Zombie Flight

Zombie Flight - chapter 4 - Business Class

Business class was laid out in a 2-2-2 formation, and most of the passengers had reclined their seats into beds. Green numbers illuminated the aisle at shin height. A hodgepodge of faces showed in the dark, framed by headphones and lit by screens set into the backs of the seats in front of them. When the apocalypse came, there'd still be a demand for business class.

A few of the passengers rose from their slumber as we came through, including a woman who sat in the row in front of me, eyeing me. Weird, another one looking at my hand as if it were a slab of prime steak.

Something made me turn back to Nola. She was watching me like a hawk. "Are you sure you're okay there, Nola?"

"I'm fine, but thank you. Here we are—6B," she said as I sat down next to my traveling companion. Little Susie didn't look up, her eyes stayed glued to the screen in front of her.

Nola leaned in close, trying to be quiet so as to not wake any of the sleeping passengers. "You're one of the good ones—politicians, I mean. My brother's an Afghanistan veteran, and he said you look out for his support group. And all that stuff you said about our freedoms in your last campaign. Well, I'm a Californian now, I guess," she said in her Georgia accent. "I voted for you anyway. Hey, maybe sometime we could . . . well . . ." She started to blush as she held my hand, and she had quite the grip on it.

"Relying on politicians is a cop-out," I snapped, ignoring the stares from the other passengers. I lowered my voice, but I couldn't drop the anger. "If you're really interested in freedom, there's an air marshal back there." I motioned with my head at a man across the aisle and two seats behind me.

Nola wasn't smiling anymore. "You could at least pretend you don't know he's an air marshal, Senator." She looked across to Susie, who was still staring at the TV with her headphones on. "You're meant to be a role model."

She had me. I didn't need to be an asshole like that. It was getting to be a default setting lately. This anger wasn't like me—or didn't use to be. I went to apologize, but the woman in front spoke first. I'd be damned if she didn't sniff and give me the side eye as she asked Nola for some mineral water.

"Sure," Nola said, putting on a practiced smile as she pointed at the seat belt sign. "You'll need to remain seated though, ma'am."

That's when I caught Nola staring at the bottle of pills with the distinctive pink OxyContin label. I could just see them in the woman's hands through a gap between the seats. Nola reached out to grab them, and the woman slapped her hand away. It was quick, but it happened. Stranger still, the woman glared back at Nola but didn't take it any further, and she was the type who'd have no problem making a scene.

Something is wrong with Ms. Nola, alright. She doesn't look like a druggie—too much weight around the hips.

She and the woman in front eyed each other like two dogs readying for a fight.

"I better make sure everyone's belted in," said Nola. "I'll be back with your water in a moment, ma'am."

The woman in front turned to look at me for a moment—or at least at my hand. A year away, and they still remember me. Pam would be pleased.

Nola walked off to do her rounds of business class. Could I have taken the wrong pills? Either that or I was getting paranoid. I could have sworn Nola's eyes were boring into me from behind—that is, before she went past and through the curtain to the service area.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. Susie, the little girl tucked underneath a blanket in the seat next to mine, looked over. I shrugged my shoulders. "My temper before—sorry. Did she say anything?"

Susie lifted her mask. "She asked about you. I said you smelled like drinks."

It was the first time Susie had shown me her face the whole flight. Weird. She had one of those old faces—nine going on ninety.

"Good girl, Susie. Here you go." I handed over five hundred yen. "I'm just going to rest my eyes for a minute."

"Yen? You said you'd give me five dollars, Richie."

"Your grandma can get them changed at the airport," I said, closing my eyes. I could tell Susie hadn't told me everything, but I just leaned back in my chair and let the Ibuprofen start relieving the pressure in my head. I was drifting back to sleep when I felt her nudge me in the ribs.

"You hurt your hand." Susie reached into the mini backpack at her side and pulled out a packet of Band-Aids. "You've got to cover the blood more. They smell it. That's very bad."

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