Gunther Freed looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. What looked back at him was a plump, pasty face wearing a pinched, sour expression. He was of average height, with thinning brown hair and washed out eyes that defied a specific color description. His license read ‘hazel.’ He sighed, threw the paper towel in the trash, and dragged his travel bag back into the main terminal.
       He mused at how different his life would be, if only he had some serious cash. He could quit his dead end job, dump his nag of a wife and move somewhere warm. He could get a new sports car, perhaps one of those hard top convertibles.
       Gunther moved into line and shuffled behind the thirty or so other weary people waiting to have their boarding passes checked. A tall, painfully thin-looking man of Middle Eastern descent took and looked and Gunther’s driver’s license, then at the boarding pass, then at Gunther. The man squinted at the license then back into Gunther’s eyes, then back at the license. He grunted and scrawled an illegible mark on the boarding pass and handed it and the license back to Gunther and waved him toward one of the x-ray machines.
       Gunther took off his belt, shoes and suit coat, and put them into a plastic bin. He removed his laptop from its bag and placed it in a second bin with a quart sized zip lock baggie filled with all of his liquids. He pushed them along the conveyer belt and waited.
       Gunther looked around at the other people moving cattle-like through the metal detectors. This was about the seventeenth line he had been in today, starting with the hour-long commute to work this morning at 5:30. Seventeen lines in a long series of lines he had been waiting in for his entire life.
       He looked down at the roll of fat that pushed over the edge of his dark brown, polyester blend dress slacks. With serious cash, he could work out for hours a day and get into shape. He would need to be in shape to attract some young hottie. Of course, with that much cash he could get all the women he wanted—but he wanted them to be attracted to him before they found out he was a millionaire. He looked back down at his gut. 
       “Step forward, sir,” said a bored female screener on the other side of the metal detector.
       He stepped forward through the arch and showed her his boarding pass, which she ignored. She was cute, in a butch sort of way. He readied a smile, but she was already looking at the next person in line. Gunther grabbed his stuff from the conveyer belt, made his way to the chairs that were not marked for screening only, and got redressed.
       He shuddered at the thought of another sales trip to the West Coast on the redeye from New York. His damned company was so cheap that he had to take the late night flight to save on airfare and a hotel charge. He would have to take whatever hotel shuttle was available from the airport and then the bus from there to get to the meeting near Pier 39 in San Francisco to save more money.
       He had to get some sleep on the flight. He had to be fresh for the meeting. Last time he had fallen asleep on the bus and ended up in Oakland.
       He sighed.  If only his numbers hit. If only he were rich…he could almost see the bright red of the convertible—and was that a brunette in the passenger seat?
       It was past ten, so he took out his lottery ticket and pulled up the website on his ancient Trio, a hand-me-down from his boss. It took a while to come up, so while he waited, he focused on the red car. He got closer to it and saw that she was a brunette after all, and very pretty. The car was parked in front of a huge house on the beach with a large boat moored off shore.  
       As the numbers came up, his fantasy faded. He didn’t need to look at his ticket; he had been playing the same numbers for ten years. He looked anyway, just in case. He didn’t even got one number, let alone the five-plus that the Power Ball required.
       He shut down the computer and continued down to his gate and the plane that would take him to his last chance. Things were bad at the company. He had not been hitting his numbers at work, either. The new sales manager was a skinny little loud mouth bastard, young enough to be his kid, if he had gotten someone preggers in high school. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and sighed again.
       The gate area was full, and the people from the arriving flight were coming off the plane. He walked up to the counter.
       “How does the waiting list look for first class?” Gunther asked.
       “First class is all checked in sir,” said a very tired woman in her mid forties, “please take your assigned seat.”
       Gunther sighed yet again and moved to the back of the line, which was already long despite the fact that the plane wasn’t yet ready to board. Almost everyone on the flight was a regular and had at least Gold membership, if not Platinum. All of them wanted the overhead bin space for their luggage, so they could stretch out their legs and sleep.
       Gunther’s thoughts went from women-filled mansion and millions, to suicide, as usual. He’d been thinking about it a lot lately, trying to figure out which would be the least painful way. He definitely wanted it to look like a suicide, so his hag of a wife would get nothing from the insurance company. The problem was, that most obvious forms of suicide either hurt or were not guaranteed. He’d thought about leaving the car running in the garage. But his wife never left the house and would come to investigate. He thought about jumping off of a tall building. But he was afraid of heights. Pills were out because he had no idea how to get the right kind. He also didn’t want to wake up in the emergency room having his stomach pumped. He didn’t own a gun. He could buy one, but he didn’t think he could pull the trigger.
       The fact was, that while Gunther was fairly sure he wanted to die, he also knew that he didn’t want to take part in it. Why couldn’t a bus plow through an intersection when he was crossing a street? Or maybe he could slip in the tub and break his neck like he had heard so many Americans did every year? How was it that people got hit by drunk drivers all of the time? He went out every New Year’s Eve and never got as much as a ding on his paint job.
       Gunther’s eighteenth line of the day moved forward and he picked his case up and moved toward the plane. Though he wasn’t lucky enough to get a first class upgrade, he did manage to snag 11A, an exit row window seat on the Airbus 320. Quite a coup, considering how many other frequent fliers there were.
       After all of his miles in the air, he’d given up on the idea of ever being in a crash. Some people were terrified of plane travel, but Gunther knew it was just too damned safe. Of course, if he did die in a crash his wife would get a lot of money. It might be a price he was willing to pay, for the sweet release of death.
       Gunther took his seat and began to pray quietly for seats 11B and C to remain open. A few times a year it happened and he was able to stretch out and get some decent rest. The people continued to stream on and he avoided eye contact, willing them past his row.
       The steady stream slowed and he thought he had it made. The flight attendant announced that the door was about to be shut, when a pair of last minute passengers came on board and walked right up and sat down in seats B and C. Gunther cursed under his breath and stared out the window.
       They were young. Twenty-six, tops, and so excited about their first business trip to San Francisco. The guy said he had been in Los Angeles before, and the woman he was obviously trying to impress asked him to tell her more. God help him, they seemed wide-awake and ready to blab for the entire trip.
       He thought the young woman was cute and had a nice body, but the guy with big shoulders had taken the seat next to him so he couldn’t catch a good look at her without being obvious. Gunther sagged into the seat and wished he could afford those Bose sound-dampening headphones. He had to hit the damned lottery. He could almost smell the saltwater…His skin was light brown from laying on the beach. The brunette came over and started to rub lotion on his back. He opened his eyes in time to see his wife swinging her bag at his head...

       Gunther’s head bounced off the Plexiglas window with a sharp crack, and he opened his eyes in time to see a large flash of lightning cut across the sky.
       “This is your Captain. We’ve come across a storm and are unable to get around it. Please return to your seats and secure your seatbelts. I think we are in for a bumpy ride for the next hour, until we land. Thank you for your patience.”
       It took a minute for him to get his bearings. Somehow he had dozed off for a couple of hours despite the incessant chatter of the happy young coworkers.  He slung them a dour, sidelong glance. They were destined for romance, all right. Damn them.  He thought about the slim pickings in his own company and shuddered. When they were first married, his wife had been jealous and worried that he was out romancing women in the cities he traveled to. He had heard women found married men attractive, that they would practically throw themselves at any man with a ring. In his twenty-plus years of flying across the country, it had happened only once to him, and he was not even sure it had been a woman, despite the dress. Traveling was not glamorous or exciting. Try telling that to his wife.
       Another large bump knocked him into the window again. He looked out across the wing of the plane to avoid the sight of the two lovebirds. A flash of lightning revealed a small shape huddled on the edge of the wing. Gunther blinked and rubbed his eyes. He looked back into the dark. Another flash revealed something that was definitely not part of the plane, attached to the wing. Some trash caught up during take off?  No. A bird? Or what was left of a bird? Gunther pressed his forehead against the Plexiglas of the inner window.
       It was there, definitely a shape, but not like a bird at all. It looked more like a monkey, and was hanging on to the wing by its long fingers. A series of lightning bolts lit the sky for a few seconds and he looked across the wing and into the eyes of the thing. Gunther turned to shout a warning to the flight attendant and stopped. What could they do? The thing on the wing defied logical explanation. Even if they believed him and looked out and saw it, what could they do about it? Divert to the nearest airport, no doubt. He would miss his meeting, and most likely, lose his job.
       Then another thought occurred to him, and he got this strange feeling in his chest and head. The more he thought, the more he felt the strange feeling. It pulled at his memory. What was it? Then he had it, from a distant memory before the job and the wife, from years ago when he was a child. The feeling was hope.
       He knew what the thing on the wing was, the only thing it could possibly be: it was a gremlin, and gremlins made planes crash.
       “Would you like something to drink sir?”
       Gunther almost screamed in surprise and turned quickly so that his head blocked the view of the wing through the little window.
       “What?” He asked, a bit too loudly. What did this woman want? Had she seen? No, she looked bored and irritable. She bore a striking resemblance to his wife.
       “Something to drink?” she said again and tapped her fingers on the cart.
       Gunther forced a smile, trying to act casual. He must get a can of juice as usual, so as not to arouse suspicion. He opened his mouth to order and had a strange thought.
       “Do you by chance have any champagne?” He asked, surprising himself as well as the flight attendant.
       “No sir, if you would like a cocktail, it will be five dollars, and we have a small variety, but no champagne.”
       Gunther thought it over for a bit. He had never been much of a drinker, but this seemed like a time to celebrate. If not now, when?
       “Some white wine please,” he said pulling out his wallet, “make it a double.”
       No sense worrying about the cash now, you can’t take it with you. He laughed out loud at his own joke and the flight attendant frowned.
       “Is everything all right, sir?” She asked.
       “Yes, fine. Everything is going to be just fine,” he said.
       She handed him two small bottles and a plastic cup, looked at him for a long moment, then moved on to the next row.
       That had been a close call.  He would have to be careful not to show his elation. He unscrewed the cap on the first bottle and poured it into his glass. The couple went back to ignoring him. He took a sip. It was good! Why hadn’t he tried wine before? His wife preferred margaritas, which he could not stand. He took a deeper drink and let the flavor roll over his tongue. He wondered if red wine was as good—perhaps he should get a bottle or two.
       Gunther looked back out the window for his little friend. The rain was heavy and the wind was pushing the plane sideways in gusts. A flash lit the sky, but the wing was bare. He strained his eyes, not wanting to blink and miss seeing the creature, but there was nothing there. The wing was empty.
       His small hope vanished and the wine tasted bitter in his mouth. Had he dreamed it all? Had he been deep asleep? Perhaps he had had one of those dreams-within-a-dream and he had really woken up when the flight attendant had spoken to him. He pounded his head on the window and shut the sliding blind closed. He settled back into his seat, reclining it all the way, and stretched his legs in a vain attempt to get comfortable in 11A.
       He closed his eyes to drift off, but he kept thinking of the gremlin. Where the hell had it gone? Wasn’t this plane good enough to wreck? Typical. This was just his luck.
       After a few minutes it was obvious that his love struck neighbors would not shut up, so he opened his eyes and looked at the blind. Dare he hope? Could it still be out there somewhere in the storm?
       He reached a trembling hand toward the blind. He slid it up only an inch, and let out his breath in a loud puff, unaware he had been holding it. He took a deep purposeful breath and slid the blind all the way up in a quick motion. The darkness was total, and all he could see was his faint reflection. He leaned against the Plexiglas and strained for a glimpse of the creature. The sky was suddenly filled with a flash of lightning, and Gunther found himself face to face with the creature. Beady black eyes stared at him from barely an inch away.
       Gunther became aware that strong arms were pulling him back against his seat. Only then did he realize he had been hopping up and down and making joyous hooting noises.
       The hands that held him belonged to a large and very strong man. The man peered over the top of the seats and looked down at Gunther with slate grey eyes. “Calm down, sir, everything is going to be all right.”
       Gunther agreed. Everything was going to be all right, now that his deliverer was back. He realized that this man may not be as happy about the situation as he was. For some reason, this made him giggle, and as Gunther’s throat had not made the sound in a very long time, it came out sounding like a feral squeal.
       The very large man’s caterpillar brows collided together and pulled down tightly over the recesses of his eyes. The same tired flight attendant reappeared.
       “Are you feeling okay, sir?” She asked, in a condescending tone that so reminded him of his wife, that he instantly sobered. He looked around and realized that everyone on the plane was silent and looking at him. He cleared his throat to speak.
       “I’m all right, nothing to be concerned about. Really.” He said this while trying to smile. That was also something he did rarely, and from the reaction he got, he decided it wasn’t conveying the mirth he had intended. He let his face go slack and tried to look non-threatening, staring down at the floor. This passive posture had gotten him through many long nights at home and many brutal staff meetings at work. Survival through acquiescence.
      “You okay now, sir?” The big man asked. It sounded more like a command than a question, and Gunther managed a quiet response of “I’m fine. Must have been a bad dream. That’s all.”
      The flight attendant looked at the big man and motioned him to the front of the plane, near the cockpit. The vise grip released his arms and the big man joined the flight attendant for a whispered conversation. Gunther saw the big man pull out a badge. He must be the Air Marshal, Gunther thought.  Just about all of the planes had them these days.
      Everyone that could see that he was still staring at Gunther, but now the silence was broken by several other hushed conversations.
      When the flight attendant came back, the young couple next to him whispered to her urgently. She looked at Gunther hard, nodded once then motioned them up toward the front of the plane where there were two empty seats. A man in seat 10D, across the aisle, stared at Gunther with a hard, angry look.
      Lighting flashed across the sky, lighting up the inside of the plane. The following shock of thunder was only a second behind and it kicked the plane sideways. Flight attendants grabbed seats for support while some of the passengers let out oaths and others prayers.
      Another flash and another large jolt, and Gunther was forgotten. He looked back out at the wing, less with hope of seeing the gremlin than out of a desire the not look at his fellow passengers. Cowards. The whole lot of them. What did they have that was so great that they were afraid to lose it?
      Jagged lines lit the sky brighter than day. The next flash showed movement near the engine. Gunther pressed his face against the window, straining for a better look. The sky taunted him, remaining dark for an eternity before another flash clearly showed the gremlin struggling to hold on to the top of the engine. Its feeble claws scratched at the housing, making small cuts in the aluminum skin. Why was this taking so long? They would land soon. If that gremlin didn’t get off its ass, he would have to go to the sales meeting.
      As he watched, the beast seemed to move with more purpose, making progress on the outer housing. Gunther smiled and sat back in his seat. Soon he would be dead. No more work. No more nagging wife.
      She wouldn’t weep for him. No, her heart had grown cold years ago. His dying in a plane crash would probably be the best thing that had ever happened to her.
      She would get a fat check from the airlines. Big money. Big, like hitting the lottery.
      His money.
      Damn that woman! She would get in shape. Get a boob job. Move somewhere warm, all with his blood money. That bitch!
      Screw that. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
      He looked out at the creature in time to see the gremlin plunge its hand into the engine. Flames shot up, illuminating the monster’s face. Gunther could see the gremlin’s too large mouth pulled back in a fierce, tooth-laden grin.
      “Sorry, buddy, I know you’re having fun, but I can’t let that bitch hit the lotto. I can’t let you destroy this plane.”
      Gunther realized he had screamed the last bit out loud, but he was beyond caring. He had to stop the gremlin.
      Lightning flashed and struck the gremlin, but instead of damaging the engine, the gremlin seemed only to absorb the hit. The plane shook hard. Hands pulled Gunther back and the plane bucked and dipped to the right.
      As Gunther fell, he turned in time to see the Air Marshal’s head hit the armrest a couple of rows up; he watched his eyes roll up into his head. The man fell at an awkward angle, and his pant legs pulled up, revealing a pistol in an ankle holster.
The tough guy from 10D looked Gunther in the eyes then reached for the gun. No good. Gunther was closer and the man in 10D was belted in his seat.
      Gunther screamed in triumph as he pulled the gun free and whirled toward the window. He could see the gremlin, but the plane was bucking more wildly as they entered the heart of the storm.
      He pulled the trigger hard and jerked the gun to the right as he stumbled forward. The bullet missed the window and ripped through the seat and into the old man in 10A.
      Gunther grabbed the seat in front of him for support and took slow aim at the silhouette clinging to the engine. He squeezed this time, like they said to do on TV, and the window shattered. He expected to be sucked out of the plane, but besides a large rush of air, no massive force sucked him into the storm. He ignored the screams of his fellow passengers and crawled across the empty seats to stare through the hole, searching for the gremlin.
      At first he couldn’t make out anything, but then he saw small movement on the wing near the engine. The damned thing was still alive. Gunther aimed carefully and was about to fire when the clouds opened up showing the lights of the San Francisco bay. He stared in disbelief as he recognized the landing strip.
      Gunther knew he didn’t have much time, and he vowed that he would not fail again. He aimed, held his breath and squeezed the trigger. The creature jumped around and Gunther tracked him, squeezing the trigger until the gun was empty. He felt a hard blow on the back of his head. His vision blurred and he felt another hit. He saw the gremlin sag to the wing. Then nothing.

      The plane was parked on the runway, surrounded by emergency vehicles. FAA employees and airport police were directing passengers toward a building for questioning, while the flight crew was detained near the plane.
      “I knew something was wrong with him right away,” said the flight attendant to a man with FAA printed on his windbreaker in big white letters. “Ask that Air Marshal, I warned him.”
      The FAA investigator nodded and scribbled something in his notepad. He planned to spend some quality time with the Air Marshal in about a half hour, but first he needed to get the rest of the statements from the crew. He had been conducting airplane crash investigations for twenty years. He had already put what was left of the little creature in his trunk. So far no one had said the “G” word, and the investigator hoped that the damage was contained. The passenger, Mr. Freed, had obviously seen it, but he could take care of Mr. Freed.

      Gunther woke up with a splitting headache and a view of the night sky. He couldn’t move and seemed to be floating. A large, thin faced man leaned over him with a look of disapproval. Gunther realized that he was not dead. He was being taken to a better place and wouldn’t ever have to go back to his job. Better yet, he wouldn’t have to go back home to his wife. Best of all, that bitch would get nothing. She might even have to pay for his treatment.
      Things couldn’t get much better.

R. Scott McCoy

...was born in the wilds of Alaska and raised in Minnesota, where he currently lives with his wife, two daughters and three dogs. He has been writing fiction with gusto since 2006. He has had short fiction appear in Blazing Adventures Magazine, Bewildering Stories and The Fractured Publisher. He is the publisher of the horror e-zine Necrotic Tissue.

About this story, he says:
"I travel a lot for business and normally don’t mind air travel. On one particular trip last year, several things had gone wrong, including flying through a very bad storm with severe turbulence. I have a good life and am a happy person, but I sat next to someone who seemed very unhappy and yet not at all scared during the turbulence -- when everyone else was visibly upset. It made me wonder if he yearned for an accident. He did seem somewhat disappointed when we landed safely. I remembered the Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 10,000 Feet” and when I got to my hotel room, I started to write. This story is the result."

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