Saturday Sample and Weekend Writing Warriors

Today I'd like to share an excerpt from my new WIP. I started writing this a few years ago, but I put it aside in favor of other manuscripts. It's time now to pick it back up. I'm struggling to find a title for it, and I don't have a blurb yet, but here's the beginning of the book. If you see anything I need to fix please say so. I've given you ten sentences and a few more to spare.

On Sunday after you finish here you can find more excerpts from a talented group of authors at www.wewriwa.blogspot.com

Last Week

Healy pushed a button on the audio panel.  “Miami International this is Transworld Flight seven niner, four.  Come in, please.”

The radio squawked, but Miami International didn’t answer.  

Healy tried again.  “Miami International this is Transworld Flight seven niner four.  Come in, please.”

The radio remained silent.

“Try Miami Dade,” Brent suggested.

No answer.

Only one thing explained the lack of a response. “The cloud must have damaged the radio,” Brent said. 

Healy cleared his throat. “Yeah, I guess, but ...”

Brent nodded. “I know.  We’ll try it again in a few minutes.  I guess we should make an announcement to the passengers.”

Healy gestured at the audio panel.  “Go ahead.”

Brent accessed the intercom and said, “Ladies and gentlemen this is Captain Holloway.  We’ve made it through the turbulence, and we should be landing at Miami International in ten minutes.  If you sustained any injuries, please report them to the flight attendants.  We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the turbulence.”

Healy was frowning as Brent finished his speech to the passengers.  “I wonder if we aren’t off course,” he said.

“Why would you think that?”

“For one thing we’re getting some kooky navigational readings, and for another look out the window.  I don’t see…look out the window.”

Brent looked and barely suppressed a gasp. “Wh…What is this?” 

The landscape below appeared as a solid, impenetrable, green canopy bordered by a narrow ribbon of sand bars, coral reefs, and islands. Between this ribbon and the mainland, he saw many lakes, rivers, and lagoons.  He spied a few cleared areas but certainly no roads or buildings even though Miami International now lay only five minutes away.

Excerpt: We've picked up at the place where I left off.

Brent shook his head to clear it. “We should be in Miami, but where did it go?”  

“Cities don’t pack up and move,” Healy objected.  “We must be off course.”

“Then we need to get back on course in a hurry.”

Brent pondered the seriousness of their situation.  The plane carried at least one injured person and probably more, the airport didn’t respond to their radio, and they couldn’t find Miami.  They had no idea where they might be because obviously something had happened to their navigational equipment.  They couldn’t stay in the air forever either.

“Let’s send out a distress call,” Frank said.

It couldn’t hurt even though Brent really didn’t expect anyone to answer.  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Transworld Flight seven niner four.  Our last known position was twenty-five degrees forty-two minutes north latitude, seventy-seven degrees fifty minutes west longitude.  We are cruising at an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet with airspeed of five hundred fifty miles per hour.  There are six hundred five souls on board. Our navigational equipment is not responding.  Come in please.”

No one answered.  

“I’ll try it in Spanish,” Brent muttered.

He did so, but the radio remained silent. Even the static and voice fragments were gone.

Brent gave up on the radio. “I think we should find a place to make an emergency landing,” he said.  “We have to be on the ground before dark.”

  “You got that right!” Frank exclaimed. 

They started looking for a cleared place to land.  “If we could find I-95 or US-1 we could try to make a landing there,” Healy said.

“Yeah, Frank, but if we could find those highways, we could find the airport too.  Anyway, you can’t land a plane this big on the highway without killing somebody.”

“Maybe along the beach, then.”