It takes three days.
By the morning of the third day, the food and snacks are long gone. The water has been administered in stricter rations under watchful eyes since the “incident.” But even the careful single swallows, measured out three times a day, have emptied the bottles. And there isn’t any sign of rain.
That morning, the last phone battery dies. They all sit around and watch it as it flicks down from 2 percent to 1 percent and finally goes black. Their last remaining connection to the outside world. Dead.
It’s a thirst like nothing Hayley has ever experienced before. At first, she swallowed too much. Now her throat is too dry to let her swallow at all. Sometimes it pulses angrily in the back of her throat. Sometimes it blurs into hunger, her stomach gnawing desperately at itself and releasing only the painful warmth of bile. Mostly it makes all of them weak and irritable, sniping and arguing with each other endlessly. They spend a lot of time asleep, finding brief release in semiconscious snatches of rest, but Hayley is plagued by fitful dreams and cruel visions of cool lemonade splashing freely into a glass just out of reach.
She begins to get confused. She watches Shannon and Jason enter the gym together at the first tour game. The crowd goes wild, Jason jogging a lap and waving to the crowd, Shannon cartwheeling and backflipping behind him. They end with a lift, his hand up her skirt, her arms in a triumphant V, both basking in the applause. But that’s not right. Hayley isn’t in that gym, sitting awkwardly on the bench while the other girls flash megawatt smiles and jump up and down, loving the pageantry and hullaballoo. The roaring in her ears is the rush of water on sand and grit, not the shouts of the home crowd welcoming the touring side.
The island looks soft and gentle as it slowly squeezes the life out of her. The sand is like fine sugar, the heat radiating from it blurring her vision and throbbing in her head.
Elliot is trying to organize them, and Hayley knows she should listen, but it’s so hot and she is so tired. She watches a mosquito crawl slowly up her leg, pausing at the prickly fuzz that has begun to regrow in the cleft next to her kneecap. She doesn’t have the energy to care if it bites her or not.
“We have to split up,” Elliot is saying wearily. “We should have been making survival plans from the moment we arrived. Now we’re playing catch-up.”
“All those who vote we survive by killing Elliot in his sleep and drinking his blood, raise your hands,” croaks Jason. “What? Too soon?” Hayley shudders and wonders if it is really cold or if her body is just starting to shut down.
Elliot hesitates, but ignores Jason, turning to the others instead. Behind him, Hayley thinks Jason looks like a lion lounging in the heat, powerful but prone, lacking the energy to lift a paw and take a swipe at the…what kind of animal would Elliot be? Her brain is too frazzled to finish the thought.
“The most urgent thing is finding something to drink. We can’t just keep waiting and hoping. We have to act now, before it’s too late. The island’s covered in palms: there could be coconuts somewhere. I’ve been looking, but there’s too much ground for me to cover on my own. We should search through the denser vegetation for fruit trees or bushes and check for any sources of fresh water.”
He pauses and looks around, frowning, as if he’s waiting for the insults to begin. For the first time, nobody contradicts him or sneers. He looks a little surprised, then nods.
“After that,” he says, standing up a little straighter, “we should focus on ways to signal to rescuers. We need to collect a huge pile of wood for the fire and make an SOS sign on the beach that’s big enough to be seen from the air. And we should make some kind of shelter for sleeping in. We don’t know what the weather’s going to do, and we really need to be prepared.”
Brian picks at the peeling skin on his sunburned forehead. “Maybe Elliot’s got a point,” he mumbles, looking down at the sand, his head turned slightly away from Jason. “I could really use some fruit juice right about now.”
Hayley watches as Jason’s face contorts in quick, betrayed fury, then flickers through a range of expressions, like he’s choosing which one to wear. For the briefest moment, she wonders if he’s going to cry.
“Nice idea, Brian, maybe you should visit the juice bar with the girls.” Jason laughs, sweeping his golden hair out of his eyes. “You stay here and rest, babe,” he says loudly to Shannon without looking at her. “I’ll get the wood for the fire.” And he turns and crashes noisily into the trees, jolting Hayley out of the heavy daze that has settled on her like a blanket.
“Brian, you and I should head to the opposite side of the island,” Elliot says urgently as Jason retreats. “The coconut palms are more likely to be along the beach.”
He turns to Hayley. “Can you guys look for fruit and make the SOS?”
She nods wearily, dragging herself to her feet.
“Jessa and I will look for fruit,” May volunteers, and Hayley looks at Shannon, who hasn’t moved since Jason left. She shrugs. “Hayley and I will do the SOS then, I guess.”
“Look for any edible fruits or roots, any water source,” Elliot tells Jessa and May. “But don’t eat anything you don’t recognize. Bring it back here first. Start with the trees and bushes to the south.”
May looks at him expectantly.
“That way.” He points, turning to the tree line and waving his hand to the left. “It’s where the trees are thickest, and the part of the island we’ve explored the least.”
Jessa stands next to May, putting a hand on her best friend’s shoulder and gently pushing her to face the ocean.
“Look,” she says, “this beach faces east—that’s why we see the sun rise over the sea in the morning.” She rotates 180 degrees to face the tree line, May swiveling with her. “Brian and Elliot are going straight across to see if there are coconuts on the beach on the other side of the island, the west side.”
Elliot points to the right. “The land rises to the north, and there are fewer bushes or trees. That’s where I climbed up on the first day to get a bird’s-eye view.”
Jessa turns May ninety degrees left. “So south is the jungly side, where the trees and bushes are thickest and there’s the best chance of finding fruit or water.”
“The SOS needs to be really eye-catching, as big as you can,” Elliot tells Shannon and Hayley.
“Oh really?” Shannon’s voice is biting, a shade of her usual sardonic sharpness returning through the exhaustion and thirst. “Because I was going to write ‘NOTHING TO SEE HERE. PLEASE CONTINUE ON’ in really tiny letters.”
“Right.” Elliot smiles awkwardly, caught somehow between his unexpected leadership role and his usual detached silence. “Well, good luck.”
Jessa and May haul an empty backpack from the pile of supplies still heaped on the beach and set off into the trees behind Brian and Elliot, soon peeling off to the left and disappearing into the bushes.
“OW!” May yelps, her surprised pain floating out loud and clear. “If Jason thinks this is the easy option, he did not account for thorns,” she mutters furiously, her voice fading as she moves farther away.
Hayley turns awkwardly to Shannon. “Shall we?”
Time crawls. Hayley and Shannon slowly pile wood and rocks at the edge of the tree line, working in the shade for as long as they can. When they’ve collected a mound of materials, they drag it down the beach piled on a towel, Hayley tugging at the front corners and Shannon walking behind, holding the pile steady and collecting the sticks that tumble off.
They lug the heavy rocks painstakingly across the sand, then start tracing out the letters two yards tall, carefully keeping the SOS message above the high tide line so their efforts won’t be swept away. The heat beats relentlessly against Hayley’s shoulders, burning uncomfortably into her hair, finding every unprotected part of her and biting down hard. They only salvaged a single bottle of sunscreen from the plane, and she’s wearing the faintest smear. While Brian slathered handfuls of the lotion onto his angry red skin, she knew hers could cope better with the sun, but now it feels like her whole body is screaming in protest.
Her tongue feels heavy, like a furred slug too big for her mouth. Her breath comes in short rasps, uncomfortable and hot on her cracked lips.
The sea dances tantalizingly close, its cruel ripples calling to her parched throat. It sparkles innocently, taunting her. Her brain knows that drinking saltwater would be a death sentence, but her body leans magnetically toward the liquid. She forms the letters as quickly as she can, ignoring the splinters driving into her soft palms, exhaustedly heaving the stones into place. As soon as they can, she and Shannon turn their backs on the sea and take refuge in the shade. Closing her eyes, Hayley feels herself come untethered from the beach, like she’s slipping out of her parched, dry, cracking body. Pictures float on her eyelids. She drifts backward and forward in time.
A huge white yacht lined with imposing sailors in shining uniforms, saluting as they approach the beach. An airplane improbably dangling seven long ropes like jellyfish tentacles, each one miraculously attaching to a castaway before they whoosh into the sky to safety.
The whistle blowing as the first game of the tour kicks off. A whirl of color and sound, violet pom-pom tassels rustling and spectators chattering and cheering. Erickson barking orders left and right. Hayley zooms in and out as if she’s watching it from above.
She admires the deftness of the other girls as they leap in formation, muscles taut and quivering, their athleticism easily as impressive as the boys making free throws and streaking down the court. Squatting at the bottom of the pyramid or just high kicking to one side, Hayley is left out of the more complex routines she hasn’t mastered the skills for, left to gasp along with the crowd as Shannon flips dizzyingly from six feet high to land on her feet, hands extended to receive the rapturous applause.
The cheer squad comes alive in front of a crowd in a way Hayley had never seen in practice, their individual talents coalescing into an almost liquid, golden thing, a single body that swirls and morphs in front of her as she tries, sluggishly, to keep up. A group of people she’s always, somewhere deep down, felt herself superior to, pulling off moves she can’t even begin to attempt.
She drifts forward again, suddenly, to arms reaching out to pull her into a fishing boat, the sweet relief of cool bottled water splashing over her face and bathing her fiery neck. Her parents, there in the boat with oars, rowing and rowing, but the boat sitting still in the water…
Hayley has drifted in and out of sleep so many times before Elliot and Brian return that she doesn’t trust her eyes at first. But the familiar grumble of her ankle (the pain muted now but not gone completely) reassures her that she is awake as she scrambles to meet them. Coconuts. Four pale, milky-brown, slightly wrinkled, waxy-skinned coconuts clasped to their chests, and the widest smiles she has seen in days.
They let the coconuts thump heavily, miraculously, into the sand, and Hayley reaches out a wondering hand to touch their cool, smooth skin.
“How do we open them?”
“Here.” Jason appears from nowhere, an armful of sticks and wood tumbling into the sand. He holds out a fist-size rock, gray on the outside and shiny black where it has been split down the middle, leaving a long, sharp edge. “I’ve been using it to cut wood.”
Elliot holds out his hand for the rock, but Jason grabs one of the coconuts instead and starts hacking at it.
“Don’t cut the sides—” Elliot’s voice is drowned out by Jason’s grunting. His ears slowly redden as his broad shoulders tense and release, tense and release.
“You don’t want to—” There’s a splintering crack as the stone finds the coconut’s heart. Little white flecks spray up onto Jason’s dimpled cheeks, and the milky water gushes quickly away into the sand.
“Jason!” Shannon screeches, flying at him, clawing at his back. “You idiot. You fucking asshole. We could have drunk that.” She’s almost sobbing, dried spit flying from the edges of her mouth, her long dark hair electrified into frizz by the humid weather, splaying wildly out around her face. Her mouth is like a red slash, her pale face consumed with rage.
“SHANNON!” Brian grabs her delicate shoulders, pulling her easily backward as Jason gapes in shock, staring at her as if he has never seen her before. “There are others. It’s okay. There are others.”
She turns on her heel and stalks off down the beach without looking back.
“Ooh-kay,” Brian sings quietly. He turns to Jason. “Dude, you got beat by a girl.” He sniggers, then stops when he sees Jason’s thundercloud face.
Hayley can’t remember ever seeing Shannon really lose her temper before. Biting sarcasm, yes. But there’s usually a coolness about Shannon, a haughtiness that seems to radiate off her. Has this hot, furious temper always been there, hidden underneath? Or is the maddening thirst transforming them all into people she doesn’t recognize?
Elliot is picking through the pile of branches. Choosing a piece of wood about three yards long and as thick as his forearm, he takes the cutting tool from Jason’s hand. Jason, still looking dazedly in the direction where Shannon disappeared, doesn’t protest. Elliot saws off the wood at an angle, then cuts the remaining edge into a sharpish point. He drives the blunt end of the stake as deep into the sand as he can.
Hayley cannot resist. “Please tell me that’s not for a pig’s head,” she deadpans. She sees a flicker of recognition in Elliot’s eyes, but everybody else looks nonplussed.
“There are pigs?” Brian asks excitedly.
Hayley rolls her eyes. “Lord of the Flies? Sixth-grade English lit?”
“Yeah, we made Arthur Windley do that assignment for us.” Brian grins, punching an unresponsive Jason on the arm. Elliot selects a coconut and brings it crashing down onto the stake, splitting the brown skin, opening up a long crack down one side.
“Camping,” he says again with a sheepish smile as the others look on helplessly. “None of you guys have ever taken a tent to the Keys?”
“I’ve stayed at the Waldorf Astoria there,” Brian offers helpfully.
“Yeah, not quite the same thing,” Elliot mutters. He smashes the coconut down on the stake again, then uses his hands to pry off a long strip of the outer husk, caramel-colored straw-like fibers ripping slowly away from the nut like Velcro. The others watch as the little round center emerges, a miraculous orb that calls to Hayley’s dry throat like a siren.
When the husk lies in discarded sections at his feet, Elliot rests the coconut in the palm of his hand, testing its weight.
He looks at the three dark spots on top of the coconut carefully, turning it so they resemble two eyes and a mouth. He pulls a sharp sketching pencil from his pocket and carefully pierces the soft shell, right through one of the eyes.
“Hayley, can you hand me one of the empty water bottles?” He takes it and turns the coconut, sending a stream of slightly cloudy water trickling inside, until the bottle is about a quarter full. Hayley’s tongue twitches involuntarily. Hawkishly, she watches as Elliot prepares the two remaining coconuts, adding their riches to the bottle.
They pass it around the circle like a holy cup, each taking a few precious sips before handing it on.
When it’s Hayley’s turn, she closes her eyes and lets the warm, almost salty liquid gush into her mouth. Stopping herself from gulping down the rest takes more self-control than she knew she had.
When the bottle is drained, Elliot uses the sharp stone to split the coconuts down the middle, and they use their fingers to tear out the firm white flesh, hungrily devouring each piece until only the hollow shells remain. Hayley chews gratefully, enjoying the feel of the firm meat giving way between her teeth, the sensation of actually swallowing something solid at last.
“We should get more,” Elliot says, looking at the smooth, empty bowls. His eyes flick toward the trees, and with a lurch of guilt, Hayley realizes they haven’t saved anything for the other girls. It didn’t even cross her mind.
“Let’s all go,” Jason says, and Hayley wonders if he’s scared of what might happen when Shannon comes back. Elliot pockets the cutting stone, wrenching the stake out of the ground and resting it over his shoulder. Hayley wonders why, then realizes they’ll be able to eat and drink some coconuts before they return, fueling them for the journey back and freeing their arms to carry more. Elliot has already thought of this.
Fear drives little tendrils into Hayley’s brain every time she stops to let herself think. How long can they really last? The coconuts feel like a goldmine, and the thought of being able to drink her fill makes her feel almost dizzy with relief, but coconuts won’t last forever. And what then? How much longer?
It is best, Hayley tells herself firmly, not to think too far ahead. She concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, weakly picking her way through the trees behind Elliot, trying to avoid scratching her legs as they stumble through dense bushes. She has given up on slapping at mosquitos, her skin so used to the constant, gnawing itchiness that she barely registers it anymore. She claws at her scalp periodically, sunburn and raw-scratched bites combining in a constant ebb of discomfort. Her usually soft hair is becoming stiff with sweat and sand.
Her hot feet feel swollen and angry in unwashed socks, her sneakers starting to rub red blisters on her sore ankle. “Try. Something. A. Little. Less. Academic,” she mutters angrily as they push through the trees. “‘Branch out, ’ Mr. Curtis said. ‘It’ll be fun, ’ he said. I swear, if anyone else ever asks me what’s the worst that could happen…”
They head west, cutting a perpendicular line from the beach through the trees. There’s no sign of May and Jessa. To the north, she can see the beginning of the rocky incline Elliot talked about. But they push forward, heading straight across the island to the other side. After about half an hour of heavy going, the trees begin to thin, and Hayley can see the sparkle of the sea in the distance. Their meager rations of coconut water are a distant memory, her exertions leaving her desperately thirsty again, light-headed and short of breath. The humid air sits heavy in her lungs. Sweat makes her sleeveless white shirt cling uncomfortably to her armpits, and her thighs chafe under the cheerleading skirt she pulled out of the salvage pile this morning in a pointless attempt to freshen up. She left off the cycling shorts she’d usually wear underneath because of the heat. Now she wishes she’d put them on.
To her right, Brian staggers to a stop, steadies himself with one hand against a tree trunk, and vomits weakly. Thin bile and spit dribbles down his front, plus a few small chunks of coconut. There’s nothing else left in his stomach. He looks at Jason, eyes wide, all his usual clownish vulgarity stripped away. He seems like a scared little kid. Elliot and Jason support him from either side, wrapping their arms around his waist. “Nearly there,” Elliot encourages him with surprising tenderness. “You can do this.” Jason just grunts and heaves Brian forward.
They emerge onto a rockier, wilder beach than the one Hayley has become used to. The sea is rougher here, crashing onto large rocks that are scattered along the beach and jut out of the water. To Hayley’s immense relief, palms grow thick along the shore, thick clusters of smooth green and yellow coconuts hanging beneath the leaves in large, pendulous bunches. At the bases of the trees are dozens of brown coconuts in different stages of decay, some rotting away or split, but many smooth and intact, just starting to wrinkle.
Nobody speaks. For the first time since they arrived on the island, it’s like they are all on the same team. Elliot helps Brian to the foot of a tree, carefully lowering him down in the shade. He sits with him, rubbing his back, while Brian puts his head between his knees, breathing fast. Jason drives the stake firmly into the sand nearby, and Hayley roams the beach, selecting the most promising coconuts she can find, delighting in their weight and depositing them in a pile at Jason’s feet. Together, using the stake, the cutting stone, and the pencil, he and Elliot work to open them.
When the first coconut is pierced, Elliot hands it wordlessly to Brian, and they all pause, standing motionless across the beach, watching as he suckles at it like a baby animal, eyes scrunched shut.
Elliot works quickly, handing the coconuts out until everybody is slurping at the sweet, nutty liquid. When they’ve finished, they open more and drink again, then claw at the flesh with their fingernails. For the first time in three days, Hayley feels sated. Now accustomed to gnawing need, her belly feels uncomfortably swollen, though in reality she’s eaten only a little.
“Take it slowly,” she warns the others. “It’s going to take our stomachs a while to adjust.”
They sit there on the beach, quietly feeling their bodies resettle, not saying much, but each, Hayley imagines, steeped in the same soft flood of relief. Only now that the clamor of thirst has abated does she realize how noisy it has been, crowding out other thoughts, her stomach and brain consumed with need and panic. She knows how serious their situation still is, but just for this moment she lets herself lie down and breathe, her shoulders sinking into the softly yielding sand, the breeze stroking her cheeks and the soothing splash and pause, splash and pause of the waves hypnotizing in its regularity.
It’s late afternoon before they stagger back to the wreckage of the plane, their return journey slowed by the heavy coconuts. They carry nine between them. Brian, still staggering weakly along, is unable to manage any at all. Hayley waddles awkwardly with one tucked under each arm. Jason, shirtless, drags his yellow T-shirt like a makeshift bag with four coconuts stuffed inside, his muscular stomach gleaming with sweat. Elliot, whippet-like by comparison, balances three in a pyramid under his chin.
May greets them with an excited shriek, clamoring for coconut milk.
And the girls have their own bounty to share. Shannon is with them, picking over a pile of bright fruit, quiet and focused, not looking at Jason, who hovers, looming behind her, as if he isn’t sure how to approach. “There are bushes and trees with more, farther inland, but this was all we could carry,” Jessa gasps between gulps of coconut water. Hayley notices that she is only using one arm, her injured one hanging heavily by her side.
“Look what we found!” May is chirpy, boastful even, gesturing to the pile of fruit. Its plump sheen and delicate sweet scent make Hayley’s stomach clench again, and she reaches out an eager hand to grab a small, bright green sphere like a little apple.
“STOP!”
Elliot leaps toward her, knocking it roughly out of her hand. The fruit rolls across the sand, coming to rest innocently a few feet away.
“Ow!” Hayley looks down at her hand and sees a nasty red rash springing up on one side of her palm, angry red dots straining her skin. It itches and burns as if she had plunged her hand into scalding water. “What the hell?”
“It’s a manchineel,” Elliot gasps, breathing heavily. “A beach apple,” he adds, looking around at the confusion on their faces. “Wow, you guys really never have been camping, have you?”
He walks over to the fruit and nudges it with his toe, turning it over. There’s a thin cut in the skin, a little whitish juice oozing out. “The sap is poisonous,” he mutters, nodding to Hayley’s hand.
She gasps, feeling panic close her throat and fill her lungs. “It’s okay,” Elliot says, kindly, seeing her fear. “It’s just a surface reaction. You didn’t eat any; you’ll be fine.”
He turns to the other girls. “Were there any more of these?” Shannon looks shocked as she shakes her head, already rubbing her own hands in the sand. “No, we just brought one back to try, we thought the others looked more promising.” She points toward the fruits, and Elliot stoops to examine them, sorting through the pile carefully.
Hot tears spring to Hayley’s eyes. Tears of shock, fear, and relief. The horrible sensation of lurching from good news to deadly danger in a split second. Wondering if she’ll ever feel truly safe again. Her hand throbs with pain, and she squeezes it angrily into a fist, letting the tears prickle her eyelids but brushing them quickly away before anyone else notices.
“I think they’re okay,” Elliot says. “I don’t know the names of them all, but my dad taught me how to recognize anything poisonous when I was a kid. I don’t see anything here to worry about.”
So they fall on the pile of fruit greedily, ravenous hands tearing, lips sucking, tongues eagerly licking.
There are luscious mangoes, their honeyed flesh bursting through reddening skin, sticky juice running down fingers and arms. Round, firm guavas with pinkish hearts, their bitter skin yielding reluctantly to insistent teeth and offering a woolly, subtle sweetness within. There’s an earth-brown fruit the size of a small avocado with a thin wrinkled skin like a baked potato, its flesh a soft yellow bleeding into crimson like a sunrise, its shining black seeds half the length of a thumb. The supple, pulpy flesh tastes sweet and malty. They quickly learn to eat only the softest of the crop after May bites into a firmer fruit but then sucks at her teeth, her mouth dried out by its sour shock. And, strangest of all, a squat green fruit like an overgrown tomato, its skin dark and bruised, a star-shaped circle of leaves standing up around its stalk. They pierce the skin, expecting a firm orange or green flesh, and recoil at the monstrous reality: a blackened, jellyfish-like fruit with seeds the shape of large shelled walnuts sticking out in a central circle like a sea monster’s teeth, the flesh making an obscene sucking noise as it pulls apart. “Ugh, it’s bad,” Jessa grunts, discarding it in the sand, but each one they open is the same, so after Elliot has given it a cautious smell, they taste it and find it to be subtly sweet and silky smooth, like a heavy, slightly pumpkin-flavored pudding.
One of the coconuts has sprouted, its bright green shoot just developing leaves. When they open it, instead of water and flesh, it yields a spherical, spongy ball, wrinkled like a yellowish brain, filling the cavity of the shell. It is light and salty-sweet, the spongy texture giving way with a slight crunch.
They sit in a circle on the sand and eat their fill, scooping flesh from skins with plastic spoons left over from the airline meals, dragging teeth across fruit peels to strip the last scraps of flesh.
Suddenly, with a quiet rustling of leaves, a pair of shining eyes is watching them from the edge of the tree line. Hayley sees the creature first, scrambling to her feet with a sharp intake of breath, her mind whirling with images of tusks and claws and charging boars or pouncing wildcats. But as the others spin around in panic, it creeps forward, its pointed, triangular nose followed by a bushy, bulbous body and striped tail.
“A raccoon,” Hayley breathes, collapsing back to the ground with relief. “Here, little guy. You hungry?” She holds out a husk of fruit, expecting the creature to be wary of her, but it darts eagerly forward and seizes the morsel straight from her fingers, sitting up on its back legs to nibble it, black button nose twitching enthusiastically.
They laugh in delight and continue to feed it, though Shannon warns that they should save their supplies and if they encourage it now, it’ll never leave them alone. But even she yields when the little creature darts over to pick up a piece of coconut flesh that’s fallen on her knee, putting its handlike claw on her leg first and looking up at her as if to ask permission.
There’s something deeply reassuring about it, somehow, a surprise that is pleasant instead of horrifying. It gives Hayley a welcome boost to realize that not every secret the island guards is potentially deadly.
After they’ve eaten their fill, there’s an exuberant mood of excess and celebration, and even Elliot, glancing at the glassy, still sea, agrees that shelter construction can wait until tomorrow.
They keep the campfire burning and sit around it late into the evening. There is a camaraderie born of success that balloons almost into hysteria. Shannon and Jason, sitting on opposite sides of the campfire, both seem prepared to set aside what happened earlier—or at least to ignore it for the time being.
May teaches everyone a campfire game that involves dotting their foreheads with charcoal, and they shriek with laughter as their graffitied faces become increasingly distorted in the twilight.
That night, Hayley is back on the plane again. Everybody is unbearably relaxed. The boys are joking around, throwing Jason’s signet ring back and forth between them, crowing and shouting as he stretches to catch it. May and Shannon are painting each other’s toenails, legs extended over the empty seat between theirs. And Hayley is screaming at them, shrieking that the plane is about to fall out of the sky, begging them to listen, to do something, but nobody can hear her.
And they can’t seem to see the choking smoke that starts to fill the cabin or smell the bitter reek of gasoline. She forces her face in front of Elliot’s, shakes him by the shoulders, but he just smiles and carries on sketching, sketching. Only Jessa looks worried, frowning at her arm and mouthing something, but Hayley can’t hear her. The plane shakes and shatters around them, the lights flashing and fizzing, and they plummet into darkness.