Read Online Four Past Midnight by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page B

“There’s no VOR beacon out of Denver,” he said.
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œMeaning I have no radio, I have no Denver navigation beacon, and my board says everything is just peachy keen. Which is crap. Got to be.”
    A terrible idea began to surface in his mind, coming up like a bloated corpse rising to the top of a river.
    â€œHey, kid—look out the window. Left side of the plane. Tell me what you see.”
    Albert Kaussner looked out. He looked out for a long time. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. Just the last of the Rockies and the beginning of the plains.”
    â€œNo lights?”
    â€œNo.”
    Brian got up on legs which felt weak and watery. He stood looking down for a long time.
    At last Nick Hopewell said quietly, “Denver’s gone, isn’t it?”
    Brian knew from the navigator’s charts and his on-board navigational equipment that they should now be flying less than fifty miles south of Denver ... but below them he saw only the dark, featureless landscape that marked the beginning of the Great Plains.
    â€œYes,” he said. “Denver’s gone.”

8
    There was a moment of utter silence in the cockpit, and then Nick Hopewell turned to the peanut gallery, currently consisting of Albert, the man in the ratty sport-coat, and the young girl. Nick clapped his hands together briskly, like a kindergarten teacher. He sounded like one, too, when he spoke. “All right, people! Back to your seats. I think we need a little quiet here.”
    â€œWe are being quiet,” the girl objected, and reasonably enough.
    â€œI believe that what the gentleman actually means isn’t quiet but a little privacy,” the man in the ratty sport-coat said. He spoke in cultured tones, but his soft, worried eyes were fixed on Brian.
    â€œThat’s exactly what I mean,” Nick agreed. “Please?”
    â€œIs he going to be all right?” the man in the ratty sport-coat asked in a low voice. “He looks rather upset.”
    Nick answered in the same confidential tone. “Yes,” he said. “He’ll be fine. I’ll see to it.”
    â€œCome on, children,” the man in the ratty sport-coat said. He put one arm around the girl’s shoulders, the other around Albert’s. “Let’s go back and sit down. Our pilot has work to do.”
    They need not have lowered their voices even temporarily as far as Brian Engle was concerned. He might have been a fish feeding in a stream while a small flock of birds passes overhead. The sound may reach the fish, but he certainly attaches no significance to it. Brian was busy working his way through the radio bands and switching from one navigational touchpoint to another. It was useless. No Denver; no Colorado Springs; no Omaha. All gone.
    He could feel sweat trickling down his cheeks like tears, could feel his shirt sticking to his back.
    I must smell like a pig, he thought, or a —
    Then inspiration struck. He switched to the military-aircraft band, although regulations expressly forbade his doing so. The Strategic Air Command practically owned Omaha. They would not be off the air. They might tell him to get the fuck off their frequency, would probably threaten to report him to the FAA, but Brian would accept all this cheerfully. Perhaps he would be the first to tell them that the city of Denver had apparently gone on vacation.
    â€œAir Force Control, Air Force Control, this is American Pride Flight 29 and we have a problem here, a big problem here, do you read me? Over.”
    No dog barked there, either.
    That was when Brian felt something—something like a bolt—starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss.

9
    Nick Hopewell clamped a hand on him then, high up on his shoulder, near the neck. Brian jumped in his seat and almost cried out aloud. He