Nick’s cheery smile didn’t change a bit. ‘I know,’ he said.
3
Craig dashed across the terminal, nimbly vaulted the escalator’s handrail, and ran down the frozen metal steps with panic roaring and beating in his head like the sound of the ocean in a storm; it even drowned out that other sound, the relentless chewing, crunching sound of the langoliers. No one saw him go. He sprinted across the lower lobby toward the exit doors … and crashed into them. He had forgotten everything, including the fact that the electric-eye door-openers wouldn’t work with the power out.
He rebounded, the breath knocked out of him, and fell to the floor, gasping like a netted fish. He lay there for a moment, groping for whatever remained of his mind, and found himself gazing at his right hand. It was only a white blob in the growing darkness, but he could see the black splatters on it, and he knew what they were: the little girl’s blood.
Except she wasn’t a little girl, not really. She lust looked like a little girl. She was the head langolier, and with her gone the others won’t be able to … won’t be able to … to …
To what?
To find him?
But he could still hear the hungry sound of their approach: that maddening chewing sound, as if somewhere to the east a tribe of huge, hungry insects was on the march.
His mind whirled. Oh, he was so confused.
Craig saw a smaller door leading outside, got up, and started in that direction. Then he stopped. There was a road out there, and the road undoubtedly led to the town of Bangor, but so what? He didn’t care about Bangor; Bangor was most definitely not part of that fabled BIG PICTURE. It was Boston that he had to get to. If he could get there, everything would be all right. And what did that mean? His father would have known. It meant he had to STOP SCAMPERING AROUND and GET WITH THE PROGRAM.
His mind seized on this idea the way a shipwreck victim seizes upon a piece of wreckage – anything that still floats, even if it’s only the shithouse door, is a prize to be cherished. If he could get to Boston, this whole experience would be . . . would be . . .
‘Set aside,’ he muttered.
At the words, a bright beam of rational light seemed to shaft through the darkness inside his head, and a voice (it might have been his father’s) cried out YES!! in affirmation.
But how was he to do that? Boston was too far to walk and the others wouldn’t let him back on board the only plane that still worked. Not after what he had done to their little blind mascot.
‘But they don’t know,’ Craig whispered. ‘They don’t know I did them a favor, because they don’t know what she is.’ He nodded his head sagely. His eyes, huge and wet in the dark, gleamed.
Stow away, his father’s voice whispered to him. Stow away on the plane Yes! his mother’s voice added. Stow away! That’s the ticket. Craiggy-weggy! Only if you do that, you won’t need a ticket, will you?
Craig looked doubtfully toward the luggage conveyor belt. He could use it to get to the tarmac, but suppose they had posted a guard by the plane? The pilot wouldn’t think of it – once out of his cockpit, the man was obviously an imbecile – but the Englishman almost surely would.
So what was he supposed to do?
If the Bangor side of the terminal was no good, and the runway side of the terminal was also no good, what was he supposed to do and where was he supposed to go?
Craig looked nervously at the dead escalator. They would be hunting him soon – the Englishman undoubtedly leading the pack – and here he stood in the middle of the floor, as exposed as a stripper who has just tossed her pasties and g-string into the audience.
I have to hide, at least for awhile.
He had heard the jet engines start up outside, but this did not worry him; he knew a little about planes and understood that Engle couldn’t go anywhere until he had refuelled. And refuelling would take time. He didn’t have to worry about them leaving without him.
Not yet, anyway.
Hide, Craiggy-weggy. That’s what you have to do right now. You have to hide before they come for you.
He turned slowly, looking for the best place, squinting into the growing dark. And this time he saw a sign on a door tucked between the Avis desk and the Bangor Travel Agency.
AIRPORT SERVICES
it read. A sign which could mean almost anything.
Craig hurried across to the door, casting nervous looks back over his shoulder as he went, and tried it. As with the door to Airport Security, the knob would not turn but the door opened when he pushed on it. Craig took one final look over his shoulder, saw no one, and closed the door behind him.
Utter, total dark swallowed him; in here, he was as blind as the little girl he had stabbed. Craig didn’t mind.
He was not afraid of the dark; in fact, he rather liked it. Unless you were with a woman, no one expected you to do anything significant in the dark. In the dark, performance ceased to be a factor.
Even better, the chewing sound of the langoliers was muffled.
Craig felt his way slowly forward, hands outstretched, feet shuffling. After three of these shuffling steps, his thigh came in contact with a hard object that felt like the edge of a desk. He reached forward and down.
Yes. A desk. He let his hands flutter over it for a moment, taking comfort in the familiar accoutrements of white-collar America: a stack of papers, an IN/OUT basket, the edge of a blotter, a caddy filled with paper-clips, a pencil-and-pen set. He worked his way around the desk to the far side, where his hip bumped the arm of a chair. Craig maneuvered himself between the chair and the desk and then sat down. Being behind a desk made him feel better still. It made him feel like himself – calm, in control. He fumbled for the top drawer and pulled it open. Felt inside for a weapon – something sharp. His hand happened almost immediately upon a letter-opener.
He took it out, shut the drawer, and put it on the desk by his right hand.
He just sat there for a moment, listening to the muffled whisk-thud of his heartbeat and the dim sound of the jet engines, then sent his hands fluttering delicately over the surface of the desk again until they re-encountered the stack of papers. He took the top sheet and brought it toward him, but there wasn’t a glimmer of white … not even when he held it right in front of his eyes.
That’s all right, Craiggy-weggy. You just sit here in the dark. Sit here and wait until it’s time to move. When the time comes
I’ll tell you, his father finished grimly.
‘That’s right,’ Craig said. His fingers spidered up the unseen sheet of paper to the righthand corner. He tore smoothly downward.
Riii-ip.
Calm filled his mind like cool blue water. He dropped the unseen strip on the unseen desk and returned his fingers to the top of the sheet. Everything was going to be fine. just fine. He began to sing under his breath in a tuneless little whisper.
‘Just call me angel … of the morn-ing, ba-by -‘
Riii-ip.
‘Just touch my cheek before you leave me … ba-by .
Calm now, at peace, Craig sat and waited for his father to tell him what he should do next, just as he had done so many times as a child.
4
‘Listen carefully, Albert,’ Nick said. ‘We have to take her on board the plane, but we’ll need a litter to do it.
There won’t be one on board, but there must be one in here. Where?’
‘Gee, Mr Hopewell, Captain Engle would know better than -‘
‘But Captain Engle isn’t here,’ Nick said patiently. ‘We shall have to manage on our own.’
Albert frowned … then thought of a sign he had seen on the lower level. ‘Airport Services?’ he asked. ‘Does that sound right?’
‘It bloody well does,’ Nick said. ‘Where did you see that?’
‘On the lower level. Next to the rent-a-car counters.’
‘All right,’ Nick said. ‘Here’s how we’re going to handle this. You and Mr Gaffney are designated litter-finders and litter-bearers. Mr Gaffney, I suggest you check by the grill behind the counter. I expect you’ll find some sharp knives. I’m sure that’s where our unpleasant friend found his. Get one for you and one for Albert.’
Don went behind the counter without a word. Rudy Warwick returned from The Red Baron Bar with an armload of red-and-white checked tablecloths.