A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  Andrew trotted through the torn-up grass aft near the tail, looking up and taking note of the various hatches as he went. “AFT GALLEY STORAGE” was the last one, and it was almost twenty feet over his head.

  “Didn’t think of that,” he mumbled and looked around, instantly feeling the fool for thinking a handy ladder would just be sitting there. Still, those people had been stuck in there for almost a day, with a plane full of apparently blood-thirsty and suicidal lunatics. He needed to get them out.

  Standing under the plane with nothing but his now well-worn flight suit and a few bucks in his pocket, Andrew didn’t consider he had a lot of options. He looked back up the runway to the distant burning hangar and terminal buildings. Of course there were no emergency vehicles. If there were any left they’d be helping survivors of the nuclear blast that had destroyed Monterrey.

  He looked down at his arm, now covered in a light gray dust. “I have to get out of this,” he decided, and started to jog towards the terminal buildings. He remembered as he landed that there were people there. Someone had to be an airport employee who could help him. The question was why no one at all had come to investigate a badly landed jumbo jet almost a day ago?

  The day was already warm, passing eighty even as the sun was just over the horizon. Smoke from fires still rose in the distance from the ruins of Monterrey, but the scene was one of eerie silence. No fire trucks, no sirens, nothing. The busiest airport in the region might as well have been a ghost town. About five hundred meters of jogging brought him to the first facility building. Ironically, it was the airport fire department.

  Andrew found the big outside doors closed and went to the first man sized door. It was locked. Not being one to delay, he cocked back and kicked with a booted foot. It took two hits for the latch to give and send the door flying back against the inside wall. Inside it was nearly completely dark.

  He checked his flight suit, never thinking to see if they had left any of his gear. Sure enough, in a thigh holster was his trusty mini-Maglite. He flicked it to life and played it around the interior of the building. The huge, squat firetrucks used at airports were all lined up in their spaces and showed no signs of having been recently used. “Damn,” he said, his voice echoing through the cavernous building.

  “Graag!” came an answer.

  “Shit,” Andrew hissed and jerked the door closed with a creak and a bang. Of course, with the latch broken, it slowly began to swing inward again just as footsteps came running in his direction. That sounded just like the half-intelligent sounds the sick people made on the plane! There were sick people here in Monterrey too? Slowly a corner of his mind started assembling pieces of a puzzle. A road in Mexico choked with thousands of refugees. Sick people in his plane. Sick people here. Was this a global pandemic?

  He looked around, fight-or-flight instinct pumping adrenalin into his bloodstream and making is eyes wide. The next closest building was more than two hundred meters away and all he had was the little Maglite. Whoever or whatever it was, the sound of footfalls was only a few feet away when he had an idea.

  The door was jerked the rest of the way open from the inside and a figure in firefighter Nomex raced out, and ran into Andrew’s outstretched leg. “Gaarch!” the fireman growled can crashed to the ground face first. Andrew saw the dress and was immediately afraid he’d just injured an honest to God fireman. Then the man rolled over and he got a look at the persons face. It was caked with dried blood now mixed with fresh. Several recently shattered teeth dribbled form its torn lips and a huge flap of skin was now torn from his chin. He took notice as he fixed Andrew with a look of pure evil intent.

  “God damn!” Andrew cursed and quickly went through the door. The fireman was on his feet faster than he thought possible and slammed into the door even before Andrew could get it fully closed. He glanced down in the twilight of the barely illuminated building at the rock he’d held in his right hand to bash in the… thing’s head, now wishing he hadn’t hesitated. He tossed it aside and retrieved the still lit flashlight, looking around him. There, on the wall just a couple feet away was a huge crowbar, the kind firemen use to get someone out of a wrecked car.

  With all this weight, Andrew slammed the door back against its hinges, temporarily pushing the nutjob on the other side away. In one swift motion he stepped forward, snatched the pry bar from its rack, spun and jammed it under the metal door and the concrete floor so hard sparks flew. The fireman outside crashed back into the door, which only thumped and didn’t move an inch.

  “Damn freak!” Andrew yelled through the door.

  “Shaaargak!” the fireman yelled back, crashing into the door with even more intensity.

  Andrew drew back, deciding he’d best not antagonize the thing, and turned to look around again with his flashlight. He glanced once more at the pry bar, wishing he had another. Then had a thought and went to the wall where he’d found that one.

  Sure enough, under a line of heavy leather firefighting jackets were several more. He took one and tested its heft. Once end had a flat claw foot, the other end a slightly curved, pointed edge. It would make a formidable close in hand-to-hand weapon. It was almost as long as the pugil sticks from basic training and reminded him of the Halligan tools he’d seen on Navy ships. He kept it slung in his left hand as he explored.

  The fire entry area ran along the huge open bay where two of the fire trucks were stored. He found a power switch and flicked it. No joy. Without another thought, he continued on. The first place he came to was a meeting room dominated by a large conference table with many office chairs. It looked like it was prepared for a meeting with notepads, pencils and even bottled water in front of each chair. He moved in and liberated a couple of those, putting one bottle in a cargo pocket and twisting the top off another. It was warm, but delicious.

  The next room was a kitchen and as empty as the conference room. The shelves were well stocked with all manner of food, mostly Hispanic of course. He realized he was hungry and checked the fridge. The power was off but it was still cool inside. He found a tray with sandwiches and grabbed several. It was chicken with some kind of spicy salsa, and tasted great. A bottle of orange juice joined them in and he continued his exploration while munching the sandwiches and sipping the OJ.

  Several more rooms went by. A dining room, another meeting room, and equipment room. He considered one of the heavy axes in the equipment room before sticking with the pry bar. Adjacent to the equipment room was a locker room and shower. As the bigger Maglite beam played across the floor he suddenly stopped and panned back. There was a huge smear of dark red blood. He swallowed the last of the sandwich and gulped the remainder of the OJ, dropping the empty wrapper and jar into a trashcan at his feet. The jar hit with a loud metallic “Clang!” and he cursed his own stupidity.

  Unlike by the door, there was no sound of a crazed person here. Distantly he could still hear the sound of the fireman banging on the door, wanting back into his home, or just to kill and eat Andrew. He chuckled at that, then stopped laughing. There was dark humor, then there was this.

  The blood-smeared locker room tiles ended in a clear drag mark. There was a lot of dried and partially dried blood. As in enough to fill a man. He searched ahead with the Maglite’s power beam. The drag marks led through a tiled and open doorway into the showers. The food in his stomach felt like lead as he slowly stepped around the blood and to the shower door. He found out why there were no other firemen.

  The chicken sandwiches and orange juice hit the tile in a technicolor chunky stream as Andrew emptied his stomach. In one corner of the shower was a scene from Dante. Piled bodies, many disemboweled, some with throats ripped out. There were gouts of bloods dripping from the walls and the ceiling of the carnal slaughterhouse. The fireman he’d locked out had apparently ambushed his fellows one by one and then dragged them into the shower to kill them. He could see chunks of their flesh torn out, almost worried from their bones. He’d been eating them. “Oh my fucking god,” he
said and heaved what little remained in his stomach onto the floor.

  Andrew went just around the corner and dropped to the floor, rolling back onto his rear, back against the locker room wall separating him from the murder scene. At least nine bodies were in there. His breath was coming in short gasps and he realized he was about to pass out; he was hyperventilating.

  Putting his head between his knees, he forced his breathing under control through the sheer force of his will. You don’t get to be a fighter pilot by freaking out and huffing yourself unconscious. “You just pulled off a fucking dead-stick in a jumbo jet,” he admonished himself. “You’ve played plenty of video games. What’s a few zombies?”

  He sat up and back, the tiles cool against the back of his neck. Zombies? Could he be in the middle of a damned zombie apocalypse? He almost laughed again, but he was afraid if he started he’d never stop. He’d spent his life in the United States military, defending his nation from her enemies. The thought that zombies were being made by, what, food? Biting each other. It was worse that ludicrous and he suddenly wished he was just back in his bunk at Riyadh.

  Whatever the fuck was going on, he needed to keep his shit together and work the problem. There were people stuck in the bottom of that plane that sure as hell weren’t going to get themselves out of trouble without his help. He finished searching the fire station, finding two more caches of bodies just like the one in the shower, though quite a bit smaller. One was in the Chief’s office, the other in a bathroom. By the time he found the one in the bathroom he was used to the horrific scene enough that he could stop and wash his mouth out and throw some water on his face. He began to develop a plan.

  The water was working, so he needed to deal with the possibility that he was covered in fallout. He returned to the showers, ignoring the slaughter and going to the other end. The hot water came out more warm than hot, but he didn’t care. He stripped out of his Nomex flight suit and hosed it down, watching gray dirt flow out of it. Then he washing himself head to toe, scrubbing every nook and cranny. There was some soap in a dispenser and shampoo as well. He washed three times before the water began to go completely cold. He washed his suit a second time then rang it out as best as he could before putting it back on.

  Still wet of course, he returned to the kitchen and fished through the still warmer fridge. He found some kind of a casserole in the back and gave it the sniff test. It smelled okay, some kind of potato salad with pasta. He found a spoon and tried it. There was no meat, but it did have beans. It tasted fine so he ate a bowl of it, then went back to work.

  Retrieving his crowbar, he went to the bathroom. Of the four bodies there, two hadn’t been firemen. He could see under the other bodies that they wore uniforms though. He used the bar to flip one of the other bodies off the pile. As the man rolled away, intestines spilled out like a bowl of noodles. He felt the casserole threatening to come back up and clamped down on his self-control. “That’s about enough of that, Mister!” he growled at himself.

  The body out of the way he saw what he’d thought underneath. The other two were police, and they were in combat uniforms. “Bingo,” he said and pulled the first one out of the pile. His equipment belt was around his waist, service weapon still in place. A Beretta 92F, pretty much identical to the US military standard issue. No surprise since the US supplied much of the Mexican military with equipment. A magazine pouch held four extra mags. He checked them (all full) and the gun (same), then took the belt off.

  He had to swallow and grit his teeth, reaching through the cold intestines to undo the belt. Then he was forced to wipe away gore to get it out of the belt loops. Breathing hard he retreated back to the shower and washed off his prize, keeping the gun clear of the water.

  He adjusted the holster and strapped it on. The gun and magazines’ weight felt good around his waist. Crazies, sick nut jobs, whatever. He was the guy with the gun. Going back once more to the shower, he examined the other officer. His belt was similar, and thankfully gore free. He’s had half his neck chewed off instead. However, no gun in this case. Andrew took the four backup mags and wondered where the gun was. Come to think of it, he’d only found one scene of bloody ambush. Where had all these people been killed? And how had that one fireman managed to carry out a rampage of this magnitude?

  Most of the station was as dark as a tomb. If he was going to play zombie hunter in the dark, he was using his flashlight. He didn’t like the two handed grip, on holding the flashlight under the gun with the other holding the gun. It never felt natural to him. Instead he scrounged in the equipment room until he found some duct tape and improvised a mount. It probably wouldn’t work for more than a few shots, but it was better than nothing. With the light more or less aiming in his sight picture, Andrew went back to searching with more confidence.

  He quickly found the main attack point, and more. He came to a door he hadn’t opened and pulled it open. A police officer spun around, eyes wide in the light of Andrew’s gun. “Graaaah!” he yelled and lunged for Andrew.

  “Shit!” Andrew barked and pulled the trigger, double actioning the automatic. The muzzle blast was a cannon’s roar in the confined space of the entry foyer of the firehouse. It was a perfect ambush point for anyone showing up for duty. The round caught the cop in the upper left shoulder, rocking him back and spraying the already blood soaked walls with a fresh coat.

  “Get on the ground!” Andrew yelled, his training taking control. The cop just shook his head, seemingly oblivious to the trauma, and lunged, grabbing Andrew with his still working right hand and pulling him closer, jaws snapping. Andrew backpedaled, gun pinned between the cop and himself, and came up hard against the back wall of the hallway, his head smacking brick and setting off lights in the back of his eyes. Teeth were reaching for his face. Andrew pulled the trigger.

  The hollow point round entered the officer’s chest just under the sternum, traveled upwards as it expanded, and blew out the back just between his second and third thoracic vertebrae, and took most of his heart with it. He grunted and let go, falling like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “Switches and timers,” Andrew panted as he aimed the gun at the obviously dead cop. The brain and the heart were switches. Hit them and you turned the guy off. Other vital organs, large arteries were timers. It would kill, but they took time.

  Andrew covered him for a minute as he stopped twitching, then gave him a kick in the head. When he was sure the guy was dead, he went around him and looked at where he’d been hiding. A perfect ambush spot all right. Maybe four meters by three, a small window on one side where a receptionist would sign you in. The cop had been standing to the side of the front door, waiting for fresh meat. He put the scenario together in his head.

  First fireman turned, or whatever you called it. Then this first cop showed up. Looking at his body, Andrew could see several wounds. Bites are his arms. He’d fought off the fireman and hid, then he himself went over and joined in. As firemen arrived they were ambushed and dragged away for… what? Safekeeping? Then more cops showed up, the two he’d found in the shower. One of them had gotten his gun out. It was lying on the floor in the blood. Andrew picked it up and checked. Three rounds fired. Must have all been misses. The foyer was even more of a blood bath than the shower had been. Strangely, it didn’t bother him nearly as much.

  Anyway, it was what was on the cop he’d just shot that interested him the most. He rolled the body over, still leery of those teeth, and checked out what he had on his back. A US-manufactured M-16 assault rifle. He got the sling off the man and examined it. An old A1 model with the handle on top and fixed rear stock. Not nearly as versatile as the A3 uppers with their picatinny rails and adjustable stocks, but still some serious firepower. His vest held six full twenty-round magazines, and there was one in the gun. All completely full.

  He liberated the man of his vest. There was a couple holes in it and blood so he returned to the shower, removed the mags, and gave it the treatment. It seemed to him the w
ater pressure was decreasing. Cleaned and wrung out, he donned the vest and adjusted it for size. Even with the multiple punctures, it remained serviceable. He loaded the rifle, locked it, and slung it. He’d have to look for a one-point harness instead of the shoulder sling.

  Next he went back and examined the 92F in the blood on the floor, weighing his options. He decided finally to use tongs from the kitchen to get it and clean it in the sink. The dish soap worked just fine. Then he found some light machine oil in the equipment room, stripped and oiled it, then reassembled. Just like the other cops, the one he’d shot had four extra mags.

  “Okay,” he said after he found a backpack in the equipment room, loaded all but four of the pistol mags into it and the extra two pistols. He stopped in the kitchen and threw in some food. Several cans of red beans with rice, canned chicken, tuna, and three packs of instant taco mix he found. The pack weighed about twenty-five pounds. If he’d had a Molle pack he would have taken double that, but this was a simple nylon job so he stopped there.

  Returning to the bay he began to search around until he found a locker that held all the trucks keys. He went down the line of vehicles, weighing options until he settled on a utility truck that somewhat resembled a Humvee. “You stick with the familiar,” he said to the empty bay. The firefighter heard him and banged on the door some more.

  Andrew went to the truck, #002, with the appropriate keys and jumped in. North American trucks were all pretty much the same. Keys in the ignition, turn to start, and it roared to life with a belch of diesel fumes. Then he remembered the door. “It’s always something,” he said.

  There had to be a manual release, he figured. No way would the powered door open. He leaned his head out and examined the door. Several placards, all in Spanish, some with exclamation points and stuff all explained what he needed to do. He rolled his eyes, got back in, closed the door, dropped it in drive, and stomped on the gas.