He poured himself a cognac and swirled it around in the bowl. Now this was the way to have a nightmare. Before he put the keys back in the flight attendant’s pocket, he checked her watch. The watch, faithful to the dream, now stipulated that it was 10:45 a.m.
It didn’t matter.
He walked to the front of the plane and jiggled the door. It was locked, which was somehow reassuring, but something niggled at him.
He looked back over his shoulder. Now he was looking into the first-class section.
What was it? What was dragging at the back of his mind?
His eyes narrowed.
He’d missed something perfectly obvious.
There was no one in the first-class seating area except himself, two flight attendants, and…well, no one. He snorted. His subconscious hadn’t bothered to populate this section. Maybe because he wanted to take all the seats himself!
What a strange dream…
But wait.
Something else, an almost irrationally unimportant detail, stuck out at him.
The window covers were up. That wasn’t right. The clocks worked well enough, but his subconscious had gotten that detail wrong. He concentrated. For the dream to be perfectly accurate, the side of the plane facing the sun should have had most of the window covers down.
Nothing moved.
Odd.
Weren’t things like that supposed to fix themselves, in a dream? Poof, just like that? But then, he hadn’t run into a single surreal element in the dream, not since he’d awakened and found himself here.
Was he in a dream?
He pinched himself. It hurt. But that wasn’t conclusive. He hopped up and down on the floor, trying to convince himself to float a little. Nothing. He even winced and tried to make the plane disappear around him.
It didn’t.
Am I dreaming or awake?
There was one test that should be conclusive. In all the dreams he’d ever experienced, he could never read. He might stare at a newspaper or a book in a dream, but even his dream self couldn’t make real words appear. There was something un-dreamlike about the act of reading itself.
He leaned over and pulled a book out from behind one of the empty seats. It was a Stephen King novel named The Tommyknockers, which simultaneously confirmed the fact he was having a nightmare, while proving he was awake.
Goddard’s eyes began to water, as if they didn’t want him to trust the evidence of his own senses. He blinked them clear, then opened the book.
The letters were there in all their quintessential 1980s horror.
It wasn’t a dream.
He wasn’t dreaming.
Goddard dropped the book. His pulse quickened and his skin was covered in goosebumps.
It was after ten forty-five in the morning. Everyone in the plane was unconscious, including the flight attendants.
He swallowed, dropped the book, and walked over to the nearest flight attendant, the one whose keys he had taken. She was still unconscious. He shook her by the shoulder.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” He squeezed her shoulder hard in an attempt to wake her. “Do you know what happened?”
Her head flopped limply on her shoulders as he shook her. He dug his thumbnail into the meat between her neck and shoulder, a move that should have brought almost anyone out of a deep sleep.
No response.
His eyes swept around the first-class area. At the end of the aisle, just before the curtain into the business class area, he spotted a first aid sign. He opened the overhead locker. Inside it was a first-aid kit. He let that drop to the floor. Behind it was a portable oxygen tank, a small C cylinder. Attached to it were a regulator and an oxygen mask for medical emergencies.
He pulled them out carefully, checked the connections, then twisted the top of the cylinder. Goddard listened to the faithful hiss of oxygen free-flowing. He placed the mask over his face, and took a couple of long, sweet breaths.
The entire cabin appeared to be unconscious, which meant there must have been some sort of environmental catastrophe on board the aircraft. His mind jumped through the most likely causes — a sudden depressurization, the release of some sort of toxic gas, or a mass poisoning of their water supply with sedatives and or even hallucinogens.
As he breathed the cold oxygen, Goddard felt the muddled thinking from earlier start melting away. His heart steadied. He was getting control of the situation. Now all he had to do was make sure that the pilots were all right. They should be. The cockpit was separated from the rest of the plane for a reason.
Besides, they had an emergency supply of air or oxygen… or something to specifically prevent this sort of thing happening to them, didn’t they?
He glanced toward the door.
He walked on stiff, unyielding legs toward the locked cockpit, as he carried the small oxygen cylinder with him. It felt as though he would faint. The world at the edges of his vision had turned gray. He took a few breaths from his oxygen mask, but that made things worse.
You’re hyperventilating.
Slow your breathing.
For a few moments he stood on the far side of the cockpit door, panting. The gray edges slowly receded.
He was fine. He was going to be fine. It was all going to be fine.
He tugged on the door again. It was still locked.
He banged on the door with the side of a clenched fist. “Excuse me? Open up, please. There’s been an emergency back here, and I need to speak with someone.”
No response.
He tried looking through the peephole, but it was useless. All he could see was the back of the pilot and copilot’s chairs. Next to them, he could just make out a couple of bright smears of light, and another shadow.
He banged on the door again.
Nothing.
He glanced around the empty cabin, looking for something with which to open the door. Even as he searched, he knew the search would be futile. Cockpit doors had been made a thousand times more secure after 9-11. There was no reason for anyone to have left a handy crowbar or fire axe lying around nearby.
He had a moment of inspiration and retrieved the flight attendant’s keys; however, none of them fit the door, either. Another perfectly sensible precaution.
But there had to be a way. Otherwise, how would anyone be able to help the pilots if, for example, someone managed to plant a canister of toxic gas in the cockpit?
If he could only calm himself, he would discover something. He was sure of it.
He walked back toward the center of the aircraft, looking from side to side over the heads of the sleeping passengers. The window covers were all up in this section, too.
Finally, he reached the main galley at the rear of the plane, where the flight attendants had prepared the economy-class “meals,” which were little more than microwaved TV dinners, along with a self-sealed cold salad.
He searched the drawers nearby. The cutlery was plastic. He checked his watch. It was just after 11 a.m. now. He didn’t have time for this! Any of this! A flash of rage swept over him. It was probably already too late. He started throwing the contents of the drawers on the floor. He knocked over the cart.
The airplane might crash.
But what did it matter. If he’d missed the auction he might as well be dead. He certainly wouldn’t get another chance within his lifetime.
No, he needed to get control of the aircraft, and then use the radio to stop that auction. He ripped out another drawer. It contained nothing of any use to him. Unless he wanted to try breaking into the cockpit with a bottle opener, he had found nothing of use.
He swore.
If he wanted to hide something from the passengers, where would he put it? He frowned. He was missing something else significant…