Nick Cracknell - The Quiet Apocalypse [= Island Zero]

Whichever day it was of course. I assumed the 4th of July…

According to the signs, Lanzarote airport had two terminal buildings and a cargo terminal, and regardless of their point of departure aircraft were directed to park at something called the General Aviation Apron (PAG) upon arrival. I figured this would be a good place to start.

But how the heck did one go about stealing a plane? Off the top of my head, I thought you’d firstly need to know a lot about the plane. How would I operate the systems and get the engines started with the problem of no fuel? This made the prospect of an electric craft of some sort again more appealing. I imagined your regular airline captain would have to go through thousands of hours of simulator training in order to get up to the required standard. So if we managed to appropriate an electric or working fuel-burning plane, how would we then get it in the air? Commercial airliners required a tug to reverse them out onto the runway. Another reason to opt for a smaller plane…

Did a plane have keys? Would the cockpit only be accessible by a powered keycode? And then, if by some miracle we did get it off the ground and were able to fly unaided across to Africa, how the hell would we land the thing? One good thing at least, we didn’t have to worry about flight plans and ground control cops preventing our take off.

I realised as I was standing in the middle of the terminal that I had lost Akari. I shouted her name and heard a small yelp coming from what seemed to be a row of shopping outlets on the other side of the terminal. Panic set in, and I ran in the direction of the sound. As I did, it got louder, like the sound of a small child having a tantrum or something. I ran faster, and rounded the corner into a Gucci store where I saw Akari in the oddest position. She was bending over a rack of handbags, trying to force her head between her thighs as if she were practicing a crash landing on an airplane. Aa I reached her I put my hand onto her back, saying her name over and over as her whole body seemed to be shaking and twitching like she was in the middle of some sort of episode.

“Akari!” I shouted, “What’s happening? What’s wrong?!”

She seemed to stop shaking at the sound of my voice, and looked up from her prostrated position. Her eyes were glazed over and she looked confused, drunk even… She didn’t seem to be able to focus on my face at all and appeared to be looking straight through me.

“Koko wa dokodesu ka?” she said, her breath coming in short ragged gasps. Of course I didn’t understand this, but I assumed from her dazed expression that she was enquiring where she was or what was happening. It scared me a lot. Was this the beginning of the end for her? Had her percentage finally run out? If she was on just three percent a matter of two or three hours ago…

I felt like I was watching an execution. That dreaded point when you realise you are witnessing somebody die and try as you might you simply cannot tear your eyes away. What made it even more prescient was that exactly the same thing could be happening to me in a matter of days.

“Akari, please…” I begged. “Breathe, dammit!”

I couldn’t face the thought of expiring right in front of me. I did something I never thought possible, drawing my hand back and bringing it down fast and hard across the side of her face. The slap seemed to have an effect and she shook her head as if snapping back into awareness. I had expected her to start foaming at the mouth and dropping to the floor in her final throes, but she suddenly seemed to improve and drew in a huge rasping breath.

She stood bolt upright and a single tear welled in each of her eyes as if she’d eaten an extra hot chili. Instead of running down her cheeks as normal tears would do they welled and welled in the corner of her eyes until it seemed as though they couldn’t get any fatter without gravity taking its force. Then they seemed to leap out of her face in a forward motion; two large drops of salt water that sprang forth from her eyes and cascaded almost in slow motion to land on the floor in front of my feet. She gulped in huge breaths of air.

“Tasukete!” she croaked, and grabbed my shoulders to support her own weight. She seemed like she was choking.

There was no more time to lose. I grabbed her by arm and began pulling her towards the signs that indicated the Cargo Terminal. She whimpered quietly as I dragged her along, still trying to catch her breath, trying to stave off another attack. It occurred to me to try and find a first aid booth, or medical station of some sort, but I knew that it would do no good. Time had caught up with Akari, and its relentless passage now planned to claim her unless I could achieve the extraordinary and get her off the island before.

The adage ‘time waits for no man’ passed through my mind as we wove through a maze of small corridors designed for passport control and emerged into the dusky twilight of the early evening and onto the main concourse of the airport. I felt as though I was up against an immovable force, trying to stop the march of time.

Even the air seemed to have taken on a thicker note. The wind had picked up, and it almost felt like it had back on the beach in Playa Blanca before the storm that produced the purple tendrils. I felt like something big was in the air; that the island somehow knew what we were planning and was about to send every soldier in its arsenal to prevent it.

Akari was still rasping, but her airway seemed clearer and she was better able to breathe than a few minutes ago. She was still barely able to walk, and it was imperative that we made haste whilst any storm was still in its infancy. Thunderheads were gathering over the mountains in the distance, and I somehow felt that not only was Akari’s life in the balance but my own was as well. If we failed in this mission, I realised it could mean the end of both of our existences on the island and not just hers. I still had a good level of percentage to go, but what was to say that if I foundered with Akari that the island itself would take a bigger gulp and swallow me too?

The concourse was vast and totally empty. Hollow husks of airliners stood in mocking salute on the bare concrete, almost daring us to approach and try them out for size.

Akari suddenly coughed violently and a stream of blood shot out of her mouth and landed on the ground in front of us. She looked at me with undisguised panic in her eyes and grabbed her throat, desperately struggling for breath. Then she stopped dead, and her whole body jerked upright in rigid protest. Her eyes, already stretched as wide as they could, seemed to take over her whole face as she grasped to hold on to life.

“Akari!” I screamed, not knowing what to say or do, and on hearing my voice her body seemed to relax somewhat, as if she had finally taken that longed-for breath that was so needed. She sucked in a huge laboured gulp of air and grabbed hold of my arms, stumbling and desperate for support. Her mouth was still covered in blood and she reached up with her sleeve to wipe some of it away trying to compose herself as she did so.

She stopped dead still for about 10 seconds, then slowly raised her head up and looked at me with a small smile. She knew it was futile to try and communicate with me in Japanese at that precise moment so she simply held up her small thumbs in a gesture of ‘okayness’. It was probably the most relief I had ever felt in my life at a single hand gesture.

I had no idea how long her seeming recovery had bought us, so I grabbed her by the arm again and we began looking around frantically for some sort of inspiration. Outside now on the concourse we could see the two terminals clearly. They weren’t huge buildings, unlike many airports I had been to. I guessed from a row of six larger planes sitting idle on the tarmac outside Terminal 1 that it was used for longer-haul international flights, whereas Terminal 2 was smaller and from the few scattered smaller hangars was probably the one used for charters and inter-island flights. I decided that was where we should head if were to find a craft that we could operate. There was a vast expanse of concrete to the right of this terminal, almost totally empty except for one small airplane centred inside it. It looked completely out of place, being the only vehicle in such a large and deserted space.