He dropped down into the forward-hold area, ducked below a cluster of electrical cables, and undogged the hatch in the floor of the 767’s nose. Albert joined him and helped Bethany down. Brian helped Laurel, and then he and Albert helped Rudy, who moved as if his bones had turned to glass. Rudy was still clutching his rosary tight in one hand. The space below the cockpit was now very cramped, and Bob Jenkins waited for them above, propped on his hands and peering down at them through the trapdoor.
Brian pulled the ladder out of its storage clips, secured it in place, and then, one by one, they descended to the tarmac, Brian first, Bob last.
As Brian’s feet touched down, he felt a mad urge to place his hand over his heart and cry out: I claim this land of rancid milk and sour honey for the survivors of Flight 29 … at least until the langoliers arrive!
He said nothing. He only stood there with the others below the loom of the jetliner’s nose, feeling a light breeze against one cheek and looking around. In the distance he heard a sound. It was not the chewing, crunching sound of which they had gradually become aware in Bangor – nothing like it – but he couldn’t decide exactly what it did sound like.
‘What’s that?’ Bethany asked. ‘What’s that humming? It sounds like electricity .’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Bob said thoughtfully. ‘It sounds like..’ He shook his head.
‘It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before,’ Brian said, but he wasn’t sure if that was true. Again he was haunted by the sense that something he knew or should know was dancing just beyond his mental grasp.
‘It’s them, isn’t it?’ Bethany asked half-hysterically. ‘It’s them, coming. It’s the langoliers Dinah told us about.’
‘I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound the same at all.’ But he felt the fear begin in his belly just the same.
‘Now what?’ Rudy asked. His voice was as harsh as a crow’s. ‘Do we start all over again?’
‘Well, we won’t need the conveyor belt, and that’s a start,’ Brian said. ‘The jetway service door is open.’ He stepped out from beneath the 767’s nose and pointed. The force of their arrival at Gate 29 had knocked the rolling ladder away from the door, but it would be easy enough to slip it back into position. ‘Come on.’
They walked toward the ladder.
‘Albert?’ Brian said. ‘Help me with the lad
‘Wait,’ Bob said.
Brian turned his head and saw Bob looking around with cautious wonder. And the expression in his previously dazed eyes … was that hope?
‘What? What is it, Bob? What do you see?’
‘Just another deserted airport. It’s what I feel.’ He raised a hand to his cheek … then simply held it out in the air, like a man trying to flag a ride.
Brian started to ask him what he meant, and realized that he knew. Hadn’t he noticed it himself while they had been standing under the liner’s nose? Noticed it and then dismissed it?
There was a breeze blowing against his face. Not much of a breeze, hardly more than a puff, but it was a breeze. The air was in motion.
‘Holy crow,’ Albert said. He popped a finger into his mouth, wetting it, and held it up. An unbelieving grin touched his face.
‘That isn’t all, either,’ Laurel said. ‘Listen!’
She dashed from where they were standing down toward the 767’s wing.
Then she ran back to them again, her hair streaming out behind her. The high heels she was wearing clicked crisply on the concrete.
‘Did you hear it?’ she asked them. ‘Did you hear it?’
They had heard. The flat, muffled quality was gone. Now, just listening to Laurel speak, Brian realized that in Bangor they had all sounded as if they had been talking with their heads poked inside bells which had been cast from some dulling metal – brass, or maybe lead.
Bethany raised her hands and rapidly clapped out the backbeat of the old Routers’ instrumental, ‘Let’s Go.’
Each clap was as clean and clear as the pop of a track-starter’s pistol. A delighted grin broke over her face.
‘What does it m – ‘Rudy began.
‘The plane!’ Albert shouted in a high-pitched, gleeful voice, and for a moment Brian was absurdly reminded of the little guy on that old TV show, Fantasy Island. He almost laughed out loud. ‘I know what’s different!
Look at the plane! Now it’s the same as all the others!’
They turned and looked. No one said anything for a long moment; perhaps no one was capable of speech.
The Delta 727 standing next to the American Pride jetliner in Bangor had looked dull and dingy, somehow less real than the 767. Now all the aircraft – Flight 29 and the United planes lined up along the extended jetways behind it – looked equally bright, equally new. Even in the dark, their paintwork and trademark logos appeared to gleam.
‘What does it mean?’ Rudy asked, speaking to Bob. ‘What does it mean? If things have really gone back to normal, where’s the electricity? Where are the people?’
‘And what’s that noise?’ Albert put in.
The sound was already closer, already clearer. It was a humming sound, as Bethany had said, but there was nothing electrical about it. It sounded like wind blowing across an open pipe, or an inhuman choir which was uttering the same open-throated syllable in unison: aaaaaaa …
Bob shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, turning away. ‘Let’s push that ladder back into position and go in
Laurel grabbed his shoulder.
‘You know something!’ she said. Her voice was strained and tense. ‘I can see that you do. Let the rest of us in on it, why don’t you?’
He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. ‘I’m not prepared to say right now, Laurel. I want to go inside and look around first.’
With that they had to be content. Brian and Albert pushed the ladder back into position. One of the supporting struts had buckled slightly, and Brian held it as they ascended one by one. He himself came last, walking on the side of the ladder away from the buckled strut. The others had waited for him, and they walked up the jetway and into the terminal together.
They found themselves in a large, round room with boarding gates located at intervals along the single curving wall. The rows of seats stood ghostly and deserted, the overhead fluorescents were dark squares, but here Albert thought he could almost smell other people … as if they had all trooped out only seconds before the Flight 29 survivors emerged from the jetway.
From outside, that choral humming continued to swell, approaching like a slow invisible wave: –
a aaaaaaaaaaaaa
‘Come with me,’ Bob Jenkins said, taking effortless charge of the group. ‘Quickly, please.’
He set off toward the concourse and the others fell into line behind him, Albert and Bethany walking together with arms linked about each others’ waists. Once off the carpeted surface of the United boarding lounge and in the concourse itself, their heels clicked and echoed, as if there were two dozen of them instead of only six. They passed dim, dark advertising posters on the walls: Watch CNN, Smoke Marlboros, Drive Hertz, Read Newsweek, See Disneyland.
And that sound, that open-throated choral humming sound, continued to grow. Outside, Laurel had been convinced the sound had been approaching them from the west. Now it seemed to be right in here with them, as though the singers – if they were singers – had already arrived. The sound did not frighten her, exactly, but it made the flesh of her arms and back prickle with awe.
They reached a cafeteria-style restaurant, and Bob led them inside. Without pausing, he went around the counter and took a wrapped pastry from a pile of them on the counter. He tried to tear it open with his teeth
… then realized his teeth were back on the plane. He made a small, disgusted sound and tossed it over the counter to Albert.
‘You do it,’ he said. His eyes were glowing now. ‘Quickly, Albert! Quickly!’
‘Quick, Watson, the game’s afoot!’ Albert said, and laughed crazily. He tore open the cellophane and looked at Bob, who nodded. Albert took out the pastry and bit into it. Cream and raspberry jam squirted out the sides. Albert grinned. ‘Ith delicious!’ he said in a muffled voice, spraying crumbs as he spoke. ‘Delicious!’
He offered it to Bethany, who took an even larger bite.
Laurel could smell the raspberry filling, and her stomach made a goinging, boinging sound. She laughed.
Suddenly she felt giddy, joyful, almost stoned. The cobwebs from the depressurization experience were entirely gone; her head felt like an upstairs room after a fresh sea breeze had blown in on a hot and horrible