The regional tower closed at ten, but the night controller usually remained on frequency while finishing paperwork. Shortly after midnight, a calm voice requested landing clearance under a callsign that made him reach for a pencil: Sierra November Golf. Radar showed nothing. The transponder returned nothing. The pilot reported inbound over the reservoir, where the original airfield had disappeared beneath water when the valley was flooded seventy years earlier.
The controller cleared the aircraft because procedure arrived before disbelief. Runway lights illuminated in sequence, and an engine note rolled across the dark, low and mechanical, unmistakably from an aircraft built before he was born. No wheels touched pavement. Instead, the voice thanked him and requested taxi instructions to Hangar Four, which had belonged to the drowned field.
He found Sierra November Golf in an old logbook, then another. Entries appeared in several hands across decades. Every account ended similarly: aircraft landed, nobody observed disembarking, no aircraft present at sunrise. One entry contained an additional note in red pencil: DO NOT TAXI PAST THE OLD APRON.
He gave the route from a yellowed chart.
Outside, lights appeared beneath the reservoir.
Not reflections. Taxiway lamps.
They advanced across the black water, marking roads and buildings that should have been sixty feet below the surface. As he watched, the reservoir began lowering without draining. Roofs emerged. A windsock rose dripping into the night. Beyond it stood the old terminal, windows illuminated and figures waiting behind the glass.
The pilot requested parking.
The controller hesitated.
The voice changed slightly. Still courteous, but older now, layered with other voices speaking beneath it. Sierra November Golf had not been landing repeatedly over the decades. It had been checking whether someone still remembered how to guide it home.
The old airfield continued rising.
So did the town buried with it.
At dawn, emergency crews found the reservoir nearly empty and a complete runway where water had been the night before. The modern airport remained intact, except that every departure board now listed an additional destination with no scheduled time.
The controller recognized the name.
It was the town that had been drowned to build the dam.
©2013 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
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