"CALL OF THE WILD! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?"
Everyone froze instantly and slowly turned in the direction of their furious teacher. Even Paulina and Sam didn't dare to move. Sam still had a clump of the Latina's hair in her fist and Paulina was getting ready to claw at her, but at the moment they both looked like deers caught in headlights.
"I leave for what, five minutes? And when I come back I find my class acting like a bunch of uncivilized animals?" Mr. Lancer said, eying Sam and Paulina specifically. "Ms. Sanchez, Ms. Manson come with me please."
Lancer turned sharply around and walked out of hearing range before stopping then looking back, waiting for the two girls to catch up.
With one final glare at each other the girls both got up, then stomped off toward Mr. Lancer.
Deciding they didn't want to end up like Paulina and Sam, the students turned to their friends and started to quietly chat.
Tucker let out a low whistle and turned to his half-ghost friend. "Sam's gonna be in for it now!"
Danny nodded. "Yeah, no kidding," he answered while watching his teacher yell at the girls. Although he couldn't hear the conversation he could tell it was unpleasant by the way Paulina stomped her foot and pointed at Sam and how his teacher clenched his teeth and had his arms crossed.
Danny took his eyes off of them to study his surroundings. Things had calmed down since he first came conscious, but everything was still chaotic with about a hundred people looking for loved ones, ways to help, and aimlessly walking around in shock. Something was missing from the scene though. "Why isn't there any help here yet?" Danny asked.
Tucker glanced up from his PDA and looked around with a frown. "I don't know. I can't get any service to call, or even check where we are." He looked back down to his device. "Hey! What gives?"
"What?"
"My PDA, it just shut off!"
"It was probably out of power," Danny said with a shrug.
Tucker shook his head. "It had plenty of power left." His hand reached into his pocket and took out another. "This one's dead too!" He went into his pocket and pulled an iPhone out. "And this!" he cried.
Danny raised an eyebrow and took out his old, cracked flip phone. "Mine's dead too," he said with a perplexed look.
Tucker kept pulling out random electronics from his pockets and backpack. Danny didn't know what some of the stuff was. "Everything," he whimpered, "dead."
"My ghost sense went off before the plane crashed. Meaning this whole mess is some deranged ghost's plan," Danny said, clenching his fists and glaring at the ground. "All this probably just to get back at me," he growled.
"Danny, your eyes," Tucker warned as he looked sympathetically to his friend. Danny blinked and they changed from neon green to their normal blue. "Dude, we don't know that. It could just be a coincidence!" he added hopefully.
Danny looked at him with an eyebrow raised. Tucker sighed and looked away.
"I have detentions everyday after school for a month with Lancer and Paulina," a voice said behind the boys, making them jump in surprise.
"Yeah, well, I think we have a bigger problem at the moment," informed Danny. Sam looked at him with concern, but before her friend could reply Lancer started talking.
"Well, I found the pilot and asked him if there was any help on the way," he sighed, "and he said he didn't know." The teacher stopped for a moment as the class started to whisper to the people next to them. "The pilot said that the transceiver is broken so there is no way they can contact anyone."
"But the airport can track where the plane was before we crashed. So the rescue squad will know where we are…right?" Mikey asked with a hope filled voice.
Lancer shook his head grimly. "That's the problem, the radio went out. Nobody could see the plane on the radars. They turned the plane to the closest airport, but by the time we hit turbulence," Lancer took another deep breath and shook his head. "We were more than seven hundred miles off course."
The entire class gasped in shock. "They are going to form a group to go out and look for civilization. I was going to join them but now that I know I can't leave you unattended," he looked at Sam and then Paulina, "I guess I am going to have to stay here."
By now mostly all the students were talking to their friends about the news they had just heard, until they were interrupted by a man wearing a white button up, black tie, and black slacks, which were all torn and soiled. He also appeared to have dark red splotches on his uniform but it was unclear whether the blood was his or someone else's. "Can everyone come over here, please!" he shouted.
"There's the pilot now," he beckoned his students to follow him. The students quieted down and followed him to where a group of about a hundred people were.
"First things first, I want to sincerely apologize to everyone. My crew and I send our condolences out to everyone and especially those who lost someone."
There were a few sobs heard in the crowd. Danny also noticed some people who did not join the group sitting and or lying in the sand in various areas on the beach. Whether they were too hurt, dead, or just didn't care to join he couldn't tell.
"And I know all of us are scared out of our minds at this point, but we are trying the best we can to figure out what happened," the pilot promised.
"The plane was taken down by the storm. I don't know exactly how, but for now our top priority is getting everyone somewhere safe. We need to start looking for help. There are people with major injuries and we need to get them help as soon as possible. So I will be taking a group to look for any signs of civilization. So any volunteers step up next to me please."
About twenty people volunteered. "Great. Now for the rest of you staying here, if you'd like to help, just try to find luggage from the remains of the plane- just please be careful," the pilot said. "And if you have any questions please ask my co-pilot, Stephen," he gestured towards a man in his late twenties who looked wide-eyed at the pilot and then back at the large group with a hesitant nod and strained smile.
With that the pilot's group of volunteers went into the forest that bordered the beach and half of the people left over massed around the young co-pilot shouting questions and accusations.
Mr. Lancer turned back to all his students, "Come on, we can't just stand here. I may have not allowed you to go on that scouting but that doesn't mean I won't let you help in other ways." The class sighed and walked towards the part of the plane that wasn't on fire, where people were already throwing luggage out of the plane.
Danny, Sam, and Tucker walked toward the plane too, but out of hearing range from their peers and teacher. "So what have you guys figured out?" Sam asked.
"Nothing, all we know is that this was definitely a ghost. I don't know who though, I was knocked out before I could transform," Danny sighed.
"Danny, I know you are going to try to beat yourself up over this, but this isn't your fault," Sam insisted.
Danny gave her an odd look. "If I wasn't on that plane it never would have crashed," he paused and looked over to a row of unmoving bodies. Sam and Tucker cautiously followed his gaze. "People are dead because of me," he stated.
She quickly looked away from the bodies and calmed herself before replying, "No. This is not your fault. Whoever did this, we will find them and they'll pay for what they did."
Tucker looked back at Danny as a couple of people laid another unmoving person down in the sand and nodded weakly in agreement. "Let's just focus on getting out of here and finding the bastard who did this," he growled.
Once again thankful for his friends, he nodded in agreement. "Okay, yeah."
"Hey, geeks!"
Danny turned around to see Dash hovering threateningly above him. "What do you think gives you the right to stand around here doing nothing?" Dash spat in Danny's face. "Here!" the bully shoved a suitcase into Danny's gut, he let out of grunt when the suitcase impacted into his stomach. With that Dash stalked back to the rest of the A-listers.
Danny clenched his teeth and his eyes flashed green as he threw the suitcase to the ground. Tucker and Sam winced seeing his reaction. Sam put a hand on Danny's shoulder.
Danny looked at Sam who just shook her head. "Yeah I know…C'mon let's start helping."
A few hours into the recovery and things had quieted down greatly. There were still sounds coming from the back half of the plane as it continued to disintegrate. People were still crying for various reasons, because they were scared, mourning, or even from the joy of finding someone who was previously thought as dead. A lot of passengers had settled down with their newly found luggage or friends and family were relaxing. Others continued to help the injured and begin to cover up the dead with blankets from the plane and anything else they could use.
Suddenly a shout broke through the air, "Look! They're back!"
Heads turned towards the woods where the volunteers trudged out of. Everybody dropped the things they were doing to rush over to the group of people. The pilot was mobbed with questions. He lift up one hand to silence the crowd and said, "We couldn't find any signs of civilization. From what we can tell we're on a small, isolated island."
The crowd went completely quiet, before exploding in a fury of outrage, fear, and panic.