Tianne watched silently (rare for her) as Marlboro hefted a box of Bibles onto his shoulder and walked out the door to the driveway. Something about his manner lately was bothering her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. I guess all I can do now is pray, she thought.

Marlboro came in for another box. "What, you're not going to help me load the car?" Tianne grabbed two suitcases and walked out to the car.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked as he joined her at the car.

"Of course not! Where would you get that idea?"

"I don't know, you haven't been talking to me much lately..."

"No, no... I'm not mad. Don't be silly." Marlboro consoled Tianne in a manner reminiscent of Frogman consoling Doreen. Of course, Marlboro had never met Frogman...

A completely different scene was playing out at Suki's house. Suki had all of her clothes strewn across her bed, and seven suitcases waited patiently to be filled. "What am I supposed to wear in a jungle?" she asked, frowning.

"How about this?" Brian said, holding up a teeny bikini.

"No! I'll be eaten alive by mosquitoes if I wear that. I need something to cover my skin." She pawed through the pile on her bed again, searching for any insect-proof clothing she might own.

"We have to leave in five minutes if we're going to make our flight," Brian pointed out. Suki gave up and crammed everything into the suitcases.

Pandora was having a peaceful time packing at her apartment. No men around to distract her. God, I hope I meet a man on this vacation.

She threw one last pair of shoes into a bag and lifted the phone to call a taxi. One of these days, she'd have to buy a car. Taxis were convenient, but rather expensive. And sometimes, taxi drivers were less than sociable.

"I'm at thirteen Devil's Fork Road. No, thirteen. THIRTEEN!" Pandora smacked a wall in frustration. This woman was completely deaf, and should not be working as a dispatcher. "Just send me a cab already!"

She hung up violently and went outside to wait for the cab. "Why am I already getting a bad feeling about this?" she muttered.

"You're still sure you want to do this?" Marianna asked Doreen. Doreen nodded. "Well then, girl, take care of yourself. Don't let him get to you." She gave Doreen a warm hug, then stepped back to let the others say goodbye.

"Remember to put up mental blocks if you sense yourself slipping," Dream said quietly as she hugged Doreen goodbye.

"I wish you guys wouldn't worry so much. I can take care of myself- and if I can't, Neil's going to be right there with me." Doreen smiled at Neil, throwing their luggage into the small plane. "Frogman's not going to get me again. I've changed, remember?" Everyone smiled at Doreen.

"Five minutes till takeoff, guys!" shouted Zachariah. "Everyone not on the plane has to be inside!"

"I guess I'd better get on the plane," Doreen said. She endured another round of hugs from the small send-off crowd, then joined the rest of the passengers in the plane.

"I sure hope she'll be okay down there," Marianna said as they walked back to the terminal.

"Don't worry about her," said Alan. "She said she could take care of herself."

"I know, I know..."

Miles above earth, and miles south of Layla:), Ellie made a brief announcement. "This is your pilot speaking."

"HI ELLIE!!" shouted the passengers. Ellie sighed.

"You may now unfasten your seatbelts. My co-pilot will be answering some frequently asked questions in a moment."

"HI ZACHARIAH!!" shouted the passengers. Zachariah cringed.

"Number one: where are the bathrooms on this plane? There is only one bathroom, located at the rear of the plane, and marked with both the 'male' and 'female' symbols. Number two: when is dinner going to be served? Dinner will be sometime over Panama. We'll keep you posted; don't dare ask us."

"ARE WE TO PANAMA YET?" shouted Otto.

A low growling noise came over the PA system, then Zachariah continued with the FAQ. "Number three: what's for dinner? You have a choice between fish, chicken, and the vegetarian meal. It's first come, first serve, so good luck. I don't recommend the fish. Number four: when do we land in Brazil? Right after we fly over Brazil. That is all."

"Magic, this is first class!" Otto said.

"My name is Pandora. I am not a dog. Go away." Otto panned his camera across the rest of the plane.

"You know what's first class? Old Navy," said Doreen.

"Those are nice cargo shorts, Dori," said Neil, staring at the expanse of leg showing below the shorts.

"You'll flip over the price," said Doreen, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle out of her new shorts.

"Prrreoww," growled Suki. Then she back-flipped down the aisle of the tiny plane, landing in Brian's lap.

"Knock it off back there!" shouted Ellie. "You'll flip over the plane!"

"*I* flip over the Passion," put in Tianne, poring over the appropriate section in her Bible.

"You people are such losers," muttered Pandora as she scrunched up in her seat and tried to take a nap.

Otto turned the sound off his camera and zoomed in on Suki and Brian, now completely entangled in each other. Someone made a light gagging noise.

Marlboro considered objecting to the filming, but thought better of it. Most of the passengers on this flight had already made their aversion to the missionaries known. He turned to the window and tried to nap.

"Attention, passengers. This is your pilot. We've run into a little turbulence, so we ask that you remain seated and fasten your seatbelts. Dinner will be served as soon as the turbulence subsides." Ellie clicked off the PA and resumed her attempt to control the bucking plane. "So, how many of 'em you think will actually buckle up?" she asked dryly.

"Marianna's little sister, Pandora. Probably Marlboro and Tianne, unless they have so much faith in God that they don't need seatbelts." Zachariah was studying the gauges in front of him, and trying not to fly into the panel and accidentally hit one of the buttons. "Where did this crazy air come from, anyway?"

"We could have those missionaries ask their God for us."

"Oh, sure. Hey, did you know that every person on Earth has their own personal god?"

"Do they really now?" Ellie grinned.

"Yes, I think a president back in the nineties said, 'It's between me, my wife, and my God,' something like that. I believe that infers that there are many gods, one to each person," Zachariah said.

"Alright, then. But since we're not on Earth right now, we're above it, does that mean there is no God?"

"We should publish these theories!" Zachariah and Ellie laughed heartily. It was a good thing that they did, for it was the last time they would laugh for a long time. Then Ellie lost control of the plane.

Death, a handsome man in a long black robe, strolled through the northern Brazilian rain forest. He was concerned about this plane crash. Two of the passengers had already been... customers. Then their God had snatched them away and given them life again. Death didn't like losing customers- it wasn't like they paid, but it made him look bad when they got away.

Then he sensed their souls. He picked up his pace a little, changed direction slightly, and came upon the crash site just as Tianne was stirring. Damn, Death thought. I was hoping she'd die for good this time.

He was about to approach the motionless Marlboro when Tianne glimpsed him and walked over. "Hey, you're the Angel of Death, aren't you?"

"You can't see me, you aren't dying," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Yeah, I died a few months ago, and when I got resurrected, I was given the ability to see angels. How've you been? You're sorta cute. Do you want to go to a movie sometime? I have a Pooh watch- see?" She held up her wrist before clinging to Death's arm. Death winced and made a small sound of protest. Tianne kept talking. "I just love Pooh. Do you like Pooh? I think you're more of the Eeyore type, actually. Do you like Eeyore? How about Piglet?"

"Tianne?" Marlboro was starting to regain consciousness.

"I think Piglet's cute, because he's short and pink. I think you're cute. Actually, tall, dark and handsome describes you better. Well, I don't know about handsome."

"Tianne."

"Let me under that cowl and I'll tell you how handsome you are." She kept talking as she tried to move Death's hood away from his face. He squirmed in protest.

"Tianne!"

"What IS it, Marlboro?!" she hissed.

"A bit of advice, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead, knock yourself out."

"Don't flirt with Death."

Pandora watched the exchange silently. She had been thrown completely clear of the plane, landing in a soft pile of leaves. She hadn't been knocked unconscious, and wasn't anywhere near close to death (unless she was going to die of boredom, which was always possible), so she wasn't sure how she could see Death. Luckily, she was distracted just after hearing Marlboro's awful advice.

"Me George, you Ursula," she heard a deep voice above her say. A man resembling Brendan Fraser stood there, a vine in hand, wearing nothing but a loincloth.

"No," she said, trying to stand up but finding a huge piece of wood pinning her left ankle. George lifted the wood with one hand and threw it aside. Pandora continued. "I'm Pandora."

"You kidding," George said. "Three forms of ID, please."

Pandora sighed and reached for her wallet. She took out a driver's license, court employee ID, and a credit card. "See?"

"Oh, great," George groaned. "Me get wrong plane- again! Ape sure going to be mad at George..." He turned and walked away.

"Well, anyway, thanks for freeing me from that log!" Pandora called, feeling a little guilty. Would it really have been that bad to be Ursula and hang out with a half-naked man for the rest of her life?

"Yeah, yeah," George muttered in reply before disappearing into the thick underbrush.

Then a lightbulb turned on over Pandora's head. She swatted it away nervously. Ever since that Old Navy parody on the plane, this trip has been like one of those god-awful Naked Gun movies. I wonder what the next parody is... Pandora braced herself.

Otto couldn't believe his good luck. His camera was with him, wherever they'd been thrown after the plane crash, and it was still in working condition. Even better, Suki was losing her clothing and was lying next to Brian in a pool of light. He turned the camera on, focusing on Suki.

Suki stretched, eyes still closed, and through the haze of a lingering concussion felt Brian's presence at her side. She rolled over and draped herself across him, resting her head on his chest. "I can't remember, but you must have been good last night. I'm sore all over."

Then she opened her eyes and noticed the rain forest. "We did it in a jungle?" she asked, smiling in kinky pleasure at Brian's unconscious form.

Otto grinned. This would be a great scene for his next film, Animals of the Jungle. It was supposed to be a documentary of the mating habits of various animals. Otto just preferred to focus on the human animal.

Suki finally noticed Otto behind her, and her skin rippled with goosebumps. She turned slowly, hoping surprise would work to her advantage. Then she attacked.

Luckily for Otto, Brian came to relatively quickly after that, and managed to save both the film and Otto. A few scratches never hurt anyone, at least. "Man, I told you to keep the camera off my girl!"

"Brian, dude, it's prime material!"

"You're supposed to be filming a documentary. Animals. Not people. Not me and Suki." Brian glared at Otto, and after a moment, the shorter man backed down.

"I'm only going along with this because we're stranded here together. I know I couldn't survive alone. I can't even figure out where we are in relation to the plane."

"Plane?" asked Suki. "What plane? And why are we in the middle of the jungle?"

"Suki?" frowned Brian. "Are you alright?"

"Suki? Is that my name?"

Neil, somehow thrown nearly a mile from the crash site, had landed in a tree. Amazingly, no bones were broken, and he wasn't knocked unconscious. He did fall unconscious, though, when he realized what was happening to him. Flying, sans airplane, can be frightening to those normally land-bound.

When he finally came to, draped across a large branch, Neil noticed a faint spiral of blue smoke climbing the sky north of him. It was either the plane, or some sort of civilization, he reasoned, and set off to find it. What he came upon half an hour later was a terribly mangled plane- and two terrified pilots.

As he looked through the scratched windshield, Neil couldn't hear Ellie and Zachariah's words. It was clear that they wanted out of that cockpit, and the only apparent way was through the windshield. If only there was some way to break through it, Neil thought, then saw a large rock. If he could manage to pick it up and just drop it onto the windshield, they would be free. But how to communicate to them to get away from the glass?

Another inspiration hit- Neil hoped he wouldn't be inspired to write a song anytime soon, because he didn't really have time for that kind of inspiration- and he started signing to Ellie what he was going to do. Thank goodness he'd remembered Ellie was proficient in sign language. And for the first time in his life, Neil thanked any and every god there might be that his little sister had been born deaf. The entire family had learned sign, and now it could save two lives.

Ellie nodded her understanding, then signed back that she could smell fuel- there was probably a leak, and a good chance the plane would blow. Could he please get a move on?

Neil hefted the rock and tossed it, the danger of the situation giving him more strength than usual. The glass shattered, flying into the cockpit and around the smushed nose of the plane, and a few large pieces barely missed Zachariah and Ellie. They crawled out cautiously, using a conveniently available blanket to protect themselves from the glass shards.

"Thank you, Neil, thank you!" Ellie cried.

"Where's everyone else? Where's Doreen?" Neil asked as they moved away from the plane.

"I don't know. I expect everyone else was thrown like you were. You were thrown, right?" said Zachariah.

"About a mile. I don't know how I came out of it without any injuries. I landed in a flippin' tree."

"We should probably check the plane, just in case someone else is in there."

"It's going to blow," said Ellie, as usual the voice of sanity surrounded by men.

"I'm going to look." Neil ran back to the plane and wrenched the door open. Night was falling outside, and the inside of the plane was pitch black. Just as Neil saw Doreen, still belted into her seat and bleeding profusely from a gash on her head, the plane exploded. Neil was thrown out of the plane, and Ellie and Zachariah rushed to help him. Doreen was thrown the completely opposite direction...

Ooh, my head, Doreen thought, and tried to voice the words. Her throat was dry, felt like it was covered in fine powder, and only a whispery whine came out.

"Shh, my dear, don't try to talk. Just rest for now." A familiar voice permeated the fog of semi-consciousness in her mind, she felt a cool cloth on her forehead, and she tried to open her eyes. "No, no, there will be enough time for that later. Sleep, now." An arm propped up her head, and a glass was brought to her lips. Something cool and bitter slid down her throat, and she slept again.