You're traveling through another dimension.
A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind.
A journey into a wondrous land of imagination.
Next stop, the twilight zone.
This is africa, 1943.
w*r spits out its v*olence overhead, and the sandy graveyard swallows it up.
Her name is king nine. B-25 medium bomber, 12th air force.
On a hot, still morning, she took off from tunisia to b*mb the southern tip of italy.
An errant piece of flak tore a hole in a wing t*nk.
And like a wounded bird, this is where she landed.
Not to return on this day or any other day.
Oh.
Oh, yeah, I remember now.
At least I remember parts of it.
Wing t*nk hit and lost fuel all the way over.
Fell behind, went off course and bellied in.
And the crew...
What about the crew?
Hey, did they bail out?
Did I order them to bail out?
No.
No, I didn't.
We all rode it in. All of us.
Me...
Me.
I'm james embry, captain.
Yeah, yeah, that's who I am.
Uh, blake, copilot. Kransky, radio operator and wave-scanner.
And jimenez, navigator. Connors, he was a tail gunner.
Kline, he was the upper turret gunner.
Now, let's see. Who else? Who else?
Blake?
Blake?
Jimenez?
Jimenez?
Blake?
Connors?
Kransky?
Kline?
Jimenez?
Hey! Hey!
All right, now. All right, now.
Piece it together. Piece it together.
That's what I have to do. Just piece it all together.
We bellied in. We bellied in, and I must have been thrown clear of the plane.
Yeah. Yeah, that- That's what happened.
It knocked me cold.
Yeah, I may have been out for hours.
And then, the-the others were...
What about the others?
Where are they?
They didn't jump. Their chutes are still here.
And they're not dead.
They-they couldn't be dead.
And, if they left the plane and started walking, why didn't they take me?
Blake!
Kline! Kransky!
Connors?
Jimenez!
King nine calling firefly. Mayday. Mayday.
King nine calling firefly. Mayday! Mayday!
King nine calling firefly. Come in, please.
King nine calling firefly. Mayday! Mayday! Come in, please!
Ah, easy now, easy now.
Think about it some.
Don't go off half-cocked.
There are reasons. There are explanations.
The crew is someplace and-and, for some reason, and I'm alone for some reason.
Everything looks tilt, but there's...
There's logic behind it. There's-there's logic for everything.
I just have to...
I just have to keep it cool, that's all.
Think about it rationally.
The main thing, the main thing I got to keep in mind is, I'm responsible for this crew.
I'm in charge.
As far as it's within my power, I gotta keep them alive.
I gotta get them out of this.
I command this aircraft, and I'm in charge and I'm responsible.
Blake?
Blake, is that you?
Blake?
Blake?
Blake?
Kline?
Sergeant kline?
You incredibly stupid jerk, you.
You dropped your canteen.
You stupid bronx cowboy, you.
You're in the desert now, you idiot.
You're gonna need water.
I still have to nursemaid you guys, huh?
Some crew I got here. Run around the...
It's not funny, boys.
It's strictly not... not funny.
Blake! Blake!
Blake.
It's me, embry.
It's me, embry, blake.
Blake.
Blake?
Blake, where'd you go?
Blake?
What's the gag?
Oh, come on, fellas.
I'm responsible for you, guys.
Don't you understand?
I'm responsible.
Mayday. King nine calling firefly.
King nine calling firefly. Mayday. Mayday.
Pancaked in desert one hour and 30 minutes from last checkpoint.
Bearing two ni...
Hallucinations.
The whole thing could be an hallucination.
I could be lying out there in the sand with a fractured skull.
I might not even be standing here.
I might be dying out there in the desert.
All this is what I'm just...
Making up in my mind.
Or maybe I'm-1i'm sleeping, and I'm having a dream.
Hey, maybe I'll-i'll wake up and I'll be back at the base.
Or-or maybe I tied one on and I'm in a booth at a bar someplace with a pretty girl.
Oh, this one tears it.
This one really tears it.
Wait till the medics get a hold of me.
They'll never let loose.
They'll have to put me on tour if they ever let me out of the bin, that is.
Now, just a second.
Just a second.
I saw him sitting there.
Yeah.
And that was no hallucination.
I saw blake sitting right here.
Nobody can tell me different. I saw him sitting right in this seat.
Blake! Blake!
Connors! Kline!
How about it, crew? You hear me, anybody?
Hey!
All right, king nine crew!
This is your captain!
How about it, you guys?
I'm responsible for you, jerks! You're giving me some bum action here!
You're throwing curves, gentlemen!
How about it, team?
How about it, crew?
Look, I'm supposed to look after you, guys!
Blake! Connors!
Kline.
I'm sorry. I didn't know.
Rest in peace, buddy.
Rest in peace, kid.
Hey.
What kind of aircraft are those?
Wait a minute here.
What kind of pla... What are they?
I've never seen any planes like that before.
I've never seen any jets.
Jets?
Jet aircraft? How do I know about jet aircraft?
This is 1943. There's no such thing as jet aircraft, but I know about it.
I know about jet aircraft. F-106s, f-105s, b-58s.
I know all about it.
Hey! Hey, where you guys going?
Hey, what's going on here?
Hey, what are you doing here?
Blake! Blake! Connors? Blake!
You ever hear a, a jet aircraft?
F-105s, f-106s, b-58s?
Jets! Jets!
Crew! Hey, crew!
Now, come on, we gotta get out of here.
We've gotta get out.
Now, we're not gonna be able to walk out.
We can't walk out. That's for sure. That's for pos/tive.
We're gonna have to fly.
Fly.
Come on, boys! Come on!
We're gonna have to prop up the ship, get the wheels down try to take her off. Get her in the air.
And, boys, I'll get her back.
You can trust me. I'll get her back.
It doesn't make any difference.
Because you're an illusion.
You don't even exist.
I'm dead.
Or I'm knocked out.
Or I'm off in limbo someplace.
Oh.
Oh, I see.
I'm unconscious.
Or I'm cracked up in some army base.
Some teeny-weeny little ward.
Or I don't exist any more than you do.
Crew, I'm all right.
Come on, crew. Come on back.
You can break the silence now.
I got an idea. Hey, you can yell at me.
Yell at me!
Oh, hey, why don't you just...
Oh, this is funny.
Why don't you just spring up out of the sand like a bunch of jumping jacks, and just stand there, and just laugh, see?
Just la...
Kline!
Kline!
Fellas, I knew you'd come back.
Oh, no.
Fellas? No.
Now, look, fellas. Please.
Kline.
Blake?
Kransky?
Phantoms.
Everything's a phantom.
There isn't a thing, not a single thing that's real.
Oh, god.
Oh, god, what's happening here? What's happening?
Won't you let me in on it?
Please, let me in on it, god.
Please, let me in on it.
Oh, god.
Let me in on it.
Oh, god.
Oh, please.
Please.
James embry, age 41, single.
It happened this morning. Went by a newsstand, looked at a paper, then went into shock. When the ambulance got there, he was almost catatonic.
Is this what set it off? This front page?
That's why I thought we ought to have a psychiatrist in on it.
It's very odd.
I thought so, too, so I checked with the pentagon in washington on his army background.
Captain air force, flew b-25, africa and italy. 37 missions.
Discharged august 1943, recurrent fevers.
Some suggestion of psychological disturbance, but he was discharged before they could find out much about it.
And this was his plane.
His plane and his crew.
Took off for italy on what was supposed to be a routine flight.
Embry never went on that last mission.
Reported in ill, and someone else flew the plane for him.
Never got back.
And for 17 years, he's been carrying that around in his gut.
You're all right, mr. Embry.
You're in a hospital. We'll look after you.
Crazy dream. Crazy dream.
I went back.
I went back to the desert.
That's all right, mr. Embry.
No, no, no. Sorry, mr. Embry. You went back to the desert. Then what?
I went back to my plane.
I-1 was looking for the fellas.
I looked everywhere for them. I saw blake, but it wa-it was a mirage, an illusion.
He wasn't there.
None of them were there.
It was an illusion, mr. Embry, but you're out of it now.
You're going to be all right.
I should have been on the plane.
I should have gone on that mission. I chickened out!
You didn't chicken out.
You had no way of knowing that plane wasn't going to come back.
Now you realize it more as time goes by, and you'll feel better for it.
It's out in the open now.
You don't have to hide it in a pit deep inside of you.
That's what's been hurting you all these years.
Another crazy thing. Uh-uh, an illusion or a dream or whatever.
I-1 was out there in the desert and...
Above me in the sky, jets.
Jets.
Isn't that wild? 1943.
African desert.
And jet planes overhead.
Just as if I...
Just as if I had gone back there today.
Did I?
Did I go back?
Did I go back to my plane?
In your mind. That's how you went back.
Only in your mind.
Only in my mind.
Go back to sleep now, mr. Embry. You're going to be all right.
I think the worst part of it is over.
At least the guilt is out in the open, and he knows what it is.
That illusion certainly seems real to him.
In a couple of days, a week, it will lose all reality.
Doctor, these are Mr. Embry's clothes. You left them in the examination room.
Put them on the desk here. I'm going back. I'll take them in.
I'd like to talk to him in a day or so.
Fine. I'll keep a check on him.
What's that?
It's sand.
Enigma buried in the sand.
A question mark with broken wings that lies in silent grace as a marker in a desert shrine.
Odd how the real consorts with the shadows.
How the present fuses with the past.
How does it happen? The question is on file in the silent desert.
And the answer? The answer is waiting for us in the twilight zone.
Rod serling, the creator of twilight zone will tell you about next week's story after this word from our alternate sponsor.
And now, Mr. Serling.
Inside this curio shop next week, from amidst this old-school rococo and some fusty, moth-eaten antiquary, will emerge a bottle. This one.
And from it will step a genie to give Mr. Luther adler four wishes.
But he'll discover, as will all of you, that there's an economics to magic. A high cost of wishing.
Next week, a most intriguing tale. The man in the bottle.
Thank you, and good night.
See the new andy griffith show each week over most of these stations.
Consult local listings.