Four Past Midnight

  "That's your privilege, Mr.--"

  "Toomy. Craig Toomy."

  "Mr. Toomy," Brian agreed. He hesitated. "Mr. Toomy, are you aware of what has happened to us?"

  Craig looked out the open doorway for a moment--looked at the deserted tarmac and the wide, slightly polarized terminal windows on the second level, where no happy friends and relatives stood waiting to embrace arriving passengers, where no impatient travellers waited for their flights to be called.

  Of course he knew. It was the langoliers. The langoliers had come for all the foolish, lazy people, just as his father had always said they would.

  In that same gentle voice, Craig said: "In the Bond Department of the Desert Sun Banking Corporation, I am known as The Wheelhorse. Did you know that?" He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for Brian to make some response. When Brian didn't, Craig continued. "Of course you didn't. No more than you know how important this meeting at the Prudential Center in Boston is. No more than you care. But let me tell you something, Captain: the economic fate of nations may hinge upon the results of that meeting--that meeting from which I will be absent when the roll is taken."

  "Mr. Toomy, all that's very interesting, but I really don't have time--"

  "Time!" Craig screamed at him suddenly. "What in the hell do you know about time? Ask me! Ask me! I know about time! I know all about time! Time is short, sir! Time is very fucking short!"

  Hell with it, I'm going to push the crazy son of a bitch, Brian thought, but before he could, Craig Toomy turned and leaped. He did a perfect seat-drop, holding his briefcase to his chest as he did so, and Brian was crazily reminded of that old Hertz ad on TV, the one where O. J. Simpson went flying through airports in a suit and a tie.

  "Time is short as hell!" Craig shouted as he slid down, briefcase over his chest like a shield, pantslegs pulling up to reveal his knee-high dress-for-success black nylon socks.

  Brian muttered: "Jesus, what a fucking weirdo." He paused at the head of the slide, looked around once more at the comforting, known world of his aircraft... and jumped.

  8

  Ten people stood in two small groups beneath the giant wing of the 767 with the red-and-blue eagle on the nose. In one group were Brian, Nick, the bald man, Bethany Simms, Albert Kaussner, Robert Jenkins, Dinah, Laurel, and Don Gaffney. Standing slightly apart from them and constituting his own group was Craig Toomy, a.k.a. The Wheelhorse. Craig bent and shook out the creases of his pants with fussy concentration, using his left hand to do it. The right was tightly locked around the handle of his briefcase. Then he simply stood and looked around with wide, disinterested eyes.

  "What now, Captain?" Nick asked briskly.

  "You tell me. Us."

  Nick looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised, as if to ask Brian if he really meant it. Brian inclined his head half an inch. It was enough.

  "Well, inside the terminal will do for a start, I reckon," Nick said. "What would be the quickest way to get there? Any idea?"

  Brian nodded toward a line of baggage trains parked beneath the overhang of the main terminal. "I'd guess the quickest way in without a jetway would be the luggage conveyor."

  "All right; let's hike on over, ladies and gentlemen, shall we?"

  It was a short walk, but Laurel, who walked hand-in-hand with Dinah, thought it was the strangest one she had ever taken in her life. She could see them as if from above, less than a dozen dots trundling slowly across a wide concrete plain. There was no breeze. No birds sang. No motors revved in the distance, and no human voice broke the unnatural quiet. Even their footfalls seemed wrong to her. She was wearing a pair of high heels, but instead of the brisk click she was used to, she seemed to hear only small, dull thuds.

  Seemed, she thought. That's the key word. Because the situation is so strange, everything begins to seem strange. It's the concrete, that's all. High heels sound different on concrete.

  But she had walked on concrete in high heels before. She didn't remember ever hearing a sound precisely like this. It was ... pallid, somehow. Strengthless.

  They reached the parked luggage trains. Nick wove between them, leading the line, and stopped at a dead conveyor belt which emerged from a hole lined with hanging strips of rubber. The conveyor made a wide circle on the apron where the handlers normally stood to unload the flatties, then re-entered the terminal through another hole hung with rubber strips.

  "What are those pieces of rubber for?" Bethany asked nervously.

  "To keep out the draft in cold weather, I imagine," Nick said. "Just let me poke my head through and have a look. No fear; won't be a moment." And before anyone could reply, he had boosted himself onto the conveyor belt and was walking bent-over down to one of the holes cut into the building. When he got there, he dropped to his knees and poked his head through the rubber strips.

  We're going to hear a whistle and then a thud, Albert thought wildly, and when we pull him back, his head will be gone.

  There was no whistle, no thud. When Nick withdrew, his head was still firmly attached to his neck, and his face wore a thoughtful expression. "Coast's clear," he said, and to Albert his cheery tone now sounded manufactured. "Come on through, friends. When a body meet a body, and all that."

  Bethany held back. "Are there bodies? Mister, are there dead people in there?"

  "Not that I saw, miss," Nick said, and now he had dropped any attempt at lightness. "I was misquoting old Bobby Burns in an attempt to be funny. I'm afraid I achieved tastelessness instead of humor. The fact is, I didn't see anyone at all. But that's pretty much what we expected, isn't it?"

  It was... but it struck heavily at their hearts just the same. Nick's as well, from his tone.

  One after the other they climbed onto the conveyor belt and crawled after him through the hanging rubber strips.

  Dinah paused just outside the entrance hole and turned her head back toward Laurel. Hazy light flashed across her dark glasses, turning them to momentary mirrors.

  "It's really wrong here," she repeated, and pushed through to the other side.

  9

  One by one they emerged into the main terminal of Bangor International Airport, exotic baggage crawling along a stalled conveyor belt. Albert helped Dinah off and then they all stood there, looking around in silent wonder.

  The shocked amazement at waking to a plane which had been magically emptied of people had worn off; now dislocation had taken the place of wonder. None of them had ever been in an airport terminal which was utterly empty. The rental-car stalls were deserted. The ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES monitors were dark and dead. No one stood at the bank of counters serving Delta, United, Northwest Air-Link, or Mid-Coast Airways. The huge tank in the middle of the floor with the BUY MAINE LOBSTERS banner stretched over it was full of water, but there were no lobsters in it. The overhead fluorescents were off, and the small amount of light entering through the doors on the far side of the large room petered out halfway across the floor, leaving the little group from Flight 29 huddled together in an unpleasant nest of shadows.

  "Right, then," Nick said, trying for briskness and managing only unease. "Let's try the telephones, shall we?"

  While he went to the bank of telephones, Albert wandered over to the Budget Rent A Car desk. In the slots on the rear wall he saw folders for BRIGGS, HANDLEFORD, MARCHANT, FENWICK and PESTLEMAN. There was, no doubt, a rental agreement inside each one, along with a map of the central Maine area, and on each map there would be an arrow with the legend YOU ARE HERE on it, pointing at the city of Bangor.

  But where are we really? Albert wondered. And where are Briggs, Handleford, Marchant, Fenwick, and Pestleman? Have they been transported to another dimension? Maybe it's the Grateful Dead. Maybe the Dead's playing somewhere downstate and everybody left for the show.

  There was a dry scratching noise just behind him. Albert nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around fast, holding his violin case up like a cudgel. Bethany was standing there, just touching a match to the tip of
her cigarette.

  She raised her eyebrows. "Scare you?"

  "A little," Albert said, lowering the case and offering her a small, embarrassed smile.

  "Sorry." She shook out the match, dropped it on the floor, and drew deeply on her cigarette. "There. At least that's better. I didn't dare to on the plane. I was afraid something might blow up."

  Bob Jenkins strolled over. "You know, I quit those about ten years ago."

  "No lectures, please," Bethany said. "I've got a feeling that if we get out of this alive and sane, I'm in for about a month of lectures. Solid. Wall-to-wall."

  Jenkins raised his eyebrows but didn't ask for an explanation. "Actually," he said, "I was going to ask you if I could have one. This seems like an excellent time to renew acquaintance with old habits."

  Bethany smiled and offered him a Marlboro. Jenkins took it and she lit it for him. He inhaled, then coughed out a series of smoke-signal puffs.

  "You have been away," she observed matter-of-factly.

  Jenkins agreed. "But I'll get used to it again in a hurry. That's the real horror of the habit, I'm afraid. Did you two notice the clock?"

  "No," Albert said.

  Jenkins pointed to the wall above the doors of the men's and women's bathrooms. The clock mounted there had stopped at 4:07.

  "It fits," he said. "We knew we had been in the air for awhile when--let's call it The Event, for want of a better term--when The Event took place. 4:07A.M. Eastern Daylight Time is 1:07A.M. PDT. So now we know the when."

  "Gee, that's great," Bethany said.

  "Yes," Jenkins said, either not noticing or preferring to ignore the light overlay of sarcasm in her voice. "But there's something wrong with it. I only wish the sun was out. Then I could be sure."

  "What do you mean?" Albert asked.

  "The clocks--the electric ones, anyway--are no good. There's no juice. But if the sun was out, we could get at least a rough idea of what time it is by the length and direction of our shadows. My watch says it's going on quarter of nine, but I don't trust it. It feels later to me than that. I have no proof for it, and I can't explain it, but it does."

  Albert thought about it. Looked around. Looked back at Jenkins. "You know," he said, "it does. It feels like it's almost lunchtime. Isn't that nuts?"

  "It's not nuts," Bethany said, "it's just jetlag."

  "I disagree," Jenkins said. "We travelled west to east, young lady. Any temporal dislocation west-east travellers feel goes the other way. They feel it's earlier than it should be."

  "I want to ask you about something you said on the plane," Albert said. "When the captain told us that there must be some other people here, you said 'false logic.' In fact, you said it twice. But it seems straight enough to me. We were all asleep, and we're here. And if this thing happened at"--Albert glanced toward the clock--"at 4:07, Bangor time, almost everyone in town must have been asleep."

  "Yes," Jenkins said blandly. "So where are they?"

  Albert was nonplussed. "Well ..."

  There was a bang as Nick forcibly hung up one of the pay telephones. It was the last in a long line of them; he had tried every one. "It's a washout," he said. "They're all dead. The coin-fed ones as well as the direct-dials. You can add the sound of no phones ringing to that of no dogs barking, Brian."

  "So what do we do now?" Laurel asked. She heard the forlorn sound of her own voice and it made her feel very small, very lost. Beside her, Dinah was turning in slow circles. She looked like a human radar dish.

  "Let's go upstairs," Baldy proposed. "That's where the restaurant must be."

  They all looked at him. Gaffney snorted. "You got a one-track mind, mister."

  The bald man looked at him from beneath one raised eyebrow. "First, the name is Rudy Warwick, not mister," he replied. "Second, people think better when their stomachs are full." He shrugged. "It's just a law of nature."

  "I think Mr. Warwick is quite right," Jenkins said. "We all could use something to eat ... and if we go upstairs, we may find some other clues pointing toward what has happened. In fact, I rather think we will."

  Nick shrugged. He looked suddenly tired and confused. "Why not?" he said. "I'm starting to feel like Mr. Robinson Bloody Crusoe."

  They started toward the escalator, which was also dead, in a straggling little group. Albert, Bethany, and Bob Jenkins walked together, toward the rear.

  "You know something, don't you?" Albert asked abruptly. "What is it?"

  "I might know something," Jenkins corrected. "I might not. For the time being I'm going to hold my peace ... except for one suggestion."

  "What?"

  "It's not for you; it's for the young lady." He turned to Bethany. "Save your matches. That's my suggestion."

  "What?" Bethany frowned at him.

  "You heard me."

  "Yeah, I guess I did, but I don't get what you mean. There's probably a newsstand upstairs, Mr. Jenkins. They'll have lots of matches. Cigarettes and disposable lighters, too."

  "I agree," Jenkins said. "I still advise you to save your matches."

  He's playing Philo Christie or whoever it was again, Albert thought.

  He was about to point this out and ask Jenkins to please remember that this wasn't one of his novels when Brian Engle stopped at the foot of the escalator, so suddenly that Laurel had to jerk sharply on Dinah's hand to keep the blind girl from running into him.

  "Watch where you're going, okay?" Laurel asked. "In case you didn't notice, the kid here can't see."

  Brian ignored her. He was looking around at the little group of refugees. "Where's Mr. Toomy?"

  "Who?" the bald man--Warwick--asked.

  "The guy with the pressing appointment in Boston."

  "Who cares?" Gaffney asked. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

  But Brian was uneasy. He didn't like the idea that Toomy had slipped away and gone off on his own. He didn't know why, but he didn't like that idea at all. He glanced at Nick. Nick shrugged, then shook his head. "Didn't see him go, mate. I was fooling with the phones. Sorry."

  "Toomy!" Brian shouted. "Craig Toomy! Where are you?"

  There was no response. Only that queer, oppressive silence. And Laurel noticed something then, something that made her skin cold. Brian had cupped his hands and shouted up the escalator. In a high-ceilinged place like this one, there should have been at least some echo.

  But there had been none.

  No echo at all.

  10

  While the others were occupied downstairs--the two teenagers and the old geezer standing by one of the car-rental desks, the others watching the British thug as he tried the phones--Craig Toomy had crept up the stalled escalator as quietly as a mouse. He knew exactly where he wanted to go; he knew exactly what to look for when he got there.

  He strode briskly across the large waiting room with his briefcase swinging beside his right knee, ignoring both the empty chairs and an empty bar called The Red Baron. At the far end of the room was a sign hanging over the mouth of a wide, dark corridor. It read GATE 5 INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS

  DUTY FREE SHOPS

  U.S. CUSTOMS

  AIRPORT SECURITY

  He had almost reached the head of this corridor when he glanced out one of the wide windows at the tarmac again ... and his pace faltered. He approached the glass slowly and looked out.

  There was nothing to see but the empty concrete and the moveless white sky, but his eyes began to widen nonetheless and he felt fear begin to steal into his heart.

  They're coming, a dead voice suddenly told him. It was the voice of his father, and it spoke from a small, haunted mausoleum tucked away in a gloomy corner of Craig Toomy's heart.

  "No," he whispered, and the word spun a little blossom of fog on the window in front of his lips. "No one is coming."

  You've been bad. Worse, you've been lazy.

  "No!"

  Yes. You had an appointment and you skipped it. You ran away. You ran away to Bangor, Maine, of all the silly places.

 
"It wasn't my fault," he muttered. He was gripping the handle of the briefcase with almost painful tightness now. "I was taken against my will. I ... I was shanghaied!"

  No reply from that interior voice. Only waves of disapproval. And once again Craig intuited the pressure he was under, the terrible never-ending pressure, the weight of the fathoms. The interior voice did not have to tell him there were no excuses; Craig knew that. He knew it of old.

  THEY were here ... and they will be back. You know that, don't you?

  He knew. The langoliers would be back. They would be back for him. He could sense them. He had never seen them, but he knew how horrible they would be. And was he alone in his knowledge? He thought not.

  He thought perhaps the little blind girl knew something about the langoliers as well.

  But that didn't matter. The only thing which did was getting to Boston--getting to Boston before the langoliers could arrive in Bangor from their terrible, doomish lair to eat him alive and screaming. He had to get to that meeting at the Pru, had to let them know what he had done, and then he would be...

  Free.

  He would be free.

  Craig pulled himself away from the window, away from the emptiness and the stillness, and plunged into the corridor beneath the sign. He passed the empty shops without a glance. Beyond them he came to the door he was looking for. There was a small rectangular plaque mounted on it, just above a bullseye peephole. AIRPORT SECURITY, it said.

  He had to get in there. One way or another, he had to get in there.

  All of this ... this craziness ... it doesn't have to belong to me. I don't have to own it. Not anymore.

  Craig reached out and touched the doorknob of the Airport Security office. The blank look in his eyes had been replaced by an expression of clear determination.

  I have been under stress for a long, a very long, time. Since I was seven? No--I think it started even before that. The fact is, I've been under stress for as long as I can remember. This latest piece of craziness is just a new variation. It's probably just what the man in the ratty sport-coat said it was: a test. Agents of some secret government agency or sinister foreign power running a test. But I choose not to participate in any more tests. I don't care if it's my father in charge, or my mother, or the dean of the Graduate School of Management, or the Desert Sun Banking Corporation's Board of Directors. I choose not to, participate. I choose to escape. I choose to get to Boston and finish what I set out to do when I presented the Argentinian bond-buy in the first place. If I don't ...