Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [109]
'That's an extremely detailed scenario,' Nick said. 'Are you trying to convince me or yourself?'
'At this point, I'll settle for convincing anyone at all.'
Nick smiled and stepped to the starboard cockpit window. His eyes dropped involuntarily downward, toward the place where the ground belonged, and his smile first froze, then dropped off his face. His knees buckled, and he gripped the bulkhead with one hand to steady himself.
'Shit on toast,' he said in a tiny dismayed voice.
'Not very nice, is it?'
Nick looked around at Brian. His eyes seemed to float in his pallid face. 'All my life,' he said, 'I've thought of Australia when I heard people talk about the great bugger-all, but it's not. That's the great bugger-all, right down there.'
Brian checked the INS and the charts again, quickly. He had made a small red circle on one of the charts; they were now on the verge of entering the airspace that circle represented. 'Can you do what I asked? If you can't, say so. Pride is a luxury we can't - '
'Of course I can,' Nick murmured. He had tom his eyes away from the huge black socket below the plane and was scanning the sky. 'I only wish I knew what I was looking for.'
'I think you'll know it when you see it,' Brian said. He paused and then added, 'If you see it.'
12
Bob Jenkins sat with his arms folded tightly across his chest, as if he were cold. Part of him was cold, but this was not a physical coldness. The chill was coming out of his head.
Something was wrong.
He did not know what it was, but something was wrong. Something was out of place ... or lost ... or forgotten. Either a mistake had been made or was going to be made. The feeling nagged at him like some pain not quite localized enough to be identified. That sense of wrongness would almost crystallize into a thought ... and then it would skitter away again like some small, not-quite-tame animal.
Something wrong.
Or out of place. Or lost.
Or forgotten.
Ahead of him, Albert and Bethany were spooning contentedly. Behind him, Rudy Warwick was sitting with his eyes closed and his lips moving. The beads of a rosary were clamped in one fist. Across the aisle, Laurel Stevenson sat beside Dinah, holding one of her hands and stroking it gently.
Wrong.
Bob eased up the shade beside his seat, peeked out, and slammed it down again. Looking at that would not aid rational thought but erase it. What lay below the plane was utter madness.
I must warn them. I have to. They are going forward on my hypothesis, but if my hypothesis is somehow mistaken - and dangerous - then I must warn them.
Warn them of what?
Again it almost came into the light of his focussed thoughts, then slipped away, becoming just a shadow among shadows ... but one with shiny feral eyes.
He abruptly unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up.
Albert looked around. 'Where are you going?'
'Cleveland,' Bob said grumpily, and began to walk down the aisle toward the tail of the aircraft, still trying to track the source of that interior alarm bell.
13
Brian tore his eyes away from the sky - which was already showing signs of light again - long enough to take a quick glance first at the INS readout and then at the circle on his chart. They were approaching the far side of the circle now. If the time-rip was still here, they should see it soon. If they didn't, he supposed he would have to take over the controls and send them circling back for another pass at a slightly different altitude and on a slightly different heading. It would play hell on their fuel situation, which was already tight, but since the whole thing was probably hopeless anyway, it didn't matter very
'Brian?' Nick's voice was unsteady. 'Brian? I think I see something.'
14
Bob Jenkins reached the rear of the plane, made an about-face,