The Ghosts of Hexley Airport Read online

  His eyes were shut, although the lids were flickering slightly. Behind him, blackout screens covered the windows, blocking out all the daylight except for a thin strip at one edge.

  “I want to see you,” he added. “I need to see you. I need you to see me.”

  He waited a moment longer, before slowly opening his eyes.

  “No, I don't,” he whispered. “I don't need any of this, I just -”

  Suddenly he squeezed his eyes tight shut again, grimacing as if a burst of pain was rippling through his head.

  “I have to stop this!” he gasped, clutching his temples and pressing hard, trying to force the agony away. “She wouldn't want me to be this way! She'd hate me if she could see me this way! Just come to me once! Just let me see you one time, that's all I need! Just once! Please...”

  His voice trailed off.

  With the curtains pulled shut, the only light came from a few cracks at the edges of the window. This was enough to pick out the side of the man's sagging body. He'd been a fit man, once, muscular and tall and with a proud posture. Those days were long gone, and his muscles had begun to sag. Now, as a car passed the house and a little extra light briefly slipped into the room, the man's curly chest hairs quivered slightly. For a moment, a sliver of light caught the scrawl of tattooed text that covered his back.

  Suddenly he turned, looking across the room, as if he'd heard something.

  “I know about you!” he said firmly, speaking to the darkness. “I'm not an idiot! I'm not like the rest! You know who I am, you must know. Every time I've seen you, you've seen me in return. So let's cut the games here. I'm not scared of you, and that curtain you're watching me from can be opened from both sides.”

  He waited, before turning and heading over to the dresser next to the door. Taking the shaving mirror, he held it up so that he could see his own tired face. For a moment he stared at the bags under his eyes, and at the bags that had formed within the bags, and at the wrinkles that had long ago cracked their way through his once-young flesh. He tilted his face slightly, so as to get a better view of the lines that ran from the edges of his eyes, and then slowly he turned the mirror a few degrees. Cuts and dents on the glass caught the light, and the dust glowed.

  Outside, another car drove along the dark road.

  A hint of extra light entered the room.

  Just enough for the man to see a second pair of eyes in the mirror, staring at him from over his shoulder.

  “That's right,” the man purred, not daring to raise his voice too high, in case he scared his visitor away. “See? It's not so bad coming here. It doesn't hurt when I look at you, does it? That's not my intention, not at all. I want to you to stay, I want you to still be there when I turn to you. Can you do that?”

  He waited, and still the eyes stared at him from the darkness, reflected in the dirty mirror.

  Suddenly the man turned, he looked for some sign of the presence, but now it was gone. He reached out into the darkness with his left hand, as if he thought that he might actually feel the woman whose face he'd just spotted in the mirror, as if he wanted to snatch her and bring her back. Stepping forward, with the mirror still clutched in his right hand, he looked around the empty room.

  “I saw you!” he said firmly. “Just then! I saw you! What's the point of playing around like this? If I saw you then, why can't you stay and talk to me? I can help you! Don't you understand? I can do things for you, but I need you to speak to me!”

  As he waited for a reply from the empty room, another line of light caught his bare back. Two hundred and eighteen names had been tattooed in four columns, barely legible across the cracks of the man's old, leathery skin. At the top, above the names, his broad shoulders formed a kind of arch at the head of the monument he'd had written across his body. Over his shoulder-blades, an inscription had been tattooed into his flesh:

  IN MEMORIUM

  THOSE WE LOST

  IN THE HEXLEY AIRPORT DISASTER

  ON THE

  NINETEENTH DAY OF DECEMBER

  2007

  SEMBER NOBIS

  The names were below that section, running all the way down to the base of his back.

  “Come back to me!” he shouted finally, as a plane could be heard roaring through the sky high above. “Don't be scared! Come back to me or I'll drag you kicking and screaming from hell itself! I'll make you -”

  He gasped, as if the rush of words had briefly choked in his throat.

  “I've already seen some of you,” he continued. “I've seen you at the airport. I know you're still there.”

  ***

  “Forward!” the supervisor yelled, waving at the man on the observation gantry. “More! A little more!”

  Below the gantry, the nose of a large commercial airliner continued to edge slowly forward onto the deicing pad, as various cranes positioned themselves to deliver the second stage of the procedure. Men in yellow hazard uniforms, with masks covering their faces, began to maneuver the nozzles of their Type IV deicing equipment, aiming toward the plane's wings and stabilizers as heavy snow continued to fall all around. As soon as the plane had stopped in position, the deicing stations got to work, blasting the wings with a thick stream of liquid in preparation for takeoff.

  Faces peered out through the windows. Men, women, children, watching the work. Some were annoyed by the delay, others were fascinated. Some were nervous.

  Up on the main gantry, the supervisor grabbed his clipboard and made a couple of notes. While doing so, he glanced at the plane a couple of times, just to make sure that everything was going according to plan. A voice gabbled constantly in his ear, informing him of other planes that were already on the way to the pad, but he paid very little attention. All that mattered was the plane he was processing at that moment. He knew the next plane would already be in the queue, and the next after that, and probably a couple more. The voice in his ear was asking if he could hurry the job a little, but there was no way he'd ever agree to corners being cut. He took his job far too seriously.

  As he finished filling in the latest form, he glanced once again at the plane on the pad. Just as he was turning back to the form, however, he froze as if he'd suddenly realized that something had been amiss. Looking back at the plane, his eyes widened with shock as he saw that there was a human figure down on the ground, standing right under the plane and seemingly untroubled by the vast jets of deicing fluid spraying all around. The huge amounts of spray made it impossible to make out the figure's features, but someone was definitely standing just in front of the wheels.

  “Stop!” the supervisor shouted, hitting the red emergency button that signaled to all the others that they had to immediately shut off their nozzles.

  Staring down toward the pad, the supervisor waited as vast clouds of smoke and steam began to clear. He was watching the spot where the figure had been standing, but now there was no sign of anyone. Remnants of fluid dribbled down from the plane's sides, splattering against the pad, and snow was still falling. The figure, however, was gone.

  “What's wrong?” asked the voice in his ear, speaking to him from the comfort of a warm and comfortable control room elsewhere at the airport. “Why did you stop them? We've got a queue building!”

  “I saw someone down on the pad!”

  “Why the hell would someone be down on the pad?”

  “I don't know, but I saw someone!”

  Turning, he began to clamber down the icy red ladder. As soon as he reached the ground, he headed toward the plane, while waving at the pilots to wait and looking around for some sign of the figure he'd spotted just a minute or two earlier.

  “What's up, boss?” one of the men yelled from high up on one of the cranes. “Why'd you stop us?”

  “Didn't you see it?” he shouted back to him.

  “See what?

  “There was someone here,” he muttered under his breath, even though the whole situation made no sense at all. He knew nobody in their right mind would go so close to
a plane that was being deiced, and he also knew that anyone who'd been down there would most likely have ended up knocked out by the fumes. There was no-one around, however, and finally he was left standing alone near one of the plane's huge wheels.

  “Can we please get on with this?” the voice in his ear asked. “You've got a hell of a queue building up behind you, Jack!”

  “I know,” he whispered, still looking around, still convinced that he hadn't imagined the whole thing, “I just... I swear there was someone down here. Someone was watching.”

  ***

  “You're in the terminal building, too,” the tattooed man whispered, crouched alone in the dark and shivering as he waited for the ghosts. “You want to be seen, don't you? You want what was taken from you.”

  ***

  “Can I have a comic?” John asked, sitting on the blue-cushioned chair close to gate 14B and swinging his legs. After a moment, realizing he was still being ignored, he looked up at his father. “Dad? Can I have a comic?”

  “You have a comic. I bought you a comic at the gas station on the way here.”

  “I read it.”

  “Then read it again.”

  “I've read the whole thing, cover to cover. Even the letter from the editor, which no-one ever reads.”

  “I'm not made of money, John,” his father replied. “We'll be boarding soon. Just amuse yourself for a few more minutes.”

  “How?”

  “Think of something.”

  “But how?”

  His father sighed. “Use your imagination.”

  “How?”

  “Just be inventive.”

  “How?”

  “Fine!” Reaching into his pocket, John's father took out a few coins and dropped them into his son's hands. “Make sure you're back by -”

  “Thanks, Dad!” John replied, jumping off the seat and striding along the crowded aisle, making for the bookshop at the far end of the busy terminal building.

  All around, hundreds and hundreds of travelers were waiting for their planes to depart. John glanced at some of the faces, as if the sight of so many people was almost mesmerizing. Voices were calling over the tannoy system for passengers to report to various departure gates, while several arguments had broken out at reservation and check-in desks. John walked past a man who was trying to make up with a woman, as if he'd done something wrong and now desperately needed forgiveness. A moment later, he passed a sobbing woman who was sitting alone and typing a message into a phone. A little further along, a younger woman was babbling excitedly into her phone, talking about her plans for the evening and explaining that her plane had been delayed by ninety minutes due to the bad weather. A moment later, a man in a business suit hurried past John, bumping against him slightly and muttering an apology as he broke into a jog on the way to gate seven.

  John turned and watched the man for a moment, before resuming his walk to the shop. The whole scene all around him was one of barely controlled chaos.

  And then he stopped again, staring through the sea of people and watching a woman who was sitting three rows away. And she, in turn, was watching him.

  This woman was unlike all the others in the crowded terminal. For one thing, she was wearing all black. Even her hair was black. For another, her heavy eyes were staring straight ahead, looking directly at John as if she'd pinpointed him among the crowd. Set off guard by her gaze, John waited, as if hoping that she'd suddenly look away, but instead the woman kept her eyes firmly fixed on him, even as various passengers milled about in the space between the two of them. Every few seconds, the woman was briefly hidden by passing bodies, but each time she was still staring at him when she came back into view. Finally, feeling unnerved, John turned and hurried toward the bookstore. As he reached the entrance to the store, however, he glanced back toward the woman.

  She was still staring at him.

  For the next few minutes, John loitered in the store, looking at the magazine rack and occasionally glancing back out toward the seats. The woman was still staring at him, even from several hundred feet away, and finally John moved further into the store until he was out of sight. Now when he looked over his shoulder, the woman was well out of sight, and he relaxed a little as he continued to search for something to read. Still, he glanced back every thirty seconds or so, as if he was worried that the woman might follow him into the store. Eventually, after he'd been wandering through the bookstore for almost ten minutes, his phone started ringing in his pocket and he fished it out.

  “Hey Dad, is -”

  “Where are you?”

  “The bookstore.”

  “Okay. You need to be back here in the next five minutes, okay? We're going to be boarding soon.”

  “Sure, but I saw this really creepy -”

  “Just get whatever you want to read and come back.”

  “But Dad, this woman -”

  “I don't care about some woman, John. Find a comic and get back here.”

  With that, his father cut the call, leaving John standing alone in the crowded store. He looked toward the entrance one more time, just to make sure that there was still no sign of the woman, and then finally he took a comic book from the shelf and headed over to pay at the cash desk. He had to queue for a while, still glancing over his shoulder several times to check whether the woman was in sight, and then finally he reached the desk and paid, before heading out of the store. Clearly still feeling a little uncomfortable, he slowed as he got to the exit, and he looked out at the seats, searching to see if there was any sign of the woman.

  She was gone.

  Sighing, John took a couple of steps toward the aisle that led to his father, and then he spotted a sign for the bathroom. After hesitating for a moment, he turned and hurried along the brightly-lit corridor that led to the men's room. He knew he had to hurry, and that his father would phone again if he took much longer, so once he was through the door he peed as quickly as possible and then washed his hands in a flash before rushing back out into the corridor and heading toward the seats. Just as he was about to leave the corridor that led to the bathroom, however, a figure stepped in his way, and John let out a startled gasp as he pulled back and looked up at the woman's face.

  “Have you seen her?” she asked, her voice sounding frail and damaged.

  “What?” he stammered, taking a step back.

  “My daughter. Have you seen my daughter?”

  “I don't know anything about anyone,” he replied, trying to step around her, only for her to block his way.

  “Where's my daughter?” the woman asked.

  “I don't know. Can I get past, please? Thank you.”

  John tried again to get by the woman, before looking up at her face and freezing as he saw that her flesh seemed so very tight, as if it was clinging to her bones. The woman's eyes seemed almost to have sunk into their sockets, and John took a step back as he noticed that her hands were extremely thin. In fact, there seemed to be patches on her fingers where she had no skin at all, where bare white bone had worn through.

  “What have you done with my daughter?” she asked.

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” John replied, struggling to hold back tears. He turned and looked back toward the bathroom, and then he looked out toward the main seating area. Since the woman had stepped in his way, not one person had gone anywhere near the bathrooms. It was almost as if everyone else in the terminal had subconsciously realized that they had to stay back.

  “What have you done with her?” the woman gasped, her voice trembling a little more now, betraying a hint of panic. “I want her right now, do you understand? I want her back! Give her to me!”

  “I don't -”

  “Where is she?” she shouted, stumbling toward John and reaching out with bony hands. “Give her back!”

  “Don't touch me!” he yelled, pulling away and then trying to get past her, only to fall back as the woman again lunged at him. “I don't know anything about your daughter! Leave me a
lone!”

  He tried again to get past, before panicking and running back the way he'd come. As soon as he was back inside the men's bathroom, he turned and grabbed the handle, ready to slam the door shut.

  “Where's my daughter?” the woman screamed, lunging at him, and now her entire face was bloodied and burned, with scraps of charred flesh peeling away from pinkish meat. “What have you done with her?”

  Crying out, John threw his weight against the door to keep it shut. With tears streaming from his eyes, he fell down onto the floor, still pushing the door as he felt the woman trying to force her way through. He could hear her bony fingers scratching on the other side, and his own hands were trembling with fear as he fumbled in his pockets and finally pulled out his phone, desperately trying to bring up a number.

  “Where are you, John?” his father snapped as soon as he answered. “They just -”

  “Help me!” he sobbed.

  “John? What's going on?”

  “She's after me! Dad, help! I'm in the toilets! She's trying to get me!”

  Even as he said the words, he felt the door shudder again as the woman tried once more to push through.

  “John, where exactly are you?” his father asked, sounding concerned. “Are you still in the bookstore? Jesus Christ, what kind of stunt are you pulling?”

  “I'm in the toilets!” he whimpered. “There's a woman and she's mad and she's trying to get me! She keeps talking about her daughter but I don't know what she wants! I think she's insane or something!”

  “For God's sake, this is ridiculous!” his father muttered. “John, I swear that if you -”

  “Help me!” he screamed.

  The door bumped again, but John pressed his feet against the wall and wedged himself in the gap.

  “Hello?” a voice called out from the other side. “Is someone in there?”

  “Leave me alone!” John shouted. “I don't know anything!”

  “John!” his father yelled after a moment. “Open this door immediately!”