Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (color ebook reader .txt) 📕

was left behind. These people are gone!" Hattie slipped from his grasp and knelt whimpering in the corner. Rayford wanted to comfort her, to enlist her help, or to get Chris to go with him through the plane. More than anything he wanted to believe the woman was crazy. She knew better than to put him on. It was obvious she really believed people had disappeared.
He had been daydreaming in the cockpit. Was he asleep now? He bit his lip hard and winced at the pain. So he was wide awake. He stepped into first class, where and elderly woman sat stunned in the predawn haze, her husband's sweater and trousers in her hands. "What in the world?" She said. "Harold?"
Rayford scanned the rest of first class. Most passengers were still asleep, including a young man by the window, his laptop computer on the tray table. But indeed several seats were empty. As Rayford's eyes grew accustomed to the low light, he strode quickly to the stairway. He started down, but the woman called him.
"Sir, my husband-"
Rayford put a finger to his lips and whispered, "I know. We'll find him. I'll be right back."
What nonsense! He thought as he descended, aware of Hattie right behind him. "We'll find him"? Hattie grabbed his shoulder and he slowed. "Should I turn on the cabin lights?"
"No," he whispered. "The less people know right now, the better."
Rayford wanted to be strong, to have answers, to be an example to his crew, to Hattie. But when he reached the lower level he knew the rest of the flight would be chaotic. He was as scared as anyone on board. As he scanned the seats, he nearly panicked. He backed into a secluded spot behind the bulkhead and slapped himself hard on the cheek. This was no joke, no trick, no dream. Something was terribly wrong, and there was no place to run. There would be enough confusion and terror without his losing control. Nothing had prepared him for this, and he would be the one everybody would look to. But for what? What was he supposed to do?
First one, then another cried out when they realized their seatmates were missing but that their clothes were still there. They cried, they screamed, they leaped from their seats. Hattie grabbed Rayford from behind and wrapped her hands so tight around his chest that he could hardly breathe. "Rayford, what is this?"
He pulled her hands apart and turned to face her. "Hattie listen. I don't know any more than you do. But we've got to calm these people and get on the ground. I'll make some kind of and announcement, and you and your people keep everybody in their seats. OK?"
She nodded but she didn't look OK at all. As he edged past her to hurry back to the cockpit, he heard her scream. So much for calming passengers, he thought as he whirled to see her on her knees in the aisle. She lifted a blazer, shirt and tie still intact. Trousers lay at her feet. Hattie frantically turned the blazer to the low light and read the name tag. "Tony!" she wailed. "Tony's gone!"
Rayford snatched the clothes from her and tossed them behind the bulkhead. He lifted Hattie by her elbows and pulled her out of sight. "Hattie, we're hours from touchdown. We can't have a planeload of hysterical people. I'm going to make an announcement, but you have to do your job. Can you?"
She nodded, her eyes vacant. He forced her to look at him. "Will you?" he said.
She nodded again. "Rayford, are we going to die?"
"No," he said. "That I'm sure of."
But he wasn't sure of anything. How could he know? He'd rather have faced an engine fire or even an uncontrolled dive. A crask into the ocean had to be better that this. How would he keep people calm in such a nightmare?
By now keeping the cabin lights off was doing more harm than good, and he was glad to be able to give Hattie a specific assignment. "I don't know what I'm going to say," he said, "but get the lights on so we can make an accurate record of who's foreign visitor declaration forms."
"For what?"
"Just do it. Have them ready."
Rayford didn't know if he had done the right thing by leaving Hattie in charge of the passengers and crew. As he raced up the stairs, he caught sight of another attendant backing out of a galleyway, screaming. By now poor Christopher in the cockpit was the only one on the plane unaware of what was happening. Worse, Rayford had told Hattie he didn't know what was happening any more than she did.
The terrifying truth was that he knew all too well. Irene had been right. He, and most of his passengers, had been left behind.


TWO

Cameron Williams had roused when the old woman directly in front of him called out to the pilot. The pilot had shushed her, causing her to peek back at Buck. He dragged his fingers through his longish blond hair and forced a groggy smile. "Trouble, ma'am?"

"It's my Harold," she said.

Buck had helped the old man put his herringbone wool jacket and and felt hat in the overhead bin when they boarded. Harold was a short, dapper gentleman in penny loafers, brown slacks, and a tan sweater-vest over a shirt and tie. He was balding, and Buck assumed he would want the hat again later when the air conditioning kicked in.

"Does he need something?"

"He's gone!"

"I'm sorry?"

"He's disappeared!"

"Well, I'm sure he slipped off to the washroom while you were sleeping."

"Would you mind checking for me? And take a blanket."

"Ma'am?"

"I'm afraid he's gone off naked. He's a religious person, and he'll be terribly embarrassed."

Buck suppressed a smile when he noticed the woman's pained expression. He climbed over the sleeping executive on the aisle, who had far exceeded his limit of free drinks, and leaned in to take a blanket from the old woman. Indeed, Harold's clothes were in a neat pile on his seat, his glasses and hearing aid on top. The pant legs still hung over the edge and led to his shoes and socks. Bizarre, Buck thought. Why so fastidious? He remembered a friend in high school who had a form of epilepsy that occasionally caused him to black out when he seemed perfectly conscious. He might remove his shoes and socks in public or come out of a washroom with his clothes open.

"Does you husband have a history of epilepsy?"

"No."

"Sleepwalking?"

"No."

"I'll be right back."

the first-class lavs were unoccupied, but as Buck headed for the stairs he found several other passengers in the aisle. "Excuse me," he said, "I'm looking for someone."

"Who isn't?"

Buck pushed past several people and found lines to the washrooms in business and economy. The pilot brushed past him without a word, and Buck was soon met be the senior flight attendant. "Sir, I need to ask you to return to your seat and fasten your belt."

"I'm looking for-"

"Everybody is looking for someone," she said. "We hope to have some information for you in a few minutes. Now, please." She steered him back towards the stairs, then slipped past him and took the steps two at a time.

Halfway up the stairs Buck turned and surveyed the scene. It was the middle of the night, for heaven's sake, and as the cabin lights came on, he shuddered. All over the plane, people were holding clothes and gasping or shrieking that someone was missing.

Somehow he knew this was no dream, and he felt the same terror he had endured awaiting his death in Israel. What was he going to tell Harold's wife? You're not the only one? Lots of people let their clothes in their seats?

As he hurried back to his seat, his mind searched its memory banks for anything he had ever read, seen, or heard of any technology that could remove people from their clothes and make them disappear from a decidedly secure environment. whoever did this, were they on the plane? Would they make demands? Would he become a victim? Where would he find himself?

Fear seemed to pervade the cabin as he climbed over his sleeping seatmate again. He stood and leaned over the back of the chair ahead of him. "Apparently many people are missing," he told the old woman. She looked as puzzled and fearful as Buck himself felt.

He sat down as the intercom came on and the captain addressed the passengers. After instructing them to return to their seats, the captain explained, "I'm going to ask the flight attendants to check the lavatories and be sure everybody is accounted for. Then I'll ask them to pass out foreign entry cards. If anyone in your party is missing, I would like you to fill our the card in his or her name and list every shred of detail you can think of, from date of birth to description.

"I'm sure you all realize that we have a very troubling situation. The cards will give us a count of those missing, and I'll have something to give authorities. My first officer, Mr. Smith, will now make a cursory count of empty seats. I will try to contact Pan-Continental. I must tell you, however, that our location makes it extremely difficult to communicate with the ground without long delays. Even in this satellite age, we're in a pretty remote area. As soon as I know anything, I'll convey it to you. In the meantime, I appreciate your cooperation and calm."

Buck watched as the first officer came rushing from the cockpit, hatless and flushed. He hurried down one aisle and up the other, eyes darting from seat to seat as the flight attendants passed out cards.

Buck's seatmate roused, drooling, when as attendant asked if anyone was missing. "Missing? No. And there's nobody in this party but me." He curled up again and went back to sleep, unaware.


_______




The first officer had been gone only a few minutes when Rayford heard his key in the cockpit door and it banged open. Christopher flopped into his chair, ignored the seat belt, and sat with his head in his hands.

"What's going on, Ray?" he said. "We got us more than a hundred people gone with nothing but their clothes left behind."

"That many?"

"Yeah, like it'd be better if it was only fifty? How the heck are we gonna explain landing with less passengers whae we took off with?"

Rayford shook his head, still working the radio, trying to reach someone, anyone, in Greenland or an island in the middle of nowhere. But they were too remote even to pick up a radio station for