Flight 12

Flight 12 – a serial novel by Travis Creel

CHAPTER THREE – LET'S GO TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Previously:

• After his plane breaks apart over the Caribbean, Seth Herrick wakes up on an island, uninjured – and nude. He wonders if he is dead and in some kind of afterlife. He is desperate to find his boyfriend, Abe, who was sitting across the aisle when the plane's disintegration separated them.

• Seth encounters other survivors from his side of the plane:

o Harry Mancini, an amiable, heavyset gay man;

o Ed Niemann, a British knight transplanted to the U.S., looking for his missing son;

o Augie Stapleton, a twenty-year-old who believes that homosexuals go to hell.

• Ed and Augie lend Seth enough clothing to preserve modesty.

• The four men spot the dome-like top of a distant structure. They pursue it in hopes of finding someone who can help them get rescued.

• Stan Kowalczyk, originally seated on the plane's right side, is asked by the flight attendant to switch seats with the man across the aisle. It seems a pointless request, but, after Percy, the flight attendant, insists, they shrug and comply.

• • • • • • • • SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1 * * * * * * * *

THE BEACH (EAST COAST) – SETH

It was difficult to tell where the mysterious building was – all we could see was the dome. It was decorated in stripes of different colors, descending from the top vertically – gradations of color from red to yellow. It gave the impression of being relatively tall and thin. A lighthouse?

Around the next bend, we found two surprising things. One was a map. The other was a person. He called to us from some distance away.

• C'mere, look at this.

• (calling back) Hello! Who are you?

• Cody Benson. Ain't seen this before. Dunno how it got here.

He seemed transfixed by something mounted on a metal pole - whatever it was, it was more proof of civilization on this island. But – wasn't he on the plane?

• Have you seen anyone else?

• This morning? No, why would I?

• From the plane.

• What plane? No plane flew over my property.

The four of us looked at each other. Augie made a motion and pulled the rest of us aside, while Benson regarded us with suspicion.

• (Augie) I recognize him. He was on the plane. He had a big row with the flight attendant, who made him switch to the right side.

• (Harry) I remember that. What was that all about?

• (Augie) I couldn't figure it out. The flight attendant seemed to think it important. Anyway, I swear this guy was on the plane. But – wait a sec – the flight attendant called him something else, it wasn't Benson. What was it? On-something. . . . Onslow, he called him Mr. Onslow.

• (Ed) Concussion. He's delusional.

• Let's check out what he wants us to see. . . . (calling out) What you got there, Mister Benson?

• (Cody) Lookie here at this map. What's it doing here? Who put it up and what's it for?

Flat and rectangular, It looked like the kind of plaque you found in government parks, mounted on a pole, in a bronze-like metal with raised lines and letters. As Benson (Onslow?) had said, it was a map – specifically a map of the United States, divided into a dozen sections. In each section a city was marked with a star, including my home town of Cleveland.

• (Harry) I think I know what this is. But it makes no sense.

• (Cody) You're damn right it makes no sense. Nobody has the right to put a map on my ranch.

• Your ranch?

• (Cody) Yeah, I think so. Though maybe I wandered off my property. I wasn't aware it extended all the way to the Gulf.

• The Gulf? Which gulf is that, Mister Benson?

The man looked at me as if I had asked what color a bluebird was.

• (Cody) The Gulf of Mexico. What did you think it was - the Persian Gulf?

• Your ranch – would that be in Texas?

• (Cody) Shit, you don't even know you're in Texas?

• (Harry) Mr. Benson, we're sorry, but you're very much mistaken. We're quite a ways from Texas. We're in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

• (Cody) Sure we are. What's a map of the U.S. of A. doing in the middle of the Caribbean Sea?

• We don't know. Harry, you said you knew what it was.

• (Harry) Yeah, but, like he said, it shouldn't be here. Unless I'm wrong, it's a map of the Federal Reserve Districts. And the cities are the locations of the Federal Reserve Banks.

• Yes, there's one in Cleveland.

• (Harry) And one in Philly.

• (Ed) Boston as well. That's where I'm living now.

• (Augie) My home town's on it, too, or close enough. Dallas.

FLASHBACK: AUGIE (WHITE SETTLEMENT, TEXAS) – five years ago

• Augie, wait up. I want to talk to you.

• I don't want to be late for geometry.

• I'll walk fast. You doing anything this weekend? Going to the church social?

• Nah. They're pretty boring.

• If you were going, who would you ask? Emma?

• I don't know, man.

• Afraid to ask her?

• I . . . I'm not really into dating.

• I see. . . . You into hunting?

• Sure, I like to hunt.

• Want to go hunting with me on Saturday? My uncle's got a ranch out in the country.

• . . . Uh, sure, okay. Why not.

• I'll pick you up like around 10?

• You drive? Wow. I can't wait to get my license. And – oh heck, that was the bell. Dang, Alfonso, you made me late.

I knew Alfonso mostly through church. We were altar boys together when we were twelve. We went to the same high school, but it wasn't like we were close, so I was surprised when he asked me to go hunting.

But going hunting with Alfonso would please my parents. They worried that I was shy and didn't have enough friends. And hunting was damn near mandatory in Texas. Dad had taken me out a few times, and had practically an armory in the basement, including a couple of AR-15s. I think he was preparing for some kind of Deep State raid on our house.

On Saturday, Alfonso's uncle greeted us cordially; I recognized him as someone who showed up at church every six weeks or so, but he didn't seem to know who I was.

We set out and found a few rabbits, missing them mostly. Alfonso bagged one, but I was a terrible shot. We saw some pheasants and peppered the air around them, without hitting our targets. It was then that Alfonso said the peculiar thing:

• Which do you like better: hamburgers or wieners?

• What?

• Most dudes like a pair of big round hamburger patties. But I prefer wieners. How about you?

The look in his eye told me he was not talking about grilled food. He continued:

• You told me earlier you weren't all that into hamburger patties, Augie. So are you into wieners?

A wave of panic hit me. He looked straight into my eye and continued.

• I like wieners. And guys who like wieners. And I brought my own wiener to this picnic.

With that, he grabbed his crotch. His erection was crawling down his leg, begging to break free.

• Would you like to see my wiener, Augie?

With that, he put his hand on his belt and pulled the strap through the buckle. He lowered the zipper and, a moment later, his jeans and shorts dropped to the ground in a single maneuver. His erect cock flung out like a coat hook waiting for something to be draped over it. Like a mouth.

• I know you want this, Augie. There's no one around. No one can see us.

• Alfonso, it's a sin!

• Lots of things are sins, Augie. The thing about most sins is . . . they're fun.

• Homosexuals burn in hell.

• Are you a homosexual?

• No!

• Then you won't burn in hell.

With that, he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed downward. I didn't resist and fell to my knees. Wild things were going through my head, and I felt stirring in my own balls. Did I want this?

I looked at his engorged cock, and felt my own cock tingle. Omigod, my body was crying out for this! My mind was screaming `no', but I was paralyzed as I felt his hand on the back of my head.

I opened my mouth. And before I knew it, lust had overtaken me, and my lips surrounded his cockhead.

• Oh, yeah, Augie. You wanted this. I've known for a long time you wanted this.

There was nothing to say – not that I could speak with a mouth full of cock. I did want this, sinful as it was. I suppressed the urge to gag as I took him deeper and deeper, moistening his shaft with my saliva as I let his big member dominate me.

He strengthened his grip on the back of my head and started bobbing me in and out, making me gag on occasion when it went too far too quick. His hand was rubbing all over my head, groaning in satisfaction, until the moment I heard a loud CRACK!

It was the sound of a rifle shot. A figure strode toward us, rifle in his hands, face full of fury. Alfonso's uncle.

I pulled myself off his cock and rose to my feet, wishing I was a million miles away.

• What the hell is going on here?

Neither of us knew what to say.

• Pull your damn pants up, boy. Who's your faggot friend?

• (Alfonso, thinking swiftly) His name's Matthew.

• Matthew What?

• (Alfonso, not thinking swiftly enough) Broderick. Matthew Broderick.

The uncle, however, didn't seem to recognize the actor's name.

• He looks familiar. Do I know him?

• (Alfonso) No, he's just someone from school.

• You'll have to sleep on your stomach tonight, once your father finishes with you. (to me) What's your father's phone number?

Naturally, I gave a fake number, and, as luck would have it, no one answered the phone when he called. He left a voicemail: `Call me regarding something your son did'. Maybe whoever he called wouldn't have a son, or if they did call back, maybe they'd wait until after I'd gone. As long as my father didn't find out.

My father never found out. Pastor Markson, however, did – about Alfonso, not me. Alfonso told him the other boy was someone from school who didn't belong to our church.

Alfonso was expelled from the church. His family never returned, afraid to face the humiliation of being the family who raised that pervert boy. Which meant the uncle didn't return either, so he never had a chance to identify me as Alfonso's fellator.

For the next several Sundays Pastor Markson sermonized on the evils of homosexuality and the special torments in store for homosexuals after they arrived in hell. He prayed – we all prayed – that Alfonso would reform, marry a good Christian woman, and settle down to a normal life with three kids, a golden retriever, a barbecue grill in the backyard and season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys. More or less.

Alfonso's family pulled him out of my school and enrolled him in a Christian academy in another town. This was fine by me, as I didn't want to encounter him in class every day. I resolved that no remotely similar incident would EVER happen again, and that I would start dating girls. So I asked Emma to the next church social, where we engaged in pleasant conversation, drank fruit punch and feasted on oatmeal-raisin cookies, carrot sticks and cheese cubes on toothpicks.

THE BEACH – SETH

• (Cody) So if we're in the middle of the fuckin' Caribbean, what's a map of the Federal Reserve System doing here?

• We don't know. Mister Benson, why did you come here this morning? You said you might have wandered off your property. Why were you wandering?

• I was looking for my herd.

• Your herd?

• My cattle. Seen `em?

• When was the last time you saw your cattle?

There was a pause.

• Don't rightly remember, to tell the truth. I just know they're missing.

• (Harry) Does the name Onslow mean anything to you?

It did. Every one of us could see that it did. Something happened to the man. It was as if he went into a comatose state for a moment. I took over.

• Mr. Benson? Onslow - does that name mean something to you?

• . . . What . . . why did you ask me that?

• Do you know him?

• I'm . . . did you see them? Either of them?

• Mister Benson? We're not sure what you're trying to –

• Shit. Was I on a plane?

Thank goodness. He's come back to reality.

• Yes, we're pretty sure you were.

• They brought me here.

Or maybe not.

• Who brought you here?

• Ray. Or maybe Gary. One of them. I just – that explains it. They probably rustled my cattle, too. Ray, anyway. Gary wouldn't do that.

Whoa. Time to re-examine reality. Who was crazy here? Somebody clearly was. Possibilities:

1. Onslow, who thought he was a cattle rancher named Benson. 2. Benson, who, while on the plane, thought his name was Onslow. 3. Me.

The last possibility was growing increasingly likely. Maybe this was all my fevered dream. Maybe I was in a coma in a hospital bed somewhere, hovering between life and death. No, probably not a hospital bed – how would I get there? On a beach. Or floating in the ocean. But alive – and yet not alive.

• Seth?

Harry's hand was on my shoulder. A real hand. A real shoulder. He was looking at me with concern. No, this was no coma. This was real. Harry was real. This insanity was real. It was insane, but it was real.

• Sorry, Harry. I just got lost in thought there for a moment. Trying to sort all this out.

• (Harry) Maybe we should press on toward the lighthouse, if that's what it is. I just feel like we need to go there.

• (Augie) I do, too.

• (Ed) Lead on, Macduff.

The lighthouse. It was a clue to what was going on – perhaps the answer. If it was a real lighthouse, with real people staffing it, it could end this sense of limbo I was feeling.

• (Cody) What lighthouse?

• See that dome in the distance? With all the stripes?

• (Cody, in a bit of wonder) Oh, yeah. Hadn't noticed that before. That's weird.

• Listen, Cody, here's what happened. We were on a plane last night, heading to Aruba – ZTA Flight 12. You were on it also, but the flight attendant called you Onslow and not Benson. We hit massive turbulence and the plane broke apart. Then we found ourselves here. We don't know how we survived, but it seems like we did. And that lighthouse up there is the only sign of civilization we've seen, other than this sign you found. If we're going to get off this island, we need to find the people who live here.

• (Ed) I've got to find my son. My wife will kill me if something happens to that boy.

• And I've got to find my boyfriend.

The word `boyfriend' prompted an uneasy look from Cody Benson. It appeared that Harry and I were surrounded by homophobes. But Harry was right – we had to press on. Time for me to step up to the plate and act like I knew what I was doing.

• We're hoping we can find someone with the ability to contact a rescue team.

• (Augie) My girlfriend Jordan's waiting for me in Aruba. With her sister. The three of us were vacationing together. She's got to be worried sick about me.

QUEEN BEATRIX AIRPORT, ORANJESTAD, ARUBA – JORDAN

It was the first flight I'd ever been on that was two-thirds female. The only men under forty on our flight were with their wives and/or children. An hour or so into the flight, they gave us the good news that ZTA Flight 12, the supplemental flight that carried all the young unmarried men, was continuing on from Santo Domingo, and should arrive within three hours of us. What a relief. I had Jen with me, but didn't want to have to wait overnight for Augie to arrive.

ZTA didn't have a regular gate at the Queen Beatrix Airport but they told us that Augie's plane would be arriving at the same gate as our flight had. So we sat there, bored, while the inevitable occurred: Jen decided that this was the perfect time to have The Conversation. The one I didn't want to have.

• So when are you going to tell Augie?

• I will, Jen, I will. At the right moment.

• And when is that going to be?

• I'll know it when it happens.

• Is it going to be before or after he proposes to you? Because you know that's what he's going to do on this trip. I'm going home Tuesday. You're going home Friday. Wednesday or Thursday he's going to propose to you.

• Augie's shy. Maybe he won't.

• I'm willing to bet he's already booked a table at a nice restaurant for one of those nights. He's shy, Jordan, but he's a romantic.

• He's also very conservative. And very religious.

• Which is why he hasn't slept with you. And won't until your wedding night. Is that when you want him to find out?

• I'll have the operation before then. And breast implants.

• Your vagina won't be the same as a cis woman's.

• What's he going to compare it with? Augie is sweet, he's innocent, he's never slept with a woman, he won't sleep with another woman. I'll put off the wedding until I have the operation and get breast implants. Jeez, Jen, stop worrying. Augie is in love with me. With ME. And when we get married, he will make love to ME, the person – Jordan Murdock. And he'll never know, and he'll be very happy, and so will I because I love him.

• So you're going to get married without telling him.

• It can work, Jen. I won't even have to change my name. Jordan Taylor Murdock. Jordan and Taylor are both girls' names as well as guys'. It's perfect.

• It's dishonest, Jordan. Marriage is based on trust.

• Jen, if I tell him now, he'll go away. He won't understand. He'll be horrified that he fell in love with a guy. I'll lose him. Please, please understand that.

• . . . Sadly, I do understand that. The poor fool. He's like a fish on a hook. The kindest thing you could do would be to let him go. But . . . who knows, Jordan, maybe you're right. Maybe it will work out. But I'm rather fond of Augie myself, and I don't want to see him hurt. Just whatever you do, be caref -

• Shhh! There's an announcement!

ALL PASSENGERS AWAITING ZTA FLIGHT 12, PLEASE COME TO THE V.I.P. LOUNGE BY GATE 8. PASSENGERS AWAITING ZTA FLIGHT 12, TO THE V.I.P. LOUNGE.

Where they gave us the news.

Flight 12 had disappeared from radar without explanation. We shouldn't panic, it was possible that communications had failed and that the plane's signal simply wasn't being received. However, they could not rule out the possibility that some kind of `incident' had occurred.

I knew what the word `incident' meant. It meant the plane had crashed. It meant that Augie was dead.

OFF THE WEST COAST OF THE ISLAND – STAN

We should have hit the Caribbean at a thousand miles per hour, perhaps losing consciousness along the way from lack of oxygen. How aware I would have been of my impending death the instant before it occurred is a question I will never be able to answer.

Because we didn't plummet into the sea at a thousand miles per hour. We sort of wafted down as if carried on the back of a Targaryen dragon – or, more plausibly, hitting some kind of updraft so powerful that it slowed our descent to a survivable level. When we hit the water, it was almost like landing on a runway. We plunged slightly below the surface, but immediately bobbed back up. There must have been some degree of buoyancy in the plane fragment that made it want to float.

The moon was not full, but provided enough light to see. I looked around. Al Casey, the Costco clerk from Syracuse sitting next to me, was gasping for breath. Which meant he was alive.

Astonishingly, everyone I could see – including Percy, the flight attendant – was alive. And we were floating on the ocean. More astonishingly, we were only a few hundred feet from the shore of an island. Magical.

(I should have known then. Too magical.)

I unfastened my seat belt. A pair of Bahamians who'd been seated behind me plunged into the water and swam to shore. I was considering doing the same, when Al grabbed my arm.

• I can't swim.

Oh, shit, maybe he's not the only one. I called out:

• Who can't swim to shore?

Four or five voices responded. The flight attendant, still strapped in his seat, spoke.

• There are flotation devices under your seat. We can have a buddy system – someone who can't swim pair up with someone who can, and –

He was interrupted by a wave that pushed the entire segment of the plane closer to the shore. I had an idea.

• Wait. Maybe we won't have to swim. The waves may do the work for us. Let's see how close we can come by letting them push us. Buckle back up.

It took about twenty minutes but a series of waves gradually pushed us close enough to the shore that we could reach it without swimming. The Bahamians waded out to help. Percy gathered us together and took a quick count. Twelve, plus him. That was everyone on the left half of the plane. We were all alive.

I grieved for the right half. As the plane was torn apart, the right half seemed to have gone down like an anvil, while we had gradually descended as if by parachute. Those on the right had obviously perished; as miraculous as our descent had been, theirs could not have been so fortuitous.

I looked hard at Percy. He had insisted that I switch seats with a querulous man named Onslow who had wanted to sit on the left half of the plane. I wanted to know why. Had the switch not been made, Onslow would still be alive – and I would be dead.

It was a warm Caribbean night. We clumped together in small groups on the beach, sand clinging to our wet clothing. I chatted briefly with the Bahamians – the darker one's name was Theo and the cocoa-colored man was Piers; they looked like a gay couple, but were just friends.

I was near Al and another man, who had been sitting in front, a short, trim, handsome man with a neat dark beard.

We introduced ourselves.

• Stan Kowalczyk.

• Al Casey.

• Abe Derisian.

[COMING UP NEXT: CHAPTER FOUR – THIS IS NOT A LIGHTHOUSE]