by Tony Thomas
‘Yeah, I was waiting on the meeting at 1 a.m. when I started seeing reports of it going out of control. I’ve been too wired to sleep since then.’
‘Mate—you need to sleep. If things are turning to shit, you’re going to need to be able to think clearly. Why don’t you go crash now and I’ll give you a call in a few hours and let you know what’s going on here.’
‘Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Gen fell asleep on the lounge a little while ago. I’ve been online since I got back from the shops.’
‘Since you got back from the shops?’
‘Yeah, I guess I panicked a bit. When I saw the first reports I thought “Zombie Apocalypse” and went and bought a tonne of groceries just so we could hole up without leaving the house.’
‘Jesus, it really freaked you out eh?’
‘I’m still freaked out, mate. Who knows how long this will last?’
‘That aside, stocking up might not be a bad idea. I think I might duck down to the supermarket as well. I’ll give you a call back in a couple of hours—you go grab some sleep.’
‘Sure Ian, talk to you soon.’
Dan clicked off. He leaned forward, putting his head in his hands for a few moments before leaning back in his chair.
‘Fuck it,’ he said, and went back to surfing the net, trawling for news.
05:20 AEST: Sydney
‘How you doing, mate?’ Brick asked Max as he walked into his room.
‘Just finished, Dad,’ Max said. ‘Want me to put it in the car?’
‘Just put it by the door for now, mate, I’m going to check on your sister.’
Brick wasn’t at all surprised to find that Sharn was still a long way from being packed. ‘Sweetie, I really need you to hurry up. How can I help?’
Sharn looked at Brick and sobbed, ‘I don’t want to go, Daddy!’
Brick sighed and gave her a hug. ‘I know you don’t, sweetie, but we have to. Come on, let’s get this packed up.’
He started packing what he thought Sharn would like when Rita came in. ‘I’m done, Brick, my bag is on the bed. Towels, sleeping bags, and sheets are in the lounge room. I’ll give Sharn a hand while you lock up.’
‘Thanks, Rita,’ Brick said. He went round the house and checked all the doors and windows were locked. He turned off the fridge and set timers for a radio and the lights. It seemed like only seconds had passed before Rita and Sharn came into the lounge room with Sharn’s bag ready to go.
‘Excellent,’ Brick said, looking at his watch, ‘Fastest pack ever, not even five thirty yet. Okay, let’s see if the coast is clear and then we can head out.’ He moved over to the lounge room window and looked through the blinds.
‘I can see a couple of people on the street, they look like they’re just walking past. Let’s hold on a second,’ he said.
‘Can they see you?’ Rita asked.
‘They’re not looking this way at the moment, just a sec, okay, they’ve gone past. All right, this has to be quick. As soon as I open the door, I’m going to click the back tailgate and unlock the doors. Run out with your bag. Dump it in the back, then jump in the car and lock your door. Everybody got it?’
Max grinned, this seemed like a great game. ‘Ready Dad!’ he said.
Sharn scowled at her brother, ‘Okay Dad.’
Rita gave Brick a quick nod. He had another look out the window and said, ‘GO!’
In a flash, Max was at the car. He lifted the tailgate, slung in his bag, then ran around the side of the car before jumping into the back seat behind the driver. Sharn was quicker than he expected, she slammed her door at about the same time Max did. Less than a second later, Rita had her bag in and was locking her door and pulling on her seat belt.
Brick was delighted. He pushed the bags around in the back of the wagon until he could fit in both his and Rita’s bags, wedged in the towels and sleeping bags and slammed the tailgate shut. He looked up and saw the man he had seen chasing Nick Grange earlier running across the road and coming towards him. The woman was not far behind.
He jumped over the trailer connection and rushed towards the driver’s door. He fumbled with the keys, looking for the unlock fob. Just as he remembered his door was unlocked, the man reached him. No stranger to a ruckus, Brick didn’t hesitate. He drew back his right fist, with the keys still in his hand, and punched the man in the face with as much force as he could muster. The man fell back into the woman, tripping her. Brick swung his door open, jumped in and hit the central lock button on the console as he slammed it shut.
Brick looked out his window at the couple. He was pretty confident that the punch he had thrown would leave the guy out of action for quite a while. He was shocked to see both the man and the woman were up and trying to get at him almost immediately. The man began pounding on the window, the woman was trying to push past him but ended up leaning over the bonnet and tried to get in through the windscreen. Brick looked numbly at them. Sharn and Max both began to scream in terror.
Rita yelled, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’
‘Right—yeah,’ Brick answered in a daze, he found the ignition key and started the car. He gave the engine a couple of revs in the hope they would move out of the way. The pounding continued, the couple glared through the windows with manic looks on their faces.
‘Fuck it,’ Brick said. He put the car in gear and slowly started moving. He didn’t want to run either of them over but he wasn’t going to hang around. As he slowly pulled forward out of the driveway, the woman bumped away from the windscreen and started chasing the car, clawing at the windows as it pulled away. The man tried to keep up, pulling at the door handle and clutching at the window glass. Brick accelerated, pulling away, they both continued to give chase for a moment or two, but seemed to lose interest as they got further behind.
Sharn’s screams had reduced to sobs now that they were moving. ‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Max pleaded. Brick drove for another block, checking they weren’t being followed, before pulling over.
‘Bloody hell’, Brick said, ‘is everyone okay?’
Rita looked into the back seat. Both kids were trying to look behind. Sharn had tears streaming down her cheeks. Max was as white as a sheet. ‘Yeah, we’re okay.’ She looked at Brick’s white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The knuckles on his right hand were grazed with a thin sheen of blood on them. It looked like the middle knuckle had started to swell. ‘I think you might have bruised your knuckles champ,’ she said, hoping to raise a smile.
‘Probably just from the keys, I had them in my hand when he jumped me. Rita, I think you should ring your sister and tell her what’s happening,’ Brick said. ‘We don’t want them to come looking for us when we don’t answer the phone, not with these crazies around.’
‘Good idea Brick,’ she said, as she dug into her handbag for her phone. ‘Let’s keep rolling. I’m not going to feel safe until we’re a long way from here. Kids, I need you to be quiet while I talk to Aunty Gen, okay?’
Brick pulled out from the curb, grateful that Rita was so calm in a crisis.
05:30 AEST: Sydney
‘Gen, you should see this,’ Dan called. ‘It’s a video from the States on YouTube.’
Gen walked into the office, yawning. ‘Have you had any sleep? You’ve been sitting in here all night.’
‘I tried to doze off a little earlier, but I’m just too wired. You should see this video. It’s unbelievable.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s something that happened in the US. The clip says it’s San Francisco, but I don’t recognise any landmarks.’
The video was taken from a phone and was a little shaky. It showed a view from the second or third floor of a building looking along a relatively narrow street towards an intersection. The buildings on the intersection were all different ages and styles. The opposite left corner was a high rise, with no markings on it—a typical glass and concrete type building. The building on the opposite right corner was a three-story brick
building with a restaurant, ‘The Old Siam’, downstairs. The other corner was hard to see but looked like a modern building of some type.
There was a four-car pileup in the intersection, with steam still coming from the engines of two of the cars. Maybe that was what had started the cameraman filming. It looked like a Toyota Prius had hit the front end of a compact Ford in the intersection, spinning it slightly. The cars from both lanes following the Ford had then hit it in front and rear, crushing it hard up against the Prius, effectively sandwiching it between the other three cars.
The drivers of the last two cars in the collision stood next to their cars, surveying the damage and looking a little shaky. There was no movement from the Ford. The reverse lights on the Prius flashed on and it looked like it was trying to pull back out of the crash. The driver of the car on the side closer to the camera realised the Prius was trying to get away. He ran around the outside of the collision to the passenger side of the Prius and pulled the door open. He leaned in—obviously yelling at the driver.
After a couple of seconds, he stood back from the Prius and looked down the road the Prius had come from. He ducked down again, said something to the Prius driver, stood, pointed down the street while yelling something to the other drivers, and then started running away from the intersection.
The driver of the Prius climbed out through the passenger door. She was a middle-aged woman, carrying a lot of extra weight, wearing an ill-fitting pant suit. She too looked back down the road, turned, and began running. As the camera lifted, you could see that the other driver was also running.
The camera then panned to the right quickly and a voice from off-camera said, ‘What the. . . !’ There was a pack of what seemed to be hundreds of people running up the street. A roar came from them that was broken occasionally by a bestial yell. It could have been a protest march but there were no banners in evidence and they were moving at a run.
Whenever they came across anyone on the side of the road, two or three would break off and attack them. The street behind them was littered with people either unconscious or being beaten.
‘Oh my God!’ said the voice behind the video.
He continued to record as a group broke off from the main pack and into what could now be seen to be the Hilton hotel. The camera panned back towards the intersection as the mob approached it, splitting into three directions and pouring into the restaurant and the office tower.
The camera panned back down the street from where the mob had originated.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus!’ gasped the voice. Where only a few seconds earlier there had been only unconscious people, or small groups beating others to the ground, there were now dozens of people, standing, twitching, and then running to join the mob of aggressors. There were still a few people lying on the ground, but those few were in pools of blood.
The view focussed on one man who slouched unconscious against a wall. He had been heavily beaten, with several bloody wounds on his face. As the camera zoomed in, the man twitched. His arm jerked in a spastic motion as his head snapped to the side. He twitched again, this time more violently. His eyes snapped open, and his mouth gaped in what looked like a scream of pain. The man looked left and right and then climbed slowly to his feet. He stood slightly hunched over, slowly turning his head from side to side, as though listening for something. Suddenly, his head snapped to the right, he hesitated for a second, and then sprinted out of view.
The camera turned to show a man in his early twenties, obviously filming himself. ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on—but this shit is scary. I’m locking myself into my apartment. If anyone knows what we should do, please post it.’
The video ended.
05:30 AEST: BA275
Captain James Martin had been shocked to hear of the incident in the business class cabin. William had explained that the passenger, John McCormack, was restrained, but was screaming as he tried to free himself. He was actually injuring himself against the plastic ties. James made the decision to get the plane on the ground as quickly as possible.
He quickly consulted with air traffic control at Keflavik International Airport in Iceland and was advised to land there. The police would be waiting to pick up passenger McCormack on arrival. They could be turned around and ready for takeoff within thirty minutes. He relayed this information back to BA headquarters and they agreed on the course of action.
James advised the cabin crew of his plan and then turned on the intercom and announced:
‘Attention passengers and crew. As you may have noticed, we have a passenger in distress who is causing us some problems. As a result of this, we are diverting to Keflavik Airport to debark him. It should be a short stop. British Airways apologises for the inconvenience; however, the safety and security of our passengers is paramount. Thank you for your understanding.’
The intercom chimed and James connected, ‘Captain here.’
‘Hi Captain, this is William. Just letting you know—the announcement was pretty well received in the upper cabin—everyone is feeling fairly uncomfortable up here. Not sure that the people downstairs know what’s happening, but no one is kicking up a fuss. We’ve got the cabin ready to land.’
‘Thanks William, we were right over Iceland so it won’t take any time to get there. Making a fast descent in two minutes.’
Ten minutes later, the plane had landed and James was taxiing towards the terminal. He had been given priority access to a gate close to the runway. The police were at the gate waiting for him.
As James brought the plane to a stop and shut down the engines, he could hear the yells coming from the cabin. He stood and looked through the peephole in the cockpit door. He could not see the entire cabin, but he could see that it appeared to be under control. William was walking down the stairs to open the forward door and escort the police to the cabin. Theresa, the upper deck attendant, was standing just behind a man who was frantically struggling in his seat.
After a few seconds, William had come up the stairs. James opened the cockpit door and walked into the cabin. As the police approached passenger McCormack, he continued to struggle and howl. After a couple of moments, the police decided there was no calming the man. One of the officers held him by his shoulders, the other snipped the zip-tie holding his wrists to the seat.
Immediately, McCormack reached for the officer and tried to attack him with his tied hands. He screamed as the officer forced him back down. The police were not gentle as they dragged him from the seat and into the aisle.
McCormack continued to struggle in the relatively tight confines of the cabin. His arms were well secured, but he kept lunging and roaring. As they reached the stair he broke the grip of the officers and slid head first down the staircase. Theresa swore as James looked on in shock.
The police rushed down the stairs. Both Theresa and William hurried to look over the panel into the stair well. McCormack was climbing to his feet, straining against his cuffs as they got there. ‘How the hell did he survive that?’ William asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Theresa said. ‘I would have sworn falling like that would at least knock him out.’
Theresa followed the police down the stairs as they struggled with McCormack. It only took a few minutes to get him off the plane, but by then every passenger had heard or seen the violent struggle to debark the passenger.
James returned to the cockpit and waited for Theresa to advise the door had been secured. After a few minutes, he was advised that the partial refuel was completed. He checked with the cabin crew on the status of the passengers. Once he received the all-clear, he sought approval from the tower to depart. The tower was quick to respond and he headed for the runway. As they taxied he announced,
‘Attention passengers. As you are all aware we have now removed the problem passenger. We are not sure of the cause of his problem, but on behalf of British Airways, we apologise for the inconvenience.
‘Landing in Iceland was not a great deviation in our flight path
. We have taken on some additional fuel and we will try to make up some of the delay on our way to Las Vegas. I will give you an update from the flight deck when we have some more information.’
As James took off and guided the plane back to cruising altitude, he again wondered how McCormack had fallen face first down fifteen stairs and got back up fighting.
05:45 AEST: QF12
‘Good morning, passengers and crew. As you are no doubt aware, we have begun our final descent, ready to land at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. The time in Sydney is 5.45 a.m. We will be landing at approximately 6.10 a.m. and will be at the gate by 6.15 a.m. Please ensure all electronic items are shut down. Please adjust your seat to the upright position, and secure tray tables. All luggage should be stowed in the overhead compartments or under the seat in front of you. For those in exit rows, please ensure all your in-flight luggage is stowed in the overhead compartments.
‘We will be dimming the lights for landing, but if you wish to continue reading, please turn on your in-seat lights.’
Jeff leaned back into his seat. At last he would be able to get out of the plane and stretch out. He was pretty happy he had decided to give himself a ‘recovery day’ before he had any meetings. Jeff was looking forward to getting to his hotel, having a shower to freshen, up and then going sightseeing.
As the plane descended, he got his first view of Sydney Harbour. He was really pleased he’d taken a window seat, and even more pleased they were landing to the south so that he got a prime view of Sydney as it woke up. Looking out the window, it looked calm and serene. The harbour glittered in the sun and the bridge and Sydney Opera House looked just like a postcard as they descended.
He looked down on seemingly empty streets as they rushed up to the airport, surprised there were so few people around on a work day. The final rush of descent ended with a light bump as the plane touched down and started to decelerate hard. Moments later, the Crew Chief announced: