by M. Lorrox
The image displayed is a photo taken of an old polaroid set on a wooden table. In the polaroid, a woman with black hair and a brilliant smile sits under a tree. “She’s beautiful.”
“She sure was. I almost lost her, but we were given a second chance. It was bliss, but it only lasted a year.”
Jambavan swallows. “She passed away?”
“Mmm-hmm. But that year—it was the best and most wonderful year of my life.”
Okay, why are you telling me this?
Danny closes the image. “Man, I loved her… And I’ve had a lot of time to think about things since she passed. You see, for a long time, I got my mind stuck in that year I had with her. Everything reminded me of her back then, and I enjoyed the sad torture of it. But that’s not how you gotta live. Every day is a new opportunity—a new life.” He chuckles. “I’ll probably be dead and buried before you even really know what love is.” He shrugs. “No offense.”
Jambavan shrugs. “None taken, I guess.”
“But you know there’s something you and I have in common, along with everybody else you see walkin’ around: we know we got today. Tomorrow, anything can happen, but today, today we’re livin’.” He hops off the truck and picks up the flowers. “Gotta keep livin’, no matter how long you live.”
Jambavan’s eyes are wet again, and his breath quivers in his throat. “Hold on.” He wipes his eyes and snorts a snot-laced breath. “Uh, don’t go yet?”
Danny grins. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me drop off these flowers—a hot little number inside named Betty needs ’em, pronto—then I’ll be back. We can take a ride, and you can tell me about your knight.”
Jambavan cries harder and nods.
Ever since July’s and Charlie’s argument—and Eddy’s account of what he saw July’s body do—many of the other team members have stayed awake. To take his mind off the new pair of problems the young vampires sitting in first class add to the mission, Charlie plays poker with Ricochet. A new hand is dealt, and Charlie checks his cards:
Hmm, almost have an ace-high straight. He slides the Five of Clubs out from his hand. “I’ll take one.”
Ricochet switches his toothpick to the other side of his mouth with his tongue. “Just one, eh?” He deals him a card, then checks his own hand. He’s got a full house: tens over eights. “I’ll hold.”
Charlie checks his new card. It’s a Four of Clubs. “Shit.”
Ricochet chuckles. “You never heard of bluffing?”
He tosses his cards down and holds his head. Definitely not when I’ve got nothing, and when you didn’t draw but I did. “What’s that? Some new-fangled, twentieth century rule?”
Ricochet laughs, but it’s interrupted by a voice coming over the plane’s cabin speakers. “Pardon for the interruption. We’re still four to five hours out from Honolulu. Colonel Costanza, please pick up a phone to speak with the cockpit.”
Charlie shrugs and stands with the energy of a defeated man, then he heads downstairs and picks up the handset. “Hello?”
“Colonel Costanza?”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is the copilot. We’ve been sent a notification that someone on the ground is trying to reach you... Were you able to use your Wi-Fi? Apparently, it’s urgent, and you haven’t responded.”
He sighs. “Anything else while you’ve got me on this thing?”
“Uh, no. We’ll make another announcement when we begin our descent.”
“Alright, thank you... Bye.” Charlie hangs up, and he turns his phone on again as he walks back upstairs to the lounge.
Balena is waiting for him at the top of the stairs. “Do you have any new intelligence?”
“Maybe, I’ll know in a second.”
She nods and sits down beside a window. She looks out over clouds lit from the side by the evening’s sun.
Charlie sits in another seat. Before he left, Eddy installed a chat app on the family’s phones because Charlie wouldn’t have cell signal but might have internet. He sees that he has a few chat messages from Sadie there, a message from Skip in his email, and a system notification from the Infinite Vampire app. He opens the chat app and clicks to open the conversation with Sadie.
Skip’s livid, and if this was Eddy’s idea, you should just toss him out the window. That’ll save him from what I threatened him with… We’ll try harder and do better with Minnie.
Anyway, leave them in Hawaii. I bumped into an elder last week who lives there. I’ll see if they can have someone from their house grab the kids from the airport and throw them in a dungeon until this mess is over.
Elders are lining up to ingratiate themselves to me… I much prefer to hold debts than have debts, but whatever, a house on fire can’t function. I’ll let you know what I come up with.
He sends a message back:
It was July’s plan. Eddy said his options were going with her or her disappearing without him. One thing’s for sure, she’s not the June we remember anymore. She’s dangerous, and she knows it.
He checks his email and opens Skip’s message.
Charlie, I don’t know what to say. I wrote and erased a dozen notes already. The only thing that makes me feel a bit better is that you’re there with her. You know what she means to me, and I know how important this mission is. I know you’ll do your best.
I’m sorry.
-Skip
He sighs and writes a response:
No, I’m sorry. As this mission’s leader, anything that happens is my responsibility. They shouldn’t have been able to stowaway, but with the chaos apparently they slipped through the cracks.
I don’t know what I’ll do yet, because I have to prioritize the success of this mission. To be honest, they might be an asset, but if they stay on the mission, they might not make it back. It’s a terrible thought, and I’m sure any of the team would sacrifice themselves to save either of them, but it’s the truth.
We might fail this mission and not come back at all, but you know me, I’m one hell of a stubborn asshole.
I or Sadie will keep you as updated as we can. -Charlie.
He takes a full breath to reset his mind, then he launches the Infinite Vampire app. He enters his password and finds the message. It’s from Lieutenant Colonel Schermer. Okay, what have we got?
Colonel,
New Zealand’s intelligence community has provided some new information. Your plane now has a specific destination, Queenstown, on the south island. There, an agent from New Zealand’s geospatial military intelligence will greet you and brief you, but here’s a summary:
1) We know that whenever Melgaard and Flaxman visited in the past, they were always picked up from Queenstown airport and returned to it by a private helicopter.
2) These flights usually took similar routes, and they’ve been caught on satellite imagery traveling to a mountainside facility, located at -44.860430, 167.614604. It was once accessible by a road, but it’s long since gone.
3) There’s a tower at this facility that extends above the mountains. It looks to have radar, which makes an undetected air assault unfeasible.
4) Your gut was right, I think you’re going to have to climb. Also, I’m looking to see what connections we have with the military there, but I haven’t found any yet and you might be on your own.
-Schermer
Charlie nods. “Now we’re getting somewhere… Balena?”
She pops up from her seat. “Yes, sir?”
Charlie tosses his phone to her. “I want you to come up with as many tactical options as possible. When we’re finally on the ground, I want to get into action as quickly as we can.”
“On it, sir.” The phone vibrates as another message comes in. “Sir?” She holds the phone up.
“Read Schermer’s note a couple times then give my phone back.” He glances at Ricochet. “I’m done playing.”
>
He was already packing up the cards. “No problem, sir.” He moves over to Balena and sits next to her. “Lemme see, too. Pitch ideas and I’ll try and shoot holes through ’em.”
Downstairs in first class, July watches the clouds pass under the airplane. Her eyes are dry, and she blinks a few times. She leans her seat up and heads to the bathroom—the first-class bathroom.
When she opens the door, she frowns. Still small… Smells nicer though. She steps in, closes the door, splashes some water on her face, then she frowns at her reflection in the mirror.
She pulls her Army Combat Uniform top off and stares at the scars on her upper arms, those on her shoulders, and the ones on her chest. I wonder how long until they fade. She reaches her hand up to a scar at the top of her sternum and rubs it. Below it, a double row of scars travel down between her breasts and hide beneath her sports bra.
She rubs harder and feels the heat build in her finger. It would be cool if I could just change them away... Seems like a much easier thing than becoming a wolf. She closes her eyes and focuses on making the scar disappear, and she feels a flash of heat in the spot. She drops her hand and looks. Her tanned skin is red from where she rubbed, and for a moment, she can’t see any trace of the wound.
Then, the red fades, and she sees the scar’s outline. She sighs. I changed just part of my body before, when I ripped that kid’s stomach open. She holds up her hand and focuses on the fingers. Come on, turn into claws again. She clenches the muscles of her hand and extends her fingers. COME ON! She squints and tenses her muscles, then she drops the hand and tries the other one. She flexes her fingers and groans in exertion.
The only thing that changes is that she grows tired of her failure.
Damn it.
In a 1950’s-styled diner in Northern Virginia, an old man in dress clothes and a young man in torn clothes sit in a booth beside a window. Danny points to the old photos of cars hanging on the walls and describes their make, model, and whether he ever drove one. “Times were different back then; you’d go through cars pretty fast, especially if you fixed ’em up and raced ’em like I did.”
Jambavan smiles. “I’ve never owned a car. I’ve driven tons, but none that were mine.” He laughs. “I didn’t ever officially race motorcycles, but growing up in Egypt, they were around, easy to steal, and I did my fair share of racing from angry owners and police.”
Danny laughs. “You and I aren’t that different, after all.”
The waitress approaches, and they both order milkshakes.
Honolulu International Airport is on the south side of Oahu, right next to the naval and air force bases at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Since the zombie outbreak on the west coast of the United States, the military presence here has grown, and it is now the only headquarters for the United States Pacific Fleet. The Air Force utilizes runways at the airport when needed, and so the 747 with Charlie, his team, and their weapons will be landing in a civilian area.
While the plane is still more than an hour out, timers on steel shipping containers placed around Pearl Harbor start counting down from three hundred seconds. One is inside the Navy base near the Government Vehicle Fuel Station, another is inside the Air Force base at the Hickam Vehicle Resale Lot, a third is beside the airport at the rental car parking area, a fourth is between condominium towers at the Honolulu Country Club, another is alongside Aloha Stadium where the “We Will Survive” concert is taking place—and is being broadcast and streamed live—and the last is at a construction site in the center of Pearl City’s vast residential neighborhoods.
At the same time, a half dozen, carry-on sized pieces of luggage explode in unison in the airport. None of the explosions are large enough to do any structural damage to the building, but nails and other pieces of flesh-shredding metal blast into the bodies of the people nearby. All the explosions are small, and only a dozen people are injured by each bomb’s shrapnel. One man dies instantly, but the other injured are immediately cared for by people rushing to their aid.
A thin mist of fog and slightly sweet-smelling smoke fills their lungs, while emergency teams are dispatched.
Five minutes later, the six shipping containers open, each releasing two dozen zombies. Thankfully, the news of the zombies spreads more quickly than they themselves do, but it’s not fast enough to get everyone to safety.
At the concert, a man onstage plays a modern song with vintage tones from a 1966 Gibson J-45 six-string guitar. He gets a few more seconds of the crowd’s undivided attention, and he delivers the last lyrics heard that day: “When every star falls from the sky and every last heart, in the world, breaks—it’s gonna be okay.”
Then the concert goers and the entire city hears the old raid sirens blaring. The guitar player and his band stop performing, and the thousands of people in the crowd start to panic.
In the airplane, a voice comes over the speakers. “There’s a situation on the ground in Honolulu. I need Colonel Costanza immediately.”
He rushes down the stairs and grabs the phone. “I’m here, what’s going on?”
“Explosions at the airport and zombies in the area. They’re grounding all flights according to Zom-Air protocols and launching fighter planes to patrol. They’re allowing flights that are already on approach to land, but they’ve put us in a holding pattern.”
Charlie swears under his breath. “What are the odds?” He squints and gnashes his teeth. “This has got to be because of us! The doctor must have done this because we’re coming for him!”
“I, uh, suppose that’s possible.”
“How the hell else would zombies just appear in Hawaii beside a military base? I’ll tell ya, the same way they just appeared in DC—Melgaard. It’s the simplest answer, Occam’s razorblade. The question is, how did he find out?” Charlie chews on his lip. Maybe somehow through the military… “What about other airports? Can we land someplace else? All we need is fuel.”
“Honolulu is our only option. Kahului Airport is the next biggest, in Maui, but other planes are being sent there, and their runways are shorter. Kahului is reporting a very low air density—they’ve got a high temperature and high humidity right now down there—and we’d need a longer runway under those conditions. If we landed there now, we might be stuck on the ground until the weather changes.”
Charlie shakes his head. “I don’t understand but if Honolulu is the only option, then you need to land there anyway. Tell the military we’re on a mission, damn it!”
“Believe me, I did. They said to circle and wait.”
Eddy runs up to Charlie. “Dad, what’s the deal?”
He can’t help but snarl at his son as he waves for him to wait. “What if there was an emergency? Then would they let us land and make the other planes circle?”
“...I suppose so, but it’s not like we can fake it.”
Charlie sniffs. “I have a feeling there’s about to be a sudden drop in cabin pressure.”
“DO NOT DO THAT! We’re going way too fast, and we’re cruising at 35,000 feet. Loss in pressure now would be devastating.”
Oh. “Well what can I do to make a scene? You know, so they give us landing priority.”
“Well, you could... Hold on, there’s no way I’m going to let you do this, I’ll be totally shit-canned!”
Charlie growls through the phone, “Would they let you land if I ripped this cute cockpit door open and beat the shit out of you?”
“...Sir, you can’t open this door.”
Charlie pulls the mouthpiece an inch from his mouth, but he doesn’t cover the microphone. He stares at the wall in front of him instead of looking at Eddy. “Leo, run to the back and grab a grenade.”
Eddy smiles. He’s been listening to the conversation too.
Charlie doesn’t smile back, but he returns the phone to his mouth.
“WHAT! Jesus, just light a fire! But n
ot a big one. Tell everyone to put on their O2 masks for safety, and for god sakes, don’t start it with an explosion.”
Charlie nods. “Aye-aye, Cap’n.”
“...I’m the copilot.”
Charlie hangs up the phone. Same difference. He looks at his son, and after a moment, resigns his current emotions and frustrations. “Leo, alert everyone on this level that there’s about to be a fire and to grab the oxygen masks when they drop down.”
“Yes, sir!”
Charlie heads upstairs to the lounge, first to tell the knights about the situation and his plan, then to open a few more of those little liquor bottles.
Hector sits at his desk, alone in his office. On a screen to his right, across the top, different views of the facility are displayed. Under them, radar from the tower above the facility is shown. In front of him, another screen shows live images from Honolulu of zombies attacking concert-goers and of people flipping out.
He checks the time, then frowns. On the computer, he clicks to write a message to a pair of his team leaders: Valerie Beran, who is in charge of Remote Zombie Release; and Andre Cojocaru, who manages the Electronic Warfare Group. Hector sends the message:
@Valerie, @Andre, get your asses up to my office immediately.
They both arrive within a few seconds of each other. Valerie, a woman with dreadlocks, folds her arms across her buxom chest. “What’s the problem?”
Hector motions over his shoulder. “First, I’ll say congratulations. I’ll be monitoring the news as it develops, but all the Honolulu devices seem to have gone off without a hitch.”
Andre nods and sticks his hands in his pockets, but Valerie shrugs. “Yeah, of course they did. So why are we up here?”
“I need you both to enact the siege-defense measures around The Plant, and have them online in six hours.”