Killer

He opened his eyes. He was still sitting on the left-hand side at the back of the plane, but his seat had been tipped until his back was horizontal and his legs were in the air. The body of the plane rose above him and it was as though he was lying at the bottom of a slim tower, looking up. It took him a moment to realise that the jet was somehow resting on its tail. There was a smell of high octane fuel which was not in itself unpleasant, but the realisation of what it meant, together with one or two less pleasant smells, served to send a shiver down his spine. Thus he discovered he could still move.

Least pleasant of the smells was the sweet, slightly iron smell of blood. Ross turned his head towards the companionway and Job who was opposite. Job lay absolutely still. Ross, his heart thumping with something more than the exertion of lifting his battered torso, looked across, but the blood he could smell so strongly was not Job’s. He slumped back with a grunt, and, as he did, he saw it on the top of the seat in front of him, over to the right side of the white headrest: a long glistening red stain; and as he watched, the stain sluggishly attained depth, gathered itself into a drip, and fell towards his eye. He instinctively jerked his head away, and the drip fell clear, landing with a splash beside his right ear. Then he saw a red stain on the back of the seat two in front of his own, and beyond that, on the backs of all the other outside-left seats up the length of the aircraft – up to where the girl had been sitting. His stomach heaved. He breathed deeply. Another drip fell by his ear.

Outside the body of the plane, the wind hissed. There was a lapping of water. There was a restless clicking and cracking of ice. Inside, suddenly, a groan. Ross’s head swung right, pressing his cheek into the cold sticky dampness. Job was moving. “Job!”

“Aaaah.”

“Job?”

“I hurt.”

“Me too.” He realised as he said it that it was true. His stomach was bruised by the belt, his back was stiff with strain, and his neck felt as if it had been mildly whiplashed. He had bitten his tongue and two teeth were loose. He moved his head, easing his neck and shoulders, and repeated, “Me too.”

Job laughed. “It is good hurt: only the quick hurt.”

Ross looked up along the broken waterfall of blood. Someone up there didn’t hurt. Not in the slightest.

“Ssssssa,” Job hissed, “I smell blood.”

“You don’t say ‘Ssssa’,” Ross told him, beginning to undo his seat belt, “you say ‘Fe Fi Foe Fum’.”

“What matter?” asked the Eskimo, beginning to undo his also. “It is still blood.” He looked away up the length of the plane.

“Is it the girl?” asked Ross.

Job shook his head. “I cannot see.”

They slowly untangled themselves from their seat belts. They might have been two very old men.

“Can you move?” asked Ross after a while.

“Yes, I can move, but where to?”

“We’d better try to get up the length of the plane and see if anyone needs help.”

“We can try.”

Ross reached up and took hold of the back of the seat above him at its outer edge. He began to pull himself free of his own seat. Job was already half out of his, moving more quickly than the big Englishman. Ross wedged his feet against the back and arm of his seat and pushed up. There was nobody in the next pair of seats on his side. He tensed to push up, and his shoulders collided with Job’s back. He looked up and back. Job was leaning over Quick.

“How is he?” Suddenly, and with overwhelming force, Ross wanted him to be dead. For five years now he had hidden behind the desk in Washington, hidden in other, darker places. And now, when he had ventured out again, it was only to face the hatred of this one man, reaching out of his very nightmares.

He hadn’t heard Job’s answer, and asked again, “How is he?”

“He’s fine.”

Ross shrugged, and continued to climb up the seats, using their backs as a ladder. The higher he climbed, the deeper became the crusted blood on the headrests. He paused when his head was level with the second seat back because a curtain, which had originally blocked off the small entry compartment, was hanging back down the plane, obscuring his view. He was out of breath, dizzy, nauseous. He hung on, trying to regain his breath. Job was behind him.

“Job? What have you done with Simon?”

“What could I do? Leave him to wake up.”

“Yes. That’s all we can do.”

“I’ll get rid of the curtain, see what’s going on.”

Job eased up past him. The curtain moved, strained, reluctantly began to tear. “Doctor Warren seems to be all right,” said Job conversationally as he worked on the curtain.

“Yes. Looks like the blood’s all coming from his daughter. That’s really bad luck. All this way to be . . .” The curtain came away. “Christ.”

He still couldn’t see much: a hand, dripping blood on to the floor; strands of long gold hair, rust-coloured now, formed into long stiff rats-tails, running with blood.

He tensed himself to pull up . . .

“AAAaaaahhyiuH!”