Flight 3108

By Sharon Mikeworth

Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award 2021

"Just when you think you’ve figured out what will happen next, what new, uncanny obstacle will ignite another flame in Mason’s path, you discover how very wrong you were. The unknown and the known intersect to form new realities in this unique and unpredictable sci-fi thriller." —Seattle Book Review

Mason Tucker, a passenger on a flight from Florida to New Hampshire, believes he is headed for home. But not long after takeoff, the plane hits stormy weather and is forced out over the Bermuda Triangle. There, buffeted by the treacherous elements, the aging airliner encounters a strange, rotating vortex.

Helpless, Mason and his fellow travelers can only hang on and try to survive as they are drawn out of their familiar world and propelled straight into the unknown.

"A fast-paced novel of intrigue, the book takes us through the eyes of Mason, a passenger on a flight from Florida to New Hampshire. Having recently been left by his girlfriend Jess, he is returning home from visiting family. But something goes horribly wrong on the flight, and turbulence leads to going through a wind tunnel with devastating results. In examining what happened and how this strange event affected the passengers, including some who didn't live through it, the book reveals a fascination with the Bermuda Triangle, alternative realities, and other earth forms. The reader will wonder about what reality is and whether or not the passengers on the plane are truly experiencing what they see and what they report.

A well-written story, the narrative glides through the lives of people on the airplane, the Earth, and on other earth forms with creativity, some humor, and with details that enliven the book. For what do Mason's cat, his former girlfriend, an odd weather phenomenon, robots, shootouts, a lifeless planet, advanced technology, Brother Reach's religious messages, ice floes, and a frozen world have in common? The author does excellent work in combining these seemingly unrelated issues in a delightful read through her storytelling ability and with her creative, detailed examination of life and the living. The ending is a beautiful tie-in to the rest of the story. Dubbed a science-fiction book, it goes beyond this genre into the depths of relationships, the reality of events that have historically taken place in the Bermuda Triangle, and into the realm of any good fiction book. It is a quick read and one definitely worth pursuing." --Carol Anderson, US Review of Books

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Mikeworth
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734936506

Sharon Mikeworth

Award-winning author Sharon Mikeworth was born and raised in South Carolina, where she resides today. Before discovering her passion for storytelling, she worked in the computer industry as a programmer, instructor, and tutor. In her spare time when not writing, she can sometimes be found hiking and canoeing in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.

Book preview

Flight 3108

Copyright © 2020 Sharon Mikeworth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

River Nation Publishing

111 N 3rd Street #1021 Smithfield, NC 27577

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-7349365-1-3 (trade paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7349365-0-6  (ebook)

Design and layout by Lighthouse24

Lines from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 1851. Public Domain.

www.sharonmikeworth.com

To Logan

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

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The House on Chestnut Circle (Preview)

Other Books by Sharon Mikeworth

About the Author

1

THERE’S ALWAYS ONE, thought Mason. One loudmouth, one drunk, one drama queen. Or in the case of the skinny twenty-something guy heading his way: one entitled, rude, self-centered millennial. In addition to the mesh bag across his chest, he also had a huge pack on his back he was nearly smacking people in the face with and a small duffel Mason watched him roughly shove a wheeled carry-on out of the way for in the overhead bin.

Mason did have some sympathy for that particular generation thanks to his nephew Cory, who had recently given him a new perspective on their way of thinking. The evening before, he’d reprimanded Cory for honking the horn at a middle-aged lady trying to make a left out of a busy intersection, and his nephew had spat, Some of us don’t have all day. Some of us are going to have to work well into our seventies before we can even think about retiring. Which had given him pause.

But this guy with the backpack, who was now taking up his space as well as most of the legroom beside it, didn’t look as though he’d ever worked the same job for more than a month or two in his life and probably lived off handouts from Mommy and Daddy. And, his dark blond hair had been twisted up into a man bun. And not the kind that was low and messy and even Mason had to admit looked pretty good on some dudes, but a circular knot perched on the top of his head like a small paintbrush. Mason got it. It was all about being badass in a blatantly gender-neutral way. Which was kind of a beautiful thing. But still, a top knot, which never looked good on anyone?

He looked past his only seatmate out the window at the rain blurring the lights of the terminal across the tarmac. He’d enjoyed his stay with his nephew and his sister, Sienna, but he was ready to go home. He didn’t have to be back on the job where he worked managing and overseeing the staff and day-to-day operations of a small private security company—the pay wasn’t super great but it wasn’t bad either—until Monday morning, which gave him the rest of the weekend to get caught up on his laundry and veg on the couch with an ice-cold beer in his hand and Game of Thrones on the TV (he’d only recently got into it after refusing to watch it with Jess for years). What he’d done was wrong, but he’d loved her. Still loved her. He felt himself growing angry again at her callous indifference to him afterwards. Did one mistake wipe out five good years? He’d made one mistake, gone too far, once. One bad night out of hundreds of good ones, and just like that, she’d cut him out of her life. He still couldn’t believe the coldness of it. But still, plainly he had screwed up. He had been justified in his exasperation (in his anger), but he had not been justified in how he’d handled it. How he’d manhandled her, as she’d put it.

His thoughts were ripped away from the past as he became aware of another passenger, a woman who was seventy if she was a day, belatedly making her way down the aisle as one of the flight attendants, the younger one, began closing and securing the door. Though the plane wasn’t anywhere near full, the gray-haired lady was apparently the final passenger.

At last. American Skyways Flight 3108, leaving Fort Lauderdale, Florida and bound for Manchester, New Hampshire, where he had an apartment and a cat named Bruno, was already running almost an hour behind.

Another flight attendant, more mature but still attractive, positioned herself at the front, facing them. The FASTEN SEAT BELT signs were now on and glowing yellow.

Mason heard the gray-haired lady say, You’re going to have to move that bookbag, and realized she’d had the misfortune to reserve the seat beside Manbun.

Backpack, he snapped back at her.

What?

It’s. A. Backpack, he enunciated, still making no move to pick it up. And there’s nowhere else to put it.

Well, I have to have enough room, so would you please—

Just squeeze in, he said.

The safety demonstration is about to begin, the waiting flight attendant interjected. If everyone would please take their seats and fasten their seat belts.

The gray-haired woman, who was probably someone’s grandma and no doubt very much like the poor woman who had the bad luck of being this jerk’s grandmother, stared uncertainly down at the overstuffed pack. As if she could feel Mason’s eyes upon her, she looked over and he was startled to see she seemed on the verge of tears.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He opened his mouth to tell the little shit to move it or he’d move it for him, when the younger attendant came over to help.

Sir, I’m going to need you to move the backpack.

Where should I put it? I think it’s too big for the bin. I could barely fit my other bag.

If it won’t go in then we’ll have to check it.

"I’m not checking it."

Sir—

Here, Mason said, getting up from the aisle seat he’d purposefully chosen. Reaching up, he snatched the smaller bag from the overhead bin, pushed between the attendant and the woman, grabbed the backpack, slung the duffel at the idiot, and then heaved the pack up and into the bin. It was a snug fit but with one good open-handed smack it went in, albeit a little tightly.

There, he said, and gave the older woman a smile.

She returned the smile tremulously and maneuvered herself into her seat, reaching down to place her purse underneath the one in front of her, pointedly not looking at the man-boy who was now staring over at Mason with an absence of expression that still managed to convey the message eat shit quite clearly.

Mason grinned at him to show he wasn’t the least bit bothered by his passive-aggressive show. Two can play your little game. Finally, the twerp made a snort of derision and reached down to stow the duffel.

After the two-minute safety demonstration and a reminder to turn off all electronic devices, the attendants were moving up and down between the passengers, instructing everyone who hadn’t already done so to secure their table trays and bring their seats into an upright position.

Then they were rolling toward the runway.

Mason awoke with a start as the airplane gave a small bounce. They seemed to have caught up with the storm they had been trailing behind since taking off. He could see flashes of lightning streaking across the dark sky through the rain-smeared window. On the other side of the empty space between them, his seatmate, a girl with Asian features who looked around sixteen but was probably older, rested against the window with her eyes closed, trying to sleep. As were most of the other passengers, all except for Manbun who was watching something on his phone. At least he’d brought headphones to use instead of forcing everyone around him to listen.

Giving a small sigh, Mason relaxed back. He’d planned on sleeping through the flight’s duration, but he doubted that was going to happen now.

He’d been plagued by insomnia ever since Jess left. Usually he’d doze off fine, but then he would wake up three or four hours later and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning. Even on the weekends when he didn’t have to be up early for work, he could never drop back off. He would start thinking about everything that had happened and how lonely the apartment was, and no matter how hard he tried to push it away, his mind would keep looping back over and over. Like it was now.

He raised his head and twisted around to look for one of the flight attendants. He wanted to ask for a drink, but neither the stewardesses nor the male crewmember he’d briefly seen were in sight.

The airliner they were flying in didn’t offer in-seat television—going by the worn upholstery and general dated appearance of the cabin, it had to be at least thirty years old. And the tablet he read most of his books on was stashed in his bag, along with the gun he always took with him, which was currently packed in the cargo hold. He needed that drink, and then maybe he’d be able to sleep.

Unbuckling his belt, he stood up, stretching, and moved out into the aisle. His seat was a standard one near the middle of the aircraft. Beside him, a preppy couple in his-and-her suits sat with their heads tilted in opposite directions. Across from Manbun and the older lady, a black woman, head propped on her hand and glasses perched on the end of her nose, leaned away from an obese man taking up the two seats beside her.

The galley was in a niche to the right before the economy section at the rear where the restrooms were also located. As he turned and slowly headed toward it, he checked out the other passengers closest to him. To his right, a young woman with long platinum-blond hair was asleep on the shoulder of a fiftyish man who could be her father but was probably her lover or husband. Across from them, a man, also middle-aged, lounged against the window, asleep with his mouth slightly open beside a woman, possibly his wife—she was about the same age as him and not nearly as pretty as the blonde—who was not leaning on him but trying, unsuccessfully it seemed by her restless shifting, to get comfortable without actually touching him in the barely reclined position the seatbacks allowed.

Behind them a teenage girl with straight black hair and a boy with equally dark side-swept hair were nesting close together as the young tended to do alongside a chunky girl who looked as though she longed to be anywhere but there. And on the other side, a beefy guy with buzzed blond hair sat beside a Hispanic man around forty.

The same age as Mason. Two weeks before Jess moved out, he had said goodbye to his thirties. She had given him a keg of beer and a cake with Lordy, Lordy, Mason’s Forty written across it. It hadn’t seemed like such a big deal that night with his friends surrounding him and a beautiful woman on his arm, all of them carefree, laughing, and joking. But now. Now he was a forty-year-old man who lived alone with a cat. Jess had been more of a dog person and had never really taken to the cat, and so Bruno, who had started off as a stray and now thought he owned Mason as well as his apartment, had also been left behind.

He decided as he passed the emergency exits that he had better use the bathroom first while he was up. He glanced over as he walked by the galley. The older brunette had her back to him, pressing the button on a coffee maker, and the blond attendant was bent over a laptop. She looked up and smiled as he went by. He returned it