A Time of Useful Consciousness

Trolley

I needed to get back to the other passengers. There was going to be an explanation to this even if it meant I was having some kind of stroke. Instead of running I walked purposefully while focusing on calming my breathing. I took this flight between Melbourne and LA multiple times every year, and as long as I kept my eyes down I saw only the familiar. That sense of familiarity and normalcy was quickly ruined whenever I looked down the aisle, the curving floor reaching up towards the ceiling.

As I passed through the galley I closed the curtain behind me. If I had to lead people back this way, then I could spare them from some of the panic. After a few cabins, I shuffled into one of the rows near the front and opened the window blind. At first, I saw nothing as my eyes adjusted, then stars and only stars. The flight was over sea, and there was no guarantee of a moon, but there was nothing but stars above, stars below. I squinted into the dark looking for the border between sea and sky, trying to spot land or signs of life.

With my face pressed up against the window, I saw a flash of light from the corner of my eye. Looking at the galley in the direction I had just come from I saw a figure standing in the opposite aisle holding back the curtain.

She obviously couldn't see me, so I stood and waved. 'We need to wake the others, something is wrong'.

She glanced down the aisle, and then raised a single finger to her lips before ducking back behind the curtain. This was the last thing I needed, others had obviously woken before me and were spreading out across the plane... or whatever this place was. I jogged back the direction I'd come only to find she'd already left. I thought I'd lost her but then saw her moving quickly down the aisle before crouching down at the far end.

She must have found another puddle of blood like I had and was probably in shock. As I made my way up the aisle, I heard a sound behind me. Like a strange mirror of before, another figure stood at the far end of the aisle behind me, this time all I could see was a silhouette in the dark.

They stepped forward and rested a hand on the headrest in front of them. We stood like this in the dark cabin for an uncomfortable silence staring at each other. Then slowly their grip on the headrest tightened, and in a single movement they pulled themselves up. Their legs reaching out behind them to the back of the seats and the other hand grasping a headrest in the next row. They stood perched on the chairs like a sprinter kneeling before a race.

The modern mind is conditioned to ignore our basest flight or fight reflexes. A helicopter is not a hawk; a truck is not a charging beast. We rationalise away the fear and acclimatise ourselves to the exceptional. That's how I wasted that first heartbeat, trying to rationalise away what the animal part of my brain had already identified as predatory.

It used that time to accelerate, pulling itself across the top of the chairs. Two rows lost before I started to move. As I ran, I could hear the staccato beat of the chairs flexing under its weight and heard it land into the aisle behind me as I ducked through the curtain into the galley.

The trolley I'd searched earlier was gone, but only for a moment as looking up the aisle ahead, I saw it hurtling toward me. The woman from earlier had both hands gripped on the handles and was putting her full weight behind it.

"Move!" she screamed. This time I followed my instincts and dived into the galley corridor. The creature burst from underneath the curtain, all pale limbs and wiry muscle, human but not, and scrambling on all fours. It paused to look at me and opened its mouth as if to speak before the corner of the trolley bore down on it with a sickening crunch and threw it back into the aisle.

Standing I could see the woman was now sprinting up the aisle while behind me I could hear a wild thrashing and breaking of glass as the contents of the trolley spilled out. Instead of looking back I focused on running, a strange gait, half turned to the side as I scrambled down the narrow aisle. I briefly noticed the puddle of blood that marked the furthest I'd gone earlier and continued running.

My lungs bursting, I paused at the end of another aisle, blood roaring in my ears. Gasping, I managed a few seconds of rest before looking back to see the far curtain rise. The silhouette was wrong, the head split where the trolley had caught it. I spun and made for the toilet whose door I could see ajar. As my hand grabbed the handle, I tripped on something in the dark.

Head cracking against the door frame I fell into the toilet, my vision suddenly tunneled and full of stars. Scrambling to stand, I found no traction on the slick floor and fell again. Lying prone I yanked desperately at the door only to find it stuck by what I had tripped on. A man's body was lying in the aisle, the floor around me covered in blood.

There on the floor of that toilet, concussed and covered in blood, I finally surrendered to panic. Thrashing and kicking at his hand blocking the door I accomplished nothing. Suddenly the body lurched backward, dragged into the dark. I dove for the door, snapped it shut, and engaged the lock. The toilet lit up as a migraine blossomed behind my eyes, it combined with shock as I made eye contact with myself in the mirror, folded into that narrow space, drenched in blood and terror.

Behind the door I could hear shuffling, the door moving gently as if testing the lock. As the adrenaline left my system and the concussion took me I could hear it speak from behind the door. There was rhythm and structure like a language, but I could hear the effect the trolley had. It was a muted, wet and damaged sound. Whether exhaustion or concussion I fell unconscious there, equally soothed and terrified by those sounds, like a language from a childhood I'd forgotten.