-Lost

Chris smiled back at mom and wrapped his arms tightly around his baby sister.  Mom blew him a kiss and turned back around, then settled back into her seat.  She focused on the task at hand, rummaged in the map case, and pulled out the appropriate chart, spreading it over the console in front of her.  She turned on and positioned the light above so she could see and began to look the maps over. 

“Where do you suppose we are?” she asked.

“Not too far…southwest of Lincoln,” Dad replied.  “Maybe…80 or so miles?” 

She looked back out the window.  With the light on, she couldn’t see much of anything but her reflection.

The altimeter swept down to 1,600.  Dad increased the engine power a touch to slow the decent slightly.  The small light he had been focused on still appeared to be fixed on the horizon, but was quickly lost in clouds. 

Mom was nervous.  She didn’t like the feeling she was getting, either. 

“Jim?” she said.

From the kitchen of his neat farmhouse, 1,558 feet above sea level, Charles Braun lifted his head and stared intently into the quiet space of the house, listening.  He could suddenly and distinctly hear a low pitched drone approaching from a distance off, somewhere outside the house to the west. 

“Cara!” he called to his wife in the kitchen.  “Do you hear anything?”

“Sounds like a swarm of locust!” she replied.  He pushed himself up and walked from the kitchen back into his living room and paused, concentrating on the sound.  He walked over to the T.V. and switched it off, focusing his hearing farther. 

It was there again.  The drone was still distant, but definitely coming closer.  It sounded like an airplane, but no one would be flying that close to his house.  The airport was on the other side of Hebron.  They must be lost and looking for it.  He went to the front door and opened it. 

The low clouds extended thickly into the distance all around the farm, becoming fog at some points as they caressed the ground.  That was a strange phenomenon for that time of year.  The noise came from the clouds toward the southwest, and continued growing and growing. 

He stepped fully outside looking into the misty air toward the source of the sound.  It quickly had grown louder and louder still.  Then his eyes locked onto blinking lights, dim at first, but brighter with each passing moment as they pierced through the fog, racing toward him.  He raised his glasses to his eyes.  The lights looked like they were practically on the ground, and moving quickly toward him. 

Suddenly with a crescendo roar, a small airplane resolved from the darkness and raced past, just in front of the house and practically right above him.  It streaked by, maybe 30 feet high!  Alarmed by the spectacle he crouched down slightly, keeping his startled eyes locked to the plane.    

It shot right toward the windmill near his barn but somehow missed it by what had to have been inches and roared on.

“What the hell are they doing?!”  He exclaimed aloud and watched the plane speed into the night growing exponentially quieter as it flew away.  He was flabbergasted.  He listened to the drone for a few moments as the blinking lights were reclaimed by the fog.  He stood stunned, shaking his head in disbelief.

Cara appeared behind him at the door, and asked what was going on.

“I have no idea!” he said, somewhat shaken, still staring into the darkness.  They must have gone higher.  He listened for a few moments more, and shrugged. 

They must have been trying to find the airport, he thought, but people should be more careful in those things!  They went back in, closed the door, and turned the T.V. back on.

Dad had now and quite suddenly become disoriented and was growing very concerned.  He had been concentrating on the clouds and when he looked where he thought the light that he had been watching should have been, but could no longer see it, or any other lights out there for that matter.  The world outside had gone completely black.  The cloud ceiling was still just overhead.  He looked at the altimeter, which hadn’t moved.  He was okay, though, he still had at least 500 feet.  But it was time to start thinking of biting the bullet and going into the clouds.

He tried to relax and loosened his grip on the controls a little, preparing to slowly add power and entering the clouds.  Mom watched dad intently.  She felt tense but not afraid.  Dad knew what he was doing, even if they were low.  Once they got through this bank of clouds, she and dad would be able to get oriented and would be okay.  We were very close to the ground, but also very close to Lincoln.  We would get there, she was sure.

She fixed her stare out the window, then reached up and switched off the light, eliminating the glare, and tried to lock on to some kind of point to focus on, looking for some indication of a house or farm or something on the ground. 

The clouds parted and before her and for a split second she caught a glimpse of something.  It appeared to be rushing toward them.  She immediately knew it wasn’t right.  She knew it was no cloud.

Her eyes opened wide as the first tree scraped the bottom of the fuselage and a wall of larger trees bore down on the plane.  Her heart felt like it was thrust into her throat in horror at what she saw.  She screamed:

“JIM!!!”

Her final word, her husband’s name, was frozen in the space between her and dad.  The world was held perfectly still for a moment as the realization of the unfolding event came upon him, even as he could not right then accept them as fact. 

 

The fact that time was up.