Ghosts on a Plane

by M. L. Bullock

  Ugh, I don’t have time for this right now.

  What was I going to do about Sasha? I wasn’t sad the kid was gone, not really, but I did have to be concerned about the blowback. She’d gotten herself kidnapped, and I had to get out in front of the PR mess this was sure to create. Whoever had taken Sasha Garcia would want big money, no doubt about it. Then it dawned on me. Kimmy and Tate were in on this! Why else wouldn’t they want to take custody of their younger sister? They were using her to get my money, one way or another.

  If they kidnapped her and got the ransom, they’d get my money.

  If they kidnapped her to prove I was unfit to have custody of Sasha, they’d get my money.

  If they kidnapped her to bump her off, that would look bad for me. I’d certainly lose in the court of public opinion, and they’d get my money.

  Whatever scheme they concocted, it all boiled down to them getting my money. I swore under my breath. So that’s what this was about! And here I was feeling kind of bad that the wretched kid was missing. I bet the crusty-looking stewardess knew where she was, and I’d make her tell me if I could find her. “Antoinette!” I stood up on wobbly legs, sloshing my drink all over my jacket.

  Damn, it was freezing in here. “Turn the heat on!” I yelled to the front of the plane as if the captain could hear me. With blurry eyes, I surveyed the cabin. Yeah, this wasn’t right. There were less than ten people aboard now, and that damn nun was seated even closer to me. I couldn’t see her face clearly, just the stupid smile she was wearing. Those religious folks were like that, though. Oh Lord, I feel so dizzy. I definitely need to stop with the booze. But where had everyone gone? Had we stopped somewhere? Had I fallen asleep and missed my stop? I put the cup down on a nearby table. Who gets up from their seat and leaves the table down?

  “Sasha! Sash-uh!” I stomped my foot in the aisle. My efforts brought me nothing but blank stares from a guy in a hoodie. I shivered as he stared at me with his black eyes. Were they all black? “Sasha Garcia! Get out here now!”

  “Ma’am, you’ll have to take your seat. You can’t disturb the other passengers.” Antoinette squeezed my shoulder. Her fingers pinched my skin, even through my jacket. I spun around to argue with her, but she wasn’t there. She was nowhere to be seen. Rocking back on my heels in surprise, I braced for a fall but managed to catch myself before I hit the dirty floor. “What the Hell!”

  Teetering on my high-heeled boots, I clutched the seats as I looked for my stepdaughter. “Sasha! I’m going to beat your skinny behind when I find you!” I threatened her as the plane lurched and I wobbled again.

  What was going on here? There was no one left on this plane. I could only see that couple, the ones who had tried to help me find Sasha, and that other couple, the old folks. God, they looked weird, like they were mannequins or something. They didn’t move but stared straight ahead into nothingness. “Hey! Have you seen my stepdaughter?”

  No answer, and it was ticking me off. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

  And then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A man had taken a seat in the very back row—a man I knew. It was Tygre J! How in God’s name did he get here? But there he was, sitting in the back row with his trademark lazy smile and perfectly cropped hair. He had that head tilt going, the one I loved so much. The one all red-blooded American women loved so much. My hands flew to my mouth to smother a squeal of delight. I waved at him and started to scream his name, I was so happy to see his handsome face, but he raised his finger to his sexy, full lips and then waved his hand, inviting me to join him. My heart skipped two beats as he eased out of his seat and slipped behind the blue velvet curtain at the back of the plane. I hadn’t realized there was a curtained section back there. Was that there before? I blinked at the haze in my eyes. Man, I felt fuzzy all over. My brain felt fuzzy. My fingers. I absently wondered if Antoinette had slipped me something, or at least fed me doubles. Whatever. I felt no pain now, and the man of my dreams had shown up.

  “Tygre?” I whispered unbelievingly.

  Stumbling down the aisle, I passed the weirdo in the hoodie, the wooden-looking couple, and the other two, who were busy stomping on something. I almost paused to tell them the secret, but Tygre’s signal had been clear: Keep it quiet. As a fellow celebrity, I understood the need for discretion. Besides, that Heath guy didn’t seem to notice me now. Was that smoke I smelled? Should I tell someone? Nah. This whole place could go up in flames and take Sasha with it for all I cared. I just wanted to be with Tygre J. Forever. Like we were meant to be. I had so much to tell him, so much to say to him.

  Pushing the dusty curtain to the side, I whispered, “Tygre? Where are you?” Why was it dark in here? I felt along the wall for a light switch but couldn’t find anything.

  But then he was there, all smiles and his cool hands in mine. I could see him in the dark as if he glowed a little.

  No, girl. You drunk is all. He’s not here. This is some loser you’re hooking up with. You, the great Starr Garcia, getting it on with a stranger on an airplane.

  “Tygre?” My face searched his, and he grinned down at me. That was him, the crooked smile, too big for his face. It was him! “I’m so glad you’re here. You don’t know.”

  And then he leaned down, closer, his lips near mine. How long had it been since we’d kissed? January? I couldn’t think clearly, but it felt like forever ago. Now Gray wasn’t around to keep us apart anymore.

  “It’s you and me now, isn’t it, Tygre? You and me? You came for me, didn’t you?”

  “I came for you.” And then he whispered in my ear, words I didn’t understand, but oh, how sexy they sounded.

  Sanguis…

  I moaned with pleasure as his lovely mouth drew close to mine. We were going to kiss! This would be the kiss that changed everything. We’d be the power couple of the century! Move over, Queen Bey. It was my turn now! Our turn!

  I tilted my head to welcome Tygre’s kiss when suddenly his mouth widened, so wide I thought he would swallow me. His razor-sharp teeth glistened in the dim light, and I screamed and shoved him away. My hands reached for the curtain behind me, but there was nothing there now except the cold wall of the plane.

  I didn’t understand. I spun, grasping for the blue velvet curtain, but I was lost in the dark and crying. I couldn’t process any of this. Tygre J or the Tygre-thing pushed me to the floor, and I screamed even louder.

  “Help me, somebody! Help! Why, Tygre?” I sobbed. I had no answers.

  All I knew was I was going to die.

  12

  Gregory Lawless

  “What is that? It looks radioactive.” Desi let out a stream of expletives, and I agreed with every one of them. “We aren’t flying into a hot zone, are we?” His voice stuck in his throat. I didn’t answer him because I didn’t have any answers. None. If I hadn’t been staring at this thing, I wouldn’t have believed it either.

  “Ground says there’s nothing there. You heard them. So, either we’re both hallucinating, or they can’t see what we see. You find an alternate route?”

  “I’ve punched it in. Just waiting for you to accept the changes. Should we let the passengers know about this?”

  I thought about that for a moment. What would I say? “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to call your attention to the ominous-looking green fog ahead of us. We might be in trouble here, folks.” Sweat popped out on my brow as I began to guide the plane up for a steep climb. “No time for that. The damn thing is moving toward us. Look at the radar!” It was my turn to swear now. Was this even possible? Like a giant, living thing, the cloud expanded, fueled by God knows what. One last time I called the tower. “Townsend, this is Flight 1199 approaching Rachel Island. We’ve sent you our new heading. Please confirm.”

  “Flight 1199, this is Townsend. You’re not clear to—” Screeching sounds replaced the bored controller’s voice, and I snatched the headphones off to keep the sound from piercing my eardrums.

  “Desi, what’s the problem?
” I couldn’t shift the plane. It was as if someone else were flying this beast and flying it fast directly into the expanding, glowing mass in front of us. The plane shuddered beneath my grip, but I refused to release the controller. I couldn’t give up, I had to keep it together. Grunting with effort, I did my best to avert the anomaly but couldn’t change course. The computer wasn’t responding to the new coordinates. As if it heard me, I got confirmation the coordinates were not accepted by the computer. Great, just great!

  And then we were inside the cloud, but it wasn’t quite a cloud. It was something else, maybe a dense fog, but things moved in it. Not birds. Those weren’t birds but things that didn’t belong up here at thirty thousand feet. As patches of the cloud illuminated here and there, I saw shapes, gray shapes of men and women as they appeared briefly and then flickered out. Silhouettes only, no clear faces.

  “Desi! Snap out of it! Shut down the air-conditioning. We don’t want that fog getting in here.” He wasn’t listening, and the switches were just out of my reach. My aviator glasses shook on my face as the plane shuddered in the dense cloud. I heard Desi swear beside me again. The plane shook repeatedly, and I did my best to keep it flying. My co-pilot did as I asked but didn’t say another word. Without warning, the entire control panel heated up, and I had no choice but to relinquish the controls.

  Then, I heard an odd slapping sound on the windshield. I pushed my glasses up to the top of my head. Was that a hand?

  “What the hell was that?” Desi was unbuckling his seat belt like he was getting ready to abandon the cockpit. I understood the reaction, but I didn’t plan on going anywhere, and neither could he. I had to see this. The hand slapped the windshield again, deliberate smacks. This wasn’t the bouncing of body parts off the nose of the plane. It was as if someone were out there, knocking, pounding, hoping to get in.

  “Desi, get back in your seat! I need you up here!”

  Suddenly the intercom began to squeal, and I picked up the mic and banged it on the overhead, all the while keeping my eyes on the windshield. The squealing did stop, only to be replaced with something far worse.

  Voices.

  All talking, whispering, insisting, demanding, snarling.

  Were the passengers hearing this too? I flipped the overhead switch, but the noise wouldn’t stop. I glanced at Desi, whose face was now pale and bloodless. Doing my best to control my fear, I reached for the mic once again. “Tower, this is Flight 1199, please acknowledge. We’re getting interference.”

  “Interference,” the voice echoed with laughter that ended in an ominous inhuman growl. Desi was out of his chair, and he clearly had every intention of leaving me. “Get back in that chair! Find us a way around this!”

  “You must be kidding! I’m not staying here!”

  “You’re the co-pilot, Des! You have to stay with me!”

  The next thing I knew, Desi hit the deck and hit it hard. He landed face-first, his hands stretched out to his sides. He gasped as if he could not breathe, as if he’d been struck so hard he’d had the wind knocked out of him. I could see his face, his eyes wide and staring at me. I thought he whispered something, maybe my name, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Hold on.” I reached for my seat belt buckle, but the damn thing wouldn’t come loose.

  “Gregory!” he begged me in a whisper. “Help!”

  “I’m trying, but I can’t get out of the seat! Get up, Desi!” And then I saw the head of a man—a gray, obviously dead ma—rising from the floor. “What in the name of God?” I screamed as I watched the phantom pull itself up from the bottom of the plane. His hands reached for Desi, and the stench of death filled the cockpit. I knew that stench. Once upon a time, nearly a lifetime ago now, I’d worked as a volunteer fireman until a house on Dearmon Street burned to the ground with all those people in it. I would never forget the smell of burning flesh, of death. This was that smell.

  Sanguis eius exquiritur! the foul thing raged as it wrapped its hands around Desi’s neck. My copilot began to strangle and choke, and I screamed as I tugged at the seat belt again.

  “Desi!” I remembered my pocketknife. Furiously, I dug in my pants, pulled the knife out, and began hacking at the strap. The lights flickered, then everything went black, and as quickly as the whole horrible ordeal had begun, the voices went silent and the plane stopped shaking. I paused my sawing and looked out the windshield. The cloud was gone, and there were clear skies ahead of us.

  “Desi! Get up! We’re out now!” In less than three seconds, my mind had reasoned out what had just happened. It must’ve been some sort of noxious gas, something that caused us both to hallucinate. That had to be it.

  “Desi!” Still holding my pocketknife, my seat belt strap halfway severed, I looked back at the carpet to which my copilot had fallen just moments ago.

  He was gone. Desi Scoggins had disappeared from the cockpit. I saw a small dark streak on the carpet, like a burn mark, but no Desi.

  Dropping the knife, I tried the seat belt buckle again. It came undone easily now, and I rose to my feet. I walked around the cockpit to look for him, but it wasn’t like he had anywhere to hide. I examined the scorch mark, for that’s sure as heck what it smelled and looked like, but couldn’t make sense of it. This was like something out of the Twilight Zone.

  I wanted to cry. How would I explain this to anyone? Sitting back down in my chair, I reached for the mic to address the passengers. If this was happening up here, what was going on back there? And where had Antoinette gone?

  That was when I saw another cloud on the horizon. Another patch of green, another bank of luminous mist. I banged my hands on the control panel and stared at it. Whatever I was going to do, I had to do it fast.

  I was running out of time.

  13

  Bonnie Overton

  I barely closed the bathroom door behind me before I began to cry. Soon, the crying turned to sobbing. I sat on the closed toilet lid and put my head in my hands as I tried to process everything that had happened. Small snippets were coming together, snippets from my dreams. The paper that had caught on fire. Heath’s eyes. Passengers disappearing. I remembered them all now, and I hadn’t been able to do that before. I remembered, and I was in misery. If all this was happening, all the pieces were falling into place, and that meant the rest of the dream must be true. This plane would crash, and I would die. We would all die, those who hadn’t disappeared.

  And what had happened to Sasha Garcia?

  She’d come into this cabin and vanished. As far as I knew, there was only one way to leave, and that was through the door. I ran my hands over the smooth wall to my left. There was a locked cabinet, but it wasn’t large enough for a child to hide in. I pushed on it, and the cabinet didn’t budge. I’d need a key to open it. I was crying harder now, and the pain in my stomach grew. God, it felt like my guts were being twisted by an invisible hand. The plane dipped again and then shuddered. I heard things clacking in the closed cabinet, and I held onto the railing with both hands.

  Oh, no! Here was the nausea again.

  At least I’d remembered to bring my purse with me, so I had my anti-nausea medication and anxiety pills. Fumbling the lids of my bottles, I finally opened them, and with shaking fingers, dug out one pill of each. I rubbed my wet cheeks with the sleeve of my blue shirt before remembering there were tissues in here. Maybe taking this anxiety medication was a bad idea, but it was either that or stay hidden in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight from hell.

  I popped the pills into my mouth and worked up enough saliva to swallow them dry. Gagging them down, I held on to the sides of the chrome sink while I waited for the latest round of shuddering to stop. How much more of this could we endure? The plane lurched again, and this time I couldn’t fight the sickness. Letting my purse fall to the ground, I flipped the lid up and knelt before the toilet. I threw up my drink and the two pills I’d just taken. My eyes watered, and I prayed to God that this feeling would pass soon. So much for taking those
anxiety pills. I was 0 for 2 now.

  Too bad I couldn’t talk to Dr. Kennedy. She’d know what to do. For the life of me, I couldn’t recall one single thing about our therapy that would help me at this moment. I’d been so careful, too. I’d thought I knew exactly what to do. I’d studied so hard, and now I couldn’t remember a damn thing.

  Maybe I should call Amy. Hearing her voice would help me. I searched my purse for my phone and then remembered I’d kicked it under Heath’s seat after the screaming. I had no way to call anyone from here. The plane shuddered again as if it were falling apart at the seams, and a half-scream emerged from my lips as I pulled myself up off the floor and hovered in front of the sink. I splashed my face with water and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

  Now I remembered. Dr. Kennedy would probably have suggested a pep talk—what she called self-talk—but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. No sense in lying to myself; I was going to die. I wondered if it would do any good to barge into the cockpit and demand the captain turn this plane around. While I patted my face with a paper towel, I decided against it. Didn’t pilots carry guns in the cockpits now? But maybe getting shot would be better than crashing into the ocean or Rachel Island.

  Well, I couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever. Even though I didn’t know Heath well, I felt safer being with him than without him. As far as I was concerned, he was the only normal person on this plane, which didn’t say much for my judgment right now. I grabbed another scratchy paper towel and patted my neck and rubbed my nose. Maybe some self-talk would help me. I was desperate for sanity, and it couldn’t hurt, right?

  “You can do this, Bonnie,” I told the woman in the mirror, the one with the bloodshot eyes. “Keep up the good work. You’ve done great so far.” Just as Dr. Kennedy instructed me, I gave myself an encouraging smile. I lifted my purse up to my shoulder and reached for the door handle.