It was a gorgeous evening on May 16th, 1976. Piper Sanchez couldn’t see any cloud in the sky at all, and the sun was bright, making everything in the plane light up. Piper was excited to go to Hawaii for the first time and couldn’t wait for the plane to land. It was on the other side of the United States, and she’d never been there before, seeing as she lived in New England. She and a few other kids had planned to go on a trip there for an event that was for a learning experience for school, and parents were able to come as well. In the seat next to her, was her friend, Brandon Watson, who was glancing around the plane, analyzing the different people that were aboard. He was always a curious fellow. Piper had known Brandon for a long time now, at least since she was six or seven years old, and both of their parents were best friends. She sat in the window seat of the plane. Since she was a child, she would get sick very easily. And so she didn’t want to risk spilling her guts all over her space on the plane.
In the seat in front of them, sat a kid named Ben Peterson. He was holding a big cup of Dr. Pepper, sipping loudly through the straw, making Brandon grunt with annoyance at the sound. Piper could agree with him there, because the sound was very distracting, and she felt that the boy had the intention to gather attention and to drive people insane. Ben was a fairly rich kid, and Piper believes he is lucky to be in such rich land. He also goes to Piper and Brandon’s school, but it’s a surprise because he has enough money to pay for a private school.
“I t-thought those sodas weren’t allowed on th-th-the puh-plane, seeing as s-security doesn’t allow them and the f-fuh-light attendants said to be prepared t-to luh-land. It cuh-could spill!” Brandon leaned towards Piper, noticing the cup of soda in Ben’s left hand through the crack of the seat in front of him. It didn’t matter whether it was a plane ride, or a cup of soda. Ben always made Brandon annoyed, they were always the opposite of each other and never got along. Heck, they were enemies in school too, and Piper always had to get in between the two to stop a fistfight from happening.
Piper rolled her eyes. Brandon constantly complained about what Ben had that he didn’t have, and he was always frustrated about him. Can’t he ever leave the kid alone? Brandon didn’t get a soda during the flight, since he went to the bathroom during the time the food and drinks were being handed out to the passengers. Piper didn’t get anything other than water. “Oh yeah, he might’ve gotten a free pass for the stupid soda,” she said with a sarcastic tone in her voice. “ You really want a soda, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Who duh-doesn’t want a suh-suh-soda?” Brandon raised his eyebrows, as Piper raised her hand. He frowned. “Look, Ben might be annoying, but suh-stop being ss-uch a grump. You’ve been in this mood all of the fuh-flight. We are going to Huh-Hawaii. We are suh-supposed to huh-have fuh-fun.” The truth was, Piper was excited. However, she was overwhelmed and felt like something was wrong.
“We can have fun in Hawaii,” Piper said, like she was suddenly ill. “But now I feel like we are going to see my latest meal.” she started to groan, putting her hands around her stomach. Her friend didn’t believe what she was saying. He looked at her in disbelief. Why would she make up some stupid joke? Though at the same time, she was pale in the face. Soon enough Brandon suddenly felt sick too, though he couldn’t exactly point out why.
The truth was, the plane was actually rocking back and forth. The passengers on the airplane weren’t screaming, though. They were enjoying themselves, completely oblivious to what was happening. A loud, sudden screech was heard in the seat in front of Brandon and Piper, and Ben’s soda had spilled all over the aisle, and a quick “DAMN IT!” came quickly after it. Brandon ignored Ben, slightly enjoying himself, and frantically looked around, seeing if there was anyone to stop the airplane. His eyes widened with disbelief and fear. There was now no one on the plane except for Ben, Piper, and himself.
Piper tapped Brandon on the shoulder as the lights started to flicker on and off. “Why is there no one here besides us and Ben?!” she asked sternly, clearly confused and scared. Brandon felt the same. Where did everyone go? What the hell happened? He responded to Piper with a shrug.
He moved quickly over one seat, tightly gripping the head of the seat in front of him to keep him from falling into the aisle, and to see if there was anyone in the cockpit, but from what he saw, there was nobody in it. Brandon’s breath quickened, as the plane stopped rocking, and started to fall through the sky. It started to spin as it fell, and Piper quickly reached to grab an armrest.
As soon as gravity had its way and the plane was flipping fast enough through the air, Ben was able to run over to the seat next to Brandon, and he had squeezed him tightly. “We are all going to dieee!” he screeched. Brandon’s eyes squinted from the high pitched scream coming from Ben's mouth, and he grunted with displeasure. Ben didn’t need to be that loud, it was only the three of them on the plane, if they panicked it would only make things worse.
A sound came from beside them, like the squeak of a seat when someone moves on them, and Brandon looked over at Piper's seat in slight confusion. He let out a scoff when he saw that the seat was empty, and he looked around to see where Piper might have gone. His eyes rested on a moving shape pulling itself up on top of the headrests to the seats in front of them. It was Piper, and she was trying to climb over the top of the seat, getting down on the seat in front of where Ben was originally; where he had spilled his soda.
“What are yuh-you doing?” Brandon asked her with an urgent, panicking tone. Piper had straightened up, grabbed the headrests she was in between from the seats in front and behind her, and looked over her shoulder to glare at her friend. She had this look in her eyes that made Brandon feel slightly uncomfortable. Is this a girl's stare? Is this a girl thing that girls do? Is this what teen girls do? He thought quietly. He didn’t understand girls really, even though he was friends with one for many years.
“Do you want to live or not?” Piper had snapped back at Brandon. Rolling her eyes and jumping down from her seat. She didn’t even wait for a reply from Brandon. Piper just got into the aisle and made her way into the front of the airplane, carefully holding onto the seats with her hands as she made her way down.
Brandon put his hand against his eyebrow, saluting with his left free hand as he gazed ahead of him, feeling slightly awkward about this situation. “Yes, ma'am,” he replied. He was distracted by his friend; he only just realized that Ben was still tightly wrapped against his waist. Brandon looked down at Ben, and used his left hand to try to get Ben to move his arms off of his waist by taking the kids' right arm off, which was a struggle. Failing, Brandon resorted to hitting Ben’s arm until he got off of Brandon. Ben quickly unwrapped himself, sitting up in the seat, his cheeks flushed and his eyes wide. It seemed as if he didn’t realize that he had even wrapped himself around Brandon in the first place, and was awoken from a daze.
Ben looked at the back of the seat in front of him, trying to seem like none of which had just happened. “We do not speak of this,” he said gruffly, holding onto the armrests while he had his right foot locked on the bottom of the seat in front of him, keeping him in place. He too disliked Brandon, it wasn’t one sided when the two bother one another.
Brandon didn’t reply. He felt a chill run through his body, and realized that something was touching his right shoulder. Brandon slowly turned his head to look at what was on it. He had expected it to be a strand of hair, but it wasn’t. His eyes widened slowly as his heart started to pound with fear. It was a finger: a dark, greenish brown finger streaked with maroon markings which were blood. Its nail was torn and deformed, and it was the color of yellow. One side of the nail wasn’t there, and left blood oozing out of it. Brandon slowly raised his head, turning his body to get a look at what was there, and what he saw made him scream loudly. Its face had no eyes, instead of dark blood streaming from its sockets. Its body was the same color as its finger, and it was splattered with blood, and its skin was torn. Brandon started to scream, turning away from the creature and started to grab for Ben.
Ben’s eyes widened as he snapped his head over at Brandon, trying to push the terrified kid away. “What the hell?” he snapped. “What’s wrong with you?! Unless you’re dying and in need of medical assistance I cannot help with whatever mental illness that is causing you to scream your fucking heart out and act like a lonely racoon in need of trash and rubbish!”
“ZOMBIE! TH-THU-THAT-THERE’S A ZOMBIE!! THAT’S A ZUH-ZOMBIE!!” Brandon screeched. He tried moving as far away from the zombie as possible. He didn’t want to be near it.
Ben rolled his eyes, not turning around. He didn’t believe Brandon. Of course zombies weren’t real, just made up fantasy people thought of to scare little kids on Halloween. “Pffft! You’re joking! Zombies aren’t real you dimwit.” However, out of curiosity, he did turn around, and as his eyes locked onto the undead creature, all the color in his face drained, and he started to wheeze. “ZOMBIE! THERE’S A FUCKING ZOMBIE IN THE PLANE! ZOMBIE! ZOMB-”
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Scared for his life, he moved backwards and his back hit the seat behind him, but at the same time his arms started to flail, and one of his arms hit the zombie’s head. That had made the head disconnect from its body, and sent the head flying to the window of the seat across from them with blood splattering out of the neck. As it hit the seat, the head stopped moving and its eyes rolled backwards, like it was defeated. Ben got back up with an aching back to see the body fall to the floor of the aisle, blood starting to slowly ooze out of the neck.
Both boys were silenced by what they just saw. “Dude, I just killed the motherfucking zombie!” Ben whispered to Brandon. Soon enough, the zombie's headless body started to twitch immediately after that comment as the body rolled over to its back, and sat up. It made its way into a kneel, and stood up - now towering over Ben. Its right hand snaked its way up to catch the boy by the throat. “Oh, maybe not,” he rasped, struggling for air and to get out from the strong grasp the zombie had on his neck. His face gradually became pale.
Stunned with what was happening at the moment, Brandon snapped out of his terror and noticed Ben needed help. Even though he disliked the kid it wasn’t like he wanted Ben to die. He got out of his seat and stepped into the aisle, turning to reach up and open up the hatch for larger carry on items that didn’t fit under the seat. Brandon grabbed a random bag that was there, took it down, and swung it at the zombie with full force, the contact of the hit making the zombie stumble slightly backwards. The zombie growled, letting Ben go and reached out for Brandon. Ben dropped to the floor of the plane, and held onto one of the legs of the aisle seats closest to him. He was breathing heavily, but the color in his face did eventually return.
Brandon almost stumbled over Ben as he was battering the zombie with the bag he had in his hands. Ben grumbled and crawled under the row of seats, trying to get away from being injured even more. Whilst he was under there, he suddenly got an idea. It wasn’t a bad one, fortunately. He never actually came up with ideas often, but he was almost sure this would work. Ben got out from under the seat, but had to duck as soon as Brandon swiped at the zombie, and as the zombie grabbed at him back, bumping into everything as it moved.
“Brandon! I’m going to lure the zombie to the second class so you can barricade it with some of those snack carts so it won’t get out!” Ben shouted to Brandon. The word ‘zombie’ was still weird to say when it was referring to a real life situation. He’d better get used to it quickly. It wasn’t every day that you’d get to be around an actual real life zombie. You’d probably not want to be around one anyways. Brandon nodded quickly to the idea as Ben leaped into the aisle braced, ready to run. “Come on, you asshole! Chase me!”
The zombie turned around with a growl, and slowly approached Ben with a limp on its left leg. Ben let out a small scream, but didn’t run away. He was going to face this. He backed up slowly, and took one last look at the zombie before racing to the second class. Ben almost tripped over his feet as he ran through the aisle, and as he swung his head around to look behind him he saw the zombie was following him. That was good. Ben was almost to third class when his shirt had gotten stuck on an armrest of a seat. “Oh my Lord,” he said through gritted teeth.
Stopping to pull on his shirt to try to free it, he realized he might not free himself in time before the zombie got to him. And he was right, the zombie was starting to gain speed. Looking around for help, he saw Brandon mouthing something at him, ordering Ben to do something. However Ben couldn’t make out what he was saying. He found it impossible to focus on specific noises and Brandon’s voice was drowned out by the sounds of the airplane. Looking to the left and right of himself, he then reached to grab a glass of water from a spare cart at the end of the second class, which was moving back and forth from the flipping plane. Ben emptied the glass out, and launched it at the zombie. The zombie stopped as the broken glass shattered to the floor of the plane. A piece of glass had cut its skin, and blood was oozing out of the cut.
But that wouldn’t stop it from trying to kill Ben. The zombie started to grab for Ben, taking a few steps towards the boy. Ben ducked, and screeched to Brandon, “Help, you idiot!” However Brandon was frozen in place, he didn’t know what to do. It was all happening too quickly for him to try to process anything. Trying to think of something, he suddenly raced over to the closest emergency exit door, and opened the latch. As soon as he did that, the door swung open quickly, and the strong wind made everyone fall to the ground.
Meanwhile in the cockpit, Piper found it impossible to control the plane. There were no controls, and no buttons. Her father used to be a pilot, and taught her the basics of flying an airplane. Piper had gone with her father when he took her up in a private airplane to teach her how to fly. There were controls in that plane, but in this public airplane there were none. The panel was empty. Piper guessed that they somehow disappeared as well along with the people in the passenger seats, the pilot, the captain, and the flight attendants.
Piper scanned what she had in front of her. There was only a steering wheel, a box of munchkins, and a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. What a coincidence that the food would still be there. Piper opened the box of munchkins and shoved two or three in her mouth before grabbing the wheel and pulling it to the right. It was the only thing she could’ve done to try to prevent anything. She wanted to avoid anything that might be in the way for them to get to safety.
The plane tilted, and the zombie started to slide helplessly towards the exit. Ben was unbalanced as he felt himself slide as well, so he quickly grabbed a beam that was low to the floor, and easy to hang onto. The creature fell out of the plane, falling until it hit the ground far below, wherever that was. Ben knew it was the end of that horrid creature. Nobody would be able to survive that. Brandon, thinking everything was alright, raced over to Ben and reached out his hand to help him up whilst holding onto an armrest. Suddenly the plane shifted again, but in the other direction, sending them both toppling over each other. The plane evened out eventually, but Brandon and Ben were on top of each other, looking like they were kissing.
Piper raced out of the cockpit and into the second class, but stopped when she saw the broken glass, the open emergency exit, and two boys that looked like they had just made love. Now for our next stop, two lover boys. “I- uh- are you two okay?” she asked awkwardly. Clearing his throat, Brandon pushed Ben off of him so he could stand up.
“I-It’s not what you t-think,” Brandon said in defense. Piper smiled in understanding.
Ben stood up as well, and leant against a seat. “There was a zombie that attacked us. We got it off the plane, though,” he explained. Piper raised an eyebrow in concern. “I don’t know what happened. Everyone disappeared and you went to the front of the plane-”
“G-guys-” Brandon tried to say. Ben wasn’t listening to Brandon, he just kept going.
“-and a zombie was suddenly there trying to kill us! It was the weirdest shit-”
With a louder tone Brandon shouted, “GUYS!”
He was looking past Piper with a look of terror plastered onto his face.
“Brandon, what’s wrong?” Piper asked with concern.
She and Ben turned around, following Brandon’s gaze. Piper widened her eyes as she saw that they were heading full force into a tree. “Shit-” The plane quickly went forward, crashing into the tree. Piper was launched into the door handle to the first class, and fell backwards as the plane dropped to the ground, breaking into a hundred pieces. Piper’s vision backed out as soon as she hit the ground. The ground was soft, and tasted of sand.
Piper opened her eyes slowly, and looked around, stopping as soon as her head began to ache. She thought she saw Ben and Brandon laying on the ground close by, but she was too weak to make sure it was actually them. Her body started to throb with pain, and Piper eventually closed her eyes again, drifting into a dark place for a long, almost death-like, sleep.
There was something else. It was watching her in the shadows. Waiting. Its eyes were a glowing dark green, but the rest of its body was concealed. From what I know, this creature was nothing like I’ve ever seen in a lifetime. It opened its jaws, letting out a low growl. And just after that, it walked slowly back into the shadows.
This place might not be the place you’d call ‘a safe, tropical island full of exotic fruits and wildlife’. No, it’s not South America or Africa. It’s not even Hawaii. Never trust anything that comes in your path on this island. The animals that you might see here are dangerous, and deadly. When you go in there, you might never come out your full self.
People might stay best friends when they go in, but their friendship may not last. They start tearing, and dividing, once they start focusing on themselves and how to survive. They might just turn mad and start killing off each and every companion they came with.
The animals on this island are not like any mammal or reptile you might see where you might live. They could kill you in a snap if they hear you from a mile away. They are never friendly, and they are never predictable. They might seem cute to the eyes, but once they see you they might rip your body to pieces while you are alive. They will hunt you down, weapon or not.
Always keep an eye on things that might not seem right. If you don’t, it might just have the time to grab you and pull you to somewhere you might not want to go. If you go with a group, never wander off alone without someone beside you. Never go without someone to keep an eye on you. Never go in willingly without a smart brain to help you and keep you alive. The thing is, once you go in, you might never come out.