Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

STAGE 3

Ken Stark

Copyright 2016 by Ken Stark

CHAPTER I

The droning was incessant. It came up from the floor, hummed through the seat and reverberated through his body like a shiver. Mason snapped awake, kept his eyes tightly closed, and muttered a silent curse.

Damn! Still in the air……

While he was asleep, someone had nestled a red-hot poker behind his eyes and wrapped a clamp around his head. It was that
damned
engine vibration! How the hell did people abide that ceaseless droning? No wonder his skull felt like it was coming apart.

Well, okay, maybe there was more to it than that
, he admitted sheepishly, the taste of scotch still strong in his mouth.

He could hear music, too. How the hell was there music? Oh right. His iPod. He'd turned it on and slipped in the earbuds to circumvent any further tedious dialogue with Fatty McLardass next door. Then, in case the big guy didn't get the message, he'd reclined his seat and closed his eyes. Eventually, the charade became real, and he'd actually fallen asleep. That last part was sheer bonus. He hadn't been sure how he'd survive another sixteen hour flight across the Pacific in a plane stuffed with humans, but apparently he'd found the solution; copious amounts of alcohol, a couple of Dramamine, and a generous helping of Pink Floyd.

Should have gone business class,
he pondered idly to himself
. Becks would have liked that……

And with that single errant thought, a flood of emotions poured into his aching brain. Grief. Loss. Betrayal. An abiding anger bordering on outright hostility.

At last, he felt a cramping in his legs that brought his mind back to the present. One of his feet was twisted around the other and sending shooting pains into his calf. Not wanting to let his neighbor know that he was awake, he uttered a vague somniferous grunt and shifted casually in his seat. Better now. Blood flow restored and no one the wiser. And better yet, the searing pain in his head superseded the growing pins and needles accompanying the return of circulation.

Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he took mental stock of his positioning. His head was turned to the right, away from his neighbor and toward the window. Good. He could pop an eye open without being discovered and maybe see how far along they were. If they were over land, they were in the final stretch, and he might be able to abide a half-hour of idle tourist chit-chat if it meant he could properly stretch his legs. If they were still over water, he'd have to feign unconsciousness for a while longer. Hell, maybe he'd even drift back to sleep and give his body time to work through the last of the alcohol to keep his skull from splitting open.

He chanced a peek and saw that they were over land. Hallelujah. Most of the way home. SFO was a barf-bag's toss away, so figure a half hour to descend, another half hour to find his bag on the carousel, and a twenty minute cab ride home. Inside of two hours, he'd been on his own toilet, in his own shower, and drinking his own beer in front of his own TV with his ass comfortably ensconced in his own goddam recliner.
Halle-
fuckin'
-llujah!

He cracked both eyes open and looked to the little video screen on the seatback in front of him.  He'd left it tuned to the flight information channel, and sure enough, it showed the little airplane icon hovering directly over San Francisco. Thank Christ. But according to the numbers, they were still at 20,000 feet, circling the airport. What the…… Fog? What else could it be.
Damn!
  Suddenly, thoughts of diverting to another airport came to Mason's mind, and he grimaced angrily. Two hours to divert, twenty minutes to deplane, another thirty for the baggage carousel, then an inglorious overnight bus ride with the same sweaty, irritating humans he'd been cooped up with all day.

Christ, no! Just get me home!

Suddenly, the issue of keeping his neighbor from knowing he was awake returned to top priority. Even if they had to divert, not having to speak to that incessant boor until they were on the tarmac would be half the battle. Still, as much as he liked his Floyd, he was growing tired of hearing the same album on the same endless loop, but he couldn't very well fiddle with the iPod without alerting his neighbor. He felt the cord lying across his lap, so he slowly and surreptitiously twisted the cord around his index finger, and once he'd taken up all of the slack, the earphones popped out of his ears.

One second, Roger Waters was insisting 'there's someone in my head, but it's not me'. The next, his ears were assailed with the sounds of pandemonium.

What the hell……

It sounded to Mason as if a riot had broken out at a funeral. There were angry shouts and anguished pleas,  indignant cursing, and impassioned wails of abject misery. It was almost exactly what Mason imagined one of those old lunatic asylums would sound like. Chunky Monkey next door was one of those crying. His pudgy face was down, his abundance of chins were piled up against his chest like a meaty washboard, and he was bawling his eyes out. No gentle sobs for the big man, either. His flabby chest would rise ponderously as he sucked in a lungful of air, then he'd release the breath in a flood of anguished tears and loud, mournful howls.

Sonuvabitch, the plane's crashing!  They're waiting to die, and everyone knows it but me…..

Oddly enough, Mason wasn't frightened at the prospect, nor was he angry. If anything, he almost admired the way the universe had managed to stitch everything together. His world had crashed down around his ears, the future he'd been anticipating had gone up in a puff of smoke, and now he was to be splashed across a tarmac with only a few hundred members of the species he liked the least as company. After the past few weeks, a fiery death in an explosion of twisted metal and mangled flesh seemed to him to be just about perfect. He couldn't even be allowed the mercy of sleeping through his last moments on earth. Hell, no……that would be cheating.

Just then, the speaker overhead hissed. The pilot was going to make another announcement. No longer concerned with interference from his neighbor, Mason sat bolt upright.
Go ahead,
he thought morosely,
there's nothing more that can happen to me, so give it to me straight….
.

"Attention passengers," the captain's voice came through loud and clear, but the woman's tone was subdued, even meek, "We are over San Francisco and, God willing, will be on the ground shortly. Once we touch down, ambulances will be dispatched to tend to those who require attention. Please bear with us, and try to remain calm. You will soon be in the hands of the best medical minds on the planet, and they'll have this whole thing quickly sorted out."

Huh? So, we're not crashing, then? Ambulances? Those who require attention? What the hell did I
miss?

As the captain's voice clicked off, a stewardess appeared at the front of the plane. It was the cute little thing who'd brought Mason his over-abundance of drinks, each one delivered with a sly grin and a cute little wink. Oh, she was a doll alright, but it looked like she'd been spending her down time sampling her own wares. She stepped to the front of the aisle, looking vaguely ceilingward, and stumbling awkwardly. Finally, she grabbed a nearby seatback for stability and brought a metal tray up to her chest. A crude message had been scrawled across the tray in bright red lipstick, and Mason gawked at it curiously. The words were printed clumsily, letters bumping into letters and words overriding one another, but the message was clear enough.

'If you can see, please come forward,' it read.

What the hell?

Mason read it again, and then again, and once again just to be sure. 'If you can see, please come forward'. Nothing more. No explanation, no qualifiers. 'If you can read this, please come forward'. What in God's name did
that
mean? Was it a joke? What the
hell
did he sleep through?

He watched and waited, but no one came forward. Well, if it was a joke, the cute little stewardess was committed to it, that's for sure. She stood there for three long minutes, grasping the seatback for support and holding that stupid tray higher and higher in the air.

'If you can read this, please come forward'.

Okay, if she was that determined to have her silly joke, Mason would play along. And then, once everyone dropped the act and had a good laugh at his expense, he'd give his best 'aw-shucks' expression and pretend to be a good sport. Really, being laughed at now would be the best thing that'd happened to him in a long time.

He began to stand, assuming his neighbor would take the hint and follow social convention by swinging his legs to the side or hoisting his big, fat body up and out of the way. No such luck, though. The man with the pudgy face and the big belly simply cried and dabbed at his eyes with a soiled handkerchief and heaved his ponderous chest outward every time he needed to draw in more air for another round of wailing. Mason gruffly cleared his throat loudly, but to no avail. The fat man was too absorbed with wallowing in his own personal misery to pay attention to anything else. Finally, and reluctantly, Mason tapped the whale of a man on the shoulder.

"Huh? What?" The man finally became aware. He gazed across at Mason's crotch and squinted desperately. "What? Who'zat? What do you want?"

Surprise, jerkhole, it's Marilyn Monroe, and I'm here to sing Happy Birthday
, he wanted to say. Instead, he whispered quietly, "Would you excuse me, please."

"Huh? What?"

The man looked positively addled. He made no move to stand or sidle sideways or otherwise remove his prodigious bulk from the pathway to freedom.

I thought booze and Dramamine were good
, Mason thought to himself.
Maybe I should try a little of what Fatty's having….

He finally pushed his way gruffly past a thick pair of legs, and a pair of meaty hands groped at him as he passed.

"
Christ
, dude, I just wanna take a leak. Do you fucking mind?" Mason snapped and shoved himself out into the aisle.

"Sure!" The big man howled, somewhere between pissed off and full-on crazy, "Why not! Take a leak! Take a leak wherever you like! The world's your toilet!" And then he laughed and laughed and ended up crying again.

"Please, everyone!" Someone spoke up a few seats away. It was an older fellow with wire-framed glasses and a crucifix around his neck. "We must not fight among ourselves!"

"He's right," a tiny woman agreed from across the aisle, "We should remain calm and work together."

Suddenly, a chorus of voices rose up, some agreeing, some arguing, and some downright crude. Those who didn't join in were too busy either sobbing quietly or staring at the seatback in front of them, all but insensate. A baby started crying like an air raid siren, and his mother spoke to him in a calm, soothing tone, holding it to her breast and sobbing quietly.

Jesus…..you pass out for a few hours and everyone loses their shit..…..

Mason strolled up the aisle toward the stewardess with the tray. As he moved, he was impelled to push one man back into his seat to get by, then he became aware of a little old woman groping about in the aisle. A string of rosary beads lay in a ball a few feet further up the aisle, so Mason collected the beads and placed them in the woman's hands. She stared up at his belt buckle with red, moist eyes and held the beads to her frail little chest.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," she purred, then she fell silent and brought the rosary up her chin, moving her lips in silent prayer.

The stewardess had given up by the time he arrived. She had dropped the tray to the ground and was groping her way back behind the curtain. Mason tapped her on the shoulder, and she spun around, her face a mask of horror.

"Please don't hurt me!" She gasped.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Mason said as gently as he could.
Christ
, his head hurt! He threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the contemptuous rabble behind him and leaned in to whisper in the girl's ear. "I got your message."

The girl's expression changed instantly.

"You can…." she began, then she stopped herself and reached out toward him. Her fingers played over his face, then she gently pulled herself close until her lips were nearly pressed against his ear. "You can…...see?" she asked, a distinct desperation in her voice.

"I can," he breathed in a whisper, then he stood back and waited for the punchline and the gales of laughter.

To his amazement, there was neither. The stewardess grabbed him by the arm and turned on her heels. She started to grope her way away from the main cabin, but she stumbled over the discarded tray and would have fallen on her face had Mason not caught her. He took hold of her hand, laid it gently on his outstretched elbow, and guided her into the galley. The drink cart was standing in the way, so he pushed it to the side, helping himself to a few tiny bottles of scotch on the way. He slipped two of them into his jacket pocket and snapped the third one open, downing it in a single swallow. Maybe it would help dull the throbbing headache, and if not, what the hell. Either way, they could add it to his bill.

"Gloria?" The stewardess called out.

An older gal was standing against a little metal sink, weeping. She pulled herself together long enough to mutter a solemn, "I'm here, Katie."