Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1)

by Noel J. Hadley

  “Can you give me a jump?” He said. “The help is much appreciated.”

  “Sorry.” I forced a smile. “I’m late as it is.” I opened the driver’s side door, set the bottle of wine and sunflowers in the passenger seat, and started the ignition.

  “It won’t take but twenty-four hours out of your life…if that.” He leaned against the passenger door. With the air conditioner broken, the windows were rolled down. “Look kid, there’s nobody else around for miles. One of these days you may just find yourself waking up naked in Charlie Manson’s truck. You’ll be stranded there all night if you don’t get a jump on things.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said it wouldn’t take but twenty-four hours, if that. There’s nobody else around for miles kid. It’s just you…. and us. No cops, not a single member of the armed forces, and certainly not the savior. Nobody’s gonna help you.” He grinned at me. “Do you know how Sharon Tate died?”

  I pedaled the gas, rocketed the Country Squire into reverse, and slammed into the rear bumper of another car. I think it was another Volkswagen Bus, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d even run over the man’s foot. He grabbed his leg and fell over, swearing profusely, and in the corner of my eye I saw the Pierrot and the grocer exiting double sliding doors. The grocer still clutched his baseball bat, and he looked intent on using it.

  “Hey, that’s my car, man!” The Pierrot flipped me the bird. I didn’t stop to apologize.

  7

  As I waited for the traffic light in the intersection of PCH and Second Street I wrestled with the unlikelihood that this was all some sort of dream. Reality was far too troubling. It was just like the man had said; there was nobody else around. Sure, there were cars planted in various lots. The Marina Pacifica parking lot with its Barnes & Noble and AMC Movie Theater was packed to the brim, as one would expect on July 4th weekend, but nothing was moving because there were no living people to set it in motion. Even the In-N-Out Burger was void of its usual savory smell, and nobody waited in its drive through. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t smell anything. The silence was deafening.

  I flipped stations on my radio, only static. The digital clock read 5:04pm, just as it had in Trader Joe’s. This had to be a dream. But then why was I panting like so? Perspiration filled my armpits and forehead. I desperately needed a drink of water.

  The uneasy vacuum of space-like silence was broken by the sudden intrusion of a rumbling engine. It was a Volkswagen Bus, this one orange in color. It pulled up to the left hand turn lane on PCH and idled. My light turned green. I pushed forward through the intersection, making sure to get a quick look at the driver. Just as I’d feared, it was another Pierrot, and eyeing me too. As soon as I passed under the light and proceeded down Second Street towards Belmont Shore the driver illegally swerved his bus out of the left hand turn lane and swiftly maneuvered behind me. It pulled up within inches of my bumper.

  Another VW Bus, this one painted in psychedelic colors, sputtered along in front of me as I drove over the Second Street Bridge. It slammed on its breaks. I slammed on my breaks, and then the orange Volkswagen Bus slammed on its breaks. As soon as I was wedged in-between them a Pierrot exited his psychedelic vehicle and walked up to my car.

  “You realize this is a no parking zone. I could have you towed,” I told him.

  “Do you have a problem?” He said.

  “You mean with the world as a whole? I don’t know about you, but I’m still rather pissed off over the Spanish Inquisition.”

  “Get out of the car, smart ass.”

  “I hear the only place you’re ever invited is outside.”

  “You have no clue who you’re screwing with.”

  “Wait, this is a joke, right? Because you’re a clown, and I get jokes.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  He fingered for the door handle.

  I shifted gears to reverse, pedaled the gas, ran over his foot and sledge hammered the orange VW behind me. Its horn honked. The Pierrot grabbed his leg and screamed in pain as I shifted gears to drive and pedaled the gas again. I rammed the psychedelic bus in front of me. Another shift into reverse, quick collision, and then I was free. I rammed the Pierrot with the broadside of my front bumper. He toppled over the hood like a flimsy rag, swearing as he went, and ricocheted onto the asphalt. I considered an apology note, but didn’t.

  An entire line-up of traffic lights was stuck on red all the way down Second Street, and not a single functioning automobile on the road (though plenty of cars lined the parking meters). I didn’t stop for any of them. It was still 5:04pm when I charged past my favorite hangout, The Guide Dog, through the final intersection, and slowed to make my turn down Elise’s street.

  No surprise, every parking spot was taken, a dozen of those by Volkswagen Buses. I didn’t even consider finding an open slot around the block. I was too worried about Elise’s safety. I pulled up to her apartment (which was converted from a garage and situated in the back of a much larger house), put the emergency lights on, shut off the engine, and opened the driver’s side door.

  “Elise!” I called out. I heard my own echo.

  No answer.

  The windows of her apartment looked cold and sterile, like there was nothing living within. In fact, every house on the street was void of life. Not a sound, not a smell, not even a breeze. The thought finally occurred to me that I was dead. And this was hell.

  “Elise!” I called her name again. This time I counted seven echoes…. and then a wail.

  8

  The wail was soon followed by a whooping shriek, what sounded to be the nighttime call of a hyena on the safari prowl. The hair on my arms stood on end. It hailed from a dozen houses away and was followed again by another identical sounding creature, probably from the next street over. There were more whooping shrieks to come in varying intervals. I was being hunted.

  It was 5:04pm.

  I heard what sounded like a couple of gurgling engines. Two Volkswagen Buses came to a halt on one end of the street and then the other, both of which appeared to be set up as roadblocks. It was a cat and mouse game. I dashed down the driveway towards Elise’s apartment. The front door was unlocked.

  “Elise!” I called into the living room.

  Nobody responded.

  She had very few articles of furniture but I recognized her clothes. They were scattered as usual in heaps across the floor, like every cardboard box in the apartment had the stomach flew. I called her name in the kitchen and again from the hall. Nobody was in the bathroom. I pulled the shower curtain back. Nothing. Apparently everyone in the world had vanished but me. I considered the next potential scenario. The rapture of the church had been ordered into immediate effect and I was left behind. Except why was I the only one still remaining in Long Beach? My hometown clearly wasn’t that Christian. None of this made any sense.

  From outside of Elise’s apartment the whooping shrieks continued. Whoever was making those sounds, and however many of them there were, they were growing closer. I thought a couple of them might have already been approaching from the driveway. I didn’t stop to peek through her blinds. I was going to break down her bedroom door, call her name once more, and if she wasn’t accounted for, I was getting the hell out of there.

  And then he appeared.

  The man with the EMINOR tattoo opened the door of Elise’s bedroom, gently closed it shut behind him, and walked down the hallway holding a framed picture of my wife in his arms. He was dressed in his usual attire, bowling hat, red suspenders, black leather gloves and all.

  “When I encouraged you to be less chivalrous and paddle the skin canoe, this isn’t at all what I was implying,” he said in his usual slithery Southern tongue.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s gone, Mr. Photographer. It’s just you and me and my friends on the driveway.”

  From outside another whooping shriek let out. The front door opened. A menacing looking individual with a skull pai
nted on his face (he could have modeled as a Day of the Dead cake topper) and chastity belt clamped around his waistline entered. DECADENT, in bold italics, was tattooed across his neck, and two swords were strapped like cross-bones to his back.

  Four others followed him in. The first was a scarecrow, looking very much like Ray Bolger in the 1939 MGM adaptation of the L. Frank Baum novel; only he carried a shotgun. The next individual, and I can’t make this stuff up, looked exactly like the Mad Hatter (or Tom Petty, take your pick) in a top hat, long coat, riding boots and vest. To top it off, he wore a grenade belt across his chest, very eccentric. The next individual wore a two-pronged jester hat with the dualistic black-and-red clothing of a Harlequin. A voyeuristic woman dressed only in silk straps, stockings, and elbow-length gloves (she looked like she came directly out of a Felicien Rops sketching, PORNOCRATES tattooed across her back) was the last to enter. There were six of them altogether, five men, one woman. Everyone wore leather gloves.

  On closer inspection the framed picture of Elise contained a second person. It wasn’t me staring back at the camera. It was Tom at her side, the Representative from the state of California. Elise had her arms around him.

  “Look at them, happy as clams. I found this face down in her drawer,” EMINOR said. “Did you know this picture was taken before she left you?” He lifted a glove to his mouth while he studied it. “It kind of hurts, doesn’t it, to learn that this is what she was doing all those times you were away. I believe we were in New Orleans when it was taken. I kindly invited you as a guest into my humble abode. Green Apple, if you recall.” I tried to ignore the voyeuristic woman in straps of leather as she circled my body letting a tiny whip drag over my back and shoulders. “Imagine my grief to learn that you were not so warm to my friends inside.”

  “They smelt like cheese,” I said.

  “It’s a shame, really.” He gazed at the picture. “She was hiding this before you came over. I wonder where she kept it.”

  He searched her bookshelf over with its many psychology manuals and textbook studies by doctors and contemporary Freudians that I’d never heard of until he found a framed picture of Elise and I. He removed our picture, dropped it on the ground, stabbed it violently with his cane and smudged it with his boot before setting Tom and Elise in its place.

  “No. This can’t be right. I gather she must have kept it by the bed. What do you think of that, Wedding Photographer?”

  “You can imagine my disappointment then, since I voted for him.”

  “That’s funny.” He shook his gloved finger at me. “That’s actually funny.” Then he looked to his friends. “Why aren’t you guys laughing? When I say something is funny, I intend it to be funny.”

  Everyone laughed but me.

  “You guys realize Oz and Wonderland aren’t real, right?” I looked to the Mad Hatter and Scarecrow.

  Their laughing came to an abrupt halt.

  “I hate politicians, don’t you?” EMINOR tightened the corners of his mouth, clutched his cane, and smashed that picture too. “They ruin everything.”

  “You guys have a name before I call up Barnum & Bailey to let them know the freak shows on the loose again?”

  Their leader smiled. “We call ourselves the Lost Boys.” He bowed for me. “At your service.” Upon straightening his body, he transformed his courteous smile into another frown. “Now sit down.” He pointed to a kitchen chair.

  “I’d rather stand.” I looked at PORNOCRATES. “You know, you look just like my great aunt Edith. She died a couple of years ago.”

  The woman pushed me down.

  “Sitting is nice,” I said.

  “We have some things to talk about.” The man in the bowling cap pulled out a chair and sat in it, letting his hands and chin recline on the backrest.

  “You know, the Geneva Convention doesn’t require you to give names, but rank will certainly suffice.”

  “Shut up,” Skull Face said.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.” I told Skull Face. I looked to the others. “Lots of chips, actually. Or maybe it’s just a bad case of dandruff. If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of shampoo do you guys use?”

  “Shut up.” Skull Face formed a fist and pounded his hand.

  “You’re one of those guys who swallows swords for a living.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Have you ever stabbed yourself in the nuts?”

  “How about I stick it up your ass?”

  “Now, now.” EMINOR trickled gloved fingers to settle everyone down. “I think what we all need is a little calm and civility. See here’s the thing. You had your chance with the woman in that picture. You screwed up. We were a little angry about that at first. But we’re past that now.”

  “Do you work for him?” I nudged my chin at the broken picture of the congressman.

  “Shut up,” someone said.

  “Why didn’t you say so? You guys are lobbyists. I get it. I had no idea we were voting on the conduct of Elise’s relationship come this November.”

  Someone knuckled my head from behind.

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s simple. We need you to keep away from her.”

  “Oh, I get it. This is reverse psychology. The more you tell me not to pursue her, the more….”

  Someone beat another blow to the back of my head.

  “Shut up.”

  “Got any Advil?”

  “I had no idea you were such a brassy knob,” EMINOR said. “And that’s fine. You’re certainly not the first.” He pulled a cigar and clipper from his shirt pocket, snipped its head, scratched a match on the heel of his boot, and took the time to light it. The aroma of burning tobacco leaves, in an otherwise odorless void, overpowered my senses. “We have ways of dealing with guys like you. Now take your pants off.”

  He snipped the clipper, cutting nothing but a head of air, but I got the drift.

  “I’m not taking my pants off.”

  Skull Face and the Mad Hatter seized both of my arms.

  “Take your pants off.”

  “How about you take your pants off first and show me how its done?”

  PORNOCRATES bent down on her knees, unbuttoned my jeans, and tugged at them until they slipped off past my ankles. My flip-flops went with them. I fought back the best I could, but my arms were bound. Perspiration dampened my forehead. And then she went for my briefs.

  “I always figured you were more of a boxers sort of man,” EMINOR said.

  “I only regret…” I gasped, short of breath. PORNOCRATES grinned as she pulled them to my knees. “That I have….” I struggled to break free with no avail. Sweat dripped from my forehead and armpits. She freed them from my ankles. “But one wang doodle to give for my country.”

  EMINOR snipped the clipper. “Hold him still.”

  “And maybe when we’re through,” the Mad Hatter finally spoke up. “I’ll finish the job and make you my bitch.”

  The roof of Elise’s apartment creaked. All six members of the Lost Boys stopped, strained their jaws, and glanced up towards the ceiling. A shotgun was raised. Another creak. Someone was up there walking around, and from the tension on their faces I gathered it wasn’t a member of their clan. Another shriek hailed the neighborhood; only this one was multi-faceted. It contained an element of bass and yet simultaneously higher pitched in tenor, almost as though it were a dozen voices blended together. The sky clouded over. A third creak on the ceiling was followed by a soft wind. The sky grew darker.

  And then someone knocked on the door.

  9

  “Shut up.” EMINOR told everyone.

  There was something else now, a low whistle. The tune sounded familiar. I couldn’t place it at first. Was it…. the opening notes to the William Tell Overture? The Lost Boys stared at the door, apparently perplexed by the situation, while the enigma on the front porch continued whistling the hi-ho silver theme to Gioachino Rossini’s last great opera
. That someone knocked again.

  “I’m not exactly Mr. Manners,” I said, “but I gather it’s generally rude to leave the pizza guy standing out on the front porch, especially if he’s got a thirty minutes or less policy to meet.”

  “Shut up.”

  The Mad Hatter cracked the door open…. and then swung it the full width of its hinge. The pizza guy was Michael. I let my mouth hang open with the rest of them. He quickly examined the room, counted all six escaped convicts from Barnum & Bailey’s and noted me with particular interest sitting naked from the waist down in a chair with PORNOCRATES on her knees holding my legs to the floor.

  “How come I never get invited to any of the good parties?” He finally said.

  Michael kneed the Mad Hatter in the groin and flung himself on top of the Scarecrow with the shotgun. The firearm went off, splintering the ceiling. He pronged his fingers into the Scarecrows eyes, retrieved his gun, and cracked him over the skull with the butt of it. I kicked my legs into the woman’s chin and hurled her away. I had time to slip my underwear on while Skull Face wrapped his arms around Michael and thrust him into the bookshelf. The shotgun toppled across the floor. Textbooks tumbled everywhere. Michael reached over Skull Face’s shoulders, pulled both swords from their sheath, and kicked him away. I picked up the kitchen chair and shattered it over the back of his noggin. The harlequin rushed in. Michael slit each side of his neck, barely missing the jugular vein. The harlequin groped his flesh to stop the sudden flow of blood, and a forceful kick sent him spiraling backwards through one of Elise’s windows. Her landlord would be pissed. I’d probably have to pay for that.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Michael said.

  “Hell is right.” I went for my pants.