Chapter 1

‘Oh come on! Now is not the time to join the mile high club,’ Zoe thought angrily, ’I’ve got to pee.’

Rocking back and forth from her heels to her toes and back again, Zoe Lawinsky stared up at the light indicating wether the aircraft toilets were engaged or not. They were. And had been for the last three years it seemed. Looking over her shoulder she wondered wether she could scramble over the seats or the food trolley that was preventing her from using the toilets at the back of the plane. They weren’t engaged. 

‘What the hell are they doing in there? Pff sorry, that was an obvious statement. Heck maybe they have done it and are now smoking in there,’ she thought to herself. 

In all fairness she hadn’t seen two people enter the toilets. It would be a he, of course it would and she would strangle him with her bare hands when he emerged. Women are so much more considerate than that. Has a man ever let her merge into traffic? No. Has a man ever let her stand in front of her in the que at the movies? Of course not. Unless it was that blonde air hostess with the big b***s. In which case she would have a bit longer as she would have to reapply her make-up before showing her face again. 

After some quick calculations, Zoe estimated that the culprits should be out before they land in Honolulu where Zoe was changing flights to Las Angeles and then flying on to Detroit where she was attending college as an exchange student. Which was about six hours away and by then she either would have puddled on the floor or internally imploded. Neither option sounded very appealing.

‘Come on Zoe, think about something else,’ she thought desperately. ’Anything. Anything. Any- James Halford. Wow…dreamy James Halford. With his coal black hair, his black eyeliner and stud through his eyebrow. With those sky blue eyes that shine like the sky on a hot summers day. And his pale skin that makes Edward Cullen look like he has a tan. James ‘McDreamy’ Halford.’

James Halford had been in her year 12 class at school. He was the new kid in school, he got expelled from his last one. He was so bad it hurt. He smoked at the school gates before school or whenever else he got a chance, leaning against the fence with the cigarette hanging loosely between his pink lips. And those eyes. They simply glowed with contempt and loath which made his damn sexy. Around his pale neck hung a studded dog collar, some dog tags and wide leather cuff with a skull on his wrist. He wore the school uniform, only because he had to but the second he was out of the gate he would pull on a torn old leather jacket and a helmet before scrambling behind his older brother Hanson, on the Harley-Davidson road cruiser. Zoe would stand there and drool, listening to the throbbing engine as it slowly faded into the distance.

The two brothers were in a band, The Death Peppers, James the lead singer and Hanson the mad drummer. Zoe had seen their posters around town and they looked awesome, even more dolled up than he was at school, more leather, painted on leather pants and just way cool. He dyed his hair last Christmas holidays, Zoe’s parents said he looked like an electrocuted skunk with its band of pale grey down the middle, frizzed up madly with the aid of three cans of hair spray, but Zoe didn’t care. He looked amazing. 

Then school ended and Zoe got a job. Just when she thought she would never see him again, she did. Yeah ok it was in Snag-a-Bargain, the cheesiest; tackiest, crappiest Discount Variety store since the dawn of mankind. Her uniform was canary yellow and scarlet, a mini-skirt with a polo shirt and she had to wear the cap. Didn’t matter if it gave her hat hair, she had to wear the cap. And smile, often, even when customers went off like Icelandic Volcanoes because they couldn’t have a refund on something that ‘no longer suited their needs‘. 

Her only saving grace were lunchtimes, when she would sit in the food court and James would saunter out of music shop he worked in and buy his lunch. She would watch him everyday, he would dither between KFC or Subway. If he went to KFC he would get a Chicken Deluxe burger with extra mayo and a large coke. If he went to Subway he would get a 7 foot sub on a rye bread roll with olives, meatballs, extra cheese and jalapenos. She liked it when he would get subway because he would stand there with his back to her, so she could stare at his taunt backside in those leather pants. Or dark stonewash jeans. But she preferred the leather pants. 

He even spoke to her once. Her usual seat was taken so she had to sit closer to the KFC stall. He had ordered Subway but then as he was walking past when he suddenly stopped, his blue eyes searing straight through her eyes and into her soul. Zoe felt her heart pound out her control as she realized he was going to speak to her. He barely even spoke to her at school. The moments felt like years as she watched his pink lips part slowly. 

“There’s mayonnaise on your chin,” he said, his voice bored and uninterested. 

By the time she had made sense of what he had said, blushed, snatched up a serviette and wiped it off he was gone. Damn. She remembered hoping that his next line would be ’here let me lick it off for you.’ But no, he was gone swaggering off through the crowd.    

After a year of working at Snag-a-Bargain Zoe had earned enough for her airfare to America. That had been the deal with her father, you save up for your airfare and I will pay your college fees. He was American, New Yorker actually which made him cool, and he wanted his only child to attend college in America. Her mother Danielle couldn’t’t understand why Zoe wanted to go all the way to America when there was perfectly colleges in Australia, but she let her go nonetheless. To Zoe it would be her first adventure as a young adult.

Even though most daughters never thought their Dad’s were cool, Zoe did. Richard Lawinsky stood at almost six foot, with jet black hair and grey eyes. Zoe had inherited his height, his hair and his temperament. Richard oozed New Yorker grittiness and yet he was smoother than six year old scotch. Except for his accent which was Cockney New York. Zoe didn’t’t notice it and her mother loved it, but most people cringed at when he started talking. 

Danielle Lawinsky on the other hand was as Australian as they came. Blue eyes, chocolate hair which she often dyed auburn and a lithe tanned body. She had met Richard when he visited the Reptile park she worked at and he had passed out when she handed him a snake. Danielle never thought she would see him again because she laughed so much at the New Yorker who passed out, but the next morning he was the first customer through the gates. And the next day and the day after that. Danielle knocked him back at first, New Yorker’s were bad news or so her friends told her. But eventually his persistence wore her down and she gave in. 

Six months later they were married and three years after that Zoe was born with her halo of coal black hair, glacier blue eyes like her mother and the birth mark on the inside of wrist. The new parents had fretted over the red mark that reminded them of a fishes tail, but the doctors assured them it was perfectly normal. Over the years it had darkened but retained its shape. Zoe went through a stage of trying to hide it but in the end gave up. 

Zoe still wasn’t entirely sure where she wanted to direct her life. In High School she got sick to death of teachers constantly insisting that she must have plan. Why? As far as she could tell there was nothing wrong with winging it, letting the road wind out ahead of her. It got even worse when teachers came into Snag-a-bargain and so obviously sneered at her while her classmates studied Architecture, Aerospace and other fancy sounding courses in university. Zoe ignored them, knowing that one day she would show them.

Still she kicked around ideas of graphic design, interior decorating and the like but none of them really stuck. Zoe always had been artistic; she had graded highly in art at school and did reasonably well Graphic Design but didn’t know if that’s what she wanted to do with her life. That’s why she chose Snag-a-bargain, it was a temporary holding place and source of income until she made up her mind.  

Zoe loved blues and greens. Always. She wore black mostly in a hope James would notice her but always with electric blue or peacock green eyeliner or eye shadow. Or jewellery, she loved beads; bracelets, hair slides and huge cocktail rings, usually in silver with turquoise, ocean blues and forty shades of green. Even today as she stood waiting for the toilets to open, she wore bluey/green jeans, a black stretch top and a clique of beaded necklaces that had been designed and made by a boutique jeweller she knew. 

From certain angles, Zoe could be described as slim. She had a slim waist, 14D b***s and her hips fitted neatly under the shadow of her shoulders. But then quite abruptly her slim waist and hips curved out into thighs and a bum that seemed to belong to another person. An African-American ghetto rapper perhaps, she thought dryly. No amount of crunches, squats, controlled starving or stupid diets seemed to make any difference. She lost weight around her ribs, arms and shoulders but no where else. It drove her mad. 

Her mother loved seeing her in blues and greens; she hated how her daughter wore black to fit in with the Goth crowd she kicked about with. ‘It isn’t you‘; she would say as Zoe walked out the door with her eyes rimmed in black and gelled up hair. Zoe didn’t’t care, she liked both sides, her Gothic side that could listen to My Chemical Romance, Evanescence, Green Day and such bands all day while drinking one‘s self silly. But as soon as she walked through the front door the mask would drop as she would slip into a silk dressing gown that looked like peacocks tail, take the gel out of lion’s mane hair and listen to Taylor Swift and not feel even a bit guilty. Besides none of her friends came to her house or knew her well enough to know that the Goth Zoe was just a front. 

Zoe stared out the small window that had an orange strap across it and sighed. Friends. She didn’t have too many of those. Sure she kicked around in a big group of similar, moody youths who drank smoke, rode motorcycles and listened to hard music. But was there one she would turn to with a personal problem, one she could trust if she passed out somewhere not just leave her there? No. Not one. 

That had actually happened. They were all stumbling around a parking lot outside a night club when Zoe fell and bumped her head. She woke up in hospital and her parents nearly killed her. She wanted to kill the people she called her friends for abandoning her, though she never found out who called the ambulance. But she still hung around them because they were the only friends she had. Oh and because they often came into contact with James and The Death Peppers. 

Quite suddenly the light flicked off, the door latch clicked and the Captain stepped out of the previously engaged toilets. Alone. He eyed Zoe and the other three people now waiting before shrugging nonchalantly. Zoe glared at him icily as she dived into the toilet. 

‘Rotten Captain. Probably sending text messages or something. Who does he think he is? Lucky he’s flying the plane or I would-,’

Zoe’s thoughts and movements were cut off a sudden lurch as the plane seemed to dive from the sky. For a few seconds they seemed to free fall, Zoe’s heart soaring into her throat as the other passengers screamed in terror when they regained altitude with a shudder. Zoe gripped the hand rails gasping for breath. What the heck was that? 

The intercom crackled to life. “Sorry about that ladies and Gentlemen. We ran into some unexpected turbulence as we switched off Auto and-,” Zoe had stopped listening as she could suddenly hear the engines. They had begun to shriek. Not whistle and certainly not the usual dull roar, but shriek like a banshee in a food blender.

 The intercom died with a crackle as the plane began to list over, diving towards the ocean as it went. This time Zoe screamed as it began to roll over as she braced her legs against the door. She could hear crashes and thuds as suitcases, Duty Free and things in the overhead lockers soared out. The screams of the passengers filled her head as she clung on for dear life. 

An explosion shook the plane as the engines died at the precise moment the plane levelled out. Zoe stared at herself in the mirror, her face pale and her hair dishevelled. This wasn’t happening. It was a bad dream. These things only happened on Air Crash Investigations or in movies. She could feel the plane falling from the sky but she couldn’t do anything. She knew that she should go back to her seat but that was in Row 13. It would be carnage out there. And all the while she could hear the whistle of the wind as the air rushed past the falling plane and through the silent engines. 

Quiet suddenly there was a crash, for a moment Zoe thought they had found altitude when it was followed by another, a more violent crash that seemed to rip the world apart. A terrible dull groaning noise filled the world, like the plane was ripping itself apart. They had hit the ocean. For a moment she could hear nothing but water lapping against the side of the plane when distantly she heard a mammoth splash as if the rest of the plane cart wheeled over the snapped off nose section and smashed into the water. 

Zoe suddenly felt dampness around her ankles as she stared down in horror at the water seeping through under the toilet door. She could feel the cubicle listing over backwards as she tried to pull her jeans up. It’s strange what the human mind does under extreme stress, but Zoe could think of nothing except trying to wrangle back into her jeans despite the water now sloshing around her knees. 

Zoe unlatched the door but it refused to budge. She leaned against it but as more water gushed under the door, ocean water that she could taste the salt from, it built up pressure against the door and wouldn’t’t budge. Zoe screamed as the water rose higher and higher. If she didn’t’t get out she would drown. Panic overrode her mind as she fought feebly with the door. 

The water rushed over Zoe’s head as she stared through the blue veil trying so hard to bust the door open. As the curtains of darkness began to envelope her she felt herself falling. 

‘This is it Zoe. You’re going to drown in a toilet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,’ she thought. 

Those were the last thoughts of Zoe as she slipped into a world of damp darkness, rocking currents and the final sparks from the electrical as the ocean sucked the plane under.

Reviews

[Kiki Newton]

LOL thank you next chapter coming soon :D

[Laranda]

Very very interesting:] i enjoyed reading this chapter put up more crazy stuff! look forward to reading it. Grammar matters but it can all be fixed once you finalize something;]

[Kiki Newton]

Hahahaha thanks
Coming from a gruff NY-er....its not too cliched and stuff because sometimes I wonder why I did that because it isnt really relevant to much.....?
I have also posted the second chapter for your reading pleasure :D

[RM Americano]

Well I didn't mean including the part about her gawking at James, but the parts where you were describing the protagonist in every irrelevant detail....Her life goals, her b**b size, what color clothes, what bands she listens to. That stuff is the kind of stuff that gets skimmed over anyway. When she's fawning for James there's still action going on, so it keeps the reader interested. And the bit about her father being a gruff New Yorker, well I liked that because I'm a gruff New Yorker, but it also has a fast pace and you're in and out real quick.

[Kiki Newton]

LOL
Ok the buisness about James being cliched explains itself later, its delibrate just trust me on this one LOL
I guess I could take out some of the stuff about James if other people agree with you, it could just be that your male :P
And as for the toilet buisness, have you been inside a toilet lately? they're shrinking I swear xD its to stop the whole mile-high club thing
another chapter coming soon :D

[RM Americano]

It's well written and I enjoyed most of it.

Few nitpicks: You built up good momentum but then you used a couple of cliches that kind of killed it. "Her only saving grace..." and "Jet black hair" and it seemed a little silly that she was actually drooling over this kid James.

Also everything after her thinking about James until the plane dived was too expositional. It got real boring. But it did get real good again once the action picked up. But then the plane tanked and she's in the bathroom stall and she didn't bounce off the walls? You need to explain how she survived that without a seatbelt.

I enjoyed it. I think you've put something interesting up here, and I'm ready for more.