Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories Read Free Page B

had not been so hideously out of place it would have been amusing for, objectively seen, the man, at; that moment, was a comic sight-a fairy tale troll somehow come to life, wind whipping at the hair across his head and body, all of his attention centred on the turn of the propeller. How could this be madness? Wilson suddenly thought. What self-revelation could this farcical little horror possibly bestow on him?
      Again and again, as Wilson watched, the man reached forward. Again and again jerked back his fingers, sometimes, actually, putting them in his mouth as if to cool them. And, always, apparently checking, he kept glancing back across at his shoulder looking at Wilson. He knows, thought Wilson. Knows that this is a game between us. If I am able to get someone else to see him, then he loses. If I am the only witness, then he wins. The sense of faint amusement was gone now. Wilson clenched his teeth. Why in hell didn't the pilots see!
      Now the man, no longer interested in the propeller, was settling himself across the engine cowling like a man astride a bucking horse. Wilson stared at him. Abruptly a shudder plaited down his back. The little man was picking at the plates that sheathed the engine, trying to get his nails beneath them.
      Impulsively, Wilson reached up and pushed the button for the stewardess. In the rear of the cabin, he heard her coming and, for a second, thought he'd fooled the man, who seemed absorbed with his efforts. At the last moment, however, just before the stewardess arrived, the man glanced over at Wilson. Then, like a marionette jerked upward from its stage by wires, he was flying up into the air.
      "Yes?" She looked at him apprehensively.
      "Will you-sit down, please?" he asked.
      She hesitated. "Well, I-"
      "Please."
      She sat down gingerly on the seat beside his.
      "What is it, Mr. Wilson?" she asked.
      He braced himself.
      "That man is still outside," he said.
      The stewardess stared at him.
      "The reason I'm telling you this," Wilson hurried on, "is that he's starting to tamper with one of the engines."
      She turned her eyes instinctively toward the window.
      "No, no, don't look," he told her. "He isn't there now." He cleared his throat viscidly. "He-jumps away whenever you come here."
      A sudden nausea gripped him as he realized what she must be thinking. As he realized what he, himself, would think if someone told him such a story, a wave of dizziness seemed to pass across him and he thought-I am going mad!
      "The point is this," he said, fighting off the 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,