Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection Read Online Free PDF

on the shoulder…
    Richard spins around, hands covering his face. Blood soaks his shirt, seeps between his fingers, hiding his eyes. “I can’t see,” he moans. “I can’t fucking see!”
    The man’s heart pounds. “Richard. You’re covering your eyes…”
    He lowers his blood-stained hands. His eyes are bulging from their sockets, rimmed with blood cascading down his face. “I can’t fucking see !” The copilot suddenly lurches forward, swinging his bloody hands; the pilot reacts, jumping to the side, slamming into the back of his chair. The copilot stumbles into the wall, hands smearing bloody streaks against the polished steel. The man watches in terror as Richard spins madly around, shrieking gibberish. The crazed man throws himself against Anthony Barnhart
    Dwellers of the Night
    24
    the cockpit windows, pounding, screaming, the noise unbearable, shocking the pilot’s ears. The man finds himself only able to watch as Richard continues hurling himself against the window. A moment passes, and the pilot finds himself moving towards the door. Everything is in slowmotion. He throws open the door. The Latino attendant is standing between the bathrooms, stabbing herself in the neck with pencils. The pencil-tips pierce the soft of her skin and cut into her neck. Her eyes are gouged, one of her eyes hanging from its socket. The man is repulsed, yet he moves forward, yelling at her to stop, oblivious to the chaos behind her in the passenger’s area. Before he can reach her, the pencil slashes across her jugular, and a spray of brilliant hot blood hits him in the face. It seems to burn at the touch, like spilt coffee; he staggers backwards and trips into the cockpit. He rolls against the chair. His legs kick out, hitting the door, slamming it shut. He lies on the floor, staring wide-eyed at the door, breathing heavily, frozen.
    He hears a thump outside.
    The attendant has fallen.

    The door to the rest of the plane is shut. But he is not alone. He cranes his neck and sees the copilot on the floor beside him, going into convulsions, writhing in silence, blood seeping from all the openings on his face. The pilot scrambles against the wall, face ashen, eyes wide: the copilot shudders a few more times and then lies still. Blood continues to flow, soaking the carpet at his feet. His fingers twitch. His leg slowly moves back and forth. And then he is still.

    He is crouched in the corner, staring at the lifeless body.
    Richard. Richard. Richard . The man’s name echoes in his mind. How much time passes? He doesn’t know. The plane is eerily silent. All he can hear is the droning of the engines, the beeping of the equipment. His mouth is dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He clenches his eyes shut, can see nothing except those horrific images—Richard going mad, the flight attendant committing suicide, Richard dying. Somehow he finds himself standing, hand wrapped around the handle of the door. He pushes it open. It halts against the attendant’s body. He closes his eyes and pushes harder. The door opens, scooting the heavy body against the wall.
    He doesn’t want to look, but he has to. He can’t trip over her body. He looks down and sees her lying in a pool of her own blood. The wound in her throat no longer bleeds. The walls are covered with speckles and smears from the gashing explosion which had covered his face— his face ! He enters the bathroom. The elderly woman is on the toilet, blood covering her wrinkled features. He ignores her, looks into the mirror, met with his own horrid reflection. He twists the valve and cool water flows. He cups it in his hands and washes it over his face. He cleans most of it off, though specks linger on the fringes of his hair and in the scruff of his eyebrows. He turns off the valve, takes a deep breath, enters the corridor. He looks to his left, towards the passenger’s area—and he goes mad.

    He looks only for a moment, but it is too much to bear: bodies