Short Fiction: "Red Eye"
Gonna need these <bleeping> vampires off this <bleeping> plane ...
Previously published in the JTF13: Origins anthology. I initially considered this as standalone to the overall Paxtonverse, but I liked the characters so much I had to bring them onboard.
Dante Accardi slung his battered rucksack into the storage compartment over the business-class seat. The seats were at the ass-end of the section, jammed right up against the lavatory, but the sections to either side of the center row consisted of only two seats on each side. No chance of armrest thieves boxing him in was great enough, but on this Airbus, the section in front of the bathrooms was one of the three exit rows. He had more than enough leg room, even with his carry-on stowed behind his feet.
He rocked forward from the impact of a shoulder into his back and turned in mock annoyance. “It’s a sixteen-hour flight, bro, keep your pantyhose on.”
Tyson Fisher grinned as he hoisted his own pack into place. Where Dante was stocky and olive-skinned, Ty was long and lean, his curly hair bleached blond by the sun, a central casting surfer dude. “I love how hot and bothered you get without a chute, Super Mario.”
Sliding into the window seat, Dante scratched the side of his nose with one middle finger.
His friend chortled and plopped into his own seat. “You have to admit it, dude. This is definitely worth the upgrade.” He checked the stream of passengers moving down the aisle and lowered his voice. “No sweaty Iraqi taking up the armrests while he waxes poetic about his gold toilet or whatever.”
Dante grunted in agreement. Their companion on the flight over had been annoying as hell, even after both men plugged in earbuds to drown out his incessant bragging. Considering they’d all flown to Qatar in economy class, the Iraqi was probably full of shit.
A tone sounded over the plane’s speakers, and one of the flight attendants made a short speech in Arabic. Dante knew enough to get by, so when the same voice shifted to English and repeated the same announcement in a cultured British accident, he already had the gist of it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Qatar Airways flight 755 with non-stop service to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in the United States. Should you need any assistance finding your seat, seek out a member of the cabin crew and we’ll be happy to help.”
Another tone sounded, and the plane fell silent save for the usual boarding sounds—feet shuffling over the carpet, crying children, and murmured conversation. With little else to do than wait, Dante crossed his arms and watched the train of people while Tyson whistled and drummed his fingers on his armrest.
Much like the flight they’d taken to Doha, this one held an eclectic mix of passengers. Native Qatari men in long shirts and gutra mixed with Asian and white—European, Dante supposed—businessmen in their fine suits, though most of the latter had doffed their jackets and loosened their ties in recognition of the marathon flight ahead. Most of the women wore abayha and Shayla, though a small number wore full burqa. The few Western women were modestly dressed—long skirts or slacks, high necklines, and long sleeves. Qatar was the richest country in the world, socially advanced in comparison to the rest of the Middle East—but it also had a government-enforced dress code for its own people.
That bipolar aspect to the culture, combined with the fact that he hadn’t been home in six months, left Dante eager for the pilots to get the proverbial show on the road.
When Tyson had called him nine months ago with a job offer, he’d been reluctant at first. They’d met during their time in the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, and the unlikely friendship they’d forged had endured well past the time both men had left the service. Managing a construction crew for his dad’s company left Dante questioning his life choices, especially during rush hour on I-95. Yeah, Khost and Karbala had well and truly sucked, but at least they’d been able to run over and shoot their way through any obstacles. Pleasant daydreams aside, Boston PD tended to frown on any such displays within their jurisdiction.
In the end, the money won out as much as the change of pace. Once Dante reacclimated to the climate, it was even a little boring. The contract required them to provide protection to a team of scientists studying a potential new oil well out in the Qatari desert. To Dante’s surprise, that work mainly consisted of office work, looking over satellite photos, ground surveys, and other information well above his area of interest. Trips out to the site were few, far-between, and uneventful. Although Dante welcomed the lack of action in one regard, it made the long contract seem all that much longer.
On the bright side, their ‘net connection was good enough that Dante, Tyson, and the rest of the crew had plenty of time to catch up on Netflix and polish their Madden skills.
The flight attendants gave the usual spiel, accompanied by helpful videos in multiple languages, and began the process of takeoff. Tyson shifted in his seat and raised an eyebrow.
“In the event of a water landing,” he whispered, “you’ll be thousands of miles from land, so keep a firm hold of your seat cushion and kiss your ass goodbye.”
Dante snorted a chuckle and shook his head. “That was funnier the first time.” A flash of movement caught his attention, and he raised his head to see a wrinkled face peering back at them through the gap in the seats. “Sorry, sir,” he said, louder. “My friend’s had too many head injuries over the years and it’s affected his sense of tact.”
The elderly man blinked in surprise, then chuckled. “Quite all right, lads. You Yanks do tend to love your gallows humor.” He extended his hand between the seats. “Graham Hales.”
Tyson and Dante shook it in turn. “Brit?” the latter asked. “You’re a long way from home.”
“I could say the same to you, but yes. Our children and grandchildren concocted a 60th anniversary trip for the missus and myself.” The old man chuckled. “I think I read too much Jules Verne to them at bedtime—they got it in their head to send us ‘around the world in 80 days.’”
Another face peered into the gap. “Don’t let him fool you, boys. The old grouch is having the time of his life.”
Tyson grinned. “That sounds like Dante, all right.” He elbowed his friend in the ribs “I think we’ve just gotten a glimpse at your future, bro.”
He forced himself to smile and added, “As I said, no sense of tact.”
The plane lurched, and conversation became more difficult as the hubbub and hustle of takeoff filled the airframe with the familiar noises. Some men might have simply thought of the rising whine of the turbines and the feel of acceleration as they rocketed down the runway merely takeoff. For Dante, those sounds and sensations translated to something more primal. Home. I’m going home.
He leaned forward and tugged a battered Michael Connelly thriller out of his carry-on. He’d read the book enough times that the mystery offered no surprise, but there was something familiar and comforting about the meticulous nature of the book’s detective as he worked through the evidence. It made for a perfect mental checkout for the long flight. He’d tried reading new books on flights before, and the nervous tension of an unfamiliar story had made for an uncomfortable combination with his general anxiety toward air travel. It was an idiosyncrasy his friends found humorous, but he took the ribbing with good humor.
A few hours later, he pulled himself out of the book with a yawn and opened the window shade. Dante considered the dazzling, unending blue of the ocean beneath them. We’re chasing the sun, he thought. Or it’s chasing us. The immense distance the journey covered amplified the inherent surreality. Take off at eight in the morning and land just after four—eight hours by the hands of the clock, but double that for those inside. Any way you went about it, one hell of a long day.
He gave his paperback a considering look, shrugged, and leaned his seat back after lowering the shade. The book wasn’t going anywhere, and at that moment, sleep was a far more appealing option.
*
He jerked awake, heart hammering although he couldn’t identify what had shattered his dream. Then he heard it, muffled under the constant drone of the plane’s engines, but recognizable nonetheless—a high-pitched scream, abruptly cut off.
Dante jammed an elbow into Tyson’s side. His friend cracked a momentary eyelid and muttered in incomprehensible sleep language.
Frustrated, he hissed, “Ty. Wake the fuck up, Ranger!”
The other man jerked into an upright position. Blinking, he scanned the seats in front of them before turning to Dante. “What?”
“I heard something. It—there.” The scream repeated. It lasted a bit longer this time, and the passengers who weren’t asleep or wearing headphones stirred. A few looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise, but all shrugged it off and returned to what they were doing. Just a sound from a movie, he imagined them guessing, and for a moment, he wondered if he wasn’t jumping to conclusions.
No, Dante decided—the scream was real. There was a visceral element to it, making the sound different enough from some special effect to raise the hair on the back of his neck. He’d heard that sort of cry before, and never in a good context.
He’d toted a tricked-out Mk11 for the last six months and hadn’t fired a shot outside of the firing range the entire time. It figured that things would go sideways as soon as he was unarmed. Murphy was a sadistic bastard, after all.
He met Tyson’s eyes, and the other man gave him a tight nod of silent assent. “Back there,” he murmured.
“Yeah.” Dante released his seat belt and turned to face the opening to the economy cabin at the rear of the plane. He hooked a finger into the curtain and studied the area beyond. Three sections of three seats each made up each row, separated by a pair of isles. The section was less than a third of the length of the entire plane, but he guessed at least half of the total number passengers were packed into the section. The upgrade was more than worth it.
Many of the passengers had drawn their shades, casing the entire compartment in intermittent shadow. “When in doubt, go to sleep,” he whispered to himself. Particularly when the airline packed you in like a sardine. Still, the tableau before him seemed a little off. A few of the passengers at the front of the section glowed with the telltale sign of tablets or e-readers, but further back—nothing.
He frowned. Tyson stepped close to his back for his own look. “Hijacking?”
“I don’t think so,” Dante said. As he watched, a lowered shade close to the back of the plane cut off the sunlight and left the last few rows cloaked in shadow.
“Gentlemen, you need to return to your seats, please.”
The two men turned. The flight attendant for their section was a slender, petite woman with an olive complexion and ink-black hair. If Dante hadn’t been on high alert, her French accent might have merited some of the patented Accardi charm. He glanced at the name badge clipped to her blouse.
He pitched his voice low so as not to be overheard. “Giselle, is there an air marshal on the flight?” From the way her eyes widened, he guessed that wasn’t the best way to open the conversation. “We’re US Army,” he said. The half-truth was simpler and more succinct than explaining retirement and private contracting. “We heard a cry in the back.” He stepped aside and gestured at the curtain. “But something’s not right.”
She frowned. “Only a movie, n’est ce pas?” Stepping forward, she took her own long look through the curtain. The flight attendant stepped back with a look of confusion. “That’s strange.”
“What is it?” Tyson said. In spite of their attempts to remain quiet, some of the passengers in their section were turning to look at the gathering. Dante noticed Graham Hales and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. From the old Brit’s frown, he didn’t think he’d pulled it off.
“The galley is dark,” she explained. Dante glanced at Tyson, but the other man shrugged. He didn’t get it, either. Giselle sighed. “We will dim the lights, yes, but never shut them off entirely. For safety reasons, do you understand? In case we need to see to strap in.” She lifted a phone handset attached to the wall of their own galley and pressed it to her ear.
Dante glanced back through the curtain in time to see a red LED flash on the twin to the handset the flight attendant held. She stood there for a good thirty seconds before replacing the phone in its cradle.
“They should have answered,” she said with a frown.
Dante didn’t know how to reply. The shadows at the rear of the plane were creepy enough without the rest of the flight crew responding. Given the atmosphere, it was no surprise that the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. What he couldn’t understand was why none of the densely-packed people in front of him had picked up on the strangeness.
I can feel it! He wanted to shout. Why can’t you? A few of the folks closer to the front glanced at the intermittent opening in the curtain with questioning eyes, but that remained the extent of their curiosity.
Giselle picked up the phone again and pushed a different button. After a moment, she said, quietly, “Samira, I need your help back here, please.” After she hung up, she met Dante’s eyes and visibly composed herself. “Wait here, please. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Tyson opened his mouth, but Dante gave him a minute shake of his head. The other man bit back his retort and shrugged.
Samira, the other flight attendant, was close enough in figure to Giselle that they could probably share a wardrobe. If that was a policy of the airline, it was great for aesthetics, but bad for security—he probably weighed as much as the two of them combined. The two conferred in hushed voices behind the back row of seats, then split up. Samira moved to the port-side aisle while Giselle returned where Dante and Tyson waited.
The rest of the passengers in their section had realized something was up now. Most had turned in their seats or even got up to face the rear. The low buzz of conversation hadn’t overwhelmed the background hum of the aircraft, but that wouldn’t last forever. Dante considered the crowd, then raised a finger to his lips and hoped the symbol for quiet was universal enough that it would carry through. He turned back in time to see the flight attendants slip through the curtains.
Tyson tapped the bulkhead with his knuckles. “Think there are any field-expedient weapons lurking in the bathrooms?”
“You going to whack someone with a toilet seat?” Dante said mildly. “Besides, she said to wait here.”
“Yeah. We both know that ain’t happening.”
“Boys,” Graham murmured. “Take this.” He stuck his arm up above his seat, proffering a black lacquered cane. The shaft was well-dented, obviously old, and as Dante took it, he raised an appreciative eyebrow. Damage aside, it had impressive heft, and as he studied the wooden shaft, he noted that the short handle was a single carved piece with the rest of the walking stick. Serious piece of craftsmanship.
“They don’t make them like this anymore,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I’ve got a newer one at home—aluminium.” Dante smirked at the foreign pronunciation as Graham finished. “This one is an antique—but it’s got more authority if one has to deal with unsavory sorts during one’s travels, what?”
“Roger that. Thanks, Graham.” He turned to Tyson and murmured, “Let’s go.”
“What, I don’t get anything?”
“I’ll protect you until you get that toilet seat,” Dante promised. He eased through the curtain, his friend at his back. Samira and Giselle were a half-dozen rows ahead. At first, he wondered why they hadn’t advanced further, then realized that the two were pausing at each row to ask the passengers in the window seats to raise their shades. The front of economy had brightened to a significant degree, but shadow still cloaked the rear.
That shouldn’t be possible. He swallowed past a dry throat and choked up on the end of the cane. He wouldn’t have much room to swing, but the handle would still hit with some serious oomph. Normally he’d have been self-conscious, carrying an old man’s walking stick like a baseball bat. Here and now, he was glad to have it.
Giselle looked back over her shoulder and caught sight of them. For a moment, she looked as though she might say something, but something like relief flashed across her face and she looked to the next passenger row.
A loud voice responded to the flight attendant’s low request to raise the window shade. Dante’s Arabic was a little rusty, but it was evident from the overall tone and cursing sprinkled throughout the rant that this guy wasn’t interested. He took a step forward, intending to assist, but stopped dead in his tracks at the new sound.
Low growls filled the air, in seeming response to the outburst. In the deep shadows at the back of the plane, paired clusters of red lights shone.
“Tell me those are warning lights or something,” Tyson whispered.
“I think I’d be lying,” Dante managed before all hell broke loose.
Figures rushed out of the shadows in a liquid mass, filling the aisles and pouring over the seats. Screams filled the air. The passengers behind Dante, already wary, had, for the most part, turned to watch the strange procession of the flight attendants and their escort. They had a front row seat to the unveiled horror. Their cries alerted those who’d not yet been alerted to anything wrong, and they turned, for the most part, in time to die.
The creatures with the glowing red eyes were people. Flight attendants, men, women, even a few children. Their clothing was as varied as the rest of the passengers, but all bore grievous wounds—jagged, bloody rents in flesh gone chalk-white mottled with black. They moved in stutters and stops, a painful, broken-boned form of locomotion as unnerving as their freakish appearance.
Blood painted the bulkheads as they descended on their first row of victims. Jaws opened impossibly wide, they savaged their victims, but only momentarily—all too often, they discarded their target and pounced on the next in line even as the former bled out.
The aisles filled with panicked people, and Dante heard Tyson yelling, but he couldn’t make out the words over the hubbub. He had his eyes locked on the horrific tableau before him, frozen and unable to move.
Caught up in the rush of passengers attempting to flee the sudden horde, Giselle went down, trampled as the very people she’d been trying to help left her to her fate. Rage rose in Dante and overcame the terror. He shoved his way forward, ignoring wide eyes and screaming mouths. The way cleared, and he met the flight attendant’s pleading eyes. A trickle of blood descended from one nostril as she rolled onto her stomach and tried to get on her hands and knees.
“Come on!” Dante leaned over and extended a hand. She grabbed it. He pulled her to her feet, turned to run—and something tore her from his grip. He turned back in time to see a pair of ravaged Arabs tearing at her with hands and teeth. The flight attendant had enough time for a single abbreviated scream before they tore out her throat.
“Bastards!” Dante yelled. He choked up and swung the cane overhead. The handle settled into the crown of the left beast’s head with a crisp crack of bone. The thing let out a pained, bat-like shriek. He pulled back for another swing but had to step back as the monster’s partner advanced with a hiss. He changed targets, swinging from left to right, and slammed the tip of the handle into its temple. The red glow faded, and the creature sagged to the floor.
Good. They can be killed—or rekilled, I guess.
Tyson screamed in his ear. “Come on!”
Dante snapped back into situational awareness, realizing that he’d left himself far enough forward to attract attention from the right side. His only saving grace was his friend and the fact that seats made the things struggle to move across the plane . He staggered back, jerking his head to and fro as he tried to figure out their next move. The bulkheads and bathrooms placed between the two sections would bottleneck the things into the aisles, but they’d need to barricade those openings, somehow.
He considered the amount of space between the leading edge of the creatures and the curtain and despaired. We aren’t going to have enough time.
The horde reached the last aisle the flight attendants had directed the passengers to open their windows, and recoiled. High-pitched screams jabbed into Dante’s ears, and he recoiled from the sound even as he rejoiced in their lucky break. A few of the creatures reached out or stepped forward across the border between shadow and light, only to recoil in obvious agony. Blackened skin blistered and smoked, and the entire line retreated back into the remaining darkness. The front row straightened, impassively regarding Dante and Tyson.
“Shit,” Tyson breathed. “Holy fucking shit.”
Dante swallowed, noticing a glob of black, tar-like matter on the end of the cane. He scrubbed it on the carpet and tried to ignore the coppery reek of blood filling the air. “Here’s hoping we don’t run into any storms on the way,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”
The last thing he saw before they slipped back through the curtain was Giselle, standing amidst the crowd. She regarded him with a pair of glowing red eyes.
*
The soft sound of crying filled the compartment as Dante and Tyson wedged the drink cart sideways between the bulkhead and the wall of the lavatory. It wasn’t a perfect fit—they had to leave it at a bit of an angle, but with the wheels locked it was steady. Even with luggage jammed in the space between either side of the cart and the seats, it was a laughable barrier, but it was what they had. They’d debated the merit of leaving the curtain in place but ended up tearing it down. It let more light into the rear of the plane, and would let them see what was coming.
If any of the passengers or remaining flight attendants had a problem with them taking charge, they hadn’t said anything. That was more than likely shock. Dante hoped that they came out of it, and soon. If the things rushed their section, he and Tyson wouldn’t be able to hold it alone.
Even with the survivors from economy packed into first class and business, they had plenty of room. He didn’t know how many people had started out in the rear of the plane, but whatever had happened had claimed a sizeable number of them.
Dante stared into the rear of the plane and resisted the urge to start counting. How in the hell did they not notice what was happening? The creatures must have been silent as thieves at first, working their way toward the front with no one the wise. Given their reaction to sunlight, he supposed that the sudden sunlight had provoked them into a more overt response. If not for the cry that had woken them, it was impossible to say how far they might have gotten before anyone noticed what was happening.
Samira stepped between Tyson and Dante. Her look over the drink cart didn’t last long before she turned away, pale. “The pilot and copilot aren’t answering my calls.”
“Lovely,” Tyson said. “They’re not—they’re still human, right?”
“I believe so,” she said. “I think one of them must have stuck his head out, seen the panic, and returned to the cockpit. They’ve secured the door. I can hear them in there, but they ignore me even when I knock.”
Dante shrugged. “Smart. Selfish, but smart.”
Samira looked over the survivors. “Can we get away from … here?” She pointedly refused to look into the darkness.
Dante hesitated. He wanted to keep an eye on things, but the sun did seem to be keeping things at bay for the moment. “Sure,” he said. Refugees from the rear had taken his and Tyson’s seats. He moved up and leaned against the seat in front of Graham. As the adrenaline rush left, his arms and legs started to shake with fatigue.
He offered the cane back, but the old man shook his head. “Hang on to it. God willing, I’ll use it to walk out of here when the time comes.”
“All right,” Dante said. We need to go through the plane, see what other kinds of makeshift weapons we can dig up. If it comes to it, maybe we can hold the aisles with two or three people on each. He made a quick assessment of the passengers and decided that might be a tough order to fill. Most of those capable of meeting his eyes looked shaky as hell, while others curled themselves up under blankets or coats as though hiding from the menace aft. “I asked before, but I didn’t get an answer—is there an air marshal on board?”
“He was in the back,” Samira said. “I don’t see him here, and he’d surely have helped out.”
“Great,” Tyson said. “There’s a gun in coach, we just need to figure out which one of the monsters has it.”
Dante snorted. “Not like he’d have enough ammo. I was hoping for another—” He almost said ‘body’, didn’t like the connotation and changed gears to “—set of hands.”
The passenger who’d claimed Tyson’s seat leaned forward and interjected. “What good are hands against those things? They eat people and turn others into beasts like them—they are ekiminu, what you Americans call zombies.” The slender Arab wore a crisp white dress shirt, gray slacks, and a matching tie. Fine droplets of blood stained his shirt in a narrow track on either side of the tie, where his missing jacket hadn’t shielded him from arterial spray.
Tyson’s laugh rode the edge of hysteria. “Zombies don’t have red eyes or hide from sunlight, dude. Those things are vampires.”
“I’m not a dude—my name is Hassan.”
“All right, Hassan. Trust me on this. I’m American, vampires and zombies are kind of our thing.”
“Can we bloody well focus on the problem at hand?” Graham snapped. “Half the plane is full of monsters, and you’re debating on what to call them. Who gives a damn?”
“Graham’s right,” Dante agreed. “Whatever the fuck they are, how the hell did they get on the plane?” he demanded. “I’m pretty sure you can’t walk a zombie past security.”
Tyson shrugged. “Why does it matter?”
“If there’s a patient zero, that’s probably better for us than it would be if there’s a virus in the water supply or something.”
“That’s not a happy thought,” Graham said.
Samira closed her eyes and shuddered. “If they timed it right, they wouldn’t have to hide it from security. It started in the back of the plane—if I had to guess, it was up in the crew rest compartment. The access stairs are at the rear of the plane. One of the economy class attendants opens the door, and it begins.”
“That’s good,” Dante said. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “You have to be bitten to be infected, or whatever it is.” He didn’t know any sort of infection that made eyes glow red or created impenetrable shadow, but he didn’t mention it. The surviving passengers were already teetering on the edge of panic. He didn’t want to shove them all the way over.
The impromptu committee fell into silence until Graham turned to Dante and said, “So, what do we do? What is our plan?”
He stared at the older man, wishing someone better qualified was around to take the lead, then shrugged. You go to war with the army you have. “We keep all the shades up and stay away from the openings. We’re scheduled to land in Atlanta when the sun’s still up, so we get off the plane from up here and let the police or military handle things.”
“And pray,” Hassan said. “Pray that we don’t fly into cloud cover or a storm.”
“That, too,” Dante agreed.
*
Getting a planeload of half-panicked passengers into some semblance of order was the next closest thing to herding cats. On the bright side, Samira and the rest of the flight attendants were well-versed in that sort of thing.
The first-class passengers didn’t have the benefit of personal experience of those in the other sections. They raised most of the resultant fuss when told they were being reorganized to put women and children close to the front. One, in particular, a hawk-faced businessman named Omar, flat-out refused to move. He sat in his seat, belt fastened and arms crossed until Dante and Tyson manhandled him out of place and frog-marched him down the aisle to get a long look at what they were up against.
Things settled down after that.
The flight attendants broke into the snacks and drinks and tried to convey a sense of normalcy. Maybe the passengers fell for it, but Dante could read the tension in their eyes and posture. The sun was keeping them safe for the moment, but there was any number of things that could change that.
In the end, that wasn’t all that different from life. Whether by a car accident, stroke, IED, or vampire-zombie, death came when you least expected it more often than not.
Dante took one last look at the horde to ensure they hadn’t advanced, then turned away. “Give me a couple of hours,” he said to Tyson. “then rack out yourself.” He handed the cane over. “We’re going to need more than a walking stick. Get with Samira, we need to go through the plane and find anything we can use for a weapon. If nothing else, it’ll give you guys something to do instead of standing around.”
“Hurry up and wait,” his friend grinned.
“Shit never changes, does it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
*
His was a half-sleep, semi-aware the whole time of where he was and what he was doing. His dreams consisted of odd surrealities, the soundtrack provided by the low conversations and background noise around him.
He jerked awake when Tyson touched his shoulder.
“All clear,” the other man whispered. “Suckers don’t even blink.”
Dante wasn’t awake enough to do anything other than grunt. He accepted the cane and assessed the blockade. Everything seemed as he’d left it, though the handful of people standing guard had switched up a bit. Omar and a pair of other men he didn’t know warily eyed the port opening, while Hassan and Renard, one of the first-class flight attendants, had his side covered.
“They’ve got coffee in the front,” Tyson pointed. “I’m out.”
His options were a dainty ceramic mug or one of the flimsy plastic cups used for soda, so he chugged his first cup and refilled the mug for the walk back to his post. He nodded to the two strangers and said, “Dante.”
The first guy held onto an umbrella stroller banded with luggage straps and seatbelt extenders with the same fervency a drowning man might clutch a life preserver. Dante was dubious as to how effective it might be if they needed to fight, but if nothing else it should work to keep one of the things at arm’s length until someone else could come along and assist. Stroller guy took a deep breath, visibly composed himself, and responded in a British accent. “Ajay.”
The other man gave a half-shrug and a simple, “Khalil.” The Arab was shorter than Dante and plainly-clothed, but his shoulders and arms were thick with muscle. Oil worker, Dante guessed. Khalil looked like he’d be good in a fight, and he was glad to have him.
Omar had mellowed since being forcibly introduced to the problem in the rear of the plane, but that didn’t keep him from assuming an imperious air as he scoffed, “He doesn’t speak English. I’ll have to translate if you need him to do anything.”
Dante gave the other man a long look before he said, “I bet his English is about as good as my Arabic. Not my first rodeo, champ. We’ll make do.” He and Tyson couldn’t instruct the guy in advanced physics, but you couldn’t serve for long in the sandbox without picking up enough to get by.
If his remark chastened the hawk-faced man, he couldn’t tell. Omar turned to look into the darkness aft. The small fire extinguisher he cradled didn’t have the reach of Ajay’s stroller, but it would hit a hell of a lot harder with enough force behind it.
Ajay followed Dante’s eyes and shuddered. “My mother often told me that men were the only real monsters in the world.” He chuckled. “Usually after I did something to displease her.”
Dante grinned. “Not very subtle, was she?”
“She was a professor of sociology. I often wondered if I wasn’t of more interest as an experiment than an actual child.”
“Yeah, well, one way or another, we need to keep her promise, Ajay.”
“You think we can make it out of here alive?” Ajay hefted the stroller. “You don’t have to tell me how ridiculous this looks.”
With a half-shrug, he replied, “Survival’s not our first priority.”
Shocked, Omar interjected, “What in the world do you mean by that?”
“As fast as this spread through coach, what happens if one of these things gets into a major city? Maybe they have to hide from the sunlight, but we’re talking exponential infection growth if they get the night to roam and spread.” He looked from Ajay to Omar. “Our number one priority is keeping this thing contained. The best result for us is the plane landing and the authorities putting it under quarantine after we get off.”
“And the others?”
“Worst case, ATC has us orbit while they figure out what the hell to do. Depending on how long that takes, the sun could go down. Maybe there’s a quarantine then, and maybe not, but that ends badly for us.”
Ajay cocked his head to one side. “I don’t know that I regard that as the worst case, sir. To me, that would be those things rushing us right here and now.” The three of them looked into the shadows. A brief moment of panic flashed across Khalil’s face, and he turned, as well. He turned and muttered something in Arabic—wondering what they were looking at, Dante guessed.
Omar sighed and bit off a terse reply. The other man frowned and nodded.
Dante grinned wolfishly at Ajay. “Nah. If we can’t make it out of here alive, that’s our next best option. If they make a push and we can’t hold them off, I figure we retreat, then try like hell to bust into the cockpit and lawn dart this bitch into the ocean.”
Ajay raised a single eyebrow, but Omar was less circumspect—the Arab laughed. “An American hijacking a Qatari aircraft and killing hundreds. Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, half of those hundreds are already dead,” Dante pointed out. “And weighed against the possible deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands?” He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll make that call.”
“Time will tell,” the hawk-faced man grunted. “All will be as Allah wills it.”
“I hope that red-eyed, man-eating monsters aren’t in his plan,” Ajay murmured.
*
Hours passed. The creatures remained in place. Dante worked his way through another half-dozen cups of coffee and engaged in small talk with the rest of those who’d volunteered to stand watch. Not long after Tyson woke, the plane’s deck shifted slightly under their feet.
“Here we go,” Dante breathed. He slid between the back row of seats and the bulkhead and leaned over to peer out the window. The green smudge on the horizon remained too far away to discern any detail, but everything about it screamed ‘home.’
The pitch of the engines increased, and the plane banked to the left. His first instinct wasn’t to worry for the unsecured passengers, but rather how the shift in vector would impact the sunlight coming into the plane. Even as he turned to look into the back, the aircraft leveled out.
A shaky voice sounded over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, air traffic control has diverted us to an alternate airfield. We will be landing shortly. Please fasten your seatbelts and ensure your tray tables and seat backs are in their full upright positions.” As though struck by the incongruence of that oh-so-common statement with their situation, the voice hiccoughed laughter before cutting off the speakers.
“We’ve got company,” Tyson murmured. Dante looked in time to see his friend nod out the window. Leaning over, he caught the distinctive silhouette of an F-16, riding herd on their starboard wing.
“The professionals are on the case,” he muttered. “We’re landing damn close to the coast. Savannah, maybe?”
“Hunter,” Tyson said, nodding. “Plenty of long runways. We’re about to get a warm welcome from the 3rd Infantry Division, my man.”
“I’ll take it.”
The deck shifted under their feet. He’d made more landings than he could count, but this was the first one he’d done standing up. Without a parachute, at least. Dante leaned against a seat and braced his legs. Glancing at the other watchers, he indicated the crowd in the rear of the plane. “Stay sharp, guys. This might be an opportunity for them to try something.” If the sudden angle of the deck was of any discomfort to the creatures, he couldn’t tell. Cloaked in shadow, all he could make out were vague silhouettes and glowing eyes.
Samira moved down the aisle with practiced ease, pausing periodically to touch a shoulder or speak a calming word. When she reached Dante, she brought her lips close to his ear and whispered, “Some of the passengers are worried about the change. Where are we landing?”
Dante thought about keeping his voice low, but if there was an edge of panic running through the lane, transparency here would be the better way to nip it in the bud. “It looks like Hunter Army Airfield, near Savannah. From a security standpoint, it’s a much better option than Atlanta. They can direct us to an open area and contain the situation without worrying about those things getting loose in a civilian building.”
She held eye contact for an extended moment before nodding. “All right.”
“Here we go!” Tyson crowed. Buildings flashed beneath them, small at first, then swelling into clearer size as they approached the ground. It felt fast, but landings always did, didn’t they? The process of take-off was laborious and strained in comparison, the duel against gravity accompanied by the thunder of engines and the pressure on your chest. Landing was controlled chaos, a terminal fall balanced on the edge of wing lift and stall speed.
Tires kissed tarmac, jostling the passengers. There were cries from the front—from those sitting on the floor, Dante assumed—but he forced himself to keep his eyes on the rear section. There was an odd rippling effect of bouncing red eyes as the things shifted in time to the vibrations of the plane, but other than that, they remained still. The engines thundered as the pilots reversed thrust to slow the craft.
Any landing you could walk away from, after all—but would they be able to walk away from this one? Red and blue lights drew his attention to the window, and while the view outside wasn’t entirely a surprise, it wasn’t one that brought comfort, either.
A pair of MP Humvees with strobing light bars rode fore and aft of a no-kidding Bradley fighting vehicle. The bore of the 25mm cannon in its turret pointed near enough in Dante’s direction for him to make out the open bore.
Institutional rivalries aside, he trusted the guys in the Brad to hold fire until they absolutely had no other option. The aircrew locked in the cockpit was another story entirely. “Drive straight, boys,” he muttered.
Whether at his urging or the direction of some unseen air traffic controller, the trip down the runway was uneventful. When the engines cut out, silence reigned save for the bark of tires on the tarmac outside. Other vehicles appeared around the perimeter, parking and forming up, as best as Dante could tell, around the entire aircraft. The line mainly consisted of Humvees with more Brads to stiffen the formation. Between the Brownings, Mk 19s, and the heavier hardware mounted on the APCs there was enough firepower to turn the Airbus into very fine debris.
In another lifetime, that might have brought Dante some comfort, but not when he and the rest of the passengers were about to be on the receiving end.
A figure stepped out of one of the Humvees and brought a megaphone to his mouth. The thickness of the cabin walls muted the volume, but his words were understandable.
“Do not attempt to leave the plane!” the MP shouted. “We will fire upon anyone doing so. Remain calm until we can begin an orderly process of evacuation.”
Dante bit back a curse as the rest of the passengers reacted. Their reaction to the announcement was the opposite of the intention, for obvious reasons. Wails, cries, and angry shouts filled the air. As though roused by the caterwauling, the things in the back stirred. He turned and stared into the shadows, knuckles white on the shaft of Graham’s cane. Ignorant of the reaction they caused, the passengers continued shouting, and after a moment the things settled back into their motionless wait.
“Shut up!” Tyson yelled. The volume dropped, if only as the rest of the passengers turned to see what was going on, but it began to ramp back up.
“Quiet!” Dante roared. Samira and the rest of the flight attendants rushed forward, shushing those old enough to listen. Many of the children sniffled and sobbed, but that wasn’t so piercing to him as the high-pitched shrieking had been. Quieter, he continued, “You’re piquing the interest of those things in the back. We need to stay quiet.”
The message passed forward, and after a few moments, the plane fell silent. With a sigh, Dante took another look out the window at the line of soldiers and resisted the urge to start screaming in frustration himself.
“How long till the sun goes down?” Tyson wondered.
Dante checked his watch. “An hour, maybe?”
Staring out the closest window, his friend muttered under his breath. “They’ve got to be bluffing. No way they open fire on a bunch of civilians going down an emergency slide. This is nuts.”
“Dude, there are zombies on the damn plane. Of course, it’s nuts.” He shook his head. “And they will absolutely fire. No way they risk this thing getting out of quarantine. The whole country is fucked if they don’t keep containment. A few hundred passengers are an acceptable loss.” Dante’s prior sentiment tasted like ashes in his mouth—they’d made it, damn it! They’d landed, they should be huddled up in a hangar somewhere while the active duty guys figured out the best way to take care of the menace aft.
“Gory, gory what a hell of a way to die.” Tyson’s normal nonchalance had turned to exhaustion, morale crushed by the realization that they’d traded potential death in the air for inevitable death on the ground, the dwindling moments of their lives measured by the fading light of the sun.
Gritting his teeth, Dante stared out the window and tried to think of another way out of their predicament. Get your fingers out of your asses, boys. You’ve got survivors in here if you’ll do something about it. Movement at the rear of the formation caught his eye, and he pressed his nose to the glass with a frown. “Ty, look at this.”
An unmarked cargo truck had pulled up behind the ring of armored vehicles and Humvees. Heavily-armed men in tactical gear unloaded from the back, formed up, and jogged toward the front. That in and of itself wasn’t so strange. The fact that the camouflage pattern they wore clashed with the ACUs worn by the Army personnel around them was odd, though. “Marpat?” Tyson guessed.
“They’ve got enough Brads to turn this plane into Swiss cheese,” Dante muttered. “Why bring in a squad of Marines?”
“What did you say?” Omar blurted. Dante and Tyson turned to see the businessman scrambling across the aisle toward them.
Ty gave him a look, but Dante just shrugged and jerked a thumb over one shoulder, pointing out the window. “The Marines have landed. See for yourself.”
The Arab shoved his way between them and pressed his face against the window. He considered the unfolding tableau, then cursed in a low, harsh-pitched voice. The words tickled something in Dante’s eardrums, and he found himself twisting his neck in an involuntary cringe.
Tyson wiggled a pinky in one of his ears as though seeking an elusive drop of water. “Dude, what was that? It wasn’t Arabic, was it?”
Omar turned to face them and straightened. “That was a tongue unfit for Western mouths, fool. It is the language of creation, you uncultured monkey!” He waved a hand, and an invisible fist slammed into Dante’s chest, carrying him and Tyson to the opposite side of the plane. An armrest slammed painfully into the small of his back, and he’d have cried out if the punch hadn’t blasted the air from his chest.
“Damnable American cowboys,” Omar spat. He kicked Dante in the stomach. “Talk about crashing my plane, will you? Disrupt my plans?” He braced his hands on his hips and stood over the two men with an imperious air. “The problem, gentlemen, is that while my minions don’t like the sunlight, their fear of it is not what’s kept them back.” He smiled, but the otherwise cheery expression didn’t touch the cool cobalt of his eyes. “I am.”
Dante’s fingers scrabbled across the carpet, seeking out the reassuring weight of Graham’s cane. The hot, salty taste of blood filled his mouth. His body ached from the three rapid-fire blows he’d taken, but he’d be damned if he’d go out lying on his back. He found the cane. “You talk too much,” he rasped, then swung.
There wasn’t much mustard behind the swing, but the handle sunk into Omar’s bicep and elicited a yelp right at the same moment that Tyson slammed a heel into the Arab’s opposite knee. The yelp deepened into a howl of pain, punctuated by the crisp celery crack of ripping cartilage. He ain’t gonna walk that off.
Dante pushed himself to his feet as Omar staggered back. He spat a glob of mucus and blood and brought the cane back around for another swing. “You got at least one thing wrong, dickhead. We’re Rangers, not cowboys.”
“Attend me!” Omar shrieked, and a chorus of growls rose from the rear of the plane. Hassan and Ajay had watched the sudden conflict in stunned silence, but the explosion of activity from coach elicited cries of dismay.
The Brit’s scream was loudest. “They’re coming!”
Tyson’s voice turned uncharacteristically serious. Dante couldn’t help his smirk. When surfer bro turned mean, it was on like Donkey Kong. “Handle it. We’ve got Omar.”
In spite of his pained tone, the Arab didn’t sound all that impressed. “Oh, have you now?”
Dante glanced at his friend and nodded slightly.
As Omar raised his hands to attack, Tyson pulled the pin on his own fire extinguisher, spraying the Arab’s face with a dense blast of white powder. The other man coughed. Rather than swiping at them with another invisible fist, he brought his hands involuntarily to his eyes. Dante rushed forward, holding the cane out with both hands. He clotheslined the Arab in the throat with the shaft, shoving the bigger man up against the bulkhead. In a flash, he realized that he’d carried the fight in front of his own seat. The corner of his abandoned paperback stuck out of the storage pocket, but that wasn’t what drew his attention.
He had Omar pinned against the emergency exit door.
“Ty!”
Dante kept one hand on the cane, pinning the struggling wizard or whatever the hell he was, and reached down for the lower release handle. The single word and his action were more than enough to signal his intent, and Ty joined him. The other man pulled the upper handle down, and—
He was falling free, on top of Omar who remained on top of the door. The shift lifted the pressure off the Arab’s neck, and he narrowed bloodshot eyes as he raked his fingers at Dante’s face. They hit the ground before the other man could strike, the impact blasting the air from Dante’s chest as he sandwiched the other man between himself and the chunk of the aircraft.
He rolled to one side, sucking in desperately greedy gulps of air. He’d lost the cane in the fall, and he fumbled for it even as Omar hopped to his feet with a screech. Dante’s hope that the knee injury might slow the maniac down crushed, he frantically slid himself across the tarmac on his back, using his elbows and heels for leverage.
Dante’s adrenaline rush blurred the shout over the loudspeaker into an indecipherable mess. If Omar heard it, he didn’t react—his eyes locked onto Dante, and he staggered toward him, face contorted into a bestial snarl.
The first bullet didn’t stop his course, but it jerked his shoulder to one side. Dante didn’t know if it was the pain or the impact that finally drew the Arab’s attention to the troops surrounding them. His eyes widened in shock, and he raised his hands in a familiar gesture. The air turned suddenly electric, and all the hair on Dante’s body stood on end. Whatever was coming, it felt a hell of a lot worse than the invisible fists the madman had thrown around inside of the airplane.
Staccato thumps pounded Dante’s body, and he howled in victory as a burst of tracers transfixed Omar and tore him limb from literal limb. Evil wizard versus one of the long-enduring fruits of John Moses Browning’s genius?
Browning won.
All was silent, and Dante realized that even included the frame. He raised his head. Tyson stood in the exit row opening; eyes wide.
“They stopped,” his friend shouted. “They all just quit fighting and hit the floor. They’re dead, again.”
All was still for a moment, and then Ajay called out, “Can we get off the plane, now?”
*
Humorless Marines ushered Dante and Tyson into the small room as soon as they contained the rest of the survivors were in an empty hangar. He’d been carrying the responsibility for the civilians for so long that he almost refused to go in until he knew the people would be taken care of, but Dante told himself to relax. The little voice in the back of his head continued to point out that a world of monsters and magicians was something totally new. In spite of that, he felt secure in the knowledge that the troops would take care of the shell-shocked passengers and flight crew.
They shoved Dante and Tyson into a small room, about ten by ten. Four chairs and a rectangular metal table bolted to the concrete floor under a single, flickering light fixture were the extent of the décor.
With a shrug, Tyson pulled a chair out and sat facing the door. A pair of water bottles, dripping condensation, sat neatly in the center of the table. While his friend cracked the bottle and downed half the contents in a single swallow, Dante sagged into his own chair and tried not to wince. He wasn’t thirsty, but he could have done with a couple of dozen ibuprofen and maybe a beer. His entire body ached, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so sore. Iraq, probably.
They sat and stared at the walls until, perturbed by the silence, Dante said, “How far did they get into the plane?”
Tyson pushed the cap of his water bottle around on the table for a moment before answering. “That hole you left made for one hell of a big picture window. The sunlight didn’t burn them up.” His friend sounded almost disappointed. “It slowed them down, though, made them stumble around like they were drunk. All the passengers crushed forward while we held the line. Everyone else made it.”
Dante grunted, then smirked. “I told you they were zombies.”
Metal scraped on metal as a lone figure pushed the heavy door open and strolled into the room. The Marine was a tall, powerfully-built black man. The bare skin of his scalp gleamed under the intense glow of the overhead lights, and the creases in his fatigues could double for knife blades. Dante was Airborne to the core, but even he knew what crossed rifles under three rockers meant. The lizard-looking thing with wings on the unit patch was less recognizable, but he went with it. “Gunnery Sergeant,” he said with a nod.
The new arrival smiled. “I hate to break it to you, but they weren’t zombies, either, Sergeant Accardi. Based on the lore, the most fitting term is barrow-wight. A particularly nasty form of undead raised and controlled by a necromancer.” The Marine slid a printed copy of what looked to be a painting across the table. The paper might have been new, but something about the clothing the figure represented in the art wore told Dante it was old. Artistic license aside, it was quite evident that Omar was the subject of the painting. “Nazr bin Omari, on the occasion of his visit to the Tang Dynasty of China, circa 645 AD. This guy’s your basic mystical cockroach—he’s got more lives than Toonces the Driving Cat. One-time acolyte of Abdul Alhazred, until he went his own way because his mentor was too kind-hearted for his taste.” The Gunny’s voice turned thoughtful. “On the bright side, barrow-wights are only contagious with their creator still around. Otherwise, the entire plane would still be in quarantine.”
Dante thought back to the mess on the tarmac. “You’re shitting us, right?” He was about to say the entire premise was impossible, then remembered the red-eyed creatures and Omar’s invisible fists.
“You guys turned the asshole into Hamburger Helper,” Tyson pointed out.
“Off the top of my head, that’s at least the fourth time on this continent in the last century,” the Gunnery Sergeant said with a shrug. “Dude’s been around since before Mohammed, and he’s got a real mad on for the world. Letting a horde of undead loose in a major metropolitan city is right up his alley.”
Dante blinked a couple of times before he found his voice. “You’re serious.”
The Marine laughed. “Son, you’ve never met anyone more serious. Gunnery Sergeant Aloysius Blakely, Joint Task Force 13, USMC.”
“What’s that, some kind of specialized Recon unit? We’ve rolled with those boys before,” Tyson said. He took another drink of water, but Dante could tell that his friend was rattled.
“I saw that,” Blakely said. “Recon’s tough, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve got it easy. The things they fight are usually human.” He slid a phone out of a pocket and flipped through it. “I’ve got to say, you two have pretty impressive records. Contractors, though? Don’t you think that’s kind of beneath you?”
Dante sensed the test and pushed down his initial instinct to react defensively. “The money’s great. Chow’s good. The commute’s a bear, don’t get me wrong. But the 95 through Boston ain’t much of a peach, either.”
Blakely’s eyes bored into his own. To his credit, Dante had just spent the last twelve hours staring at red-eyed monsters and fighting, if the Gunny wasn’t full of shit, an immortal wizard with nothing more than a freaking stick. He kept eye contact and didn’t blink.
He didn’t know if the Gunnery Sergeant had gotten what he was looking for, but the other man’s expression softened. One corner of his mouth drew up in an amused smirk. “Not going to lie to you guys. The pay’s okay, but you aren’t going to get rich on it. Chow and the commute depend on the day. But …” He let the word hang, and when Tyson leaned in with his elbows on the table, Dante knew that his friend felt the same way he did. “We hold the line.”
“Which line?” Dante murmured.
“The only one that matters. Inter Caelum et Infernum. The line between Heaven and Hell.”
He caught Tyson’s look out of the corner of his eye, but Dante didn’t turn away from the Gunnery Sergeant. In the end, what else could he say? He’d seen the line, up there on the plane, keeping ordinary men, women, and children safe from things of darkness. To step away now was unfathomable. “We’re in.”