"What does it mean?" Rudy asked, speaking to Bob. "What does it mean? If things have really gone back to normal, where's the electricity? Where are the people?"
"And what's that noise?" Albert put in.
The sound was already closer, already clearer. It was a humming sound, as Bethany had said, but there was nothing electrical about it. It sounded like wind blowing across an open pipe, or an inhuman choir which was uttering the same open-throated syllable in unison: aaaaaaa...
Bob shook his head. "I don't know," he said, turning away. "Let's push that ladder back into position and go in - "
Laurel grabbed his shoulder.
"You know something!" she said. Her voice was strained and tense. "I can see that you do. Let the rest of us in on it, why don't you?"
He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. "I'm not prepared to say right now, Laurel. I want to go inside and look around first."
With that they had to be content. Brian and Albert pushed the ladder back into position. One of the supporting struts had buckled slightly, and Brian held it as they ascended one by one. He himself came last, walking on the side of the ladder away from the buckled strut. The others had waited for him, and they walked up the jetway and into the terminal together.
They found themselves in a large, round room with boarding gates located at intervals along the single curving wall. The rows of seats stood ghostly and deserted, the overhead fluorescents were dark squares, but here Albert thought he could almost smell other people... as if they had all trooped out only seconds before the Flight 29 survivors emerged from the jetway.
From outside, that choral humming continued to swell, approaching like a slow invisible wave: - aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
"Come with me," Bob Jenkins said, taking effortless charge of the group. "Quickly, please."
He set off toward the concourse and the others fell into line behind him, Albert and Bethany walking together with arms linked about each others' waists. Once off the carpeted surface of the United boarding lounge and in the concourse itself, their heels clicked and echoed, as if there were two dozen of them instead of only six. They passed dim, dark advertising posters on the walls: Watch CNN, Smoke Marlboros, Drive Hertz, Read Newsweek, See Disneyland.
And that sound, that open-throated choral humming sound, continued to grow. Outside, Laurel had been convinced the sound had been approaching them from the west. Now it seemed to be right in here with them, as though the singers - if they were singers - had already arrived. The sound did not frighten her, exactly, but it made the flesh of her arms and back prickle with awe.
They reached a cafeteria-style restaurant, and Bob led them inside. Without pausing, he went around the counter and took a wrapped pastry from a pile of them on the counter. He tried to tear it open with his teeth... then realized his teeth were back on the plane. He made a small, disgusted sound and tossed it over the counter to Albert.
"You do it," he said. His eyes were glowing now. "Quickly, Albert! Quickly!"
"Quick, Watson, the game's afoot!" Albert said, and laughed crazily. He tore open the cellophane and looked at Bob, who nodded. Albert took out the pastry and bit into it. Cream and raspberry jam squirted out the sides. Albert grinned. "Ith delicious!" he said in a muffled voice, spraying crumbs as he spoke. "Delicious!" He offered it to Bethany, who took an even larger bite.
Laurel could smell the raspberry filling, and her stomach made a goinging, boinging sound. She laughed. Suddenly she felt giddy, joyful, almost stoned. The cobwebs from the depressurization experience were entirely gone; her head felt like an upstairs room after a fresh sea breeze had blown in on a hot and horrible muggy afternoon. She thought of Nick, who wasn't here, who had died so the rest of them could be here, and thought that Nick would not have minded her feeling this way.
The choral sound continued to swell, a sound with no direction at all, a sourceless, singing sigh that existed all around them:
- AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Bob Jenkins raced back around the counter, cutting the corner by the cash register so tightly that his feet almost flew out from beneath him and he had to grab the condiments trolley to keep from falling. He stayed up but the stainless-steel trolley fell over with a gorgeous,