instructions in her letter, she suddenly felt an irresistible urge to panic and run home to pack a footlocker. She checked her watch.

“I think I have time to run home and pack a footlocker.” She turned to leave, but another flight suit grabbed her by the neck and squeezed. Hailey made a choking sound, and the gas mask that held her cocked its head. The other gas mask clapped the one holding her on its shoulder, waving his finger slowly at the offending crewmember until it let her go.

Hailey fell to the floor, doubled over and gagging.

“There's no time,” the first one spat. He snatched her bag. “The Luftzeug will leave in twenty minutes.”

He popped to attention, did an about-face, and marched outside.

“Thank you,” she called through a bruised throat.

Through the window, Hailey watched as they pulled their pallets past the Bear Towne plane. She turned around to see if anyone else noticed and saw the kid with the multicolored hair disappear through a jet-way door along with a gaggle of others. Hailey ran to catch up and tugged the rainbow-headed boy's sleeve as they emerged outside.

“They took our bags right past the Bear Towne Luftzeug,” she said, pointing to the luxury jet in front of them.

“That's not the Bear Towne Luftzeug.” He pointed to an ugly gray shape behind the beautiful jet. “
That's
the Bear Towne Luftzeug.”

“That's our airplane?”

“It's not an air
plane
—it's an air
tool
. The Gulfstream is for the Pre-Med students,” he explained with disgust, as if Hailey should already know this, but he was clearly pleased to tell her. “It makes stops in Chicago, LA, and Seattle before heading north.”

“Oh.” Hailey hadn't realized Bear Towne had a Pre-Med program. She drew a breath, but the rainbow held his hand up.

“I know, I know . . . Now, you're wondering about the geology students . . .”

Geology?

“They left from Columbus last week on the bus, geez, didn't you read any of your handbook?”

“There's a handbook?”

He scoffed. “You're in for a few shockers,” he said like a brat, and he turned his back on her.

No use asking if she could borrow his copy to read during the flight, she figured. She walked behind him on her tiptoes, trying to get a full-on look at the gray blob that was the Bear Towne Luftzeug. To her, it looked like a modified military cargo plane. Barely visible on the side of the hull, faded letters read: Bear Towne Luftzeug:
Traumzeug
.

When they reached the mobile stairs leading up to the Luftzeug's entry hatch, the rainbow stopped suddenly with wide eyes, grabbed Hailey by the arm and shoved her ahead of him. At the top of the stairs stood the source of his angst—a gangly, contorted-looking man-thing, clad in a gray flight suit and elephant-nosed gas mask. It leaned unnaturally on the platform at the entryway door. If they were at an amusement park, Hailey would have sworn she was looking at a reflection from a fun-house mirror rather than a real man.

Reluctantly, she lifted her foot and climbed the steps.

“Not scared, are you, dear,” the contort-incarnate crackled when she reached the top. He handed her a heavy metal lunchbox.

“Not at all.”

That was a lie—she was scared to death. And she probably wouldn't have the courage to actually open the metal box he'd just handed her. Who knew what was inside? Raw brains, maybe? Spiders?!

She tried her best to project an image of calm as she thanked him and stepped on board.

Inside, the Luftzeug seemed like a large, oblong tuna can: cold, cavernous and empty with a high ceiling, bare metal, no carpeting—in fact nothing soft whatsoever—and something inside literally smelled fishy. Folded jump seats lined the hull in the front, and shrink-wrapped pallets were anchored to the floor in the back. There were no windows in the Luftzeug, but there was a galley near the nose of the plane with a coffee pot and several other metal doohickeys as well as a ladder, which Hailey was guessing led to the cockpit.

Scampering all around the fuselage—ALL around the fuselage, even zip-lining across the ceiling, though Hailey couldn't actually see the zip-line—were gas-masked contort-men, who were examining each rivet in the hull. They gave Hailey an immediate and chilly case of the creeps.

She found an empty jump seat near the back of the plane and folded it down. Next to her and in the very last seat sat a student, who upon her approach raised his newspaper higher and, like everybody else on board, pretended not to notice her. But Hailey had already caught a glimpse of his handsomely rugged face, and she knew exactly who it was.

“Fin?” she asked excitedly.

He dropped his paper.

“Hailey!” he said with a forced smile.

“Wha . . .you . . .” Hailey didn't know where to begin. “You go to Bear Towne?”
There. That was a good question.

“Yes,” he answered, sounding annoyed.

She leaned her head toward him, turning it slightly with her eyes open wide as if to say, “ . . .and . . .?”

Fin shook his paper and raised it again.

“Where have you been?”

“You know, it's none of your business what I do,” he said from behind the Times.

Ouch
.

Shrinking back into her place, Hailey noticed the other students pulling a small plastic bag from under their seats and putting whatever was inside into their ears then strapping themselves in.

She felt around under her own seat and found a bag labeled: indispensable. Inside was a set of earplugs, which were easy enough to figure out. The seatbelt, however, involved no fewer than seven straps and two buckles, and it took until the Luftzeug roared to life for her to put it in order—with no help from Fin.

The engines of the Bear Towne Luftzeug spun up to an earsplitting screech, leaving Hailey to wonder why the heck she even bothered with the indispensable “ear protection.” Weirdly, nobody else seemed disturbed by the continuous, painfully shrill thunder and in fact, everyone seemed quite at ease, so much so that as soon as the plane took off and despite the incredible turbulence, one by one, each passenger unbuckled, got up, rolled out a sleeping bag on the floor of the plane and climbed inside. Before long, everyone on board, except for Hailey, Fin and just one other student sitting near the front of the plane, was stretched out and ready for bed—in the middle of the afternoon.

How anyone could relax with such a blaring racket and inside the coldest airplane in the world was beyond Hailey. Though, as she began shivering, she did wish that she, too, had a cozy sleeping bag to keep her warm and wondered if there were any blankets on board.

She stared at Fin until he acknowledged her.

“What?” he said, dropping his paper. It looked like he'd said it sharply, but Hailey couldn't hear a thing over the scream of the Luftzeug's four engines.

“I'm freezing!” she shouted to him, and everyone on the airplane—everyone except for the only other student not bundled up inside a sleeping bag, turned to look at her. Hailey's cheeks burned.

Fin lowered his brow and cocked his head to the side as his jaw jutted out.

“You didn't turn on your Buzzdoodles,” it looked like he said.

“My what?”

“Earplugs, dummy.” Fin reached over and flipped a switch above her head. It was an off-switch for the engine noise in Hailey's ears, which apparently, everyone else had already activated.

“This was all in your student handbook,” Fin said rubbing his forehead. “Why didn't you read it?”