Seat 9B

by Luke Foster

About the Author: Luke Foster is a writer from North Carolina whose stories run the range from comedy to horror. His work has been published online and in magazines from both the US and the UK.

Excerpt

I’m thirty-six thousand feet above the United States, somewhere over Arizona, and there’s a very good chance I’ll be dead by the time my plane reaches the ground.

There is nothing wrong with Atlantic-Pacific Airlines flight 722, flying nonstop from Los Angeles to Atlanta. It’s moving like a dream and the captain said we might even touch down a little ahead of schedule. It’s not the food, either. I wouldn’t touch it, even if I hadn’t lost my appetite half an hour ago.

No, I am going to die because I am at the window in seat 9A, the Tennyson Killer is in seat 9B, I know who he is, and he knows I know.

I am writing this story in my head even though I know no one will read it, because writing stories is what I do. My name’s Garrison Dallas. You’ve probably heard of me. I’m an investigative journalist covering major crime stories for one of the big shows on cable news. If you’ve seen my show at all this year, you know my producers and I have been desperate to track this serial-killing son of a bitch down. So has every other news outlet and law enforcement agency in the country.

Six cities. Six murders. All young, black women with their hair in box braids. All students at major liberal arts colleges. Nearly all of them gutted like fish and left in very public view. All found with handwritten scraps of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” stuffed in their right hand.

“All in the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.”

“Not though the soldier knew/Someone had blundered.”

Story Comments