by M. Lorrox
June exhales and glances down. She sees a coloring book of Minnie’s on the counter. I could stall, maybe write a note. “Actually, I just was thinking I should go to the bathroom before we go. I’ll be right back.” She leaves her bag and walks toward the bedroom the Costanzas use. Think June! I can’t fight them; Beatrice is old, and she could get seriously hurt. Dr. Melgaard seems so determined, and my stupid phone doesn’t work. Candace wants to help, and I trust her… I should leave a message, just in case.
As she walks through the bedroom, she scans for something—anything—that she could use to write a note with. Damn, they straightened up. She walks into the bathroom, still scanning for something she could use.
She sits down on the toilet, and although she’s nervous, still pees. There’s towels and the shower, and toilet paper... Think June! As she moves, she sees light reflecting off the surface of the tiles across from her. She smiles.
When she’s finished in the bathroom, she walks out of that room to the alcove where the sink, mirror, closet, and all of Sadie’s makeup is. She turns on the sink, quietly finds a tube of lipstick and writes a note on the mirror. Then, she splashes water on her face and walks back to the others by the door to the hallway. “All right, I’m all set. Let’s go.”
She picks up her bag, and Beatrice puts her arm around her. As they walk out of the suite and June shuts the door behind her, Rusty sneezes in his sleep and wakes up. He’s curled up in the blanket that Eddy set in the corner of the bedroom yesterday. He yawns, then falls right back to sleep.
When they reach the lobby, Jules is on the concierge’s desk phone. She glances up for a moment, then returns to her call. Outside, a man opens the passenger doors to a car that’s waiting, and Lars pulls the man aside to speak to him. “We’re taking another passenger. You’ll need to get a separate ride.”
“Yes, sir.” He hands Lars the keys, then steps around to the driver’s door and opens it for him. Lars glances at Michael, who takes the keys, walks around the car, and gets behind the wheel.
Lars sits in the front passenger’s seat, and the three ladies ride in the back. As soon as they’re driving from the hotel, Lars sighs. “Michael, I don’t want to waste any time going through normal security, bring us in through the bridge.”
Michael glances at him. “Really? The last time—”
“Do not question me.”
He sighs. “If you insist.”
Lars turns to the back seat. “My lab used to be a sort of bunker, with secret access and exit for emergencies. It’s much faster to get in through the secondary access point, and I hate unnecessary delays. The higher-ups threatened that if I bring one more person into the Pentagon this way, that they’d revoke my access to the lab… To my own lab.” He shakes his head. “Well, I suppose that’s why it’s a good thing I’m bringing two people instead of one.” He smiles.
June holds back a cringe. She turns away and closes her eyes. Somebody call me. See the text, find the note, just call me and come meet me.
Charlie is jolted back to consciousness when someone knocks into him. He opens his eyes in time to hear a scream coming from the person next to him.
Aharon howls and holds the opposite side of his neck. Sergeant Lowe, one of the soldiers, has blood dripping out of his mouth. He’s leaned over on top of Aharon. His eyes are blank, and he grabs at Aharon.
Charlie shakes his head. WHAT?
Sergeant Lowe opens his mouth and moans, and a piece of flesh falls out. He hisses as blood drips off his teeth, and he bends down to take another bite of Aharon.
HE’S A ZOMBIE! Charlie fumbles with his harness while still maintaining a visual on zombie Lowe, who is about to get another bite of vampire-meat. Charlie leans and manages to shove zombie Lowe back, and it falls onto a pile of nine other zombies. They look stunned, then they turn and stare at the three vampires strapped into their seats along the wall.
Charlie screams, “ZOMBIES!” as loud as he can.
Tiger wakes up instantly. “What the bloody hell?”
Charlie turns to Aharon. “Are you alright?”
The speaker kicks on from the cockpit. “Everything alright back there? Over.”
The zombies closest to the speaker look in its direction and try to find the meat-bag of a body that made those sounds, while the rest of the zombies start to get up and move toward the vampires.
Aharon turns to Charlie. “He took out a piece of my neck! I don’t think it nicked anything!”
Charlie looks down at his harness and continues unstrapping it. CAZZO! He has one of the three buckles undone, but he’s having trouble with the others.
Remarkably, Aharon is the first vampire to get out of his harness—even with one hand pressed to his neck. He stands as another zombie lunges toward him, and he’s able to spin and deflect it. He grabs it with his free hand and rips it backward, sending it flying into the zombies standing by the speaker.
It’s so cramped in there that the zombies don’t fall; they are held up by other zombies that are held up by other zombies that are held up by the opposite wall. Now there are twenty angry, gripping, and snatching arms reaching for the vampires.
Tiger frees himself next and lifts his arm. -SLAP!- He shakes his head. “Fuck! I thought I was dreaming.” He leaps into the pile, yelling and punching.
“What the hell is going on back there? Over.”
Charlie yanks at his harness. The buckle must be jammed.
A zombie charges into Aharon and crashes him into the starboard side hatch. A loud -thud- then -bang- rings out from the metal door. They struggle, and another zombie is now throwing himself at Aharon.
Charlie kicks a zombie’s knee out, and its face lands in Charlie’s crotch. “No!” He reaches up and rips the harness attachment points off from the wall and shoves the zombie away from his manly parts. Holy fuck that was close! Now, another zombie is on him. Charlie is pushed backward—his knees are taken out by his jump seat, and he falls back into it.
Tiger screams as a zombie takes a piece of his forearm. He rips his arm away from the zombie’s mouth, but his arm is now missing a hunk of flesh and has trailing cuts made by the zombie’s teeth. “What the fuck do we do?”
“Kill them!” Charlie gets back up and leaps into the air, hunching over so he doesn’t fly into the fuselage above him. The zombie of Lieutenant Walker lifts its chin to look at him, just as Charlie wraps both arms around its head and squeezes. Zombie Walker’s head crushes in on itself, his eyes pop out against one of Charlie’s biceps, and the body drops. Charlie rides it until his feet land on the vomit and blood slicked metal grating of the plane’s floor, and he howls.
His blood-covered arms are stretched out to his side, and he’s in a low stance. He continues to howl, so loud the plane shakes and all the zombies focus on him.
“For fuck’s sake, answer the god-damned radio!”
The zombies reengage their rabid attack. Tiger is punching, elbowing, spinning, and being bitten, all at the same time. Charlie shoves one zombie back as he grabs another zombie by its throat. He’s about to squeeze and yank its windpipe out when he’s stunned by a loud sound.
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
To the vampires, the alarm cuts through their brains like hot javelins, and they automatically reach for their ears.
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
The zombie belonging to the neck that was briefly in Charlie’s palm leans in, mouth-first. Charlie notices, lets go of his ears long enough to shove the zombie back, then covers his ears again. What the fuck now?
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
Tiger screams “I’m going deaf! I can feel it!”
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
Charlie turns and realizes that for the last fifteen seconds, he’s forgotten about Aharon. He turns to see three zombies on top of Aharon, biting and tearing. He
’s a bloody mess. “Aharon!”
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
Charlie rushes toward him. He grabs the zombie on top of the pile attacking Aharon and yanks it away as hard as he can. Charlie spins and lands with the zombie a couple feet closer to the Dillos stored in the aft of the plane. The zombie had a piece of Aharon in his hands, and whatever that piece was, the zombie took it as a prize and now shoves it into its mouth, biting down on the pink flesh.
-VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- -VRHEEET!- ...
Charlie looks back toward Aharon and realizes what the noise is. He sees a red arm streaked with blood, bite marks, and hanging flesh spinning a wheel. On the hatch. That opens outside. At whatever-the-fuck altitude they’re at.
-clunk-
Charlie lunges and grabs the bumper of the nearby Armadillo. “HOLD ON TIGER!”
The door underneath what’s left of Aharon’s gnawed-on body blasts open.
Eddy and the squires decide to meet again on Saturday to keep working on identifying—and translating—the language found on the ring. They all walk together the few blocks back to the hotel, laughing and being silly. At the hotel, Sky and Jambavan split off to report to the acting Guard Commander, Captain Korina Sarkis, and Eddy walks through the lobby. He glances into the courtyard to see if June is there, but she isn’t, so he heads up to the suite.
He finds it empty, but the door to June and Skip’s bedroom is closed. Maybe she’s resting. That’d be great! Just then, it hits him; he’s both hungry and thirsty, thanks to an epic sugar crash after that big mocha. He gets a drink from the fridge along with the makings for a PB&J. He takes his bag off, sets it on the table, and considers the ring. Even if it’s the real one from the legend, the rest of the story has to be nonsense... Has to be.
He starts making his sandwich. He sets the knife on top of the jar of peanut butter while he opens the jam. The lid sticks, so Eddy uses more force, and it immediately comes free. His elbow hits the knife, and it falls, banging against the plate he had set out with some bread. The knife slides off and nearly falls off the counter, but Eddy catches it. He freezes, listening to see if he woke June. He doesn’t hear anything coming out of her room. Whew. He hears Rusty groan from the other room, then silence.
He finishes making the sandwich, sits down to eat it, and notices his laptop nearby. He opens it up and logs in. Headphones... He looks around. Where’d I leave them? He stands up and walks toward his bedroom, then pauses. Oh, there they are. He grabs his earbuds off the side table in the corner of the living room between the couch and the large window.
He returns to his laptop, plugs in his headphones, and enjoys his sandwich and drink while watching music videos.
Sadie still sits in her meeting at the Pentagon. The cast of characters is like yesterday’s; United States military officials, the High Council, the War and Defense Cabinet, and a few other elders that were also invited. The meeting concludes, and people start to get up and move about.
Mary walks over to her. “Sadie, my dear, thank you for agreeing to give the presentation this afternoon to the house about the joint operation.”
Sadie responds with a slow nod. “I’d feel better about giving it after the mission is over though, maybe an event can be scheduled this weekend instead?”
Mary shakes her head. “Some U.S. congressmen and senators will be joining the meeting back at the hotel.”
Sadie looks at her sideways. “You mean, additional ones?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry, non-vampires will be joining us later, and there’s basically no use in trying to get everyone to give up their weekend plans. I, for one, could use a couple days away from all these meetings.”
Sadie nods. “Me too.”
“Besides, it’ll be so much more poignant if you give the presentation while Charlie and the other knights are on the mission.” She turns to walk with Sadie. “Also, because the House of Elders’ vote on going public is scheduled for Monday, it would be preferable to announce the operation today.”
“I agree, I just am a little preoccupied with Charlie being gone. He hasn’t been on mission since we’ve been together.”
Mary places her hand across Sadie’s back, gently reassuring her. “Charlie is the toughest knight and the most stubborn son of a bitch that I’ve ever met.” She chuckles. “I can’t imagine anything that would be too much for him to handle.”
Sadie smiles and nods. “Thanks. He definitely is stubborn.” She sighs. He’ll be fine.
“Will you be joining the rest of us for a tour of the building? I’m looking forward to seeing the chapel and the 9/11 Memorial Room.”
Sadie shakes her head. “I need to prepare for the presentation. I might just go to a coffee shop and disappear for a while. I may pass on the luncheon back at the hotel as well.
Mary shrugs. “Well, thank you again.” She smiles and squeezes Sadie’s arm. “See you later.”
“See you later.”
Sadie walks out of the room and is about to turn her phone back on, but she remembers that the Pentagon REALLY doesn’t like people using electronic devices in the hallways. She leaves it in her bag and walks toward the main exit. I wonder what Charlie’s doing now? He’s probably still in the air.
The ninety-seven-foot-long C-130 Hercules, with a wingspan of one hundred and thirty-two feet, has a service ceiling of 33,000 feet when empty, and a service ceiling of 23,000 feet when loaded to its capacity. Best performance of the aircraft is achieved at higher altitudes, and the plane that Charlie is currently inside is cruising at 26,000 feet and over three hundred miles per hour.
The cabin area of a C-130 Hercules is gigantic, and up until an instant ago, it was fully pressurized. When the cargo area’s starboard-side hatch blasts open, there’s a massive shear and pressure differential. Aharon and the zombies gnawing on him are instantly sucked out.
Replacing the pulsing alarm is now a constant, high pitched ringing. Charlie holds on for dear life—his fingers white along the Armadillo’s bumper, the suction lifting his feet up off the plane’s floor and pulling him outward into the atmosphere.
Charlie doesn’t yet realize, however, that the suction through the door isn’t his only problem. Above 8,000 feet, the atmosphere is too thin to breathe and stay conscious. At 26,000 feet, a person’s time of useful consciousness is between three and five minutes. After that, without a breathing apparatus, a person would pass out. Also, thanks to their proximity to the hatch, everyone in the cargo area—that is still in the cargo area—experienced rapid depressurization. The forced exhalation of air from their lungs drops their time of useful consciousness down to only two to four minutes.
The plane’s remaining flight crew, who is safely in the still-pressurized cockpit, is well trained. Their instruments show that the cargo area has lost cabin pressure, and they begin an emergency descent.
The mass of zombies is yanked toward death’s door—the hatch having been opened only feet away from them. After Aharon took the two that were enjoying him as an early lunch straight out the door, two more zombies are sucked out in quick succession. Zombie Walker’s body slides sideways and jams at the bottom of the door, and another zombie—ex-Sergeant Davis—grips onto some security webbing near the door on one side, holds onto a ledge with equipment on the other, and is successfully holding itself across the opening.
Tiger seizes the opportunity. He shoves zombie McGee toward zombie Davis. They smash together, and they are both knocked out of the plane. Tiger misjudged the little force needed though, and he overdid it. His momentum, in addition to the loss of gravity due to the sudden altitude change caused by initiating the emergency descent, carries him off his feet, and he too falls headfirst toward the door. “Charlie!”
Charlie turns and sees Tiger flying toward the opened hatch. Tiger’s arms reach out to the sides to grab hold of something, and he grasps onto another zombie—the other specialist
, whatever his name was. Charlie twists his head to the other side and sees the straps of his harness extending out toward the breach. It’s still held onto the wall in two places.
Charlie lets go of the bumper and reaches for the strap as Tiger slams his shoulder hard against the wall next to the open hatch. Tiger’s lower body twists and falls out of the plane, and a three-hundred-mile-per-hour wind shear pulls his legs straight back against the side of the fuselage. His grip on the zombie keeps his torso from flying through the hole, at least initially. Tiger lets go of the zombie and instead reaches toward the nearby webbing.
Charlie grabs the straps of his harness as he falls—the force pulls one of the attachments from the wall. The other one is meant to be pulled in the direction Charlie’s body is pulling it, and it holds. He manages to put a foot against the wall and twist his body so he can try and reach for Tiger.
Tiger has the webbing in his hand, and his forearm is pressed against the wall and over the edge of the hatch. His shoulder and head are still inside the plane, while the rest of his body is outside. The zombie he grabbed, then released, slams into his shoulder, and the bones in Tiger’s forearm break. He screams, but he still holds on, and the zombie rolls over his shoulder and out the hatch. Now, only Tiger’s hand—of his broken arm—is inside the plane, still gripping the webbing.
Charlie stretches for Tiger, but he can’t reach him. Damn, need something he can grab…with his other hand. One of the last two remaining zombies in the plane gets up and trips, falling toward the hatch.
“Hold on Tiger!” Charlie pushes off from the wall and releases his hold on the strap, flying briefly toward the falling zombie and knowing that within a second, he too will be falling toward his death. He grabs the zombie and hurls it to his side, toward the aft of the plane as hard as he can. The zombie flies off its feet along a trajectory that will smash its back against the edge of the aluminum-armored cargo hold of the Armadillo.