Stephen King - The Langoliers

But as Brian reached for the switch, the engine’s choppy note suddenly began to smooth out. He turned and stared at Nick unbelievingly. Nick looked back, and a big, slow grin lit his face.

“We might have lucked out, mate.”

Brian raised his hands, crossed both sets of fingers, and shook them in the air. “I hope so,” he said, and swung back to the boards. He flicked the switches marked APU 1, 3, and 4. They kicked in smoothly. The cockpit lights flashed back on. The cabin bells binged. Nick whooped and clapped Brian on the back.

Bethany appeared in the doorway behind them. “What’s happening? Is everything all right?”

“I think,” Brian said without turning, “that we might just have a shot at this thing.”

Craig finally managed to stand upright. The glowing girl now stood with her feet just above the luggage conveyor belt. She looked at him with a supernatural sweetness and something else... something he had longed for his whole life. What was it?

He groped for it, and at last it came to him.

It was compassion.

Compassion and understanding.

He looked around and saw that the darkness was draining away. That meant he had been out all night, didn’t it? He didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the glowing girl had brought them to him — the investment bankers, the bond specialists, the commission-brokers, and the stock-rollers. They were here, they would want an explanation of just what young Mr Craiggy-Weggy Toomy-Woomy had been up to, and here was the ecstatic truth: monkey-business! That was what he had been up to — yards and yards of monkey-business — miles of monkey-business. And when he told them that...

“They’ll have to let me go... won’t they?”

Yes, she said. But you have to hurry, Craig. You have to hurry before they decide you’re not coming and leave.

Craig began to make his slow way forward. The girl’s feet did not move, but as he approached her she floated backward like a mirage, toward the rubber strips which hung between the luggage-retrieval area and the loading dock outside.

And... oh, glorious: she was smiling.

They were all back on the plane now, all except Bob and Albert, who were sitting on the stairs and listening to the sound roll toward them in a slow, broken wave.

Laurel Stevenson was standing at the open forward door and looking at the terminal, still wondering what they were going to do about Mr Toomy, when Bethany tugged at the back of her blouse.

“Dinah is talking in her sleep, or something. I think she might be delirious. Can you come?”

Laurel came. Rudy Warwick was sitting across from Dinah, holding one of her hands and looking at her anxiously.

“I dunno,” he said worriedly. “I dunno, but I think she might be going.”

Laurel felt the girl’s forehead. It was dry and very hot. The bleeding had either slowed down or stopped entirely, but the girl’s respiration came in a series of pitiful whistling sounds. Blood was crusted around her mouth like strawberry sauce.

Laurel began, “I think—” and then Dinah said, quite clearly, “You have to hurry before they all decide you’re not coming and leave.”

Laurel and Bethany exchanged puzzled, frightened glances.

“I think she’s dreaming about that guy Toomy,” Rudy told Laurel. “She said his name once.”

“Yes,” Dinah said. Her eyes were closed, but her head moved slightly and she appeared to listen. “Yes I will be,” she said. “If you want me to, I will. But hurry. I know it hurts, but you have to hurry.”

“She is delirious, isn’t she?” Bethany whispered.

“No,” Laurel said. “I don’t think so. I think she might be... dreaming.”

But that was not what she thought at all. What she really thought was that Dinah might be

(seeing)

doing something else. She didn’t think she wanted to know what that something might be, although an idea whirled and danced far back in her mind. Laurel knew she could summon that idea if she wanted to, but she didn’t. Because something creepy was going on here, extremely creepy, and she could not escape the idea that it did have something to do with

(don’t kill him... we need him)

Mr Toomy.

“Leave her alone,” she said in a dry, abrupt tone of voice. “Leave her alone and let her

(do what she has to do to him)

sleep.”

“God, I hope we take off soon,” Bethany said miserably, and Rudy put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Craig reached the conveyor belt and fell onto it. A white sheet of agony ripped through his head, his neck, his chest. He tried to remember what had happened to him and couldn’t. He had run down the stalled escalator, he had hidden in a little room, he had sat tearing strips of paper in the dark... and that was where memory stopped.

He raised his head, hair hanging in his eyes, and looked at the glowing girl, who now sat cross-legged in front of the rubber strips, an inch off the conveyor belt. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life; how could he ever have thought she was one of them?

“Are you an angel?” he croaked.

Yes, the glowing girl replied, and Craig felt his pain overwhelmed with joy. His vision blurred and then tears — the first ones he had ever cried as an adult — began to run slowly down his cheeks. Suddenly he found himself remembering his mother’s sweet, droning, drunken voice as she sang that old song.

“Are you an angel of the morning? Will you be my angel of the morning?”

Yes — I will be. If you want me to, I will. But hurry. I know it hurts, Mr Toomy, but you have to hurry.

“Yes,” Craig sobbed, and began to crawl eagerly along the luggage conveyor belt toward her. Every movement sent fresh pain jig-jagging through him on irregular courses; blood dripped from his smashed nose and shattered mouth. Yet he still hurried as much as he could. Ahead of him, the little girl faded back through the hanging rubber strips, somehow not disturbing them at all as she went.

“Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby,” Craig said. He hawked up a spongy mat of blood, spat it on the wall where it clung like a huge dead spider, and tried to crawl faster.

To the east of the airport, a large cracking, rending sound filled the freakish morning. Bob and Albert got to their feet, faces pallid and filled with dreadful questions.

“What was that?” Albert asked.

“I think it was a tree,” Bob replied, and licked his lips.

“But there’s no wind!”

“No,” Bob agreed. “There’s no wind.”

The noise had now become a moving barricade of splintered sound. Parts of it would seem to come into focus... and then drop back again just before identification was possible. At one moment Albert could swear he heard something barking, and then the barks... or yaps... or whatever they were... would be swallowed up by a brief sour humming sound like evil electricity. The only constants were the crunching and the steady drilling whine.

“What’s happening?” Bethany called shrilly from behind them.

“Noth—” Albert began, and then Bob seized his shoulder and pointed.

“Look!” he shouted. “Look over there!”

Far to the east of them, on the horizon, a series of power pylons marched north and south across a high wooded ridge. As Albert looked, one of the pylons tottered like a toy and then fell over, pulling a snarl of power cables after it. A moment later another pylon went, and another, and another.

“That’s not all, either,” Albert said numbly. “Look at the trees. The trees over there are shaking like shrubs.”