Passenger 13

By Gregg Cunningham, Jacob Baugher, Shawn M. Klimek and 10 more

Stacey by A.S. Charly
Stewardess Stacey finds you can have all kinds of experiences on an airplane. Unfortunately, not all of them are as fun as encountering hot passenger, Tommy. After being involuntarily off work, she's forced to see the whole situation from a more down-to-earth point of view, finding not everything has to be as dire as it seems.

Isobel and Shen by Blake Jessop
Isobel Pang and Dr. Wei Shen are on opposite sides of the front lines; the BBC journalist believes the exhausted doctor might reveal the true scope of the pandemic. Working together leads to trust, and even friendship… but can they spread the truth before the virus catches up to them?

Jason Wells by Brian MacGowan
Recently divorced school bus driver Jason Wells is heading back to the US after his holiday in the UK. While en route to Chicago O'Hare he meets exotic Li Liu, who has a fear of flying. As a token of appreciation Li gives Jason a perfume bottle, which she claims is homeopathic to strengthen the immune system.

Lily by D.M. Burdett
Following the death of her father to an infection that ravages through every country on Earth, Lily Sullivan must overcome obstacles in a new, dangerous world to get her remaining family to safety.

Ben Davidson by David Bowmore
When Ben Davidson is invited on a stag weekend at the last minute, he is determined to enjoy himself.
Upon returning home, he's forced into a quarantine centre—the start of a series of disastrous events that result in him being handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Nigel by Gregg Cunningham
Nigel never was a big fan of travelling with the unwashed masses, the only thing he was a fan of was getting tanked up on ale and watching his beloved team on the terraces. So, when things start going to hell in a handcart after he returns to London from a trip overseas, Nigel must decide whether to self-quarantine in a City in lockdown, or make a dash for the for the tranquillity of the countryside.

Sam the Coder by Jacob Baugher

Erin by Lannah Marshall
Erin Gallagher is an English teacher, fleeing the life she made in China after the birth of her son, Jian. A shell of the woman who left to pursue her dreams, Erin now longs for peace of mind and a place where the eyes will stop staring. Unfortunately for her, a pandemic breaks out and she needs the strength that had left her long ago.

Alex Logan by Pamela Jeffs
Alex Logan, suspended British RAF Pilot, is screwed up in the head. Suffering from PTSD, he wants nothing more than to be allowed to fly again. But a meeting with a military physiologist and the ghost of his best friend stands in his way-that and a deadly virus which takes no prisoners.

Milton Fine by P.A. O'Neil
Milton Fine travelled the globe, but his world consisted of his family and associates. When he takes time for inner reflection it causes him to miss the bigger picture, putting his and the larger world in danger.

Tommy by Rich Rurshell
Tommy likes to enjoy life. No matter what. Spare no expense... No matter whose expense it is at.
Tommy won't let the sniffles stifle his enjoyment, let alone a quarantine.

Foster March by Shawn M. Klimek
Lovesick Foster March is feverishly eager to reunite with his long-distance girlfriend, little expecting that she plans to greet him with tough medicine. Can some good come out of a deadly pandemic?

Tony Grant by Stephen Herczeg
Even the most mild-mannered man will seek revenge when wounded. As the global pandemic strikes, Tony Grant sees the virus as the perfect weapon for retribution.


Including flash fiction from:-
Every day at 3:15pm by Peter J. Foote
The Race by Erica Schaef
Retreat by David Green
The Trading Post by Rowanne S. Carberry
Geoff's Germs by Stephen Christie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Hare Press
• Release date: Oct 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9798223770916

Book preview

PASSENGER

A close up of a sign Description automatically generated

Compiled & Edited by

Ben Thomas & D Kershaw

Also available and coming soon

from Black Hare Press

DARK DRABBLES SERIES

WORLDS

ANGELS

MONSTERS

BEYOND

UNRAVEL

APOCALYPSE

LOVE

HATE

OCEANS

ANCIENTS

SPECIAL EDITIONS

STORMING AREA 51

EERIE CHRISTMAS

BAD ROMANCE

TWENTY TWENTY

OTHERS

DEEP SPACE

WHAT IF?

KEY TO THE KINGDOM

DEEP SEA

BEYOND THE REALM

Twitter: @BlackHarePress

Facebook: BlackHarePress

Website: www.BlackHarePress.com

Passenger 13 title is

Copyright © 2020 Black Hare Press

First published in Australia in May 2020 by Black Hare Press

The authors of the individual stories retain the copyright of the works featured in this anthology

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

HARDCOVER : ISBN 978-1-925809-66-4

PAPERBACK : ISBN 978-1-925809-65-7

Cover design by Dawn Burdett

Formatting by Ben Thomas

ADIEU, FAREWELL, EARTH’S bliss;

This world uncertain is;

Fond are life’s lustful joys;

Death proves them all but toys;

None from his darts can fly;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade.

All things to end are made,

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower

Which wrinkles will devour;

Brightness falls from the air;

Queens have died young and fair;

Dust hath closed Helen’s eye.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,

Worms feed on Hector brave;

Swords may not fight with fate,

Earth still holds open her gate.

Come, come! the bells do cry.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

A Litany in Time of Plague, Thomas Mashe, 1593

Table of Contents

Foreword

X-DAY -5

Isobel and Shen

X-DAY -1

Isobel and Shen

Tony Grant

X-DAY

Sam the Coder

Gus Dyson

Alex Logan

Erin

Gus Dyson

Erin

Sam the Coder

Gus Dyson

X-DAY +1

Lily and Joseph

Nigel

Foster March

Change of Luck

Milton Fine

Tony Grant

Foster March

X-DAY +7

Isobel and Shen

Nigel

Sam the Coder

Alex Logan

Geoff’s Germs

Stacey

Tommy

Ben Davidson

Jason Wells

Milton Fine

X-DAY +10

The Race

Jason Wells

Sam the Coder

Erin

Milton Fine

Are We There Yet?

Ben Davidson

Tony Grant

X-DAY +12

Ben Davidson

Tommy

#MariaExquisito

Stacey

X-DAY +14

Retreat

Nigel

Sam the Coder

Tommy

Stacey

Erin

X-DAY +15

Nigel

X-DAY +16

Erin

Maggie

Alex Logan

Every Day at 3:15pm

X-DAY +3 WEEKS

Beata

Lily

Ben Davidson

Lily

Ben Davidson

Lily

The Trading Post

Ben Davidson

Lily

Untitled

Alex Logan

Nigel

Ben Davidson

EPILOGUE

X-DAY +28 DAYS

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Foreword

SO, HERE WE ARE... 

Bob Dylan said it best, the times they are a changin’, and boy are we in for one hell of a bumpy landing.

I’m not sure this is what Bob had in mind back in 64’ but this is where we are heading, and we better get used to it because we ain’t coming back to just shoes off and body scans at airports anytime soon. It’s all handwash, greed, and house arrest for the foreseeable future and I don’t have a clue how we actually got here. I mean, it’s not like we were warned about globalisation and the problems open borders would create.

No wait, what...we were?

When I saw the prices of cruise ships offering holidays around the world coming down, enticing a new generation of travellers to sail the seas, with all you can drink vouchers and relaxed dress codes, I wondered how long it would be until we had what was the equivalent of a floating drunken stag party cruising from port to port, historical monuments being visited by what can only be described as roaming Griswold, drunken wolf packs, causing mayhem each time their cruise docked in some exotic location.

When videos emerged of bar fights breaking out on these ships and people being locked down for spreading diseases running rampage throughout the guests, I knew it was only a matter of time before we had a containment problem.

Ships would be quarantined.

When the Diamond Princess became the first to report the COVID virus, I pitied those quieter travellers; stuck in their inside berth cabins, isolated and quarantined for not just days, but weeks—cabin fever must have been terrible—and I got to thinking about a worst-case scenario for those trapped. Would they be taken away from the infected ship? Where would they go if they were refused entry?

What if they were just cast away and forgotten, escorted from each country’s boundary until the ship disappeared over the horizon?

How would folks survive? Would it be like Mad Max of the high seas?

I sent my idea off to Black Hare Press and quickly received a reply asking me if I would like to expand on this idea, perhaps get together some other writers to contribute to a similar kind of tale, something different.

How could I refuse?

A collaboration with my very own handpicked ‘Dirty Dozen’ crew—folks who I could count on to tell a fine tale of horror and humour.

Three weeks? I repeated. You want me to do this in three weeks?

Dean gave me a virtual *shrug*.

It wasn’t impossible, we had done it before...or rather BHP had done it before. All I had done was submit a couple of ideas to their anthology and check the edits when they came back to me. Easy really.

What they were asking me to do now was admin a group, find a crew, sell my idea to said crew, give them a deadline, and then set up an order of events!

Easy! they said. 

I mean, it’s not like I had my own little black book of names I could call on. All I had was a bookshelf full of anthologies and drabbles to recruit from. I was going to have to go through them all, find an assortment of varying voices to make sure I didn’t recruit 13 writers who followed the school of Jason Bourne or Lizzie Bennett.

Man, did I have myself a list by the end of the weekend, though!

Needless to say, my list was long. I had about twenty candidates I really wanted to write for this anthology, but only room for 13. It was a tough choice, so I picked names from the list at random, sending out Willy Wonka tickets in order, with an RSVP as quick as you can.

Spaces filled fast.

Four beers later, my wish list was done, and my first load of Messenger requests were put out into the cloud, telling my candidates about my idea for what could be an awesome tale. The few at the end who didn’t get to the email in time...well I apologised to them, explaining that the positions filled up faster than toilet rolls were being ripped from supermarket shelves.

Those who were quick off the mark, well I told them my idea was writing a tale about a passenger onboard a plane from somewhere, en route to somewhere else. This passenger would be infected. This passenger would infect another 12 travellers. They in turn would infect others as they moved around the globe.

Infection would spread and stories would grow. It would be their tale to take wherever they wanted. Slow, fast, romantic, apocalyptic. Their choice completely. Give it a Cormac McCarthy feel, make it slapstick. Go full Dustin Hoffman, chasing monkeys. Hell, add some Captain Trips if you want.

All I had to do was crack open another stubbie and wait for the madness to flow.

One hour and two stubbies later, my recruitment drive was done, my pen, along with my vast wish list, was placed aside, and I slowly realised I had my assembled team of travellers, just like Lee Marvin.

Why I put Brian MacGowan in the first batch of Messenger request still baffles me. I suppose I needed to adhere to international laws and add at least one Canadian to the anthology.

Inside these covers are 13 infectious tales told by 13 cracking story tellers. Story tellers whose work I have read and admired immensely over the short time I have been in the writing game. What we ended up with inside these pages is 13 stories of love, panic, distress, payback, apocalyptic emptiness, debauchery and even espionage.

So, here we are...

The Eve of Destruction.

Buckle up thrill seekers, it’s gonna be a bumpy landing. The captain has lit the seatbelt sign and it’s time I checked on one of the passengers on board. That’s him over there, looking all smug as he stifles another coughing fit...Passenger 13!

Ain’t we a pair, raggedy man.

-Auntie, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, 1985

If a Hot Toddy makes you feel better, go for it.

-Dr Alan Weiss, Cleveland Clinic Ohio.

Gregg Cunningham

X-DAY -5

Isobel and Shen

BLAKE JESSOP

WUHAN HOSPITAL, CHINA

IT ISN’T THAT THEY might be watching you, Shen said. The British journalist looked as if she’d been about to say something else, but his words stopped her dead. They are watching you. Every shadow is watching you.

They sat together on plastic chairs outside a noodle stand on Hubu Street. The journalist had introduced herself as Isobel Pang, and she looked depressingly fresh and eager. Doctor Wei Shen had been just starting breakfast when she’d sat down with him, uninvited, with a plate of the same reganmian he was eating. He hadn’t slept at all and was eating his hot dry noodles mechanically. Med school had taught him that food was often a convenient counterfeit for sleep.

Thank you for the warning, but I still want to do this, Isobel said seriously. Her age was hard to pin down, and Shen’s first reaction was to write her off as a disaster tourist or Weibo blogger. Not a serious journalist; she was too young. The more she spoke, though, the more he doubted.

Tell me honestly, he said, are you willing to risk your life for this? Maybe you should be a fashion commentator. Are you willing to die here?

The girl’s face went blank, and for a moment Shen didn’t feel so much older than she was. The look that came over her started as anger but finished in emptiness. As if she’d meant to be scornful, but remembrance of what had made her that way had taken her back to some place she’d tried to forget. It was not just the look of a woman used to being misjudged; those blank eyes had seen death up close, had sensed mortal danger, had stared over the edge to a long drop. It was like looking in a mirror.

Am I willing to die here? she said after a moment.

I’m sorry I asked, Shen replied. 

I don’t look like a journalist to you? Shen ate another mouthful to give himself time to think, and the journalist waited like a cat.

You’re right. Shen sighed. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

This was a terrible idea; they would certainly be caught. Shen reached up to run a hand over his face and made a very large decision before he stopped the very small gesture. How would I sneak you into a hospital?

Isobel smiled, and her eyes came back to life.

Wearing a mask, I imagine.

THIS IS XIA, A TRANSFER nurse from Jingzhou Central Hospital, Shen told his team.  They were gathered in a break room that all had the tables stacked against one wall to make room for cots. Isobel was already in full scrubs, and only her pale brown eyes were visible above a surgical mask. She will be recording video to send to the ministry of health in Beijing, so don’t ask her for help unless you really need to. She knows how to stay out of the way.

Dr Wei introduced Isobel, and the hardest part of their charade was over before it started. No one asked any questions, and they accepted Isobel easily. There was enough to do that any help at all was better than nothing. Shen was surprised by the fluency of his lies, and how little he felt about deceiving his teammates. Perhaps I am not deceiving them at all; someone has to show the world what is happening.

TIME BLURRED, AND FOR a week, Isobel followed Dr Wei on his rounds. Those never really ended; they slept only rarely, and Isobel discovered how rare a treat leaving the hospital to eat had been for the doctor. His staff worked every day, and as the virus took over Wuhan, they started working every night, too. Every hour. Every minute.

Not for the first time, Isobel filmed death. Patients were lined up in the corridors, on every surface that could accommodate them. Some of the slightly less sick sat in waiting room chairs where it was a little easier to breathe. People coughed, and begged, and woke up wheezing with pain or didn’t wake up at all. She learned the layout of the hospital and snuck out the back to take a break. Found an orderly there, smoking a cigarette.

Do you want one? he asked. He pulled his mask down every time he took a drag. It cuts down the smell.

No, Isobel said, and raised the camera. The orderly leant against a wall by the sliding doors to one of the hospital’s loading bays. In the opening behind him, pure white body bags were stacked like cordwood. They looked like slick, bulbous cocoons that had fallen from a tree.

DOCTOR? ISOBEL—Xia, Shen corrected himself—had a tone in her voice he’d never heard before: panic. 

The patient Shen was attending was an old man who gasped in every breath as if the air had no oxygen. He led Isobel to one of the examination rooms to calm her down.

What is it, Nurse Xia? he said once they were alone. Isobel’s eyes were wild.

Why do they gasp like that? She was shaking.

What happened? Why are you so worked up?

Like fish out of water. It doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong, but he couldn’t breathe.

Shen tried to think of a way to break through to her. She’s a reporter; give her answers.

Take this and pin it up to the light board. Shen handed Isobel a set of x-rays. Not the patient he had just been looking at, but it hardly mattered. The switch is over there. No, film this, too. It will be useful.

Isobel’s chest stopped heaving, and she levelled the camera robotically.

It’s true that patients don’t look all that bad when the virus starts, but it’s what’s inside that counts. Look. Dr Wei indicated the x-rays against the backlit panel. Do you see how the lungs look like solid masses of white? That’s called ground glass opacification, we should be able to see black between the ribs, but it’s hazy.

Ground glass? Like a shower stall?

Exactly. The virus causes something like a cytokine storm. The resulting fibrosis strips your ability to take in oxygen. Is that clear?

Yes, Isobel said.

Now, Shen said, and saw himself reflected in Isobel’s camera lens, what’s wrong?

I saw the body bags. Where are they going? How many people have actually died?

Showing you this is going to be another risk, and will be very hard. No one is supposed to see. Are you ready?

Isobel nodded.

WEI SHEN DIDN’T SEE Isobel for more than a day after showing her the morgue. It wasn’t actually a morgue, of course; it had once been a university gymnasium. Plastic tarps covered the floor, and every window had been left open to let in cold winter air. Trucks came and went endlessly, some dropping off fresh cargo, others taking it away. Men in grey suits spoke into cellular phones in the parking lot, and the military patrolled in full hazmat combat gear. The rows of dead lay side by side like cigarettes in a carton, each body bag scrawled with hectic characters. Hundreds to a row. Dozens of rows with just enough room to walk between them.

Shen did not react to the sight; he felt everything there was to feel through Isobel. He watched her as he greeted the staff and made excuses for their presence. Listened to the catch in her breath the first time she saw the entire lifeless panorama. Felt the stupor of her muscles as she raised her camera. Smelt the scents of decay he had long since stopped noticing in the shiver that passed through her as she panned. He wondered if the little shake would transmit to film.

She came back a day later and cornered Shen the first chance she got.

I have to get out, now. I have to stop being Xia. Shen raised a hand. No, don’t ask questions, I’m out of time. I’m leaving you the GoPro and my sat phone. If I upload anything straight to the internet they’ll know. Record everything you can, and I’ll call that phone when I get back to London.

What about the footage you already have?

I’ll smuggle it out on my portable hard drive. Assuming I get on the plane without getting strip searched, it’ll be no problem.

Time stretched between them. They couldn’t hug, couldn’t shake hands. Dr Wei gave her a very slight, old fashioned bow. Isobel nodded, and her eyes glistened behind the face shield.

Good luck, she said, and he felt her desperate tension and grief only until she vanished from sight.

WHAT DO YOU NEED US to do? Shen asked the captain. The soldier looked like something out of a nightmare; full hazmat gear, a gas mask, and a QBZ assault rifle that looked like a weapon from a science fiction film. Isobel had been gone for three days, and Shen was making his first house call since the outbreak began.

A squad of PLA soldiers had driven Shen and two nurses to the apartment complex as dawn broke, and the streets were eerily empty.

We’ll check to see if the building is safe, then you’ll help us scan the residents. The man’s voice was muffled under his gear. Shen had a portable thermal scanner that looked a lot like the kind cashiers used at supermarkets. It used an infrared thermometer to scan body temperature, and anyone with a temperature over 38.5 degrees would cause a loud beep.

No problem, anyone who doesn’t want to see you will just run out the back, though. Shen had recently started making jokes to alleviate the sense of dread the empty city gave him.

We welded all the doors shut except for the front, the soldier said, taking him completely seriously. Shen checked his scanner as the soldiers gathered around the door.

As soon as there was any play in the hinges, the door crashed open and a screaming man charged out at them.

You bastards! How dare you lock us in there? he croaked. There was a stunned moment of silence, and the distraught civilian started running, his flip-flops slapping noisily against the street. The captain didn’t yell or issue commands. He raised his QBZ in a motion as smooth and mechanical as a piston firing in a cylinder. The crack of the rifle echoed and re-echoed between the buildings as though between mountains, and Shen saw curtains draw back all along the street. Hundreds of faces stared from windows and balconies at the bloodstain spreading beneath the sprawled figure. The city wasn’t empty; it was a powder keg with the lid screwed on tight.

Check him, the Captain said, and Shen did, walking down the road like an actor walking onto a giant stage to deliver an obsequy. He knelt. The man was around sixty and his last few breaths came in tight gasps. Shen pretended that the mask was a shield between him and what he was doing, and scanned the man’s temple. There was a loud beep.

How could you? the man gurgled very softly.

Don’t worry, Shen replied, tomorrow it will be me.

X-DAY -1

Isobel and Shen

BLAKE JESSOP

WUHAN TIANHE AIRPORT, CHINA

FLIGHT: WUH-AMS

ISOBEL PANG TRIED NOT to think about the video footage on the portable hard drive in her bag and thought about it anyway. For a while, there had been a temptation to hook it up to her phone and watch it, but it turned out she didn’t need to; images from the quarantine zone invaded her mind all by themselves. They changed her dreams, made food slide tastelessly down her throat, and turned her stomach into a cauldron of bile and anxiety. She was navigating from the intercity rail station into the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport through a throng of nervous travellers, so it wasn’t a good time to start having flashbacks.

A deep breath meant to steady her nerves instead smelled like smog and cigarette smoke, and Isobel thought about a cop she’d seen smoking outside a line of police tape at the Wuhan Wet Market. Wei Shen had already snuck her onto his medical team by then, and her features were concealed by a full plastic hazmat mask. As the cop had lifted the tape for them, he’d handed Isobel a cigarette, the action pure reflex. She’d wondered what she needed it for, until she’d seen the cages. Stall after stall plastered with menu cards advertising a dizzying array of animals for sale. Tables with cutting boards still sticky with offal, cleavers and knives discarded in pools of old blood. Behind each were stacks of cages, and in the cages were the animals that had spawned the epidemic. One of them, she didn’t know which. No one had fed them since the security forces cleared the market, and the bats and civets and pangolins and peacocks had died behind their bars. They’d scratched at each other trying to escape, and those on top had defecated and bled on those beneath, dying en masse stacked one atop the other. It was more death than Isobel had ever seen in one place, and she’d watched loyalist tanks shell civilians in Homs. 

They’re just animals, she’d told herself, and believed it until Dr Shen had managed to get her and her Go-Pro into some of the temporary hospitals to see just how similar her species looked when it died. The same writhing, the same heaving breaths, the same blood.

Isobel shook her head, almost violently, and tried to read departure signs through eyes suddenly blurred with tears. She took another deep breath, and this one did settle her nerves. She finally felt the old combat coldness coming back and focused on where she was; in the middle of a disaster no one knew was happening yet, trying to get out. Trying to get the proof of it out, anyway. She looked over one shoulder and strode into Terminal 1. Looked again.

The first thing Dr Wei Shen told Isobel when she entered the Wuhan quarantine zone wasn’t a warning about the virus. Not wear this mask, or wash your hands. She had told him who she was, that she wanted footage, that the BBC would air it, that she wanted his help. She’d told him they’d have to be secretive, that the Ministry of State Security would start sniffing around if she wasn’t careful. The doctor had laughed.

It isn’t that they might be watching you, he’d replied. They are watching you. Every shadow is watching you. Now, wash your hands and wear this mask.

She hadn’t believed in the shadows then, but she did now. They were as pervasive as the virus, as subtle and impossible to avoid as malignant microbes, unless you knew what to look for. Isobel did, and when she walked past the check-in counters, she finally saw them.

The last two weeks had been so full of sickness, of danger and paranoia, that Isobel had started seeing ghosts, and now the ghosts were looking back. She knew she was being followed with animal clarity, and felt the way she thought suicide bombers must feel; sick with fear, carrying something that could kill her, and absolutely certain of her cause. Certain down to the core of her being that what she had would blow up very, very big. Headlines, in her case, but the videos were just as likely to make her disappear in a burst of chaos as any conventional explosive. A few news stories had already run about the novel Coronavirus, mostly comparing it to SARS. She had proof that was about as accurate as comparing a hand grenade to a bunker buster. 

Isobel walked the main concourse like a businesswoman with places to be, took a blue medical mask from a bin proffered by a harried looking airport worker, and covered her face. Her father was British and her mother Taiwanese,