“No need to knock,” he said. “I'm coming.”
The senior flight attendant pulled him into the galleyway, but there was no passion in her touch. Her fingers felt like talons on his forearm, and her body shuddered in the darkness.
“Hattie--”
She pressed him back against the cooking compartments, her face close to his. Had she not been clearly terrified, he might have enjoyed this and returned her embrace Her knees buckled as she tried to speak, and her voice came in a whiny squeal.
“People are missing” she managed in a whisper, burying her head in his chest.
He took her shoulders and tried to push her back but she fought to stay close. “What do you m--?”
She was sobbing now, her body out of control. “A whole bunch of people, just gone!”
“Hattie, this is a big plane. They've wandered to the lavs or-
She pulled his head down so she could speak directly into his ear. Despite her weeping she was plainly fighting to make herself understood. I’ve been everywhere. I'm telling you, dozens of people are missing.
''Hattie, it's still dark. We'll find---”
“I'm not crazy! See for yourself! All over the plane, people have disappeared."
“It's a joke. They're hiding trying to--”
“Ray! Their shoes their socks, their clothes, everything was left behind. These people are gone”
Hattie slipped from his grasp and knelt whimpering in the corner. Rayford wanted to comfort her, to enlist her help, or to get Chris to go with him through the plane. More than any-thing he wanted to believe the woman was crazy. She knew better than to put him on. It was obvious she really believed people had disappeared.
He had been daydreaming in the cockpit. Was he asleep now? He bit his lip hard and winced at the pain. So he was wide awake. He stepped into first class, where an elderly woman sat stunned in the predawn haze, her husband's sweater and trousers in her hands. “What in the world?” she said. “Harold?”
Rayford scanned the rest of fitst class. Most passengers were still asleep, induding a young man by the window, his laprop computer on the tray table. But indeed several seats were empty. As Rayford's eyes grew accustomed to the low light, he, strode quickly to the stairway. He started down, but the woman called to him.
“Sir, my husband--”
Rayford put a finger to his lipsand whispered, “I know. We'll find him I'll be right back.”
What nonsense! he thought as he descended, awate of Hattie nght behind him. “We'll jind him”?
Hattie grabbed his shoulder and he slowed. “Should I turn on the cabin lights?”
“No,” he whispered. “The less people know right now, the better.
Rayford wanted to be strong to have answers, to be an example to his crew, to Hattie But when he reached the lower level he knew the rest of the flight would be chaotic. He was as scared as anyone on board. As he scanned the seats, he nearly panicked. He backed into a secluded spot behind the bulkhead and slapped himself hard on the cheek.
This was no joke, no trick, no dream. Something was terribly wrong and there was no place to run. There would be enough confusion and terror without his losing control. Nothing had prepared him for this, and he would be the one everybody would look to. But for what? What was he supposed to do?
First one, then another cried out when they realized their seatmates were missing but that their clothes were still there. They cried, they screamed, they leaped from their seats. Hattie grabbed Rayford from behind and wrapped her hands so tight around his chest that he could hardly breathe. “Rayford, what is this?”
He pulled her hands apart and tumed to face her. “Hattie, listen. I don't know any more than you do. But we've got to calm these people and get on the ground. I'll make some kind of an announcement, and you and your people keep everybody in their seats OK ?”
She nodded but she didn’t look OK at all. As he edged past her to hurry back to the cockpit, he heard her scream. So much for calming the passengers, he thought as he whirled to see her on her knees in the aisle. She lited a blazer, shirt and tie still intact. Trousers lay at her feet. Hattie frantically turned the blazer to the low light and read the name tag. “Tony!” she wailed. “Tony’s gone!”
Rayford snatched the clothes from her and tossed them behind the bulkhead. He lifted Hattie by her elbows and pulled her out of sight. “Hattie, we’re hours from touchdown. We can’t have a planeload of hysterical people. I’m going to make an announcement, but you have to do your job. Can you?”
She nodded, her eyes vacant. He forced her to look at him, “Will you?” he said.
She nodded again. “Rayford, are we going to die?”
“No,”he said. “That I’m sure of.” But he wasn’t sure of anything. How could he know? He’d rather have faced an engine fire or even an uncontrolled dive. A crash into the ocean had to be better than this, How would he keep peole calm in such a nightmare?
By now keeping the cabin lights off was doing more harm than good, and he was glad to be able to give Hattie a specific assignment, “I don’t know what “I’m going to say,” he said, “but get the lights on so we can make an accurate record of who’s here and who’s gone, and then get more of those foreign visitor declaration forms.”
For what?”
“Just do it. Have them ready.” Rayford didn’t know if he had done the right thing by leaving Hattie in charge of the passengers and crew. As he raced up the stairs, he caught sight of another attendant backing out of a galleyway, screaming. By now poor Christopher in the cockpit was the only one on the planse unaware of what was happening. Worse, Rayford had told Hattie he didn’t know what was happening any more than she did.
The terrifying truth was that he knew all too welll. Irene had been right. He, and most of his passengers, had been left behind.