"Homecoming"
Chapter One - Day 3: Infection
People gathered around a television shop as the words "SPECIAL REPORT" began to scroll across the screens. It was a newscast from Britain, so it hardly slowed the pedestrian traffic in Manhattan. Those who did stop found security footage from a chemical testing facility and home videos of riots throughout the streets of small towns.
"No one knows who started this uproar, but sources believe that it may have started purely as an animal rights protest. Nevertheless, these random acts of violence have the scientific community unsettled. Some are calling for a quarantine of the—"
Dana Ryder was standing near the back of the crowd, just barely making out the static between the unmoving heads. Not even able to hear the report now, she gave up all together and started walking again.
"Hey!" A familiar voice called behind her.
"Persistent, are we?" Dana turned around to find Jeremy Doyle standing behind her. His face was radiant and he held a rose in his hand.
"For you, milady." Doyle politely handed over the rose.
Dana was honestly flattered. It had been months since she was in a steady relationship. Even then, she never got flowers.
"You're not just doing this because you're getting shipped out soon, are you?" Dana asked.
"What? No way. You have the wrong idea about the army. Been watching too many episodes of Law and Order."
"What kind of idea should I have then, Sergeant?"
"Give me two hours. That's all I ask." Doyle was more than willing to get down on his knees.
"Okay, okay. Two hours. I'm timing you." She tapped her watch jokingly.
Doyle led her to his car and they set off down the street.
"More and more eyewitnesses are connecting these riots to some sort of biological infection, but no further evidence can be given at this time…"
--
Doyle drove Dana out into the country. It was springtime, and the fields were coming back to life to a full, green color. The skies were almost empty, save for a plane in the distance just off the coast. He thought this would be the best time to flip the top on his car down. It's all about procedure, Doyle thought.
"Now you're just trying to show off." Dana said, laughing at the top being slowly folded up.
"Don't know what you're talking about." Doyle feigned ignorance.
"You don't have an explanation for a lot of the things you do, I've noticed."
"I'm just typically spontaneous I guess."
Three days earlier, Doyle had gone to a bar with a bunch of his army buddies. Halfway into a brew, he swiveled around in his seat just in time to see Dana walk in through the front door. She whipped her long, brown hair out of her face just like in those weird hair color commercials.
Girl of your dreams, his mind kept telling him. Without noticing, he had already made his way through the tables and was face to face with the girl.
"Can I help you?" Dana asked, somewhat freaked out.
"Huh?" Doyle popped back into reality. "Oh! Hi…"
"Hi…" She sidestepped around him and made her way to the bar.
Great going, Doyle. He flipped around and chased after the girl.
"Wait." He said.
She stopped and seemed a bit scared by Doyle's persistence.
"I'm Doyle…Jeremy Doyle." He offered his hand. "Sergeant Jeremy Doyle…"
"Alright…" She shook his hand. "Nice to meet you Doyle."
"Sorry for spooking you. Just…not very good at talking to girls."
"You're a sergeant and you can't talk to girls?"
"Yeah…" Doyle felt like he was in a tail spin. Come on, think of something. "Can I buy you a drink?" Smooth. He wanted to smack himself in the head.
"Sure." She agreed reluctantly. Faintly intrigued by the Doyle's clumsiness.
From there they had drink after drink and revealed their life stories to each other. Doyle and his joining the army after the attacks and Dana spoke of her fascinating days as a secretary to a very wealthy clothes designer.
"His stuff his hideous but no one has the heart to tell him." Dana snickered.
"He must be funny to look at." Doyle said.
"Extremely." Dana slapped Doyle's leg. "It was nishhh to meet…" She spun her finger around and tapped Boyle on the nose. "…you."
Ah, crap. Drunk, Doyle thought.
After she finished her last beer, Doyle helped her to a taxi.
"You get a good night's sleep okay?" Doyle said, paying the taxi driver for the ride. He closed the door and waved to her through the window.
She waved back and mouthed words that Doyle was convinced were "I love you."
Since that day, it wasn't hard finding her around town, now that he knew where to look. Around the designer's business. It was by coincidence that he found her at the television shop that day. A great coincidence. He wanted to marry that woman.
"So how long are you on leave?" Dana asked, holding her hand out of the car and into the wind.
"A few more weeks. But we could always just keep driving on until we hit Canada. I wouldn't have to get shipped out and you wouldn't have to answer another phone call."
"That would be a great day."
"You know, if you're not to busy later on this evening, maybe we could—"
"Jesus!" Dana yelled, her finger flung up towards the coast. "Do you see that?!"
Doyle alternated his focus between the road and the direction she was pointing. About a thousand feet over the water, the large commercial airliner was violently rocking back and forth and getting closer and closer to sea level.
"Shit…" Doyle tried to find his cell phone. "It might be ditching."
There was a small farm near a field. The family was standing on their front lawn watching the plane, which was now beginning to climb drastically.
"No, no, no, what's it doing?" Doyle watched as the plane tilted up and away from the water. Just high enough to make it onto land. "What the fuck is he doing?"
"He might be trying to land it in that field."
"The landing gear isn't even down!"
The plane suddenly sped up towards the coast and tilted sideways. Its wing hidden by the cliff.
"Hold on!" Doyle yelled and slammed on the brakes. The plane's wing slammed into the side of the rocks and whipped around onto flat ground. The engines screamed and fire shot out from the exhaust. Doyle swerved out of the way of the wing, still sliding along the ground towards the car. Dana was almost knocked out of her seat when the vehicle hit the ditches in the field.
The rest of the airplane barely missed the roof of the farmhouse and slammed into the field just behind it. The fuselage didn't explode like everyone thought it would, but there were still mini pops of the fuel lines rupturing. The aircraft settled into the field, the engine still whirling away, kicking up a dust cloud that enveloped the farm.
"Are you alright?!" Doyle asked his passenger. He looked over her to see if she had any injuries. "Oh, my God, I can't believe that just happened."
Dana sat upright and peered over the crash site. The emergency hatch of the plane popped open and the inflatable slide hissed into existence.
"What do we do?" Dana asked, still in a bit of shock.
"Let's get to that farm house."
The two jumped out through the open top and ran towards the family, who were still on the front lawn. They could hear the group screaming at each other about what they should do.
"Hey, over there!" Doyle called out as they approached.
A man in his mid-fifties jogged over to meet the pair.
"We got a mess over here, mister."
"I know." Doyle began. "I have to use your phone, sir. I'm in the army; I can get the necessary personnel over here quickly."
"My wife already called 911 just a minute ago."
"If its alright, I'd like to try and get a hold of my people. There's a base not too far from here."
The farmer, sweating and shaking from nervousness, slightly nodded his head in approval.
Doyle turned to Dana. "Can you try and keep them calm while I make this call. I'll just be right in there if you need me."
Dana stared off towards the plane.
"Dana! Stay with me."
She snapped back into focus.
"Can you keep them calm for me?"
"Y—Yeah."
"Alright." Doyle kissed her on the forehead and ran into the farmhouse. He threw open the screen door and stumbled across the living room. There were was a hamper of clothes in front of him and towels were folded all over the floor. He looked on every wall for a phone cord before making his way into the kitchen. It was smaller and tidier than the last room. No phone. He moved on to the back laundry room. There was an old fashioned phone with the rotary dial.
"Finally." He picked up the receiver and started spinning the number to his base. The back window was dirty. He wiped off some of the dust and found a somewhat obstructed view of the crash. From what he could tell, there were many people beginning to exit the plane. They bounced down the inflatable slide and began running as fast as they could across the field towards the farmhouse. He was relieved that there were so many survivors.
The operator on the other end of the phone picked up.
"Hello?!" Doyle yelled into the receiver. "This is Sergeant Jeremy Doyle. I have a civilian seven-forty-seven ditched in the field next to my position."
"Do you know your location?"
"Can't tell you for sure. Trace this call."
The operator went silent for a minute. "Okay, Sergeant, we have a fix on your position. We'll be sending a medical helicopter to those coordinates immediately."
"Roger that. I'll do what I can here until it gets here."
Doyle set down the receiver and looked back out of the window. There was still a steady stream of people making their way off of the plane. That's when he heard a scream from the front yard. He turned around for a brief second before turning back out the window.
A short-haired man stared back at him. Skin pale, coagulate blood covering his mouth and blood-red eyes staring without a blink. He punched through the window and began to scream at the top of his lungs.
Doyle jumped back in surprise. "Sir, are you all ri—"
The man grabbed onto the broken window and began to pull himself through. Eyes still fixed on Boyle and blood beginning to stream from his hands.
"Jesus…" Doyle began to back up and out of the laundry room. As the man made his way in through the window, there was a loud bang against the back door. Over and over again someone slammed against it trying to get it open.
Doyle ran. As he neared the end of the kitchen, he was tackled from behind. The man had latched himself onto Doyle's legs and was pulling himself up towards his face.
"Get the fuck off me!" Doyle began to kick at the man but he never faltered. Screaming and blood dripping from his mouth, the man continued to get a grip on Doyle's face.
Out of the corner of his eye, Doyle spotted a meat mallet in a milk crate. He slid across the floor, still kicking at the man, and grabbed the mallet. He brought it around with full force at the man's temple. After he seemed to shrug it off, Doyle struck him again and again until he finally fell limp.
Doyle heard the screams from the front yard again. He pushed the man off of him and slammed his way through the screen door, which almost came off its hinges.
Outside, most of the family had been tackled by the passengers. The bloodied survivors began to bite and scratch and vomit blood onto the family. Further down the street, Dana was running down the yellow line. Blood was dripping down her legs and her shoes were gone. Doyle turned back to the family. They were no longer struggling with the passengers; they began to go into convulsions. Their heads shook wildly and blood began to spew from their mouths as well.
All at once, the passengers and the family looked towards Doyle. Their eyes now reddened.
Doyle looked to the farmer, not knowing quite what to ask. "Are you alright, sir?"
The farmer leapt to his feet, hissing and screaming, and began running towards Doyle.
Doyle began to run after Dana. His heart was beating fast. Out in the field, the last of the passengers exited the plane, they all ran in different directions. The ones who caught sight of Doyle ran towards him.
"Dana!" Doyle yelled. She looked back but didn't stop running. He eventually caught up to her and gripped her hand. "Come on!"
She was out of breath and beginning to stumble on the pavement. Doyle pulled her along, seeing that around twenty of the red-eyed passengers and the farmhouse family were giving chase.
"We have to make it to that truck!" Doyle spotted another farmhouse just up the road. There was an old Ford sitting in the front driveway. He had no second thoughts about stealing it.
The driver's side door was unlocked. Doyle hopped in. No keys, he knew how to hotwire a vehicle though. It would just take time that they didn't have. He leaned over to unlock the passenger side door for Dana.
She began to open the door when a woman came running out the front door of the house. She tackled Dana into the side of the truck. "Doyle!" She screamed.
"Dana!" Doyle jumped out of the truck and ran around to help her. The woman began to spit up blood over Dana's face as she struggled. It tasted almost metallic in her mouth.
Doyle delivered a bone-shattering kick to the red-eyed woman. She fell and began to twitch on the ground.
"Dana, are you okay? We have to go!"
Dana coughed. She began to groan and scream in pain. Tears ran from her eyes as Doyle tried to hold her still. "I'm burning!" She yelled and began shaking her head around. Her hair flipped all over the place and her eyes began to turn a crimson red.
"No…" Doyle backed away from Dana, having just seen the same thing happen to the family. Dana hissed and scratched her way along the truck, eyes fixed on Doyle.
He ran back around the driver's door and whipped it open, blocking Dana from getting a clear shot at him. As he locked himself in, Dana was pressing herself up against the glass and trying to break it in. The passengers finally reached the truck and began to leap into the bed. They bashed on the truck's cab looking for any way in.
"Come on, you bastard!" Doyle fought with the ignition wires until he finally heard the engine turn over. He flipped the transmission in drive and slammed on the gas. The tires screeched behind him. The passengers tumbled off of the truck, hit the ground and resumed their pursuit once again.
Doyle looked in his rear-view mirror and saw bare-footed Dana running down the middle of the street in his direction. He didn't know what to do or think. He just kept driving, hoping he'd make it to the base.
When Dana screamed his name, it was the first time in his life he felt truly helpless. The engine revved. His eyes welted up in tears. And a tall column of smoke was now rising from the plane in the distance…