The Gorging (11 page)

The older man turned around, gave a slight smile to the man with the trucker hat, and said, “I’m fine. I just ate something last night and I don’t feel good. Just a little jumpy right now...That’s all.”

They moved closer to the flight attendant at the podium. “Well, if you start feeling rough let somebody know man. They’ll take care of you on here.” The man with the trucker hat put his hand out. “I’m Troy Olson by the way.”

The man reached out and shook Troy’s hand. “I’m James Reed.”

“Nice to meet you Mr. Reed. Looks like we’re almost on the plane.”

Abby Hill, the flight attendant smiled and took both tickets. The two men boarded the plane. They last few passengers gave their tickets to Abby and got on the plane as well. Abby straightened up her pile of tickets and handed them to the terminal attendant then boarded the plane herself.

The door on the airplane locked shut and the plane pulled away from the terminal. It taxied down the tarmac and onto the runway. A few moments later, they were cleared for take off and the plane shot down the runaway and up into the sky. They were in the air quickly and flying high above Wyoming, headed for Music City, U.S.A.

In the airplane, the cabin pressure gave that sleepiness feeling to nearly all the passengers onboard. The blankets and pillows were passed out which is uncommon in today’s standards with the airlines, but to boost airline ticket sales, Stateside Airways thought it would be best to adhere to past logic. The early morning hours and the coffee shop being closed made Pete feel more tired than he thought he was. The lack of caffeine brought on tiredness like he had never felt before. He was out like a light the moment the plane was off the ground leaving Cheyenne. Bobby, on the other hand, took the window seat and stayed wide-awake, staring out at the clouds as they flew high above the land. His mind became filled with thoughts of home. He thought about Nikki and Eddie. He wondered to himself if he is doing enough to keep his wife satisfied in their marriage and if he was being the man she hoped for in the bedroom. He thought about Eddie, and if he had been treating his son the way men are supposed to treat their children, teaching them all the essentials of manhood and survival. All the times that he never took Eddie out to play catch or to toss the football to him made Bobby feel angry with himself. He knew at that moment that he had become his own father. Bobby wanted nothing more than to not be like his own father. Robert Allan Evans, Sr. was a heavy drinker and beat his children regularly, his wife included. At times, the old man would drink excessively to the point of passing out drunk between the stairs and the front door of their home. Bobby grew up dealing with being abused and treated like shit most of his childhood until his father was found face down behind the Desmond General Liquor Mart in Cheyenne. He died drunk and the autopsy revealed he had cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure. All the years of drinking straight whiskey from two bottles a day caught up with him rather quickly. He died when Bobby, Jr. was only fifteen years old and just a sophomore in high school. From that point forward, Bobby had to take care of his mother who was also dying from breast cancer. She held on as long as she could for her children, but she couldn’t hold on long enough. After his mother’s death when he was eighteen, he felt he could never take care of another living soul and he vouched to himself that he would never have children of his own just in case alcoholism ran in the family. He felt that if he tried they would just die because he couldn’t do a good enough job to take care of them or they would turn out like his father. When he met Nikki, everything changed for him. His life of drinking himself, smoking, and not really much other than that, changed for the better, and after Eddie was born, life got even better for both of them. Life has been great for him the past twelve years. Nikki had shown him that there is a brighter side to life and to not let the past stand in the way of creating a lasting and meaningful future with someone you love.

Pete started to snore and Bobby snapped out of his remembrance trance and looked at him. He shook his head and thought about putting something up Pete’s nose to make him stop. Maybe a couple of the little square napkins with Stateside Airways printed on them. Of course, the flight attendant may not approve of such passenger abuse. They seemed to take extra care in watching the passengers since that horrific event in September 2001. My God, has it been fourteen years already? Pete snored louder.

Across from snoring Pete, Bobby noticed a man, who looked to be in his fifties. The man stared at the luggage storage above his head as though he feared it would collapse on him at any moment. His forehead beaded with sweat and his armpits looked as though he splashed bottles of water on to them to cool himself. Bobby felt he should say something, but thought the man is probably just afraid of flying. May be his first time flying, but at the age he is? Not likely, but Bobby shrugged it off and closed his eyes.

He fell into a deep sleep and dreamed he was at home with Nikki and Eddie. He dreamed he was sitting at the kitchen table, laughing and joking, playing a game of Monopoly. It was weird dream to start with. Who laughs and jokes when playing Monopoly? Only the crazy people, who buy up all the hotels and houses, then collect everyone else’s money from the rent. That’s who. Nikki looked at Bobby and smiled. He could read her mind that she was very happy for him. Happy because he just sold the rights to his book to be made into a movie. They were all so happy. He knew he didn’t work for that slave driver Mr. Masterson anymore and had pursued his career as a writer instead, just like Nikki had always encouraged him to do. He was free of the burden and miserable feelings of going to that gray cubicle and free of the claustrophobic feeling he got everyday sitting behind the gray desk in his hard wooden chair. This dream is wonderful.

Bobby woke up peacefully, smiling. He felt something unexplainable come over him. He felt like he finally figured out what Nikki has been trying to tell him along. He thought to himself, why am I wasting my life away at this shitty news station? I should be writing. He had his answer. He decided at that moment that once this trip to Kentucky is over, he’s going to march into Masterson’s office and tell him to shove this job straight up his ass so far he chokes on it. Bobby wanted to wake Pete up and tell him the good news. It was a sudden decision, but a smart and realistic decision. He knows he can do it and that his wife would support the decision. He let out a long and relaxing breath that seemed tucked away somewhere deep within that had been waiting for him to finally come to the realization of what his real purpose in life is to do.

The plane suddenly shook. The pilot’s voice came over the intercom and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your Captain speaking. We are going to be experiencing some severe turbulence as we fly over Paducah, Kentucky due to a severe thunderstorm. Please stay seated and keep your seatbelts on. Thank you very much.”

Bobby shook his head and couldn’t believe that his dream had lasted nearly the entire flight. He felt a little nervous considering he does not like to fly. Pete woke up and caught the last of the Captain’s speech. “Thunderstorm? Seatbelts?” said Pete.

“It’s fine. Just some turbulence,” said Bobby as he buckled his belt. The plane shook more vigorously.

The beautiful flight attendant, Abby, walked by their seats. Pete stuck his hand out and stopped her. “Can I get a soda, honey?” asked Pete.

“I have water. Is that fine?” she said.

“I guess that will work,” said Pete. The flight attendant smiled and walked toward the back of the plane. “Why can’t a man get a soda on a plane these days? I hate water. You know Bobby, it’s all about advertising. I bet those assholes pay the airline to serve their drink on this plane. Either that or some nutjob somewhere in a leather chair in a conference room said ‘let’s make it bottled water. That’s what they’ll drink. I like soda.’”

“Can’t always get what you want,” said Bobby. He reached for a magazine that was stuck in the pouch of the seat in front of him. It wasn’t exactly Bobby’s preferred reading, but anything would do to take his mind off the turbulence. The plane shook again. Bobby suddenly remembered he was going to tell Pete about his new plan in life. He wanted to spill the beans to him. Hell, maybe Pete would build up the courage and quit, too. Bobby turned to Pete and opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come out. They couldn’t. Not at the sight of the man in his fifties, sitting across the aisle from them. Bobby leaned forward and got a better glimpse of him. The man had turned a bluish-pale color and kept breathed heavily.

“Oh shit, Pete,” said Bobby as he raised his finger and pointed over to the man. “Look at that guy.” Pete looked over and flinched at the grotesque sight of him. “Hey, man. Are you alright?” asked Bobby.

The flight attendant appeared in the aisle with Pete’s water and blocked their view. “Here’s your—” Suddenly, she let out a viscous and loud scream as if someone had just bitten her. Someone did bite her. The man in the aisle across from them stood up after biting her upper thigh. Blood dripped from his mouth and from Abby’s leg. He growled at her and jumped at her, latching on to her with a deathly grip. At that instant, Bobby unbuckled his belt and reached out, pushing the man away from her face as he tried to snap at her nose. Pete sat in his seat, shocked and frozen stiff. The water fell on his lap and soaked into the front of his jeans, looking as though he had just pissed himself. Maybe he did. The man fell back into his seat and growled louder. The plane was now going through rough turbulence and shook more and more, bouncing the luggage up and down in the overhead storage area. One of the bins burst open toward the back the plane and luggage fell on the head of an older lady. She screamed.

The flight attendant screamed and ran down the aisle toward the cockpit of the plane. More screams came from the back of the plane. Bobby broke his attention from the growling man and saw a passenger toward the back, eating away at a young woman’s neck. Blood spurted as her screams faded into a gargle and then stopped. Now, everyone screamed and it echoed loudly throughout the entire plane. Bobby didn’t know what to think or do. His thoughts scrambled through his mind, thinking about what he should do in a situation like this. Is it terrorists, he thought. He never heard of terrorists biting their victims. Usually, they would just blow the shit out of the plane or crash it into a building right? The growling man sprang from his seat again and turned to the passenger sitting next to him. He lunged at the passenger, an elderly man who must be in his early seventies. The growling man grabbed the passenger’s throat. He squeezed tightly as he opened his mouth wide, and clamped down on the old man’s nose. The old man screamed as his nose ripped from his face between the teeth of the growling man. Blood spurted from the old man’s face and across the back of the seat and onto the heads of the people in front of him. Bobby’s stomach convulsed as he watched the growling man chew and then swallow the old man’s nose. He could have sworn he heard the crunching of the cartilage between the growling man’s teeth.

From the front of the plane, Bobby heard more growling. A woman, with blood dripping down from her mouth and covering the top half of her shirt, walked from first class down the aisle hissing and growling at other passengers. Her elbow appeared to be broken as her arm dangled at her side. Someone must have fought back, but not hard enough.

“What the fuck is going on here?” screamed a woman sitting in front of Bobby. She screamed more and tried to undo her belt. It seemed to be stuck. The growling man turned his attention from the old man and to the screaming woman. He hissed as he stepped across the aisle, his mouth hanging open, and blood dripping and falling to the floor. He leaped across the seat in front of Pete and lay across the top, with his teeth less than an inch from the woman’s ear. She screamed as she turned her head away, smacking it on the side of the plane next to the window. The blow knocked her out cold. She lay limp in her seat.

More screams from the back of the plane. Bobby looked back there again, his mind racing, not knowing what to do. He jerked his head up and looked at the intercom as the pilot’s voice came through. “No! Stop! Please, no!” The intercom cut out. The plane suddenly felt like it dropped a thousand feet in less than a second, then another thousand feet. Several passengers threw up from the sudden drop.

A man wearing a trucker hat jumped on the back of the growling man. He punched the growling man in the back of the head several times, knocking him out. The growling man fell across Pete’s lap and then slumped back into the aisle. Pete let out a girlish scream. The flight attendant ran from the front of the plane, screaming in pain, and frightened at what she just witnessed inside the cockpit. “He’s—eating him,” she screamed as she pressed her hand against the bite on her upper thigh. Blood ran down the side of her leg and turned her white ankle sock into a red, blood soaked mess.

The hissing woman turned around and looked at the flight attendant. She sprang forward, but the man with the trucker hat came to save the day again. He leaped across the seats and jumped on her back, sending her to the floor with a loud crash. Her head hit the floor hard and bounced up, then back down again as the man with the trucker hat fell flat onto her back. He grabbed her hair and smashed her head into the floor several times, sending splatters of blood high enough to touch the ceiling.

Bobby felt the sudden urge that he needed to help, too. For God’s sake, he did spend four years in the Marines. He is not a coward so he must do something. The Marines have landed. Bobby jumped over Pete’s lap, who still sat stiff as a piece of lead, and ran to the back of the plane. The plane dropped another thousand feet, bouncing the overhead luggage, causing some compartments to open and heavy bags to fall onto screaming passenger’s heads. It silenced some of them. Bobby fell to the floor after having come off it a foot. He jumped back up and continued his mad dash to the back of the plane. The man enjoying his breakfast of jugular vein and washing it down with blood was still gnawing away at a woman’s throat. She certainly had died since the blood stopped spurting from her neck and just flowed slowly down the front of her chest and across her breasts beneath her shirt. The passengers sitting around her were as stiff as Pete, but screaming to God and praying this nightmare would end.