The Fall of Society (The Fall of Society Series, Book 1) (8 page)

           
It
was coated in blood.

           
Some
of the instrument panels were damaged from the fight—alarm lights were
flashing red, in tune with audible alarms that wailed—up against the
front instrument panel, was the captain, he was on top of Jimmy, who was dead.
The undead captain was consuming his flesh piece by piece from his exposed
ribcage. It was clawing underneath the ribs for the meaty organs.

           
“Fucking
hell!” Richard cried.

           
The
captain turned, grinded its teeth, snarled, and then jumped for them.

           
Charlie
slammed the door shut. “Goddamnit!”

           
The
door locked, and the captain began to pound and slam his body on the door to
get out.

           
“We’re
fucked!” Jeffrey said.

           
A
corpse appeared out of nowhere from behind them and attacked; Charlie was quick
and bashed the thing in the chest. It staggered back against a wall and came
back at them.

           
“Bash
its head!” Paul ordered.

           
Charlie
slammed the heavy extinguisher on the thing’s head, breaking its skull wide
open, and it dropped dead, permanently.

           
“I
saw the air marshal shoot one of those things twice in the chest and it didn’t
die,” Paul said.

           
“Where
is the goddamn air marshal?” Jeffrey wanted to know.

           
“He’s
dead,” Charlie answered.

           
“Not
anymore; he’s one of them now.” Paul said.

           
Other
groups of passengers got to them and they were fighting off the undead in a
running battle with anything they had—food trays, bottles of alcohol, luggage,
anything—many of the passengers were wounded, bit, scratched, and they
didn’t look good.

           
They
were going to turn…

           
Soon.

           
Charlie
got close to Paul, Jeffrey, and Richard. “Listen to me, it’s obvious that if
one of those things bites or scratches you, then you will become one of them.”

           
“How’s
that possible?” Paul asked.

           
“I
don’t know, but it’s happening all around us,” Charlie answered. “You have to
protect yourselves.”

           
“How?
We don’t have any real weapons,” Jeffrey said.

           
Charlie
reiterated, “I already told you, use whatever you can find!”

           
“We
have nowhere safe to go on this plane!” Paul said.

           
Charlie
thought hard. “At the flight attendant station in the center of the plane on
this deck is where they keep all the food carts and other equipment—“

           
“—You
want us to have dinner?” Richard said.

           
“No,
you fool!” Charlie shouted. “Didn’t they teach you anything in the Army? If you
can make it there, use the carts and anything else that’s large to block the
aisles at the stations; they’re the tightest choke points. If you can block off
the aisles, you can make a stand.”

           
“You
didn’t include yourself in that plan, where are you going?” Paul said.

           
“My
wife, I have to find her. I haven’t seen her down here, so she must be somewhere
on the upper deck.”

           
“Let’s
do it, then!” Jeffrey was ready, and he looked to the other passengers that
were there. “Listen! We’re going to the central food station to use the food
carts and anything heavy to block off the cabin so those bloody things can get at
us! We have a better chance if we stick together!” he said, then with Richard
led the way.

           
Paul
was about to go with them. “Good luck,” he told Charlie.

           
Charlie
grabbed him by the arm. “Keep an eye on the passengers that have been bitten;
you know what’s going to happen, don’t turn your back on them.”

           
“I
know,” Paul said. “We’re going to crash anyway, right?”

           
“Not
if I can help it. After I find my wife, I’m going to get in the cockpit and
land this monstrosity.”

           
“Be
careful.”

           
“Right.
You, too.”

           
Paul
left and Charlie, reluctantly, went upstairs.

           
Paul
came by a bar and grabbed a heavy bottle of alcohol to use as a club. He saw
Jeffrey and Richard leading the group up ahead; they were fighting many of the
undead, and the group was pushing them back. Two passengers used a food cart
like a battering ram to hold the things off and others bashed in brains with
fire extinguishers, heavy drawers, whatever they could use as weapons. Paul
joined the fight with a rage and began killing anything dead that he could
reach.

           
Blood
and brain matter splattered everywhere.

           
Including
those of the living.

           
It
was a bloodbath…

           
Charlie
was immediately confronted by the turmoil when he reached the top of the
staircase. Two corpses attacked him; he kicked one away and busted the other’s
head open. The other attacked again, and he gave it the same treatment as the
first. The upper deck was just as bad as below—the undead were attacking
anyone they could, while groups of the living fought them off. Many of the dead
were being destroyed, but at the same time, multitudes of passengers were being
killed, scratched, bitten or maimed.

           
Blood,
bodies and body parts littered the aisles.

           
“Suzanne!”
Charlie called out.

           
He
didn’t get a response, and she probably couldn’t hear him because of the dark music
of the dead and dying orchestra. Charlie moved ahead, and the aisle felt
soft
to his feet; he realized that he was
walking on
bodies
, some were undead
that had been destroyed and some were passengers that the corpses had killed. One
dead passenger suddenly awoke as an undead under Charlie’s feet and grabbed
him, it was scratching at his legs and tried to pull him down. Charlie
recognized his attacker as the old pilot that he greeted upon boarding. Now he
was a filthy undead creature trying to kill him. He stomped on its head
repeatedly until it was mashed pulp. “Die, goddamn you!” He scanned the
brutality for his wife. “Suzanne!” he screamed.

           
A
dead woman attacked him, but it wasn’t his Suzanne, so he bashed its face in. Charlie
tore his way to the second business class cabin and that’s when he saw her—Karen
was huddled over a body like a demon, and she was eating at it with the intensity
of a starving dog, her mutated, dead eyes darted back and forth, looking for
more to kill—Charlie couldn’t see the person Karen had killed, but he saw
the shoes, woman’s shoes…he recognized them.

           
“No!”
he screamed and broke out into a run.

           
He
assaulted his way through four of the dead to get to Karen; it saw him coming
and abandoned its kill to attack. He screamed in anger, lifted the fire
extinguisher over his head, and threw it at her like an ax; it spun wildly and
hit the dead woman square in the face with crushing force. It fell back and hit
the floor defeated.

           
Charlie
got to the body with the shoes that he recognized and it was his wife—Suzanne—and
she was dead.

           
Tears
filled his eyes. “Suzie?”

           
He
gently picked her up and hugged her tightly; his cheek was pressed against hers
and his tears fell on her gray skin.

           
“No,
Suzie, please, wake up. Wake up!” he cried but she didn’t.

           
A
dead man attacked him from behind and bit into his shoulder, Charlie dropped
his wife, spun around and punched the thing in the face, it fell back, and
Charlie jumped on top of it and punched its face many times until it was destroyed,
he was covered in its blood.

           
He
got up and turned to where he dropped Suzanne—

           
She
was standing right in front of him, face-to-face.

           
“Suzie?”
he beckoned.

           
She
stared at him through milky eyes, and it seemed that there was recognition, for
just a moment, the expression on her face was almost of affection.

           
“Suzie,
it’s me. Your Charlie.”

           
She
slowly reached up and touched his face, a near caress—

           
And
then she attacked him without warning, growling madly…

           
The
smell of blood was thick, along with urine and feces; it was pungent to the
point of suffocation, and the sounds—the sounds that filled the plane
were as if a tornado barreled through, but instead of wind and hurling debris it
was screams of terror, howls of rage, groans of the dying, and roars of the reanimated
that were the piecing knifepoint of destruction.

           
Paul,
Jeffrey, Richard, and a couple dozen other passengers had managed to block off
both ends of the middle cabin that they were in. Four separate barricades of
food carts and equipment stacked up in the aisles. Jeffrey had a food cart over
his head and was about to plug the last hole in his aisle as Richard and other
passengers fought off the undead that tried to crawl through the gap to get in,
but they killed them. It was clear for Jeffrey to seal up the hole, but he
stopped when he saw a young woman running for her life from a group of undead
on the other side. He dropped the cart to help her. “Come on, girl, run!” he
shouted.

           
Jeffrey
reached through the hole for her and she made it, he grabbed her hands and
pulled, but three corpses got a hold of her legs.

           
“Please,
don’t let go!” she cried out to him.

           
Jeffrey
pulled with all his might, but the dead stenches wouldn’t let her go, and then
they tore into her skin, tearing her flesh apart.

           
“You
fucking bastards!” Jeffrey screamed but he wouldn’t let her go.

           
The
dead tore at her waist, ripping off her pants, their discolored nails cracked
and some broke off as they dug into her buttocks, tearing the flesh down her
legs to the bone. Her screams were deafening, and she was beyond help, Jeffrey had
no choice but let go. Several of them brought her down and enveloped their
meal.

           
Jeffrey
got the cart, plugged the hole and leaned against it. “You fucking bastards.”
He said in out of breath anger.

           
People
manned all four of the barricades—they needed to physically hold the
carts and equipment from the undead that tried to force their way in—they
had some of the carts tied together, but they only had torn material from the
seats to use and no actual rope.

           
Paul
spied some of the passengers, many had been bit or scratched and probably most
of them had no idea what that meant, and then they did as a loud screech pierced
their ranks; a teenage boy that had been bit on the shoulder was now sprinting
directly at Paul with the intent to kill him.

           
No
one was close to help him with the mutant, so Paul readied the bloodied bottle
of champagne that he had, he raised it above his head and cocked his bicep
muscle to fire. The boy was almost in range, but it was just a
boy
, Paul thought, this was someone’s son.
His parents had to be somewhere onboard because he was too young to travel
alone and then Paul saw his mother—behind the running boy was a woman
sitting in a seat with her throat ripped open—the boy was almost right on
him, he waited too long to strike, the boy would have at him, but then it was
stopped cold by Jeffrey, he had grabbed the boy by the arm. The dead boy swung
around to attack him, but couldn’t when Richard got a hold of his other arm,
immobilizing him. “Go ahead, Paul, put the little bastard out of his misery.”
Richard told him.

           
Paul
reluctantly stepped up to the child, who immediately lost interest in his
captors and focused on him. It wanted him badly. Its eyes were wide
searchlights that had him.