by Zugg, Victor
He turned back to his phone. There were plenty of planes for rent in the area, but most didn’t fit the bill. They were too slow and their altitude was limited.
Mason dropped his phone on the sofa and laid his head back. Maybe this was a pipe dream, and impossible dream. It could end up taking nearly every cent he had to even make the attempt. What if it didn’t work? What if he couldn’t find that black cloud with the blue haze? What if he did and, heaven forbid, he ended up in the Stone Age? He was willing to take risks, but everything depended on finding that cloud. After all, there were thousands of flights every day and his flight, Miami to Charlotte, was apparently the first to encounter that dark cloud with the blue haze. He had a thought. Maybe his flight wasn’t the first.
He picked up his phone, did some searching, and found there had been two flights, plus his for three, that had gone missing over the Atlantic without a trace in the past fifty years. All were off the east coast. Three planes over fifty years did not provide very good odds of finding that cloud again. But at least the odds were better than zero.
◆◆◆
Mason ended up finding a 2008 Cessna 400 TT Corvalis Turbocharged available for rent at the Charleston airport. The owner had several planes and was amenable to a six-month lease. The plane had four hundred hours on the engine and superior electronics. The owner was also open to selling the plane, but the price was beyond Mason’s budget. They agreed on fifty thousand for the six months. Mason considered that a bargain since hourly rental for a plane like that was over two hundred dollars. Three flights a week, five hours per flight, for six months at the hourly rate would run over seventy-eight thousand. And Mason planned to fly as much as weather permitted. The owner also agreed to move the plane to Mount Pleasant as long as Mason paid for the parking.
Even though it had recently gone through its annual inspection, Mason hired a mechanic to go over the plane. There were no major problems found.
The owner wanted three check rides in varying weather condition which they accomplished over the following ten days.
Mason ended up ordering the boots from both companies and within three weeks he had them in hand along with all the other stuff he had ordered. Both pair of boots fit fine and were of high quality. Both could be resoled with leather without modern adhesives.
Mason also converted several thousand dollars into silver ingots with no markings, each about an ounce in weight.
He carefully packed everything into the two waterproof bags, included plenty of food—jerky and protein bars—and loaded them in the plane along with a small rubber inflatable raft and a paddle. He was finally ready. He had the equipment, the means, and the desire. The rest was up to fate.
CHAPTER 30
On what Mason called day one, he parked his car at the airport and walked out to the plane sitting all nice and shiny on the apron. The tank was full, the plane was loaded, and the sky was clear. Wearing jeans, t-shirt, a light Patagonia puffy jacket, and lace up service boots, he climbed into the cockpit.
He immediately went into his preflight. He checked the breakers, selected the fuel mixture to full rich, adjusted the prop to full power, and flipped the strobe on. With the master on, he primed for four seconds, and turned the key to start the engine. The plane vibrated as the prop spun and fired. He changed the mixture to lean, checked the speed brakes, checked the alternators, and checked audio and the frequency. He checked the weather on the Garmin G100 glass display and noted the wind and freeze zones. Ready for taxi, he announced his approach to the runway as a precaution even though this airfield did not have a tower. He released the brake, increased the throttle, and felt the plane begin to roll. Just short of the runway he stopped the plane and performed an engine run up at full rich. He noted a slight RPM drop during the check, so he switched the mixture to lean, waited twenty seconds, and performed the RPM check again. All was normal. He cycled the prop, checked the idle, and checked all the gauges. Everything appeared ready for flight. He let the plane roll out onto the runway, made his turn, and announced his departure to the Charleston tower as he throttled forward. The plane’s acceleration pressed his torso back against the seat as the speed increased. The airspeed indicator came alive and at seventy-five knots he rotated the stick.
The plane lofted into the air and climbed at what seemed like slow motion as the earth dropped away. On a due south heading, the wide expanse of the blue ocean quickly came into view. He notified Charleston of his course, speed, and intended altitude.
Mason turned off the backup fuel pump, retracted the flaps, adjusted the mixture for optimum speed and fuel consumption, and let the plane continue to climb. He gazed at the city of Charleston out his right window until it disappeared under the wing.
At fifteen thousand feet he leveled off and continued his due south heading. He intended to fly a pattern off the coast from Savannah and gradually extend his distance south. At optimum fuel consumption, he could stay in the air for five hours or so. He could fly all the way to Miami if he wanted, he had plenty of range, but he wouldn’t be going that far south. He would run patterns closer to the shore, down to about even with Jacksonville, maybe Daytona Beach.
The first day of flying the pattern was uneventful. He saw a lot of puffy white clouds but nothing like the dark formation he remembered from the airliner’s window.
He landed the plane at Mount Pleasant, refueled, and parked it in its designated spot. He grabbed some takeout on his way back to the cottage, ate, watched television, slept, and went through the same process the very next day. And the day after that.
He didn’t meet many people with this routine, a few, mostly while food shopping or doing laundry. There were even a couple of attractive women who expressed some obvious interest, one in produce and the other on the cereal aisle. Was he tempted? Maybe somewhere deep inside. But Karen’s face popped in his mind each time to pull him back from the dark side.
After the first week he backed off the daily flights. The fuel charges were starting to add up much faster than he expected. So, weather permitting, he took on a three-flight per week schedule. The actual days varied, but three days a week was his goal.
After thirty days, even that routine was starting to wear on him. More than ever before, he began to question his sanity. He had no doubt that Karen was back there, wondering what had happened, but the idea of returning to that time was growing doubtful to the point of dread.
He saw dark clouds, even got bounced around when he flew into a couple of fairly hefty storms, but nothing like the one he remembered. He kept his eyes peeled for the blue haze, arcs of light really, but so far he had seen nothing like that.
Around day sixty he began to feel the pangs of anxiety even when he wasn’t flying. But it was worse in the air. It’s weird to feel bored and anxious at the same time. But that’s exactly how he felt sitting in that cockpit, hour after hour, day after day. To say doubt was a big part of his life would be an understatement. His mind would drift to other things he could be doing and probably should be doing, like finding a job. He could go back to Miami, declare himself cured, give them the answers they wanted to hear, and resume the life he had before he stepped foot on that airliner. It was an option.
The Cessna’s engine droned on as he sat there idly in the cockpit. The airplane pretty much flew itself which was good and bad. Good because he only had to keep one eye on the instruments and one eye out the windows. It was bad because the monotony was beginning to dull his senses. If he kept this up the entire six months, he really would be insane.
In the beginning the high point of each flight was lifting off from the runway, but now the high point was when it was time to head home. Mason knew this wasn’t good. There was no way he could continue this way much longer. The prospect of coming across another portal was small to begin with, but now, Mason realized, it was actually the size of an electron. Realistically there was no chance at all.
◆◆◆
On day ninety-three, as he turned the key
to start the engine, he was convinced this would be his last flight. One more time and that was it. He smirked and shook his head when he realized he had told himself the same thing every flight day for the last month. But this time he was sure he meant it.
On a first name basis now with all the Charleston tower controllers, he announced his departure, accelerated, and lifted off into space. By now he had flown in every kind of weather, from clear skies to some serious thunderstorms. On a couple of occasions the tower warned him that flying was too dangerous. This was one of those days. At least the thunder and lightning would break up the monotony. He had become so accustomed to the plane he began to think of it as his. He ensured all the routine maintenance was performed, per the agreement with the owner, and he kept it neat and clean. There wasn’t much else to do when he wasn’t flying.
Rather than leveling out at fifteen thousand like usual, he headed up to twenty-three after getting clearance from Jacksonville. That was just two thousand short of the top ceiling for the Cessna, but high enough to get him over most of the rough air that had moved in over the Atlantic. Mason had been up that high in the Cessna only once before. The turbocharger kept the air-to-fuel mixture in sync, and the onboard oxygen kept him from developing a headache.
Usually he followed his regular route south, but this time he turned more easterly which would take him farther out over the Atlantic away from Florida and hopefully away from the storm. In the beginning, flying out over the ocean in a single-engine plane had been a little nerve racking. But after so many flights he didn’t worry about it anymore even with the dark clouds looming ahead.
As he suspected, just before reaching altitude, he broke out of the clouds and entered clear and much smoother air. He continued on.
When the weather screen indicated a break in the system below, Mason decided to make his turn early. He received clearance from Jacksonville of the new direction and a lower altitude.
He leveled out at twenty-thousand which was considerably more turbulent. He checked his gauges and continued to survey his surroundings. There were fat, dark clouds in the distance to the east and west, but just as indicated on the weather screen, the route directly ahead was relatively clear, just a few clouds and a little rain.
As he cruised along thinking of nothing in particular, out of nowhere the plane pitched and suddenly dropped. He felt the force of the wind and the plane’s rapid descent. It was cause for concern, but he knew he had plenty of altitude and the plane was running fine. As expected, the plane’s descent abated nearly as quickly as it started, and he was once again at level flight. Looking up from his instruments, he saw the wall of clouds on both sides closing in ahead. This was unexpected. The two banks were actually merging into a flurry of swirling mist, mostly dark gray and black. He checked the weather and found that the top of the system was above his ceiling; below, the winds were even worse. That’s the moment he wished he had heeded the tower’s warning. He should have stayed home.
The air became more turbulent, the plane bucked, and the engine coughed but quickly regained its footing.
All he could do was hold on, keep going, and have faith. That’s when the lightning struck in a flash of blinding light and the thunder boomed. The plane dipped and recovered. He found himself gripping the stick so hard his knuckles had turned pure white. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were nearly to the point of spasm when he consciously forced himself to relax.
The wall of clouds ahead had turned pitch black with frequent arcs of static electricity all swirling in a funnel shaped mass. There was no going around, above, or below.
He suddenly realized he had been holding his breath, so he consciously relaxed his shoulders and neck again, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. He resumed normal breathing and pressed on.
Just before he entered the wall of darkness, lightning struck again, this time up close and personal. The white hot streak vaporized the air in front of him in a cloud of misty blue. The plane bucked, coughed once, and regained its composure. And then the darkness closed in around him. Lights from the instrument displays became brighter in the relative darkness of the clouds. The plane dropped from wind shear and nearly as quickly regained altitude. It jerked from side-to-side and at times vibrated to the point that Mason was sure everything was about to short out. But the little plane chugged on.
Fourteen knuckle-white minutes later the plane emerged from the storm just as the instruments finally gave up the ghost.
Mason flipped some switches and cycled through the various displays, but basically just got a steady green glow with an occasional blip. The thing was dead. Obviously, the vibration and static electricity had been too much.
It didn’t matter; Mason knew generally where he was and kept the nose heading north. He’d meet the coast at some point and limp back to Mount Pleasant. He looked to the left and right at the dark clouds gaining distance behind him, wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and flew in the direction of home.
CHAPTER 31
Ted Wilson stepped inside the open door to Mike Reeves’ office. “Hey.”
Reeves looked up from the papers on his desk. “Hey.”
“You remember Steve Mason?”
“Of course,” Reeves said. “What of him?”
“Apparently he’s been doing a lot of flying out of Mount Pleasant South Carolina.”
Reeves expressed bewilderment. “Yeah?”
“His plane is missing.”
Reeves cocked his head. “When?”
“Just got an FAA notice. About two hours ago. They lost contact when he flew into a storm. His transponder dropped off as well.”
Reeves stood up and walked to a map of the southeast United States covering most of one wall. “Where?”
Ted walked over and put a finger on the map. “Southeast of Savannah, about two hundred miles.”
“What in the hell was he doing out there?”
“Don’t know.”
Reeves turned to Ted. “What are they doing about it?”
“Waiting for the storm to clear. Visibility is near zero on the deck.”
“That son-of-a-bitch,” Reeves said. He returned to his desk and picked up the phone. “He just wouldn’t let it go.” Reeves flicked his hand motioning for Ted to leave and dialed the phone.
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The next morning Mike Reeves and Dan Miller stood in the Jacksonville office of the US Coast Guard. The office was bustling with the sights and sounds of people busy behind various screens and displays, except for the man in a commander’s uniform standing in front of Reeves and Miller.
“The storm cleared late last night,” the commander said. “We had planes and water craft out at sunup.” He looked at his watch. “That was four hours ago. It’s a big ocean and it will take some time.”
“I understand,” Reeves said. “Can I get a ride on the next flight out?”
“No,” the commander said. “Don’t have the room and you’d just be in the way. Let us do our job.”
“Fine,” Reeves said.
“They’re doing everything possible,” Miller said. He turned to the commander. “Nothing from an emergency beacon?”
“Not so far,” the commander said. “But we have to be in range to receive the signal, especially if it’s submerged.”
Reeves snorted and turned away.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” the commander said. He turned and walked toward a group of people crowded around a computer screen.
“I should have locked that bastard in a room,” Reeves said. “This is as much my fault as it is his.”
“Not true,” Miller said. “You did everything you could.”
“Obviously, not everything.”
◆◆◆
Two days later, Reeves was wide awake before the sun, but still in bed. He rose up, twisted, punched his pillow to make it flatter, and then lowered his head as he rolled to his side. He hated hotel room pillows. They were either too hard or too soft.
Reeves recalled the details of what Mason had said. Of course, flying through a cloud and being thrust back in time was ridiculous, and obviously he imagined or hallucinated his purported time in eighteenth century Charles Town. It didn’t happen. Still, his account was detailed and vivid. But that’s often the case with hallucinations or whatever it was Mason experienced in his mind. When he didn’t improve over the weeks and months after leaving the hospital, Reeves should have done more. The poor bastard died trying to prove what he imagined was true. And that was on Reeves, at least partially.
A knock on the door brought Reeves from his thoughts. He rose, padded to the door, and swung it wide. Miller stood at the threshold fully dressed. Reeves motioned for Miller to enter.
“They’ve terminated the search,” Miller said.
Reeves nodded without looking back. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” Miller said. “Get dressed and we’ll go down for breakfast.”
“I can make some here,” Reeves said, as he ambled over to the plastic coffee pot next to the television. He fumbled with the various parts and then just stopped. He lowered his hands to the counter.
“I don’t need any coffee,” Miller said.
Reeves nodded without looking up.
“We might as well head back to Miami this morning,” Miller said.
Reeves turned to face Miller. “You should go back. I need to take care of Mason’s personal effects.”
“They found his car at the Mount Pleasant Regional Airport.”
“I’ll start there,” Reeves said.
Miller nodded. “I can tag along if you want.”
Reeves pursed his lips as he considered the offer. “That’s okay,” he finally said, “you head back. I should be back in the office in a couple of days.”
