Forgotten Fears (20 page)

“It’s okay to be scared. Nobody has to know.”

Carol looked at her feet, then at her hands. “I—” she swallowed, struggling to formulate her words.

Sylvia took Carol’s hands in her own.

“It’s okay, we’re all feeling a little...strange today,” Sylvia said, confident that she had gotten through to the young girl.

Carol flicked her eyes to David, who stood behind the two women with a semi-amused smile. She licked her lips and tried to speak with conviction, but the shake in her voice betrayed her fearless expression.

“There’s nothing out there to be scared of. Now please, let me do my job,” she said sharply as she pulled her hands away from Sylvia’s, and adopted a defiant pose, hands lodged firmly on hips.

Under ordinary circumstances, Sylvia wouldn’t have accepted such attitude, however, she was aware that the situation was far from ordinary, and so felt obliged to give Carol more leeway than she otherwise would have. “Then go to it. The first sign of any trouble….” she trailed off, as Carol seemed to swell with an ugly but obviously fragile confidence, as she glanced again at David, allowing a ghost of a smile to formulate on her lips. “What kind of trouble, I’m only serving drinks.”

Sylvia glared at the young stewardess. “Take this as a warning, honey. You speak to me or anyone else on board this aircraft again like that, you will be out of a job quicker than a hiccup, you got it?”

Realizing she had overstepped the mark; she flushed, lowering her head.  “Yes, of course, I’m sorry,” Carol mumbled.

Sylvia nodded as Carol grasped the trolley risking another glance at the still smiling David, who was watching, arms folded and leaning on the air-sealed door. Carol pushed past him on her way with the drinks.

Sylvia turned and glared at David just long enough to make him squirm and to wipe the arrogant smile off his face, then turned her attention back to Cindy.

III

Sipping her mug of tea, Sylvia tried to relax and ignore the fact that the whole incident with Carol had managed to get under her skin.  She sat in the jump seat opposite Cindy, who continued to stare out of the porthole window.

“It’s quiet out there,” Sylvia said, watching Cindy’s reaction carefully.

“Yeah, it’s a weird one alright.”

“You know Cindy, the crew are at breaking point, and all due respect, you need to take control before things get out of hand.”

Cindy nodded. “Of course, I’m so sorry, I—I really don’t know what’s come over me.”

“Whatever it is, it’s affecting all of us.”

Cindy had never known Sylvia to be intimidated or worried by anything for as long as they had known each other.

“Sylvia...” Cindy said, nervously licking her lips as she searched for the right words. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

Sylvia chuckled, taking a sip of her drink. “No more than the rest of us on board this damn tin can.”

They both shared a laugh, the smiles quickly melting from their faces as Sylvia grew serious.

“Back here it’s not so obvious, but out there,”

She rubbed at the crucifix on her neck and lowered her voice. “Out there...something is in the air. It feels....dirty.”

Cindy nodded, recalling the sick feeling of dread she had felt when she had come face to face with the black-eyed man.

The smooth ride of the aircraft brought no sense of calm, and within the pressurized confines of the cabin, it was still deathly silent. Cindy waited anxiously for something to happen, but other than the horrible sense of dread, the flight seemed to be as routine as any she had ever experienced before. She was just starting to relax when Carol came back through the curtain. Both she and Sylvia saw it right away. Gone was the cocky, self-confident exuberance. She looked blankly at them, her lip trembling as she tried to hold it all together.

“What’s wrong?” Sylvia asked, standing and placing a reassuring arm around her shoulder. Cindy didn’t move. She knew perfectly well what the problem was before Carol even opened her mouth.

“His eyes…” was all she managed before she began to sway on her feet, and was helped to one of the free jump seats by Sylvia and David.

Sylvia turned to Cindy, and rather than the calm confidence, there was a hint of fear etched onto her face. “You need to tell me what’s happening here right now.”

Knowing there was no way to avoid it, and that as crazy as she would sound, it had to be shared, Cindy told the rest of the crew about her experience with the man with the black eyes. They sat in silence for a while, until David broke it with a nervous laugh.

“I don’t believe any of it,” He said matter of factly, leaning on the curved white interior wall. “I went up there and everything seemed okay.”

“Well, something is obviously wrong. You only have to look around to see that.” Sylvia said, giving him a cold stare. “Besides, you seemed spooked when those other passengers got off the plane before take-off.”

“It’s just nerves,” David hissed back, and although he was trying to put on a brave showing, his eyes darted nervously and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Besides, people get off planes all the time, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Fine,” said Sylvia, standing and looking him in the eye. “You say nothing is happening, the girls here say there is.  I’ll go take a look for myself and then we can decide what we should do about it.”

“It’s a waste of time, you know that, don’t you?” he said, staring at the dividing curtain.

“Maybe, but I’m still going up there to take a look. You stay here and make sure everyone keeps calm, okay?”

“Okay,” He repeated as he gave another uncertain glance to the dividing curtain.

“Good. Then we understand each other. But you have to keep calm. There are almost three hundred passengers on board this aircraft, and the last thing we want is a mass panic, understood?”

He nodded, and then sat beside Carol.

Sylvia paused at the curtain and wondered what was so terrible that it had seemingly incapacitated the crew in some form or other. She was determined to find out, even if it might mean they had to deal with something truly unique.

The walk towards the front of the aircraft seemed to last forever, and as she made her way closer to the passenger in seat 6A, she felt her heart begin to beat a little faster. She walked straight past him at first, moving through the curtain dividing the front section of the aircraft from the passengers. She took a moment to compose herself, and then peeked back through a small gap in the blue curtain. She saw him immediately. Just as David had said, the seats beside him had been vacated, and she could see why.

He was looking out of the small window at the ocean of clouds, but she could tell even from his profile that it was exactly as both Cindy and Carol had said. His eyes were bottomless inky pools, and she started to pray under her breath as she watched him. As if he heard her mumbled words, he turned slowly towards her, locking his expressionless sharks gaze on the tiny gap in the curtain from where she watched. She felt nausea sweep over her, and her legs almost gave way. She suddenly understood why Carol and Cindy had been so affected, for it was plain that this thing was evil. She reached up to grasp her crucifix and increased the tempo of her prayers. The black-eyed thing in 6A seemed to grimace and then turned its gaze back towards the window.

The instant its eyes were off her, she began to feel more in control of her body, and the nausea passed. She realized that the hand not holding the crucifix was clenched into a tight fist, and as she relaxed her grip, she saw tiny crescents of blood in her palm from the pressure.

Her next thought was of what to do next. The black-eyed man had boarded with no trouble and had caused none since the flight had been in progress. However, like Cindy, her mind was now filled with images of mid-air explosions and depressurized cabins. Somehow fighting off the urge to panic, she hurried back down to the rear of the craft, staring straight ahead and just about resisting the urge to scream and run.

A cup of tea later, Sylvia was almost back to her normal self. So far she had said nothing and rightly guessed that she probably didn’t have to, as her facial expression would tell enough.

The crew was waiting expectantly, and with deceptive calm, Sylvia set her cup down and spoke. “We need to turn around and land this plane.”

“What happened?” Cindy asked, chewing her lip nervously.

Sylvia turned to the rest of the crew before she answered. “There’s evil on this plane, and if we don’t land, I think we could all be in serious trouble.”

“Oh come on, not you too,” David said, shaking his head. “This is crazy.”

“Go look for yourself,” She said simply.

“No, I don’t want to do that.”

“Then please be quiet, unless you have something worthwhile to add.”

“We can’t turn around now,” Carol said. “Not without causing a panic or having a damn good reason. I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t really want to have to try and explain this to the pilot.”

Sylvia looked towards Cindy, and her friend nodded.

“I’ll speak to him. I know him outside of here, but for the record, I don’t think he will go for it.” Cindy said.

“You’re sure you’re willing to do that?” Sylvia asked.

“I don’t see what choice we have.”

“Alright, if you’re happy to try to convince him, then we would all appreciate it. Just don’t do this if it’s going to make you feel uncomfortable” Sylvia said, unable to hide the shadow of fear from her eyes.

“I can’t promise anything. All I can do is try to convince him.”

IV

“Absolutely not,” Captain Henshaw said, as he looked Cindy up and down.

“Please,” she said, trying to keep as composed as she could in front of this despicable man.

“Sylvia seems to think—”

“She doesn’t get paid to think, she gets paid to look after the crew, the same as you do. You can leave the thinking to us.”

“You are prepared to risk the lives of these people just to prove a point?”

Henshaw turned towards her, as the co-pilot and navigator tried their bests to ignore the confrontation.

“Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about anything outside of this aircraft. Right now I’m doing my job, which is what you should be doing. If every captain turned around every time someone was spooked or had a bad feeling, then nobody would ever get where they were going.”

“This isn’t about the crew or even the flight,” She shot back. “This is about me rejecting you.”

“Really,” he said, snorting down his nose. “Don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t as big a deal as you think.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, because as soon as we land in Boston, I’m done. You can consider this my notice.”

“Your loss,” Henshaw said with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders.  “But with or without your resignation, the flight will go on as scheduled. Now you can do whatever you have to in order to keep the crew and passengers safe, but you will do your job and we will continue on to Boston without interruption. Is that understood?”

There was so much that she wanted to scream at the arrogant, pompous man, but she knew that to do so would only please him and show that he had managed to get under her skin. Instead, she turned and opened the cockpit door. As she was leaving, Henshaw called over his shoulder.

“Oh, and before you and your crew make more mountains out of molehills, be aware that we’re heading into a storm, so expect some turbulence.”

Cindy felt sick and knew that was how it would happen. How they would all die at the hands of the black-eyed man.

Henshaw smiled, mistaking her distress for anger, then turned back to the controls of the aircraft.

She made her way back to the rest of the crew, flashing the black-eyed man a wary glance as she passed him. He was looking out of the window, and she was grateful for the small mercy that his opaque gaze was turned away from her.

She told the crew of the outcome of her attempt to talk the captain around, and they stood in the galley, wondering what to do. Sylvia listened, and watched as Cindy told her story, and when she finished speaking, Sylvia took over.

“I’m not convinced we can stop this creature,” she started, looking at each of them in turn “But I’m willing to try and hold him at bay until we land.”

“Hold him off how?” David asked quietly, his eyes flicking between Sylvia and the curtain leading towards the passengers.

“When I went up there to see him for myself, he looked at me, and I grabbed my crucifix and prayed. He didn’t seem to like that, and I think it weakened him.”

“You think it did?” Carol asked.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“No, but it’s all we have, I can’t do it alone, though, I’ll need all of you to help me.”

“By praying?” Carol said her voice shrill “I don’t see how that will help.”

“Keep it down,” David said, glaring at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “it’s just that... I don’t believe…”

“I understand,” Sylvia said, offering the younger woman a warm smile. “But even if you don’t, I need you to do it anyway; I don’t think I will be strong enough on my own.”