by Rob Horner
Jesse could imagine this Steve taking the phone away from his ear and presenting it face out and away from himself. There was a low swoosh like something moving through the air, then a faint sound of banging, jittering, clattering. Then the voice came back. “That’s them trying to get in here. The door’s holding and it’ll probably hold until I die of starvation. None of them seem very smart.”
“All right, I’ll call you back once I’m fueled and turned around.”
“Just don’t forget about me,” Steve said, then hung up.
Jesse hefted the bulky flashlight from the pouch by the cockpit seat, telling himself to ignore the tacky stickiness by the housing. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t had time to clean it after using it to knock Ragan out. It didn’t matter because he might need it again.
He told himself that, but it didn’t help.
The keys went into the front pocket of his khaki pants.
They are in your right front pocket, don’t forget them.
With his plane as close as he could get it to the pumps, he walked over and grabbed the red static line near the base. The line made a loud, ratcheting sound as it was drawn out and over to his plane. Every gas station in the country made a big deal about not talking on a cell phone or not smoking around gasoline pumps, but those precautions were silly. Police officers fueled their cars with the engine running, and there were a hundred YouTube videos showing people putting cigarettes out in gasoline without starting a fire.
But when it came to Avgas, the rules applied. Not only was it a no-phone zone, but you had to ground the plane as well, hence the static line.
He also needed the small stepladder next to the pumps, as the gas caps were on the wings. That’s when he would be most vulnerable, while he hung his ass out over the wings of his plane. It couldn’t be helped; all he could do was get it over with as soon as possible.
With the static clamp in place and the stepladder near the wing, he dragged the fuel line out to the plane. He didn’t know if this airport used automatic shut-off pumps like most gas stations or if he would have to be ready to kill the flow when the tank was full, so there he stood, outlined against the brightening morning and visible for anyone to see if they looked.
The rushing/pouring sound of gasoline reminded him that he hadn’t hit a bathroom since the gas station in Oklahoma, back when he first got out of the hospital. Hopefully the maintenance slash locker room would have facilities, otherwise he would relieve himself behind the building before heading to the terminal. For all of Steve’s urgency in getting him to land, Jesse didn’t yet feel the press of time. Steve said he was safe in whatever place he’d holed up in. That meant Jesse could take the time to do everything right on his end.
Best laid plans, and all that.
Chapter 3
“Whoa there,” Jake said, placing a hand on Kim’s shoulder. He had a fine face, square and strong, like the good ol’ boy you wanted with you in a dark alley. He was a little younger, like she’d guessed, maybe late twenties. The hair on his head was dirty blond and hanging limp like a wet mop, though not so long that his bangs covered his eyes. “You’re strapped to the stretcher, Miss. Arms and legs must remain inside the ride at all times, and all that.”
Another man walked at the foot of the rolling bed, one hand towing her behind him. His blue coveralls stretched at his broad shoulders and speckles of gray dotted his dark hair.
Jake wore the same coveralls, but she could see the dark name badge on his chest, silver wings embossed over his name. They must be flight crew overalls.
“We’re almost to the CT room,” Greg said from in front. “Neurologist here wanted a STAT study with perfusion.”
“That means they’re going to scan your head again,” Jake offered, “but they’re going to do it while they run contrast. Make sure there’s nothing wrong with that pretty noggin’ of yours.” He smiled down while he spoke, but there was a shifting of his eyes which spoke to an inner nervousness. Things must be a lot worse than they felt.
She’d gotten her bell rung, but it couldn’t be all that bad, right? The headache was all but gone and yeah, her left arm still had an uncomfortable heat to it, but it wasn’t bad at all, not much worse than the little sunburn you sometimes got hanging your arm out the window while you drove.
Jake turned away, maybe watching where they were going. Because his arms were still on the stretcher, adding some pull and guidance, the big muscles and veins stood out on the left side of his neck. Kimmy had always liked seeing the veins in a guy’s neck stand out. It showed a man at work, building up a sweat. She liked it when Jesse squatted down to tighten some doodad or bee bob on his plane, arms slicked with grease and head craning into an engine compartment, veins just a-poppin out everywhere.
But this Jake…
His looked good for another reason. It wasn’t just sex appeal. There was a sensation of…wrongness. Not bad as in unsexy, but off in a way that maybe she could fix.
All she needed was a better look at his neck, then she’d be able to tell what was wrong and what she needed to do to make him become the man he should be.
Become.
That’s the word she needed. He needed to become.
What a strange way to think about him.
“Big bump,” Greg said, turning to face the foot of the stretcher while his backside pushed against a swinging door. Jake shifted from the side to the head of the bed. Kim tried to follow him with her eyes, but something didn’t feel right when they rolled upward. That uneasy squishiness returned. Pain didn’t flare, but it threatened.
Maybe it was a good idea they were getting the CT after all.
It wasn’t just Jake now; Greg looked yummy, too, and wasn’t that just the strangest way to think of them?
It hit her even as the stretcher jounced over the metal divider.
Not yummy in a euphemistic manner, like a hot to trot twenty-something with a constant dampness between her legs looking at a couple of well-built guys in the weight room. No, they looked tasty in a more literal sense. There was a moisture building, but it was in her mouth, saliva pooling around her teeth as something inside anticipated the taste of their flesh.
The pain in her head was a memory of an injury that might have happened to someone else.
The burning in her arm was the sign post she’d followed in moving from what she was to what she’d become.
Kim waited patiently for the straps to be released, knowing it would happen before the strong flight crew nurses could move her from stretcher to CT table.
There were in the room with the big beige donut, and it wouldn’t be long.
“—saw the images pushed by the hospital,” a new voice said. “Sorry to make you guys bring her all the way here instead of stopping in the ED.”
“No problem, doc,” Jake said, flashing his goofy good-ol-boy grin down at her. “We never mind spending a little extra time with a pretty thing like her.”
Whatever he saw in her face made the grin falter. Was she smiling back at him? She couldn’t tell.
A new face loomed over hers—round glasses over brown eyes, wrinkled cheeks, and a shock of gray like a short-haired Einstein. But his smile was friendly as he said, “Don’t worry, Ms. Duchess. We’re going to take good care of you.”
She tried to smile back and thought to offer a return comment but couldn’t seem to make her mouth move properly. Spittle drooled from the side; she could feel it running down to her ear but didn’t think anything of it.
The caring brown eyes narrowed. “Ms. Duchess? Are you aware you’re drooling?”
Suddenly the two flight crew nurses were back, and now there were three people standing over her with their game faces on, as the saying went. No one smiled.
“She wasn’t like this a minute ago,” Jake said.
“No, she was fully conversant,” Greg affirmed.
“Okay,” the brown-eyed man said. “Get her unstrapped and on the table. Looks like the pressure we saw on the films is
causing some ischemia.”
“You mean she’s stroking?” Jake asked.
“Looks like it,” Greg replied, strong hands fumbling at the leather straps on her chest while the younger nurse got to work at her feet.
Kim watched their drama but didn’t respond. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. She formed words in her mind with which to answer them, but nothing happened when she tried to use them. The idea of having a stroke, of being a prisoner in her own body, possibly forever, should have terrified her.
It was hard to be afraid when this little death was just a phase, a waypoint on the road to becoming.
Then the straps were gone, and the men were on either side of her. “Good grip on this side,” Greg said.
Something balled up the sheet on her right, where Jake stood. “I’ve got her over here.”
“Okay, guys. Headfirst on the table.”
Kim reached up and grabbed for Jake.
Jake was quicker than she anticipated.
She sat up and pushed away from the stretcher in one motion, right hand leading in a desperate grab for the young EMT. For a moment, it looked as though he was going to let her grab him. The protective instinct, the same drive which called him to a life of helping others, surged. He dropped the carry sheet and moved to steady her.
“No!”
But then Greg shouted a warning and those same instincts turned to self-preservation. Kim had no idea what her face looked like, whether pitiful victim or glaring psychotic, but it was enough to make Jake check his motion and step back.
Her swinging arm swished harmlessly through the air even as her lower body dropped. No longer supported by the sheet, her feet struck the floor.
“What the—?” the doctor asked. Then, “Miss…miss? You need to calm down.”
“This what they were talking about, Greg?” Jake asked. He’d backed away a few more steps, no longer in range even if she leapt at him.
“I think so,” Greg said from behind her.
Kim whirled, ready to leap at the older flight nurse, but Greg was well behind her. The only person near enough to grab was the doctor…
“Doc! Watch out!”
Kim turned and launched herself at the neurologist. She had her hands out, fingers curved like talons ready to rend. It didn’t matter to her which she got to first. They would all become.
The doctor managed a single step and then could go no farther. The immobile sliding serving tray of the CT bed arrested him. Had he been moving a little faster, he might have gone ass over teakettle. He still could, if he put a little pep in his step. But the neurologist was one for whom pep had been left behind long ago. Kim reached him, her hands grabbing for his shoulders, her face lunging in at his.
And a heavy weight slammed into her from behind; her face surged forward but instead of her teeth meeting, tearing, biting, it was her forehead which struck somewhere in the vicinity of the neurologist’s nose. The doctor led out a gargled scream as high pitched as a teenager in a haunted house. Strong arms wrapped in a thick, white cloth reached around, jerking her arms down and pinning them to her sides. Then there was a dragging pull, something massive leaning back and pulling her away.
“Get the sheet off the CT table, Jake. Help me hold her!”
It was the larger, older unbecome. That’s who had her!
She jerked and spun, lashing out with her head as her arms struggled to raise the sheet over her shoulders. The back of her head struck the meat of his shoulder; he had his body turned sideways to her, using his hip as a fulcrum to keep her off balance and unable to counter or escape.
The younger unbecome did as he was told, grabbing the unused sheet off the sliding table.
She needed to act. She must help them become.
But the transformation didn’t increase strength; it merely removed a person’s inclination to avoid injury.
Within seconds, Jake and Greg had her trussed and face down on the floor. Somewhere off to the side, the doctor continued to moan and wail.
“Get Security up here, doc,” Greg said. “Tell them to bring cuffs.”
* * * * *
It was deep in the trees, somewhere between one little side street and the next. The branches formed a sort of roof overhead; the sun was up but not much light penetrated. Except for high noon, it would be forever twilight among this mix of old growth and new.
They’d heard a door open and a high voice calling out a pet’s name.
Carolyn stirred, head turning to track the sound, body ready to go after it. For her, the desire to create more become was so strong as to be almost overwhelming.
If not for Bitsy, she would have gone.
Bitsy held her back.
Do not. You will remain with me.
The properties all had fenced in yards, so whatever dog was running around doing its business could not get to them, deep in their protective screen in no man’s land. If something approached, Carolyn would deal with it.
Now that they had found a place to rest, Bitsy discovered her body needed it.
There were differences to the become form which included a surprising freedom from many of the limitations she’d had before. She wouldn’t get as hungry and could subsist on barely anything for a long time, but her body still required rest. How long they would rest was an unknown. The typical human needed at least seven or eight hours.
Would they need less because they were become, or more?
Looking around at the crowding trees still full of summer life, Bitsy found that it didn’t matter. The longer they waited, the more become there would be, and the easier she would find it to travel.
She hoped her father would know that.
Chapter 4
It took almost fifteen minutes to fill both twenty-five-gallon tanks, one on each wing. During the entire process, Jesse saw two cars pass by on the highway outside the airport. He wasn’t a native to the area, so he didn’t know the name or number of the connecting road, only that it appeared to have four lanes and it ran toward the city on the horizon.
More importantly, there was no movement of any kind in or around the airport. No doors banged open or closed. No crazed people came tearing out onto the tarmac or crashed through the windows of the distant terminal. Whatever had happened here, whatever might still be happening, it wasn’t out in the open.
Which left only two places: the small building in the middle of the runway and the larger terminal at the opposite end.
Jesse took another five minutes disconnecting the static line and pulling/towing the plane around in a half-circle, so its nose was pointed back down the runway. The sun was fully up by the time he finished. His shirt was plastered to his back and a thin river of sweat ran between his ass cheeks like the first exploratory finger of a cold-handed proctologist. It was already eighty degrees at seven in the morning. It was going to be a scorcher.
Somewhere to the east, a dazed Austin Wallace trundled up the back roads between Spartanburg and Gaffney, SC, not yet become but well on his way. Of course, Jesse didn’t know anything about him.
“Okay, Steve. Bird’s refueled and pointing to the sky. I’m heading to the break room.”
“All right. The door opens into a lounge, kind of like you’d see in a quick lube oil change place. There are two doors in the opposite wall. Right one leads into the parts warehouse. The left one goes to a small locker room with a his ‘n’ hers. My locker’s number twenty-seven, middle of the wall on the top. I’ll text you the combination soon as we hang up.”
With his flashlight in hand, Jesse strode down the long runway to the small building on the right. Most of the stray vehicles—cars, trucks, SUVs—were parked here, either on the sides of the building or along the runway near it. Every window was closed, but he expected that. You didn’t leave a car window down at a private airfield unless you wanted to risk having the interior of your vehicle filled with blown dust at the end of the day.
The building was steel, as he’d thought, cheap but durable. The door w
as a lighter aluminum painted rust red. Two large windows looked out over the runway. Both had cheap Levolor blinds pulled closed, so he couldn’t get a glimpse inside without opening the door.
Jesse paused for a moment outside the building, listening.
The world turned on its hinges, silent and everlasting.
Steve seemed to think all the “crazy” people were trapped in the terminal with him, struggling to get into the room where he hid.
The hospital didn’t offer much by way of comparison, but the last small-time airport he’d visited sure did.
These people…when they went crazy…they didn’t swarm, at least not in the way he understood the term. Some of them had rushed the ambulance crew, true. But there’d been enough others running everywhere, chasing anyone who still had the get up and go to get up and go. It hadn’t seemed to matter who, as if some consciousness directed the psychos to account for every potential witness, or victim.
Steve didn’t think they were very intelligent.
A thump sounded inside the small building.
What if they were smart enough to not break in and kill him?
A shhh like something sliding across a floor followed the thump.
As long as Steve was alive and well inside a tower with access to—presumably—a computer, a telephone, and definitely a radio transmitter, he could do what any panicked person would do under the circumstances. He could call for help and help would come.
That meant more victims for the…people. More chances for their weird type of insanity to spread.
The thump came again. It wasn’t any closer to the door. No reason for Jesse to already be drawing the heavy flashlight up beside his head, ready to smash it down.
In short, what if they were smart enough to use Steve as bait for a trap?
The slide came after the thump again, like a large man walking with one good leg and dragging a bum pin behind him.
Jesse thought about forgetting the building with its gun inside, forgetting Steve in the terminal. He could turn around, make a beeline for his plane, and be out of there. It wouldn’t be too hard. Just turn off the radio and ignore his phone, at least until he got out of range of the small airport.