Four Past Midnight Read online

  "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 they 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 luggage-unloading 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 ra
iling, 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 sealed 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 not quite shut and wilted 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 f
lame 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?"