The propellers sound as if they are eating something.
It’s horrifying.
A wave of blood soaks the windshield. It drips down slowly, almost as if its mocking us. Then, the little of that beautiful day I was so happy about earlier inverts and the sounds of metal scraping concrete rakes my eardrums.
The plane is basically in the air and on the ground at the same time. A horde of zombies are slowly lumbering toward us. Each moment we waste here is another moment Darlene and Klein get farther away from me.
38
The plane isn’t in the air. It should be, but it’s not. It’s stopped on the runway because a zombie got caught in the propellers, causing alarms and sirens to shriek and George to curse and frantically go back to switching his controls. By the time the plane moves again, it’s too late. It’s like the Ford on the road. They surround us, so many of them. I feel like I can’t breathe.
Near the front, cupboards fly open and glass bottles spill onto the floor, some break, some go rolling down the aisle as the plane tries to pick up speed. I’m digging my hands into the armrests. My teeth grind. Outside of my side window, a black shadow seems to form. It’s the zombies and my right hand instinctively goes for my gun. Over the beeping comes a thump, thump, thump.
Herb screams and points out the window.
“Gotdamn zombies!” George shouts. It’s like we’re wheeling through thick mud and not concrete.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The plane rocks back and forth. Pretty soon, we’re going to be covered in zombies. I don’t want to look out of the window, but I have to. What I see sends shivers up and down my body. The zombies are out there, all right, and it’s not the zombies I’m used to. Gone are the brain-dead dummies who’ll keep coming at you even if you put a slug in their gut. What I see are glowing eyes of understanding. Hundreds of them. It’s like they’re all mocking me, like they know we are stuck and they will get to us sooner or later. Now, this could just be my imagination or my brains own paranoid response to a traumatic situation, but I’d almost swear some of them are smiling. I don’t think that disease that did this to them would let them die with a smile on their faces.
I unbuckle my seatbelt. The plane’s not going anywhere and I have to get in the air because I have to get Darlene back. I’m not about to let the zombies win, and I’m certainly not going to let Klein win.
“Jack?” Abby says. I glance over at her as I stand in the aisle. “What are you doing?”
I ignore her, bend down and pick up two bottles, one Jack Daniels and another clear bottle of what I think is vodka, and I go to the door. I grab a few rags. Some of them look used, like they wiped up grease or something.
I might be stupid for doing this.
“Wait just a doggone minute,” George is saying, but it’s too late. I cut him off and ask Norm for his lighter. I know he has it on him. He always does. It’s the soldier in him. He gives me a weird look before understanding dawns. He digs in his back pocket and flips it to me.
“You crazy son of — ” he is saying.
I don’t hear the rest.
I open the door and I climb out. From the corner of my eye, right before I get on top of the bloody wing, feeling the wind of the dying propellers on my face and hair, I see Norm smirking at me, as if he was proud. This is nothing to be proud of. This is desperation. This is craziness on my part in the name of love.
39
As soon as the zombies see me or smell me or whatever these fucked-up abominations do, their groans and voices grow much louder than the dying plane engine. I’m on the wing. My hands are sweaty and my legs are shaking. In my pocket I have the medium sized bottles of Jack and Vodka.
The zombies reach for me, but I’m not even close to them. The smell is death. I won’t say it’s sickening sweet anymore. That ship has sailed as these bastards cooked in the hot sun and rotted for the better part of seven or so months. Sure, some are fresher than the others, but the stench would say otherwise. They all have skin the color of puke and old cheese. Their jaws — those who have them — hang open as the death rattles slip from rotted throats. The eyes shine at me like searchlights. All of them are turned up. I’m the center of attention at last.
I scrabble up the wing, but my heart stutters as my sweaty hands betray me. I slip and fall hard on my side. I hear glass breaking. Pain shoots through my leg, the already wounded one, as glass drills into me and warm alcohol spills down my pants. That, or blood or urine. I don’t know, but I do know I’m scared as all hell.
The propellers barely spin. Hands scratch at the metal. My legs dangle above the encroaching crowd of dead. I know their arms are stretched up, waiting for me to drop. And my hand is slipping, nails digging into the metal. Cold underneath my fingernails. Pain bursting through my hands.
Now I feel more warmth running down my pant legs. This has got to be urine. Don’t judge. You’d piss yourself, too if you were in my position.
The hands beat on the metal over and over again, drowning out my thudding heartbeat. I think of Darlene and how she’s dead without me, how it’s up to me to clear the dead and get us airborne so I can find her. I can’t lose her again. I just can’t.
I scream and I don’t think; I just do. I slap my hand on the wing, sliding a little as my heart goes into my throat, and repeating the process.
Something brushes my boot. My muscles tense up. Now, I can think. I have no choice not to think as I feel the slimy hands and gnarled fingers run their way up my leg. They grip my shoe and pull, dead weight. My nails screech on the metal. It’s almost cartoonish, almost unreal. I’m thinking of Norm without his index finger and Abby without her left hand, and now I think of me without my right foot. I think of me not able to run from the dead when that’s the only choice left as I fall farther and farther down the wing
“No,” I wheeze.
The door hisses as it opens. Straining to look out the corner of my eye, I see Norm. He raises his gun and lets a shot off. The hands and fingers scrabbling at my leg and exposed ankle disappear.
“You crazy bastard,” Norm says.
“T-Took you long enough,” I wheeze.
He shoots again, then he holsters his gun and climbs up on the wing. He gives me his hand, pulls me up.
“Thank you,” I say. “Thanks a lot.”
“All the times I’ve saved you, little bro, did you really expect me to let you die?”
I smile.
Norm glances over the quivering mass of zombies below us. They stretch all the way to the airport’s main building. “Well, at least I’m not going to let you die alone,” he says.
The propellers have pretty much stopped altogether. It’s not the engine that drowns out Norm’s voice, but the sounds of the zombies instead. I reach into my pocket and pull out bits of wet glass and a cap with the plastic covering still attached. In the other pocket, I pull the whiskey free and the rags. I pop the lid off and stuff the rag into the bottle’s neck, soaking it with warm alcohol. Norm looks at me with curiosity. He still has his gun up. I notice it’s not shaking in his hands. He’s cool and calm somehow.
“Ever thrown a molotov cocktail before?” he asks.
“Only in the video games,” I say.
“Let me do it,” he says, holding his hand out.
“No way,” I say.
Seeing these zombies, seeing all of them with their yellow eyes turned up to us, trying to get my family and the fact that they are somewhere eating Father Michael just pisses me off.
No, these bastards are mine.
With the rag soaked in the booze and hanging out from the neck, I take the lighter and run my thumb over the gear. A flame sparks, catches. I hold the rag over it. It catches, too. The warmth bathes my face and the bottle almost instantly heats up. I don’t let it linger in my hand. I cock it back behind my head and throw it.
It sails through the air, the fire burning low in the bright sunshine. Zombie eyes follow its trajectory until it lands with an explos
ion of flame in the middle of the runway. Bodies light instantly. Death rattles turn to high-pitched shrieks. I know they don’t feel pain, at least I don’t think they do. I think it’s a semblance of their old selves remembering what pain is, remembering that fire means death.
Old, stale clothes catch fire. Arms go up to the heavens and legs move around at the same pace they moved before. Bodies bump into more bodies and more fire spreads. Soon, it stretches the length of the horde, which in turn seems to stretch for miles. The flames are brighter than the sun and I feel the temperature of the world turn a few degrees hotter.
Norm slaps me on the shoulder. I lunge forward, almost slip, but he grabs me. My plan worked, like it worked in Woodhaven. It would’ve worked in D.C., too if it wasn’t for the endless supply of dead.
“Let’s go, boys!” George shouts from the door. “Daylight’s burning!”
Norm gives him a thumbs up. The zombies below us have receded into the pile at the heart of the runway. I thought of throwing the molotov cocktail somewhere completely out of the way so we could take off properly. I don’t know if my arm could’ve really gotten anywhere beside a target I knew I wouldn’t miss. Besides, I needed to hit something that would catch and the concrete would catch for as long as the whiskey provided fuel to burn and that wouldn’t be long. Imagine how much easier old petrified skin and sun-zapped clothes catch.
Then Norm holds out his hand. My breath is momentarily caught. It’s not often Norm offers this kind of praise. If Darlene wasn’t gone, I’d be the happiest man on Earth right now. I take his hand and we shake. “Seriously, nice job, little bro,” he says.
We head back into the plane, the sound of the propellers and the whipping wind spurring us forward, I smile and honestly can’t wait until we’re off of this Godforsaken coast.
40
“We took a little wing damage,” George says as I walk past the cockpit and back through the aisle. Herb sits next to me. He’s taken pillows from somewhere and blocked the windows nearest him. Faint sunlight and flickering flames stream in from between cracks, but the smell of fire is unavoidable. Herb sits with his gaze averted and his big hands stroking his hair.
“It’s okay, Herbie,” I say.
“I was a-scared,” Herb says.
Whenever something goes bad, Darlene is the first one to comfort him. Now she’s not here and I don’t know what to do.
Herb doesn’t look at me. He smells sweaty and full of fear.
The plane lurches. Outside the glass, I hear the flames crackling and licking. I think I hear flesh splitting and eyeballs so heated, they pop. But I don’t. There’s no way. It’s just my imagination, the stories inside of my head trying to get out even at times like these.
Abby sits behind us, peeking through Herb’s makeshift blinds. “Geez, Jack. Helluva throw. You didn’t play football in high school, did you?”
I shake my head, not looking at her. I’m thinking about Darlene. I hope she’s alive.
“Maybe all that working out at the Woodhaven Rec Center paid off,” Abby says. No one laughs. “Listen, Jack, Darlene is going to be okay.”
I look at her. I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid of speaking, of unleashing the raw emotion inside of me.
George comes on over the intercom. “Skies are looking clear. Flight should be smooth. So buckle your seat belts and prepare for take off.” There’s a faint crackle of feedback and then it’s silent. I buckle up. I move Herb’s shutter. The fire has consumed all, almost. Blackened corpses writhe on the ground. Zombies who are only half-burned shamble around. Some trip over the blackened corpses only to fall and not be able to get back up. It’s quite sad. There’s more who move around while the fire quickly eats away at what rotten flesh they have left on their skeletons. They move with about as much grace as drunken, three-legged dogs. Some of them are missing arms so I guess the comparison is a good one. Seeing this can only make someone feel shitty. Shittier than I already feel. It’s hard to believe the world has been reduced to this.
The plane growls. I see through the cockpit that the front windshield is still soaked with blood, but enough has dripped away for George to make out the little stretch of runway we have to work with. I’ve never been a fan of flying. I’ve always hated how people will say, “Oh, the chances of crashing are much less than driving!” Yeah, because there’s no traffic thousands of feet in the air, but if your engine fails on the turnpike, you can at least pull off to the shoulder whereas if your engine fails a mile above ground, you’ll have a long time to think about your death before you finally crash and burn. I’d take a quick death over a long and drawn out one any day. Yeah, an airplane crash would be quick, but the falling wouldn’t. Give me a bullet to the brain instead of a zombie bite. Screw pain and suffering, man.
But I’m suffering right now, right, Jack?
No. I can’t let the dark thoughts get to me. I have to remain positive. Darlene is going to be okay. I’m going to make sure of it. And Klein is going to pay.
The plane takes off.
The trees come at us in a rush and I’m gripping the armrests, teeth gritted, lungs pressed into my spine, finding it hard to breathe. For a second, I think we are going to hit the trees, think we are going to be cut down and I won’t worry anymore because I’ll be dead.
But we don’t. We pass right over them.
41
It takes about eight minutes for us to reach a cruising altitude, and even longer for me to feel comfortable enough to unstrap my seat belt. Abby, on the other hand, is behind me flipping through a hunting magazine she found in a pouch on the back of my seat. She said her dad was a big hunter, though I remember her mentioning he wasn’t around much as she was growing up. How she can flip through a magazine at a time like this, I don’t know. I have to remind myself Abby is only nineteen. She’s still growing up no matter what she says. The younger you are, the harder it is to cope normally, I think.
Norm comes out of the cockpit. His face is relaxed. “Don’t worry,” he says.
“How can’t I?” I say.
Norm shrugs. “We’ll get through this, we always do. Klein won’t kill her. He has no reason to.”
“He had no reason to kill Father Michael,” I say.
Abby flips pages loudly.
Norm is silent for a moment. “He did it to buy time. He knew there was still a chance you’d shoot him if he had Mike, but there wasn’t a chance in hell you’d risk shooting him with Darlene in Mike’s position.”
I shake my head. The anger rises. He won is all I can think
I lean over the aisle. Abby stares at me over the open magazine on her lap. She holds it with her good hand and her bandaged stump and it’s an odd sight. She gets up and sits in the seat closest to us. “Listen to your brother for once, Jack. She’s okay. We’re going to get her back,” she says and she reaches out and grabs my arm, squeezes. She has an awkward smile on her face, like she wants to say more, but English isn’t her native language. I get it. It’s not her M.O.
I lean back and close my eyes, ending this conversation of meaningless comfort. There’s nothing I can do right now a mile up in the air, nothing any of us can do except wait.
As much as I hate it, it’s the truth.
I try to sleep, and maybe I do, but it’s a dreamless sleep. I’m grateful for that — no dreams means no nightmares. I’m sick of nightmares because I’m living in one.
We are still flying. No one is talking so when a voice fills the cabin, drifting back into the fuselage, I’m right to think it’s the voice of God.
42
The voice says, “You are flying over unauthorized space. Divert your course or suffer the consequences.”
Norm and I rush to the cockpit. George hunches over the speaker, looking at it as if it’s his worst enemies.
“The hell I will!” George says. “Maybe if you ask me nicely.”
Norm rests a hand on George’s shoulder. The tan farmer jumps at his touch, but he knew we were here all alo
ng.
“Let me talk,” Norm says.
Grumbling, George hands over the headset. “No one gets to talk to me like that and live.”
I look to the tracking screen George has set up on the seat opposite him. I notice how close we are to the blip that represents Klein’s stolen plane. Hope fills my chest as I realize his blip is no longer moving. I point to it, but George is still too red in the face to give a damn. I slap him on the back to get his attention. Norm sees me and turns to look at what I’m freaking out about.
“Look!” I say. “He’s here. Where the hell are we anyway?”
Norm’s eyes narrow at the screen, then they blossom. “This is Eagle 12,” he says. Where that came from, I have no idea.
Obviously, this is a trap. I’m grateful they haven’t shot us down. We’re probably too close for them to do that. Wherever we are.
“Please divert your course, Eagle 12,” the static-y voice says again.
“Requesting emergency landing,” Norm says. “Low fuel.”
The static shuts off. There’s a large silence that follows. All of our eyes dart from each other’s faces to the screens to the open blue sky tinged with red zombie blood beyond the nose of the plane.
“Request granted,” the voice says. “Landing bay — ”
George slams his fist on the console, cutting the voice off. “I know damn well where to land. What? They think this is my fist flight? Hell no.”
“C’mon, lets strap in,” Norm says.
“Trap?” I ask him.
“Most definitely,” he answers.
My heart is beating abnormally fast. It’s the allure of human voices. Trap or not you don’t hear enough of them these days, but I know I need to be cautious. People are monsters, too.
“How far are we from the Mojave?” I ask before leaving the cockpit.
Jack Zombie (Book 4): Dead Coast Page 11
