"Are you a new one?" Black Rose asked.
The guy focused on them, a bit dazed. "I don't think so. I've been here a whole fucking year."
"A year?" Black Rose said. "No, can't be. I've never seen you before."
The guy, a terribly thin young man with hair too long by prison standards, blinked. "I've never seen you two either." He looked at the sky, then back at them. "I think something really strange has happened."
"You can say that!" Black Rose exclaimed, then laughed again.
Mendoza couldn't understand what the hell he had to laugh.
The thin man caught Mendoza's stare. His piercing black eyes put Mendoza on alert; the man's gaze seemed able to slip inside his skin. The guy examined him, then shifted to Black Rose, studying him from head to toe.
"You're hot," he stated.
"I'm not a queer," Black Rose said. "I take only blowjobs from other men."
"We can discuss that," the guy suggested.
"Your suit is a different orange color," Mendoza noted.
The guy looked down towards his suit. At once, a single drop of rain fell on his shoulder. The droplet pierced the fabric, raising a wisp of smoke.
"Fuck, that's burning me!"
A drop of rain fell on Mendoza's sleeve, attacked the fabric and consumed his flesh.
The thin guy raced towards the building. Mendoza grabbed Black Rose by his sleeve and followed him. They managed to reach a section of the common area partially standing. Outside, the rain intensified to a cloudburst, smoking and sizzling on the concrete.
Mendoza let go of Black Rose's sleeve and caught his breath. The three of them, under a piece of angled roof, watched the poisonous storm fall upon the devastated prison.
"I take back what I said," Mendoza stated. "We're dead, and this is hell."
* * * *
For a while, they remained silent. Mendoza stood, Black Rose sat on a pile of rubble and the newcomer crouched on the ground. A tattooed snake coiled around his wrist. The tat slipped under the sleeve and disappeared. "Hey, you, Snake."
The guy turned. "How do you know my name?"
"I guessed."
"It's 'Serpent', not 'snake'."
"Anyway, have you ever seen those spikes on top of the walls?"
"Of course I've seen them. I've also imagined them piercing my ass while trying to escape."
"I've never seen them," Black Rose said.
Mendoza shook his head. "Neither have I."
"Something strange has happened, I told you," Serpent said. "We are no longer in the same world as before it all began."
"I guessed this," Mendoza said.
"What does that mean?" Black Rose asked.
Mendoza didn't have an answer, not a logical one at least. He pointed to the interior of the building still standing, with the offices, canteen, laundry, and everything else. "Let's take a look. Maybe we'll find the keys to the van and we can leave."
"Do you want to escape?" Serpent asked.
Mendoza looked at him. "Maybe we ended up in hell, but still it makes no sense to stay here."
"I agree," Black Rose said.
They went inside.
* * * *
They wandered along the abandoned corridors of the building section still intact.
Mendoza had always had a problem with the world. A problem of misunderstanding, and he had given up trying to resolve it a long time ago. For some time now, like a statue, he waited for time to pass. He had worked to make his heart empty and cold like a winter night with no moon. What had happened didn't make him happy, but not even sad. He simply waited to see what would occur.
The slim guy, Serpent, stopped suddenly, staring at something down a hall to his left. The guy seemed deadly scared.
Mendoza joined him.
Down the corridor, he saw nothing scary, just something particularly unpleasant. They ended up in the maximum security section. A serial killer, a murderer of children usually in solitary confinement, sat on the floor of his cell. He was still alive and inside his orange suit.
"Yes, we're definitely in hell," Mendoza commented.
"Good morning to you, Mendoza," the serial killer said without looking at him.
He remained in his cell, even if the door was open. He played solitaire with a deck of cards.
"I waited just for you and your empty heart."
"He's not so empty," the guy called Serpent said.
Mendoza asked himself how this guy could know.
"We can work on him," the killer said incomprehensibly. "Right, Serpent?"
Black Rose joined them. "Oh, fuck," he commented, seeing the murderer. "Just the scum had to survive this?"
"Good morning, Black Rose. You're not so empty, but you're easy. You watch the world go by, waiting to take what you can. Is that not the case?"
"How the hell do you know everything that happens, even though you're always in isolation?" Black Rose said.
"It's they who tell him," Serpent said.
"They who?"
"They," Serpent insisted, pointing to the serial killer with his finger.
Mendoza and Black Rose exchanged a look. Black Rose rolled his eyes to heaven.
"I also know Serpent and his habit of selling out his ass for some cigarettes," the killer said. "Poor thing, he has such low self-esteem."
"Enough! Shut up!" Serpent said. "Don't tell that murderer anything!"
A chill ran down Mendoza's spine. Who the hell Serpent was talking to?
"Look here," the killer said, showing Serpent the ace of spades. He mixed three cards on the floor in front of him. "Where is the ace?"
"In the middle," Serpent said.
The killer picked up the card. The two of spades. He tossed the card away.
"Please," Serpent said. "Let them go."
"I will if you find the ace of spades." The killer shuffled the two remaining cards. "Where is it?"
"On the left," Serpent said.
"Sorry," the killer said. He showed the card on the left and it was again the two of spades, though he had thrown it away.
"Please," Serpent said.
"Only if you can guess where the ace is. Where is it?"
There was only one card in front of him.
"Enough," Serpent said. "There is no ace."
The killer smiled and revealed the remaining card. Again the two of spades. "You can't win with me, Serpent. You better be with me."
Serpent staggered. Black Rose took his arm. "Are you okay?"
"The three children he killed, they're around him," Serpent said in an unsteady voice, "they're ghosts. They whisper in his ears all the time. They're the ones to tell him everything about us. He won't let them go."
Black Rose let go of his arm. He sought help in the eyes of Mendoza, but Mendoza didn't know what to say or do.
"How do you know this?" Black Rose asked.
"I can see them," Serpent said.
* * * *
There were eleven other survivors from the prison, plus the original three, and the serial killer. People called the killer 'Ghost'. Mendoza remembered his real name, and even remembered what he had done. Mendoza had seen the murderer arrive, and he seemed just a poor crazy idiot. Now something had changed, something had happened to the world, and suddenly Ghost had become their leader.
"What do you think?" Black Rose asked, joining Mendoza as he watched the disciples of Ghost plunder the prison guard quarters and come back with guns and equipment. Ghost gave a short speech, standing on the steps of the bus, saying the world had overturned and values were also upside down. He was probably right.
"I don't think anything," Mendoza said.
Ghost took the guy called Serpent with him, probably for the pleasure of tormenting him. The ghosts of children Serpent claimed to see around the killer obviously scared the hell out of him, and Ghost just loved being creepy.
"I'd rather sneak out than stay with him. He's just a fool and a sadist."
Mendoza didn't answer, though he te
nded more or less to agree.
Ghost saw them talking. His friendly gaze made him look like a normal person, but Mendoza could feel a disturbing undertone of madness in his slightly crooked eyes. The man approached, dragging Serpent with him.
"There," he said, pointing to the valley in front of them, "I'll build my empire. Who isn't with me is against me."
The bastard knew well his leadership didn't convince them. Mendoza began to believe the story of the ghost children who whispered in his ears.
No one said anything for a while.
An approaching sound—a kind of roar, growing and growing in the air—warned something big would be happening. A massive jetliner, spewing debris from one of the engines, passed over the roof of the main building, obscuring the light. A surreal sight, but Mendoza found it consistent with the absurdity of everything else around.
The huge airplane drifted over their heads—so close they could almost touch it, so big it seemed never-ending, the enormous metallic fuselage running and running over the rubble of the prison, lowering with majesty towards the valley. Mendoza watched in awe. The jet touched the ground, spouting off debris and tons of topsoil. It seemed that it would never stop, but after an absurdly long slip towards a highway viaduct pylon, the plane came to a halt—and didn't explode.
When the din subsided, the silence seemed even more unearthly.
Ghost smiled. He patted Serpent's shoulder. "Interesting days lay ahead, guys. I can't wait to see what else is waiting for us!"
Chapter 5
As Joanne opened the door of the plane, releasing the emergency slide under the rain, Adrian observed the overcast greenish sky. The rain sizzled on the ground, raising a suffocating smell of gas and decayed substances.
The passengers crowded behind him. "Please," Joanne said. "We all need to get out, but you have to form an orderly line."
They were in a valley surrounded by high mountains, a highway viaduct running through the middle. About a mile to the south, the road had collapsed. The central part had landed on the ground, eighty feet below, while two sections on the edge were still standing. A great number of cars lay smashed, their contorted metal sheets glistening with green reflections. In the distance, on the section of highway still standing, Adrian saw traces of black smoke.
"My goodness."
Adrian would have said that they had taken off from planet Earth but had landed somewhere else.
"We can't leave the aircraft. That rain is acid," Adrian said.
Eric joined him at the door. "What?"
Together, they watched the rain falling on the emergency slide, sizzling the vegetation that surrounded the yellow surface. While it had no effect on the plastic, it seemed to melt the grass.
"Where the hell are we?" Eric asked.
"I don't know. But I don't think anyone is going to come and save us," Adrian said.
* * * *
An elderly lady had sprained her wrist falling, and a Swedish holidaymaker seemed to be in shock and didn't answer any questions, the same thing for a dark-skinned boy. His eyes were as wide and black as two olives, and he could only nod or shake his head. The remaining passengers were in good health, despite the hard landing, probably thanks to the brace position. Joanne brought some cold meals from the galley, but no one had much of an appetite.
Joanne sat down next to Adrian, handing him a bottle of water. "Drink some fluids, Captain. It's a great way to recover from the stress."
"Thank you." Adrian took the bottle, twisted the lid off and drank as Joanne touched his shoulder for no reason.
"Do you know why I was so upset at the airport?" Adrian said.
Joanne smiled, ready to listen. Adrian blushed slightly.
He hadn't intended to talk about it; the words just came out of his mouth. "The airline hired me, trained me, and used me as a reserve, then dumped me because of a damn test that said I was too weak to become a pilot."
"Well, I think that after a landing like that, at a minimum they'll be forced to reconsider. I've flown for the past thirteen years with a lot of different crews, but I'd climb on any flight with you, Captain."
"Thanks, Joanne," Adrian said, a lump in his throat.
"Captain!"
Samantha, who sat on the floor in front of the open door, hugging her knees, suddenly jumped up. "The rain stopped, Captain!"
Adrian walked to the door, followed by Eric and Joanne. It was true, it wasn't raining anymore. It was, however, unbearably hot, and a spectral greenish fog lingered at ground level.
"What do we do?" Samantha asked.
"We wait," Adrian said.
"But the rescuers won't come, you said so!" Eric said.
"Maybe," Adrian said. "But if we go down that slide, we can't get back on the plane again. We'll only get off when we're sure it won't rain again. There are children and elderly people with us, we must also think of them."
"We have water, and enough food for a couple of days," Joanne said. "I suggest seeing what happens, at least until tomorrow."
"I agree," Adrian said.
Eric furrowed his brow. "Some of us want to go back to our families."
"I understand," Adrian said. "But it won't help your family if you go down that slide now and die because of acid rain."
Eric sighed. "I just met a great girl too."
Joanne touched his shoulder. "We were all extraordinarily lucky today, considering how things have panned out. Above all, we were lucky to have Captain Mesler on board."
The sentence caused a contraction in his stomach. To think the airline assumed Adrian couldn't endure a situation of such responsibility.
Apparently, he had no choice.
* * * *
"Captain, may I speak with you privately?"
For some time, Eric had been conferring with the other canoeists, and Adrian expected something from them soon. He nodded and gestured for Eric to follow him into the cockpit. Captain Santoro's uniform still lay on the seat, like a monument. Someone, perhaps Samantha, had also taken his hat from the hanger and put it on the seat on top of the clothes, a gesture that made Adrian want to cry.
"The rain has been stopped for about two hours or so now," Eric said. "The others and I want to go. We will seek rescuers, and if we find anyone, we'll send them here, Captain."
Adrian sighed. "I can't hold you back."
"We're not giving up on you. We'll do our best to send help."
"Sure," Adrian said.
The five canoeists, plus a couple of tourists, grabbed their hand luggage and left. Joanne hugged Eric and kissed him on his cheek.
"We'll send help, don't be afraid," Eric said before jumping down the emergency slide.
As they disappeared in the hostile plain, Adrian's belly knotted with anguish. Suddenly he was sure he wouldn't see any of them again.
* * * *
There wasn't much to do, except going back and forth and waiting. The passengers had slipped from a phase of agitation to one of apathetic acceptance and many slept on fold-down seats.
The dark-skinned boy remained awake, still looking deathly scared. Adrian sat on the seat beside him. "How about something to eat? Airline food isn't that great, but the turkey sandwiches aren't so bad."
The boy continued to stare.
"What's your name?"
Adrian didn't think he would answer, but he did.
"Thomas."
"How old are you?"
"Twelve." Then it all came out of his mouth like an avalanche. "I was with my mother and my father, Alvin and Jeremy—my brothers—my uncles and my little cousin Rosie, who's one and half years old. We were coming back from Grandma and Grandpa's. They were all making a lot of noise, and I wanted them to disappear. But now they are all gone and I'm alone."
Adrian's stomach twitched.
"I picked up their clothes, because I don't want to see them around. It hurts. Now I have no one in the world."
"I promise you I'll do my best to—"
"Yes, yes, to save us all. Y
ou've already saved us, Captain. But I'm alone anyway."
Adrian sighed. "I'm sorry for your loss, Thomas." What else could he say?
"I'm sorry too, Captain. I didn't want to complain."
"You have every right to complain."
"But not with you. You saved me. You were brave."
Adrian sighed. "Thomas, you know what? You don't stop being my passenger just because we landed. You are still my passenger until… until I decide you can go on your way. So I will continue to take care of you until that moment."
Thomas looked at him, a bit relieved. "Really?"
"Really. Now can I give you a turkey sandwich?"
A little smile. "Yes, Captain."
"Good," Adrian said. He stood and left for the galley.
* * * *
Nothing new happened. Night began to fall.
"Captain," Samantha called. "There are things in the sky."
"Helicopters?" Adrian asked hopefully.
"No, I don't think so."
Adrian approached the door and looked up at the sky. The light had waned, and the clouds took on a strange greenish phosphorescence color. Some clearer masses moved beneath the clouds.
The cluster banked in midair. Their appearance was more homogeneous, but their behavior reminded him of a swarm.
"Oh, damn," Adrian said.
"What are they?" Samantha asked, a note of panic in her voice.
Adrian didn't respond. He couldn't close the door without removing the inflatable slide. In any case, the whole row of windows on the left side had broken on their landing.
The mass of objects, or entities, grew larger as they moved at terrific speed towards the plane.
"Stay away from the door!"
The things swooped down on the plane wreck. They heard their rustling on the roof, like flabby slaps. Something whitish clung to one of the right row windows and Samantha jumped closer to Adrian. The blob didn't seem like an animal; it seemed more like a piece of shapeless membrane, pushed by the wind, made of the same gel substance as the giant jellyfish that had hit the windscreen in flight.
For a long time, nothing happened. Then, an elderly man coughed.
The Landing (Apocalypse) Page 3