The Pilgrim Strain

by Edgar, C. P.

  Suddenly the aircraft's intercom system came to life and the pilot announced, "Prepare for emergency landing." Miller was amazed by the calmness of the pilot’s voice. Was he even aware of the hell spawning in the cabin of the plane?

  The plane shuddered heavily and the acrid smell of smoke billowed past the infected and the raft barriers. The plane lurched again, deeper and the airframe moaned.

  ***

  Washington, D.C.

  David slammed the Land Rover Defender into the very first handicapped spot he could find closest to the terminal for international arrivals. He reached into the glovebox and produced a disability placard and placed it on the neck of the rearview mirror of the truck. Fearing that he was too late, he jumped out and after locking the truck, began a quick jog toward the entrance to the airport.

  However, after a few meters he stopped, turned and ran back to the truck. He opened the rear hatch, picked up the deployment bag with its precious content and placed into a custom lockable cargo hold built into the floor of the rear of the Defender, locking it after it was closed.

  Satisfied, he secured the truck once again. David restarted his jog toward the terminal, keenly aware that he had a loaded 9mm pistol within the waistband of his pants pressed against the flesh of his stomach. I’m only going to luggage. No need to go through security so the pistol will be fine.

  He kept his jogging pace until he approached the pedestrian crosswalk leading from the parking area toward the adjacent curbside entrances to the airport. He pulled up just as he received a stern warning and visible hand signal to stop from the large female crossing guard clad in reflective orange vest and midnight blue cargo pants signifying her authority as the guardian of all things crossing.

  David, slightly panting from the short jaunt, watched with fixed amazement as she held him from crossing to allow a small hatchback sedan the opportunity to depart the area. The airport crossing attendant barely held back the smirk as the hatchback crept by. Finally, with dramatic pause, and after the sedan was clearly well beyond the immediate area, she waved David through. He began to take up his jog only to suddenly be blasted by her orange safety whistle, dangling from her fat, pursed lips.

  “No running!”

  David audibly chuckled and came to a swift stop and then an eventual walk. He offered her a sarcastic salute and kept moving toward the terminal. He didn’t need to make himself a target of airport security or worse, so he suppressed his growing agitation.

  He quickly navigated past some aged smokers and one fashionable vaping Millenial, dragging at their addictions just outside the terminal, and past the automatic doors. He paused just inside the entrance to get his bearings, as his mobile phone began to vibrate and chirp in the back pocket of his pants.

  Looking at it, he recognized the calling number as one of Ed’s drop phones.

  “Go,” he stated as he accepted the call.

  “David, I’m with a rendezvous team. ETA 10 minutes to your location. You are at the terminal, correct?”

  “Yeah, I just walked in.”

  “Ok, we are picking up two that should be wheels down any moment now.”

  “Wait, is Merissa not arriving here?” David exclaimed quite loudly. He felt a pang of anxiety that she was somehow not within reach.”

  “No, she…” The line went dead.

  “Hello? Hello?” David was talking into the phone and looking at the display on its screen. The call had been disconnected.

  David called the number back only to hear an automated message, “All circuits are currently busy. Please try your call again, at a later time.”

  “Fuck you!”

  He jammed the phone back into a pocket inside the breast of his jacket and walked toward a large bank of terminal monitors that displayed both departures and arrivals. Just to his left was a series of floor to ceiling windows that showcased the northern runway approach. He scanned the arrivals to see if he could possibly find a match for the one about to arrive with Ed’s team onboard.

  Above the arrivals display was a large flat screen TV set to the national news coverage but was muted. A group of pundits sitting around a half-circle table talking to each other, likely about some political scandal.

  A smaller picture image was set into their coverage on the upper right-hand side of the screen and there was some sort of building fire displayed. The news banner scrolled underneath but David wasn’t paying attention to it. He was studying the arrivals, and transfixed onto Turkish Airlines Flight 237 from Istanbul.

  It was late for arrival by five minutes and seemed to be one of the few likely matches. Gate 16. His eyes drifted to the news feed as his mind was trying to recall which direction Gate 16 was located at. The news on the television had switched dramatically to what appeared to be a shaky amateur video.

  David could see it was from the side of what appeared to be a boat in a harbor somewhere. Suddenly, a plane came into view and crashed in a dazzling display of water, steel, and fire. David was holding his breath.

  Suddenly someone dropped something behind him, the sound of metal and other items clashing with the tiled floor echoing into an eerily silent chamber. Simultaneously, David heard a woman’s muffled scream. He spun on his heels lifting his shirt and placing his right hand onto the handle of the pistol tucked into the front of his pants. He held from drawing it when he saw the woman, a cleaning employee of the airport to be exact, standing next to a tray of cleaning chemicals now clattered to the floor at her feet. A bottle of Simple Green still turning slightly like a high school game of spin the bottle. He was about to laugh, but noticed she was covering her mouth with her hands, a frozen scream likely masked by her fingers.

  She was looking just past David through the windows beyond him, fear pulsating from her eyes like a fission reactor. Another scream bellowed out just as David was turning once again to face whatever was outside.

  He wasn’t quite prepared for what he saw, so he just sort of locked up because the image set before him was movie-like and surreal. Almost like a scene was playing out before him from some high-priced Hollywood action film. Off in the distance, across the northern runway, a large plane was coming in fast and low, too low and obviously not on a normal flight path. It was angled dramatically so that it looked like it was flying almost sideways. The tail, which was billowing smoke, was desperately trying to outrun the nose of the massive passenger plane. The left wing was low to the ground, so low in fact that it hit the ground causing a huge plume of dirt and grass to fly up in the air. The engine of the wing crashed into the debris as well and seemed to just come completely apart in one sudden flash of fire and metal. The plane, still somehow flying above the ground, flew right through its own destruction like it was exiting through a dark cloud in search of clearer skies.

  For a second the plane seemed like it was going to right itself, only to suddenly slam belly first onto the runway. It rolled over onto the right wing which saved the aircraft from flipping completely over. However, the wing gave away quickly, snapping at the body of the plane and folding up along the side of the fuselage.

  David expected to see another explosion and he instinctively tensed his body for it, but it never came. Instead, the plane continued sliding on its belly at a fantastic speed, literally plowing ahead through everything in its way toward the terminal, sparks, smoke and debris flying along its undercarriage where the landing gear should have been had it ever been deployed.

  It continued its chaotic slide but not directly toward where David now stood transfixed, rather off to the right about 200 meters or more toward the end of the terminal gates. David suddenly began sprinting in that direction, against a sea of people running away from the area.

  It didn’t take but a few steps until David heard and felt the plane crash audibly and ferociously into the terminal. Screams filled the air as fear washed over the travelers within. The building’s structured frame lurched and shuddered from the impact. Glass shattered and fell to the ground as the shock wave fro
m the impact coursed through the terminal. The fire alarm immediately sounded off and smoke began to seep into the strobe filled recess of the now dark corridors ahead.

  David wasn’t alone though. A handful of other men and women were frantically covering the ground toward the wreckage, running down the center of the corridor. A police officer and his dog were in the lead. The crushing sound of feet echoing against the tiled floor was pronounced, only slightly drowned out by crashing bodies, screams from women and children, and luggage being half-dragged throughout.

  Some form of rescue instinct had taken hold of these select few, and that stood them apart from the others running helplessly against their path. Others hid in clusters along the walls and recesses of the main arrival terminal, huddled low to the ground like helpless animals.

  David approached the TSA security checkpoint and without a hesitation ran straight through. He was unchallenged as it had been quickly and thoroughly abandoned save a few blue uniformed personnel that were simply standing at their posts like statues.

  He continued running toward the accident scene. He began to slow as the smoke began to thicken and the strobe effect of the emergency lighting made it difficult to avoid obstacles.

  People were still streaming past him with wide eyes but less now or at least it seemed that way. He could see some small fires ahead and the smell a fuel was beginning to become overpowering. He rounded a bend in the terminal corridor and stopped suddenly. Holy fuck.

  The aircraft had pierced through one side of the terminal and through the other blocked the entire section of the terminal at the gate. The fuselage was opened like a tin can and bodies and wreckage was spewed out inside the area. Yellow foam hung in dangles or blew across the floor in wisps.

  People were strewn about. Some were still intact in their aircraft chairs but unmoving. Some were clearly dead but in odd positions and directions. Others were moving in spasms or worse in shattered pieces. Some were simply unrecognizable heaps of flesh.

  Ceiling panels from the building were dangling like bats and glass was everywhere. Putrid, black and light grey smoke curled along walls and the ceiling trying to find a place to go. There were some small fires and the occasional spark from electrical arcing but amazingly not as much as David expected, although the sheer smell of fuel suddenly made him very scared.

  The interior of the aircraft was illuminated with each strobe of the emergency system from within the airport. Occasionally a glimpse of movement from within would be seen, whether real or imagined. It was hard to discern, it all seemed dreamlike.

  David saw the officer and his K-9 run right to the fuselage, he pulled a flashlight from his duty belt and shined it inside. He began yelling, “Any survivors, help is here. If you can hear me, let me know you are ok.” The dog began barking feverishly and David was surprised to hear the dog growling and rearing back against its harness appearing to try to retreat.

  David caught sight off to his left of a man in a black hooded sweatshirt slowly dragging another man backwards along the ground, the man in the sweatshirt limping with each drag. His right arm grasped the collar of the fallen man’s shirt. His left arm appeared to be hanging at an odd angle, probably broken.

  The man he was dragging was unconscious but was severely injured. A trail of blood was being left behind them, and David was amazed that he could see it leading all the way to the opening in the aircraft.

  “Hey man, are you okay?” David exclaimed as he began to run over to assist. “Stop, let’s get you guys medical assistance.”

  The man in the black sweatshirt dropped the other, and stood erect for a moment only to bend over at the waist and throw up. His hands on his knees as he heaved. The other man rolled almost lifelessly onto his side, and as David approached he could see that an arm was missing from just below the elbow, and blood was oozing from the wound which had been dragging against the tiled floor.

  David took a knee next to the man and placed his fingers on his neck trying to find a pulse. With his other hand extended, he was about to open the man’s eyelids to check for pupil dilation when he froze. I know this man.

  “David?”

  He turned to the man still bent at the waist, hands on his knees. David recognized the man instantly. They had worked on a couple operations overseas together although David had been the advisor and this man had been one of many operators working at the site. “Miller? Holy shit dude. What the fuck? Were you on that plane?”

  “David, do you have a gun on you?”

  “What?” David asked, feeling a little uncertain about what was going on. He was still on a knee thankfully because he was starting to feel a little light-headed from either the circumstances, or possibly the fumes emanating from the crash.

  “Do you have a fucking gun on you?” Miller was yelling now.

  David didn’t like the tone, and the hair crept up on the back of his neck. Not so much because he was afraid of Miller, but because the tone implied something much more sinister. They were in trouble somehow from an enemy. David began scanning the area.

  “Yeah I have a gun bro. What’s going on Justin?” David replied but shifted his body slightly so that he could draw his gun quickly should he need to. He was scanning again.

  “Give me the gun David.”

  David looked right at Miller. Eye to eye, man to man. “What’s going on Miller?” David asked again, now much more forceful and pissed off. He was bearing down on his teeth, a habit of his during tenuous situations.

  Miller reached out his hand. It was covered in dried blood. His hoodie was soaked and caked in gore that somehow David hadn’t noticed before now.

  “Tell me what is going on first.”

  “I’ll tell you on the way to Ed and Merissa, David. But for right fucking now, I need to borrow your gun for a quick second and then I’ll give it back to you. Trust me David. On my bond.”

  David pulled the pistol from his waist and handed it to Miller who was still bent over. He could not believe that Miller had just referred to Merissa and he had a million new questions, but he knew that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Miller until this issue, whatever it was, resolved itself. David trusted the man, they had been in battle together before.

  “Where is Meris…”

  Miller stood up abruptly, aimed and fired a single round into the head of the man slumped at his feet. The shot reverberating off the walls of the terminal corridor, and a few shouts escaped persons nearby. A group of travelers that had been slowly drifting to the scene to see how they could help turned and began running away.

  David instinctively lunged at Miller who deflected the maneuver. Miller placed both hands in the air, one complete with pistol, and yelled “Stop David.”

  “What the hell Miller. Put the gun down man. What are you doing?” David trailed off his verbal onslaught when he saw the pain behind Miller’s eyes. Tears were falling from his eyes along his cheeks.

  “He had already turned David. He turned on the plane just before we crash landed.”

  “What? Who the hell is that? What do you mean turned? You can’t just waste a dude in the middle of an American airport. This isn’t a war zone for Christ’s sake!”

  Miller was about to speak when something caught his eye behind David, at the fuselage of the wreckage. The K-9 officer was drawing a Glock from his duty holster, but he wasn’t facing Miller and David which would seem logical given the fact that Miller had just killed a man. Instead, the officer was facing inside the aircraft, shining his light into its depths and he was lifting the pistol into a firing position. His dog was nowhere to be seen but the harness release was visibly dangling from the officer’s belt.

  The officer sighted his weapon and fired two quick rounds into a dark mass that jumped from the wreckage onto him, pulling him to the ground and screaming all the while. Two more spastic rounds fired from the officer’s gun as he fought to gain control from his attacker and get to his feet, only another mass leapt from the aircraft and dove on top of
him.

  David watched with horror as the first attacker grab the officer by his hair, wrenching his head sideways and with his other hand clawed open his throat. David started to move toward the fight. He felt like he had to try to rescue the dying officer.

  “David,” Miller stated while grabbing onto his forearm, “We have to get out of here.” He handed the pistol back to David and grabbed his own broken arm and held it against his chest as he began running away from the wreckage toward where he believed the exit to the terminal might be found.

  David, holding his pistol at his side, just watched him for a second until he heard a thunderous chorus of screams emit from within the wreckage, followed by the unmistakable sound of feet pounding against the tiled floor in pursuit. And then he too ran, catching Miller quickly who was running on a limp right down the center of the terminal corridor.

  “Who are those people? What is going on?” He spurted out in-between gasps of air. He was winded, and starting to get seriously pissed off at the sheer chaos of events unfolding at such a rapid pace.

  “Infected bro. Keep running. They will kill everything they come in contact with, and infect the ones that survive their attack.” Miller was squinting as he ran, obviously in real pain.

  David stole a quick glance over his shoulder to see if they were being advanced upon or whether they were gaining some distance in-between them and their pursuers. He saw the two bloodied men that had been chasing them had diverted to a small group of travelers, teenagers in fact, that had been watching from the outskirts of the crash site with their iPhones in their hands, filming the event.

  They began backpedaling as the two men became focused upon them but they kept filming, like somehow their smartphones would protect them or that there was some form of barrier in-between them as onlookers and the reality of the two men quickly approaching.

  The lead infected crashed into the first boy, a tall yet skinny fifteen-year-old wearing grey sweatpants and a bright green hoodie. The infected man rolled over him and then on top of him as they tumbled across the floor. He reared up with both hands and crashed them down hard onto the boy’s neck stunning him into wide-eyed silence. And then again, and again until the boy went limp. He kept pounding as the other kids tried to run around them to get away, only to be pulled down from behind by the other infected man. He held the teenage girl by her hair, pulling her to the ground as she screamed for help. And with his other hand pulled a younger boy by the back of his T-shirt, close enough to sink his teeth into his shoulder.