Nightmare At 20,000 Feet Read Online Free Page B

inviolate, he could rupture wires, mangle flaps, destroy the balance of the ship. No, this was the only way. He'd fire low and try to hit the man in the chest or stomach. Wilson filled his lungs with air. Now, he thought. Now.
    The stewardess came up the aisle as Wilson started pulling at the handle. For a moment, frozen in her steps, she couldn't speak. A look of stupefied horror distended her features and she raised one hand as if imploring him. Then, suddenly, her voice was shrilling above the noise of the engines.
    "Mr. Wilson, no!"
    "Get back!" cried Wilson and he wrenched the handle up.
    The door seemed to disappear. One second it was by him, in his grip. The next, with a hissing roar, it was gone.
    In the same instant, Wilson felt himself enveloped by a monstrous suction which tried to tear him from his seat. His head and shoulders left the cabin and, suddenly, he was breathing tenuous, freezing air. For a moment, eardrums almost bursting from the thunder of the engines, eyes blinded by the arctic winds, he forgot the man. It seemed he heard a prick of screaming in the maelstrom that surrounded him, a distant shout.
    Then Wilson saw the man.
    He was walking across the wing, gnarled form leaning forward, talon twisted hands outstretched in eagerness. Wilson flung his arm up, fired. The explosion was like a popping in the roaring violence of the air. The man staggered, lashed out and Wilson felt a streak of pain across his head. He fired again at immediate range and saw the man go flailing backward-then, suddenly, disappear with no more solidity than a paper doll swept in a gale. Wilson felt a bursting numbness in his brain. He. felt the pistol torn from failing fingers.
    Then all was lost in winter darkness.

    He stirred and mumbled. There was a warmness trickling in his veins, his limbs felt wooden. In the darkness, he could hear a shuffling sound, a delicate swirl of voices. He was lying, face up, on something-moving, joggling. A cold wind sprinkled on his face, he felt the surface tilt beneath him.
    He sighed. The plane was landed and he was being carried off on a stretcher. His head wound, likely, plus an injection to quiet him.
    "Nuttiest way of tryin' to commit suicide I ever heard of," said a voice somewhere.
    Wilson felt the pleasure of amusement. Whoever spoke was wrong, of course. As would be established soon enough when the engine was examined and they checked his wound more closely. Then they'd realize that he'd saved them all.
    Wilson slept without dreams.

2 – DRESS OF WHITE SILK
    Quiet is here and all in me.
    Granma locked me in my room and won’t let me out. Because it’s happened she says. I guess I was bad. Only it was the dress. Momma’s dress I mean. She is gone away forever. Granma says your momma is in heaven. I don’t know how. Can she go in heaven if she’s dead?
    Now I hear Granma. She is in momma’s room. She is putting mommas dress down the box. Why does she always? And locks it too. I wish she didn’t. It’s a pretty dress and smells sweet so. And warm. I love to touch it against my cheek. But I can’t never again. I guess that is why Granma is mad at me.
    But I amnt sure. All day it was only like every day. Mary Jane came over to my house. She lives across the street. Every day she comes to my house and play. Today she was.
    I have seven dolls and a fire truck. Today Granma said play with your dolls and it. Don’t you go inside your mommas room now she said. She always says it. She just means not mess up I think. Because she says it all the time. Don’t go in your mommas room. Like that.
    But it’s nice in mommas room. When it rains I go there. Or when Granma is doing her nap I do. I don’t make noise. I just sit on the bed and touch the white cover. Like when I was only small. The room smells like sweet.
    I make believe momma is dressing and I am allowed in. I smell her white silk dress. Her going out for night dress. She called it that I don’t remember when.
    I hear it