by J. F. Holmes
“All right,” Dante said. We need to go through the plane, see what other makeshift weapons we can dig up. If it comes to it, maybe we can hold the aisles with two or three people on each. He made a quick assessment of the passengers and decided that might be a tough order to fill. Most of those capable of meeting his eyes looked shaky as hell, while others curled themselves up under blankets or coats as though hiding from the menace aft. “I asked before, but I didn’t get an answer—is there an air marshal on board?”
“He was in the back,” Samira said. “I don’t see him here, and he’d surely have helped out.”
“Great,” Tyson said. “There’s a gun in coach, we just need to figure out which one of the monsters has it.”
Dante snorted. “Not like he’d have enough ammo. I was hoping for another,”—he almost said ‘body’, didn’t like the connotation, and changed gears to— “set of hands.”
The passenger who’d claimed Tyson’s seat leaned forward and interjected, “What good are hands against those things? They eat people and turn others into beasts like them—they are ekiminu, what you Americans call zombies.” The slender Arab wore a crisp white dress shirt, gray slacks, and a matching tie. Fine droplets of blood stained his shirt in a narrow track on either side of the tie, where his missing jacket hadn’t shielded him from arterial spray.
Tyson’s laugh rode the edge of hysteria. “Zombies don’t have red eyes or hide from sunlight, dude. Those things are vampires.”
“I’m not a dude—my name is Hassan.”
“All right, Hassan. Trust me on this. I’m American, vampires and zombies are kind of our thing.”
“Can we bloody well focus on the problem at hand?” Graham snapped. “Half the plane is full of monsters, and you’re debating what to call them. Who gives a damn?”
“Graham’s right,” Dante agreed. “Whatever the fuck they are, how the hell did they get on the plane?” he demanded. “I’m pretty sure you can’t walk a zombie past security.”
Tyson shrugged. “Why does it matter?”
“If there’s a patient zero, that’s probably better for us than it would be if there’s a virus in the water supply or something.”
“That’s not a happy thought,” Graham said.
Samira closed her eyes and shuddered. “If they timed it right, they wouldn’t have to hide it from security. It started in the back of the plane—if I had to guess, it was up in the crew rest compartment. The access stairs are at the rear of the plane. One of the economy class attendants opens the door, and it begins.”
“That’s good,” Dante said. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “You have to be bitten to be infected, or whatever it is.” He didn’t know of any sort of infection that made eyes glow red or created impenetrable shadow, but he didn’t mention it. The surviving passengers were already teetering on the edge of panic. He didn’t want to shove them all the way over.
The impromptu committee fell into silence until Graham turned to Dante and said, “So, what do we do? What’s our plan?”
He stared at the older man, wishing someone better qualified was around to take the lead, then shrugged. You go to war with the army you have. “We keep all the shades up and stay away from the openings. We’re scheduled to land in Atlanta when the sun’s still up, so we get off the plane from up here and let the police or military handle things.”
“And pray,” Hassan said. “Pray that we don’t fly into cloud cover or a storm.”
“That, too,” Dante agreed.
***
Getting a planeload of half-panicked passengers into some semblance of order was the next closest thing to herding cats. On the bright side, Samira and the rest of the flight attendants were well-versed in that sort of thing.
The first-class passengers didn’t have the benefit of the personal experience of those in the other sections. They raised most of the resultant fuss when told they were being reorganized to put women and children close to the front. One in particular, a hawk-faced businessman named Omar, flat-out refused to move. He sat in his seat, belt fastened and arms crossed, until Dante and Tyson manhandled him out of place and frog-marched him down the aisle to get a long look at what they were up against.
Things settled down after that.
The flight attendants broke into the snacks and drinks and tried to convey a sense of normalcy. Maybe the passengers fell for it, but Dante could read the tension in their eyes and posture. The sun was keeping them safe for the moment, but there were any number of things that could change that.
In the end, it wasn’t all that different from life. Whether by a car accident, stroke, IED, or vampire-zombie, death came when you least expected it more often than not.
Dante took one last look at the horde to ensure they hadn’t advanced, then turned away. “Give me a couple of hours,” he said to Tyson, “then rack out yourself.” He handed the cane over. “We’re going to need more than a walking stick. Get with Samira, we need to go through the plane and find anything we can use for weapons. If nothing else, it’ll give you guys something to do instead of standing around.”
“Hurry up and wait.” His friend grinned.
“Shit never changes, does it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
***
His was a half-sleep, semi-aware the whole time of where he was and what he was doing. His dreams consisted of odd surrealities, the soundtrack provided by the low conversations and background noise around him.
He jerked awake when Tyson touched his shoulder.
“All clear,” the other man whispered. “Suckers don’t even blink.”
Dante wasn’t awake enough to do anything other than grunt. He accepted the cane and assessed the blockade. Everything seemed as he’d left it, though the handful of people standing guard had switched up a bit. Omar and a pair of other men he didn’t know warily eyed the port opening, while Hassan and Renard, one of the first-class flight attendants, had his side covered.
“They’ve got coffee in the front,” Tyson pointed. “I’m out.”
His options were a dainty ceramic mug or one of the flimsy plastic cups used for soda, so he chugged his first cup and refilled the mug for the walk back to his post. He nodded to the two strangers and said, “Dante.”
The first guy held onto an umbrella stroller banded with luggage straps and seatbelt extenders with the same fervency a drowning man might clutch a life preserver. Dante was dubious as to how effective it might be if they needed to fight, but if nothing else, it should work to keep one of the things at arm’s length until someone else could come along and assist. Stroller guy took a deep breath, visibly composed himself, and responded in a British accent, “Ajay.”
The other man gave a half-shrug and a simple, “Khalil.” The Arab was shorter than Dante and plainly clothed, but his shoulders and arms were thick with muscle. Oil worker, Dante guessed. Khalil looked like he’d be good in a fight, and he was glad to have him.
Omar had mellowed since being forcibly introduced to the problem in the rear of the plane, but that didn’t keep him from assuming an imperious air as he scoffed, “He doesn’t speak English. I’ll have to translate if you need him to do anything.”
Dante gave the other man a long look before he said, “I bet his English is about as good as my Arabic. Not my first rodeo, champ. We’ll make do.” He and Tyson couldn’t instruct the guy in advanced physics, but you couldn’t serve for long in the sandbox without picking up enough to get by.
If his remark had chastened the hawk-faced man, he couldn’t tell. Omar turned to look into the darkness aft. The small fire extinguisher he cradled didn’t have the reach of Ajay’s stroller, but it would hit a hell of a lot harder with enough force behind it.
Ajay followed Dante’s eyes and shuddered. “My mother often told me that men were the only real monsters in the world.” He chuckled. “Usually after I did something to displease her.”
Dante grinned. “Not very subtle, was
she?”
“She was a professor of sociology. I often wondered if I wasn’t of more interest as an experiment than an actual child.”
“Yeah, well, one way or another, we need to keep her promise, Ajay.”
“You think we can make it out of here alive?” Ajay hefted the stroller. “You don’t have to tell me how ridiculous this looks.”
With a half-shrug, he replied, “Survival’s not our first priority.”
Shocked, Omar interjected, “What in the world do you mean by that?”
“As fast as this spread through coach, what happens if one of these things gets into a major city? Maybe they have to hide from the sunlight, but we’re talking exponential infection growth if they have the night to roam and spread.” He looked from Ajay to Omar. “Our number one priority is keeping this thing contained. The best result for us is the plane landing and the authorities putting it under quarantine after we get off.”
“And the others?”
“Worst case, ATC has us orbit while they figure out what the hell to do. Depending on how long that takes, the sun could go down. Maybe there’s a quarantine then, and maybe not, but that ends badly for us.”
Ajay cocked his head to one side. “I don’t know that I regard that as the worst case, sir. To me, that would be those things rushing us right here and now.” The three of them looked into the shadows. A brief moment of panic flashed across Khalil’s face, and he turned and muttered something in Arabic—wondering what they were looking at, Dante guessed.
Omar sighed and bit off a terse reply. The other man frowned and nodded.
Dante grinned wolfishly at Ajay. “Nah. If we can’t make it out of here alive, that’s our next best option. If they make a push and we can’t hold them off, I figure we retreat, then try like hell to bust into the cockpit and lawn dart this bitch into the ocean.”
Ajay raised a single eyebrow, but Omar was less circumspect—the Arab laughed. “An American hijacking a Qatari aircraft and killing hundreds. Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, half of those hundreds are already dead,” Dante pointed out, “and weighed against the possible deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands?” He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll make that call.”
“Time will tell,” the hawk-faced man grunted. “All will be as Allah wills it.”
“I hope red-eyed, man-eating monsters aren’t in his plan,” Ajay murmured.
***
Hours passed. The creatures remained in place. Dante worked his way through another half-dozen cups of coffee and engaged in small talk with the rest of those who’d volunteered to stand watch. Not long after Tyson woke, the plane’s deck shifted slightly under their feet.
“Here we go,” Dante breathed. He slid between the back row of seats and the bulkhead and leaned over to peer out the window. The green smudge on the horizon remained too far away to discern any detail, but everything about it screamed “home”.
The pitch of the engines increased, and the plane banked to the left. His first instinct wasn’t to worry about the unsecured passengers, but rather how the shift in vector would impact the sunlight coming into the plane. Even as he turned to look into the back, the aircraft leveled out.
A shaky voice sounded over the speakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, air traffic control has diverted us to an alternate airfield. We will be landing shortly. Please fasten your seatbelts and ensure your tray tables and seat backs are in their full upright positions.” As though struck by the incongruity of that oh-so-common statement with their situation, the voice hiccoughed laughter before cutting off the speakers.
“We’ve got company,” Tyson murmured. Dante looked up in time to see his friend nod out the window. Leaning over, he caught the distinctive silhouette of an F-16 riding herd on their starboard wing.
“The professionals are on the case,” he muttered. “We’re landing damn close to the coast. Savannah, maybe?”
“Hunter,” Tyson said, nodding. “Plenty of long runways. We’re about to get a warm welcome from the 3rd Infantry Division, my man.”
“I’ll take it.”
The deck shifted under their feet. He’d made more landings than he could count, but this was the first one he’d done standing up. Without a parachute, at least. Dante leaned against a seat and braced his legs. Glancing at the other watchers, he indicated the crowd in the rear of the plane. “Stay sharp, guys. This might be an opportunity for them to try something.” If the sudden angle of the deck was of any discomfort to the creatures, he couldn’t tell. Cloaked in shadow, all he could make out were vague silhouettes and glowing eyes.
Samira moved down the aisle with practiced ease, pausing periodically to touch a shoulder or speak a calming word. When she reached Dante, she brought her lips close to his ear and whispered, “Some of the passengers are worried about the change. Where are we landing?”
Dante thought about keeping his voice low, but if there was an edge of panic running through the lane, transparency here would be the better way to nip it in the bud. “It looks like Hunter Army Airfield, near Savannah. From a security standpoint, it’s a much better option than Atlanta. They can direct us to an open area and contain the situation without worrying about those things getting loose in a civilian building.”
She held eye contact for an extended moment before nodding. “All right.”
“Here we go!” Tyson crowed. Buildings flashed beneath them, small at first, then swelling larger as they approached the ground. It felt fast, but landings always did, didn’t they? The process of take-off was laborious and strained in comparison, the duel against gravity accompanied by the thunder of engines and the pressure on your chest. Landing was controlled chaos, a terminal fall balanced on the edge of wing lift and stall speed.
Tires kissed tarmac, jostling the passengers. There were cries from the front—from those sitting on the floor, Dante assumed—but he forced himself to keep his eyes on the rear section. There was an odd rippling effect of bouncing red eyes as the things shifted in time to the vibrations of the plane, but other than that, they remained still. The engines thundered as the pilots reversed thrust to slow the craft.
Any landing you could walk away from, after all—but would they be able to walk away from this one? Red and blue lights drew his attention to the window, and while the view outside wasn’t entirely a surprise, it wasn’t one that brought comfort, either.
A pair of MP Humvees with strobing light bars rode fore and aft of a no-kidding Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The muzzle of the 25mm cannon in its turret pointed near enough in Dante’s direction for him to make out the open bore.
Institutional rivalries aside, he trusted the guys in the Brad to hold fire until they absolutely had no other option. The aircrew locked in the cockpit was another story entirely. “Drive straight, boys,” he muttered.
Whether at his urging or the direction of some unseen air traffic controller, the trip down the runway was uneventful. When the engines cut out, silence reigned, save for the bark of tires on the tarmac outside. Other vehicles appeared around the perimeter, parking and forming up, as best as Dante could tell, around the entire aircraft. The line mainly consisted of Humvees, with more Brads to stiffen the formation. Between the Brownings, Mk 19s, and the heavier hardware mounted on the APCs, there was enough firepower to turn the Airbus into very fine debris.
In another lifetime that might have brought Dante some comfort, but not when he and the rest of the passengers were about to be on the receiving end.
A figure stepped out of one of the Humvees and brought a megaphone to his mouth. The thickness of the cabin walls muted the volume, but his words were understandable.
“Do not attempt to leave the plane!” the MP shouted. “We will fire upon anyone doing so. Remain calm until we can begin an orderly process of evacuation.”
Dante bit back a curse as the rest of the passengers reacted. Their reaction to the announcement was the opposite of the intention, for obvious reasons. Wails, cries, and angry shouts filled
the air. As though roused by the caterwauling, the things in the back stirred. He turned and stared into the shadows, knuckles white on the shaft of Graham’s cane. Ignorant of the reaction they’d caused, the passengers continued shouting, and after a moment the things settled back into their motionless wait.
“Shut up!” Tyson yelled. The volume dropped, if only as the rest of the passengers turned to see what was going on, but it began to ramp back up.
“Quiet!” Dante roared. Samira and the rest of the flight attendants rushed forward, shushing those old enough to listen. Many of the children sniffled and sobbed, but that wasn’t so piercing to him as the high-pitched shrieking had been. Quieter, he continued, “You’re piquing the interest of those things in the back. We need to stay quiet.”
The message passed forward, and after a few moments, the plane fell silent. With a sigh, Dante took another look out the window at the line of soldiers and resisted the urge to start screaming in frustration himself.
“How long till the sun goes down?” Tyson wondered.
Dante checked his watch. “An hour, maybe?”
Staring out the closest window, his friend muttered under his breath. “They’ve got to be bluffing. No way they open fire on a bunch of civilians going down an emergency slide. This is nuts.”
“Dude, there are zombies on the damn plane. Of course it’s nuts.” He shook his head. “And they will absolutely fire. No way they risk this thing getting out of quarantine. The whole country is fucked if they don’t keep containment. A few hundred passengers are an acceptable loss.” Dante’s prior sentiment tasted like ashes in his mouth—they’d made it, damn it! They’d landed, they should be huddled up in a hangar somewhere while the active duty guys figured out the best way to take care of the menace aft.
“Gory, gory what a hell of a way to die.” Tyson’s normal nonchalance had turned to exhaustion, morale crushed by the realization that they’d traded potential death in the air for inevitable death on the ground, the dwindling moments of their lives measured by the fading light of the sun.