Free Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales by Stephen King (ed), Bev Vincent (ed) Page B

thought. “If I’m not imagining this thing, the ship is in danger.”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “I know,” he said. “You think I’ve lost my mind.”
    “Of course not,” she said.
    “All I ask is this,” he said, struggling against the rise of anger. “Tell the pilots what I’ve said. Ask them to keep an eye on the wings. If they see nothing—all right. But if they do—”
    The stewardess sat there quietly, looking at him. Wilson’s hands curled into fists that trembled in his lap.
    “Well?” he asked.
    She pushed to her feet. “I’ll tell them,” she said.
    Turning away, she moved along the aisle with a movement that was, to Wilson, poorly contrived—too fast to be normal yet, clearly, held back as if to reassure him that she wasn’t fleeing. He felt his stomach churning as he looked out at the wing again.
    Abruptly, the man appeared again, landing on the wing like some grotesque ballet dancer. Wilson watched him as he set to work again, straddling the engine casing with his thick, bare legs and picking at the plates.
    Well, what was he so concerned about? thought Wilson. That miserable creature couldn’t pry up rivets with his fingernails. Actually, it didn’t matter if the pilots saw him or not—at least as far as the safety of the plane was concerned. As for his own, personal reasons—
    It was at that moment that the man pried up one edge of a plate.
    Wilson gasped. “Here, quickly!” he shouted, noticing, up ahead, the stewardess and the pilot coming through the cockpit doorway.
    The pilot’s eyes jerked up to look at Wilson, then abruptly, he was pushing past the stewardess and lurching up the aisle.
    “ Hurry! ”Wilson cried. He glanced out the window in time to see the man go leaping upward. That didn’t matter now. There would be evidence.
    “What’s going on?” the pilot asked, stopping breathlessly beside his seat.
    “He’s torn up one of the engine plates!” said Wilson in a shaking voice.
    “He’s what?”
    “The man outside!” said Wilson. “I tell you he’s—!”
    “Mister Wilson, keep your voice down!” ordered the pilot. Wilson’s jaw went slack.
    “I don’t know what’s going on here,” said the pilot, “but—”
    “Will you look?!” shouted Wilson.
    “Mister Wilson, I’m warning you.”
    “For God’s sake!” Wilson swallowed quickly, trying to repress the blinding rage he felt. Abruptly, he pushed back against his seat and pointed at the window with a palsied hand. “Will you, for God’s sake, look?” he asked.
    Drawing in an agitated breath, the pilot bent over. In a moment, his gaze shifted coldly to Wilson’s. “Well?” he asked.
    Wilson jerked his head around. The plates were in their normal position.
    “Oh, now wait,” he said before the dread could come. “I saw him pry that plate up.”
    “Mister Wilson, if you don’t—”
    “ I said I saw him pry it up ,” said Wilson.
    The pilot stood there looking at him in the same withdrawn, almost aghast way as the stewardess had. Wilson shuddered violently.
    “Listen, I saw him!” he cried. The sudden break in his voice appalled him.
    In a second, the pilot was down beside him. “Mister Wilson, please,” he said. “All right, you saw him. But remember there are other people aboard. We mustn’t alarm them.”
    Wilson was too shaken to understand at first.
    “You—mean you’ve seen him then?” he asked.
    “Of course,” the pilot said, “but we don’t want to frighten the passengers. You can understand that.”
    “Of course, of course, I don’t want to—”
    Wilson felt a spastic coiling in his groin and lower stomach. Suddenly, he pressed his lips together and looked at the pilot with malevolent eyes.
    “I understand,” he said.
    “The thing we have to remember—” began the pilot.
    “We can stop now,” Wilson said.
    “Sir?”
    Wilson shuddered. “Get out of here,” he said.
    “Mister Wilson, what—?”
    “Will you stop?” Face whitening, Wilson turned from