Let’s rejoin the action accompanied by a contemporary and contextually-appropriate soundtrack…
>>> Previously on FLIGHT OF FEAR <<
“You have GOT to be shittin’ me!” Dodger gasped.
“Ohmywhat?!” Shawn ducked slightly, throwing his hands up to shield his head, expecting that another Horde wave was upon them.
Dodger shook his head while looking at the music player, “We’ve got to fight the undead to a Bruno Mars playlist?”
Brandishing the shiv in his right hand, the music player in his left, he flicked his thumb across the touchscreen and tapped the Play button, “Well then, so be it!”
>>> Fade in <<<
With a mighty kick, Dodger slammed his foot into the door leading to the next cabin.
With a minor whimper to hide the great pain inflicted on his foot from the cabin door repelling his attack, he turned to his brother and flicked his head, “Can you get that, bro? Cheers.”
Shawn unlatched the lock and slid the door open. The room was packed with the Horde gripped in cannibalistic battle, but they soon all paused to peer at the latest arrivals: the brothers.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the monsters Shawn issued the next move to his brother, “Bat’er up, Dodge – make ’em bleed…”
But nothing happened.
Still keeping his eyes on the prize, Shawn became nervous at his brother’s lack of action.
“…Dodge? Um…now’s the time man, shiv’s ahoy and all that.”
” … Dodge?”
“… dude?”
” …sick’em”
” …please!”
The desperation in the air was pieced by some off-key mumbling, “…I’d catch a grenade for ya…”
Shawn’s faced morphed from fear to annoyance, “Really! NOW!” he blurted as he back-handed his brother’s shoulder.
“Uh, what? You say summ’n, Shawn?”
“Dude. Horde invasion. Remember that? They’re waiting for you. Anytime.”
Trying to wipe the blank expression from his face, Dodger retorted, “It’s a catchy song, alright!”
“I know. I told you that like what five months ago!”
With that, Shawn closed and locked the cabin door to a mass sigh of disappointment from the Horde on the other side.
“Dodge we can’t do this, I’m vegetarian. What if they’re good people under all those tentacles?”
“What! No killy-kill the malamari? C’mon man I’ve got the shiv of doom, a Bruno Mars soundtrack. I’m sorry I paused man, it won’t happen again – for reals!”
“What’s malamari?”
“Mutant calamari.”
“I thought we agreed on calling them ‘The Horde’?”
“No, you agreed on ‘The Horde’ but it’s SO Lord of the Rings 2010, man!”
The Shiv of Doom
Before Dodger’s flawless reasoning could be debated, a tentacle-hand punched through the cabin door.
“Action time, Shawn! What do we do: fight, run, or hide?”
Shawn opened the pocket-cupboard labelled Flight Stuff. It presented an interesting challenge: two backpacks, one was a parachute whereas the other, a camping bag…
Dodger puckered-up, “I’m sure I’ve seen a Wile E. Coyote cartoon like this once. Didn’t end well.”
“We’ll have to dual-jump and hope for the best,” Shawn hypothesised.
“For the record, I’m still pro making malamari stew.”
But the boys had been too luxurious with their time, the tentacle-hand grabbed at the MP3 player Dodger was carrying, and smashed it.
However, before Dodger could crumble in grief at the lack of his battle-soundtrack, he noticed he could still clearly hear Bruno Mars singing, and judging by the puzzled look on Shawn’s face, he could hear it too.
Shawn stated in disbelief, “Wow the sound quality from those headphones is superb. It’s like he’s here right here…Singing to us!”
Dodge grab his brother and twisted him around.
“That’s cause he is! Looks like first class got infected too.”
Sure enough the malamari Bruno Mars (still pitch-perfect) was now flanking our heroes!
“MUSIC MUTANT PUNCH!” announced Bruno, and with a limp swing of his arm he punched a hole right through the parachute backpack Shawn was presenting as a faux-shield in front of him.
The boys peered at one another, then at Bruno trying to free his stuck hand, then back to each other. They knew what their choice had to be.
Shawn began, “Hey Bruno…”
Shawn sidestepped the malamari celebrity, taking the backpack and Bruno’s locked arm with him, leaving Bruno’s front wide open for attack.
Dodger stepped up for the coup de grâce, with the parting words: “Catch this, motherfucker!”
With his shiv of doom, Dodger pierced Bruno in the belly and ripped up, opening a new mouth for Bruno from his stomach to his head!
Dodge continued momentum dodging Bruno’s spilling guts, to meet Shawn’s already waiting hi-five!
“Nice, D!”
“Bro-work all the way man!”
But by now the pierced cabin door had weakened and the remaining Horde had smashed through. Also, despite the stylishly performed wound, Bruno was still standing. He turned slowly, revealing that the large gash he had suffered merely accelerated his transmutation. Now he had huge tentacles flexing around his body, from his gut to his face.
“You’ll pay for that,” he spluttered.
The boys were now out-numbered and out-gunned.
“We’ve gotta get passed them! There might be more parachutes at the back of the plane.”
With that, Dodge sprung forwards while Shawn provided cover by throwing whatever he had in his pockets at the enemy. Condiment packets and tissues went whizzing past Dodger like shurikens. Fortunately, the salt packets in particular seemed to burn the malamari as they burst open upon impact with the otherworldly flesh.
This gave Dodger enough time and distraction to slam into and push Bruno, the biggest malamari, causing him to topple into the salt-burning monsters behind him.
“Now!” screamed Dodger and with that Shawn leapt over his brother, who was wrestling with the Horde, and into the next cabin. He sprinted for the supply box and opened it, only to find the other two backpacks already gone. He instinctively looked out the nearest window, only to see Harrison Ford gliding to safety.
“Because THAT’s not utterly bizarre!” He turned back to his entangled brother and said aloud, “No luck, Harrison Ford got there first!”
“What? Indy stole our ride?”
“What now, Dodger?”
“Save your self Shawn. I’ll hold them off as long as I can!”
Shawn was about to argue when he was silenced.
“No need motherfucker,” a booming voice came from the area previously known as ‘first-class’.
Shawn already knew that only one motherfucker says ‘motherfucker’ like that, and proudly pronounced the name aloud: “Samuel L. Mother-fudging Jackson!”
The entire plane paused mid-battle and looked at Shawn. Dodger said what they were all thinking, “Really? ‘Mother-fudging’?”
But Samuel didn’t seem to mind – cool guy really. He raised his arms in front of him revealing another two even larger pink schoolgirl cases of death, obviously a matching set. He flipped the latch and declared, “I present to you, snakes on a motherfucking plane!”
And with that, vipers and cobras of all colours and venoms burst from the cases and joined the fray!
As the snakes attacked the Horde, absorbing their full attention, Dodger and Shawn ran up to Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson as if to ask for an autograph!
“Mr Jackson, sir! What…but how….and SNAKES?”
“Never leave home without them motherfucker. Sorry it took me so long, had to find my other pink schoolgirl cases of death.”
“No worries we’re just glad you chose to leave first class.”
That’s when they noticed Sam was wearing the eye-patch from his Nick Fury character, and his afro from Pulp Fiction… oh and that trench coat looked a lot like the one used in Shaft.
“Any of you boys a pilot? I’ve seen the motherfucking captain, he’s the biggest motherfucking motherfucker out of all these motherfuckers. We gonna have to kill that motherfuck-“
Four rather large snakes were biting Sam in his testicles. Turns out the Horde had taken to biting the snakes back as retaliation for getting bitten, making the tentacle snakes angry at their former master and friend of so many years, hell-bent on Samuel’s destruction.
“Not good!” said the boys simultaneously. They bolted into first class. Only to be greeted by a lonely, cold figure, still seated as if nothing was wrong – calm and undisturbed. It turned to face the boys, half his face was human, the other half was metal and full of cybernetic implants.
Shawn announced with great authority, “That’s cyberpunk Billy Idol: cyborg hero and cyberpunk spokesman!”
His brother shook his head, “Is there anything you don’t know?”
Shawn’s default reply, “The 500th number in the square root of pi…”
“Five,” replied Cyborg Billy Idol!
With sparkles in their eyes, the boys responded, “Awesome!”
But the moment was stolen too quickly, the Captain Monster™ burst through the cockpit into first class…
“That’s what she said,” Dodger added.
The narrator was confused, “What, can you hear me? Did you just break the fourth wall?”
“The stewardess, she told me I was not sweet enough, and I needed more sugar – that’s what she said!”
“Now you wanna talk about that?” Shawn sighed.
The Captain Monster™, snarling and drooling tentacle goo, motioned toward the boys but Cyborg Billy Idol’s laser eye burst out in a thin red line. Simultaneously cutting and burning anything in its path, it simply split the Captain MonsterTM in half, along with the plane’s structure.
“CooooOOOOoool!”
The stars were back in the boys’ eyes!
“Wow did you see that?”
“Awesome sauce!”
Sadly, however, with the plane in half, not even the autopilot could save them.
With the plane falling to the ground in two halves, all its contents sucked out and began dropping like loose change. Silhouetted against the eclipsed sun, the boys were given a few short seconds to plan their final moments.
“Dude you were like the best bro, man!”
“No, no you were, man!”
“No you!”
“No, no you!”
“No you, the BEST yo!”
Luckily for this narrator, a parachute backpack floated inbetween the boys, silencing their pointless battle.
Or so the narrator thought!
“Dude, you take it!”
“No you.”
“No you, you should live!”
“But you help more people.”
“But mom likes you better.”
“But dad likes you better.”
“You have a pet.”
“You have a long life full of love and…”
Time was running out, Dodge placed a quick, hard fist to the corner of Shawn’s jaw, sending a shockwave to his brain that made him pass out.
Very inelegantly, he grabbed Shawn’s pants and tied the parachute to it. Then using his brother like a chair, Dodger pulled the string and held on for dear life.
But again, they had been too luxurious with their time, they had been falling too long, the parachute could not open properly.
They crashed landed.
>>> After the crash <<<
An hour or so later Shawn awoke, dazed. He turned to see a giant man-wolf sleeping on the ground next to him. It started to wake, “Oooww my head,” muttered the wolf… in Dodger’s voice.
Shawn was frozen in fear, but calmly stated, “Dodge, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re a wolf-man.”
“Dammit bro, I’m just hairy – get over it!”
“No I mean for real. You look like an man-wolf.”
Panicking Dodge looked at his hands and then at his brother.
“Dude.dude.dude – you too. You’re a man-wolf too!”
Shocked and amazed the boys inspected themselves and each other for a few moments.
“Whoa, wait an minute,” Shawn stared into the back of his mind.
“Didn’t that guy curse us at the airport for taking his seats?”
“The voodoo guy? I thought he was just messing, yo.”
“Wait! Does this mean the aircraft was attacked by the tentacle horde of malamari or we attacked the aircraft as werewolves?”
“So none of that was real?”
“How would I know? There was an eclipse, anything could have been real!”
“You know what, Shawn? I’ll be honest, I just found out I’m a fucking werewolf. I’m entirely comfortable with whatever that means…”
Dodge stared at his brother awaiting the standard tone of disa-provement (new word) but mixed with respect for easily accepting conventions at the same time from his brother… but silence…
His brother was still, a statue even. Dodge could tell Shawn was overcome with a depressing realisation.
“Sup bro?” Dodge asked his battle companion.
Shawn looked up, the look of worry filled his yellow wolf eyes, “I just clicked. I’m a vegetarian werewolf!”
The End
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