I tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go.
“Rose, we’re right here. What’s wrong with you?” She was pulling hard on my hand and she’d stepped several feet backwards, so far that our arms were extended between us as far as they would go. I reached forward and slammed my palm against the rear of the response vehicle. It made a comforting, thick thud. It was solid. Real. Safe.
Rose wasn’t looking at me. She was looking past me and the truck, into the distance, where several other airplanes were parked. Parked and burning.
“Sam, look.” Her accented voice was whisper-low. I turned, trying to see whatever the fuck had made her come to a stop when we were so close to help.
It took me a moment.
They were in the very near distance, shambling out of the heavy smoke from one of the large fires. So many of them.
So many of them.
“Maybe we should have stayed on the plane,” I stuttered out, stumbling back the way we’d come, that time my movement pulling Rose along.
“Sam, I’ve got a feeling that everyone on that damn plane is already dead.”
“And that makes us different how?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” she replied stoically.
Her words hit me hard—an anvil from the sky and I was a damn cartoon coyote. I was trying so hard to stay brave and strong.
I wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
“God, what do we do?” I couldn’t stop staring. I couldn’t take my eyes off what was heading our way.
“Come on,” Rose said, once again becoming the leader as she shuffled us toward the front end of the LAX truck, following the angled line of its body, the wrapped-around windshield glinting a bit with sunrise rays and firelight. “Even if no one is here, maybe the keys are.”
I didn’t nod, because I was too busy thinking about the incoming danger, the burning world. It was the end of everything, wasn’t it? It had to be. It felt like it was.
We were inches from reaching the slightly ajar door that was situated several feet higher than that of a typical SUV.
I’d been a bit behind Rose, but now I moved forward so that we were side by side. “Hello?” I tentatively called, part of me wanting an answer and part of me wanting just keys and a full tank.
Rose moved a fraction closer, her fingers reaching out for the door so she could open it fully and inspect the inside before we leaped in and made tracks.
A very quiet moan sounded as the door, maddeningly in need of a good oiling, creaked open. We froze.
“You hear that?” Rose’s grip on my hand was painful. Or maybe it was my grip on her hand. It seemed like this was endless, like were caught in some sort of time paradox where danger would never end and our two hands would become permanently fused as if glued together with the strongest epoxy on Earth.
“Yeah, I heard it,” I squeaked out over the lump forming in my throat.
We both jumped as a body popped out of the emergency vehicle like a horizontal version of a jack-in-the-box. It fell stiff and lifeless to the ground, its neck hitting first and a sickening, snapping crack shooting through the air. It hadn’t fallen on its own—not that quickly. Something had pushed it out. Something that was now trying to get out itself, clawing at the driver’s seat and reaching for the open door to gain leverage. It was covered in gore, soaked from head to toe; its once salt-and-pepper hair was nearly mermaid red.
“Bloody hell!” Rose choked out, and she pulled me around so hard I thought my shoulder might dislocate.
I heard the blood-soaked monster finally hit the ground, having successfully navigated its way out of the truck. I was beyond grateful that whatever was infecting these people didn’t make them superhuman fast. I’d seen those sorts of movies. You don’t survive long in them, not without mad years-of-training skill, and I didn’t think arabesques and cabrioles were going to get me out of this, no matter how perfectly I kept my leg straight or how well I pointed my toes as I leaped.
We were running toward the airport now, toward its shadowed windows full of fleeing, fearful silhouettes. I wanted to run in the opposite direction, away from the building and its enclosed spaces, but the airport was surrounded by an insanely tall safety fence, razor wire across the top. I’m sure it was to prevent tampering with planes and such, but now it felt like we were stuck in a prison for deeds we hadn’t committed.
Because what the fuck had me and this girl ever done to deserve this? I was an orphan who was busting her ass to become a prima. She was just a young woman on a trip to America, who seemed perfectly harmless. We shouldn’t be here, pulled into hell, should we?
“I don’t know if this is the best idea,” Rose said, as if second-guessing her choice to pull us toward the airport building.
“I’m pretty sure there’s not much of a choice here,” I replied, feeling my body quake and my nerves firing like the severed end of an electrical cord still plugged into the wall. “We can’t go back in there with those…things. God, it’s like that movie a guy was watching on the plane.”
“A movie?” Rose looked pale, her eyes looking up at the building we were planning on entering.
“Zombies” is all I said, the word sinking into my stomach like lead. “God, I don’t like that word.”
“Like it or not…” Rose glanced back at the plane we’d escaped.
We fell quiet, standing still beneath one of the boarding tunnels that led into the terminal, catching our breath and mulling over the thought of undead creatures terrorizing the world, or at least this airport. A set of mobile stairs was already pushed against the elevated walkway and locked into place, as if the passengers from that terminal had been taking a smaller plane, the kind with only two rows on either side of an aisle that isn’t tall enough to properly connect with the boarding bridge.
“My dad used to say something whenever his client hadn’t been completely honest with him and something damning came up during deposition.” I was delaying the inevitable. I knew it. Rose likely knew it.
“What was it he said?” Rose asked, absentmindedly staring at the boarding bridge we were planning on entering.
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“I’ve heard that before, only I say ‘between a rock and a hard place.’ Only, in this case, I’d take either of those choices over this.” She pointed up the stairs.
“You and me both,” I replied, and looked at where she was pointing.
Chapter Seven.
Rose
T he stairs leading up to the boarding bridge were high, but at least they were out of reach of anything creepy looking, and I’d take that over standing there waiting for something to grab me.
“Come on,” I said, and started up the stairs. They were noisy, and the sound of our steps clanking on the metal seemed as loud as a foghorn. I tried to step quieter but it made no difference, and without the boarding bridge being attached to an actual plane, the whole thing had a little extra sway to it that made it even harder to navigate.
Sam was right behind me as we reached the top, and we both breathed a sigh of relief. Off in the distance the horde of undead had heard us and were heading over. And Sam and I exchanged worried looks. At least from up there, though, we could see farther out of the airport and to LA beyond.
My stomach ached as I focused on several fires that were dotted along the horizon. Lights were blinking out in several areas as we watched, but the bright light of fire kept everything illuminated.
“This is not what I had in mind when I booked this trip,” I said with a soft shake of my head.
A bright light shone out of the boarding bridge we were stood next to, drawing our attention from the scene of horror in the distance, and we both turned to look inside. I squinted inside, trying to discern what the bright light was. Was it a fire or was someone there with a torch trying to help people? I mean, this whole thing was getting crazy, so there was no way that help wasn’t on the way. Like the police, or the army, or at the very le
ast airport security.
“Hello?” Sam called tentatively.
I yanked on her arm and dragged her back from the opening. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” I hissed. “Have you never watched a horror movie before?”
Sam looked at me in confusion and I quickly looked into the boarding bridge again as I explained.
“The girl runs into the scary basement or haunted house or whatever and shouts ‘hello, is anyone there?’ I mean, what does she expect? The murderer to shout back ‘hey, girl, I’m just taking a quick bath, be right down!’” I looked back out at Sam, who was staring wide-eyed at me, and I shrugged. “I watched a lot of movies in my spare time.”
Whatever—or whoever—it was in boarding bridge hadn’t moved. The light was now shining out of the boarding bridge in one long beam, which I took to be a good sign, though it could easily have been the latter. Regardless, we were going inside, because the Los Angeles air was acrid with the smell of smoke and death and I wanted to breathe in as little of it as possible. Not to mention that the sound of screaming coming from one of the parked planes was freaking me the heck out.
“Come on.” I tugged on Sam’s hand and she followed me inside without question. As we walked farther into the darkness I squeezed her hand tighter. “I should have gone to Maui,” I muttered under my breath. “I bet this would never have happened in Maui. Stupid LA!”
“You’re welcome,” Sam hissed at me. “It’s not always this bad, you know.”
Despite everything, I snorted on a laugh.
We were reaching the midway point then, and the area where the light was shining the brightest. We pressed our backs to the side of the boarding bridge walls and I willed myself to look round and see what it was, praying for airport security or a policeman or anything but one of the undead monsters that were currently invading the airport.
“You want me to look?” Sam whispered, and I nodded.
We swapped positions and she peered round before abruptly flattening herself against the wall again. We stood in the darkness, both of us trying to control our panicked breathing as the sound of inhuman growls moved towards us.
“It’s not airport security, is it?” I whispered, glancing towards her. I saw the fear in her eyes and the miniscule shake of her head. “Shit, okay, okay, it’s okay, how many are there?”
Sam swallowed and looked back round quickly. When she looked at me again she mouthed the word three. I nodded okay. No idea why, since this wasn’t okay, not at all. I jerked a thumb towards the way we had come, because there was no way to get past those things so we were just going to have to find a different way in, but some higher power had different ideas because the sound of loud moaning echoed from the other end of the boarding bridge, meaning we were trapped right slap bang in the center of a zombie tunnel.
“Fuck,” Sam muttered.
I looked around us for anything useful that we could use as weapons, but there was nothing at all. The only thing I could think of doing was running. Run hard and run fast. Hopefully they wouldn’t be blocking the exit and we could get out of the boarding bridge and find something to protect ourselves with, somewhere to hide, or at least a policeman to help us.
I leaned in close to her ear, too afraid of being heard now to take the risk of whispering too loudly. “We need to run.”
Sam shook her head frantically, her eyes almost bugging out of her head. She mouthed something that resembled fuck no and continued to shake her head.
“We’re stuck in the middle, Sam, with no weapons and no help coming. We have to run! They’re slow and clumsy, we can do this,” I whispered into her ear again.
She shook her head no once more, but her face looked resigned to the fact that my shoddy plan was the only plan. I rolled my shoulders like I had seen people do in movies hundreds of times right before they completed some great challenge with minimal odds of survival. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to do a whole lot for me and I still couldn’t get my feet to move.
It was the scrape and slap of feet at the entrance to the boarding bridge that made me move as I realized that our time was quickly running out, and I dragged Sam with me, out into the center of the tunnel and in plain sight for all the zombies to see.
Sam had been wrong.
There weren’t three.
At least, not anymore.
Now at least six of them were stumbling around the boarding bridge chewing on chicken wings. I mean, not actual chicken wings, of course, because that would be ridiculous, but it was easier to call the limbs being chewed on chicken wings than arms or legs, because you know…nightmares forever and all that jazz!
We were spotted quickly (of course), and the chicken wings were quickly forgotten (not actual chicken wings) as the zombie things started to stumble towards us.
“Rose!” Sam yelped out my name, but there was nothing for me to say, nothing for me to do. There were just too many of them. One or two, maybe three we could get past, but that many? We were screwed.
“Run,” I said, barely able to get the word out as I gasped for air. “Run!” I shouted louder, and then I pulled her.
We reached the mass of zombies in seconds, and as the first one grabbed for me I let go of Sam’s hand and pushed at its chest with everything I had. Another one had backed up behind it, stopping the thing from falling over backwards, which was what I had hoped would happen.
Sam called out but I couldn’t focus on anything but my own survival as the two zombies continued to reach for me, their stupidly still-human faces staring at me hungrily as I whimpered and pushed against them.
My feet slid on the mess at my feet, blood and guts and chicken wings gathered in a pile like a KFC banquet, and I lost my footing and landed on my arse. It should have hurt but the blood and chicken wings beneath me cushioned my fall. The two zombies dropped to their knees and reached for me as I scrambled to get back up to my feet and out of the way of their reaching hands and snapping teeth.
My hands fumbled through the gore and landed on the torch that had been shining down the boarding bridge towards us. I picked it up and swung it at the first zombie, literally slapping it around the face with the torch. It was a literal torch slap, that I had great satisfaction in. It made a loud thwacking sound and I grimaced at the feel of bone crunching under its weight.
“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry!” I burst out without thinking.
The torch slap didn’t do much damage but it gave me enough breathing space to get back up to my feet and out of the gore, and I started full-on running towards the airport. The sound of Sam’s scream halted me in my tracks and I turned and looked, watching as she fought off several zombies, one of them being airport security. Guess that explained why no one was coming to help.
I looked around me quickly, trying to find something better than the torch that I was currently holding, and my gaze landed on a bright red fire extinguisher. I ran to it and unhooked it from the wall and headed back into the boarding bridge, which was now, unfortunately, swathed in darkness since I’d taken the torch with me.
I quickly dropped it back into the gore at my feet and fiddled with the nozzle before aiming it at the two zombies I had been fighting with and letting loose with a quick burst of white powder right into their faces. The force of the jet pushed them backwards and equally distracted the three that Sam had been fighting with. At least long enough for her to slip out of their grip and head towards me.
A zombie on the floor grabbed at my ankle and I stomped down on it, hoping to crush its hand. But of course it didn’t react like a human and give out a yelp of pain and then retreat. Instead it just seemed to make it angrier. I aimed the fire extinguisher jet at it and let loose another white stream, and almost fell over in the process too.
Sam reached my side and we slowly backed up towards the exit.
“We need to block this off. Can we unhook it from the entrance?” I asked, choking on the fire-retardant smoke.
Sam ran to the exit. “I don’t know how!”
/>
She went silent for a couple of seconds and I stared on in total horror as the army of the undead grew before my eyes. The zombies from the airport had made it up to the boarding bridge and joined the ones that had already been there.
And now they were heading towards us.
“Maybe we can shut the door and lock them out,” Sam called.
I ran to her side, not wanting to look away from the abominations heading towards us. I ran out of the boarding bridge and she slammed the door shut, and her hands fumbled for a lock which wasn’t there just as zombie hands slapped against the opposite side of the door and the handle jiggled in place.
Could these things use handles?
We looked at each other fearfully. “That’s just our shitty luck, right?” I said, frantic at the thought these things might be able to actually open a door. “Seriously, what the hell?”
The handle jiggled again, and Sam leaned her back against the door to hold it shut, her eyes wide in fear as more hands thumped against the other side of the door.
“Hold the door closed while I look for something to barricade it with.”
I dropped the fire extinguisher by my feet and looked down at the desk, still strewn with boarding passes and passports which would likely never be used again—or at least for a long time.
“There might be a button to lock it!” Sam yelled to me, her voice filled with fear.
My eyes scanned the desk, focusing in on the small computer, its screen still lit bright.
“Rose, hurry!”
“Shit,” I said, looking everywhere on the screen for a button which might lock the door. “I can’t see anything!”
“Smash it!” Sam called back.
I looked over at her to make sure she was being serious.
Her gaze held steady on mine, and I nodded and picked up the fire extinguisher again. “I’m not going to get arrested for this, right?” I asked, sudden unease settling over me.
Red Eye | Season 1 | Episode 1 Page 6