Cough by Jacqueline Druga Page B

aisle, the woman wheezed deeply, inhaling what blood was in her mouth. Her coughing and choking grew violent.
    In first class alone there were seven people choking and coughing.
    Another flight attendant flew down the aisle toward coach. Sharon turned her head to look. So many passengers were struggling. The sudden onset of coughing and choking, caused panic in the plane and those not affected rushed to the aisle to get away.
    People screamed and fought.
    Sharon was at a loss at who to attend to. Deciding to help the first woman in 2B, Sharon turned back around. The woman was wide eyed, slumped in her seat and motionless.
    She had stopped coughing. Sharon reached down to the woman, she wasn’t breathing. Blood dripped from her nose and ears.
    She was dead.
    It was all happening so fast, the tight space of the plane was loud with choking and crying. Sharon tried to process her next course of action.
    “Todd,” she shouted.
    Todd was frozen at the front of the plane. His eyes shifted about in horror.
    “Todd!”
    He snapped out of it and raced her way.
    “Go tell the pilot, contact ground. Tell him the situation. Tell him to manually engage the oxygen masks.”
    “You think someone released something?”
    “It’s possible.”
    “Do you think …?”
    “Todd!” Sharon yelled. “Go!”
    Todd spun on his heels and ran toward the cockpit.
    Sharon wanted to cry. She could hear those around her needing help, their vocal chords drowning while they hacked a cough similar to a bark.
    Straightening the dead woman in 2B, someone grabbed her wrist.
    Sharon stopped.
    The passenger covered her mouth. “What’s going on?”
    “I don’t know,” Sharon answered and looked around. She was at a loss. “I just don’t know.”

EIGHTEEN - Isolated
     

Airnamics Flight 473 to Washington DC
June 28 Late Evening
     
    Sharon realized how many people actually didn’t pay attention to the preflight instructions. Many didn’t pull the strap to release the oxygen. Although she doubted the chemically created oxygen did little to help, it did do one thing, it calmed people down and gave them a sense of security.
    For the fourteen minutes the oxygen flowed.
    Had someone actually needed real oxygen, the plane had small canisters. But it didn’t get to that.
    Sharon’s request for the captain to engage the masks wasn’t out of fear of some chemical attack on the plane or chemical leak. She knew that wasn’t the case by the sheer numbers of those infected. Had something leaked or there been an attack, everyone would have felt it.
    She asked for the masks because she remembered during her coughing spell, they gave her oxygen and it helped a little.
    The masks also did little for those who coughed and choked. The passenger in 2B was the first to die and within twenty minutes, everyone who fell ill … died. Most died one right after another, with the final person holding the full twenty minutes.
    By the time the masks had burned through their oxygen, the plane was void of the coughing sounds. Only sniffles, cries and worried voices flowed through.
    Some people asked for alcohol, Todd freely gave out the little bottles without a charge, opting to deal with the repercussions of not the freebies for later. Sharon assured him no one would care.
    So many asked questions, that Sharon didn’t have answers to. The number one thing she needed to do was move people. Move those who had died to the back of the plane into one area, cover them and then the unaffected passengers move forward. She needed to keep people calm that was also a priority.
    Above all that, she needed to give those on board an answer to their fate. She asked for volunteers to help the staff move bodies. Only a few offered, and Sharon gave them masks and two pairs of gloves. After situating that, she made her way to the cockpit.
    The Captain let her in.
    “What’s the situation?” the Captain asked.
    “People are scared. We don’t know what happened. Any news?”
    “No