Page 15 of The End of the World As We Know It

And the pushback tractor, racing after them. Suit Guy at the wheel.

Holy God. The jet turned onto the runway and immediately accelerated. Dani stretched to scan outside, thinking,We’re clear, we’re good, hearing the gate agent chant, “Go go go,” and saw the tractor cut across the taxiway, across the dirt, aiming to intercept them. Her mouth dropped. Suit Guy thought he could wrangle a 160,000-pound airliner, jump onto the wing or grab the landing gear like a cowboy wrestling a steer…

Come on, come on, take off.She urged the wheels to lift, but heard a shout from the cockpit and a monstrousbangas the tractor clippedthe fuselage. It caromed into the left engine. The explosion shook the jet. Shrapnel shredded the cabin wall.

The airliner raked over the tractor at 150 mph, skidding, people screaming. Dani yelled, “Brace! Brace!” They slid off the runway, dust flying.We’re all dead.

That was when she saw the little girl.

Chocolate-syrup pigtails, a pink backpack. Unaccompanied minor. Dani had handed her stick-on wings when she boarded. Mollie—eleven years old, going to see her dad in San Francisco.

Mollie with the huge brown eyes pinned on her.

“Brace!”

Mollie ducked.

Bam, they jolted to a stop. Silence. Then crackling. The left wing was burning. Dani unbuckled, adrenalized, heard a weak order from the cockpit: “Evacuate.”

Right main door open. Slide deployed. Yelling, “Leave your carry-ons behind!” Passengers staggered, shoving, some skittering over the seats like spiders, but many stayed seated, disbelieving. As though the plane could still take off, someone shouted, “Get back on the runway!”

The gate agent sat paralyzed. “No, no, no.” A screaming man flailed up the aisle toward the cockpit, with—Whoa, crap—a machete raised overhead.

Behind him, Mollie fought to stay on her feet against stampeding adults.

Dani elbowed her way to the little girl, hauled her to the exit, and practically tossed her onto the slide. Then a man slammed into Dani like Mike Singletary sacking a passer and she flew out the door, plunged face-first down the slide, and hit the sandy dirt.

Flames towered and roared. Heat, smoke, insanity. The little girl climbed to her feet.

Mollie Tajima. That was her name. Dani grabbed her hand and ran.

Fifty yards clear, sixty,seven Mississippi. A fireball consumed the jet, booming across the desert afternoon, and knocked them flat.

She turned to the little girl. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Flames shivered in Mollie’s eyes. “Are they all like this?”

“Honey?”

“Plane crashes. This is my first one.”

No fire trucks were coming.

The terminal was anarchy. Podiums overturned; boarding doors locked. Superflu casualties. A Cinnabon cashier was stuffed in a trash can. Mid-concourse a grandmotherly woman on a mobility scooter sat at a slot machine, cigarette to her lips, shoving quarters in as if feeding a ravenous god.

The security checkpoint was unstaffed. That explained the machete. Check-in desks were abandoned. Dani tried a phone. United didn’t answer.

She squeezed Mollie’s shoulder. “We’ll call your mom.”

“She’s on her way to Mexico. With her boyfriend. Until this is over?”

This.Over. Damn. “Then let’s get hold of your dad.”

“Please.”

Dani phoned the girl’s father. Nothing. “Who else is here? Who can we call?”

Mollie’s voice quavered. “There’s just me.”