Cripple Wolf Read online

  Or there were nights like tonight. A bright full moon filled the sky, not a cloud obscured the water beneath. The light danced off the black water that seemed to stretch out forever in every direction.

  “It’s a beautiful night. Times like this, with nothing below and nothing above. Really makes you think,” Dax said.

  Chavez smirked, “Shit, are you getting into one of your Thoreau moods again?”

  “Chavez! Dax! Are you there?” Shelly’s voice cut in through their headpieces interrupting the reggae. She was one of the stewardesses and she sounded frantic.

  Chavez pushed a button on the center console, “Chavez here, what’s up?”

  It was hard to understand what she was saying. It seemed like there were people screaming in the background. “. . .back cabin . . . it’s killing everyone!” And then she cut out.

  Chavez and Dax exchanged a look.

  “I’ll call Daryl,” said Dax.

  The Airbus was a modern marvel of engineering. It was one of the largest commercial airplanes ever built. The plane had three main passenger compartments—two on the lower deck and one on the upper. The two lower ones were the business class accommodations. The back cabin, where Shelly called from, was the larger of the two and capable of holding three hundred and twenty-five passengers. The front cabin was smaller and held one hundred fifty. The upper deck held two hundred and fifty seats for first class. At full capacity, the plane was capable of transporting seven hundred and twenty-five people, and this night’s flight was nearly full.

  With such a large number of passengers, the airline staffed the plane with fifteen flight attendants to care for their needs. Five were assigned to the upper deck and the other ten were split into two teams for the business class. Shelly led the back cabin with a staff of seven. Daryl was in charge of the three for the front.

  Dax pushed the button for the front cabin, “Daryl, you there?”

  “This is Raymond.”

  “Yo Raymond, what’s going on down there? We just got a strange call from Shelly.”

  “Don’t know yet. There’s a lot of screaming from the back cabin. Daryl went to check it out.”

  “Copy, keep us up to date.”

  “Will do.”

  Dax flipped off the intercom and the music returned.

  He turned to Chavez, “What the fuck you think that’s all about?”

  The screaming started in the back cabin and did not stop. After two minutes, Daryl decided he should go check it out. He left Raymond in charge. He jogged to the curtains that divided the two compartments, his uniform’s chains and metal rings softly clanging. Worried passengers eyed his chiseled frame as he went past. He stopped and listened to the screams and the sounds of fighting. He was pretty sure he could smell blood.

  As he grabbed a hold of the curtain, images of terrorists and slit throats filled his head. He was totally unprepared for what he saw when he pulled it aside.

  The cabin looked like a slaughterhouse. Corpses and body parts littered the floors and seats. Blood was splattered everywhere, even on the ceiling.

  Most of the surviving passengers cowered at the back of the cabin, huddling together. Others climbed over the seats like they were trying to get away from something.

  Daryl scanned the room and saw what was causing the carnage. A large hairy animal of some sort was tearing its way through the people. Limbs, bodies, and gore flying in its wake.

  He grabbed the intercom handset on the wall next to him and pushed the button for the cockpit.

  “This is Daryl. Get the marshals. We have an animal loose in the back cabin.”

  Agent Willis came back to his seat and sat down next to his partner. He had just been called to the cockpit over an emergency that was apparently happening in the lower cabins.

  “What’s going on?” asked Smith. A red foam ball bounced on the end of his nose.

  Willis snickered.

  “Shut up, man. You don’t look any better.”

  Both agents wore red foam noses, rainbow colored polka-dot jumpsuits, blue over-sized shoes, and white gloves. Their wigs, however, were different. Willis had a neon green mad-scientist hairdo and Smith had a skull-cap with a bright blue frohawk.

  Their cover was always assigned before flights. But the agency really fucked it up this time. They were told there was an international clown convention happening in Portland and the Japanese branch of the International Federation of Clown Sciences and Enthusiasts would also be on their flight. But Willis and Smith were the only two clowns on board.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” answered Willis as he controlled himself. “Seems there’s some kind of animal loose in the back cabin.”

  “An animal? What kind?”

  “Don’t know. Someone probably just snuck their dog aboard.”

  “Alright,” Smith stood up, “let’s take care of this.”

  Willis followed him and they descended the narrow stairwell to the lower level. Their shoes squeaked with each step.

  As soon as they were down, a strong copper smell attacked their nostrils and screams assaulted their ears. They drew their SIG P226s and went to the dividing curtain where a visibly terrified steward was standing and passengers, some with terrible injuries and covered in blood, were running through.

  Next to them were two heavily pierced, scantily-clad, punk girls with huge tits. They saw the guns and gasped. One threw herself at the other. “Hold me, I’m scared.”

  “What’s the situation?” asked Smith.

  The steward pulled back the curtain and the agents saw the massacre that was the back of the cabin. Both agents held their guns out and went in.

  They rushed down the aisle toward the beast mauling a young woman in a metal brassiere. They stopped about ten feet away and each fired a shot into the back of the thing’s head. It dropped the woman’s body and pivoted to face them.

  “Head into the next cabin,” Smith yelled and motioned with his head backwards. Some passengers understood and ran down the opposite aisle.

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” asked Smith.

  Willis turned his attention to the animal; a shaggy, gore-soaked combination of wolf and man, sitting in a wheelchair.

  “I think it’s crippled,” commented Smith.

  The beast began wheeling toward them at a speed that would win a gold medal at the Special Olympics.

  Both agents opened fire.

  In order to be an armed Air Marshall, one must be an expert marksman. Just one stray shot could depressurize an entire airplane. Agents Smith and Willis were the best deadeyes in the business. Every shot they landed should have been a fatal blow but the thing did not even slow down.

  It slammed into them, wheeled past slashing its claws, and spun around to face them. Both agents now lay on the floor with their polka-dotted legs cut off at the knees. The men helplessly thrashed about while they bled out.

  The beast, satisfied at the disposal of this nuisance, spun to see the people running down the opposite aisle toward the next compartment.

  It howled and wheeled toward the escape route.

  “Oh shit,” Daryl said to Raymond as they watched the monster wheel straight at them.

  Daryl glanced at the people still trying to get out. There were still a large number coming down the aisles and they were only slowing each other down. He looked back at the monster and knew that it would be upon them soon.

  “We have to shut the emergency doors,” he said to Raymond.

  “But there are still people in there.”

  “That thing will be here in moments.”

  Raymond hesitated and then nodded. Both of them went to the sides of the entryways and hit the emergency buttons. As a security measure, the plane had automated steel doors, eight inches thick, which could be activated at a moment’s notice. In the event of a hijacking, the doors could isolate the affected area from the rest of the plane.

  Passengers continued to rush past and when the doors started to slowly slid
e over, the crowd surged forward. Daryl and Raymond stood back as people continued to squeeze through. Then the doors shut, cutting off the back cabin.

  People begged in both English and Japanese for the door to be opened and then a loud crash resounded and the creature hit the doors. The screaming rose in volume and then fell as the few survivors in the back cabin were scattered away from the steel doors.

  Daryl looked over at Raymond who was visibly shaking. The front cabin was now filled with lucky passengers who had escaped the massacre. People were crying and covered in gore. It was hard to tell who was actually hurt and who was just splattered.

  “Gather up the other attendants and help anyone who’s hurt,” he said to Raymond.

  He then went over to the intercom and rang up the cockpit.

  “Daryl here, I think we got it contained.”

  Kiichi, Kana, and Yousei reached the doors just as they snapped shut. They were immediately pushed forward by the other passengers attempting to escape. The force of all the bodies pressed them flat against the doors. Hands reached around and banged on the steel and voices pleaded for them to open.

  “Scene’s turning Dennis Hopper,” Yousei strained to be heard over the crowd.

  Kana nodded and pointed to their left, the direction they just came from. The three wormed their way through the mass of bodies.

  Then the beast attacked from the opposite aisle in a fugue of sharp teeth and claws. People flew into the air as its wheelchair plowed forward. The thing slashed blindly and tore through soft flesh and bone.

  The three punks broke into a full run toward the back of the plane.

  The rear back cabin had a small hallway that led to four bathrooms and a service/cooking station for the flight attendants.

  Kana ran into the cooking station. There was a steel counter with cups built into it containing all the silverware. She grabbed from on the cups and spun around with the weapon held out.

  It was a plastic spork.

  “Spastic,” she shouted and threw the utensil to the floor.

  Other passengers had seen the punks flee to the back and they were now seeking shelter in the same area.

  Kiichi and Yousei were still at the end of the hallway, right by the seating area, frantically searching the doorframe. Kiichi glanced up and saw the monster was still tearing into people at the opposite end of the back cabin.

  “Spicy,” Yousei exclaimed as he found the button that activated the panic doors. The steel barrier started to slide across. Right before it closed completely, the beast turned and met Kiichi’s eyes from across the cabin. It growled and the door shut tight.

  “People, please try to stay calm.”

  Raymond’s voice boomed over the front cabin’s public intercom. In the crowd, the flight attendants, along with a few passengers with basic first aid knowledge, worked to provide medical help for those that needed it. The injuries were many and severe. Some needed tourniquets for lost limbs, others were just being made comfortable until they bled to death. People were understandably panicked and control needed to be regained.

  “I’ve been talking to the cockpit.”

  That got the passengers’ attention. The front cabin quieted and, oddly, the smell of blood seemed to grow stronger.

  “The animal is contained—”

  As if on cue, the monster howled from the other side of the steel doors.

  “—and we are closer to Portland than we are to Tokyo, so our only option is to continue on to our destination. The pilots have been in communication with PDX and medical and security help will be waiting for us. We just need to wait this out until we land.”

  “And how long will that be?” someone in the cabin yelled out.

  Raymond paused and composed himself, “Six hours.”

  Sister Mishka Holloway picked up the baby while everyone else ran past it. It would have been easy to mistake the child as dead; its chest was split open and on the floor was a small tendril of intestine.

  But when she almost stepped down on the body, Sister Mishka noticed that its tiny chest was moving ever so slightly. The poor thing wasn’t dead yet. Instinctually, she scooped up the bloody infant and, holding it close to her habit, she ran.

  The rest was a blur, but suddenly she found herself locked in the small hallway that led to the bathrooms and kitchen. She sat down and leaned against the wall.

  There were six other passengers – the three Japanese punks, a shirtless American man with the physique of Stallone (steroid-infused RAMBO III years) flexing at no one in particular to console himself, and a young American hippy couple. It looked like the man’s lower ribs had been ripped away. His dreadlocked partner tried to console him through a stream of tears as she held in his guts through blood-stained tie-dye.

  Sister Mishka looked down at the child and gagged. Its torso was torn so wide she could see the tiny heart beat and small lungs expand and contract like spongy bellows.

  She rocked the baby against her breast and softly hummed “Hey Diddle Diddle” while she waited for it to die.

  The Star Spangler opened his eyes and tried to prop himself up. For some reason he couldn’t get his arms to work. Then he remembered – they were gone. Fortunately, his healing powers had immediately sealed the wounds and he didn’t bleed to death.

  With some struggle, he sat up and then got to his feet. He looked around the cabin. Apart from the numerous bodies, it appeared he was alone. Then he heard growling and scratching. He turned and saw the monster attacking a metal door at the back of the cabin.

  As if alerted by some sixth sense, the beast immediately turned its head and locked hungry eyes on him.

  “Fuck.” The Star Spangler turned and ran the other way. He heard the squeak of the monster’s wheels as it raced after him.

  The front exit was blocked off by another steel door. The Star Spangler kicked it and yelled for someone to open.

  He turned his head and saw the beast was right behind him.

  “Fuck!” He screamed and roundhouse kicked the creature. The thing immediately grabbed his leg and, effortlessly, wrenched it back. The limb tore away at his waist and The Star Spangler was left balanced on one leg.

  “Fuck!” He screamed once more and the monster began to beat him with his severed leg.

  Raymond heard the struggle on the other side of the door as the monster claimed another victim. He wanted to help the person out, but opening the door could mean death for everyone else in the front cabin.

  The cabin was too noisy for anyone else to have heard the attack. Daryl was organizing a retreat to the upper cabin. The monster was in a wheelchair, so if it got free, he figured it would probably have a problem with the stairs.

  Most of the passengers were already on the upper level but some of the extremely injured were too hard to move. Raymond walked across the cabin passing at least two dozen people missing limbs or trying to hold in their guts. Attendants and some passengers assisted the wounded as best they could, but the plane just wasn’t prepared for this kind of emergency.

  Daryl handed juice boxes to some of the passengers. He saw Raymond coming and waved him over. The two stewards went to a corner of the cabin free from any passengers.

  “I was thinking,” said Daryl, “I think I know what that thing is.”

  “Yeah?”

  “A werewolf.”

  “Come on,” said Raymond.

  “No, think about it. It’s a full moon tonight and that thing was in a wheelchair. What kind of animal needs a wheelchair?”

  Raymond didn’t have an answer for that.

  “And, I’m pretty sure I saw an older guy in a wheelchair get on during boarding.”

  “I wasn’t paying attention to the back cabin.”

  “A werewolf,” Daryl leaned in closer, “we got a fucking werewolf on the plane. You’ve seen the movies, right? You know what that means?”

  “We need some silver bullets?”

  “No . . . well, that too, but think about it. What happens when
a werewolf bites someone?”

  Raymond felt the blood rush out of his face. He turned and looked around a cabin full of people nursing bite wounds.

  Mohammad sat in an overstuffed chair in the upper cabin. There was no enjoying the niceties of first class, not with Satan having sent a minor to thwart his mission. For what other reason could that beast be here? He saw it kill Abdul, but it would not kill him. No beast would stop him.

  He stood up and walked toward the front of the cabin. The stewards had set up a service station and were offering people food, drinks, and alcohol – all free of charge. Several weak willed passengers were already passed out drunk.

  He asked for an orange juice and the stewardess gave him an apologetic smile. She shook her head “no” with over-enthusiasm that made the various metal chains and rings of her uniform jingle.

  “Sorry, we’re all out. We do have plenty of Cucumber Pepsi and lemon vinegar Kit-Kats.”

  Mohammad raised an incredulous eyebrow. “No, thanks.”

  He turned around and headed back to his seat.

  The cabin the monster had attacked was the most populated of them all and, while the upper cabin was packed tight, it seemed like there should have been more people. He walked past two young women, their skin covered in tattoos and piercings. What little clothing they were wearing clung skin-tight to their bodies, soaked with blood.

  They held each other, softly crying, and then one gently kissed the other. The kiss deepened and they began groping each other, blood soaked breasts sticking together, lip piercings tangling in their passionate embrace.

  Mohammad scoffed and hurried past.

  The devil really was going to great lengths to stop him but he was ordained by Allah. Nothing could get in his way.

  He took his seat and leaned his head against cushioned neck rest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the weight in his chest. Not only would he be striking a blow against a symbolic Satan, he would even be taking out one of his personal servants.