Four Past Midnight

He could feel the hairs on the nape of his neck stiffening in response to that sound. He looked at the others and saw identical expressions of frightened dismay on every face. Nick was controlling himself the best ' and the young girl who had almost balked at using the slide - Bethany - looked the most deeply scared, but they all heard the same thing in the sound.

Bad.

Something bad on the way. Hurrying.

Nick turned toward him. 'What do you make of it, Brian? Any ideas?'

'No,' Brian said. 'Not even a little one. All I know is that it's the only sound in town.'

'It's not in town yet,' Don said, 'but it's going to be, I think. I only wish I knew how long it was going to take.'

They were quiet again, listening to the steady hissing crackle from the east. And Brian thought: I almost know the sound, I think. Not cereal in milk, not radio static, but ... what? If only it wasn't so faint ...

But he didn't want to know. He suddenly realized that, and very strongly. He didn't want to know at all. The sound filled him with a bone-deep loathing.

'We do have to get out of here!' Bethany said. Her voice was loud and wavery. Albert put an arm around her waist and she gripped his hand in both of hers. Gripped it with panicky tightness. 'We have to get out of here right now!'

'Yes,' Bob Jenkins said. 'She's right. That sound - I don't know what it is, but it's awful. We have to get out of here.'

They were all looking at Brian and he thought, It looks like I'm the captain again. But not for long. Because they didn't understand. Not even Jenkins understood, sharp as some of his other deductions might have been, that they weren't going anywhere.

Whatever was making that sound was on its way, and it didn't matter, because they would still be here when it arrived. There was no way out of that. He understood the reason why it was so, even if none of the others did ... and Brian Engle suddenly understood how an animal caught in a trap must feel as it hears the steady thud of the hunter's approaching boots.

CHAPTER 6

Stranded. Bethany's Matches. Two-Way Traffic

Ahead. Albert's Experiment. Nightfall.

The Dark and the Blade.

1

Brian turned to look at the writer. 'You say we have to get out of here, right?'

'Yes. I think we must do that just as soon as we possibly -'

'And where do you suggest we go? Atlantic City? Miami Beach? Club Med?'

'You are suggesting, Captain Engle, that there's no place we can go. I think - I hope - that you're wrong about that. I have an idea.'

'Which is?'

'In a moment. First, answer one question for me. Can you refuel the airplane? Can you do that even if there's no power?'

'I think so, yes. Let's say that, with the help of a few able-bodied men, I could. Then what?'

'Then we take off again,' Bob said. Little beads of sweat stood out on his deeply lined face. They looked like droplets of clear oil. 'That sound - that crunchy sound - is coming from the east. The time-rip was several thousand miles west of here. If we retraced our original course ... could you do that?'

'Yes,' Brian said. He had left the auxiliary power units running, and that meant the INS computer's program was still intact. That program was an exact log of the trip they had just made, from the moment Flight 29 had left the ground in southern California until the moment it had set down in central Maine. One touch of a button would instruct the computer to simply reverse that course; the touch of another button, once in the air, would put the autopilot to work flying it. The Teledyne inertial navigation system would re-create the trip down to the smallest degree deviations. 'I could do that, but why?'

'Because the rip may still be there. Don't you see? We might be able to fly back through it.'

Nick looked at Bob in sudden startled concentration, then turned to Brian. 'He might have something there, mate. He just might.'

Albert Kaussner's mind was diverted onto an irrelevant but fascinating side-track: if the rip were still there, and if Flight 29 had been on a frequently used altitude and heading - a kind of east-west avenue in the sky - then perhaps other planes had gone through it between 1:07 this morning and now (whenever now was). Perhaps there were other planes landing or landed at other deserted American airports, other crews and passengers wandering around, stunned ...

No, he thought. We happened to have a pilot on board. What are the chances of that happening twice?

He thought of what Mr Jenkins had said about Ted Williams's sixteen consecutive on-bases and shivered.

'He might or he might not,' Brian said. 'It doesn't really matter, because we're not going anyplace in that plane.'

'Why not?' Rudy asked. 'If you could refuel it, I don't see .

'Remember the matches? The ones from the bowl in the restaurant? The ones that wouldn't light?'

Rudy looked blank, but an expression of huge dismay dawned on Bob Jenkins's face. He put his hand to his forehead and took a step backwards. He actually seemed to shrink before them.

'What?' Don asked. He was looking at Brian from beneath drawn-together brows. It was a look which conveyed both confusion and suspicion. 'What does that have to -'

But Nick knew.

'Don't you see?' he asked quietly. 'Don't you see, mate? If batteries don't work, if matches don't light -'

'then jet-fuel won't burn,' Brian finished. 'It will be as used up and worn out as everything else in this world.' He looked at each one of them in turn. 'I might as well fill up the fuel tanks with molasses.'

2

'Have either of you fine ladies ever heard of the langoliers?' Craig asked suddenly. His tone was light, almost vivacious.

Laurel jumped and looked nervously toward the others, who were still standing by the windows and talking. Dinah only turned toward Craig's voice, apparently not surprised at all.

'No,' she said calmly. 'What are those?'

'Don't talk to him, Dinah,' Laurel whispered.

'I heard that,' Craig said in the same pleasant tone of voice. 'Dinah's not the only one with sharp ears, you know.'

Laurel felt her face grow warm.

'I wouldn't hurt the child, anyway,' Craig went on. 'No more than I would have hurt that girl. I'm just frightened. Aren't you?'

'Yes,' Laurel snapped, 'but I don't take hostages and then try to shoot teenage boys when I'm frightened.'