‘Not spoiled,’ he said. ‘Tasteless. And not just that, either. It seemed to have no texture.’ His mouth drew down in an involuntary expression of disgust. ‘We talk about things being bland – unseasoned white rice, boiled potatoes – but even the blandest food has some taste, I think. That had none. It was like chewing paper. No wonder you thought it was spoiled.’
‘It was spoiled,’ the bald man reiterated stubbornly.
‘Try your beer,’ Bob invited. ‘That shouldn’t be spoiled. The cap is still on, and a capped bottle of beer shouldn’t spoil even if it isn’t refrigerated.’
Rudy looked thoughtfully at the bottle of Budweiser in his hand, then shook his head and held it out to Bob.
‘I don’t want it anymore,’ he said. He glanced at the cold-case. His gaze was baleful, as if he suspected Jenkins of having played an unfunny practical joke on him.
‘I will if I have to,’ Bob said, ‘but I’ve already offered my body up to science once. Will somebody else try this beer? I think it’s very important.’
‘Give it to me,’ Nick said.
‘No.’ It was Don Gaffney. ‘Give it to me. I could use a beer, by God. I’ve drunk ’em warm before and they don’t cross my eyes none.’
He took the beer, twisted off the cap, and upended it. A moment later he whirled and sprayed the mouthful he had taken onto the floor.
‘Jesus!’ he cried. ‘Flat! Flat as a pancake!’
‘Is it?’ Bob asked brightly. ‘Good! Great! Something we can all see!’ He was around the counter in a flash, and taking one of the glasses down from the shelf. Gaffney had set the bottle down beside the cash register, and Brian looked at it closely as Bob Jenkins picked it up. He could see no foam clinging to the inside of the bottleneck. It might as well be water in there, he thought.
What Bob poured out didn’t look like water, however; it looked like beer. Flat beer. There was no head. A few small bubbles clung to the inside of the glass, but none of them came pinging up through the liquid to the surface.
‘All right,’ Nick said slowly, ‘it’s flat. Sometimes that happens. The cap doesn’t get screwed on all the way at the factory and the gas escapes. Everyone’s gotten a flat lager from time to time.’
‘But when you add in the tasteless salami sandwich, it’s suggestive, isn’t it?’
‘Suggestive of what?’ Brian exploded.
‘In a moment,’ Bob said. ‘Let’s take care of Mr Hopewell’s caveat first, shall we?’ He turned, grabbed glasses with both hands (a couple of others fell off the shelf and shattered on the floor), then began to set them out along the counter with the agile speed of a bartender. ‘Bring me some more beer. And a couple of soft drinks, while you’re at it.’
Albert and Bethany went down to the cold-case and each took four or five bottles, picking at random.
‘Is he nuts?’ Bethany asked in a low voice.
‘I don’t think so,’ Albert said. He had a vague idea of what the writer was trying to show them … and he didn’t like the shape it made in his mind. ‘Remember when he told you to save your matches? He knew something like this was going to happen. That’s why he was so hot to get us over to the restaurant. He wanted to show us.’
3
The duty roster was ripped into three dozen narrow strips and the langoliers were closer now.
Craig could feel their approach at the back of his mind – more weight.
More insupportable weight.
It was time to go.
He picked up the gun and his briefcase, then stood up and left the security room. He walked slowly, rehearsing as he went: I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. Take me to Boston. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. Take me to Boston.
‘I will if I have to,’ Craig muttered as he walked back into the waiting room. ‘I will if I have to.’ His finger found the hammer of the gun and cocked it back.
Halfway across the room, his attention was once more snared by the pallid light which fell through the windows, and he turned in that direction. He could feel them out there. The langoliers. They had eaten all the useless, lazy people, and now they were returning for him. He had to get to Boston. It was the only way he knew to save the rest of himself … because their death would be horrible. Their death would be horrible indeed.
He walked slowly to the windows and looked out, ignoring – at least for the time being – the murmur of the other passengers behind him.
4
Bob Jenkins poured a little from each bottle into its own glass. The contents of each was as flat as the first beer had been. ‘Are you convinced?’ he asked Nick.
‘Yes,’ Nick said. ‘If you know what’s going on here, mate, spill it. Please spill it.’
‘I have an idea,’ Bob said. ‘It’s not … I’m afraid it’s not very comforting, but I’m one of those people who believe that knowledge is always better – safer – in the long run than ignorance, no matter how dismayed one may feel when one first understands certain facts. Does that make any sense?’
‘No,’ Gaffney said at once.
Bob shrugged and offered a small, wry smile. ‘Be that as it may, I stand by my statement. And before I say anything else, I want to ask you all to look around this place and tell me what you see.’
They looked around, concentrating so fiercely on the little clusters of tables and chairs that no one noticed Craig Toomy standing on the far side of the waiting room, his back to them, gazing out at the tarmac.
‘Nothing,’ Laurel said at last. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything. Your eyes must be sharper than mine, Mr Jenkins.’
‘Not a bit. I see what you see: nothing. But airports are open twenty-four hours a day. When this thing – this Event – happened, it was probably at the dead low tide of its twenty-four-hour cycle, but I find it difficult to believe there weren’t at least a few people in here, drinking coffee and perhaps eating early breakfasts.
Aircraft maintenance men. Airport personnel. Perhaps a handful of connecting passengers who elected to save money by spending the hours between midnight and six or seven o’clock in the terminal instead of in a nearby motel. When I first got off that baggage conveyor and looked around, I felt utterly dislocated. Why?
Because airports are never completely deserted, just as police and fire stations are never completely deserted. Now look around again, and ask yourself this: where are the half-eaten meals, the half-empty glasses? Remember the drinks trolley on the airplane with the dirty glasses on the lower shelf ? Remember the half-eaten pastry and the half-drunk cup of coffee beside the pilot’s seat in the cockpit? There’s nothing like that here. Where is the least sign that there were people here at all when this Event occurred?’
Albert looked around again and then said slowly, ‘There’s no pipe on the foredeck, is there?’
Bob looked at him closely. ‘What? What do you say, Albert?’
‘When we were on the plane,’ Albert said slowly, ‘I was thinking of this sailing ship I read about once. It was called the Mary Celeste, and someone spotted it, just floating aimlessly along. Well . . . not really floating, I guess, because the book said the sails were set, but when the people who found it boarded her, everyone on the Mary Celeste was gone. Their stuff was still there, though, and there was food cooking on the stove. Someone even found a pipe on the foredeck. It was still lit.’
‘Bravo!’ Bob cried, almost feverishly. They were all looking at him now, and no one saw Craig Toomy walking slowly toward them. The gun he had found was no longer pointed at the floor.
‘Bravo, Albert! You’ve put your finger on it! And there was another famous disappearance – an entire colony of settlers at a place called Roanoke Island … off the coast of North Carolina, I believe. All gone, but they had left remains of campfires, cluttered houses, and trash middens behind. Now, Albert, take this a step further. How else does this terminal differ from our airplane?’
For a moment Albert looked entirely blank, and then understanding dawned in his eyes. ‘The rings!’ he shouted. ‘The purses! The wallets! The money! The surgical pins! None of that stuff is here!’
‘Correct,’ Bob said softly. ‘One hundred per cent correct. As you say, none of that stuff is here. But it was on the airplane when we survivors woke up, wasn’t it? There were even a cup of coffee and a half-eaten Danish in the cockpit. The equivalent of a smoking pipe on the foredeck.’