Four Past Midnight

CHAPTER 4

In the Clouds. Welcome to Bangor. A

Round of Applause. The Slide and the Conveyor

Belt. The Sound of No Phones Ringing.

Craig Toomy Makes a Side-Trip.

The Little Blind Girl's Warning.

1

The main cabin went from bright sunlight to the gloom of late twilight and the plane began to buck harder. After one particularly hard washboard bump, Albert felt a pressure against his right shoulder. He looked around and saw Bethany's head lying there, as heavy as a ripe October pumpkin. The girl had fainted.

The plane leaped again and there was a heavy thud in first class. This time it was Dinah who shrieked, and Gaffney let out a yell: 'What was that? For God's sake what was that?'

'The drinks trolley,' Bob Jenkins said in a low, dry voice. He tried to speak louder so they would all hear him and found himself unable. 'The drinks trolley was left out, remember? I think it must have rolled across -'

The plane took a dizzying rollercoaster leap, came down with a jarring smack, and the drinks trolley fell over with a bang. Glass shattered. Dinah screamed again.

'It's all right,' Laurel said frantically. 'Don't hold me so tight, Dinah, honey, it's okay -'

'Please, I don't want to die! I just don't want to die!'

'Normal turbulence, folks.' Brian's voice, coming through the speakers, sounded calm ... but Bob Jenkins thought he heard barely controlled terror in that voice. 'Just be -'

Another rocketing, twisting bump. Another crash as more glasses and mini-bottles fell out of the overturned drinks trolley.

'-calm,' Brian finished.

From across the aisle on Don Gaffney's left: rii-ip.

Gaffney turned in that direction. 'Quit it right now, motherfucker, or I'll stuff what's left of that magazine right down your throat.'

Craig looked at him blandly. 'Try it, you old jackass.'

The plane bumped up and down again. Albert leaned over Bethany toward the window. Her breasts pressed softly against his arm as he did, and for the first time in the last five years that sensation did not

immediately drive everything else out of his mind. He stared out the window, desperately looking for a break in the clouds, trying to will a break in the clouds.

There was nothing but shades of dark gray.

2

'How low is the ceiling, mate?' Nick asked. Now that they were actually in the clouds, he seemed calmer.

'I don't know,' Brian said. 'Lower than I'd hoped, I can tell you that.'

'What happens if you run out of room?'

'If my instruments are off even a little, we'll go into the drink,' he said flatly. 'I doubt if they are, though. If I get down to five hundred feet and there's still no joy, I'll take us up again and fly down to Portland.' 'Maybe you ought to just head that way now.'

Brian shook his head. 'The weather there is almost always worse than the weather here.'

'What about Presque Isle? Isn't there a long-range SAC base there?'

Brian had just a moment to think that this guy really did know much more than he should. 'It's out of our reach. We'd crash in the woods.'

'Then Boston is out of reach, too.'

'You bet.'

'This is starting to look like being a bad decision, matey.'

The plane struck another invisible current of turbulence, and the 767 shivered like a dog with a bad chill. Brian heard faint screams from the main cabin even as he made the necessary corrections and wished he could tell them all that this was nothing, that the 767 could ride out turbulence twenty times this bad. The real problem was the ceiling.

'We're not struck out yet,' he said. The altimeter stood at 2,200 feet.

'But we are running out of room.'

'We -' Brian broke off. A wave of relief rushed over him like a cooling hand. 'Here we are,' he said. 'Coming through.'

Ahead of the 767's black nose, the clouds were rapidly thinning. For the first time since they had overflown Vermont, Brian saw a gauzy rip in the whitish-gray blanket. Through it he saw the leaden color of the Atlantic Ocean.

Into the cabin microphone, Brian said: 'We've reached the ceiling, ladies and gentlemen. I expect this minor turbulence to ease off once we pass through. In a few minutes, you're going to hear a thump from below. That will be the landing gear descending and locking into place. I am continuing our descent into the Bangor area.' He clicked off and turned briefly to the man in the navigator's seat. 'Wish me luck, Nick.' 'Oh, I do, matey - I do.'

3

Laurel looked out the window with her breath caught in her throat. The clouds were unravelling fast now. She saw the ocean in a series of brief winks: waves, whitecaps, then a large chunk of rock poking out of the water like the fang of a dead monster. She caught a glimpse of bright orange that might have been a buoy.

They passed over a small, tree-shrouded island, and by leaning and craning her neck, she could see the coast dead ahead. Thin wisps of smoky cloud obscured the view for an endless forty-five seconds. When they cleared, the 767 was over land again. They passed above a field; a patch of forest; what looked like a pond.

But where are the houses? Where are the roads and the cars and the buildings and the high-tension wires?

Then a cry burst from her throat.

'What is it?' Dinah nearly screamed. 'What is it, Laurel? What's wrong?'

'Nothing!' she shouted triumphantly. Down below she could see a narrow road leading into a small seaside village. From up here, it looked like a toy town with tiny toy cars parked along the main street. She saw a church steeple, a town gravel pit, a Little League baseball field. 'Nothing's wrong! It's all there! It's all still there!'

From behind her, Robert Jenkins spoke. His voice was calm, level, and deeply dismayed. 'Madam,' he said, 'I'm afraid you are quite wrong.'

4

A long white passenger jet cruised slowly above the ground thirty-five miles east of Bangor International Airport. 767 was printed on its tail in large, proud numerals. Along the fuselage, the words AMERICAN PRIDE were written in letters which had been raked backward to indicate speed. On both sides of the nose was the airline's trademark: a large red eagle. Its spread wings were spangled with blue stars; its talons were flexed and its head was slightly bent. Like the airliner it decorated, the eagle appeared to be coming in for a landing.

The plane printed no shadow on the ground below it as it flew toward the cluster of city ahead; there was no rain, but the morning was gray and sunless. Its belly slid open. The undercarriage dropped down and spread out. The wheels locked into place below the body of the plane and the cockpit area.

American Pride Flight 29 slipped down the chute toward Bangor. It banked slightly left as it went; Captain Engle was now able to correct his course visually, and he did so.

'I see it!' Nick cried. 'I see the airport! My God, what a beautiful sight!'

'If you see it, you're out of your seat,' Brian said. He spoke without turning around. There was no time to turn around now. 'Buckle up and shut up.'

But that single long runway was a beautiful sight.

Brian centered the plane's nose on it and continued down the slide, passing through 1,000 to 800. Below him, a seemingly endless pine forest passed beneath Flight 29's wings. This finally gave way to a sprawl of buildings - Brian's restless eyes automatically recorded the usual litter of motels, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants - and then they were passing over the Penobscot River and into Bangor airspace. Brian checked the board again, noted he had green lights on his flaps, and then tried the airport again ... although he knew it was hopeless.

'Bangor tower, this is Flight 29,' he said. 'I am declaring an emergency. Repeat, I am declaring an emergency. If you have runway traffic, get it out of my way. I'm coming in.'

He glanced at the airspeed indicator just in time to see it drop below 140, the speed which theoretically committed him to landing. Below him, thinning trees gave way to a golf-course. He caught a quick glimpse of a green Holiday Inn sign and then the lights which marked the end of the runway - 33 painted on it in big white numerals - were rushing toward him.

The lights were not red, not green.

They were simply dead.

No time to think about it. No time to think about what would happen to them if a Learjet or a fat little Doyka puddle-jumper suddenly trundled onto the runway ahead of them. No time to do anything now but land the bird.

They passed over a short strip of weeds and gravel and then concrete runway was unrolling thirty feet below the plane. They passed over the first set of white stripes and then the skidmarks - probably made by Air National Guard jets this far out - began just below them.

Brian babied the 767 down toward the runway. The second set of stripes flashed just below them ... and a moment later there was a light bump as the main landing gear touched down. Now Flight 29 streaked along Runway 33 at a hundred and twenty miles an hour with its nose slightly up and its wings tilted at a mild angle. Brian applied full flaps and reversed the thrusters. There was another bump, even lighter than the first, as the nose came down.

Then the plane was slowing, from a hundred and twenty to a hundred, from a hundred to eighty, from eighty to forty, from forty to the speed at which a man might run.

It was done. They were down.

'Routine landing,' Brian said. 'Nothing to it.' Then he let out a long, shuddery breath and brought the plane to a full stop still four hundred yards from the nearest taxiway. His slim body was suddenly twisted by a flock of shivers. When he raised his hand to his face, it wiped away a great warm handful of sweat. He looked at it and uttered a weak laugh.

A hand fell on his shoulder. 'You all right, Brian?'

'Yes,' he said, and picked up the intercom mike again. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'welcome to Bangor.'

From behind him Brian heard a chorus of cheers and he laughed again.

Nick Hopewell was not laughing. He was leaning over Brian's seat and peering out through the cockpit window. Nothing moved on the gridwork of runways; nothing moved on the taxiways. No trucks or security vehicles buzzed back and forth on the tarmac. He could see a few vehicles, he could see an Army transport plane - a C-12 - parked on an outer taxiway and a Delta 727 parked at one of the jetways, but they were as still as statues.

'Thank you for the welcome, my friend,' Nick said softly. 'My deep appreciation stems from the fact that it appears you are the only one who is going to extend one. This place is utterly deserted.'

5

In spite of the continued radio silence, Brian was reluctant to accept Nick's judgment ... but by the time he had taxied to a point between two of the passenger terminal's jetways, he found it impossible to believe anything else. It was not just the absence of people; not just the lack of a single security car rushing out to see what was up with this unexpected 767; it was an air of utter lifelessness, as if Bangor International Airport had been deserted for a thousand years, or a hundred thousand. A jeep-driven baggage train with a few scattered pieces of luggage on its flatties was parked beneath one wing of the Delta jet. It was to this that Brian's eyes kept returning as he brought Flight 29 as close to the terminal as he dared and parked it. The dozen or so bags looked as ancient as artifacts exhumed from the site of some fabulous ancient city. I wonder if the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb felt the way I do now, he thought.

He let the engines die and just sat there for a moment. Now there was no sound but the faint whisper of an auxiliary power unit - one of four - at the rear of the plane. Brian's hand moved toward a switch marked INTERNAL POWER and actually touched it before drawing his hand back. Suddenly he didn't want to shut down completely. There was no reason not to, but the voice of instinct was very strong.

Besides, he thought, I don't think there's anyone around to bitch about wasting fuel . . . what little there is left to waste.

Then he unbuckled his safety harness and got up.

'Now what, Brian?' Nick asked. He had also risen, and Brian noticed for the first time that Nick was a good four inches taller than he was. He thought: I have been in charge. Ever since this weird thing happened - ever since we discovered it had happened, to be more accurate - I have been in charge. But I think that's going to change very shortly.

He discovered he didn't care. Flying the 767 into the clouds had taken every ounce of courage he possessed, but he didn't expect any thanks for keeping his head and doing his job; courage was one of the things he got paid for. He remembered a pilot telling him once, 'They pay us a hundred thousand dollars or more a year, Brian, and they really do it for just one reason. They know that in almost every pilot's career, there are thirty or forty seconds when he might actually make a difference. They pay us not to freeze when those seconds finally come.'

It was all very well for your brain to tell you that you had to go down, clouds or no clouds, that there was simply no choice; your nerve-endings just went on screaming their old warning, telegraphing the old highvoltage terror of the unknown. Even Nick, whatever he was and whatever he did on the ground, had wanted to back away from the clouds when it came to the sticking point. He had needed Brian to do what needed to be done. He and all the others had needed Brian to be their guts. Now they were down and there were no monsters beneath the clouds; only this weird silence and one deserted luggage train sitting beneath the wing of a Delta 727.

So if you want to take over and be the captain, my nose-twisting friend, you have my blessing. I'll even let you wear my cap if you want to. But not until we're off the plane. Until you and the rest of the geese actually stand on the ground, you're my responsibility.

But Nick had asked him a question, and Brian supposed he deserved an answer.

'Now we get off the airplane and see what's what,' he said, brushing past the Englishman.

Nick put a restraining hand on his shoulder. 'Do you think-'

Brian felt a flash of uncharacteristic anger. He shook loose from Nick's hand. 'I think we get off the plane,' he said. 'There's no one to extend a jetway or run us out a set of stairs, so I think we use the emergency slide. After that, you think. Matey.'

He pushed through into first class ... and almost fell over the drinks trolley, which lay on its side. There was a lot of broken glass and an eye-watering stink of alcohol. He stepped over it. Nick caught up with him at the rear of the first-class compartment.

'Brian, if I said something to offend you, I'm sorry. You did a hell of a fine job.'

'You didn't offend me,' Brian said. 'It's just that in the last ten hours or so I've had to cope with a pressure leak over the Pacific Ocean, finding out that my ex-wife died in a stupid apartment fire in Boston, and that the United States has been cancelled. I'm feeling a little zonked.'

He walked through business class into the main cabin. For a moment there was utter silence; they only sat there, looking at him from their white faces with dumb incomprehension.

Then Albert Kaussner began to applaud.

After a moment, Bob Jenkins joined him ... and Don Gaffney ... and Laurel Stevenson. The bald man looked around and also began to applaud.

'What is it?' Dinah asked Laurel. 'What's happening?'

'It's the captain,' Laurel said. She began to cry. 'It's the captain who brought us down safe.'

Then Dinah began to applaud, too.

Brian stared at them, dumbfounded. Standing behind him, Nick joined in. They unbuckled their belts and stood in front of their seats, applauding him. The only three who did not join in were Bethany, who had fainted, the bearded man, who was still snoring in the back row, and Craig Toomy, who panned them all with his strange lunar gaze and then began to rip a fresh strip from the airline magazine.

6

Brian felt his face flush - this was just too goony. He raised his hands but for a moment they went on, regardless.

'Ladies and gentlemen, please ... please ... I assure you, it was a very routine landing -'

'Shucks, ma'am - t'warn't nothin,' Bob Jenkins said, doing a very passable Gary Cooper imitation, and Albert burst out laughing. Beside him, Bethany's eyes fluttered open and she looked around, dazed.

'We got down alive, didn't we?' she said. 'My God! That's great! I thought we were all dead meat!'

'Please,' Brian said. He raised his arms higher and now he felt weirdly like Richard Nixon, accepting his party's nomination for four more years. He had to struggle against sudden shrieks of laughter. He couldn't do that; the passengers wouldn't understand. They wanted a hero, and he was elected. He might as well accept the position ... and use it. He still had to get them off the plane, after all. 'If I could have your attention, please!'

They stopped applauding one by one and looked at him expectantly - all except Craig, who threw his magazine aside in a sudden resolute gesture. He unbuckled his seatbelt, rose, and stepped out into the aisle, kicking a drift of paper strips aside. He began to rummage around in the compartment above his seat, frowning with concentration as he did so.

'You've looked out the windows, so you know as much as I do,' Brian said. 'Most of the passengers and all of the crew on this flight disappeared while we were asleep. That's crazy enough, but now we appear to be faced with an even crazier proposition. It looks like a lot of other people have disappeared as well ... but logic suggests that other people must be around somewhere. We survived whatever-it-was, so others must have survived it as well.'

Bob Jenkins, the mystery writer, whispered something under his breath. Albert heard him but could not make out the words. He half-turned in Jenkins's direction just as the writer muttered the two words again. This time Albert caught them. They were false logic.

'The best way to deal with this, I think, is to take things one step at a time. Step one is exiting the plane.'

'I bought a ticket to Boston,' Craig Toomy said in a calm, rational voice. 'Boston is where I want to go.'

Nick stepped out from behind Brian's shoulder. Craig glanced at him and his eyes narrowed. For a moment he looked like a bad-tempered housecat again. Nick raised one hand with the fingers curled in against his palm and scissored two of his knuckles together in a nose-pinching gesture. Craig Toomy, who had once been forced to stand with a lit match between his toes while his mother sang 'Happy Birthday,' got the message at once. He had always been a quick study. And he could wait.

'We'll have to use the emergency slide,' Brian said, 'so I want to review the procedures with you. Listen carefully, then form a single-file line and follow me to the front of the aircraft.'

7

Four minutes later, the forward entrance of American Pride's Flight 29 Swung inward. Some murmured conversation drifted out of the opening and seemed to fall immediately dead on the cool, still air. There was a hissing sound and a large clump of orange fabric suddenly bloomed in the doorway. For a moment it looked like a strange hybrid sunflower. It grew and took shape as it fell, its surface inflating into a plump ribbed slide. As the foot of the slide struck the tarmac there was a low pop! and then it just leaned there, looking like a giant orange air mattress.

Brian and Nick stood at the head of the short line in the portside row of first class.

'There's something wrong with the air out there,' Nick said in a low voice.

'What do you mean?' Brian asked. He pitched his voice even lower.

'Poisoned?'

'No ... at least I don't think so. But it has no smell, no taste.'

'You're nuts,' Brian said uneasily.

'No I'm not,' Nick said. 'This is an airport, mate, not a bloody hayfield, but can you smell oil or gas? I can't.'

Brian sniffed. And there was nothing. If the air was poisoned - he didn't believe it was, but if - it was a slow-acting toxin. His lungs seemed to be processing it just fine. But Nick was right. There was no smell. And that other, more elusive, quality that the Brit had called taste ... that wasn't there, either. The air outside the open door tasted utterly neutral. It tasted canned.

'Is something wrong?' Bethany Simms asked anxiously. 'I mean, I'm not sure if I really want to know if there is, but -'

'There's nothing wrong,' Brian said. He counted heads, came up with ten, and turned to Nick again. 'That guy in the back is still asleep. Do you think we should wake him up?'

Nick thought for a moment, then shook his head. 'Let's not. Haven't we got enough problems for now without having to play nursemaid to a bloke with a hangover?'

Brian grinned. They were his thoughts exactly. 'Yes, I think we do. All right -you go down first, Nick. Hold the bottom of the slide. I'll help the rest off.'

'Maybe you'd better go first. In case my loudmouthed friend decides to cut up rough about the unscheduled stop again.' He pronounced unscheduled as un-shed-youled.

Brian glanced at the man in the crew-necked jersey. He was standing at the rear of the line, a slim monogrammed briefcase in one hand, staring blankly at the ceiling. His face had all the expression of a department-store dummy. 'I'm not going to have any trouble with him,' he said, 'because I don't give a crap what he does. He can go or stay, it's all the same to me.'

Nick grinned. 'Good enough for me, too. Let the grand exodus begin.'

'Shoes off ?'

Nick held up a pair of black kidskin loafers.

'Okay - away you go.' Brian turned to Bethany. 'Watch closely, miss you're next.'

'Oh God - I hate shit like this.'

Bethany nevertheless crowded up beside Brian and watched apprehensively as Nick Hopewell addressed the slide. He jumped, raising both legs at the same time so he looked like a man doing a seat-drop on a trampoline. He landed on his butt and slid to the bottom. It was neatly done; the foot of the slide barely moved. He hit the tarmac with his stockinged feet, stood up, twirled around, and made a mock bow with his arms held out behind him.

'Easy as pie!' he called up. 'Next customer!'

'That's you, miss,' Brian said. 'Is it Bethany?'

'Yes,' she said nervously. 'I don't think I can do this. I flunked gym all three semesters and they finally let me take home ec again instead.'

'You'll do fine,' Brian told her. He reflected that people used the slide with much less coaxing and a lot more enthusiasm when there was a threat they could see - a hole in the fuselage or a fire in one of the portside engines. 'Shoes off?'

Bethany's shoes - actually a pair of old pink sneakers - were off, but she tried to withdraw from the doorway and the bright-orange slide just the same. 'Maybe if I could just have a drink before -'

'Mr Hopewell's holding the slide and you'll be fine,' Brian coaxed, but he was beginning to be afraid he might have to push her. He didn't want to, but if she didn't jump soon, he would. You couldn't let them go to the end of the line until their courage returned; that was the big no-no when it came to the escape slide. If you did that, they all wanted to go to the end of the line.

'Go on, Bethany,' Albert said suddenly. He had taken his violin case from the overhead compartment and held it tucked under one arm. 'I'm scared to death of that thing, and if you go, I'll have to.'

She looked at him, surprised. 'Why?'

Albert's face was very red. 'Because you're a girl,' he said simply. 'I know I'm a sexist rat, but that's it.'

Bethany looked at him a moment longer, then laughed and turned to the slide. Brian had made up his mind to push her if she looked around or drew back again, but she didn't. 'Boy, I wish I had some grass,' she said, and jumped.

She had seen Nick's seat-drop maneuver and knew what to do, but at the last moment she lost her courage and tried to get her feet under her again. As a result, she skidded to one side when she came down on the slide's bouncy surface. Brian was sure she was going to tumble off, but Bethany herself saw the danger and managed to roll back. She shot down the slope on her right side, one hand over her head, her blouse rucking up almost to the nape of her neck. Then Nick caught her and she stepped off.

'Oh boy,' she said breathlessly. 'Just like being a kid again.'

'Are you all right?' Nick asked.

'Yeah. I think I might have wet my pants a little, but I'm okay.'

Nick smiled at her and turned back to the slide.

Albert looked apologetically at Brian and extended the violin case. 'Would you mind holding this for me? I'm afraid if I fall off the slide, it might get broken. My folks'd kill me. It's a Gretch.'

Brian took it. His face was calm and serious, but he was smiling inside. 'Could I look? I used to play one of these about a thousand years ago.'

'Sure,' Albert said.

Brian's interest had a calming effect on the boy ... which was exactly what he had hoped for. He unsnapped the three catches and opened the case. The violin inside was indeed a Gretch, and not from the bottom of that prestigious line, either. Brian guessed you could buy a compact car for the amount of money this had cost.

'Beautiful,' he said, and plucked out four quick notes along the neck: My dog has fleas. They rang sweetly and beautifully. Brian closed and latched the case again. 'I'll keep it safe. Promise.'

'Thanks.' Albert stood in the doorway, took a deep breath, then let it out again. 'Geronimo,' he said in a weak little voice and jumped. He tucked his hands into his armpits as he did so - protecting his hands in any situation where physical damage was possible was so ingrained in him that it had become a reflex. He seatdropped onto the slide and shot neatly to the bottom.

'Well done!' Nick said.

'Nothing to it,' Ace Kaussner drawled, stepped off, and then nearly tripped over his own feet.

'Albert!' Brian called down. 'Catch!' He leaned out, placed the violin case on the center of the slide, and let it go. Albert caught it easily five feet from the bottom, tucked it under his arm, and stood back.

Jenkins shut his eyes as he leaped and came down aslant on one scrawny buttock. Nick stepped nimbly to the left side of the slide and caught the writer just as he fell off, saving him a nasty tumble to the concrete.

'Thank you, young man.'

'Don't mention it, matey.'

Gaffney followed; so did the bald man. Then Laurel and Dinah Bellman stood in the hatchway.

'I'm scared,' Dinah said in a thin, wavery voice.

'You'll be fine, honey,' Brian said. 'You don't even have to jump.' He put his hands on Dinah's shoulders and turned her so she was facing him with her back to the slide. 'Give me your hands and I'll lower you onto the slide.'

But Dinah put them behind her back. 'Not you. I want Laurel to do it.'

Brian looked at the youngish woman with the dark hair. 'Would you?'

'Yes,' she said. 'If you tell me what to do.'

'Dinah already knows. Lower her onto the slide by her hands. When she's lying on her tummy with her feet pointed straight, she can shoot right down.'

Dinah's hands were cold in Laurel's. 'I'm scared,' she repeated.

'Honey, it'll be just like going down a playground slide,' Brian said. 'The man with the English accent is waiting at the bottom to catch you. He's got his hands up just like a catcher in a baseball game.' Not, he reflected, that Dinah would know what that looked like.

Dinah looked at him as if he were being quite foolish. 'Not of that. I'm scared of this place. It smells funny.'

Laurel, who detected no smell but her own nervous sweat, looked helplessly at Brian.

'Honey,' Brian said, dropping to one knee in front of the little blind girl, 'we have to get off the plane. You know that, don't you?'

The lenses of the dark glasses turned toward him. 'Why? Why do we have to get off the plane? There's no one here.'

Brian and Laurel exchanged a glance.

'Well,' Brian said, 'we won't really know that until we check, will we?'

'I know already,' Dinah said. 'There's nothing to smell and nothing to hear. But ... but . . .'

'But what, Dinah?' Laurel asked.

Dinah hesitated. She wanted to make them understand that the way she had to leave the plane was really not what was bothering her. She had gone down slides before, and she trusted Laurel. Laurel would not let go of her hands if it was dangerous. Something was wrong here, wrong, and that was what she was afraid of - the wrong thing. It wasn't the quiet and it wasn't the emptiness. It might have to do with those things, but it was more than those things.

Something wrong.

But grownups did not believe children, especially not blind children, even more especially not blind girl children. She wanted to tell them they couldn't stay here, that it wasn't safe to stay here, that they had to start the plane up and get going again. But what would they say? Okay, sure, Dinah's right, everybody back on the plane? No way.

They'll see. They'll see that it's empty and then we'll get back on the airplane and go someplace else. Someplace where it doesn't feel wrong. There's still time.

I think.

'Never mind,' she told Laurel. Her voice was low and resigned. 'Lower me down.'

Laurel lowered her carefully onto the slide. A moment later Dinah was looking up at her - except she's not really looking, Laurel thought, she can't really look at all - with her bare feet splayed out behind her on the orange slide.

'Okay, Dinah?' Laurel asked.

'No,' Dinah said. 'Nothing's okay here.' And before Laurel could release her, Dinah unlocked her hands from Laurel's and released herself. She slid to the bottom, and Nick caught her.

Laurel went next, dropping neatly onto the slide and holding her skirt primly as she slid to the bottom. That left Brian, the snoozing drunk at the back of the plane, and that fun-loving, paper-ripping party animal, Mr Crew-Neck jersey.

I'm not going to have any trouble with him, Brian had said, because I don't give a crap what he does. Now he discovered that was not really true. The man was not playing with a full deck. Brian suspected even the little girl knew that, and the little girl was blind. What if they left him behind and the guy decided to go on a rampage? What if, in the course of that rampage, he decided to trash the cockpit?

So what? You're not going anyplace. The tanks are almost dry.

Still, he didn't like the idea, and not just because the 767 was a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, either. Perhaps what he felt was a vague echo of what he had seen in Dinah's face as she looked up from the slide. Things here seemed wrong, even wronger than they looked ... and that was scary, because he didn't know how things could be wronger than that. The plane, however, was right. Even with its fuel tanks all but empty, it was a world he knew and understood.

'Your turn, friend,' he said as civilly as he could.

'You know I'm going to report you for this, don't you?' Craig Toomy asked in a queerly gentle voice. 'You know I plan to sue this entire airline for thirty million dollars, and that I plan to name you a primary respondent?'

'That's your privilege, Mr -'

'Toomy. Craig Toomy.'

'Mr Toomy,' Brian agreed. He hesitated. 'Mr Toomy, are you aware of what has happened to us?'

Craig looked out the open doorway for a moment - looked at the deserted tarmac and the wide, slightly polarized terminal windows on the second level, where no happy friends and relatives stood waiting to embrace arriving passengers, where no impatient travellers waited for their flights to be called. Of course he knew. It was the langoliers. The langoliers had come for all the foolish, lazy people, just as his father had always said they would.

In that same gentle voice, Craig said: 'In the Bond Department of the Desert Sun Banking Corporation, I am known as The Wheelhorse. Did you know that?' He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for Brian to make some response. When Brian didn't, Craig continued. 'Of course you didn't. No more than you know how important this meeting at the Prudential Center in Boston is. No more than you care. But let me tell you something, Captain: the economic fate of nations may hinge upon the results of that meeting - that meeting from which I will be absent when the roll is taken.'

'Mr Toomy, all that's very interesting, but I really don't have time

'Time!' Craig screamed at him suddenly. 'What in the hell do you know about time? Ask me! Ask me! I know about time! I know all about time! Time is short, sir! Time is very fucking short!'

Hell with it, I'm going to push the crazy son of a bitch, Brian thought, but before he could, Craig Toomy turned and leaped. He did a perfect seat-drop, holding his briefcase to his chest as he did so, and Brian was crazily reminded of that old Hertz ad on TV, the one where O.J.Simpson went flying through airports in a suit and a tie.

'Time is short as hell!' Craig shouted as he slid down, briefcase over his chest like a shield, pantslegs pulling up to reveal his knee-high dress-for-success black nylon socks.

Brian muttered: 'Jesus, what a fucking weirdo.' He paused at the head of the slide, looked around once more at the comforting, known world of his aircraft . . . and jumped.

8

Ten people stood in two small groups beneath the giant wing of the 767 with the red-and-blue eagle on the nose. In one group were Brian, Nick, the bald man, Bethany Simms, Albert Kaussner, Robert Jenkins, Dinah, Laurel, and Don Gaffney. Standing slightly apart from them and constituting his own group was Craig Toomy, a.k.a. The Wheelhorse. Craig bent and shook out the creases of his pants with fussy concentration, using his left hand to do it. The right hand was tightly locked around the handle of his briefcase. Then he simply stood and looked around with wide, disinterested eyes.

'What now, Captain?' Nick asked briskly.

'You tell me. Us.'

Nick looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised, as if to ask Brian if he really meant it. Brian inclined his head half an inch. It was enough.

'Well, inside the terminal will do for a start, I reckon,' Nick said. 'What would be the quickest way to get there? Any idea?'

Brian nodded toward a line of baggage trains parked beneath the overhang of the main terminal. 'I'd guess the quickest way in without a jetway would be the luggage conveyor.'

'All right; let's hike on over, ladies and gentlemen, shall we?'

It was a short walk, but Laurel, who walked hand-in-hand with Dinah, thought it was the strangest one she had ever taken in her life. She could see them as if from above, less than a dozen dots trundling slowly across a wide concrete plain. There was no breeze. No birds sang. No motors revved in the distance, and no human voice broke the unnatural quiet. Even their footfalls seemed wrong to her. She was wearing a pair of high heels, but instead of the brisk click she was used to, she seemed to hear only small, dull thuds.

Seemed, she thought. That's the key word. Because the situation is so strange, everything begins to seem strange. It's the concrete, that's all. High heels sound different on concrete.

But she had walked on concrete in high heels before. She didn't remember ever hearing a sound precisely like this. It was ... pallid, somehow. Strengthless.

They reached the parked luggage trains. Nick wove between them, leading the line, and stopped at a dead conveyor belt which emerged from a hole lined with hanging strips of rubber. The conveyor made a wide circle on the apron where the handlers normally stood to unload the flatties, then re-entered the terminal through another hole hung with rubber strips.

'What are those pieces of rubber for?' Bethany asked nervously.

'To keep out the draft in cold weather, I imagine,' Nick said. 'Just let me poke my head through and have a look. No fear; won't be a moment.' And before anyone could reply, he had boosted himself onto the conveyor belt and was walking bent-over down to one of the holes cut into the building. When he got there, he dropped to his knees and poked his head through the rubber strips.

We're going to hear a whistle and then a thud, Albert thought wildly, and when we pull him back, his head will be gone.

There was no whistle, no thud. When Nick withdrew, his head was still firmly attached to his neck, and his face wore a thoughtful expression. 'Coast's clear,' he said, and to Albert his cheery tone now sounded manufactured. 'Come on through, friends. When a body meet a body, and all that.'

Bethany held back. 'Are there bodies? Mister, are there dead people in there?'

'Not that I saw, miss,' Nick said, and now he had dropped any attempt at lightness. 'I was misquoting old Bobby Burns in an attempt to be funny. I'm afraid I achieved tastelessness instead of humor. The fact is, I didn't see anyone at all. But that's pretty much what we expected, isn't it?'

It was ... but it struck heavily at their hearts just the same. Nick's as well, from his tone.

One after the other they climbed onto the conveyor belt and crawled after him through the hanging rubber strips.

Dinah paused just outside the entrance hole and turned her head back toward Laurel. Hazy light flashed across her dark glasses, turning them to momentary mirrors.

'It's really wrong here,' she repeated, and pushed through to the other side.

9

One by one they emerged into the main terminal of Bangor International Airport, exotic baggage crawling along a stalled conveyor belt. Albert helped Dinah off and then they all stood there, looking around in silent wonder.

The shocked amazement at waking to a plane which had been magically emptied of people had worn off; now dislocation had taken the place of wonder. None of them had ever been in an airport terminal which was utterly empty. The rental-car stalls were deserted. The ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES monitors were dark and dead. No one stood at the bank of counters serving Delta, United, Northwest Air-Link, or MidCoast Airways. The huge tank in the middle of the floor with the BUY MAINE LOBSTERS banner stretched over it was full of water, but there were no lobsters in it. The overhead fluorescents were off, and the small amount of light entering through the doors on the far side of the large room petered out halfway across the floor, leaving the little group from Flight 29 huddled together in an unpleasant nest of shadows.

'Right, then,' Nick said, trying for briskness and managing only unease. 'Let's try the telephones, shall we?'

While he went to the bank of telephones, Albert wandered over to the Budget Rent A Car desk. In the slots on the rear wall he saw folders for BRIGGS, HANDLEFORD, MARCHANT, FENWICK, and

PESTLEMAN. There was, no doubt, a rental agreement inside each one, along with a map of the central Maine area, and on each map there would be an arrow with the legend You ARE HERE on it, pointing at the city of Bangor.

But where are we really? Albert wondered. And where are Briggs, Handleford, Marchant, Fenwick, and Pestleman? Have they been transported to another dimension? Maybe it's the Grateful Dead. Maybe the Dead's playing somewhere downstate and everybody left for the show.

There was a dry scratching noise just behind him. Albert nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around fast, holding his violin case up like a cudgel. Bethany was standing there, just touching a match to the tip of her cigarette.

She raised her eyebrows. 'Scare you?'

'A little,' Albert said, lowering the case and offering her a small, embarrassed smile.

'Sorry.' She shook out the match, dropped it on the floor, and drew deeply on her cigarette. 'There. At least that's better. I didn't dare to on the plane. I was afraid something might blow up.'

Bob Jenkins strolled over. 'You know, I quit those about ten years ago.'

'No lectures, please,' Bethany said. 'I've got a feeling that if we get out of this alive and sane, I'm in for about a month of lectures. Solid. Wall-to-wall.'

Jenkins raised his eyebrows but didn't ask for an explanation. 'Actually,' he said, 'I was going to ask you if I could have one. This seems like an excellent time to renew acquaintances with old habits.'

Bethany smiled and offered him a Marlboro. Jenkins took it and she lit it for him. He inhaled, then coughed out a series of smoke-signal puffs.

'You have been away,' she observed matter-of-factly.

Jenkins agreed. 'But I'll get used to it again in a hurry. That's the real horror of the habit, I'm afraid. Did you two notice the clock?'

'No,' Albert said.

Jenkins pointed to the wall above the doors of the men's and women's bathrooms. The clock mounted there had stopped at 4:07.

lit fits,' he said. 'We knew we had been in the air for awhile when - let's call it The Event, for want of a better term - when The Event took place. 4:07 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time is 1:07 A.M. PDT. So now we know the when.'

'Gee, that's great,' Bethany said.

'Yes,' Jenkins said, either not noticing or preferring to ignore the light overlay of sarcasm in her voice. 'But there's something wrong with it. I only wish the sun was out. Then I could be sure.'

'What do you mean?' Albert asked.

'The clocks - the electric ones, anyway - are no good. There's no juice. But if the sun was out, we could get at least a rough idea of what time it is by the length and direction of our shadows. My watch says it's going on quarter of nine, but I don't trust it. It feels later to me than that. I have no proof for it, and I can't explain it, but it does.'

Albert thought about it. Looked around. Looked back at Jenkins. 'You know,' he said, 'it does. It feels like it's almost lunchtime. Isn't that nuts?'

'It's not nuts,' Bethany said, 'it's just jetlag.'

'I disagree,' Jenkins said. 'We travelled west to east, young lady. Any temporal dislocation west-east travellers feel goes the other way. They feel it's earlier than it should be.'

'I want to ask you about something you said on the plane,' Albert said. 'When the captain told us that there must be some other people here, you said "false logic." In fact, you said it twice. But it seems straight enough to me. We were all asleep, and we're here. And if this thing happened at -' Albert glanced toward the clock '- at 4:07, Bangor time, almost everyone in town must have been asleep.'

'Yes,' Jenkins said blandly. 'So where are they?'

Albert was nonplussed. 'Well . . .'

There was a bang as Nick forcibly hung up one of the pay telephones. It was the last in a long line of them; he had tried every one. 'It's a wash-' out,' he said. 'They're all dead. The coin-fed ones as well as the directdials. You can add the sound of no phones ringing to that of no dogs barking, Brian.'

'So what do we do now?' Laurel asked. She heard the forlorn sound of her own voice and it made her feel very small, very lost. Beside her, Dinah was turning in slow circles. She looked like a human radar dish.

'Let's go upstairs,' Baldy proposed. 'That's where the restaurant must be.'

They all looked at him. Gaffney snorted. 'You got a one-track mind, mister.'

The bald man looked at him from beneath one raised eyebrow. 'First, the name is Rudy Warwick, not mister,' he replied. 'Second, people think better when their stomachs are full.' He shrugged. 'It's just a law of nature.'

'I think Mr Warwick is quite right,' Jenkins said. 'We all could use something to eat ... and if we go upstairs, we may find some other clues pointing toward what has happened. In fact, I rather think we will.' Nick shrugged. He looked suddenly tired and confused. 'Why not? he said. 'I'm starting to feel like Mr Robinson Bloody Crusoe.'

They started toward the escalator, which was also dead, in a straggling little group. Albert, Bethany, and Bob Jenkins walked together, toward the rear.

'You know something, don't you?' Albert asked abruptly. 'What is it?'

'I might know something,' Jenkins corrected. 'I might not. For the time being I'm going to hold my peace ... except for one suggestion.'

'What?'

'It's not for you; it's for the young lady.' He turned to Bethany. 'Save your matches. That's my suggestion.'

'What?' Bethany frowned at him.

'You heard me.'

'Yeah, I guess I did, but I don't get what you mean. There's probably a newsstand upstairs, Mr Jenkins. They'll have lots of matches. Cigarettes and disposable lighters, too.'

'I agree,' Jenkins said. 'I still advise you to save your matches.'

He's playing Philo Christie or whoever it was again, Albert thought.

He was about to point this out and ask Jenkins to please remember that this wasn't one of his novels when Brian Engle stopped at the foot of the escalator, so suddenly that Laurel had to jerk sharply on Dinah's hand to keep the blind girl from running into him.

'Watch where you're going, okay?' Laurel asked. 'In case you didn't notice, the kid here can't see.'

Brian ignored her. He was looking around at the little group of refugees. 'Where's Mr Toomy?'

'Who?' the bald man - Warwick - asked.

'The guy with the pressing appointment in Boston.'

'Who cares?' Gaffney asked. 'Good riddance to bad rubbish.'

But Brian was uneasy. He didn't like the idea that Toomy had slipped away and gone off on his own. He didn't know why, but he didn't like that idea at all. He glanced at Nick. Nick shrugged, then shook his head. 'Didn't see him go, mate. I was fooling with the phones. Sorry.'

'Toomy!' Brian shouted. 'Craig Toomy! Where are you?'

There was no response. Only that queer, oppressive silence. And Laurel noticed something then, something that made her skin cold. Brian had cupped his hands and shouted up the escalator. In a high-ceilinged place like this one, there should have been at least some echo.

But there had been none. No echo at all.

10

While the others were occupied downstairs - the two teenagers and the old geezer standing by one of the car-rental desks, the others watching the British thug as he tried the phones - Craig Toomy had crept up the stalled escalator as quietly as a mouse. He knew exactly where he wanted to go; he knew exactly what to look for when he got there.

He strode briskly across the large waiting room with his briefcase swinging beside his right knee, ignoring both the empty chairs and an empty bar called The Red Baron. At the far end of the room was a sign hanging over the mouth of a wide, dark corridor. It read

GATE 5 INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS

DUTY FREE SHOPS

U.S. CUSTOMS

AIRPORT SECURITY

He had almost reached the head of this corridor when he glanced out one of the wide windows at the tarmac again . . . and his pace faltered. He approached the glass slowly and looked out.

There was nothing to see but the empty concrete and the moveless white sky, but his eyes began to widen nonetheless and he felt fear begin to steal into his heart.

They're coming, a dead voice suddenly told him. It was the voice of his father, and it spoke from a small, haunted mausoleum tucked away in a gloomy corner of Craig Toomy's heart.

'No,' he whispered, and the word spun a little blossom of fog on the window in front of his lips. 'No one is coming.'

You've been bad. Worse, you've been lazy.

'No!'

Yes. You had an appointment and you skipped it. You ran away. You ran away to Bangor, Maine, of all the silly places.

'It wasn't my fault,' he muttered. He was gripping the handle of the briefcase with almost painful tightness now. 'I was taken against my will. I ... I was shanghaied!'

No reply from that interior voice. Only waves of disapproval. And once again Craig intuited the pressure he was under, the terrible never-ending pressure, the weight of the fathoms. The interior voice did not have to tell him there were no excuses; Craig knew that. He knew it of old.

THEY were here ... and they will be back. You know that, don't you?

He knew. The langoliers would be back. They would be back for him. He could sense them. He had never seen them, but he knew how horrible they would be. And was he alone in his knowledge? He thought not.

He thought perhaps the little blind girl knew something about the langoliers as well.

But that didn't matter. The only thing which did was getting to Boston getting to Boston before the langoliers could arrive in Bangor from their terrible, doomish lair to eat him alive and screaming. He had to get to that meeting at the Pru, had to let them know what he had done, and then he would be ...

Free.

He would be free.

Craig pulled himself away from the window, away from the emptiness and the stillness, and plunged into the corridor beneath the sign. He passed the empty shops without a glance. Beyond them he came to the door he was looking for. There was a small rectangular plaque mounted on it, just above a bullseye peephole. AIRPORT SECURITY, it said.

He had to get in there. One way or another, he had to get in there.

All of this ... this craziness ... it doesn't have to belong to me. I don't have to own it. Not anymore.

Craig reached out and touched the doorknob of the Airport Security office. The blank look in his eyes had been replaced by an expression of clear determination.

I have been under stress for a long, a very long, time. Since I was seven? No - I think it started even before that. The fact is, I've been under stress for as long as I can remember. This latest piece of craziness is just a new variation. It's probably just what the man in the ratty sport-coat said it was: a test. Agents of some secret government agency or sinister foreign power running a test. But I choose not to participate in any more tests. I don't care if it's my father in charge, or my mother, or the dean of the Graduate School of Management, or the Desert Sun Banking Corporation's Board of Directors. I choose not to participate. I choose to escape. I choose to get to Boston and finish what I set out to do when I presented the Argentinian bond-buy in the first place. If I don't . . .

But he knew what would happen if he didn't.

He would go mad.

Craig tried the doorknob. It did not move beneath his hand, but when he gave it a small, frustrated push, the door swung open. Either it had been left slightly unlatched, or it had unlocked when the power went off and the security systems went dead. Craig didn't care which. The important thing was that he wouldn't need to muss his clothes trying to crawl through an air-conditioning duct or something. He still had every intention of showing up at his meeting before the end of the day, and he didn't want his clothes smeared with dirt and grease when he got there. One of the simple, unexceptional truths of life was this: guys with dirt on their suits have no credibility.

He pushed the door open and went inside.

11

Brian and Nick reached the top of the escalator first, and the others gathered around them. This was BIA's central waiting room, a large square box filled with contour plastic seats (some with coin-op TVs bolted to the arms) and dominated by a wall of polarized floor-to-ceiling windows. To their immediate left was the airport newsstand and the security checkpoint which served Gate I; to their right and all the way across the room was The Red Baron Bar and The Cloud Nine Restaurant. Beyond the restaurant was the corridor leading to the Airport Security Office and the International Arrivals Annex.

'Come on -' Nick began, and Dinah said, 'Wait.'

She spoke in a strong, urgent voice and they all turned toward her curiously.

Dinah dropped Laurel's hand and raised both of her own. She cupped the thumbs behind her ears and splayed her fingers out like fans. Then she simply stood there, still as a post, in this odd and rather weird listening posture.

'What -' Brian began, and Dinah said 'Shhh!' in an abrupt, inarguable sibilant.

She turned slightly to the left, paused, then turned in the other direction until the white light coming through the windows fell directly on her, turning her already pale face into something which was ghostlike and eerie. She took off her dark glasses. The eyes beneath were wide, brown, and not quite blank.

'There,' she said in a low, dreaming voice, and Laurel felt terror begin to stroke at her heart with chilly fingers. Nor was she alone. Bethany was crowding close to her on one side, and Don Gaffney moved in against her other side. 'There - I can feel the light. They said that's how they know I can see again. I can always feel the light. It's like heat inside my head.'

'Dinah, what -'Brian began.

Nick elbowed him. The Englishman's face was long and drawn, his forehead ribbed with lines. 'Be quiet, mate.'

'The fight is ... here.'

She walked slowly away from them, her hands still fanned out by her ears, her elbows held out before her to encounter any object which might stand in her way. She advanced until she was less than two feet from the window. Then she slowly reached out until her fingers touched the glass. They looked like black starfish outlined against the white sky. She let out a small, unhappy Murmur.

'The glass is wrong, too,' she said in that dreaming voice.

'Dinah -' Laurel began.

'Shhh . . .'she whispered without turning round. She stood at the window like a little girl waiting for her father to come home from work. 'I hear something.'

These whispered words sent a wordless, thoughtless horror through Albert Kaussner's mind. He felt pressure on his shoulders and looked down to see he had crossed his arms across his chest and was clutching himself hard.

Brian listened with all his concentration. He heard his own breathing, and the breathing of the others ... but he heard nothing else. It's her imagination, he thought. That's all it is.

But he wondered.

'What?' Laurel asked urgently. 'What do you hear, Dinah?'

'I don't know,' she said without turning from the window. 'It's very faint. I thought I heard it when we got off the airplane, and then I decided it was just my imagination. Now I can hear it better. I can hear it even through the glass. It sounds ... a little like Rice Krispies after you pour in the milk.'

Brian turned to Nick and spoke in a low voice. 'Do you hear anything?'

'Not a bloody thing,' Nick said, matching Brian's tone. 'But she's blind. She's used to making her ears do double duty.'

'I think it's hysteria,' Brian said. He was whispering now, his lips almost touching Nick's ear.

Dinah turned from the window.

'"Do you hear anything?"' she mimicked. "'Not a bloody thing. But she's blind. She's used to making her ears do double duty."' She paused, then added: "'I think it's hysteria."'

'Dinah, what are you talking about?' Laurel asked, perplexed and frightened. She had not heard Brian and Nick's muttered conversation, although she had been standing much closer to them than Dinah was.

'Ask them,' Dinah said. Her voice was trembling. 'I'm not crazy! I'm blind, but I'm not crazy!'

'All right,' Brian said, shaken. 'All right, Dinah.' And to Laurel he said: 'I was talking to Nick. She heard us. From over there by the windows, she heard us.'

You've got great ears, hon,' Bethany said.

I hear what I hear,' Dinah said. 'And I hear something out there. In that direction.' She pointed due east through the glass. Her unseeing eyes swept them. 'And it's bad. It's an awful sound, a scary sound.'

Don Gaffney said hesitantly: 'If you knew what it was, little miss, that would help, maybe.'

'I don't,' Dinah said. 'But I know that it's closer than it was.' She put her dark glasses back on with a hand that was trembling. 'We have to get out of here. And we have to get out soon. Because something is coming. The bad something making the cereal noise.'

'Dinah,' Brian said, 'the plane we came in is almost out of fuel.'

'Then you have to put some more in it!' Dinah screamed shrilly at him. 'It's coming, don't you understand? It's coming, and if we haven't gone when it gets here, we're going to die! We're all going to die!'

Her voice cracked and she began to sob. She was not a sibyl or a medium but only a little girl forced to live her terror in a darkness which was almost complete. She staggered toward them, her self-possession utterly gone. Laurel grabbed her before she could stumble over one of the guide-ropes which marked the way to the security checkpoint and hugged her tight. She tried to soothe the girl, but those last words echoed and rang in Laurel's confused, shocked mind: If we haven't gone when it gets here, we're going to die.

We're all going to die.

12

Craig Toomy heard the brat begin to caterwaul back there someplace and ignored it. He had found what he was looking for in the third locker he opened, the one with the name MARKEY Dymotaped to the front. Mr Markey's lunch - a sub sandwich poking out of a brown paper bag - was on the top shelf. Mr Markey's street shoes were placed neatly side by side on the bottom shelf. Hanging in between, from the same hook, were a plain white shirt and a gunbelt. Protruding from the holster was the butt of Mr Markey's service revolver.

Craig unsnapped the safety strap and took the gun out. He didn't know much about guns - this could have been a .32, a .38, or even a .45, for all of him - but he was not stupid, and after a few moments of fumbling he was able to roll the cylinder. All six chambers were loaded. He pushed the cylinder back in, nodding slightly when he heard it click home, and then inspected the hammer area and both sides of the grip. He was looking for a safety catch, but there didn't appear to be one. He put his finger on the trigger and tightened until he saw both the hammer and the cylinder move slightly. Craig nodded, satisfied.

He turned around and without warning the most intense loneliness of his adult life struck him. The gun seemed to take on weight and the hand holding it sagged. Now he stood with his shoulders slumped, the briefcase dangling from his right hand, the security guard's pistol dangling from his left. On his face was an expression of utter, abject misery. And suddenly a memory recurred to him, something he hadn't thought of in years: Craig Toomy, twelve years old, lying in bed and shivering as hot tears ran down his face. In the other room the stereo was turned up loud and his mother was singing along with Merrilee Rush in her droning off-key drunk's voice: 'Just call me angel ... of the morn-ing, bay-bee ... just touch my cheek ... before you leave me, bay-bee . . .'

Lying there in bed. Shaking. Crying. Not making a sound. And thinking: Why can't you love me and leave me alone, Momma? Why can't you just love me and leave me alone?

'I don't want to hurt anyone,' Craig Toomy muttered through his tears. 'I don't want to, but this ... this is intolerable.'

Across the room was a bank of TV monitors, all blank. For a moment, as he looked at them, the truth of what had happened, what was still happening, tried to crowd in on him. For a moment it almost broke through his complex system of neurotic shields and into the air-raid shelter where he lived his life.

Everyone is gone, Craiggy-weggy. The whole world is gone except for you and the people who were on that plane.

'No,' he moaned, and collapsed into one of the chairs standing around the Formica-topped kitchen table in the center of the room. 'No, that's not so. That's just not so. I refute that idea. I refute it utterly.'

The langoliers were here, and they will be back, his father said. It overrode the voice of his mother, as it always had. You better be gone when they get here . . . or you know what will happen.

He knew, all right. They would eat him. The langoliers would eat him up.

'But I don't want to hurt anyone,' he repeated in a dreary, distraught voice. There was a mimeographed duty roster lying on the table. Craig let go of his briefcase and laid the gun on the table beside him. Then he picked up the duty roster, looked at it for a moment with unseeing eyes, and began to tear a long strip from the lefthand side.

Rii-ip.

Soon he was hypnotized as a pile of thin strips - maybe the thinnest ever! - began to flutter down onto the table. But even then the cold voice of his father would not entirely leave him:

Or you know what will happen.