The
Mystery of Flight 2222
by
Thomas Neviaser
Genre:
Mystery, Suspense
Two
strangers meet while seated together on a long distance air flight.
The more seasoned of the two creates a game to pass the time. They
choose seven passengers and proceed to guess their names, age,
occupation, marital status, and personality. Later, they are informed
of severe mechanical problems disabling the plane, leading to a crash
into the sea. They survive along with only seven other passengers,
incredibly the seven people from the game they had just played. The
subsequent prolonged and horrifying adventure in a raft presents many
obstacles to their survival including sharks, severe weather, death,
hunger, thirst, declining physical and mental health, paranoia, and
pirates of the high seas. Their long awaited rescue from the ravages
of the sea is just the beginning of their trip to Hell and back.
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The
sun was setting, and a cool breeze had begun to blow. Frank awoke to see Yuto
and Soo Mi staring at the sea, then splashing their faces with seawater.
Helen’s head was lying in Frank’s
lap,
the back of her head blood-caked. He soaked a rag with water and attempted to
moisten the blood to remove it. She tried to open her eyes, but the seawater
mist had evaporated, and a salty crust
covered
her eyelids. Frank dabbed the rag on her eyes gently.
“Thanks.
Any signs of…?” Helen whispered.
“No.
They’ll be here soon.”
“How
do you know?” she asked.
“Hey,
this is the twenty-first century. Technology and all that stuff. They know
we’re down. They will search for us,” Frank said authoritatively.
“It’s
been quite a while, you know.”
“Yeah,
I know, but only a day,” he said, panning the sky. Noticing more water at his
feet than just a few minutes ago, he grabbed one of the plastic cups retrieved
from the plane and bent over
and
bailed water out of his area of the raft and passing it on to Yuto, motioning
that he do the same and pass it on. “This will be an ongoing thing unless we can
stop it,” he said to Yuto.
The
others also seemed to understand.
Feeling
a bit refreshed, Frank stood carefully, inspecting the nooks and crannies of
the raft hoping to find something new. The tip of a red strap peeked out under
Otto. Kneeling down and
crawling
to him, Frank pointed down. Otto reacted and rolled to his left, and Frank
pulled on the rubbery material attached to the strap. Whatever it was, it was
huge and bright red.
“That’s
a cover for this raft. This will stop the water from soaking us, and if it
rains, it sure will be a Godsend,” Kimberly said softly while replacing the rag
on her bloody head.
Frank
wondered why she hadn’t offered this information before. He guessed she was
injured more than she or he suspected. She, indeed, was acting unusual.
That
gash is pretty big. Did she suffer a concussion, too?
The
cover was spread out, the edges lying on each passenger’s lap. Each connection
on the cover fit raised areas on the top of the sides of the raft, and the
cover was soon being attached in an
organized
fashion. Once raised by two inflatable poles in the middle and to the sides,
window flaps could be lowered to allow the breeze, if any, to ventilate the
inside yet keep out the penetrating sun and
exhausting
heat. A silent celebration of sips from liter bottles of water followed.
Flairs,
a beacon, water, food, a flashlight, and now a cover. Christ, this is
incredible. Kate would be proud that we found them. Now, I have to be sure we
don’t lose them. We really need food.
“What
about food?” Otto asked.
A
mind reader, now?
“There’s
a two-day supply of food rations in all rafts, uh, and, I think, saltwater
desalting kits. I’m getting sort of goofy so let me think here. There is also a
little, uh, fishing kit, I think. Yeah,
there
is. What else? Uh, a knife somewhere, and, geez, I can’t seem to remember
everything.”
“We
have some unused platters from last night’s dinner, too—not many of them, mind
you. Have to go slow with them just like the water,” Frank said, considering
the request spooky,
especially
right after he’d thought of food.
“I’m
damn hungry. Break one of those suckers open now,” Otto said, raising his
voice.
Frank
viewed the other’s affirmation of Otto’s request and opened two dinners. The
food was devoured in no time. Frank reminded them not to drink too much water,
but his pleas were being
ignored,
especially by Otto and Homer.
Better
get found soon. The water and food will be gone shortly if these fools don’t
heed the warnings. Shit, the more that fat bastard drinks, the more the others
will drink to keep up.
“Listen
up, folks. I’m not kidding. I know you all think we are going to get rescued
soon, but what if we were way off course, and they’re searching elsewhere? We
have to conserve food and
water
for the worst possible scenario.”
No
one seemed to hear his voice.
Finally,
Helen spoke up. “Listen to the man, you assholes. Stop drinking all the fucking
water and eating the food. Before you know it, we’ll be destitute out here. Get
real. We’re survivors of
a
shitty crash. How often does that happen? Now, we need to rely on each other
and get out of this shithole in one piece. Do you jerks want to live or die of
stupidity?”
All
eyes were upon Helen as she spoke about how cooperation must exist in this
floating cosmos. Frank’s pleas had been rejected, but the faces of the others
showed understanding,
reasoning,
and concern.
Swearing
at these idiots got their attention. I’ve told Kate this multiple times. She
always scoffed at my justification for cussing. Wait until I tell her this one!
Cussing
at times was a serious contention between Kate and Frank. Frank had been
brought up with a bunch of boys in the neighborhood, and cursing was the way
they made themselves feel
like
adults and all grown up. The more you cursed, the more the others thought of
you as ‘cool.’ However, Kate was not a fan of it. Her father did a lot of it,
and it turned her off and embarrassed her for
as
long as she could remember. She loved her father, but his constant repetition
of these words deflated his effect as a father figure in her eyes, and she
didn’t want that to happen to their children so she
always
showed some obvious disappointment when he cursed, often saying, “You don’t
want your little girl to grow up cussing, do you?”
But
it was so difficult to stop cold turkey. It was as if the cursing was
automatic, ingrained, so to speak. The words just blurted out without him
thinking, often before he even knew he’d said
them.
He thought Helen’s screaming and using the ‘F’ word proved his point. The
people who weren’t listening were shocked into listening for sure. Wasn’t that
a good thing?
“What’s
that in the water?” Irving said, pointing out of his portal in the cover.
Everyone
leaned toward him, and the raft shifted, throwing several of them into the
middle, crushing some of the dinners. Some continued to try to view what Irving
had seen while others
salvaged
the food.
“Where?”
Maxine asked.
“There,”
he said.
“Shit.
It’s a fin, a fucking shark’s fin. He’s going to attack. He’s a Great White.
Jesus Christ, get us out of here,” shrieked Homer.
“Shut
up, Homer. Stop making noise. It will only make him more suspicious. Sharks
don’t attack just to attack,” said Irving.
“They
do if they are hungry,” Homer blurted.
“Contrary
to your stupid beliefs, they don’t, especially rafts and boats,” Irving replied
in a sarcastic tone.
“Yeah,
I saw Jaws,” Homer said with authority.
“That
was Hollywood, not real life. Calm down. Keep quiet. Just watch the thing for
now,” Frank suggested.
For
the next few hours, they remained fixated on the shark. It flowed through the
water effortlessly while the front end searched and the back end guided the
head to and fro. Its movements
were
repetitive and deliberate, and it certainly was not in a hurry and wasn’t
acting agitated. At times, it seemed the shark actually was looking up at the
passengers and then glancing down as it turned.
The
gray leathery covering of its body was quite mesmerizing, and the dorsal fin
was the central point, allowing them to follow it wherever it went.
Occasionally, the shark dipped below the water, and
the
fin of the tail replaced it, but shortly after that, the dorsal fin reappeared
and moved slowly past the raft. There were other sharks nearby, but this one
was the closest and for the longest time.
Then,
it was gone. They were all gone. Rain in the form of a warm shower began. Frank
and Yuto, with the help from Kimberly, fashioned the cover’s top into a funnel
to direct the rainwater
into
some empty bottles. Others scooped up any extra rainwater they could and drank
it. It was considered a blessing from above, for sure. Otto seemed to be a
dying animal trying to suck up and
swallow
any water near him. He couldn’t use his right hand, but he licked his shirt and
pulled it up to his lips with the left hand, all the while jerking his body
around to lick the raft’s edge where the
raindrops
were so obvious as they hit. Kimberly used a gentler technique, cupping her
hands and sipping from the heels of them as water fell onto her fingertips.
Others just leaned back with open
mouths,
and others placed their hands in a circle around their mouths as funnels.
Dr. Neviaser is a
retired orthopaedic surgeon and author of many medical articles,
papers, presentations, and contributions to medical texts. He’s
written extensively on shoulder conditions, his specialty. He is
available as a speaker on most orthopaedic conditions. His
dynamic presentations involve a great deal of audience participation
and personalized attention to attendees.
Dr. Neviaser is
proud of his orthopedic guide book for the lay person, THE WAY I SEE
IT: A Head-to-Toe Guide Guide To Common Orthopaedic Conditions and
his first novel, YOU DEAR SWEET MAN.
He is now especially
excited to introduce to his new novel, THE MYSTERY OF FLIGHT 2222,
to be published this
2018 summer.
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive content and a giveaway!
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