The Grave: A Zombie Novel (8 page)

“
Hi, Claire, you feeling all right? You don’t look too good.” Suzy’s face clearly showed her worry for Claire who was looking distinctly off-colour. Her forehead was clammy with sweat.

“
Yeah, it’s just this flight. It’s like being on a roller coaster that never stops. Is this normal, Mr Forrest?” asked Claire.

“Well
, Claire,” he said, raising the window shade once more, “for starters, you can call me Will. I told you, I’m only Mr Forrest to my accountant and my priest, and you don’t fit into either of those categories.”

“Ignore him, Claire, he thinks he’s funny but he’s not,” said
Suzy, digging an elbow into Will’s ribs.

“As for the turbulence,” Will
said chuckling, “Well, yeah it’s pretty normal for this part of the world. Why don’t you...”

The plane suddenly lurched to one side and Claire tumbled backwards, falling into the aisle. There was a huge bang
and the cabin was filled with shouts and screams. The plane was still tilted at an angle and some of the overhead lockers came open, spilling their contents out and showering the passengers with their bags.

“What the hell is going on?
” shouted Kelly as a laptop whistled past her ear.

Suzy undid her belt and leant down to help Claire.
The young girl had a cut on her head, but it didn’t look too bad or deep, only superficial. There was blood on her face and Suzy helped Claire up into the nearest available seat.

The aeroplane was still leaning to the side and in all the
commotion, Rasmus had woken up to find his luggage at his feet. The sleeping pills had not been enough to let him sleep through this. His bag was wet and his files would be ruined; duty free had probably not been the best idea. Most of the important files were in the cargo hold, thankfully. He undid his seatbelt and stood up.

“I’ve pressed the
call button. If the co-pilot can come, he will,” said Professor Rasmus getting up. He stood in the aisle and stared down toward the back of the small plane. He had awoken with a startle and was running his hand through his white beard. He saw frightened faces staring back at him. “I would suggest everyone stay seated and buckled up. Suzy, Claire, quickly now.”

“I think the pilots are busy,” said Will dragging Suzy back into her seat. She was consoling Claire through the gap in the seats and Will clicked her belt back in.

As the Professor stood in the aisle, Tug began shouting. “Why are we flying like this? Why aren’t we straightening up? Fuck me, I didn’t sign up to...”

“
Be quiet, Tug,” said Will seeing how scared Suzy and Claire were. He loosened his seatbelt and turned around to Kelly. “You think we should go up there? Perhaps the pilots can tell us what’s going on.”

“I think we should stay where we are for now, Will. Rasmus is right, the safest place we can be right n
ow is in our seats. They’ll have us straightened out in a jiffy. I think...” Kelly screamed.

There was a huge roaring noise and the plane hit another air pocket, this time dropping a few hundred feet in only a second. Rasmus was catapulted into the air and thrown against the roof of the cabin. He crashed down onto
the floor, unconscious. Tricia screamed and Claire began sobbing.

“Will!”
shouted Suzy. It seemed as if she was pointing right at him. Her face was filled with horror and he turned round to see what she was pointing at. Through his window, he could see flames coming from the propeller. The fire was being sucked into the wing and over it, flowing down smoothly before flickering out into the blue sky. The plane was now at such an angle that Will could only see sky. He could tell they were heading down, and fast. The turbulence was increasing again and it felt as if the plane was being torn apart. It was as if every bolt and joint in the plane were slowly being unscrewed. If the pilots didn’t shut down the propeller, it would burn out and Will knew the fuel was stored in the wing.

“Mark, help me,” demanded
Will, getting out of his seat. He began to clamber over Suzy.

“Will, what are you doing? Sit down!” said Suzy. Her tears had
caused her mascara to run down her face, and he wanted to grab her and hold her. Rasmus needed help though. If they left him like that, he could be thrown around the cabin and suffer worse injuries than he no doubt already had.

Mark
ran his hands over his short blond hair and unclasped his belt. Instinctively, he flung his camera around his neck, letting the strap hang over his thin shoulders. No matter what, he never left it behind. Mark advanced cautiously up the aisle, holding onto both seats as he did so. The plane was descending at such an angle that it was difficult to walk. As he passed Claire, he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t worry, Claire, it’ll be fine.”

She looked
at him briefly as he carried on up the plane beyond Tricia and Suzy to where Will was trying to pick up Rasmus. Claire touched her mobile phone in her pocket and wondered if she could call her mother now. You could get reception most places so why not up in a plane? Then she remembered how the signals could interfere with the plane’s controls and decided against it. The situation was already bad and she didn’t want to risk making it any worse.

Will and Mark managed to scoop Rasmus up and put him back in his seat. He had a nasty looking cut on his head and the blood had
trickled through his white hair. The bright red blood made his beard look like he had dribbled ketchup down it. With Rasmus strapped back into his seat, Will cautiously approached the cockpit door. The plane was still lurching down and to the left. There was no sign of it being pulled up. Will glanced out the windows on the left side of the plane and could almost feel his heart skip a beat. Through the window, he could see only land. The ocean, the coastline, the sky were all gone. He could see nothing but brown dirt mountains, which were much too close for comfort and only getting closer. There was no way that they were thirty thousand feet up in the air now. Will estimated they were barely half that and clearly still going down. The plane was screaming under the pressure of the rapid descent and it would be a miracle if it didn’t break up. Will turned to the cockpit door and pounded on it with his fists.

“Hey, what’s going on? You ok
ay in there?” he shouted.

Mark joined him, shouting
through the door to the pilots. “Open up. What’s going on?”

The two men braced themselves against the cabin walls as the plane began to right itself. They stopped shouting and waited for a response. For a
moment, there was no reply. All they could hear was the metal on the plane as it tried to sustain the pressure it was being placed under. The small craft was not designed to suffer such stress for prolonged periods and they were all worried. Will looked out the right hand windows. The fire had gone, but so had the propeller. He didn’t know if it had been sheared off by the descent or the fire, but either way, it was not good.

“What the fuck is happening? For Christ’s sake, this is ridiculous.” Tug undid his seatbelt and stood up. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt t
hat showed off his muscles and he was angry. His face was red and his eyes bloodshot. “I didn’t fly halfway round the world to get killed in a bloody backwater jet plane driven by some two-bit trainee. Let me at those bloody pilots. Who the hell do they…”

There was another bang and the plane began to nosedive
again. Instantly, Will and Mark were thrown forward against the cockpit door and Tug forced himself back down into his seat. Flames erupted from the plane’s other propeller and the plane rattled and rolled as if it were trying to battle a giant monster.

Will heard shouts from the cockpit
, but the pilots weren’t talking in English and he couldn’t understand them. He pushed Mark away and they sank back into front row seats ahead of Rasmus.

“Everyone okay back there? I mean is anyone hurt?”
asked Will clipping his belt in. He turned around to look down the plane. Through the left side windows, he could see only clear blue sky and through the right nothing but crimson fire and black smoke. His friends and colleagues were silent, but their faces told him everything he needed to know. He could hear crying coming from some of the women and Josef was asking how Rasmus was. Rasmus, however, was not answering.

Tricia and Claire were white, their eyes closed tight.
Tricia was praying as her parents had taught her to as a child, hoping God would hear her this time. Tug had already adopted the brace position, obviously expecting the worst and not waiting to be told. Rasmus was still out cold. Wilfred was looking around the plane nervously, his eyes wide and alert, darting about the plane as if looking for an escape. Kelly was sat upright, her back straight and her eyes focused dead ahead. As he looked around, Will met her gaze and they both nodded to one another. He knew she would not collapse under duress and she knew she could rely on him if the worst happened. When his eyes found Suzy’s, his heart skipped a beat.

She was crying and holding onto the
armrest beside her with a vice-like grip. He wished he were sitting back with her now, holding her and comforting her, but to get up again would be suicidal. He could do nothing now but wait and hope the pilots regained some sort of control. The plane was being thrown around like a leaf in a hurricane. They were being jolted from left to right and up and down, with no apparent control. Suzy’s eyes locked onto Will’s and he tried to send her reassuring thoughts. She seemed so fragile in that moment. A tough New Yorker reduced to crying like a little girl.

There was another bang and the plane exploded into a cloud of smoke and fire. The cockpit door blew apart and icy cold wind rushed into the
cabin, snatching their breaths out of them. From his seat at the front of the plane, Will saw the co-pilot thrown forward and then sucked straight out into the sky, flying into nothingness. The man was ripped out of his seat in a second, the side window no longer there. Will heard his body bounce off the hull and there was a faint scream; Will never saw the man again.

Through eyes that were being forced shut by the high velocity wind rushing at them, Will saw that
the front of the plane was now a mess. The control panel looked dead and the remaining pilot was wrestling with the controls. Their steep descent was levelling out. God knows how, but the pilot seemed to be getting them under control. With the cockpit door gone, the plane’s contents were being sucked out into the sky as they plummeted down toward the ground. Bags, briefcases, papers, books and jackets all rushed passed Will on their way out of the plane. He thanked God that he had stayed in his seat and not decided to get up and head for Suzy. If he had, he would’ve been sucked out along with the now dead co-pilot.

The plane was still descending and the ground was rushing
up to meet them quickly. It would be over in a few seconds. Will could see the fields beneath them and then up ahead a thick jungle of trees. With the angle they were coming in at, they might just be able to glide in at a level where they could land, although he doubted it. Even if they did, the impact would probably rip the plane apart. He had flown across central Africa in a two-seater, he had hang-glided from Table Mountain, and he’d been dragged through the Amazon upside down when his canoe had capsized; this however was his scariest ride yet. Seeing the verdant green fields so close below and trees approaching, Will held his breath and prepared for the inevitable impact that would lead to their inevitable deaths. Up ahead, he saw buildings, houses and gardens. There were cars in the streets below, close enough to see now. He had no idea how the pilot was even keeping them in the air. They surely had to have lost both engines by now. Somehow, they were still flying. Was the pilot trying to land on the road below them?

Will
was not too proud to admit he was petrified. If they were lucky, they would die immediately. That would almost be preferable to surviving the crash landing. Kelly, Rasmus, Josef and Wilfred almost certainly knew where they were headed now. He didn’t know if Suzy, Mark or Tricia did, and Tug and Claire very likely had little idea. His worst fears were coming true. As the plane careered down, there was no time to think about the ground rushing up to meet them. Will didn’t even notice the small figures below following the plane’s trajectory. The Grave was about to welcome its newest residents.

FOUR

A droplet of blood splashed into a pool of rainwater at the dead man’s feet. He let go of the recently killed lamb and reached upward with both of his dumb, numb hands. A strange noise was filling the air and he scanned around for the source. A tearing, grinding noise had shattered the peaceful valley and the dead man was confused. Whilst he had no rational thought, he was aware that such a noise was unusual in the same way a mosquito becomes disorientated and bewildered when confronted by a thunderstorm. A large shape flew above the corpse’s head, heading south and leaving a blazing trail of smoke behind it. Small shiny objects were falling from the shiny oblong thing as it fragmented and sprinkled pieces of charred metal over the valley floor. As the shape passed overhead, low in the sky, the dead man reached his bony arms up to touch it. With no sense of depth, the dead man’s fingers kept reaching for it even though it could not possibly reach the aircraft.