Nightmare-Z

by S. A. Lowry

  After futile efforts to open the doorway, many of the passengers begin ramming themselves into it and beating on the doors until it mericiliously slid open. The train’s exit way wasn’t quite lined up with the boarding platform so the passengers had to squeeze out one by one between the wall of the tunnel and the remaining room to exit the door of the train. As they file out one by one, Andrew randomly asks out loud if anyone is going to help these people going through seizures on the ground. A few people warn him to leave them alone and not go near them.

  His best bet is to get off the train now. Many just ignore his pleas and attempt to funnell through the crack of the doorway to safety. Andrew is one of the last to leave the train. There are only two others behind him, including the frieghtened lady he previously tried to converse with before the train wigged out on them. She keeps telling them to hurry up frantically as she pushes the man ahead of her ahead, which in turn bumps into Andrew.

  Andrew can see where the exit is because the beam of light which shoots through the crack. Andrew approaches and wiggles his way out, as he does this however, he notices the afflicted passengers on the ground stopped shaking. Upon entering the hallway he notices numerous bodies on the ground and blood stains everywhere. Flickering lights down the hallways as far as the eye can see and broken glass everywhere. The rest of the passengers who escaped the train are already in shock and observing the situation.

  Once the man behind Andrew finally escapes through into the hallway, he turns back to grab the last lady’s hand to assist her out. That is when she begins frantically screaming and yelling for help. The man, who has her hand and is trying to pull her into the hallway, can feel her body being pulled back into the dark train.

  Andrew sees this and runs up to help. As he tugs on the passenger, they both fall back empty handed. The lady still on the train, is heard screaming in pain until her screams are drowned out by gurgling sounds and the sound of life leave her voice. Everybody in the hallway now, even more in shock, begin slowly walking backwards towards the walls and the stairs which leads up into Terminal B.

  Some of the passengers, around a group of thirteen to twenty, place their hands over their mouths in shock. As Andrew backs away from the dark abandoned train, he trips over a corpse on the ground which seemed to be half eaten. As he hits the ground, buttocks first, he quickly realizes what tripped him. Startled as he was, he quickly stands up and attempts to wipe the blood off the bottom of his ACU pants while merging back into the crowd of the scared passengers.

  The sounds of gunfire erupts above the stairwell. More screams can be heard. One of the men of the group decides to take a few able bodied males up the stairwell to further investigate while telling the others to stay put. The rest agree, along with Andrew who stands by and attempts to wipe the blood stains off of his uniform. One of the men who approach the top of the stairwell slowly, pulls out an XD .40 sub-compact pistol.

  Everyone glares at him as he chambers a round. Knowing what people are thinking, the man turns around and looks down upon the group from the middle of the stairwell and informs them that he is an Air Marshall. Some show a sigh of relief, thinking they are safe, however, some know better and still realizes how grim the situation as one of the mothers attempt to stand in front of her children blocking them from the stairwell.

  The Air Marshall brings his pistol to the high ready as he slowly aims down his sight to the top of the stairwell along with two other males behind him placing their fists up as if they were ready for fight. The sounds of automatic gunfire can be heard as well as semi-automatic fire. People upstairs can be heard screaming as they run by from above. Once the Air Marshall approaches the top of the stairs and can see what is on the other side, he slowly places his weapon down.

  “Oh my god,” he whisphers.

  The other men in the group frantically ask what’s wrong. The passengers down below heard that part. The Air Marshall then turns around and begins yelling. “RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! GO NOW MOVE IT!” the Air Marshall screams and hollers as he descends down the staircase trying to push the others down who are in his way.

  Some of the passengers begin to panic once again while asking the man what the problem is. The Air Marshall continues to yell as he runs by them in the direction of Terminal A and baggage claim/ticketing upon reaching the end of the staircase.

  A few members of the group decide to follow him. Others take off in the direction towards Terminal C. Some stay there in confusion, still too shocked to believe why they ought to begin running, especially with their luggage in hand. Andrew on the other hand, doesn’t ask any questions and follows the guy with the gun.

  A few other survivors also follow suite. As the group of passengers, including Andrew sprint down the hallway of flickering lights, some of the passengers who are with them attempt to carry their wheeled luggage. One of the mothers of the group, whom took off running the direction behind the Air Marshall, told her children who wore their Disney shirts to follow her, assuming they were right behind her.

  When she looked back and noticed they weren’t keeping up, she attempted to turn around to grab them, when the mob of screaming passengers running off in the opposite direction crowded in between her and her children in a frantic fashion.

  Many of these people, who now came under attack by the assailants who descended down the staircase, were now engaged in a crowded frenzy of fighting and attacks which led to the children being seperated on the other side of the crowd.

  The mother, who desperately shouted out to her children and tried to fight through the mob of attackers, was shoved by one of the survivors trying to escape back about ten feet where she fell to the ground and smashed the back of her head as she fell.

  As a result, this put her into an apparant dazed and confused state. As she attempts to rise and regain her conscienceness, some people following the Air Marshall, along with Andrew lifted her up and frantically pursuaded her to follow them. It now became apparent to the group that the attackers within the crowd of passengers who were on the ground level, are now eating their victims alive without mercy.

  As the blood bath ensued, the group takes off running along with the screaming frantic mother as she continues to look back for her children. Some members of the group, including Andrew, convince her while they are running that they saw her children run off in the direction they are headed which is towards the main terminal.

  As a result, she believed them and proceeded to follow them. As they pick up their pace The Air Marshall glances back at a few more of the remaining survivors who are falling behind and frantically tells them to drop their ‘damned’ bags a second time.

  Some follow suite, some do not. The ones who fail to heed the man’s advice, begin falling way behind the group. The passengers, who are still left at the bottom of the staircase being torn apart, now begin screaming and hollering as they lay victim to bloodied assailants who don’t even look human. Some try to reason with them while others begin screaming.

  Andrew looks back and witnesses them be tackled to the ground by the mob as their flesh begins ripping from their body at the hand of the angried mob. Andrew does not know what to make of this. He decides to keep running with the Air Marshall in the lead.

  Only a handful of passengers are now keeping up with Andrew and the Marshall. Andrew still has his assault pack slung over his back, however it is light weight and not slowing him down any so he decides not to take it off. As they sprint down the long hallway towards Terminal A, assailants begin storming out of passing bathrooms and neighboring staircases. A few of the attackers block the group’s path. As a result, the Air Marshall takes aim while on the move and begins opening fire to clear a path. He does this quite well as he drops two to four assailants whom tried to come at them as they ran by.

  “KEEP MOVING! DON’T SLOW DOWN THEY ARE RIGHT BEHIND US!” yells the Marshall as Andrew turns around to see the crowd behind him get larger and larger as they pursue them.

  Many who decided not t
o scrap their luggage who fell behind, are now no where to be found. Andrew assumes the assailants got ahold of them as it slows the crowd down and distracts them from his group.

  As they continue running, a TSA agents pops out of the bathroom with a metal pipe in hand ready to attack. However, as he came out of the exit so fast he bumped into one of the survivors of Andrew’s group. Both of them fall to the ground violently. The Air Marshall takes aim to the man’s head while on the ground and is about to shoot until the man begins frantically yelling obsencities due to the pain he endured. The Marshall lowers his pistol and orders the TSA employee to stand his up and keep moving with the rest of them. The man asks no questions and follows suite. The hallway back to Baggage claim and ticketing is a long one. However, it seems like most of the assailants just so happened to be behind them.

  There were a few to the group’s front in which they tried to interfere with the group’s path to terminal A, however, the Marshall took care of them quick with his pistol before they could get too close.

  The ones who were feeding on some of the many corpses laid out all over the airport he ignored because they were distracted and not a threat. They did not even pay any attention to the group as they ran by.

  Upon taking a corner, one of the members of the group who happens to be a flight stewardess, whom ditched her high heels about three hundred meters back, slid on a pile of guts in a pool of blood which was in the middle of the floor.

  The group stops as she screams out in disgust. They run back to help her up as the mob quickly approach from behind, however, still maintaining a good distance away. As she gets up she begins screaming even more as she realizes the blood is all up in her hair and all over her backside.

  The men tell her to keep moving and to not look back. Even an older lady in the group who is obviously physically fit enough and keeping up, tells her to quit being a girl and to move it.

  The stewardess obliges without any sarcastic remarks. The group picks up and begins moving again down the long hallway. For the time being, they seem to be in the clear as they approach oncoming signs reading ‘Baggage Claim’ and ‘Ticketing’.

  They realize it isn’t far now. There are still dead bodies scattered all over the long strip of hallway and some being moved from one point to the other on the automatic walkways. It is a gruesome scene. Many of the survivors just try to ignore the dead as they pass by them running. Andrew included.

  As they continue to move, the Air Marshall makes a comment to Andrew.

  “You’re in the Army, don’t you have a weapon?” the man sarcastically asks.

  “Only when they decide to give me one,” Andrew angerily answers. Andrew is now apparently angered at the man’s inappropriate and needless comment.

  “Mine is locked up in a connex in Iraq,” a winded Andrew exclaims as he continues running along side the Air Marshall. The Air Marshall doesn’t respond. As he is in the lead, he suddenly stops and puts his arms up signaling the group to a halt. Everyone stops. The man begins raising up his pistol in a defensive posture and begins slowly approaching what now seems to be the beginning of the staircase and escalator to the main entrance of the terminal(baggage claim and ticketing).

  What the group notices however, is a pile of three to five bodies laid out on the base of the stairwell, whom are obviously deceased and torn apart. What caught the Air Marshall’s eyes however, is the fact that some of them in the pile began to move.

  “What the hell is going on!” one of the ladies in the group calls out. Her apparent boyfriend, tells her to calm the down and be quiet. “Hey soldier boy, are you seeing what I am seeing? Those people over there are dead. Look at them, their torsos and arms have obviously been eaten. Theres blood everywhere and they are now moving!” shockingly exclaims the Air Marshall.

  “They can’t be dead if they are moving,” explains Andrew as he slowly approaches the pile with the Air Marshall by his side.

  The TSA employee is on the other side of the Air Marshall holding his pipe up in a defensive posture. To the group’s horror, three of the dead bodies, obviously mutilated and ripped apart, begin standing up. Two of them begin looking around as one of them notices the survivors slowly approaching them. The one who noticed, as he stood up with an apparent laceration going through his torso, guts began to spill out as he stood more erect. He did not have any pupils either. The man proceeds to stare in the group’s direction and yell out a horrific screetching noise from his mouth as he begins stumbling towards the survivors with his jawline wide open. The other two pick up on the third one and begin following him now noticing the obvious meal that awaits.

  “Shoot these bastards!” yells Andrew to the Air Marshall. The Marshall takes aim and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. “Damnit!” exclaims the Air Marshall as he quickly drops his magazine and goes for another one attached to his belt concealed inside his coat. He makes a quick reload, chambers the first round and opens fire center mass into the lead assailant’s chest.

  The fast approaching attacker doesn’t fall down and keeps moving. Shocked as he is, the Marshall decides to aim for the assailant’s head with two rounds. This drops the man instantly. Quickly catching on, he places two more well aimed shots into the heads of the other two which were right behind the attacker who just dropped to the floor lifelessly.

  All three of them seem to be deader than before for they ceased to move. The panicing and now screaming mother, as she continues to look back for her children, begins second guessing the group’s advice on her children. She tells them that she is going back for them. As she tries to take off, one of the older ladies of the group stops her by grabbing the back of her shirt and attempts to convince her otherwise.

  “Hey, how do you know they aren’t already up there?” she says as she points upwards towards the stairwell in the direction of more screams and gunfire.

  “Stick with us, or else you will die!” the woman states with conviction and concern for the woman’s life.

  The mother, still shaking and now beginning to cry, nods her head in silence. The group takes off on foot once more for the base of the stairwell. As Andrew moves, he picks up the Air Marshall’s magazine he left on the floor as he then picked up a sprint to catch up to the group. They move around the pile of bodies and begin ascending the stairwell, again with the Air Marshall in the lead at the high ready scanning for anymore potential attackers.

  As they get closer to the top, they can hear screaming and loud noises of running footsteps hitting the ground. Gun shots can be heard off in the distance, obviously from outside the front of the entrance to the airport.

  Once the group reaches the top of the stairwell and into the main ticketing and baggage claim area, what they witness is something out of a movie. Sheer chaos ensued inside the terminal. Innocent people running every which way to safety as their bloodied, unhuman like pursuers chase them down.

  Security personnell are engaged in combat outside the very entrance and can be seen taking cover behind burning vehicles as they shoot into crowds of individuals who are charging at them. Some of the attackers are fast and some move at a walking pace. The ones who decide to run are more successful in tackling their victims to the ground and ripping out pieces of flesh with their mouths.

  The slower ones, stumble upon injured and crawling victims and devour them in groups. The group realizes they haven’t been noticed yet in the mist of the chaos. They decide to push forward to the exit while sticking close to eachother and calling out some assailants to the man with the gun who rush their formation.

  Those few are quickly dropped quickly with a round to the head by the Air Marshall’s shooting ability and seemingly large supply of ammo he is carrying on him. As they push closer to the doorway, Andrew notices a Little League Baseball team caught up in the chaos trying to take refuge on the other side of the ticket counter by the conveyer belt for luggage.

  Many of the assailants on the other side are devouring what seems to be their coach, judging by
the uniform and lone single adult matching the children’s jersies, along with various other children who attempt to sprint to safety only to be picked up by the assailants and eaten alive.

  All Andrew hears now are the unbearable horrific screams of innocent children having their flesh torn apart by adults. Andrew, willingly knowing this could be a fatal mistake, would never forgive himself if he just let the remaining frieghtned children die. While almost to the exit with his group, he makes the final decision to do something about it. With or without the group after a few seconds of pondering the consequances.

  “We can not just leave them there to die like that!” Andrew yells in a frantic, almost mad tone of voice. Many of the survivors in the tight circulary formation, back to back while covering all sides begin yelling at him to come back as he breaks his spot in the formation and pushes some of the survivors out of the way to sprint over to the ticket counter.

  “This guy is going to get us killed. Let’s just keep going,” one of the survivors in a business suit says. Now, obviously not agreeing with the move, but taken over by conscience for the young, some of the survivors begin to follow Andrew as they come to the children’s aide. The mother, some how believing her childeren may be with those other kids, follows Andrew without hesitation. The Air Marshall and the TSA employee follow suite while the lone man in the business suit stays behind and hides behind a Kiosk yelling at them and calling them crazy for going back there.