True to her deceitful nature, she somehow persuaded the town’s people to feel beholden to her and surreptitiously donate their hard-earned cash to pay for the trip, her last scam.
For living such a life of antipathy, loathing, and deceit, Maxine was chosen to be on Flight 2222 to Argentina.
~~ ~~ ~~
Otto was born in the poorest of neighborhoods. His father was a hard-working man trying to make ends meet, but his mother couldn’t resist harassing him for his measly paycheck. He was a mountain of a man, strong and powerful in his appearance. His wife’s continued intimidation forced him to seek income elsewhere. He was totally against stealing as he was brought up as a religious man and felt guilty even thinking about taking what others had. However, times were hard on him, and just when he thought he could no longer afford to be shackled as a father, he was offered a job by a recruiter from the local crime syndicate.
He was instructed to go to certain local establishments, walk in, mention the boss’ name, receive an envelope, and return them all to an office at the end of the day. In the beginning, his job was ‘temporary’ and not full time, so he had to continue working his shift. He didn’t know what was in the envelope. The owners were very nice and accommodating, so he thought nothing of it. The job paid a heck of a lot more than he was capable of getting anywhere else. He was soon taken on full time, and as Otto grew up, his father used to take him along with him to ‘work.’ Otto loved going with his father, meeting people and being given candy and cakes as he stood by him while the envelope was passed to his dad.
One day when Otto was thirteen, his father was sick, and Otto was told to go to the shops he knew well and pick up the envelopes and bring them home. His father’s sickness was prolonged, and Otto eventually took over for him; however, he was not like his ‘old man.’ He was even bigger and more powerful-looking. He had a mean disposition about him. His presence was, in fact, awe-inspiring, but not in a good way. The proprietors were terribly afraid of him, even though he never threatened them.
Otto got used to this type of reaction from people. He loved how they cowered when he approached. He spoke softly, but if he saw any inkling that he was losing his advantage, his disposition visibly changed, and the person he was addressing would instantly know he was not to be fooled with.
As time went on, the bosses included him in more serious jobs that included risky and precarious situations. He soon realized how much higher up in the organization he had become and how he now had to use physical strength to enforce his intentions. He became a highly dangerous man to be reckoned with. People went out of their way to avoid him, and if they couldn’t, they would give him anything he desired. The bosses loved Otto, and he was promoted almost yearly to positions of power.
Money was never an issue. He was well-paid both by his seniors and other people who wanted him on their side. Mayhem, chaos, fights, maiming others, and even being an accomplice to murder were part of his life, and he was loving it. He took advantage of everyone he could. Money was his only love. He never remarried after his first marriage failed miserably; however, he did have a family as a result—three sons who were estranged. Memories of his mother browbeating his father bothered him tremendously, so he could not risk marrying again and finding out his wife was like his mother again.
Eventually, having achieved one of the highest echelons of the organization, he was no longer physically responsible for the orders he was given. He could relegate them to others lower than he. It was more relaxing and comforting to Otto to know he would be behind the scenes rather than up on the front lines where he could be arrested, prosecuted, and thrown in jail for years. He had successfully avoided all of that, so there was no need to prove his worth anymore.
As a result, Otto essentially sat behind a desk and barked out orders. He ate breakfast, went to work, ate lunch, went back to his office, talked on the telephone, and put out an occasional fire. At the end of the day, he again ate at local restaurants where he was treated as a king—double helpings of food, wine, liquor, cigars, and anything else with which the owners could butter him up. Women ‘adored’ him or had to adore him, and he availed himself of their sexual advances often. Eventually, he was given permission to open a bar, essentially distancing himself from the organization without totally eliminating his job. Otto jumped at the chance and did well in that business. His reputation did help bring others into his ‘Big Guy’ bar, and he knew it and charged people for the right to do so.
His once intimidating, powerful size became an enormous bulging body of flab. His clothes were custom-made. None could be found in department or men’s stores in the city. He was driven everywhere, rarely walked up or down stairs, and always used the elevator. His office desk chair was discarded and replaced with a wide double sofa chair that was elevated on blocks so he could reach the items on the desk. His enormous size was becoming a health detriment, and he knew it. Diets never worked. He had absolutely no willpower to deal with the diet restrictions placed upon him. He lived to eat, not eating to live. Owning a bar and taking liberty with the food and booze didn’t help, either.
His plight was ultimately recognized by his peers and those higher up. He was invited to a meeting where all of this was presented to him. He was thanked profusely for the decades he had put in, rising from a lackey to one of the most powerful, but his journey had come to an end. He was to be put out to pasture, so to speak. It was really not unexpected, but he had one request. He did not want to be embarrassed and forgotten in the town in which he had grown up. He wanted to get out of America and see the world before it became so physically impossible he couldn’t move. As a retirement gift, the organization paid for him to travel the world, knowing full well he would never be bothered by the syndicate. He opted to go to Argentina to start his new journey.
And so, Otto was also chosen as a passenger on Air USA Flight 2222.
~~ ~~ ~~
As you already know, Homer was mean, detestable, and ornery. His life had been a mess, but what you don’t know is his overall addiction. It is not an addiction to drugs. Oh, sure, he smoked marijuana and dabbled in higher drugs such as crack. He was smart enough to stay away from heroin. He never liked the idea of needles. As a kid he was terrified by the vaccination shots for diphtheria, measles, and pertussis. He’d fainted a few times as a teenager when receiving a tetanus shot after cutting himself on a rusty object. He never remembered when he got the last shot, so when asked, he couldn’t tell the nurses or doctors. Then, he would have to get another. It was pure torture just to see a needle, so it wasn’t any problem to avoid shooting up even when his friends pressured him.
His addiction wasn’t with alcohol, either. In fact, he despised people who were drinkers. He abhorred the drunks he’d see stumbling out of bars or laying prostrate on the ground. He often wished those ‘dead drunk’ people were really dead. What use were they to anybody? Of what use were they to the world? He actually found it difficult to even drink a beer. If he was hot enough—‘dripping sweat’ hot enough, that is—he enjoyed an ice-cold beer, but only one. He could not understand drinking bottle after bottle of beer just to drink it. It made no sense to him, and when others did, they either got obnoxiously funny or terribly mean and combative. He hated them.
No, Homer’s addiction was arson. Fire had captivated him ever since watching his mother smoke. He used to take her matchbooks, hide in the cellar, and light one after the other just to see the flame. Staring at the flame allowed him to enter another world. The yellow center and the blue halo that would come and go at the end of the match were invigorating. What he loved the most was matchsticks. Their flame lasted for a while because they were long and thicker. He thought the colors were more brilliant that those from the flimsy thin paper ones. Then he was introduced to lighters. “What an enlightenment,” he would say when he first rotated the rough circular wheel against the flint. He loved to see the spark grow into a beautiful flame that would last just as long as he wanted.
&nb
sp; It was soon after that he started lighting things on fire. He knew the dangers of fire; therefore, he never lit anything in his room or his house for that matter. He would go into the backyards of other homes, clean out areas of debris, leaves, and any trash. Sitting on the dirt, he lit small pieces of paper he found in the rubble he had cleaned away. Ultimately, the things he lit were larger and larger, and his sickness became a true addiction. He never thought of those people whose lives he destroyed when lighting garages and then homes and watching them burn to the ground in the distance. He would time the fire department’s arrivals and keep a journal of their times of response and the time it took to battle and put out the blaze.
He knew this was a real mental problem and he had actually studied what made people pyromaniacs. He liked the word but felt the word ‘torch’ was better suited to him. Studies had revealed that most people like himself set fires for self-gratification or as a release of tension from their daily lives. His tension was from his entire life, especially flipping burgers with other ne’er-do-wells. He knew some pyromaniacs were paranoid and psychotic, but he did not lump himself in their category at all. After all, he was not insane, he just liked fire.
He never made a concerted effort to expand his knowledge of fuels, which items burned the fastest, which ones burned the hottest or other more esoteric categories. He knew the object to set ablaze needed lots of air and sufficient fuel to get the job done. There was no reason to use some complicated method to start the fire, such as some remote igniting device used from afar, just enough fuel and a good, long-lasting flame. Then, all he had to do was find a floor or deck next to a flammable wall. Sheetrock walls did not burn well. He wanted the fire to start with wood paneling and in a room with sofas and chairs of wood. Once he could see it was proceeding, he could leave the premises and know it would go well.
Overall, Homer did not think he ever killed anyone in his fires. Granted, he didn’t stay around too long to find out, but he did read the papers the next several days after and tried to follow the story. To his knowledge, he never read about anyone dying because of his actions. This made him feel better about himself.
On his last arson, he chose a bigger building than the small homes he had been using. It was his workplace, the burger place. He hated the manager and some of his fellow employees, and his anxiety was at its highest when he left every night. The problem was, he had brick and cinderblock to work with rather than a wood structure, necessitating more fuel and being there longer. He thought he had been identified by some people who happened to be around the back of the building just after he lit the fire, so he gathered up some belongings in an old duffle bag and decided to leave the country. He had never thought where he would go. Argentina just popped into his mind, so he tried booking a flight the next day.
Air USA, luckily, had one seat left on Fight 2222.
~~ ~~ ~~
Kimberly’s background had only been covered superficially earlier with her relationship with Alice and Dave. Trusting anyone getting close to her was something she desperately wanted but never seemed to accept due to her psyche self within. She was hardheaded, for sure. This trait became evident when she was barely a teenager. In school, she was bullied, sometimes unmercifully by a group of girls who thought they were the most beautiful, talented, and smart. Kimberly initially did not fight back, figuring they would eventually leave her alone, but that didn’t happen. It only got worse. One of the girls, unknown to the others, befriended her once in a mall where they both were shopping while their parents waited for them. She seemed so honest and forthright in wanting to be her friend. Subsequently, this girl, Stephanie, secretly met with Kimberly, and they developed a close relationship, sharing their most deep and personal thoughts, feelings, and secrets. Kimberly felt a special bond existed between them.
After a while, Steph asked her if she would come to a meeting where she would introduce her to the group of girls she was a part of, the ones who’d once bullied her. Kimberly had not been bothered by them ever since striking up a rapport with Steph. She felt that Steph would be her liaison into the group and that her life was going to be so much better from then on. At the meeting, Kimberly was welcomed and hugged and thoroughly accepted; at least, that’s what she thought. Suddenly, things changed, and the other girls started snickering and laughing as they presented a slide show of Kimberly’s life with photos and quotes. The photos were taken with her partially undressed by Steph in her home while they were exploring each other’s bodies. The quotes were words she had never said to anyone in her life other than Steph. The entire time she was being humiliated, Steph stood by the projector and laughed and giggled. She replayed the photos and spoke the words of Kimberly’s quotes repetitively. Kimberly was utterly disgraced in front of her peers. She felt shame like she never had before and ran from the room in tears.
For weeks thereafter, she plotted her revenge. It all started with simply slashing the tires of those girls’ bikes, all lined up and locked in place at the school. Then, she poured liquid soap into their water bottles and spread red glitter in their lockers with a syringe. She made posters which said: Having a Bad Day? Call this number and take it out on me!
Of course, the number was that of each girl of the group who had been present at her humiliation. She soon added to the poster: Because I’m a spoiled brat bully and deserve it. Prank calls welcome!
At the bottom of the poster were their numbers in tear-off sheets like the advertisements one sees in grocery stores or the post office.
These antics worked but did not satisfy her obsession to repay those girls for their actions. She stepped up her game over the next year or two by growing into a good-looking woman, appearing older than her age. She had a lovely figure and started to use her new-found physical traits to bolster her reprisals. She flirted with their boyfriends, absolutely intent on breaking up the relationships. She offered the boys oral sex to woo them away from them. She was able to set up a camera in the girls’ locker room and took naked pictures of them and placed them all over the school and the internet, some of which went viral. Still being consumed with anger, she actually hired people to harass her ‘enemies.’ She told them what to do and where to do it, and then she waited in hiding to watch it all happen.
All of this culminated one day when one of the girls committed suicide. Kimberly did not believe her actions caused her to take her life. The girl had had other mental issues, but deep in her mind, Kimberly felt relief that her vengeful activities in the past were part of her demise. Since that time, anyone who crossed her was a target of her twisted mindset; however, all of this was wearing her down mentally as well.
After graduation, this obsession continued in other ways. The girls who’d started it all had disappeared from her life. She became a loner but still tried to entice women and men into relationships and then purposely attempted to damage them psychologically if they strayed from her desires. This was why she opted to become a flight attendant, believing she would be traveling a lot and her abilities to avoid relationships would be enhanced, and she could escape the enclosed world she had built around herself.
Her assignment to Argentina just happened to be on the same day of the other eight passengers, Air USA Flight 2222.
~~ ~~ ~~
Soo Mi’s and Yuto’s confession to the group on the day Helen divulged her life was not the entire story, either. They both had lied. Yuto and Soo Mi were radicals in the making, even when they were children. Yuto could not stand the pomp and strict Japanese traditions. He felt they were all outmoded, archaic, and ridiculous. He rebelled against them most of his life, although he often had to give in to them but not without a fight. His parents were at their wit’s end most of his childhood and teenage years. He hated going to their religious temples and shrines. His parents were of the Shinto culture where they worshipped in the dwellings of Kami, the Shinto gods. There were many sacred objects stored there that are not seen by anybody. They mostly went there to pay their respects and to
pray for good fortune. Yuto could not understand hiding away objects to never be seen by anyone, and to pay respects to these without seeing them made no sense. There were so many times he laughed at the Komainu, a pair of guardian dogs on each side of the temple entrance. He mocked the purification troughs where participants washed their hands and mouths before approaching the main hall. Yuto once dipped his feet in the trough to the horror of others.
His disdain for the Shinto religious culture drove him to Catholicism where he eventually became a Christian. He did this more to punish his parents than believing in God in the beginning. He relished their unhappiness, feeling they deserved it as they had forced Shinto on him. He felt more at ease in the Catholic Church, but again the traditions and rituals bugged him so much he lost interest but maintained his desire to believe in God and Jesus. Granted, he did not really follow or pay attention to the Ten Commandments for he made his parents lives pure hell.
Soo Mi had essentially the same type of background, but she was more outrageous about it. She physically lashed out at her parents. They were Buddhists. Scholarly studies were encouraged when she was young, and meditation and mindfulness to fulfill their lives were always emphasized. Soo Mi would have none of this. She often ran away, only to be found by her family and brought home to endure the horrors of their traditions and rituals. She didn’t care whether people suffered as Buddha had, and, in fact, adopted the three poisons for suffering—Desire, Ignorance, and Hatred—rather than avoiding them. She joined every radical group she could as she grew older and participated in many heinous attacks on religious structures and their representatives.
The Mystery of Flight 2222 Page 17