descent
horrors & dread #41 - Have had this idea for ages and today it manifested itself. I'm pretty sure you'll not be able to guess where this is going...
Another shudder from the surrounding jangling components jolt you awake as the plane hits more turbulence. Looking through the porthole window a gaping abyss stares back; broken only by the flash from the lights on the wing every five seconds that illuminate the surrounding sky. In those brief bursts you see the pouring rain and the wing bend violently as it cuts through the heavy dark clouds. You wonder how much strain a plane’s wing can take before it snaps. You think it would be better to not see anything at all.
Your stomach lurches as another bump shakes the plane and tightness forms on your wrist. You look down and see a frail hand has gripped a hold of it.
“Sorry!” the old woman sitting beside you yelps.
“It’s okay,” you reply reassuringly, patting her hand. “I hate flying too.”
From above the Tannoy beeps thrice and the pilot’s voice makes an announcement over the whirring din of the aeroplane.
“Ten minutes to landing.”
The old lady blesses herself and looks skyward. You can hear the relief in her breath.
You dig into your inside jacket pocket to pull out your phone. You want to check the time. As you click the side button there’s another bang and it slips out of your hand, clattering off the hard plastic seat in front of you and landing between your feet. You groan and squirm to try and reach it but with your belt on it’s pretty much impossible. Instead, you use your feet to close around it and flip it up so it’s not flat on its face and sitting up sideways. From there you’re able to crunch yourself down and reach for it. Your fingers stretch and you feel a muscle in your back wail in agony, but you manage to clutch it finally.
“Flight crew. Prepare yourselves.”
Something about that announcement rings strange to you but you figure you must have misheard considering you’re wedged. You can sense the plane coming down diagonally, a tilting descent. There’s a new noise, a huge whoosh maybe five seconds in length that ends with a clatter. You feel a swift breeze on the nape of your neck as you grab hold of your phone and struggle to get back up into your seat.
As you hold up your phone a slash of red splashes across the screen.
Wet.
Sticky.
You glance back to the lady next to you and cry out when you see her head is missing.
The sagging skin of her neck is loose against the severed neck muscles. As you recoil you take in the rest of the plane. Everyone’s head has gone. You take a moment to notice the different timed jets of blood from each neck; the older folk’s weak short pumps maybe a foot high while the younger squirt hard black arcs that splatters from the ceiling. For those who had their overhead fan on their blood is blown into a sprinkling mist.
At the far end of the plane, you see a dripping silver guillotine blade nestled in place, having made its way down the length of the plane. Fitted to neatly lop off the heads of every passenger in their seat as it lands.
In the seat on the opposite aisle a crying child sits with her father’s head in her lap.
As the flight continues its descent, all the severed heads tumble over themselves like an emptied sack of potatoes. When the wheels touch down they all roll up through the aisle and collect into the air steward section.
Image by Hoang Khanh Nguyen from Pixabay