NEW YEARS EVE

A Short Story by Mark Edward Hall

“Honey,” Sally whispered, reaching across the seat and shaking him. “Honey?”

Kevin groaned as his head lolled first right and then left against the seat back. “Huh?”

“Did you see that?”

She knew he hadn’t seen it. He’d been sound asleep and snoring.

“See? Wha’?”

“I saw something run in front of the car and duck into the shed.” They’d just returned home from a New Years Eve party where Kevin had gotten totally drunk, it was late and cold and all Sally wanted to do was curl up under the covers of Kevin’s warm bed and get some sleep. But as she’d pulled into the driveway something had dashed through the beam of her headlights and run into the shed. She was so pissed. How many times had she honked on Kevin in the past few weeks to fix the latch on that door? Oh well, it was his house. He could do what he wanted. Now she could see the door blowing back and forth in the wind. She sat with the engine idling, headlights trained on the door.

Kevin groaned again. “What did you see? An animal?”

“I don’t know. Something. Maybe  . . . somebody.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“You sleeping at the wheel?”

“No!”

“Probably . . . nothing.”

“It was something, Kevin . . . looked like somebody all hunched over. Damn it, wake up. This is serious.”

“I am awake.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Go in the house. Go to bed.”

“No way. I’m not getting out of this car until you go in the shed and make sure there’s no one there.”

“Damn.”

“I saw it, Kevin.”

“Okay . . . okay.”

“Do you know anyone all hunched over who might sneak around in the middle of the night?”

“Yeah, my demented uncle.”

“Very funny.”

“There’s nobody here but us,” he said. “Just you and me.”

“I’m still not getting out of the car.”

Kevin’s arm moved toward her. He put his hand on her breast.

“Lay off, buddy.” She lifted his hand away. “Are you going to do something?”

“I could think of lots of things.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Just a little.”

“I’m about two seconds away from dumping you out and driving home,” Sally said. “You can spend the rest of the night alone with your demented uncle.”

“There’s no one in the shed.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m out of here.” She put the car in reverse and stepped on the brake. The car lurched. “Are you getting out?”

“Hang on,” he said. “You can’t leave at this hour. We had plans.”

“That was before you decided to drink half the booze at the party.”

“Aw, come on, that’s not fair. It’s New Years Eve.” He opened his door. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I don’t want to leave either, sweetheart.” She put the car in park and turned the engine and the lights off. The house was not even visible in the darkness. “Why didn’t we leave an outside light on?”

“I thought we did.” He opened the glove compartment and was rummaging around inside.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think?” He came back with a flashlight, switched it on and shined it in Sally’s eyes.

“Hey.”

“Woops, sorry. He lowered the beam and zeroed in on her breasts.”

Smiling, she shook her head. “Letch.”

“Guilty.”

“Why don’t you use your cell phone and call the police.”

“Silly Sally. Why would the cops come all the way out here?”

“Because there’s something or someone in the shed, maybe in the house. You don’t have a gun, do you?”

“Just the forty-five caliber Johnson in my pants, baby.”

“Kevin! It’s cold.”

“Okay—okay. I’m on my way. Should be tracks.”

“The ground’s frozen and there’s no snow, dummy.”

“Oh yeah.”

He stepped out of the car on unsteady legs. Sally followed.

“Where are you going?”

“You don’t think I’m staying out here alone, do you? Just go. I’m hanging on to your coattails.”

The shed door was banging in the wind. He stepped inside and shined the light around the interior. She stepped in behind him.

“See, no one here.” He turned and closed the door, locking it, tried the light switch. Nothing happened. “That’s funny?”

“What?”

“Must be why the outside light was off. Blown bulb.”

He went to the door, took his key and unlocked it. “That’s even funnier.”

“What?”

“The key turned too easily.”

“Damn it, Kevin, did you check to see if it was actually locked?”

“No.”

“Christ.”

“Don’t worry, my demented uncle must have made a copy.”

“Stop it, you’re freaking me out.”

“I’m kidding, silly.”

“Dick head.”

The kitchen was warm. He flipped the kitchen switch. Nothing. “Christ!”

“What now?”

“Power must be out.”

“But there’s no storm.”

“Wind. These old lines are sensitive. Here, I’ve got another flashlight.” He rummaged around in the cupboard drawer until he came back with it, handed it to her. “I’ll go look for candles. Wanna come?”

“No, I’ll stay here until I know the coast is clear.”

“There’s no one in the house, baby.”

“I wish you had a gun.”

“I told you—”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Not to worry. I won’t need one. If someone’s in the house I’ll run like hell.”

“Damn, this isn’t funny.” She picked her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m calling the cops.”

“Don’t be stupid.” At the dining room door he turned and shined his light on her. “You can call the cops if I’m not back in half an hour.”

“Cut it out, you asshole.”

He hurried through the doorway. She heard his quick footfalls receding. “Shit, I don’t like this. I’m coming with you.” She went into the dining room, shined the light around the interior. He wasn’t there.

“Kevin?” she called. No answer. “Kevin this isn’t funny.” Gooseflesh exploded on her skin making her shiver.

She heard more footfalls like someone climbing stairs.

“It’s all right,” Kevin called. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Aiming the flashlight Sally entered the hallway. By the time she reached the foot of the stairs Kevin was gone.

“Kevin?”

She didn’t know if he’d heard her but decided not to call out again. No point in acting too needy.

Sally stood motionless gazing up into the darkness. She could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. Sweat trickled down her back.

She turned off the light to see if she could see Kevin’s light flashing around upstairs.

Everything was dark.

She heard nothing but her own breathing, her own pulsing blood.

Silence was probably a good thing, she thought. If something goes wrong, I’ll know about it.

She gripped the flashlight with one hand, the cell phone with the other. They were both slippery against her skin. She looked at the phone’s dial. It was black.

She felt around until she found the on button, pushed it. The dial lit up and she could hear a dial tone. With another push of her thumb the light went out and the phone went silent. She sighed, dropped it back in her purse.

“Kevin, I’m coming up.” No answer.

I don’t really want to go up there, do I?

Sally began ascending the stairs, the beam from her flashlight trained at the top. When she reached the landing she heard a thump then a sound like a bowling ball rolling across the floor.

“Kevin?” she called. “Is everything all right?”

A voice that didn’t sound very much like Kevin answered, “Never better.”

She flinched and the flashlight slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor, the beam dying.

Oh dear God, what is going on?

“Kevin? Stop screwing around.”

She felt a scream about to break out of her throat.

She pulled the bedroom door open, leaned across the threshold and peered inside.

Kevin’s flashlight lay on the bed. Its beam backlit the hunched figure coming toward her. He was no one Sally had ever seen before—big and lumbering, impossibly bent, as though he’d suffered some terrible trauma. The tattered shirt that he wore was dripping with blood. In his hands he held a machete.

This isn’t real, Sally thought distantly. Kevin must be playing the world’s worst joke on me.

But Kevin’s head was perched on top of one of the bed-posts. It looked like a Halloween mask mounted on a broomstick. His eyes were open and staring. Blood ran down the post pooling on the floor. The lumbering figure moved toward her. This had to be a joke.

Screaming, Sally lurched backward and slammed the door shut, whirled and tried to run. Her foot came down on something that had to be the disabled flashlight. It rolled away and she went airborne. Her back slammed onto the floor. The breath pushed from her lungs.

As she tried to get up the door flew open and dim light poured into the corridor.

Quasimodo charged out. Seeing Sally lying on the floor he stopped abruptly.

“Who are you?” she screamed, scrabbling to get up.

He was raising the machete above his head. “Kevin didn’t tell you? I’m his uncle. His demented uncle. That’s what the family likes to call me anyway. They get a big laugh out of it. I’ll bet they won’t be laughing after this.”

“No!” she cried. “I didn’t do anything. Leave me alone.”

She rolled as the machete came down.

She heard him grunt.

Something struck her shoulder but there was no pain. She got to her feet and ran for the stairs.

She felt the pain now and the warm blood against her skin. Her left arm dangled, immobile.

Something heavy struck her in the back and she tumbled down the stairs.

At the bottom she opened her eyes. He was standing over her. She tried to push herself up but it was no use.

She knew this wasn’t happening. It had to be a joke. She and Kevin were supposed to make love, sleep-in tomorrow morning, have a languid and lazy New Years Day.

He raised the machete. She tried to move.

It was no use.

All she could do was scream.

The Nest

By

Mark Edward Hall

The day: cold. November, gray. Vagrant spears of melancholy light piercing heavy overcast, pressing down, stifling.

The house: bright white, an impressionist’s painting; skeletal swamp willows. The river: wide, smooth, reflective, below island’s eternal evergreens.

Obsidian eyes, watching.

The man: hunched, lurking, glasses trained, patient, waiting, moving forward a careful step at time; watching.

“Do you see them, Alden?”

A contemptuous flap of a hand. “Shush! You’ll scare them.”

“It’s not as if they can hear us from this distance, you know.”

He lowers the binoculars, shakes his head, sighs. “I’m not taking any chances.” His whisper is shrill, impatient. “Do you understand? Not before I have a chance to photograph them.”

“Why did you drag me out here then?”

“To observe, not to flap your gums.”

“I can observe perfectly well from the house, thank you very much, and at least in there I can talk if I so desire.”

He ignores her insolence, sorry he had dragged her along. “I just don’t understand it,” he says. “I’ve gone through that book a hundred times and I’m completely baffled. There isn’t a species that even closely resembles them. And I don’t know of one single example in the northern part of the United States that mate this time of year. Most birds migrate in the fall and the ones that don’t have all they can do to survive. They don’t mate in November. It’s insanity.”

“What makes you think they’re mating?”

“You have to see for yourself.”

Obsidian eyes, watching.

“I swear, Alden, you’re becoming a fanatic about this. They’re just birds.”

“No, they’re not just birds, Rachael! There’s something . . . different about them. Something . . . totally weird. Look for yourself.” He thrusts the binoculars at her. She takes them, albeit reluctantly, giving a small exasperated shake of the head. Stoically resigned, she puts them to her eyes and focuses.

“Another baby disappeared last night,” he says conversationally. Rachael stiffens. “This one on the south end. A little girl. She wasn’t in her crib this morning when her mother went in to get her.”

The glasses go askew and fall from Rachael’s eyes. “I’m having dreams,” she says. “That I’m alone. That you and Billy are gone. Jesus, Alden, what’s happening to us?”

“I don’t know, but I’m worried about Billy.”

“I don’t think I can take much more of this.” Her hands are shaking. She is having trouble holding the glasses. She tries to give them back but sees that he is busy forming thoughts.

“The FBI’s been called in and there’s a manhunt going on. They say if something doesn’t turn up soon they’ll do a house-to-house canvas.”

“Yeah, well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

He looks pensively back toward the island, staring at the huge nest at the top of the dead white pine.

“You are scaring the shit out of me, Alden.”

“I can’t believe you’re not concerned. Rachael, babies are disappearing from their cribs.”

“I know! Jesus, I am concerned! Just as much as you. But I will not buy into your obtuse theory.”

“It’s not obtuse. The problem is, you just don’t take me seriously. About anything!”

“Listen to me, you stupid man. I take you seriously when you make sense. You’re not making sense now. There’s some kind of nut on the loose and he’s the one taking those poor children. Not some . . . figment of your idiotic imagination. Don’t you think I’m scared for Billy? Just as scared as you are?”

He nods but she can tell he’s hurt.

He turns back to the nest. “How is this nut getting into these peoples’ locked houses, pray tell?”

“You’re taking about birds, Alden. Listen to yourself. How do you think they’re doing it? Down the chimney, like Santa Clause?”

He gives his head a rueful shake. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

Rachael shivers. “In any case, Billy’s sleeping with us again tonight.”

“You bet he is.”

She feels suddenly all weepy and weak. Puts the binoculars back to her eyes and scans, picking up the nest and holding for a long moment, trying to steady them. “It looks like a nest of ordinary eagles to me,” she says finally.

Alden grabs the binoculars away from her. “They’re not eagles! Jesus Christ, Rachael, don’t you think I know what eagles look like?”

“Ospreys then.”

He shakes his head, finding no words to convey his exasperation.

“You really are scaring me, Alden.”

“I know what I’m seeing, Rachael. For Christ’s sake, eagles don’t nest this time of year, and neither do ospreys. As a matter of fact, ospreys migrate. The nest is full of young birds. Didn’t you see their little bald heads in the binoculars?”

“No, I didn’t see! I didn’t see anything except a big empty nest at the top of that dead pine tree. I swear, mister, you are losing it, and you are scaring me.”

“I don’t believe you can’t see what I’m seeing.”

“You and I look at the world differently, Alden. We always have. You see flying saucers and I see weather balloons, you see ghosts, I see smoke, you see a pony, I see a stall full of horse shit. You’re a dreamer—”

“I’m a romantic.”

“Whatever. You should have been a writer, you know, with that imagination.”

“Say what you want, the disappearances didn’t start until that nest appeared.”

“Oh, Alden, grow up. I’m not going to listen to this garbage a moment longer.” Rachael turns and stomps toward the house.

Obsidian eyes, watching.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he says later, trying to make amends. “It’s just odd, that’s all, don’t you think?”

She looks pensively at him. “What’s odd is that you’re making some kind of twisted connection between the disappearing children and that stupid nest.”

“There are five now, Rachael. Count them!” He thrusts his hand out, emphasizing his five fingers. “All from this town. No one else is losing children. I’m just looking for a logical explanation.”

“Logical?”

“I’m going over there, tonight.”

“You’re what?”

“I want to see for myself.”

“You’re insane.”

“Maybe, but at least we’ll know, won’t we?”

“You’re going to climb that tree at night.”

“It has to be done.”

“No it doesn’t, Alden!”

“Yes it does!”

Rachael runs an exasperated hand through her hair. “If you ever breathe a word of what you’re about to do to anyone, I swear, I’ll deny any knowledge of it. Do you know why? Because they’ll lock you up and throw away the key. And I never want Billie to know what a screwball his father is.”

“So, what do you believe, Rachael?”

“I told you. I believe a sick, perverted human being is taking those children, period!”

The night: scudding clouds. Moon. Canoe on river; paddle rippling; calm water.

He climbs the familiar branches of the familiar tree, the mewing bundle strapped to his side.

The nest: tiny bleached skulls, bones, the new offering.

“I was trying to tell you, Rachael,” he whispers, as he places the child in the nest. “But you wouldn’t listen. Now it’s too late. He twists his body, falling forward, arms outstretched; a perfect swan dive toward the dark forest floor. Eagles pounce, shrieking.

Rachael exits the house on a run, screams echoing across calm water: “BILLY! Dear God, somebody help me! BILLLLLY . . . !”

The Resurrection Pit

by

Mark Edward Hall

I like peanut butter and maggot sandwiches.

Christian didn’t care if his little brother did like peanut butter and maggot sandwiches, as long as he came back to him.

The first time Christian was consciously aware of the resurrection pit he was twelve years old and it was three days after Stevie disappeared.

He knew folks died. He knew they went away. That was life in Somerville. Everybody went away eventually. And he knew about wakes and funerals and folks hanging out in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes crying and eating bland food and toasting the dead with cheap wine and stale beer. Hell, he’d been to enough of them, too many to count.

What he didn’t understand was why they came back.

And why they were never quite the same after they did.

And nobody could ever give him a good answer about any of it.

Shhh, you’re not supposed to talk about these things.

And so he stopped talking about it, but he could never stop thinking about it. They could not make him do that.

His little brother Stevie was ten. They shared a room. They were close.

One night he heard footsteps and loud whispers out in the hallway and Stevie crying, and then it was silent and he knew.

And in the morning Stevie was gone.

Waylon, their father, was making a racket over breakfast, banging pots and pans together. Like he was angry.

Christian’s mother took off when he was five and Stevie was three. Nobody ever said why but Christian thought he knew. When she went away she wanted to stay gone.

Christian carefully searched the house but found no trace of his little brother. Returning finally to the kitchen he stood and watched his father.

“Where is he?”

“Gone,” Waylon said.

“Like Mama?”

“No.”

“Where then?”

Waylon did not answer him. He smiled at the boy but Christian saw that it was a false smile, that his eyes were somewhere else, like they had turned over in his head and only seemed to be looking inward, as if they had been forced to gaze upon something too terrible to confide. Waylon wobbled around the kitchen, whistling tunelessly to himself and making small talk, but Christian was no fool. He knew what had happened to his little brother and he hated his father for not telling him.

“When’s he coming back?”

“Oh, a day or two.”

Christian had friends whose mothers and fathers had died, and he knew kids who’d died in car crashes. They all came back eventually. He had a friend named Leroy Starks who had fallen off a tractor into the blades of a corn harvester.  He didn’t see Leroy’s body but those who did said it was a mess. Three days later Leroy was back at school. His skin looked different; yellow, like puss, and he talked slower, and he walked slower, like he had shit in his pants, and his eyes were dull, like they weren’t really seeing you, and he dug around in his nostrils all the time as if he was trying to scratch an itch in his brain. And he would say stupid things such as: I like peanut butter and maggot sandwiches?  Or: I’m gonna play with my dead puppy when I get home?

Christian supposed it was good to have Leroy back, even if he did say stupid things.

Three days passed and Stevie still hadn’t returned. When he asked his father about it Waylon said, “There must have been a problem. Be patient. Things will play out eventually.”

“What sort of things?” Christian asked.

Waylon looked long and hard at his son before answering. “I suppose it’s time you knew about it,” he said. “You’re old enough.”

“Knew about what?”

“The resurrection pit.”

Christian nodded in understanding. He knew. Somehow he’d always known.

“During the nineteenth century something happened in the woods out behind old man Doggett’s farm,” Waylon explained. “Something hit the ground, made a pretty big crater. Nobody knows what it was but it burned away part of the forest and it never grew back. Couple years later, Doggett’s wife died and he buried her out in the pit. No one knows why he did it and I guess it’s not important. The point is, two days later she came back. She wasn’t exactly the same but she was good enough for old Doggett. She cooked his meals and cleaned his house. So before Doggett died he left instructions to be buried in the pit.” Waylon paused, looking in his son’s eyes. “That was more than a hundred years ago and . . . well . . . you know . . .”

“Yeah,” Christian said, “The Doggett’s are still around.” Christian knew them from church; they both had puss-yellow skin, dull eyes, frozen smiles and blackened teeth. Just like half the people in Somerville. And at school more and more kids were going away and coming back changed. Some ate rotten apples for lunch. Still others dined on insects and dead frogs. Some wore their clothes horribly soiled, inside out; few handed in homework and the teachers seemed not to care.

I like peanut butter and maggot sandwiches.

Waylon hung his head.

“Well why hasn’t anybody come here from away, see why it’s happening?” Christian asked.

“Oh they have,” Waylon said. “You bet they have.”

“Well?”

“They go away and never come back.”

“But what about Stevie?” Christian insisted. “Stevie didn’t just die, did he?”

“No, son, he didn’t. But he’s gone and there are rules.”

“What rules?”

“We’re living longer these days,” Waylon explained. “There’s better medicine, safer cars. If natural attrition doesn’t accomplish the goal then we have to be . . . creative.”

“I hate you,” Christian said.  He got up and left the room, knowing what his father had done.

Six days and nights passed and Stevie still hadn’t returned. And Christian began having dreams; Stevie sidling up to his bed, whispering in his ear, his breath dank, like grave dirt. “I need you, Christian,” his brother implored. “I can’t come home without your help.” But Christian knew that wasn’t the way it worked. Something was wrong.

The dreams continued for nearly a month and when Christian mentioned them to his father, Waylon would just stare blankly at him. When he tried to stay awake, Stevie’s voice went silent.  It was only on those nights where, bested by exhaustion, he would fall into bed only to awaken at the sound of creaking floorboards as something crawled toward his room.  A shape would slither past the doorway and the smell of grave dirt would assault his senses.

“Please, Christian.”

I don’t know what to do, Stevie.

“Yes you do.”

Dad should do it.

“Dad can’t”

Why not?

“Because Mama says you have to.”

Mama? Christian thought.

In a near-trance state, Christian climbed out of bed and, barefoot, followed the dark shape through the fields of autumn-dry corn stalks to the woods behind Doggett’s farm. It wasn’t until Christian reached the crater did he realize his brother had disappeared.

The pit was just as his father had described, a deep bowl-shaped indentation in the earth where vegetation refused to grow. Christian stood on the rim looking down into it. With the harvest moon clear and bright he had no trouble seeing the hundreds of holes where citizens had been buried and resurrected. But why had Stevie been denied? And what did Mama have to do with it?

Christian moved down into the pit until he came to an untouched mound. Something about the look of it troubled him.

He went to his knees and started to dig, thinking of his brother and Waylon’s blank stare, thinking of the kids at school.

I like peanut butter and maggot sandwiches.

He dug in the ground until his fingers bled. In the end, he found only an empty hole in the earth. And in the morning, despite the filth on his feet and the blood on his hands, he wondered if it had all been a dream.

That night the dark shape was back, slithering across the floorboards, beckoning, pleading.

“I need you, Christian.”

I tried last night, Stevie.

“Mama wasn’t ready.”

No! Mama went away a long time ago and didn’t come back. She went away because she didn’t want to come back.

“She’s been waiting a long time, Christian. You’re the only one who can help her.”

Christian left his bed and followed the slithering shape across the dark fields to the resurrection pit.

The hole he’d dug the night before was filled. And he realized why he’d been bothered by it. It couldn’t be Stevie’s grave. It was too big for a kid.

He got down on his knees and, with raw and bleeding hands, proceeded to dig.

When he hit something moist and soft he was careful to dig around it, throwing handfuls of soil up over the rim. He saw the mounds of her breasts first, then a partially decomposed face and thick mats of hair.

“Mama?”

But Mama was already in the process of changing, the decomposition coming loose and sliding away. Beneath, another face was revealing itself, scaly, lizard-like.

Christian gave an abhorrent shudder and crawled out of the grave. Waylon and Stevie both stood at the edge peering in.

The creature in the hole pushed out its dirt-caked snout, its lizard-like eyes opening with moist sounds. The legs scrabbled and broke free. Thick braids of exposed sinew coiled up each of its legs, like cables that bunched and flexed as years of encrusted soil fell away.

The alien came up out of the hole as if on springs. The knobs of her spine were connected to strong plates of muscle. Her arms and legs were stretching even as they twitched with spasms, elongating, the fingers and toes now claws, lizard eyes scanning, landing on Christian.

Christian backed away. “No,” he said.

Waylon and Stevie moved toward him. “Your mother didn’t just go away, Christian. She was chosen.”

Christian continued to back away. “Chosen? What do you mean?”

“She needed a longer gestation period than the rest of us.”

Waylon made a gesture, taking in the entire crater. “You don’t think this was an accident, do you?”

Christian followed his hand and saw that the residents of Somerville had come out to watch. They lined the rim of the crater like guardians staring down at the birth of their queen.

THE END

Pure instinct had been driving Annie onward for nearly three days now. Her decision to resume her artistic endeavors had come from someplace inside her that she did not understand. The muse was an essential element of her existence that lived almost as a separate force from her normal self. And even though she realized on that same elemental level that she could not stay here at her father’s home, that she would soon have to run, she could not curb the impulse to fill her remaining days here putting paint to canvas.

First she’d gone about the business of preparing the room, much to Greta’s dismay, and then she had begun her quest.

The picture she painted had come unwittingly from a place inside her that seemed separate from her conscious self, which was no surprise. Annie’s paintings had always been instinctual. Nothing about her art had ever been contrived. She could no more visualize her next creative work than could she visualize what the end of the world would look like. She’d simply begin to paint, and when instinct told her to stop, that was that, the work was complete, resulting in art that defied categorization, complex yet elemental, abstract yet detailed, all without a trace of self-consciousness.

So it came as a complete surprise when she realized that, dead center of her chaotic creation, she’d painted an ordinary object. She stood back staring at her handiwork, cocking her head from side to side, frowning and fretting. After a few moments of careful consideration she came to the conclusion that there had been something at play here besides instinct, simply because she had no memory of painting the object. Geometric shapes were not a part of her mind spectrum. They never had been, and there was no reason to believe they ever would be. No, something external had acted upon her during the creative process that caused her to paint an object that looked curiously like the point of an arrow, or perhaps a spear. She couldn’t be sure. It was realistic in every detail, so realistic in fact, that it seemed three dimensional; as though it had been photo flashed onto the canvas.

Written in black letters beneath the object, were the words: Eye of Hell.

“What in the name of God?” Annie breathed, as the spearhead morphed into a small crimson pinpoint and began to grow, chilling her bones to the marrow. Startled, Annie backed away, for now the object looked like an eye, and out of the eye, a dark object arose and took wing, growing, flailing as it went, like a black bed sheet gone awry from a clothesline in a windstorm. Instinctively she ducked, to avoid the object flying straight at her. She screamed and hit the deck as it missed her by a hair’s breadth. The object circumnavigated the large room several times before dissipating into what looked like fragments of black confetti floating slowly downward onto the canvas-covered floor. The fragments settled all around Annie and became static. When she reached out and tentatively touched one of them with the tip of her finger, it crumbled to ash.

Annie remained on the floor for a long moment, breathing laboriously, her heart pounding. She waited, wondering what the hell had just happened here. She pinched herself, thinking she might have fallen asleep and was in the midst of a dream. “Ouch!” she said, realizing that this was absolutely real.

It only took Annie a few more moments to suspect the truth of what was happening here. The madness of her youth was beginning all over again. A magical thing that seemed to change shapes at will had visited her time and again when she was growing up. It took on many forms, sometimes a man, sometimes a bird or a bat, sometimes fragments of dark matter that flailed like little winged monsters, their purpose never clear. She remembered the secret whisperings, and fragments of dreams, long twilight sleeps between fever and exhaustion. Her years with Doug had brought a measure of sanity to her life because it was so normal, because he was so normal. But she’d always known she wasn’t normal, and so had Doug.

That’s why Annie needs constant love and reassurance, Doug had told her father on that day that now seemed so very long ago. You’ve allowed that thing to steal her soul. Doug’s accusations had enraged Annie to the point of violence, even as she’d suspected their truths. And in place of whatever had been stolen, her soul, something had been substituted, a weight, a burden, a living tumor that grew inside her like a cancer.

“Who are you?” she asked in a trembling voice, unaware until now that she was sobbing. “What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?”

You know me, child, a voice answered back, inside her head. Probably better than you know yourself. You’ve always known me.

“No!” Annie said, heaving herself up off the floor and circling the room, trying to pinpoint the exact location of her antagonist. A rage was building in her even as her distended belly began clenching with cramps. “Why don’t you show yourself, you lousy coward! Let me see what sort of monster terrorizes little girls!”

My identity is no secret, love, but you refuse to see me for what I am.

“You’re nothing! You’re a ghost, you’re confetti! Worse, you’re shit!”

I am Lost, Forsaken, Forgotten.  I am your mother and your father, your breath and your life, your birth and your death.

“Get out of here,” Annie cried. “I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

Your father is trying to betray me, but I cannot allow him to do it.

“Betray you?” Annie said. “How? Why? How does he even know you?” Her belly was really clenching now, she was bent over clutching it, spasms wracking her.

See the power I have over you, love?

“You have nothing to do with me!”

Oh, child, you are so wrong. It has been such a long road from where Edmund De Roche and I first crossed paths. You see, long ago your father and I struck a bargain.

“A bargain?”

His immortality for my mortality. His soul for my heart. If you will allow me I will show you.”

“Show me? How?”

Inside your head.

“You stay out of my head.”

This won’t hurt, I promise.

“But I don’t know . . . if I . . . can,” Annie said, her resolve weakening even as her contractions began to subside. She remembered things in her head from years ago, things she never wanted to relive, and she was suddenly wary, certain somehow that this would be just another of those terrible, terrible nightmares.

Of course you do, love. It’s easy. Just open your mind and let it flow.

“No!” she said, but the entity was a stealthy bugger and he was inside her before she could utter another protest.

Laid out before her was the image of a muddy battlefield with two huge armies clashing. These men fought like titans, their weapons spears, arrows and swords, and they wore uniforms of some long ago campaign. The image zoomed to an area near the battle’s left flank on the bank of a silt-filled river. Here a wounded soldier struggled to lift himself to his feet. Blood covered his face, and his armor was pieced in several places. From these wounds more blood oozed. There was something familiar about the soldier that made Annie uneasy. She tried to make out his features but there was too much blood to see him clearly. In his struggle to lift his body from the muck the soldier’s hand sank beneath the silted surface. When he pulled it back it contained an object. Seeming confused as to what it was, the soldier washed the object in the river’s flowing waters and brought it up close to his face. Recognizing it for what it was, the soldier drew his arm back as if to fling it far out into the currents.

Just then, a figure approached from behind, not walking exactly, but gliding just above the blood-soaked battlefield. The figure was cloaked in a hooded robe and, from Annie’s vantage, could have been a simple monk from some ancient religious order. Annie could not see the face but something told her that she was looking at the entity that now held sway over her thoughts.

Sensing the close presence of another individual, perhaps an enemy who wanted to finish him, the soldier lowered the hand that held the object and twisted around for his sword.

In that instant Annie recognized the soldier.

“Daddy?” she said, unaware until the word was out of her mouth that she’d spoken it aloud.

Yes, child, said the collector of souls. Only he cannot hear you. I am allowing you to witness an event from a very long time ago. You are seeing across space and time to another reality.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Annie said.

You see, child, I had been searching for the object since the day I was exiled to this earth, with little success, and here, a soldier of no importance on a battlefield forgotten by time, plucked it from the silt of a river. He did not want it, so, feeling charitable, I struck a bargain with him. In exchange for the object the soldier would survive the war and go on to found a great family dynasty. He would enjoy wealth and luxury and a very long life. But there was one condition.

“What condition?” Annie asked.

When the time was right he would produce an heir who would produce an heir. The time is right now, love . . . The collector stopped talking, allowing his words to sink in.

Annie’s eyes flew wide open in surprise. “No fucking way!” she said curling her body forward, hugging the roundness of her belly, protectively shielding it from the creature’s scrutinizing eye. “You’re not touching my baby.”

We shall see, child. We shall see.

“Tell me why the time is right now?” Annie demanded. “Why not five-hundred years ago? Why not two-hundred years ago? Why does it have to be now? Why does it have to be me?”

Simple, love, said the creature. The father of the child had to be just the right one, and Douglas McArthur was not born until thirty-five years ago.

“So this is what mine and Doug’s lives have been about?” Annie moaned. “We were born to serve your twisted purpose?”

Purpose, yes, twisted; well, that is a matter of opinion.

“You tricked me into coming back here,” Annie said. “You destroyed my house, you killed my husband and now you want my child? Dream on asshole, you’ll get nothing more from me.”

Ah, such a hot-headed child. You always have been, little Annie. But I’m afraid petulance will serve you no purpose this time. You no longer have the will to resist my persuasions.

“Oh yes I do.”

And how will you prevent me from taking what is rightfully mine?

“I’ll kill myself. That’s how! And I’ll take my child with me!” The words spat from Annie’s mouth before she could stop their expulsion.

You would kill your own child?

“Before I let a monster like you have it, yes! Doug’s gone and without him I have nothing left to live for.”

On the contrary, love. You have everything to live for. The child needs a mother. Someone to raise it and love it, someone to teach it manners, grace and respect, see that it is properly educated so that it can become what it is meant to become. You are the only one who can do it. Tell me that you will, Annie?”

Annie felt her resolve weakening. She knew the monster was right. She could not kill the child she’d dreamed of having her entire life. When the time came she would birth it, raise it and do well by it. This was an incontestable fact. There would be time to steer it away from the collector’s persuasions. She was sure of it.

With renewed assurances of Annie’s acquiescence the collector ceased to be in her presence. Annie felt its departing like a void in her consciousness.

She lay on the canvas-covered floor for a long time thinking about her child and grieving for the lost love of her life, cursing fate for dealing her such a twisted hand. In time a litany of thoughts began to form and find their way to the private place inside her mind, the three-lock-box of secrecy where no one was allowed to go. Not even the collector. She knew now what she had to do and she needed to get on with it.

So she heaved herself up off the canvas-covered floor and headed for the shower, all the while formulating her plan.

The sound of a ringtone nearly jumped Doug out of his seat. He had been totally unaware that there was a cell phone in the car until that very moment. He searched around and found it beneath the seat, tried to see who was calling but the numbers were blurred. Doug realized that he was weaving on the road. He was in no condition to drive and figured it would be only a matter of time before a cop spotted him. Behind him headlights approached, a horn blared and the car pulled around him, the driver shaking his fist in the air.

Doug’s numb fingers groped the telephone, searching for the talk button. He pressed it and put the phone to his ear.

“Vogel!” barked an angry female voice. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Lucy?” Doug said.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me.”

“Oh my God, Doug. What happened? Are you all right?”

“They came after me. I had to run.”

“Those bastards!” Lucy exclaimed. “Doug, I have to find you before they do.”

“I’m on some highway near—”

“Don’t say it!” Lucy cautioned. “They’re probably listening.”

“Are you safe?”

“I don’t know. They know we’re both alive. That can’t be good. I’m on the move. I need to find a way to reach you without giving away either of our locations, but we’ve got to figure out something soon. They’ve got global positioning devices and god-knows-what-else. I’m sure they’re trying to track us as we speak.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Jesus, I don’t know. Listen, how bad are you. Can you continue much longer?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I injected myself with morphine and it’s making my head fuzzy.” Doug looked down and saw blood leaking through the front of his shirt. “One of the wounds is open. My vision is blurred.”

“Shit,” Lucy said, “let me see, let me see.”

“How familiar are you with this area?” Doug said, desperately grasping at straws.

“Very, but I told you, they’re listening.”

“I don’t care. I am going to die if I don’t get help. You’re my only hope.” He was now coming onto a section of highway with a reduced speed limit. Either side was littered with strip malls and convenience stores, most of them closed. Doug was looking from side to side as he drove trying to locate some kind of landmark that Lucy might know but might take the others longer to figure out.  There was the usual array of fast food restaurants, MacDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, but nothing that stood out as unique. Then suddenly he saw it. He slammed on his brakes and turned the wheel hard right, pulling into a nightclub parking lot that was closed and deserted.

“You remember on that first day in the hospital when you came to see me, you told me about your organization and how they lived and worked?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“Think, Lucy!”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Lucy?”

“Okay,” Lucy said suddenly. “Yes, I do remember.”

“Don’t say it,” Doug cautioned, hoping against hope that Lucy was familiar with the place he had found. “I’m there right now.”

“Oh, God, yes, I know,” Lucy said suddenly. “I’m less than ten minutes from where you are. How will I find you?”

“Just come. I’ll find you.”

Doug looked up at the black-painted marquis above the nightclub’s front entrance. In big, bold gold letters it said, SHADOWS. He pulled the car around to the back parking lot, which bordered onto some woods, got out of the car and waited.

In an office somewhere deep in an underground bunker, technicians were busy running programs on several sophisticated high-speed computers. The computers had taken the phrase, “live and work,” the words that had been overheard in Doug’s and Lucy’s conversation, and were running series after series of possibilities. So far nothing concrete had come up. The small, but powerful-looking man with the close-cropped blond hair, pacing, watching the monitors carefully, was offering other possible pieces of the puzzle.

“We live and work,” he said, and as soon as it was out of his mouth a technician would punch in the extra word. “I live and work. We live and work at. He said, how, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the techs replied.

The man the technician had referred to as sir was Jack Spencer, AKA Spence, AKA Boss Man, one of the Project’s main workhorses in the field of paranormal investigations. Spencer wasn’t a scientist, however; far from it. He was a tough and ruthless ex-CIA man who knew how to get results when it came to finding people who sometimes didn’t want to be found. The Project was a secret government organization that had been around since World War II. His cover was FBI, most people believed that’s what he was, and that’s what he wanted people to believe. The Project was a non-entity. It didn’t exist any more than Area 51 existed. Their mission, like The Brotherhood of the Order’s, was the investigation of anything to do with paranormal activity; aliens, ghosts, demons, strange machines and craft, angels, devils, magical artifacts, mass murders, religious cults, to name just a few. But unlike the Brotherhood of the Order, the Project was a pragmatic organization with a pragmatic mission: find a constructive way to use these paranormal phenomena—real or fantasy—for the greater good. In recent years the Project had zeroed in on a particular artifact that was in some way connected to the present mark in his sights.

Even though Jack Spencer had seen some extremely peculiar things while working for the Project, he didn’t have any use for paranormal phenomena. Hell, he didn’t even believe most of it. Bunch of loonies and quacks, as far as he was concerned. Nevertheless, he worked for people who did believe, and one thing Spencer was, was loyal. He took his job very seriously, and he was dedicated to the point of fanaticism. When he had a mark in his sites, such as he did now, rarely did he let go until the mark was in custody. Beneath him was a team of crack experts in a variety of investigative fields and technologies; computer geniuses, field agents, private contractors, all intensely loyal and sworn to the utmost in secrecy.

The two guys who’d fucked up royally earlier tonight were both out. Just like that. Soon they’d be history if they weren’t already; two more casualties in a war that had no conscience, a battle between the forces of good and evil. They’d failed on three counts: first they’d unnecessarily killed an innocent; second, McArthur had escaped; and third, they’d failed to find the object that Spencer’s superiors had so desperately wanted to possess. Jack Spencer could give a shit about the object. He knew what it was, or what it was supposed to be. He didn’t buy the bullshit about it, though. No matter. He was a good soldier and he would do his job.

He leaned in toward the monitor, and in a very deliberate and cadenced diction, he repeated Doug’s code words, “‘You told me about your organization, how they lived and worked.’ How would an organization such as The Brotherhood of the Order live and work,” he asked rhetorically.

“Not very well any more,” one of the techs said with a humorless smirk. “Most of their leaders are dead.”

“That’s beside the point,” Spencer snapped. “And don’t kid yourself; the organization is alive and well. They’ve been around for centuries. Just because a bunch of flatulent old priests got themselves slaughtered doesn’t mean they’re done with. They’ve got professionals all over the world. Now focus!”

“Yes, sir.”

“They work in secret,” offered another of the techs.

“Yes, that’s probably what they have believed all these years, but we know better, don’t we?” A small, derisive smile touched Spencer’s thin-lipped mouth. “No matter, they’re scholars who take themselves very seriously and would probably use something that fit their own romantic image of themselves.”

“We live and work in secret,” he said. “Put a ‘the’ at the end of ‘we live and work in,” he instructed.

A tech immediately did as he’d been told and the computer began spitting out possibilities, thousands of them, starting alphabetically and finding every known word in the English language. There were millions, of course. No matter, the computers were running through the list in nanoseconds and each time it would hit upon a logical possibility it would catalogue it and list it on a separate screen. The ones that were not logical were passed over. In less than a minute it had reached the S’s and a second later the word shadow appeared on the screen.

“Hold it,” Spencer said. “What about shadows. We live and work in the shadows. That makes sense. Do a run on local businesses, see if you can come up with something that has that name.”

“Shadows?” one of the techs replied. “Not necessary. I know the place. It’s a nightclub over on Dunhill Boulevard.”

Spencer picked the phone up and made the call.

Behind Shadows there was a small stand of woods, perhaps one hundred yards deep where beyond Doug could see the lights of another boulevard. A litter-strewn path—probably made by children or bums or both—snaked its way through the woods between the boulevards. Doug walked that convoluted path now, deciding it would be better to wait for Lucy under cover. He tucked Vogel’s gun into his belt, turned and waited, watching for car lights. He didn’t have long to wait. A vehicle pulled into the front lot and then swung around to the back of the nightclub. In the illumination of street lamps he could see that it was a dark-colored late-model Ford sedan. “Shit,” he said, chiding himself for not asking Lucy what she drove. Probably wouldn’t have told me anyway, and wouldn’t have blamed her. He crouched in the shadows waiting for the door to open and the dome light to come on so that he could identify the driver. Beyond the club he could see down the boulevard as another car, nearly identical to the first one, pulled up to the curb.

He knew then that they’d been had. What was he to do? If Lucy showed up and did not spot the deception, then she’d be in as deep as he was. Several cars passed by out on the street but the distance was too great for Doug to identify the drivers.

Two men exited the car in the lot and carefully approached Vogel’s car, guns drawn. Doug backed further up the path into the woods and crouched like a wounded animal. The gunmen, one on each side of the car, yanked open the driver and passenger side doors, guns pointed.

The pain inside of Doug flamed suddenly, taking him to his knees. The entire chest-wound bandage was wet with new blood, and droplets of it were leaking from the soaked shirt and splashing to the ground. Given the amount of pain, the blood loss and his weakness, Doug was quite certain that he wouldn’t be able to last much longer. And now he was seeing double, and triple. He remained on his knees beside the path for a long moment, head bowed, breathing in shallow bursts, trying to quell his rapidly-beating heart.

Out on the boulevard several other cars were slowing down. He put his head up, hoping against hope that Lucy wasn’t foolish enough to just pull into the lot. He had lost sight of the two gunmen and wondered where they had gone. Doug could not think straight. He figured that it would be only a matter of minutes before they came along the path and found him. What would he do then? He decided he would kill if he had to. He’d do almost anything to get out of this insane nightmare. He needed to heal so that he could go and find the wife and unborn child that he loved so desperately. He’d made a terrible error in leaving them behind in that other world that seemed oddly like a dream now. These thoughts were burning images in his mind, forcing him to focus, and spurring him into action. He heaved himself shakily to his feet and forced himself to move. Looking down the path from where he’d come he saw no one, so he turned in the opposite direction and began walking, taking one agonizing step at a time. He had taken just three steps, however, when a shadow loomed up in front of him. He raised the gun when a voice urgently whispered, “Doug, it’s me!”

Lucy had spotted the Fed vehicles and came in from the other side. Saying no more she took him by the hand and began gingerly leading him out of the woods.

From somewhere not too far behind them an authoritative voice commanded, “Stop right there!” A spotlight came on, casting their shadows forward in monstrous over-exaggeration.

Lucy began to run, pulling Doug along; Doug staggered behind her, feeling like a dream-runner but feeling little else. Gunfire erupted and bullets whizzed past their heads. Doug heard the squealing of tires on pavement and the roar of several engines revving in the distance. It was all like a dream now. He was not sure how far he could run; stumble was more like it, for with each step he took he was surprised to still be standing. Was he standing? The feeling was nearly gone from his body and the consciousness from his mind.

“Come on,” Lucy prodded. “Just a few more steps and we’re there.”

Doug did not know how he’d done it, but suddenly they were out of the woods. Lucy was throwing the door of a gold-colored sedan open and shoving him onto the back seat. He fell in prone, lying down on soft leather; he was quickly slipping beyond the realm of conscious thought. Lucy was now getting into the driver’s side. Doug heard more shooting but in his mind they were just cap guns being fired from some distant and dreamlike carnival gallery. He was dimly aware of bullets pinging on metal. Then the car was in frantic motion. Lucy maneuvered out of the lot and onto the street, bumping the curb and skidding sideways. Doug did not know whether or not they were being pursued, and he had passed the point of caring.

“Doug! Can you hear me?” Lucy screamed.

He could not answer her. The world was going away in slow radiating waves. Down a long dark tunnel it went in a spiral, and Doug supposed it was an okay place to go. There didn’t seem to be anyone shooting at him down there, and that was just fine by him. There wasn’t much he could do in this world anyway.

No damned use to anyone.

Better where I’m going.

And less painful.

“Doug, don’t do this to me!” Lucy screamed, her voice desperate with fear. “Don’t you fucking dare die on me!”

Doug heard the words but just barely, and he was a little amused at their implications. Die? What a laugh. He’d already died once, hadn’t he? Some keen sense told him it was so, the knowledge coming at him like a fast-moving train from the depths of the tunnel. Ah, well, what difference did it make if he died again? Everyone thought he was dead anyway, including Annie, and she was the only one that really mattered.

“Doug, please talk to me!”  Lucy’s voice was as distant as the far end of that dark tunnel.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1243481/The%20Fear%201.mp3

Merry Christmas. I hope you all have a great holiday season.

Chapter 35

Doug was dreaming of his mother. Since her death he had dreamed of her often, so he was not surprised that he was dreaming of her now. What did surprise him was the nature of the dream. She was standing on the front porch of their new house—a house he had never seen let alone lived in, but in the years following his parent’s death had conjured its splendid image so many times that it had become real in his heart—and she was calling to him as he rode away on his bicycle.

“Doug,” she called, “You didn’t forget to put the object around your neck, did you? Remember, it will help to protect you, keep you safe.”

Her words nearly jolted Doug from his sleep, for it was in that instant, after three weeks in a coma and nearly another two weeks of recovery which had included hours of conversation with Lucy Ferguson and other staff members, that he finally remembered the object. Why had he not remembered it sooner? Better still, why hadn’t Lucy or another staff member mentioned it? Perhaps because it was gone before Lucy had found him shot on the restroom floor. No, impossible. It was in his jacket pocket wrapped in a soft piece of flannel cloth. Maybe they had found it and assumed it was nothing and simply discarded it. Or perhaps it was in a drawer or cupboard with his wallet, or maybe it was still in his jacket pocket and the jacket was hanging in a closet somewhere. But the jacket would have been bloody from his gunshot wounds and they might have thrown it away. The thought caused panic to rise in Doug’s sleeping heart.

But Doug wasn’t just remembering the object. Suddenly he was remembering everything; the dying man who’d given it to him and the incident surrounding it. The Brotherhood of the Order. That’s the organization he’d said he belonged to. It was the same organization that Lucy claimed to work for. Nearly two weeks of conversation with her and she hadn’t let him in on the joke. There was something terribly wrong here.

“Doug, wake up. You must hurry.” It was his mother again and she sounded frightened, her voice filled with urgency.

He suddenly realized he was awake. But now he could hear other sounds, a chorus of strident voices. He opened his eyes and stared. It was nighttime. There was no question about that. There were no lights on in his room, only the open door where from beyond dim illumination spilled in. He heard a muffled scream—a woman’s scream—and what sounded like a tray of instruments falling over. He looked around him at all the tubes and monitors, wondering if he could survive without them. His question was answered as moot at the sound of a determined male voice demanding, “What room?” There was no doubt that its intent was menacing. Doug rolled over, the movement ripping the IV needle from his left arm. The explosion of pain in his chest was excruciating. He nearly screamed. He pulled tape and needle from his right arm and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. They felt like two chunks of dead cordwood. The room began to spin wildly. He tried to ignore the sensation, grasping the edge of the mattress firmly with both hands, easing himself to his feet, forcing himself to breathe evenly. His weak legs trembled beneath him and he wondered if he was able to take even a single step. Another strident voice followed by a scream of agony spurred him into nearly impossible action. He took one, then two steps. In the dim light spilling in from the corridor he spied a wheelchair against the wall behind the door. He took three more shaky steps, turned and fell into it. Footsteps pounded in the corridor, and he heard two male voices. Using the strength in his arms, he wheeled back to the bed, hastily pulled the covers down, inserted the pillows and re-covered the bed, making it look vaguely like a person might be lying beneath the covers. He ripped a needle from one of the tubes and quickly wheeled back behind the open door, fisting the needle as one would a knife.

A shadow fell across the threshold, then a second. He raised the hand that held the needle, keenly aware of his chances of survival if these intruders meant him harm. The shadows were unmoving for a long moment. Doug froze, barely breathing. His heart pounded madly in his chest. He wondered if the intruders would hear it. His upper body was wrapped tightly in bandages and he could feel the vague mutterings of pain as the drugs from the feed bags began to wear off.

One of the intruders stepped silently into the room. From Doug’s vantage behind the door he could see the man’s back. He wore a trench coat and a pair of black shoes. His hair was short and gray, neatly trimmed around the ears. Doug knew the look. He’d seen guys like these before. These were some sort of government guys, federal agents; no doubt about that. The phrase ‘Men in black’ rose in his consciousness. Making the connection jolted him like an electric shock. Jesus, he thought. Is it true? Could the government somehow be involved in all this? What the fuck is going on? He held the needle high, ready to plunge it into the man’s back if necessary. A fine film of sweat covered him. He tried not to breathe, but the pain was worsening and he was weakening. His heart hammered in his ears.

The man raised his right arm. In it he held a gun with an attached silencer sleeve. It was aimed at Doug’s bed.

“What are you doing?” The second man—the one who’d remained in the corridor—the one Doug hadn’t yet seen—said in an urgent whisper.

“You’ll see.”

“The boss man said to kill him only if necessary. He wants him alive.”

“I know what he said.” The man promptly pulled the gun’s trigger three times in quick succession. The gunshots, although silenced, seemed loud in the closed space of the room. Three small black holes appeared in the bed sheet. Doug stopped breathing.

“Are you crazy, Rusty? They’ll have us crucified for this.”

The man named Rusty took three quick steps toward the bed, reached down and ripped the sheet off. Doug held the needle high, his legs tensed; he was ready to spring from the chair.

Close by came the cacophonous wailing of approaching sirens.

Rusty gave a sinister laugh. “See,” he said, pointing at the bed. “He’s been moved. They knew we were coming. God knows where the artifact is.”

“Our orders were to find that artifact and to take McArthur alive,” the man in the hall said.

Rusty rifled quickly through the drawers of the stand next to the bed. “It’s not here,” he said, “and neither is McArthur. The woman must have it.”

“That’s what the boss man was afraid of,” the second man said. “Somebody tipped her off and she got McArthur out of here.”

The building’s fire alarm went off with ear-piercing dissonance only adding to the cacophonic din of the approaching emergency vehicles.

“We’re too late, the second man said. “They can’t find us here. Come on, let’s move.”

Rusty turned and stopped abruptly, looking directly at Doug. Some instinct that Doug was totally unaware of until that moment caused something in his mind to bear down with painful pressure. He stared the man directly in the eyes, unblinking until something gave way in his brain and a constellation of exploding stars exploded across his vision. The pain was blinding. Rusty’s face went suddenly slack.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” the second man said. “Let’s go!”

Rusty did not answer. He walked briskly past Doug, through the door and out of the room. Doug fell back into the chair, his head nearly splitting with intense agony, his body trembling. Finally he began to breathe again. He heard running footsteps retreating into the distance. When he thought it was safe he wheeled himself around the door and out into the corridor. He felt wetness on his mouth and realized that his nose was bleeding. He wiped the blood off with the sleeve of his night shirt, looking up and then down the corridor. The coast seemed to be clear. There was a nurse’s station not far to his left so he wheeled toward it. Behind the counter he found Donna Sanchez lying on the floor in amongst a spilled tray of instruments. There was a small hole in one side of her head and a large exit wound in the other. The wall behind where she’d been standing was painted with sprays of blood.

“Bastards!” Doug said, nearly exploding with rage. He wheeled toward a medicine cabinet on the far wall, ripped it open and rifled through it until he found what he was looking for; several hermetically-sealed syringes and a bottle of morphine. He put the stuff in his lap and wheeled back around the counter toward the elevator. The fire alarm stopped abruptly, leaving a vacuum inside the hospital corridor that was at once claustrophobic and eerie. The approaching sirens were warbling louder now, approaching with swiftness and Doug realized that he had to get away before they found him. He wasn’t safe anywhere, even in the hands of the supposed good guys.

He stopped in front of the elevator door, seeing that he was on the fourth floor. The elevator was moving up toward him. Doug knew now that he could not trust anyone. The men who had been sent to capture him were almost certainly agents of the United States government, and they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. They’d killed that woman in cold blood. He knew that if local authorities found him they would turn him over to them. He was, after all, supposed to be dead, the victim of a horrendous plane crash, a suspect in the disaster. If he were found alive he would be detained, questioned, imprisoned. All of the above and probably more. It would be only a matter of time before someone else made an attempt on his life, and how many lives did he have? There was some sort of conspiracy afoot that he had no understanding of. He must find out what it was, and the only way of doing so was to be free. He wheeled frantically toward the stairwell and blasted through the exit door. He listened for footsteps, but above the wailing of the sirens he could hear nothing. Tucking the syringes and the morphine in the pocket of his night shirt he eased himself out of the chair. His legs felt stronger now but he suspected he was running on adrenaline, and his strength would probably be short-lived. He tried not to think about what awesome power had caused that man to look directly at him and not know he was there. He remembered clearly what the man in the corridor had said just before he’d looked at the man in his room: Our orders were to find that artifact at all costs. Doug reached his hand up to his neck feeling for an object that wasn’t there. Of course it’s not there. You were shot. You’ve been in a coma for six weeks. It was in your jacket pocket instead of around your neck where it should have been? He remembered the dream of his mother and realized that it had most probably saved his life, and how the memories had come rushing back on him like a tidal wave leaving him breathless and giddy in their wake. He remembered everything now: the dying man that had passed him the object and the words he had spoken. Now the artifact was gone. Dear God, it was lost, maybe forever. It had been entrusted to him and he’d screwed up and lost it. He looked back toward the room, knowing he could not risk going back up that corridor. He felt terrible. But how the government knew about it, and what they wanted with it, he could not even venture a guess? Had those men actually been agents of the U.S. Government, or something else entirely? Who was the person they had referred to as the ‘Boss Man’? He suddenly realized that there were way too many questions and not nearly enough answers, and asking them now was only succeeding in hurting his brain, and probably putting his life in further jeopardy. As his predicament came into sharp focus, panic began to seize him. He stifled it, knowing that survival depended on him keeping a rational face on his situation. He knew that there was no time to ponder any of this now. He had to get out of the hospital if he expected to survive.

Holding onto the metal banister he eased himself down the lighted stairwell on shaky legs. The outside walls appeared to be made of tinted glass and beyond there was nothing but darkness. He wondered if they were out there watching his careful descent, ready to grab him as soon as he stepped through the door. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to move. After he had descended three floors he began to wonder why he had not encountered another living soul. At the bottom he had two choices. He could turn left and go into the hospital’s ground floor, or he could turn right and leave by the exit door. If he left the hospital where would he go? He had no idea where Whitehall Virginia was. He had no money, no clothes and he was still badly injured. Nevertheless, the choice was a simple one: freedom. He pushed out through the exit door and found himself on a walkway bordered closely by blossoming Rhododendrons. He was obviously at a back entrance because there was no activity out here and the distant parking lot appeared empty. The night was dark. There was no moon, and the stars were brilliantly-cut diamonds set against the black curtain of a sky. He estimated the temperature to be somewhere around 40 degrees. It was still spring and even in Virginia the night air felt chilled. He was wet from sweat, shivering madly and his ass was hanging out of the night shirt. He realized that he had to find clothing and shelter soon or he would die of hypothermia.

It appeared that Donna Sanchez, the now dead nurse, had been telling the truth when she’d told him he was at a university hospital for he could see campus-like buildings in the distance. The hour was probably late for there were few lights in the windows. Some of these buildings he knew would be dormitories, sorority and frat houses. Perhaps he could find clothing or shelter among them. He reached the end of the walkway and set off across a deserted parking area on shaky legs. But he soon had to stop. The pain inside him was now excruciating. He took one of the syringes from his pocket and removed the sterile package that encased it. From his other pocket he extracted the vial of morphine, inserted the needle into the nipple and pulled back several CCs of the pain-killing drug. Too late he saw headlights approaching at speed. He knew that he had been spotted and there was no time to escape. He simply wasn’t strong enough. Tucking the partially-filled syringe and the vial back into his pocket he hobbled toward a line of trees that bordered the lot. The car came straight at him. He put his arm up to shield his eyes from the bright headlights, knowing that if the vehicle’s driver meant him harm, he did not have the strength to jump out of the way.

The car swerved suddenly and came to a skidding halt beside him. The passenger-side door flew open and in the dome light’s glow he saw Dr. Vogel sitting behind the wheel.

“Get in,” Vogel said. “Hurry! We don’t have much time.”

Doug fell into the seat beside the doctor and the car sped away.

“What the hell’s going on?” Doug said, breathing arduously.

“They know you’re alive.”

“No shit!”

Vogel said nothing.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace safe?”

“Where?” Doug insisted, suddenly not trusting Vogel. Hell, he was through trusting anybody. Vogel sat staring straight ahead, sweat beading his brow. They turned onto a nearly deserted four lane and sped off. When the car passed the sign that said Langley, Doug said, “Let me out!”

“Afraid I can’t do that.”

“I said let me out!”

“I have my orders.”

“Orders? You son of a bitch!”

“If you think you can get away, you’re crazy. If you think you can beat them you’re even crazier. They’ve threatened my family. I have to do this, you know. They always win. That’s just the way things are.”

“Who are they?”

Vogel frowned. “Your guess is as good as mine. Jesus. I just do what I’m told.”

“What do they want?”

Vogel emitted a short laugh that sounded more like a wretch of agony. “Christ, I don’t know. Maybe you have something they want.”

“What?”

“Something powerful. A new kind of weapon. They want to control it. If they can’t do that, you’re dead. It’s either one way or the other with them. No room for negotiation.”

“Are you talking about the artifact?”

Vogel frowned. “Artifact? I know nothing about an artifact.”

“What weapon then?”

Vogel gave Doug a sidelong glance. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I swear, I don’t know about any weapon.”

“What about all that stuff you’re capable of seeing, of doing?”

Doug nearly laughed. “Oh, Christ, that? Why now? They’ve known about me for years and I’ve never been bothered. “What’s changed?”

“This is just a guess, but it’s probably because they never had a plausible reason to touch you before. Hard working upstanding citizen. Now you’re a terrorist. You brought down an airliner. They can do anything they want with you and with the homeland security laws the way they are, well, they don’t even have to let you talk to a lawyer.”

“But I’m not a terrorist,” Doug said. “I didn’t bring down that plane.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t care.”

“Jesus Christ.” Doug put his head back against the seat-rest breathing laboriously. He was finally beginning to understand some things. Vogel was probably dead on. He had the power to see things. With his sight he had the power to perhaps alter some aspects of the future. If a person knew something bad was going to happen then that person could perhaps prevent it, or at least be prepared for it. That was real power, a power he’d never considered using. But they had, oh yes indeed they most certainly had. They wanted to use him. They’d been looking for an excuse to get their hands on him since he was a child. They wanted to stick needles in him, put electrodes on his head, try and enhance his ability for their own ends. But worse they wanted to prevent him from threatening the status quo by using it himself or sharing it with other factions. Now they had a tangible reason to hold him for as long as they wished. Had it been De Roché who’d brought down that plane or had it been someone else? Doug shivered at the thought. He was now starting to have serious doubts about everything.

Another terrible thought struck Doug. They knew about his unborn child. There was no doubt about that. Everybody knew about it. Perhaps that’s what they really wanted. What if he had passed his ability on to his child through genetics? Ability, hell, your affliction isn’t an ability, it’s more like a curse, this little voice spoke up inside his head. But in the final analysis what did it matter? The reality of it was, the power inside the child, given the circumstances of its heritage, could be ten times what Doug’s was. If they took it from birth then they could train it to be loyal, do things their way. Breed more of them. But he knew they’d have to get to De Roché first and Doug began to seriously wonder if De Roché had the resources to adequately protect Annie and the child. Then a terrible thought struck him. He knew De Roché wanted the child. What if De Roché was in cahoots with them? What if he had been from the beginning? What if Annie was expendable? Was De Roché capable of wasting his own daughter? The answer to that question chilled Doug to the marrow.

“You will never be allowed to wield the power on your own,” Vogel said. “Trust me.”

“But I don’t want to wield anything! I wouldn’t even know how. I just want to be left alone, lead a normal life.”

“Never going to happen,” Vogel said. “They’ll bury you. They’ll always be afraid you might sell to the highest bidder. Wake up. They have no scruples and they don’t believe anybody else does either. You know how governments work.”

“But all I’m capable of seeing are tragedies.”

“You can see the future, my man. What government wouldn’t want to control that kind of power?”

“But I can’t even control it. It comes unbidden, at the most inopportune moments. And it has something to do with a creature I don’t even know is real.”

“They’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. They have ways. Drugs, hypnosis . . . torture.” He said the last word in a way that nearly froze Doug’s blood in his veins. “And besides,” Vogel continued, “you’re still barking up the wrong tree. It’s not my problem. All I have to do is deliver you and they’ll leave me and my family alone.”

“You’re a fool if you believe that, Vogel.”

A cloud of doubt crossed the doctor’s face. Doug saw it clearly before it vanished. Vogel was in too deep to turn back now. Doug could see it, plain as day. He was a dead man, and somewhere deep down he knew it. He was just going through the motions, hoping to buy a little more time before the axe fell. They were probably holding his family hostage right now. His world as a doctor, healer of men had always been a tidy and rational one. The world of corrupt governments and the power junkies who ran the machinery of those governments was as alien to Vogel as living underwater. His association with such men had come by chance. Now he was desperate. Now he was a man underwater.

“I can’t let you take me to them,” Doug said.

“I don’t think you have a choice. You’ve not fully recovered and you’re no match for this.”

Doug looked down. Vogel held a pistol and it was pointed in his direction.

“What about Lucy?” Doug asked.

“What about her?”

“Was it all a lie?”

Vogel frowned, shaking his head. “I imagine she’ll be dead by morning, probably already is, in fact.”

“But why? Jesus Christ!”

“She’s an idealist. She thinks that religious organization she works for—The Brotherhood of the Order, or whatever the hell she calls it—is going to save the world. She believes it’s such a carefully guarded secret.” Vogel laughed. “The government’s been onto them for years. Wire taps, GPS satellite feeds, the whole nine yards. You think they’re going to let a resource like that go unchecked?”

“But she told me she was confident of their security.”

“Get real, man,” Vogel said letting go of the pistol and dropping it clumsily into his lap. “This is a post-911 world. There are no secrets. There is no security.” Although he was sweating profusely Vogel seemed overly confident of Doug’s inability to act. He swung the wheel hard right and turned onto a paved lane that was bordered closely on both sides by woods. There were no signs marking the lane. Doug didn’t know the lay of the land here. He had no idea how far they actually were from CIA headquarters or even if that’s where Vogel was taking him. In any event, it was time to get off the pot. In his lap he carefully held the vial of morphine he’d begun filling just before Vogel had picked him up. He pulled back the syringe’s plunger with his left hand while holding the syringe firmly with his right, filling the reservoir with what he hoped would be an overdose of the powerful drug. The hand holding the syringe came out of the pocket of the Johnny, and before Vogel could react, Doug had plunged the needle into the side of the man’s neck and depressed the plunger. Vogel screamed like a girl and let go of the wheel. The car skidded wildly and went off the right side of the lane careening toward a row of small trees. Doug snatched the pistol from Vogel’s lap. Vogel was busy scratching at his neck trying to pull the needle free, screaming wildly, his eyes bulging madly. With one hand, Doug grabbed the wheel and spun it back onto the lane. With the other he took the pistol and held it to Vogel’s head. “Pull over,” he said, but it was clearly too late; Vogel had slumped forward onto the wheel, unconscious or dead. Doug did not know which. It didn’t matter. The doctor was toast anyway. Doug reached over and turned off the ignition, holding the wheel straight as the car coasted to a stop.

The pain was screaming inside Doug now, but he had to ignore it. There wasn’t time for distractions like pain. He got out and went around to the driver’s side, pushed Vogel’s limp body to the passenger side and got behind the wheel. He was shaking wildly as he put the car in reverse and swung around. When he got back to the main highway he turned right and drove for several miles until he spotted a pullover. The place was deserted. Beyond the pullover there was a tote road leading into a stand of tall pine trees. There were picnic tables and hibachis set up along the way. Doug drove in about a hundred yards, shut the engine and the lights off. The world was silent. The clock on the dash showed the time as 3:00 AM. He sat behind the wheel trying to catch his breath. With shaky hands he drew three and a half CC’s of morphine into another syringe and gave himself a shot in an arm vein. The relief was nearly immediate. Once he had stopped shaking, he got out and limped around to the passenger side, opened the door and began undressing Vogel. The man was a little heavier than Doug and the clothes were loose-fitting, but he thought they’d do until he could find something better. Once dressed he put the night shirt on Vogel and eased him out of the car, leaning him against a tree. He’d gotten quite a dose of morphine but the man was still breathing and Doug thought he’d probably be all right once it wore off. That’s when the poor bastard would wish he was dead.

After that was done, by the light of the dash, Doug went through Vogel’s pockets. He found a wallet with about seventy dollars in cash and several credit cards. This would be enough to get him far away from here. He started the car and backed out of the parking area, quite aware of the fact that every cop in the land would be looking for the vehicle. As he sped south on Virginia interstate 70, Vogel’s gun on the seat beside him, he was already formulating a plan to ditch the car and find another means of transportation.

Chapter 34

During the nights that followed the woman religiously came to him. She would stand by his bed and watch him sleep, sometimes for long stretches of time. After a while she would turn his bed covers down, unfasten his night shirt and place the object over his heart, holding it there, sometimes for hours, feeling his heart beat beneath her hand, feeling the intense, almost unbearable heat of the object as it went about its business of healing.

In those moments, while the electric surges of his heartbeat coursed up through her arm and into her own body, it was hard for her to remain impartial, difficult for her to continue on with the façade and not admit that she was hopelessly in love with this gifted and tortured man. It was even more difficult not to admit that she’d always been in love with him, that everything she’d done in her life had been done for him.

She would carefully watch his reaction to her touches and caresses, trying to judge, through his body language, the emotions he might be experiencing. After a time her eyes and her hand would drift down his body to his most private places, and knowing that he was a vital man in his prime, and that he had needs, she was not surprised when her ministrations began to bear fruit. When the urge to kiss him there, to caress him with her hands and mouth, to surrender herself wholly to him, got so strong, she would stop and pull away, knowing in her heart that it was wrong, that he was not reacting to her touches on a personal level, but on some deep subconscious level that had nothing to do with her. She would retrieve the object then and leave his bedside, guilt ridden and filled with frustration.

As time passed and the healing process progressed and there was no longer any need for the object, her night visits became less and less frequent until she had almost entirely weaned herself—not of her feelings for the man, no, that was not possible—but for her nearly uncontrollable urges to take advantage of him at his most vulnerable. Her duty was clear, she was to remain impartial, unemotionally involved; she knew these things, of course, understood them implicitly, had taken vows to uphold these principles at all costs. Just the same, she was weak, a flesh and blood being with strong emotions, and a small flame of an idea began to make its way into her thoughts, a way that she might be able to save face and still have what she most yearned for.

Chapter 33

In the days that followed, as Doug became stronger, he and Lucy talked at length about the Collector. There were things in Doug’s immediate past that he could not recall and his frustration was growing because of it. His last clear memory was of being shot. He remembered Annie and him being driven from their home; he remembered the terrible confrontation with De Roché and his fight with Annie on the beach and their subsequent reconciliation. He remembered the dinner party, getting drunk and wandering into the forest behind De Roché manor and the things he’d seen there. He vaguely remembered the next day at Rachael’s funeral and some incident that had occurred there, but he could not put it all together. He thought that De Roché had been shot but for the life of him, he could not remember any of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Like a nagging tic at the center of his psyche it remained, however, insisting that time was short and that he must recall those events soon. But it was no use, try as he might his spent mind would not focus. So he lived those days in recovery, talking to Lucy about his childhood and the terrible things he’d been witness to.

“You can’t imagine how it made me feel to see those people die,” Doug told Lucy. “Strangers, friends, my parents. Murdered, all of them. And for what? But worse, to know those children were still . . . alive somewhere and calling out to me.”

It was the third day since Doug’s reemergence into the world of the living and during those days Lucy held vigil for hours at a time at his bedside. She was a comforting presence, but deep in Doug’s heart he felt a growing unease with this woman that was both disturbing and a little tantalizing. His initial impression that she was somehow familiar would not go away.

“Do you honestly believe that those kids are still alive, Doug?”

It was a long time before Doug could reply to Lucy’s inquiry. He had mulled that question over in his mind a million times, but had never been able to come to a reasonable conclusion. “No,” he said finally. “Not in the way we think of life. But there might still be a chance for that little girl . . .” He hesitated, not sure if he was remembering things correctly. Not even sure if what he’d seen had been real. But when he remembered the little girl’s pleading voice he knew that it was.

“You’re talking about the incident in New Hampshire on the morning you and Annie had to run for your lives.”

Doug sighed. “So that was real, huh?”

“The FBI tried to keep it hush for as long as possible but we had people on the inside.”

“I don’t know why they call out to me,” Doug said. “I can’t help them. I’ve never been able to help any of them. Why does he take children? Why does he kill everyone else and take the little ones?

“It’s their innocence,” Lucy replied. “We believe he draws strength from them. Maybe he stores them away like batteries and uses them until they’re drained.”

“When the children talk to me they tell me that they’re in a dark place called the House of Bones. Do you know if that place is real?”

Lucy nodded earnestly. “We think it is. We’ve been trying to find it but it’s complicated. The Collector is a supernatural being. He exists on a separate plane of existence from the rest of us. He manages to cross over long enough to commit his atrocities but doesn’t stay here. We believe it’s possible that his House of Bones doesn’t reside on our plane.”

“So how do we stop him?”

“My organization has been trying to figure that out for centuries. Maybe you can help.”

“Me? How?”

“Well, the fact that these children call out to you and that you hear them makes me believe that you are somehow closer to his plane than the rest of us. And from what you’ve told me there seems to be some sort of special connection between you and this latest child, Trinity.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know her.”

“True, but I think that through her, your connection to the House of Bones is more tangible.”

Doug lay back against his pillows with a weary sigh. “I just don’t understand why I’m cursed with such terrible sight.”

“I think it’s about the future, Doug. I think you’re somehow tapped into the future through this creature.”

“But I’m not capable of seeing the future,” Doug said.

Lucy frowned. “I think you might be, Doug. What about the plane crash?”

Doug was silent for a long moment staring at Lucy. “But what about my parents and all the other things that happened? I’ve always believed that I was seeing those things as they were occurring.”

“Maybe not, Doug. Maybe you were seeing them just before they occurred. Tell me you’ve never considered that.”

“I honestly haven’t, but if it’s true . . .” Doug’s voice trailed off and Lucy saw the pain in his eyes.

“No, Doug, you were a child. You could not have prevented any of it from happening. Don’t go there.”

Doug stared at Lucy as something in the dim recesses of his memory again tried to surface, some long lost knowledge or familiarity, and although Doug sensed that it was gaining in strength he was still unable to grasp it, and just like that the fragment fluttered away like black confetti, leaving him with a dull headache and more questions than answers.

“What’s going to happen when the authorities finally get their hands on me?” Doug asked. “They think I’m a terrorist.”

“They’re not going to touch you,” Lucy said.

“You don’t know that.”

“They think you’re dead.”

“You know I’m alive. The nurse and doctor know I’m alive. How many others? Come on, tell me.” Doug had raised himself slightly up off his pillows. “How do I know I’m safe in this hospital?”

“You’re not strong enough for this, Doug.”

He sank wearily back down feeling angry and confused, his sunken and rheumy eyes gazing out at Lucy from a drawn and pallid face. Outside the light of day already seemed to be fading. How long had they been talking? Surely not more than a few hours. Everything seemed somehow distorted and Doug felt a strange sense of vertigo, like he was only partially back from some terrible place. “But I need to know why this is all happening.” He said.

“And you will. Please trust me; right now you need rest more than anything else.” Lucy rose to leave.

Doug put his hand out and gripped Lucy’s arm, holding her, looking her directly in the eye. Could he trust her? There was that veil of doubt again threatening to turn into a solid wall. Who was she really? Where had she come from? What did she really want? This woman who he hardly knew suddenly had all this control over him. No one had ever had this much control over him and the realization of it gave him claustrophobia. He wanted to bolt from his bed and run for his life, but he forced himself to stay calm. He knew that he must if he was going to heal and get out of this nightmare alive.

“Lucy put a comforting hand atop Doug’s. “I don’t know what I can say that will set your mind at ease.”

“I’ve gone through my life thinking I was somehow responsible for . . . everything that’s happened,” Doug said. “And there’s still some part of me that believes I caused it all. I’ve spent my life since then trying to rebuild my self esteem, running from those who would use me for their own ends. Hear me. I won’t be manipulated. I won’t be used.”

“I won’t use you, Doug. I promise I’ll never do that. You’re a good and kind man and you deserve to be happy.”

“That’s what Rick Jennings always said. If it hadn’t been for him I don’t know if I’d even gotten through it.”

“Rick Jennings is your friend, the police lieutenant from Portland, right?” Something in Lucy’s tone put Doug on guard.

“He’s my best friend,” Doug said. “He saved my life after Mom and Dad died. I owe him everything. I need to call him, let him know I’m okay.”

“No, Doug, you can’t. You’re dead, remember?”

A terrible sense of frustration rose in Doug. “It’s killing me that they think that, that my death is causing them pain.”

“I know, but it’s best right now. Please, you have to trust me.”

Trust me. Trust me. Fucking trust me! It was her mantra and his prison. But at the moment he felt too tired, too drained to do anything else.

Lucy pulled away. “You’re exhausted,” she said, an embarrassed, almost apologetic smile on her face. “You need rest. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Doug settled back into his pillows. “Tomorrow I’ll be stronger,” he said.

At that moment Dr. Vogel appeared above him, a round happy face with inquisitive eyes behind small oval glasses in wire frames. “Are you upsetting my patient?” he said to Lucy with a touch of rancor in his voice.

Dr. Vogel leaned down, examining Doug.

“I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just tired.”

“You won’t be running any marathons for a few weeks, I’m afraid,” Vogel said. Looking now at Lucy, he said, “I insist you let Mr. McArthur rest. He still has a lot of healing to do.”

“I was just leaving,” Lucy said. “I’ll come back in the morning,” she told Doug. “We’ll get you through this. I promise.” She touched Doug tenderly on the arm before turning and walking from the room.

“Sure,” Doug said to no one in particular, as he began a rapid descent into oblivion. The lights were suddenly and mysteriously extinguished and everything around him began fading to black. “I’ll get through this,” he whispered to himself. “I need my strength. I have to get out of this place and find Annie.”

When Doug slept there were no dreams. Or if there were he slept too securely to remember them. His absence was empty, in fact, of all thoughts and visions, all reason and purpose, as though whatever lived in his mind was secret even from him.

A black void, that for all he knew could very well have been death descended over him.