He would definitely check again on that pilot before he left.
Slowly he walked through the small first-class section. Four rows, two seats on one side, a single seat on the other. Only a few passengers were there, the remaining seats held crew.
His foot kicked an empty water bottle as he inched down the aisle.
There were many empty bottles: water, soda, juice, and wine.
He didn’t need to check for pulses, he knew by looking at those in first class that they were dead.
Their faces were pale and dry, eyes sunken in, a dried white foam formed around their mouths and on their chins. All of their torsos and bellies were unnaturally distended. A sign of ‘hot car death’—the temperature reached too high, and their insides slowly baked.
There wasn’t enough water to save them.
But how did the man from the back of the plane survive?
Surely the temperature in the back was the same as the front? Too hot to sustain life.
And as Kit walked into the main cabin and economy section it didn’t feel any cooler. It was much of the same view. Scattered bottles, snack bags… bodies.
It was a twenty-row aircraft and it wasn’t until Kit hit row fifteen that he felt it. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he swore he felt a temperature change. That was when he noticed the last three rows were empty. Where were the passengers or had the rows always been empty?
“Anything, Kit?” Cass called out.
“Nothing yet… but…” Kit peered forward to the end of the craft. He saw a leg extending out from the back to the aisle. It looked like a man’s leg.
He picked up the pace, slipping near sideways down the narrow aisle. When he arrived at the leg, he noticed the curled toes on the bare foot.
That wasn’t all he noticed.
Early on, after they landed, someone had opened up the rear left door, realizing the twenty-four hours were up, he guessed.
It brought in fresh air, lowering the temperate on the plane, but it hadn’t lasted for long and for the same reason Kit and the others never saw that the door was open. The fungus had grown over it leaving only small pockets of openings and air. The missing passengers, six in all, were gathered by the door.
Two of them were dead, while the other four, one of them wearing a pilot uniform, huddled together. Their legs twisted around each other, slightly overlapping. They grasped at the fungus, their necks arched and mouths open, aiming for the tiny pocket openings, desperately trying to suck in every bit of cool air.
They were alive, barely, but they were alive.
“Cass!” Kit called out. “Get the others. I’m gonna need some help.”
Outskirts, Las Vegas
“Vegas five miles.” Ada looked down at her watch. “Good timing.”
“Yep,” Eb replied. “I can make this drive like I’m on auto pilot. Kind of sad, though, I won’t be able to do that anymore.”
“Sure you can.”
“Nah, it won’t be the same. Although, a demented part of me kind of is looking forward to seeing the apocalypse Vegas. I think it goes back to reading The Stand.”
“That was downtown, not the strip,” said Ada.
“True.”
“Cass ever come out here with you?”
“Oh, sure. But not that much. Couldn’t pull her off the slots. She used to say she could lose all her thousand dollars a week for life easily. Claimed it was her addictive personality and she could easily get addicted to things.”
“Well, we learned that to be true,” Ada said.
“Yes, we did. Still, if she wasn’t riding out for that plane, I may have asked if she would have come with me. No offense.”
“None taken,” Ada replied. “What happened there, Eb? I mean we all wondered. What you and Cass went through, the town hadn’t seen a tragedy hit a family like that since the fire killed the Hoffer kids.”
“You can say I wanted to embrace every memory and hold on to them and Cass, well, she didn’t want a part of anything that reminded her.”
Ada nodded. “Still, is there more to the story? I mean, we all took it as you gave up on her.”
“I kind of did. It was purely selfish. I couldn’t help her or save her, and I just couldn’t be there when she died,” Eb said. “And it was gonna play one of two extremes. Either she’d get help or die.”
“She never moved on after you.”
Eb laughed. “She remarried.”
“Oh, stop. You and me both know that was platonic and for insurance. Mark’s a good friend. If it wasn’t for that good insurance, she would never have gone away for the help she got. He saved her. If it wasn’t for him she’d be dead.”
“Technically, if it wasn’t for Kit she’d be dead, hit by the next Walmart truck zooming down the highway at eighty miles an hour.”
Ada laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Maybe I gave up too soon. I always ask myself that. At least we’re still friends. Good friends. I’ll always love her. I never loved anyone like I loved Cass. Heck, who am I kidding. I never loved anyone else.”
Ada reached over and tapped his hand. “You know the world. It’s bad. And there is gonna be very little room for second chances. Why don’t you see if enough time has passed where you’re both on the same wavelength? Besides, there’s not many choices, and if you don’t take another chance with that wife of yours, Hot Cop is gonna snap that right up.”
“What?” Eb asked with a laugh. “Kit.”
“Not talking Floyd. Kit is the only hot cop in town.”
“Nah, they’re friends.”
“He had her over for dinner twice this week. Twice mind you and the first time…” Ada nodded. “He had her over on Hamburger Helper taco night.”
Eb hit the brakes. “What the hell, Ada, Kit’s a friend. He wouldn’t do that. Would he?”
Ada shrugged. “In a world with a population of two hundred. Who else is he gonna snatch up?” She smiled at Eb. “I’m teasing you.”
“So he didn’t have her over for Hamburger Helper taco night?”
“Oh, no he did.”
Eb grumbled, shook his head and that was when he finally looked up and noticed. “It’s here.” He felt a thick heaviness upon seeing the sporadic patches of the green fungus. “I didn’t think it would be here.”
“Well, Art said it hits everything dead. You don’t get more dead than sand and dirt.”
“To me, Vegas always symbolized life.” Eb continued to drive toward town. “I guess not anymore.”
Willow Springs, AZ
Six.
They evacuated six more people from the plane—four women, two men, one of which was the pilot. All had been huddled by the open back exit.
Not all of those grasping for life had lived.
Kit went back and checked for a pulse of every passenger on the plane even if he knew damn well they were dead. Two of those passengers still held on for dear life. A weakened pulse and a prognosis of death shortly after.
They took the two passengers from the plane. At least they didn’t have to die there like the other one hundred and two people.
Carrying them from the plane and into the van was a group effort. Art and Niles would carry the passenger to the exit, and because Kit was the strongest of them all, he would be on the roof of the van with Cass to guide the person out, then Kit would climb off the van while Niles joined Cass on the roof to lower them to Kit.
The van was running, the air conditioner pumping and they loaded everyone, a total of seven into the church van.
It was a short but physically exhausting process for them all.
“I can’t properly examine them,” Niles said. “Not here. Not in the van.”
“We should head to Griffin,” Cass suggested. “We’re talking two hours.”