Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (3 page)

The attendant smiles at him. A forced smile. “Haben Sei einen netten Flug.”
Have a nice flight
.

“Dank,” he replies.

III

The man slides a pair of sunglasses over his eyes to ward off the glare from the sun. Richard eyes him as he fumbles with the controls. They are 40,000 feet over mainland Germany, nearing France. “Are those sunglasses new?”

“I bought them at the airport a few days ago. I’ve been itching to wear them.”

He reads the engraved type along the side of the sunglasses: HANDMADE IN WEST GERMANY.

“God. How much did those cost?”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

19

“A handsome amount.” He pulls the sunglasses from his eyes and hands them to Richard. “See what it says on the side?”

He hands the sunglasses back. “Can you afford all this? These are Alpino sunglasses. The most expensive sunglasses in Germany.
Sunglasses
, Man. And then you bought that ring…”

“Don’t worry about it, all right? I know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t get yourself in debt.”

“I won’t.” To change the subject, “Have you finished yet?”

He nods. “We’re flying-by-wire. It’s free flying from here to Cincinnati.”

“Good. Now you can finish reading your book.”

He pulls it from a compartment on the wall. “I’m halfway done with it.”

The man unbuckles, stretches.

Richard is thumbing to his page in The Testament. “Where are you off to?”

“The shitter. I’ve had to go ever since we took off.”

He is sitting in the bathroom, ready to wipe. He overhears conversation coming from outside. Two of the flight attendants are talking nervously. He quickly wipes, washes, and flushes. He exits to find them standing beside the cockpit door. One is holding a tray filled with sodas and crackers, a few deli sandwiches. He asks what they were talking about. They exchange worried glances. One of them—a Latino girl—speaks up with a heavy accent: “One of Air France’s planes went down in southern China a few minutes ago. Richard was telling us about it.” He tells her to serve the drinks and returns to the cockpit. He asks Richard about the plane.

“They don’t know why it went down. Radio connection with the plane went dead, and then it crashed. Went off the map.”

“Probably a malfunction. Who was the pilot?”

“No one we know. Some Chinaman.”

“All right. Why did you tell the flight attendants?”

“I figured they should know. They work for Air France just like we do.”

“They’re
women
, Richard. They’ll spill it to the whole crew. We don’t need a panic attack. Go back there and tell them to be quiet about it. They were talking about it outside the
restrooms
, for God’s sakes.”

Richard nods, stands, and exits the cockpit.

The man awakes. Richard is tapping him.

“I fell asleep,” the man apologizes. “Where are we?”

“Over the Atlantic,” Richard says, nodding to the window.

The man cranes his neck and looks out. The ocean far below is smooth as glass, and dark. The sun is setting in the far distance. Stars are appearing above them. “How long was I asleep? I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

The copilot doesn’t answer. “More planes have gone down.”

The man is instantly awake. “More?” Shock saturates his voice. “Air France?”

“Not just Air France. Anything over southern China and into northern Korea is dropping out of the sky.”

“Holy shit,” the man mutters. “Thank God we’re not flying over there.”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on the readings. Everything is fine.”

The man is thinking aloud to himself: “How could all those planes malfunction…”

“I don’t think it’s a mechanical malfunction,” Richard says.

“It has to be.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

20

“A mechanical malfunction this widespread? I don’t think so.”

“There’s no other reason.”

“I know,” Richard says. “But I don’t think it’s a malfunction.”

“So you’re saying all the pilots, despite years of experience and training, are crashing?”

“I don’t know,” Richard says. “But it’s making me want to shit myself.”

“Did you tell the flight attendants?”

“No. But it’ll be all over the news when we get back.”

“Then let them learn about it then. I don’t want everyone panicking. We’re fine.”

The man is leaning back in his pilot’s chair when the copilot talks with Europe control. A few moments later he looks over to the pilot with a grim look. “It’s spreading. Planes are crashing in India and the Middle East. Eight Air France planes have crashed. Hundreds of others have gone down, too.” He curses under his breath.

The man refuses to believe. “It has to be a mistake. Someone is fucking with you.”

“I thought that, too. But then I checked news frequencies. The media is covering it.”

The man rubs tired eyes. “Kira’s going to freak out.”

“She’ll be thankful when you land. And think of it this way: once we land, flights will probably be grounded for a while. You’ll have lots of time to celebrate your engagement.”

“You’re morbid,” the man mutters, then he laughs.

A nervous laugh.

The pilot makes his ritualistic pass through the passenger’s area. He introduces himself to the passengers, assures them everything is okay, and sometimes he even invites the youngsters to come look at the cockpit. But not today. Some of the passengers—especially the elderly, who have seen dark days in their times—can recognize the grim façade plastered over his face, even as he comforts them with niceties. He keeps looking to the attendants, smiling—subtly telling them to smile, too. They don’t know about the mass plane crashes. For this he is thankful. He is in 3rd-class when Richard appears from 2nd-class.

“What is it?” the man asks, almost afraid to ask.

“We need to talk,” he says, casting a smile to a young woman with two young girls. The pilot nods, looks to the woman with her kids. “Enjoy your flight.”

They return to the cockpit. The copilot makes sure the door to the passenger’s area is shut, and then he speaks freely: “We’ve just lost contact with Europe.”

The pilot’s eyes squint in incredulity. “Lost contact?”

“One minute they were talking to me, the next minute they weren’t.”

“What were they saying?”

“Planes were going down over eastern Germany.”

“Have you tried different frequencies?”

“Yes. But the British won’t talk.”

“They won’t talk?”

“They say they’re talking only to their planes. That it’s confidential.”

“What’s confidential?”

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t say.”

“Did you check the equipment?”

“Yes. All our equipment is working just fine.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

21

“How’re the signals from the United States?”

“Strong as ever.”

“All right.” He takes a breath. “I’ll log it in the logbook.”

Richard muses, “Fucking crazy flight, eh?”

IV

The stars shine bright above and the sea is black as tar. Night has fallen. The Boeing-777 cruises at 39,000 feet. The digital display reads 9:08 PM. The man walks down the aisles of the passenger’s area. Most of the passengers are asleep. Some are reading by nightlight. Others are listening to IPODs or typing at their laptops. He nods and smiles to the few who are awake. Europe still hasn’t come back online. The United States is in contact with them—”Just come home safely,” they are told. The man uses the restroom, enjoys idle chat with the Latino flight attendant, then dips back into the cockpit. Richard is sitting in his chair, the John Grisham novel in his hands. He is coolly flipping the pages.

“Are you almost finished?” the man asks, taking his seat.

Richard nods. “Yeah.” He coughs. Reads some more. Coughs again.

“Do you need some water?” the pilot asks.

“No, I’m fine.” He coughs again, swears. “I’m going to get some water.”

He returns to the cockpit, rubbing his temples.

“Tired?” the pilot asks.

“Headache,” he responds.

“Why don’t you get some aspirin from the medical cabinet?”

“I’m all right. It’s not a bad headache.”

Richard takes his seat. A few minutes pass. He stands. “Okay. I’ll get some aspirin.”

The man is trying to figure out why Europe is silent when the copilot returns. “We’re out of aspirin. The passengers have headaches, too. They’ve used up all our stores.”

“All the passengers?” the pilot asks. He gazes over the instruments. “Everything’s fine. We’re not losing air pressure or anything.” He can’t help but feel his anxiety increasing. He tells himself it’s nothing to be concerned about. But why in the world would all the passengers
and
the copilot develop headaches at the same time? The pilot grabs the wheel. “We’ll descend a couple thousand feet. See if that helps.”

Richard curses under his breath. “
Fuck
, it hurts. The glowing screens are killing my eyes. I think it’s a migraine.
Fuck
.” Cold sweat popped over his brow. “I feel like I’m going to get sick.”

The pilot reaches over, feels his forehead. “God. You’re burning up.”

The door to the cockpit opens. The Latino flight attendant stands there. “All of the passengers are complaining…” She reaches against the doorframe to stable herself. Her face is flushed white.

“Migraines.”

The pilot eyes her. “You have one, too?”

She nods. “Yeah. A couple of the children are crying.”

“The children have migraines?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m taking us down a couple thousand feet. That should help.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

22

The flight attendant vanishes. They hear her go into the bathroom and slam the door. A moment later they can hear her puking, followed by a toilet flush. The pilot can hear muffled cries coming from the back of the plane.

He stands, tells Richard, “I’m going to look for more aspirin.”

He makes his way to the rear of the plane, enters a cramped storage compartment, and rifles through empty bottles of aspirin. He shakes his head at the absurdity of it all—does a miniscule laugh escape?—and he returns to the main section of the plane. He finds one of the flight attendants—not the Latino girl, but a French woman—and tells her to relax. She is sitting in one of the seats at the rear of the plane, head in her hands, veins pulsing from her temples. She doesn’t listen to him. He shrugs and walks away, wondering if she shaves her armpits—and then he laughs at how stupid a thought that is with everything going on.

He reaches the bathrooms, right before the cockpit, and the Latino attendant is standing outside, rapping on the door. “Are you all right? Ma’am?” It is obvious that as she raises her voice in concern, the effort is causing her agony. Her eyes are all but bulging from the sockets. She sees the pilot coming and says, in a low voice, “This woman went inside, and when she shut the door, I heard something crash. I think she may have fallen.” A moment later a feeble voice comes from inside—

”I’m bleeding.” The attendant tells her to open the door, that it’s okay. She obliges. The Latino woman moves inside; the pilot cranes his eyes over her shoulder. The elderly woman is standing by the mirror, blood on her hands from blood streaming from her nose in a trickling waterfall.

“Get her some bandages,” he says.

The Latino woman shoots a look back at him. “I know.”

He pauses for a moment, then: “You’re bleeding.”

She ignores him.

He repeats, “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just her blood on my fingers. I’m trying to take care of it.”

“No. You’re bleeding from your nose.”

The Latino attendant pauses, turns. She reaches up, brushes a finger beneath her nostrils, pulls it before her: stained a crimson red. And then she can taste it running along the contours of her lips.

“My God…” She forgets about the woman as she turns and begins unraveling toilet paper for herself. The woman stands quietly, rubbing her eyes.

The pilot turns to go into the cockpit when a sight greets him. He stands rigid, staring out at the passengers. They are speaking in rough whispers. Blood is trailing down their noses. Some of the older children begin to cry, too. Mothers and fathers try to help them, but their blood runs down to their chins. A wave of shock rushes over the pilot. He sticks his head back inside the bathroom: “Give me a roll of toilet paper. Now.”

“Hold on a minute…”

“God. Just give me a roll.”

“We’re bleeding here, dammit.”

“
So is everyone else
,” he whispers crudely.

She looks at him, toilet paper stuffed under her nose. “What?” Her voice is stuffy.

“All the passengers… Their noses… They’re bleeding.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

She hands him a roll. “Try not to use it all. We didn’t stock in Germany.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

23

He moves passenger-to-passenger, handing out strips of toilet paper. The roll is dwindling, and the toilet paper isn’t helping: it doesn’t help the bleeds clot, and the blood just keeps coming, soiling the toilet paper until it is bleached red and damp with moisture.

“Mr. Pilot! Mr. Pilot!”

He turns to see a young woman with frizzy hair in 2nd-class, hollering for him.

“Give me a minute, okay?” he pleads, trying not to sound agitated. Her voice is shrill: “Please! It’s an emergency!”

She’s going to scare the shit out of everyone
. “Everyone’s bleeding, ma’am. Just wait your turn, okay?”

“It’s not me,” she says, despite the blood trickling from her nose like a broken tap. “It’s my baby. She’s bleeding from the eyes.”

He hurries over, excusing himself from the other passengers. “Let me see.”

The infant is cradled in her arms. Its nose is bleeding, and droplets of blood are appearing at the corners of the baby’s eyes. He gently brushes them away with the tip of a strip of toilet paper. Tears are streaming down the woman’s face. He imagines she is a single mother, flying alone. Frightened. Scared. Hell,
everyone
is scared. He imagines the infant is all she has. He curses himself for thinking so deeply. She’s just a passenger on his plane. He assures her he’ll call a doctor, and that—He stops midsentence. The tears are continuing to flow from the mother’s eyes, but now they are tinted ruby-red.
Blood
.