He barks an instruction at her, one she can’t make out. One of the soldiers, thrusting something into her face. A shadow falls over her, and she looks up. “How long does it take to get to the stadium?” he yells. He says something to her, his voice lost in the furious whir of the blades. Matthew is glued to the window, gawking at the view, his frustration over the earthquake temporarily forgotten. You want to bring aid to them, and preferably do it in a place they can reach themselves, if they can’t get to a chopper.Īnd before she knew it, Amber was in the air.
At first, it made no sense to Amber – surely if they had helicopters, they’d want to get people further away? Then again, if you had a city full of folks in need of urgent help, you don’t waste time trucking them out into the countryside. Soldiers saying they needed to move people to a central location. “I thought there’d be more,” he’d mumbled. Matthew had taken in the trickle of people, the small groups of them being ushered to the helicopter. When the soldiers finally let them all out, it was into the parking lot of a ruined Walmart, the destroyed blue and yellow frontage somehow still lit by flickering floodlights. A bumpy ride in the packed flatbed, a dozen people talking to her, asking her if the dozing boy in her arms was OK. Never even been on a plane.Īt some point on the road to Big Pines, there was a truck. Despite the chaos below, she can’t help but marvel at the view. Amber and Matthew are on either side of one, and she finds her gaze continually drawn to it. Every few feet, there’s a circular window. Each wall is lined with uncomfortable metal-framed seats, the passengers secured to them by rough, red straps.
Neither do the soldiers, or the thirty other people crammed into the back of the chopper. The pilots up at the front have headphones with huge earcups, mic stalks jutting out. It’s a big chopper, with a huge belly, and it is loud. They must have been different helicopters to this one. They’re able to have whole conversations. In the movies Amber has seen, people manage to talk to each other just fine while travelling in helicopters.