This is a short story I wrote about a year ago for a creative writing class. I got an A, and I also managed to win a 4-H contest with it. I don't know if there is actually an airport in Manchester, but I don't really care. I would appreciate constructive criticism, I'd like to make this into a really cool story. and it'd be freaking awesome as a movie
The five college students ran along the corridor of the airport, hurrying to Gate B6. The corridor was very long and about twenty feet thick, with a red and purple carpet. The walls were huge glass windows between black metal columns. The air was kept at a pleasant temperature, 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit, by the students’ reckoning. They only had 10 minutes until the final boarding call for Flight 639 to Boston. At the rear of the group ran a black-haired man of about 22 years. Underneath his dark blue sweatshirt, he was quite muscular.
“Come on, Jack!” shouted the woman at the head of group, turning to face him. “At that pace, you’ll miss the plane!”
“Ha ha, Abbey,” said Jack. “I’m just keeping at a slow pace so I don’t leave all of you in the dust!”
“Jokes from you?” asked Abbey.
“Never thought I’d see the day!” laughed a thin man with red hair and large glasses.
“Less talking, more running,” panted a woman with long brown hair. “We’re only at Gate C7! Robert, how much time do we have?”
The red-haired man tried to keep his left arm still so he could read the silver analog watch strapped on it. Even so, it was another ten seconds before he replied, “Only seven minutes! Hurry up!”
They passed gate after gate, person after person, door after door, yet as the corridor was very crowded, the progress was slow. Jack suddenly tripped on his own feet. His suitcase flew from his grip and landed on an escalator heading downwards. With a quick curse, he ran after it, barging past an Asian man in a suit and tie. At the bottom of the escalator, near a Mexican restaurant, he grabbed the black leather bag and raced back up. He ran as fast as he could through the corridor, weaving around other people, until he tripped again on a suitcase that a woman in a black fur coat was pulling. He sprawled over the carpet, but regained his balance quickly. He ran faster and faster. Gates C1, B22, B21, B20, and B19 all fell away with astonishing speed, and a few amounts of insults and apologies. His legs were just a blur!
His hamstrings fluttering, he arrived at Gate B6. He looked out the window—only to see the plane taxiing away from the terminal. He uttered a stream of curses under his breath and pounded his head against a white concrete column.
“Is there a problem, sir?” asked a tall, broad, blond-haired man wearing a security uniform.
Jack groaned and muttered something indistinct. “I missed my flight back to Boston.”
“That’s a wee predicament there,” laughed the guard. “My name’s Alcott. There are no more flights to North America today, so I’ll see if I can get you into a hotel ‘round ‘ere.”
“My name’s Jack Riders. Thank you.”
“Much obliged. You can wait in the lounge near Gate A18, and I’ll come fetch you once I book you in.”
Slowly, Jack walked through the B Gates and into a large plaza with a black raven painted onto the floor in the center. He bought a turkey and cheese sandwich at a deli, and then went to the lounge area that Alcott has mentioned. It was a nice area, with a blue and green carpet and several chairs. Along the far wall was a row of outlets meant for charging electronic devices. He walked up to one and sat next to a woman with short blond hair, who was charging her music player. He took his laptop computer out of his suitcase and plugged it in. He connected to the airport’s wireless internet service and opened his e-mail, to send an e-mail to his mother to explain what had happened. Then he simply browsed around and looked at various sites while he waited for Alcott to return.
About an hour later, the blond security guard returned.
“So did you get me into a hotel?” asked Jack.
“Well,” replied Alcott, “no. All the hotels in Manchester are booked. I haven’t the foggiest idea why, but they are.”
Jack swore explosively, startling the woman.
“But you can stay ‘ere at the airport if you want. I’ll get you a pillow and blanket,” supplied Alcott.
“Thanks. I guess I can do that.”
Alcott walked off and returned a few minutes later carrying a white pillow and dark green fleece blanket. It was late, and Jack was tired. So he curled up against the glass wall, and fell asleep.
He was roused when he heard voices talking. He could hear only scattered words of what was being said.
“It’s hidden… room with the… 48 hours… explodes.”
Jack blanched. He strained to hear the voices better. He glanced at his watch. It was two in the morning.
“All right boss,” said one of the voices. “So 48 hours until the bomb goes off, right?”
“Correct,” hissed a smooth voice. “We shall meet at the ‘healing dispenser’ at four o’clock.”
Silent as death, the two men moved away. Jack shuddered. They were going to bomb the airport! He had to warn the security guards immediately. As soon as he was sure the two men were long gone, he grabbed his suitcase and dashed through the airport toward the security desk, in a large plaza near the D Concourse. About thirty minutes later, he stopped, panting. The man at the desk looked at him. It wasn’t Alcott.
“Yes?” he asked.
It took Jack a few minutes to catch his breath. Even so, he still panted heavily when he spoke.
“I overheard… two men… plotting… to bomb… the airport!” he panted.
The guard regarded him for a moment, and then laughed! “Fine jest that is!” he laughed. “No one can bring a bomb into this airport. Our security checkpoints are state-of-the-art!”
“I’m not kidding! You have to believe me!” yelled Jack, stamping his foot.
“Run along now, little boy. There’s a sweet shop down the hall a little ways. Buy yourself some choccy.”
“I am twenty-two years old,” growled Jack through clenched teeth. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Run along now!” shouted the guard with a touch of annoyance in his voice. “And take your jokes with you!”
Seething with anger, Jack walked away from the desk. “If these stone-headed security guards won’t trust me, I’ll prove it to them!”
He stomped through the plaza, when his eye caught on the door of a bathroom. He realized that he had not used a bathroom since before arriving at the airport. He dashed in, and a few minutes later came out of the stall. He was just about to leave, when something under the sink caught his eye. He looked down, and was shocked to find a metal hatch under the sink. He examined it more closely, and found a handle. He pulled. The hatch did not budge. He pulled again. Still, the metal door held fast. With a great effort, he pulled on the handle. It opened. He stared down a deep hole, leading down into blackness. A rusted metal ladder led down into the pit. It was impossible to tell if the pit was twenty, one hundred, or one thousand feet deep.
“Why would something like this be at an airport?” he asked himself.
He decided it did not matter. After all, he had to find out what the ‘healing dispenser’ was and get to it before four o’clock. He looked at his watch. Nine twenty-two. He was still curious however.
He walked back out into the plaza and sat on a black wood bench, next to a teenage boy with black hair. He eyed a vending machine about twenty feet away. He walked up to it, bought a bag of chips, and sat down on the bench to eat. As he chewed, a series of images and memories flashed through his mind. He saw himself as a young boy, asking his mother for a quarter to get a gumball from the gumball machine. He also remembered the blessed
“Eureka!” he shouted. The few others on the plaza looked at him askance, but he ignored them. He ran back to the security desk. By now, the guard he had talked to earlier had been replaced with another guard. Alcott.
“Hello, Alcott,” said Jack.
“Did you sleep well?” the guard asked.
“Yeah, fine, but I have a question. You know those vending machines that serve medicine, like cough syrup and aspirin?”
“Yes, do you need to know where one is?”
“That I do, badly.”
“There is one in the airport. It’s near Gate F17. Quite a walk from here, but you can always take the tram.”
“F17. Thanks Alcott!”
“It’s my pleasure Jack. Just don’t go knocking people over, or else!”
“Say, do you have any idea when my flight out leaves?”
“I’ve booked you on the 1 p.m. flight to Boston tomorrow.”
“One more thing. In a bathroom, I discovered a metal door leading down into blackness. Do you know what it is?”
“Ah, you got it open? Well, this airport was once a school, built during WWII, and the bunker was made in case of air raids.”
He ran to the tram, and took it to Gate E4, the closest he could get to his destination on it. He purchased a toy spy listening device from a shop near the tram’s exit, and with it, walked toward Gate F17, and the ‘healing dispenser’.
Half an hour later, he arrived at Gate F17. There was nothing to do now but wait.
After hours of waiting, he looked at his watch. Three fifty-two. He put on the listening device, and sat next to the healing dispenser.
Eight minutes later, two men walked toward him. One was slightly overweight, and had thinning brown hair. The other was a large man with black hair and a tattoo of a serpent on his left forearm. He listened closely.
“I think that our plot may have been discovered,” said the brown-haired man. “Cut the time down, and detonate the bomb at 7 o’clock.”
“Right, sir,” replied the large man.
Jack’s blood froze. He didn’t realize that the large man was walking toward him.
“Listening in on our little conversation, eh?” he asked, grabbing Jack’s shirt and shaking him violently.
“We’ll deal with you soon enough!”
With that, he punched Jack hard on the head. An explosion of pain erupted in Jack’s skull, and he lost consciousness.
He woke, tied to a chair, in a small room with slimy walls. A dim lightbulb hung above him. A table lay in front of him. On it was a briefcase. It looked like a briefcase at least, except for one key difference. It had a timepiece connected to it, which was ticking down. He could tell that only an hour remained.
“Well, you’ve awakened,” hissed a voice. Jack started. The door to the room opened, and in walked the two men. The overweight one sat down on another chair.
“Who are you?” asked Jack.
“My name needn’t be given to one as low as you, but you may call me Trevor.”
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.
“Why? Why am I doing this?” Trevor laughed. “I am doing this to get my revenge.”
“What did they ever do to you to justify killing hundreds of innocent people?”
“I have my reasons.”
“What are your reasons? Tell me, I demand to know!”
“I’ve been sending money to my family in Turkey, but then this airport fired me! I could no longer send them money, and my infant son died!”
“Listen, I am sorry for your loss,” said Jack. “But killing hundreds of people isn’t the way to do this!”
“Silence!” barked Trevor. “For meddling with my plan, you shall bear the brunt of the bomb’s blast! If only one person dies, it will be you!”
With that, Trevor stood up, walked out of the room, and closed the door.
“I have to escape,” thought Jack, pulling at the ropes. But the cords were thick and strong, and he couldn’t break them. He tugged and twisted, until he fell over. Using his legs, he spun himself in a circle, looking for anything he could use to break free. His eye fell upon a pipe, which was broken, and had a jagged edge. He pushed himself up to it, and began to saw through the ropes. The sharp pipe cut into his wrists, but he ignored the pain and continued to work.
Forty minutes later, he cut through the ropes. He kicked over the door, grabbed the briefcase from the table and ran. Only fifteen minutes remained before the bomb would explode. He glanced up at a sign near a gate. B9. He groaned. He had an idea of what to do. If he could drop the bomb into the bunker, it might not cause as much destruction as it would otherwise. Putting on a burst of speed, he sped through the hall. The people he bumped into glared at him with angry eyes, not knowing he was trying his best to save them. He suddenly tripped on the foot of an old man, and landed face first on the ground. The briefcase flew from his grip and spun into the midst of a huge crowd. He lunged after it, but a Hispanic-looking woman ran past and kicked it down a staircase. Cursing under his breath, he ran down. He managed to grab it inches before it was pulled away from him by a rolling suitcase. He looked at the timepiece. Eight minutes. He ran back up, and resumed his furious run. He ran faster, and faster, faster than he had ever run before! Within minutes, he reached the plaza, and scanned the wall for the entrance to the bathroom. He found it, and ran toward it, trying his best to avoid hitting anyone.
With a pang of worry, he glanced downward. Only one minute and forty seconds were left! He burst into the bathroom. No one was in it. He looked under the sink for the metal hatch, but it wasn’t there! He suddenly realized that it was the wrong bathroom, and the one he wanted was on the other side of the plaza! He ran back out, and into the right bathroom. Sure enough, there was the entrance to the bunker. He pulled at the handle, but it held fast! Only thirty seconds remained. With a great heave, he opened it, the hurled the bomb into its depths.
He heard a clatter as it hit the bottom of the shaft, and then he ran, and covered his ears.
An explosion shook the entire building; bits of rubble fell from the ceiling, and rained down on the people inside. And yet, the bunker held strong, and no one was seriously injured.
He walked to the security desk to see the guard who had given him trouble earlier sitting at it.
“I guess you were right after all,” said the guard. But how did you stop it from destroying the entire terminal?
“I dropped it down into the bunker,” he replied.
“You know, ever since this building was built, the bunker was never used. Until now, I suppose. Thank you. We are all in your debt.”
Soon after, reporters and cameramen arrived at the scene. One man with a microphone approached Jack and said, “I’m from BBC News. Now it seems that the only reason the bomb did not cause major damage is because of you. Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“So you’re a hero now. Do you have any words to say?”
“Well,” Jack scratched his chin. “I suppose it’s a good thing the entrance to the bunker wasn’t in the lady’s room!”
Everyone who was listening laughed at that.
“So, how did you discover the bomb plot?”
“I overheard the perpetrators talking when I was trying to fall asleep.”
And so they went. The reporter asked Jack many questions about how he felt, what he did, and how he did it. Finally, the news crews walked away, leaving Jack and the others in the airport in peace.
Alcott and the other guard walked up to him. Alcott said, “Well, I don’t think you’ll be flying out on the 1 p.m. flight.”
“Why not?” asked Jack.
“Because you’ll be flying out to New York on the 2:30 p.m. flight, on the best and most luxurious plane that’s ever taken off from this airport!”
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