Escape Out of Darkness (Maggie Bennett 1)

And then reality, unpleasant as it was, cropped up again. Mack was fumbling at her seat belt with desperate haste. Blood was pouring from a cut on his forehead, and cold water was lapping around her ankles. “Come on, Maggie,” he muttered under his breath. “We haven’t got much time.”

She slapped his hands away, unfastening the seat belt with only slightly more efficiency. “Where are the life preservers?”

“Gone.” He jerked his head toward the opposite side of the plane. The wing had broken off when they landed, and parts of the plane were floating rapidly away as the water poured in the side. “And this damn thing is going to sink momentarily. Let’s go.” He yanked her hand toward the raw opening in the body of the plane.

“But Lonesome Fred …”

“Dead. His neck broke when we hit,” Mack said shortly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She didn’t even hesitate. She gave Mack a shove out of the plane, grabbed their knapsack, and dived after him into the greeny blue Gulf waters, which were damned cold for a Caribbean summer.

They both sighted the piece of wing floating in the choppy current at the same time. Maggie struck out for it, still holding the knapsack, but Mack reached it first.

The cold water had slowed the bleeding to a mere trickle, and Mack held out a hand to her, pulling her the last few feet to the wing and taking the knapsack from her, looping it around his wrist. “Are you okay?”

Maggie shook her wet hair out of her face. “All in one piece. What about you? Anything besides that cut on your forehead?”

“I don’t think so.” He squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight toward the slowly sinking plane. “I guess Lonesome Fred died the way he wanted to. Fitting coffin too.”

“Pulaski, at this moment I really don’t give a damn about Lonesome Fred,” Maggie s

aid in a dangerous voice. “Do you have any idea how far from land we are?”

“Nope. But I think we stand a good chance. There are lots of birds around, not just gulls, and I don’t think they’d be too far out at sea. There’s a strong current, and with any luck it will pull us in to shore.”

“I wouldn’t trust our luck,” said Maggie. “The current could just as easily carry us out to sea. Do you suppose there are any great white sharks around?” She looked over her shoulder nervously.

“Afraid of sharks too?”

“No. Afraid of Hollywood movies,” she snapped back. “Do you think we should kick?”

“I doubt it. We’re being pulled along at a good rate. We’ll either end up safe or dead, and at this point I think it’s out of our hands.”

“As long as nothing comes along and nibbles my toes, I can survive for a while. What about you?”

“Well, personally I’d like to be the one to nibble your toes,” he said, “but I can wait till we reach shore.”

“Pulaski, now is not the time for sexual banter.”

“Maggie, I can’t think of a better time,” he shot back. “The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and it’s a beautiful day. Why don’t we enjoy it?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You are absolutely demented,” she breathed. “You are certifiably insane and—”

“I’m a survivor, Maggie. And so are you. We’ve got a rough time ahead of us, and we may as well do what we can to make it more bearable. Why don’t you tell me what it was like growing up in Hollywood?” He reached out and put his cold, wet, strong hand on top of hers as she clung to the wing. The human warmth sank through her chilled skin, and Maggie relaxed.

He was right. The sun was shining overhead, the sky was blue, and the ocean, now that she was used to it, wasn’t as numbing as she’d been afraid it would be. And if she and Mack were going to die, she at least didn’t want it to be with a whine on her lips.

“Actually, it was pretty entertaining. Did you know that Deke Robinson was bisexual?”

“The heart throb of the fifties? Wasn’t he married to your mother?”

“Her third husband,” she said. “I was twelve when they got married. They had the strangest parties. …”

It kept them going for a long time. The sun moved through the skies as she kept him entertained with the most scurrilous gossip she could think of, most of it outdated but still fascinating. When she ran out of stories he told her of life on the road with a rock ’n’ roll band in the sixties and seventies, of the psychedelic and sexual excesses that sounded amusing now that it was all over.

When she grew sleepy he tickled her, when she grew snappish he made her laugh. And when she thought she couldn’t hold on any longer, when the sun was beginning to sink ahead of them, he gave her hope.

“I hope you’ve noticed which way the sun is moving,” he said.