Turbulence

Brian Merklin

Description

Wilkins has always suffered from mild flight anxiety, but he's always been able to cope. When a long-time acquaintance and pilot offers transport home from a business trip, Wilkins learns what terror at 20,000 feet is REALLY like as old deceptions and the very real threat of the elements combine. A work of short suspense from our Fingerprints line.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Untreed Reads
• Date de parution: 24 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611870985
• Langue: English

Extrait

Turbulence
By Brian Merklin

Copyright 2011 by Brian Merklin
Cover Copyright 2011 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Other Titles in the Fingerprints Short Story Line
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Crime Scene by Rick R. Reed
Death by Jello by S. Furlong-Bolliger
News Flash by Michael Bracken
The Wire in the Butter by Lance Zarimba


http://www.untreedreads.com
Turbulence
By Brian Merklin
Jesus Christ , Wilkins thought. Oh, Jesus Christ I’m never flying again .
He glanced over at Cullen who was jotting something in what looked like a log book. The pilot’s hands weren’t even on the wheel.
The plane lurched and Wilkins felt his stomach drop down to his feet.
Cullen’s face remained buried in the log.
“Shouldn’t you have your hands on the wheel?”
He couldn’t even hear his own voice. Confusion wrinkled his brow for a moment, then he remembered Cullen’s briefing.
“It’s called VOX,” he’d said. “We keep it turned a little bit low; otherwise, it would pick up your breathing and be on all the time. So remember to speak up so it will catch your voice and switch on.”
Wilkins had nodded throughout the spiel, hoping he would remember the important stuff. Not that he could tell what the important stuff was. It was like his old acquaintance had suddenly reverted to speaking Latin. Wilkins had felt lost, but had kept silent, embarrassed to show his ignorance.
“And don’t be surprised when it misses the first word or two of whatever you’re saying. It does that. Just keep talking and I’ll get the gist of it.”
Wilkins had continued to nod during the briefing. A bobblehead doll , he thought, that’s what I am. A pretty stewardess would have made the whole process easier to tolerate.
Except they weren’t called stewardesses anymore, were they? No, someone had decided that such specificity was degrading. It was flight attendants now; and, the female flight attendants these days didn’t seem to be screened for much in the looks department.
They’d stood outside the hangar in front of the aging Piper Cheyenne II for what seemed like an hour. It had been cold. The wind sliced through Wilkins’s blazer like it wasn’t there. Finally, they had wrapped up. A flight plan had needed to be filed, and they’d be off.
Off. Right off the face of the earth was just about right . Why had he let himself be talked into this? He flew commercially all the time. It was part of his job. But he’d always flown in the big planes—giant, powerful buses that flew high and smooth. Even when it was turbulent it was nothing like this .
He cleared his throat and tried again: “Shouldn’t you have your hands on the wheel?”
This time the VOX picked him up, though his voice sounded pitiful and scared through the headphones.
Cullen looked up at him distractedly. “Huh? No, the autopilot is flying right now.”
Autopilot? They were in a god-damned whirlwind (albeit an invisible one—the sky was clear and pale blue, save for some f