Eckert’s voice was raw, laced with the pain Tomás had inflicted on him and that he had brought down on them.
‘Lauren? I’m so sorry. I couldn’t—’
‘Your captain would like to welcome you on board,’ Tomás interrupted and laughed. He shone his flashlight beam directly on Eckert’s face, proudly displaying his handiwork so that they would know what horrors awaited them. He moved the beam slowly along Eckert’s right arm.
Evan’s stomach twisted, bile rising in his throat. He knew what they would see when the beam reached the end of that arm.
Lauren’s gaze followed the beam, fear and curiosity colliding in her eyes.
The beam stopped on Eckert’s right hand. A blood-soaked handkerchief was wrapped loosely around his fingers, an out-of-character show of modesty from the taunting monster shining the light on it.
Evan knew exactly what was under that handkerchief. And what was missing. A strangled cry escaped from Lauren’s mouth. She’d heard the stories too.
‘Don’t worry,’ Tomás laughed, ‘he can still fly the plane.’
Maybe it was the mocking tone, or perhaps the realization that Tomás had already done his worst, but Eckert found some reserve of strength and courage deep inside him. He braced his arms against the rail and kicked savagely at Tomás’s grinning face.
Tomás stepped easily aside. ‘Tsk, tsk.’
Eckert lashed out again, not caring there was no chance of connecting. Tomás licked his lips, his eyes flicking into sharper focus.
‘Now everybody gets to watch while I do the other hand.’
‘Tomás!’ It was Ira, no possibility of argument in his tone. ‘Cut him loose. We’ve got to get going.’
Tomás looked as if he wanted to argue. Ira looked like a man trying hard to control a wild dog on a chain with the scent of blood strong in the air. In the end Tomás backed down. He climbed into the plane and cut Eckert free, then prodded him towards the cockpit with his gun.
Ira manhandled Evan and Lauren into the plane, climbed in after them. Two benches ran front to back down the sides of the cabin, stopping just short of the exit door. Tomás took up his position immediately behind the bulkhead, watching Eckert. Evan and Lauren sat on the floor with their backs pressed into the fuselage facing the sucking black opening five feet away. Ira sat diagonally opposite them, his gun resting comfortably in his lap. In the cockpit, Eckert ran through his pre-flight checks, then started the engine.
‘You know what happens next?’ Lauren hissed at Evan.
‘Uh-huh. I’m an expert now in your family history.’
‘Shut it,’ Ira barked at them.
There wasn’t a lot more to say anyway. And Evan had more important things to concentrate on. Making tiny movements, he worked the zip ties gradually around his wrists until the two locking mechanisms butted up against one another in the gap between his wrists. Lauren and Tomás had both made sure they were tight enough for what he had in mind.
The plane finished taxiing and came to a halt, lined up facing down the runway. After a moment’s pause, they started take off. Evan pushed himself harder into the side of the fuselage, the markings on the asphalt moving faster and faster past the open door as the plane picked up speed.
A crazy thought went through his mind. He could dive through the door, take his chances landing on the ground. He glanced at Lauren. She was looking directly at him, knew what he was thinking. She shook her head. Too fast already. He looked out the door, saw the blur of the markings, knew she was right.
He looked at Ira, saw the smug smile on his face. Saw the gun was now pointing directly at his chest. Ira flicked it towards the door.
‘Go ahead. We’ll come back and scrape you off the asphalt.’
Those were the words that came out of his mouth. He was thinking something very different:
Don’t worry, you’ll be going out that door soon enough.
The plane climbed rapidly, the lights of Baltimore disappearing below them as they headed into the night sky. They leveled out at eleven thousand feet—approximately two miles high—the temperature in the cabin plummeting as the cold air howled in through the open door. Tomás barked a command at Eckert and the cabin lights came on. But it wasn’t a comforting glow like sunshine breaking through the clouds. All it did was highlight the gaping black abyss that was the focus of everyone’s mind.
Ira stood up, his head and shoulders stooped beneath the low ceiling, and stretched with nervous anticipation. With the gun hanging loosely in his right hand, he grasped the grab rail with his left, staring out into the blackness. He cleared his throat and spat noisily through the door.
‘Easy as that,’ he said turning away from the door and kicking Lauren’s foot. ‘Just a bigger mess on the ground.’
‘Fuck off Waits.’
He put his finger to his lips as if he’d remembered something important.
‘There’s something Tomás wants to do first, isn’t there?’
‘Yeah, and fuck him too.’
‘Hey, Tomás,’ Ira called. ‘You got your sewing kit?’
But Tomás was too busy watching Eckert, the wind noise too loud. Lauren stared at Ira as if he was speaking a foreign language, watching his mouth as if she was trying to learn the words.
‘Sewing kit?’ She looked at Evan. ‘What’s he talking about?’
Ira tut-tutted. ‘Didn’t you tell her about Uncle Arturo?’
‘Arturo? What about him?’
All the reckless bravado of a minute earlier was gone, replaced by a dawning horror.
‘Oops. Did I let the cat out of the bag?’ Ira said and ran his fingers across his mouth as if closing a zipper. He turned away and made his way between the benches to the front.
Evan knew they might never get another chance, left alone for a minute or two before one or both of them came back.
‘What’s he talking about?’ Lauren whispered. ‘What did they do to Arturo?’
Evan shook his head angrily.
‘There’s no time. You’ve got to create a diversion.’
‘Tell me.’
If her arms hadn’t been tied, she’d have shaken him. She was wasting time. He knew she wouldn’t let it go.
‘They killed him.’
‘But why—’
‘Shut up! There isn’t time.’
Her mouth closed with an audible snap, shocked into silence by the force of his tone. He mouthed the next words at her even though no one could possibly hear. She nodded, dazed by the news of Arturo’s death. Then her brow furrowed, her voice low and urgent.
‘What are you going to—’
She was still wasting time. Up front Ira put a hand on Tomás’s shoulder. Tomás looked around. His eyes locked with Evan’s. That look alone made Evan want to give it up now, accept the futility, the stupidity of his words even as they left his lips.
‘Stop wasting time. Get down the front before he comes back. Do anything, have a seizure, I don’t care, just get in their way and give me a few seconds.’ He inclined his head towards the doorway to oblivion opposite them. ‘Or we can always jump now. Spoil their fun while they’re not looking.’
She shrugged like it was his call, a shared moment of gallows humor. She took a deep breath, then worked her feet under her butt, back pressed into the wall. He did the same, both ready to go on his command. Ira was still facing away from them, leaning in close to speak to Tomás over the noise. Tomás was facing front again, his eyes fixed on Eckert in the cockpit, but he was listening to Ira, nodding his head as if whatever Ira was saying sounded good to him.
They wouldn’t get a better chance. And they had nothing to lose.
‘Go.’
Lauren’s legs exploded into life under her as she launched herself down the aisle between the benches. Head down and with her arms trapped behind her, teeth bared in a silent scream, she raced down the cabin like an angry human missile fuelled by hatred for the men who killed her uncle. With the wind noise masking the sound of her f
ootsteps, Ira didn’t hear a thing until she slammed head first into his back, the demonic scream climbing from her throat like it had waited her whole life for this moment. Ira grunted in surprise, his arms splayed sideways, as she stamped her heel hard on the back of his leg. The leg buckled. He jerked forwards, collapsed onto Tomás. Tomás slammed broken nose first into the bulkhead, sudden blinding pain erupting behind his eyes, the impact sending his gun flying into the cockpit.
Behind them, Evan bent at the waist. He raised his arms as high above his back as his screaming muscles would allow. Filling his lungs, he drove his wrists sharply down, hands pushed outwards, his breath exploding from his chest with pain and effort. His wrists hit the solid mass of bone and muscle immediately below his belt, a jarring surge of pain shooting up his arms, wrenching his shoulders in their sockets. The ties flexed and strained, cutting deeper into his flesh. But they didn’t break.
Eight feet away, Ira heaved himself off Tomás, grinding his face into the bulkhead, smearing everything with blood and snot. He twisted, drawing back his left arm, then uncoiled, backhanding Lauren across the face with all the weight of his body as it unwound. She saw it coming, tried to move. Way too slow. Unable to protect herself, arms still secured behind her, she took the full force of the blow on the cheekbone. It snapped her head sideways, lifted her up and backwards off her feet, sent her sprawling across the bench behind her.
Jammed into the bulkhead, Tomás leaned through the doorway into the cockpit to retrieve his gun. He couldn’t see a damn thing. The cockpit was in darkness, the glow from the instruments the only light. Eckert was staring at something on the floor on the co-pilot’s side. He started to move. Tomás was faster, stronger. He pushed Eckert aside, leaned across the seat, fumbling in the dark with his left arm outstretched as he tried to locate the gun.
But Tomás was too cocky. He underestimated Eckert. He was an old man, broken, physically and mentally, by what he’d done to him earlier. So he wrote him off, not caring as he leaned across the seat that the side of his head was a perfect target for a man who hated him. For Eckert it was a prayer answered. He didn’t care either, didn’t care if Tomás found the gun and blew his head off, he’d have some small measure of revenge before he did. He drew his arm across his body, powered his elbow into the side of Tomás’s jaw, the still-fresh agony of his mutilated fingers, the memory of Tomás’s sadistic glee, lending him a savage, inhuman strength.
Tomás screamed as his jaw shattered, the beautiful sound mingling with the crack of bone and Eckert’s own howl of fury. Then Eckert drove his fist down onto Tomás’s extended elbow like he wanted to push it through the undercarriage. The joint flexed, bone and muscle and ligaments distorted in a crazy, unnatural movement, the pain excruciating. But it didn’t break. Spurred on by pain and panic at the rapidly deteriorating balance of power, Tomás dived further into the cockpit. His hand swept the floor as Eckert beat uselessly on his back, the advantage of a moment ago already lost.
Then Tomás’s fingers touched his gun. He got his hand on it, twisted his body as he lay across the co-pilot’s seat, the gun now rising steadily up towards Eckert’s head. Eckert swung wildly at him with his damaged hand, blood from his raw fingertips flicking across Tomás’s face as he tried to get himself upright. He knew Tomás wouldn’t shoot him. Not unless he wanted to fly the damn plane himself.
And he was right, Tomás wouldn’t have shot him—not of his own volition.
But that’s what keeps fate so busy and graveyards so full.
One of Eckert’s wild furious swings caught Tomás on his busted jaw. Every nerve in Tomás’s body ignited with the spark of white-hot pain, motor functions short-circuiting as muscles contracted and went into spasm—trigger finger included. There was a deafening explosion as the gun went off.
Hot lead ripped a hole in Eckert’s upper chest, the close-range blast in the small cockpit punching his body backwards in his seat, his hands flying off the yoke as if a thousand volts just went through it.
Two feet behind Eckert, Ira had leaned across the benches and grabbed hold of Lauren by the hair. He wound his fingers tightly into it and yanked her upright like an executioner displaying a freshly-severed head to the jeering crowd. Still woozy from the teeth-loosening backhander, she stared uncomprehendingly as his right arm drew back to let fly another murderous blow.
He still had the gun in his hand. That was no good. This was personal, not some clinical pistol-whipping. He wanted to feel the bones in her face break under his fist. He didn’t want the gun to mask that feeling. He shoved it impatiently at the holster on his waistband.
That’s when Eckert lost control and the plane banked hard right.
The gun missed the holster as Ira and Lauren flew sideways through the air when the floor tilted sharply under them. It landed at Lauren’s feet as the edge of the bench caught Ira in the back of the legs, the momentum and her weight pitching him backwards into the side of the fuselage, pulling her with him by the hair. As her feet came off the floor she kicked wildly at the gun. Her toe caught it, sent it spinning away down towards the back of the plane. Then she landed on top of him like the ceiling just caved in, trapping him in the gap between the wall and the bench, their faces inches apart.
For a split second they stared into each other’s eyes, momentarily disoriented by the impact. Then he dug his fingers tighter into her hair. The sharp pain snapped her back to clear-headed determination. She lunged and bit his nose, dug her teeth in deep for Arturo. He squealed like a stuck pig as she bit harder, grinding her teeth through his greasy skin into the flesh and cartilage below. He thrashed wildly under her, every movement intensifying the pain as she shook her head side to side like a rabid terrier with a rat, a demented growl in her throat.
At the back, Evan watched the gun slide towards him as he was thrown into the side. Aluminum panels and plexiglass windows flexed, absorbed him, then spat him back out like a bad taste in the mouth. He landed on his knees, bare inches from the infinite blackness beyond the exit door. The wind sucked at his clothes, his hair, his belief in himself. He drove his wrists downwards one last time onto the solid muscle of his lower back. The zip ties hit his belt, blew apart with a sharp crack. The impact pitched him forwards as his arms flew outwards with the release of pressure. For the longest moment he hung, frozen in time and space, suspended like an over-eager skydiver assuming the position. Then his hands hit the door frame and time resumed, deadened fingers locking, distorting the metal as he held himself across the opening. Breathing in great chunks of the night air whose cold embrace he had so narrowly escaped, he heaved himself backwards into the plane.
A sharp jab of pain went through his butt as he landed heavily on top of the gun. Numb fingers fumbled for it, slipping on the grip, slick with sweat. He turned to face the front, saw Tomás struggling in the cockpit, thrown off balance. The suddenness of the roll had pitched him onto his back, stopped him from getting a line of sight through the doorway into the main cabin. Clamping his fingers around the edge of the bulkhead, he hauled himself upright, the cabin coming into view, Evan on his butt in an unobstructed line of fire.
Beside him Eckert tried to sit up. A sharp gasp of pain squeezed through his bared teeth as the effort pumped fresh blood from the wound in his chest. He grasped Tomás’s wrist to deflect his aim. But his fingers were weak, his grip a soft caress. Tomás barely noticed. Casually, he twisted his hand free, then clubbed Eckert on the temple with the butt of his gun as if he were a minor irritation, an annoying bug that he might squash, he might not.
Eckert grunted as the gun butt split his flesh to the bone. His hands snatched automatically at the yoke as he fell back, catching it for a brief moment, pulling it down to the left before his grip slipped off again.
Everyone was thrown back the other way like a group of kids on a rollercoaster switchback ride but without the laughter and shouts of joy.
Evan had the gun in his hand by the time the plane banked. Tomás fired at that exact m
oment, thrown sideways as he squeezed the trigger. The shot went wide, punching through the aluminum of the fuselage as Evan was tipped onto his side. Tomás got off another shot, straight down the middle of the cabin where Evan’s head had been a split second earlier.
Evan’s shoulder hit the floor first, his gun arm extended, finger already tightening. Tomás made a perfect target framed in the doorway to the cockpit. But Evan barely saw what was in front of him. Instead, he saw Tomás with a needle and thread in his hand, a look of concentration mixed with twisted pleasure on his face as he sewed up Arturo Rivera’s mouth with big, ugly sutures.
Evan did everything in his power to wipe that evil presence off the face of the earth. He squeezed off two fast shots, feeling the righteous anger of an avenging angel channeled through his finger. The first shot blew Tomás’s shoulder apart. The second was better. Much better, and the world was a better place for it. The round hit Tomás full-on in the center of his face. It was as if his head was a balloon and Evan was the man who just stuck a pin in it. The back of his head exploded, blood and bone, skin and brain matter spewing out, coating the plane’s windshield behind him. He hung suspended and Evan drank in that image, savoring it, holding onto it to carry with him before Tomás toppled sideways onto Eckert, his gun slipping from his lifeless fingers.
Eckert was fading, weak from blood loss. He tried to shrug Tomás off, couldn’t shift his dead weight. As Tomás lay across him, the remains of his face only inches away, his blood dripping and mingling with his own, Eckert brought the yoke back to neutral, brought the plane’s wings level. Satisfied, he closed his eyes, rested his head against the back of the seat. A few seconds, that’s all, he promised himself, fighting against the gentle drowsiness that called to him.
In the aftermath of the gunshots as the roar of the wind reclaimed the cabin, Lauren and Ira were an inseparable tangle of limbs and body parts thrashing in the small space between the bench and the side of the fuselage, heads locked together as Lauren’s teeth refused to give up their death grip on Ira’s nose, his blood bonding them as it filled her mouth and streamed into his eyes.
Resurrection Blues Page 32