Gasping, my hammering heart slowly starts to beat normally. What the hell is going on? Unbending I look back. The corridor that I ran down is very light, as if the plane were gone. Walking to the wall of windows I can’t see the plane. I can’t see any planes. There is just a vast expanse of tarmac. Normally I’d expect to see some movement, even if it were just people, but they are as absent as the plane.
I turn and I am on my own. Gate whatever is abandoned and the ever present tinned voice from the speakers is quiet. Maybe in the distance I can hear a child cry, but that is probably the family I was sitting next to. I have come out to find the gate abandoned, although there is normally someone from the airline around.
“Hello?”
My voice is too tentative.
“Hello?”
Louder but no response. One last look out of the quiet window and I start down the walkway toward the terminal. The moving walkway isn’t working, but then I have known it not work. I just can’t shift my unease. The silence is worrying.
Walking into a larger space I can see the baggage turntable. It isn’t moving. No one is there. I don’t stop and briefly I wonder if the airplane has taken off with my red suitcase inside. Not that it is filled with anything but dirty clothes. I will be sad to not see my nightie, although it is really a man’s t-shirt with a faded image of the tardis on the front. That I would miss.
Customs is abandoned but I can hear people in the background. A fair amount of shouting, so pushing my tiredness to one-side I walk out into the terminal. Where are the customs people? I have never known them be missing. Not now, not in this modern and fearful age.
The terminal is empty but down one end I can see a group of people clustered around a semi-circular desk. They are yelling at someone.
About Kate
Kate Murray has recently completed her Masters in Creative Writing and is currently working as an illustrator and writer. Her first anthology of short stories ‘The Phantom Horse’ was published in December 2013 and she subsequently has had another anthology published by Raging Aardvark; “Love Just Is” looks at the truth of love, in all its guises from romantic to obsessive. She is currently working on an anthology of ghost stories which should be published at the end of October 2014 and is also writing her first novel. Kate runs two blogs, one is about her life as a writer (kate0murray.wordpress.com) and the other is a serialisation of a novel, “The Gone”; a disaster hits the world while Bitsy is on a flight from Italy. She lands to find that the world is completely altered and she must learn to survive in a place where everyone is not who they appear to be (thegone.wordpress.com).
Kate has had short stories published in magazines and e-zines, including ‘The Lampeter Review’, ‘Jotter’s United’, and ‘What The Dickens’. She has had short stories included in the ‘Twisted Tales 2013’ anthology published by Raging Aardvark, and the ‘Busker Anthology’ and ‘Spooky Tales Anthology’ published by What the Dickens.
Kate’s artwork has been exhibited at the Museum Of Modern Art in Machynlleth where she was selected after entering the art competition and at Aberglasney Gardens as part of the Mid Wales Art group. Her artwork has been published by companies from Norway to Australia and her latest works will have illustrations in it. She has also had a series of line drawings published by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust in their biodiversity action plan.
Kate currently works in the foothill of the Cambrian Mountains where she has a purpose built workshop that she affectionately calls her ‘house’ as she spends far more time in there than anywhere else.
The Gone 
Reblogged this on Kate Murray and commented:
Part three of the first chapter… Things are getting interesting. 🙂