Chapter 10 - THE LAST BOARDING CALL
The hospital erupted.
Nurses rushed through corridors.
Parents called for help.
Monitors beeped.
Every infant in the maternity wing screamed in perfect synchronization for exactly seventeen seconds.
Then stopped.
Silence followed.
I knew what it meant.
The Hold had reached the real world.
My phone buzzed with a text.
No number.
Just words.
BOARDING BEGINS AT 9:43 P.M.
ONE PASSENGER.
Mara read over my shoulder.
"It's challenging you."
"Good."
"That isn't confidence you should have."
"It's not confidence."
"What is it?"
"I'm done running."
For years, I had confused avoidance with control.
If I worked long enough, earned enough, stayed busy enough, maybe nothing painful could catch me.
Dad's death.
Mom aging.
Emily building a life where I was gradually becoming a holiday guest instead of a brother.
I kept waiting for a less inconvenient moment to care properly.
Flight 237 had stripped away that lie.
I called Emily.
"I'm coming to the hospital room."
"Garrett, federal agents told you not to leave—"
"Ten minutes."
Mom's room was guarded.
The agents didn't like me walking in, but Mom demanded they allow it.
She looked exhausted.
Pale.
Yet when she saw me, relief filled her face.
I hugged her.
Actually hugged her.
Not the quick one-armed gesture I usually gave before checking my phone.
For a long time neither of us spoke.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"For what?"
"For disappearing while standing right in front of you."
Mom began crying.
"So was I."
Emily stood at the end of the bed.
Her wedding was tomorrow afternoon.
Or technically today.
Her eyes were swollen.
"You are not missing my wedding because of a haunted airplane."
I laughed.
It came out broken.
"I'm going to try very hard not to."
"Garrett."
"I have to bring someone back."
"Arthur."
I looked at her.
"Mom told me."
Mom frowned.
"I also told her you're not going."
"Mom."
"No."
She tried sitting straighter.
"I spent twenty-seven years keeping you away from that thing."
"And Arthur spent eleven years inside it helping strangers."
"You have a family."
"So does every person he helped."
Mom closed her eyes.
Emily surprised me.
"What do you need?"
Mom looked at her.
"Emily."
"What?"
"Don't encourage him."
Emily crossed her arms.
"I've spent my whole life hearing half a story about a woman named Hannah, a missing plane, and why Mom panics whenever a flight is delayed. Now an infant born in 1999 is downstairs being examined by federal doctors."
Fair point.
She looked at me.
"What do you need?"
"The place where my greatest regret began."
Mom understood.
"Your father's grave."
I nodded.
Three hours later, just before 9:30 p.m., I stood at Greenwood Cemetery beneath a cold Colorado sky.
Dad's grave lay beneath an old cottonwood.
Emily stood beside me in sweatpants and a winter coat.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you."
"Wedding."
"Groom knows."
"You told Ben?"
"I told him my brother might enter a supernatural airplane to rescue a seventy-something man trapped outside time."
"And?"
"He asked whether he should bring snacks."
I smiled.
"I like him."
"You better. I'm marrying him."
Mom remained at the hospital.
Mara stood ten feet away holding the recovered flight recorder.
Authorities didn't know we had taken it.
Technically, Mara had.
Apparently disappearing for twenty-five years had reduced her respect for government procedure.
9:41.
Mara handed me the recorder.
"You need this."
"I thought Lily needed it."
"The bridge recognized it once. It should again."
She gave me the brass key too.
"What about Daniel?"
"If you can leave him, leave him."
"And if he follows?"
"Don't let him cross."
Emily grabbed my hand.
"Come back."
"I will."
"You don't get to say that like Dad did."
That hurt.
Dad's last morning, he'd told us he'd be home by dinner.
He wasn't.
I squeezed her hand.
"I can't promise what I don't control."
Her eyes filled.
"But I promise I'll fight like hell."
9:43.
A sound came from behind Dad's headstone.
Ding.
An airport chime.
Then a woman's recorded voice.
"Final boarding call for Flight 237."
The cemetery disappeared.
Gate B7 stood before me.
Empty.
Mara grabbed my shoulder.
"One return."
"I know."
"Once you're through, we can't follow."
"I know."
Emily hugged me.
"Don't make me explain this at my wedding."
I kissed her forehead.
"Tell Ben I expect cake."
Then I walked through the gate.
Flight 237 waited.
This time the cabin was nearly destroyed.
Oxygen masks hung from the ceiling.
Seats were ripped open.
Windows showed black emptiness.
No passengers.
"Arthur!"
Nothing.
I moved down the aisle.
"Arthur!"
A cream note lay on seat 14C.
WELCOME BACK, GARRETT.
THERE ARE NO MORE RULES.
I crumpled it.
"Good."
A laugh came from behind me.
Daniel stood near row ten.
His burned arm had spread across half his body.
"You came voluntarily."
"Where's Arthur?"
"You think this is a rescue?"
"Where is he?"
Daniel smiled.
"You're the replacement."
The cabin doors slammed shut.
Engines roared.
The plane accelerated.
I nearly fell.
"No."
"The Hold wants an anchor."
"You."
"Not anymore."
His smile widened.
"It prefers you."
The windows changed.
I saw my life outside them.
My office.
Late nights.
Empty apartment.
Birthdays missed.
Mom eating dinner alone.
Emily leaving voicemails.
My father dying.
Regret.
The fuel source.
I understood.
"You think guilt makes me yours."
Daniel tilted his head.
"Doesn't it?"
"No."
The cabin shook.
I shouted.
"I regret all of it."
The lights flickered.
Daniel's smile faltered.
"I regret not being there. I regret using work to hide. I regret every phone call I didn't make."
The aircraft screamed around us.
"But regret isn't the same as surrender."
A crack appeared along the ceiling.
Daniel backed away.
"What are you doing?"
"Finishing things."
I called into the darkness.
"Arthur!"
A faint voice answered.
"Here!"
Rear galley.
I ran.
Daniel pursued.
I found Arthur trapped behind a twisted service cart.
His face was bruised.
His coat torn.
"You idiot," he said.
"Good to see you too."
I freed him.
"How do we leave?"
He stared at the recorder.
"You brought it back."
"Seemed polite."
Daniel appeared.
"You can't both cross."
I looked at Arthur.
"He's lying."
Arthur smiled.
"Finally learning."
Daniel charged.
Arthur and I moved together.
Arthur struck his burned arm with the axe handle.
I slammed the recorder against Daniel's chest.
He screamed.
The orange casing began glowing.
His body convulsed.
Voices emerged from him.
Seventy-three voices.
Hundreds.
People he had fed to the Hold.
The cabin walls cracked.
Light poured through.
Arthur grabbed my arm.
"Door!"
The rear exit opened.
Greenwood Cemetery beyond.
Emily and Mara waiting.
We ran.
Daniel caught my shoulder.
"YOU DON'T GET TO LEAVE ME!"
I turned.
"You're right."
He smiled.
Then I pulled the brass key from my pocket.
"You come with us."
His smile vanished.
"What?"
I locked the key's chain around his burned wrist and clipped the other end around the recorder strap.
The recorder belonged to the real world.
Daniel had created the breach.
Maybe it was time reality took both back.
Arthur understood.
We jumped.
Daniel screamed as the recorder dragged him after us.
We hit grass.
The doorway vanished.
Daniel landed beside us.
Real.
Human.
Aging.
Twenty-seven years struck him at once.
His hair grayed.
His body weakened.
He screamed.
Then police floodlights snapped on.
Agents rushed forward.
Mara had apparently decided secrecy was no longer useful.
Daniel stared at the night sky.
Real stars.
For the first time since 1999.
Handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
He looked at me.
"You destroyed everything."
"No."
I stood.
"You finally have to live with it."
Behind us, Arthur fell to his knees.
Mara rushed to him.
He was aging too.
His gray hair became thinner.
His face settled into the age he should have been.
Seventy-seven.
He looked at his hands.
Then laughed.
"I'm old."
Mara hugged him.
"Welcome home."
My phone showed 10:01 p.m.
Emily grabbed me.
"You have fourteen hours until my wedding."
I looked toward Dad's grave.
For the first time, grief didn't feel like a door I needed to keep locked.
"Then we'd better go."
But before we left, Arthur touched my arm.
His expression was serious.
"Garrett."
"What?"
"The Hold collapsed when we crossed."
"Good."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
He looked at the recorder.
A tiny red light was blinking.
"I think something recorded a final message."
The speaker crackled.
My mother's younger voice emerged.
"If you're hearing this, Garrett, you found the way home."
Then another voice followed.
May you like
My father's.
And he said something that made me stop breathing.
