Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales

by Stephen King (ed)

  “The pay is good. The amenities are good. I like to travel…or did, anyway; after five or ten years, all places start to look the same. But mostly…” He leaned forward and took one of her hands in both of his. He thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. She was looking at him, fascinated. “It’s saving lives. There were over a hundred and fifty people on that airplane tonight. Only the airlines don’t just call them people, they call them souls, and that’s the right way to put it. I saved a hundred and fifty souls tonight. And since I’ve been doing this job I’ve saved thousands.” He shook his head. “No, tens of thousands.”

  “But you’re terrified each time. I saw you tonight, Craig. You were in mortal terror. So was I. Unlike Mr. Freeman, who only threw up because he was airsick.”

  “Mr. Freeman could never do this job,” Dixon said. “You can’t do the job unless you’re convinced each time the turbulence starts that you are going to die. You’re convinced of that even though you know you’re the one making sure that won’t happen.”

  The driver spoke quietly from the intercom. “Five minutes, Mr. Dixon.”

  “I must say this has been a fascinating discussion,” Mary Worth said. “May I ask how you got this unique job in the first place?”

  “I was recruited,” Dixon said. “As I am recruiting you, right now.”

  She smiled, but this time she didn’t laugh. “All right, I’ll play. Suppose you did recruit me? What would you get out of it? A bonus?”

  “Yes,” Dixon said. Two years of his future service forgiven, that was the bonus. Two years closer to retirement. He had told the truth about having altruistic motives—saving lives, saving souls—but he had also told the truth about how travel eventually became wearying. The same was true of saving souls, when the price of doing so was endless moments of terror high above the earth.

  Should he tell her that once you were in, you couldn’t get out? That it was your basic deal with the devil? He should. But he wouldn’t.

  They swung into the circular drive of a beachfront condo. Two ladies—undoubtedly Mary Worth’s chums—were waiting there.

  “Would you give me your phone number?” Dixon asked.

  “What? So you can call me? Or so you can pass it on to your boss? Your facilitator?”

  “That,” Dixon said. “Nice as it’s been, Mary, you and I will probably never see each other again.”

  She paused, thinking. The chums-in-waiting were almost dancing with excitement. Then Mary opened her purse and took out a card. She handed it to Dixon. “This is my cell number. You can also reach me at the Boston Public Library.”

  Dixon laughed. “I knew you were a librarian.”

  “Everyone does,” she said. “It’s a bit boring, but it pays the rent, as they say.” She opened the door. The chums squealed like rock show groupies when they saw her.

  “There are more exciting occupations,” Dixon said.

  She looked at him gravely. “There’s a big difference between temporary excitement and mortal fear, Craig. As I think we both know.”

  He couldn’t argue with her on that score, but got out and helped the driver with her bags while Mary Worth hugged two of the widows she had met in an Internet chat room.

  7

  Mary was back in Boston, and had almost forgotten Craig Dixon, when her phone rang one night. Her caller was a man with a very slight lisp. They talked for quite awhile.

  The following day, Mary Worth was on Jetway Flight 694, nonstop from Boston to Dallas, sitting in coach, just aft of the starboard wing. Middle seat. She refused anything to eat or drink.

  The turbulence struck over Oklahoma.

  Falling

  James Dickey

  Before you groan, shake your head, and say “I don’t read poetry,” you should remember that James Dickey wasn’t just a poet; he also wrote the classic novel of survival, Deliverance, and the less-read To the White Sea, about a B-29 gunner forced to parachute into enemy territory. Dickey wrote from experience; he was a combat flier in both World War II and Korea. “Falling” has the same narrative drive and gorgeously controlled language as Deliverance. Once read, it is impossible to forget. An interesting footnote: Dickey admitted in a self-interview that the poem’s central conceit was unlikely (a woman falling from that height would be flash-frozen, he said), but in fact it did happen: in 1972, stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell 33,000 feet in a DC-9 that was probably blown apart by a bomb…and she survived. The text quoted at the beginning of the poem comes from an October 29, 1962, NYT article about an incident involving an Allegheny Airlines twin-engine Convair 440 approaching Bradley Field in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Two other stewardesses had been killed in similar incidents the previous month.

  A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her death tonight when she was swept through an emergency door that suddenly sprang open ... The body ... was found ... three hours after the accident.

  —New York Times

  The states when they black out and lie there rollingwhen they turn

  To something transcontinentalmove bydrawing moonlight out of the great

  One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtipsome sleeper next to

  An engine is groaning for coffeeand there is faintly coming in

  Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space. In the galley with its racks

  Of traysshe rummages for a blanketand moves in her slim tailored

  Uniform to pin it over the cry at the top of the door. As though she blew

  The door down with a silent blast from her lungsfrozenshe is black

  Out finding herselfwith the plane nowhere and her body taken by the throat

  The undying cry of the voidfallinglivingbeginning to be something

  That no one has ever been and lived throughscreaming without enough air

  Still neatlipstickedstockingedgirdled by regulationher hat

  Still onher arms and legs in no worldand yet spaced also strangely

  With utter placid rightness on thin airtaking her timeshe holds it

  In many placesand now, still thousands of feet from her death she seems

  To slowshe develops interestshe turns in her maneuverable body

  To watch it. She is hung high up in the overwhelming middle of things in her

  Selfin low body-whistling wrapped intenselyin all her dark dance-weight

  Coming down from a marvellous leapwith the delaying, dumfounding ease

  Of a dream of being drawnlike endless moonlight to the harvest soil

  Of a central state of one’s countrywith a great gradual warmth coming

  Over herfloatingfinding more and more breath in what she has been using

  For breathas the levels become more humanseeing clouds placed honestly

  Below her left and rightriding slowly toward themshe clasps it all

  To her and can hang her hands and feet in it in peculiar waysand

  Her eyes opened wide by wind, can open her mouth as widewider and suck

  All the heat from the cornfieldscan go down on her back with a feeling

  Of stupendous pillows stacked under herand can turnturn as to someone

  In bedsmile, understood in darknesscan go awayslantslide

  Off tumblinginto the emblem of a bird with its wings half-spread

  Or whirl madly on herselfin endless gymnastics in the growing warmth

  Of wheatfields rising toward the harvest moon.There is time to live

  In superhuman healthseeing mortal unreachable lights far down seeing

  An ultimate highway with one late priceless car probing itarriving

  In a square townand off her starboard arm the glitter of water catches

  The moon by its one shaken sidescaled, roaming silverMy God it is good

  And evillying in one after another of all the positions for love

 
; Makingdancingsleepingand now cloud wisps at her no

  Raincoatno matterall small towns brokenly brighter from inside

  Cloudshe walks over them like rainbursts out to behold a Greyhound

  Bus shooting light through its sidesit is the signal to go straight

  Down like a glorious diverthen feet firsther skirt stripped beautifully

  Upher face in fear-scented clothsher legs deliriously barethen

  Arms outshe slow-rolls oversteadies outwaits for something great

  To take control of hertrembles near feathersplanes head-down

  The quick movements of bird-necks turning her headgold eyes the insight-

  eyesight of owls blazing into the hencoopsa taste for chicken overwhelming

  Herthe long-range vision of hawks enlarging all human lights of cars

  Freight trainslooped bridgesenlarging the moon racing slowly

  Through all the curves of a riverall the darks of the midwest blazing

  From above. A rabbit in a bush turns whitethe smothering chickens

  Huddlefor over them there is still time for something to live

  With the streaming half-idea of a long stoopa hurtlinga fall

  That is controlledthat plummets as it willsturns gravity

  Into a new condition, showing its other side like a moonshining

  New Powersthere is still time to live on a breath made of nothing

  But the whole nighttime for her to remember to arrange her skirt

  Like a diagram of a battightly it guides hershe has this flying-skin

  Made of garmentsand there are also those sky-divers on tvsailing

  In sunlightsmiling under their gogglesswapping batons back and forth

  And He who jumped without a chute and was handed one by a diving

  Buddy. She looks for her grinning companionwhite teethnowhere

  She is screamingsinging hymnsher thin human wings spread out

  From her neat shouldersthe air beast-crooning to herwarbling

  And she can no longer behold the huge partial form of the worldnow

  She is watching her country lose its evoked master shapewatching it lose

  And gainget back its houses and peopleswatching it bring up

  Its local lightssingle homeslamps on barn roofsif she fell

  Into water she might livelike a divercleavingperfectplunge

  Into anotherheavy silverunbreathableslowingsaving

  Element: there is waterthere is time to perfect all the fine

  Points of divingfeet togethertoes pointedhands shaped right

  To insert her into water like a needleto come out healthily dripping

  And be handed a Coca-Colathere they arethere are the waters

  Of lifethe moon packed and coiled in a reservoirso let me begin

  To plane across the night air of Kansasopening my eyes superhumanly

  Brightto the damned moonopening the natural wings of my jacket

  By Don Lopermoving like a hunting owl toward the glitter of water

  One cannot just falljust tumble screaming all that timeone must use

  Itshe is now through with allthrough allcloudsdamphair

  Straightenedthe last wisp of fog pulled apart on her face like wool revealing

  New darksnew progressions of headlights along dirt roads from chaos

  And nighta gradual warminga new-made, inevitable world of one’s own

  Countrya great stone of light in its waiting watersholdhold out

  For water: who knows when what correct young woman must take up her body

  And flyand head for the moon-crazed inner eye of midwest imprisoned

  Waterstored up for her for yearsthe arms of her jacket slipping

  Air up her sleeves to goall over her? What final things can be said

  Of one who starts her sheerly in her body in the high middle of night

  Airto track down water like a rabbit where it lies like life itself

  Off to the right in Kansas? She goes towardthe blazing-bare lake

  Her skirts neather hands and face warmed more and more by the air

  Rising from pastures of beansand under herunder chenille bedspreads

  The farm girls are feeling the goddess in them struggle and rise brooding

  On the scratch-shining posts of the beddreaming of female signs

  Of the moonmale blood like ironof what is really said by the moan

  Of airliners passing over them at dead of midwest midnightpassing

  Over brush firesburning out in silence on little hillsand will wake

  To see the woman they should bestruggling on the rooftree to become

  Stars: for her the ground is closerwater is nearershe passes

  Itthen banksturnsher sleeves fluttering differently as she rolls

  Out to face the east, where the sun shall come up from wheatfields she must

  Do something with waterfly to itfall in itdrink itrise

  From itbut there is none left upon earththe clouds have drunk it back

  The plants have sucked it downthere are standing toward her only

  The common fields of deathshe comes back from flying to falling

  Returns to a powerful crythe silent scream with which she blew down

  The coupled door of the airlinernearlynearly losing hold

  Of what she has doneremembersremembers the shape at the heart

  Of cloudfashionably swirlingremembers she still has time to die

  Beyond explanation. Let her now take off her hat in summer air the contour

  Of cornfieldsand have enough time to kick off her one remaining

  Shoe with the toesof the other footto unhook her stockings

  With calm fingers, noting how fatally easy it is to undress in midair

  Near deathwhen the body will assume without effort any position

  Except the one that will sustain itenable it to riselive

  Not dienine farms hover closewideneight of them separate, leaving

  One in the middlethen the fields of that farm do the samethere is no

  Way to back offfrom her chosen groundbut she sheds the jacket

  With its silver sad impotent wingssheds the bat’s guiding tailpiece

  Of her skirtthe lightning-charged clinging of her blousethe intimate

  Inner flying-garment of her slip in which she rides like the holy ghost

  Of a virginsheds the long windsocks of her stockingsabsurd

  Brassierethen feels the girdle required by regulations squirming

  Off her: no longer monobuttockedshe feels the girdle fluttershake

  In her handand floatupwardher clothes rising off her ascending

  Into cloudand fights away from her head the last sharp dangerous shoe

  Like a dumb birdand now will drop insoonnow will drop

  In like thisthe greatest thing that ever came to Kansasdown from all

  Heightsall levels of American breathlayered in the lungs from the frail

  Chill of space to the loam where extinction slumbers in corn tassels thickly

  And breathes like rich farmers counting: will come along them after

  Her last superhuman actthe last slow careful passing of her hands

  All over her unharmed bodydesired by every sleeper in his dream:

  Boys finding for the first time their loins filled with heart’s blood

  Widowed farmers whose hands float under light covers to find themselves

  Arisen at sunrisethe splendid position of blood unearthly drawn

  Toward cloudsall feel somethingpass over them as she passes

  Her palms over her long legsher small breastsand deeply between

  Her thighsher hair shot loose from all pinsstreaming in the wind
r />   Of her bodylet her come openlytrying at the last second to land

  On her backThis is itthis

  All those who find her impressed

  In the soft loamgone downdriven well into the image of her body

  The furrows for miles flowing in upon her where she lies very deep

  In her mortal outlinein the earth as it is in cloudcan tell nothing

  But that she is thereinexplicableunquestionableand remember

  That something broke in them as welland began to live and die more

  When they walked for no reason into their fields to where the whole earth

  Caught herinterrupted her maiden flighttold her how to lie she cannot

  Turngo awaycannot movecannot slide off it and assume another

  Positionno sky-diver with any grin could save herhold her in his arms

  Plummet with herunfold above her his wedding silksshe can no longer

  Mark the rain with whirling women that take the place of a dead wife

  Or the goddess in Norwegian farm girlsor all the back-breaking whores

  Of Wichita. All the known air above her is not giving up quite one

  Breathit is all goneand yet not deadnot anywhere else

  Quitelying still in the field on her backsensing the smells

  Of incessant growth try to lift hera little sight left in the corner

  Of one eyefadingseeing something wavelies believing

  That she could have made itat the best part of her brief goddess

  Stateto watergone in headfirstcome out smilinginvulnerable

  Girl in a bathing-suit adbut she is lying like a sunbather at the last

  Of moonlighthalf-buried in her impact on the earthnot far

  From a railroad trestlea water tankshe could see if she could

  Raise her head from her modest holewith her clothes beginning

  To come down all over Kansasinto busheson the dewy sixth green

  Of a golf courseone shoeher girdle coming down fantastically

  On a clothesline, where it belongsher blouse on a lightning rod:

  Lies in the fieldsin this fieldon her broken back as though on

  A cloud she cannot drop throughwhile farmers sleepwalk without