by Glen Johnson
The person who had just forced the tube down his throat turned Tim’s head. He could see a skinny, naked man with ulcers covering his body on the gurney next to him.
“He is also a Nosey Parker, and that was his reward.” A smile played across the doctor’s face, something that looked completely out of place.
Tim was fading fast. His body was becoming numb. He couldn’t move, but he was still fully aware of what was happening around him, and to him.
“You have to be able to feel; or else the tests will not register properly. If the body can’t feel the pain, it will not react accordingly.”
The doctor moved closer and leaned right over Tim’s face.
“You, Mr. Nosey Parker are luckily enough to be chosen for three different tests. Firstly, a new type of asthma inhaler gas will be continually pumped into your lungs for two weeks. At the same time, your eyes will be held open by metal clamps, and a continuous stream of shampoo chemicals will be poured in, over the same two-week period. In addition, let us not forget the new suppository tablet we have to test for chronic pain relief. This in your case will come in handy, because on the hour, every hour, for the same two-week period, one will be inserted into your rectum via an automatic machine.”
-9-
Regrets
It is sung by children and babies. You are safe and secure from all your enemies. Psalm 8:2
Nicolas Hodge hated flying, in his opinion; there was nothing worse, apart from Tax returns. He had to fly twice a month due to his job.
Nick worked for an advertising company; whose two main offices were thousands of miles apart; one was in Boston, Massachusetts – where he lived, the other was in Los Angeles, California. He made the trip on the fifteenth and the twenty-eighth of each month.
The plane was always the same type for the transcontinental flight, a Boeing 767, which could hold one hundred and fifty-eight passengers, including the eleven-crew members. Today it was quieter than normal; it was probably just over half full.
Nick had just sat in his business-class seat. He watched the flight attendant helping another passenger stowaway his carry-on luggage.
He didn’t bother reading any of the material provided; he flew so often, and it was changed so infrequently. Instead, he twisted his neck from side to side, trying to relieve his tension. Once the plane took off, he would sit and nurture a scotch-on-the-rocks, the one single drink he would allow himself on the flight, to steady his nerves – he hated flying.
“It’s safer than crossing the street,” his wife pointed out every time he was about to head for the airport.
Time seemed to blur. He had made the flight so many times his mind simply turned off.
The plane was humming gently to itself. The pre-flight check had already finished, and the engines were about to roar to life. How he hated that sound. It sounded like the engines were about to rip free from the wings and hurtle down the runway, leaving the plane stranded.
A few others normally made the trip with him, always sitting in the same seats, with the same lame banter and insincere hellos, but none was on the plane today. He shouldn’t be here himself for another four days, but an emergency came up. The bigwigs were sending him to sort it out.
His wife wasn’t too pleased about the idea. Nick’s oldest child, Jeffery, who was ten, was playing his first proper baseball match; he was the first up on the home plate for the Boston Cubs. Nick had promised he would be there. A promise he now couldn’t keep. His wife had ignored him this morning, asking why he won’t fly tomorrow after the game. However, no matter how much he explained to her that it was the boss’s fault, she would not listen.
She was not up this morning to say good-bye to him, as she normally did before he left for two days at a time. Jeffery hadn’t come to say good-bye either, not wanting to get on his mom’s bad side, realizing something important was happening between them. Only Meg, his five-year-old, had come to see him off – as she always did, with a hand-drawn picture of him flying on the plane. The picture rested inside his briefcase, on top of important magnolia files filled with long reports and boring diagrams.
Twice on the way to the airport, in the company car, he tried to call Sara, his wife. The first time she didn’t answer. The second time, he wished she hadn’t, what with the argument that was started. Her ranting and raving about his fatherly responsibilities, and how work always came first. Then with him shouting back, where do you think the money comes from that buys your Gucci shoes, or the Armani dresses? Or putting the children through the best schools? The argument continued with both shouting random threats and curses.
Nick sat as the planes powerful engines started to turn over. Both hands gripping the seat’s armrests, with his knuckles turning white from the effort.
Also, he was a little apprehensive about one man sitting on the opposite side to him, one row down. The man was sweating as if he was in a sauna. The dark-skinned man kept tugging at his shirts top button, as if he wasn’t used to wearing a suit and tie, and he kept scratching his face, as if he had just shaved and his skin was irritating him.
However, as the plane started its fast run down the runway, the strange man was the least of his worries. Nick closed his eyes and tried to ignore the screaming of the powerful engines. However, every time he shut his eyes, he replayed the argument with his wife.
Within ten minutes the worst of the flight, as far as Nick was concerned, was over. How little he knew about what was to transpire.
There was a phone resting on the back of the seat in front of him.
Should I call Sara? Apologize, and try to patch things up? I hate to be away from home with a fight looming over us.
The small light, with a seatbelt on, flashed out, accompanied by a ping from the intercom. Then the captain introduced himself, and announced the local time and how long the flight would take from Boston, Massachusetts to Los Angeles International Airport, all stuff Nick ignored; he had heard it a thousand times before.
Then the airhostesses started their routines. One walked back and forth asking if everything was okay. Another pushed a cart, offering drinks and peanuts.
Nick ordered his scotch on the rocks. The drink took his mind of the humming of the engines, and the popping in his ears. He lifted his briefcase onto his lap and popped the catches. The first thing he saw was the bright picture his young daughter had drawn him. Looking like she used every colour in her crayon box. He noticed the same thing that was in every picture she made him; Meg sat beside him on the plane holding his hand.
He smiled despite everything and then snapped the case shut. He then lay back into the seat, adjusted its setting and tried to sleep. He awoke sometime later, a strange nagging in the back of his mind. He decided to call Sara and put things right. He pulled his credit card from his wallet and lifted the receiver from the cradle, and swiped his card.
Then his world, and everyone else’s on the plane, turned upside down.
The man who had been sitting silently, sweating and tugging at his clothes, and scratching his face jumped up as if on elastic. The skinny dark-skinned man made his way to the front of the plane, while uttering something under his breath. One of the airhostesses went to ask him if everything was all right. However, as he got closer the man backhanded her, knocking her a few feet down the aisle to land on her back, with a bleeding lip. Still striding forward he then removed a knife from inside his shirt and stabbed her in the chest as she was climbing to her feet. He then kneed her in the face as he forced himself passed.
A sporty looking man, to Nick’s left, jumped up to her defense, dumbfounded that a man would hit a woman. From the mans location, he didn’t see the attacker pull the knife. The sporty man, who looked like he might have been in the army, because of his buzz cut, grabbed the mans arm from behind, ready to spin him around. He was rewarded by having the knife forced across his throat, as the attacker spun it in an arc. The man fell to the floor, looking at his blood-soaked hands, his eyes wide in pain and surprise; he
then fell forward with a gurgling sound.
People were standing in their seats, trying to understand what was happening. Others started to scream, or cry.
Another man then joined the killer through the curtain dividers. This other man could have been the firsts brother; they looked identical. This second dark featured man was also wielding a knife in one hand, and a gun in the other.
How did they get the weapons on board? Was Nick’s first thought? Before the seriousness of the situation sunk in. What did they want? What was this all about? A hijacking?
The first started talking fast to the second in a whisper. Nick couldn’t hear what was said from where he was sitting. The first then removed a gun from his inner pocket and made his way to the cockpit. The second looked around, just waiting for someone to confront him, so he could use one of his weapons. His eyes reminded Nick of a possessed, desperate man – a man with nothing to lose. A man with a death wish mission to accomplish at any costs.
There was a gunshot, which sounded like a pop, nothing like you hear on the TV. Screams followed. Panic was replacing confusion.
One woman went to stand; she even demanded to know what was happening. Nick wanted to scream at her to sit down, but he didn’t dare draw attention to himself.
Why would she do that? Didn’t she just see what happened?
The woman was pushed back into her seat. She swiped at the mans arms and went to rise again, to shout and continue to complain, when the man drove the knife into her chest, then turned and left her there to die.
The woman’s hands clawed at the wound. Her eyes darting around, pleading, begging, but no one had the force of will to aid her. She was dying, why die along with her? Her breath was rattling, blood flecking from her mouth. Then she simply slumped back, as if sleeping. The only evidence to prove otherwise was the pool of red liquid gathering on her lap, and dribbling down her stockings.
Nick’s heart was thumping wildly in his chest; screaming for aid, he could hardly breathe. He wondered what was happening in the other compartments. Were there other men in them also?
He then remembered the phone in his hand. Then while checking the man was at the other end of the aisle, he started to punch in his home phone number.
His heart was racing faster. Below he could see the skyscrapers whizzing past.
How low are we? Where are we?
The phone wasn’t answered.
Of course, Sara will be driving Jeffery to school.
Nick ended the call, and then while checking the man was not too close; he punched in his wife’s mobile number. The second man came bounding down the aisle. At first, Nick thought he had been spotted, but the man disappeared behind the separating curtain. He could hear a foreign language being shouted.
So there are more of them!
He risked lifting the receiver to his ear. He could hear his wife saying something, sounding tinny down the line.
“What do you want Nick; I’m busy!”
Nick tried to whisper, but his wife shouted for him to speak up, while starting to carry on from where the argument had finished off earlier.
Nick shot a glance over his shoulder, to see if the man was coming. It was all clear. He turned around, catching a glance out the window. Buildings were shooting past, way too close.
Where are we going? Why are we so low?
He then realized the plane had been diverted; he recognized the scenery. Up ahead he could see the World Trade Towers. The plane slowly arching around heading in their general direction.
A voice screeched on the intercom, in accented English. “Nobody move, please. We are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves!” Then it clicked off.
One of them is flying the fucking plane!
Others obviously realized this was no ordinary hijacking, and were now climbing around in their seats, shouting, screaming, and crying at the top of their lungs. Others were running up and down the aisle, as if they were simply on a bus, and wanted to jump out into the street.
The man reappeared staring at the scene before him. He fired off three shots, all hitting different people. Chaos rained in the narrow aisles.
Nick had given up hiding the phone and was now shouting down it.
In his peripheral vision, he could see two men fighting one of the hijackers, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Nick heard the gun pop several more times; he did not know who was winning.
“Sara... Sara, I am sorry for fighting. I will always love you! Tell Jeffery I’m sorry I won’t be there for him! Tell him to be strong; he will be the man of the house now! Tell Meg she’s my little angel!”
Nick’s last image of his wife – that he could remember – was of her slamming the door to the bedroom the night before. He slept on the couch.
In hindsight, it was all so trivial, and he now realized that life could change in a heartbeat.
Sara obviously realized something was happening because of his strange requests, or his tone and the loudness of his voice, or possibly having heard the gunshots and the screaming in the background.
He peered out the window. He could see one of the towers out of the side window; not off in the distance, but so close he could see part of the building head on, taking up the whole forward view.
He reached for his briefcase, pulling it onto his lap with his spare hand.
“What’s happening? Nick? Nicolas... answer me...” He could hear Sara crying, pleading for answers.
Nick fumbled around with the catches on his case, flinging it open and grasping the picture his daughter had drawn him. He concentrated on the image of him holding his daughter’s hand, while shouting down the phone line, “I love you honey. Tell Jeffery and Meg, I will always love them!”
People were screaming, crying out to loved ones. Some were also shouting and crying on the phones.
The plane’s engines were screaming in protest, as if having been pushed to their full power.
Nick dropped the phone, and with a strange sense of calm, he placed the drawing on the seat next to him. Inside his briefcase was an old crucifix that once belonged to his mother, who had passed away from breast cancer.
He wrapped the chain around his hand and kissed it. He then made the sign of the cross, and kissed it again. He then picked up the drawing in his other hand. Nick then stood, grabbed his closed briefcase with the hand the cross was wrapped around, then turned, and started running towards the closest hijacker.
“I’m not going down without a fight, you bastards!” Nick screamed at the top of his lungs. He then swung the case at the hijacker’s face, hitting it with the edge. Even over the sound from the engines straining, and the screaming of people around him, he could hear the mans face crunch.
Then Nick was tossed backwards, as a roaring noise jolted the plane. Then the sound of rendering steel filled the compartment.
Nick released the briefcase and gripped the drawing with both his hands, as he was catapulted along the aisle. Then came the searing heat, and just before the darkness engulfed him, the last thing he saw was the drawing of his daughter holding his hand.
###
Authors Note
I hope you have enjoyed my collection of short stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. Furthermore, if you have already read the first book in The Human Nature Series: Lamb Chops and Chainsaws, and have purchased this book to continue the collection, then I thank you for your continued support, and I just hope you have enjoyed it as much as Volume One? I have already started Volume Three: French Fries and Flamethrowers.
I decided to include two stories about 9/11 because the day had such an impact on the way we view life and the challenges it throws at us. Sometimes the worst horror comes from real life. I know the terrorist attack effected everyone on a different level, and I wanted to give a perspective as to how it affected people who were directly involved. I wrote the two stories within months of the towers being hit, when I lived in Mexico City, but I have never released them, until now. I hop
e the stories have not insulted anyone in anyway. If they have, then I apologize, that was not my intention when writing them.
Glen Johnson
Have you read the first installment in the Human Nature Series?
LAMB CHOPS AND CHAINSAWS
Keep a lookout for Glen Johnson’s third installment in the Human Nature Series:
FRENCH FRIES AND FLAMETHROWERS
To be released in 2013.
About the Author
Glen Johnson was born in Devon, England in 1973. He lives in a hotel on the English Riviera; a stones throw away from the beach. He loves to travel and has visited twenty-nine different countries, and lived in Mexico City, Mexico for far too long for a pale skinned European. He has also been married twice – and still refuses to say where he buried them. At present, as well as writing, he works as an Optical Technician.
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If you have enjoyed
LOBSTERS AND LANDMINES Vol. 2
then don’t miss Glen Johnson’s other books.
LAMB CHOPS AND CHAINSAWS Vol. 1
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
Part One – Outbreak
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION