In the Lone and Level Sands (11 page)

“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.

16

In the Ambulance

“I think we’ve got a much better chance if
we find a higher place to stay,” Cynthia said. “The Cardigan is
just a few blocks north of here, and my boss’s fiancé has a suite
there.”

“That’s a great idea!” the plain-looking
woman said.

“I never caught your name,” Jason said.

“Jennifer.”

“Jason, Jennifer, you’re welcome to stick
with us, if that’s what you want,” Cynthia said. “I’m sure Art will
be more than willing to let us stay in his suite until this clears
up.”

“There will b-be other people there,” Eugene
said. “Others who have changed, and we c-could be walking into a
t-trap.”

“That’s possible, but I feel like we should
give it a try,” Evan said. “We can’t just quit before we
begin.”

“Besides,” Jason said, “you got a better
idea, Gene?”

“N-no.”

“He brought up a good point,” Stephanie
said.

“He did,” Evan replied. “We’ll just have to
be careful.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Mal asked.
She was sitting between Evan and Cynthia.

“Everything will be fine. Just wait and
see.”

“Yeah,” Cynthia said. “The Cardigan is a
big, safe office building. We’ll wait there for a little while, and
then when this mess has been sorted out, we’ll go home.” Cynthia
exchanged worried glances with Evan. Evan looked back at Mal and
smiled, hugged her, and kissed her on the top of her head.

****

When they reached the Cardigan, Stephanie
turned into the parking garage and parked in a spot that was
somewhat secluded, jumped out, and opened the back doors. Evan and
the others poured out, and afterward, Stephanie climbed in.

“What are you doing?” Cynthia asked.

“There’s a backpack with all kinds of
medical supplies,” Stephanie said. “We could sure use it.”

“Good thinking,” Evan said.

“Cynthia?”

The voice came from behind the group. A
woman approached them; she wore an apron that looked like someone
had wiped their bloody hands on it. She was shaking.

“Daisy, is that you?” Cynthia said. “Oh my
God! Are you all right?”

Daisy’s eyes were red from crying.
“Yeah.”

“What happened to you?”

“It was Art!” Daisy covered her face,
smearing her tears.

“Wait, what happened? Did he attack
you?”

“I was closing shop, and I had the radio on.
A special report came on, talking about people going crazy and
killing others. I saw some of it in front of my shop, so I went
home to see if he was okay. But when I got there… Well, he was
acting crazy. He jumped at me, and I got his gun and I… I just
shot!”

Daisy burst into tears after that. Cynthia
ran to her side and hugged her.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I know this isn’t the best time, but do you
still have the gun?” Jason asked.

“I left it behind. No ammo. But I grabbed
the keys to Art’s office suite, I thought I’d lock myself in until
this is over.”

“We were actually hoping to do the same,”
Cynthia said.

Daisy dried her eyes and sniffed. “Great
minds think alike, I guess. I’ll lead us there.”

“First thing’s first,” Evan said, “we’ll
need weapons. Is there anything in the ambulance?”

“Weapons? No, not really,” Stephanie
said.

“Okay, well, we should to head to the
kitchen. Hopefully we can take care of ourselves until we find
something to defend ourselves with.”

“Yeah,” Daisy said. “Let’s go, then.” The
group followed her through a red door marked “Exit-B” and up a
flight of stairs.

On the first of two landings was the top
half of an elderly woman. The intestines and half-eaten stomach
were strewn out of the poor woman like the never-ending
handkerchief out of a magician’s sleeve. Blood was splattered
everywhere, and it speckled the woman’s white hair. The expression
on her bloody face was that of extreme fear and pain.

Evan cringed and looked away. He thought he
was going to puke, but he didn’t. Eugene, however, was not so
lucky. He turned around, faced the wall, and spewed all over it. He
began choking and gagging, which triggered an asthma attack. He
fumbled through his pockets for his inhaler. He found it, put it in
his mouth, sucked hard, and was soon breathing again.

“Are you okay?” Stephanie asked.

“Yes. I’m f-fine,” Eugene said. His voice
was raspy, but he was otherwise okay.

Just up the stairs, they found the other
half of the woman. Stephanie saw it first, and suggested Eugene
close his eyes, which he gladly did. The group headed up to the
second landing and stopped in front of a door. Daisy opened it
quietly, surveyed the area, then headed out. When they reached the
cafeteria, Evan opened the door a crack and looked around, made
sure everything was safe, and then turned back to the group.

“The coast looks clear.”

“Great,” Jason said. “Let’s go.”

It was about thirty feet from the door to
the kitchen. The cafeteria between looked like a war zone. Chairs
were knocked over, some were on tables, and some were covered with
blood. There were some twenty tables spread around the area, all
bolted to the floor. The survivors weaved around the tables,
chairs, and a few bodies, quickly but quietly. Evan was glad that
whatever was going on had happened at night; had it happened
sooner, the room would likely be full of bodies, or something
worse.

The counter on which the register sat was
empty, except for a fresh salad and a big cheeseburger and fries.
Evan turned his attention to the kitchen, and then looked back at
the rest of the group.

“All right.” His eyes darted to the door
they had come in through. He thought he’d seen a shadow, but he
wasn’t sure, and nothing else moved. “We should find some big
containers we can store food inside. Look for canned goods, and
anything else that’ll last a while. Let’s grab stuff quick, so we
can get upstairs.”