"The Last Seat":
I had just turned seventeen that year, and graduating high school felt like the best gift I could’ve asked for. My parents were zoologists who spent most of their time deep in the Peruvian rainforest, though we lived in Lima whenever their research allowed it. For the holidays, Mom and I decided to fly out to meet Dad at his station near Pucallpa. It was Christmas Eve, 1971, and I could barely sit still thinking about spending the break with him surrounded by the jungle we all loved.
The airport was a blur of noise and colour—families embracing, travellers hurrying toward gates, little kids clutching wrapped presents as if they might vanish. Mom and I boarded the Lockheed Electra with its ninety passengers and found our seats near the back. I had the window, 19F, and she sat beside me.
“This will be a quick hop,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “Your father’s probably waiting with the tree already decorated.”
The flight started quietly, peacefully. We rose from Lima just after noon, and I leaned against the window watching the city shrink behind us. The Andes unfurled below—green, jagged, ancient. Then clouds swallowed us, thickening until the sky dimmed like someone had slowly turned a dial.
About twenty-five minutes in, the intercom crackled. The captain’s voice was calm, but clipped.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re encountering some rough air. Please fasten your seatbelts.”
Mom glanced at me. “Just a storm,” she whispered. “We’ve flown through far worse.”
But the turbulence wasn’t like anything I’d felt before. The plane jolted, rising and dropping violently, as though an invisible giant had grabbed it and was shaking us apart. Lightning flashed so close it bleached the cabin white, and thunder vibrated through the metal skin of the aircraft. Luggage spilled from overhead bins. A child cried. People gasped, prayed, clutched their armrests like lifelines.
I gripped mine until my knuckles turned bone-white.
“Mom… are we going to be okay?”
She tried to nod, but there was fear in her eyes she couldn’t hide. “Hopefully this goes all right,” she murmured.
Then a lightning bolt hit us—direct. The wing exploded in a bloom of fire. The engine shrieked. The aircraft lurched hard, tilting nose-down, metal groaning under forces it wasn’t built to withstand. Oxygen masks dropped in a jittery, terrifying cascade.
Mom reached for my hand, her voice breaking. “Now it’s all over.”
I barely had time to scream before the plane began tearing apart. The fuselage twisted. Panels ripped away. A deafening roar filled my ears, and wind blasted through the cabin as if the sky itself were trying to swallow us.
And then—my seat yanked loose.
The world spun.
I tumbled through open air, still strapped in, helpless as a ragdoll. The screams vanished. The fire vanished. The plane vanished.
There was only rushing wind and the distant blur of green far below.
Blackness crashed over me.
When consciousness returned, it did so with pain—raw, blinding pain. My head throbbed, my right eye wouldn’t focus, and something deep in my shoulder screamed with every breath. I was lying on a forest floor, half tangled in vines, my seat wedged into mud as though the jungle had reached up to catch me. My dress was shredded, one shoe missing. Blood seeped from a cut on my arm. My leg burned where a long, angry gash had opened.
“Mom?” My voice barely came out. “Mom!”
Nothing answered but birds, insects, and the distant bark of monkeys. The rainforest felt alive, watching. I tried to stand, nearly collapsed, then used a fallen branch as a crutch. Dad’s old lessons came back in flashes: Find water. Follow it downstream. Water leads to people.
A faint trickle guided me to a stream. I drank, praying it wouldn’t make me sick, but thirst didn’t give me other choices. Fear crept in like cold: jaguars, snakes, ants that could strip flesh. Every rustle sent chills racing up my spine.
By afternoon, I found a small bag of candies snagged on a branch—debris from the crash. It felt like a miracle in plastic. I rationed them, sucking each one slowly.
Night was the worst.
The jungle transformed into a world of black shapes and glowing eyes. My wounds throbbed. Flies swarmed the open cuts, relentless. I curled beneath a bush, shivering as rain soaked through the leaves. Sleep came in short bursts, haunted by Mom’s face, the lightning, the tearing metal.
The days blurred. I limped along the stream as it widened into a river. My arm swelled, hot and red. Soon, I felt movement beneath the skin—maggots squirming where flies had laid their eggs. Horror surged through me, but there was nothing I could do. Not yet.
Sometimes planes passed overhead—so close I could hear the engines. I screamed, waved, begged. The canopy swallowed me whole, hiding me from rescue.
On the fourth day, I stumbled into a clearing and saw three seats driven deep into the earth, bodies still strapped in, half-buried. A woman’s hand, nails polished bright red, protruded from the soil. Not Mom’s hand. Relief and grief tangled into something wordless and heavy.
Hunger hollowed me out. The candies disappeared. I walked for hours on trembling legs that felt too thin to hold me. My hallucinations began—voices calling my name, shadows shaped like people slipping between trees.
Rain returned. Thunder rolled. I shivered so violently my teeth ached.
By the ninth day, I was barely standing. I let the river carry me at times, floating on my back because walking hurt too much. And then, like a scene from a fever dream, a small wooden hut appeared on stilts beside the riverbank.
Inside I found a tarp for shelter, a can of gasoline—and I knew what I had to do. I poured it over my infected arm. The maggots writhed out by the dozens—thirty, forty—dropping onto the dirt. The pain was unbearable, but it saved my life.
Hours later, real voices approached. Three men—local loggers—walked toward the hut. I hid at first, unsure if they were real or another trick of my exhausted brain. One spotted me and froze.
“¿Quién eres?”
“I’m from the plane,” I croaked. “The one from Lima.”
They stared like I was a ghost.
“No survivors,” one whispered. “That’s what the radio said.”
“Please,” I begged. “Help me.”
They gave me bread, fruit, clean water—simple things that tasted like salvation.
“We’ll take you to the village in the morning,” the bearded man said softly. “You’re safe now.”
Seven hours by canoe brought us to a small settlement. A doctor treated my wounds and stabilized me. Word spread quickly, and soon a plane arrived to fly me—ironically—back to Pucallpa.
Dad was waiting. His face was pale, trembling.
“My girl…” he choked out, pulling me into his arms with a gentleness that broke my heart. “We thought you were gone.”
Ninety-one people had died. Mom had survived the fall too—but not the hours afterward. The jungle had swallowed the crash site so completely the search teams never saw me.
Recovery took weeks. Bones healed. Infections faded. But the fear—the falling, the darkness, the loneliness—never left completely. Still, I finished school. Became a biologist like my parents. Returned to the jungle many times, though with a reverence I never had before.
That Christmas Eve flight changed everything. I survived because of knowledge, luck, and a will I didn’t know I had. But the shadows of those nine days still follow me—quiet reminders of the thin line between life and the endless green silence.
"The Stranger":
I boarded the flight in Amsterdam on Christmas morning with my mind already halfway across the ocean, picturing my family waiting in Detroit. I’d been away for months, and the idea of walking into a warm house full of lights and familiar voices felt like the best gift I could imagine. The plane was packed with holiday travelers—parents juggling bags and restless kids, couples whispering over shared earphones, solo passengers dozing under thin blankets. It all had that soft, weary warmth of holiday travel.
I settled into my window seat, trying to get comfortable, when I noticed the young man a few rows ahead. Something about him stood out—not his looks, not his clothes, just his stillness. He sat rigidly, staring forward with an intensity that didn’t match the easy, distracted mood around him. No book, no headphones, no restless shifting. Just… waiting. I assumed he was afraid of flying and turned my attention to a magazine instead.
The hours drifted by in a pleasant haze. Meal trays clattered down the aisle, the engines droned steadily, and conversation rose and fell around me. The woman seated beside me—Ellen, an older lady with kind eyes and a warm laugh—told me she was returning from visiting her daughter in Europe. She talked about her grandkids, how they were “probably tearing the house apart in excitement,” and I shared how much I missed my mom’s Christmas baking. At 30,000 feet, wrapped in that gentle cabin hum, it all felt peaceful, almost cozy.
When we were about twenty minutes from Detroit, I saw the young man stand and walk to the restroom. No big deal—until he stayed there. And stayed. And stayed. Long enough that a few people looked up. When he finally emerged, he returned to his seat and pulled a blanket up over himself—completely, head to toe—like a child hiding. The cabin wasn’t cold.
Ellen leaned toward me. “He looks unwell. Maybe airsick?”
“Maybe,” I said, though unease prickled up my spine. His hands moved strangely under the blanket, quick, almost rhythmic. I tried to ignore it.
Then came the first sharp pop.
It was small, but jarring—like a balloon bursting. People glanced around. I sat up straighter. A beat later, an acrid scent drifted through the aisle, thin at first, then unmistakable: something chemical. Something burning.
“Do you smell that?” I whispered.
Ellen sniffed, her brows pinching. “It’s not food.”
I scanned the cabin—and then saw it. Thin traces of smoke curling out from the edges of that blanket.
A flight attendant approached briskly. “Sir? Are you okay?” she asked, her voice tight but steady.
He didn’t answer.
Another pop exploded beneath the blanket—louder this time—followed by a quick flare of orange. Flames flickered up, catching fabric, bright and sudden.
Screams erupted. People jerked out of their seats. The woman in front of him shouted, “Fire! Fire!”
The cabin detonated into chaos. I felt my pulse slam against my ribs as dark smoke rushed upward. The man didn’t thrash or cry out—he just sat there, eerily calm, as flames climbed his lap and licked the sidewall of the aircraft. The fire crackled like it was feeding on something more than fabric.
“He’s got something!” someone yelled behind me.
A flight attendant lunged for a fire extinguisher, blasting foam across the aisle. The flames sputtered but didn’t die immediately—popping, hissing, resisting.
Ellen clutched my arm fiercely. “What’s happening? Oh God—are we going to be okay?”
I didn’t know. All I could think was that fire on an airplane was one of the worst things imaginable—one spark in the wrong place and we’d be gone before we hit the ground.
Then a Dutch passenger—a tall man with a shaved head—leapt over the seats with a kind of fearless purpose I’d only seen in movies. “Grab him!” someone shouted.
The young man under the blanket shifted, reaching for something in his pocket. His face was blank, void of panic, as if he weren’t burning at all.
The Dutch man tackled him, ripping the blanket away—and the sight beneath chilled me to the bone. His pants were scorched and smoldering, and attached to his underwear was a partially melted device, powdery, smoking, clinging like something half-engineered, half-decayed.
“It’s a bomb!” the Dutch man yelled, struggling to tear it free.
I moved without thinking, helping pin the man’s legs as others swarmed around. The heat from his burned clothing radiated upward; the stench of chemicals and cooked fabric filled my lungs. Every second felt like it might be our last—one wrong jolt, one spark, and the whole thing could detonate.
Passengers cried, screamed, prayed. A kid somewhere behind us wailed, “We’re gonna crash!” His mother tried to soothe him, voice quivering.
The flight attendant, hands trembling, passed plastic restraints forward. We cuffed the man while he murmured softly in a language I couldn’t recognize, eyes never leaving what remained of the device.
Then he spoke English—quiet, flat, emotionless.
“Explosive device.”
The words felt cold enough to stop my heart.
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom, calm but shaking at the edges: “Ladies and gentlemen, remain seated. We are declaring an emergency and will be landing shortly. Crew, secure the cabin.”
We dragged the suspect to the front, extinguishing the last embers clinging to his clothes. His skin was blistered and raw, yet he barely reacted. Meanwhile, the Dutch man—burns on his hands, clothes singed—refused help, insisting on staying close in case the suspect tried anything else.
Minutes stretched into an eternity. I stared out the window, watching the ground rise toward us, half expecting the cabin to shake apart before we made it.
When we hit the runway, the landing was hard enough to rattle teeth. Sirens were already blaring outside. Fire trucks and police vehicles boxed us in immediately.
Officers stormed the aisle, seizing the suspect and rushing him off the plane. The rest of us sat in stunned silence, waiting to be questioned, the adrenaline draining from our bodies in shivers and tears.
That night, instead of sitting in my parents’ living room with hot chocolate and a Christmas tree glowing beside me, I lay awake in a Detroit hotel room replaying every second. The smoke. The pops. That man’s empty, determined eyes.
I’ve flown dozens of times since. But every time the cabin lights dim, every time someone sits too still for too long, that moment returns—the day a Christmas flight almost became a falling fireball over the city.
And how close it came to being our last.
"A Witness":
It was a few days before Christmas in 1985, the kind of cold, pale morning where the sky looks washed out and tired. I had decided to leave early, figuring I’d surprise my aunt and uncle by helping with decorations at their little place out west. The highways were mostly empty—just me, my old sedan humming along, and the soft crackle of the radio drifting between Christmas songs and static. I had a trunk full of wrapped gifts and a mind already halfway to the smell of pine wreaths and cinnamon cookies. I figured I’d be there by noon.
I had no idea that drive would mark me for life.
About an hour in, cruising down a lonely stretch of Highway 12 lined with frost-kissed evergreens, I came up behind a beige Chrysler traveling slower than the rest of the world. At first I thought nothing of it—elderly folks often drove cars like that. But as I closed the distance, the details sharpened: two men in the front, burly and stiff, both wearing dark jackets; and in the back, an elderly couple, small and fragile-looking, like they’d been dropped into the wrong car.
The woman’s white hair was pinned neatly, her posture small and tense. The man beside her wore a flat cap, his shoulders drawn in tight. Something about them looked… off. Out of place. Not relaxed travelers on a holiday outing, but passengers who were trying very hard not to be noticed.
As I eased up behind them, the woman turned her head, just slightly. Our eyes met through the rear window. Her face was pale, her lips pressed thin, her eyes holding a silent question—or a plea. She formed a few words I couldn’t hear. Before I could make sense of it, the older man put a calming hand on her arm.
Then the driver glanced up at his mirror.
I snapped my gaze away, pretending to fiddle with the radio as if I hadn’t seen anything.
“Why so slow…?” I muttered. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was my imagination. But a cold knot began to form in my gut.
A mile later, the Chrysler veered sharply onto a narrow side road disappearing into dense woods. Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I turned after them. I told myself I was just making sure everything was fine, that if they were lost or their car was acting up, maybe I could help.
But deep down, I knew I was following because something was wrong.
The gravel road was quiet except for the crunch under my tires. The trees leaned in close, tall and dark, swallowing the light. Up ahead, the Chrysler slowed, then rolled to a stop near a clearing. I braked far back, cut my engine, and watched through shaking fingers.
The two men got out first. One was tall with a ragged beard, his movements sharp and impatient. The other was shorter but thick and muscular, built like he’d been carved out of cinderblock. They yanked open the back doors and hauled the elderly couple out onto the gravel. The old man stumbled; the woman steadied him with trembling hands.
“Please,” the old man said, voice thin and afraid. “We gave you the money. Just let us go. We won’t say a word.”
A chill ran through me.
The tall man laughed—a low, mean sound that made the hair on my neck stand up. “You think we’re idiots? We know you have more. That bank slip wasn’t everything.”
Bank slip?
The shorter one grabbed the woman—Minnie, I’d soon learn—and shoved her toward the treeline. “Come on. Tell us where the rest is, or this gets worse.”
My heart thudded painfully. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was an abduction.
I slid out of my car, crouched low, and followed them at a distance, each snapped twig under my boots sounding like a gunshot. Their voices carried through the forest as they pushed deeper into the woods.
They stopped in a small clearing dusted with frost. The tall one drew a pistol from his jacket—small, dark, deadly.
“Last chance,” he said. “Where’s the safe? We saw the Christmas cards. Old folks like you always hide cash.”
Ed—her husband—tried standing taller, though his knees shook. “We don’t have a safe,” he said. “That was everything. Please… it’s Christmas. Our family’s waiting for us.”
Minnie began to cry softly. “We told you the truth. Eight thousand five hundred… that’s all we’ve got.”
The tall man raised the gun.
I pressed myself behind a tree, breath locked in my chest, sweat freezing cold on my neck.
“One,” the man counted.
Ed closed his eyes and whispered a prayer.
“Two.”
Minnie’s voice cracked. “No… please—”
“Three.”
The gunshot cracked through the forest like lightning. Ed hit the ground, the dead weight of him sinking into the frost. Minnie screamed, a thin, piercing sound that cut clean through me.
“Shut up,” the shorter man barked. He turned the gun on her.
She backed up, hands out, eyes full of horror. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Because we can.”
One more shot. One more body hitting the ground.
I bit down hard on my lip to stop myself from crying out. Blood welled into my mouth. The clearing spun.
The men rifled through the bodies, muttering.
“Grab their wallets,” the tall one said. “Make it look messy.”
“What about the car?”
“Leave it. No one comes out here.”
Then they started walking back.
Toward me.
Panic surged white-hot. I moved back slowly—too slowly. A branch cracked under my foot.
The tall one froze. “Hear that?”
“Deer,” the other grunted.
“No. Check it out.”
The footsteps came closer.
I bolted.
Branches whipped my face; thorns tore at my coat. I heard them shouting behind me—angry, startled, close. My lungs burned. My legs felt made of rubber.
I burst out of the trees and sprinted for my car, keys shaking in my hand. They slipped, clattered to the gravel. I snatched them, jammed one into the ignition, and heard the engine roar to life just as shapes broke through the treeline.
I tore out of there, gravel flying, heart pounding so hard the world blurred. In the mirror, I saw them standing at the edge of the road, watching. I didn’t know if they’d seen my face. My car. My license plate.
I didn’t look back again.
At the sheriff’s office, I stumbled through the door, shaking. “I—I saw a murder,” I managed. “Two of them. Off Highway 12. An old couple.”
The deputy’s expression shifted from doubt to alarm as I described everything—Ed and Minnie, the forced bank withdrawal, the two armed men.
By evening, deputies found the scene exactly as I said. The car. The blood. The clearing. The bodies.
Ed and Minnie Maurin—well-known in the nearby town of Ethel—had vanished that morning. They’d been abducted, forced to withdraw their savings, then executed in the woods.
The community was shattered.
The suspects—Rick and Greg, two local brothers known for drugs and violence—were quickly whispered about, but no one dared testify. They had reputations for making witnesses disappear.
The case froze, then faded.
But fear didn’t.
I moved away. Changed numbers. Avoided back roads. Every Christmas, the memory returned—the gunshots, the scream, the way the trees swallowed the sound.
Then in 2012, the case finally cracked open. Greg died. People loosened their tongues. Rick was arrested, tried, and put away forever.
Justice came. But the ghosts never left.
Even now, I avoid lonely stretches of highway during the holidays. Sometimes, when the air is cold enough and the trees stand close enough, I still hear Minnie’s scream echoing through the woods.
If you’re traveling this season, stay on the main road. Stay where there are eyes, and lights, and people.
You never know what waits in the quiet places.
"The Shortcut":
I met Robert at work a little over two years earlier. He was the kind of man who could make a ten-hour shift feel like a lunch break—tall, charming, with a smile that softened even the worst days. We kept things quiet because of the company’s no-dating policy, and because he had a longtime girlfriend he swore was “basically just a roommate now.” I believed him, or maybe I wanted to believe him more than I cared to admit.
As Christmas approached, the secrecy became unbearable. One evening after closing, as we stood in the empty stockroom beneath the humming fluorescent lights, I finally said what had been boiling inside me for months. “Choose me or end it,” I told him. He looked at me with that serious, steady gaze of his and nodded. “I will,” he said. “Let’s get away on Christmas Eve. Just us. A hotel outside Leicester. No distractions. I want you to see I’m serious.”
Those words felt like a promise. I clung to them.
I packed light—warm clothes, a wrapped gift for him, toiletries, my charger. We left Coventry around midday, Robert driving his car while holiday traffic thickened around us. Instead of taking the expected route, he steered us north into roads I didn’t know well. “Shortcut,” he said. “Trust me, Emma. It’ll be worth it.”
But he was different that day. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles drained pale, and he checked the rearview mirror every couple minutes. I tried to lighten the mood. “You okay?” I asked. He forced a smile. “Yeah. Just excited.”
We talked about work, the new year, the idea of finally going public. “Imagine not having to sneak around,” I said. He hesitated before replying, “Soon. My brother James might join us later for a drink—he lives nearby and wants to meet you properly.”
That threw me. “Your brother? I thought this was supposed to be our time.”
He shrugged. “It’s Christmas. He won’t stay long. He’s got a place on the way. Just a quick stop.”
I should’ve pushed harder. Instead, I let the festive music on the radio wash over my unease like a thin coat of paint over a deep crack.
About an hour into the drive, his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and typed something quickly. I caught a phrase—“operation ready”—before he tucked the phone away sharply. “Work stuff,” he said.
My stomach tightened. “Operation”? Since when did our retail job involve operations?
But again, I stayed quiet.
By the time we pulled up outside James’s house—a plain, semi-detached place in a quiet Leicester suburb—the daylight had slipped into that blue-grey winter dusk. James answered almost immediately, as if he’d been standing behind the door. Taller than Robert, rigid posture, a stare that felt like he was sizing me up rather than greeting me. His handshake lingered a second too long. “Nice to finally meet you, Emma,” he said, monotone. “Come in. I’ve made tea.”
Inside, the house smelled faintly of chemicals—cleaning supplies, I told myself. The living room was cramped and dimly lit, outdated wallpaper curling at the edges. Robert gestured for me to sit. “Check-in at the hotel isn’t until later,” he said. “Let’s relax here for a bit.”
James handed me a cup of tea. It tasted bitter, metallic almost. “Herbal blend,” he said, watching me too closely. “Good for nerves.”
We made small talk—my job, my family, my plans. But the brothers kept sharing quick glances, silent messages darting between them. The room felt warmer by the minute, my skin prickling, my mind slowly blurring at the edges. The tea…
“I need the bathroom,” I said, pushing myself up before my legs could wobble.
In the hallway, I heard them whispering.
“Now?” James murmured.
“Wait for the signal,” Robert said.
My blood went cold.
I locked myself in the bathroom and fumbled for my phone with trembling hands. I texted my sister: At Robert’s brother’s in Leicester. Something feels off. Call if you don’t hear from me in an hour. I flushed the toilet for cover, splashed cold water on my face, and braced myself before stepping out.
Back in the living room, they were both standing now. James near the door. Robert closer to me. Something had shifted in their expressions—no warmth, no pretense.
“Everything alright?” Robert asked, voice tight.
I nodded, though the room was tilting faintly. “I think we should go to the hotel now.”
James casually blocked the door. “Stay. We have a surprise for you.”
Robert stepped closer, the charm draining from his face like someone flipping a switch. “Emma… I can’t let this go on.”
“What do you mean?” My voice was paper thin.
He didn’t answer.
James reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloth—wet, glistening, and carrying a sharp chemical smell that burned my nose from several feet away.
Chloroform. Oh God.
Robert grabbed my arm. “You pushed too hard,” he said quietly. “You were going to ruin everything.”
His girlfriend. The one he never left.
The realization hit with the force of a punch.
James lunged forward with the cloth. I dodged and grabbed the nearest object—a lamp—and swung it with both hands. It smashed into his arm, knocking the cloth onto the floor.
“HELP!” I screamed, my voice raw.
Robert seized me from behind, trying to force my head back. We stumbled, crashing into a chair. James retrieved the cloth and came at me again, his face flushed with fury.
My vision warped—the sedatives in the tea were sinking deeper, slowing me. I kicked out blindly, catching James in the knee. He cursed, stumbling.
My phone buzzed in my pocket—my sister calling—but I couldn’t reach it.
The cloth came closer, the fumes clawing at my senses.
In one desperate move, I jerked my head backward and slammed it into Robert’s face. Something cracked. He shouted, releasing me.
I bolted.
I wrenched the front door open and stumbled into the freezing night, screaming. House lights flicked on up and down the street. A car approached; I waved frantically, staggering into its path. The driver—an older man—stopped instantly.
“Please!” I gasped, collapsing into the passenger seat. “Call the police!”
He dialed immediately as Robert and James retreated into the shadows of the doorway.
The police arrived within minutes.
What they found inside still chills me:
A bottle of chloroform.
Containers of arsenic and mercury.
Notes, search histories.
Evidence that Robert had been planning this for weeks.
James’s allotment nearby had tools and freshly turned soil—authorities suspected they intended to bury me there.
My tea tested positive for sedatives.
The brothers were arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.
I survived because of a ten-second text in a locked bathroom and a moment of raw instinct.
But the fear doesn’t disappear. Every holiday, every detour, every promise wrapped in romance—I feel a shadow behind it. A warning.
Trust can evaporate in a heartbeat.
And the people you think you know best can be the ones who kill you.