I smell jasmine flowers again. The female flight attendant pulls the cart past. But, this time a male attendant smiles at Aunt June and myself. He smells like bubblegum and hand sanitizer.
“What can I get you, honey?” he asks Aunt June.
Aunt June orders another Diet Coke. The man hands her the cold beverage, but he doesn’t pull on the tab this time. Aunt June’s polished pink, thick, yellowed nails, dig for the metal release tab. Pop…Fizz.
The flight attendant pushes the trolley another row down: clinking with mini bottles of vodka, rum, soda cans, hot coffee, and juice. Behind us, across the aisle, I can hear the man in the white cowboy hat speak.
“Just a water please,” was all he requested from the male attendant.
I hear a high-pitched, bubbling, wheeze.
My silver fur stands on end, trailing down the back of my neck—a Mohawk stretching the length of my spine. I am panting quicker. Saliva foaming from my open mouth.
Aunt June looks over at me, becoming alarmed. “Buster, what’s wrong?”
She digs in her plastic cup, with her painted pink, yellowing fingernails, finding a piece of ice that she offers to me.
Phreeeeeeeet!
My eyes go blurry. I can barely make out the little boy in the striped shirt, scampering down the aisle towards me. Running with the toy airplane between his puckered lips, blowing into the tail end. The front cockpit letting out a high-pitched scream. The toy plane is a whistle.
Phreeeeeeeeeet!
Instinct.
My former training overpowers me. Disable. Protect. Kill.
My lips fold under to expose my fangs. Snarling. Bounding over Aunt June, I knock her Diet Coke to the ground. Soda splashes, and pretzels crunch, on the floor under my heavy paws. Taking one more powerful lunge to disable. I aim for the small boy’s throat. My powerful jaws crushing his tiny neck. Kill. My teeth digging deeper into his soft flesh, filling my mouth with hot pumping blood. The boy’s neck is hanging limp, only connected by the spinal cord. This feels familiar. I give the broken neck an additional shake for good measure.
22 Betsy Love
“Oh my God, he just blew the whistle!” Betsy bristled, becoming livid with Blake.
He had promised not to blow it on the airplane. His father had purchased the toy whistle when he dropped them off at the Anchorage airport. He was being particularly nice to all of them. Blake had been thrilled with the attention given to him by his daddy.
“Try keeping a three-year-old from blowing a whistle, Jared,” she annoyingly reproached him. “I have a two-day trip ahead of me, with two tiny people, and a now a whistle—thanks a lot.”
He ignored her as always, hugging and kissing Blake and Clarabelle. Then he leaned into kiss Betsy on the lips, she pulled away, and he laughed at her like it was joke.
They made pine tree car scents—claiming to smell like fresh mountain air—that was what Jared smelled like. He would return home from riding the snow machine at breakneck speeds along the crooked spruce tree lined trails. She would bury her face into his chest, sucking in nature’s essence like the icing off a cake.
They had met in the Florida Keys five years prior. She was waitressing at The Fat Conch Tiki Bar, after graduating from the Key Largo High School the year before. Jared grew up on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska but was spending the summer trapping lobster in the Florida Keys with a friend of his fathers.
They were tan, young, and feeling the conch spirit; drinking Captain Morgan’s coconut rum and Cokes, lying on the beach under the dancing palm tree shadows, fishing for yellowtail and hogfish, devouring conch fritters and key lime pie, and making love to Jimmy Buffet’s rendition of Brown Eyed Girl.
Here she was on an airplane—the circle of life—returning her to the islands.
Betsy clinched her jaw as she listened for Blake to blow that damn whistle again. Then she felt a sudden thump that jarred the plane.
23 Stewart Buckeye
The clean-cut flight attendant, with the nametag claiming Nicco, handed Buckeye a plastic cup of water with no ice. Buckeye placed the cup of water on his tray, atop the square napkin in front of him, when he heard the screaming of a whistle.
Phreeeeeeet!
He looked up to see a very young male child, wearing a striped shirt, awkwardly running down the aisle, a toy plane whistle squeezed between his lips. The flight attendant followed Buckeye’s gaze, turning his body to the front of the plane in order to face the blasting sound. Both men watched in horror, as the massive Pitbull leaped over the elderly frizzy haired woman, landing in the aisle with a crash. It then proceeded to attack the three-year-old.
“Woooo!!!” Nicco screamed, taking several steps towards the ensuing attack.
The dog hearing the flight attendant yelling turned its massive body around to lock its menacing yellow eyes on Nicco. The dog’s savage face was dripping with the child’s blood, staining the white fur bib on its chest red. Nicco was trapped between the trolley and the snarling dog. Buckeye watched as the dogs protruding muscles started clenching and straining, before it pulled its body back and lunged its mass at the flight attendant. Nicco’s body was flung backwards, ramming him against the trolley, pushing the cart down the aisle, just enough to expose Buckeye, now trapped with his tray down, next to the murderous rampage. Buckeye was shocked to see the dog only inches away, ripping and shredding at Nicco’s arms. The flight attendant was unsuccessfully fighting off the savage dog.
Get your shit together man, Buckeye ordered himself, cautiously reaching his right hand down to his belt to release the snap closure on his gun holster.
The sound of the snap closure seemed as loud as the kid’s whistle but had been drowned out by Nicco’s fight for life. The gory scene was playing out on the aisle floor at his feet. It appeared Nicco was losing the battle. One of his arms revealed severed tendons and was hanging by exposed muscle. Blood saturated the blue hall carpet, oozing into his row, forming a puddle under his boots. He eased out his Glock 45, taking comfort with its weighted power.
Nicco stopped fighting, his body slouched against the beverage cart. Buckeye hardly recognized the flight attendant. The dog had made a sinkhole of his face. The man was suffocating on his own blood, making red bubbles around where his lips used to be. Buckeye looked at the blood-soaked animal chewing on Nicco. Its silver fur convulsed with tremors. Screaming and chaos erupted through the plane. Buckeye remained calm listening to the dog’s teeth grinding against the flight attendant’s bones.
Maybe five rows up, he watched the murdered boy’s mother stepping into the aisle. Her dark hair thickly braided to the side wrapped around her neck like a noose. Her worried face contorting into stunned horror, clearly bewildered by the vision of her child’s murdered body lying on the aisle floor.
Buckeye focused his attention on the boy’s red Converse shoes. Gaining his composure, he glanced back to the grieving woman rooted in the aisle, and noticed she was holding a baby wrapped in pink.
24 Betsy Love
“Did he fall?” she asked the baby.
Turning her head to look back with one eye, peeking through the gap in the seats. She was only able to view the empty seats behind her. Extending her neck to look above the rows, she saw the male flight attendant turning from his cart to face the front of the plane. Betsy watched his face turn ash white with panic. She had already unbuckled her seatbelt when the flight attendant began screaming. Betsy pulled herself up, with Clarabelle sleeping in her arms, quickly maneuvering her way out of the row.
Lifeless on the floor, her precious baby boy’s body was splayed in the aisle—his neck drenched in blood. Blake wasn’t moving. Behind the boy’s motionless body, the massive dog had just taken down the flight attendant. The dog was snarling, generating slurping sounds like he was sucking noodles at an Italian buffet. It ripped at the male flight attendant’s face, while holding the trapped man down under its ferocious mass.
She locked eyes with a man wearing a white cowboy hat. He w
as sitting calmly inches away from the gory rampage. She darted her gaze back to the uncontrollable dog. The dog must have sensed her presence in the aisle way behind him, because it took a break from mauling the man and turned its massive body to face her. Deliberately, it began maneuvering around the flight attendant’s corpse. The dog wore a hood of blood. Its yellow empty orbs were floating in a sea of red. Its eyes had fixated on her.
This was the opportunity the cowboy had been waiting for. She watched him awkwardly mount from his cramped seat, stretching himself tall like a praying mantis, aiming a gun at the mad creature. The dog heard the cowboy’s knees knock against the tray in front of him, splashing water onto the seats. The mad dog quickly pulled its yellow eyes away from Betsy to look back at the large cowboy, who had positioned himself in the aisle.
It had taken less than sixty seconds for the dog to effortlessly slaughter Blake and the flight attendant. It took the same minute for the elderly, frizzy haired dog’s owner, to react to the brutal attacks. The old woman had by now uneasily lifted herself from her seat.
“No Buster. No!” her shaking voice shrieked at the crazed dog.
The dog was standing at attention next to her, with his wrecking ball head turned towards the back of the plane. The dog was concentrating on the gun held in the cowboy’s hands; his finger on the trigger. Frantically, the old woman attempted to reach for Buster’s collar and restrain him, clumsily her floral muumuu caught on the edge of the armrest, causing her to lose her balance. The woman tripped in the same moment the cowboy fired his gun.
Bang!
The woman—a bouquet of poinsettias—dropped on top of the maniac mutt, protectively covering the dog’s body with her own.
Baby Clarabelle's arms splayed out as a reaction to the sound of the gunshot, but she didn’t wake.
Betsy had the urge to run to her broken son. There was a chance he might be alive. Then she watched as the dog began digging its way out from under the woman’s flowered body; the dress was now darkening with her blood. The old lady had been shot by the cowboy’s bullet.
“Everybody remain in your seats,” the cowboy yelled. “Do not move!”
Betsy was quietly crying. Her face wet from the sticky tears and snot. Navigating her way back into row ten, she quietly lowered what remained of her family into the window seat. Keeping her sanity by memorizing every detail of her daughter’s angelic sleeping face. Warm tears slid from the corners of her blue eyes and traced lines down her pale cheeks.
She sniffled to Clarabelle, “Don’t wake up baby.”
BITE YOUR HAND OFF
25 Maxine Martin
Her lackluster spirit and waning inspiration had burned out.
Maxine sipped her third mini bottle of white wine from the plastic cup. Phreeeeeet.
The sound of a whistle shrieked through the cabin. Maxine’s slight hands instinctively rose to her ears.
“Owie. Brunny did that hurt your ears?” She tweeted, sweet talking to the little dog. “Who did that?”
Her dog was now standing uneasily in his kennel. His anxiety prompted his fur to pop out the round breathing holes of the cage. The little guy softly growled. Making his yellow fuzz buzz, reminding her of a bumblebee. She really didn’t think much of his ornery disposition; it was on par with his normal bad attitude, she usually sanctioned as adorable.
Phreeeeeet.
Her husband turned his head down the aisle, looking behind them to where the high-pitched sound had come from. She felt a large thump, then watched as Max’s back turned as rigid as her periwinkle starched shirt. She returned his gaze; his wide-open eyes flashing a warning signal. Undisguised fear distorting the good side of his deformed face.
She felt a large thump. When he returned his gaze to look at her, he was as white as a ghost. She would have thought him dead had he not spoke.
“Maxine,” he choked.
She couldn’t hear him under the drone of the engine.
“What is it Max?” She peeped too loudly.
His finger went to his lips. Shushing her.
“Is it a terrorist?” She questioned him. “A bomb?”
She heard the male flight attendant scream several rows back.
“Woooo!” He let out several long, harsh, screams like a barn owl, “Wooo!”
She heard the airplane passengers begin screaming. The yelling ruffled her nerves. The chorus reminded her of a rabbit’s cries as it’s carried away in a hawk’s talons.
Maxine watched a young mother, her long dark ponytail drawn over her shoulder, maneuvering her body into the aisle. The woman was standing a few seats in front of her, along the opposite side. Maxine could see she was hugging a small infant tightly to her chest, wrapped in a downy rose blanket. The mother’s blue eyes became far-reaching, as she tried to spy her toddler son. Maxine watched as the woman’s pink cheeks turned sallow, her entire face becoming corpselike. With her flush lips opening wide to encourage a scream, instead, her teeth bit down sharply on the bottom lip, cutting the sob short. A crimson droplet trickled from the gash, running down the side of her chin to blend with the tears. She became the picture-perfect vampire, swaddling a porcelain infant.
Maxine’s own heart became a hummingbird—beating 1,200 times per minute against her rib cage.
Bruno let out a high-pitched Yip!
Maxine cried out.
The sound of her own shriek was drowned by the screams of the other passengers.
“No Buster. No!” A quivering elderly voice screeched at the dog.
And then they heard the thunderous boom of the gunshot.
Bang!
Her ears were ringing.
Bruno yipped and began whining in his kennel. Maxine could see that Max was deeply concerned about the dog making noise.
“What is it, Max?” She asked him desperately under her breath.
Her hands were grasping the armrests. She could see her knuckles turning white. Maxine watched the horrified young mother slink back into her seat without uttering a word. The tears pouring down her cheeks were speaking enough.
“The dog killed the boy and…”
He stopped talking—his eyes becoming louder than his voice—screaming at her to hold her tongue.
“Why isn’t anyone doing any…” He stopped her from speaking by reaching out with his hand to cover her mouth.
“Everybody, remain in your seats, do not move!” A man yelled from behind her.
Maxine looked back one row to peer through the space between the seatbacks. She had a front row reclined view of the monstrous scene playing out. The massive bloodied Pitbull was pulling itself out from under its incapacitated elderly owner garbed a red poinsettia muumuu. She saw a man in a white cowboy hat standing next to his seat. He was holding a gun aimed at the dog.
The dog seemingly aware of the gun pointed at it, began crawling into the row on the opposite side, using the limp body of its owner as protection. Maxine could clearly see a middle-aged blond woman, wearing headphones, was sitting next to the window in the row the dog had just entered. The cowboy lost site of the killer dog as it clambered nearer the blond woman. Maxine counted to ten, waiting for the lady to scream, or be killed.
“One, two, three…nine, ten.”
Nothing.
“Maybe the dog is injured,” she told Max excitedly.
She watched the cowboy stepping over something blocking the way. He had a two-handed grip on the gun, with it extended in front of him in a low-ready position.
“He looks like a cop, Max,” she whispered, with her pink lips contorting. “We’re going to be okay.”
At that moment Carmen, the flight attendant who had been hiding behind the cart, stood up thundering, “Did you kill the dog?”
The cowboy turned his attention back to the beautiful woman asking the question.
The second his focus was displaced, the dog moved on him like a baseball bat striking a homerun. Its mouth was wide-open, one hundred and fifty pounds of twitching muscle advanced
on the cowboy. The massive dog’s bloodied jaws wrapped around the cowboy’s tattooed arm. The sound of cracking bone echoed through the otherwise silent airplane. The bite held enough power to rip off the cowboy’s hand holding the Glock; completely severing it at the wrist. Blood began shooting like water from a water gun, drenching the cabin in red.
The cowboy let out a guttural moan, “argh!”
Cradling his arm, he stumbled backwards over what appeared to be more bodies lying in the aisle.
26 Carmen Fuentes
Carmen was crouching behind the trolley. There is no protocol for this.
Holding back tears she silently commanded herself not to scream.
Are there any weapons on the airplane?
No knives, no guns, no mace, no fire extinguishers to hit the dog with, no pocketknives, no Goddamn machetes, no weapons of any sort, and no poisons were on board. She could throw Coke cans at the beast, she mused.
Do I stand up and yell…should I tell everyone to remain calm…do I ask for volunteers to fight off an attack dog...I need to get the first aid kit! All the questions and concerns were jumbled into one thought.
She was looking at the back of the plane. People were starting to stand up to get a better view at what was happening on the other side of the cart. They were looking at her cowering behind it.
“Nicco!” She was talking to herself. “Oh my God, what just happened?”
She made eye contact with a teenage boy, in a yellow shirt, seated several rows back. He had inflamed red dotted pimples covering his face. He looked terrified.
Then she heard the gunshot.
Bang!
Her ears were ringing.
On the other side of the cart, the man wearing a cowboy hat shouted, “Everybody remain in your seats. Do not move!”
Beware of Flight Attendant Page 13
