In the Lone and Level Sands

by David Lovato

  Emily was about to exit the car when she realized the zombie was heading for it. She slammed the door of the SUV shut, uttered a short scream, and grabbed Billy’s arm.

  “What’s going on?” Billy said. He noticed the zombies. “Oh, shit!”

  Alan stopped his car, rolled down his passenger window, leaned out, and opened fire on the slowly but surely approaching zombies. Alan easily picked them off. Red cascaded through the air and spilled over the rough pavement.

  “Behind you!” Emily shouted to Alan, who was reloading. Alan turned around, and there were two zombies dangerously close to the door of his car. He rolled the window down with the tip of his boot so he could finish reloading, then aimed out the open window.

  After the final zombie fell, Alan set the gun down and sighed with relief. He got out of the car and went to Billy’s window, then made a spinning motion with his hand.

  Billy rolled the window down and peered up at Alan.

  “All right, ma’am—”

  “It’s Martha. Just call me Martha.”

  Alan nodded. “Martha, let’s get what you came for, and then we can be on our way.” Emily exited the car looking around nervously, and so did Martha.

  “Hey, you,” Alan said.

  “The name’s Billy.”

  “Billy, take this.” He handed Billy his Glock. “I have another one.”

  “Thanks,” Billy said. “I hope I don’t need it.”

  “I hope not as well. Just hurry, and be careful.”

  Martha, Emily, and Billy hurried toward the house. Emily and Billy went around checking rooms for danger, but Martha paid little attention to them as she headed straight for what she had come to retrieve.

  Inside Martha’s room, by the bed, rested the nightstand. On the small table was a lamp and an empty water glass, and behind that was the picture of her and Charlie. Martha sat down on the bed and looked at it. She closed her eyes, pushing a couple of tears down her face. She picked up the picture, opened her watery eyes, and looked deep into it. She caressed the glass. Another tear ran down her cheek, and then Emily entered the room.

  “Mother?” she said. It startled Martha. She turned around, clutching the picture close to her.

  “Yes, is everything okay, dear?”

  “I’m fine,” Emily said. “Are you?”

  “As fine as I will ever be. I’m ready to go.”

  “You’re not going to bring any clothes?”

  “The authorities should have this situation wrapped up soon, and then we can get along with our lives, right?”

  “I hope so. Well, let’s go, then.”

  Martha, Emily, and Billy headed back to the SUV, and then led the way down the street. Soon they would be in Lynnwood, and they were hoping they wouldn’t have to stay there long, but only time would tell.

  15

  On a Swiftly Falling Plane

  Layne had no idea how high the plane had been when the engines shut off, but it didn’t matter; he was pretty sure everyone on board was going to die. He wondered where the plane would land. Empty ground? A body of water? Or would it land on some unlucky residents in a small town? Layne could only begin to imagine what would happen if the plane hit a building; he’d be a part of the nation’s next great terror scare, and all anyone would ever see of him would be a big burst of flame.

  He was gripping the right arm of his seat with his death clutch, and his left hand was clutching just as tightly, but it still had Alex’s hand in it. People were screaming. Layne watched an attendant carefully make his way to the cabin and try the door, but it was locked. He pounded on it, probably wanting more to have some respite from the unsafe aisle than to see what was going wrong. Layne turned to Alex, and she was looking at him.

  “Are we going to die?” she said. Layne barely heard her. The oxygen masks dropped before everyone, and it startled Layne.

  “I think we might,” he said.

  “Why did you fly?” Alex asked. He looked at her, confused. “What makes someone who’s never flown before fly?”

  Layne remembered their previous conversation. “I was going to—”

  There was an enormous shockwave and the sound of metal being crushed. The lights went out, the world was dark, but Layne’s eyes had been shut anyway. When he eventually opened them, he could see the ground flying by. Just a few rows ahead of him, the plane had snapped, and the front part was nowhere in sight. Layne realized that the ground whizzing by was getting closer. The plane must have snapped on the first impact and bounced, and it was about to make its second impact.

  It happened so quickly, yet seemed to drag on. Layne didn’t close his eyes this time.

  The plane hit again, and the part closest to the ground crumpled like tin foil. Two rows of people crumpled with it, and Layne immediately wished he had closed his eyes. He saw blood splatter, limbs sever, lives blinked out of existence, though he supposed a blink was much better than a stare.

  The tail end raised into the air as the plane dragged along the ground. Layne could see the dirt and grass through the open hull, and it was growing steeper. He prayed that the plane wouldn’t tip, that it would just fall back down and slide to a stop.

  The plane tipped. Layne went from leaning unimaginably forward and praying to hanging upside-down and screaming. The top of the plane hit the ground with a large thud, followed quickly by the sound of more metal crumpling. Luggage was tossed about, and Layne saw a flight attendant thrown from the plane. His view was upside-down and quickly fleeting, but through the hole in the hull he saw the attendant bounce along the ground behind the plane.

  The plane started to turn, and Layne was beginning to think that nothing could impede this madness. It slid sideways, and then rolled. There were two distinct popping noises that Layne presumed were the wings snapping off of the plane and hurtling to an unknown fate. Any attempt at vision yielded nothing but a circling blur. Layne closed his eyes and tried not to throw up. He couldn’t tell if Alex’s hand was still in his anymore; it felt almost like they had become one, smooshed into each other, now inseparable.

  Layne was jerked from side to side with each roll of the plane, as was everyone and everything else on board. He thought his neck would snap just like the wings had.

  The plane finally began to slow, and with one final jerk, it made a half-roll, stopped, and settled back down. Thanking God for small favors, Layne realized that the plane had come to rest belly-down. He turned and saw Alex. She looked at him.

  “We didn’t die,” she said.

  There was a horrible noise, and all Layne saw was metal. One of the wings had been thrown upward, and on its return voyage had crashed into the body of the plane. It sliced through the hull like a knife through butter, right beside Layne. He screamed, squeezed, shut his eyes. When he opened them, he was still holding Alex’s hand, but it was no longer attached to her. It angled up and into a bloody stump that rested against the wing of the plane. Horrified, and as terrible as the thought seemed, Layne hoped it had killed her. He couldn’t imagine what shape she would be in if it hadn’t.

  He couldn’t let go. They hadn’t been melded together, but the emotion was starting to well up as the adrenaline drained. Layne started crying. He threw up. Then he looked again, not wanting to believe it. Yet there it was, her severed arm pressed so tightly against the wing that could just as easily have taken him, taken him too, or taken no one at all.

  Layne let go of the hand, and it slumped down onto the arm of the seat. He tried to unbuckle his seatbelt, failed because of his shaking hands, and then ripped it from its buckle and freed himself. People were still screaming. Layne stood up, felt weak, and sat back down.

  Even though he hadn’t known Alex well, or long, he reached for her hand, took her bracelet, and put it on his own wrist, resting at the edge of his sleeve. Leaving it on the plane seemed wrong. He hoped he’d at least be able to get it to Alex’s mother, perhaps find her once the crash was taken care of and the authorities began notifying next-of-kin.
He would deliver the bracelet himself.

  Layne hadn’t paid much attention to the rest of the plane until then. He stood up and kept himself up. The people who lived were finally starting to calm down, though several were crying loudly. Layne could hardly believe how random it was. There were rows of untouched people, and there were rows of dead people with a single living, terrified person among them.

  Where the wings had snapped off, there were huge holes in the sides of the plane. The seats that had been right next to them had likely followed, as they were no longer there. A few people had broken free during the tumble; their bodies were strewn across seats, and one rested across the laps of a row of horrified people.

  It dawned on him as he looked around that he was the only one standing. He looked for the nearest survivor and found a young man from the next row over, who was comforting his girlfriend. The rest of the people in the row had been killed.

  “Sir, are you all right?” Layne asked. The man looked at him.

  “Do I fucking look all right to you?” he said. Layne hadn’t expected this response, but realized that he should have. The man’s girlfriend nudged him, and he looked at her.

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?” she said. “He’s just trying to help! Didn’t you see the wing?” Layne had taken some comfort from the woman defending him, but his stomach sank when she mentioned the wing of the plane. “He just experienced something horrible, but he’s actually trying to help someone else!”

  The man looked ashamed.

  “We’re fine, sir,” the woman said. “Dazed, but alive. Thank you.”

  “Can you get up?” Layne said. “I don’t want to burden you, but can you maybe help me get to people, see if anyone needs help?”

  “Uh,” the woman’s boyfriend said. He looked down, then buried his face in his hands.

  “Yeah, sure,” his girlfriend said. She unbuckled herself, stood up, and looked at her boyfriend. “Just stay here, okay? I’ll be back. Just wait right here.”

  “Thanks,” Layne said.

  “I’m Jessi.” She extended her hand.

  “Layne,” he replied, extending his, almost expecting to see Alex’s arm dangling from it.

  “I’ll help,” the man said. He got up. “I’m sorry, I’m just shaken. My name’s Paul.”

  “Okay. Jessi, Paul, start here and move backward. I’ll check the rows at the front, and then meet you back there, okay?”

  The three split up. Layne moved carefully; the plane inclined toward the front. He looked out through the gaping, jagged hole and saw fire and wreckage streaked across an empty field a few feet below. Part of the plane had curled back, propping it up over a small fiery ditch.

  Layne looked in the seats, but the few that were full contained only bodies. He turned and headed back, and then he heard a small voice.

  “Mommy?”

  His heart sank. Layne turned and saw a young girl in her pajamas. She had managed to make her way out of her seatbelt and was pushing and pulling on her mother’s arm. Layne examined her mother and saw a jagged piece of metal sticking out of the woman’s head. Blood was pouring from it.

  “Hey, little girl?” Layne said. The girl looked at him with wide eyes. “Hey, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a good guy.”

  The girl lost interest in him and went back to prodding her mom.

  “Hey, why don’t you come with me?” Layne said. The girl looked at him.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she said. “Why won’t mommy wake up?”

  Layne didn’t know what to say. “Your mommy is… She’s… sleeping.”

  “Why won’t she get up?”

  “She… she can’t. She can’t get up. But look, we aren’t safe right here. You need to come with me.”

  “Is mommy dead?” the girl asked. Layne hadn’t expected it. He sighed.

  “My name’s Layne. What’s your name?”

  “Kara.”

  The plane creaked loudly, and Layne thought he felt it incline a little more toward the fiery pit below the open hole. “Kara, look. Mommy’s gone to sleep. But she can’t wake up anymore. She had to go to a really deep sleep. But everything will be okay, and right now we need to move out of the way or we could fall.”

  “Is my mommy going to fall?” Kara asked with tears in her eyes.

  The plane creaked again, more loudly.

  “Kara, you’ll thank me for this, someday,” Layne said. He picked her up, and she started screaming. Layne started walking toward the back of the plane, where Jessi and Paul had already helped several people out of their seats.

  “I saw that! Kidnapper!” some guy said. He rushed forward and punched Layne in the face. Layne almost dropped a screaming Kara as he doubled backward, and then almost lost his balance. “You bastard! Taking advantage of a situation like this!” The man raised his arm again, but Jessi grabbed it.

  “He’s trying to help her!” she said. She went to Layne and took Kara from him. Kara started to calm down instantly, and her screams turned into cries. She seemed too tired to fight any more. “You okay?” Jessi asked Layne.

  “Yeah,” Layne said. “I just took a beating from a 747, I think I can handle this guy.” Jessi laughed.

  “Hey man, look,” the man said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Layne replied. “I understand. It’s been a hell of a night.”

  Layne looked at the rest of the group standing in the aisle. “Everyone, listen! We need to find survivors. It won’t be pretty, but we need to check pulses. Some of these people might just be unconscious. After that, we’ll figure out what to do.”

  The group split up and started searching people. Jessi sat down with Kara, who was starting to fall asleep.

  “Hey! Hey, we got a live one!” the man who hit Layne said. He had his hands on a woman’s shoulders. Her eyes were fluttering open. The group gathered, and the woman looked around, then lunged forward and bit the man’s arm. He shouted and pulled away. The woman lunged again, but was held back by her seatbelt. “What the hell is the matter with this lady?”

  “Ma’am, you need to calm down,” Layne said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The woman began frantically chewing on her seatbelt.

  “What’s the matter with her?” someone asked.

  “She’s flipped,” someone else said.

  “Ma’am, please, settle down,” Layne said. The woman looked at him, and her eyes were blank. It was like she was dead, but she clearly wasn’t.

  “What do we do, man?” Paul asked. Layne looked around. All eyes were on him, and he hated it.

  “I don’t know. Something’s wrong with her.”

  “No shit!” the man who had been bitten said.

  “Ma’am, we’re going to have to restrain you if you don’t settle down,” Layne said. The woman groaned loudly and began gnawing on her seatbelt again.

  Layne looked around. “Does anyone have anything we can use to keep her still, or make her fall asleep?”

  “Don’t the flight attendants keep any sleeping aids on the plane?” someone asked.

  Someone replied, “Yeah, good luck finding them, better luck feeding them to her.”

  “We won’t get anywhere like—” Layne said.

  “Fuck this, I’ll knock the bitch out myself!” the man who had been bitten said. He grabbed a loose metal beam from a tangled mess above them, yanked it free, and smacked the woman over the head before anyone could stop him. She went out like a light.

  “Hey!” Layne said.

  “What? You wanted her out, I put her…” The man’s arms lowered, and the beam dropped from his hand. His head drooped.

  “Are you okay, man?” Paul said. The man’s head darted back up, and he bared his teeth and growled. He lurched at Paul, who dodged to the side. The man slumped to the ground, and then rolled forward. The plane was only slightly inclined, but the man seemed to have no sense of his own center of gravity. He clumsily rolled to the edge and fell out.


  Layne and the others rushed over, and a few of them very carefully looked over the edge. When they looked down, they saw the man impaled upon a large shred of plane, partially in the fire. He was dead.

  Layne carefully hurried the others away from the edge, and was glad to be away from it again.

  “And here I was thinking this plane had killed enough people already,” a young man said. The others looked at him with disgust.

  “Is that guy dead?” someone asked.

  “He shouldn’t have freaked out like that,” someone else replied.

  “How can you even say that? This man just died!”

  “Lady, a whole fucking lot of people just fucking died.”

  Layne turned from the group and saw Jessi sitting near the back of the plane, holding Kara, who was asleep. Jessi looked at him.

  “All right, then,” Layne said. “If there are no other survivors, I recommend we get off of this plane.”

  “And how do we do that?” the snarky young man asked. “In case you hadn’t noticed, it isn’t exactly a peaceful hop down.”

  “There should be an emergency exit near the back. It should drop a slide down. If not, we jump.”

  The group moved to the back and found a rounded-rectangle door with big red block letters telling them they had found the spot. Layne opened the door, and there was a loud poosh as the slide inflated and touched the ground.

  Layne helped people down. Jessi was last, holding Kara.

  “Can you make it with her?” Layne asked.

  “Yeah,” Jessi said. “Hey… thanks. Thank you so much, for everything.”

  “Don’t thank me.” Layne blushed. “Any one of us could’ve done it.”

  “Yeah, but you did.” She slid down to the grass below.

  Layne took a last look at the body of the plane. So much baggage rested with him, and he was just noticing how tired he was. He yawned, then turned and slid down the big yellow slide to the group of people below, who were eagerly awaiting his direction.