The Langoliers fpm-1 Read online

  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 soft-drink 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.

  Chapter 7

  Dinah in the Valley of the Shadow. The Fastest Toaster East of the Mississippi. Racing Against Time. Nick Makes a Decision.

  1

  Albert, Brian, Bob, and Nick passed the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich around. They each got two bites and then it was gone... but while it lasted, Albert thought he had never sunk his teeth into such wonderful chow in his life. His belly awakened and immediately began clamoring for more.

  “I think our bald friend Mr Warwick is going to like this part best,” Nick said, swallowing. He looked at Albert. “You’re a genius, Ace. You know that, don’t you? Nothing but a pure genius.”

  Albert flushed happily. “It wasn’t much,” he said. “Just a little of what Mr Jenkins calls
the deductive method. If two streams flowing in different directions come together, they mix and make a whirlpool. I saw what was happening with Bethany’s matches and thought something like that might be happening here. And there was Mr Gaffney’s bright-red shirt. It started to lose its color. So I thought, well, if stuff starts to fade when it’s not on the plane anymore, maybe if you brought faded stuff onto the plane, it would—”

  “I hate to interrupt,” Bob said softly, “but I think that if we intend to try and get back, we should start the process as soon as possible. The sounds we are hearing worry me, but there’s something else that worries me more. This airplane is not a closed system. I think there’s a good chance that before long it will begin to lose its... its...”

  “Its temporal integrity?” Albert suggested.

  “Yes. Well put. Any fuel we load into its tanks now may burn... but a few hours from now, it may not.”

  An unpleasant idea occurred to Brian: that the fuel might stop burning halfway across the country, with the 767 at 36,000 feet. He opened his mouth to tell them this... and then closed it again. What good would it do to put the idea in their minds, when they could do nothing about it?

  “How do we start, Brian?” Nick asked in clipped, businesslike tones.

  Brian ran the process over in his mind. It would be a little awkward, especially working with men whose only experience with aircraft probably began and ended with model planes, but he thought it could be done.

  “We start by turning on the engines and taxiing as close to that Delta 727 as we can get,” he said. “When we get there, I’ll kill the starboard engine and leave the portside engine turning over. We’re lucky. This 767 is equipped with wet-wing fuel tanks and an APU system that—”