The Ghosts of Hexley Airport

by Cross, Amy

  “Help!” David shouted, turning and looking toward the brightly-lit terminal building, and seeing cars flashing past on the main road. “Why isn't anyone stopping? For God's sake, they need help!”

  He began to run toward the road, waving his arms furiously. Almost stumbling several times in the mud, he dropped the flashlight but kept going anyway, shouting breathlessly for someone to stop and notice the huge burning plane that had just crashed into the forest. By the time he got to the bottom of the slope that ran up to the side of the road, his voice was already hoarse and he was filled with a kind of wild, flailing panic. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the plane still burning, and then he scrambled up the slope before finally spilling out onto the road and waving to flag down the cars.

  A truck pulled to a stop just a few meters ahead, and the driver wound down his window as David ran over to him.

  “I heard people screaming!” he yelled, grabbing the side of the truck as the driver stared out at him. “They were alive, but I don't know if they're alive now! Where are the ambulances? Where are the fire crews? There might still be a chance!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the man asked.

  “It's happening again!” David sobbed, with tears streaming down his face. “I can't believe it, but it's happening again!”

  He turned to look back toward the burning plane.

  “It's like -”

  Stopping suddenly, he saw the cold, dark forest spreading for miles into the distance.

  No flames.

  No plane.

  No roaring sound.

  Just the cold forest, and the tops of trees silhouetted against the night sky.

  “It must have gone out,” he whispered, still watching for any sign of the fire. “It must, I mean...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Are you okay?” the driver asked. “Are you, like, tripping or something?”

  David turned to him with wild, staring eyes.

  “Dude,” the driver continued, as cars behind them began to beep their horns in frustration, “you just ran out into the middle of the road. You could've been hit.”

  “Didn't you see it?” David asked. “It was huge. The flames...”

  Again, his voice trailed off.

  “Get out of the way, you jackass!” a man yelled from one of the other cars. “We've got a plane to catch.”

  “Do you want me to call someone for you?” the truck driver asked. “Like a doctor with a straitjacket, maybe?”

  David stared at him for a moment, before muttering something under his breath and stumbling around the truck, heading to the other side of the road. Sitting down just beyond the edge, he puts his head in his hands as the traffic started up again, and then finally he turned and looked back toward the forest, where tall, dark trees stood twisted and calm against the night sky. For the next few minutes, David simply stared at the distant trees, as if he expected the flames to return, but the forest stayed dark until finally David stumbled to his feet and began to stagger back toward the airport's terminal building.

  He didn't notice the dark figure watching him from nearby, silhouetted against a chain-link fence.

  ***

  “Are you sure you're okay?” His wife asked as she set another glass of whiskey on the kitchen table. “David, do you -”

  “I'm fine!”

  Grabbing the glass, he downed the second shot before sitting back and looking down at his hands. They'd been trembling so much when he got home, he'd barely been able to get his key in the door, but now they were finally becoming a little more calm. Still, he couldn't help replaying the evening's events over and over in his mind, remembering the sight and the sound of the plane as it came down, and the way the ground had shuddered with enough force to knock him off his feet. He knew it hadn't been real, that it couldn't have been real.

  But it had felt so real.

  “I called the guy from the garage,” she explained, clearly worried as she stepped behind her husband and set her hands on his shoulders. “He's gone out to find the car, but he said it won't be fixed in time for the morning. Don't worry, though. I can drop you off at work.”

  She waited for a reply, but David was already lost in his thoughts, replaying the crash in his mind. Placing a hand against his forehead, she hesitated for a moment.

  “You feel a little cold and clammy, honey.”

  “I'm fine.”

  “You keep saying that, but -”

  “Are you sure there wasn't anything on the news about the airport this evening?” he asked, looking up at her.

  She furrowed her brow. “Like what?”

  “Never mind,” he continued, “it's not like it wouldn't be a big story. Everyone would be talking about it. Anyway, what are the odds that two planes...”

  His voice trailed off, and then he grabbed his laptop and opened the lid.

  “David?” she said after a moment, watching as he brought up the BBC news page. “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”

  “NHS spending,” he muttered, checking the headlines, “Brexit, Donald Trump, Wayne Rooney, Lewis Hamilton...”

  He scrolled down, checking the evening's other main news stories, before scrolling back to the top of the page.

  “Nothing,” he whispered finally. “It didn't happen.”

  “I'm going to bed,” she replied, kissing the top of his head before heading over to the door. “If you stay up, try not to make too much noise. Alice is sleeping.”

  Left alone at the kitchen table, David continued to check news sites, searching for any hint of an incident at Hexley Airport. For a full hour, he did nothing but click from website to website, until eventually he began to search for information about the flight DSE9191 crash that had occurred ten years ago. Finding a site that listed the names of the victims, along with photos, he scrolled down the page until spotting a picture of a man named Scott James. He remembered seeing that name on the monument and now – as he stared at the photo of the man's face – he felt certain that this was the person he'd seen in the forest, the person wearing the orange t-shirt.

  “I saw you,” he whispered. “I swear to God, I saw you.”

  Outside, as David sat alone and shocked in the kitchen, light rain was still falling through the night air.

  Chapter Six

  “No!” Casey screamed, racing toward the flames as screams rang out along the dark street. “Get out of there!”

  As soon as she reached the car, she felt an immense heat forcing her back. Stumbling forward, she tried to grab the frame around the shattered window, but she immediately let out a gasp of pain as her hands began to burn. The flames were getting stronger now, and she began to make her way around to the other side of the car.

  “Elly!” she yelled, as she saw that the driver's window was still intact. Leaning down, she saw flames roaring inside the vehicle, but a moment later she realized she could just about make out a figure moving in the heart of the inferno. Horrified, she watched as a girl's figure leaned through the fire and banged a pair of bloodied fists against the other side of the glass.

  Looking around, Casey quickly spotted a brick that had been knocked out of the wall during the impact. Grabbing the brick, she held it up high and then brought it smashing down against the lower corner of the window, shattering the glass.

  “Help me!” a voice screamed from somewhere in the flames.

  Tossing the brick aside, Casey reached into the fire and tried to drag her friend out, only to find that the seat-belt was still in place. She tried to reach further, but the heat was too intense and her hands were already starting to blister.

  “Undo it!” she shouted. “Elly, undo the seat-belt!”

  The only response was a scream, high-pitched and shrieking. Casey tried to lean closer again, but this time she froze for a moment as she spotted Elly's face in the flames. Leaning forward in the seat, Elly was trembling, silhouetted against the fire. Most of her hair had burned away, and her nose too, and aft
er a few seconds she opened her mouth and let out a cloud of steam, as if her internal organs had begun to cook.

  “It's too late!”

  Suddenly Casey was grabbed from behind and pulled away from the burning wreck. She tried to fight back, but the man was holding her too tight. Fire-engines were already racing toward the scene as the man dragged Casey to the other side of the road and dropped her onto the pavement. Rolling onto her back, Casey immediately tried to get up, only to feel a sharp pain in her wrists. Holding her hands up, she saw to her horror that her fingers were seared red, with most of the flesh having burned away. A moment later, she looked over at the car and saw that the fire crew was already getting to work.

  “Why didn't you save me?” a voice asked.

  Turning, she saw Elly's burned, bloodied face staring at her.

  “You were my best friend,” Elly continued. “Why didn't you help me?”

  “I tried,” Casey sobbed, with tears running down her face. “I was too late. I tried, but -”

  “Liar!” Elly hissed, leaning closer. “You let me burn! You heard me screaming and you let me die in the flames!”

  “No!” Casey whimpered, closing her eyes as she felt Elly's charred hands gripping her throat. “I tried to save you but I couldn't. I was -”

  Suddenly she let out a gasp and sat up in bed, and she felt a rush of relief as she realized it had all been another nightmare. Still, she couldn't help reaching up and touching her neck, feeling the spot where burned fingers had squeezed tight. Her heart was racing, and in her mind's eye she could still see Elly's charred face silhouetted against the flames. It was the same nightmare as usual.

  ***

  A strong gale was blowing across the deserted tarmac, but at least this time there was no fresh snowfall. A little rain had passed through the area earlier, but nothing too strong, and now the air was clear. Lights from the airport, and from the town a few miles away, conspired to make the sky a vast, starless void, orange-tinted and hazy. Whistling wind howled through gaps in the service hanger's tin roof.

  Signs on the walls warned of security cameras in place and stiff penalties for trespassers.

  A three-hundred seat commercial jet stood inside the hanger, parked in darkness. Several panels had been pulled away from the fuselage during the day, exposing patches of the plane's inner structure as well as thick clumps of wires that had been knotted together in bunches. Temporary lights stood high on cranes around the plane, although they'd all been switched off when the last of the day workers had clocked off just before 8pm. A door near the front of the plane had been left wide open, while a set of steps remained in place so that workers would be able to head on-board in the morning and continue their work, getting the plane ready so that it could be returned to service as quickly as possible.

  Down at the far end of the hangar, tools lay scattered across workbenches. Hugh swathes of shadow covered most of the area, although after a moment one of the shadows moved slightly as a figure made its way toward the cordoned-off assembly bay in the corner. Shrouded in darkness, the figure walked calmly and without any apparent concern, finally stopping at the bay and looking at the various tools that had been left hanging from hooks on the wall. After a moment, the figure reached up and took one of the tools, before turning and heading back into the shadows. And then, as the minutes ticked past, the figure did not reappear.

  Now the hanger stood still and undisturbed again, and the only sound came from the wind that was still whistling through gaps in the roof high above. In the distance, far beyond the open entrance-way, the lights of the terminal building blazed against the night sky.

  ***

  “I was starting to think,” Tom said as he finished pouring the second cup of tea in the security office, “that maybe you wouldn't show up tonight. No offense, but sometimes people bottle it after the first shift. Especially...”

  He hesitated, thinking back to Casey's strange claims from the previous night.

  “Well, you know,” he continued cautiously. “You seemed pretty convinced last night that you'd seen something. If you really believed that, I wouldn't blame you if you'd called in to say you wouldn't be coming again.”

  “I couldn't let you down,” Casey replied, watching the bank of monitors on the wall. “Anyway, I had some time to think about it during the day, and I think maybe...” Her voice trailed off for a moment as she watched one particular monitor, which overlooked one of the newsstands. A light was flashing on one of the tea and coffee machines.

  “You think maybe what?” Tom asked with a smile, setting her cup of tea on the desk.

  “Maybe I was wrong,” she told him. “I mean, I don't know how, and I'm not saying I hallucinated or anything like that. I just think it's impossible that there was some random woman in the airport last night. You were right, she'd have set off the alarms and she'd have been caught on the security cameras. It's just unbelievable, so...”

  She paused.

  “I guess it's like you said,” she added finally. “Our brains can make us think we see things when we don't. It won't happen again.”

  “But if -”

  “There's no need to talk about it,” she continued, interrupting him. “Sorry, I just... I want to start again. No more crazy talk.” Looking down at the control panel, she began to adjust the settings on one of the cameras. “I thought I'd try to improve the coverage. Like I told you, I did some software stuff a while back. Maybe I can figure out why there's that blank spot in the terminal building.”

  Tom watched for a moment as she got to work.

  “Sometimes things happen and you can't explain them,” he said finally, easing himself down onto his swivel chair and letting out a faint, pained gasp as his hip creaked, “and you just have to accept that. The night does funny things to people, you know. The human brain is supposed to be resting during night hours, and if you want my opinion, it starts getting all doolally if you ask it to function when it's dark outside.”

  “I guess,” she replied, still watching the monitors. “I'd really rather just focus on other things.”

  Again, Tom watched her work for a few seconds.

  “You can't dismiss it entirely, though,” he pointed out eventually.

  “Can't dismiss what?”

  “Well, you know...” He looked up at the monitors for a moment. “You're not the first person who's seen things here.”

  “Have you ever seen anything weird here?” she asked, finally taking the bait. “Or thought you saw anything weird?”

  “Me?” He chuckled. “No. Absolutely not. Never.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “I've heard bumps and things,” he said with a sigh. “A couple of times, I even thought I heard footsteps. And one of the guys who worked here a few years ago, not long after the disaster, went a little crazy and started saying he could see ghosts in the departure area around the gate that the plane left from. He was fired and I don't know what happened to him after that, but he's long gone.”

  Casey turned to him. “He saw ghosts?”

  “No. He thought he saw ghosts.”

  “Which gate did the plane leave from?” she asked. “The one that crashed, I mean.”

  “Doesn't matter.”

  “Was it gate fourteen?”

  A ripple of discomfort crossed Tom's face.

  “It was, wasn't it?” she continued. “That's where I...”

  She paused for a moment, before shaking her head and starting to adjust the camera settings again.

  “Never mind,” she muttered.

  “Good policy,” Tom said. “Best not to think about it. Or talk about it.”

  As Casey focused on he work, Tom watched the monitors. Every few seconds, however, he glanced over at her, as if he was hoping to get the conversation started again.

  “See how easy it is to let this stuff get built up?” he asked finally. “Seriously, let's just keep a lid on it. Trust me, when you've been here as long as I have, you learn that there's alr
eady enough drama in the world without having to invent more. We definitely shouldn't talk about ghosts or anything like that.” He took a sip of tea. “One of the day guys told me that earlier this afternoon, some little kid had a full-on panic attack in one of the bathrooms. Had to be carried out by three security guards. The kid was gripping the door, refusing to go with them. Apparently he was screaming so loud, people heard him from across the terminal building.”

  “Was he okay?”

  “Dunno. He got carted away in an ambulance. He and his father missed their flight, that's for sure.”

  “But -”

  “The point is, stuff happens. And these moments of peace, like we're having right now, are to be savored, not interrupted by superstitious nonsense.” He took another sip of tea, before wiping his mustache against the back of his hand and looking up at the monitors. “There's nothing wrong with a quiet night. Nothing wrong with it at all.”

  “I agree,” she replied. “Let's focus on -”

  “They never worked out what caused the crash, you know.”

  She hesitated, before turning to him.

  “They said there was a failure with the engines,” he continued. “All of them at once. A million-to-one shot. I always felt like they never really got to the bottom of it, though. I mean, they explained what happened, but not why. And all these new-fangled security systems seemed like a bodge job. They couldn't say exactly what caused that plane to crash, so they tried to cover as many bases as possible.” He took another sip of tea. “Now, I'm no expert, but I reckon I'd like a little more information about what really happened.”