by Amber Fallon
I staggered towards the rubberneckers, eager for my own eyeful of carnage. Before I could take more than a single step, there came a different noise, something like rock being broken, then a howl of rage and fury. It sounded something like the scream of a big cat on the hunt mixed with a train whistle and a tornado thrown in for good measure. I had just enough time to think “What the fuck else?” before the first creature appeared from the hole.
He was big, at least seven and a half feet tall, maybe more, with the kind of bulging muscles that would’ve given Hercules-era Schwarzenegger a hard on. His skin was so pale he might have been an albino. He wore some kind of shiny, flexible armor over his chest and shoulders and what looked like a fringed loincloth, but he was otherwise bare. His nails, both toe and finger, were deep black and elongated and curved into claws. His pale hair was worn long, pulled back from his monstrous face in a ponytail and decorated with some sort of ornaments that looked like small black bones. His nose was large, almost as wide as his gaping maw, and flat, pressed against his face like someone had pounded it with a mallet. His teeth were either broken or extremely irregular in shape and his gums and the interior of his mouth, in contrast to the rest of his coloring, was a greasy black. But two things about him really got my attention: first, the great big sword he carried in his right hand. Second were his eyes. They glowed red like hot coals beneath his sloping Neanderthal brow.
It had taken the thing seconds to make its way out of the yawning crater and up onto the uneven floor. Some of the crowd parted, giving the creature room. Others just stared, slack jawed, as more of the things came into view. First hands and arms, then muscular shoulders, torsos, and legs. The first one that had appeared was the largest, though they all looked formidable. There were five of them and they all appeared to be male. They shared a number of characteristics in common; tall, overly muscled, and angry looking. They wore similar outfits, though not exactly what I’d call uniforms. They carried a variety of weapons—another sword, a pair of axes, some sort of staff, and an enormous club.
The crowd seemed frozen, staring in awe at the abominations. The largest one took a slow, measured look around, as if calculating the odds against them, then he let out another of those vicious roars and took Yoga Pants’ head off with one swipe of that enormous blade. Her ponytailed crown somersaulted back towards me, mouth and eyes frozen in shock and terror as blood fountained from her neck. Her body collapsed, twitching, a moment later. “Oh thank god.” I muttered as yet more of the beings arrived, similar in appearance but with slight variations in clothing and weapons. They all roared together. That battle cry awoke something primal in me, the oldest kind of instinct. Nothing else that day had managed to evoke my survival response. My care and concern for Dylan, sure, but not my own desire to remain living. I had long wondered if I might be borderline psychotic or somehow otherwise immune to normal human emotion. Perhaps this was confirmation. Perhaps not.
As the pack of creatures began to cut down the mob of gibbering, panicked people. I alone seemed to have decided not to fall like a lamb before the slaughter. Casting one quick glance at the body of my beloved Dylan, I turned and began forcing my way against the tide of people surging all around me. At first it was slow going, but thankfully there was enough rabble to keep those things busy behind me before they had a chance to catch up. I pushed past the social niceties that had been ingrained in me from a young age and forcefully shoved people out of my way, lashing out with foot and fist until at last I was able to duck into a hallway that wasn’t completely packed with swarming bodies.
I put my back against the wall for a moment’s respite as I tried to think. There had to be a way out of this. Probability dictated that there were always survivors in any kind of catastrophe. I could be one of them! I just had to stay rational and figure out a way to survive until help arrived. Those things out there might be badass as fuck, but they didn’t seem to have any sort of advanced weaponry. They wouldn’t stand a chance against a SWAT team armed with assault rifles.
But what if no one had notified the authorities yet? In situations like this, everyone assumes someone has already called 911. What if no one else had? I whipped out my cell phone and sighed. There was no signal. “Useless!” I threw my phone against the wall, regretting it a second later, as I realized it contained the last photographs there would ever be of Dylan and I together.
Another of those predatory roars forced me out of my self-pitying bubble. I looked around the hallway, hoping to be struck by inspiration, but I found none. Instead, I found a little charging station on one wall, flanked by displays of brochures for local attractions and doors leading to the men’s and women’s restrooms on the other. On the far side of the women’s door, a little evacuation map outlining paths of escape in the event of an emergency was tacked onto the wall. I yanked it out from behind the protective plastic sheet covering it and stuffed it in the inner pocket of my jacket.
I crept back down the unfortunately dead end hallway. I decided nothing else there would do me any good. I peered around the corner just in time to catch sight of another mob of those things ripping through the crowd, mowing people down like weeds. I ducked back into the hallway as another of those roars went up from the opposite direction. How many of those barbaric caveman wannabes were there? Had all of those meteors been some kind of transportation for them? Was this some sort of invasion force?
The packs of hunters were getting closer. I knew that I’d be easy to spot in the empty hallway, quite probably too tempting a target to ignore. The phrase “like shooting fish in a barrel” sprang to mind, making me uncomfortable with the vivid truth of the situation. I had to get out of sight, and I didn’t have a ton of options staring me in the face. I made what I hoped was a good call and ducked into the men’s room.
It was your standard issue airport bathroom—six banks of florescent lights overhead, four sinks with touchless sensors, two hand dryers, a big trash can, five urinals across from four stalls, and two floor to ceiling mirrors. In one corner, a janitor’s mop and bucket stood abandoned, whether as a result of the nightmare going on outside or not wasn’t immediately apparent. There was a can of spray air freshener, a rag, and a spray bottle of cleaner stuck in a little compartment on the side of the bucket of dirty water. I debated grabbing the air freshener to use as flower scented mace, but thought better of it. Who knew how those things would feel about the scent of freesia? Maybe it was an aphrodisiac to them or something. I most definitely did not need that kind of action.
Ok, so I’d made it this far. Hiding out in an airport bathroom during some kind of Armageddon. Mom would be so proud. Now what? All things considered, the bathroom wasn’t a bad place to be, save for one thing—there was only one way in or out. That limited my options as far as next steps went. Waiting it out held little appeal for me but forting up for a bit seemed like the only logical course of action, so I jammed the mop through the door handle and began a more in depth exploration of the facilities.
Unfortunately for me, there didn’t appear to be any sort of supply closet. They probably kept all of that stuff in a centralized location to service multiple facilities. It did, however, limit the places where I could hide or look for weapons.
I thought briefly about prying off one of the stall doors with my bare hands and using it like some sort of a riot shield. I quickly branded that idea as ridiculous and moved on.
The bathroom was pretty sparse. Not much in the way of serviceable defense mechanisms. Dropping to my knees and looking under the sinks revealed only clean white tiles. I stood up slowly, considering my few remaining options.
I debated breaking open the soap dispensers and spreading the slimy pink goo all over the ground like some sort of booby trap, but then I saw my reflection in the mirrors over the sinks. I was shocked to find that I still looked like me. Same old Dirk Bradley, minus my soul mate, plus a few blood stains, but not really much worse for the wear. Somehow I had expected myself to look completely different.
Maybe like some kind of action star or something, maybe ten years older than I’d looked that morning. I felt like I should’ve been changed somehow by the day’s events. I don’t know why. Maybe it was silly. But I was nonetheless disappointed to see me, as I always looked, staring back at myself. I sighed and shrugged, then I turned on the sink and washed the blood away.
I was drying my face on my sleeve when someone or something tried to open the door from the other side. I stood frozen for a moment, waiting to see if there would be another attempt. I took a slow, silent step backwards, towards the stalls. Then another. The door jerked again as something slammed up against it. The wooden mop handle began to splinter. Thank god the sanitation company hadn’t opted for one of those cheap plastic handled jobs.
I was only a few feet away from the stalls and what limited protection they offered, but I didn’t want to announce my presence to whomever was outside by making noise. So I waited for the next blow to the door. Then I heard one of those inhuman roars.
The thing rushed the door again. I darted into the last stall, hopping up on the toilet and throwing the latch. Luckily for me, these were the kind of stalls that defaulted to closed, so the one I was hiding in wouldn’t look out of place so long as I kept quiet. Maybe I’d get lucky and that thing out there would just pass me by. Yeah, and maybe it’d start singing show tunes.
There was another thud on the door and that poor herculean mop finally gave up its life. I closed my eyes, thanking whatever gods had made it strong enough to withhold the force of those heavy blows for as long as it had.
Then the creature entered.
From my admittedly shoddy vantage point, I could see that this guy was wearing some sort of boots. They looked like they were made of the same shiny armor the other ones had been wearing and clanked on the tile as he stomped into the restroom. I could hear him sniffing loudly like some kind of big dog. Shivering, I held my breath and waited, hoping the thing would assume the restroom was empty and leave for more fertile slaughtering grounds.
Instead of leaving, the thing stalked further in and roared again, shaking the mirrors in their frames. It whirled on the sound and, judging by the reaction, must’ve seen its own reflection for the first time. There was another booming cry and the sound of breaking glass. Apparently, it hadn’t liked what it had seen.
By this point, I had to breathe. Yet another movie fallacy. I’d been lead to believe that you could hold your breath indefinitely in situations like this, but that was definitely not the case. Human beings didn’t breathe adrenaline, after all. I let out a breath as slowly and silently as I could, then began to breathe in the same way. Mid inhalation, I almost choked as the thing kicked in the door of the first stall with an explosive bang. Fuck! Only two stalls to go before he got to mine—and I didn’t think he’d be glad to make my acquaintance. Or would he?
I looked around the stall, hoping for some kind of interdimensional portal or something to open up. What? Stranger things had happened this fucking morning, even. No portals, but there was a plunger in the corner. Apparently I had chosen the toilet that backed up most often. The plunger wouldn’t do me much good as a weapon, but I guessed it would be better than trying to defend myself with my soft little fists, so I reached over, poised to grab it when the thing kicked in the next door to cover the noise of my movements.
I remained crouched that way, fingers inches from the plunger handle, for what felt like an eternity. The muscles on the insides of my thighs started to burn. I exhaled slowly, then glanced up. A tiny smile played with the corners of my mouth. Directly overhead was the spur of a fire sprinkler. I had found my way out, and it wasn’t a magical portal to fairy land after all. Fuck those fairies. I hear unicorns are dicks, anyway.
The thing kicked in the door of the second stall. BANG! I grabbed the plunger and shifted my position, tucking my heels beneath me and preparing to lunge upward. I knew I’d only have one shot at this. The next door that got kicked in would be the one beside mine. I had to make it out now or else I probably never would. At least not all of me. If those things took trophies, maybe he’d cut off my ear or something and put it on his belt.
“Come on,” I thought, “I haven’t got all day you big, ugly freak...”
The thing was apparently enthralled by the idea of indoor plumbing. Or perhaps he’d gotten a whiff of my scent (a delightful mix of Irish Spring and Axe body spray, capped off with a hint of citrusy hair gel). I heard him sniffing around only a few feet away from me.
I was certainly close enough to smell it, too. It smelled like the inside of a locker room after a big game, but also sort of earthy and wild, like some sort of animal or maybe the tiger enclosure at the zoo. It wasn’t likely to be Calvin Klein’s next signature fragrance at any rate.
I fought the urge to gag, waiting for my chance to spring my improvised trap. I didn’t have to wait long. I heard it retreat from the second stall and take a few loud steps toward me. It paused in front of the stall directly next door. I readied myself, tightening my grip on the plunger. I really hoped luck would be on my side.
BANG! The thing kicked the door open inches from me, but I was ready. In one smooth motion, I leapt from my crouch and swung the handle of the plunger at the sprinkler head.
A lot of things happened all at once. The sprinkler head flew free over the top of the stall to land clattering on the floor tiles. Water poured from the open pipe, spilling down over me and the toilet in a heavy stream. That stuff was also not winning any scent awards and, now that I was covered in it, neither was I. The other sprinklers in the room began spraying smelly rain and—best of all—the fire alarm began trilling.
The thing roared, dropping its enormous axe, freeing up both hands to cover its ears. I didn’t hesitate, exploding from my hiding place, doing my best not to slip on the wet tile. I shoved the thing into the stall beside me (noticing somewhere in the back of my mind that its skin was way, way too warm) and did my best Usain Bolt impersonation, running through the half inch of water that had already accumulated on the floor, using the disorienting strobes and blaring alarm to my best advantage. I made it to the door, wrenched it open, and then pounded into the hallway, heedless of where I was going. I just had to get out of there before that thing recovered its senses and came after me. It was a pretty safe bet that it would be pissed off that I had eluded it and would probably want to hunt me down and wear my skin like a vest. Not my idea of a good time.
I tore back down the hallway, which was now a water hazard tinged with pink swirls where bits of people lay like discarded mittens. I paused briefly at the entrance to the concourse, looking left and right. There were far fewer people than there had been just minutes before, whether through attrition or escape, I did not know. I figured I’d start preparing myself as best I could for my own fight or flight situation. First things first, I needed some kind of weapon.
For some reason I had it in my head that these jacked up jackasses would be vulnerable to firearms. Perhaps it was their lack of anything more technologically advanced than swords and boards. Perhaps it was the fact that they collectively reminded me of possessed fucking cavemen. That would make a great Sci Fi Channel movie-of-the-week: Possessed Space Cavemen Vs Gay Man with an Uzi. I liked my odds in that one. Maybe if I lived through this it would happen. Maybe they’d even get Orlando Bloom or Hugh Jackman to play me.
I figured my best bet at laying my hands on a gun was to head to a TSA office. Someone there was bound to have been armed. Worst case, maybe they’d confiscated something I could use. And even if they hadn’t, maybe some of them were still alive and could offer some sort of protection to civilians like me. I didn’t like the idea of scrambling to The Man for safety, but I liked the idea of losing my head even less. So I started back to the main body of the airport, the place where the gate-filled arms connected to a central hub that contained, along with a food court and a sizeable bank of massage chairs, the big ominous “Authorized Personnel Only” door.
I’
d only managed a couple hundred feet, moving tactfully between clumps of bodies and mounds of gore, when I heard a single gunshot. And it was close.
My head swiveled in the direction I thought the shot had come from. From that same direction came another of those murderous, rage-filled howls. But it was different somehow. Shorter, more halting. Was that... fear? Uncertainty, maybe? I turned and began to make my way towards what I hoped might be salvation.
I wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction. The shot didn’t come again, neither did the howl. I kept my head down and my shoulders hunched, sticking close to walls, podiums, and service kiosks—anything that might offer a bit of cover or a place to hide in case one of those things spotted me, or I spotted it.
Ahead of me stretched a long corridor that lead towards my original destination, the TSA Security Office. At a forty-five degree angle, another arm led off towards Concourse C. To my right was a badly demolished newsstand. To my left was an unmarked hallway bordered by the bodies of two women missing most of their faces, which seemed to have been painted on the wall behind them with great force. But which way had the shot come from? I kept on the path I was on, down the hallway towards the TSA office. Even if I was wrong in pinpointing the direction of the gunshot, I’d be closer to my original destination.
Another few hundred carefully paced feet and the sounds of my probable salvation still hadn’t been repeated. All I could hear was people screaming in the distance, sometimes preceded by equally distant howls and the less frequent crash of meteorites careening to the earth.
Then I heard the gun go off again. Closer this time. I took a few steps forward, trying to orient myself on the sound. Ahead of me, the hallway widened into an open area with a bright skylight overhead. One that was remarkably intact, considering the glass that littered the rest of the place. Rambo and company had to be there, it would make logical sense. They’d fort up somewhere large and open, but defensible. Somewhere easily accessible by rescue squads in Black Hawks, who’d come down like the fist of God himself, guns blazing, to rain fire and doom on those who’d dared to set aggressive foot on American soil. It would be epic. It would be action movie worthy. My salvation would be a box office smash in another reality. I braced myself, a breath of relief almost on my lips, and stepped into the open area before me.