Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' by Robert Vaughan

with a blast of
spray. Chris breathed another quick sigh of relief and exclaimed,
“WHOOO-! Dammit! That was close!”
    As Buddy writhed in tortured silence beside him,
Chris quickly turned to him and said tightly, “You just hold on,
okay? I'll try to get us down as fast as I can!”
    Pulling the throttles back nearly to idle, Chris
swung the plane around above the waves and prepared to land. Only
to realize one small detail- he had no idea how to do it.
    As he frantically cast his gaze about the unfamiliar
craft, his vision again fuzzed over, and in a strange, smeary sort
of black and white montage, he fell again into the dreamy world he
had just returned from.
     
    The shattered debris and pock-marked tarmac flashed
beneath him as Chris, a truncated sigh of relief escaping his lips,
leveled out mere inches above the ground…
     
    The Electra flashed toward the
last trees lining the runway, and Chris looked at the air-speed
indicator- 140. Too fast. Way too fast. He needed to slow down, and quickly.
“Okay... here we go. Flaps. Flaps? Ohh- GREAT! Where the hell are
the flaps?!” Chris closed his eyes, and then suddenly- remembered… Chris’ eyes
snapped open, and his left hand darted to the bright-red crank
wheel just behind the throttle cluster. As he fought to maintain a
straight line, his hand quickly spun the wheel as he counted out,
“Twenty…”
    The nose of the Menehune drifted
alarmingly to the right as Chris continued to spin the flap wheel.
“Easy, eeeasy... ”
Chris coaxed, drifting the lumbering craft back to centerline, as
he counted to himself in finality, “Forty. God, I hope that’s
enough…” The end of the runway flashed beneath him, and Chris
pulled the props all the way to idle and declared aloud, “Okay…
here we go!”
    The plane dropped the remaining feet to the ground,
hitting once, hard, and then settling onto the hard-packed earth,
the tires rumbling loudly as Chris scrambled to reverse props,
quickly shoving the throttles back to full. With a roar of powerful
engines, the Electra began to slow, but the end of the runway and
the sheer drop-off to the sea beyond loomed large in the
windscreen.
    “ Brakes-brakes-brakesbrakesbrakesBRAKES!!!!” he cried, casting
a desperate glance to the deathly-pale form of Buddy beside him as
he fought to control the now wildly fish-tailing craft. With his
eyes half-closed he watched with morbid fascination as his certain
death rapidly approached, and Chris could only hold on and pray as
the ‘Menehune’ slid and slewed from side to side as it raced toward
the jagged rocks at the edge of the island,
“Whoa-whoa-WHOAWHOAWHOAAAAAAH SH-!!!”
    With the end of the world looming,
Chris tried one final desperate manoeuver to forestall the
inevitable. Stomping hard on the left rudder, Chris whipped the
plane around in a neck-snapping 180, at the same time shoving the
props back to normal. With a quick burst of forward power, the tail
of the Electra swung out over the end of the runway- and the
plane stopped, the tail wheel dropping gently to the ground
below.
    Chris slapped at the kill switch, nearly bruising
his hand as he shut the plane down and flung himself back into the
seat, his eyes wide, his voice barely a whisper, crying softly,
“Oh- my- God!”
    A soft mist of ocean spray washed benignly over the
plane as the engines whirred to a stop with a softly gentle ‘Bang!’
and final puff of blue smoke. Only the dulcet sounds of the surf
and a sharp screech of a gull proclaimed the arrival of this
most-unusual flight.
    Immediately in the distance at the end of the
runway, a reddish cloud of dust formed and the dirty-white shape of
an antique ambulance materialized from within it. Chris wiped the
cold sweat from his brow and turned to the barely conscious form of
Buddy beside him. “Hang in there dude! We're down!” he said
anxiously. Scrambling out of the co-pilot’s chair, Chris stumbled
over the scattered cargo littering the floor, completely