Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [23]
Could that be it? Some freakish weather phenomenon?
He supposed it was just possible. But, if so, how come he heard no static on the radio? How come there was no wave interference across the radar screen? Why just this dead blankness? And he didn't think the aurora borealis had been responsible for the disappearance of a hundred and fifty to two hundred passengers.
'Well?' Nick asked.
'You're some mechanic, Nick,' Brian said at last, 'but I don't think it's EMP. All on-board equipment - including the directional gear - seems to be working just fine.' He pointed to the digital compass readout. 'If we'd experienced an electromagnetic pulse, that baby would be all over the place. But it's holding dead steady.'
'So. Do you intend to continue on to Boston?'
Do you intend ... ?
And with that, the last of Brian's panic drained away. That's right, he thought. I'm the captain of this ship now . . . and in the end, that's all it comes down to. You should have reminded me of that in the first place, my friend, and saved us both a lot of trouble.
'Logan at dawn, with no idea what's going on in the country below us, or the rest of the world? No way.'
'Then what is our destination? Or do you need time to consider that matter?'
Brian didn't. And now the other things he needed to do began to click into place.
'I know,' he said. 'And I think it's time to talk to the passengers. The few that are left, anyway.'
He picked up the microphone, and that was when the bald man who had been sleeping in the business section poked his head into the cockpit. 'Would one of you gentlemen be so kind as to tell me what's happened to all the service personnel on this craft?' he asked querulously. 'I've had a very nice nap ... but now I'd like my dinner.'
10
Dinah Bellman felt much better. It was good to have other people around her, to feel their comforting presence. She was sitting in a small group with Albert Kaussner, Laurel Stevenson, and the man in the ratty sport-coat, who had introduced himself as Robert Jenkins. He was, he said, the author of more than forty mystery novels, and had been on his way to Boston to address a convention of mystery fans.
'Now,' he said, 'I find myself involved in a mystery a good deal more extravagant than any I would ever have dared to write.'
These four were sitting in the center section, near the head of the main cabin. The man in the crew-neck jersey sat in the starboard aisle, several rows down, holding a handkerchief to his nose (which had actually stopped bleeding several minutes ago) and fuming in solitary splendor. Don Gaffney sat nearby, keeping an uneasy watch on him. Gaffney had only spoken once, to ask Crew-Neck what his name was. Crew-Neck had not replied. He simply fixed Gaffney with a gaze of baleful intensity over the crumpled bouquet of his handkerchief.
Gaffney had not asked again.
'Does anyone have the slightest idea of what's going on here?' Laurel almost pleaded. 'I'm supposed to be starting my first real vacation in ten years tomorrow, and now this happens.'
Albert happened to be looking directly at Miss Stevenson as she spoke. As she dropped the line about this being her first real vacation in ten years, he saw her eyes suddenly shift to the right and blink rapidly three or four times, as if a particle of dust had landed in one of them. An idea so strong it was a certainty rose in his mind: the lady was lying. For some reason, the lady was lying. He looked at her more closely and saw nothing really remarkable - a woman with a species of fading prettiness, a woman falling rapidly out of her twenties and toward middle age (and to Albert, thirty was definitely where middle age began), a woman who would soon become colorless and invisible. But she had color now; her cheeks flamed with it. He didn't know what the lie meant, but he could see that it had momentarily refreshed her prettiness and made her nearly beautiful.
There's a lady who should lie more often, Albert