“My dad said there were thousands of langoliers. He said there had to be, because there were millions of bad boys and girls scampering about the world. That’s how he always put it. My father never saw a child run in his entire life. They always scampered. I think he liked that word because it implies senseless, directionless, non-productive motion. But the langoliers... they run. They have purpose. In fact, you could say that the langoliers are purpose personified.”
“What did the kids do that was so bad?” Dinah asked. “What did they do that was so bad the langoliers had to run after them?”
“You know, I’m glad you asked that question,” Craig said. “Because when my father said someone was bad, Dinah, what he meant was lazy. A lazy person couldn’t be part of THE BIG PICTURE. No way. In my house, you were either part of THE BIG PICTURE or you were LYING DOWN ON THE JOB, and that was the worst kind of bad you could be. Throat-cutting was a venial sin compared to LYING DOWN ON THE JOB. He said that if you weren’t part of THE BIG PICTURE, the langoliers would come and take you out of the picture completely. He said you’d be in your bed one night and then you’d hear them coming... crunching and smacking their way toward you... and even if you tried to scamper off, they’d get you. Because of their fast little—”
“That’s enough,” Laurel said. Her voice was flat and dry.
“The sound is out there, though,” Craig said. His eyes regarded her brightly, almost roguishly. “You can’t deny that. The sound really is out th—”
“Stop it or I’ll hit you with something myself.”
“Okay,” Craig said. He rolled over on his back, grimaced, and then rolled further, onto his other side and away from them. “A man gets tired of being hit when he’s down and hog-tied.”
Laurel’s face grew not just warm but hot this time. She bit her lip and said nothing. She felt like crying. How was she supposed to handle someone like this? How? First the man seemed as crazy as a bedbug, and then he seemed as sane as could be. And meanwhile, the whole world — Mr Toomy’s BIG PICTURE — had gone to hell.
“I bet you were scared of your dad, weren’t you, Mr Toomy?”
Craig looked back over his shoulder at Dinah, startled. He smiled again, but this smile was different. It was a rueful, hurt smile with no public relations in it. “This time you win the cigar, miss,” he said. “I was terrified of him.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
“Was he LYING DOWN ON THE JOB? Did the langoliers get him?”
Craig thought for a long time. He remembered being told that his father had had his heart attack while in his office. When his secretary buzzed him for his ten o’clock staff meeting and there was no answer, she had come in to find him dead on the carpet, eyes bulging, foam drying on his mouth.
Did someone tell you that? he wondered suddenly. That his eyes were bugging out, that there was foam on his mouth? Did someone actually tell you that — Mother, perhaps, when she was drunk — or was it just wishful thinking?
“Mr Toomy? Did they?”
“Yes,” Craig said thoughtfully. “I guess he was, and I guess they did.”
“Mr Toomy?”
“What?”
“I’m not the way you see me. I’m not ugly. None of us are.”
He looked at her, startled. “How would you know how you look to me, little blind miss?”
“You might be surprised,” Dinah said.
Laurel turned toward her, suddenly more uneasy than ever... but of course there was nothing to see. Dinah’s dark glasses defeated curiosity.
3
The other passengers stood on the far side of the waiting room, listening to that low rattling sound and saying nothing. It seemed there was nothing left to say.
“What do we do now?” Don asked. He seemed to have wilted inside his red lumberjack’s shirt. Albert thought the shirt itself had lost some of its cheerfully macho vibrancy.
“I don’t know,” Brian said. He felt a horrible impotence toiling away in his belly. He looked out at the plane, which had been his plane for a little while, and was struck by its clean lines and smooth beauty. The Delta 727 sitting to its left at the jetway looked like a dowdy matron by comparison. It looks good to you because it’s never going to fly again, that’s all. It’s like glimpsing a beautiful woman for just a moment in the back seat of a limousine — she looks even more beautiful than she really is because you know she’s not yours, can never be yours.
“How much fuel is left, Brian?” Nick asked suddenly. “Maybe the burn-rate isn’t the same over here. Maybe there’s more than you realize.”
“All the gauges are in apple-pie working order,” Brian said. “When we landed, I had less than 600 pounds. To get back to where this happened, we’d need at least 50,000.”
Bethany took out her cigarettes and offered the pack to Bob. He shook his head. She stuck one in her mouth, took out her matches, and struck one.
It didn’t light.
“Oh-oh,” she said.
Albert glanced over. She struck the match again... and again... and again. There was nothing. She looked at him, frightened.
“Here,” Albert said. “Let me.”
He took the matches from her hand and tore another one loose. He struck it across the strip on the back. There was nothing.
“Whatever it is, it seems to be catching,” Rudy Warwick observed.
Bethany burst into tears, and Bob offered her his handkerchief.
“Wait a minute,” Albert said, and struck the match again. This time it lit... but the flame was low, guttering, unenthusiastic. He applied it to the quivering tip of Bethany’s cigarette and a clear image suddenly filled his mind: a sign he had passed as he rode his ten-speed to Pasadena High School every day for the last three years. CAUTION, this sign said. TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
What in the hell does that mean?
He didn’t know... at least not yet. All he knew for sure was that some idea wanted out but was, at least for the time being, stuck in the gears.
Albert shook the match out. It didn’t take much shaking.
Bethany drew on her cigarette, then grimaced. “Blick! It tastes like a Carlton, or something.”
“Blow smoke in my face,” Albert said.
“What?”
“You heard me. Blow some in my face.”
She did as he asked, and Albert sniffed at the smoke. Its former sweet fragrance was now muted.
Whatever it is, it seems to be catching
CAUTION: TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
“I’m going back to the restaurant,” Nick said. He looked depressed. “Yon Cassius has a lean and slippery feel. I don’t like leaving him with the ladies for too long.”
Brian started after him and the others followed. Albert thought there was something a little amusing about these tidal flows — they were behaving like cows which sense thunder in the air.
“Come on,” Bethany said. “Let’s go.” She dropped her half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray and used Bob’s handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she took Albert’s hand.
They were halfway across the waiting room and Albert was looking at the back of Mr Gaffney’s red shirt when it struck him again, more forcibly this time: TWO-WAY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
“Wait a minute!” he yelled. He suddenly slipped an arm around Bethany’s waist, pulled her to him, put his face into the hollow of her throat, and breathed in deeply.
“Oh my! We hardly know each other!” Bethany cried. Then she began to giggle helplessly and put her arms around Albert’s neck. Albert, a boy whose natural shyness usually disappeared only in his daydreams, paid no notice. He took another deep breath through his nose. The smells of her hair, sweat, and perfume were still there, but were faint; very faint.
They all looked around, but Albert had already let Bethany go and was hurrying back to the windows.