Read Online Hauntings by Ellen Datlow - Free Book Online Page B

Hernandez, dodging his flailing arms, speaking calmly and below the engine noise. Not him, though.
    â€œI heard them! I heard them! They’re in there! All those kids! All those kids!”
    I put my hand on him—hard. “Calm down!”
    He stopped flailing. A shamed expression came over him. His eyes riveted mine. “I heard them singing.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe children! All the...” He gave a helpless gesture to the unlighted coffins.
    â€œYou had a dream,” Pembry said. Her voice shook a little. “I was with you the whole time. You were asleep. You couldn’t have heard anything.”
    â€œAll the children are dead,” he said. “All of them. They didn’t know. How could they have known they were drinking poison? Who would give their own child poison to drink?” I let go of his arm and he looked at me. “Do you have kids?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œMy daughter,” he said, “is a year-and-a-half old. My son is three months. You have to be careful with them, patient with them. My wife is really good at it, y’know?” I noticed for the first time how sweat crawled across his forehead, the backs of his hands. “But I’m okay too, I mean, I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing, but I wouldn’t hurt them. I hold them and I sing to them and—and if anyone else tried to hurt them...” He grabbed me on the arm that had held him. “Who would give their child poison?”
    â€œIt isn’t your fault,” I told him.
    â€œThey didn’t know it was poison. They still don’t.” He pulled me closer and said into my ear, “I heard them singing.” I’ll be damned if the words he spoke didn’t make my spine shiver.
    â€œI’ll go check it out,” I told him as I grabbed a flashlight off the wall and started down the center aisle.
    There was a practical reason for checking out the noise. As a Loadmaster, I knew that an unusual sound meant trouble. I had heard a story about how an aircrew kept hearing the sound of a cat meowing from somewhere in the hold. The loadmaster couldn’t find it, but figured it’d turn up when they off-loaded the cargo. Turns out the “meowing” was a weakened load brace that buckled when the wheels touched runway, freeing three tons of explosive ordnance and making the landing very interesting. Strange noises meant trouble, and I’d have been a fool not to look into it.
    I checked all the buckles and netting as I went, stooping and listening, checking for signs of shifting, fraying straps, anything out of the ordinary. I went up one side and down the other, even checking the cargo doors. Nothing. Everything was sound, my usual best work.
    I walked up the aisle to face them. Hernandez wept, head in his hands. Pembry rubbed his back with one hand as she sat next to him, like my mother had done to me.
    â€œAll clear, Hernandez.” I put the flashlight back on the wall.
    â€œThanks,” Pembry replied for him, then said to me, “I gave him a Valium, he should quiet down now.”
    â€œJust a safety check,” I told her. “Now, both of you get some rest.”
    I went back to my bunk to find it occupied by Hadley, the second engineer. I took the one below him but couldn’t fall asleep right away. I tried to keep my mind far away from the reason that the coffins were in my bird in the first place.
    Cargo was the euphemism. From blood plasma to high explosives to secret service limousines to gold bullion, you packed it and hauled it because it was your job, that was all, and anything that could be done to speed you on your way was important.
    Just cargo , I thought. But whole families that killed themselves...I was glad to get them the hell out of the jungle, back home to their families— but the medics who got there first, all those guys on the ground, even my crew, we were too late to do any more