“Hang on a second, okay?” she said.
Ping scurried down the aisle and began reaching across the rows of sick passengers, looking in the storage cubes between the first class seats. As Ping stretched into each row, passengers reached for her, as if she were some angel who might be able to deliver them from evil. She brushed them away with a practiced motion. The poor woman had been dealing with these people for hours.
“Here we go,” Ping said, retrieving a Kindle Fire from one of the compartments. She brought the device to life as she came to the front of the cabin. Using her good hand, she keyed in the crew’s password for in-flight Wi-Fi, then she brought up the web.
“It’s everywhere,” she said. “Not just in China. That’s why Honolulu isn’t answering.”
She turned the device so I could read the headline.
Mystery Illness Takes World By Storm
I grabbed the Kindle from her hand and started reading.
A flu-like ailment has gripped the globe today, with reports of illness in every country of the world.
I scanned through the article, swiping the screen to quickly get to the bottom.
Cold symptoms….so mild authorities were slow to notice the extent of the pandemic…stay inside if you can and get plenty of rest…
“This doesn’t say anything about what’s happening on this plane,” I said. “These people are hardly dealing with mild cold symptoms.”
“Rachel, this article was posted four hours ago,” said Ping. “Four hours ago, everyone on the plane was fine.”
I looked at my watch and was doing the math in my head when we heard the scream. Full-bodied and healthy—it was not at all like the other sounds the passengers were making. We both ran towards it.
I got my first glimpse of the world to come when Ping pushed open the curtain from first class to business. I didn’t believe what I saw. It was too wild a scene to comprehend at first. I pushed closer, getting on the other side of the curtain for an unobstructed view of the horror.
For a moment, none of this was real. For a moment, I was certain that I was still up in the cocoon and this was a nightmare. My brain had taken all the illness on this plane and gone to a very dark place, and now it was time to wake up.
Time to quit seeing what was in front of my eyes.
Captain Jenner, who I had last seen when I deposited his dead body in the galley between first and business, was up again. And he was eating a passenger.
It was a small Chinese woman. The captain had her pinned to the side of a chair and was bending her body backwards over the middle row of seats.
He was ripping at her neck with his teeth.
“Captain Jenner?” said Ping.
He turned to look at us. His face was covered in blood and shards of skin. His white captain’s shirt was soaked in human muck. And his eyes….
His eyes were dead. There was no way around it. This had to be a dream. Captain Jenner was a zombie. A bona fide, flesh-eating, living dead zombie who was looking right at us.
And now coming right for us.
I’d like to say I was the one who turned into a hero at that point, that my pilot’s training and flight hours had given me the nerves of steel I needed to stare down this monster, that I pushed aside the woman who had loved me so completely this past week, and in so doing, kept me from the hyper-infected world for a time.
But that isn’t what happened. I backed away. I didn’t want to. My feet just did it. Captain Jenner was coming for us and I backed away.
Fortunately for me, Ping did not. She reached down, pulled off one of her standard issue red stiletto heels, and jammed it right in Jenner’s eye. He spun to the side and fell on the woman he had just been eating, the both of them collapsing into row 12, landing in the lap of a young man who promptly barfed all over the both of them.
“Ping,” I said. “Oh my God, Ping, are you--”
“Look out!” she shouted, pointing behind me.
I turned just in time to avoid the snapping jaws of the woman in 6A, who was lunging at me like a chained dog, her teeth clicking together as she bit at the air I had just occupied.
“What’s happening?” I shouted.
“What does it look like, Rachel? These passengers are dying, and then they’re waking up again. They’re fucking zombies!”
“Who was that--”
“The woman Jenner was eating? She was one of my helpers. Her boyfriend was the other one. Come on. He was working coach.”
Ping pulled off her other heel and raised it like a knife before pushing open the curtain to coach. I forced my frozen feet to follow her. I was the captain of this plane, goddammit. I would face this crisis head-on like Ping, with courage and dignity and…
What I saw in coach made me scream like a little girl.
There were cannibal feeding frenzies going on all over the cabin. In the emergency exit row, a little girl was feasting on the passenger next to her. Against the back wall, there was blood splattered across the ceiling, and the zombies on either side of a poor old lady were tearing her apart. There was a group of three huddled in the aisle, like vultures ripping at road kill. And front and center, just a few feet away from me, the entire center row had a body strewn across their laps and were gnawing it to the bone.
“That’s all of them,” Ping said. “Every healthy person on the plane. The zombies are eating them all.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get to the cockpit.”
“Yeah….okay,” said Ping.
I think she’d finally had enough. Three hours of tending to the sick only to have them all turn out like this…I saw it on Ping’s face. She had given up.
So I took her hand and pulled her back to business class.
We ran right into Roman.
“Angggyayaya! Angyayaya!”
Those were the sounds he made as he reached for my throat with his teeth. It was only because I crashed into him with some momentum, and Ping crashed into me, that he didn’t get a bite. The force of us both pushed him back, and for a second we were about to land in a heap on top of him. I kept that from happening with a strong push from both arms. Roman went tumbling back and tripped over his own feet.
“Get to the other side!” Ping said. “Follow me. Everyone’s out in Row 17.”
Ping had grabbed onto my arm, but I pulled away. I had a different idea. When Roman fell over, I saw it, strapped to the man’s ankle.
The man in 14B with the wavy salt and pepper hair. The air marshal.
When Roman fell, his head had brushed against the air marshal’s ankle, briefly lifting his pants and exposing the 40 caliber pistol that was strapped to his ankle.
Roman was pushing up onto his elbows. Without thinking about it, I jumped right on top of him, stomping my foot into his chest and throwing him back to the ground. With my other foot, I kicked him hard in the side of the head, smashing his skull against the leg of the chair in front of him. I heard a little cracking sound.
So I did it again.
Shouting “Fuck you, Roman!” I booted his head like it was a soccer ball. His neck snapped and his head turned sideways. Two good stomps to the side of the head and he was out.
“Rachel! What are you doing?” Ping yelled.
I heard them coming behind me. The little vulture pod who had been feeding in the aisle, eager for fresh meat. Still standing on Roman’s chest, I grabbed at the pant legs of the air marshal and pulled them up over his knee so I could get at the gun. There was Velcro, there were snaps and leather straps and more Velcro to fumble with. My fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, dancing and shaking in awkward directions. I felt the zombies bearing down on me. I saw their shadows approaching and almost jumped up and ran.
But then it came loose. I had a 40 caliber semiautomatic in my hands, and I’d seen enough zombie movies that I knew just what to do with it.
Boom! Boom!
The two that were right on me, out with bullets to the forehead.
Boom!
Boom!
A zombie against the wall that was half-way out of its seat belt.
Boom!
One good shot to Roman White’s bulbous cranium.
“Let’s go,” I said to Ping.
We ran together down both aisles. I took out three more in first class. Then we got to the cockpit to find First Officer Yost awake again, his arms reaching for us, his head snapping like a hungry bird.
Boom!
Ping undid Yost’s seat belt and he fell to the floor.
“We missed the initial approach,” I said as I took the helm.
“That’s okay,” said Ping. “We shouldn’t bring this mess to the ground.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take us in a couple hundred meters from the shoreline, then put your life vest on and swim. The rest of us need to sink to the bottom of the ocean.”
“Why me?” I said. “I’m sure I’m just as contagious as anyone else.”
Ping raised her arm and looked at the bandage, which was now soaked in blood.
“I don’t feel so good, Rachel.”
As she said the words, I saw things about her I hadn’t noticed in all the commotion, like the beautiful tan color of her skin fading to yellow. Like her hair drenched in sweat. Her eyes going glassy.
Now I was looking at all of her, and I saw a strong, beautiful woman who had been thrown into pure hell, and come out on the other side with her dignity. I focused on her lips…her perfectly plump lips surrounding her tiny mouth...the shiny, red sheen was gone now. Just the real lips remained.
I leaned in fast and kissed them. She tried to pull away, but I grabbed the back of her head and held her close. Eventually, she gave in, and the nightmare around us went away. The cabin behind us full of the undead, the other pilots strewn on the floor with bullet holes in their skulls, the world gone to shit for all we knew, and the two of us were alone for the briefest of moments.
I loved Ping. I loved her for who she was and what she did that day. I loved her for her strength.
I didn’t pull the plane down in the water. When I got over Honolulu, it was clear to me that we weren’t bringing anything to the island they didn’t already have. The headline on the Kindle, the radio silence…it all made sense when I saw the airport.
The landing strip was clogged with the remains of multiple crashes. One of them was still a raging inferno and there was no fire crew there trying to put it out. The freeways all around were a mess of traffic. There were houses on fire. Businesses with windows shattered.
There were herds of people roaming the streets, staggering about with lifeless steps.
Zombies. Honolulu was overrun with them, just like my plane.
I found a strip at Hickam Air Force Base suitable for landing. As I came to a stop, two jeeps and a Humvee pulled up on either side of me, and gunmen in military garb took position at the door.
I didn’t get out right away. By the time I landed, Ping was asleep in the First Officer’s Chair. I fastened her seat belt and waited. It took an hour for her to die, and another hour for her to wake up again. When she did wake up, I didn’t let her stick around for long. I couldn’t bear to see her in that state.
“Goodbye, Ping,” I said.
Boom.
Caleb
A red rash on the face and neck that feels coarse, like sandpaper. Tongue has a white coating with red bumps underneath. Very sore throat…cannot swallow. Enlarged lymph nodes. High fever with chills.
I knew the symptoms of scarlet fever from a book I had read about Abraham Lincoln, whose family was hounded by the disease. But that was the 19th century. These days, your kid gets strep, you take your kid to the doctor, you get an antibiotic, and that’s the end of it. Rarely if ever does a bacterial infection go unchecked anymore. Scarlet fever is an Old World disease that all but disappeared in the modern era.
But Cori had it. There was no doubt in my mind. On Tuesday, when the world came to an end, Cori spent a lot of the day asleep in the back of the truck. On Wednesday she was worse, and her cheeks turned maroon. On Thursday, she had a high fever and a noticeable rash running down her neck. On Friday, the rash progressed down her body and to her arms. There were dark red lines in the bends of her elbows and knees. And the sore throat had progressed so far that she could hardly swallow.
Left unchecked for much longer, the bacteria would get in her spinal column, or her brain, and we wouldn’t be able to save her.
I decided to go into town, thinking I’d take my chances with zombies rather than the bacteria that plagued that poor little girl. Sabrina and I discussed, and we agreed that I would go alone. I would take everything that I needed, and I would come back safe and sound with antibiotics.
At 7:30 in the morning I took the Sequoia down the mountain. I had three cans of gas (both for my use and potentially for bartering), two jugs of water, my GPS, the Colt semi-automatic, one of the Glocks, and a whole lot of ammo.
I found my way to Highway 75 and headed south to Ketchum, Idaho. I saw my first real-life zombie at 75 and Big Wood Drive. He was meandering aimlessly among the trees.
I slowed down for a better look. The zombie didn’t walk so much as shuffle. He dragged his left foot on the ground, like it was hurt. He didn’t have his arms out like Night of the Living Dead, but other than that, he was very much the stereotypical picture of a zombie.
I came to a complete stop and rolled down my window for a clearer look. As soon as the zombie saw my face he became a wholly different being. Snarling and angry, his shuffle turned into a hobbling run. He was coming right at me.
I stayed in place, letting him take a few steps closer. I was mesmerized by the look on in his eyes. How long could this guy have been dead? A day? A day and a half? Does the body really change that quickly?
The guy’s face had lost any semblance of living color. In the morning sun, it was a pale shade of gray, a good match to the asphalt ahead of me. His mouth hung open, and some sort of putrid slime was drooling out of it and all over his shirt.
And his eyes…his eyes were like pearls, glistening and opaque. It seemed like he shouldn’t have been able to see me, what with no pupils or irises.
I stepped on the gas and watched the zombie fade in my rearview mirror, my eyes so glued to him, my mind so fascinated, that I failed to see the zombie right in front of me until it was too late. Slamming the brakes only slowed the car enough that it didn’t throw him, but rather sucked him right under, his body becoming an instant speedbump.
Kerchunk kerchunk.
I slowed to a stop only because my instincts still lived in the past, when you didn’t just run over a human being and drive away. But in my rearview mirror, I watched as this now flattened person pushed himself up, first to his knees, then to his feet, and came after me, as if angry that I had the nerve to run him over.
If ever I needed a wakeup call as to what I was dealing with, that was it. I stomped on the gas pedal and forced myself to look at the road ahead, rather than the strange abominations behind.
A minute later, I was in Ketchum, the sort of quaint little mountain town where I might have spent a Memorial Day weekend in my former life. Driving down Main Street, I literally had to hold my legs closed to keep from wetting myself. The scene was that terrifying.
At least twenty zombies were roaming the main drag, and all of them turned their attention to me and my car. Were it anything other than Cori’s very life at stake, I would have turned around then and there and headed back for the mountains.
But I kept it together enough to keep on driving even as the undead charged me from all directions.
“Fast enough that they can’t catch you, slow enough so you can avoid them,” I said, trying to talk enough courage to myself to keep going. I had the GPS programmed to take me to Sun Valley Drug and Sundries on Washington Avenue. The unit gave an estimated time of arrival at eight fifteen, just two minutes from now. I counted down the
numbered streets aloud as I crossed them.
“10th Avenue,” I said, passing a little girl on my left who got close enough to slap the bumper.
“9th.” I had to swerve to miss a fat guy who was roaming about with no clothes on.
“8th…7th…6th.” A huge mob of them stepped out from behind a tree on 6th Avenue, too quick for me to miss them. I plowed right through it, sending one zombie over my roof and another under my tires.
“Fuck!” I yelled, as I gripped the wheel tight to keep control of the car. I heard something rattling in the back. I had caught something in a rear wheel.
“Ignore it,” I said to myself, now breathing heavy. “Here’s 5th street. And 4th.”
My palms were so sweaty it was hard to keep hold of the wheel.
“Turn right on Sun Valley Road, then turn left on Washington Avenue,” the GPS said in a British lady’s voice.
I did as she commanded, feeling like I was leaving the main drag of the underworld to go deeper into the bowels of Tartarus. The road ahead was clear of zombies so I floored it. The thumping sound from the rear tires came to a stop and I saw behind me that I’d thrown something loose.
It was a woman’s severed head, her long blond hair dancing in the wind as it bounced down the road.
I turned left on Washington, and saw the drugstore on the corner ahead, its spinning neon sign still lit. As I pulled into the parking lot, a dead little boy came around the edge of the store. His head hung to one side, like his neck was broken. I pulled right up to the curb in front of the drug store and grabbed the Colt, taking a breath to steel myself for what I had to do. The little boy was ten feet out and closing. If I hesitated I would lose my advantage.
A quick glance in the mirrors and over my shoulder to make sure it was clear, then I stepped out, leaving the car still running. I raised the rifle to my shoulder, tried to steady my shaking hands, and shot.
The boy fell to the ground, dead for real this time. I took a wide angle to pass around his body.
The front door had been made of glass, but there wasn’t much left to it. Someone, or some thing had smashed their way inside this drugstore already. I stepped through the open doorframe carefully, holding my rifle at the ready.
Zombie Apocalypse Serial #2 Page 8