Creator1

Once again, the modest maintenance crew made their way across the desert bouncing up and down along the dirt road. Three maintainers crammed their way into the small two seat space in the tug, the wind was occasionally brutal, and sitting on the outside would be a sentence to misery by way of cold winds and sandblasting.

“The others are waiting for us at the turn.” The driver stated, keeping his eye fixated on the dimly lit dirt road.

“It’s a good thing we took the fastest vehicle in the squadron.” Joked the third person. The Tug, is a boxy, dense, aircraft towing tractor with a max speed of 15 miles per hour. Going that fast on this unstable dirt road would increase your chances of getting stuck in the sand or an unexpected hole.  

The desert sky was an eerie deep blue, but the nightlight did not reflect on the ground, a landscape typically drenched tan and yellow with small splotches of green, remained pitch black this night.

“You know what to do right Arnie?” The driver asked.

Arnold, the third person in the car was the most junior of the shop, a new Sailor to the command who had checked in only 6 months prior. He was fixated on the night sky, he had come from some no-named suburb on the East Coast and had rarely seen a sky with such depth. His gaze focused on the driver who was looking expectantly at Arnold for an answer.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, so tell me what you’re going to do!” The driver shouted over the roaring of the Tug’s engine.

“You said, because I’m the new guy I’m going to stand by the giant fire extinguisher and wait there in case there is a fire, right?” This kind of checking and rechecking is common in aviation. It wasn’t an exaggeration, or gregarious to do so, but it was annoying at times.

“Right, and don’t fall asleep new guy! QA will rip you a new asshole if you do that!”

The conversation ended as they pulled up to their destination. The Tug engine’s pitch climbed with the final uphill assent, finally leveling off in sound and effort as it crested the hill and was met by familiar concrete. The Tug lurched forward as traction increased the speed before stopping. The doors clunked shut one after the other as Arnold and the other sailors got out.

The desert looked much darker from the illuminated concrete pad. There were 8 tall stadium lights that kept the slab protected from the night. In the middle there was an F/A-18 Super hornet. There were other maintainers in the cockpit, in the landing gear, and on the wings. On the ground lay a cartoonishly huge black chain, three grown men were lifting these links while a forth person connected it to the nose landing gear of the aircraft. This was the main restraint for the aircraft, but the bird would also be adorned with over 16 other smaller tie down chains.

As the crew prepared for the low power turn, Arnold moseyed over to the fire extinguisher. It was an impressive fifty pound bottle, its lime green paint faded and chipped by the never ending barrage of heat, sunlight, and sandblasting. It’s two tires were uneven and made the bottle slightly wobble as Arnold leaned on the bottle.

After what seemed like an eternity, the crew took their positions and the plane captain kneeled, crossed his arms and swooped them outwards finishing by flicking an ‘ok’ sign with his left hand as he stood up, the APU kicked on. A fireball flashed briefly under the aircraft, and the Plane captain signaled for engineer one and two to come online, the plane followed the young Sailor’s directions.

The roar turned into a whine as the engines began to idle. Arnold took his position at the back of the aircraft checking the hydraulic fluid levels on the starboard side, temporarily abandoning his position at the fire extinguisher.

The mechs were about to conduct a high-power turn, meaning the afterburners were going to be engaged. Arnold moved to behind the aircraft, his teeth were moving in his gums, a common side effect of being near an F/A-18 Super Hornet about to use it’s afterburners. He flicked his humorously dim flashlight on and pointed it at the ground and began to swing it back and forth, a visual warning warding off unsuspecting passersby who perhaps couldn’t hear the aircraft.

The herculean sized chain that took three grown men to lift began to drag on the ground, its loud scraping drowned out by the ubiquitous roar of the aircraft, the chain became taught and the nose of the plane pushed to the ground from the force of the afterburners. The flashlights were pointless at this point, the light from the afterburners would sufficiently illuminate the area, with or without the stadium lights.

Arnold continued waving his flashlight, even as it began to flicker.

Piece of shit flashlight!

Arnold began tapping the side of the flashlight, it started to work again, only to die again after a few more swings. The flashlight he had was over 15 years old, and needed replacement badly, he returned the oversized flashlight to his tool pouch and began to jog back to the fire extinguisher.

As he leaned against the fire extinguisher again, he felt something was odd, almost as if something was tugging on him. He spun around to find nothing except other Sailors onlooking and testing the performance of the aircraft. He returned his focus back to the aircraft knowing that if QA saw he wasn’t paying full attention at the fire extinguisher, he’d likely face discipline.

This feeling persisted, a firm, but gentle tugging feeling on his side. He continued to ignore it but the tugging became a pulling feeling and he glanced again but this time was shocked. To Arnold’s horror, there wasn’t an unwanted jokester behind him, instead the tool pouch he wore on his hip vertically was horizontal. The bottom had been lifted off his leg and now pulled directly to the dark desert.

Arnold frantically pushed on the bag to return it to his thigh with no luck, he quickly scanned the black abyss of the desert. His attempt to free himself by unvelcroing his tool pouch was interrupted by an intense and overwhelming buzz.

‘What the fuck?!’ He shouted in confusion, looking up for a source of the noise.

The air and earth became a single plain to Arnold as bright orb approached him and consumed all vision for him.

Holy shit I’m blind!

The light subsided and Arnold blinked multiple times. He could see again, he looked around as he could see the reflection of the light on others faces as the light dimmed. As the light faded it allowed the aircraft, flashlights, and stadium lights resume their previously pointless attempts to light the turn area. The stadium lights crescendo’d into an intense blinfing flash then all exploded with muted pops, the only light was from the aircraft.

The plane captain signaled for an emergency stop, and the aircraft began to wind down. But the whining noise of the engine dying was replaced by the screams of two other people. A fire had begun under the aircraft in the starboard landing gear. Arnold, luckily already at the fire extinguisher acted quickly to put the fire out.

There was a Sailor in front of the aircraft, writhing in pain and clutching his face and screaming. Arnold rushed over to another Sailor who was screaming and hastily trying to take his clothes off, he was slightly smoking. Arnold placed his arm on the Sailor to comfort him and help get his gear off, his skin had suffered burns all over.

“Holy shit dude, your eyes are bleeding!” Arnold could hear the quality Assurance Representative shout.

“Someone call Maintenance! We need an ambulance!” Another shouted out.

Arnold checked his phone, something he wasn’t supposed to have at the turns but he figured he was safe from reprisal at the moment. He tapped the screen, and then again, but it remained dark. He held down the power button, still nothing. The once well illuminated turn pad now only had the moon light and the screams to identify its location.

Other began to confirm their phones were all dead and not turning on as well. A third Sailor began to wonder aimlessly back to the tug and sat there, in sheer terror with the strange scene that had played out. Arnold followed him back to the Tug, he left a spare flashlight in there perhaps that would still work.

“Hey, you alright?” He asked with no response.

“Can you hand me that flashlight?” Still no response. Irritated, Arnold went to the other side of the Tug and retrieved the other flashlight.

*click*

Nothing. He sighed and tossed the broken flashlight on the floorboard. There was another source of light coming from under the passenger seat. It was  small orange glow, he reached down to pick it up. He recognized it immediately, this was the supervisors radio back to maintenance control, it had been turned down when they were driving to the turn lot and forgotten under the seat.

Arnold began to talk to the radio.

‘Hello?..’

‘What the fuck is going on out there! We’ve been trying to get ahold of anyone out at turn for 20 minutes!’ The radio says back.

‘We’re… We’re going to need an ambulance here at turn.’