We Are Them

by L. K. Samuels

  Old Fish Eyes turned away and continued to talk at a leisurely pace. I had to stop him without killing him. It had to be now. In a split second, Jack pulled out a small-caliber gun from behind his waistband, turned, aimed, and fired. In a flash, I did the same. We both fired at the same moment. We must have apparently missed each other.

  “You can do better than that, Spencer,” Jack laughed. He winced with a sharp intake of breath and faced me directly. He slowly re-targeted the barrel of his gun in my general direction. He dropped the phone, trudged towards me with the innate feeling of superiority. “You lost again. You people never learn.”

  A small rivulet of blood began spilling out of Jack’s mouth. Tilting to one side, he mumbled that I was a miserable piece of vermin. His gun barrel drifted towards the ground, finally dropping from his twitching fingers. He tumbled and landed on his back.

  I rushed to Jack, knelt next to him, leaned over, and felt a terrible feeling of remorse.

  Jack had no such regrets. He glared up at me with a glassy look of hate. He could not give up. He reached up with his right hand and tried to pull me down, attempting to choke me. “You meddling idiot. You had to stir up a hornet’s nest. You will…”

  Jack stopped breathing.

  I slowly stood up and peered down at my nemesis. He did not seem so dangerous now. I looked at my gun. I was not a murderer. I was not his kind of man.

  Stepping back, I glanced around. The two soldiers were long gone. That is when I saw Rant jumping out of the roaring plane. She ran towards me. They had never left. She grabbed my aimless arm and pulled with all her might. I could barely move. I stumbled as she dragged me to the airplane. I was feeling dizzy. I was still not sure of anything, except that the two soldiers had alerted the tower of our unscheduled takeoff. I sure we would soon be caught.

  Tommy moved out of the pilot’s seat and let me to take control of the plane. I still struggled with the instruments on the control panel, not sure where to begin. As my haziness began to subside, I reached for the throttle and pulled back. In no time, we were taxiing down the tarmac and away from all of our troubles. I wanted to go faster than normal, but that might tip off the tower that something was wrong. Tommy radioed the tower that we had authorization from Jack Bellamy to depart. I knew they would demand proof, but by the time they searched their pile of paperwork for our authorization, we would be landing in Riverside.

  Tommy kept trying to reach the tower without success. I suspected that they knew we were trying to escape and refused to acknowledge our request. But then again, maybe they were asleep, or off duty.

  “How’s the oil pressure?” I asked Tommy.

  “Way up there.”

  I reworked the mixture to a richer blend and performed a few of the more important cockpit checks. The main runway was ahead, and I applied more pressure on the yokes and pedals. What made my take-off more difficult than normal was that only a handful of runway lights were operational. Fortunately, the runway was very long, and I only needed a few markers to make my way. Just as I revved up the engines, blaring emergency sirens shook the air.

  “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”

  Suddenly, bright lights tore through the darkness of the tarmac. Men poured out of barracks and ran to sandbagged bunkers on both sides of the airfield. Jack was right. They did have ways to stop us. I pulled back the throttle and speed down the main runway, finally nosing skyward. I was afraid to look at my RPM gauge, certain I had exceeded its capacity. I wanted to go higher and faster than possible. Unfortunately, that is when they switched on the colossal, high-powered spotlights.

  I was over 4,000 feet before we ran into the anti-aircraft flak. Shells were exploding all over the sky as the spotlights struggled to pinpoint our position. I could see a line of white tracers passing to the left, and then the right. I had to get higher or find some cloud cover. Before I could roll eastward, our left wing was hit in an explosion of fire and smoke. The damage was extensive.

  “We’re going down!” Tommy screamed.

  The aircraft jumped up and rolled to one side as I tried to control it.

  “Stay tight!” I shouted. I had lost the flap controls for that wing and found it difficult to maneuver.

  Smoke began filling the cabin. An electrical short knocked out most of the instruments, but I did not need an altimeter to know we were in trouble. By this time, we were out of range of the anti-aircraft guns, and likely beyond the boundary of Hemet. Still, we were still going down.

  Chapter 21

  We were losing altitude faster than the stock market crash of 1987. The smoke was choking us inside the cabin. It was growing denser as our battle-scarred aircraft started to vibrate. Military strategists had a term for this: a problem-rich environment. That was so true. We were plunging in a world plush with death.

  I stared out the window for a flat and smooth surface of ground. Ahead was a narrow pathway in the middle of an orchard, but it was too dangerous; let the farmer prune his own trees with his own equipment. Squinting, I saw a wide paved road to the left, flanked by telephone and electrical poles. That was out of the question. Every pilot wanted to avoid entangling wires.

  Suddenly, a layer of high clouds blocked the bright moonlight. Our luck had expired. An approaching wall of misty fog began to block our view. Trying to find a good landing spot was the least of my worries. We were not going to land; we were going to crash. I reached for the radio mic, pressed the button, and shouted “Mayday” three times. I tried to give them my position, but the smoke made that task impossible. It did not matter. The radio crackled with static and distant interference. I could not reach anybody.

  “Oh, shit!” Tommy shouted as he desperately tapped the oil pressure gauge. “The pressure is dropping!”

  “We’re dropping dead!” Lenny yelled from behind. “Do something!”

  “Hold on! We’re going down!” I yelled as the plane began to stall. If I could only keep the aircraft from rolling and spiraling out of control, then we might have a chance to survive a crash landing. Soon that option became moot. Flames were licking the edge of our left wing and spreading. If they reached our fuel tank, we would explode into a fireball of flames.

  “Brace yourself!” I shouted.

  I pulled back on the yoke controls, but I was unable to pull out of our wild dive. Our chances were slim to nothing. Few pilots and passengers ever survived an emergency landing in the dark, especially when they were on fire.

  But I had to keep looking down through the fuzzy clouds. I had to find a safe place to land. Luckily, the fog began to thin. Stretches of openness started to appear. Visibility improved. Gazing down between the gaps of clouds, I could see hilly terrain, rocky overhangs, and acres of orchards. That was not my best choice of landing sites. One area resembled an oil depot with a scattering of tall, rusty fuel tanks. Also not a good option.

  Before I could make any decision, the clouds miraculously parted, clearing away just in time to see where we were going. I pointed to a possible level spot. Perhaps four miles away, a shaft of silvery moonlight highlighted a field at the edge of a lake. It sparkled with a sort of heavenly haze. We were blessed with a second chance to enjoy another day.

  “Over there!” I pointed to Tommy.

  “We’re too low,” Tommy had a death grip on his seat. “We’ll never make it across the lake, man.”

  “I will jump!” Lenny pushed against my seat stood and started to rush to the rear door.

  “No!” I yelled, turned, and grabbed his shirt. It was pure suicide to parachute this low to the ground. Of course, our odds of surviving a landing were not much better.

  “We going die!” Lenny pulled away and made another run for the door. Rant intercepted, grabbed his arm, and slugged Lenny across the face, knocking him against the window. Not one to be subdued, especially by a woman, Lenny jumped up and tackled Rant headfirst. They rolled back and forth on the floor until Sarah pulled out her pistol and jabbed the barrel into his face.

 
“So help me God!” Sarah shrilled. “Don’t make me!”

  Lenny remained motionless on the floor, uttering a slight whimpering sound. A slight shiver shook his bulky frame. He appeared confused over the sheer fortitude of the women.

  I turned and looked back, noticing Sarah’s reddish and determined face. Her eyes were aglow with determination. That was my gal.

  Big Al eyed Sarah with lifted eyebrows and a tight mouth, wearing a hawkish expression. He had fallen to the airplane’s floor, his seat belt too small to accommodate his girth. Suddenly, he kicked Sarah in the stomach, batted the gun out of her hand, and seized the weapon. He slowly stood and pointed the handgun first at Sarah, and then swing it back and forth to include everyone.

  This was my fault. I kept forgetting that Big Al was one of THEM and prone to lunacy. I was not sure why he had turned on us at that movement. His few jumbled words alluded to something about the weak being “meat for the strong.” Made little sense.

  Rant quickly confronted the big man. She stomped up to Big Al and demanded Sarah’s gun back. Without hesitation, Big Al raised the gun, targeted Rant, and squeezed the trigger. It failed to fire.

  “I was just joking.” Big Al grinned with a stupid, sheepish smile.

  Big Al had forgotten to switch off the safety lock

  “You obese son of a shit!” Rant ripped the gun from Big Al’s hand. She gritted her teeth and raised her hand, preparing to slap him back to the day of his birth. She paused at the last moment, “You’re not worth the effort.” Rant turned, climbed back into her seat, and snapped her seat belt. She stared at Big Al, raking him with her menacing eyes.

  Tommy still sat tense and motionless, his eyes riveted on the darkness, outside, and the moon-bright field ahead. “We’re dropping too fast!” his voice crackled.

  He was correct. Our rate of descent was steep, actually too steep. I could do little. I had lost all control of the plane. Our nosedive was hurtling us toward a dark watery grave. If the sudden impact failed to kill us, sinking in the black water would. I slammed the throttle full power and gave full flaps just to reach level flight. It worked! I was now leveled, but very low. I backed off on the power and tried to keep the nose up and reduced the speed. As I lowered the landing gear, I could feel the water splashing against our front wheel.

  At that very moment, I heard something structural on the airplane snap. I looked out and saw the burning wing breaking apart. Worse, the vertical fin of the tail was twisted and flapped loosely. We would never make it beyond our soggy grave. Feeling nauseated, I closed my eyes and wished I could hold Sarah one last time before we were smashed to pieces. Just one last time.

  Suddenly, we sailed past the shoreline and over a cattle pasture.

  “Hang on!”

  I prepared to slam into rocky earth and said a little prayer. This was it. We would either be celebrated as lucky daredevils or appear somewhere on the back page of the obituaries. In a flash, we bounced and skipped over a low fence and swerved on our left side until we slid into a mountain of bundled hay.

  “Get out!” I screamed as the hay exploded into flames. The engine and fuel tank were going to blow at any moment. We could only beat the odds so many times in one day. Everyone scrambled out in seconds. Even Big Al tumbled out the back door and landed heavily on his backside.

  As I predicted, the Piper exploded like a gasoline truck in the middle of a forest fire. Pieces of the fuselage and aluminum parts rained down on us, with one large piece barely missing Tommy’s head.

  We watched the inferno climb across tall bales of hay. The heat was intense. It reminded me of a bonfire during homecoming at high school. So much heat. Without realizing it, I noticed that I had scratched my forearms almost raw. They were bleeding along deep fingernail marks. I had to sit somewhere. My head was still spinning. My knees were wobbly and felt like they had turned to jelly. I collapsed to the ground.

  Sarah rushed to me and helped me to sit up straight. She gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. The lips would have been better, but someone said they had turned icky blue.

  I smiled, enjoying the attention.

  “You did it!” Sarah hugged me again. The others gathered around to congratulate me, even Lenny, although his ghastly white skin color still blemished his face.

  “I never had any doubts,” I mumbled in a weak, monotone. I was obviously lying to myself. Anybody could crash land an airplane.

  “Good job,” Lenny said, trying to distract from his earlier panic attack. “I knew you would do it.” He looked down with a dopey grin of embarrassment. “I thought this was Russian plane. When things go bad, we just jump out.”

  Before I could reply to Lenny’s asinine response, Rant tugged on my arm and pointed to car headlights traveling fast in our direction. “I’m afraid we have visitors.”

  Our fireworks display had apparently startled the local inhabitants out of their slumber. An old Ford truck rolled up next to the burning aircraft and stopped. A grey-haired farmer in grungy blue overalls jumped out. His long unkempt beard and straggly hair resembled that of a wild mountain man. With an eye-bulging, nostril-flaring face, the man pointed a shiny shotgun at us as if we were alien intruders from another planet.

  “This here is private property. I’m Henry.”

  “I’m Spencer Crane,” I stood my ground in front of the farmer. “We had a little accident.”

  “Are you all from Hemet?”

  I really did not want to answer that question. I was not even sure if we had flown past the affected area. In fact, I did not know where we were.

  “Well?” the farmer demanded.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  The farmer raised his gun higher and aimed. “Well, git back where you came from. I don’t want anyone here. You people are zombies-wombies.”

  Tommy moved up from the back, clarifying, “We’re the normal ones.”

  “Well... yeah, ah… most of the time.” Tommy smiled at me with silly coyness.

  “I don’t care who ya are!” the farmer exploded, eyeing us with a look of silent contempt. “I cannot take a chance with the deranged.”

  I moved closer. “Well, we’re not like the others.”

  “Ohhh…?” I struggled to find the words to prove our innocence without tarnishing our few remaining scraps of dignity. I was never going to make that impossible task possible.

  “For what I’ve seen, all of you Hemet folks is crazy. You’ve been trumping down my crops and attacking my steers. Why I’ve seen a grown man attack one of my prized bulls with his bare hands. After he injured my bull, he lunged at me. I popped that loony back to Loonyville.”

  “We’ll be happy to depart if you show us the way,” I said pointing my finger down past the dirt road.

  “What about your aircraft?” the farmer asked.

  “Well, you can have it all,” I said with a slight dash of sarcasm.

  “What do I want with a burned-out plane?” The farmer cleared his throat. “Just git out and don’t start attacking each other or my stock.”

  I understood the farmer’s concerns. In his mind, we might turn on him at any moment.

  “I’ve found over twenty hacked-up bodies in my field over the last several weeks.” The farmer lowed his gun slightly. “Goshdarnit, it was really gruesome. A bloodbath without a damn shower curtain. Horrible. Have ya ever tried to blucher something without a blood-proof curtain? Have you!?”

  We all too stunned to do anything, but stared at him with wide, moon-shaped eyes. What was the farmer talking about? Blood-proof curtains? It was as if we were unwary extras in a low-budget horror flick.

  I stepped forward, just slightly and said in my best movie trailer voice: “We’re not like any of them. We were not in Hemet when the meteorite hit.”

  “What meteorite?” the farmer asked in a suspicious tone.

  I glanced at Sarah. She stared back at me. Tommy inched back a little and looked around for a weapon. Rant pulled out her handgun and hid it behind
her.

  “You didn’t see it?” I asked. Nobody could have missed the meteorite, even if sitting in a dark room watching television. It was just too bright. “You must remember it. It was like an exploding sun. It turned night into day.”

  “Not really,” the farmer said.

  That was not a good answer. If this redneck hayseed had failed to see it, then that we might still be in the danger zone. That would mean that the affected area must be enormous—way past the city limits of Hemet. Maybe all the way to Riverside.

  “I did hear about the fireball and ‹em other ones,” the farmer confessed. “I’m no dummy.”

  “Them?” I blinked in disbelief. I glanced back at the others. Everyone looked dismayed.

  “Yeah, the authorities reported two or three of ‘em falling stars that night,” the farmer said then paused. He raised his gun. “By George, why haven’t ya scattered yet? I get riled easily. We had nothing but problems today. I had to shoot my dear wife this morning. She was getting too soft in the head. The bitch overcooked my eggs. Do you know how terrible burnt eggs taste? She was no good to me anymore.”

  The farmer moved closer to size up Big Al. “You look mighty familiar.”

  “I’m really nobody,” Big Al pleaded.

  “No. You’re the head honcho of the DED. I saw your mug on the news.”

  “Not me.” Big Al denied the accusation. “That was my twin brother.”

  The farmer stepped forward. “Yup. It was you all right. My son works in your department. Haven’t seen him for months.”

  “Who?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  “Brian McNally.”

  “I know your son,” I said. “Very good worker.”

  “Sure, he is. But is he okay?”

  “The last time I saw him, he was alive and kicking,” I felt compelled to come up with my best possible evasive answer. Considering all of the hand-to-hand encounters, he was surely laying in the morgue or buried in a mass grave.

  “That’s my boy.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to change the subject. “We must go. We have business in Riverside. Need to get there by nightfall.”