The pilots had a rather queasy look on their face dealing with the first-class businesswoman, who seemed to be making a scene, so I headed for the decent-sized group of able-bodied people discussing what to do next.
"Maybe there's some...I dunno, resort in this god-forsaken place. Do we even know if this is an island?" a tanned man in a Hawaiian shirt sulked.
"We're in the middle of the Pacific; but for Hawaii there's basically nothing out here," a gray-haired but fit woman replied.
"We should at least set up some sort of sign for help, like S.O.S." a sharp-looking man with a police haircut suggested.
"Like the crashed plane isn't obvious enough?" an obviously drunk and overweight man snorted.
"We should start getting food and water off the plane, then as much else as we can before dark. Then we need to rig some sort of shelter," I finally piped up, seeing that the group was going nowhere fast. All eyes fell on me.
"And who put you in charge, missy? This ain't no sorority luncheon, just let the men handle this," the drunk idiot spouted off, looking me up and down with bleary eyes. Oh god, there's always one. I ignored him, although I sorely wished someone would kick him in the nuts. From the looks he got, some of the women might just do that later.
"Shouldn't we just leave it on the plane for now? It's not like it's going anywhere," police-haircut asked, at least taking me seriously.
"We have no real way to forecast the weather; one good storm might tear that plane apart. We definitely need the water and other drinks, since there's no guarantee of finding drinkable water here and it'd take a while to rig something to get water. We might not be desperate for food since there are trees and the ocean, but everyone's shaken up, a good meal will settle their nerves a bit. And like I said, the plane isn't in good shape. We should set up a bucket brigade and get as much pulled out of the plane as we can: luggage, tools, even plane parts," I listed off, racking my brain for every castaway story I had read. History major and English minor, do your stuff.
"Well, aren't you Robinson Crusoe. Or maybe my girl Friday?" the drunk leered.
"She's right," the grey-haired woman agreed with me, also ignoring the idiot drunk. "Why don't we do as...what's your name?"
"Tori," I replied.
"I'm Leah. Why don't we do as Tori said for now? At least we won't just be standing around," the gray-haired woman smiled as others in the group nodded.
"Chris," police haircut nodded at me and Leah.
"I'm Devin, but like I said, how do we know there's nothing on this island?" Hawaiian shirt asked, cutting off the introductions.
"The pilots should have some idea of our last known position," I replied, looking over to where the irate lady was strutting away from the pilots towards the treeline. "Why don't I go see if I can get some information from them while you guys set up the brigade line and get a flight attendant to help us? They would know the plane layout best."
The others nodded while the drunk huffed. Turning, I headed towards the pilots, who looked exhausted after their encounter with the irate woman. They looked up nervously as I approached.
"Excuse me, Captain, but we're trying to figure out what we have to get done before dark," I started with the most obvious statement, which seemed to put them a little more at ease. "We wanted to get a better idea of where we are, in case there are other people around, or civilization, or something. Can you tell me where you think we are and what you saw from the air before we crashed?"
The pilots looked at each other, debating how much information to give me. They must have decided it was serious enough to be honest with a girl who looked like she was still in high school, since the co-pilot shrugged, and the pilot turned back towards me.
"According to the last reading we saw, we were still out in the Pacific, hundreds of miles from land, but...," the captain looked nervously at his co-pilot, then turned back to me. "We can't be sure, because the plane was on autopilot, and when the alarms started going off, the first thing we lost was navigation. So we only have a rough idea. However...there shouldn't have been any islands at that point on our route. So we're not sure. But we did see that this is definitely an island. There was ocean in every direction."
So that's that. We were good and lost. Time to get to work. I headed back over to the group, which had set itself up in a line going up the broken wing to a plane door. I saw Chris coming over with a flight attendant in tow.
"It looks like we're on our own for a while. Get as much off the plane as you can," I told him. "I'll be back in a little bit, I just want to.."