Resurrection Blues

by James, Harper

  Evan loomed over them, wasting precious seconds. Lauren was in the way. His gun was pointing directly at the back of her head. Instinctively Ira knew this. His right arm was trapped between his body and Lauren’s, his left hand still tangled in her hair. Tomás’s gun lay on the floor two feet away. Unable to shoot, Evan watched as Ira let go of Lauren’s hair, went for the gun.

  There was no time for niceties, for Lauren’s feelings or discomfort.

  He took hold of the back of her collar and pulled her off him bodily. In the suddenness of the action, she had no time to open her mouth, to release her teeth from what remained of Ira’s nose. His scream filled the cabin, reducing the wind noise to a whisper by comparison, as her sharp teeth raked through the flesh of his nose.

  That instant of stinging, brain-numbing pain saved them.

  In that tiny lapse of time before Ira’s hand resumed its journey towards Tomás’s gun, Evan hauled Lauren out of the way, throwing her over his shoulder, dropping her into the aisle between the benches. As Ira’s fingers touched the grip of the gun Evan lifted his leg over the bench, straddling it, and stamped down hard on Ira’s wrist, pinning it to the floor. He pushed the barrel of his gun into Ira’s eye. Ira went very still. They stared at each other a long moment, understanding passing between them. Evan would kill Ira if he had to. It was Ira’s play.

  Ira’s shoulders relaxed. He opened his fingers. Evan felt the tension leave his body. He pushed the gun barrel harder into Ira’s eye while he flicked Tomás’s gun away with the side of his foot. It came to rest in the far corner. He stepped back, offered Lauren his hand as she lay face-down on the floor.

  ‘You okay?’

  She didn’t reply at first but turned her face towards him as she accepted his hand. He recoiled at the sight, feeling like an extra in a cheap vampire movie. Her lips and chin were smeared with Ira’s blood, her teeth crimson-tipped, a flap of skin caught between them. Her hair was matted and wild, a clump missing, torn out. And her eyes, the eyes of a creature that has tried something new, something forbidden, and found that it likes the taste. If you ever pull a wild dog from a man’s corpse, you’ll see those same eyes.

  ‘Yeah. I’m okay,’ she said, her voice hoarse, guttural. Those were the words but what he heard was very different.

  Get out of my way and let me get back to ripping off his face.

  He looked down at Ira, at the damage she’d done to his face, and shuddered. He didn’t look at her, didn’t want to see the hunger in her eyes again. Ira put his hand on the bench to push himself up.

  Evan kicked it, yelled at him, ‘Don’t move.’

  The tone of voice told Ira he had a choice—try to get up and find himself back on his ass before he knew it or stay where he was until he was told otherwise.

  ‘You got a knife?’

  Ira nodded slowly, put his hand in his pocket. He came out with a switchblade, pulling it out carefully, holding it up between his finger and thumb. If Evan had said to poke his own eye out with it or pass it to Lauren, his choice, there’d be an eyeball on a spike in short order.

  ‘Throw it on the bench over there.’

  Evan picked it up off the bench, moved further out of the way. Lauren came with him, turned to offer her wrists. The knife snicked open with a smooth, well-oiled action. He cut her loose, dropped the knife in his pocket. You never knew. She flexed her fingers to get the blood back in them, get them ready for Ira’s neck, maybe.

  Evan looked around the cabin floor to see where Ira’s gun had ended up. He saw it under the bench opposite Ira, tucked in the corner. He saw Ira staring at it too. If the plane banked to the right now, it would slide right into his hands.

  ‘Go for it,’ he said with an after you wave of his gun.

  Ira shook his head slowly.

  Evan didn’t give his next decision nearly enough thought.

  ‘Take this while I get the other gun.’

  He passed his gun to Lauren. You couldn’t be too careful. He didn’t want to risk Ira jumping him, maybe getting the upper hand while he rooted around under the bench for Tomás’s gun.

  Lauren took the gun a little too eagerly, looking like she wouldn’t need much of an excuse to use it on Ira. Sneezing without asking permission first should do it. Ira swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly, as she pointed it at him. He didn’t move a muscle as Evan leaned under the bench and scooped up the gun.

  Evan stuck his head through the doorway to the cockpit to check on Eckert. He didn’t look good. Better than Tomás slumped across him, but not by much. He pulled Tomás’s corpse off him, dropped it in the aisle between the benches. Then he stepped over it and touched Eckert lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘You okay, Eckert?’

  Eckert jerked, then nodded. He coughed wetly, not taking his hands off the yoke, holding onto it as his whole body convulsed and shook. He mumbled something Evan didn’t catch through the blood and phlegm in his throat. Evan hoped it didn’t matter.

  Then he heard something else that mattered a lot, something he caught clearly, heard every nuance in the voice and wished to God he hadn’t. It was coming from behind him and it made his heart stop as he realized his mistake.

  ‘Drag him here.’

  Lauren. Spitting words at Ira like a snake hissing at a mongoose.

  Ira froze, then shrank back into the corner, staring into the barrel of the gun pointed at his face. She didn’t give him a chance to move. She dropped her arm six inches and fired twice into Tomás’s lifeless body. Everybody jumped. Ira, Evan and even Tomás as the bullets slammed into his back.

  ‘Now!’

  Ira took hold of Tomás’s legs and inched his way backwards towards the rear of the plane. She backed away from him, carefully placing each footstep as they moved in tandem down the aisle.

  Evan took a step towards the back. ‘Lauren—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up. This is all your fault. And stay there.’

  The gun swept towards Evan as she spoke. He stopped mid-stride. She moved it back to Ira.

  ‘Keep coming.’

  She got all the way to the rear of the cabin, past the exit door, not stopping until she had her back pressed up against the rear bulkhead. She held the gun in both hands, never leaving the center of Ira’s body mass.

  He came level with the exit door, knowing what was coming next.

  ‘Stop there. Push him out.’

  He hesitated. Only for a second, his lips moving soundlessly. She fired again into Tomás’s body. Ira jumped, banging his head into the ceiling and lost his footing on the wet floor. His hand shot out, clamped itself around the grab rail, slick with rain and Eckert’s blood.

  ‘Do it.’

  Keeping his hands on the rail, Ira put his foot on Tomás’s shoulder and pushed him off the edge, the body swallowed up by the empty blackness.

  ‘It’s a pity you had to shoot him first,’ Lauren said to Evan with as much emotion as if he’d forgotten to get milk. Then to Ira, ‘On your knees.’

  He started to lower himself, back to the door, his hands still gripping the rail.

  ‘Other way.’

  He twisted around, dropped heavily to the floor. She moved directly behind him—five feet away—two small steps and she’d be able to put her foot on his butt, push him out.

  ‘Let go of the rail.’

  He slowly let go and dropped his arms, staring helplessly out into the wind as it buffeted him, sucking at him. Evan inched slowly down the aisle, Lauren oblivious to him. He saw the knuckles on Ira’s hand glowing white against the darkness outside as he balled his fist at his sides.

  ‘How long until Eckert passes out and loses control again, you think?’ Lauren said. ‘A minute? Five minutes?’

  Evan glanced around at Eckert thinking exactly the same thing, hoped Lauren really did know how to fly the plane when he did.

  ‘Is this what you did to my mother?’ Lauren spat, the mocking tone of a second ago a distant memory. ‘Did you make her kneel there
before you pushed her out? Did she beg? Did you make my father beg for her life?’

  Evan hadn’t ever heard such venom in a person’s voice, such loathing. And there was something else behind the vitriol. It was satisfaction, a celebration that justice long-overdue was about to be done. Justice in her eyes. To him it didn’t look so different to murder. There was no way to stop her from killing Ira in cold blood in front of his eyes. Whatever he did, he’d never be fast enough to stop her getting off a shot at Ira’s back, blowing him away into the night. And it wasn’t only about Ira. It was too near the edge to be rolling around on the floor, kicking and thrashing, trying to subdue a woman so blinded by rage, she didn’t care if she went out the door herself.

  Lauren took a fast step towards Ira and hit him on the back of the head with the gun, stepped back again before Evan could move.

  ‘Answer me!’

  Ira shook his head helplessly, hopelessly. When he spoke, the words were barely above a whisper.

  ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t push her.’

  ‘You lying bastard,’ Lauren screamed, taking a half step forward.

  Evan tensed. She registered the movement, swung the gun towards him, held it there until he backed down.

  ‘You want to know what happened that night?’ Ira said. His voice was dead, as if he didn’t care what happened any longer. ‘I spent twenty years in prison for something I didn’t do.’

  ‘You were going to do it again tonight.’

  Evan watched dumbfounded as Ira slowly nodded his head. The guy had a death wish, wanted to get it over with.

  ‘For Garrett. He didn’t do anything either. But you killed him anyway, you murdering bitch.’

  Lauren went very quiet.

  ‘No.’

  Evan watched as one emotion chased another across her face—resignation, regret, and then self-loathing that in the end she’d been weak.

  ‘I wanted to. But I couldn’t.’

  Evan breathed again, his head pounding in time to his heart. The anguish in her voice told them all it was the truth.

  ‘Who?’ Ira said.

  She didn’t say anything, let him work it out.

  ‘Spencer.’

  ‘Kristina was his mother too. You all blamed me—’

  ‘Ha! What do you expect? You were the one told everyone what you were going to do to the men who killed your precious mother.’

  The phrase precious mother hit Evan like a slap. Was there any significance to it? Was he simply being spiteful and insulting? Or did he know things about Lauren’s mother, things that implied she wasn’t everything Lauren thought she was?

  Lauren hadn’t picked up on it. Or if she had, she refused to acknowledge it, refused to allow doubts to enter her mind, doubts that would make her question the justification for what she planned to do.

  ‘Say you’re sorry,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  Evan watched Lauren as he spoke, saw the satisfaction on her face. Would the apology and the implied admission of guilt that went with it despite his earlier denials, cause her to take those two small steps forward, plant her foot on his back and push him out? Or would it win him a reprieve, the simple words marking the end to the whole sad affair.

  Except that wasn’t what he was apologizing for at all.

  ‘—sorry I didn’t push you out when I had the chance.’

  Lauren’s mouth dropped open, her eyes at first wide with shock, then narrowing. She took a step forward. Evan did the same, moving fast to intercept her. Then Ira spoke again. And before the words were out, something told them that this was something they should stop and listen to, something that would change everything. For better or worse.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened that night twenty years ago. Kick me out after two words if you like. Or listen all the way to the end. It’s your choice. I really don’t give a damn anymore.’

  Then he told them what happened and it wasn’t anything Lauren wanted to hear.

  Chapter 55

  IF ECKERT HAD FLOWN the plane into the side of a mountain the impact on Lauren would not have been more dramatic. The gun slipped through her fingers and dropped to the floor as her legs buckled. She stumbled backwards, slid down the wall. Her hand went to her throat, her mouth hanging open as if she was dying for a drink. But nothing in a bottle was going to make things better ever again. She mouthed one word over and over.

  No.

  Despite the shock, the horror of the words she didn’t want to believe, she knew Ira had told the truth. Because now everything made more sense than the lies and stories she’d carried around with her for more years than she wanted to remember.

  Ira’s head was bowed, his chin on his chest. He’d played his last card, he couldn’t do or say any more. What would be, would be.

  ‘Get away from the door,’ Evan yelled at him.

  Nobody was going to be pushed to their death tonight, not by Lauren, not by Ira. He was in charge now.

  Ha, ha.

  Fate is always in charge and the quicker you learn to accept it, the better.

  Eckert lost control of the aircraft.

  Weakened by blood loss from the gaping wound in his chest, he slipped into unconsciousness. He sagged forwards and to the left, landing on the yoke, his weight pushing it away, turning it sharply. The plane responded instantly, banking hard left, nose down.

  Everyone and everything in the back was thrown towards the open door. Ira’s knees slipped on the floor, his arms flailing wildly, trying to catch hold of anything. Behind him, Lauren slid across the floor. She threw out her arm, caught the leg of the nearest bench and dragged herself towards it.

  Evan was the only one on his feet when the plane rolled. He pitched forwards towards the door, dropping his gun as he clamped both hands around the grab rail, staring straight down as the plane banked ever more steeply.

  Ira’s flailing left hand hit the doorframe. His right caught Evan in the legs. Fingers clamped around Evan’s left ankle, the desperate strength in his grip like a hydraulic claw. His knees slipped off the edge, shin bones scraping over metal, toes catching on the lip. His body arched backwards, arms stretched behind him, tearing in their sockets as if he was on a medieval torture rack, the fear and pain carved into his face witness to its excruciating efficiency.

  Lauren screamed something unintelligible, meaningless sounds lost in the chaos, one word distinct.

  Graveyard.

  Evan watched in horror as the fingers of Ira’s left hand lost their grip on the doorframe. They tried to find some purchase, a ridge or strut, a crack or cranny, anything to halt the inexorable slide. There was nothing. As the doorframe slowly slipped through his fingers, the bone-crushing grip around Evan’s ankle intensified to compensate. A long wail of denial broke from his lips. With a sudden jerk the hand came free. His left side dipped. His body twisted, toes slipping off the edge. His whole weight hung suspended in the air by a single hand clamped around Evan’s ankle.

  And still Lauren screamed at them as if they had time to stop and listen.

  Spiral.

  Evan’s left foot jerked across the floor with the sudden jolt of added weight. For a thousandth of a second it caught on the lip. Then there was nothing but blackness and Ira under his foot.

  He tightened his grip on the grab rail, rain and sweat and blood fighting against him all the way. His right foot started to slide, unable to keep a grip on the slippery floor. When it slipped off both men would be hanging from the grab rail, directly down through the opening.

  Then it would be a simple matter of time and strength.

  The strength of Evan’s arms and fingers bearing the weight of two men.

  The strength of Ira’s one-handed grip on Evan’s ankle.

  The time it took for the grab rail to give way.

  The odds weren’t the sort to risk your life on. A one in three chance of coming out of it alive. And they’d find out soon enough unless Lauren got off her butt and righted the crazy spiral
instead of just shouting at them.

  Graveyard spiral.

  Evan had no idea what that was. But the clue was in the name as to how it would turn out.

  Then things got a whole lot worse.

  Eckert regained consciousness momentarily. It should have been a good thing. If he hadn’t been in the weakened, confused state he was in.

  Coming to, finding himself slumped across the yoke, he realized the plane was descending rapidly. With the yoke jammed in the forward position by his body the descent had gotten faster and faster. Waking from unconsciousness, at night with the windshield coated with Tomás’s blood and brains, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, forget the horizon. Blinded by pain, eyes stinging with his own blood from the gash on his temple, he couldn’t see the instruments either.

  Lacking vital visual clues, groping groggily back to consciousness, his vestibular system—the organ of equilibrium— in his inner ear told him they were in a wings-level descent.

  It was lying.

  They were in a banked descent.

  He corrected by pulling back on the yoke. But he didn’t level the wings. And pulling back on the yoke without bringing the wings level is the worst thing you can do. It tightens the spiral and increases the rate of decent.

  It’s a vicious circle. As the descent rate increases, you pull back harder and harder, thinking you’re correcting it, but you’re only tightening the spiral more, until the aircraft hits the ground.

  So when Eckert came to and hauled on the yoke before he passed out again, the plane banked harder.

  Thanks a lot, Eckert.

  In the back, Evan’s foot slipped another inch, the slide gathering momentum, as the floor tipped sharply under him. Then the forces of gravity and the crazy forty-five-degree angle of the floor won the day. Before the startled shout was past his teeth both feet were dangling in mid-air, two miles up.

  Below him, Ira yelled as they swung free, digging the fingers of his right hand harder into Evan’s ankle bone. His left hand clutched frantically at empty air, not strong enough to catch Evan’s leg, each successive swipe falling further short.