Chapter Six
Death Spiral
I stirred awake again as the plane rattled hard. It shook harder than ever before and I came wide awake as did everyone else with a panicked start. Voices rang out in alarm and a stewardess ran up the aisle towards the cockpit
The plane abruptly gave a hard knock downward worse than any theme park ride. The stewardess flew upward to crash off the ceiling as everyone else was thrown from their seats.
In panic I pulled myself up off the floor to see what was going on. Someone cried out, “She’s dead!”
In horror I looked over to see a man kneeling beside the crumpled body of the stewardess. Other people were hurt as well and screaming in pain as everyone underwent a passage into extreme fear.
The plane started pitching around again and I fell into the aisle. Alarms rang out as emergency lights flashed. All the oxygen masks deployed and dropped down from the ceiling.
I cried out in fear and pulled myself painfully back into my seat.
This was a nightmare!!!
I could feel myself hyperventilating, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Fumbling my fingers found the seatbelt clasps and I snapped them on.
For the first time I noticed since I’d been awakened that Koke wasn’t in the seat beside of me!
“Koke!!!” I screamed out, but my scream was lost in another scream when the plane abruptly fell in altitude.
Why were we falling?
My panicked eyes darted to the window and in shock I saw that the wing was gone! I screamed then like I never had before in my life.
The plane swung drunkenly in a spiraling circle and there was the sound of twisting metal. Abruptly several rows ahead of me there was open sky. The forward sections of the plane had been ripped away!
I couldn’t breathe and some part of my oxygen starved brain remembered the oxygen mask dangling before my nose. I grabbed it and put it on feeling as if I was about to die from fright.
There was another grinding of metal more faint in sound than the first, because of the competing rush of wind within the cabin. The plane swung to the side and dimly I saw the tail section of the plane sail out into the black storm clouds that gripped us.
In shock I felt the freefall of the cabin section I was seated in. It was like an elevator that just wouldn’t stop. Black clouds vanished away and I saw the wind tossed surface of the raging ocean below fast approaching.
Incredibly I saw lights in the water below only to then realize that what I was looking at was a cruise ship. The ship was caught up in what looked like a giant whirlpool headed downward like someone had flushed a giant toilet.
I looked at the descending column of swirling water and it crystallized in my mind instantly that I was on my way to hell. Hell itself was opening up to receive me!
As clear as day Grace’s instructions came back to me. I was to ask forgiveness and then do the right thing. I hadn’t followed her instructions!
I’d started on the right path, but I hadn’t really asked for forgiveness and here I was about to die!
My words were muffled by the oxygen mask as I screamed out in a panic of the spirit, “Oh Jesus I’m sorry! I knew better than to do what I’ve done! Please forgive me! I don’t want to go to hell!”
The waves of the whirlpool were right there and I continued to scream out horribly in desperation fearing that I was already too late in my plea for forgiveness.
The fuselage hit the waves and my head banged off the window beside me. I dimly saw the crazed lights of the cruise ship in distress descending into the void ahead of us almost vertically.
Water rushed in as darkness closed over my eyes. I moaned at the realization that when I next awoke it would be to find myself already in hell.
I sobbed as I felt my body slammed around in the seat as water splashed everywhere. We just kept falling and falling.
*****
I blinked and then I began to choke as I spit out water. Stuff was clinging to my face. Blearily I opened my eyes to see a fuzzy image of something.
My prescription contacts were all gummy and I could hardly see anything. They hurt my eyes, but I repetitively blinked anyway despite the pain it caused me.
My vision cleared slightly and my view was immediately one of sand. How was that possible?
I looked beyond the sand and out toward the water where in the distance I saw the fuselage of the plane half in and half out of the water. How had I gotten here to this beach?
I didn’t remember wading ashore. The last thing I remembered was the in-rushing water and the feeling of falling through a void.
The sand coming up from the water was churned up, but the track marks were larger than mine would’ve been. I came up onto my elbows and turned my head to look the other way. The rude man from the plane was sitting there in the sand looking none the worse for wear for the terrifying ordeal we had just come through.
He must’ve carried me ashore, perhaps even saved my life. That was just great! Now I was indebted to him!
As conscious reality made its way into my foggy senses so did something else. I sat up abruptly as I looked around at the other scattered out survivors along the beach and cried out, “Koke?”
“He’s not here.”
I swung back around to the big man behind me. There was no cocky arrogance about him as there had been last night. Genuine sympathy shown from his gray eyes in a level of empathetic emotion I wouldn’t have expected from him.
“He’s not in the plane either. I saw him get up to go to the bathroom, but they were all full so he headed to the ones at the back of the plane. It couldn’t have been, but a couple of minutes later when that freak storm crashed into us.”
I stared at him not really seeing him as tears washed down my face. My head sunk down as I sobbed out on a keening wail, “I’ve killed my brother! It’s all my fault! If I……”
A big hand rubbed over my back as several fingers brought my chin up, “Hey now! You’re jumping to conclusions about your brother being dead! If he was in the tail section of the plane he stood just as good a chance of surviving as we did. I saw the tail section across from us on the other side of the whirlpool. Your brother could be very much alive!”
I looked at him closely, but I could discern no lie in his eyes or voice. I searched inside myself in the way that twins have a way of doing and I felt no corresponding sense of loss. Koke was alive.
Oh God I hoped so! I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him.
In a tone of concern the man asked, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“My contacts are all messed up.” I said, as I pressed my fingers to my burning eyes to stop the pain.
His tone was decidedly grim as he said, “You wear contacts. Please tell me you have a pair of glasses somewhere?”
“In my bag on the plane, if they’re not busted.”
I’d no sooner said the words than I heard him get up off the sand. Opening my eyes I saw a blurry image of him wading into the sea apparently to fetch my glasses for me. Chivalry wasn’t dead after all.
I closed my eyes as it hurt too much to keep them open. Wiping my fingers free of sand I went ahead and took the contacts out. My eyes felt better immediately, but the sad fact of the matter was that I was something of a bat without my prescription eyewear.
The world around me was blurry and lacked real definition. I sat there helpless.
Vaguely I saw a tall outline separate out of the waves and come toward me. It was him. I could pick out his large framed form even with the blurriness of my vision.
He’d brought my bag with him and I prayed that my glasses were still intact. I reached for the front flap of the carry-on bag and pulled my glasses out that were thankfully unbroken.
Putting my glasses on I immediately gasped at what I saw.
“What’s wrong with the sky?” I exclaimed in awe.
Looking around I exclaimed further, “Where’s the sun?”
I turned to my nemesis and he shrugged before looking up at the sky himself and saying, “I have a theory.”
I waited impatiently for him to explain further.
He glanced from the sky over to me and said, “I don’t think we’re on the surface of the planet anymore. I think we’ve fallen down into an inner world of some kind. Something like that Jules Vern book.”
I looked away from him in astonishment at my surroundings.
I drew my knees up to my chest and I hugged them to me as the awful realization that he was right came fully real to me. I’d never see the world above again. I felt sure of it.
Tears came to my eyes as I realized that I wouldn’t get the chance to explain myself to my adoptive parents before the incriminating package arrived. In some ways that was the least of my worries now. Where was my brother?
*****
Koke lifted his head off the seat cushion. It was impossible to tell time in this sunken world, but if he had to judge he’d say something like twelve hours had gone by. It felt like he was in a current of some kind, but no land was visible anywhere.
Resolutely he held onto the seat cushion hoping that something positive would occur before he lost the strength to hold onto it or some sea monster came along and took a chomp out of him.
Resting his head back down against the wet cushion he relaxed in the knowledge that at least one thing was a positive. He knew without a doubt that his sister was safe.
That was something, but he hoped there’d be a salvation of some sort for him to. At twenty-eight he didn’t want to cash his chips in just yet. Perhaps his promising career as a surgeon in the finest hospitals on the planet was gone from him, but there was probably ample need for a surgeon in this sunken realm. That is if there were other people here.
He pulled himself up slightly in the water at the sight of something white on the horizon. It was coming towards him. It was the sail of a ship!
Pulling himself up more with one arm he waved repeatedly back and forth with the other arm. Eventually they must’ve seen something, because the ship diverted from its course and headed towards him.
Koke stopped waving his arm as he was exhausted. As the ship grew closer his euphoria began to dim as reservations over his rescue began to form.
The ship was reminiscent of a bygone era of sailing. Like the ships that Great Britain and France had battled back and forth against each other with during the Napoleonic era.
This ship wasn’t clean rigged like the relics he’d seen on display along a wharf in a historic harbor though. No, it was rougher and patched together looking and the crewmembers gathered at its railing bore a similar resemblance.
Koke swallowed reflexively in alarm. If his speculations were on target he’d say he was about to be rescued by pirates still stuck in the sixteenth century.
“God, surely there could’ve been somebody else available than this? How about a great fish like the one that swallowed Jonah. It’s not too late yet Lord!” Koke said, as he tried to hold onto his courage as the ship heaved to nearby.
He heard the roar of the crew as the boat drew near. His sister had a protector, but where was his, Koke thought abstractly to himself in question of the Divine motives that had placed him in such a predicament.
*****
Koke lifted his head from the deck and slowly took in the assembled group. Never had he seen a more murderous band of cutthroats than stood before him now. Inner-city street gangs and hard-core bikers had nothing on these guys.
“Well. Well. Well. Look at what fell from the sky this time.”
Koke’s eyes slid away from the tattooed lot of grim and leering faced pirates to the speaker with the hard edged feminine voice. Skintight leather pants rose to a brightly sashed waist, which led up to an expansive chest that had a good bit of it exposed.
The ensemble of the female pirate was topped off with a plumed hat and a face that wasn’t attractive in any sort of way. With an easier life perhaps she would’ve been more attractive looking, as it was though she just gave off an impression of wicked hardness.
Perhaps she was somebody’s type, but she wasn’t Koke’s. He wasn’t sure what his type was, but soft and feminine were two key characteristics that this female pirate lacked in spades.
She motioned and two men grabbed a hold of Koke and held him still as she approached. She ran her tongue over her lips and in a ribald comment said to those gathered, “He’s a sweet one, he is, ain’t he!”
The pirate crew, which it appeared that she was the Captain of, laughed uproariously in dutiful fashion.
Without any warning she reached forward and groped Koke painfully through his pants. Koke jerked in surprise and pain as the pirate Queen turned back to her leering audience with further ribaldry, “Might have to give this one a few rides myself boys before we hand him over to be sliced and made into a pretty slave!”
The crew laughed again and one called out, “Maybe we could warm him up for you Captain Sally?”
Captain Sally mock shushed the roaring crowd of pirates clamoring after what the other one of their number had just said, “Easy now boys! Don’t be agoing and scaring him or he won’t be of any use to me later.”
The pirates laughed all the more harder and Captain Sally joined in with them. Recovering she gave Koke one last hard squeeze before letting go and saying, “I’ll have me pleasure of you later sweet meat, but for now there’s more manna raining down from the clouds above for us to collect. Right boys?”
The crew roared out in approval as they broke up and started making their way along the ship’s rails and up into the rigging to make way with the ship again.
Captain Sally turned back to Koke and pointed an admonishing finger with a jagged dirty nail on it, “You best be ready to please me later pretty boy or I’ll do the slavers a favor and slice ye man parts off myself! I has been known to like the taste of man in my stew from time to time, I have. Throw him in the brig with the others.”
Koke stared agape at her in horror at the words she had spoken. As he was dragged down a hatchway she called out after him, “Now you laddie bucks stay away from him do you hear me now! Ye can all have a round or two after I’ve had my fill.” More dark laughter rang out in response from the crew.
As Koke was drug further into the dark foul-smelling interior of the ship he couldn’t but see how terribly off in terms of reality modern pop culture was in its romanticism of the age of the pirate. Pirates really were the scum of the earth and if something didn’t happen in his favor he was about to be raped by a whole shipload of them.