PULAU MATI by John L. Evans Read Free Book Online

down the speed enough that the plane might stay intact but it was wishful thinking.  The left wing suddenly dropped.  A powerful force jerked Gray forward and then another slammed him so violently sideways he was stunned to near unconsciousness.  Through a numbing haze he registered a horrendous cacophony of screams and tearing and was then crushed by a force that ripped his hands from their grip on the arm rests and threatened to tear his arms from his shoulders.  He had held his breath at the beginning of the last series of impacts but the blast of water from behind forced most of it out.  The thought to reach under the seat for a flotation device never entered his mind.  His sequence of thoughts was simple and linear, unlatch the seat belt, reach for Anna, she was not there, push toward the light. He thrashed in a dark cloud of bubbles and then a hand grasped his shirt and yanked him upward.  His lungs were bursting and he kicked to rise faster. His head popped above the surface.  He tried to suck in a lungful of air but choked and coughed explosively instead.  Gasping and choking was his entire world until he got his first deep breath.  Confused but treading water instinctively, he recognized Anna holding a seat cushion against her chest and supporting him with her other hand.  Seat cushions were popping up all around them and he grabbed one for himself.
    “ Anna, are you okay?”
    Between coughs she answered, “I think so.   You?”
    He had to think about it to answer.  “I guess. I haven’t lost any limbs.  How did you, we, get out of the plane?”
    “I think the airplane broke up.”
    A head came to the surface.  It was the Latin looking man Gray had seen earlier.  The man coughed, glanced past Gray and started swimming by him without saying a word.
    Gray turned himself in the water and saw the island.  The sun had not yet risen above it and the light was indirect.  His eyes adjusted to the shadow and although it is difficult to accurately estimate distances from so low in the water he guessed they were no more than a hundred yards from a gentle surf and a beach of white sand.  Another cluster of debris was popping up about two hundred feet away parallel to the beach.
    “ Anna, can you make the shore?”
    “Yes,” she coughed.
    They had drifted a ways from where they had come to the surface.  He squeezed her hand and kicked back toward the rising debris and bubbles near where they had surfaced.  The stink of jet fuel assaulted his nostrils.  After kicking a short distance pushing a seat cushion before him, he took his shoes off and struggled out of his pants. A head bobbed up amidst the debris followed by another.
    Lex was the first head and gasped but sunk below the surface while trying to take in air.  Gray grabbed under his armpit and pulled him up.  The young man coughed out water and sucked air frantically.  Gray shoved the seat cushion at him and asked him if he could make it to shore.  Lex started kicking for shore without answering.
    The other head belonged to Sani but his eyes were lifeless.  Gray took several deep breaths without coughing, closed his eyes to avoid the jet fuel, and dove under water.  When he opened his eyes, a great, round blackness loomed before him that turned out to be the open end of the front section of the aircraft.  The aircraft must have broken apart between the business class and economy class sections.  The top of the front section was less than six feet under the surface.  Torn cables flailed like tentacles from the edges of the section and torn ducting and metal and composite beams protruded like great claws among the tentacles.  The salt water was buoyant and the remainder of his clothes made it difficult to descend but he reached an intact seat and held on.  He worked his way forward by grasping the next seat and the next.  The section was tilted 20 degrees nose up preserving an air pocket at the ceiling.  He let go of the seat and