Hanging on by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page A

removed from his reality, a distant background noise that reminded the pilot of carnival workers setting up tents and stands and rides in the fairgrounds near the house where he lived as a child. He would have liked to think about that some more, except he remembered where he was and was too terrified to think about anything but death.
        "Who are you talking to if I'm not here?" Lily asked again.
        "A figment of my imagination," the pilot said.
        "Major Kelly's already used that one," she said.
        "What?"
        "Never mind." She thought a moment. "If there isn't anyone here, who are these supplies for?"
        "What supplies?" the pilot asked. He was gripping the edges of his battered flight seat with both hands, fighting off an urge to rise up and rip her clothes off and fuck her through the floor of the plane. His face was sheathed in sweat.
        Lily sighed. "If you're not behind German lines, where are you?"
        The pilot smiled and relaxed a bit. "Iowa City, Iowa."
        "What?"
        "I can see the cornfields from here," the pilot said, looking out of the windscreen at the cornfields.
        Lily followed his gaze but could see nothing other than darkness and a few men carrying heavy crates of supplies. A small collapsible loading crane trundled toward the transport's cargo doors. But no cornfields.
        "You're crazy," she said.
        "No. I see fields of corn, endless fields, tall and green."
        Lily stepped forward and touched the pilot's cheek as he stared out through the windscreen, and she jumped in surprise as he nearly leaped out of his flight seat. He smiled nervously and tried to pull away. He was pudgy and redfaced and in need of a shave; even when he wasn't terrified, he would have looked rather ordinary and unappealing. Still, she said, "I think I could get to like you."
        "What's there to like?" he asked. "A knot of nerves, spastic colon, stomach ulcers… nothing…"
        "Still, I could," she said. She bent closer to him, her jugs right in front of his face now. She was willing to tell the pilot anything to convince him to take her back to Allied territory. Actually, she found him revolting; however, telling him these fantasies didn't hurt anything. "We could have lots of good times."
        The pilot took a thermos from a pouch on his seat, opened it, and poured himself a cup of steaming coffee. He did all this slowly, deliberately, as if he were trying to give himself time to gather his wits and meet the challenge she presented. His hands shook so badly that the coffee kept slopping over the rim of the cup. He said, "I'm sorry, Lily, but you don't arouse me at all."
        "Don't I?"
        "Not at all."
        Suddenly, Lily could see only a bleak future. She could see another week here at the camp, another week of waiting for the inevitable flight of Stukas, another week of wondering if she would go home as a corpse or as a girl with a brilliant theatrical career ahead of her. Those were the only two possibilities, because she couldn't see any way she could go home as a corpse with a brilliant theatrical career ahead of her. She realized that she would have to go further than before, would have to pressure the pilot more than ever.
        "So you might as well go," he said, slopping coffee all over his hand.
        She reached behind, found the zipper on her velvet costume, tugged it down and peeled to the waist. Her large, fine breasts fell forward, a symphony of jiggling flesh, the dark nipples high on the top of their matched upward thrusts, hard and prominent.
        "Gosh," the kid from Texas said. He squirmed in his seat, making the cracked leather squeak.
        Lily ignored him. She had to ignore him. For one thing, he couldn't help her get out of the camp. For another, if she paid him any attention at all, he'd lose his head and take her while her back was turned.
        The pilot watched her jugs. He