Dark Screams: Volume Two Read Online Free PDF Page B

a few trees uprooted, patches of brushfire and the waving flashlights of police searchers.
    Even though she expected it, the final panel sickened her. Michelle thought of that young boy waiting for his father—of however many other children, spouses, parents, and friends might soon be seated in those rows facing the front, facing her, to plead for news they didn’t really want to hear.
    Wade pressed a function key and the arrivals board expanded over the divided quadrants on his computer. “Remember we have to stay calm, to keep the others calm.”
    Why had he chosen her, instead of Joanie or Erika with years more experience? The answer was too obvious. They were pleasant enough, those women, but Wade had chosen a younger companion for this trial. A kinder emissary of grief. Joanie and Erika at least had attractive phone voices, and could field calls to the airline.
    He placed a cellphone headset over his right ear and assumed a soldierly expression. “I’m calling them in.” He gave a quick go-ahead to someone on the other end, obviously already prepared for his call. Almost immediately, a message droned through the airport loudspeaker: “Families awaiting the arrival of Flight 1137 from Saint Louis or Nashville, please report to baggage claim level, room 2-C courtesy office.” Then the message repeated twice more.
    Michelle started to panic. She half wondered if Wade followed a set protocol, or if he was being allowed to improvise. Shouldn’t there be some police officers here? Airport representatives? Some kind of professional grief counselor? On-call specialists should be available to handle this kind of thing—even for a small out-of-the-way airport and their small, money-losing airline. She wasn’t trained.
    “Here’s an extra copy.” Wade handed her a passenger list and a yellow highlighter. “Get ready.”
    —
    Ninety-seven passengers, according to the total at the bottom of the third page. Just a number, just a list of names. As Michelle read over the list, she wondered if she’d checked any of these people in for the westbound portion of their journey. A few names seemed familiar, but she had no faces to connect to them.
    No.
Only the recent faces of the pregnant woman and her son; the tall, gray-haired man in a plaid suit; the heavyset woman with a two-liter plastic tumbler of soda from 7-Eleven. And more faces soon to arrive.
    The first wave was the roughest, a large group of about thirty who formed two separate lines outside the open doorway. Michelle asked the first woman in her line for identification, then compared the driver’s-license name against the relatives on her list.
    “My daughter, visiting home from college.” The woman was in her forties, thin and barely over five feet tall. With her small legs she must have walked quickly to get to the front of the line. Anxious as she was, her voice remained quiet and restrained. “I wish Lizzie hadn’t gone to school so far away. But we still get to see her a couple times a year.”
    Michelle highlighted the daughter’s name and waved the woman into the conference room.
    The woman paused before entering and turned her head to ask, almost as an afterthought: “Do you know what’s going on?” Again, the quiet voice, and Michelle responded in kind.
    “Not really.” Michelle felt the stares of people in both lines, their ears straining to listen. No such thing as a private conversation here: Speaking to one meant speaking to all. “We’re still waiting for information.”
    A murmur of frustration thrummed through the crowd. Most of them were strangers to one another, spoke only to themselves or the air. Michelle turned to the next person in her line, a man in a salmon-colored polo shirt. He held his license by one corner, extended as if he were making a credit card purchase.
    “No, no.” Wade’s voice rose sharply above the random airport noise. He looked at a teenage girl and made dismissive motions with his fingertips. “Relatives