Sanctuary

Chapter 2

The drive went smoothly with Tim and Eben further detailing how the company's web site should look like, how he should revamp the 30 year old logo and so on. After they left the woods, they passed the hillside and a small village and were heading for the little airfield where the others would fly off with the hired charter, flight that Eben had previously booked. He was going to drive all the way back. That would give him more time to straighten his thoughts about how to handle his parents sudden death and the new pharma chain that required attention. He sighed slightly.

"Something wrong?" Tim asked.

"Nah, everything is fine. Or at least it will be... in time." He quickly changed the subject not feeling the need to talk out loud about his thoughts. Luckily Tim noticed it and did not pursue the matter. Soon the control tower of the airfield was already starting to show up in the distance. Although they were still in the hills, there was a clearing big and horizontal enough for small planes to land and take safely off. Minutes later they passed the small fence that was built to keep wildlife out of the landing area, heading for the entrance of the small building.

"Something bothering you?" he asked recognizing Tim's facial expression change

"Probably nothing. I just noticed the plane has not yet landed. He is 10 minutes past landing time."

"Now that you mention it, there is no commotion whatsoever."

"Exactly. Probably our pilot radioed in he is late and the ground personnel did not get out yet".

"Probably. We're also late." Concluded Eben

The two cars passed the entrance and drove towards the only terminal this small airport had. As they approached, they saw a small rental bus parked right in front of the terminal entrance. Probably another group waiting for their pickup.

"Isn't that a school bus from Salzburg, considering the license plate?" Tim asked.

"It is. Makes me wonder why he still lingers here after he brought the passengers to be picked up by a charter. Never mind, let's check where our plane is" Eben concluded while parking beside the rental bus. "Get your luggage out and then help the others unpack Jan's car and wait inside. I'm heading for the control tower."

On such a small airport with only private charter flights personnel was kept to a minimum. So if Eben wanted to ask about the flight, that's where he needed to go. As he was heading for the tower, Jan also arrived and parked behind Eben's SUV. Eben took one cigarette out of the pack and reached out for the lighter. Just as he was about to light his Lucky, a dampened scream brought him to a halt. He quickly turned to see what happened and saw Nina standing in the doorway of the terminal, hands held up to her mouth suppressing her screaming, her body shaking. Tim and Jan were already heading towards here, dropping the luggage on the ground, bypassing the parked cars. Laura was also heading for Nina's position. Eben managed to be the first on sight. And what a dreadful sight it was...

" Laura, get back to the car. Jan, take Nina to the car and try to calm her down. We do not know what's going on, so the last thing we want is to draw attention to us. Get in the cars and keep the engines running" Eben said with an almost imperceptible tremble in his voice.

Jan arrived seconds later, grabbed Nina's arm and dragged her towards the car. Tim, who also arrived at the doorway, came to a sudden halt, like he'd been petrified. Both Eben and Tim were in the doorway, trying to assess the bleak sight lain out before their eyes. The waiting room was stained with fresh blood everywhere you looked. There were corpses all over the place, corpses of children aged between 12-14 years, as far as Eben could assume. And the corpse of an adult female. But as if this was not enough, not all inhabitants were laying on the floor. Some of them were aimlessly walking around, smeared with blood. One of them was the security agent of the small airfield. He was moving towards the door in front of which both Tim and Eben were standing, door still shut. Eben grabbed the door handle, opened carefully the door and wanted to address the security officer, but paused. The security officers face and sleeves were covered in blood, his face was partially bitten off. He growled while stumbling towards them. His growl had awaken the attention of other inhabitants that were standing, making them turn faces in his direction. All looked quite similar, covered in blood, bite and scratch marks all over them, some even missing some limbs. They all started to move towards the door, slowly, unnatural.