The Ghosts of Hexley Airport Read online

  Copyright 2017 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  First published: March 2017

  Ten years ago, more than two hundred people died in a horrific plane crash at Hexley Airport.

  Today, some say their ghosts still haunt the terminal building.

  When she starts her new job at the airport, working a night shift as part of the security team, Casey assumes the stories about the place can't be true. Even when she has a strange encounter in a deserted part of the departure hall, she's certain that ghosts aren't real.

  Soon, however, she's forced to face the truth. Not only is there something haunting the airport's buildings and tarmac, but a sinister force is working behind the scenes to replicate the circumstances of the original accident. And as a snowstorm moves in, Hexley Airport looks set to witness yet another disaster.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  The Ghosts of Hexley Airport

  Prologue

  Ten years ago

  Tammy always hated it when her parents split up.

  “Cabin crew, cross-check and report.”

  It was always the same. After weeks and weeks of arguing, her mother would announce that she was taking Tammy to London, so they could stay with Grandma and Granddad Ives. Then there'd be more arguments, during which Tammy would mostly stay in her room, and then finally Mummy would announce that the decision had been taken, that the plane tickets were bought, and that Tammy had to pack whatever she could fit into her little ladybug suitcase. Things had been bad, ever since her little sister had died a while back, and the family had slowly crumbled.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, now that the deicing is complete, we're finally ready to get going.”

  She and her mother had already flown to London twice in the past six months, and this trip would be the third. The whole thing was always stressful, but the worst part was that Tammy knew it wouldn't be for very long. She knew she'd hear Mummy talking to Daddy on the phone, and that there'd be lots of tears, and that in a week or two Mummy would decide that they should fly back up to Scotland and try again. The break-ups were really very repetitive, and Tammy – despite being barely seven years old – had begun to think that sometimes her parents could be extremely annoying. She also wondered whether she'd be like Mummy when she got older, or whether she'd be able to live more calmly.

  “Cabin crew, prepare for take-off.”

  Still, at least she no longer cried so much at the airport, or as the plane took off. She knew that they'd be flying back soon enough. And then leaving again probably, one day.

  “Don't be scared, Tammy,” her mother said as the other passengers began to settle in their seats. “When I was your age, I always thought take-off was the most fun part.”

  “I'm not scared, Mummy,” Tammy replied, looking up at her mother's teary-eyed face. “We've done this lots of times.”

  “That's the spirit,” her mother replied, reaching over and clutching the girl's hand tight. “You know this time is for real, don't you? This time we're never coming back to Scotland. I know we've done this a lot, but it's different now.”

  “You always say that.”

  “But this time I mean it.”

  “You always say that too.”

  “Tammy -”

  “It's okay, Mummy. I understand.”

  Sighing, her mother leaned back in the seat as the engines began to roar, ready for take-off. She was whispering to herself, muttering something under her breath as if she was trying to get her nerves under control.

  “Do you think we'll be back by Christmas?” Tammy asked.

  “We're not coming back at all. This time, it's permanent.”

  “If we're not back by Christmas, will Daddy post my presents or -”

  “We're not coming back!” her mother hissed, letting go of her hand with a sigh. “Can you just stop asking questions? Look out the window or something.”

  “But Mummy -”

  “Mummy's got a headache. It'd really help if you could cut out all the questions and just let me think. This is very hard on me.”

  Tammy stared up at her mother for a moment longer, before turning and looking out the window as she felt the plane starting to rumble toward the runway. Peering out, she saw howling snow still swirling through the air as they took a right turn and slowed for a few seconds with the engines humming. She could just about make out the shabby old terminal building and the radar tower a few hundred meters away. Furrowing her brow, she tried to count exactly how many times she'd flown now, but she gave up after reaching six. It was certainly a lot.

  Suddenly the plane jolted forward, and Tabby instinctively gripped the armrests as she heard the engines roar. She turned and looked straight ahead as the plane sped along the runway, and she waited for the sensation of the wheels leaving the ground. That was always the best part.

  “This time it's for good,” her mother muttered in the seat next to her, seemingly giving herself a quiet pep-talk. “This time, we're not going to be tricked into giving him another chance. That asshole can do what he wants, but I'm not wasting the best years of my life on him. Not anymore.”

  Before Tammy could really give much thought about why her mother was calling her father an asshole, she felt a familiar jolt in her stomach as the plane roared up off the tarmac and began to climb. Leaning back in the seat, she listened to the screaming engines and felt a faint vibration shuddering through the plane. A moment later she heard a heavy bump from somewhere below, which she figured was just some of the luggage moving around in the plane's hold, and then she felt the plane veering to the left as it continued to rise from the airport. She always liked the part where the plane took a sharp turn after take-off. That was her favorite part of flying. She felt very brave.

  Suddenly the plane turned again, veering sharp right and sending another jolt through Tammy's stomach. Instinctively, she gripped the armrests of the chair even tighter.

  “Mummy -”

  Before she could get another word out, the plane turned left again, this time tilting at an even more extreme angle. At the same time, a sudden metallic clanking sound began to ring out, as if someone was banging the outside of the plane with a huge metal bar, sending a series of heavy vibrations thudding into Tammy through the seat. A moment later, a loud beeping sound began to ring out through the plane as bags slid around in the overhead lockers. Tammy didn't know what any of it meant, but she knew it had never happened before.

  “Mummy, what's wrong?” she gasped, as the plane tilted even further and she felt herself straining against the seat-belt. She was starting to feel sick.

  “What's going on?” a man yelled from one of the rows ahead of them.

  From near the back of the plane, panicked voices called out. The plane tipped again, and now the alarm signal was ringing louder than ever.

  “Ladies and -” the captain's voice began to say over the speakers, before cutting out a
s more voices shouted from somewhere near the plane's front.

  “Mummy, what's wrong?” Tammy called out, feeling herself getting pressed against the right side of her seat as the plane swung around and tilted to an even more extreme angle. Then the plane swung yet again and Tammy instantly felt sick as the forces pressed her down into her seat.

  “- back to Hexley Airport,” the captain's voice said suddenly, against the sound of alarms ringing in the cockpit. “Please brace for an emergency -”

  Before he could finish, there was a loud jolt that shook the entire plane. Tammy reached for her mother's hand but missed, and then she tried again, this time managing to grab her arm. Looking up at her mother's face, hoping for reassurance, Tammy instead saw an expression of pure fear. A moment later, looking between the two seats in front of her, she realized she could hear a woman praying.

  The plane lurched again, accompanied by a loud bang from somewhere at the rear. At the same time, some of the overhead compartments clicked open and bags and holdalls came raining down onto the passengers.

  “We're upside down!” Tammy screamed, as she looked out the window and saw the ground rushing closer. “We're upside down! We're upside down! We're upside down!”

  London - The cause of the deadly Hexley air crash WILL eventually be identified, investigators insisted last night following reports that their work would be scaled back.

  Earlier in the day, leaked government documents suggested that a new panel would be set up to examine the cause of the accident. But relatives of crash victims responded angrily, accusing the government of backing down from a promise to do 'all it takes' to figure out what really happened.

  “Until we know why that plane crashed,” said Joe Opborn, who lost his brother Keith in the accident, “it could happen again. The government can't pinch pennies when it comes to uncovering the truth.”

  218 people were killed when flight DSE9191 crashed shortly after takeoff from Hexley, en route to London. And while bosses have now had six months to investigate the cause of the crash, sources have claimed privately that little progress has been made.

  Terrorism has not been ruled out, but search chiefs are said to have been focusing on the possibility of mechanical failure or human error. But there is still no definitive news regarding the cause of the tragedy. Now the relatives of the dead say they're worried the lessons of Hexley might never be learned.

  For more on this story, turn to pages 4 and 5 of this newspaper. And don't forget to have your say online.

  Chapter One

  Today

  A red light blinked suddenly to life, burning bright through the snowy air.

  Month-old ice carried the glow all the way to the side of the signal box's casing, casting a very faint, flickering pattern. The bulb was well past its recommended replacement date, but engineers always preferred to wait until spring if possible, to avoid chiseling away the ice and cracking open the panel on the rear of the casing. So far, this particular bulb was still going, still burning. Still doing its job.

  Although its primary purpose was to warn oncoming vehicles of plane traffic on the tarmac ahead, the traffic light system was always left in an automated loop overnight, just to make sure that the freezing weather didn't cause any problems with the mechanisms. Start-up and shutdown were always the riskiest moments. An old superstition of the engineers, perhaps, but one that had lasted for many years. So now, even though no vehicles and no planes were on the move at 1am, an internal timer counted down the seconds until it would be time to switch.

  And still the red light burned, long beyond its recommended replacement date.

  All was well, except that on this particular night there was a faint crunching sound nearby, as if a set of feet had suddenly begun trampling through the snow that had built up around the base of the signal tower. No human figure was visible, but the sound of footsteps continued to ring out through the cold night air before finally fading after several minutes. The sound had been exactly that of a solitary individual walking past the entrance point to gates 7A and 7B and then proceeding around the next corner toward the security checkpoint. Had anybody else been around to look, however, they would have seen no sign of such a figure.

  Just the sound of footsteps.

  Finally the red light blinked back to green and immediately began its countdown to red again. It would continue this alternation all through the snowy night, even as ice clung to its casing, and even though there was supposed to be nobody around to see. It was as if the countdown mechanism, buried deep inside the frozen casing, knew that it had to hang on even though it should have been replaced a long, long time ago.

  ***

  “Hello? Um, hello? Is anyone coming to let me out of here?”

  Casey waved at the camera one more time, offering a faint smile. It had been almost twenty minutes since the door behind her had closed, sealing her inside the muddy-floored security entrance area, but so far the door ahead had remained stubbornly sealed. She'd been told over the intercom, by a buzzy and almost indecipherable voice, that someone would be down to meet her shortly and show her through to the main office, and that was the last she'd heard. Since then, she'd been left in the small room – no more than five meters by five – and it was starting to appear as if she'd been forgotten.

  She tried not to be nervous by nature, but already she was starting to wonder whether she had enough air.

  “I don't know if you can hear me!” she continued, forcing a smile as she continued to look at the camera, “but, um, I was just wondering whether anyone's coming.”

  She waited.

  “Like... I just wondered...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  Clad in her pristine new security officer's uniform and with a backpack over her shoulder, she took a step forward and tried the door again. It was still locked, of course, as was the door behind her. The security entrance system was designed to make sure that nobody could enter the airport terminal without proper authorization, although there were times when the clumsy mix of high-tech and low-tech seemed to get in one another's way. This was one of those times. Taking a step back, her boots splashing slightly in the puddles on the red-tiled floor, Casey stared up at the camera again as the storm continued to how outside.

  The camera's pitch-black dome stared back at her.

  “I don't know if I did something wrong,” Casey added finally. “Maybe I was supposed to open the door within a certain time, and I was too late? Or maybe I was supposed to turn something, or click something. I don't know, but I don't see a button to press now, so if someone could let me know...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “I think I got the door wrong,” she suggested.

  Got the door wrong?

  She sighed as she realized that she was probably already looking like a complete idiot. After all, she reasoned, what kind of person couldn't even get through a set of doors without a problem?

  “Oh, shoot,” she muttered. “Okay. Think.”

  Biting her bottom lip, she looked around for anything she might have missed. A door-release mechanism, perhaps, or an intercom. Turning to look back toward the first door, she felt completely lost for a moment, until suddenly she turned eagerly as she heard footsteps in the distance, traipsing closer and closer toward the other side of the door in front of her. Given the utter silence of the previous few minutes, she felt a sudden burst of hope that this embarrassing situation was finally coming to an end.

  A few seconds later, the footsteps came to a halt and she heard a tapping sound, followed by a beep, and finally the door shuddered open to reveal the smiling figure of old Tom Watson, the night-duty security manager.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, holding up a chipped mug with a faded image on the side. “I had a little accident on the way down to meet you. I spilled tea all over one of the monitor panels and, well, I had to quickly soak it up so it wouldn't get into anything important. Didn't mean to leave you waiting.”

  “It's qu
ite alright,” she replied eagerly. “I was happy. To wait, I mean.”

  Stepping aside, he gestured for her to go through.

  “Come on, in with you. It's cold here.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, splashing through the muddy water and stepping into one end of a long, brightly-lit corridor with shiny cream walls and no doors on either side.

  High up on the wall, another camera watched her.

  “I don't know if you've worked at an airport before,” Tom continued, shutting the door and then giving it a quick push to make sure the locking mechanism had engaged, “but Hexley's not exactly Gatwick or Heathrow. Still, that doesn't mean we take security any less seriously. In fact, just last month we got new guidelines from the government about implementing level-B arrangements, which is why we needed to hire a new hand for the night shift. You might think even that is insufficient. You might be right. Still, nobody asks the likes of us, do they?”

  He patted her on the shoulder as he stepped past her, and then he began to make his way toward the corridor's far end.

  “Come on.”

  “Thank you so much for the opportunity,” Casey said, hurrying after him. “I know maybe you were looking for somebody with more experience, but I'm a very hard worker. And I learn really fast.”

  “Oh, don't worry about thanking me,” he replied. “To be honest, we weren't exactly inundated with applications for the graveyard shift, and since I was in charge of picking someone, I figured it'd be good to hire someone young, someone who can learn and make a career of this.” He glanced back at her. “You're planning on sticking around, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” she stammered. “Of course. I need a job.”

  “That's the spirit. You'll do fine.”

  Leading her around the corner, he stopped as they finally reached a door.

  “So where's everyone else?” Casey asked.