Flight 3108
Copyright © 2020 Sharon Mikeworth
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
River Nation Publishing
111 N 3rd Street #1021 Smithfield, NC 27577
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-7349365-1-3 (trade paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-7349365-0-6 (ebook)
Design and layout by Lighthouse24
Lines from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851. Public Domain.
www.sharonmikeworth.com
To Logan
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1
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5
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13
The House on Chestnut Circle (Preview)
Other Books by Sharon Mikeworth
About the Author
1
THERE’S ALWAYS ONE, thought Mason. One loudmouth, one drunk, one drama queen. Or in the case of the skinny twenty-something guy heading his way: one entitled, rude, self-centered millennial. In addition to the mesh bag across his chest, he also had a huge pack on his back he was nearly smacking people in the face with and a small duffel Mason watched him roughly shove a wheeled carry-on out of the way for in the overhead bin.
Mason did have some sympathy for that particular generation thanks to his nephew Cory, who had recently given him a new perspective on their way of thinking. The evening before, he’d reprimanded Cory for honking the horn at a middle-aged lady trying to make a left out of a busy intersection, and his nephew had spat, “Some of us don’t have all day. Some of us are going to have to work well into our seventies before we can even think about retiring.” Which had given him pause.
But this guy with the backpack, who was now taking up his space as well as most of the legroom beside it, didn’t look as though he’d ever worked the same job for more than a month or two in his life and probably lived off handouts from Mommy and Daddy. And, his dark blond hair had been twisted up into a man bun. And not the kind that was low and messy and even Mason had to admit looked pretty good on some dudes, but a circular knot perched on the top of his head like a small paintbrush. Mason got it. It was all about being badass in a blatantly gender-neutral way. Which was kind of a beautiful thing. But still, a top knot, which never looked good on anyone?
He looked past his only seatmate out the window at the rain blurring the lights of the terminal across the tarmac. He’d enjoyed his stay with his nephew and his sister, Sienna, but he was ready to go home. He didn’t have to be back on the job where he worked managing and overseeing the staff and day-to-day operations of a small private security company—the pay wasn’t super great but it wasn’t bad either—until Monday morning, which gave him the rest of the weekend to get caught up on his laundry and veg on the couch with an ice-cold beer in his hand and Game of Thrones on the TV (he’d only recently got into it after refusing to watch it with Jess for years). What he’d done was wrong, but he’d loved her. Still loved her. He felt himself growing angry again at her callous indifference to him afterwards. Did one mistake wipe out five good years? He’d made one mistake, gone too far, once. One bad night out of hundreds of good ones, and just like that, she’d cut him out of her life. He still couldn’t believe the coldness of it. But still, plainly he had screwed up. He had been justified in his exasperation (in his anger), but he had not been justified in how he’d handled it. How he’d manhandled her, as she’d put it.
His thoughts were ripped away from the past as he became aware of another passenger, a woman who was seventy if she was a day, belatedly making her way down the aisle as one of the flight attendants, the younger one, began closing and securing the door. Though the plane wasn’t anywhere near full, the gray-haired lady was apparently the final passenger.
At last. American Skyways Flight 3108, leaving Fort Lauderdale, Florida and bound for Manchester, New Hampshire, where he had an apartment and a cat named Bruno, was already running almost an hour behind.
Another flight attendant, more mature but still attractive, positioned herself at the front, facing them. The FASTEN SEAT BELT signs were now on and glowing yellow.
Mason heard the gray-haired lady say, “You’re going to have to move that bookbag,” and realized she’d had the misfortune to reserve the seat beside Manbun.
“Backpack,” he snapped back at her.
“What?”
“It’s. A. Backpack,” he enunciated, still making no move to pick it up. “And there’s nowhere else to put it.”
“Well, I have to have enough room, so would you please—”
“Just squeeze in,” he said.
“The safety demonstration is about to begin,” the waiting flight attendant interjected. “If everyone would please take their seats and fasten their seat belts.”
The gray-haired woman, who was probably someone’s grandma and no doubt very much like the poor woman who had the bad luck of being this jerk’s grandmother, stared uncertainly down at the overstuffed pack. As if she could feel Mason’s eyes upon her, she looked over and he was startled to see she seemed on the verge of tears.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. He opened his mouth to tell the little shit to move it or he’d move it for him, when the younger attendant came over to help.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to move the backpack.”
“Where should I put it? I think it’s too big for the bin. I could barely fit my other bag.”
“If it won’t go in then we’ll have to check it.”
“I’m not checking it.”
“Sir—”
“Here,” Mason said, getting up from the aisle seat he’d purposefully chosen. Reaching up, he snatched the smaller bag from the overhead bin, pushed between the attendant and the woman, grabbed the backpack, slung the duffel at the idiot, and then heaved the pack up and into the bin. It was a snug fit but with one good open-handed smack it went in, albeit a little tightly.
“There,” he said, and gave the older woman a smile.
She returned the smile tremulously and maneuvered herself into her seat, reaching down to place her purse underneath the one in front of her, pointedly not looking at the man-boy who was now staring over at Mason with an absence of expression that still managed to convey the message eat shit quite clearly.
Mason grinned at him to show he wasn’t the least bit bothered by his passive-aggressive show. Two can play your little game. Finally, the twerp made a snort of derision and reached down to stow the duffel.
After the two-minute safety demonstration and a reminder to turn off all electronic devices, the attendants were moving up and down between the passengers, instructing everyone who hadn’t already done so to secure their table trays and bring their seats into an upright position.
Then they were rolling toward the runway.
Mason awoke with a start as the airplane gave a small bounce. They seemed to have caught up with the storm they had been trailing behind since taking off. He could see flashes of lightning streaking across the dark sky through the rain-smeared window. On the other side of the empty space between them, his seatmate, a girl with Asian features who looked around sixteen but was probably older, rested against the window with her eyes closed, trying to sleep. As were most of the other passengers, a
ll except for Manbun who was watching something on his phone. At least he’d brought headphones to use instead of forcing everyone around him to listen.
Giving a small sigh, Mason relaxed back. He’d planned on sleeping through the flight’s duration, but he doubted that was going to happen now.
He’d been plagued by insomnia ever since Jess left. Usually he’d doze off fine, but then he would wake up three or four hours later and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning. Even on the weekends when he didn’t have to be up early for work, he could never drop back off. He would start thinking about everything that had happened and how lonely the apartment was, and no matter how hard he tried to push it away, his mind would keep looping back over and over. Like it was now.
He raised his head and twisted around to look for one of the flight attendants. He wanted to ask for a drink, but neither the stewardesses nor the male crewmember he’d briefly seen were in sight.
The airliner they were flying in didn’t offer in-seat television—going by the worn upholstery and general dated appearance of the cabin, it had to be at least thirty years old. And the tablet he read most of his books on was stashed in his bag, along with the gun he always took with him, which was currently packed in the cargo hold. He needed that drink, and then maybe he’d be able to sleep.
Unbuckling his belt, he stood up, stretching, and moved out into the aisle. His seat was a standard one near the middle of the aircraft. Beside him, a preppy couple in his-and-her suits sat with their heads tilted in opposite directions. Across from Manbun and the older lady, a black woman, head propped on her hand and glasses perched on the end of her nose, leaned away from an obese man taking up the two seats beside her.
The galley was in a niche to the right before the economy section at the rear where the restrooms were also located. As he turned and slowly headed toward it, he checked out the other passengers closest to him. To his right, a young woman with long platinum-blond hair was asleep on the shoulder of a fiftyish man who could be her father but was probably her lover or husband. Across from them, a man, also middle-aged, lounged against the window, asleep with his mouth slightly open beside a woman, possibly his wife—she was about the same age as him and not nearly as pretty as the blonde—who was not leaning on him but trying, unsuccessfully it seemed by her restless shifting, to get comfortable without actually touching him in the barely reclined position the seatbacks allowed.
Behind them a teenage girl with straight black hair and a boy with equally dark side-swept hair were nesting close together as the young tended to do alongside a chunky girl who looked as though she longed to be anywhere but there. And on the other side, a beefy guy with buzzed blond hair sat beside a Hispanic man around forty.
The same age as Mason. Two weeks before Jess moved out, he had said goodbye to his thirties. She had given him a keg of beer and a cake with Lordy, Lordy, Mason’s Forty written across it. It hadn’t seemed like such a big deal that night with his friends surrounding him and a beautiful woman on his arm, all of them carefree, laughing, and joking. But now. Now he was a forty-year-old man who lived alone with a cat. Jess had been more of a dog person and had never really taken to the cat, and so Bruno, who had started off as a stray and now thought he owned Mason as well as his apartment, had also been left behind.
He decided as he passed the emergency exits that he had better use the bathroom first while he was up. He glanced over as he walked by the galley. The older brunette had her back to him, pressing the button on a coffee maker, and the blond attendant was bent over a laptop. She looked up and smiled as he went by. He returned it and kept going.
The engines were louder in the back, and he had to catch himself on the sink when the plane lurched and seemed to drop about a foot. Christ, it must be some storm. Couldn’t they divert?
When Mason came out, the male crewmember, Trevor according to the name bar over his steward wings, was waiting for him.
“Sir, we’re experiencing some turbulence. You’ll have to return to your seat.”
What the heck did he think Mason was going to do? Or course he was going to his seat.
But now without a drink, if he had anything to say about it. He moved briskly away from the restrooms to put some distance between them, then stopped when he got to the galley. “Sir,” he heard behind him.
“Hey,” he said to get the brunette’s attention. “Could you please bring me a rum and Coke?”
“Um… sure.”
“Thanks.” He moved out of the doorway as Trevor reached him.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to—”
“On my way now,” Mason said over his shoulder. Obviously.
One row behind his, the plane gave a hard jolt and he had to steady himself on one of the seats. In doing so, he jostled the lady who was probably a first wife and no longer considered a trophy. She had moved away from her husband to the previously empty aisle seat. “I’m sorry,” he told her, regaining his balance.
“That’s all right,” she said, shooting her oblivious companion a look. “I’m not sleeping anyhow.”
Most of the other passengers were also awake. The FASTEN SEAT BELTS lights were back on, and the occasional bump had given way to harder bouncing and the occasional shudder.
The brown-haired stewardess had just appeared at his elbow with his drink when the captain came over the intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen… obviously the ride has deteriorated. Until the turbulence ends, the beverage service will be suspended. Please remain in your seats and we apologize about the ride and the service today and hopefully things will be better next time, and we look forward to seeing you on another American Skyways flight.”
“Drink it fast,” the attendant told him. Her name according to her name bar was Deb. “I need to get strapped in.”
He quickly took the plastic cup and began downing it. He paused to take a breath, eyes watering, then turned it up again, finished most of it, and handed the cup back to her. “Thanks,” he rasped.
He glanced at the girl beside him—eyes wide open though she remained hunched over, knuckles white where she gripped the armrest—then looked out the window, still trying to recover from the seriously strong drink he had just chugged.
A brief flash of lightning split the darkness followed by the crash of thunder so loud he heard it over the engines. That drink might not have been such a good idea, he thought as the plane lifted up, came back down again, and started rocking back and forth.
It continued this way a little longer, then began to taper off some. The aircraft was still vibrating and occasionally bouncing, but not like it had been.
“I think we’re through the worst of it,” he told the girl beside him.
She smiled at him and slowly straightened up.
“We might as well introduce ourselves now that we’ve lived to see another day. My name’s Mason.”
“I’m Kimi,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you, Kimi.” Shifting around, he surveyed his fellow passengers. Several looked flustered and he could hear sniffling somewhere up ahead, but no one seemed to be injured. Manbun was no longer wearing his headphones but appeared to be in pretty good shape. The lady beside him, though, was another story. She sat drooped over with her head hanging.
He quickly got out of his seat and moved up to her. “Are you okay, ma’am?”
Her breath puffed in and out shallowly. “I’ll be okay…. Just need to… rest for a minute.”
“You do that. Just close your eyes and try to relax.” Mason patted her hand then turned his attention to the young man beside her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” he answered after a second.
He didn’t seem okay now that Mason was seeing him up close. His eyes were red and he looked a little shell-shocked. “What’s your name, kid?”
“It’s not kid.”
That was better. “I’m Mason.”
“Tyler.”
“I’m going to go and find her a pill
ow. Do you think you could switch places with her when I get back?”
Tyler glanced over at the lady beside him, blinked, and sat up taller. “Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
The captain’s voice filled the cabin again as Mason moved down the aisle in search of the flight crew.
“If everyone will keep their seats… We do apologize for the ride…”
The male attendant—Trevor, he reminded himself—came out and blocked the way as he neared the galley. “Whoa. You need to go sit down.”
“There’s a lady up there that needs a pillow.”
“No,” said Trevor, shaking his head. “Only first class gets complimentary ones.”
“Listen, she’s an older lady and she seems pretty rattled.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
Completely fed up with the self-important prick, Mason rode over him. “The woman’s in bad shape, so how about you cut the shit and get me what I need?”
Trevor’s mouth opened and closed then settled into a hard line. “Fine.” He whipped around before Mason could say anything more and strode back into the galley.
He was back a moment later with a small white pillow.
“And how about some water for her?” Mason asked.
“We’re about to do a quick drink and snack service.” At Mason’s expression, he rolled his eyes and added, “But you can go on in and get one now if you have to. I need to check on everyone.”
Squeezing past, Trevor started down the aisle, and Mason resumed his journey to the galley.
In the doorway, he paused.
The blond stewardess was dabbing at a cut on her forehead, and Deb was busy filling a cart with can sodas and boxes. “Marcia, are you sure you’re all right?” she asked the younger woman.
Marcia glanced up, catching sight of Mason, and nodded, wincing. “I’ll be okay.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Mason asked.
Deb turned at the sound of his voice. “No, I believe Trevor’s going to see to it when he gets back. Is everyone all right out there?”
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