by Bobby Akart
Whittaker was both incredulous and concerned. “What? What is that? Three miles round trip? Do they think we’re equipped for aerial refueling? Get me our flight ops on the line now!”
*****
As the airplane banked to the left for its second circuitous trip along the New Jersey coast, Chapman leaned into Isabella and snuck a look out the window. The sun was rising and the weather appeared to be clear.
“I don’t get it. They’ve got us in a holding pattern, and weather doesn’t appear to be a factor.”
“It’s been over thirty minutes,” added Isabella.
Suddenly, a commotion could be heard from the coach section of the aircraft. The business-class flight attendants rushed past their row and entered coach, pulling the curtains together to block the business passengers’ view.
However, the curtains could not mask the excited, loud voices coming from the rear of the aircraft.
“I just caught a signal on my cell phone. All hell’s breaking loose in Europe!”
“Me too. My wife texted me and said Russia started a war with a cyber attack of the power plants.”
“That’s bullshit. I read the French officials blamed it on squirrels!”
The flight attendants could be heard trying to calm down the passengers. As voices grew louder, one of the flight attendants raced up the aisle into the crew galley that separated first class from business. She spoke with a woman who appeared to be the lead flight attendant. After a brief conversation, the lead picked up the phone to contact the flight deck.
The shouting continued, with mostly male passengers arguing about what might be happening in Europe.
“Why would Russia cut off the power?”
“They’re probably about to invade.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. Ask Ukraine.”
“Yeah, Estonia and Georgia, too.”
An older woman asked, “Georgia? My daughter lives in Savannah.”
Chapman shook his head in disbelief and muttered, “You can’t fix stupid.”
Isabella had a puzzled look on his face. “They are wrong and stupid?”
He squeezed her hand and laughed. “They’re all making assumptions and then shouting it out at the top of their lungs like they’re the authority on what happened. None of them are right, and I feel like going back there to straighten them out.”
“Do you like to argue? I mean, debate?” she asked.
“No, not really,” he replied, and then he acknowledged what she meant. “I get your point.”
She rubbed his shoulders. “Like you said, you can’t fix stupid.”
“Good morning, this is Captain Charles Whittaker from the flight deck. As many of you have noticed, we’ve been placed in a temporary holding pattern by the JFK tower. JFK has been temporarily closed to further arrivals for an unknown period of time, so they have been looking for an alternative airport in the region.
“We’ve now been cleared for landing at Teterboro, New Jersey. On behalf of American Airlines, I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you. This is a situation that is totally out of our control, but I can assure you that American will have gate agents to greet you at the departure lounge to assist you in getting back to Queens. At this time, I’d like our flight attendants to stop all cabin service and prepare for landing.”
Chapman sighed. “I don’t know about this.”
“Why?” asked Isabella.
“Teterboro is not that far from JFK, maybe thirty miles. But it’s very small by comparison. This is a big aircraft, and it needs—” Chapman was interrupted by an argument between one of the flight attendants and a male passenger.
“There’s no way that he’ll stop this thing at Teterboro. I know that airport. The runway will never hold it.”
“Please, sir, take your seat. The captain has illuminated the fasten—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that seat belt sign. He needs to understand that the runway is too damned short for a seven-seven-seven. He’s gonna crash and get us all killed!”
It was his last statement that sent the coach-class passengers into a panicked frenzy. People began to demand answers from the flight attendant, and when she didn’t have any, she started screaming at them to calm down and remain in their seats. Chaos ensued.
Several flight attendants raced down the aisle to assist. The first officer, Shields, came back on the aircraft’s communications system and demanded that everyone take their seats. As he spoke, a flight attendant’s voice could be heard begging him to do something to calm the passengers. The entire conversation between the copilot, the captain, and the flight attendant was overheard by the passengers.
Some listened intently to their discussion while many in the coach section argued amongst themselves or with the flight attendants. But somehow, above the fracas, these words by the first officer were heard by everyone—We can’t circle around again, we’ll run out of fuel.
All two hundred twenty-two passengers collectively became unnerved.
Chapter 23
North Lawn
The White House
Washington, DC
Rudy was an ordinary guy. Wife. Two older kids. Georgetown graduate who landed a job within the White House as an administrative aide many years ago. His work ethic and adherence to strict confidentiality practices resulted in a nonpartisan staffer position within the West Wing of the White House through multiple presidential administrations.
He didn’t have any pressures—marital, career, or financial. He did his job. He loved his family. He played golf on Saturdays and worshipped on Sundays.
Then things began to change. Mental things. Unexplainable, head-pounding, I’m-so-confused kinda things.
Rudy quietly went to see his physician assistant, who checked his bloodwork annually and monitored his cholesterol. Routine, mundane, healthy-as-a-horse type stuff.
He complained of headaches that were increasing in frequency. They talked about his diet, caffeine intake, and sleep habits. All of that was a-okay.
Weeks later, Rudy felt compelled to go back when, without his wife’s knowledge, the brutal headache he’d experienced resulted in a blackout episode. He was immediately referred to a neurologist, who spared no expense ringing up Rudy’s government health care plan to look for the root cause of his condition. The results came back.
Nothing. Nada. Zippo.
“Rudy,” the doctor had said, “have you considered taking some time off? Perhaps a little vacay is in order. You know, recharge the batteries.” Blah-blah-blah.
Rudy wasn’t tired. He wasn’t stressed. He didn’t need a vacation. He simply needed relief.
One Saturday, after a round of golf, his wife texted him and told him to pick up a few things from the grocery store. She thought it might be nice to grill some steaks, have a few beers, and relax in the backyard. Since the kids were off at her parents’ lake house for the weekend, she thought it might be nice to spend a little special quality time with her man.
Rudy, the dutiful husband, gladly hustled off to the market and picked out the steaks. Scheele’s Market in Georgetown was having a BOGO sale on rib eyes. Proud of his frugal shopping, he quickly selected his twofer, times two. Four steaks for the price of two. What a deal!
Rudy would never be able to explain why he bought four steaks for two people, not that it mattered because two of them never made it to the house. Something came over him in the car that day. An insatiable hunger that prompted him to pull into a 7-Eleven parking lot and eat the BOGO steaks—raw.
By the time he arrived home, his memory of the Jenny Craig moment, a temporary lapse in judgment characterized by stuffing food in one’s mouth, in which he devoured the raw meat had faded, and so had his constant headache.
In fact, he’d never felt better. Euphoric, in fact. And virile. He made love to his wife like a porn star, and a glorious weekend in the sack was the first of many.
As long as he ate raw meat.
Over the summer leading up to this fateful day, Rudy consumed more and more raw meat. Rib eyes. Always the eye of the rib. Bone in, of course.
His headaches ceased. His constant doctor visits ended. His wife smiled. A lot. And Rudy became a functioning drug addict whose choice of medication was raw meat.
As the summer wore on, and the heat index rose, and the poles shifted, Rudy began to unravel. He felt frustration. Anger. There never was enough meat to consume. Soon he stopped trying to hide his insatiable appetite for raw steak from his family. They began to become concerned, but after two heartfelt attempts to discuss it with Rudy, they gave up because he exploded in rage.
Four days ago, while Rudy was supposedly at work, which he wasn’t since he’d been terminated the week before due to excessive absences, his wife and kids fled their home to the safety of her parents’. She planned on getting a restraining order in addition to filing for divorce.
She never got the chance.
Last night, Rudy made a little road trip to Roanoke, Virginia, to have a discussion with his wife. He thought perhaps dinner and a bottle of wine might smooth things over so she’d come home to him.
Rudy packed a light snack for the four-hour drive to his in-laws’. A Yeti cooler was purchased, as were a dozen rib eyes. As he traveled across the Francis Scott Key Bridge to start his journey, Rudy did the math with remarkable clarity.
“Let me see. Twelve steaks. Four hours. Three per …”
He dipped into the cooler and fumbled with the packaging until he had a piece of the cold, raw meat in his hand. He began to chew. Rudy’s digestive system was in a rage as well. When he chewed on raw meat, the meat didn’t break apart. It stayed like a wad in his mouth until he swallowed it. It moved through his large intestines over a period of thirty-three hours until it passed. He was frequently constipated, which contributed to his inhospitable demeanor.
Two hours later, he was out of steak. So much for intricate calculations. Determined to make things right with his wife, he soldiered on, fighting the rage and headache that began to build as he approached his in-laws’ neighborhood.
He parked across the street and waited, summoning the courage to go inside. He thought of what to say, although he’d rehearsed his opening statement for hours. He simply couldn’t remember. Everything was a blur. One long confusing dream that he replayed over and over, without sleeping.
Just as he was about to exit his car and go inside, his wife appeared on the front porch. She was crying and needed comforting. She got it, from another man. A small, wiry, no-skin-on-the-bones guy was hugging Rudy’s wife.
And he didn’t like it.
The next thirty seconds were straight out of a horror movie. Rudy flung the driver’s door open, raced in front of an oncoming car, and crossed the lawn in a flash. Before his wife and the skinny guy could break their embrace, Rudy had crashed into them.
He hovered over the man, growled and promptly bit off the man’s right cheek.
His wife screamed for help, but that only served to distract Rudy and return his attention to the task at hand—kiss and make up with his bride. Only, he didn’t kiss her. He grabbed her hair, exposed her neck, and bit into her jugular vein, causing her blood to spew all over the soon-to-be-formerly-married couple.
Rudy fell on his knees and howled like a wolf. Madness had overtaken him. The skinny guy made a lame effort to tackle Rudy, an effort that resulted in the man’s death by cannibalism.
He never heard his in-laws scream for help. Nor did he stick around for the police to arrive. His instincts told him to flee, and he did. Without any consciousness of what he had done, or why, he took off for DC. His mind was returning to its new-normal state, one that allowed him to function as long as it was fed.
However, four hours was a long time for Rudy the Unraveled. He needed relief. He needed to eat raw meat. And he wanted to take his next meal at the place where he’d worked until the day he was fired—the White House.
Covered in blood, Rudy managed to reach the White House complex unnoticed by law enforcement. There were several times that the Virginia State Police missed him driving back to DC in his black Prius. Luck was on his side.
He made his way down Seventeenth Street, past McDonald’s and Peet’s Coffee, where he used to be a regular. He ditched the Prius in a fire lane and scampered across Pennsylvania Avenue in a hop-a-long gait that resembled a young girl playing hopscotch in a park.
Then his adrenaline kicked in as he ran under the tree-lined canopy toward the North Lawn. He found what he was looking for—a little snack. Two tourists were casually walking in front of him toward the statue of General Rochambeau, the French general who helped America gain its independence.
Somehow, seeing the Frenchman made him think of steak tartare, which oddly, was a Mongolian dish, not that it mattered. French. Mongolian. The tourists would provide him a welcome snack and energy on the way to his objective.
He lunged at the woman, who was slightly overweight. He sank his teeth into her meaty arms. Her husband tried to fight Rudy off with a camera bag.
It had no effect as the crazed former White House staffer gnawed away at the woman’s flesh.
Screams from bystanders startled Rudy, and he abandoned his appetizer. He fled across Pennsylvania Avenue, ignoring the shouts of the Capitol Police, who were racing in his direction.
Rudy stood on top of a bike rack outside the perimeter fence protecting the North Lawn. He tore off his clothes and reached deep within himself to let out a bloodcurdling yell, hoping to release the demons. Hunks of bloody flesh fell out of his mouth as he triumphantly raised his fists in the air.
Voices. Shouting. They’re coming for me.
His head pounded.
Rudy didn’t hesitate. He jumped onto the fence, ignoring the bands of concertina wire that were designed to block an intruder from climbing over. He felt no pain as his skin was ripped open to the bone.
In a bear-hug motion, he embraced the razor-sharp deterrent and rolled over it, landing with a hard thud on the lush grass. The wire ripped open ribbons of sliced flesh on his chest, across his groin, and down the fronts of his legs, yet he managed to get to his feet.
Rudy was on a mission, although now he didn’t know what it was. He just knew. Once again screaming in a language that even he couldn’t comprehend, he began to run toward the White House.
He ran like the wind, parts of his body falling as he went. The blood loss was incalculable, but somehow his strength remained—even as bullets began to rip into his body.
The Secret Service and Capitol Police moved toward him, methodically plugging round after round into Rudy until finally his life was mercifully over.
At the time, an explanation for his derangement couldn’t be determined. Autopsies and interviews revealed nothing but a troubled man who’d descended into madness. No one thought to consider the profound impact the reversal of Earth’s magnetic field had on the human brain and how it functioned.
No, that would come later.
Chapter 24
The White House
Washington, DC
President Houston was in the Oval Office, arguing with his wife on the phone, when he heard a commotion emanating from his secretary’s office. He was thankful for the distraction, as his mind was focused on matters of state, not the state of his failed marriage.
“What the hell is all the racket?” he shouted after he disconnected the call.
His secretary hustled into his office, followed by two members of his Secret Service detail. They pushed by her and positioned themselves between her and the president, a maneuver that didn’t go unnoticed by the leader of the free world.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“Sir, we have reason to believe a credible threat to your safety exists,” replied one of the agents.
“We’re evacuating the West Wing, sir,” added the other.
“What’s happened?”
“Mr. President, there w
as a breach at the North Lawn. A man scaled the fence and charged the White House until he was killed.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“Um, no, sir,” replied the other member of the detail. “He was naked, sir.”
The president shoved his hands into his pockets and wandered toward the windows behind his desk that overlooked the South Lawn. He despised the unnecessary use of force, even if it was ostensibly used to protect him.
“They shot a naked guy?” he asked sarcastically.
The agent glanced at the secretary and back to the president. “Sir, he was covered with blood. He scaled the concertina wire and it ripped his torso to shreds. The man, um, who was identified as a former West Wing employee, had just attacked a woman on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Attacked?”
“Yes, sir. He tried to eat her arm off before entering the White House grounds.”
“Come on,” began the president, who didn’t appreciate unnecessary drama with the strain he was under. “A naked man, a former staffer who walked these halls, attacked a woman and then crawled over the razor wire installed by the last administration?”
“Yes, sir,” the agent responded. “If I might add, sir, it took nearly fifty rounds to bring him down. He just kept coming toward the building, unfazed.”
The president sighed and made his way to his desk. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He’d dealt with his share of crazies as mayor of San Francisco, and for some reason, California had been a magnet for lunatics since the days of Charles Manson, but this was beyond belief. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your concern for my safety. However, this sounds like an isolated incident that doesn’t require the West Wing to be evacuated.”
“Sir, our orders came from the chief of staff upon advice of the White House Medical Unit.”
President Houston slumped in his chair. He was clearly perplexed and wanted some answers. He barked at his secretary to summon O’Donnell and the White House physician immediately. “Thank you, gentlemen. Please wait outside.”