Despite my plan, none of us slept much before sunrise. We were all way out of our depth. I resolved to make more allowances for Bernie, and remember that the pressures we were dealing with would affect us all differently.
At first light, we decided on a plan to rush into the terminal, grab some food from the closest outlet, and then make our way back to the plane. There wasn’t any point in thinking of anything more elaborate than that. Jack and I took the two pistols and Bernie carried the flare gun. For some reason, neither Jack nor I could convince Bernie to take a pistol from one of the corpses outside.
We cautiously made our way out of the police building and crept in formation towards the front of the terminal. The place was designed to be welcoming and all of the usual infrastructure and advertising was still in place. A female corpse wedged the entrance door to the front of the terminal open for us with a rag stuffed into her mouth; her eyes were fixed in a wide look of terror. The gunshot wounds, stabbings, and beatings were awful to look at, but there was something horribly forced about this particular death. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this one stood out so much, but it was one of the hardest to forget from the airport.
Inside the terminal, the scenes of horror were no less gruesome. Whatever happened must have started around a busy lunchtime period. Bodies lay thick in all directions, the sight was almost unbearable. Strange formations of corpses had been created where passengers had lined up to check-in for their flights, only to turn on one another. Some appeared to have ripped the extendable handles off their suitcases to use as weapons; I noticed a metal rod had been plunged into an eye socket of one unfortunate victim. The improvised weapon had proven a popular choice around the check-in desks. The check-in assistant lay dead where the suitcases were supposed to be weighed, the electronic display registered her as one hundred and twenty pounds.
A group of three people surrounded an ATM; one man looked like he’d been beaten severely before slicing his own wrists with a broken shaving mirror from his suitcase. A woman lay strangled by a shoulder strap of a handbag, next to her was a large man dressed in a white linen suit; he appeared to have no visible injuries. One moment, they had been obediently waiting their turn, the next, in deadly combat.
The route towards the security gate was blocked with corpses, but here, many of the dead had gunshot wounds. Armed officials must have acted first, and then others must have taken advantage of the weapons while the magazines still contained rounds.
“Jack, come and look at these three,” I pointed to a group of corpses on the floor.
“No thanks.”
“No, just look!”
“So what? They were all trying to kill each other.”
I called Bernie and Linda over, “Is that the guy from Oceans Eleven?”
”Sure is,” Bernie breathed.
We walked further into the madness of the terminal and shuffled slowly towards the shopping area. I glanced to my left over Linda’s shoulder and felt an electric shock of horror. The large man in the white linen suit rose silently like a ghost, and ran straight at us, his face contorted in fury, a machete raised above his head.
“Look out,” I shouted.
Bernie, Linda, and Jack, spun to face me, but the man was only yards away coming from behind them. Jack must have heard the approaching footsteps as he twisted around, Bernie and Linda froze. I tried to aim the Sig but couldn’t get a clear shot past the group.
I leapt to one side, fired twice, and hit him in the shoulder and neck, it was too late though, and had little effect as his momentum carried him forward.
The man let out a gurgled scream as he buried his machete into the top of Linda’s head, splitting it down to eye level. He then kicked her in the back to free the blade; Linda dropped to her knees, and then fell onto her face. Her legs violently twitched three times, and a pool of blood started to surround her head.
“Linda,” Bernie shouted.
I fired twice again into the arm and hip of the man, who sank to his knees and raised the machete with his uninjured arm. Stepping forward, I kicked the blade wielding hand, knocking the weapon free, and then kneed him in the head. Jack dived forward, forcing the man backwards and pinned him to the ground.
Looking around, I realised that if the attacker was playing dead, then there could be others. The vast terminal building suddenly felt claustrophobic, as I scanned all the bodies to see if there were any more murderers among them.
Bernie sank to his knees next to Linda. At first, he shook her shoulders and shouted her name, but even he could see that the chances of reviving her were non-existent. Finally, he hugged her close to his chest and started crying. Linda’s blood was all over his hands, shirt, and right cheek. I couldn’t look at the heart breaking scene, so I turned my attention back to the killer.
“Jack, we need to sort this out quick, there could be others like him.”
He wriggled under Jack’s hold, but was weakening, probably through blood loss as large expanding red patches soaked his linen suit.
“Leave me alone. I’m going to kill myself anyway,” the attacker mumbled.
“You don’t get to choose, fuck-face,” Jack spat.
I looked across at Bernie who was quietly sobbing.
“Bernie, do you want us to kill him for you? We can’t stay around here,” Jack said.
Bernie looked up slowly, his devastated face changing into an expression of hatred. “Keep holding him there.”
Seeing Bernie approach, the man tried desperately to wriggle out of our grip. Bernie walked to the machete and picked it up; he looked at the blood gleaming on the blade and wiped the tears from his eyes.
Coming back to us, he pulled the machete over his head and brought it down straight across the attacker’s head, with a sickly crunching noise. There was no need for restraint anymore, so Jack and I rolled away quickly to avoid being covered in blood or hit by a rogue thrust from Bernie. He continued smashing the blade downwards several more times before sinking to his knees with a vacant look in his eyes. The machete dropped from his shaking hand and he started to sob.
I stood up and placed my hand on Bernie’s shoulder to offer some comfort.
He looked up at me with a loathing gaze. “Get the fuck away from me, you two. It’s all your fault.”
I backed away and glanced quickly around again at all of the corpses on the ground, none were moving, but it didn’t prove a thing, after what we had just witnessed. Jack tried to put his arm around Bernie but was immediately shaken off.
“Come on, he took us all by surprise. It could have been any one of us. I’m sorry. Is there anything we can do?” Jack asked.
”Yes, I want you both to fuck off,” Bernie said before looking directly at me. “If you hadn’t fired that flare and brought him here, Linda would still be alive.”
I didn’t want to point out that it could just have easily been Linda’s call to 911 that brought the killer here, so I knelt down next to Bernie, “We don’t know that. No matter what, we can’t stay here.”
Bernie pushed both Jack and I away and pointed the flare gun at us. “I’m staying with my wife, have you got a problem with that?”
Jack held both of his palms towards Bernie.
“No. No, we haven’t,” he said. “Do what you have to do. We’ll grab some supplies.”
We both retreated to a safe distance.
I could see the strain showing on Jack’s face.
“Jack, there’s a newsstand over there by the information desk. Let’s empty a couple of suitcases and fill them with food and water for the passengers. It will give Bernie a few minutes with Linda and get us out of here faster.”
“Okay, we can see what kind of state Bernie’s in after that, but I’m not hanging around all day waiting for him. There’s hundreds lying here, any one of them could be waiting for a moment of weakness.”