Flight 666 (Moment of Death) Read online

  Evy felt her face redden, wondered if she were the butt of a joke. It was bad enough that her boss didn’t have enough respect for her to give her the promotion she deserved, now complete strangers were showing disrespect. It was just like in school. Her twin sister was considered the beautiful one, while Evy was “the other one.” Evy felt a tear roll down her cheek.

  The airplane began to shake violently. Evy closed her eyes and gripped the arms of her seat. The thought of dying without ever becoming someone of importance was too much to bear.

  The turbulence finally stopped and Evy opened her eyes. She was startled to see Glen Reed kneeling in front of her. They were in the middle of a posh Italian restaurant in New York. The airplane was gone.

  “Evy? Are you listening?” Glen asked. “I said, Will you marry me?”

  Evy stared at him. “Am I dreaming?”

  “If you are, I hope you don’t wake up before you say yes,” Glen replied. “Evy, I know everybody wants you, but you’ve got to know how much I love you. You should be with me.”

  Glen removed a diamond engagement ring from a box and slid it onto her finger. Four violinists appeared at their table and began to play “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”

  “Evy Noel, please say you’ll marry me.”

  Evy was shocked and elated at the same time. She didn’t know what to say. She had dreamed of the day someone would propose to her, had imagined different men of stature who might fit the bill. Now that fantasy had become a reality—except it was a reality that didn’t seem real.

  Evy turned when she spotted a man at the table next to theirs looking at her. He had blond hair, strikingly beautiful blue eyes, and a scar down his face. He raised his glass and nodded in approval.

  “Evy, please, don’t make me beg,” Glen was saying. “Being able to be seen with you has been the best thing that ever happened to me. I want this feeling to last forever.”

  “I don’t understand,” Evy said.

  “Just say yes,” Glen said.

  Someone in the restaurant shouted, “Just say no!”

  Glen’s eyes darted around the room. Then he looked back at Evy imploringly. “Say yes and let’s get out of here.”

  “But I don’t even know you. I can’t marry someone I don’t know.”

  The restaurant crowd began to clap.

  “Say yes, Evy, say yes,” Glen said, desperation distorting his voice. “I want you, I want to be with you. I want to be you!”

  The other restaurant patrons began to boo.

  Glen grabbed Evy’s arm but she pulled loose and stood up from the table. She looked around for help, saw a crowd of men staring at her like a piece of meat. Fear washed over her, and she felt her heart racing. Glen was out of his seat, coming toward her. She backed away and collided with someone. She spun around and saw her twin sister standing before her.

  “Ivy?” she said in a shaky voice.

  “Take another guess,” the woman said. “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you, Miss Noel, but I’m so glad to see you in person. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have been so popular. Now everywhere I go, people want me.”

  Evy swallowed and looked around, nearly fell over. The faces and bodies of the women in the restaurant had transformed into perfect replicas of her. Their hair, faces, bodies, and clothes were identical to hers. “What’s going on?” she screamed.

  “We want to be you,” the women said in unison, and their voices sounded like hers. Evy headed toward the front door and noticed the man with the scar staring at her as she passed. With a nod, he raised his glass once again.

  “You must be flattered to be desired so much.”

  Evy ran out the door and onto the busy New York City street. Glen followed her out the door and called after her.

  Evy hailed a cab and jumped in. “Go, just go,” she shouted.

  The cab took off, and Evy tried to collect her whirling thoughts. As the cab turned a corner, she spotted a gigantic billboard looming above.

  BE LIKE EVY!

  CALL DR. GABRIEL CARTERES, PLASTIC SURGEON

  TO SCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT.

  DR. CARTERES SPECIALIZES IN NOEL RECONSTRUCTION

  AND EVY COSMETICS.

  “Where to ma’am?” the cabbie asked, staring in his rear view mirror. “Hey, wait a minute? Aren’t you Evy Noel?”

  “No!” she shouted.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Miss Noel. My wife just got plastic surgery to look like you. And now I have the real thing in my cab.”

  He pulled the taxi to the curb and stopped. He turned around and leaned back over the seat to fondle Evy, then climbed over and rolled on top of her. Evy screamed and scratched at him as he began to caress her face.

  “You’re so perfect, Evy. I won’t hurt you. I just want to touch your face and hair and look at you. I wish I were you. I wish I knew what it was like to be wanted.”

  Evy kept fighting and finally landed a knee to his crotch. As he howled with pain, she threw open the door and tried to get out. But the cabbie grabbed her and hung on, clutching at her hair. She clawed his eyes, and he screamed and let go of her. She kicked the door open and hurled herself out.

  She started running, screaming for help as she ran. The busy traffic and flow of pedestrians suddenly stopped, as if they had become frozen in time. Slowly, everyone turned to look at Evy. All at once, a sea of people began running toward her, chanting her name as they ran. Cars stopped where they were, and drivers and passengers exited and ran toward her. Hands came at her from everywhere. She was surrounded now, being crushed by the mob calling her name. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to die on a New York City street at the hands of her fans.

  Suddenly she felt a hand reach for her and somehow pull her through the crowd and into a doorway. The door closed against the mob, and she slumped against it, then looked at her benefactor. He was an enormously fat man, and he was looking at her with hungry eyes, as if she were a piece of candy.

  “Thank you,” she said through shallow breaths.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “My name is Tony. And you’re Evy Noel.”

  Evy heard movement behind and spun around. People were emerging from the shadows, people she knew. Her boss, William Atherton, was there, and his daughter, Sarah Loth, as well as Glen Reed and the man who called himself T-Sul. A woman was there, too, someone named Mary, who she recognized from the airplane.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, as Tony and the others surrounded her. The group ignored her question and began to chant her name. “Evy, Evy, Evy.”

  Carbon copies of herself surrounded the building and began to beat on the windows. Glass broke and people flooded through, filling the room until it was packed with her admirers.

  “Evy, Evy, Evy,” they continued to chant as she fell to the ground amid the crush of people. They all wanted her. They all loved her. She was somebody, the biggest somebody in their lives. She felt her clothes being pulled off, her hair being pulled from its roots. Hands dug into her skin, ripped out chunks of her flesh. Blood oozed out of her, and internal organs were ripped from her body. She was being pulled apart piece by piece. She felt the mob’s breath on her face as they tore her up. She was growing faint. She looked at the crowd, but their faces faded, and she was left staring at a roomful of skulls staring down at her ruined body. She closed her eyes and took her last breath.

  That girl wouldn’t be half bad if she had on a little makeup, Glen thought as he returned to his seat. He had been surprised that William Atherton would take one of his own commercial flights, and he wondered how to take advantage of it. The man’s fear of being recognized was pathological, yet here he was flying with the riffraff. Go figure. Glen chuckled and wondered if his old boss had ever managed to finish his court-ordered anger management class. That’s what he got for taking a swing at G-Money.

  Ever since Atherton had punched him out and then lost the lawsuit that had resulted from his violence, Glen had vowed to make the man�
��s life a living hell. Seeing his ex-boss again only a few months after the court case had brought back a flood of memories. Glen’s early days in the Atherton Airlines corporate suite had padded his wallet in more ways than one. Glen had embezzled money from the company, but Atherton’s attorneys and investigators couldn’t find enough evidence to even make a case. Of course, that hadn’t stopped “Anger” Atherton from slandering Glen and ruining what was left of his reputation, so Glen threatened to sue, and Willie boy had had to settle out of court to avoid a major public hoo-hah. And with the recent lawsuit over the punch he had landed on Glen’s jaw, Atherton had become the gift that kept on giving.

  Glen was a high roller, and he needed money to keep rolling. So he had developed a unique system for siphoning money from the companies he worked for and any other suckers he could find. He’d stolen from corporations, CEOs, retirees, little old ladies, charities, and churches. They were all the same to him, all suckers waiting to be picked clean, and William Atherton was the biggest sucker of them all.

  Glen still couldn’t believe his good fortune in bumping into Atherton in a posh little Italian restaurant in New York years after Atherton had booted him out.

  “Scumbag,” Atherton had barked while passing Glen’s table. When Glen snickered and said, “Hey, Willy, thanks for paying for my meal,” Atherton had flown into a rage. The old buzzard had knocked Glen flat on his back only to pay for it later. Glen had received three hundred grand and a public apology—Atherton’s worst nightmare—and Atherton had received an order to attend anger management classes.

  Glen chuckled at the memory. Now if he could just tap Atherton’s little assistant, who was clearly into him, he could rub a little more salt in the wound.

  After the plane finally flew through the turbulence, Glen peaked through the curtain that separated first class from the rest of the plane. Both Atherton and the young assistant were asleep. Glen got up and quietly sat in the seat next to Evy’s. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “Hey, doll, I’m back for some of that flirting you were talking about earlier. Maybe you’ll do some flirting back.”

  No response, no movement, nothing. She must be dead asleep. Glen spied a diamond encrusted Rolex on her tiny arm, and his heart shifted up a gear. He slipped it off of her delicate wrist and dropped it into his pocket. He did the same with Atherton’s Rolex. Then he slipped his hand inside Atherton’s suit jacket and snatched his wallet.

  Glen got up and returned to his seat. He pulled his leather briefcase from under the seat, opened it, and slipped in the two timepieces. He confiscated the wad of bills in Atherton’s wallet, locked his briefcase, and got up to return the wallet. The old bat would notice his wallet was missing before he’d notice his watch was gone.

  He returned to the scene of the crime and quietly slipped the wallet back into Atherton’s jacket. He glanced at Evy and sighed. She was still asleep. Ah well, her loss, Glen thought.

  As he got up to return to first class, he spotted the familiar-looking woman he’d noticed back at the airport. She was sitting a few rows back. A smile spread across his face. Luck was with him tonight, that was for sure. The seriously hot woman, who was in the middle of applying cherry red lipstick, was Mary Hartsford, a high-class call girl he’d rented once before. He walked back to her row and beamed his best smile.

  “Hey, Mary, it’s G-Money, remember me?”

  “No.”

  Glen pulled out a wad of bills and fanned them in her direction. “Remember these?”

  “Those I remember,” she said and beamed him a big come-on smile. “So, what’s up, player?”

  “Three words—Mile High Club.”

  Mary got up from her seat and walked to the back of the plane. Glen followed. When no one was looking, they darted into the lavatory. Before he could lock the door behind them, Mary kissed him hard on the lips.

  “You are the hottest chick I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  “I know,” Mary replied.

  “I’ve seen you before, you know,” Glen said. “Actually, I’ve acquired your services before.”

  “If you say so,” Mary replied. “But I’m not sure you could afford me on the ground.”

  “I can afford you, hot stuff.”

  “Let’s see that wad of cash again,” Mary said. Glen handed it over and Mary counted it.

  “For that amount, you can have me anyway you like.”

  Glen removed his shoe and pulled out a small vial. “Vacuum sealed,” he said as he popped the lid. He poured out two white lines on the sink while Mary rolled up one of the bills. Glen snorted the first line, and Mary followed suit.

  “How you want me baby?” Mary asked as she looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Just the way you are,” Glen replied. He hiked up her dress and bent her over the sink.

  “Get ready for a ride,” he said as he grinned in the mirror. Mary stared into her own eyes as her head bobbed back and forth from Glen’s quick, rough thrusting.

  “I know you know you’re pretty,” Glen said when he caught her staring at herself in the mirror.

  “I know you know I’m pretty, too,” she replied in the little girl’s voice she often used to turn on her clients.

  Glen was startled by loud knocking on the door. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  “Hear what, baby?”

  He looked up and saw that they’d steamed up the mirror. She raised a hand to wipe it off, and Glen saw a skull with reddish eyes staring back at him through the fog. He jumped back and nearly fell.

  “What’s wrong, baby,” the skull said.

  Glen squeezed his eyes shut. “Nothing,” he said. “My eyes and ears are playing tricks on me.”

  Glen returned to his business with Mary. Soon he was approaching climax. Forgetting where he was, he let out a yell as he finished.

  He opened his eyes and saw that he was leaning against a garbage dumpster that was sitting in the back of an alley in what had the feel of downtown Manhattan. He was standing ankle deep in a puddle of water, and rain was pouring down on him. He saw his reflection in the puddle and nearly jumped out of his skin. It was him all right, but some scruffy down-on-his-luck version of himself in tattered, dirty clothes.

  Several people appeared out of the shadows of the surrounding buildings, and huddled around him.

  “What are you doing, Glen?” a woman with long stringy hair and no teeth asked. “Come back to the box, baby.”

  She looked vaguely familiar, but he backed away from her touch as she reached for him. “Mary? Mary, is that you? What’s going on?”

  “Calm down, baby, I got the night off. Why don’t you come back to the box and tell me how pretty I am. I’ll do that thing you like.” She batted her eyelashes and smiled, revealing her gums.

  Glen doubled over as pain filled his stomach.

  “You haven’t eaten in three days,” a dark-skinned man said. “Here, have a chicken leg. Just dug it out of the dumpster.”

  Glen stared at him. He looked like the guy who had been writhing on the floor in the airplane.

  “Hey, Glen,” the man said. “Look at what I stole. Someone’s cell phone, and it has video. How ’bout we film you, me, an’ Mary in a three-way?”

  Glen backed away from the man and splashed through more puddles, soaking his pants to the knees. “Get away from me,” he said. “And get that disgusting chicken leg away from me.”

  “But, Glen, it’s your favorite. Here, you can have the breastbone too. You need your strength.”

  Glen spat out his disgust and bolted toward the mouth of the alley. He turned right and saw a familiar building. It was the posh restaurant where he had run into Atherton.

  “Excuse me,” a man said, side-stepping Glen to enter the restaurant.

  “Gabriel?” Glen asked in surprise, recognizing his old college buddy. The two had been inseparable back in the day, known as the terror twins. They even looked like twins, which had allowed them to pull the old switcheroo now and then. Ev
en at Gabriel’s wedding in Hawaii, people assumed that he was Gabriel’s brother. Gabriel’s actual half brother, Tony Tulgrin, was the last person anyone would have thought was related to Gabriel.

  Gabriel stopped and stared. “Glen? What happened to you?”

  “I have no clue, I woke up this way. Gabriel, I’m starving. Can you help me out?”

  “I’m sorry Glen, I have to go.” Gabriel turned and walked toward the door of the restaurant.

  Glen clutched at Gabriel’s trench coat and begged for help. A bouncer appeared and shoved Glen to the curb. “You can’t come in, bum. No shoes, no shirt, no shower, no money, no service.”

  Glen looked up at him. The man was tall with piercing blue eyes. He had a scar down his face. He was clearly no one to mess with.

  “I’m not a bum,” Glen whispered. “I’m just down on my luck. Please help me.”

  “Beat it, hobo.”

  Glen started walking away as a limousine pulled up and parked. The driver exited and went around the vehicle to open the back door, shoving Glen aside in the process. A well-dressed man emerged from the vehicle followed by a young, beautiful woman.

  Glen stared at her. “Evy?”

  The driver elbowed Glen aside, and the couple went into the restaurant. Glen followed them with his eyes.

  Glen walked to the restaurant and peered in through the front window. He saw Gabriel sitting with a woman from the plane, one he recognized. Her name was Sarah. She was Atherton’s daughter.

  People inside began to glance toward another couple. He watched as his doppelganger got down on his knees and proposed to Evy. Glen started banging on the window. Gabriel turned toward him, eyed him, and then turned his back to him.

  Someone grabbed Glen from behind and dragged him away from the window. Glen covered his head as the bouncer hurled him to the sidewalk. “I said get out of here, you bum! You come around here one more time, and I’m going to stomp your ugly face.”

  Glen slunk away and returned to the shadows of the alley. He knew what he had to do. If no one would help him, then he’d help himself. The high-end thief he had been in the past could turn to low-rent stealing if he had to. Thievery was thievery, and Glen had the knack. He waited in the darkness until the restaurant closed. When he was sure that most of the patrons had left, he made his move and tackled a lone man coming through the door. It was the bouncer. Glen took him down, ready for the fight of his life, but the man didn’t fight back. Glen pummeled him and then rolled him over and demanded his money. The man smiled, accentuating the scar on his face. His bright blue eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.