Serial Saturday: Nightmare Engine of Doom Part 8 – We Arrive
“Ladies and gentleman,” Enzo announced grandly. “Topeka.”
I’m not sure how he thought he was fooling anyone, since even from where we were, hundreds yards away from the airfield and well above it, I could clearly see the Canadian flag proudly flying above the terminal.
“That isn’t Topeka,” one of the stewardesses said, peering out the window over Enzo’s shoulder.
“No, I assure you it is,” Enzo replied, leaning around her so that he could fix an eye on me and produce another spastic wink. “No doubt the mountains are confusing you, there off in the distance, but you may not be aware that from this altitude we can see all the way into Montana.” He reached out and hauled back on a lever, causing us to suddenly dip forward and lose altitude. “It is a complex phenomenon, brought about by the refraction of-”
“No, that’s definitely Winnipeg,” the stewardess said.
Enzo chuckled indulgently. “No, I assure that–wait, what?”
“Yes, Winnipeg, you can see the brothel from here,” the other stewardess said, gesturing off toward the skyline beyond the airfield.
Enzo was wrestling with the controls, causing the dirigible to pitch alarmingly. Now he looked where the woman was gesturing, craning his head to get a better look at this Canadian house of ill-repute, which in turn sent us lurching in its general direction. I heard distant shouts of alarm from the passenger cabin, and one of the stewardesses rushed off, staggering from side to side as she made her way toward the door.
“Enzo!” I shouted. I would have said something more, had I been able to think of something, and had we not made a sudden violent lurch that sent me sprawling on the floor.
“Sorry, sorry!” Enzo shouted. “Just wanted to get straight–I’ll just–oh!”
Torn between trying to get us aloft and pointed toward Saskatoon and orienting himself vis-a-vis the Canuck cathouse, Enzo seemed to be having trouble piloting the craft. No doubt his drunkenness had something to do with it as well.
Whatever the combination of factors leading to it, by the time I scrambled to my feet and got a look out the windows I could see the ground filling my view, rushing toward us at a startling angle. As I watched, I could see an airfield employee running past briefly. This made me even more concerned than I had been before, both because the poor man himself seemed terrified, and because it demonstrated just how close we’d come to the ground. In another moment, I saw a whole group of passengers who had just disembarked from another dirigible, scattering and running in all directions.
We spun alarmingly, and I heard more shrieks from the passenger compartment. The corpses of the pilot and co-pilot flew past us like a gruesome comet and slammed into one of the windows, crashing through and soaring into space. Distantly, I heard more shrieks from outside as the corpses sailed toward the crowds of passengers on the ground.
I had always prided myself on my professionalism, and most particularly in my ability slink all unnoticed to the sites of my missions, and creep out unseen when the job was finished. Our profession depended on stealth, after all. It seemed, I reflected, as I listened to the shouts from the passenger cabin and the echoed, Doppler-shifted shouts from outside as we spun past horrified crowds, that I might not manage that ideal this time.
The remaining stewardess staggered past, heading for the broken window and I managed to grab her with one hand, belatedly seizing the co-pilot’s chair with the other.
“Just about got it,” Enzo said cheerfully, still flailing at the controls and hauling on levers seemingly at random. “Give me half a tick, and we’ll be headed for Saskatoon. Saska-”
And then we crashed.
Copyright © 2011 SM Williams