Jim Shepard - Flights

“Where we goin’?” Teddy said. “There’s nothing over here but the runway.”

“I told you. The airport,” Biddy said.

“The real airport?” Usually when they spoke of “the airport” they meant the marshes and flatlands surrounding it, not the actual installation. “We’ll get in trouble.”

“No, we won’t.” The last thing he wanted was trouble. The reeds parted and the runway lay before him, the tarmac gray, smooth, and wide.

“We have to cross it,” he said.

“Cross it?”

He was already away from the cattails, checking the sky for incoming planes. Satisfied, he started to run, low to the ground, the heat off the paved surface dry and intense. On the other side he ducked into the weeds, crashing through the fragile yellow stalks. Teddy was right behind him.

“If you wanted to come over here, why didn’t you have your father drive you around?” he said, panting. Biddy ignored the question and struck out for the access road to the terminal.

The Bridgeport terminal was small and resembled a longish restaurant with a two-story tower. It was not very impressive on the best of days, and was even less so from their angle, surrounded by dark pavement and swimming in the heat waves of the afternoon. With the tower in sight Teddy grew appreciably more restive and lagged behind. By the time Biddy had reached the tower, Teddy had been lured off by a side attraction and was no longer visible. Biddy tested the door leading to the tower, but it was locked. A moment later, a man in white shirtsleeves opened it from the inside and asked what he could do for him.

“Could I go up in the tower for just a second?” Biddy said.

The man said no, and then changed his mind and said yes, what the heck, and led him up the stairs. At the top a man at a console, also in shirtsleeves, smiled at him. A fan whirred behind them. The man indicated to his friend that they’d better get him out. Biddy looked north to the hangars where he’d been with his mother and confirmed the blind spot. He pointed. “What’s over there?” he said. Just beyond the hangar he could make out the very tip of Mr. Carver’s Cessna, a sliver of white and blue.

“What, the hangars?” the man asked.

Biddy shook his head. “Behind them.”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “Can’t see behind them. A parking area.” He put his hand on Biddy’s back and led him down the stairs.

Teddy was waiting for him when he emerged into the glare. “God, why didn’t you wait for me?” he said. “You got to go up there! You knew I was out here!”

It wasn’t so great, Biddy assured him, the Cessna tail still vivid and hidden.

He gazed at Biddy in helpless amazement. “Why didn’t you wait?”

“I had something to do up there,” Biddy said. “You didn’t.”

Teddy swung and Biddy avoided the blow and held his ground. They stood facing each other before Teddy relaxed, too disgusted to fight. “I came all this way,” he said, and turned his back on Biddy and left the way they had come. Biddy didn’t follow. Halfway across the runway the yellow security jeep, on the alert because of their earlier crossing, emerged from hiding like a lazy four-wheeled spider. Teddy was piled into it and it circled back toward the terminal. Biddy watched it grow as it drew nearer before he trotted across the parking lot to the southern exit of the Burma Road and turned toward home.

Teddy wasn’t speaking to him any longer. Laura told him in class, two days later.

“Can you come out today?” he whispered. They were communicating in short bursts while Sister wrote on the board.

“I have to go somewhere,” she said. “But tonight I’m sleeping out with Sarah Alice.”

That night he crept from the house at five after one. His father hadn’t gone to sleep until late. He trailed down the empty streets barefoot, in shorts and a T-shirt. The Ranseys had a screened-in patio set away from the house near the edge of their property. The property adjoined a vacant lot that was overgrown and unlighted, visually impenetrable at night. He felt his way through, remembering paths, and climbed the low wooden fence bordering their yard. He paused at the screened wall of the porch.

They were both asleep, twisted in light sleeping bags. He scratched the metal surface with his nail, the screen sounding like an emery board. “Laura,” he whispered. “Laura.”

She lifted her head abruptly and looked at him. Then she looked at Sarah Alice, still asleep. She got up, groggy, her covers falling away in a whisper, and came outside. She was wearing a white nightshirt with tiny green figures on it.

“What are you doing?” she said. “What time is it?”

“It’s not too late. Let’s go to the beach.”

“No.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s late.”

“C’mon.” He took her wrist. “You wanted me to come over.”

She pulled toward the screen. “I should tell Sarah Alice.”

“Let her sleep.”

“She’ll wake up and find me gone.”

“No, she won’t.”

She hesitated. “Let me get my flip-flops.” When she returned, she sat in the grass to put them on. Then she stood, clearing the hair from her face, and took his hand and they ran to the fence and climbed over.

She was frightened in the vacant lot, the darkness alive with rustlings and insect noises, but he moved them swiftly through and they came out on the far side under a streetlight. He waited while she scratched the side of her calf thoroughly, and then they headed down the street, her flip-flops making rubbery, popping sounds.

He heard a car and saw a flash of headlights and pulled her quickly behind a hedge, crouching low. It edged closer.

“What are we hiding for?” she whispered but half understood, appreciating the heightened sense of imagined danger and suspense. Her palm was moist and warm in his hand. His shoulder brushed the hedge, picking up cool dew. The car’s engine idled past on the other side.

“He’s going so slow,” he whispered.

Her eyes widened. “What do you think he’s doing?”

He shook his head. In her crouch her chin was nearly between her knees. The car crept away.

After a short wait he raised his eyes above the hedge. The car was at a stop sign at the end of the street. It was a station wagon, with an odd license plate: LEMM. It turned left down the beach road.

“It’s gone,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“I want to go back,” Laura said. “I’m scared.”

“Come on.” He held his hand out. “He’s gone.”

They walked a bit faster, the beach dark ahead of them. Laura looked fearfully behind them every so often. He was happy to be with her and swung her arm as they reached the stop sign, the breeze cool off the sea. He had all sorts of things he wanted to talk to her about.

She said, “What’s that?” Her tone stopped him as though he were on the edge of a cliff. The station wagon was parked along the beach road to their left. The LEMM shone in the plate lights. He stood still for the briefest moment, stunned, before pulling her under a rhododendron in the nearest yard. They peered out at the car.

“What’s he doing?” she whispered. She was terrified.

“I don’t see anyone,” he said. His eyes covered every inch of the car. The interior was dark and he couldn’t discern any movement.

“Look,” Laura said. It was a choked whisper, a horrible sound. She was pointing to the right, at some bushes across the street black with their own shadows even under the streetlight. He couldn’t see anything.

He was going to speak but she continued to point. He looked again, and there was a man’s face in the bush, white, disembodied in the shadow, the eyes black dots. His forehead went instantly cool and he felt as though he’d lost his wind.