First Activation

Bernie's patience appeared to be similar to Jacks’, and I didn’t want either mind racing when we had more important things to think about. We needed to stay focused on getting around to the front of the terminal. I didn’t want to be unfair to Bernie, but speculating on events would only provide a distraction. If an exclusion zone had been created, it was a big one that stretched well beyond the airport. The only apparent signs of life were unrecognisable, distant, sporadic noises.

Jack started pulling at the fence again, while I organised Bernie and Linda into an all-round defence formation for observation purposes. We all crouched around Jack, collectively covering the arcs around us, searching for signs of movement. I scanned from the terminal to the plane for around five minutes as I heard Jack ripping at the fence behind me, occasionally cursing. The man hanging off the jet bridge took up much of my attention at first, but as I continued my sweeps, I spent less time staring at his corpse.

“Right, we’re in business. Let’s get through here and find out what’s going on,” Jack said.

I turned to see him wriggling through a gap he had created at the bottom of the fence, Bernie and Linda followed, with me bringing up the rear. I stood and looked at Jack.

“That’s the quickest I’ve ever got through customs,” he said.

Nobody commented on his badly timed joke, Jack paused to shake his head. I nodded in the direction of the terminal and Bernie started to walk towards it slowly. We followed in an extended line spaced out over thirty yards, Linda next, and then Jack.

“Which terminal is this?” I said.

“Does it matter?” Jack answered.

“Get back, now,” Bernie shouted. We retreated ten yards and crouched behind a car.

“What did you see, Bernie? What is it?” Linda asked.

“There’s people… lying around the front of the terminal — over cars, on the floor, everywhere!”

“Are they all dead?” Jack said.

“It’s a fucking nightmare.”

Bernie put his head in his hands. Linda wrapped her arm around his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Do you want to go back to the plane?” she asked.

We’d come too far now to turn back. The possibility was remote that a large group of armed men could be lying in wait for us. We were on a commercial flight and shouldn’t pose any real threat to whoever had taken out a whole airport. However, I was worried that we might be breathing in some kind of germ. Had a biological weapon been used?

“Let’s take it slow, and try to find some help. A working phone line, anything. Jack, are you okay with that?”

“I don’t see what other choices we have. Linda, you and Bernie can always go back to the plane.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bernie replied. “Linda is staying with us, and we’ll carry on to the front of the terminal building, and then cross to the car park.”

Linda nodded. Jack pulled the Sig in front of him again in a two handed grip, and I loaded a cartridge into the flare gun and kept it in my right hand.

I could understand why Bernie wanted Linda by his side. I doubt either Jack or I would have been part of this endeavour individually.

Jack took the lead as we edged around to the front of the terminal, then all stopped to take in the scene in front of us. I froze, open-mouthed. Bernie’s comment about a nightmare was accurate; it looked like a medieval battlefield.

There must have been over three hundred bodies strewn along the front of the terminal. Some were between stationary cars on the road, but most of them were around the front entrance of the building. I moved closer for a better look. Many of the butchered corpses had improvised weapons close to their hands — a wrench, a broken bottle, or a rock. Others seemed to have turned their weapons on themselves. One young man had fallen backwards over a luggage trolley, and it appeared he died while grasping a knife that had been forced into the roof of his mouth. A well-dressed woman looked as if she had performed some kind of lethal surgery on her neck with a pair of nail scissors.

As we crept past a police car slowly, it appeared that the officers inside had taken part in a quick draw contest. One of them was leaning against a shattered window with a bullet hole in his eye. The winner had decorated the interior ceiling with his brains. I reached into the passenger side of the car, and took the semi-automatic Glock service pistol that was still in the limp hand of the quick draw loser.

I made the Glock safe, stowed the flare gun in my backpack, and then turned to look at the rest of the group. Jack stepped closer to me, I could see Linda’s lips quivering, and Bernie was silently shaking his head, his hand on Linda’s shoulder.

“This is unbelievable. What the hell has happened here?” Jack whispered.

“I’ve got no idea. Did you notice that they all look like they turned on each other?” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Yeah, what do you think kicked it all off?” He had lowered the Sig and stood slumped against a car hood. “Why did they all attack each other? It doesn’t make any sense.”