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delivery man sat on the floor, feeling himself cautiously, amazed he hadn t
been ripped to shreds. He got up and wandered away.
Meers had snagged a bag of peanuts and a Three Mus-keteers. He
ate every bite, then made himself as comfort-able as possible against the
wall and nodded off.
* * * *
A lost soul was screaming. Meers opened his eyes, found himself curled
up over his possessions, a rope of drool coming from his mouth. He wiped
it away and sat up. Across the concourse a man in the remains of a suit and
tie had gone berserk.
Air! he shrieked. I gotta have air! His shirt was torn at the neck, his
coat on the floor. He swung a fire ax at a plate glass window. The ax
bounced off and he swung it again, shattering the glass. He leaned out the
window and tried to breathe the smoke outside. He shouted again and
began struggling with his pants. His hands were spout-ing blood, deeply
slashed on the jagged sill, but he didn t seem to notice.
Off he ran, naked but for his pants trailing from one ankle and a blue
silk tie like a noose around his neck.
Half a dozen security guards converged on him. They hit the man with
their nightsticks and sprayed pepper in his face. They zapped him with
tasers until he flopped around like a fish slick with his own blood. Then they
cuffed and hogtied him and carried him away.
* * * *
The flight to Dallas was another 727. Half the passen-gers were under ten
years old, in Atlanta for a Peewee beauty contest. The boys were in
tuxedos and the girls in evening gowns, or what was left of them after
twenty-four hours living rough at the airport with no luggage. Some of them
were cranky and some were playful, and all were spoiled rotten, so they
either sat in their seats and screamed, or turned the aisle into a
rough-and-tumble race-track. Supervision consisted of the occasional
fistfight be-tween fathers when a child s nose was bloodied.
Meers had a window seat, next to a father who spent the whole flight
carping about the judging. His son had not made the finals. The son, who
Meers felt should have been left out for wolves to devour along with the
after-birth, sat on the aisle and spent his time tripping running children.
There was no meal. The catering services had been just as crippled
as the snack bars at the airport. Meers was given a pack of salted peanuts.
* * * *
Dallas-Fort Worth. DFW. It had been raining forty days and forty nights
when the 727 landed. The runways were invisible under sheets of water.
The mud between the taxiways was so deep and thick it swallowed jetliners
like mammoths in a tar pit. Meers saw three planes mired to the wingtips.
Passengers were deplaning into knee-deep muck, slogging toward buses
unable to get any closer lest they sink and never be seen again.
The airport was almost empty. DFW was operating in spite of the
weather, but flights were not arriving from other major hubs. Meers made it
to the ticket counter where the small line moved at glacial speed because
only one agent had made it through the floods. When his turn came he was
told all flights to his home had been canceled, but he could board a flight to
Denver in six hours, where a connection could be made. It was on another
airline, so he would have to take the automated tram to another terminal.
On the way to the tram he stopped at a phone booth. There was no
dial tone. The one next to it was dead, too. All the public telephones in the
airport were dead. The flood had washed them out. He knew his wife must
be very worried by now. There had been no time for a call from O Hare, and
Atlanta and now Dallas were cut off. But surely the situation would be on the
news. She would know he was stranded somewhere. It would be great to
get back home to Annie. Annie and his two lovely daughters, Kimberly and .
. .
He stopped walking, seized by panic. His heart was hammering. He
couldn t recall the name of his youngest daughter. The airport was spinning
around him, about to fly into a million pieces.
Megan! Her name was Megan. God, I must be punchy, he thought.
Well, who wouldn t be? The hunger had made him light-headed. He
breathed deeply and moved off toward the tram.
The door had closed behind him before he noticed the man lying on
the floor at the other end of the car. There was no one else on board.
The man was curled up in a pool of vomit and spilled purple wine. He
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