Pandemic: Resident Evil VI
Chapter Thirty Six: Mile High Nightmare
Helena knew that Leon was trying to deal with Gillette, so anything that she would call him away from that task for must have been pretty damn urgent. Making an excuse that he needed to use the bathroom, which the stewardess bought without question, the Agent left the service area of the plane, and stayed as calm as possible while walking up the aisle toward First Class. Thankfully, most of the passengers were either watching the movie or sleeping, while the rest of the stewardesses looked like they were on break or something, so he… actually had no problem walking right up to the cockpit door.
Jesus, good thing he wasn't a terrorist or anything, Leon thought as he approached the door… he had expected to be stopped by a member of the staff, or an undercover Sky Marshal, or something, but no. So what was the point of waiting two hours to get through security at an airport, and random strip-searches, and all that stuff, if all a terrorist had to do was have one of the maintenance crew leave something onboard for them and wait until takeoff to make their move. The door to the cockpit was also unlocked, but the reason for this made the Agent gasp when he pulled open the door and saw one of the pilots just standing there.
No, he wasn't just standing there, he was frozen in place; the terrified pilot's facial features just barely visible underneath the brownish cocoon that had formed over his body just like what had happened to Deborah back in Tall Oaks… and he must have been trying to get out of the cockpit while the stuff was encasing him. And he wasn't the only one; Helena was past him inside the cockpit, looking over the rest of the flight crew, each of them looking panicked, and in varying stages of trying to follow the first guy out of the tiny control room… before becoming trapped in that stuff just like him.
"Leon, the flight crew!" Helena exclaimed, moving over to him. "Leon… the entire… flight crew!"
The young woman was terrified, and rightly so, since these were the men who were flying the plane, but how could this have happened? The Agent's first thought was that Gillette had done this, but no that couldn't be; Leon had only ever seen her directly infect people with her spores, and honestly… he wasn't sure if the stewardess was even capable of telling a lie. No, this couldn't be Gillette, so… what? Had Simmons somehow found out that he and Helena weren't dead, and planned for this to happen on their flight?
Crack… crack… crack… the Agent was in the middle of the realization that there was no longer anyone onboard who could fly this plane, when the back of the man farthest up front suddenly burst open, just like what happened to Deborah before the white-colored, evil version of her crawled out. But this thing didn't look like Helena's sister at all; it's skin was greenish-yellow, taller than a man once it stood up to its full height, with long, pointed fingers that resembled claws, and its torso was covered with some kind of large, bulbous pores that started to shake as a little bit of black colored smoke started to…
"Harper, get back!" Leon yelled, reaching forward and pulling the young woman back toward him by the arm. "Get back!"
No sooner had the Agent pulled her out of the cockpit, then the bulbous pores erupted, quickly filling the small control room with darkness that would have surely escaped into the rest of the plane, if Leon hadn't slammed the door shut. From out there in the main cabin, there was no way to lock the door or even barricade it somehow, unless the monster was too stupid to figure out how to open it… here's hoping. But that didn't solve the main problem of there not being anyone to fly the plane anymore.
A rattling sound now as the cockpit door moved a bit, and the Agent grabbed onto the handle, bracing his foot against the doorframe and pulling it shut again just as the creature on the other side managed to turn the latch. It didn't seem to understand how to pull the door open from the inside, but it was getting the hang of the latch so that Leon couldn't let go of the door for even a second without the risk of this monster getting free. But what were he and Helena going to do about it? They didn't have any weapons, and if that gas the thing was spewing out was C-Spores, then…
"Gillette!" The Agent exclaimed. "Harper, go back to the service area, and get Gillette; tell her I'm in danger, and that thing will crash the plane. Go!"
The young woman was smart enough to not run screaming toward the other end of the plane, since the last thing they needed right now was for the passengers to panic and start running around. Oh shit, the monster seemed like it was starting to figure out how to pull open the door, because now Leon had to strain himself, keeping his foot braced for leverage and pulling with all his strength to keep the door shut. Come on, Harper, hurry up, he thought, starting to sweat as the opposing force on the door got stronger… and then it won.
With a force more than twice his own strength, the cockpit door was pulled open, vanishing into a cloud of darkness that filled Leon's vision as he was launched toward it… but then it was suddenly getting smaller. In a flash of movement, the Agent suddenly found himself at the back of this section of the plane with Gillette's arms around him while the cockpit door was pulled open from the inside. He knew how fast the stewardess could move, and she must have run all the way from the back, and pulled him from the proverbial fire.
Helena was running from the back to catch up, and the passengers around them were starting to notice the commotion, but that didn't matter once the bulbous monster stepped out of the cockpit into the main cabin… followed by a second one… and a third. During the struggle to keep the door shut, the other two members of the flight crew must've finished their mutation, or whatever happened to their bodies inside that nasty crystalized stuff, because all three of them had become the same kind of creatures that were now slowly walking their way into the cabin.
Now the passengers were really starting to notice, some of them taking a bit longer to notice the large, discolored creatures because they had been watching the movie that was still playing, but then it no longer mattered. As soon as all three creatures were inside the main cabin, their pores began to vibrate, and then another cloud of darkness was released, cutting off the passengers' startled scream as it washed over them, and filling that section of First Class in a matter of seconds. Again there was a flash of movement, with Leon suddenly finding himself, Helena, and Gillette in the back of the next seating section. It wasn't long before the creatures followed, along with the infected passengers who had already become zombies.
"I'll save you, Leon!" The stewardess loudly declared, stepping forward. "You and your girlfriend stay back!"
"Wait, Gillette, no!" The Agent yelled upon realizing what was about to happen. "Let the passengers…
But it was too late, because with a wave of both arms, Gillette sent dozens of black tendrils flying into the seating aisles, and sending just as many passengers into a kind of seizure as her spores went into their noses and mouths. This lasted for a few seconds as the monsters slowly advanced into this section of the plane, but then the seizures stopped, and so did the monsters' advance when the infected passengers began diving over their seats to attack the invaders. Since Gillette's infected passengers hadn't yet degraded like the zombies that those monsters were making, they were able to move faster and more deliberately, and this… was the craziest thing Leon had ever seen.
It was like two armies of infected monsters fighting each other for control of the plane; Gillette's newest family with their bleeding eyes and drooling mouths, swarming over the rotting corpses that the monsters were infecting. Was this the kind of thing that bioterrorists had wanted from the beginning? An army of infected people to fight wars so that they didn't have to? Anyone who would enjoy watching as several infected children as they tackled a zombie to the floor, biting and clawing at its flesh… was just sick in the head. The Agent now regretted asking the stewardess for help, but… what else could he have done?
As for the battle, the infected passengers were winning, especially when Gillette sent more spore tendrils behind them into the next section, and her army was reinforced about a minute later with a few dozen more bodies from Coach Class. Now they were completely overwhelming the monsters' zombies, going so far as to leap onto the bulbus creatures themselves, causing them to release more of the black gas cloud in an attempt to infect more passengers. The darkness was filling the cabin, regardless of whether or not more people were around to infect, but suddenly Leon found himself being dragged by the arm along with Helena, toward… toward the bathroom.
"Stay in here until I tell you." Gillette said after shoving both of them inside. "Lock the door, and, uh… try to behave yourself, Leon."
The stewardess winked at them before shutting the door just as the area around her was getting dark, and then Helena somehow managed to lock the door even though there was barely any room for them to move. Muffled through the door, the Agent could hear the screams of the few passengers that remained human, but then that was replaced by an inhuman roar that he had to assume was coming from the gas producing monsters as they… as they slowly passed right by the bathroom?
Had the monsters won against Gillette's infected passengers? Were they now advancing toward the back of the plane to search for survivors? As much as Leon wanted to see what was happening, he didn't dare open the door in case the spores from those monsters was still around, and… and with his ear against the door, there wasn't a sound to be heard. The panicking passengers, the growling monsters, everything had just stopped. Helena tried to get her own ear against the door, but there was no room to move around, so the young woman's attempts just pressed Leon's back painfully against the sink.
"We can't just stay in here, Leon." She said. "The whole plane might be infected by now, we have to do something."
"Stop… Harper, just stop." He urged quietly, trying to push her back a bit. "I hate to say it, but we have to wait for Gillette to come back, but if she doesn't… then we're screwed as soon as we open…
Suddenly his words were interrupted as the plane seemed to lurch forward sort of like when a car hits a really big speedbump, and then some kind of alarm could be heard going off in the main cabin as the plane… as the plane started to tilt downward.