Panic Button

by Frazer Lee

  Max managed to grab her forearms in defence, but Gwen still had a hold on the axe. Holding it with both hands, she was pushing down on it with all her of her body weight favouring his wounded side. It was almost frightening to her how easy it had been to turn the tables on him. But then, she’d degraded herself in the blink of an eye in the bathroom. The ultimate sacrifice, all for her beloved sister. It was Max or Emily, and her choice was clear. Gwen doubled her efforts and Max gasped from the pain of keeping the axe at bay. She was trying to turn the pick head into his face, meaning to impale him with it.

  The sharp metal was just millimetres from Max’s eyeball, when Jo joined the fray, grabbing Gwen’s arm and trying to wrestle the weapon free. Gwen turned on Jo now, biting down on Jo’s hand and growling like a feral animal, forcing her to let go. Jo cried out as she retrieved her hand and Gwen returned her murderous attention to Max, who was still pinioned beneath her.

  Max grabbed Gwen’s axe arm as tightly as he could, twisting her flesh painfully. She retaliated like a woman possessed, regaining her hold on the axe, and thrust down on it so hard that her knees almost lifted from the floor. The pick blade plunged toward Max’s neck, a hair’s breadth away from his jugular - and stopped.

  Max looked up in disbelief.

  Jo had Gwen in a headlock, arm wrapped around her neck from behind. She was squeezing with all her might.

  “Get-off-him!” Jo hissed through gritted teeth.

  Gwen doubled her efforts, her face turning red as Jo cut off her airway. She shoved as hard as she could with the axe, the blade cutting into Max’s flesh.

  He gasped as a rivulet of blood trickled down his neck.

  Jo tightened her grip, starving Gwen of oxygen. Gwen was struggling to breathe now, her once-sweet face turning from red to beetroot. Jo summoned all of her remaining strength to increase her grip on Gwen’s neck, her nasal passages flooded with the sickly sweet stench of Gwen’s sandalwood and fear.

  Max was unable to move, trapped beneath Gwen’s body, neck at the mercy of the axe’s pick blade.

  Roaring with exertion, Jo pushed her entire body backwards, thrusting with her legs. She fell back, dragging Gwen with her. As they fell, Jo twisted Gwen’s neck in her vice-like grip.

  There was a loud crack, and Gwen fell limp to the floor between Jo’s legs.

  The crash axe clattered to the floor.

  Shock and adrenalin pumping through her system, Jo spider-legged backwards across the cabin floor until her back hit the dividing wall. She sat there, hand clamped to her mouth, and looked at Gwen’s body, mortified.

  She was dead.

  Gasping, Max rubbed at the blood on his neck and clambered to his feet. He sidestepped Gwen’s twisted form and rushed over to embrace Jo; a gesture of thanks - and of comfort.

  “Oh dear, Gwen failed her assignment too.” Alligator’s voice cut through the tense silence, icy cool. “If you’d just died like a good boy then I wouldn’t have to kill her sister.”

  An ominous electronic crackle rattled through the speakers.

  “But you’re still here,” Alligator continued.

  The touch screens flickered to life again, displaying a camera-eye view of Gwen’s sister, Emily, in her concrete prison. She was still tethered to the chair, her hair, skin and clothing drenched with petrol.

  Jo and Max looked on, Alligator’s captive audience, as the cameraman fumbled to light a match. Emily writhed in sheer terror, almost knocking the chair backwards as she watched him try to strike the match a second time. A lens flare blistered across the screen as the match flickered alight. The killer tilted the match carefully, allowing the flame to take hold. Then, he flicked it Emily.

  Whoosh. She was engulfed in flames, writhing and screaming in agony as the fire erupted and blistered the flesh from her bones.

  Jo looked away, feeling sick.

  Max staggered backwards, almost collapsing against one of the seats.

  Their eyes had seen too much - too much cruelty, too much suffering and death - both on, and off, the plane through Alligator’s omnipotent camera eyes.

  “Come now Jo, you’re missing the firework show!” Alligator taunted. “I thought you loved this stuff? Perhaps you’d prefer it if she was a little younger?”

  Jo span around to face the screen. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Oh, I’m just holding up a mirror,” Alligator chuckled. “You may want to take a good look at yourself. We’ve both got blood on our hands.”

  Looking down at her trembling hands, Jo glanced across the cabin at Gwen’s body. Only a few feet away, Gwen’s head lay at a horrible angle, her neck broken. Jo choked at the sight.

  Max’s expression turned from one of horror to rage. He stooped, picking up the axe from the floor and smashed it into his touch screen. The monitor clattered to the floor, sparks flying. He then took a step toward Jo’s screen.

  She held her hands up to him, blocking him.

  “Don’t do it, please! It’s the only way I can see my daughter...”

  Squinting fixated at the monitor for a moment, Max appeared to lose his focus. His eyes darkened, then he turned to Jo and took a deep breath.

  “You want to see your daughter again?” he asked.

  Jo nodded.

  “Then we have got to get into that luggage compartment.”

  He marched back to the bathroom door, crash axe in hand.

  Jo took Max’s jacket from the armrest of his seat and, crouching, laid it gently over Gwen’s face.

  “I’m sorry Gwen, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Jo whispered.

  Her words would never be enough, but they were all she had to give. Her head throbbed with remorse. In essence, she felt responsible for two deaths. If she had simply allowed Gwen’s fight with Max to take its natural course, then maybe Gwen and her sister would both still be alive. Maybe Gwen would have turned her murderous rage on Jo next; there was no way of knowing if she could have defeated her single-handed. Whatever the case, Max could be her only chance of saving Sophie - she just prayed he had enough time to do what he could.

  She got back on her feet and followed Max to the bathroom.

  The wall panel reverberated with the impact of the crash axe.

  Max was hacking at it, putting all his might into each blow. He imagined the Alligator’s grinning green face on the other side of the wall, pouring all his rage into it. Anger for all the manipulation, mind games and murder, for all those innocent people who had died. He’d be dead too unless he could do something about it.

  Breaking the wall represented that opportunity. Somewhere on the other side was his laptop. He felt sure he could use it to hack into the jet’s network. If he succeeded, cracking the door control for the cockpit wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility. He just had to get the damn thing first. It had to be there - he remembered seeing the stocky luggage guy loading their luggage onto the plane when they handed their phones over to the limousine driver.

  Nice moves, Max thought bitterly, making sure we couldn’t contact the outside world once your damn games started up. Well, I’ll prove you wrong you bastards.

  He visualised his beloved old laptop, standby light winking at him conspiratorially from the confines of his travel bag. Be with you soon, Old Girl, he thought.

  He heaved the axe at the wall panel again. This time it buckled and cracked. Max wrenched the axe free and stared at the wall, not quite believing his eyes.

  The crack in the wall was bleeding.

  Fifteen

  Blood oozed from the crack in the wall inches from Max’s face.

  From the doorway, Jo stared at it too - horror beginning to register on her face. The dark red trickle formed an exclamation mark as it slid down the wall panel, communicating its dreadful warning of something too horrible to imagine.

  Max took a breath and heaved the axe into the air again, smashing at the wall panel with increasingly heavy blows. The wall gave way beneath his attack, and he jabbed at the su
pporting beams with the pick head, weakening them. Dropping the axe, he shouldered the last remnants of the supporting beams and splintered sections of wall, breaking through and stumbling into the cramped luggage compartment.

  It was hot and humid inside, the small interior space baked by the heat of the engines, which rumbled on noisily, either side of him. He took a step forward, sucking in a mouthful of air, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The smell was terrible, made worse by the heat of the engines. It was an affront to the senses, ripe and pungent like rubbish bags of mouldy food left to burst open beneath the glare of a hot sun. Max gagged on the stench and bent his arm over his nose and mouth.

  Behind him in the bathroom, Jo made a sound registering her disgust. She could smell it back there too.

  Max was standing in the rotten belly of the plane. He glanced around at the stacks of suitcases in the scant light from the bathroom. One of the suitcases nearest to him had been torn by the axe blade and was leaking blood.

  “Oh God...” Max said, grabbing the case and dragging it back into the bathroom.

  He crouched and unzipped the case. Jo watched from over his shoulder, hand over her mouth. She looked terrified of what they might discover inside.

  Max lifted the lid of the case, slowly.

  It was crammed to overflowing with black refuse sacks. A mess of blood was oozing from the one the axe had torn. Max needed two hands to work now, trying to keep the contents of his stomach down as the full power of the stink emanating from the case invaded his nostrils. Gritting his teeth he tore open the black bag, widening the bloodied slit to see a clump of dark hair.

  He jumped back in horror.

  Jo cried out through her hand. “What the hell?!”

  Max stared at the hair in disbelief.

  It was matted with blood and protruded through the opening in the bag. He steeled himself and tore away more of the black plastic. Mike’s lifeless eyes stared back at him. Max gagged and coughed.

  He scrambled over to the toilet and lifted the lid, retching his guts up into the bowl. He clambered to his feet and splashed cool water over his face and mouth, regaining his composure.

  Jo stood stock still over the suitcase, looking down at the face, the blood, and those dead eyes.

  “Who is it?” she asked. Her voice was barely audible through her fear.

  “It’s Mike, the real Max’s brother.”

  “That’s impossible... are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” Max tried not to gag again. “It’s him.”

  Jo peered at the man’s face, looking up at her from the bin bag. She remembered the video-cam footage Alligator had shown them. Poor Mike strapped down, his frantic screams as the killer swung the machete down severing his arms.

  “But we saw him. That was live footage, wasn’t it?”

  The penny dropped.

  “They killed them - before we even took off.”

  “Jesus,” Max said, staring at Mike’s blood-smeared face, “We’ve been watching recordings.”

  They both looked over at the pile of suitcases beyond the hole in the wall. Their thought processes were racing in tandem.

  “Do you think... they’re all here?” Jo asked.

  It was a fearsome question and the possibilities were too dreadful to consider. But consider them she must - they’d come this far to uncovering the truth. Max dove through the wall and started dragging cases from the luggage hold into the bathroom. Jo helped him, struggling beneath the weight of the charnel cargo.

  One by one they cleared the area. Max pulled the final case from the back of the compartment, revealing one last remaining item - a human shape wrapped in black bin bags and bound tightly with thick gaffer tape. Max struggled with the dead weight, managing to pull it around until the feet were at the edge of the hole in the wall. Jo grabbed the feet and helped him drag the body out and onto the pile of luggage. Max emerged from the luggage hold, sweating from his exertions. He assisted Jo in propping the body up against the shower cubicle door. They looked at each other in silent consternation.

  Jo turned back to face the bagged body in front of her. She reached out with a trembling hand and tore open the plastic covering the head. Tears gushed from her eyes like a torrent from a broken dam. Two dead eyes gazed back at her, cold, bereft of life and frozen in terror. It was Dawn, her mother. A small entry wound had been punched through her forehead, framed by congealed blood.

  “Mum... No, no, no, nooo!”

  Jo’s sobs turned into a strangled scream of anguish. Not her Mum, what had she done to deserve that? Jo’s mind boiled. Then, the further implications of what she was seeing exploded in her brain like a gunshot. Sophie, she thought, ohmygodSophie.

  She tore her gaze from the horrific death mask of her mother’s face and started tearing through the bags and suitcases, unzipping them, frantic; searching.

  Staring down in horror as the vile contents of the luggage were spilled on the bathroom floor, Max grabbed Jo’s shoulder and tried to drag her away. She fought him off and wrenched herself back to her bloody work, fingers already stained dark red. Each and every case was filled to bursting with plastic-wrapped, eviscerated body parts. The need to see, the need to know, Sophie’s fate had overridden Jo’s disgust as she dug through the luggage’s ripe butchery. She knew the merest glimpse of her daughter would unravel the last tenuous strands of her sanity, but she was compelled to search on.

  Max stepped back, distancing himself from Jo and the growing pile of dead cargo.

  He knew the grim purpose to which she had resigned herself and, while it shook him to the core, he had to focus on getting out of this nightmare and off this plane alive. His eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for his bag. It had to be there, somewhere - had to be.

  Then, incongruous amidst the mess of open suitcases and butchered flesh, he saw an elegant little leather pouch. Recognising it as the limousine driver’s, he reached down and grabbed it. Tearing it open, he rooted inside and pulled out a mobile phone. It glistened under the bathroom lights, all fake diamonds and garish pink housing - Gwen’s phone.

  He turned it over in his hand and saw that the screen had been smashed. Max rooted through the pouch and pulled out his own phone, also smashed. He removed the back of the phone and saw an empty space where the SIM card should have been. Their captors hadn’t taken any chances.

  If they’d been so thorough, so efficient, with the phones - then what about his laptop? Had they disabled that too, smashed the hard drive to bits? The thought was too much to bear. He started to rifle through the pile of body bags, looking for his own luggage.

  “Fuck! Where the hell is it!?” he said.

  “I can’t find her!” Jo said, desperate. The stench of human corruption was all around her. There was Dave’s friend Rory, his tattooed arm - hand still connected at the wrist. The same busy hand that had worked the games controller before his attacker blew his brains out across his living room wall. In the next case, Jo’s nostrils protested at the hot meat stink of what was left of Gwen’s sister Emily. Her dismembered body burned to a crisp, eyeballs melted into their sockets. Jo opened another suitcase, engrossed in her frantic search. Sophie had to be there somewhere - she had to be. But the more she searched, Jo found herself looking at the same dead faces, the same severed arms and legs, a second time. There seemed to be so many more body parts than could belong to the people they’d seen killed on their screens. Jo couldn’t be sure, but she hadn’t found any child-sized body parts. It was dreadful to think it, but could she have overlooked Sophie somehow? She was so tiny, just a little girl. Maybe she’d already seen her, but her mind had blocked the trauma of the awful discovery from her very eyes. Her little Pumpkin.