Gary Brandner - The Brain Eaters

Screaming incoherently, Norman Hastings ran up the aisle, setting off a panic among the passengers, many of whom had been dozing. He reached the emergency exit, threw aside the people who were sitting in the adjacent seats, and began clawing at the release lever.

Mike was not worried about Hastings forcing the door open; there was a fail-safe interlock to prevent that when the plane was airborne. However, the man was clearly insane and quite likely to do harm to himself and other passengers. Until he got help from up front, it was Mike’s responsibility to restrain him. He ran forward and seized the man’s shoulder.

Norman Hastings whirled toward him, his face a mass of angry red boils. Before Mike could speak, Hastings smashed him with a fist, breaking his nose and knocking him across the aisle. He fell back against the people sitting over there who were trying to scramble out of the way. As he struggled to regain his feet, Mike saw the crazed man use unbelievable strength and pull loose the safety lever on the emergency door.

The sound was like an explosion. There was a sudden rush of icy wind. Norman Hastings disappeared as though snatched through the gaping doorway by a giant hand. Mike Endersbee’s last impressions were of the rush of pillows, carry-on bags, blankets, trays, papers, and human bodies flying out through the opening into the night sky. Then his fingers were torn loose from the metal seat braces he had been holding on to. His body was banged across the empty seat, an ankle shattered against the edge of the open door, and the night sucked him out.

It was difficult to say which one of them attacked first. Jason and Nancy Dahlberg, quiet, seemingly happy, married twenty-one years, came up out of their chairs at the same instant and leaped at each other. They fell to the floor ripping with fingers and teeth at any part of the other’s flesh they could reach until they writhed together on a carpet that was soggy with their mingled blood.

On the flickering television screen, J. R. Ewing went about his weekly villainy with no one there to watch.

Vic Metzger, Norman Hastings, and the Dahlbergs were not the only ones to go suddenly, violently berserk that night. Beginning early Friday evening and continuing into Saturday morning, more than a score of normal-seeming citizens exploded into mindless mayhem. The toll of dead and injured mounted steadily. As the reports flashed over the nation’s news wires, a terrible pattern began to emerge.

Hank Stransky whirled and danced a wild gavotte while his flesh blotched and bubbled and popped and oozed. He was joined by a gyrating middle-aged black man and a slim young girl. Their faces were grinning masks of suppurating boils. They cavorted in an ever-closing circle around a helpless Corey Macklin.

As the wild dancing threesome squeezed in on him, Corey tried to dash between them to freedom, but one or another of them always moved to block him. He struck out at them with his hands, but his blows found nothing solid. Closer and closer they danced, stealing his breath, suffocating him.

Corey fell to the spongy floor, his strength suddenly drained. He tried to rise, but his legs folded beneath him like loaves of soft dough. The three dancers closed in and began to rain blows on his unprotected head.

Bam! Stransky hit him.

Bam! DuBois Williamson.

Bam! Andrea Keith.

Bam!

Corey groaned. He fought his way out of the tangled bedclothes. His mouth tasted like old pennies. He blinked at the light streaming through the crack between his window blind and the edge of the frame.

Bam!

Gradually, he recognized where the sound was coming from. Who the hell would be hammering at his door at this hour?

“Minute!” he yelled. He swung his feet out of the bed and levered himself to a sitting position. His head hurt. His stomach squirmed.

Brandy. He’d been drinking brandy the night before. Cheap, no-name brandy at some joint he’d never been in before. He should have known better. It served him right. Brandy and he had never been great friends. There was no excuse except that it had seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Bam!

“All right !” Corey stood up. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over his dresser and winced. He looked just about as bad as he felt. “I’m coming.”

After the scene the previous day with Nathan Eichorn, he had needed a drink. He did not want to go to Vic’s. Vic’s had bad vibes these days. So he went somewhere else where he didn’t know anybody. Drank brandy like a damn fool. Came home and had ugly dreams. Now he felt like slow death, and some fool was battering at his door. It promised to be one rotten Saturday.

Without bothering to pull anything on over his underwear, Corey shuffled across the one-room apartment to the door and opened it.

A cloud of cigarette smoke rolled into the room. Doc Ingersoll followed it in. “You look terrible,” he said.

“You woke me up just to tell me that at — at — What time is it, anyway?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“In the morning?”

“In the morning.”

“Balls.”

Ingersoll took the crimped cigarette from his mouth, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “You haven’t been watching TV or listening to the radio?”

“Hell, no. I’ve been sleeping. Trying to.”

“There have been some developments I think you ought to know about.”

“Developments?” Corey’s head began to clear.

“You remember those three cases you were asking me about a few days ago? The three citizens who freaked out violently for no apparent reason?”

“Hell, yes. I remember them. I was just dreaming about them. What developments?”

“It seems like the same thing has been happening to a dozen or so other people starting sometime last night.”

Corey was wide awake now. His head was clear, his stomach tense but quiet. “The hell you say.”

“The hell I do not.”

“Any clue as to what’s causing it?”

“Nobody’s speculated so far. I thought you might want to come down to the plant and take a look at what’s coming in on the wires.”

“You’re damn right I would. Let me splash some water on my face and I’ll be right with you.”

Thirty minutes later they sat across the table from each other in the Herald ’s wire-service room. Before them were torn-off sheets of copy from AP, UPI, and Tri-State News Service.

The big story was the spectacular tragedy on board the Dallas-bound airliner out of New York. A passenger — name withheld pending notification of next of kin — had gone berserk and somehow ripped open one of the emergency-exit doors in the coach section. The unnamed passenger and five other people, including a member of the crew, had been sucked out the door before it was blocked by a torn-off panel from an overhead luggage compartment. The pilot had managed to land in Little Rock without further damage or loss of life. Details were to follow.

Corey quickly scanned the airliner story, then shoved it aside to read the local account of the second tragedy in a week at Vic’s Old Milwaukee Tavern. Bartender Vic Metzger apparently attacked two or more customers with a revolver. The toll was three dead and two wounded by gunfire; a dozen others had been hurt in the melee. Metzger was subdued only after he had emptied the gun and police reinforcements had arrived. No motive for the attack was known.

Corey set the pages aside gently. He felt a chill along his spine that was not entirely unpleasant. After a moment he picked up more of the wire copy and went on reading.