First Activation

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.”

It sounded callous, but Jack was right. As hard as it was, we had to get Bernie back to safety.