96 Hours Read Online Free PDF

on public linoleum that she didn’t really care.
    A few insomniacs were milling around. Erica kept her eyes down, not up for chitchat. Some looked as wiped out as people who had just finished a marathon but couldn’t now manage to relax. Some seemed utterly lost. Others looked panicked, all darting eyes and jerky movements. Erica put her jacket and shoes neatly on her cot near her computer bag, then glared at it, wishing now that she’d been more practical in what she’d chosen to keep with her on the plane. From here on out, clean underwear would always be in her carry-on. Always.
    Abby’s cot was empty, her beaten-up backpack sitting alone. Erica spotted her down the row, in a change of clothes that made Erica narrow her eyes in a moment of envy. She was sitting with the African-American woman, their heads close together, Abby’s arm supportively around the woman’s shoulders. Something about the pose, about the way they were sitting, made Erica’s heart tighten in her chest and without thinking, she grabbed her cell and headed outside.
    The night was warm. She’d heard more than one person during the day talk about how unseasonably gorgeous the weather had been, that it was usually quite a bit cooler in the early fall. The sky was clear now, stars visible to the naked eye. The salty smell of the ocean clung to the air and Erica inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.
    On the insides of her eyelids, horrific images repeated: exploding windows and crashing planes and screaming people. She opened her eyes quickly, blinked rapidly to erase the visual, and dialed the phone.
    “Hello?”
    “Mom?”
    “Erica! Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been calling your apartment, but you didn’t answer. Did you get my messages?”
    “No. No, I didn’t. I’m . . . I’m not home.” The relief she felt at hearing her mother’s voice was so unexpected, it brought tears to her eyes. “My flight was diverted.”
    “But you’re okay? You’re sure? Oh, thank goodness. Did you see the news? Oh, isn’t it just awful? What is this world coming to? You’re sure you’re okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Jim! Jim, it’s Erica. She says she’s fine.”
    Erica could hear the muffled sound of her father’s voice in the background, the two of them talking over each other.
    The phone changed hands and her father’s gruff voice came on the line. “Erica? Where are you, baby?”
    “Believe it or not, I’m in Newfoundland.”
    “Newfoundland? You mean in Canada? What the hell are you doing there?”
    As she explained, she could almost see her father nodding along, listening intently to her. He’d always been a good listener, even when he was doing something else. He never babbled, not like her mother. He listened and nodded and used his words sparingly. She loved that about him. She pictured him now, in his jeans and flannel shirt even at this late hour, smelling like the outdoors. He would have taken off his baseball hat at this point, his graying red hair shockingly thick; he’d probably been sitting on the open front porch listening to the sounds of the night, sipping from his travel mug of coffee, ever present no matter what the hour.
    “It’s the strangest thing,” he said quietly after they’d talked for a few minutes. “There’s not a plane to be seen. I can’t remember ever sitting out here and not being able to pick out at least four of ’em in different parts of the sky. Tonight? Not a one. It’s just eerie.”
    His words made Erica lift her face to the sky and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to be there with her parents in Illinois, tucked into her childhood bed, the sound of cicadas chirping outside the window.
    “When can you get home?” he asked, pulling her back to him.
    “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t know when they’ll let us fly again.”
    He grunted his acknowledgment of that, then asked, “How did things go on the trip?”
    “Ugh. Lousy. Apparently, there are too many side effects. It was a big,