Zone Read online

  Tonight Jim seemed as fearful and insecure as Sharlene had been that night in Singapore. His expression was tight, his face pale, and the skin beneath his eyes was darker and puffier than before the flight, when she had noticed how tired he looked. What was going on?

  ‘We’re experiencing some problems,’ he said to her. ‘It’s …’

  He fell silent, weighing his words.

  ‘We’re not sure what it is,’ he went on, ‘but we’re trying to deal with it. Don’t worry. It can’t be anything terribly serious.’

  Sharlene took a step back, feeling as if something heavy had been thrust against her chest. Jim recognized the fright in her eyes. Was he remembering that night in Singapore as well? He knew her. And he knew her fears.

  ‘Sharlene …’ he said quietly. ‘Sometimes things don’t go as we would like. We’re experiencing a few setbacks, that’s all.’

  Keep calm, she thought, steady yourself, be professional.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  Jim didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Sharlene turned to depart.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, remembering herself, ‘I almost forgot what I came in here for. We’re having a problem with the flight-map channel on MEG. It’s blank, and resetting doesn’t help. I just thought I’d report it. I don’t know if …’

  She paused. Something in Jim’s expression advised her to stop.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ Ben commented. ‘What you could do is ask passengers to turn off all electrical devices. That might help. We’ll have to see.’

  Sharlene nodded curtly. ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘I’ll keep you posted,’ Jim said with a smile that Sharlene assumed was false.

  When she stepped off the flight deck and closed the door behind her, she felt the same sort of headache she got from a hangover. Jim, she knew, had not told her the whole truth.

  She walked back into the main cabin. The passenger in the brown suit, who had been looking at her as she made her way downstairs with Aaron, caught her eye again. Now that she saw him up close for the first time, she noticed his small stature. She was a good head taller than he. And yet she cringed.

  It was his eyes.

  She had heard it said that a man’s eyes are windows into his soul. This man’s glare reminded her of Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal in the horror movie Silence of the Lambs. As he raised his right hand to rub his forehead, the fierce look he gave her assumed a tortured quality.

  He seemed to be suffering from a headache much nastier than the one she was battling.

  ‘Apparently they’re having some problems,’ Sharlene informed Mara when she returned to the upper-deck galley. ‘Jim wants us to ask everyone to switch off their cell phones and laptops.’

  Mara opened her mouth in question.

  ‘No, I don’t know why,’ Sharlene answered the implied question. ‘Jim didn’t tell me. But it’s nothing serious, he said. Probably something to do with the plane’s computers.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mara responded. ‘Maybe that’s what’s causing the malfunction in MEG.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Sharlene said, sounding more positive than she felt. ‘I haven’t seen anyone on the upper deck toying with devices, so you needn’t do anything. I’m going down to give them a heads-up.’

  Downstairs, she approached Michelle Hennessy, a stewardess assigned to First Class; she then informed her colleagues in the main galley. They promised to make the announcement and to make sure that everyone complied with the request. Sharlene’s next stop would be the crew rest area. Should she wake up Aaron? she wondered. Possibly not, as the cockpit crew had assured her that the problems were nothing more than computer glitches. If she believed that explanation, which she didn’t.

  She decided to wake him. If I’m being childish, she reasoned, he’ll be sure to tell me that I am.

  Her attention was suddenly drawn to a lady in black sitting ramrod straight in her seat; the same woman Sharlene had helped with her cabin luggage. She was still wearing her silly oversized sunglasses. The way she sat so stiffly gave the impression that she was in some sort of pain.

  Sharlene walked up to her. ‘Are you all right, madam?’

  She could not help but wonder what the lady’s coal-black lenses were hiding. Was her eye color brown, blue, or green?

  ‘I’m not sure,’ the woman in black said, her voice so low Sharlene had to lean in close to hear what she was saying. ‘I think he’s here with us. I’ve seen him. Have you seen him, too?’

  The woman’s voice was filled with awe.

  ‘He’s here, with us,’ she whispered vacantly, yet insistently.

  What the hell was the woman talking about? Sharlene wondered. It could be simple ramblings or some sort of hallucination. But Sharlene was convinced it wasn’t. The woman’s words had stirred something deep within her. A shiver ran down her spine, as if from an injection of ice water.

  Although she had not been a flight attendant for very long, Sharlene had met her fair share of odd passengers. She found it was usually best to humor them.

  ‘Yes, madam, I have seen him,’ she said, hoping that was the desired response. ‘And everything else is all right? Can I get you anything?’

  The woman did not move. The sunglasses remained trained on her. ‘No, thank you. I need to pray.’

  Sharlene nodded politely and stepped back. It was not her place to come between this woman and her God. Quickly she moved on toward the bunks, but before she reached them she stopped in her tracks. She sensed someone coming up fast behind her.

  She whirled around.

  No one was there. The aisle was empty. No one was in sight save for Gloria, halfway down the aisle, facing in the opposite direction.

  She had been mistaken. It had only been an unpleasant feeling. A familiar unpleasant feeling.

  Somehow it brought back more memories of Todd Bower.

  Every night after she had broken up with him, she had worried that he would come back. She envisioned him breaking a window in her apartment, sneaking in like a thief in the night, and doing things to her she dared not imagine. She had slept uneasily, waking up at even the smallest noise, convinced that there would come a night when he would be standing there at her bedside, poised to have his sick way with her.

  Which, of course, was exactly what had happened.

  Now she was on board a plane full of people, Todd was thousands of miles away, and there was no reason on earth for her to be afraid of him.

  What did scare her, then?

  Suddenly there came a spark of inspiration and she knew.

  ‘Oh God, no,’ she whispered to herself, aghast.

  TWELVE

  Jerrod

  Jerrod Kirby was sitting in seat number 28A, jammed uncomfortably between the window and his wife, Phyllis. The flabby meat of her arms drooped across his armrest and that of her neighbor on the other side, a long-haired young man dressed in jeans and an indigo-blue shirt. Few words had passed among them. The only time Phyllis had said anything during the flight was to complain about the meager portions of lousy food she had received. That every passenger had received the same food and the same portions did not dissuade her. Jerrod had voiced his agreement, as he was wont to do, even though he hadn’t found anything to complain about. She should be perfectly content, he thought. There was no fridge to raid on the plane, and she was on a mini-diet for which a trained dietitian would have charged her dearly.

  Jerrod understood better than anyone that his wife’s appetite was substantial and insatiable. He had once, in a stab at spirituality, read up on Buddhism, an Eastern philosophy which claims that desire is the root cause of human suffering. Because Buddhists are enlightened, they forsake their cravings for undue earthly sustenance and therefore know no suffering.

  Buddhism, Jerrod had often thought, would provide the perfect solution for Phyllis. No craving for food equaled losing a ton of weight, and she had about a ton to lose.

  Early in the morning of this new day, Jerrod w
as himself in desperate need of enlightenment. He was experiencing even more suffering in his wretched existence than usual. The turbulence about an hour ago had shaken him and his fellow passengers awake. That was when he realized he desperately needed to relieve himself. When the bumping ceased, he debated whether or not he should leave his seat to go to one of the toilet stalls and empty his bladder.

  The biggest challenge to following that course of action was the need to disturb his wife.

  Hauling herself up from her seat to let him get out would require a Herculean effort on her part. He could easily imagine the toxic glare he would receive from her just for asking her to move for him. He would also need to shuffle past the young man, who had remained awake after the turbulence had eased with his usual open and friendly expression. Jerrod was sure the youngster would be more than happy to get up and let him out. That wasn’t the issue. The only human barricade blocking his way to the bathroom was Phyllis.

  The fluid that had filled his bladder was now becoming increasingly painful and he had to make his move.

  When Jerrod glanced askance at his wife, he noted that she had closed her eyes and dozed off. That was not good. Now she would really be pissed off at him, and that was a turn of events he wished to avoid at all costs.

  There was, of course, the added factor that he hated the insufferable tiny bathrooms afforded by airlines. His house in Santa Monica featured spacious rooms with as few doors as possible. He was the first to admit that he suffered from claustrophobia. Praise God, Phyllis seemed to accept his infirmity, and while she wasn’t necessarily sympathetic to him at least she didn’t constantly nag him about it.

  Jerrod prepared for the challenge by trying to get up from his seat. He clenched the headrest of the seat in front of him with both hands, pulled himself up, and stood there, slumped over beneath the overhead bins.

  A blonde flight attendant walked past. He turned and watched her as she disappeared into the galley behind the two toilet stalls. Moments later she came back out and began walking toward the rear of the plane.

  He noted, to his agony, that both toilet stalls were unoccupied. One of those tiny rooms held unspeakable relief for him. Thinking of that only increased his need and his pain, so he sat back down and tried to think of pleasant things such as his favorite pastime: fishing in one of Utah’s pearly mountain lakes. He traveled there frequently with his friends, to escape his everyday worries and the drudgery of his life with Phyllis. These fishing trips were about the only pleasures she allowed him. Which is why they became his refuge, his salvation, from the miseries of his life.

  Thinking of the rippling lakes of Utah made him think of water. And thinking of water aggravated the pain in his bladder.

  He searched wildly through his mind for another diversion, but it was nigh impossible. His line of work didn’t exactly stir the imagination – he had been promoted to head of accounting at Davison Electrical Systems, a title that sounded flashier than the job merited since the entire accounting department consisted of himself and a kid just out of high school who was incompetent but cheap and this quality was all that mattered to Jerrod’s boss.

  On top of everything else, Jerrod was hardly proud of the fruit of his loins. Last spring his eighteen-year-old son Zachary had told his parents that he was attracted to boys, something Jerrod found impossible to accept. Given the alternative, he could not for the life of him understand why any male would prefer the sexual ministrations of another man. He didn’t care if that made him old-fashioned.

  Except, perhaps, when a man was locked in marriage to a woman like Phyllis.

  Still, he wasn’t happy about it. Phyllis had been very understanding when their son came out of the closet, but that was no surprise. Zachary had always been the apple of her eye and he was living proof that Phyllis was capable of love – of loving others, if not Jerrod.

  The hardest time had been the day Zachary introduced his boyfriend Bobby to them. Bobby wore silver earrings, and Jerrod spotted a tattoo on the fellow’s right arm that looked to be some kind of snake or dragon. Jerrod hadn’t been entirely sure, but he was sure that the sight of it turned his stomach.

  What have I done to deserve this? he had thought at the time. Now, in his seat on board this plane, he was thinking more or less the same thing. It saddened him so much that he felt even more pressure on his bladder.

  His musings were not getting him anywhere. Was there not something he could look back upon with more satisfaction?

  Then an image of Mirabelle resurfaced. He had never forgotten her, nor would he ever want to. In recent years he had encountered her more and more often in the melancholy vault tucked away inside the mind where one stores one’s most cherished images and memories.

  More than two decades ago, when he was still a young and reasonably attractive man, he had dated two women. Mirabelle was beautiful, with warm, dreamy eyes and long, lanky legs, and he was madly in love with her. She loved him in return, but was perplexed and hurt by his seeming lack of commitment to her. One day she told him she was moving to Phoenix, and she gave him an ultimatum – either come with her or forget about her.

  Jerrod had just landed his job at Davison Electrical Systems and was reluctant to follow his heart. His need for security outweighed his longing for love, or so he thought at the time. How could he have been so stupid? He had remained in Los Angeles, ending up married to his other girlfriend. And then, well, nothing much had changed, other than Phyllis expanding like a balloon and souring like milk left out for days on a kitchen table.

  He was still working at Davison, and still living with Phyllis.

  Had he made a different choice that day when Mirabelle asked him to come with her, his life surely would have turned out differently – and very much for the better.

  What was her life like now? he wondered yet again. Who had she given her heart to? How was she doing? He didn’t know, because he had never contacted her after she left Los Angeles.

  But he thought of her often, and every time he did it made him sad.

  By now, his bladder was starting to cramp up with pain he could no longer ignore.

  Unaware of her husband’s distress, Phyllis emitted a loud and offensive noise. The young man sitting next to her looked askance at her, met Jerrod’s gaze, and then turned his face away in disgust. Jerrod shrugged. Yes, that’s what I’m married to, his helpless gesture communicated to no one.

  Phyllis unintentionally poked him in the ribs with her elbow. She snored loudly, like a gurgling machine, and then smacked her lips.

  ‘Phyllis,’ he hissed.

  He was going to wake her up. He had thought he lacked the nerve to do so, but he had no choice. The pain was becoming unbearable. She grumbled something incoherent, but still didn’t wake up. Jerrod’s bladder was fit to burst. He had to go to the bathroom, no matter how Phyllis reacted.

  ‘Honey?’

  She remained asleep, oblivious. He poked her gently. She snorted and turned her triple chin toward him.

  ‘Phyllis!’ he said in a louder voice. The growling, lip-smacking, and rumbling ceased. She opened her eyes and gave him a glazed look.

  ‘What is it?’

  Jerrod was shocked to realize he didn’t know what to say. Now that he had dredged her from sleep, he didn’t know what to tell her. Phyllis’s expression changed. Her eyebrows dipped and an angry glow emanated from her eyes. The longer he demurred, he knew, the angrier she would become. She stared at him like a rabid dog, primed to bite him.

  ‘I have to get out,’ Jerrod said at length.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I need to use the bathroom.’

  ‘Jesus!’ she hissed venomously. ‘Can’t you hold it?’

  Strike one.

  ‘No. I’ve needed to go for quite some time now, actually.’

  ‘You and your bladder.’

  Strike two.

  Her body odor bore an unpleasant resemblance to a rotten egg. Not for the first time Jerrod cherished the thoug
ht of a life without her. As he looked at her, he daydreamed about an emergency door opening behind her, sucking her out of the plane and out of his life. Sadly, that was not going to happen. But what mattered now was another door opening, the one to the toilet stall. Why did she have to torture him? Couldn’t she see his pain?

  Fleetingly he remembered reading about an aggressive type of spider. The female was much larger than the male and she killed him after mating; one sting and he was history. To Jerrod, it seemed a merciful ending.

  Come to think of it, Phyllis almost had killed him. It had happened long ago when they were first married, about the time he was starting to curse himself for not going to Phoenix with Mirabelle. He and Phyllis had gone out to dinner to a Chinese restaurant – Jerrod would never forget its name, Hae Chang BBQ – and she had insisted they both order the clams. He had tried to make her understand that he didn’t like clams, and in fact was allergic to them and had been warned by doctors never to eat them. She had told him to quit being such a baby. So he had ordered the clams, and consequently woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. He had been short of breath and, oddly, his entire body itched terribly. Then everything had gone black. A nasty, sickly kind of black – for years, he had nightmares about it. When he awoke in the intensive-care unit, he heard that, as a consequence of severe anaphylactic shock, he had suffered an acute cardiac arrest. The medical team told him that for several minutes he had exhibited no pulse. He had been clinically dead for that short span of time, compliments of Phyllis.

  To this day she had never apologized.

  ‘Come on, get up,’ he said, more forcefully. He knew he was asking for trouble assuming this tone of voice, but the acute need to relieve himself made him forgo his usual wariness.

  Phyllis shot him a derisive look. After a grim silence of seconds that seemed to last for hours, she grudgingly began the evolutions of hoisting up her massive frame. Exhaling a loud rasping breath, she grabbed the headrest of the seat before her with so little finesse the passenger sitting in front of her uttered a startled yelp.