Four Past Midnight

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 acquaintances 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.

lit 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. 4:07 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time is 1:07 A.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 wash-' out,' he said. 'They're all dead. The coin-fed ones as well as the directdials. 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-