Men or shetani, spirits or skeletons, at least nothing would be able to bother them for the next ten hours or so, he thought as he scrunched back into the leather padding.
"You're sure you're all right?"
He smiled up at Merry. "I've been hit before. I'd rate this one about five on a scale of one to ten." He closed his eyes.
She continued to stare at him. I'll bet you have, Joshua Oak. Will you ever relax enough to tell me just what it is that you do for our mutual Uncle? If nothing else he was the most remarkably self-possessed man she'd ever encountered. Monsters had chased them out of Washington, D.C., someone or something had tried to fracture his skull just prior to takeoff, and here he was already half sound asleep, resting like a little boy. Olkeloki was staring out the window. The old man never seemed to get tired.
Good for him. The transatlantic leg of their journey had worn her down more than she'd thought it would and the mob at Heathrow had finished the job. Dinner wouldn't be served for several hours yet. Ignoring the familiar FAA regulations she let her seat recline. By the time the jumbo jet had banked sharply to the right to swing out over the Channel she was sleeping as soundly as the man next to her.
Mbatian Oldoinyo Olkeloki spared his ilmeet companions a glance and smiled. It was good that they rested now. In the days ahead there would be fewer opportunities to do so. As for himself, he longed to join them in sleep but could not. He had to keep looking out the window, had to keep alert.
He had no intention, having come so far and already accomplished so much, of letting anything sneak up on them from behind.
| Go to Table of Contents |
13
Over Sudan—22 June
Africa.
Merry Sharrow stood next to the empty seat and stared out the window. The sun was just appearing over the Indian Ocean and the rest of the first class passengers were still asleep. The cabin crew wouldn't turn the lights on until it was time for them to serve breakfast. But Merry had been awake for an hour. She'd spent most of it moving from window to window to get different views of the ground six miles below. After all, it wasn't the same as flying over Boise and Des Moines. Details were impossible to make out, but she'd been struck immediately by the absence of lights on the ground.
A rearward glance revealed Mbatian Olkeloki lying back with his sleeper seat fully extended. He was wearing the same benign, contented smile he'd adopted soon after they'd entered French airspace many hours ago, just as he was wearing the same earphones. He must have gone through every selection in the plane's music library at least three times already, she mused, and still he continued to listen.
Oak lay straight beneath his light airline blanket, sound asleep. She didn't understand how he could rest so soundly. Africa was as new to him as it was to her. She thought about waking him, decided that the morning light would do it soon enough.
In fact, the light would wake everyone, and they would all need to make use of the same facility. Before the bathrooms filled up she ought to wash her face and hands.
Her backpack lay in one of the big overhead bins. Flipping open the cover, she fumbled through the unfamiliar sack until she found the compact handbag she'd insisted on bringing along, reclosed the compartment. One of the flight attendants, looking sleepy, stepped out of the aisle to let her pass.
All four of the first class bathrooms were empty. Merry entered the first and locked the door behind her, began searching the handbag for her hairbrush. As her fingers closed on the plastic something grabbed her hard from behind and yanked her inward. A hand went around her mouth, others around her waist and arms as she tumbled backward. The fingers over her lips belonged to a black skeleton.
She should have struck the wall behind the john but she didn't. When she saw why, her eyes widened even further. The bathroom should have been no more than a couple of feet wide and equally deep. Instead, she found herself in a room at least ten feet long and six across. The little flush john clung to the back wall, impossibly far away. For the bathroom to be as big as it looked it would have had to extend five feet beyond the exterior of the 747.
With her right hand she scratched frantically at a ten-foot-long vanity. A mirror of equal length ran above it and she was able to see the image of her captors. The reflections were not as alien as the impossibly large bathroom because she'd seen something like them before.
They looked like the dog-thing she'd hit on the way home that rainy morning east of Seattle.
No two were exactly alike. All had the same long, thin limbs, but many had true feet instead of a second pair of hands. In the dim light from the single attenuated fluorescent bulb above the mirror she saw that they wore neither clothing nor adornments of any kind.
The heads of the females looked almost normal except for the jaws, which extended outward like those of an ape. These vast mouths were lined with small, sharply filed teeth. The male skulls were long and narrow like those of the Easter Island statues, only rounded instead of sharply angled at the sides and top. They grinned at her through slightly smaller protruding jaws. Neither sex had any ears and only the males had visible nostrils. At least a dozen of them had crowded into the bloated bathroom. As she stared, another pair of long arms emerged from the inside of the lavatory bowl. With a grunt, the thirteenth shetani emerged from the stainless steel depths.
They were as big as she was, though with their thin bodies and impossibly skeletal limbs the most massive of them couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. They were trying to pin her arms behind her. Wrenching loose her left arm, she swung at the grinning shetani trying to crawl on top of her. Her fist smashed into the gaping mouth and sent it tumbling backward.
The racket they were making was deafening and she wondered why no one had come to investigate. Bulbous eyes goggled wildly at her as they tried to drag her down to the floor, chittering and grunting. The face of one of the females kept bumping up against Merry's cheek. The taut skin was as cold as ice. Glaring at her, the shetani reached down and dug long fingers into Merry's right breast. Gasping in pain, Merry jabbed backward with her elbow. The pressure was released as the hideous little creature was sent sprawling.
They weren't very strong, but there were so many of them! Then the hand that had been clamped over her mouth slid off and she screamed as loud as she could. The shetani giggled madly and made obscene gestures in front of her face. She screamed again, loud enough to wake sleeping passengers all the way back in economy, but no one came to investigate. Whatever had exploded the space inside the bathroom also muffled any sound from within.
Two of the males were working on her legs now, trying to drag them apart as a third worked on the belt of her jeans. All three of them had gigantic erections.
This can't be happening, she wailed silently. But there was nothing dreamlike about the pressure on her arms and legs, nothing imaginary about the horrible chuckling noises that filled her ears. They had her belt unbuckled now. Long spiderlike fingers were dragging the Levi's down her thighs and groping for her panties.
A soft snap came from the vicinity of the sliding door latch and a querulous face peered inside as the door opened. "Hey, what's going on in here?"
It was the flight attendant Merry had passed in the aisle. If there was any doubt remaining in her mind that what was happening to her was real, it was erased by the expression that came over the other woman's face. All the horror of her situation was reflected in the flight attendant's eyes.
Several of the shetani trying to pin Merry to the floor let go of her and jumped the intruder. Hands went over her mouth in time to shut off her incipient shriek while others quickly pulled the door shut behind her. One of the shetani had a chameleon riding on its shoulder. The lizard was as black as its master, except for the independently mobile red eyes. Its long tongue snapped out and struck the flight attendant in the face, plucking out her left eye as neatly as if it had gone after a beetle. It swallowed the prize with obvious enjoyment.
The attendant went crazy
, sending shetani flying in all directions as the pain assailed her. More spidery fingers let go of Merry as their owners switched their attention to the bigger woman. As they did so Merry thrust her right arm forward and sent one shetani flying over the vanity with enough force to shatter the safety glass mirror. A kick of her leg dislodged another.
Now she was on her feet with two of the distorted harridans clinging to her shoulders as she staggered toward the door. One of them put an arm around her neck and started to choke her even as it swung around to get between her and the exit. Stiffening her fingers the way she'd been taught to do in self-defense class, Merry didn't hesitate as she drove them forward into that grinning face. Both protruding eyes popped and sent black jelly splashing over bony cheeks. It had no effect on the shetani, which continued to pull and push at her.
Another jab loosened its grip and sent it falling to one side. With both hands Merry reached around, grabbed her remaining assailant, and ripped it off her shoulder. She threw it into the vanity sink. Its skull split when it struck the spigot. Dripping black blood and brains, it struggled to roll back onto its feet.
She was free with the door at her back. The rest of the shetani were concentrating on the flight attendant, shredding her clothing while the trio that had been preparing to assault Merry fought for position between the younger woman's legs. Merry flailed weakly at the doorknob.
Please God, don't let it stick, let it open!
The last sight she had of the flight attendant showed the shetani dragging her, head down, into the lavatory at the far end of the impossibly long bathroom.
Then she was out in the aisle between the galley elevator and the bathroom. The door was wrenched out of her hands and slammed tight. She stood there alone in the quiet aisle, swallowing and trying to get her wind back. The little light above the doorknob was on, illuminating a single word:
Occupied
A couple of sleepy, just-awakened passengers glanced in her direction as she stumbled down the aisle, pulling up her jeans. She practically fell in Oak's lap as she clutched at his shoulders.
"Josh, Joshua! For God's sake, wake up!"
"Hmph, what?"
No time, she thought desperately, and maybe the wrong man. She abandoned him and yanked the earphones from Olkeloki's head. She wouldn't have to wait for the old man to wake up.
His eyes snapped open immediately, alert and startled. "Woman, what are you—?"
She was already pulling at his arm. "Mbatian, you've got to come with me, you've got to! We have to help her!"
Maybe it was the timbre of her voice, still touched with terror, or maybe something he saw in her face. In any event the old man was on his feet and following her back up the aisle as she fastened her belt.
"Shetani," she mumbled, half crying.
He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know. I can smell them now."
They stopped outside the bathroom. The OCCUPIED light still glowed steadily. No sound came from within. Olkeloki twisted the doorknob. It rotated, but with the interior latch secured the door wouldn't open.
"Stand over there, please." She moved aside and watched as he clamped down hard on the knob with both hands. As he twisted, the veins in his arms stood out and his face went taut with the effort. She heard a muffled ping as something snapped inside the door. The old man slumped slightly, took a deep breath, and pushed.
Merry retreated as the door swung inward, but nothing sprang out to attack her or the old man. Olkeloki looked inside for a long moment. Then he closed the door quietly and let the broken latch catch. The OCCUPIED light winked back on. It was lying.
She stared expectantly at him as he escorted her firmly back to her seat and made her sit down. "What did you see? You saw that it's much too big in there, didn't you? Much too big for any airplane. They—they were waiting for me. They came out of the toilet and they grabbed and at first I couldn't scream, and then I could scream."
"But no one heard you."
"No, until Andrea—that was the name on her tag—checked on me. They grabbed her too, but she fought them, and then a chameleon took out her eye and she went crazy and they all had to go for her. That's how I was able to get free and get away." She started to rise. "But Andrea, the flight attendant, she's still in there and they've got her and they're going to… to…"
Olkeloki gently pushed her back into her seat. "The woman you speak of is not inside. Nor are the shetani. All have gone. All."
Merry's fingers were working, twisting. "They were pulling at my jeans. They were going to rape me. And they were grinning and laughing and it was horrible, horrible and—"
"Describe them to me." Olkeloki was purposely brusque with her. Anything to stop her burgeoning hysteria.
She had no trouble describing them. The hard thing would be to forget what they'd looked like.
"Ukunduka," he told her when she'd finished. "Very dangerous shetani. I do not know how they got on the plane, but it is clear that we are not as safe as I thought. You must stay in your seat until we have disembarked, Merry Sharrow."
"Don't worry. But what about the flight attendant, what about her?"
Olkeloki's expression was grim. "The Ukunduka feed only through sexual intercourse."
"Feed? You mean—No, don't tell me, I don't want to know what you mean." If he explained it to her she might apply the explanation to her last sight of the doomed cabin attendant, and she was going to carry nightmares enough off this flight as it was. There was no need to embellish them.
"Are you feeling all right, miss?" Merry jumped. Another flight attendant was standing in the aisle alongside her seat, a concerned expression on her face.
"She just had a bad dream," Olkeloki said smoothly.
"Oh." Clearly the woman hadn't expected the tall Maasai to answer for Merry. "I'm sorry to hear that." Her professional smile returned. "We'll be serving a full English breakfast shortly and then we'll be landing in Nairobi. I hope you're feeling better by then."
Merry's reflexes must have taken over because she managed to nod. She noted that her hands were shaking. Interesting phenomenon, she told herself. The flight attendant took Olkeloki off to one side.
"That must have been some dream."
"She'll be all right. I'll look after her."
"Very well," the flight attendant said reluctantly. Of course, the passenger's business was her own. She shrugged mentally and continued down the aisle. There were other passengers to rouse.
Merry was trying hard to get her trembling under control. "I never did get to go to the bathroom." Olkeloki found a blanket, tucked it up under her arms. The tremors weakened. "I don't think I could go now."
"You must not give them another opportunity. Stay in your seat until we land. I will warn Joshua Oak that he must do the same. The Ukunduka make no distinctions between sexes."
He wouldn't have to tell her again, she thought. She wondered if she'd ever be able to go the bathroom on a plane again… If necessary she'd stay in her seat until her bladder ruptured.
Hungry as she was, she ignored breakfast. When the cabin lights came back on she moved over to sit in the unoccupied seat next to Oak. He listened quietly to her story, then glanced at Olkeloki for confirmation. The old man nodded somberly.
"You're sure you saw something in there?" he finally asked her.
"Josh! How can you say that?" She barely managed to keep her voice down. "With everything that's happened to us the last couple of days you still need more proof? Go ahead then; get up and go use that bathroom!"
"I'm tempted to, except that I'm sure you saw something in there. Maybe shetani and maybe something else, but whatever it was left its mark on you. You're white as a sheet. So if Olkeloki says not to take a piss until we're on the ground, I'm not going to argue with him. I'm stubborn, but I'm not a fool. He's been right too many times or I wouldn't be here now." He broke off as the cabin attendant set eggs, sausage, and muffins in front of him.
"Of course you know it's impossible to fit
a bathroom of the dimensions you describe on any plane."
"I know," she admitted, pulling the blanket up high around her neck. "It's also impossible for something alive to come up through a toilet bowl with a throat maybe four inches in diameter. At least, those were things I used to know. Now I know different. Remember one of the flight attendants? Taller than me, blonde, kind of pretty? Name of Andrea? Why don't you ask her what she saw? If you can find her."
Oak hesitated. "You said the shetani pulled her down the john with them."
"That's right, know-it-all. So unless she grabbed herself a parachute and decided to quit work early she should still be on the plane, shouldn't she? But she isn't. Why don't you look for her, Josh? I pray to God that I'm all mixed up inside and that you find her. Olkeloki doesn't think you will. He doesn't think anyone will, ever again, because those Ukunduka—"
"Spare me anything Olkeloki told you. It doesn't sound pretty."
"It wasn't pretty," she whimpered. "It almost happened to me. If she hadn't come to check on me…" Merry let the thought trail away.
"You want to go home? I'm sure there are several planes leaving Nairobi today. From everything Olkeloki's said it's a busy airport. We could get you on the next flight out."
"I'm not going home."
"No? Not even after what happened to you in there?" He nodded in the direction of the bathrooms.
"Because of what happened to me in there. Those—those filthy things tried to assault me."
"I see. Back in Washington they tried to kill you, but attempted rape only makes you more determined."
Into The Out Of Page 16
