Part Two: Chapter Sixteen

Part Two

Chapter Sixteen

It twitched. I looked again, trying to shield Lisa with my outstretched arm.

It was too late. ‘They say it does that,’ she whispered calmly, ‘after death, it’s a muscle spasm.’

I nodded and swallowed, the shimmering black of the body bag was still writhing in the sun as the thing inside twitched again, the arm shot violently and suddenly upwards, the plastic straining with the movement.

Somewhere in the distance I head Maria’s screams, I didn’t know which was worse. I had seen them restrain her, they tied her to the chair, they gave her drugs, but she was still screaming in pain. I looked up at the aircraft, I didn’t know if I wanted to get on, I didn’t know where it was taking us or if we’d be safe. At that moment it looked like a giant white coffin, the front windows formed angry eyes.

The door shuddered open and two of the men got out, both wearing the same pale grey suits. As the door opened I heard the screams louder than ever, Lisa shivered underneath my arm. The men approached and I saw that symbol again, embroidered in gold thread on their suits, a simple clove of garlic in a circle.

They spoke to each other in French, their voices were both guttural and coarse. Neither of the men looked like they had shaved for days and both had long unkempt hair hanging out of grubby baseball caps. But their suits were immaculately clean and pressed.

‘What’s happening to her?’ Lisa asked as they approached us.

‘She fine,’ one of them shrugged, to each other they were very vocal, to us they had barely said a word, and I knew they could speak more English than they were letting on.

Lisa had tried talking to them in French, but they still wouldn’t talk to her, they seemed to take it as almost an insult that she would use their language. It was always the same thing, shrugged and half hearted reassurance.

One of the men surveyed the area, his eyes fixed on the twitching body bag, he didn’t seem disturbed by this at all, though there was something dark in his eyes, hatred or anger. He said something muffled to the other man, holding his hand up to his mouth, probably because he knew Lisa would understand him

The second man, completely indistinguishable from the first, pointed at the body bag, and then pointed at me. ‘You help,’ he croaked out, a voice thick with years of cigarette smoke.

I didn’t have a choice, they had saved us, and wherever we were heading, it was to answered questions, I had to go with them. I approached the body bag, still twitching. I braced myself for that smell again, the overly sweet smell of decay that made my head spin. I didn’t smell it this time, I was thankful for that small mercy.

I bent down and picked up what I assumed were the feet. The body within felt soft, I knew there was flesh beneath the plastic and I held back a shot of bile as my stomach curled. The French man gave a short grunt and lifted the head, I could see the plastic moulding around a face and I looked away, I stared into the bright sunshine and felt a trickle of sweat run down my back.

I didn’t struggle with the weight, whoever this was, he had been a skinny guy. I had no doubt that it was the person in this bag who had been chasing us, we owed a debt to these men. I walked as quickly as I could, trying to block out the reality of what I was doing, the French man seemed intent on walking slowly and methodically and my hands started to shake as he carefully ascended the first step back onto the plane. I noticed that the screams had died now, was Maria not in pain anymore?

The body gave a lurch, the whole thing jolted under my hands. I gasped audibly, my hands were wet against the plastic. I stopped moving, but the other man continued to walk backwards up the steps. I looked back at Lisa, she was pale, her hair was plastered down to her forehead and she was looking diminished and if possible for Lisa, shy and helpless.

She gasped too as the body lurched once more, I held on as hard as I could, though my hands were slipping. I forced myself to look back at the body, one hand was raised, the bag was tight around an arm reached just a few inches upward. The man had stopped moving on the stairs, he was looking back at the body with that empty mixture of hatred and anger.

‘That’s not natural,’ I said under my breath. The man glanced at me with glazed eyes.

The other arm raised, it shot upward with unnatural speed. The hands were outstretched, the fingers extended. I saw the body clawing at the plastic.

I let out an involuntary scream and dropped the feet, they landed on the dusty earth with a dull thud. The man yelled something at me in growling tones. I took a step back and felt for Lisa’s shaking hand, The body started to crawl, in sickening slow motion it pulled itself onto it’s front and slithered along the ground like a snake.

The man yelled back at the plane, and as the body advanced towards us the screams started again inside the aircraft.

‘Let him out!’ Lisa screamed just as loud, her voice piercing as a fire alarm.

‘He dead,’ the man shrugged, and he lit a cigarette. I stared at him with my mouth open and I backed further away from the body, it still moved towards us, one hand was held out in a begging motion. A trail of dust followed the movements, Lisa’s hand in mine was like a steel vice.

The first man immerged again and began shouting at the other, who shrugged nonchalantly and continued to smoke. The man pulled a tiny pistol from a back pocket and shot through the plastic. The head sprang back like coil, foul smelling blood was thrown everywhere. I screamed.

I ran, I grabbed Lisa and dragged her along with me. I raced back through the airport as angry voices at passport control yelled at us. I pushed through trolleys laden with bags, clothes and souvenirs spilt out around us.

I didn’t care about the answers anymore, we could get a flight and be out of here by the next day, I could be away from this and everything I had seen. I would still have to face the nightmares, but if I could just see my flat again, have a normal job, forget this, even for a few hours a day.

People bashed into me roughly as I ran through the crowded streets. It seemed like no one was moving out of the way for us, but I didn’t care, I tore through the people as if they were paper. Shoulders and elbows contacted painfully with my own. I knew we were being followed, I didn’t have to look behind to see that clean grey suit, probably still smoking his cigarette.

We approached a large open air book market and Lisa pulled me into an abrupt stop that had me digging my heels into the concrete.

‘I’m not going back,’ I hissed.

‘I know,’ she whispered back at me, with large eyes, her other features were lost.

She walked calmly into a large stack of curled books, the well thumbed pages yellowed and dog eared. She crouched down and I could feel her heart ripping against her chest.

‘We wait,’ she said. ‘We hide.’

I looked out at the books on their rickety wooden stand, I couldn’t look out into the crowd, if I accidentally caught his eye we would we dragged back onto the plane. Something got m attention, a cover I recognised, I focused on that to calm my breathing.

Then I realised what the book was, the title was written in Spanish but it was unmistakably Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I began to cry.