by James King
“Fuck sake, take it down...” Dave hissed, “...the sheet... take it down, if it’s having that effect on them.”
Slowly, Ted shook his head, “no... too late... what’s is started is started. We’ll just have to ride it out. And we need that sign out there.”
“Yeah – but did you feel the house? It fucking rocked, man. It swayed. It moved. It - ,”
“It’ll hold,” Ted replied, “it’s stood here for at least two hundred years, so it’ll stand here a sight longer yet. The walls are well built, strong. One hundred percent stone. They’ll last.”
But even as he spoke, Ted felt the house shudder beneath him, as though in horror at the unnatural assault that was being waged against it. Would it really hold? He cast his gaze outward at the sea of bodies. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, as far as the eye could see. It was difficult to see how anything could withstand the force of such an army: not a house, not a person, not the distant fields or woods, nor even the entire world. Everything had changed. Nothing was as it used to be. And even the stout walls of a stone farmhouse that had stood for two hundred years might fall beneath this dreadful new dead age.
“Alright...” said Dave in a dread-soaked voice, “well... if you’re not going to take the sign down, then for pity’s sake at least close the window. I don’t think that I can stand much more of that - ,”
But Dave’s last word was cut short. Because, just at that moment, from somewhere outside, distant but approaching, there came the sound of an engine.
NINE
Ted looked at Dave and Dave looked at Ted. Shaun and Jenny were also silent, their faces intent and peering, heads cocked, listening. Silence reigned in the bedroom, save for the sound of moaning issuing from below, and the sound of Ted’s blood, crashing in his own ears.
And that other sound.
Distant but approaching.
Far off, but none the less there.
The low, buzzing, thrumming sound of an engine...
“No...” said Dave quietly, a slow smile spreading over his face.
“Man, is that...” Shaun began, before trailing off, as though he was unwilling to finish the sentence that he’d started, as though the hope that it would entail would be almost too much to bear.
“It’s far away,” said Jenny, almost as though she were speaking to herself, trying to rationalise what she was hearing, to vocalise the sheer impossibility of it, “...but I think it’s approaching. Oh God, Ted, it is a...”
But again she tailed off as though, like Shaun, she didn’t want to speak of a hope that would almost certainly prove to be illusory.
“Oh God...” Dave suddenly chortled, “...oh God – you only put that sign out less than five minutes ago, Ted, and already... oh God it must have magic powers. Nice going, Ted, nice going!” and Dave balled his right hand into a fist and punched it into the cup of his left hand, the sound sharp and violent in the confines of the bedroom.
“Calm down Dave...” said Jenny, her voice strained, hope tearing at the edges of it, “we don’t know...”
“Yeah, just calm down Dave man,” Shaun chimed in, “I mean, we don’t know do we... we don’t know...”
Ted sensed the hysteria mounting between the three young people, but he ignored it. There was nothing that he could do about it now – or at least, there was nothing that he felt inclined to do about it now. Instead he turned from them, and turned back to the open window, where the sign still fluttered like some forlorn banner of surrender. He stepped up to the window and, doing as best he could to ignore the stench of death, and to ignore the macabre crowds that still surged against the walls, he stuck his head through the window, and listened.
Yes – there it was. The unmistakable sound of an engine. It sounded high, light, buzzing – and he was almost certain that it was coming from the sky. A plane then – or a helicopter. What could it be – police, military, some kind of emergency service aircraft? No – surely that would be hoping for too much. Surely things weren’t going to be resolved so easily. But even if it wasn’t a services aircraft, it was some kind of aircraft, there was somebody out there in the world other than these dead creatures, and just maybe they would see their sign, and just maybe they would act upon it. It was the slenderest of hopes – but that was better than no hope at all.
The sound of the engine became louder yet. Ted peered into the sky, screwing his eyes against the brightness of the sun that was just beginning to make its afternoon journey down to the horizon. He scanned the high, blue expanse, and then, suddenly – there!
A small dot appeared within the blue of the sky, a tiny point that materialised from the firmament and began, slowly, to grow against it.
“There it is!” said Dave who had appeared by Ted’s shoulder, and was likewise peering upward into the sky, his one hand shading his eyes, “there it is, by God Ted,” and he offered Ted’s shoulder a friendly but excited pummel, “you want to tell me we’re not saved – eh – eh! You want to tell me that we’re not honest-to-God saved!”
Ted held his silence, as did the other two. No, Ted did not want to tell Dave that they were saved. He didn’t want to tell anyone that they were saved. All he saw was a small dot emerging against the sky. All he heard was the sound of an engine, distant but approaching. And all he felt, within his heart, was not hope, but a kind of dark and grinding foreboding. There was something wrong about all of this. Maybe it was just Dave’s ill-advised outburst of premature hope, and maybe it was just that Ted himself was a born pessimist, but there was something about this that made him want to step away from the window and not see what was about to happen. But he stood there, though: watching that black dot and hearing that engine approach, and once again gripping the window sill like a sailor on a storm tossed boat. On a sinking boat...
Gradually, the dot grew against the sky. First a dot, then a fleck, then an object that slowly resolved itself into a shape. And then, at last, they were able to see what it was. A small, light aircraft: approaching from the blue firmament of the sky, descending. Ted was no aviation expert, but he thought that it was possibly a Cessna. Someone, somewhere, somehow, had got the plane airborne, and was flying it across the ravaged landscape, above the hoards of these strange dead people, skirting above horror in an attempt to find somewhere – anywhere – that was uncontaminated. But was there anywhere? Anywhere at all in this strange and horrifically changed world where such a craft could come to land?
And again, that sense of foreboding burned through Ted. There was something about the plane, the way that it was approaching... the fact that it was descending... and the sound of its engine...
“HEY!” Dave suddenly shouted, startling Ted out of his reverie, “HEYYY – HERE!! OVER HEREEEE!!”
Dave jumped up and down, waving his arms, and hollering at the top of his voice – as if the person in the aircraft could possibly hear him. The others started to shout too, waving their hands, desperate to attract attention. Desperation: a kind of hysteria once more descending between them as they focussed their frenzied energy toward attracting the pilot’s attention.
Ted looked back toward the plane. It was almost upon them now. He could see its wings, the propeller turning at the aircraft’s nose, the sun glinting off its windscreen. And he could hear its engine with greater clarity now. It sounded strangely unhealthy: stuttering, sputtering, staccato and grating, like a rough cough in a raw throat. And in that instant, Ted thought: oh my God... it’s running low on fuel...
The aircraft passed over the house, and then out of sight. They could hear its engine diminishing for a moment, but then rising to a higher pitch and growing louder. Returning. Had it seen the sign? Was the pilot steering his craft around for a closer look, perhaps with thoughts of a rescue? It was possible – but suddenly Ted wanted to shout at him – no, go away, you’re running short on fuel, you haven’t got much longer left, your engines will soon sputter and die, and then you’ll fall out of the sky like a bird shot by a hunter, and I don’t want you anyw
here near my house when that happens... but he uttered none of this aloud. What would have been the point? The pilot couldn’t hear him, anymore than he could hear Dave’s, Shaun’s or Jenny’s hollering. Once again, they were at the mercy of forces greater than themselves, forces that they could not control. Once again, they were the playthings of fate, and there was nothing they could do but to watch events play out, and watch doom fall upon them from a clear, blue autumn sky.
The aircraft’s engines screamed again, and the plane came back into view. It was banking, circling the house, the pilot perhaps peering down, trying to read the sign, trying to make some sense of it. Maybe he even saw Dave and the others waving at him, maybe he was hatching desperate rescue plans... it was a grim irony that such altruism could spell doom to them all.
Suddenly, the plane reared into the sky. Ted had time to see the sunlight gleaming off its body work, admire the aerodynamic contours of the craft. He heard its engines scream higher yet, as though in horror at their own demise. The plane circled again, heading for the farmhouse, descending. And then, with a rasping, spluttering cough, the engines died.
Dave, Jenny, and Shaun’s raucous cries died with the plane’s engines, as though they too had run out of the same fuel. Ted glanced quickly around at Dave, and saw hope drain out of the young man’s face like fuel out of a broken tank. The expression of hurt disbelief that spread across his features was almost child-like, and would have been comical under different circumstances. Under these circumstances though, it wasn’t comical at all.
“What?” Dave asked, as though he had just been asked the most perplexing of questions, and then “...no... oh no... oh sweet fuck – NO!”
The other two were likewise drained of hope, and then uttered the same expressions of betrayed horror as Dave.
Ted looked away from them and back out at what was happening outside. The plane swept down, heading for the farmhouse, lowering, lowering, becoming bigger, less a graceful bird sweeping against the sky, and more several tons of metal plummeting earthward, hurrying toward the ground with the destructive power of a bomb, heading directly toward the farmhouse. Ted prepared himself for death, hoping that when it came it would be as quick and as painless as it possibly could be. He offered up a small prayer – the first he had offered in many, many years. He didn’t know what good it would do, or even to whom he addressed it. But he offered it anyway, in desperation, and despair, and a kind of grim acceptance. He heard no prayers coming from the others though. Only the despairing screams of two young men and one young woman who he doubted had ever said a prayer in their life, and would meet their destruction only with disbelief and hysteria.
The plane lowered, lowered, lowered.
Its nose tilted down toward the ground, as though smelling its own destruction.
Ted imagined the pilot, struggling at the controls, desperate to make a landing even with all engines gone. Fighting a losing battle, just like everyone else. Just like everyone, preparing for his own destruction.
The plane hit the ground about a quarter of a mile away from the farmyard. It ploughed into the field, and into the dead that wandered upon it. Ted watched in horrified amazement as bodies were thrown high into the air like skittles before a bowling ball; falling this way and that to litter the vicinity like broken dolls. Others were mashed against that aeroplane’s spinning propellers: heads, arms, legs sliced off in less than a second, viscera and blood spurting outward as vicious wounds were dealt. Meanwhile, the wings acted as two huge blades: decapitating, felling; slicing down anyone and anything that remained in their way. Yes, those being felled were already dead, and yes they were the enemy, but even so Ted felt his gorge rise and his jaw clench against rising disgust as he watched this carnage unfold.
The plane continued to plough forward, its enormous momentum carrying it across the field toward the farmyard. Bits of its fuselage erupted outward with the force of an explosion, something that looked like perhaps one of its landing wheels flew upward like a great black Frisbee thrown by a giant. At last it arrived at the fence that divided the farmyard from the field beyond. It crashed through this, and through the crowds who had stood around it. More black blood and poisoned brains flew upward into the afternoon sun, more crushed matter splattering upward, and painting ghastly patterns against the aeroplane’s smooth white body. Then, with the fence demolished, the plane continued forward into the farmyard.
“Oh shit, it’s gonna hit!” someone - Ted thought that it was Dave – called out from behind him. Ted felt himself tensing, bracing for the deadly impact that would spell doom to them all. But, despite this involuntary reaction, he already saw that the plane was dramatically slowing. Its passage first across the field, and then through the fence, had slowed its momentum. And also, the dead were more densely packed in the farmyard than they were in the field beyond, forming a kind of organic buffer zone between the advancing aeroplane and the stone walls of the house. For once, and ironically enough, the dead were saviours rather than destroyers.
The plane came to a rest no less than ten meters from the walls of the house. It slid to a halt with a sickening crunch of bones, and a kind of wet slurping sound as the underside of its fuselage slid across a lubricating mat of mashed flesh and leaking blood. The propellers ceased turning, and finally stood at a halt like two blood soaked knives in the afternoon air. The plane tilted so that one tip of one wing touched the ground while the other jutted toward the sky. Its fuselage was a wrecked horror of broken plastic and slicked blood and flesh, and its windscreen was a crazed network of cracks, smeared over with glistening viscera.
Slowly, the dead recovered from this bomb that had been hurled into their midst. Many had been destroyed, (you could hardly say killed), beneath the crushing passage of the plane. Some were trapped beneath the plane, and continued to writhe there on the concrete, their arms and hands groping upward toward the crushing mass that lay atop them, their eyes and mouth gaping wide, though whether in pain, fear, or with no emotion at all, Ted couldn’t tell. Hundreds of others, however, had remained unaffected, and now, slowly, but with mounting speed, they converged upon the crashed aeroplane. Their moaning was ever louder now: perhaps shocked, perhaps eager, perhaps fascinated, or again perhaps having no greater meaning than the roar of an ocean wave. A thousand and more hands were held out toward the plane, as though to touch, to grasp – to destroy.
And then, the side door of the plane juddered open.
“Oh Christ,” said Dave, stepping toward the window and peering down intently, “the pilot - ,” he looked back at Ted, “he’s still alive in there...”
Ted said nothing. He merely glanced at Dave, and then down at the plane, and the door that was gradually inching open. He watched with a sense of horror, of helplessness, of knowing that tragedy was about to unfold and that he could do nothing about it.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Dave demanded, suddenly angry, “he’s alive down there. The pilot! Oh Christ, we’ve got to do something, help him.”
Dave pulled away from the window and started toward the bedroom door. Quickly, without even thinking, Ted hurried after Dave, gripped him by the arm, and pulled him back. Dave’s head whipped around, gazed at Ted, rage still in his face, but also a kind of sickly acceptance, a draining despair...
Slowly, Ted shook his head.
“What’s the matter with you?” Dave asked, and suddenly the young man seemed close to tears, “...he’s alive in there! What you gonna do? Just leave him? Just leave him to be eaten by those things?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Ted replied, softly, gently.
“He’s gonna die out there!” Dave said, and now he was crying, hopeless miserable tears sliding down his nose, “hell, maybe he was coming here to help us – and now he’s gonna die out there...”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Ted said again, and now he carefully relaxed his grip on Dave’s arm, feeling a little surer that the young man wasn’t going to do anything too crazy. Dave,
for his part, shook Ted’s hand off his arm, and then walked over to the window and peered down.
“I wouldn’t look out there,” said Ted after him, but Dave paid him no attention. He stood there by the window, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the afternoon light. He peered down.
“Dave...” said Jenny tentatively. She peered around at Ted. She and Shaun were standing at the back of the room like two lost children, both clearly terrified of what was transpiring outside, and neither wanting to see. Ted said nothing to them. Instead, he turned and walked over to Dave. He stood at the young man’s shoulder and peered down through the window. For a moment, he envied Shaun and Jenny’s cowardice – if that is indeed what it was. He wished that he shared it, but sometimes... sometimes you just had to look. Sometimes, you just had to see.
The door of the aeroplane was fully opened now. There was movement from behind the cracked and opaque windscreen as someone struggled behind it. And then a figure appeared from out of the door. Just a head at first, then shoulders. A young man – not entirely dissimilar in age and appearance to Dave – struggled out of the doorway, and then perched half in and half out of the plane. He gazed blearily around. He was close enough for Ted to be able to see his features – and to see that there was a prodigious wound across his forehead, no doubt sustained in the crash. Blood poured down from the wound, coating his face in a curtain of blood, leaking into his eyes, blinding him.