Chatper One: Coming Home

It felt like it had been forever since Rhys had been home. In truth it had only been eight months since she’d spent the Christmas here; so much had happened since then. She stood by the old green Ford that sat rusting in the dirt and gravel driveway with her bags littered around her. The young woman was sure that the truck had gotten plenty of use in the last eight months, but perhaps because of the peeling, rusting paint job it always seemed like a permanent fixture, part of the house’s own architecture.

The house had belonged to her grandfather, Charles Bergeron. Paw paw Charlie, as Rhys had so lovingly called him when she was little, had helped own paw paw and father build the house when he was just a teen. They’d chosen this area to build in because of the little river at the back end of the property, which eventually fed into the Gulf miles and miles away. Being so close to the river, the property flooded often, so the house was built up on stilts. A wide wooden staircase led down from the wide front porch.

Rhys grabbed her bags and headed up those stairs, which creaked with every step. She stared up at the two story house with white siding and it brown shuttered windows thrown open. At the top of the platform she dropped her bags and stared at the door in front of her. She knew she should walk right up and knock, but something held her back. Rhys was suddenly a little scared to be home.

The door opened before Rhys could even decide to knock. The man in the doorway stood a head taller than her, but he had the same mocha brown skin she did, as well as the same chocolate brown eyes. He smiled when he caught sight of her, but his smile was much different than what Rhys remembered; there was a sadness to it. She was sure she saw pity in that smile as well.

"How did you know I was out here?" she asked looking up at him. Gunner just shook his head and stepped out onto the porch in front of her.

"I saw the headlights and her the car door." he said simply. He shrugged and contined, "Besides, after I heard you were released from the hospital I figured you'd be coming home any day now. Why didn't you call me? I would have come to pick you up." he said, a hurt look in his eyes. Rhys' gaze dropped to the ground. She knew she wouldn't have been able to handle her brother coming to that hospital to get her. She would have been ashamed if he'd caught a glimpse of her, the way she had been, even this morning. Rhys had also needed the time alone, once she'd been released to get her thoughts together. A feat she could not have hoped to accomplished had she been stuck in a car with her worried older brother for the last four hours.

"I don't know. I know I should have called. I'm sorry." she said without looking up at him. She was slightly surprised when she felt his hands grip her shoulders. He ducked his head and tried to catch her eyes. Rhys looked up at him, pathetically.

"Hey, it's alright. I'm just glad you're home." he told her. He squeezed her shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile. Rhys melted into her brother's arms and she felt him hug her to him. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was her father holding her tightly once again. Before she knew it she was crying silently and tears felt from her face to soak the front of her brother's shirt.

The two of them stood there on the porch like that for several minutes. Rhys just couldn't seem to pry herself from the embrace and Gunner seemed to know that she just needed to be held. Eventually, Rhys pulled herself back and wiped at her face.

"You know, it's gonna be ok." Gunner said. Rhys smiled softly and nodded. For the first time in weeks, she felt like she might be able to believe that. "Anyway, c'mon. Let's get inside. I made a huge pot of gumbo for the game the other day and it hardly got eaten."

Rhys was still too emotional to say much and so she just nodded and reached for her bags. Gunner shooed her hands away and hefted her bags onto his own shoulders and grabbed the handle on her luggage. He chuckled and made for the door.

"I can't believe you thought I'd make you carry all that stuff in yourself." he said over his shoulder as he disappeared inside. Rhys smiled wider. She cleared her throat and composed herself before heading in behind him.

"Well, I am a big girl ya know." she said. The announcement was met with a hearty laugh.

"You still look like a pipsqueak to me." he said from the top of the stairs. Rhys just shot him a mock-glare. It was good to finally be home. Maybe now things would actually get better.

-----

Although Gunner had promised her a hearty bowl of his best seafood gumbo, Rhys decided that she could really do with a nice relaxing bath. She hadn't had a bath to soak in since well before the crash; the billeting she'd lived in on base only had a shower stall. There was a bathroom connected to her bedroom with a garden tub, but Rhys sought instead the old bear claw tub in the bathroom in the hallway.

In that old tub that her mother had insisted on buying when she had been a little girl, Rhys could easily submerge her entire body in a almost scalding hot water and her favorite bath oils; which she was happy to find her brother still kept in the cabinet under the sink for her.

She turned on the water and soon the entire room was filled with the smell of lavender and lemon. She opened the window and let the humid Louisiana air blow the scent of jasmine from the lattice just outside. When she was perfectly content with the mood setting Rhys slipped out of her clothes and into the comforting water. She hadn't admitted it to her brother, but her body was aching from its old wounds. Her hip and upper leg on her left side where her scars were the deepest especially bothered her today; probably from sitting in the car for so long.

The oils and the salts in the bath were doing their job though and Rhys could feel the soreness easing. In fact, she was so relaxed that almost as soon as she leaned her head against the rim of the tub she drifted off into sleep.

Interlude One: The Crash

“Pilot, I’ll be back, got a few things to check out in the rear.” Rhys said over the comm system. The pilot looked over his shoulder at her and nodded, before turning back to his instruments. Rhys took that to mean that to mean “ok” and she disconnected her headset from the navigator’s panel. She stood, collecting her things, and headed aft through the door into the cargo compartment. The cargo compartment had the troops seats down on both sides filled with a dozen men in black uniforms with their rifles close at hand. It wasn't normal procedure to allow them to keep their weapons on them and loaded, but when a man in a black suit, dark glasses, an ear bud, a badge, and a writ from the president shows up and changes the crew's mission for the day, there is very little the plane's boom operator can do to enforce normal policy.

Although they'd been flying for a couple of hours now, none of the armed men had relaxed at all. They all sat watching the cargo with a frightening intensity. Rhys had no idea what it was they were carrying. The cargo manifest that ATOC had given her had been vague at best. All she knew was that it was some sort of cryogenic container, which in of itself made her uneasy, she always worried that cryogenic cargo wasn't loaded properly and that it would suddenly start leaking out into the aircraft instead of through the vents that leaked it outside into the atmosphere. The fact that this particular piece of cargo was under guard definitely bothered her.

Rhys sighed and shook the uneasiness from her mind. She had a job to do, creepy circumstances or not. And in probably another hour or so the pilots would be touching down and she'd be getting ready to unload the guard and their cargo and be done with this whole situation.

She made her way aft towards the boom pod careful to avoid the looks from the guards. Rhys was also especially careful to step around the long tubes coming out of the cargo and connecting to the vents on the side of the aircraft. She would have skirted the darn thing even wider if the size of the compartment would have allowed. There was something really strange about the thing. Just as she passed by it, Rhys felt this almost electric buzz that cause the hair on her neck and arms to stand on end. Once again the boom operator tried to shake the eeriness from her mind, she was a grown woman, she didn't need to be getting the creepies from a box.

When the floor opened up in front of her leading down the to pod, Rhys eased herself down into it. She felt a wave of relief as she eased her way onto the middle pallet and in front of the controls. Despite the creepy feelings she'd felt near the box in the container in the cargo compartment, being in her very own portion of the plane comforted her. As the boom operator, she felt at home back in the boom pod. This was the one place on board where she was in complete control. Soothed, she plugged in her headset and after confirming the pilot had nothing for her she started on her various checklists, oblivious to the rest of the flight.

 

Suddenly, something didn't feel quite right. Rhys checked her gages and switches, but seemed to be out of the norm. She didn't know what it was that was bothering her, that is until the hair on her neck stood up and she felt a familiar feeling. Quickly she slid out of her pallet and hauled herself up out of the boom pod. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight that lay before her.

The bodies of the guards that had been watching the cryogenic container lay strewn about the cargo compartment. Most of the bodies were in pieces; arms strewn here, legs over there. A head, still wearing its helmet stared back at her with blank eyes and its mouth open in a soundless scream. Smatterings of blood and pieces of intestines and other organs smeared the walls and pooled on the floor, sinking down through the plywood boards. Rhys just stood there rooted to the spot as her brain tried to make some sort of sense out of what she was seeing.

Screams from the cockpit snapped her from her from her stunned paralysis and Rhys bolted towards the front of the aircraft. She avoided stepping on the bodies the best she could, but she was more concerned for her crew than disrespecting the remains, she couldn't do anything for these dead men; but screaming meant the pilot and the copilot were most likely still alive. In her panicked state, Rhys didn't even notice the lid to the cryogenic container was missing.

It seemed like ages before Rhys reached the door to the cockpit. She was running, but time seemed to have slowed down to an agonizing crawl. She reached out for the door just as it was yanked half off its hinges. In the doorway stood a man unlike any other she’d ever seen.

He was hauntingly beautiful, long pale gold hair dyed red at its tips cascaded down his broad shoulders smearing blood onto his aged silk shirt. His skin was pallid and smooth, deepening to a dark purple bruised coloring around his lips and eyes; the shallows of his cheeks were tinged similarly. It was his eyes that captured Rhys’ gaze the most. Blue tendril-like veins under his skin spread out from his darkened eyes and disappeared in the marble of his cheeks. His irises were the amber gold color of wheat and his sclera was tinged a reddish black. There was a hungry look in the man’s eyes; a look that cause Rhys’ instincts to scream that she get as far from this strange man as possible.

Rhys back pedaled to keep from running into him, but the blood slicked floor gave her no traction and she lost her balance. The man reached out with lightening quick reflexes and grasped her by her shoulders. Rhys’ feet continued to slide on the slippery floor, but the man held her up easily. A slow grin crept across his sinister face and the points of two ivory, rouge stained, teeth rested on his lower lip.

“You.” The man sneered in a raspy voice. He pulled Rhys closer to him and inspected the features of her face, looking for something unknown to her. Then suddenly he bared the entirety of his fangs like he was about to sink his teeth into her. But as he did the plane jolted forward; the aircraft was losing altitude, quickly. The force of the jolt sent the two of them flying forward. Rhys’ shoulders slammed into the cockpit door frame stopping her fall and knocking the man’s grip on her arms loose and he continued to fall through the cockpit and collide with the instrument panel. Behind him, Rhys could see the ground rapidly rushing up towards them. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the impending impact. Rhys knew she was going to die, but she couldn’t help but think that at least that man-creature was going to die with her.

“This isn’t over…” she heard his raspy voice choke out over the noise of the whining engines.