The Common Cold (Book 1): A Zombie Chronicle Read online

  “Yes, but unless he’s disturbed, it’s probable he’s just sitting there. I can’t imagine him doing anything.”

  “We have to stop this leak, or soon we won’t have enough pressure to fly the plane, let alone lower the landing gear. The rate we’re losing pressure, we have about ten to fifteen minutes before it becomes critical. You have to go down there and stop that leak. While you’re doing that, I’ll begin the descent to the airport.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start to fix it,” Daniel blurted.

  “Take BB with you, he can do it. You just protect him while he’s down there.”

  “Sure, I can do that. Let me get Rob. Between us, BB will be safe.” With that, Daniel stood and left the cockpit. Hurrying upstairs, he found Rob on the phone again. Now, there was a man making the best of his time, he thought.

  “Rob, can I see you a moment?” The urgent look on Daniel’s face made Rob finish off the call quickly. With a jerk of his head, Rob understood, and they moved out of earshot.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s a hydraulic leak down in the cargo hold. We’ve got to take BB down there, and protect him while he tries to fix it. We’ve only got a few minutes before it goes critical.”

  “Shit. Yeah, sure,” he replied, feeling the butt of his pistol for reassurance.

  They rushed to the stairs, but were intercepted by Janet.

  “What’s going on, guys?” She had seen the looks on their faces, and knew something was up.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes. We have a little problem to sort out.” The look in Daniel’s eyes were asking her not to pursue this, there wasn’t time. She stepped aside, and together Daniel and Rob went back to the flight deck door. BB was standing outside the cockpit, stretching his legs. He’d been sitting for hours, not normal procedure, but then nothing about this flight was normal.

  They descended the familiar steps to the access door, opposite the systems room. Unlocking it as quietly as possible, they pushed the door open. It creaked slightly as it came to a stop. Looking around the hold, they could not see anything, or anyone out of the ordinary. The old woman Daniel had dispatched earlier was still lying where they had left her, the pool of blood around her head drying and coagulated. The cargo handler, much to their relief, had not moved since he was killed. It felt strange to be suspicious of the dead; any other time in his life these thoughts would have seen him locked up for losing it. Joe was nowhere to be seen; perhaps he was elsewhere, at the arse end of the plane, most likely. As far away from his fellow deceased as possible, no doubt.

  Slowly, Rob and Daniel entered the enormous cavity in the belly of the beast. They had drawn their guns, and were now sweeping the room for hostiles. Anyone they saw would be shot, having reiterated to each other their new motto, ‘No More Risks’. Even Joe would suffer that fate.

  As they neared the target hatch, under which the hydraulic junction was to be found, they saw that someone, at some point, had ransacked two or three of the cargo containers, leaving clothing and belongings strewn around, the cases torn in an apparent frenzy. It looked to Rob and Daniel that Joe had turned; looking at the baggage, they could see the strength needed for such destruction. If it was him, he was likely to be one of the fast ones, a cheetah. They were the ones with all the strength. Standing guard, with fear increasing their awareness, they checked that BB was doing what he was supposed to; they wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible. All that was needed was to get the hatch open and tighten a nut, divert the flow, or something technical, surely. At the moment, BB was struggling just to open the hatch.

  Daniel looked more closely at the hatch lock, and could see someone had tampered with it, twisting it out of shape. Looking around for something to jemmy it with, he saw a set of tools clipped to the wall, for use by ground crews. It included a crowbar. Pulling it off the wall, Daniel drove it between the deck and the hatch, the softer aluminium giving in to the force. He put his back into it, and the cover popped ajar.

  Suddenly, with sheer brute force, the hatch was thrown fully open, and a creature leapt out. It had been a man at one time; now it was a monster, blood and muck covered it from top to bottom, the tattered clothes just recognisable as a uniform, the epaulets distinctively branding it a captain. It might have been the missing pilot for this plane’s crew, but right now it was intent on destruction, the thing’s eyes white and fierce as it glared around the room. Its hands were bloody, fingernails torn as if it had been scraping at something. Glancing at the opening, Daniel saw scratch marks and gouges on the underside of the hatch door, the bloody marks testament to its desperate struggle to be free from the hydraulics bay.

  Crouching, it assessed the threat. BB was lying on the ground, cold-cocked by the force of the opening hatch. He groaned, attracting the beast’s attention. It looked in the direction of the sound, its head swivelling unnaturally awkwardly. It began to stalk the first officer, its stance resembling a feline predator, apparently unaware of the other two’s presence. Neither had moved since it burst from its prison. Only Rob was in a position to open fire at this moment. He took careful aim at the hunter.

  The plane hit turbulence, and the zombie looked around, curious at the motion. Rob fired, his bullet only scraping the skull. Fortunately the slight impact was enough to shatter the projectile, slivers of lead peppering the fuselage, but not piercing through to the outside. Daniel used the confusion caused by the shot to line up his pistol and have a go. The beast was fast, the round caught it in the head but didn’t do enough damage to bring it down. It screeched loudly, baring its teeth which, due to the receding gums, looked like they had grown into fangs, the teeth now modified for tearing flesh. There was no humanity left in it at all.

  BB groaned again, turning onto his side. He was trying to get up, oblivious to the threat. The zombie threw itself at the unresisting prey, leaping the eight feet to its intended victim. Two bullets caught it simultaneously in the head. It landed and rolled lifeless on the floor, the corpse now headless. With the impact of two bullets, the head had burst like a watermelon, spraying the decking and wall with rainbow colours of red through yellow, as well as darker gobbets of brain and bone. Daniel now understood better the metaphors used by writers when describing the damage bullets did to bodies. He was appalled at the sheer amount of blood.

  Rob stayed on guard as Daniel went to BB.

  “You okay?” Daniel said, grabbing under the man’s arms and helping him to his feet. While BB was gathering his wits, Daniel looked into the hole previously hidden by the hatch cover. It was a mess down there, pipes twisted and bent. Blood was smeared everywhere, making it difficult to see where a leak might be. A few pipes were twisted enough to have holes in them. He looked more closely, and could see a fine mist of oil spraying from several of the connections. No way was this going to be fixed in time to stop things from becoming critical.

  BB looked over his shoulder and came to the same sorry conclusion. “Jesus,” he breathed. “Let’s get back to the cockpit. There are still some options. Come on.”

  He staggered towards the door, covered from behind by the lads. As they neared the exit, Joe came out from behind the cargo pallets. He just stood there, looking on, making no attempt to attack; perhaps somewhere in his damaged brain he still knew them.

  Grateful to be outside the hold once more, they locked it and returned to the cockpit with the bad news.

  “Shit. Okay, BB. Get strapped in, we need to find a solution to our problem. You two, stay put, I’ll need you to help with the cabin once we’ve decided on our plan.” The captain was now a man of action and decision. Together, he and his first officer worked their way through the manuals and systems pages until they came up with just one conclusion: control the plane in its current descent, or put the undercarriage down. There wasn’t enough pressure available for both.

  Rob and Daniel stood there, stunned at the realisation that they were going to crash land.

  “Right, first things
first, boys,” the captain began. “You must not panic, you have to be strong for those people back there. From what I suspect you have done in the last twenty four hours, I think you can do this.” They both nodded, and waited for the details. “We will have to land, gear up. I’m pretty darn sure we are the first to try this on an A380, so there’s no guarantee as to the outcome. We have to do it at night; we can’t wait until sunrise because although we have enough fuel, we won’t have enough hydraulic pressure to wait that long. We’ve still got GPS, so we know we can be bang on target for the runway. It’ll be like a normal let down, only with no wheels, just so long as nothing is blocking our path. It will make a helluva noise, but when we stop moving, you need to help calm the other passengers, while the cabin crews do what they have been trained to do. By all means necessary, get everyone you can off the plane. Don’t worry about us, we’ll go out these windows, unless things turn out well enough for a more relaxed disembarkation.”

  Rob and Daniel nodded their assent. “Off you go then, and good luck.” The captain shook their hands, and got back to the business of flying. They had only a few more minutes of descent left before they made contact with the runway. As they returned to their seats, BB began the announcement for the upcoming landing.

  Janet’s face was a picture of pleasure as she saw Daniel and Rob returning. There was no way she wanted to face this on her own. The children were looking frightened; Janet had been reassuring them all would be well, this would just be another adventure that would be over shortly. With all they had experienced in the last few hours, they stoically held each other tightly, Penny sniffing gently, Sam lovingly stroking her hair. Oskar the greyhound moved to her side and licked her hand in sympathy. She clutched at his fur, grateful for the attention. Daniel held onto Oskar’s lead, to make sure the dog didn’t get thrown across the cabin.

  Ten minutes later, the captain called three times the command to brace for impact. Daniel looked out the window, and for the first time could see something other than pitch blackness. Fires lined the runway, unidentifiable rubbish strewn along its length, burning. Then he realised what it was: aircraft wreckage. Perhaps another plane had tried its luck and failed, the debris proof of the attempt. He held his breath and clutched the dog’s lead more tightly, his knuckles white from his tight grip.

  With a roaring metallic, shredding sound, the fuselage and engines struck the tarmac evenly, the noise of the connection louder than anything Daniel had ever heard in his life. And the sound kept on coming. Just as the plane appeared to be slowing in relatively good order, a jarring thud was felt, followed by a ripping sound, coming from under them, hurtling past like a locomotive under their seats. Janet screamed, as did the kids. Even Rob and Daniel, in spite of their desire to remain calm, vented their lungs in fear. The dog thrashed around on its lead like a landed fish, its terror evident. Smoke was filling the cabin now, a stench of burning metal stinging their nostrils, and making them want to retch. An invisible force hurled them all to the right, as the plane swivelled sideways. They could feel the tail rising along with one wing. As one, they all screamed as they felt the plane begin to flip over. In the last moment, at the top of the arc, it crashed back down onto the tarmac, upright, and after a few more feet sliding along the runway, silence and darkness descended.

  After a few tense moments, as the ringing in their ears subsided and they could hear once more, they began to detect sobbing and the occasional scream. Daniel and Rob both woke from their daze and stood up unsteadily.

  “Come on Janet, we need to get off the plane. As quickly as possible, it might blow.” Daniel pulled at her arm, and she slowly realised where she was. She had a small cut on her forehead.

  “The children!” she cried, and awkwardly fumbled with her seatbelt. Rushing to their side she could see they were unharmed from the landing. “Come on kids, let’s go, I told you it would be okay.”

  Groggily, they made their way forward towards the front exit, the dog desperately pulling on the lead. They all carried a strange combination of weapons, clothing and backpacks. Rob looked behind them, and pulled at Daniel’s shirt to attract his attention. They looked back. The fuselage had split, and stars could be seen through the rent in the ceiling, no more than ten feet behind where they had been sitting. The chairs under it were shredded by flailing metal; they would not have survived in those seating positions. Janet crossed herself.

  As they descended the stairs to cockpit level, they saw what had made the massive jolt and noise. The lower decks of the aircraft had been torn away, the lower seating gone completely. The people on that deck had surely perished. Their wreckage appeared to be entangled with another plane, its nosecone clearly recognisable. They must have collided with the one that had tried to land earlier; it had ripped the lower deck to shreds. Bodies lay everywhere, unidentifiable, bloody masses and limbs scattered randomly among the debris. No-one could have survived. They’re dead, Daniel thought. Hopefully, they’ll stay that way.

  “We have to get away from here, now,” he urged, pulling his wife on. As the lower half of the aircraft was somewhere behind them, they didn’t have a long drop to the runway, in fact it was only a three foot gap that could easily be jumped. Clinging onto their guns and warm clothing, they leapt to the tarmac. The night air was freezing, well below zero. Feeling terra firma under their feet once more, they knew one dangerous part of the journey had ended, the next was about to start. Daniel looked up to the cockpit, and could see the two pilots open their windows and throw their knotted escape ropes out. Climbing down, they joined the survivors on the runway.

  “The cockpit door jammed,” the captain began, looking around. “Is this it?” he asked. He looked at the small group. Unrealistically, he had hoped to see emergency services coming to their aid, but the airport was surprisingly quiet and dark. In the almost total darkness, it was as if it wasn’t there at all. He looked back at his broken plane, and sighed with a hint of sadness, not just for the plane, but what it’s destruction represented; a symbol of the old world passing. It was lying like huge dinosaur bones along the length of the runway. The rear of the plane had severed itself from the main body, and movement could be seen within the cabin. “There are survivors!” he whispered urgently, but deep down, he knew it wasn’t what he would have liked to have seen.

  Detecting some movement on the ground, he shone a torch in that direction. It illuminated an inverted three seat section of chairs, to which were secured three infected people. Rather than die, they were struggling to move like a twelve-legged beetle across the ground, in the direction of the survivors, their appetite clearly not abated. With a broken neck, the middle person’s head hung like a bell’s clapper, swinging with the motion set up by the others. “Oh my God,” the captain blanched. Sitting in the cockpit for most of the journey, he had not seen these creatures in all their glory, and was now just beginning to realise the fuller picture.

  From the nearby wreckage they saw some movement. The captain recognised Becky, who was struggling to be free of the debris that covered her. Morgan ran to her side and grabbed her hand. Seeing the reality of her face, he recoiled in horror. Daniel ran over to him, and saw that Becky had turned, her eyes white and staring.

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Becky,” he said drawing his pistol. The captain stayed his hand.

  “Are you sure it’s the only way?” he asked, pleading with his eyes.

  “Sorry, Captain. There doesn’t appear to be a way back from that. We either leave her in this state, and she might attack a normal person, or we can end this tortured existence for her. Your choice.”

  The captain reluctantly dropped his hand, and Daniel performed the deed. Becky’s face relaxed. She must have been infected earlier in the flight, perhaps while guarding those down the back. She had a sensitivity and concern for people that had clearly brought her into harm’s way, even knowing the risks to herself. One thing was for sure, this lovely lady would be missed; she had been smart and capable. Meanwhile,
the dog started to growl; he was looking out into the darkness, and had sensed something.

  Rob came up behind Daniel. “I think we need to get away from here, and as quickly as possible. I can hear them all around us. I don’t think there are any emergency services coming, I think we’re all alone.” As his words sunk in, Daniel shivered, and not just from the penetrating cold, as he stared out into the dark, and listened as hard as he might.

  Above the crackling of the dying fires, and from within the pitch blackness surrounding them, he could hear stumbling feet and moaning, and not just from where the remains of the passengers lay.

  Chapter 24

  Consolidation on the Ground

  Feeling safer next to something they were familiar with, the surviving group hunkered down by the wreckage of the front section of the aircraft. All around them small fires blazed; the wings had broken off further down the runway, thankfully, as the large amounts of fuel still in their tanks had become a raging furnace. It silhouetted the movement of zombie creatures, from some of whom smoke was rising as they wandered aimlessly, apparently oblivious to the intense heat coming from the burning kerosene. The brilliance of the fire made everywhere else appear extremely black, nothing visible in the giant maw of darkness that surrounded them. The inky black night intensified their fear of the unknown, their primitive instincts waking up. The children were hugging Janet for all they were worth, a physical manifestation of the terror gripping every adult in the group. The dog had already contributed his worth by dousing their area with urine to prevent fires. Oskar was conscientious like that, clearly becoming an asset to the group of survivors.

  “We can’t stay here,” Daniel said, deciding it was time to be on the move. “So, any ideas as to which way we go?” Daniel asked his friend. As Rob was from Denver, he had visited the airport many times for work. Admittedly, it had always been daytime, and like everyone else, he had been restricted to the main buildings. He had never ventured beyond the confines of the public areas, certainly not onto the runways, all of which looked the same in the darkness.