Scareforce

by Charles Hough

  Even the security police were the victims of the unknown agency. They reported the lights on in the building so many times that finally they stopped notifying anyone. They must have assumed it was normal for a preschool.

  But the strange occurrences had one striking feature in common. They always happened when only one person was in the building. They never took place when there was more than one witness to verify the hauntings. So, because they weren’t the kinds of things that people would admit to without verification, each person thought that only she was suffering from a bad case of ghosts. And nobody wants to admit to her friends that she’s that far around the bend. It came out quite by accident.

  One of the overworked and underpaid teachers was gathering up her homework to leave for the day when she suddenly realized that tomorrow was a new month. A new month meant new bulletin boards and new pictures and new calendar symbols. A new month meant a whole lot of work.

  As she settled back in for a long night of work, she said to the empty room, “Okay, ghosts, hope you brought a lunch. Looks like we’re in for a long one.”

  A passing teacher heard her and stuck her head in.

  “What did you say, about the ghosts?”

  “Nothing… nothing at all.” She was embarrassed. “I was just talking to myself out loud.”

  “No you weren’t. You were talking to the ghosts. You know about them too. Thank God, I thought I was going crazy.”

  They finally sat down and compared notes. They couldn’t contain themselves. It was like a dam had burst and all the solitary haunting experiences spilled out. They became more and more eager to relate their ordeals to each other and their voices became louder. Before they realized it, the room was filled with all the teachers and workers. And they were all relating similar nightmares that had plagued them. And as they talked about the hauntings and frights, the experiences became less frightening and less shocking. The night seemed to lose some of its power. They proved once again that shared adversity is much easier to take.

  And as they talked of the ghosts that haunted their beloved school, they slowly came to the conclusion that the entity or entities that haunted the preschool were not evil spirits. Far from it. Each and everyone of the school workers had been frightened and startled by the happenings but had never felt physically threatened by the presence. In a way they each subconsciously knew that the hauntings were caused by someone who wanted to scare but not hurt. These experts all knew in their hearts that the culprit, whatever else he might be, was also a child. And they were experts at dealing with children.

  So the teachers went on being teachers to the best of their ability. And if they knew that their classes had a few more pupils than showed in the enrollment records, well, they were used to the load.

  And they hoped that their ghostly charges were learning right along with their more ordinary schoolmates.

  After all, everyone loves to scare the teacher.

  MISSED APPROACH

  MY first job in the Air Force was that of air traffic controller. It was a hectic, fast-paced life but there were moments, usually in the early morning hours, when we had time to sit back and look around. Pilots have those quiet times to look around and reflect. Sometimes controllers and pilots see things. But you never hear about it. It’s just like in the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nobody wants to go on record. But something is out there in spite of the record.

  Senior Master Sergeant David L. Korta peered through the glass wall of the control tower. The lights of the cab were turned down low to keep them from reflecting off the glass and obscuring the view, but it still took practice to look around the reflections and see what lay beyond. The early seventies was a time of rapid advancement in the technology used to control air traffic, but the tower controllers’ main instrument was still a keen set of eyes alertly scanning the horizon. “Brite” radar displays, a combination of radar and computer technology, were being introduced into the tower environment, but few old-head controllers trusted them. You had to really see the traffic to know how to separate it.

  Davey Korta had just turned forty and although parts of his body were noticing the march of time, his eyes were just as sharp as ever. Just now he was using them to survey a dimly lit spectacle that never failed to draw his attention. Most military bases have limited numbers of aircraft. A base might be home to fifteen or twenty tankers or bombers or maybe thirty or forty fighters. Add to that a couple of utility birds and maybe a dozen or so helicopters, depending on the mission of the base, and you had the usual total.

  But there was nothing usual about Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Sprawling in the desert south of Tucson, DM was home to a unique facility. The facility was known by official designations that changed with each philosophy upheaval that shook the military. The current official moniker was the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center, but since its inception the place had been known by everyone as the Boneyard.

  When it came to airplanes, the services were like eccentric pack rats, seldom throwing anything away. For a time after World War II, the gates of the Boneyard were opened to private investors. The stock of war birds was too great for even the military to think of keeping and storing. But during the earliest rumblings of the police action in Vietnam, the gates were soundly locked and no further aircraft were sold to the general public.

  Sergeant Korta looked out over row after row of aircraft lined up within the confines of the huge storage lot. The dry desert air was perfect for preserving the aging aircraft and thousands of them now lined the acres of the Boneyard. There were bombers, tankers, fighters, trainers, and cargo craft. They included the biggest and smallest, the widest and fastest, and, in some instances, the strangest military planes ever built.

  Davey could see a disc-shaped radar that shadowed the back of a Navy radar plane like a giant saucer hovering for a landing. Another one in the same row sported an antenna on the nose that looked like the plane had been run through with a rocket.

  Finally he pulled himself away from the contemplation of the elephant graveyard and turned back to the cab of the tower. He took a sip from his thick black coffee and frowned at the bitter taste. Tower coffee was rumored to be deadly to noncontrollers and he was not about to disagree with legend.

  He surveyed the other two members of his crew. As senior controller, Sergeant Korta didn’t belong to any specific crew. He was responsible for the training and supervision of all controllers on the base. But he regularly took over different crews to see how they worked together. He had to be dead certain that each and every controller under his supervision could do the job. Air traffic control was one of the most demanding and difficult jobs imaginable. It required constant attention to detail and the ability to think and act instantly. Controllers had to have a mountain of information at their fingertips. Like master chess players, they had to be constantly aware of all the pieces under their control and to think several moves in advance. It was like a game. But it was a very serious game. The controller had to always win. If he didn’t, people died.

  Davey shook his head in silent amusement. At this late hour of the mid shift his “crack team” looked anything but impressive. Buck Sergeant Silvers, the local controller, was demonstrating his prowess at trash can basketball with old copies of weather reports. His able assistant, Airman Couch, was locked in rapt concentration, studying his microphone as it dangled suspended from his limp wrist.

  Oh well, thought Sergeant Korta. Time to shake up the troops.

  “Sergeant Silvers.”

  The young sergeant bolted upright as Korta’s voice rolled across the tower cab like thunder.

  “I assume you have completed the traffic count log for the last three hours.”

  “No… uh, yes… that is, I’m getting on it right away, Sergeant Korta,” the young man managed to stammer.

  “Good, good. It’s gratifying to see such dedication in the younger members of the Air Force.” The senior sergeant turned his gaze on the
younger man.

  “How about you, Airman Couch? Are you dedicated also?”

  “Yes sir, I am sir!” He leapt from his chair and snapped to rigid attention.

  “At ease, Airman. And please remember to call me sergeant. Sir is a term reserved for officers. I work for a living.”

  Korta walked slowly up to the young man and smiled.

  “Am I right in assuming that your dedication is directed to your studies? I wouldn’t want you to have any difficulties passing your annuals.”

  “Yes sir… I mean Sergeant… I’m really studying.”

  To prove the point he grabbed a book from the console and planted his nose firmly between the pages. His look of concentration was so intense that it looked painful.

  “Great,” smiled the senior NCO. “But while you’re studying so hard, who’s going to control that aircraft on final?”

  In perfect television sitcom fashion, Airman Couch whipped his head in a double take and dropped his book and microphone.

  “I don’t know, Sarge. I didn’t get a handoff from anybody.” The young man stared in confusion at the landing lights glowing to the north of the field. The crystal clear desert air, brightly lit by millions of stars, made estimating distances very difficult. It was impossible to determine if the lights were only a mile away or more than ten.

  “Okay, what do you intend to do in a situation like this, Airman Couch? You can help him out, Sergeant Silvers.” Davey felt the tones of the master teacher slip into his speech.

  “Call center and check for inbounds.”

  “Call approach and check for traffic.”

  The two responses were the ones Sergeant Korta was looking for but coming as they did on top of each other, they were almost unintelligible.

  “Good. You each get two points for the first correct answer. Now if you’d like to try for even more points, you might make those calls sometime before our mystery guest decides that nobody’s home and goes away.”

  Both young men leapt to the task. Suddenly the quiet tower was awakened by the sound of frantic communication.

  Sergeant Korta regarded the progress of the landing lights. They seemed almost to hang in midair, suspended over the distant lights of downtown Tucson. The desert air could play some strange tricks on the eye.

  “Center doesn’t have a thing,” Sergeant Silvers was the first to report. “They sounded like they were mad like I woke them up or something.”

  “Probably did,” observed Davey Korta. “How about approach? They have anything?”

  “No, Sergeant, they don’t have a single inbound.” Airman Couch shook his head emphatically. “All they’ve heard from in the past hour is that guy from the aeroclub. He’s been pre-flighting that light plane for the past hour.”

  Couch gestured to the old WW2 trainer that sat under a pool of light on the transient ramp in front of the tower. A munificent Uncle Sam had donated the old trainer to the base flying club. It was still being used to train new flyers and, in spite of its gas-guzzling propensity, it was a favorite of most of the instructors.

  “Well, then, I guess what we have here is an honest to goodness ‘pop-up.’”

  “Pop-ups” were pilots who didn’t bother to file flight plans but preferred to navigate from place to place by visual see-and-be-seen rules. As more and more air traffic jammed the airspace over the United States, fewer areas were available for the visual flyers. And military bases almost never got visual flight rules traffic. Almost all military flights required a flight plan and clearance. Military commanders did not welcome drop-in guests.

  “Great, what do I do with a pop-up?” asked the confused controller.

  “I think trying to establish communication with him would be a great place to start, don’t you?”

  “Oh… yeah… right.” The airman suddenly remembered the microphone lying on the console where he had dropped it.

  He quickly flipped up several switches on the console and keyed the mike in his hand.

  “Aircraft on final, runway one-two, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, identify yourself.”

  All three listened intently to the bank of speakers across the top of the console. They heard nothing but the light background static that continually issued from one of the speakers.

  “Try again,” the senior controller directed.

  “Aircraft on final to runway one-two, how do you hear me?”

  Again the query went unanswered.

  “Hit him on guard,” directed Sergeant Korta. “I’ll call it in to approach.”

  The airman threw the switch for 243.0, the national emergency frequency. His supervisor made a courtesy call to the Radar Approach Control facility located in the basement of the building under the tower. Guard frequencies were constantly monitored by all facilities and every time one in range was used, the controllers would be anxious to know why.

  “Okay, Sarge, we’ll listen up and see if we can hear anything from your unknown. I thought the guy on local was kidding when he called down. We haven’t had any traffic for a couple of hours now.”

  The senior radar controller was friendly but somewhat dubious about the possibility of airplanes sneaking up on his sophisticated radar array.

  “Here goes.” The young airman keyed his mike.

  “This is Davis-Monthan tower on guard. Aircraft on short… aircraft on final to runway one-two, please identify yourself.”

  Once again three pairs of eyes stared at the lights glowing in the air above the northern desert. It was as if they expected the lights themselves to talk.

  “How far out is he, Sarge?” Sergeant Silvers spoke to his chief but continued to stare at the landing lights.

  “Can’t tell,” Korta answered, also without turning from the window. “It’s hard to tell at night. And it’s hard to be sure without a hint from radar.”

  “Almost looks like he’s not moving.”

  Sergeant Korta nodded, then realized how foolish it was to nod to a person who wasn’t looking at you.

  As if in response, the lights suddenly seemed to brighten and enlarge, as if the mystery aircraft had moved closer.

  “Looks like he’s on his way.” The apparent movement of the aircraft startled the senior sergeant into action.

  “Couch, get the light gun. This guy may be radio out. Silvers, get on the horn to Center and see if they might have lost contact with someone.”

  The chief controller was gratified to see the two young men in action before he finished speaking. They might be young but they were professionals.

  The airman pulled the light gun down from the ceiling. The device looked like a short, cartoon version of a cannon. Couch located the aircraft in the sights mounted on top of the ultra powerful signaling device.

  “What do you want me to tell him?”

  Korta thought for a moment. Several emergency signals were available to the controller. They were made up of three different-colored lights and pilots were required to memorize the meaning of various combinations.

  “Give him a steady green. We don’t know what his problem is so we might as well clear him to land. I’ll alert the sky cops.”

  Landing on a military base was a complicated procedure. It required permission in writing from the ruling commander. Those who failed to get the proper permission were invariably greeted by the military police’s finest, fully armed for any eventuality.

  Even before he hung up the alerting phone, the red lights atop the blue-and-white police vehicles started flashing. They converged on the main ramp in front of the tower so that they could go either way down the runways to greet the visitor.

  “What’s the matter, did I forget to sign my flight plan again.”

  Sergeant Korta grinned at the voice coming out of the central speaker.

  “Lyle, is that you in that Texan?”

  “Yep. Thought I’d take the old lady up for a little night instrument training. I know I’m rusty, but I didn’t think you’d sic the cops on me.”

  “Just w
anted to make sure you aren’t late for work tomorrow.” Sergeant Korta recognized the voice of one of his senior controllers, Master Sergeant Lyle Dennis.

  “Seriously, Lyle, we could use another set of eyes down there. We’ve got an unannounced visitor on final to one-two. Let me know if you see anything wrong with him.”

  Korta turned back to his crew. It was comforting to know that another old head was keeping watch with him.

  “What’s happening with junior?”

  “I’ve been giving him a steady green, but I’m not getting anything back.” The young man pulled his head away from the light gun and contemplated the light. “Shouldn’t we be seeing something more than a light at this distance. I can’t make out anything about him.”

  “We should,” Sergeant Korta agreed. “Must be a really bright landing light. Looks like he’s leveling out for a low approach.”

  The ball of light slowed its downward motion as it continued forward toward the runway. It moved over the first runway lights. Its own brilliance washed out the strobes at the runway end.

  “Couch, keep giving him a light. Silvers, watch to see if he rocks his wings. Everybody look for marking or insignia.” Korta gave everyone their orders without turning away from the light.

  The bright light reached the concrete of the main runway and glided down the center line about fifty feet above it. Its altitude never varied as it made an almost-leisurely low approach.

  Korta watched in a detached kind of awe. There was not a sound from the tower cab and the silence was not broken by the visitor. To controllers used to the roar of military jets, the silence was deafening.

  Suddenly the aircraft veered from its path down the runway and angled toward the massed ranks of aircraft in the Boneyard. It seemed to hang suspended over a column of Korean War—era fighters as if in contemplation of the silver jets. Then, just as suddenly, it returned to its outbound course beyond the end of the runway.