[Eerie music]
(Narrator) You're tra vel/ng through another dimension.
A dimension not onl y of sightand sound, but of mind.
A journey into a wondrous land of ima Gina t/on.
Next stop, the twilight zone.
This is afr/ca, 7943.
War sp/ts out its violence overhead,
and the Sandy gra veyard 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 bomb the southern tip of Italy.
An errant piece of flak tore a hole in a wing tank.
And like a wounded bird, this is where she landed.
Not to return on this da y or any other da y.
[Thinking] Oh.
Oh, yeah, I remember now.
A t least I remember parts of it.
Wing tank hit and lost fuel all the wayover.
Fell behind, went off course and bell/ed in.
And the crew...
Wha tabout the crew?
Hey, did they bail out?
Did I order them to bail out?
No, I didn't.
We all rode it in. All of us.
I'm James embry, captain.
Yeah, yeah, tha t's who I am.
Uh, Blake, cop/lot. Kransky, rad/o opera Tor and wa ve-scanner.
And jimenez, na v/ga Tor. Connors, he wasa tail gunner.
Kl/ne, he was the upper turret gunner.
Now, let's see. Who else? Who else?
Blake?
Jimenez?
Blake?
Connors?
Kransky?
Kline?
Jimenez?
H ey! H ey!
All right, now. All right, now.
Piece it together. Piece it together.
Tha t's what? t I have to do. Just piece itall together.
We bell/ed in. We bell/ed in,
and I must ha ve been thrown clear of the plane.
Yea h. Yea h, tha t- tha t's what? t happened.
It knocked me cold.
Yeah, I ma y ha ve been out for hours.
And then, the-the others were...
Wha tabout the others?
Where are they?
They didn't jump. The/r chutes are still here.
And they're not dead.
The y-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!
[Radio static]
King nine calling f/refly. Mayday. Mayday.
King nine calling f/refly. Mayday! Mayday!
King nine calling firefly. Come in, please.
[Static]
King nine calling firefly. Mayday! Mayday! Come in, please!
[Radio goes silent]
Ah, easynow, easynow.
Think about it some.
Don't go off half-cocked.
There are reasons. There are explana t/ons.
The crew is some place and-and, for some reason,
and I'm alone for some reason.
Everything looks til t, but there's...
There's log/c behind it. There's-there's log/c for everything.
I just ha ve to...
I just ha ve to keep it cool, tha t's all.
Thinkabout it ra t/onall y.
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 with/n 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.
[Clanking]
Blake?
Blake, is that you?
Blake?
[Meta/ screeching]
Kline?
[Sergeant kline? Uaughs]
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. Ma yda y. Ma yda y.
Pancaked in desert one hour and 30 minutes from last checkpoint.
Bearing two ni...
Hall uc/na t/ons.
The whole thing could bean halluc/na t/on.
I could be I y/ng out there in the sand witha fractured skull.
I might not even be standing here.
I might be dying out there in the desert.
All this is whatl'm just...
Making up in my mind.
Or ma ybe I'm-I'm sleeping,
and I'm ha v/ng a dream.
Hey, maybe I'll-I'll wake up and I'll be backat the base.
Or-or ma ybe I t/ed one on
and I'm ina booth ata bar some place with a pretty girl.
[Laughing]
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 n/ne 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!
[Flapping]
Blake! Connors!
Kline.
I'm sorry. I didn't know.
Rest in peace, buddy.
Rest in peace, kid.
[Airplanes buzzing overhead]
Hey.
What kind of aircraft are those?
Wait a minute here.
Wha t kind of pla... Wha t are they?
I've never seen any planes like tha t before.
I've never seen any jets.
Jets?
Jet aircraft? How do I know about jetaircraft?
This is 7943. There's no such thing as jet aircraft,
buti knowabout it.
I knowabout jet aircraft. F-106s, f-105s, 5-583.
I knowall 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 positive.
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.
[Laughs]
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 some place.
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!
Fellas, / 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. [Sobbing]
(Man) James embry, age 41, single.
It happened this morning. Went b ya news stand, I ooked a t 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 / checked with the Pentagon in Washington on h/s army background.
Captain air force, flew b-25, Africa and ital y. 37 missions.
D/scharged August 1943, recurrent fevers.
Some suggest/on of ps ychol og/cal d/s turbance,
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 ba ck.
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-I 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-I 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 exam/na tion 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.
(Nurse) Wha t's tha t?
It's sand.
(Narrator) Enigma burled in the sand.
A question Mark with broken wings
tha t 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 quest/on is on file in the silent desert.
And the answer? The answer is waiting for us
in the twilight zone.
(Announcer) Rod serl/ng, the creator of twilight zone
will tell you about next week's storyafter this word from our al terna te 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.
[Eerie music]
Seethe new Andy Griffith show each week
over most of these sta t/ons.
Consul t local listings.