11
He couldn’t move, his entire system paralysed. And unless that changed in the next sixty seconds, he was going to drown. Synapses somewhere were not transmitting signals as they should, and messages leaving the brain were not reaching their destination. Everything below the neckline was a numb wasteland, leaving him at the mercy of the disinterested waves.
Beneath him was sand. He knew that much because grains had crept into his ears, his mouth. Moreover, he could see just fine. Waves crashed over him, covering him totally, and then rolled back allowing him a few seconds of oxygen. Inch by inch he was being dragged further away from the beach with the tide.
Move, you dumb bastard, he willed himself. You want to die out here?
He recalled the plane hitting the water, the devastating impact. For literally seconds he must have been out, because when he came around, chaos was still churning around him, the plane tossing violently.
But the quiet. The quiet didn’t match the devastation, as if he’d been the sole passenger aboard the plane. Somebody nearby was crying. He could hear it, like he could suddenly hear the torrential riptides tearing at the carriage.
Snapping off the belt he’d hauled himself up and stepped into two feet of tepid water. Bodies were strewn, smashed, torn apart from the impact. In the aisle floated the corpse of an eight or nine year old boy, half his head missing, oxygen mask still strapped around his frail neck, trying to escape in the rushing water.
At the top end of the aisle he found the crier, the blonde stewardess who’d served him a Heineken no more than an hour before. She was trapped beneath a stanchion, the water rising around her.
She’d pleaded, begged him to help her. He’d told her everything was going to be alright. He’d told her he was going to get her out. The next thing he remembered, he was swimming alone for the huge dark mound two or three hundred yards away.
It was an island or a peninsula, he knew this for sure. Parts of the aircraft had crashed to the beach, flames dancing in the gales. Hitting the shore gasping, he had tumbled to the sand. But that had been the start of it. The second he fell, his body had shut down. It was not exhaustion. Something else was wrong.
That was then. This was now.
Move, god damn it!
He held his breath as the next wave tumbled over him. This time he was under for longer. And longer still.
He willed his fingers to move, to claw at the wet sand.
He was pulled under again and dragged away from the beach, his head filled with images of the blonde stewardess, petrified, placing all her faith in him.
And whether it had anything to do with divine intervention or just a stroke of blind luck, he felt his collar snag on something, preventing the currents from whipping him away. Then he was being hooked under the arms and dragged backwards onto the sand.
The rain struck his face. Saltwater erupted from his lungs as he was pitched forwards, his skeletal form a tin can of pins and needles. His entire body was wracked with fire.
And then he heard her. She was asking if he was alright. She was asking if he knew of any more survivors. The Blonde stewardess?
‘I can’t move,’ he spluttered.
‘You made it to the beach, didn't you?’ the voice yelled above the wind. ‘Did someone drag you here?’
‘I…I swam.’
‘Then you can move!’
‘I could,’ he replied. ‘I mean…I woke up in the wreckage, managed to get out and swim to shore.’
‘Then it’s in your head, James,’ said the voice. ‘Get your arse up.’
James?
‘How do you know my name?’
‘This isn’t the time for a meet-and-greet, soldier,’ the voice said. ‘You need to get it into your head, there’s nothing wrong with you. There may be other survivors, I need your help.’
‘You saved my life,’ he stammered. ‘Tell me your name.’
Behind them the wind tore at the palm trees lining the beach. Rain pummelled them, lightning cracked all around, and the only thing offering illumination were the multiple fires aglow along the beach, refusing to blow out.
‘Tell me your name,’ he insisted.
Blocking his view of the bruised sky a face appeared over him, dark hair tangling in the wind.
‘Abigail,’ she said. ‘Abigail Chambers. Now are you going to get up, or am I throwing you back to the fish!’
*
The sensation in James Bailey’s legs slowly returned. The pins and needles had transformed into feeling and he was able to stand shakily.
What had caused the paralysis he didn't know, but he was standing now. With one arm over Abigail's shoulder she helped him along the beach. They battled the gale together, trudging slowly along the sand. Of all the people to have found him, he couldn’t believe it was this girl. Dark locks, tangled and wet. Perfect green eyes. He tried not to stare.
A couple of hundred yards offshore, dark leviathans disappeared beneath the surface of the water, huge sections of the aircraft swallowed whole.
‘Where the bloody hell is everybody?’ Abigail yelled above the wind.
He’d been wondering the same thing. There didn’t seem to be any bodies, alive or dead, anywhere.
‘Gone down with the plane, probably,’ he shouted back.
‘I don’t think so. There were a handful of bodies in my section when I left the plane, but most of the seats had been ripped out, gone, passengers along with them. I expected the beach to be littered.’
Navigating their way gingerly through the fires and debris, they paused to catch their breath.
‘I think I can manage now,’ he gasped.
Abbey unhooked
