Arresting Developments Read Free

that might do to his leg or what he might land on. He tilted his head up—or down, depending on how he looked at it—to see what was beneath him.
    The plane had gone sideways and then turned over as it went down. A massive tree had peeled the top back like a can of tuna before dumping him and the Cessna onto the ground below. He supposed he should be grateful to that tree, since it had slowed his descent and saved him from diving nose first into the mud. The thick, now-broken branches had cushioned the fall and were now suspending the cockpit a few feet above the mud. All in all it was a miracle that he’d survived.
    The muddy grass a few feet beneath his head appeared to be clear of debris. If he could work his leg free he could drop down without doing too much more damage. He used his free leg to kick at the metal trapping his right foot. Once, twice, three times. Another sharp pain in his calf was the price of freedom as the metal snapped and broke away. He pulled his knees up to his chest, put his left hand over his head to protect himself, then released his seat belt. He dropped and rolled, coming to rest on his backside.
    He hurriedly shed his shirt and tossed it toward the plane as he shoved himself to his feet. After a quick look around to assess his surroundings, which basically consisted of cypress trees and saw grass, he clopped through the semi-firm ground to the one body of water he could see—a large puddle. Whenever it rained he imagined this whole area would probably be underwater. Right now it was a mixture of soft dirt and soggy bog. He dropped to his knees and sniffed the water to make sure it wasn’t jet fuel. The putrid smell wasn’t pleasant but at least it was biological, not man-made.
    Hating the necessity of it, he cupped the water and used it to scrub his arms and chest and as much of his back as he could reach, ridding himself of the dangerous jet fuel that had coated his torso. Then he sat and yanked his pant leg up to see what, if anything, he could do about his injuries. Blood smeared his skin, but after washing it away he wasn’t all that worried. The bleeding had mostly stopped and the cuts didn’t look too deep. Except for one small puncture wound, mostly his leg had just been scraped, no worse than skinning a knee.
    He dropped his pant leg into place. Now that he was out of danger of being roasted alive, time for his second priority. Getting the heck out of Dodge. He pulled his cell phone out of the clip on his waistband and sent up a silent prayer that the phone wasn’t broken as he typed his pass code to unlock it. But a few minutes later, after turning in every direction, holding the phone up above his head, then down toward the ground, the screen still showed the same thing.
    Zero bars. No service. Useless.
    He shoved it in the holder. Might as well face what he’d so far been avoiding. He drew his gaze up to his plane and groaned. Even though he’d known it was beyond being salvaged from what he’d glimpsed while hanging from the pilot’s seat, seeing the whole thing now was devastating.
    The fixed landing gear pointed up at the sky. One wing was completely sheared off. He didn’t see it anywhere. The other, still attached, was snared in a pile of broken branches. The tail had snapped off and had landed in the mud behind the fuselage. He shook his head in disgust. Not because of the money this would cost him. He could easily absorb the loss. But to see a piece of beautiful machinery destroyed like that was akin to a Monet being wadded up and tossed in the trash. It was a damn shame, a waste.
    He shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky, a beautiful, bright blue unmarred by clouds, with no sign of the mysterious mist that had engulfed the plane right before the engine died. Even if his Mayday call hadn’t gone through, that sky would still soon be dotted with other planes, or helicopters, searching the marsh for him. Because even though he was often lazy about filing flight