Elly's Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

window.
    “It’s a coolant
leak,” Jay said.
    “Are we going to
crash?”
    Jay did not
answer. He glanced at her and saw the blood on her white T-shirt. “Are you all
right? Is that your blood? Are you hit?”
    Elly looked down.
“No. It’s not my blood.”
    Jay focused on
the gauges. The engine sounded okay, and the oil pressure read normal. The
engine temperature was rising, but the gauge still showed that the engine was
cold.
    He banked the
plane hard to the north and raised the nose to gain altitude. After a few
minutes, the white smoke slowly thinned, but the engine temperature continued
to rise. Jay backed off the throttle.
    “What are we
going to do?” she asked.
    “We’re going to
look for someplace to land.”
    “Where?” she
asked, looking out the window. “There’s nothing but hills and trees out here.”
    “There’s a small
lake about fifteen miles ahead. We can make it.”
    A popping sound
made them both jump. The engine groaned, and blue smoke poured out on Jay’s
side. A clanking sound filled the cockpit as the engine seemed to tear itself
apart. A spray of engine oil hit the windshield and streaked off to the side.
    “What was that?”
she shouted over the noise of the engine.
    “We lost a
cylinder. Put on your seatbelt!”
    Jay pushed the
throttle forward to make up for the lost power as the young woman fumbled with
her handcuffs to connect her seatbelt. His gauges told him the oil pressure was
good, but he could see the needle on his engine temperature gauge moving toward
the red.
    The young woman covered
her ears as the clanking noise grew louder.
    “Hey!” Jay pointed
out the window at a small blue dot on the horizon. “We’re going to make it.”
    A burst of
orange flame shot out of the engine at the front of the plane. A thick cloud of
black smoke streamed past the passenger-side window.
    “We’re on fire!”
the woman screamed.
    Smoke from the burning
oil filled the cockpit, and Jay cracked open his window and told her to do the
same. The blue dot on the horizon was growing in size. “We’ll make it,” he said
again, with more determination.
    The needle on
the temperature gauge was now past the red and out of the gauge’s working
range. The oil pressure had dropped to nothing. The flames on the right side of
the engine were still burning strong, which meant the plane was also leaking
fuel. The engine sputtered along for another ten seconds and then abruptly lost
power as the pistons melted and seized in their cylinder bores. The propeller
came to an abrupt halt.
    The cockpit went
silent for one long second.
    “Oh, my God!” the
young woman cried.
    Jay pushed
forward on the yoke, allowing the plane to maintain its airspeed as they slowly
glided back to earth. He saw the approaching ground and thought of all the
bullets that had been fired at him in the past few years but had missed. After
all that, Jay decided there was no way he was going out in a plane crash. He reached
down and flipped the switch on the emergency locator transmitter mounted on the
dash. Next, he put on his headset and made a distress call. He swore when no one
replied. He flipped to another frequency to do it again but heard no response.
    Jay saw the
terror in the young woman’s face. “We’ll make the lake,” he said. The truth was
he didn’t know if they’d make it. He decided this wasn’t a good time to tell
the young woman his pilot’s license had expired.
    The burning
plane hung on the wind as they steadily descended in an eerie silence. Through
the haze of smoke in the cockpit they could see tall trees on the edge of the approaching
lake. They were huge, and Jay knew they wouldn’t yield at all if the small
plane flew into them.
    He pulled back
ever so gently on the yoke. The plane slowed but climbed slightly, the trees
now dangerously close.
    “Put your hands
on the dash and brace yourself,” Jay said.
    She did as he
said.
    The plane
leveled and held altitude for a few more seconds. Its