CHAPTER 13

ROSE STOOD NEAR the door to the trailer in her red cap and red waitress uniform, her eyes unfocused, as though she had just woken up. “Oh, Mr. Wake… welcome. I’m… I’m so glad you’re here. ”

“Hi, Rose. Barry said you have my manuscript? ”

“Barry? ” said Rose.

“Gee, thanks, ” said Barry, “glad I made such an impression. ”

Rose didn’t take her eyes off Wake. “Your manuscript? Oh. Oh, yes. ” She stepped out of the way. “Please… come on in. I’ll get you some coffee. ”

“You ask me, she could use a quadruple-espresso, ” Barry said under his breath.

Wake looked around. The trailer was cramped but neat and tidy, with pillows on the small sofa and a menagerie of stuffed animals that overflowed their display case. A cozy breakfast nook took up part of the living room. Heavy curtains covered the windows, blocking out most of the daylight; the room had a murky quality, as though they were underwater.

Barry pushed aside a heart-shaped pillow, sat down on the couch, “I feel like I’m drowning in estrogen, ” he muttered.

“What? ” Rose called from the kitchen.

“You have a nice place here, ” said Wake, sitting on the couch besides Barry. The handful of manuscript pages he had found rubbed against the inside of his jacket, but he left them there. He liked knowing they were right beside him.

“Thanks, ” said Rose, carrying in two mugs, still dreamy-eyed. “Rusty… he used to call it my little nest. ”

“I’ve never been inside a trailer, ” offered Barry. “It’s not at all like I thought it would be. It’s more like the inside of a yacht than a tin can. ” He saw Wake’s expression. “What? What did I say? ”

“I’m sorry about Rusty, ” said Wake, taking a mug from Rose. “I know you two were close. ”

“Yes, ” said Rose, looking past him. “Rusty really loved… my coffee. ”

Wake glanced at Barry. She was acting so strangely. He looked around the trailer, hoping to spot the manuscript. She was going to drag things out before she handed it over, probably ask Barry to take a picture of her and Wake for her Facebook page. Fans. Wake didn’t care. He just wanted to get the manuscript and trade it to the kidnapper for Alice.

Barry stared at his I & #9829; Teddy Bears mug. He blew at the steam and took a sip. Looked up at Rose. “Hey, this is really good. ”

Wake sipped from his own floral-pattern mug, thinking of Rusty and how the ranger had looked so happy sitting in the diner, drinking coffee and chatting with Rose. He remembered the last time he had seen the man, the Taken that had been Rusty, covered in shadows and trying to kill Wake. He drank more coffee, waiting as Rose drifted onto a chair opposite them, demurely smoothing the hem of her uniform. On the wall behind her was a collage of Wake’s book covers and photos of him from magazines and newspapers. Another life-size publicity standup of Wake stood gloomily in the corner, identical to the one in the diner. He wondered how many of them she had, if she talked to the standup while she made breakfast… wondered if it talked back to her.

“I like your shrine to Saint Al, ” said Barry, taking another sip of coffee.

Rose looked confused. “I’m… not…”

“No, I meant…” Barry plucked at his lower lip. “My tongue feels numb. ”

“Rose? ” said Wake.

“Umm? ” said Rose.

“My manuscript? ” said Wake. “I really need it. ”

Rose nodded slowly. “I know what you need. ”

“Yes? ” said Wake.

“A muse, ” said Rose. “A muse to inspire you. ”

“A muse? ”

“You have so much work to do, ” said Rose, settling deeper into her chair. “There’s no shame in needing help. No shame… You just need to open yourself up, allow someone else…”

Wake set his mug down on the coffee table. “Rose? ”

“You’re really here, ” said Rose, playing with her hair. “It just seems so strange. Alan Wake, sitting on my couch like a normal person. ”

Wake glared at Barry. “We’re wasting our time. She doesn’t have anything. ”

Barry smacked his lips. “Remind me… remind me again what we’re doing here? ” he said, slurring the words. “I thought…” He pitched forward and collapsed onto the floor.

Wake stood up, unsteady, sloshing coffee across his hand. He knew he had burned himself, but he couldn’t feel it. The mug was heavy, too heavy to hold anymore. He watched as it fell from his grip, falling slowly, slowly, so very slowly onto the carpet. He looked at Rose.

Rose watched him. She was different now. Shadows flickered briefly across her features, the darkness playing peekaboo with him, her eyes… her eyes were lost, gone someplace out of reach.

Wake wanted to go, wanted to get out of there and take Barry with him, but it was getting dark in the trailer. Too dark to see or move or anything else. He knew he should fight. Make a run for the door. But it was soooo far away. Better to conserve his strength. He flopped back on the soft couch, let the darkness slide over him.

Wake didn’t know how long he had been there, but eventually he saw a light in the distance. A tiny light in the darkness, but moving fast toward him.

It was the deep-sea diver again, the same one who had come to him in his dream on the ferry. The dream with the hitchhiker who was trying to kill him. A hitchhiker who wouldn’t die. The Diver had tried to help him, had reached out to him in the dream, insistent, warning him about the darkness, even building a bridge for him where the old one had fallen down. Then Alice’s voice had inserted itself into the dream, and she was gently shaking him, telling him to wake up, the ferry was pulling into Bright Falls, and it was beautiful, everything she hoped it would be.

Bright Falls. Yes. He and Alice in a little cabin on the lake… Wake struggled toward consciousness, but it was like swimming through glue.

It’s coming for you, said the Diver, shining the light on Wake. It’s hiding in my Barbara’s skin and I’m too weak to stop it.

“I’m trying, ” murmured Wake, fighting to wake up. “I’m doing my best. ”

I know, said the Diver.

“Do you… do you know where Alice is? ” said Wake.

You need to turn on the lights, said the Diver.

“It’s not easy, ” breathed Wake.

You have to do it, said the Diver, fading now. It’s the only way.

Wake watched the Diver disappear, seeing something else now, something moving in the darkness, a deeper shadow. The roaring came now, louder and louder, loud as a freight train.

Wake pulled back but there was no place to go, no place to hide.

The woman in the black veil appeared from the darkness. The woman from the diner, enveloped in shadows. She breathed them in and out.

“I promised I’d come visit you and your lovely wife, ” she said.

“Go… away, ” said Wake.

“You must finish what you started, ” hissed the woman in the black veil.

“Leave me… alone, ” said Wake.

“You must finish your work, ” said the woman. “I insist. ”

Wake remembered the Diver’s repeated advice: Turn on the light. Yes, turn on the light.

“Don’t keep me waiting, ” threatened the woman.

Wake awoke with a gasp. He was on the floor of the trailer’s bedroom. Rose’s bedroom. Even in the dark, he could still make out the movie star posters plastered across the walls, the mobile of unicorns and stars floating above her bed.

The woman in the black veil stood over him, smiling, and the darkness billowed out of her like an icy undersea current. She bent down, gently touched his cheek, and shadows flickered in front of him. No… not all the shadows were in front of him. For an instant, just a brief instant, he felt the shadows inside of him.

“Back to work, boy, ” ordered the woman in the black veil.

Wake scrambled to his feet; hit the light switch on the bedroom wall. He blinked in the bright light. Alone in the room. He clung to the wall, hearing a roar outside the trailer. It rattled the windows before fading into the distance, and it seemed to Wake that the roar was a fast freight train charging through the night, carrying his hopes for Alice away with it. Carrying his sanity as well.

He staggered out of the bedroom and into the living room, still dizzy. He flipped the overhead light on there too, the pole lamp, the reading lamp. He would have lit up the whole park, the whole world if he could.

Barry lay sprawled on the couch. Rose sat in a corner of the kitchen, arms wrapped around her knees, slowly rocking back and forth.

Wake checked his watch. After midnight. He had less than twelve hours until he was supposed to meet the kidnapper and hand over the manuscript. It had always been a futile hope. He hadn’t even been able to write a paragraph. His only hope had been to pick up the completed manuscript from Rose, and that had been a lie. Part of him had always known it was a lie, but he had wanted to believe it was the truth. Rose having the manuscript was his best chance to get Alice back, so it had to be true. That’s the way good lies worked. You had to want to believe them. Instead, Rose had drugged him and Barry, and cost Wake a day. A day he couldn’t get back.

He watched as Rose rocked herself, crooning softly, and tried to understand why she had done it. Did she blame him somehow for what had happened to Rusty? No, she couldn’t know that. At the moment Rose didn’t look like she knew anything. She seemed hollow… absent.

“Rose? ”

No response.

Wake remembered the Diver from his dream, and the woman with the black veil. It had seemed real. As real as any waking moment. What had Barry been talking about as they walked to the trailer? A writer… Thomas… Zane. Thomas Zane, a writer like Wake. A diver, Barry had said. The island he lived on was named Diver’s Isle by the locals. Zane’s cabin the very same cabin Wake and Alice had been in.

Wake sat down on the couch, his legs wobbly. Zane was dead, drowned in Cauldron Lake along with his island, along with his lover, Barbara. Now Zane had returned, appearing to Wake, helping him against the darkness. But who was the woman in the black veil? Wake wasn’t sure what to believe, what was dream and what was truth, but he and Alice had been guided to Bird Leg Cabin by the woman in black, and that’s where Alice had been kidnapped.

Barry groaned.

Wake shook him. “Come on, we have to get out of here. ”

Rose kept rocking, clutching her knees, eyes downcast.

There was no way Wake was going to satisfy the kidnapper’s demands. No way he could deliver a manuscript. It was time to call Sheriff Breaker. Wake had met the kidnapper last night; now, he could give Breaker a description. The man had been on the ferry when they arrived in Bright Falls; someone else would have seen him. It was best that Wake keep quiet about the Diver and the woman in black; Breaker would consider that proof positive that he had lost his mind. She already had doubts about him because of the missing week and the vacation cabin that had sunk over thirty years ago. Truth be told… Wake had his doubts too. All he knew was that Alice had been kidnapped. He would tell the sheriff about the kidnapper, the phone call, the plan to meet with him tomorrow at noon. Maybe he and the sheriff could surprise the man at the coal mine. Wake had nothing to lose now. There was no chance of bartering the manuscript for Alice’s safe return.

Wake shook Barry harder. “Time to get up. ”

Barry curled up, snoring now.

“Barry! Wake up! ”

Barry mumbled something, but slept on.

Wake shook his head. Barry was too heavy to carry, but Wake couldn’t leave him here, not like this. There had been a wheelbarrow outside the trailer; he had spotted it coming in and thought that Rose must be a gardener.

Wake grabbed Barry under the arms and slowly dragged him off the couch. Barry’s boots banged on the carpet and he groaned in his stupor. Wake was sweating now, struggling against Barry’s inert weight as he continued dragging him over the carpet, out the door and down the steps. Wake tripped on the last one, fell onto his back in the dirt. Barry snored away, sprawled on the steps. Wake got up, brushing pine needles off his shirt, rubbing the back of his head where he had whacked his head on the ground. He carefully moved the wheelbarrow into position next to the stairs.

It took four tries to get Barry into the wheelbarrow. Twice he spilled the comatose man onto the ground. The second time it happened Barry muttered, “You’re looking… looking at a lawsuit. ”

Finally Wake got him positioned properly, Barry lying on his back in the wheelbarrow, his arms and legs splayed out to the side. Wake fished the car keys out of Barry’s pocket.

“It… it’s the blue Mercedes, ” said Barry, eyes closed. “Make sure… sure you don’t ding the door. ”

Wake slowly rolled Barry toward the parking lot, grunting with the effort. The wheel in front was big, but partially deflated; Wake had to use all his strength to push it forward, splashing through a puddle. He stopped partway to the parking lot, picked up a manuscript page that lay on the ground, a muddy footprint on it. Wake read it quickly through, folded it up and put it away in his jacket, then lifted the wheelbarrow again. He heard sirens approaching.

Randolph popped out of a nearby trailer, saw Barry lying in the wheelbarrow. He jabbed a finger at Wake. “I don’t know what kind of sick game you two are playing, but you’re going to get it now! I told you, Rose is a nice girl. ”

Wake put down the wheelbarrow, straightened up, his back creaking. “What are you talking about? ”

“The two of you alone in there with her half the night, ” said Randolph, shaking his head. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? ”

A car screeched up in the parking lot, catching Wake and the wheelbarrow in the headlights. A man in a dark blue suit jumped out, stalked over to the security gate. He pounded on the gate. “Open this thing up! ”

A couple more police cars pulled up.

“Here they are!! ” shouted Randolph. “I’ll get the gate open, ” he said, limping toward the lockbox.

The man in the suit flashed a badge. “Agent Nightingale, FBI. ” He pointed a pistol at Wake.

“What’s with the gun? ” said Wake, taking a step back. He still had the gun he had taken from the kidnapper in his jacket, wondered how he was going to explain that. Car doors slammed in the parking lot, and he saw the flashing lightbars atop the cop cars strobing the night.

“You’re under arrest, Hemingway! ” shouted Nightingale, his eyes like hard black stones.

“Hemingway? ” Wake wanted to laugh, but the look on Nightingale’s face drove that thought away. The man was deadly serious. “Arrested for what? ”

“You… you move… move a muscle and I’ll blow your brains out, ” said Nightingale, wagging the pistol.

Wake noted the FBI agent’s slurred speech. As Barry would say, not good.

“Open the gate! ” Nightingale stepped back as the gate creaked open. He shook a pair of handcuffs out of his suit jacket, dropped them on the ground. Cursing, he bent down to pick up his cuffs.

Wake looked at Barry sleeping peacefully in the wheelbarrow, then bolted toward the rear of the trailer park.

He heard gunshots behind him and a ceramic deer exploding as he ran past it. This guy was nuts! No way was Wake going to allow himself to be arrested. Not by Nightingale or anybody else. He had to meet the kidnapper at noon.

“Get back here! ” said Nightingale. “That… that’s an order! ”

Wake heard another gunshot as he leapt over a low fence bordering the park. He ran through the trees, the darkness closing around him. There was shouting behind him, deputies chasing after him.

In the distance he heard Sheriff Breaker yelling at Nightingale over the cruiser radios, telling him he was out of his jurisdiction, the two of them arguing over who had command authority. Wake wasn’t about to turn back. He hated to leave Barry behind, but Barry could take care of himself. He had a knack for it.

Branches raked across Wake’s face as he plunged deeper into the woods. He patted his jacket pocket. He had brought the flashlight with him, but he dared not use it now. It would only give away his position, and besides, his eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim light. He heard more shouts behind him, and Breaker calling his name. Wake increased his speed, fleeing the sheriff as well as Nightingale.

It was up to Wake alone to find Alice. It had always been up to him.

Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It was cold and wet and malevolent and without end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark place. The terror would have burned her mind out, but one thing made her hang on: she could sense Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could see the words he was writing as flickering shadows. He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his way to her.

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