Escape From Dinosauria (Dinopocalypse Book 1) (34 page)

“Sir. Please take your seat!”

Emitting a boar-like grunt, the shackled man reared back his head. Glowering over the seal of a rubber respirator mask, the whites of his feral eyes were stained red with blood. He lurched back, inadvertently hoisting the front of his shirt to reveal another incision hemmed into his belly. The man released a gurgling cry as his handlers grappled him, and forced his head back down between his knees. Jackknifed at the midsection, his back heaved with every strained breath, yet he managed to twist his head back to the side. Bloody eyes shimmering with a nameless emotion, he appeared to plead to Hart for something for which he was unable to ask. A thread of drool dropped from the chin of his mask, and whipped languidly over the tops of his slippers.

“Sir!” The stewardess marched out of the galley. “If you do not take your seat, I’m going to have to—”

Her sentence was cut short by a thunderous explosion, and some screams. Hatless, the nearest fed toppled over into the aisle. His body quivered with reflexive palsies. Gobbets of brain matter drizzled down the galley wall.

Four wolves arose from amidst the sheep, and they stepped out into the aisle. With the exception of the revolvers in their hands, the black bandanas covering the lower halves of their faces, they didn’t appear to be dressed to any uniform congruity. Two, clothed in suits, blended seamlessly into the predominant business culture. A third wore a tee-shirt and jeans. The nearest, who’d fired the fatal shot, was the man wearing the Baltimore Orioles cap. Pistols leveled, they pressed their way down the center aisle toward the rear of the plane.

“We’re here for the prisoner,” Oriole shouted, aiming his revolver in the direction of row twenty-nine. “Hand him over, and no one else gets shot!”

A backpedaling stewardess tripped over the brainless corpse. She landed on her rump in a pool of gore. Smearing her hands on the hips of her skirt, she crab-walked back into the galley, whimpering with every breath. The surviving fed was humped protectively over his captive, keeping low behind the seats. A revolver was clenched in his hand.

“We’re not playing games,” Oriole shouted. “Let him go! Now!”

The plane was still gaining altitude. It was tilted at a precarious pitch. The hijackers clung to headrests, sliding their feet as they edged their way down the sloped aisle. Lights flickered along the roof of the fuselage, suggesting that something electrical might have sustained some damage. With a static pop, all the lights went out. A collective cry arose in the sudden gloom.

Hart glanced over his shoulder in response to a whisper. It was the federal agent. The man snatched off his dark glasses to reveal his wild eyes. He jabbed a finger in the vicinity of Hart’s feet.

Shifting his knees to the right, Hart peered down into the shadows of his foot well. His eyes widened. There was a dropped revolver resting right beside his foot. Just inches away from the corpse’s twitching fingers, it had somehow tumbled beneath the chair.

The fed emitted an insistent grunt, stabbing the air repeatedly with his index finger. There was no way. There was no way in hell that he could contort his oversized body into a position that would enable him to reach that weapon without the hijackers taking notice. They’d kill him if he went for the gun, no question. They were only about twelve rows away, and closing in fast. Hart slid his boot over the chunk of steel. Keeping his eyes locked on the four hijackers, he scooted the weapon beneath his foot until it was within Heather’s reach. She was flattened behind the seats with her son. Once he was certain that her eyes were fixed on the suspicious movement of his foot, he lifted his boot, and gave her a quick glimpse of the hidden revolver. The rapid cadence of her breathing stopped. She’d seen it. She understood what he needed her to do.

“Put your hands in the air, and get up from behind the seat!” Oriole halted his advance, a few rows away. “I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to put a few hot ones through those chairs!”

Trembling, Heather’s hand descended.

“One …”

Blood chugged up the sides of Hart’s throat, pulsing wildly inside of his ears. His mouth went dry. He could feel the color draining from his face.

“Two …”

Her fingers curled soundlessly around the weapon. Lifting it from the floor, she passed it right up to Hart in one smooth motion. Before he was ready to receive such a terrible thing, he felt the weight of cold steel drop right into the palm of his hand. It was his turn.

“You idiots have no idea what you’re dealing with.” The voice of the federal agent growled up from behind the seats, better resembling the warning sounds of a cornered animal than the words of a human being. “I don’t know who you are, or who you’re working for, but they’re lying to you. This prisoner is a living, breathing—weapon.”

Oriole popped his neck one way, and then the other. His fingers tightened around the grip of his revolver. “Just let him go.” 

“I’ll kill him before I hand him over to you.”

The plane bucked, canted, throwing the hijackers momentarily off-balance. They swiveled their heads, gawping around, as surprised as everyone else by the gaps of silence that interrupted the droning engines. Something was wrong. The grinding staccato of failing turbines gave way to the terrifying stillness of rushing air. An unmistakable stench permeated the gloomy fuselage. It was the reek of hot wires, melting plastic, overheated electrical components. Vibrations coursed through the fuselage, rattling unseen sheets of metal against their rivets. A flash of greenish light through the starboard windows wrought a collective scream.

The furthest hijacker broke rank. He began wrestling some duffle bags out of the overhead compartments. As each identical piece of luggage was freed of its trappings, it was tossed through the air. The other hijackers caught these bags, cinched straps around their shoulders, and snapped tactical clips to metal grommets on the hips of their belts.

“Have it your way,” Oriole said, snatching a thrown duffle from the air. “They never specified whether or not we needed to bring him back alive—not when all they want is that junk sewed up inside of him.”

Hart erupted from his seat. A piercing screech unlike any sound he’d ever produced erupted from his throat as he squeezed the trigger again, and again. Hijackers toppled and writhed before the snapping hammer, deafening concussions, flashes of burning cordite. A couple of them rose, and returned fire. Windows detonated, sucking paperwork and litter from the rows into a howling vortex. Screams filled an airplane that seemed devolved to a canopy of apes alerted to the predators in their midst. Hart’s eyes widened as bullets ripped hot tunnels through his flesh. Blinded by a spray of his own blood, he felt the revolver tumble from his hands. He was done, retired. His last and greatest stunt was complete.

Hart crumpled behind the seats, landing face-down on a Tarzan comic. He moaned in the roaring current of air. Pages of the comic flapped wetly against his cheek, painting his skin in the feast of blood slaked by hordes of illustrated dinosaurs.

Rending metal delivered the brightest light he’d ever known, peeling back the walls of reality, and scattering its remnants across the zenith. It was all air, out there. A vast openness received him, where flesh and metal enmeshed, where ruby droplets pelted blizzards of paperwork in a plummeting cloud of debris that dreamt it was once a plane, before being rudely awakened.

Flying, dying, beaming up at the infernal sun, Hart sailed through waves of profound gratitude known only to those souls with seconds to live. For the first time in his life, he felt at peace. Death was something beautiful to behold, even as the heavenly effervescence was eclipsed by a passing shadow. Hart blinked. A man came gliding by. Pumping his cuffed limbs through the wailing airstream, he cocked his malformed head to regard Hart through a blood drop eye. An infantile smile crept over Hart’s face. Like a strange bird sprung from the trappings of its cage, the shackled man soared off through littered skies, delivered from peril into paradise.

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