Four Past Midnight (24 page)

“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 attaché,” 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.

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.”

“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.”

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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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?