The Best New Horror 5

by Ramsay Campbell

  He did believe in one thing – that she would be back five days later, briefcase filled with papers that would make her richer than she already was.

  He also believed he still had a chance, had to have a chance, to somehow win her back.

  He believed it implicitly until the moment he saw the ball of flame the following week, an amateur video filling the TV screen with dying color as the reporter on the scene tried to explain what had happened fifty miles west of its Texas destination. It had something to do with an engine valve and a fuel leak; the reporter wasn’t very good.

  It really didn’t matter.

  That night he stayed home, flicking aimlessly from channel to channel, waiting for the awful error to be admitted, the flight number to be corrected. He watched, he didn’t weep, not until dawn and the call from her mother, weeping herself, begging him to help her put Joan to rest.

  He had.

  What was left of her.

  None of them ever knew; the coffin had been closed.

  And one night, no night in particular a handful of weeks later, he found himself dressed and in his car, heading for Dry Plains, found himself looking out the airport window, waiting for her plane.

  He never asked why, never asked anyone if maybe he was going crazy.

  He just did it.

  But now, tonight, he thought he knew.

  It didn’t make him happy.

  In fact, it made him feel . . . almost nothing.

  A sigh, a silent scolding for being so damn melodramatic, and he watched a small, private jet slip swiftly out of the stars, out of the dark to his right, and aim for the runway. Its noise was muffled, but he knew instantly something was wrong with this one, too. The engines sputtered, and the aircraft, so unbearably tiny and pale, began to slip from side to side. He put a palm against the glass and leaned closer, feeling the rail press into his stomach.

  Side to side.

  Moving so slowly as it drew even with his position that he couldn’t imagine what held it up. It couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty feet above the tarmac. Side to side. Abruptly dropping like a stone just before the gate arm blocked it from view.

  He held his breath, waiting for the explosion, the scream of the emergency vehicles, the race of workers from their caves beneath the building.

  There was nothing.

  Thank God, there was nothing.

  He sighed loudly, closed his eyes for a moment, and let the relief ease him back from the rail until he heard a noise in the hallway, as if something large had fallen onto something not quite soft. He turned, head cocked, listening for a curse or a call for help.

  There was nothing.

  Just the door.

  He stared at the door’s small window, but all he could see through it from where he stood was a square piece of the cinder block wall, painted a faded green. He supposed the color, when it had been originally applied, was supposed to be restful, but it only reminded him of a hospital.

  A quiet noise, then, deep in his throat.

  All right, he told himself, all right. Not just any hospital; the hospital where Joan’s mother had been, recovering from a mild heart attack. In the hall, the pale green hall, outside the woman’s room, Joan had suggested in a whisper that when she returned from her next trip, perhaps they ought to consider not seeing each other for a while.

  “We don’t seem to be getting anywhere, Lucas,” she had said, expression regretful, voice calm and laced with reason. “It’s almost a cliché, isn’t it – it doesn’t seem like either one of us is ready to commit to anything else but more of the same.”

  He probably should have argued, if only for the sake of his ego. He probably should have done a lot of things. But as always, he didn’t.

  She was right.

  She was, when he thought about it, always right. Just as she always made the decisions, the big ones, the small ones, the ones he never found the energy to care about and so deferred to her with a quip and grin.

  A puzzled frown then, when yet another plane, this one much larger, maybe a DC-10, wallowed over the far end of the runway. Though he couldn’t make out much of its body the swinging lights on its wings told the story, and once again he held his breath until it had touched down safely, and much easier than the small jet that had vanished a while ago.

  Weird, he thought; they were coming in as if it were the middle of the day.

  The door opened.

  He didn’t turn right away, but he was surprised to realize he was annoyed. This deck was his place this late at night – or this early in the morning – and he resented someone disturbing him. A foolish notion, perhaps, but he had been alone here for so long, nearly six months to the day, that he supposed the reaction was fairly natural.

  “Well, damn.”

  He looked toward the voice, and wasn’t sure how to react.

  The man stumbling through the doorway was tall, easily a head taller than he, and large. Almost huge. A soft grey blazer with something gold pinned to the lapel, black slacks, black shoes; a white shirt with tiny specks, and a tie that matched the jacket. What was left of his hair was dark and slicked straight back, not quite reaching the blazer collar. Thin mustache. Thick eyebrows. His jawline was fleshy, not many years to go before they began to sport some jowls.

  “Damn.”

  The man shook his hand vigorously to one side as he crossed the floor, blowing on the palm now and then, his puffed face alternately folding up, smoothing out as he pulled his lips away from his teeth and muttered, “Damn,” a third time.

  “Trouble?” Lucas asked.

  The newcomer stopped, obviously surprised to see Lucas there, grimaced again and came over. “Damn stairs,” he complained. A mound of fat pressed against his shirt, pushing the buttons to their limit, and his tie was twisted and skewed to one side. “Not watching where I’m going, you know what I mean? Can’t even see my goddamn feet, they hook a step, I fall like a kid that can’t handle his stupid beer.” He stomped his foot once. “You’d think they’d put some carpet down out there, you’d think that. Cheap bastards.”

  He shook his hand again, and Lucas realized the specks on his shirt were droplets of blood. Startled, he checked his own clothes, and saw a drop on his breast pocket. He wiped it off with a quick grimace as the man held out his hand for inspection, skin harshly abraded and nastily red.

  “Here,” Lucas said, reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

  “Grateful,” the man said, shook his hand one more time, blew on it one more time, and wrapped the cloth gingerly around his palm. “Tell you, buddy, this place is turning into one goddamn obstacle course, you know what I mean? Jesus.” He shook his head, took a breath, and propped a hip against the railing. “You waiting on someone?”

  Lucas nodded before he thought.

  “Daryl,” the man said, jabbing a thumb at his own chest. “Daryl Rayman.”

  “Lucas Nelson.”

  They shook hands; Rayman’s was soft, hot, moist, and strong.

  “Hell of a name, ain’t it, Luke,” Rayman said, easing back a few steps, gazing out at the runway. “Hippo like me with a name like Daryl. ’Course, my momma didn’t plan on having a hippo. Think she was hoping more along the lines of something like a basketball player.” He snorted a laugh, stared at his bandaged hand. “Didn’t plan on tearing myself up either, come to that.”

  “Maybe you ought to get it looked at.”

  Rayman shook his head. “Here? You’re kidding. This place’s going to hell on the express, buddy, and I wouldn’t trust a hangnail to those idiots down the First Aid Center, swear to God.” He shifted until his stomach rested on, folded over the railing. “My last night tonight,” he said, voice lower but without regret. “Thought I’d take a last look around, you know what I mean? Over ten years, but I ain’t gonna miss it, not anymore.”

  He flicked a finger against the gold pin, which Lucas realized now was the stylized shape of a soaring airliner – it was a Dry Plains Cou
rtesy Crew badge. He had seen it several times, usually on women, and assumed that the company representatives spent their shifts wandering around the terminal, answering questions, directing lost passengers, handling complaints, spreading cheer, and softening tempers. But he had a hard time imagining this one walking all day; he looked as if he had barely made it here without passing out. His face had the sheen of a man preparing to explode in sweat, and he wheezed softly breathing through a slightly open mouth.

  Movement outside caught his attention, and another plane swooped in, this time without trouble, and turned almost immediately to the gate arm on the left.

  “Amazing, ain’t it?” Rayman nodded toward the airliner maneuvering along the blue-lighted runway sidepaths. “Ten years, I ain’t seen so many come wandering in this late.” He glanced at Lucas. “Kind of like they want to get it over with, you know what I mean?” He shook his head, smacked his lips. “Hardly anyone showed up tonight, you know.” He gestured vaguely toward the main building. “It’s kinda like New Year’s Eve, after twelve – nobody flying in or out, you have the whole place practically to yourself.”

  “I guess.”

  Lucas followed the plane to its gate, squinted, but could see no one inside.

  “Ain’t no guess about it, buddy. This place is dying.”

  The lights went out.

  It happened so abruptly, no flickering or buzzing, that he gripped the railing tightly as the glass wall vanished and the outside lunged toward him, clearer now, details no longer blurred by reflections or ghostly smears. He swallowed heavily against a rise of vertigo, looked up at the ceiling, and made a face. It wouldn’t have been so bad had he been alone, he supposed, just a little startling, but the shadowed hulk of Rayman only a few feet away made him inexplicably uneasy.

  The outside glow gave the man’s face a sickly yellow tinge.

  “What’d I tell you? Place is going to hell.”

  So leave, Lucas thought sourly. You don’t like it here so bad, leave, and leave me alone.

  Figures in coveralls scurried around the parked aircraft, unloading luggage, blocking the wheels, fussing here and there with open hatches on wings and undercarriage that he didn’t understand. A check of the corridor that led to the terminal showed him nothing; it was empty.

  If there’s luggage, he thought, where are all the people?

  From someplace in the warrens beneath them, another worker appeared, this one pushing a long and low empty handcart across the runway toward the plane.

  “Feels like them pictures you see in school,” Rayman said quietly as he followed the handcart’s progress. “You know. The gods on that mountain?”

  “Olympus,” Lucas said automatically.

  “Yeah, that’s right. You always see them looking down, dropping some lightning on some poor guy’s head once in a while, butting in when they’re bored, or just watching, doing nothing. Wearing sheets or robes or whatever.” He chuckled, and plucked at a lapel. “I don’t think this sorry outfit’s gonna make it, do you?”

  Lucas couldn’t help it; he grinned.

  One by one the little men finished their jobs and deserted the plane, hand signals directing them to one place or another, vans and electric carts speeding away into the dark.

  Lucas lifted his wrist and peered at his watch – close to two-thirty.

  Joan’s plane will be in soon.

  His eyes closed, and he felt a faint sting there, not as bad as those first nights, but far from leaving him forever.

  That’s when he decided this would be the last time. It had to be. Whatever therapy he supposed he had thrown himself into either wasn’t working, or it had worked and he hadn’t known what it would do. Either way, this was stupid. He had an office to run, a life to get on with, and there were still those photographs in his desk at home. He wondered if it would have been worse had they been married.

  He didn’t think so.

  “Son of a bitch,” Rayman said. “Look at that fool.”

  “What?” Lucas scanned the shadowed area below the window, around the parked airplane, not seeing anyone who didn’t seem to belong.

  Then he spotted the man with the handcart.

  He was pushing it straight for the runway.

  “Damn fool.” Rayman leaned farther over the railing, his forehead nearly touching the glass. “That boy’s just walking there, Luke. He’s just walking there.”

  Lucas snapped his gaze to the right, not really wanting to see if there was another plane on the way in, and was relieved when he saw nothing but stars out there.

  Until two of them moved.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Boy’s got trouble.”

  Lucas looked around the room. “We have to tell someone, find a phone.” He took a step toward the door, looked out, and changed his mind.

  It was too late.

  The worker had already reached the runway.

  The airliner, another DC-10, had already touched down.

  There was no sound but the whine and roar of engines, muted only slightly by the thickness of the panes.

  Lucas couldn’t watch the plane, and he couldn’t stop watching the man and his empty cart.

  Oh my God, he thought when the plane was less than a hundred feet away; he whirled and stared at the blank wall, swallowing hard, fast, one hand pressed to his stomach, one clawing at his shirt. Sweat curled down his left cheek from his temple. For some reason, he expected to hear the squeal of brakes, the crunch of metal against metal, as if it were an automobile accident he could witness from his porch.

  The roar rose swiftly, peaked, and instantly faded.

  Rayman said nothing.

  Wheezing filled the silence.

  Lucas ordered himself not to look, just turn and go for the door. He didn’t need to stay. Joan’s plane would land or it wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t be on it, and this kind of grief he didn’t need tonight.

  He did turn.

  He did start for the door.

  But curiosity made him look, and astonishment made him stop.

  The worker was alive, pushing his handcart on the runway’s far side, and Lucas watched him shrink, fade, vanish into the far dark, not a shadow left behind. He clung to the railing while his legs decided if they were going to work or not. He wanted to laugh, giggle a little, maybe scream once just to be rid of the pressure that had expanded to fill every cell in his chest; he wanted to throw up; he wanted to grab the fat man’s arm and demand an explanation.

  Instead he simply stared.

  “Know her, you know,” Rayman said, still looking out at the deserted tarmac.

  Lucas paid him no attention. As the shock wore off and his heart stopped its heavy thumping, he figured he would take the day off, stay in bed until his back ached, take himself out to dinner, and maybe do a little downtown cruising. It had been a while. Over a year, as a matter of fact. A couple of bars, a couple of beers, and if he didn’t get lucky it wouldn’t really make any difference. What mattered was the effort. He didn’t believe there’d be a miracle, like the guy there with the handcart, but maybe just a glimpse of a pretty lady, maybe a pleasant smile in his direction, would be another step, maybe the last, toward whatever they called it when mourning came to an end.

  “Hey, Luke?”

  The first step had come on the drive out here tonight, when he finally admitted to himself that, heartless as it may seem, Joan’s dying had spared him the trouble of agreeing with her decision. The moment he had seen the fire, heard the reporter, heard the sirens, some part of him knew that he wouldn’t have to tell her that she was, as always, right. What they had left from their year together wasn’t really love. It might have been, once, but if so, it had withered, or faded, or whatever love does when it doesn’t feed properly and isn’t properly fed.

  They had both been cowards, each waiting for the other to take the first step, both knowing it would be her because that’s the way it was.

  That realization, harsh and horrid, had mad
e him sick enough to pull over and wait until he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up.

  The coward saved by an act of God in the form of a faulty valve and a fuel leak.

  Jesus.

  “I know her.”

  Lucas passed a hand over his face, drove away the demon. “Excuse me?”

  Rayman still wasn’t looking at him. “I know her. Joan Becker, that right? Some kind of commodities broker, something like that?”

  He couldn’t find the words.

  The fat man gestured outside with a lazy crooked finger. “Them boys out there, they’re gonna strike soon, you know. Heard them grousing about it the other day. Stuff going on around here you wouldn’t believe, buddy, and they’re getting a little riled. Bet if you came back in a couple of days, this place’d be shut down.”

  Noises in the hall, people laughing, someone talking.

  Lucas looked to the door, looked back at Rayman. “You knew Joan? But . . . how?”

  Rayman turned his head slowly, one side of his face yellowed, the other blanked in shadow.

  One eye.

  He could only see one dark eye.

  Another plane landed, engines screaming, tires blasting smoke into the slow night wind.

  The door squealed as it opened.

  “This time of night,” Rayman said, “it’s kind of special, you know what I mean?” He sighed contentedly. “Peaceful. Real peaceful.”

  Lucas couldn’t see his lips move.

  He could only see the one dark eye.

  Suddenly the fat man straightened, taller, his face all in shadow despite the reach of the outside glow.

  Lucas took a step away, and though it was yards behind him he could still feel the doorless wall at his back, no escape.

  Then a voice, a woman’s voice, as someone stepped into the room: “Daryl? Daryl honey?”

  Rayman turned quickly, slapped a joyful hand against his thigh as he laughed heartily, and hurried over to the small figure hesitating on the threshold. “Momma!” He wrapped his arms around the tiny woman, gave her a smothering long hug, then turned them both around. “Momma, this boy here, he’s Luke Nelson. He’s waiting on someone, just like I was waiting on you.”