NEW EXCERPT
FALLEN LEAVES
Tall Native American man looked out upon a sea of dark scarlet streaks and tangled disembodied bones. Scraps of ragged blood saturated skin hung loosely from them like some limp half mast dirty excuse for a flag flailing bravely against the wind upon a lone, lacklustre flagpole. He could see as far as the curtains at the rear of the cabin which were also caked in blood and savagely torn. Void empty vessels of loved ones, of women, children, husbands, wives, daughters and sons chaotically cluttered the floor below. Some were enshrined together across the aisles, some lay tangled along the cabin floor and some were strewn mercilessly askew amid the heavily soiled and mangled seats. Stepping over a battered torso tall Native American man slipped a little and instinctively grasped the air for a hold. Sighing heavily as his left foot cracked unceremoniously into the lifeless, pathetic ribcage of a recently departed single mother, an excruciating mass of bodily secretions splattered forth from within and splayed his treasured dark trousers with a sticky sweet unwelcome souvenir of rough green, yellow and scarlet pus.
Cursing silently he turned back towards the female.
Slender female stopped as she spied something shimmering out of the corner of her eye. Glancing to her left she saw a small oval object that seemed to pulsate and throb brightly within the dimly lit cabin. Instinctively she knelt down slowly amongst the tangled mass of bodily detritus and scooped it up. It seemed to be made of a metallic awe inspiring metal and caught the light transcendently within her hand. She likened the metal to pure silver, but exquisite newly forged highly polished silver of the highest calibre. It was maybe an inch long by half an inch wide and barely a millimetre thick. Within the oval sat a large winged insect with a shimmering pair of hinged wings and a long slender body of polished metal. Inlaid upon the bottom front curves of the oval just below the insects tale was a small engraved word. Bringing it closer to her eye she squinted it into focus.
Odonata. She was sure of it. What does that mean? She mused to herself.
Without thinking she slipped the strange object into her pocket just as a low resonating sound permeated her ears from the far end of the cabin.
“You hear that?”
“Nope, what?”
“That noise.” the slender female re-iterated.
“What noise, you wanna elaborate?”
“That noise, sounded like a murmur or a sigh.”
“Maybe someone’s still alive, you check over that aisle I’ll check this one then we’ll call this in.”
Slender female began to desensitise to her surroundings as she told herself not to believe what her eyes were telling her. Told herself to believe it was all a dream and that all around her lay a sea of lilies, a sea of tulips and fluffy rabbits scurrying across her feet. She held onto these thoughts as she made her way over to the far aisle not daring to look down but slowly edging forward one painfully slow and laborious step at a time.
“I don’t like this.” She directed back.
“It will be ok, try not to think of what is around you. Concentrate on the task at hand, check out where the noise came from and try and find some clues as to what happened here.”
“I’ll try, but it’s just so horrible..It’s, it’s...”
BOOM
a short, rapid nauseating sound akin to distant approaching thunder punched the air outside.
Milliseconds later the noise abated.
Then the shaking commenced.
The whole cabin shook and juddered violently and effortlessly from side to side. Within the haphazard mass of seats dismembered torsos and limbs shot violently to the floor with the force of the trembling fuselage. More bloodied torsos flew into the aisle as both the female and Native American man fought to keep their balance.
The fuselage strained and creaked as the shaking continued.
“HOLD ON.” The male roared as his colleague fell heavily to the floor.
Neither of them saw the far lavatory door behind them fly open with an un-heavenly thwack. Behind the lavatory door a small figure battled bravely with the unknown force that had now ensnared the jumbo. The door swung ferociously back and forth again and again until finally a small dirty shivering hand strained outwards from the inside of the lavatory grabbed the handle and pulled the door tightly shut with a firm resolute clack.
Clack the door locked.
Clack the shaking abruptly ceased.
It lasted no more than a minute but it was enough to send Native American man into a heightened status of battle ready alertness. Scanning the area with a resolute sense of readiness he located his colleague in the far aisle and deftly paced over towards her
He reached down, offered her an open hand.
“I’m fine, I’ll be ok.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah, just give me some space and I’ll...God sake.” Slender female bellowed as trying to straighten and stand caused her to slip and fall back again as her footwear connected with a slimy, protruding mass of bodily serums that she had unwittingly landed in moments before.
Tall man caught her arm and gently eased her up in one smooth swoop.
“Easy now. Come on let’s go find out where that little shake just came from shall we?”
C O M I N G S O O N
A D A R K S C I - F I R O L L E R C O A S T E R
O F A R I D E
F A L L E N L E A V E S
I T ' S C O M I N G. . .
Copyright C.Anthony Boot 2014-2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
All characters contained in these tales are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.