by Cross, Amy
He paused as Ted drank more from the bottle.
“But it'd be bad for your liver,” David added, “so you must resist the temptation. After all, we wouldn't want anything bad happening to you, would we?”
For the next few minutes, he stood and watched as Ted drank and drank. Finally the older man finished the first bottle of vodka and tossed it aside, quickly fumbling in the bags and taking out a second. His hands were shaking wildly now and he could barely get the lid off, but finally he managed to resume his drinking. Still mumbling about the screams, and about how it had all been his fault, he seemed utterly lost in the bottle now, as if he was talking to the alcohol rather than to David.
“Good night then,” David said finally, before turning and walking away. “Look after yourself. Don't drink too much.”
***
Today
“Mummy! Mummy! Look! Mummy!”
The little girl tugged on her mother's arm, trying desperately to get her to turn around and look at the large basket of stuffed bears outside the bookstore.
“Mummy! Look! Mummy!”
Turning from the rack of magazines, David couldn't hide a faint smile as he saw the delight in the girl's eyes.
“Gemma, we have to go to our gate soon,” the mother said. “Come on, I said you could have one comic.”
“But the bear -”
“They're almost twenty pounds! We can't afford that. Choose a comic and let's go.”
Seeing the disappointment in the girl's eyes, David watched as she was led back over to the comic rack, and then as she followed her mother to the checkout. He hesitated for a moment, before taking one of the bears from the basket and making his way over to pay. A few other people were in the queue ahead of him, so he could only watch as the mother led the little girl away toward the departure area. Still, he craned his neck so that he could just about see where they were going, and then he waited patiently for his turn at the counter.
A few minutes later, wandering along the bustling aisles, he saw the little girl sitting next to her mother and looking through a comic. He began to make his way over, before hesitating as he realized that the girl reminded him so very much of Tammy. For a few seconds, tears began to well in his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away and headed toward the little girl.
“Excuse me,” he said as he reached them, “I know this is going to sound very strange, but I overheard you in the bookstore just now and...”
He hesitated, before holding the bear up for the woman to see.
“I won some money on the lottery a while back,” he explained, “and I don't have anyone to spend it on, and sometimes I just like to do things for strangers. I know you probably don't want your little girl to get everything she asks for, but I couldn't help myself and I was hoping you'd let me give it to her as a gift.”
Clearly shocked, the woman stared at the bear for a moment, before finally allowing herself a faint smile.
“That's very generous, but are you sure -”
“Please,” he continued, handing the bear to the girl and seeing the joy in her eyes, before taking a step back. “I'm the one who should be thanking you. I just like giving little gifts to people.”
“What do you say to the nice man?” the mother asked, turning to the girl.
“Thank you!”
“It's my pleasure entirely,” David replied, as fresh tears began to well once again in his eyes. “Look after the bear, though. Keep an eye on him during your flight.”
“We're not going far,” the woman told him. “Just a hop down to London on the plane that leaves in half an hour.”
“Oh, really?” Tom said with a smile. “Well, snap. That's the same flight I'm taking. Have fun now.”
Turning, he headed along the aisle until he found an empty seat, and then he sat and turned to look back along at the woman and her daughter. The little girl was playing with her bear now, and for the next few minutes David kept a surreptitious eye on her, making sure that nobody would realize he was paying too much attention. He knew he should just read his newspaper and drink his cup of tea, but the sight of the happy little girl was just too much for him to resist and he ended up watching her for several more minutes, right up until a voice called out over the speakers in the ceiling.
“Ladies and gentlemen, flight DSE1058 to London is now ready for boarding.”
All around him, eager travelers got to their feet and began to form a queue. A moment later, with a smile on his face, David joined them. Already, he could see the plane waiting outside, as snow filled the air.
***
“Help me!” Casey stammered, looking up at a rig worker as he wandered across the office. “Please, you have to untie me! Why won't anyone help me?”
Completely ignoring her requests, the workers stopped at one of the desks and took a moment to check a schematic, before sighing as one of his colleagues entered the room.
“Some of these notes are nonsense,” the first man muttered, pointing at one of the diagrams. “I think they put this stuff in just to waste our time.”
“Please untie me,” Casey continued. “There's a man trying to sabotage a plane! You have to stop the flight to London! It can't be allowed to take off!”
“We have to do it by the book,” the second man said, sounding bored and frustrated. “You know they'll want to check the records, and if they find out we've ignored any of their pronouncements from on high -”
“I know, I know,” the first man groaned, before turning and heading back toward the door. “It just does my head in. Why don't they ever listen to us, eh? I'm so sick and tired of being ignored.”
“Help me!” Casey shouted. “For the love of God, what's wrong with you? Why can't you hear me?” Filled with frustration, she turned and kicked the wall as hard as she could manage, but the two men seemed not to hear as they headed back out to the main part of the hangar. “Help me! A man named David Harper is trying to bring a plane down!”
***
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice continued over the plane's speakers, as David settled into his seat, “we'll be ready to pull away from the gate in just a few minutes. When we get underway, there might be a short delay due to the weather we're experiencing here at Hexley. We just have to wait for the snow to clear a little before takeoff, but I'm told by the tower that we should be underway shortly, and hopefully we can make up any lost time on the way.”
“Mummy, I need the toilet.”
Turning, David saw that the little girl from the departure gate was sitting just a row further back. Still clutching her toy bear, she was looking toward the toilets at the rear of the plane.
“You went before we got on,” her mother pointed out.
“But I need to go now!”
“You'll have to wait until we're in the air.”
“I can't wait that long!”
“You'll just have to. You can't be that desperate.”
“But -”
“Gemma, please! Can you just stop for one moment?”
As the argument continued, David turned and looked forward at the rear of the seat in front. All around him, harried passengers were trying to take their seats, while a stewardess tried to explain to a woman that her particularly large bag would have to go in the locker overhead. After a moment, turning to look outside, David saw the empty baggage containers being driven away. And then, a little further off in the snow, he could just about make out a very faint human figure standing completely still, seemingly watching the plane.
Then another.
And another.
Leaning closer to the window, he peered further out and saw several more figures, all of them just a little too far away to be seen clearly. A moment later, the poor visibility lifted just a little, just enough for him to see the briefest trace of features on one of the figures.
He saw two dark, dead eyes staring straight at him.
“You can't do anything,” he whispered under his breath, to calm his fears. “All you can d
o is watch.”
Figures stood all around the plane, watching helplessly as the jet bridge began to pull back and as the plane prepared to taxi away from the gate. Each and every one of the figures was looking up at the window next to David's seat, staring at his face as he in turn stared out at them.
Finally he slid the window panel shut and turned to look straight ahead, as he felt the plane shudder slightly. A moment later, the wheels began to turn and he realized they were finally pulling away from the gate.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot announced over the speakers, “as you can no doubt tell, we're finally on our way. There will be a short delay before take-off, however, because we're going to have to go to the deicing pad as a safety precaution.”
As the announcement continued, David leaned back in his seat and smiled.
***
“Casey?”
Pushing the door open, Lizzie looked into the bedroom and waited, listening to the silence. The room had stayed untouched for a decade now, ever since the night Casey had last headed out to work. The duvet had even been left crumpled and pushed against the wall, and Casey's sweaters were piled on the chair.
“Was that you?” her mother continued. “I thought I heard...”
She paused, her mouth hanging open as if she was certain that someone had been in the now-empty room.
“Well, I'll make a nice cup of tea,” she added finally, with a flicker of disappointment in her eyes even as she forced a faint smile. She began to pull the door shut, before hesitating and then looking into the room again. “I got another reading done today,” she continued. “I found another psychic online, one who comes very highly-recommended. Now, I know what you always said about those people, but I really think this chap knows what he's talking about. And he told me that there's a lot of negative energy in Hexley. He said it gets into people's head and...”
Her voice trailed off for a moment.
“Well,” she added finally, “you know what I mean.”
With that, she hesitated a moment longer before shutting the door and heading to the stairs. She was still talking to herself, mumbling under her breath, even once she was all the way down in the kitchen. As she continued to mumble away, her voice was the only sound to be heard in the otherwise silent house.
***
“Why won't you listen to me?” Casey asked, still pulling on the ropes as she tried to get free. “Are you working with him? Is that it? Are you ignoring me on purpose?”
Over at one of the desks, a man sat drinking a cup of tea as he took a look at one of the reports. After a moment, he set his mug down and began to tear the foil wrapper away from a Kit-Kat, taking care to cut horizontal lines using his fingernails.
“He wants to kill the people on the flight to London,” Casey continued, “and you're just treating me like I'm some kind of...”
Her voice trailed off.
Ghost.
He was treating her like a ghost.
That was what she'd been about to say, but now she couldn't quite bring herself to utter those words. She remembered what David had said earlier, although she knew the idea was ludicrous. She had a life, she went home at the end of her shifts, she ate and drank. As far as she could tell, all those things made it impossible for her to be a ghost. At the same time, a nagging voice at the back of her head was trying to remind her of other things. After all, the only person she could remember speaking to – apart from the people at the airport – was her mother, but she knew her mother wasn't dead.
Feeling dizzy for a moment, she tried to think of something that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that David had been lying.
And then she remembered.
She saw herself racing through the dark forest, heading toward flames that roared in the distance. She felt the heat on her face, and she felt her eyes starting to sting as she made her way through thick clouds of smoke. Stumbling slightly, she almost fell, only for someone to reach out and grab her arm. Turning, she realized to her surprise that Tom was right next to her.
“We have to keep going!” he shouted, struggling to be heard over the sound of the flames. “We have to look for survivors!”
In the distance, sirens were getting closer.
Turning, Casey struggled onward through the burning forest. Some of the trees were on fire, but she slipped through and began to hold her arms across her face, shielding herself as best she could manage from the flames. The heat was becoming unbearable, but she knew she couldn't stop. Ahead, she could hear voices screaming, along with the sound of people banging frantically on the inside of the plane.
Suddenly she heard someone coughing. Turning, she saw that Tom had fallen back and was on his knees, struggling to breathe in the thick, acrid smoke.
“I'm going to keep going!” she shouted at him. “I'm going to see if I can help!”
He tried to answer, but his cough was getting worse and worse.
“Wait here!” she yelled. Just as she was about to turn and head closer to the burning plane, however, she heard a loud, ear-splitting creaking sound nearby. She looked around, and now her heart was racing even faster as she realized she could sense danger. A fraction of a second later, she looked up and saw that a burning tree was crashing down toward Tom.
“Get out of the way!” she shouted, rushing back over to him and trying to pull him up. “Tom! We have to -”
The tree crashed down straight on top of them. For a fraction of a second, Casey felt an agonizing pain in her head and back, as if she was being crushed. Blinking, she leaned back against the wall of the hangar office, but it took a few more seconds before she realized she'd emerged from the memory.
Over at the desk, the man was still devouring his Kit-Kat.
“It's not possible,” Casey stammered, staring straight ahead in disbelief. Tears were welling in her eyes now, and she could feel a cold, slow sense of realization creeping through her chest. No matter how much she wanted to believe that she was still alive, she couldn't deny that she'd begun to remember being in the forest on the night of the original crash.
Looking down at her hands, she realized she remembered almost nothing since. Just the constant days and nights of working at the airport. The crash had occurred on her third night, and now she was starting to understand that she'd been locked into those three nights ever since, experiencing elements of them ever since while never actually remembering the disaster itself. She felt dizzy and nauseous for a moment, before suddenly pulling away from the wall as she realized she was free from the restraints.
“If you could just accept the truth,” she remembered David telling her earlier, “those ropes wouldn't be able to hold you at all. But you'll never accept it, will you? You can't.”
“I'm dead,” she whispered, before turning and stumbling to her feet. Looking at the man over by the far desk, she realized he still hadn't shown any sign of noticing her. “You can't hear me,” she continued. “Can you? You don't know that I'm here.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and hurried to the door. She hesitated for a moment, before pulling it open and then glancing back toward the man. This, at least, had caught his attention, and he stared in her direction as if he expected someone to come through at any moment. Figuring that she'd never be able to get through to him, Casey ran out into the main part of the hangar and then made her way straight past the workers until she reached the huge open doorway. Outside, snow was falling, and she was just in time to see a plane rushing along the tarmac and taking off, quickly disappearing into the clear white sky.
“Stop!” she shouted, racing out across the airfield. “Stop all the flights!”
Chapter Sixteen
“You have to stop them!” Casey yelled, racing across the snow as she saw a group of security personnel taking a break next to one of the carts. “Stop the planes! Stop all of them!”
Clearly unable to hear her, the men simply continued chatting away.
“Hey!” she shouted, stopping d
irectly in front of one of them and waving her hands across his face. “You have to hear me! You have to listen! Stop all the flights!”
“It's like I was saying,” the man muttered with a casual, relaxed sniff as he took a drag on his cigarette. “You can't trust the new ones. It takes too long to break 'em in. Of course, with the way they treat us in this dump, you don't get many people sticking around, do you?”
“Listen to me!” Casey continued, running to the next man and trying to get his attention, only to find that he wouldn't even look up from his sandwich. “There's a man trying to bring down one of the planes! You have to hear me! I'm right here, I'm right in front of you!”
She reached out, trying to grab his collar, only to find that her hands couldn't make contact. She tried again, but some kind of invisible field was keeping her from taking hold of him. She was starting to feel desperate now; the same kind of desperation she'd felt all those years ago when she'd been unable to save Elly.
“Unit four, be advised,” a voice said over a nearby radio, which had been left on a seat in the cart, “we're making another patrol out to the southern end of the runway.”
“Good luck with that,” another voice replied, with a hint of static. “If you're not back in thirty, I'll send someone out to defrost you.”
Running over to the cart, Casey grabbed the radio and held it up to her mouth.
“Can you hear me?” she asked, before turning as she heard the roar of another plane taking off. “You have to ground the flights! Someone's planning to sabotage a plane that's going to London!”
“Is someone there?” a voice replied over the radio. “All I can hear is static.”
“My name is Casey Monroe!” she yelled, turning to see that the nearby men all had their backs to her. A moment alter, she turned and watched as another plane taxied onto the runway and began to pick up speed. “Stop the planes! Stop every plane right now! He's done something to the deicing equipment!”