Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
Frank closed the door behind him and proceeded to sit behind his desk. For the first time all day, he finally had a few hours to himself. Running the head office of any airline was no mean feat, and he had the meanest employers of them all in King Airways.
He heaved a sigh of relief; at least the much talked about Birdie 747 had now taken flight. The rush was over, and all the pressure relieved, at least to a large extent. There were no more red carpets and ass-licking board members to cater to, now it was time to do what he knew how to do best, run his office.
He closed his eyes, he could do with some shut eye. Today had been a success after all. What was the worst that could happen?
The shrill ring of his desk telephone cut sharply into his thoughts and he was momentarily startled. He swore under his breath, the suckers wouldn't even let him think for a minute about his own efforts. He reached for the receiver and then stopped. Let it ring instead he reasoned, he had done enough to justify letting a few calls go unanswered.
But after two more rings he had begun contemplating unplugging the damn device, then his mobile also started vibrating. "Got to be damn serious", he murmured under his breath. "Douche bags can't even wipe their asses without calling me for instructions." He picked up his mobile, safer to say he wasn't in the office.
"Frank here..."
But it took only about three seconds for the colour to drain off Frank's face. After another ten, he took the phone off his ears without having said a word. Then the sudden blast of the general alarm suddenly animated him. With renewed determination, Frank stood, reached for his jacket, and left the office...
........
"The blasted Federal Space Agents Sir, they have their yellow shirts swarming all over the place like it's their aircraft."
Andrew, the only field officer that Frank actually trusted, filled him in as he arrived at the crash site. Andrew was also quite reliable, he had been first on the scene soon as the news had broke, he had known that Frank would want to count on him. Sometimes when he was sufficiently drunk enough, he would tell his wife that he was the one who actually ran the head office of King Airways. But of course, Frank didn't know that.
"Any survivors?" Frank asked. If the FSA were already here, he'd like to know just how much of a cover up he would have to do.
"Just a terrified seven year old girl sir, who fell into a coma once we asked her what she saw up there. The medics are currently attending to her."
So it was a disaster, Frank thought. So much for what could go wrong. His thoughts shifted to the Birdie 747, and even as he stared once more at the wreckage, he knew the plane was a goner, such a waste of a beauty. Too bad for the insurance companies, because he was going to squeeze out every last cent he could from them. Right now it was that, or his job, and he wasn't ready to return to the labour market.
"Fetch me the engineer in charge, I need to know what went wrong with my plane." Frank bawled out to Andrew.
As Andrew left to find whoever was the engineer in charge, Frank walked to the makeshift tent used for medical services. The sight he met was horrendous at best, and if one didn't know any better, one would have thought the bodies being bagged were victims of a monstrous carnivore, and not a plane crash. The way chunks of flesh were missing from certain parts of the bodies made it look like some wild animal attacked them. Frank couldn't stand the sight, he signalled for the man who gave the others commands to step outside.
"Where is the girl?" Frank asked.
"She's been quarantined sir". The chief medic duly recognized Frank, just like anyone who ever had anything to do with King Airways would. "Because of the strange nature of the injuries we found on the bodies, we decided to keep her separately until we could complete our tests."
Frank listened for a moment, and after seemingly putting it to a bit of thought, he responded. "Send her to King Healthcare, our health facility for kids right away, and make sure she isn't quarantined over there. Use the chopper"
The Chief Medic began to protest, but he stopped upon seeing the look on Frank's face. No one could convince Frank otherwise once his mind was set on something. He knew that as much as anyone who ever worked under Frank. So he simply nodded his assent and left to carry out the order.
Frank looked at his watch, as he waited. Where on earth was Andrew and his Chief Engineer? His eyes caught another yellow shirt beside the wreckage, the damned FSA, he was going to ignore them completely. One of the things that had brought him this far in his career was that innate ability to know when to address public officials. Today was for them to poke nose, tomorrow he would have a press conference arranged.
He soon spotted Andrew and a tall lanky man approaching. Frank recognized the man, he was one of the more memorable faces from the ground offices at the headquarters. This was the first time he would pay any attention to the man's job detail. Apparently that was his Chief Engineer, who knew? They walked up to him.
"Good day sir, it is...."
"What happened to my plane?" Frank cut into any unnecessary compliments the chief engineer was about to give.
"It's still unknown sir. The black box is completely fried, and we've been unable to retrieve the pilot's log. What is funny is that there seems to be no information from the cockpit, almost as if no one flew the plane the short distance it covered."
Frank didn't understand much of what was being explained to him. There was only one thing he truly cared about.
"How bad is that? "
"Pretty much a PR disaster sir", the Chief Engineer responded.
Frank mulled for a moment, but before he could think of a course of action the chief medic joined the group.
"Sir, there is good news and bad news." he paused.
At Frank's gesture, he continued. "The good news is that the passengers are alive, all of them. They were only in a deeper state of coma than the girl. We have now taken them out of the body bags to the intensive unit. None of them however can recall what happened."
Frank urged him on.
"The bad news however, is that after all counts, we can't find a single member of the flight crew that left with the plane. They all seem to have somehow vanished mid air."
Frank forced a chuckle, this was getting out of hand. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a yellow shirt approaching from distance. He had to get this matter under control now.
"Is there something you can do about that cockpit information?" he asked the chief engineer.
"There is a second secret video box specially fitted in to the plane sir. My crew are working on extracting the feed even as we speak."
As if on cue, a young technician comes running over. He and the chief engineer begin to speak in technical terms. Seeing that the yellow shirt was drawing closer, Frank ran out of patience.
"Let's hear it," he bellowed.
The chief engineer turns, a small video device in his hand. He fumbles with some buttons, and then the screen lights up... he hits another button, and then a video starts to play... and there it was...
The seven flight crew members, all crowded together in the cockpit, each with sufficient blood stains on their hands, mouths and uniforms. It was clear that the body parts on the floor were not theirs, but this wasn't the strangest thing on the screen... No, it wasn't...
As Frank and the others watched, the seven flight crew members somehow merged into one...
...one little seven year old girl...
The Chief Medic immediately turned and ran, in the process knocking the video device off the chief engineer's hands. The chief engineer and his assistant stood rooted to the spot, while Andrew reached out to hold Frank as his boss began to collapse...
The man in the yellow shirt saw it all...
And somewhere in King Healthcare, seven inhuman monsters were being let loose...
THE END... OR NOT... for obvious reasons
THE PART TWO
The grandfather clock rang out the alarm for the seventh hour of the morning, as Andrew zipped his box closed. He could already feel the heat from the sun slowly rising outside. He knew he needed to be on the road, but these days it took more and more effort to push himself into action.
It had been 3 years already since that godforsaken crash. The crash that had changed his life so drastically. It still felt like only yesterday when he had his life figured out, with a career on the up, and a pretty wife waiting for him back home. Today, all he had was his poor self, having gone through a thankfully not-so-messy divorce following his many mental health issues after the crash.
But then he had had it easy, compared to the others. Frank had suffered a stroke, a fatal one. Perhaps it was good for him, because the charade that had followed would probably have killed him as well. The others had lost their jobs too, both the chief engineer, and the rest of the team responsible for the 747. It had been a corporate massacre.
One thing had however, remained an open question. That was the one thing that had nearly driven the real survivors of the event mad. Where was the little girl? For no one had found her afterwards. Neither had anyone been able to trace any of the seven crew members. It had felt as though they simply disappeared off the face of the earth. It was as though she never even arrived King Healthcare...
The sharp sound of the car horn outside shook Andrew momentarily out of his thoughts. He had forgotten entirely about the UBER driver. He quickly took one deep breath, and with a resigned determination, he picked up his box, and made for the door.
...
She stared at the timepiece on the dashboard as the hour slowly hit and crawled past the number seven. It always marveled her, how humans structured their lives according to this number-repeating object. But then humans will be humans she factored, which is why she was about to do what she was about to do.
She thought about the last time. She had overlooked one vital factor, and somehow they had spotted her. It was both a lesson and a regret for her. A lesson because she had never before contemplated the full ignorance of the humans. Some had called her Leviathan, others had labelled her Hydra. But no one had truly known what she was. And it was this ignorance of her true self that was her real power. But then she also had regrets, regrets that she had to cut short her foray at the healthcare facility she had been taken to.
Disappearing was easy, and for three years, she had kept low, she had kept hidden. She knew what needed to be done, but she also knew that the timing had to be right. So she had bidden her time instead. Today though, it will begin again. And this time, there would be no mistakes..
A devilish smile began to play on the side of her lips as she relished the thought of what was to come. Who knew what name she would be called this time... But she quickly shook the thought off. Only humans cared for human fancies...
She steadied herself, and honked on the horn two short times.. and soon enough, through the side mirror of the car, she watched Andrew approach, box in hand.
Leviathan took another form, just as the door handle pulled.
"Where to, Sir?"
"The airport, please."
The driver smiled...
And later that day, the general alarm in Peach Air facility went off...
THE END... Again?
Boooooooo!!!
Now stop holding your breath, and thanks for stopping by!
Edit: Sorry guys, no words suffice, truly.
If this is your first read of this story, thank you for wanting to read me. I would say I did this for you, but then there are better ways to bring this to you, as I now know.
And if this is your second read, you know the Sladen loves YOU, thanks a bunch for coming back.
鉂わ笍馃挕
