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Frank closed the door behind him and proceeded to sit behind his desk. For the first time all day he had a few hours to himself. Running the head office of any airline was no mean feat, and he had the meanest employers of them all, King Airways.
He heaved a sigh of relief; at least the much talked about Birdie 747 had now taken flight. No more red carpets and ass-licking board members to cater to, now it was time to do what he knew how to do best, run his office.
He closed his eyes, today had been a success afterall. What was the worst that could happen?
The shrill ring of his desk telephone disrupted his thoughts for a moment. He swore under his breath, the suckers wouldn't even let him think for a minute about his own efforts. He reached for the receiver and then stopped. Let it ring instead he reasoned, he had done enough to justify letting a few calls go unanswered.
After two rings he had begun contemplating unplugging the damn device, then his mobile also started vibrating. "Got to be damn serious", he murmured. "Douche bags can't even wipe their asses without calling me for instructions." He picked up his mobile, safer to say he wasn't in the office.
"Frank here..."
It took only about three seconds for the color to drain off his face. After another ten, he took the phone off his ears without having said a word. Then the sudden blast of the general alarm suddenly animated him. With renewed determination, Frank stood and left the office...
........
"The blasted Federal Space Agents Sir, they're all over the place like it's their aircraft."
Andrew, the only field officer that Frank trusted filled him in as he arrived at the crash site. Andrew was also quite reliable, he had been first on the scene soon as the news had broke, he knew Frank would want to count on him. Sometimes when he was sufficiently drunk enough, he'd tell his wife that he was the one who actually ran the head office of King Airways.
"Any survivors?" Frank asked. If the FSMA were already here, he'd like to know just how much of a cover up he would have to do.
"Just a terrified seven year old girl sir, who fell into a coma once we asked her what she saw up there. The medics now have her."
So it was a disaster, Frank thought. So much for what could go wrong. His thoughts shifted to the Birdie 747, and even as he set his eyes on the wreckage, he knew the plane was a goner, such a waste of a beauty. Too bad for the insurance companies, because he was going to squeeze out every last cent he could from them. Right now it was that, or his job, and he wasn't ready to return to the labor market.
"Send for the engineer in charge, I need to know what went wrong with my plane."
As Andrew left to find whoever was the engineer in charge, Frank walked to the makeshift tent used for medical services. The sight he met was horrendous at best, and if one didn't know any better, one would have thought the bodies being bagged were victims of a strange monstrous animal, and not a plane crash. The way chunks of flesh were missing from certain parts of the bodies made it look like some wild animal attacked them. Frank couldn't stand the sight, he signalled for the man who gave the others commands to step outside.
"Where is the girl?"
"She's been quarantined sir". The chief medic duly recognized Frank, just like anyone who ever had anything to do with King Airways would. "Because of the strange nature of the injuries we found on the bodies, we decided to keep her separately until we complete our tests."
Frank listened for a moment, and after seemingly putting it to thought, he responded. "Send her to our health facility for kids right away, and make sure she isn't quarantined over there. Use the chopper"
The Chief Medic began to protest, but he stopped upon seeing the look on Frank's face. No one could convince Frank otherwise once his mind was set on something. So he simply nodded his assent and left to carry out the order.
Frank looked at his watch, where on earth was Andrew and his Chief Engineer? His eyes caught another yellow shirt beside the wreckage, the damn FSMA, he was going to ignore them completely. One of the things that made him come this far in his career was that innate ability to know when to address public officials. Today was for them to poke nose, tomorrow he would address a press conference.
Andrew and a tall lanky man approached. Frank recognized the man, he was one of the more memorable faces from the ground offices at the headquarters. This was the first time he would pay any attention to the man's job detail. They walked up to him.
"Good day sir, it is...."
"What happened to my plane?" Frank cut into any unnecessary compliments the chief engineer was about to give.
"It's still unknown sir. The blackbox is completely fried, and we've been unable to retrieve the pilot's log. What is funny is that there seems to be no information from the cockpit, almost as if no one flew the plane the short distance it covered."
Frank didn't understand the whole information, so he simply asked, "How bad is that? "
"Pretty much a PR disaster sir", the Chief Engineer responded.
Frank mulled for a moment, but before he could think of a course of action the chief medic joined the group.
"Sir, there is good news and bad news." he paused
At Frank's gesture, he continued. "The good news is that the passengers are alive, all of them. They were only in a deeper state of coma than the girl. We have now taken them out of the body bags to the intensive unit. None of them however can recall what happened."
"The bad news is that after all counts, we can't find a single member of the crew that left with the plane. They all seem to have somehow vanished mid air."
Frank forced a chuckle, this was getting out of hand. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a yellow shirt approaching from distance. He had to get this matter under control now.
"Is there something you can do about that cockpit information?" he asked the chief engineer.
"There is a second video box specially fitted in to the plane sir. My crew are working on extracting the feed as we speak."
As if on cue, a young technician comes running over. He and the chief engineer begin to speak in technical terms. Seeing that the yellow shirt was drawing closer, Frank ran out of patience.
"Let's hear it," he bellowed.
The chief engineer turns, and a small video device appears in his hand. He fumbles with some buttons, and then there it was on the screen...
Seven crew members crowded together in the cockpit, each with sufficient blood stains on their hands, mouths and uniforms. It was clear that the body parts on the floor were not theirs, but this wasn't the strangest event on the screen...
As they all watched, the seven merged into one, one little seven year old girl...
The Chief Medic ran, the chief engineer and his assistant stood rooted to the spot, Andrew reached out to hold Frank as his boss collapsed...
The man in the yellow shirt saw it all...
And somewhere in King's Health Facility for Kids, seven inhuman monsters were being let loose...
THE END
Written for @mctiller's Twenty Four Hour Short Story Contest
