The Langoliers

Author: Stephen King

This novella was published in a collection of stories called 'Four Past Midnight'. Ten people awake on a red-eye flight, only to find that the other passengers and crew are gone and the plane's flying on autopilot. One of the survivors, an airline pilot, manages to land the plane on a deserted airport. They figure out that those left over have one thing in common: they were asleep. They speculate that they've gone through a 'time-rip' and ended up in the pastâ€”which isn't anymore and has to be tidied up to that there's nothing left over there, a la 'the past is dead and gone'. Which means they'd better hurry to get back to their own time and the present before being devoured by the giant meatball-like Langoliers, who tidy up the timeline by...well, eating whatever's left. Why it's on the list: Because it's Stephen King. Time-travel with some serious nail-biting horror; and I love the notion of the past being eaten up by something, so that it's really 'gone'. Which would mean, of course, that you definitely couldn't actually travel too far back in time, because you'd be going into Nothing. That's it: Nothing. All eaten up. This story is maybe better not read immediately before going to sleep. Was adapted into a pretty good TV mini-series.