The Langoliers

About The 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 aboard American Pride Flight 29, a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar from Los Angeles, California to Boston, Massachusetts, off-duty airline pilot Brian Engle, heading east to his ex-wife's funeral, awakens to find that all of the other passengers and crew have disappeared, and all that remains of them are their clothes, and items such as watches, headphones, playing cards, etc, even pace-makers and surgical pins. Only a handful of other passengers remain on the plane.

As the sleepers regain consciousness, they are introduced to the reader: Dinah Bellman, a blind girl about age ten; fifth-grade teacher Laurel Stevenson; Nick Hopewell, a mysterious Englishman; Don Gaffney, a retired tool-and-die engineer; Rudy Warwick, a perpetually hungry businessman; Albert Kaussner, a talented Jewish teen violinist from Texas; Bethany Simms, a teen girl with a drug problem; Bob Jenkins, a mystery author; and Craig Toomey, an investment banker on the verge of a psychotic breakdown.