Free Blind Panic by Graham Masterton

and nine unsuspecting passengers.”
    “ Shit , sorry! Beginner’s jitters, I guess.”
    “Well, I’m sure glad they didn’t hear that .”
    The 747-400 dipped and swayed in the crosswinds. Up ahead of them in the darkness, Tyler could see the sparkling lights of the Southern California coast scattered all the way across the horizon.
    “EO system set?” asked Captain Sherman.
    “Check,” said Tyler.
    “Pressurization set? Humidifier off. Set the airfield altitude so that the plane is depressurized on landing. One hundred twenty-eight feet above sea level, in this case.”
    “Erm…check.”
    “Set the HSIs to radio navigation mode.”
    “Check.”
    “Set auto brakes. Wouldn’t want to touch down safely but find we can’t stop, would we? Don’t think the residents of Inglewood would appreciate it too much.”
    Tyler pulled a pretend-scared face, but Captain Sherman couldn’t see him, and in any case he wasn’t really pretending.
    “Cabin signs and exit lights on. Ignition on. Fuel system set for landing. Fuel heat off. QNH set. Check hydraulics. Landing flaps set at twenty-five degrees.”
    Tyler had to blink the perspiration out of his eyes, and every muscle in his shoulders and upper arms was locked with tension. He was seriously beginning to believe that he couldn’t do this, even if his own life and the lives of more than two hundred other people depended on it. All the movie stunts he performed were meticulously calculated, worked out to the very last millimeter by people who knew exactly what they were doing, and if he suspected that the risks were unacceptable, he simply wouldn’t do them. But with this stunt, he didn’t have any choice. He had to do it. And he had no opportunity to rehearse it, either.
    “Now I want you to locate the flight-management system," said Captain Sherman. “There are two buttons on the glare shield, marked LNAV and VNAV. Take out the Jepp map for LAX. Set it on a hundred-mile scale using the EFIS control panel. When it’s time to land, you’ll get a yellow FM message on the middle screen.”
    Tyler fumbled over setting the Jeppesen map, and the lights of Los Angeles seemed to be frighteningly close already.
    “There’s a knob on the control display unit between our seats. You got it? Twist it until the little numbers go down to one hundred feet above field elevation—two hundred twenty-eight feet.”
    “Okay…done it.”
    “Now announce, ‘Cabins secured for landing.’”
    Tyler could see LAX now, its runway lights tilting as they made their final approach.
    “Press the LOC and G/S buttons on the glareshield," said Captain Sherman. “All three CMD lights should go on.”
    “Yeah, right. Roger, they have.”
    The engines screamed as the 747 descended at two hundred fifty knots toward Runway 7L.
    “Flaps thirty,” said Captain Sherman. “Turn on the auto brakes.”
    “ Fifty ,” said the radar altimeter in a flat, mechanical voice. “ Thirty .”
    For a long moment Tyler was sure that the four-hundred-ton aircraft was flying too fast and too high and they were going to miss the runway altogether. He had prayed only a few times in his life before—prayed and really meant it—but as the 747 sped above the runway at a height of less than ten feet and still hadn’t touched its wheels to the ground, he whispered, “ Save me, God. ”
    There was a jarring jolt, and the plane bounced off to the left. Then there was another jolt, and then another, and then the 747’s eighteen tires started squealing as if they were a chorus of slaughtered pigs. The plane’s throttles reversed with a thunderous roar, but Tyler could see that it was veering toward the left-hand side of the runway.
    It was still seventy-five feet away from the threshold, however, when it finally came to a halt. Captain Sherman turned blindly toward him and said, “That’s it, Mr. Jones. You’ve done it. Cake.”
    “Hey, come on,” said Tyler. He was trembling with relief, as if he had