Zombie Apocalypse Serial #2

by Ivana E. Tyorbrains

  Talk about ungrateful. Commercial aviation is a goddamned miracle, but instead of being in awe at what humanity has accomplished, people get angry that their flight is an hour late. They get all worked up because they have a connection to make, or a meeting to attend, or they want to be home in time for dinner.

  Well whoopty fucking shit.

  How reliable is your timeline if you’re driving? What’s the likelihood that you’ll encounter a traffic jam along the way? Or maybe blow a tire? What happens to your schedule if a cop pulls you over? Or if you run into bad weather along the way?

  Just as the great unknown can make you late when you’re driving, so too can it make you late when you fly. The problem is that we in aviation do such a damn fine job of getting you there on time day in and day out that you’ve come to expect it every time you step into an airport.

  Although I had the first shift in the captain’s chair on Flight 902 out of Hong Kong, it was Roman who got to announce the delay to passengers. Pacific Air doesn’t let me make this is your captain announcements outside of the US. Too many passengers from the rest of the world can’t handle the idea of a woman flying their plane. They think of me as that crazy broad who doesn’t use her turn signal and then they freak out that we’re all gonna die.

  As the delay stretched into an hour, the crew reported to us that the natives were getting restless.

  “A lot of them are anxious about the fourteen hour flight as it is,” said Stephanie, our senior flight attendant. “Add an extra hour to it, and they’re ready to flip.”

  “Plus, a lot of them are feeling sick,” said Veronica, another of the crew. “Something’s going around.” She punctuated the remark with a sneeze of her own.

  “So, I’ve heard,” I said. “That’s probably why we’re late.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’ll tell them,” said Stephanie.

  “No, don’t. We’re backed up on the runway. That’s all they need to know.”

  A whole unit of training at Pacific Air is dedicated to handling nervous passengers, and one of the most important rules is to speak in simple terms they can understand. Yes, traveling air pockets cause rapid altitude shifts, but passengers just need to know that you want their seatbelts on because it might get bumpy. Yes, we are backed up because three quarters of the airport staff that would get us off the ground is out sick today, but passengers just need to know that there are a lot of planes ahead of us waiting to take off.

  Roman picked up the radio and made another announcement.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are getting movement up ahead of us but it is taking time. Flight control is saying we can expect another thirty minutes to an hour. Flight attendants will be serving drinks. Just sit back and relax and we’ll get you in the air as soon as possible.”

  Ping, God bless her, came on the intercom and repeated Roman’s message in Cantonese. Just hearing her voice relaxed me a little. I turned to Roman, who was sharing the cockpit with me for takeoff.

  “You ever seen anything like this?” I asked Roman. “So many people calling in sick that the airport can’t function?”

  “Gorgeous, you fly in and out of Hong Kong enough times, you get to where you’ve seen it all,” Roman said, as if I didn’t fly out of Hong Kong once a week.

  Roman picked up a tissue and blew his nose. “I’m just glad this is mild, whatever it is. This is the most crowded city in the world. You can brew some nasty shit when you put twenty million people together on a tiny island.”

  A tiny island, or a tiny plane, I thought, figuring that at this time tomorrow I’d be sniffling and sneezing like everyone else.

  That, too, was part of being a pilot. Daycare teachers, doctors, and airline employees—we were exposed to every virus known to man and had to learn to deal with it. There was a whole culture around sickness and immunity at the airline. People kept packs of Airborne and Emergen-C in their pockets. When they were having some, they invited you to partake as well. They spoke about the “herd effect” of greater immunity. There was alcohol gel everywhere, including two big pump dispensers of it in the cockpit. And everyone had their quirky cure-alls, from Ginseng to Vitamin Water to fresh carrot juice. When you flew through the Southern US, the staff spoke about greens and vinegar baths. When you landed in Portland, you got a flight crew who believed in the power of raw fruits and vegetables. And here in Asia, it was all about the herbs. Ping had her own stash that she made me take all last week during our little getaway. She kept mixing these pungent teas that looked like river water and said the magic ingredient was “isatis root.”

  “I never get sick,” she said. “But you have to have it every day. One dose protects you for twelve hours.”

  When our week ended, Ping gave me a bottle of “Pure Southern Isatis Root Extract.” They were little green pills, perfectly round—they looked like candy.

  “Take one every day,” she said. “You will never get sick and you’ll want more. There are thirty in there, so you have thirty days before we need to arrange another time together.”

  Thinking about Ping, about the minty taste of her lip gloss, the softness of her hair, the way her tiny little mouth fit so perfectly between my legs—I was sad to be going home.

  I pulled out the bottle of Isatis Root Extract and popped a pill in my mouth.

  “What’s that?” Roman asked.

  “Something I picked up last week,” I said. “Here, try one. They’re supposed to keep you from getting sick.”

  Roman held out his hand and I gave him a pill.

  “Where were you last week before I came down with this?” he said, slapping his palm to his mouth to throw the pill down his throat. “You know Rachel, we should hang out more. I know my way around Hong Kong like you wouldn’t believe. I could show you everything.”

  “I’m sure you could,” I said, suppressing a laugh. Roman would like to show me everything all right. “But I kind of like the alone time. Thanks anyway.”

  An hour later, we got to take off. The cabin broke into applause when the wheels left the ground.

  I got us two thousand miles over the ocean and was done for the day. For the flight across the Pacific there are five of us rotating through the cockpit. Three of us will take a turn in the Captain’s chair and two will split the First Officer’s duties. When you’re not in the cockpit, you’re in the sleeping quarters, or the cocoon as we lovingly call it.

  To access the cocoon, you head back into the cabin and open a door on the wall between business class and coach. On my way there, I passed a familiar face. The man in 14B had been on this flight with me at least three times before. He was a tall man of Spanish or Greek heritage, with thick, leathered skin and wavy salt and pepper hair.

  We weren’t told the identities of the air marshals. We were just informed if one was on the plane and, if so, what seat he was in. As I walked past the air marshal in 14B, he and I shared a glance. He smiled at me, then went back to sleep.

  The door in the wall behind business class leads to a narrow, steep staircase. At the top of that staircase is a room with four stations. Each station has a first class seat that can stretch into a bed.

  It’s a nice, cozy place to be.

  When I got up to the cocoon, I found Veronica, one of the more interesting flight attendants, sleeping up there. Had she been awake, I might have engaged in a little chit-chat, but since she had turned in, I decided I would as well. I let my seat go totally flat, kicked off my shoes, and allowed the lull of the engine to put me to sleep.

  I had been out for an hour when Ping came up to get me.

  “Captain Holbrook,” she said. Her hand was on my thigh. At first I wondered if she was waking me up for a good time. “Captain Holbrook, please…we need you.”

  It was cute that she was addressing me by my title.

  “Captain Holbrook.”

  I opened my eyes. “What is it, Beautiful?” I said.

  “Rachel…I’m sorry to disturb you, but I
wanted to ask you how you’re feeling.”

  “You woke me up to ask me how I’m feeling?”

  “Yes, it’s just that Captain White and Captain Jenner—they’re both too sick to fly. Captain White is already asleep.” She pointed at the bunk next to me, where Roman had squeezed in right next to Veronica. They both were soaked in sweat, and breathing loudly.

  “Good Lord,” I said.

  “Yes, and Captain Jenner…well, he has locked himself in the lavatory. Officer Frederick is overseeing things, but he doesn’t feel well either.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “This is some real shit that everyone caught, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is. The passengers are very ill too. There are lines at all the lavatories, and many are vomiting in their bags. It’s terrible. We need to land in Hawaii.”

  “Seriously? It’s that bad?” Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. If two of the three captains were too sick to fly, and the First Officer wasn’t well either, this plane had to be grounded. “How close are we?”

  “Officer Frederick has set the course,” said Ping. “Two more hours to Honolulu.”

  “Okay. Let me get my shoes on. I’ll be right down.”

  Timothy

  Ahh….local news. Is there anything goofier than an Action 7 special report where a cute little twenty-something looks in the camera and talks in severe tones, and then cuts away to get reaction from local residents?

  “Well, I never heard of him, myself, but it sounds like he’s a dangerous man,” says neighborhood fixture Joe Blowdriguez.

  “They oughta make a law. Nobody should be allowed to just build a giant house out in the woods like that,” says Jane Doelona, who is clearly an expert since they put her television.

  The ten o’clock news was all about me on this night. A high speed chase. Disappearance on the campus of New Mexico Tech. Suspicion that I may have taken a woman named Lola Romero hostage…

  If only they know. If anyone was the hostage here it was me. After bolting all the way to Flagstaff, Lola and I shacked up at the Hampton Inn, and she proceeded to ravish me for three hours straight, all the while talking dirty in a most university administrator-like way.

  Oh Timothy….you have such a huge endowment!

  We only took a break so she could go to the sex toys shop down the street and come back with new lingerie and goodies. She was disappointed when I insisted on no restraints. I’d barely escaped becoming the imprisoned character in The Stand. I wasn’t about to toy with my life turning into Gerald’s Game.

  We were so busy that night in Flagstaff it wasn’t until the next day, on the road to Vegas, that I became aware of what was happening on Planet Gulag. Usually I kept tabs on those guys, as they’re the only ones who ever really kept tabs on me, but with all the chaos of IRS and FBI agents, I just wasn’t able to pay attention to what they were up to. I had missed all the programming dedicated solely to me.

  “We have just two days left, people,” said the Witch Doctor, one of three hosts on the radio program. “Then Timothy Frye’s virus is unleashed on the world.”

  He was totally right, of course, except on one minor detail. It wasn’t a virus. It was a robotic plague. How did they know so much about my plan?

  “There is still time for you to get out, and I wish to give you that chance,” said the radio announcer.” In a few hours, patient zero will contract the sickness, and begin infecting those around him…”

  So that was it. The letter…I’d practically forgotten about the letter! I had stopped in San Antonio and given a handwritten letter to a black woman on the Riverwalk. They were reading my letter on the air.

  How in God’s name did the Planet Gulag people get the letter? How had they figured out so quickly that it was me? Had that woman been a conspiracy nut? No…she couldn’t have been. She looked so normal. She looked like such an everyday lady just trying to get through the trials of life. That was why I gave her the letter.

  But here we were, just a few days later, and they weren’t just reading the letter on the air, they were connecting it to me! Add in the fact that I had just become the most wanted man in America, and it seemed likely that the military would be all over my compound starting tonight.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “What are they saying about you, Love?” asked Lola.

  “Nothing important,” I said. “Just keep driving.”

  Just keep driving to Vegas, so we can watch from the capital of hedonism and sin as a punishment of Biblical proportions gets unleashed on the world.

  We arrived in Vegas on Sunday afternoon and checked in at the Palazzo, paying cash under the names Bart and Erica Corning for a top floor suite with a swimming pool, a balcony, and a jacuzzi. We went back to the room and Lola climbed on top of me for an hour (more or less), then I took a nap while she went out “to see the sights.”

  When she came back to the room, she had three ladies in short skirts with her.

  “What’s all this?” I said.

  “The more the merrier,” Lola said.

  By Sunday night our suite at the Palazzo was host to a beautiful and boisterous bacchanalia. Lola was finding people who were finding more people who were bringing cocaine and pills and beer….lots of beer. It was great. At one point I shouted, “Let’s party like it’s the end of the world!” and everybody cheered.

  Hotel security came to break up the party, but they ended up joining in the fun. The party stretched out into the adjacent suite, and the hallway. It was the most happening place to be in the most happening city on earth. At eight o’clock, I decided to start picking out girls who could continue partying with me and Lola long after this shindig came to a close. With Lola’s help, I took them back one at a time, where they got into the hot tub with me and I saved them from certain death. Let me tell you something. It’s not easy being a miracle worker, but I did my best, and I was quite the man that night, if I do say so myself. By midnight, I had twelve of them, including Lola.

  They were like my apostles.

  Zero hour came and went. Team George kicked in across the world, and when it did, my party deflated quickly (not terribly unlike my tired penis after saving the ladies all night long).

  My apostles had plenty of stamina to keep on playing, but everybody else stumbled their way home. At one in the morning, I stood at my window, looking down on the Strip, all lights and sparkles and glitter, but saw hardly any people.

  “Where is everyone?” said a college girl named Natalie, rubbing her naked body up next to mine, a flute of champagne in her hand.

  “Everybody decided to turn in,” I said.

  “Do you want to turn in too?” Natalie asked.

  “No,” I said. “No, the party may be over for the rest of the world, but for us it’s just beginning.”

  Rachel

  I stepped down from the cocoon to find my plane reeking of sickness. Even business and first class stunk to high heaven. What a miserable experience for these poor people.

  As I walked through the cabin, seeing the pale faces, listening to the moans of agony, feeling their body heat radiate and raise the temperature of the whole goddamned plane, I realized that this was about more than just landing early to keep everyone safe. This was about keeping some new Chinese superbug off the shores of the continental United States.

  There were well-documented, well-rehearsed quarantine procedures at all international airports. I’d have to notify Hawaii that quarantine would need to take effect for this airplane.

  I was out of coach and into business class when I heard Captain Jenner going off.

  “It’s bioterrorism, I tell you! We need to bring it down! I’m taking us into the ocean!”

  There was tired murmuring from the passengers in response. I looked ahead to first class and saw Jenner running down the aisle, his hands up in the air.

  “We’re going down people! Going down!”

  I ran up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Get ahol
d of yourself!” I snapped.

  He looked at me with eyes that had clearly crossed into lala land.

  “We’re going down, Rachel,” he said. “We have to. The Chinks infected us. It’s the only way.”

  He followed this quiet rant with a wailing scream, like a little girl at a horror movie. “Ahhhhhhh!!!!”

  “Stop it!” I shouted.

  “Ahhhh!”

  “Captain Jenner!

  “Weeeooooweeeeooo!” Jenner screamed, now imitating an ambulance. “HONK! HONK! HONK!”

  Some of the passengers were joining him.

  “We’re all going to die!” one of them shouted.

  Incomprehensible Chinese shouting broke out all around me.

  “Seechafuway! Ginshafuway!”

  Jenner’s scream sat atop it all.

  “Weeeeeooooweeeooo!”

  “Gongeetaoafuway!”

  “I don’t want to die!”

  “Beeloochowamay! Bymayanekarokay!”

  “Weeeeeoooooweeeeeooo!”

  I wound up like a pitcher and gave Jenner an open-faced slap, which sent him stumbling into a nearby passenger. The silencing of his shout brought an eerie second of quiet, and then it all started up again with everybody moaning and screaming even more.

  “Oh my God!”

  “It’s over. It’s all over for us!”

  “I’m so sick. Please help me.”

  “Crash us into the ocean, Captain. I want to feel the cool water on my face before I die.”

  People were reaching for me like I was Jesus among the lepers. I had to slap their hands away. Amidst all of this, Captain Jenner, who had landed in the lap of a young man in a shirt and tie, looked up at me and smiled.

  Then he collapsed hard onto the floor.

  “Captain Jenner?” I said. I ran up to him and turned him over. I got no response. The guy was out cold.

  Probably for the best, I thought. Grabbing him by the ankles, I dragged Jenner down the aisle and into the galley between coach and business class.