A Playboy's Luck
"Mornin', Winston!"
Gretchen squinted through the harsh sunlight, catching a glimpse of the ruddy and plump airman lounging beneath an umbrella with his cup of Earl Grey, a phonograph playing a scratchy rendition of some song she couldn't understand. She saw him shield his eyes and watched a smile stretch his lips open. He rose to his feet to shake O'Connell's hand and then introduced himself to Ardeth. When he caught sight of her, something like vague recognition glittered in his eyes.
"Well!" he exclaimed jovially, "Hullo, there!"
Jonathan's head whipped around to stare at her in surprise. She smiled, tolerating a wet kiss from Winston on her cheek. O'Connell mercifully interceded:
"Look, Winston, we've got trouble."
The pilot straightened in his chair immediately, gazing at the American with wide, interested eyes. As O'Connell began to recount the surreal events of the past few days, Jonathan gave Gretchen an impatient nudge.
"He doesn't seem to know you," he whispered. She sighed, leaning closer to his ear.
"Well, it's not like I slept with him," she snorted under her breath.
Jonathan's visible surprise was remotely offensive.
"I listened to him babble on for a few hours," she explained, bristling a little. "I got a few free drinks out of the deal, so..."
Jonathan nodded his agreement, opening his mouth to say something else. Winston's voice quickly interceded:
"So what has your little problem got to do with His Majesty's Royal Air Corps?"
O'Connell shook his head. "Not a damn thing."
The admission brightened the British man's countanance considerably. He put his teacup down, "Is it dangerous?"
Gretchen snickered under her breath, catching a glimpse of Ardeth's face. The desert warrior looked puzzled as O'Connell bluntly assured the pilot that he probably wouldn't live through their present catastrophe. He took an uneasy step nearer to her, watching a strange hope flicker in Winston's gaze. His breath was hot against her ear:
"Is this man crazy?"
Winston hopped to his feet, saluting them grandly. "Very well! You've found the man for the job!"
Gretchen glanced at Ardeth and shrugged, figuring the pilot's enthusiastic compliance answered his question. The short, plump man very nearly skipped to his sorry assortment of planes, O'Connell striding easily beside him. The American glanced back at the three of them and winked.
"I don't believe we have a craft large enough for everyone," Winston was saying, slowing to a stop in front of one plane. "What did you have in mind, O'Connell?"
"Something with a gun," he answered quickly, running his hand along the length of the aircraft.
The aging pilot hummed thoughtfully, tugging on the wing. "We could strap a man on each side--"
"Excuse me," Jonathan put in. "What?"
Winston went on, unheeded, "I'd fly it, of course, and you could man the gun..."
He eyed Gretchen. "You're the problem, deary."
She shook her head, "No problem. I don't have to go."
"You're going," O'Connell commanded. She turned her eyes to his in confusion, but his expression was set. "For whatever reason, this...mummy guy seems to like you, and somebody has to kill this thing if we all fail."
Gretchen opened her mouth to protest, but the dark look in his eye would not be contended with. He turned his gaze sharply to the plane, a thoughtful frown set in his mouth. He glanced at her again, studiously raking over her body. Her breath caught in her throat at his invasive gaze, and she found herself wondering if he remembered the night he had bought her, if he was recalling the way she had looked then, the way she--
"I bet she could fit with me."
So that was all. She glared at the back seat of the plane and grimaced. "Come on, I'm not that skinny."
O'Connell shrugged, something between optimism and irritation glinting in his eyes. "It'll be tight."
Jonathan couldn't contain a loud fit of laughter; fifteen minutes later, he was having trouble finding anything to smile about. Tied securely to the wing of Winston's plane, he pouted at the ground, grumbling indiscernable curses under his breath. Gretchen would have laughed at him, but she was finding her own situation much too frustrating. It'll be tight, O'Connell said. Well, that was certainly an understatement. They were both squeezed into the seat intended for a single man, her legs crushed somewhere between the metal machinery and the Legionnaire's body. They sat shoulder to shoulder, his hands gripped tightly around the Thompson attatchment. Gretchen didn't know what to do with her arms; she decided to keep them as far away from interference as possible.
As the engine sputtered with ignition, Gretchen felt her her heart rattling in her chest. Nausea crawled wickedly up from her stomach, and she clenched her jaw in determined rebellion. She couldn't vomit--she couldn't. Not with Jonathan strapped onto the wing on her side, and not with O'Connell's faith in her survival. She tried to remind herself that it could be worse, it could be worse, it could be worse, it could be--
But the plane was bouncing down the uneven runway, the nose tilting slowly but certainly upwards. She found her body leaning back with the motion of the machine, and all at once the white, blazing sun was glaring angrily at her, telling her to keep her feet on the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut against the brilliant light.
Gretchen wasn't aware that she had been holding her breath until the plane gently leveled. She reluctantly opened her eyes and felt a strangely calming anticipation consume her. The wind whistled angrily past her ears and tugged at her hair, but the sensation of being airborne gave her such a free feeling that she could not be afraid. All around her was blue--fantastic and dreamlike and extraordinary and pure, and she suddenly knew where O'Connell's eyes had come from. Below, the desert carried on ignorantly; and even though she was crushed against her fellow American, she felt untouchable and priceless. The world below couldn't grope for her with its dirty fingers or tempt her with its lifeless promises. She was above the ground, above the dirt, above the sand, and it would never, ever...
A wide, twisting torrent of sand loomed in the distance, and Winston shouted something about its remarkable size. Her stomach dropped again, and Gretchen was reminded that she wasn't so high that the grime of the world could not touch her. She was a whore. And even if, from that day on, she never even so much as looked at a man, she would never be able to climb out of the rotting hole that was her past.
But the twister dropped suddenly, unnaturally to the sand, and an uneasiness quickly replaced her personal woes. As if on command, an enormous cloud rose up from the ground, growing to an impossible height in front of them. Her mouth gaped at the wall of sand, twisting her head to look at O'Connell, to confirm the wonder in front of them. His hands tightened on the gun, and she turned her gaze back to the phenomenon, too frightened to close her eyes.
A dark, smirking face formed from the granules, and her mind went black with disbelief. The moments whirred with confusion and danger and desperation, the wind tearing past her face and the frequent pops of the machine gun competing with Jonathan's screams. She forced her mouth to close, gritting her teeth against the desire to cry. Her hands tightened into fists, and suddenly everything was black.
"Hey...hey!"
A persistent voice was pulling her from her unconscious state. Gretchen's eyes fluttered open, meeting O'Connell's bright, remotely frightened eyes. The air smelled like smoke and gasoline, and she immediately realized that they were no longer in the air. When she turned her head to see what was the matter, sand slipped out of her hair and trickled over her face; she felt dusty and dry, and her throat was parched and burning. She tried to swallow, but the action sent her into a fit of coughing and hacking.
"Hey," his voice was a little more tender this time, his hand reaching up to gently cup her face. "Look, we gotta get you out of here."
Her brow furrowed dazedly. "What...?"
She stared at him, noticing that he was not squeezed into the passenger seat anymore. Before she could question any further, his arms were around her torso, and he was lifting her out of the plane. He carried her a few yards away before placing her gingerly on the ground. She could feel his eyes working over her body, but she was too distracted by the scene in front of her to notice.
The plane was smashed into the sand, bits and giant pieces of it sprawled about. Ardeth glanced up from the front of the craft in dismay.
"He's dead."
O'Connell gripped her hand lightly, flexing it on her wrist. She glanced at him in confusion.
"Anything feel like it's broken?"
She ran her tongue over her lips, shaking her head numbly. An odd crunching noise caught Ardeth's attention, and he stumbled back from the plane. Jonathan tottered along behind him. Slowly, the plane began to sink into the sand. Somebody was laying his hand on her shoulder, but her mind was too hazy to think about turning to see who it was.
"It's a shame...but it's what he wanted."
O'Connell raised his hand in a salute. And, despite herself, Gretchen did a quick sign of the cross and mumbled what she could remember of the "Hail, Mary."