“The headwinds are getting worse. Do you want me to take the controls?” Matt asked Ricardo.
“No, I’ve got it. Keep working the radio. See if you can raise anyone,” Ricardo said through clenched teeth. I could picture him, his face the picture of concentration as he muscled the plane into submission. “I’m descending. We should break through the clouds in a minute. Tell me the instant you see land and cross your fingers there’s less headwind below 18,000 feet.”
The clouds were white against the window. They even looked peaceful, although, from the way the plane shuddered, I knew they were anything but. My hands gripped the armrests of the ivory leather chairs, and I saw Kinsey doing the same. Her face was drawn, and her eyes huge and a dark, stormy blue, beseeching me to make this all right. I reached over and gently pried her fingers off the armrest one by one and squeezed her hand.
“We’re going to be okay,” I told her. “These guys are the best at what they do.” Holding her hand, I prayed I could keep my promise and keep her safe.
“Mason, I’m scared.” Her voice came out small, barely a whisper, the rattling and groaning of the plane almost drowning out her words.
“I know, baby. I know.”
We suddenly broke through the clouds, the ocean spreading out below us. The deep blue of the gulf slowly gave way to the turquoise of shallower Central American waters. My eyes glued to the window, I thought I spotted something dark rising from the horizon.
“Kinsey, I think I see land!” Squeezing her hand in excitement, my heart lightened. For a moment, I enjoyed the feel of her smooth, unblemished skin against my calloused palms and the relief in her budding smile. Then reality crashed down, and I realized we weren’t out of the woods yet.
“Where?” Her voice rose at the end, and her smile vanished as panic began to break through the iron control she held on her emotions.
“Look! Right there on the horizon!” With the hand not holding hers, I pointed at the dark speck, which grew larger as Ricardo and Matt brought us closer and closer to what I hoped would be safety.
Kinsey
“Oh my God, Mason! We’re going to be okay!” My fingers tightened around his hand as I leaned toward the window, hungry for every glimpse of the shoreline as it came closer and closer. My whole body tensed with fear that we would crash into the dark gulf waters below and never be seen again. “I can see mountains and trees! Where are we? Is that the beach and jungle? Where are the houses? The airport—where is the airport?”
“Ricardo and Matt are looking for some place safe to land us—hopefully an airport, but really they’re just looking for any place they might be able to put us down in one piece.”
Searching the earth laid out below, I saw a thin white strip of beach and then trees. There was nothing but a thick green layer of trees. There is no place to land!
“Put us down? What are you saying? We might crash?!” I admit it—I panicked. I rarely read about plane crashes that ended with passengers walking away. Instead, I was used to newspapers and CNN with big photos showing pieces of the wreckage, accompanied by long lists of the dead.
“Mason?” Ricardo’s voice interrupted us over the speaker system. “I’ve got Matt looking for a clearing. This engine isn’t going to make it to the airport in the capitol. I can’t control the plane much longer. We’re losing systems, and I’m afraid the wing is going to fracture.”
“We hear you.” Mason keyed the mike on his headset and turned to look at me. “Hold on, babe. It’s going to be a bumpy landing.”
“Aaaaaaaahhhh!” I lost it. I screamed. I yelled. I wailed in despair.
“Shhhh… shhhh… Kinsey, just hold on. Ricardo will get us on the ground safely. Just close your eyes. This will all be over soon.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. My imagination took over and I couldn’t repress that primal urge to scream my head off as we plummeted lower and lower in the sky. My stomach rose, and the weightless feeling and a lack of control took over my nervous system and threw me into panic. Coming closer and closer to the water, we fell through space until suddenly there were treetops were whipping by the window, accompanied by the wrenching sounds of tearing metal. Mason and I were thrown around, our seat belts and harnesses holding us back against our seats as everything not tied down flew up and hit the ceiling. The glasses broke. Food flew all around us. Files and documents scattered like oversized confetti all around us.
The plane shuddered beneath our feet, and my teeth rattled as we hit the trees. I heard a window breaking somewhere, and I was violently thrown around in my seat. Smoke filled the cabin, obscuring my view and choking me. Blackness shuttered my eyes, and I remember nothing else.
Chapter 14
Kinsey
The sounds of chirping birds waking me quickly took a backseat to the massive headache throbbing behind my eyes. Oh man! I cradled my head in my hands, praying the pain would stop.
I opened my eyes, and my surroundings slowly came into focus. Where am I? Looking down, I found myself strapped into an off-white leather club, looking out through a gaping, shredded hole at nothing but jungle.
Pulling on the seat belt, I released myself from the safety restraints and tried to stand. Wobbling under me, my legs were so weak I had to sit back down. Then the memories came flooding back. Mason and I had been flying to China for an important meeting. We had a passionate encounter, and then the plane… the plane… something happened… We crashed.
OH MY GOD! WE CRASHED!
Panicking, I looked around for Mason.
Where is he? I tried standing again, and this time my legs held me. Putting my hand to my aching head, I was startled when it came back bloody. I must have taken quite a hit when we crashed.
I picked up a spoon that had landed on the floor and looked at my distorted reflection. I had a big gash across my left cheek and a good sized knot on my temple. Grabbing a napkin by my feet, I held it to my face and tried to stop the flow of blood.
When I looked beyond my reflection, I gasped at the broken shell of the plane. I was in the middle section of the fuselage. All the windows were broken. The cutlery and tableware were strewn everywhere. The presentation Mason and I had stayed up all night carefully piecing together lay scattered all around me.
The seat Mason had been in was gone; only a hole in the floor remained where it had been ripped out. Looking outside, I spotted the nose of the plane at the end of a deep groove gouged out of the dirt. Bits and shards of the magnificent jet now littered the jungle around us.
I jumped awkwardly off the torn, exposed edge of the plane, and my skirt tore with a loud RIP! Landing crookedly in my heels on the soft, loamy earth, I began to sweat. My drooping hair stuck in damp strings to my face and neck.
The smell of decomposing jungle matter filled my nostrils. We must be deep in the jungle somewhere. I didn’t even know what country we had aimed for when we started our emergency descent.
My heels, unsuited for jungle walking, kept getting stuck in the dirt, but I labored on. I had to find Mason. Staggering as best I could, I hobbled the 50 yards to the front of the plane, and climbed up to reach the doorknob. It was locked.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I hammered on the cockpit door and looked around for something to break in with. It seemed silly that the door was intact when the cockpit wasn’t even attached to the plane.
I spotted a fire extinguisher lying in the dirt. It must have fallen out of the plane when it broke apart. I grabbed it and started pounding it against the door. “Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?! Hello?! Is anyone in there?”
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The door began to splinter and finally broke apart. It gave way so suddenly I fell into the cockpit, catching myself on the back of the pilot’s seat.
Gah!
I gagged, staggered to the door, and puked. They were both dead. At least, I thought they had to be dead. Ricardo had been impaled by a tree branch through his chest, and Matt had been hit with something so big
half his face was caved in. I had never seen a dead body before, and I never wanted to again. They were limp and pale, all the vibrance drained from them and lying in a puddle of dark red blood that pooled under their seats. Marie, the stewardess, had been thrown through the front window. Through the shards of broken glass, I could see her hanging lifeless upside down from a tree.
There was nothing I could do here. They were all beyond help, but Mason—I still had hope for Mason. I hadn’t found him yet. He could have been okay. I couldn’t be the only person alive in this jungle. That was unthinkable.
Jumping out of the cockpit and back onto the soft loamy dirt, my heel got caught in a root and I fell, skinning my knees.
Oof!
“Shit!” I rolled over and sat up. Brushing the dirt and debris from my hands and knees, I gathered my wits and pulled off the expensive shoes Mason had bought me. I took one last look at the gorgeous five-inch patent leather Christian Louboutin stiletto peep-toe pumps with the sexy red soles, and sparing three seconds to mourn their loss, I snapped the heels off both shoes. Slipping them back on, I walked easier, and my feet were still protected as I searched for Mason.
I started looking around the main section of the fuselage where I had woken after the crash. I checked the piles of wreckage, slowly making larger and larger circles away from my seat so I wouldn’t miss any sign of Mason. Stumbling around, I tried not to cut myself on the jagged edges of smoking metal or trip on any of the lumpy roots that stuck up from the soil and twisted through the dirt.
I stepped carefully along the deep scar left by the plane on impact as it slid through the jungle, creating the only open space in the thick vegetation. The further I got from the plane, the harder it was to search. The plants closed in and covered every square inch of land. At least the jungle canopy created a cooling shade cover, providing some relief from the unforgiving equatorial sun and oppressive humidity.
Water dripping from green leaves the size of umbrellas. A rat’s nest of vines dangled from and connected towering trees. Some were so large it would take three or four people holding hands to wrap their arms around the entire trunk.
Something caught my eye, and I fought my way through the vines to a rotting log. Something big was on the other side of it, something with straight edges. I was discovering straight edges were an oddity in the jungle.
“Mason!” I cried. Finally making it to the other side of the rotting log, I found him, still strapped into his seat, laying on his back, eyes closed in a steaming pool of sunshine. With a quick glance, I took in the length of him. He appeared unharmed but for a few scrapes here and there. No major injuries were visible.
Falling to my sore knees next to him, I felt for a pulse. He’s alive! I ran my hands along his arms and legs, feeling for lumps or breaks. I didn’t find any malformations, but he had a nasty knot on his head. Rocking back on my heels I closed my eyes and sighed in relief. A single tear trickled down my dirty cheek.
“Mason!” I shook him frantically to wake him up, but nothing happened. Sobbing in relief that I had even found him alive, I tried to drag him under a tree and out of the sun. He was too heavy and awkward, and the chair, still bolted to the cabin floor, kept me from moving him. I unhooked his belt and harness, and he fell from the chair, face down. Heaving him over on to his back I again tried to drag him over to a tree. This time, he slowly slid across the wet leaves as I staggered backwards, holding tight to his wrists and trying not to knock his head against anything stumps or rocks sticking up from the jungle floor. I propped him up against the tree, out of the sun.
Sitting next to him, holding his hand, I let my eyes roam across his face. Even unconscious he made my heart skip a beat with his strong jaw, the stubble across it darker than I had ever seen it. His eyes were closed now, but when awake he looked at me with such emotion, allowing me a brief window into his psyche. His shoulders were broad enough to carry the world but now relaxed in sleep.
What should I do? We were maybe 500 feet from the main section of the airplane fuselage, which was still mostly intact. If I was going to be stuck in the jungle with an unconscious Mason, I wanted the protection offered by the body of the plane. The problem was Mason was twice my size and currently an unhelpful, unconscious lump of dead weight. Just dragging him five feet to the tree had exhausted me. I wouldn’t be able to drag him the same way back to the plane.
“You better wake up soon,” I told him as though he could hear. “And you better be in a condition to help me. We have to figure out how to get out of here. I haven’t seen what lives in here yet, but I do watch the Discovery Channel, and I know there are animals with big sharp teeth that will come out tonight.”
Clenching my jaw, I stood. “You stay right here, I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to find something to help me move you.” I gingerly walked back to the plane, picking my way back through the wreckage of the crash, and started looking for something, anything I could use to move him. I needed something Mason-sized, but light enough for me to pull. And I needed better clothes. Even torn up the thigh, my skirt was restrictive, and my blouse was already in tatters. And though snapping the heels off my Louboutin’s had made walking somewhat easier, my poor shoes weren’t designed for this terrain.
I climbed up inside the plane and carefully made my way back to the bedroom. Our suitcases had been thrown about but were still intact, so I dug out some skinny jeans, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt I had brought to sleep in. The outfit wasn’t fashionable, but it was a whole lot more practical. I changing quickly and pulled my hair back in a ponytail.
Leaving the room, I looked around. I mean really looked around. I let my eyes travel across everything with a purpose.
My phone!
Spotting my cell phone sticking out from beneath some rubble in the corner of the cabin, I ran over and grabbed it. I cradled it like a precious gift, kissed it, swiped it open, and tried to call the office. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to call for help sooner.
Calling office, the screen said.
Nothing happened; I had no signal. I hadn’t thought there would be cell towers in the middle of the jungle, but I’d hoped we were close enough to a town to pick something up. God damn it! Hope is a fickle thing, and seeing my phone had given me hope.
I slipped it into my pocket, enjoying its comforting weight. I picked up and considered a table cloth before dropping it again. Pulling Mason over flat ground, a tablecloth might have worked, but it was less useful in the rolling dirt and boulder strewn mountains we had crashed into. I pulled all kinds of things out of cupboards: parachutes, a first aid kit, an emergency raft for water landings. There were lots of useful things if Mason ever woke up. They were no use to me while he was unconscious.
Standing up and putting my hands on my hips, I let out a frustrated sigh. Then my eyes fell on the outside wall of the cockpit in the section sitting abandoned across the clearing. There was a backboard strapped to the wall.
“Alright Mason, I’m back,” I announced cheerfully as I made it back to the tree he was lying under. I had a backpack thrown over my shoulder and was dragging the backboard behind me.
“Now don’t fight me on this. I know someone as big and strong as you won’t want to lie quietly on this board while I haul you back to the plane, but humor me.” For my sanity I had to pretend he could hear me. I didn’t have the luxury of time for a nervous breakdown, and pretending this was all normal was my only other option. The sun was sinking below the tree line and dark was fast approaching. We both needed to be somewhere safe and protected before the creatures in the jungle came out to feed at night. I was already seeing more and more mosquitos, those dastardly little blood suckers. There was no time to waste.
“Help me here, Mason. Roll over onto this board,” I said as I muscled his unconscious form to lie on the board. After a short and exhausting struggle, I secured the straps around him to hold him in place.
I needed a moment to catch my breath before taking a length of rope I’d
found in a cabinet, and making a V-shaped bridle, which I attached to the head of the board on the left and right sides. I then attached that to a backpack I wore backward, creating a harness that allowed me to pull the board with my whole body. Then I gingerly started back to the plane, trying to pick the smoothest dirt and flattest terrain to haul my load across.
It was slow going, but tolerable that way. It took over an hour to go the winding 500 feet through the jungle, but we finally arrived back at the plane. I climbed up onto the ledge made by the cabin floor, about four feet off the ground, and took off the backpack, tying the rope attached to it to a handle inside the plane. Then, leaning the head of the board on the ledge and resting the foot of it on the ground, I kept it from falling by tying it in place with the rope. Hopping back to the ground, sweaty and covered in dirt, my muscles shook like I had just climbed the toughest route at the gym, I bent down and heaved the foot of the board up into the plane, using the edge of the exposed floor to pivot the head of it so I could slide the board flat into the cabin. If only my dad could see me now. I don’t think he would even recognize me. Sweaty, stringy hair, filthy and unfashionable clothes, no makeup, a bloody and swollen cheek, and covered in mosquito bites, I barely recognized myself.
I dragged Mason back to the bedroom, unstrapped him from the board, laid him out on the floor, and covered him up to his chin with a sheet from the bed. Closing the bedroom door, I surveyed the wreckage of the fuselage. I needed to close us in to keep the animals and bugs out, but didn’t have a lot to work with. The bedroom door would help, but I wanted something more.
Spying a parachute I had discarded earlier, I knelt down and started pulling the chute out of its pack. “I think this will work, Mason. The chute is big enough to cover the open end of the fuselage, and I can secure it in place with duct tape. That’ll at least keep the mosquitos out.” I was rather pleased with my own ingenuity.
Mason: The Lost Billionaires, Book 1 Page 9
