The officers had to have entered his room by now and noticed his absence, but nothing was left behind to indicate that he had ever been there other than a name on a sheet at the front desk, which he’d initialed upon checking in. The room had been reserved under his company’s name and credit card, none of his personal information given over to the hotel, and they would have to call Rhodes in order to get that. His phone hadn’t gone off, no one from the office had tried to reach him, and he took that as a sign that the wheels were slowly turning in his favor.
He let out a sigh of relief when he boarded the plane, not caring that he had a middle seat, nor the fact that the guy sitting next to him kept shifting his elbow way to close to his ribs. When the plane had finally taxied and taken off, the flood of pressure that had been filling him since it all began seemed to flush completely out of his system, and he was able to get the trembling fingers to steady once more, and his pulsing temple to finally back off and give him peace.
The one thing that the two-hour flight did give him was the chance to go over everything that happened and try to come to terms with what he’d experienced.
First thing that popped into his mind was something out of a horror movie, and he immediately dismissed that as hogwash. Those kinds of things didn’t happen in the real world. Horror movies were designed to exploit people’s fears, to bring them to life in fantastical and horrific ways, and were rarely based on any kind of realistic circumstances. No boogeyman killed kids in their nightmares, no guy in a hockey mask chased kids through the woods with a machete, and the dead did not come back to life and start eating people. What had happened might defy immediate explanation, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
A few years back, there had been a news story of a man that had been infected with rabies down in Florida and went about trying to eat his neighbors. To the people involved it might have appeared to be straight out of a Romero film, but there was a scientific reason, a medical condition that had caused it, not a virus that reanimated the dead into walking cannibals.
The dead just didn’t come back to life.
Yet, he had seen the damage to Jerry’s neck, could recall in vivid detail the exposed bones, the torn flesh, and the massive blood loss apparent on the man’s clothing. To think that he could continue standing, much less chase him down and nearly break through a door seemed preposterous and defied rational explanations. Drugs could push people beyond their limits, cause inhuman demonstrations of strength, the ability for the body to keep moving past normal means, but biology was still restrained by the laws of nature.
A torn-out throat meant death, not a lunatic charging at police officers, getting shot multiple times, and still tearing into the officer as his partner put a bullet in the man’s head.
It was straight out of the Walking Dead, and it was giving him waking nightmares that would not stop. Well, almost. There had been no yellow eyes, instant decay, or shambling undead monster chasing after him. Jerry had looked just as he always did, minus the injuries and bloodless face, and the eyes, those rage-filled eyes. Still, not something he’d seen before, as the shows and movies he’d watched over the years really played up the monster look of their creatures, not wanting it to appear anything close to a real human being. Monsters were okay, humans eating humans, not so much.
Unless you had a liver served with fava beans and a nice chianti.
A shiver snaked up his spine.
III
The fasten seatbelt sign came on, and he glanced out the window; they were starting their descent into Denver. Shutting down his iPad and stowing it in his backpack, he quickly buckled his seatbelt as his anxiety began to build once more.
While in flight, his phone was off, his contact to the outside world completely severed, and he was in a cocoon of safety that only thirty-five thousand feet could provide. Once the wheels touched down on the tarmac however, all that was lost.
Would there be voicemails from his work? Would his wife be frantically trying to get ahold of him, having been contacted by both his employer and the Chicago Police Department? Were there officers waiting for him at the gate with orders to put him on the next plane back? None of this anxiety he felt would end until he was on his connecting flight and in the air once more, and even then, he’d be stressing the moment they began their descent into Sky Harbor.
Hell, even the safety of his own home wouldn’t quite feel the same, the worry that someone might be knocking on his door at any second with extradition orders back to Illinois plaguing his mind. Would they go that far? He witnessed two minutes of whatever had happened, had no personal involvement in any of it, and was completely innocent of wrong-doing; with the exception of fleeing the crime scene that was.
The plane touched down and he resisted the urge to immediately power up his cellphone. He knew that realistically it wouldn’t matter, that the airlines insistence that they be turned off was bogus, but why push it? The real world could wait for a few extra minutes while they taxied into the awaiting terminal. He was in the back of the plane, and would have plenty of time to wait while the rest of the passengers in front of him disembarked to check his phone.
He wondered if this was how drug mules felt when landing at their destination, waiting to see if the DEA would be waiting for them at the gate, and tried his best to steady his breathing and remain calm.
Hitting the power button on his phone, the plane having come to a complete stop, he tried not to watch as it went through its boot up process. He had bought a charging stick before boarding the plane and had recharged the battery while in flight, just in case he needed to use it more than usual on this layover.
Carrie: Is everything all right? Why are you coming home? What happened?
There were no voicemails, no other texts, just the one from his wife responding to the one he’d sent before boarding his plane. Maybe he had dodged a bullet after all.
Taking his backpack from the overhead compartment, he slid it over his shoulder and hit the shortcut for his wife’s cell on his home screen.
“Hello?” she immediately asked, answering on the first ring. It was almost as if she’d expected him to call at that exact moment.
“Were you tracking when my plane would land?” he asked casually, trying to sound calmer than he actually was. They had started moving towards the front of the plane, and he wasn’t out of the woods yet, so it was best not to frighten her any more than needed.
“Kelly called, told me what flight you were on. Asked me how our kids were doing. Nice one genius, I had to wing it. What exactly did you tell them?”
“That I had a family emergency and had to get home,” he responded, kicking himself for not warning her of his false story ahead of time. Not that it mattered, he was done, even if his employers weren’t aware of it yet.
Still, he hated getting caught in a lie.
“What’s the real reason?”
It was not something he wanted to get into while in the jetway surrounded by a bunch of strangers close enough to kiss. “Doesn’t matter. I wanted to come home, so I am.”
“Just like that? Honey, I miss you. I really do. But we can’t afford to be short a paycheck right now. We have bills to pay,” she said in her disapproving tone, like he was doing something reckless. “When I told you I didn’t care about it, I was thinking of how much I missed you not the looming rent payment.”
“I’ll find something at home.”
“If you could do that, you wouldn’t be on the road,” she returned.
He was starting to feel anger rise within. His inability to fully explain what happened, her assumptions that it was some impulsive act instead of something deeper, was pushing him to the edge. “It’s hard to do an interview while in another state,” he countered. “Look, there were other reasons for me wanting to come home, things I can’t talk about right now. I need you to trust me, okay? And don’t answer any more calls from work, or from out of state until we have that talk.”
The phone went
silent.
“What did you do?”
Of course she’d go there.
“Why does it have to be something I did?” he asked, stepping into the terminal, eyes scanning for cops, aware of the irony of that statement and his current fears.
“Who are you worried about calling me from out of state?”
“Can you not just trust me? Please? I didn’t do anything wrong, I promise you. That doesn’t mean other people will see it that way. Look, I’ll be at Sky Harbor at 11:30, can you just be there to pick me up? I’ll explain then.”
Another pause.
“Okay. Just get home safe. We’ll work it out when you get here. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he told her, then hit the end button.
His bladder informed him that he needed to make a pitstop, so he began walking in that direction, thinking of what he might be able to get to eat, and bad in need of a cigarette. Luckily, Denver had a smoking lounge, one that you had to buy a drink to be in, but it was there nonetheless. It was better than nothing, which more than a few he’d been through had to offer, and he had to take what he got. Maybe he’d forgo the Pepsi he’d usually purchase and go for something stronger; he needed it.
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Timothy Ray was born in Tucson, AZ, where he resides with his wife and three children.
He graduated from Desert View High School and was part of the Writer's Club for three years. He attended the Art Center Design College to work on a Bachelor’s degree in Animation.
The Legacy Series (Book 1): Legacy [Sanguis] Page 27