all at once he smelled the acrid fumes from the bombed airplane. He watched now as one of the ambulances he’d seen earlier swung around the building and shot out toward the highway. The vehicle abruptly began swerving back and forth; suddenly it flipped over onto its side and burst into flames. The second ambulance, following some distance away, stopped with a squeal of brakes, and the side and back doors flew open and the emergency crew raced away, just seconds before the vehicle exploded.
For a while Chato had thought about taking one of the rental cars—he couldn’t call it stealing in an emergency situation like this—and getting the hell out of this weird place, but seeing what had happened to the two ambulances made him change his mind. Maybe it was just a coincidence, he told himself. And maybe not.
Maybe something didn’t want anything or anyone leaving the airport area.
It wasn’t a thought he wanted to contemplate for long.
He studied the countryside surrounding Dry Plains International. Well, whoever had named it had certainly gotten that name right. He didn’t see anything except a flat brown expanse stretching off to the horizon, and above it a murky faintly blue sky, almost as if there was a haze. No mountains, no rivers or lakes, no buildings, no trees or bushes or strange cacti, no landmarks whatsoever. It was as if a tabletop had been swept clear and this airport plunked down in the middle. He had seen some desolate places, but man, this beat ‘em all.
Comforting, he thought, real comforting. Just where the hell was this place?
To further increase his apprehension a dry hot wind howled around the corner of the building, and in the wind he thought he heard voices, strange voices that seemed to whisper his name.
Quickly he went back inside through the automatic doors before the electricity decided to go off and strand him outside. He wasn’t sure which was worse: being stuck outside or in. As if something had read his thoughts, the lights overhead flickered momentarily, and somewhere there was a high-pitched scream.
He decided right then and there to go where there were people. Safety in numbers? he could hear Sunny tease him. Damned right, honey. This level was far too deserted for his liking. Again, he felt like something was watching him, but again when he looked around, he saw no one.
The escalator stopped halfway between floors, and he was getting ready to walk up the rest of the distance when it started up again, only this time it went backwards. He managed to turn around before he got to the floor, then stood and stared at the slow-moving steps.
Well, he’d take the stairs now. Damned if he go on an elevator or try the escalator again.
As he walked toward the staircase, he thought he heard a sound like a moan. He stopped. There was no one near the escalator. Still no one at the car rental desks or airline counters. All that was left were two doors, each with its bland symbol symbolizing a man and a woman. He entered the men’s restroom first.
“Hello?”
No answer. He checked all the stalls. Nothing.
He went next door to the ladies’ restroom.
“Hello?”
He heard a movement in one of the stalls, and pushed open the door which hadn’t been locked. A young blonde woman—she couldn’t have been much over eighteen, he decided—huddled there. A very pregnant young woman, he thought, when she shifted.
“Do you need help?” he asked gently.
She nodded. When she looked up at him, he could see that tears had left mascara smudges down her cheeks.
“Let me take you back upstairs where there are other people,” he said.
“I-I think the baby’s about to come. I came in here. I didn’t know what else to do,” the girl said.
“Maybe there’s a doctor or nurse on the second floor,” Chato said as he took her by the hand, easing her to her feet. She shuffled forward a few inches, then groaned. He realized she needed to lay down right away, but he would have to get her upstairs for that. Maybe they could break into the airlines’ lounge. Surely they had couches in there.
But once he got the girl outside the bathroom and halfway to the escalator he realized they weren’t going to get upstairs. She could barely hobble and kept crying the entire time.
While he had been looking around, he’d seen an area back of the stairs that made a protected nook. He took her there and told her to wait, then searched the lower level until he found a chair for her. She sank into it with a grunt.
“I need to go up and see if there’s a doctor, okay?”
“No! Don’t leave me!” She gripped his hand.
“Look, miss—”
”Gail.”
“Gail,” he said, trying to keep his tone reasonable. He needed to calm her, reassure her somehow that everything would be all right, when he wasn’t at all sure himself that things would be all right. “It’ll just be a few minutes. You’re okay here. You’ve got this comfortable chair and—”
She squeezed his hand harder. “No, please, don’t leave. I think someone’s after me.”
“No one can see you back here,” he said. “It’s out of the way. You can’t be seen from the stairway or the doors or—”
”No, no, no! You don’t understand. I’ve been hearing this voice ever since I got off the plane. Gail, it’s been saying, give me your baby. I want your baby. I need your baby.”
Chato stared down at her tear-streaked face, and knew then that this wasn’t something she was imagining. She had heard the voice.
“Right. Okay. Look, give me a few minutes to scout around.” He held up a hand when she started to protest. “I won’t be long. But I want to see what I can find to make you more comfortable. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Just sit here and be quiet, and if anyone approaches...scream like hell, and I’ll come running.”
She nodded again, pressed a hand to her abdomen. “Thank you. You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“Chato.”
He ducked out of the nook and glanced around the lower level. Empty as before. Or was it? The hairs along the back of his neck prickled again. Someone watched. He had thought that before. Now he knew he wasn’t imagining it.
“Some Enchanted Evening” played on the music system.
That, he decided, could go off any time soon, and he’d be all the happier for it.
One airline counter over he found a door leading into an employees’ lounge. Lots to loot here, he thought with a wry smile. He dragged the seat cushions from some couches back to the nook. He would have brought a couch, he explained, but he didn’t think he could get it through the doorway.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
He returned to the lounge and found a closet full of the lap blankets that flight attendants give passengers, along with a dozen or more
