Surviving the Fall: How England Died (33 page)

Chapter 3

Andy clicked on the responder. “Hey Stewart”.

“Andy, You sort out the passenger issues?”

“Let’s hope so.”

The plane shuddered. Andy glanced out the window, but of course saw nothing but water droplets on the windscreen and the monotonous thick nothing of the clouds. It was habit though, looking out. Human’s couldn’t seem to get entirely used to switching their perception over entirely to machines and dials.

“Got some bad news, Andy.”

“Shoot.”

“It seems no airports are answering anyone.”

Andy paused, looked at Peter. Concern.

“Say again, Stewart.”

“No airports are talking. Everything is dark. We’ve been trying everywhere nearby. Liverpool, Doncaster, Rotherham, Leeds, East Midlands. Nothing. And now we have a jumbo jet joining us from down south. London has gone dark and they have headed up here hoping for somewhere to land.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Peter, running his hands through his thinning hair.

“Ok Stewart, I guess we need to get some sort of approach in order,” said Andy.

“We’re working on it. Give us your fuel times and we’ll put you in the queue.”

“Forty seven minutes.”

There was a moment’s silence, presumably as Stewart made a note.

“Ok, you’re fourth down. We’ve got the most fuel, so we’ll be acting as traffic control. Any questions, come through us, save the airwaves going crazy.”

“Sounds like you got a good handle on this Stewart.”

“We try our best,” said Stewart, the smile apparent in his voice. “Ok, you should be starting your decent in about fifteen.”

“Got it. Just give me the shout.”

“Will do. Good luck.”

“You too. Don’t hang on too long. Out.”

“Out.”

Peter shook his head slowly. “What the hell is going on down there?”

“You think it’s the virus?” said Andy.

“I don’t know. Surely it can’t be that serious?”

“I guess it may be. Anyway, let’s not worry about it for now. We have to think about landing. We don’t have much time. Let’s go through the checks.”

“Sure.”

Peter leaned forward to adjust a dial, and then there was a knock on the door.

“Captain, it’s Jenny.”

She sounded even more harassed than she was five minutes ago. Scared even.

Andy got up and opened the door. The noise from the cabin was much louder.

Jenny rushed in, her face flushed.

“What is it?” said Andy, closing the door.

“The ill passenger, I think they have the virus.”

Peter swung round, “What? Oh shit.”

“Hang on,” said Andy, “let’s calm down. Tell me what you know.”

Jenny took a few deep breaths, fanned the air around her face. “Frank, he’s called, we moved him to the galley, the other passengers were getting angry. After talking to his wife, she admitted he had been bitten by someone last night.”

“My God,” said Peter, “and they still got on the plane, even with all the warnings?”

“Where are they now?” said Andy.

“Still in the galley, with Carl. We’ve got the curtains drawn.”

“Did any of the other passengers hear you?”

Jenny shook her head. “No, they were too busy moaning.”

“Good. Ok, well done Jenny. We’re going to be landing in fifteen minutes, so we just have to hold on that long. You think you can manage that?”

Jenny nodded.

“I’ll put on the seat belts sign, you make an announcement, let them know we are landing.”

“Ok, leave it to me.”

Chapter 4

Carl poured himself a drink of water. He was hot, he was feeling anxious. It was a difficult flight and he would be glad when they were on the ground again.

Tracy kneeled next to her husband.

The loudspeaker beeped into life.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your chief steward Jenny speaking. The Captain has turned on the seat belt sign. If I could ask all passengers to return to their seats and store away all hand luggage in preparation for landing. We are about to make our descent to Manchester very shortly. Thank you once again for your patience.”

Carl heard the unified sighs of relief from the passengers beyond the curtain. Tracy looked up at Carl. “What do I do?”

“Here, have my seat.” Him and Jenny could take Frank and Tracy’s seats.

“Are we landing now, really?” said Tracy.

“That’s what the Captain said.” He knelt down next to Tracy. “You sit yourself down, and I’ll buckle Frank in.”

Tracy sheepishly sat down in Carl’s fold down seat and took her place.

Carl reached for the buckle behind Frank. Frank lolled to the left, then to the right.

“Come on know, Frank, let’s stay still.”

“Is he all right?” said Tracy.

Carl didn’t respond, he was having trouble keeping Frank on the small seat. Frank was unresponsive, his eyes closed.

The plane shuddered and Frank fell forward, on top of Carl. Carl lost his footing and fell back, hitting his head on the metal food drawers behind him. Frank’s heavy body pinned him to the floor, his face inches from Carl’s.

Frank opened his eyes.

Jenny replaced the loudspeaker phone. The passengers seemed to have taken the news well and were buckling in. A multitude of clicks rang out throughout the cabin.

She should go down and join Carl, but her feet wouldn’t move. For some reason she was scared. She was scared of the virus.

She stared at the curtain at the far end of the cabin. The plane shuddered. The garish green and orange curtains swung from left to right.

She heard a scream. Numerous heads turned to the back of the plane, where the scream had come from. Some turned back to Jenny, their eye’s questioning.

And then another scream, this one louder, more terrible. A gurgling scream, like someone being murdered. The passengers joined in, and a chorus of yells echoed around the plane, travelling from the back to the front like a macabre Mexican wave.

The curtain shook, then fell from its rungs, pulled by a bloody hand. Tracy stood there, her mouth contorted in agony. Frank appeared behind her and sunk his teeth into the back of her skull and pulled, ripping her scalp clean off, stretching the skin on her face until it ripped apart, revealing a gleaming and bloody white skull.

Jenny screamed, too.

Carl stood in the corner of the galley, his mouth hanging open, unable to make a sound as he watched Frank gnawing into the neck of his wife.

Although shocked when Frank had opened his eyes, he had managed to push him off. Only he had pushed him directly towards Tracy. Frank had reached out his arms and grabbed his wife, who made the fatal mistake of pulling him towards her. Her husband repaid her love by sinking his teeth into Tracy’s neck.

Blood spurted like a fountain from her neck, covering Frank’s face, and dripping onto the floor as Frank gnawed into the flesh of his wife’s neck. There was a ripping sound and Frank turned to look at Carl, half of Tracy’s scalp and face hanging from his mouth, her hair forming a grotesque and bloody beard.

Carl found his voice. He screamed. Loudly.

Frank threw Tracy’s body onto the floor.

This is it, thought Carl.  He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain as his skin was torn from his muscles. He hoped he would pass out from the shock.

He let out a few small murmurs.

A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. He opened his eyes, Frank was gone.

Carl felt relief wash over him. Then he remembered he was on a plane, thousands of feet in the air, with what appeared to be a zombie. Relief disappeared and was replaced with panic.

No need to ask where Frank had gone - the terrified shrieks from the cabin told him that Frank found the varied menu in the cabin more appealing than Carl’s skinny frame.

He peered round the corner of the galley, keeping a careful eye on Tracy’s body. She was lying face first, her head in the cabin, her legs in the galley. Blood pooled around her head turning the carpet a sticky red.

Carl gasped, but the sound was swallowed by the sounds of sheer terror in the cabin. It seemed everyone was screaming, yelling, shouting, crying.

The aisle was full of people as mindless terror forced the passengers to flee from the back of the cabin, and from Frank. They climbed over the seats and each other to escape the hideous form of the bloodied Frank as he moaned and hissed his way down the aisle. He eventually caught an old man, who had fallen under the feeling mass of those younger and stronger than him.

Frank bit into the old mans leg and pulled his head back, bringing a sizeable chunk of flesh and a trouser leg with him.

Carl knew what he had to do.

Hide.

He fumbled with the toilet door, pulled it open and ducked in. He slammed the door behind him, and locked it.

“Worst flight ever,” he said, before leaning over the small sink and throwing up.

Jenny stood frozen in fear as a wall of terrified and desperate passengers began a slow build in momentum, spilling through the aisles and over the seats, heading towards the front of the plane.

The people at the front, not having witnessed what Jenny had seen, stood up and looked behind them in bemused panic, which quickly turned to pure terror as they realised the wave of passengers wasn’t stopping. They were going to be engulfed and there was nowhere for them to go - no plane left.

A few held their ground, pushing back against the fleeing passengers. Fists began to fly.

One middle aged man, his face white, his eyes so wide they looked as if they were about to pop from their skull, ran for the cabin door. Jabbering mindlessly, he pulled and wrenched at the handle, trying to open it.

If he succeeded, thought Jenny, they would all be dead. “Stop, you’ll kill everyone,” she shouted, but the man paid no attention. Her words were lost in the chaos. She found herself too terrified to move.

Another passenger, a young man, saw the door opening attempt and leaped forward, hitting the older man around the back of the head. The older man turned, a look of shock on his face. The younger man hit him again, and then, seemingly overcome with some sort of bloodlust, continued to reign blows on the older man, beating him again and again, until his face disintegrated into a bloody tangle of bone and cut flesh.

A woman then hit the younger man on the head with a fire extinguisher, and continued the blows with the same frenzy, the young mans’s skull caving in within seconds.

Jenny screamed again.

Hands grabbed her around the shoulder.

“Jenny, get in here, now.”

Before she was able to turn, her body was jerked backwards, through the cockpit’s door.

Andy closed the cockpit door and the screams, so visceral, so penetrating just a second ago, suddenly took on a muffled and otherworldly sound, as if the hell she had just been in was now only a distant dream.

Andy locked the door.

“Are you ok?”

She managed to nod. Her breathing was fast and out of control. She was taking in huge gulps of air, shaking.

Andy sat her down on the fold-down seat at the back of the cockpit.

“Relax, breath softly. You’re ok now. You’re safe.”

She pointed at the door, “What if they-”

Andy shook his head. “No chance. Since 9-11, you need a fucking battering ram to get through those doors.”

Her breath was coming back under her control. Her panic subsided to a manageable level.

“What the hell happened out there?” said Andy

“Frank, he was ill. I thought he was asleep, but I don’t know, I made the announcement, and next thing, I saw Tracy at the back of the plane, and… oh God”

“It’s ok, take your time.”

“And, Frank, he appeared and bit her, bit right into her!”

“He bit her?” said Peter “Fuck. It’s true then.”

“True?” said Andy.

“What’s they’ve been saying on the internet forums, about the biting with the virus. It’s a zombie virus.”

“Zombies?” said Andy. “Like Night of the Living Dead?”

“Has to be.”

“Well, whatever is happening, we need to get this plane down. Get Stewart on the com, we need to land now.”

Chapter 5

“Stewart, we’ve got trouble, big trouble. We need to land now.”

“Ok… can you wait 5 minutes?”

“No. This isn’t a request, it’s a courtesy call. We’re landing.”

There was a moment’s silence. Andy checked the cabin camera. There were three active zombies now - Tracy had turned, as had an old man. The fights near the plane door were intensifying, a standing battle of around eight people.

A young girl sat huddled in the corner at the front of the plane, hugging her knees up to her body, tears pouring from her face. She could only be about six. The cameras had no sound, but Andy could read her lips well enough
,
Mummy, Mummy, Mumm
y
, over and again.

“Stewart, we have infected on board.”

“Infected? With this virus? Ok, but surely 5 minutes won’t make any difference.”

“Stewart, listen carefully, and trust me, remember who you are talking to.” He couldn’t believe what he was having to say. “The virus, it’s like a… A zombie virus.”

There was a pause. Then, “What?”

“A zombie virus, like the films. I have people on my plane eating each other. I’m looking at my cabin camera now, and the fear, the panic has reached a point where we have a group of passengers trying to open the cabin doors, and another group fighting them off, and down the bottom of the cabin, we have three, so far, zombies, making their way through the passengers. We need to land now. And I’m going down, whether anyone is in our way or not.”

Peter smiled. Andy nodded at Jenny. She looked relieved, but too shaken to get anywhere near smiling.

“Ok,” said Stewart, his voice quiet. “Make your approach, I’ll redirect anyone in your way.”

“Thanks Stewart.”

Andy took a second to look at the picture of his pregnant wife tucked in the right side of the instrument panel. He didn’t look for long, he couldn’t afford to have his attention drawn from the task at hand.

“Peter, prepare for landing. Let’s go.”

“Sure thing Captain.”

“Hey, I’m home.” Andy put his bag down in the hallway.

His wife, Mary, ran down the stairs, her face open with anticipation.“Well?” she said.

He had planned to pretend that it had all gone wrong, but he couldn’t help but burst into a huge smile.

“I got it. You can call me Captain from now on.”

“Yey!” Mary ran down the rest of the stairs and hugged Andy. “Well done! That’s amazing.”

“Well, you know, wasn’t too hard, really.”

She laughed and hit him playfully on the arm. “Don’t say that. You’ve worked so hard. You deserve it.”

She was right.

“So what now?”

“Well, I’m going to be switched to long haul. My first routes will be the middle east. Dubai, Abu Dhabi.”

“But we can stay in Knutsford?”

“Course we can. Or we can move to the Middle East. No tax… Think how much we could put away in a few years.”

“Well, lets think about it. First, we have to celebrate tonight. I’ve booked us a table at that new Italian.”

“Ah, so you did have faith then?” said Andy

“I figured that whether you got the Captaincy or not, you’d want to go out.” Mary smiled.

Andy held her by the shoulders. “Bloody hell, a Captain.”

They shared a laugh and a long kiss.

Andy pushed the nose of the plane down, it would be a quick descent. Noises of muffled chaos still filtered in from the cabin. He glanced in the camera - the little girl was gone. There were five zombies now. They changed fast. Why hadn’t Frank changed fast though?

“Keep Stewart on my headset,” said Andy.

“Done,” said Peter.

The sound of the engines increased in pitch and the plane rattled noisily as they dropped.

He had practiced emergency landings, water landings, lost engine landings, and many other disaster scenarios in the simulator many times. But he’d never practiced a Plane Full of Zombies landing. He tried to block out the noises from the cabin. The screams, the cries for help, the sounds of misery and despair.

“Shit!” shouted Peter.

Andy had already seen it. As they dropped out from cloud cover, a white and red plane appeared in front of them. Too close. Looked like it was following the same route to the runway.

“Who the hell is that Stewart?”

“Hang on,” said the bodiless voice, a few moment’s pause. “No idea, they’re silent.”

“Christ, we’re going to be going down right on top of them.”

The other aircraft was about 300 meters away.

“Shall we abort?” said Peter.

“No, we’ll land behind them.”

Andy slowed the plane, bringing it as slow as he dared without stalling the aircraft.

“Everyone ok?” He turned to look at Peter and Jenny. They both nodded.

The airport was only a few miles away, they would be landing within minutes.

“What’s that?” said Peter, squinting through the windscreen, looking ahead, towards the airport.

Andy focused ahead. “It looks like smoke.”

“Lot’s of it,” said Peter.

Four or five tall thin columns of grey and black rose into the air like woolly pillars.

“Jesus. The airport looks like a war-zone,” said Peter.

“What’s wrong?” said Jenny.

“Nothing, I hope,” said Andy. “There are several fires at the airport. Don’t worry we’re still landing.”

Andy concentrated on keeping the plane headed towards the runway, he had practiced landing without guidance from Air Traffic Control many times.

The door to the cockpit shook with a loud bang. Jenny let out a small shout, her seat was right next to the door.

Another bang, and then another. They came fast and hard.

“Don’t worry,” said Peter. “No-one is getting through those doors.”

Andy ignored the knocking, the desperate and terrified people trying to get into the cockpit. He ignored the fact that some of his passengers had been infected with a virus that brought them back from the dead and impelled them to eat other people. He ignored all of it. The best he could do now to help anyone was to get the plane down. It was his responsibility.

“What the hell is that?” Peter was staring at the radar. Two blips moved quickly across the green screen, heading towards the cluster of planes, the other blips, that were circling the airport.

“Hey Stewart,” said Andy. “You picking that up on your radar?”

“We got them,” said Stewart over the transmitter. “Looks like two aircraft approaching fast.”

“What do you think, can you get a visual?” said Andy, still doing his best to concentrate on keeping the large plane as slow as possible whilst not dropping out of the sky.

“Hold on, hold on…” said Stewart.

The blips melded with the cluster of planes.

“Christ!” shouted Stewart, his voice filled with surprise. “Two Tornados, really kicking it. Just flew across our nose.”

“Air Force? What the hell are they doing here?” said Andy, now watching the blips closely. They had shot past the circling planes, and seemed to be turning for another pass.

“I don’t know,” said Stewart, “Maybe here to help? Hang on, they’re coming back.”

Andy felt anxious, he didn’t know why.

“Here they come,” said Stewart, “Hold on, what the hell is- Jesus Christ! Fuck!”

There was a blur of static.

“Stewart?” said Andy. “Stewart? Come in, come in Stewart?”

“Andy!” shouted Peter, pointing out the windscreen of the plane.

Jenny screamed.

Ahead, a blue and white plane dived from the bottom of the clouds, its left wing missing, the stump belching thick plumes of black smoke. The markings on the tail were those of Stewart’s airline. The plane began to spiral and pirouette in a tight spin like a ballet dancer. Andy suddenly had a vision of the paper airplanes he used to throw over the bridge near his house when he was a young boy. They would float for a few seconds, then plunge to the earth, caught in a hopeless spin.

“They’re gonna hit,” screamed Jenny.

Stewart’s plane smashed into the Boeing ahead.

“Pull up!” said Peter.

But Andy held fast. They didn’t have enough fuel for another pass.

There was a huge flash of white and yellow and then a mighty sound like the crashing of mountains. Both planes dropped from the sky like burning stones. A black cloud erupted in front of them. Andy held on tight to the control stick as turbulence rocked the plane.

The windscreen cracked, hit by a piece of flying debris.

The plane lulled sharply to the right. The wing must have been clipped. Andy struggled to keep the plane straight.

Warning beeps and buzzers sounded in the cockpit. Flashing red lights lit up.

“We gotta fuel leak,” said Peter, “the left flap is stuck, we’re losing cabin pressure, looks like we’ve caught some debris.”

The sky cleared again as the plane passed quickly through the debris and smoke of the explosion. Andy kept fixated on the runway. They were only a few hundred feet up.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the base of one of the columns of smoke that surrounded the airport. It was another plane.

The airport was littered with downed planes. The air force were shooting them down.

“What the hell, Andy? What the hell is going on?” said Peter, his voice overcome with panic.

“The radar, Peter, where the hell are those jets?”

Peter stared at the radar screen.

The engines whined as Andy kicked a bit of extra thrust as they dropped altitude.

“Coming round for another pass.”

“Shit,” said Andy.

They were only a few hundred feet off the ground, falling quickly. It was a much steeper descent than Andy was used to, but he could handle it. He had to. He glanced at the picture of his wife.

The plane passed through a plume of smoke from a burning 737 on the ground, its fuselage cracked in two, the wings nowhere to be seen.

Alarms continued their atonal chorus.

“Ok, everyone ready?” said Andy

“Shall we tell the passengers to buckle up?” said Peter, a wry smile on his face.

Andy glanced at the cabin cam. The same chaos, no idea they were about to land.

“There!” Peter pointed to the left, over the control tower of the airport. Two jets could be seen approaching. Tiny specks, quickly increasing in size.

He had to hope they had another target, for if they fired now, no way he could outmanoeuvre any incoming.

“Ok, we’re coming in hard.”

Andy pulled up on the stick, trying to keep the nose high. The concrete of the runway approached rapidly.

The cockpit collectively held their breath as the grey of ground raced towards them. There seemed to be a few seconds of painful silence and then…

The plane hit the ground hard with a screech and a bounce. Andy jerked out of his seat. A new wave of screams sounded from the cabin.

Peter engaged the reverse thrusters.

The two air force jets passed low over the plane, their sound huge.

Andy pulled the stick to his left, the plane swung hard, still going fast. It ran off the runway, across the grass onto the next feeder lane.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“We need to disembark immediately.” Andy pointed to the departure gates, a few hundred yards ahead. The glass windows were level with the height of the cockpit.

“Christ,” said Peter.

“Get ready with the reverse thrusters again,” said Andy.

“Ready.”

The gates approached quickly.

Andy held the plane steady as it raced past a baggage truck on fire. There was a lurching screech of metal and the plane was dragged to the right as its wing clipped the nose of another stationary aircraft. He wrestled with the stick as they veered from left to right.

“Ok Peter… Ready… Ready…”

The glass of the departure gates took up the whole of the windscreen.

“Now!”

Peter pulled the thrusters on full. The engine roared.

Glass shattered as the nose of the plane smashed into the departure gate. The whole plane shuddered and there was the painful sound of ripping metal. Andy expected the plane to stop when the undercarriage hit the building, but the noise, and the fact the were still sliding into the gate, suggested the undercarriage had been sheered off.

Seats, a vending machine, a small coffee stall scattered as they were hit by the full weight of the plane.

They slowed, the friction and the thrusters doing their trick, the bottom of the plane screeching against the polished departure gate floor.

Andy was flung forward in his seat, the seatbelt biting hard as they came to a sudden stop. The back undercarriage must have hit the building. Screams and yells from the cabin rang out loudly.