Langoliers

The Langoliers is one of four novellas published in the Stephen King book Four Past Midnight in 1990.

On a cross-country red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, some passengers awaken to find that the crew and most of their fellow passengers have disappeared.

There is Brian Engle, an off-duty airline pilot. Dinah Bellman is a young blind girl with minor psychic powers. Fifth-grade teacher Laurel Stevenson takes to watching over Dinah. Nick Hopewell is from England. Don Gaffney, a retired tool-and-die engineer. There is Rudy Warwick, a businessman. Albert Kaussner is a talented Jewish teen violinist. A teenager with drug problems is called Bethany Simms. Rounding out the group is Bob Jenkins, a mystery author and Craig Toomy, an irritable investment banker on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. They realize only those sleeping are now left on the plane. Engle takes control and lands the plane in Bangor, Maine.

The airport is abandoned with no signs of life. There are no odors or electricity. Food and drinks are tasteless and fire simply sputters out. They soon hear 'radio static' in the distance. Craig believes it is 'Langoliers', monsters he had heard about as a child who go after those who waste time.

In trying to get to his appointments, Craig snaps and takes Bethany as a hostage. He shoots Albert, who escapes injury because the gun has no force. Craig is subdued and tied up. Bob theorizes that they have flown through a time rip caused by an aurora borealis that the airlines spotted over the Mojave Desert. Bob declares that the world they are in is the past, a world that doesn't allow time travelers to see past events, but a deserted world that "time" has left behind. To get back, Bob theorizes, they must fly back through the aurora.

The survivors work together to refuel the plane. Since it holds 'present time', it will burn properly, unlike the combustible materials in the bullet and matches.

Craig, now completely insane, escapes and rampages through the airport. He stabs Dinah in the chest and kills Don. He fears the others are manifestations of the Langoliers he heard of. Albert defeats Craig and leaves him on the airport floor.

While the plane is in its final preparations Dinah telepathically communicates with Craig and persuades him that his board meeting is being held on the runway. Craig makes his way out and hallucinates arriving at the meeting, but has a breakdown before his boss and screams that he deliberately cost the company millions, ensuring his eventual firing and disgrace.

It turns out Craig is right, in a way. Creatures emerge from the forest and head for the plane, consuming everything in their way. Craig is eaten.

In the plane, Bob determines that the Langoliers are the timekeepers of eternity, and that their purpose is to eat what is left of the past. The plane takes off, and as they fly the passengers see that the rest of the land falls apart, leaving a formless, black void. The survivors make their way back to Los Angeles and discuss their pasts as they fly; Nick reveals himself to be an assassin for the British Army who was going to Boston to find a politician funding the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and assassinate his girlfriend. Dinah speaks to Laurel about how her life is ending happily, and then succumbs to her injuries. Nick confesses his feelings for Laurel and the hopes of a romance with her. Albert and Bethany confess a similar attraction.

Bob realizes all must be asleep to survive going through the rift again. Nick volunteers to manipulate the controls though all know this will cost him his life. He takes a moment to ask Laurel to pass a message to his father, saying that he, Nick, has quit the business. The cabin pressure is decreased and all fall into a deep sleep. Nick vanishes as the plane goes through the rift.

Seemingly, nothing has happened. They land the plane in Los Angeles and the world first seems deserted. When they check outside, they hear a noise; this noise is not the ominous sound of the Langoliers, but a relaxing hum. Inside the airport, sounds echo and food has taste. Bob concludes that the time rift brought them into the future and that this world is not dead, but a world that's waiting to be born. The group moves themselves against the wall to avoid human traffic in the airport. They then see colors with holograms of people and activity going on. A flash hits them and they find themselves in the present again. Happy to be back, the group goes outside for some fresh air. But they freeze in mid-air in a quintessential 90's movie-ending.

The Langoliers was adapted for a two-part TV Movie in 1995. The TV movie starred Kate Maberly, Kimber Riddle, Patricia Wettig, Mark Lindsay Chapman, Frankie Faison, Baxter Harris, Dean Stockwell, David Morse, Christopher Collet and Bronson Pinchot.

The movie version of "The Langoliers", produced for broadcast on ABC-TV, was filmed almost entirely in and around the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine (author King's hometown) during the summer of 1995. King himself made a cameo appearance in the film as Craig Toomey's boss, during Toomey's hallucination.

The partial main antagonist, Craig Toomy, was known to tear fragments of magazine, or whatever other paper-like material he could get his hands on, into small strips. Ben Hanscom happened to be doing this quite rapidly (with a napkin) at the first table discussion as Grownups in It (novel).

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