A contribution for NaNo 18.
I'm not taking part properly this year for... reasons, but I wanted to share a reworking of the intro from my 2016 offering. It's still very work in progress, and there's a couple of elements that still need fixing, but compared to the old intro, which came in at about 6000 words, this could very well end up being 12k, because my plan is to take the time to introduce the characters in a better way.
I spent so long trying to streamline the beginning, that it was difficult for people to care about some of the protagonists, so this is my attempt to fix those issues.
I anyone wants to compare this to the old, here it is. This new passage covers pretty much up to the point in the old where **** appears, which I use to denote an unspecified period of time passing.
So, here goes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth of
august
‘Drive was really long. Got here probably…
eleven last night? Way too late to be calling,’ he said, then waited out the
delay on the line.
His mother’s voice came back, crackled with the
distance. ‘You could have called anytime, you know.’
‘What, and wake you and dad up at 4 in the
morning? Wouldn’t have heard the end of it.’
‘We wouldn’t have made a fuss, and you know it…’
Pause. He kept listening. ‘Well… anyway, I’m glad you’re both safe. How’s
Rache? And how was Chicago when you left?’
Jon Sinclair glanced round at his sister. Rachel
slouched on her unmade bed, hands stretched out, sunglasses pushed up her brow,
forcing her shock of blonde hair backwards. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass
her over in a mo.’
‘And Chicago?’ his mother prompted. ‘I would
have loved to see it again. Dad and I had such a good time there.’
Jon agreed it had been great, went through the
potted highlights, then gave a quick version of the eight hours spent journeying
north. ‘I mean, it’s mostly roads through forests with nobody on,’ he said.
‘I hope you were sensible?’
‘Of course I was,’ he assured her, symbolically
crossing his fingers behind his back. ‘A few truckers and military bits and
bobs. I guess they were headed for the summit.’
‘About that…’
Rachel yawned loudly and fell back into the
duvet, knocking her shades loose. Hair fell across her eyes; she tugged
experimentally at the length and tried to focus on the red tips. The dye still
hadn’t grown out. Good, she thought.
Glancing up, Rachel saw Jon still rabbiting on,
and she yawned again.
‘Yeah, I saw the news this morning,’ Jon said.
‘To be honest, best we’re out of it. The whole place will be cordoned off.’
‘My turn,’ she announced, getting up and
striding over. He surrendered the phone without protest, and she took his place
on the chair by the window. ‘Hello!’
Jon heard mother’s voice joined by their
father’s. Rachel launched immediately into her news, and Jon headed for the
bathroom to brush his teeth. She was still in full flow when he returned, so he
sat listening to Rachel’s half of the conversation, staring out of the little
motel window, at the pines growing close to the boundary. Morning sunlight
streamed through the branches, and the smell filled the little room.
‘Nah, we couldn’t fly, remember?’ Rachel said.
She must be talking to dad, Jon supposed. He was such a worrier he often forgot
the details. ‘Air Force One had the airport to itself, didn’t it?’ Then,
‘Twat,’ she added. Jon counted the second or two for the round trip. ‘Well, he
is! Oh, fine. Look, if I ever get the bloody stupid idea to be president of
anything, I hope you’ll call me twat every day,’ she laughed. Jon smiled to
himself. Some big international meeting had been moved to the US for security
reasons, or something. He hadn’t really paid a great deal of attention to the finer
points these last two weeks.
‘Today? It’s the lake today. Yeah, Winnipeg. We
can fly this time, we’re miles away from Chicago now. Going in a helicopter.
Oh, credit’s low. I’ll pass you back to Jon,’ she said, and waved the phone in
his direction.
He wound the call up, saying goodbyes to both,
and Rachel called ‘Love you! See you soon!’ from the bed. The line beeped
insistently, then cut off.
‘Could have done with keeping some of that
credit,’ he chastised her.
‘Oh, get a contract, you cheapskate,’ she shot
back.
‘You pay for it then.’
She stuck out her tongue and grabbed her jacket
from the hanger. ‘Come on, we’ll miss the flight if you keep nagging.’
‘Well, I need to go to the shop and get more
credit, now, don’t I?’
‘Oh, whatever,’ she sighed exasperatedly,
disappearing through the door.
It was a short drive, but Rachel kept on at Jon.
‘Put you bloody foot down. We’re gonna be late.’
‘Look, we got away with it yesterday, but I am
not getting pulled over, alright?’
‘Your loss. Could be a laugh,’ she grinned.
‘Might be one of those Mounties!’
He made her get out at the store in town to pick
up some more phone credit, and she came back with a bag full of snacks. ‘They
won’t have you back on the team if you eat all that,’ he said.
‘What they don’t know won’t hurt them.’
‘I thought we were in a hurry?’
‘Just bloody drive.’
The little airfield was easy to find, and close
to the lake shore. A stiff breeze whipped off the waves.
The man on the desk checked them in and sent
them off to the safety briefing. On the way, they collected lifejackets; the
flight was over water, after all. Jon spent so much of the briefing worried
that Rachel was not paying attention, that he had to keep prompting himself to
pay attention, and was still going over the details he could remember as they
strapped into the helicopter.
Soon, they were over the lake.
‘Shame about the weather,’ Jon sighed, though nobody
heard him as the thud of the rotors drowned out all sound. Rachel tapped the
side of her headset and mouthed something at him. Fumbling for the button, it
clicked, and he heard her voice rang in his ears, distorted by the excess of
noise.
‘What’s that?’ she called to him.
‘Weather,’ he repeated, nodding towards the sky.
The clouds weren’t exactly low, but the earlier sunlight was now obscured.
Rachel turned away from him and pointed her camera out the window. She and Jon
occupied the two seats just behind the pilot and a young couple sat at the
back.
He stared out the starboard side; the vast
expanse of Lake Winnipeg stretched out below, the tides working their way
steadily south. He felt the fit of his lifejacket and then tested the harness.
He was nicely secured. Perhaps a little too well, in fact, but there was no fixing
that now.
‘How long ‘til we get there?’ Rachel asked over
the comm. He checked his watch.
He shrugged. ‘Ten-fifteen minutes, I guess?’
She rolled her eyes and returned to taking
pictures. The couple behind were pointing at the lake shore, their own conversation
restricted to a separate loop. Jon hummed to himself, until Rachel kicked him.
He frowned at her and pushed the microphone away from his face.
The pilot shifted in her seat. Jon glanced, then
looked properly at her. She was very tall for a woman, he supposed. Well over
six foot, perhaps close to seven? He raised his eyebrows. Rachel kicked him
again.
‘What?’ he demanded, then pulled the microphone
down. ‘What?’
‘That’s not the wildlife we’re here to see,’
Rachel winked, and he made to protest, but the pilot’s voice suddenly came into
their ears, connecting to all channels.
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said,
and her voice was not nearly as deep as Jon had expected. ‘We’re a little ways
out from our destination. If I could just ask you to stow your cameras for a
little spell, and I’ll bring us in to land.’
‘There it is!’ Rachel called, pointing ahead. They
were descending, and the island appeared before them.
‘Yeah, that’s it,’ the pilot agreed. ‘This is
the place.’
It came with a sudden flash of bright white
light, and the helicopter bucked. The speakers filled with static then cut, as
did the rotor blades, and they were falling like a spinning stone towards the
lake.
‘The hell was that…?’ the pilot barked, then,
‘Everybody hold onto something!’
This
is the place.
The water was coming up fast. He could not think
or look away. He heard Rachel yell, saw the tall pilot wrestling with
unresponsive controls, felt arms bang into him.
‘…losing her!’ he heard the pilot shout. ‘Hang
–’
But they smashed into the water, the plastic
windscreen hurtled towards them and the light went out. Water rushed in, filling
his nose and mouth, and his head swam. The thud of dying rotors faded to a
forlorn throb.
This
is the place. This is where it is.
He threw his head back, breaking the surface.
They weren’t quite submerged yet. He heard his name. ‘Jon! JON!’ The lifejacket
tried to lift him up, but the straps pushed him back down. ‘Help!’ Rachel
called. ‘Help!’
‘Rache!’ he spluttered, getting a mouth full of
lake water for his trouble. He threw his head up again for air. Panic tore
around his brain, stuttering over the same few fragments; trapped, straps
tight, Rachel in trouble, water, trapped, straps too tight, Rachel… in trouble.
Rachel, water rising, drowning…
This
is where it ends.
Something underwater hit him in the midriff; he
gasped and spat blood. The object scrapped across him, flailing and knocking his
stomach. Rachel howled in the seat beside him, but the thump in the gut
reconnected him, and he felt for the strap buckle and was amazed at how easily
it released. Rachel’s scream cut out, and Jon’s heart clenched in his chest.
He kicked hard, found himself free to move.
Uprights and crossbeams banged into him, but he kept moving. The water rose higher;
he stretched up again, saw no other heads above the surface, took the breath he
needed, and dived.
His sister, pinned at the legs by the co-pilot’s
chair, thrashed in her seat. She held her mouth tight shut, eyes bulging,
darting. Little bubbles escaped as she fought to keep the air inside. He pulled
and strained at the blockage, but it would not shift. Her blue eyes locked on
his, pleading, fearful.
…where
it ends.
A great, shuddering impact coursed through the
wreck, ringing the helicopter like a gong; a rock, submerged and invisible
struck them, and the co-pilot’s chair came free. His lungs bursting with the
pain of holding his breath, Jon pulled Rachel free and, turning, dragged her up
and out through the gap where the door had once been. Her weight pulled at Jon’s
arm, and his brain heaved with the weight of all-but-spent oxygen pumping
though him.
They
don’t know it yet.
He didn’t know anything except that kicking and
keeping hold of his sister’s arm was the only thing to do. No thoughts intruded
save the need to break through this dark mass of water to air above.
None
of them can possibly know…
He knew not how far that might be. Just kick.
Keep kicking. Look down. Rachel still there… still pulling at his arm…
…can
possibly know just how bad things are going to get…
Lungs fit to burst, he thought things could not
get much worse. But then the water turned brighter, he yanked his arm up and,
together, Jon and Rachel broke the surface, coughing, gasping, but breathing.
Keeping tight grip on his sister’s arm, Jon looked around wildly; the day had
turned a clear, cold blue – the clouds whipping away as if carried on a storm
front of clear glass. A dull roar, like thunder many miles off, carried on the
trembling air.
‘Rache! Rache?!’ he choked. She nearly went
under, but he pulled her up again. ‘Rachel, the shore’s close. Come on!’
Wh-what –?’ she spluttered, expelling a great
quantity of lake water. ‘What’s happening? What’s happened?’ Her voice almost
failed and the sound broke through the barrier in his mind, letting fear infect
him.
‘We’ve got to get to shore!’
‘B-but –!’
Though he knew very well her objections; the
crash, the other passengers, the pilots; what of them? Aside from the bubbles
and a slick of unignited oil, there was no sign of the helicopter or its
occupants. They should search! But they couldn’t stay treading water forever.
His stomach still ached, and Rachel was barley keeping her head above water.
No, they had to get to shore.
Shore first.
And what would they do when they reached the
shore? How long would it be before help came looking?
Life,
as they know it, is over.
‘We can’t stay here.’
They struck for shore, though he had to guide
her along, weak as she was from the suffocating weight of the water. It seemed
to take forever, never getting nearer, but his feet finally hit shingle and he
half-flited Rachel out of the lake and staggered onto the rocky beach. He
supported her away from the water, ten metres, twenty… Wind plastered his
soaking clothes to his skin, the cold biting like tiny needles. He looked up;
the sky was completely cloudless, now, and chilly with it. He shivered violently,
and his legs gave out. Lying there, facing the restless lake, he looked for
some sign of other people, or for debris. But the helicopter had completely
vanished. Nothing remained.
But
endings can be beginnings, too.
He tried to get up – he must look for other
survivors – but his body, adrenaline all used up, shattered from exertion, forbade
it, and he flopped back onto the cold earth, thoughts evaporating from his
head.
