Four Past Midnight

CHAPTER 6

Stranded. Bethany's Matches. Two-Way Traffic

Ahead. Albert's Experiment. Nightfall.

The Dark and the Blade.

1

Brian turned to look at the writer. 'You say we have to get out of here, right?'

'Yes. I think we must do that just as soon as we possibly -'

'And where do you suggest we go? Atlantic City? Miami Beach? Club Med?'

'You are suggesting, Captain Engle, that there's no place we can go. I think - I hope - that you're wrong about that. I have an idea.'

'Which is?'

'In a moment. First, answer one question for me. Can you refuel the airplane? Can you do that even if there's no power?'

'I think so, yes. Let's say that, with the help of a few able-bodied men, I could. Then what?'

'Then we take off again,' Bob said. Little beads of sweat stood out on his deeply lined face. They looked like droplets of clear oil. 'That sound - that crunchy sound - is coming from the east. The time-rip was several thousand miles west of here. If we retraced our original course ... could you do that?'

'Yes,' Brian said. He had left the auxiliary power units running, and that meant the INS computer's program was still intact. That program was an exact log of the trip they had just made, from the moment Flight 29 had left the ground in southern California until the moment it had set down in central Maine. One touch of a button would instruct the computer to simply reverse that course; the touch of another button, once in the air, would put the autopilot to work flying it. The Teledyne inertial navigation system would re-create the trip down to the smallest degree deviations. 'I could do that, but why?'

'Because the rip may still be there. Don't you see? We might be able to fly back through it.'

Nick looked at Bob in sudden startled concentration, then turned to Brian. 'He might have something there, mate. He just might.'

Albert Kaussner's mind was diverted onto an irrelevant but fascinating side-track: if the rip were still there, and if Flight 29 had been on a frequently used altitude and heading - a kind of east-west avenue in the sky - then perhaps other planes had gone through it between 1:07 this morning and now (whenever now was). Perhaps there were other planes landing or landed at other deserted American airports, other crews and passengers wandering around, stunned ...

No, he thought. We happened to have a pilot on board. What are the chances of that happening twice?

He thought of what Mr Jenkins had said about Ted Williams's sixteen consecutive on-bases and shivered.

'He might or he might not,' Brian said. 'It doesn't really matter, because we're not going anyplace in that plane.'

'Why not?' Rudy asked. 'If you could refuel it, I don't see .

'Remember the matches? The ones from the bowl in the restaurant? The ones that wouldn't light?'

Rudy looked blank, but an expression of huge dismay dawned on Bob Jenkins's face. He put his hand to his forehead and took a step backwards. He actually seemed to shrink before them.

'What?' Don asked. He was looking at Brian from beneath drawn-together brows. It was a look which conveyed both confusion and suspicion. 'What does that have to -'

But Nick knew.

'Don't you see?' he asked quietly. 'Don't you see, mate? If batteries don't work, if matches don't light -'

'then jet-fuel won't burn,' Brian finished. 'It will be as used up and worn out as everything else in this world.' He looked at each one of them in turn. 'I might as well fill up the fuel tanks with molasses.'

2

'Have either of you fine ladies ever heard of the langoliers?' Craig asked suddenly. His tone was light, almost vivacious.

Laurel jumped and looked nervously toward the others, who were still standing by the windows and talking. Dinah only turned toward Craig's voice, apparently not surprised at all.

'No,' she said calmly. 'What are those?'

'Don't talk to him, Dinah,' Laurel whispered.

'I heard that,' Craig said in the same pleasant tone of voice. 'Dinah's not the only one with sharp ears, you know.'

Laurel felt her face grow warm.

'I wouldn't hurt the child, anyway,' Craig went on. 'No more than I would have hurt that girl. I'm just frightened. Aren't you?'

'Yes,' Laurel snapped, 'but I don't take hostages and then try to shoot teenage boys when I'm frightened.'

'You didn't have what looked like the whole front line of the Los Angeles Rams caving in on you at once,' Craig said. 'And that English fellow . . .' He laughed. The sound of his laughter in this quiet place was disturbingly merry, disturbingly normal. 'Well, all I can say is that if you think I'm crazy, you haven't been watching him at all. That man's got a chainsaw for a mind.'

Laurel didn't know what to say. She knew it hadn't been the way Craig Toomy was presenting it, but when he spoke it seemed as though it should have been that way ... and what he said about the Englishman was too close to the truth. The man's eyes . . . and the kick he had chopped into Mr Toomy's ribs after he had been tied up ... Laurel shivered.

'What are the langoliers, Mr Toomy?' Dinah asked.

'Well, I always used to think they were just make-believe,' Craig said in that same good-humored voice. 'Now I'm beginning to wonder ... because I hear it, too, young lady. Yes I do.'

'The sound?' Dinah asked softly. 'That sound is the langoliers?'

Laurel put one hand on Dinah's shoulder. 'I really wish you wouldn't talk to him anymore, honey. He makes me nervous.'

'Why? He's tied up, isn't he?'

'Yes, but -'

'And you could always call for the others, couldn't you?'

'Well, I think -'

'I want to know about the langoliers.'

With some effort, Craig turned his head to look at them ... and now Laurel felt some of the charm and force of personality which had kept Craig firmly on the fast track as he worked out the high-pressure script his parents had written for him. She felt this even though he was lying on the floor with his hands tied behind him and his own blood drying on his forehead and left cheek.

'My father said the langoliers were little creatures that lived in closets and sewers and other dark places.'

'Like elves?' Dinah wanted to know.

Craig laughed and shook his head. 'Nothing so pleasant, I'm afraid. He said that all they really were was hair and teeth and fast little legs - their little legs were fast, he said, so they could catch up with bad boys and girls no matter how quickly they scampered.'

'Stop it,' Laurel said coldly. 'You're scaring the child.'

'No, he's not,' Dinah said. 'I know make-believe when I hear it. It's interesting, that's all.' Her face said it was something more than interesting, however. She was intent, fascinated.

'It is, isn't it?' Craig said, apparently pleased by her interest. 'I think what Laurel means is that I'm scaring her. Do I win the cigar, Laurel? If so, I'd like an El Producto, please. None of those cheap White Owls for me.' He laughed again.

Laurel didn't reply, and after a moment Craig resumed.

'My dad said there were thousands of langoliers. He said there had to be, because there were millions of bad boys and girls scampering about the world. That's how he always put it. My father never saw a child run in his entire life. They always scampered. I think he liked that word because it implies senseless, directionless, non-productive motion. But the langoliers ... they run. They have purpose. In fact, you could say that the langoliers are purpose personified.'

'What did the kids do that was so bad?' Dinah asked. 'What did they do that was so bad the langoliers had to run after them?'

'You know, I'm glad you asked that question,' Craig said. 'Because when my father said someone was bad, Dinah, what he meant was lazy. A lazy person couldn't be part of THE BIG PICTURE. No way. In my house, you were either part of THE BIG PICTURE or you were LYING DOWN ON THE JOB, and that was the worst kind of bad you could be. Throat-cutting was a venial sin compared to LYING DOWN ON THE JOB. He said that if you weren't part of THE BIG PICTURE, the langoliers would come and take you out of the picture completely. He said you'd be in your bed one night and then you'd hear them coming ... crunching and smacking their way toward you ... and even if you tried to scamper off, they'd get you. Because of their fast little -'

'That's enough,' Laurel said. Her voice was flat and dry.

'The sound is out there, though,' Craig said. His eyes regarded her brightly, almost roguishly. 'You can't deny that. The sound really is out th -'

'Stop it or I'll hit you with something myself.'

'Okay,' Craig said. He rolled over on his back, grimaced, and then rolled further, onto his other side and away from them. 'A man gets tired of being hit when he's down and hog-tied.'

Laurel's face grew not just warm but hot this time. She bit her lip and said nothing. She felt like crying. How was she supposed to handle someone like this? How? First the man seemed as crazy as a bedbug, and then he seemed as sane as could be. And meanwhile, the whole world - Mr Toomy's BIG PICTURE - had gone to hell.

'I bet you were scared of your dad, weren't you, Mr Toomy?'

Craig looked back over his shoulder at Dinah, startled. He smiled again, but this smile was different. It was a rueful, hurt smile with no public relations in it. 'This time you win the cigar, miss,' he said. 'I was terrified of him.'

'Is he dead?'

'Yes.'

'Was he LYING DOWN ON THE JOB? Did the langoliers get him?'

Craig thought for a long time. He remembered being told that his father had had his heart attack while in his office. When his secretary buzzed him for his ten o'clock staff meeting and there was no answer, she had come in to find him dead on the carpet, eyes bulging, foam drying on his mouth.

Did someone tell you that? he wondered suddenly. That his eyes were bugging out, that there was foam on his mouth? Did someone actually tell you that - Mother, perhaps, when she was drunk - or was it just wishful thinking?

'Mr Toomy? Did they?'

'Yes,' Craig said thoughtfully. 'I guess he was, and I guess they did.'

'Mr Toomy?'

'What?'

'I'm not the way you see me. I'm not ugly. None of us are.'

He looked at her, startled. 'How would you know how you look to me, little blind miss?'

'You might be surprised,' Dinah said.

Laurel turned toward her, suddenly more uneasy than ever ... but of course there was nothing to see. Dinah's dark glasses defeated curiosity.

3

The other passengers stood on the far side of the waiting room, listening to that low rattling sound and saying nothing. It seemed there was nothing left to say.

'What do we do now?' Don asked. He seemed to have wilted inside his red lumberjack's shirt. Albert thought the shirt itself had lost some of its cheerfully macho vibrancy.

'I don't know,' Brian said. He felt a horrible impotence toiling away in his belly. He looked out at the plane, which had been his plane for a little while, and was struck by its clean lines and smooth beauty. The Delta 727 sitting to its left at the jetway looked like a dowdy matron by comparison. It looks good to you because it's never going to fly again, that's all. It's like glimpsing a beautiful woman for just a moment in the back seat of a limousine - she looks even more beautiful than she really is because you know she's not yours, can never be yours.

'How much fuel is left, Brian?' Nick asked suddenly. 'Maybe the burn-rate isn't the same over here. Maybe there's more than you realize.'

'All the gauges are in apple-pie working order,' Brian said. 'When we landed, I had less than 600 pounds. To get back to where this happened, we'd need at least 50,000.'

Bethany took out her cigarettes and offered the pack to Bob. He shook his head. She stuck one in her mouth, took out her matches, and struck one.

It didn't light.

'Oh-oh,' she said.

Albert glanced over. She struck the match again ... and again . . . and again. There was nothing. She looked at him, frightened.

'Here,' Albert said. 'Let me.'

He took the matches from her hand and tore another one loose. He struck it across the strip on the back. There was nothing.

'Whatever it is, it seems to be catching,' Rudy Warwick observed.

Bethany burst into tears, and Bob offered her his handkerchief.

'Wait a minute,' Albert said, and struck the match again. This time it lit ... but the flame was low, guttering, unenthusiastic. He applied it to the quivering tip of Bethany's cigarette and a clear image suddenly filled his mind: a sign he had passed as he rode his ten-speed to Pasadena High School every day for the last three years. CAUTION, this sign said. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.

What in the hell does that mean?

He didn't know ... at least not yet. All he knew for sure was that some idea wanted out but was, at least for the time being, stuck in the gears.

Albert shook the match out. It didn't take much shaking.

Bethany drew on her cigarette, then grimaced. 'Blick! It tastes like a Carlton, or something.'

'Blow smoke in my face,' Albert said.

'What?'

'You heard me. Blow some in my face.'

She did as he asked. and Albert sniffed at the smoke. Its former sweet fragrance was now muted.

Whatever it is, it seems to be catching

CAUTION: TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.

'I'm going back to the restaurant,' Nick said. He looked depressed. 'Yon Cassius has a lean and slippery feel. I don't like leaving him with the ladies for too long.'

Brian started after him and the others followed. Albert thought there was something a little amusing about these tidal flows - they were behaving like cows which sense thunder in the air.

'Come on,' Bethany said. 'Let's go.' She dropped her half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray and used Bob's handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she took Albert's hand.

They were halfway across the waiting room and Albert was looking at the back of Mr Gaffney's red shirt when it struck him again. more forcibly this time: TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.

'Wait a minute!' he yelled. He suddenly slipped an arm around Bethany's waist, pulled her to him, put his face into the hollow of her throat, and breathed in deeply.

'Oh my! We hardly know each other!' Bethany cried. Then she began to giggle helplessly and put her arms around Albert's neck. Albert, a boy whose natural shyness usually disappeared only in his daydreams, paid no notice. He took another deep breath through his nose. The smells of her hair, sweat, and perfume were still there, but were faint; very faint.

They all looked around, but Albert had already let Bethany go and was hurrying back to the windows.

'Wow!' Bethany said. She was still giggling a little, and blushing brightly. 'Strange dude!'

Albert looked at Flight 29 and saw what Brian had noticed a few minutes earlier: it was clean and smooth and almost impossibly white. It seemed to vibrate in the dull stillness outside.

Suddenly the idea came up for him. It seemed to burst behind his eyes like a firework. The central concept was a bright, burning ball; implications radiated out from it like fiery spangles and for a moment he quite literally forgot to breathe.

'Albert?' Bob asked. 'Albert, what's wro-'

'Captain Engle!' Albert screamed. In the restaurant, Laurel sat bolt upright and Dinah clasped her arm with hands like talons. Craig Toomy craned his neck to look. 'Captain Engle, come here!'

4

Outside, the sound was louder.

To Brian it was the sound of radio static. Nick Hopewell thought it sounded like a strong wind rattling dry tropical grasses. Albert, who had worked at McDonald's the summer before, was reminded of the sound of french fries in a deep-fat fryer, and to Bob Jenkins it was the sound of paper being crumpled in a distant room.

The four of them crawled through the hanging rubber strips and then stepped down into the luggageunloading area, listening to the sound of what Craig Toomy called the langoliers.

'How much closer is it?' Brian asked Nick.

'Can't tell. It sounds closer, but of course we were inside before.'

'Come on,' Albert said impatiently. 'How do we get back aboard? Climb the slide?'

'Won't be necessary,' Brian said, and pointed. A rolling stairway stood on the far side of Gate 2. They walked toward it, their shoes clopping listlessly on the concrete.

'You know what a long shot this is, don't you, Albert?' Brian asked as they walked.

'Yes, but'

'Long shots are better than no shots at all,' Nick finished for him.

'I just don't want him to be too disappointed if it doesn't pan out.'

'Don't worry,' Bob said softly. 'I will be disappointed enough for all of us. The lad's idea makes good logical sense. It should prove out ... although, Albert, you do realize there may be factors here which we haven't discovered, don't you?'

'Yes.'

They reached the rolling ladder, and Brian kicked up the foot-brakes on the wheels. Nick took a position on the grip which jutted from the left railing, and Brian laid hold of the one on the right.

'I hope it still rolls,' Brian said.

'It should,' Bob Jenkins answered. 'Some - perhaps even most - of the ordinary physical and chemical components of life seem to remain in operation; our bodies are able to process the air, doors open and close.'

'Don't forget gravity,' Albert put in. 'The earth still sucks.'

'Let's quit talking about it and just try it,' Nick said.

The stairway rolled easily. The two men trundled it across the tarmac toward the 767 with Albert and Bob walking behind them. One of the wheels squeaked rhythmically. The only other sound was that low, constant crunch-rattle-crunch from somewhere over the eastern horizon.

'Look at it,' Albert said as they neared the 767. 'Just look at it. Can't you see? Can't you see how much more there it is than anything else?'

There was no need to answer, and no one did. They could all see it. And reluctantly, almost against his will, Brian began to think the kid might have something.

They set the stairway at an angle between the escape slide and the fuselage of the plane, with the top step only a long stride away from the open door. 'I'll go first,' Brian said. 'After I pull the slide in, Nick, you and Albert roll the stairs into better position.'

'Aye-aye, Captain,' Nick said, and clipped off a smart little salute, the knuckles of his first and second fingers touching his forehead.

Brian snorted. 'Junior attache,' he said, and then ran fleetly up the stairs. A few moments later he had used the escape slide's lanyard to pull it back inside. Then he leaned out to watch as Nick and Albert carefully maneuvered the rolling staircase into position with its top step just below the 767's forward entrance.

5

Rudy Warwick and Don Gaffney were now babysitting Craig. Bethany, Dinah, and Laurel were lined up at the waiting-room windows, looking out. 'What are they doing?' Dinah asked.

'They've taken away the slide and put a stairway by the door,' Laurel said. 'Now they're going up.' She looked at Bethany. 'You're sure you don't know what they're up to?'

Bethany shook her head. 'All I know is that Ace - Albert, I mean - almost went nuts. I'd like to think it was this mad sexual attraction, but I don't think it was.' She paused, smiled, and added: 'At least, not yet. He said something about the plane being more there. And my perfume being less there, which probably wouldn't please Coco Chanel or whatever her name is. And two-way traffic. I didn't get it. He was really jabbering.'

'I bet I know,' Dinah said.

'What's your guess, hon?'

Dinah only shook her head. 'I just hope they hurry up. Because poor Mr Toomy is right. The langoliers are coming.'

'Dinah, that's just something his father made up.'

'Maybe once it was make-believe,' Dinah said, turning her sightless eyes back to the windows, 'but not anymore.'

6

'All right, Ace,' Nick said. 'On with the show.'

Albert's heart was thudding and his hands shook as he set the four elements of his experiment out on the shelf in first class, where, a thousand years ago and on the other side of the continent, a woman named Melanie Trevor had supervised a carton of orange juice and two bottles of champagne.

Brian watched closely as Albert put down a book of matches, a bottle of Budweiser, a can of Pepsi, and a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich from the restaurant cold-case. The sandwich had been scaled in plastic wrap.

'Okay,' Albert said, and took a deep breath. 'Let's see what we got here.'

7

Don left the restaurant and walked over to the windows. 'What's happening?'

'We don't know,' Bethany said. She had managed to coax a flame from another of her matches and was smoking again. When she removed the cigarette from her mouth, Laurel saw she had torn off the filter. 'They went inside the plane; they're still inside the plane; end of story.'

Don gazed out for several seconds. 'It looks different outside. I can't say just why, but it does.'

'The light's going,' Dinah said. 'That's what's different.' Her voice was calm enough, but her small face was an imprint of loneliness and fear. 'I can feel it going.'

'She's right,' Laurel agreed. 'It's only been daylight for two or three hours, but it's already getting dark again.'

'I keep thinking this is a dream, you know,' Don said. 'I keep thinking it's the worst nightmare I ever had but I'll wake up soon.'

Laurel nodded. 'How is Mr Toomy?'

Don laughed without much humor. 'You won't believe it.'

'Won't believe what?' Bethany asked.

'He's gone to sleep.'

8

Craig Toomy, of course, was not sleeping. People who fell asleep at critical moments, like that fellow who was supposed to have been keeping an eye out while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, were most definitely not part of THE BIG PICTURE.

He had watched the two men carefully through eyes which were riot quite shut and willed one or both of them to go away. Eventually the one in the red shirt did go away. Warwick, the bald man with the big false teeth, walked over to Craig and bent down. Craig let his eyes close all the way.

'Hey,' Warwick said. 'Hey, you 'wake?'

Craig lay still, eyes closed, breathing regularly. He considered manufacturing a small snore and thought better of it.

Warwick poked him in the side.

Craig kept his eyes shut and went on breathing regularly.

Baldy straightened up, stepped over him, and went to the restaurant door to watch the others. Craig cracked his eyelids and made sure Warwick's back was turned. Then, very quietly and very carefully, he began to work his wrists up and down inside the tight figure-eight of cloth which bound them. The tablecloth rope felt looser already.

He moved his wrists in short strokes, watching Warwick's back, ready to cease movement and close his eyes again the instant Warwick showed signs of turning around. He willed Warwick not to turn around. He wanted to be free before the assholes came back from the plane. Especially the English asshole, the one who had hurt his nose and then kicked him while he was down. The English asshole had tied him up pretty well; thank God it was only a tablecloth instead of a length of nylon line. Then he would have been out of luck, but as it was one of the knots loosened, and now Craig began to rotate his wrists from side to side. He could hear the langoliers approaching. He intended to be out of here and on his way to Boston before they arrived. In Boston he would be safe. When you were in a boardroom filled with bankers, no scampering was allowed.

And God help anyone - man, woman or child - who tried to get in his way.

9

Albert picked up the book of matches he had taken from the bowl in the restaurant. 'Exhibit A,' he said. 'Here goes.'

He tore a match from the book and struck it. His unsteady hands betrayed him and he struck the match a full two inches above the rough strip which ran along the bottom of the paper folder. The match bent.

'Shit!' Albert cried.

'Would you like me to -' Bob began.

'Let him alone,' Brian said. 'It's Albert's show.'

'Steady on, Albert,' Nick said.

Albert tore another match from the book, offered them a sickly smile, and struck it.

The match didn't light.

He struck it again.

The match didn't light.

'I guess that does it,' Brian said. 'There's nothing -'

'I smelled it,' Nick said. 'I smelled the sulphur! Try another one, Ace!'

Instead, Albert snapped the same match across the rough strip a third time ... and this time it flared alight. It did not just burn the flammable head and then gutter out; it stood up in the familiar little teardrop shape, blue at its base, yellow at its tip, and began to burn the paper stick.

Albert looked up, a wild grin on his face. 'You see?' he said. 'You see?'

He shook the match out, dropped it, and pulled another. This one lit on the first strike. He bent back the cover of the matchbook and touched the lit flame to the other matches, just as Bob Jenkins had done in the restaurant. This time they all flared alight with a dry fsss! sound. Albert blew them out like a birthday candle. It took two puffs of air to do the job.

'You see?' he asked. 'You see what it means? Two-way traffic! We brought our own time with us! There's the past out there ... and everywhere, I guess, east of the hole we came through ... but the present is still in here! Still caught inside this airplane!'

'I don't know,' Brian said, but suddenly everything seemed possible again. He felt a wild, almost unrestrainable urge to pull Albert into his arms and pound him on the back.

'Bravo, Albert!' Bob said. 'The beer! Try the beer!'

Albert spun the cap off the beer while Nick fished an unbroken glass from the wreckage around the drinks trolley.

'Where's the smoke?' Brian asked.

'Smoke?' Bob asked, puzzled.

'Well, I guess it's not smoke, exactly, but when you open a beer there's usually something that looks like smoke around the mouth of the bottle.'

Albert sniffed, then tipped the beer toward Brian. 'Smell.'

Brian did, and began to grin. He couldn't help it. 'By God, it sure smells like beer, smoke or no smoke.'

Nick held out the glass, and Albert was pleased to see that the Englishman's hand was not quite steady, either. 'Pour it,' he said. 'Hurry up, mate - my sawbones says suspense is bad for the old ticker.' Albert poured the beer and their smiles faded.

The beer was flat. Utterly flat. It simply sat in the whiskey glass Nick had found, looking like a urine sample.

10

'Christ almighty, it's getting dark!'

The people standing at the windows looked around as Rudy Warwick joined them.

'You're supposed to be watching the nut,' Don said.

Rudy gestured impatiently. 'He's out like a light. I think that whack on the head rattled his furniture a little more than we thought at first. What's going on out there? And why is it getting dark so fast?'

'We don't know,' Bethany said. 'It just is. Do you think that weird dude is going into a coma, or something like that?'

'I don't know,' Rudy said. 'But if he is. we won't have to worry about him anymore, will we? Christ, is that sound creepy! It sounds like a bunch of coked-up termites in a balsa-wood glider.' For the first time, Rudy seemed to have forgotten his stomach.

Dinah looked up at Laurel. 'I think we better check on Mr Toomy,' she said. 'I'm worried about him. I bet he's scared.'

'If he's unconscious, Dinah, there isn't anything we can -'

'I don't think he's unconscious,' Dinah said quietly. 'I don't think he's even asleep.'

Laurel looked down at the child thoughtfully for a moment and then took her hand. 'All right,' she said. 'Let's have a look.'

11

The knot Nick Hopewell had tied against Craig's right wrist finally loosened enough for him to pull his hand free. He used it to push down the loop holding his left hand. He got quickly to his feet. A bolt of pain shot through his head, and for a moment he swayed. Flocks of black dots chased across his field of vision and then slowly cleared away. He became aware that the terminal was being swallowed in gloom. Premature night was falling. He could hear the chew-crunch-chew sound of the langoliers much more clearly now, perhaps because his ears had become attuned to them, perhaps because they were closer.

On the far side of the terminal he saw two silhouettes, one tall and one short, break away from the others and start back toward the restaurant. The woman with the bitchy voice and the little blind girl with the ugly, pouty face. He couldn't let them raise the alarm. That would be very bad.

Craig backed away from the bloody patch of carpet where he had been lying, never taking his eyes from the approaching figures. He could not get over how rapidly the light was failing.

There were pots of eating utensils set into a counter to the left of the cash register, but it was all plastic crap, no good to him. Craig ducked around the cash register and saw something better: a butcher knife lying on the counter next to the grill. He took it and crouched behind the cash register to watch them approach. He watched the little girl with a particular anxious interest. The little girl knew a lot ... too much, maybe. The question was, where had she come by her knowledge?

That was a very interesting question indeed.

Wasn't it?

12

Nick looked from Albert to Bob. 'So,' he said. 'The matches work but the lager doesn't.' He turned to set the glass of beer on the counter. 'What does that mea -'

All at once a small mushroom cloud of bubbles burst from nowhere in the bottom of the glass. They rose rapidly, spread, and burst into a thin head at the top. Nick's eyes widened.

'Apparently,' Bob said dryly, 'it takes a moment or two for things to catch up.' He took the glass, drank it off, and smacked his lips. 'Excellent,' he said. They all looked at the complicated lace of white foam on the inside of the glass. 'I can say without doubt that it's the best glass of beer I ever drank in my life.'

Albert poured more beer into the glass. This time it came out foaming; the head overspilled the rim and ran down the outside. Brian picked it up.

'Are you sure you want to do that, matey?' Nick asked, grinning. 'Don't you fellows like to say "twenty-four hours from bottle to throttle"?'

'In cases of time-travel, the rule is suspended,' Brian said. 'You could look it up.' He tilted the glass, drank, then laughed out loud. 'You're right,' he said to Bob. 'It's the best goddam beer there ever was. Try the Pepsi, Albert.'

Albert opened the can and they all heard the familiar pop-hisss of carbonation, mainstay of a hundred softdrink commercials. He took a deep drink. When he lowered the can he was grinning ... but there were tears in his eyes.

'Gentlemen, the Pepsi-Cola is also very good today,' he said in a plummy headwaiter's tones, and they all began to laugh.

13

Don Gaffney caught up with Laurel and Dinah just as they entered the restaurant. 'I thought I'd better -' he began, and then stopped. He looked around. 'Oh, shit. Where is he?'

'I don't -' Laurel began, and then, from beside her, Dinah Bellman said, 'Be quiet.'

Her head turned slowly, like the lamp of a dead searchlight. For a moment there was no sound at all in the restaurant ... at least no sound Laurel could hear.

'There,' Dinah said at last, and pointed toward the cash register. 'He's hiding over there. Behind something.'

'How do you know that?' Don asked in a dry, nervous voice. 'I don't hear -'

'I do,' Dinah said calmly. 'I hear his fingernails on metal. And I hear his heart. It's beating very fast and very hard. He's scared to death. I feel so sorry for him.' She suddenly disengaged her hand from Laurel's and stepped forward.

'Dinah, no!' Laurel screamed.

Dinah took no notice. She walked toward the cash register, arms out, fingers seeking possible obstacles. The shadows seemed to reach for her and enfold her.

'Mr Toomy? Please come out. We don't want to hurt you. Please don't be afraid -'

A sound began to rise from behind the cash register. It was a high, keening scream. It was a word, or something which was trying to be a word, but there was no sanity in it.

'Youuuuuuuuuuu'

Craig arose from his hiding place, eyes blazing, butcher knife upraised, suddenly understanding that it was her, she was one of them, behind those dark glasses she was one of them, she was not only a langolier but the head langolier, the one who was calling the others, calling them with her dead blind eyes.

'Youuuuuuuuuuu'

He rushed at her, shrieking. Don Gaffney shoved Laurel out of his way, almost knocking her to the floor, and leaped forward. He was fast, but not fast enough. Craig Toomy was crazy, and he moved with the speed of a langolier himself. He approached Dinah at a dead-out run. No scampering for him.

Dinah made no effort to draw away. She looked up from her darkness and into his, and now she held her arms out, as if to enfold him and comfort him.

'Yoooouuuuuuuu '

'It's all right, Mr Toomy,' she said. 'Don't be afr -'And then Craig buried the butcher knife in her chest and ran past Laurel into the terminal, still shrieking.

Dinah stood where she was for a moment. Her hands found the wooden handle jutting out of the front of her dress and her fingers fluttered over it, exploring it. Then she sank slowly, gracefully, to the floor, becoming just another shadow in the growing darkness.