Inside the dark hollow there was a brown messenger bag. It was sturdy, maybe even real leather. I took it off the hook and it felt heavy, definitely not empty. I undid the two buckles at the bottom and opened the flap. I could tell, instantly, that it was a woman’s bag. At least I assumed it was—unless it was a guy that looked particularly good in pale mauve lipstick and cream blush. That could have been the case, I guessed, if not for the little circle of birth control pills stashed away in an inner pouch.
“We’re done,” Nolan’s voice sounded. “Find anything lifesaving in your little locker B&E?” The way he said the last was about as condescending as any person could sound talking to another.
“No,” I admitted.
“Then it’s time to go.”
“Fine.” There was another lipstick-looking tube in the bottom of the satchel, it looked a little different from the others, but I didn’t have time to inspect it or anything else since Rose and Nolan were both waiting on me.
Rose was right behind me and Nolan was already walking out of the security office, so I slung the bag over my shoulder. I picked up my crutch from where I’d leaned it against the wall and I followed Rose out of the room.
“Where’s the Roadrunner when you need him?” I murmured, looking at Nolan’s back and the way his shoulders were slumped as he supported the lump of fireworks.
“What?” Rose asked, turning her head slightly to see me with one eye. She was clasping the straps of her backpack as she walked, her gaze moving around us constantly.
“Nothing.” I shifted the crutch so I was holding it with both hands, cockeyed and in front of my body like a riot shield. “This is ridiculously awkward.” I had to hold the crutch higher than felt natural to keep it from hitting the ground, and I wasn’t a short woman.
We were stopped right near the double glass doors again. Rose appraised me and sort of cocked her head, her expression almost bemused. “Somehow you look like you’re waiting for your injured boyfriend at prom.” She smirked. “Holding his crutch whilst he’s hopped off to the loo.”
I looked down at the vision of myself in the pale pink dress that was torn, grimy, and about as far from my turquoise senior prom mermaid-cut dress as a garment could get, and this time I did let myself laugh. Well, I chuckled awkwardly and as quietly as I could, hiccupping as I tried to speak again. “Not the best”—soft snort—“fighting outfit, is it?”
“Not really,” she said with a grin.
“You two want to shut up?” Nolan admonished, looking at us harshly after pulling his head back from the danger zone and re-closing the door softly. “The fuckers have moved closer to us, like they’re trying to figure out how to get up to the balcony. So let’s pull it together and do this.”
I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but he was right: I could hear them and they were closer.
Chapter two.
Rose
I did not want to go in there, but I also didn’t want to stay out for much longer either.
From somewhere behind us there was the soft echo of a growl sounding out again, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“So, we drop, light, and hide?” Sam asked the question with forced bravado, her crutch still held firmly in her hands.
I nodded. “Basically.” I tried to mirror her bravery, though no part of me actually felt brave.
“There’s a door just to the right as you go inside,” Nolan spoke, his tone gruff but quiet. “We’ll dive in there and wait for the fireworks to go off, then we’ll be on hand to shut the door when they leave.”
Nolan began uncoiling the fuse we’d carefully attached to the stack of fireworks back in the security office. I opened the door a crack and took another look inside. The survivors were still on the top balcony, and thankfully the dead were still trying to get up to them and not looking our way. Though they’d moved and were closer to the doors, there was still enough room for us to get inside and hide. At least I hoped so.
“All right, I’m done,” Nolan said, coming back to the door. He’d unrolled the fuse far away from the doorway and around the corner, which was smart. He pulled out his lighter and rolled his shoulders like he was gearing for a fight. Maybe he was. I sure as hell hoped it wouldn’t come to that though. I’d much rather hide than have to fight any more of those things.
He bent down and lit the fuse and we all gave a brief but freaked-out look to one another as he stood back up and we opened the door. The door, thankfully, when pushed all the way open clicked into place and stayed open. Nolan, like the true gent he was, led the way towards the door he had been talking about, and for reasons unknown to me, I let Sam go next, meaning I was at the rear and the most likely to either get hit by fireworks if the plan went to shit, or worse…be seen by one of the zombie things.
Nolan pushed inside the doorway and Sam and I followed him in. Or at least I tried to, but seconds after I stepped through the doorway into what we could now see was a dark coffee shop, a hand slopped—yes, slopped—onto my back, making a rough grab for me. The fingers found purchase on my backpack and I bit down on my tongue so I didn’t scream. I slid the backpack off quickly, whimpering and writhing like I’d just seen a mouse in my kitchen back home and I couldn’t get up on the kitchen work surface quick enough.
Nolan was by my side in a second, using a chair to push the thing back outside and slam the door closed again. Of course we’d now been seen and it was only a split second before more zombie things joined the first at the door. Nolan had his back up against it but we all knew it wouldn’t hold if they kept on hitting the glass.
I grabbed the chair he’d just used and pushed it under the handle, effectively locking the door, and Nolan quickly stepped away from it.
“What now?” Sam asked, fear lacing her tone. The bravado had dissolved.
“Hide?” I suggested uselessly. “Look for another way out?”
Nolan looked down at me. “Hiding ain’t such a bad idea. The fuse should blow any minute and distract them, hopefully.”
I didn’t need telling twice and we all turned and looked around, all deciding to hide behind the narrow counter. The banging was getting louder on the window and I waited for the splintering sound of the glass breaking as fear drenched me.
I glanced over at Sam and saw she had her eyes closed, her features tight with stress. Her hands still clutched the crutch so hard that her knuckles were white. I looked over at Nolan and found him staring at me, though he looked away when I caught him.
“It should have gone off by now,” I whispered, flinching at the sound of a hand slapping the glass again. “It should have—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence as a small series of bangs started from outside. Nolan grinned and I couldn’t hold mine in either as a scream of fireworks was let loose in the hallway we’d left. Nolan peered around the side of the counter and I waited a beat before I leaned over to look also.
The airport terminal was full of smoke, fresh puffs continually billowing out of the door we’d propped open. Bright lights joined with colorful explosions to light up the now-foggy air. We all sat in stunned silence, reveling in our handiwork.
“Sam!” I said, turning back to her.
She opened her eyes and I gestured for her to come and look as we all climbed back to our feet and headed back around the counter. Not one single zombie was by the door anymore, and I grabbed Sam’s hand and gave it a squeeze. I looked at her and we both grinned.
“Didn’t know if that would actually work,” I breathed out, feeling relieved.
“Well, it’s not over yet. We still need to get that door shut before they all come back in,” Nolan said.
“Maybe some of them got hit and blown to hell.” Sam wasn’t grinning like Nolan and I were, but her mouth was twitched up at the corners slightly. A tentative display of hope.
Nolan cracked open the door and looked out. “Hopefully.”
I was terrified, no matter how I tried to play it all off. My jaw was tight as I clenched m
y teeth together, silently pleading for the zombies to have fallen for our plan. I leaned past him, the heat of his body calling to me.
Nolan was tall and broad, easily averaging six foot. He was older than me and handsome, in a non-typical way, with calm but threatening features and eyes that seemed haunted, like they had seen into hell and decided not to stay.
The terminal was full of smoke from the fireworks, but looking around, it seemed the zombies were gone, following the noise like we’d hoped they would, and I said a silent prayer to whoever was listening. Nolan headed out first, quickly pulling the entrance door closed while I looked around for some way to keep it closed.
“Hey,” a voice said from above.
I looked up and saw the people from earlier looking down at us, looking relieved but not yet willing to come down.
“Hey,” I called up to them.
One of the women in the group was wearing a uniform; she looked like airport security. “Those things…they’re all gone?” she asked, looking around the terminal like she expected some of them to pop up at any moment like a surprise unwanted guest at a party.
“Think so,” I replied.
I think she nodded, but I couldn’t be sure because my eyes were stinging from all the smoke. Either way, she started to make her way back down the stairs towards us, the group she had been with trailing after her.
She reached us, pulling a long chain of keys from her pocket and shoving one of them into the keyhole in the door and locking it.
“I suggest we barricade this, just in case.” She looked from me to Nolan and we nodded in agreement.
Everyone started to gather chairs and tables, pushing them in front of the doors, and I checked everyone out while I worked. Barring the airport security woman, they were all passengers. I glanced at Nolan, wondering what his story was. In one breath he was okay; I mean, he was smart and quick thinking. The way we worked as a team to make the firework explosives was awesome, but then he was also bossy! He walked ’round like he owned the place and acted like he knew what he was doing and no one else had a clue. Maybe a quick reality check that he had been hiding in a toilet stall was needed at some point? Might bring him back down to earth.
“I think that should do it. Are there any other entrances into here?” Nolan asked, looking around at our ragtag group.
The security woman stepped forwards. She was a black woman with a curvaceous build and long, braided dark hair piled high on top of her head. “Couple of security entrances and some leading to the other terminals, but I managed to get those closed up before those things came at us like Night of the Living Dead.” She had dark, serious eyes and a no-nonsense scowl, and I doubted she was the sort of woman to take crap from anyone. Yet right then she looked as frightened as the rest of us.
“I’m Rose,” I said, stepping forwards and holding my hand out. “This is Sam and Nolan.” I gestured to each of them with a jerk of my head.
“Karla,” she replied, taking my hand in hers. “Rescued these fine people along the way.”
“You work security here…so where’s everyone else?” Nolan asked bluntly.
Karla scowled, her dark eyes glaring at Nolan as we all caught the underlying comment from him. Man, he really was a complete wanker at times.
“I just got on shift. Parked my car, walked into work, and the whole place was going crazy! Tried to get myself to the security office upstairs to call for help, get some guns, contact the army—anything, but it was no good. There were too many of them.” She tentatively rubbed the back of her head. “Something hit me over the head, and when I woke up, everything was quiet.” She looked around her, her gaze falling on the small group of people she’d been with. “Tried getting out of the airport, but there were too many of them so I decided it was probably safer in here for a while. Planes crashing, fires breaking out, bodies all over the place. Bodies that had no place to be moving. Got a TV on and saw that there were riots in the city, fires burning, the whole damn world going crazy. I’m just airport security—I can’t help with that!” Her voice had risen several octaves, verging on hysterical by the end of her tirade.
“It’s okay, Karla, no one’s judging you—there was nothing you could have done. We’re all just trying to stay alive, stay safe.” A tall man wearing a short-sleeved blue T-shirt placed a hand on her shoulder and she patted it gratefully. “I’m Leon,” he said, looking at me. “I found Karla unconscious, dragged her into a storeroom, and waited with her.” He looked at the others in his group, his light blue eyes looking sad. “This is Jamie and Alexa.” He pointed at the man and young girl and they offered us brief smiles but didn’t speak, though I presumed from the protective stance of the man that they were father and daughter. “No clue what this guy’s name is, but he’s a badass when it comes to fighting these things.”
A man who looked Japanese came forwards and bowed to us before saying something that no one understood. I smiled and nodded, and he stepped back.
“And this is Trent—we just met him. He was upstairs trying to stop some young kid from bleeding out.” He shook his head and Trent looked down at his feet, his shoulder-length blond hair falling in front of his eyes. “It’s not your fault, man, you did everything you could for her.”
“Yeah, I know. I still wish there would have been more I could have done, ya know?” Trent replied, looking up and pushing his scruffy hair out of his face. He genuinely looked cut up about the kid he couldn’t save, his dark eyes looking glassy like he might cry at any moment.
“Was she your kid?” I asked, my heart tightening for him even more.
He shook his head. “Nah, just ran into her. She’d gotten separated from her parents somehow. I was just trying to help her. We got attacked by one of those things. Ripped a chunk clean out of her shoulder before I managed to get it off of her. Poor kid must have only been seven or eight—scared to hell, she was.” He dragged a hand down his face.
“You did all you could,” Leon replied. “A lesser man wouldn’t have stayed with her like you did.”
Trent nodded, his cheeks red like he was barely holding it together. But my thoughts were on that little girl’s parents. Were they dead too? Or were they looking for her? It was a horrifying thought either way. My mind began to stray towards my own parents back in England, but I shut them off as quickly as I could. I dared not think about them right then.
“So what now?” Jamie asked. The young girl, Alexa, was tucked into his side and he held her tightly. She looked around twelve or thirteen and as innocent as the day she was born. Her face was dirty but clean tracks from where she’d been crying trailed down her cheeks. “We can’t just sit here and wait for those things to break in here.”
“I don’t think they’re getting in here anytime soon, so maybe we could just wait this out,” Nolan replied. I was already nodding in agreement. There was no way I wanted to go out there, into a city that wasn’t familiar and was filled with people I didn’t really know. “The army will be sorting this shit out soon enough, right? So we stay here, make sure everything is secure, and wait this thing out.” He crossed his arms over his chest because his mind was already made up. “There’s food and water, certainly enough to keep us going for a little while.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” Karla replied.
“I’m down for staying here for as long as it takes,” Trent said, turning to look at Jamie and Alexa.
Leon looked at me and I nodded and gave Sam’s hand another squeeze. “I’m staying.”
Sam didn’t squeeze my hand back this time. I glanced at her and she looked unsure, biting her bottom lip.
“Sounds like a plan,” Leon agreed. He looked at the Japanese man, who was saying something to us all again, but of course we had no clue what. He looked frustrated with us all, though how it was our fault we didn’t understand him, I wasn’t sure.
“Do you think he understands us at all?” Sam asked. “I can’t imagine being in this kind of situation and not being able to t
alk to people.”
“I think so.” Leon pointed to his own chest. “Le-on.” He pointed at the Japanese man, whose scowl grew deeper.
“Akhira,” he replied, pointing to himself.
“Akhira? That’s your name?” Leon asked pointing at him, his words coming slow in the hopes he’d be understood better.
“Hai,” Akhira finally said, and nodded.
Leon smiled and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Akhira. You stayin’ put with us?”
Akhira looked blankly at Leon’s hand for a moment before he gave a brief look around the room, his gaze finally falling on Trent. “Hai,” he replied, and nodded again.
“Looks like we have a plan then. Time to get this place secure and get supplies together.” Nolan looked over the group like he was the leader, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at his obnoxiousness. He looked down at me. “Rose, Sam, Trent, you’re with me. We’ll see what we can get in the way of supplies. We’ll need food, water, blankets.” He looked at Sam’s torn dress. “And some clothing, I guess. Leon, Karla, Akhira, Jamie, and Alexa, you secure all the exits and entrances, since you know your way around here already. Find somewhere we can make camp for the night. Karla, see if you can get a phone line or radio that works too.”
Jamie looked at Nolan and took a step forwards, finally releasing his daughter’s hand. “Would it be all right if Alexa stayed with your group?”
“No, Dad!” she said, rushing forwards.
“I don’t want her anywhere near those things. She’s just a kid. And I can’t fight them if she’s near me—I’ll be too worried about her.” He turned and looked back at Alexa. “I just need you to stay safe, okay?”
She looked away from him and he went back to her side.
“Alexa, please, I can’t lose you too, okay, honey?”
She finally looked at him again, her face unreadable, and she nodded. “Okay.”
Red Eye | Season 1 | Episode 2 Page 2
