Four Past Midnight (13 page)

His name was Darren Crosby.

She wouldn't need to look at his photograph; that much was true. She had memorized his face, just as she had memorized most of his letters. The question was
why.
And to that question she had no answer. Not even a clue. It was just another proof of J. R. R. Tolkien's observation: you must be careful each time you step out of your door, because your front walk is really a road, and the road leads ever onward. If you aren't careful, you're apt to find yourself ... well... simply swept away, a stranger in a strange land with no clue as to how you got there.

Laurel had told everyone where she was going, but she had told no one
why
she was going or what she was doing. She was a graduate of the University of California with a master's degree in library science. Although she was no model, she was cleanly built and pleasant enough to look at. She had a small circle of good friends, and they would have been flabbergasted by what she was up to: heading off to Boston, planning to stay with a man she knew only through correspondence, a man she had met through the extensive personals column of a magazine called
Friends and Lovers.

She was, in fact, flabbergasted herself.

Darren Crosby was six-feet-one, weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, and had dark-blue eyes. He preferred Scotch (although not to excess), he had a cat named Stanley, he was a dedicated heterosexual, he was a perfect gentleman (or so he claimed), and he thought Laurel was the most beautiful name he had ever heard. The pictures he had sent showed a man with a pleasant, open, intelligent face. She guessed he was the sort of man who would look sinister if he didn't shave twice a day. And that was really all she knew.

Laurel had corresponded with half a dozen men over half a dozen years—it was a hobby, she supposed—but she had never expected to take the next step ... this step. She supposed that Darren's wry and self-deprecating sense of humor was part of the attraction, but she was dismally aware that her real reasons were not in him at all, but in herself. And wasn't the real attraction her own inability to understand this strong desire to step out of character? To just fly off into the unknown, hoping for the right kind of lightning to strike?

What are you doing?
she asked herself again.

The plane ran through some light turbulence and back into smooth air again. Laurel stirred out of her doze and looked around. She saw the young teenaged girl had taken the seat across from her. She was looking out the window.

“What do you see?” Laurel asked. “Anything?”

“Well, the sun's up,” the girl said, “but that's all.”

“What about the ground?” Laurel didn't want to get up and look for herself. Dinah's head was still resting on her, and Laurel didn't want to wake her.

“Can't see it. It's all clouds down there.” She looked around. Her eyes had cleared and a little color—not much, but a little—had come back into her face. “My name's Bethany Simms. What's yours?”

“Laurel Stevenson.”

“Do you think we'll be all right?”

“I think so,” Laurel said, and then added reluctantly: “I hope so.”

“I'm scared about what might be under those clouds,” Bethany said, “but I was scared anyway. About Boston. My mother all at once decided how it would be a great idea if I spent a couple of weeks with my Aunt Shawna, even though school starts again in ten days. I think the idea was for me to get off the plane, just like Mary's little lamb, and then Aunt Shawna pulls the string on me.”

“What string?”

“Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to the nearest rehab, and start drying out,” Bethany said. She raked her hands through her short dark hair. “Things were already so weird that this seems like just more of the same.” She looked Laurel over carefully and then added with perfect seriousness: “This
is
really happening, isn't it? I mean, I've already pinched myself.
Several
times. Nothing changed.”

“It's real.”

“It doesn't
seem
real,” Bethany said. “It seems like one of those stupid disaster movies.
Airport 1990,
something like that. I keep looking around for a couple of old actors like Wilford Brimley and Olivia de Havilland. They're supposed to meet during the shitstorm and fall in love, you know?”

“I don't think they're on the plane,” Laurel said gravely. They glanced into each other's eyes and for a moment they almost laughed together. It could have made them friends if it had happened ... but it didn't. Not quite.

“What about you, Laurel? Do you have a disaster-movie problem?”

“I'm afraid not,” Laurel replied ... and then she
did
begin to laugh. Because the thought which shot across her mind in red neon was Oh you liar!

Bethany put a hand over her mouth and giggled.

“Jesus,” she said after a minute. “I mean, this is the ultimate hairball, you know?”

Laurel nodded. “I know.” She paused and then asked, “Do you need a rehab, Bethany?”

“I don't know.” She turned to look out the window again. Her smile was gone and her voice was morose. “I guess I might. I used to think it was just party-time, but now I don't know. I guess it's out of control. But getting shipped off this way... I feel like a pig in a slaughterhouse chute.”

“I'm sorry,” Laurel said, but she was also sorry for herself. The blind girl had already adopted her; she did not need a second adoptee. Now that she was fully awake again she found herself scared—badly scared. She did not want to be behind this kid's dumpster if she was going to offload a big pile of disaster-movie angst. The thought made her grin again; she simply couldn't help it. It
was
the ultimate hairball. It really was.

“I'm sorry, too,” Bethany said, “but I guess this is the wrong time to worry about it, huh?”

“I guess maybe it is,” Laurel said.

“The pilot never disappeared in any of those Airport movies, did he?”

“Not that I remember.”

“It's almost six o'clock. Two and a half hours to go.”

“Yes.”

“If only the world's still there,” Bethany said, “that'll be enough for a start.” She looked closely at Laurel again. “I don't suppose you've got any grass, do you?”

“I'm afraid not.”

Bethany shrugged and offered Laurel a tired smile which was oddly winning. “Well,” she said, “you're one ahead of me—I'm just afraid.”

Some time later, Brian Engle rechecked his heading, his airspeed, his navigational figures, and his charts. Last of all he checked his wristwatch. It was two minutes past eight.

“Well,” he said to Nick without looking around, “I think it's about that time. Shit or git.”

He reached forward and flicked on the FASTEN SEATBELTS sign. The bell made its low, pleasant chime. Then he flicked the intercom toggle and picked up the mike.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Engle again. We're currently over the Atlantic Ocean, roughly thirty miles east of the Maine coast, and I'll be commencing our initial descent into the Bangor area very soon. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't turn on the seatbelt sign so early, but these circumstances aren't ordinary, and my mother always said prudence is the better part of valor. In that spirit, I want you to make sure your lap-belts are snug and secure. Conditions below us don't look especially threatening, but since I have no radio communication, the weather is going to be something of a surprise package for all of us. I kept hoping the clouds would break, and I did see a few small holes over Vermont, but I'm afraid they've closed up again. I can tell you from my experience as a pilot that the clouds you see below us don't suggest very bad weather to me. I think the weather in Bangor may be overcast, with some light rain. I'm beginning our descent now. Please be calm; my board is green across and all procedures here on the flight deck remain routine.”

Brian had not bothered programming the autopilot for descent; he now began the process himself. He brought the plane around in a long, slow turn, and the seat beneath him canted slightly forward as the 767 began its slow slide down toward the clouds at 4,000 feet.

“Very comforting, that,” Nick said. “You should have been a politician, matey.”

“I doubt if they're feeling very comfortable right now,” Brian said. “I know I'm not.”

He was, in fact, more frightened than he had ever been while at the controls of an airplane. The pressure-leak on Flight 7 from Tokyo seemed like a minor glitch in comparison to this situation. His heart was beating slowly and heavily in his chest, like a funeral drum. He swallowed and heard a click in his throat. Flight 29 passed through 30,000 feet, still descending. The white, featureless clouds were closer now. They stretched from horizon to horizon like some strange ballroom floor.

“I'm scared shitless, mate,” Nick Hopewell said in a strange, hoarse voice. “I saw men die in the Falklands, took a bullet in the leg there myself, got the Teflon knee to prove it, and I came within an ace of getting blown up by a truck bomb in Beirut—in '82, that was—but I've never been as scared as I am right now. Part of me would like to grab you and make you take us right back up. Just as far up as this bird will go.”

“It wouldn't do any good,” Brian replied. His own voice was no longer steady; he could hear his heartbeat in it, making it jig-jag up and down in minute variations. “Remember what I said before—we can't stay up here forever.”

“I know it. But I'm afraid of what's under those clouds. Or not under them.”

“Well, we'll all find out together.”

“No help for it, is there, mate?”

“Not a bit.”

The 767 passed through 25,000 feet, still descending.

All the passengers were in the main cabin; even the bald man, who had stuck stubbornly to his seat in business class for most of the flight, had joined them. And they were all awake, except for the bearded man at the very back of the plane. They could hear him snoring blithely away, and Albert Kaussner felt one moment of bitter jealousy, a wish that
he
could wake up after they were safely on the ground as the bearded man would most likely do, and say what the bearded man was most likely going to say:
Where the hell are we?

The only other sound was the soft
rii-ip
...
rii-ip
...
rii-
ip of Craig Toomy dismembering the in-flight magazine. He sat with his shoes in a deep pile of paper strips.

“Would you mind stopping that?” Don Gaffney asked. His voice was tight and strained. “It's driving me up the wall, buddy.”

Craig turned his head. Regarded Don Gaffney with a pair of wide, smooth, empty eyes. Turned his head back. Held up the page he was currently working on, which happened to be the eastern half of the American Pride route map.

Gaffney opened his mouth to say something, then closed it tight.

Laurel had her arm around Dinah's shoulders. Dinah was holding Laurel's free hand in both of hers.

Albert sat with Robert Jenkins, just ahead of Gaffney. Ahead of him was the girl with the short dark hair. She was looking out the window, her body held so stiffly upright it might have been wired together. And ahead of her sat Baldy from business class.

“Well, at least we'll be able to get some chow!” he said loudly.

No one answered. The main cabin seemed encased in a stiff shell of tension. Albert Kaussner felt each individual hair on his body standing at attention. He searched for the comforting cloak of Ace Kaussner, that duke of the desert, that baron of the Buntline, and could not find him. Ace had gone on vacation.

The clouds were much closer. They had lost their flat look; Laurel could now see fluffy curves and mild crenellations filled with early-morning shadows. She wondered if Darren Crosby was still down there, patiently waiting for her at a Logan Airport arrivals gate somewhere along the American Pride concourse. She was not terribly surprised to find she didn't care much, one way or another. Her gaze was drawn back to the clouds, and she forgot all about Darren Crosby, who liked Scotch (although not to excess) and claimed to be a perfect gentleman.

She imagined a hand, a huge green hand, suddenly slamming its way up through those clouds and seizing the 767 the way an angry child might seize a toy. She imagined the hand
squeezing,
saw the jet-fuel exploding in orange licks of flame between the huge knuckles, and closed her eyes for a moment.

Don't go down there!
she wanted to scream.
Oh please, don't go down there!

But what choice had they? What choice?

“I'm very scared,” Bethany Simms said in a blurred, watery voice. She moved to one of the seats in the center section, fastened her lap-belt, and pressed her hands tightly against her middle. “I think I'm going to pass out.”

Craig Toomy glanced at her, and then began ripping a fresh strip from the route map. After a moment, Albert unbuckled his seatbelt, got up, sat down beside Bethany, and buckled up again. As soon as he had, she grasped his hands. Her skin was as cold as marble.

“It's going to be all right,” he said, striving to sound tough and unafraid, striving to sound like the fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi. Instead he only sounded like Albert Kaussner, a seventeen-year-old violin student who felt on the verge of pissing his pants.

“I hope—” she began, and then Flight 29 began to bounce. Bethany screamed.

“What's wrong?” Dinah asked Laurel in a thin, anxious voice. “Is something wrong with the plane? Are we going to crash?”