The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

Still, it snapped Mack’s head around, stunned him, made his eyes go blurry, and stopped the endless flow of panicky words.

“Thanks,” the fat lady said. “He needed that.”

The plane was in the air before Mack recovered his faculties.

“Dude—you punched me!”

“You’re under my wing, Mack. Can’t have you freaking out.”

Mack felt his jaw. It still seemed to be attached. But the angle might be off just a bit.

Mack glanced out of Stefan’s window. He saw the bright lights of Los Angeles. And he saw the ominous blackness where the land ended and the ocean began.

He closed his eyes tight and gripped the armrest.

How long he sat like that, frozen, he could not know. At some point he fell asleep. While asleep he continued to clutch the armrest.

He woke hungry to find that there was a meal—of sorts—on the fold-down table. Stefan was eating his.

“You’ve been moaning,” Stefan said.

“What was I moaning?”

“‘We’re going to die,’” Stefan said, and chewed a piece of meat. “You kept moaning it in your sleep.”

“What happened to the lady who was sitting here?” Mack asked.

“She found another seat.”

Mack felt a little offended. But not much. The screen on the seat back in front of him showed a map with the plane superimposed. Los Angeles was far behind. Sydney, Australia, was much closer but still far ahead.

“How am I going to do this?” Mack wondered aloud. “I’m not exactly a hero.”

“Huh,” Stefan agreed.

“Once we get to Australia, I’m turning around and going home.”

“Back over the ocean?”

“Good point,” Mack said miserably.

“I watched a movie,” Stefan said. “Put something on, it will distract you.”

So Mack watched several movies while clutching the armrests until his fingers were numb and his arms were aching. He also ate a little. The buttered roll was nice.

He slept a little more. And this time he didn’t moan about dying. He moaned, but without prophecies of imminent doom.

He woke when Stefan yelled, “Hey!” in his ear.

“What? What? What?”

Mack instantly noticed that something was wrong. Everyone on his side of the plane was staring out of the windows, pointing, murmuring.

“Whoa,” Stefan said.

Mack didn’t want to look out of the window because if he did, he might see the black ocean, or at least a blackness where the ocean was. But he had to look. Everyone else was, and they didn’t sound too happy about what they were seeing.

So Mack looked.