by David Holley
*************
The safety protocols are about to be tested as the Mei Long, one of the original seven, hurtles toward earth. Moments before impact, the shuttle begins the detachment phase, sealing the open areas between Sections One and Two with steel doors that lock into place.
But the reverse thrusters in the front of the shuttle fail and the nose crashes hard into the ocean, killing everyone on impact. The left wing of the airship flies through the air, before slamming into the jagged cliffs on the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, starting a fire so brilliant that the illumination can be seen from miles away. The right wing shoots out in the opposite direction and spears into the ocean. The collision smashes the wing to pieces and ignites the fuel tank, setting a huge swath of water on fire. The tail section, upon releasing its parachute, triggers its thrusters and through a series of twists and turns, skims hard across the water like a skipping stone before finally coming to a halt. The left side of the fuselage bears the brunt of the landing, compromising its frame and allowing a substantial amount of water to pour in. It will be only a few minutes before the entire tail section capsizes.
Of the sixty-two passengers and crew who departed from London, fifteen are still alive, struggling to free themselves from their flight stations.
Lucid and highly focused, Noah waits for the tail section to stabilize in the water before releasing the emergency doors and engaging the two life boats from the control panel. Released from his harness, he steps over the dead stewardess in the entrance way. She has been thrown about the cabin since he initially clambered over her to get to the station. He doesn’t bother to check for a pulse as her neck is clearly broken, her head turned at an angle that would turn most people’s stomachs. The red silk scarf tied around her broken neck sends his thoughts shooting toward his wife. He runs down the aisle and into the passenger seating area.
“Eve!”
She is not at her station. He cranes his head frantically, and then his heart skips a beat when he hears her voice. “Over here!” She waves her arms at him. She is in the opposite row helping the young man seated next to the mysterious girl Noah had noticed earlier. The girl looks up at him, but his eyes have already locked onto Evelyn’s. He says nothing, but the concern he carries is evident. She watches his face flood with relief as she mouths to him, I’m okay.
Noah nods and then orders, “There’s not much time. Get everyone out!”
Evelyn continues toward the doors, working her way through the rows and helping to free those struggling with their harnesses. She stops to check the stations that are still closed, and discovers a few passengers knocked unconscious by the impact. She helps them to their feet and out of the sinking crypt. When she nears the exit, she orders the survivors to swim for the life rafts, shouting over the calamitous sounds of screaming passengers.
Meanwhile, Noah has opened the overhead compartment of his flight station. He transfers as much warm clothing as he can grab from their suitcases into the two backpacks that already are bulging with gear for their trip. He slings a backpack over each shoulder and darts back to the flight attendant station for any items that may be of use. He finds a first aid kit along with a pantry filled with hundreds of miniature liquor bottles, as well as an assortment of snacks and fine chocolates. He also comes across the air marshal’s wallet and instinctively puts it in his pocket. He stuffs the backpacks until they can’t hold anything else before wading toward the exit bay doors. The water is up to his knees and the tail section is leaning at a severe angle and sinking.
He encounters Evelyn pushing out the last of the living. “Take this!” he shouts, hurling one of the backpacks at her. She catches it with one arm and quickly slings it across her back. She places her hands on the outside rim of the bay door and looks back at Noah as she proclaims, “I love you!” before launching herself onto the rubber slide that sends her tumbling toward the sea.
Noah takes one last look inside the cabin, now filled with over a meter of steadily rising water. The leviathan is dark and cavernous as a light flickers overhead, exposing a makeshift cemetery for the recently departed, their egg-shaped caskets glowing iridescent blue as the craft begins its long descent to the ocean floor. Noah locks the two straps of his backpack across his chest and climbs to the edge of the exit door. He takes a deep breath and then dives sharply into the sea. Landing perpendicular to the chute, Noah decides to take a direct route to the raft that lies ahead. His dive is weighted from the backpack and he drops like a stone into the black sea. He encounters an underwater world alive with thousands of fish cutting back and forth and splintering in multiple directions. The crash has wreaked havoc in the ocean and the scene is erratic. While the view is spectacular, Noah senses the danger — where there are fish there are predators — and the quicker he and the others can get out of the water, the better.
The sea is rough and choppy, and the sun is on its way down. He swims as fast as he can toward the yellow dinghy and meets Evelyn, struggling with the waves and the weight of her backpack. Noah puts his arm underneath her and pulls her toward the raft. He instructs an older man who is already inside the boat to take his pack and then Evelyn’s. He pulls her up out of the water and she awkwardly rolls into the raft. Noah grabs the man’s outstretched arm and after a shoulder-wrenching tug, he too is in the boat.
He looks at Evelyn gasping for air. “Are you alright?”
Evelyn nods but says nothing. Noah turns his attention to the other raft, about forty meters away. The strong current has pushed the skiff far from the crash site. He struggles to his feet, trying to find balance, as he peers out to see if there are more survivors on the runaway raft. He can make out one, maybe two, people in the lifeboat but they are making no effort to paddle toward those who are wildly swimming for the raft. Their plight is further compounded by the ocean, which mercilessly scoots the vessel farther away with every passing wave.
“Goddamn it!” Noah sits back down and looks into the eyes of the dazed survivors. It’s a look that he has seen too many times in too many desolate moments in his life. They are a ragged crew of ten, four women and five other men. All of them are in obvious shock, with plenty of scrapes and bruises, though no one appears to be seriously hurt.
The raft is large and hexagonal, designed to carry twenty-five people, yet everyone huddles closely together for warmth, and Noah can hear their teeth chattering. Evelyn sits, despondently staring out to sea, trying to process the hell that has just transpired.
He snaps his fingers in front of her face. “Eve. Listen to me. There are people still in the water. We have to paddle toward them as fast...”
But before he can finish, cries emerge from the ocean. He can see only two of the three swimmers who were there just seconds before.
The two remaining swimmers flail wildly and scream incoherently. He assumes the worst. Noah reaches into his backpack and pulls out a long hunting knife and clips it to his belt. He kicks off his shoes and looks over to his wife, but before he can utter a word, she says, “We’ll meet you over there.”
Noah dives back into the ocean, swimming feverishly toward the panicked swimmers. The missing person has resurfaced, bobbing along with the current, but apparently unconscious. She is a fair-skinned woman with platinum blonde hair cropped short. Her orange life vest keeps her afloat, but only briefly, as he watches her pulled under once again, this time for good, by what he fears is a giant man-eater. Still out of range, he dives deeper into the ocean, moving even faster with the current. The other swimmers, a man and a woman, continue screaming, as they struggle to escape the feeding frenzy happening all around them. Noah is only a few strokes from the pair when he sees a bull shark sink its teeth into the man’s leg. The bloodstained water turns even murkier with the fresh attack.
Noah watches helplessly as blood seeps out of the man’s left thigh. As he nears, he spots a young mako coming in fast for another strike. Noah is directly underneath the shark when he lunges upward and, using the current
and his brute force like a battering ram, he blocks the shark’s advance, sending it off course while its left dorsal twists upwards. In the same motion, Noah grabs onto the right dorsal fin and turns the mako on its back, holding on for dear life as they break the surface. On its back, the shark falls into a state of tonic immobility, a sleeplike trance. Noah unsheathes his knife and plunges the blade into the shark’s liver, slicing upward across its belly, exposing its entrails.
Noah cuts out a large slab of the shark and treads over to the two swimmers. He goes to the woman first who is still flapping her arms and screaming. He tries to calm her. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he says, over and over again, until finally, she stops. “I need you to take this.” He hands her the piece of shark he has cut. “Hold on to this and do not let go of it.”
The woman, shivering and hysterical, nods and nervously stammers, “Okay.” She pauses for a moment looking around her. “There was a woman… she was with us.”
But Noah has already turned away from her, swimming for the injured man. The scent of the dead shark has spread through the water like wildfire, sending the predators scurrying from their frenzy. Lost in the commotion and awakened from his apparent shock, the man in the rogue raft paddles furiously toward him. In the shadow of the sun, the dark figure towers over the nose of the raft, as he shovels into the sea, inching his way closer.
Noah tends to the injured man, pulling off his belt and fastening it tightly around his thigh slightly above the wound in an effort to slow the bleeding. The man trembles and grows paler by the moment as Noah talks to him, trying to keep him from going deeper into shock. “What’s your name, sir?”
“J... J... Jeremy,” the man stutters arching his head back, grimacing in obvious pain. “My wife... Jessica,” he mutters.
“Just hold on, Jeremy. Stay with me.”
Noah sees the runaway raft within reach, its occupant dangling from the side. He helps Noah heave the injured man onto the boat and then lifts the woman onboard by the back of her trousers. She is still clutching the hunk of shark and still crying hysterically.
Noah extends his hand and the man latches on to it and hoists him into the raft. He sees that the man is not alone in the raft. A woman and small child huddle together at the far end, the woman’s back to him. She is clutching a girl against her chest, but he can’t see their faces as both are veiled beneath the black slick of the woman’s hair. Noah has a sinking feeling as he turns to face the man. He is Japanese, around the same age as Noah, long and broad-shouldered, with dark empty eyes.
“Are they injured?” Noah asks.
The man ignores the question and points to the bleeding man. “We need to put pressure on that wound,” he says in perfect English.
Together, they drag the man to the opposite corner of the raft and elevate his legs. Noah uses his knife to cut away the man’s left trouser leg, revealing a jagged line of puncture wounds. He unbuttons his own shirt and wraps it around the man’s leg, putting as much pressure as he can on the injury that extends across the front and back of the man’s thigh. While he is attending to the man, Evelyn and her crew reach them. She gives instructions to fasten the lifeboats together using the Velcro straps that are folded along the top of the lifeboat and then hops aboard the other raft.
She looks from the injured man to Noah. “How bad is it?”
He moves away slowly, allowing Evelyn to inspect the wound for herself. “The bite appears to have missed the femoral artery,” she says. “However, the wound is long and, more to the point, deep. We’ll need to stitch him up right away, but I won’t be able to do that here. The waves are too rough and we’re losing daylight.”
Noah scans the horizon. He sees nothing but water in all directions. Their section of shuttle has almost completely submerged. The tail, sticking straight out of the water like a gigantic dorsal fin, is all that remains.
The waves are choppy and uneven, and the boat rocks steadily, although the joining of the two rafts has minimized the pitch to some degree. Even in the chaos, Noah remains calm as he tries to figure out their position against a blood-red sky. Ultimately, the darkening skies offer the first glimmer of hope. Off to the east, and past the horizon, a luminous glow appears. Within that glow, he can see a solid stream of deep purple smoke floating up to the sky.
“There!” He points. “Everyone paddle toward the smoke!”
Chapter 6
Evelyn applies steady pressure to the man’s wound. Noah’s grey shirt has turned a deep crimson. The man, Jeremy, lies unresponsive, except for the occasional moans of agony. She looks over to Noah encouraging the others to paddle doggedly toward what he promises is land and salvation. But after several minutes, they have yet to see anything that resembles solid ground. She looks to the back of the raft at the woman clutching the young girl against her chest. A lump forms in Evelyn’s throat and she calls out toward the paddlers in the other raft: “Can one of you ladies please assist me?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, a young girl replies, “Of course.” She crawls toward her like a shadowy panther, her stunning green eyes almost glowing in the early twilight. Evelyn is struck immediately by the girl’s beauty and drawn by her warm smile, as she inches closer.
“Thank you, dear. My name is Evelyn, who are you?”
“I’m Mia. Is he going to be okay?” She tilts her head toward the injured man.
“I hope so Mia. I need you to keep pressure on his wound, okay?”
Mia hesitates for a second and then replies, “Okay.” She approaches the injured man and positions her hands as Evelyn’s were. Evelyn places her hands on top of Mia’s to demonstrate the proper amount of pressure. When Evelyn lets go, the top of Mia’s hands are stained with sticky, coagulated blood that leaves her feeling lightheaded. She closes her eyes tightly and takes deep breaths in and out, trying hard to keep it together.
Evelyn, sensing her uneasiness, reassures her. “You’re doing great, just keep the pressure even. How old are you, Mia?” she asks by way of diversion.
“Eighteen,” she whispers.
Evelyn nods and smiles. “The man you were seated with, the one I helped get out of his harness, is he your brother?”
Mia looks over to the others and sees her brother leaning over the raft and paddling with his hands. “Yes, his name is Max. We’re twins.”
“Is that right?” Evelyn asks rhetorically, as she washes her hands in the ocean. She lifts herself up and then quietly says, “I need to speak to that woman over there.”
Mia peers over Evelyn’s shoulder and sees the woman curled up in a ball, her arms clutching something. She realizes that something isn’t right. “Okay... I got this.”
Evelyn smiles at Mia. “Thank you.” She moves to the woman in a fetal position, her hair covering her face. She clears her throat. “Excuse me, I am a doctor. My name is Evelyn. Can I have a look at your daughter?”
The woman doesn’t move. Evelyn looks at Mia who stares back at her, and the young girl’s expression reflects the gravity of the moment. Evelyn takes a deep breath and this time reaches out to gently touch the woman’s shoulder. The gesture unsettles the woman and she recoils. “I’m sorry,” Evelyn says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Is there anything I can do for you or your daughter?”
The woman sits up, relinquishing her hold on the little girl, wiping the tears from her face. She is a petite Asian woman with long black hair, her eyes glassy and red with torment.
“There’s nothing you can do for her now,” her voice falls like shards of glass. “She died in the crash…. But we couldn’t leave her… we… just couldn’t.” She begins to sob uncontrollably.
Evelyn wraps her arms around the weeping woman and begins to cry as well. She looks down through her tears at the little girl, her face pale and angelic. She wears a white ruffled dress with tiny red polka dots and a black silk sash still tied in a bow across her waist. Her feet are adorned in white ruffled socks and her shoes are a well-worn pair of red Mary Jane
s. The girl appears to be sleeping, with no visible signs of trauma, except for a trace amount of dried blood that has collected in her left ear.
The moment is broken when Noah shouts, “Land ahead!” She looks to see for herself. The island, while a welcome site, appears foreboding, its terrain engulfed in a raging fire courtesy of Mei Long’s broken wing. The sight is surreal, but it rejuvenates the onlookers and they paddle hard toward the fiery coast.
As they push their way closer, they watch the landscape burn. The flames reveal a jagged beachfront, with huge boulders that form a natural barrier separating the west and east sides of the beach. Casting a brilliant orange hue, the fire is contained on the west side, so Noah directs the rafts to a shallow, boomerang-shaped strip of beach on the east. Set apart by a giant solitary mountain and dense forest, it will serve as a perfect haven for the night — complete with beachfront vistas — while they wait for their rescue.
When they near the shoreline, Noah and Jacob, the flight attendant, exit on opposite sides of the raft, and pull each end from the ocean’s grasp. Several others jump out and help to drag the honeycombed raft far away from the waves. When the raft is safely beached and secured, several of the survivors drop to their knees, exhausted, cold, and wet to the bone. The moon spotlights the others, hunched over, breathing heavily, trying to gather their bearings on the narrow inlet. Noah walks toward the center of the huddled mass, allowing a moment of recovery before addressing them.
