CHAPTER 18

THE STORM BEAT against the windshield, the wipers of Barry’s rental car barely able to keep up with the pelting rain. Trees loomed on both sides of the narrow road, the headlights boring a tunnel of light through the darkness.

“Al, you sure you don’t want me to drive toward the nearest Leaving Bright Falls, Come Back Soon! sign? ”

“You really want to leave? ” said Wake.

Barry shook his head. He looked tiny in the red parka that he had put back on. “Not a chance, ” he admitted. “Ever since I got here, I’ve spent half my time so scared I want to piss myself, and the rest of the time I’ve never felt more alive. ”

“Welcome to my nightmare, ” said Wake, listening to one of Hartman’s tapes through an earpiece. He held up the microcassette player, switched it to speaker.

Now, Mrs. Wake, can you tell me about Alan’s problems? It was Hartman’s voice, dripping with false concern.

He’s more and more out of control, doctor, said Alice. The parties, the late nights, and he’s so angry all the time —

Wake switched off the speaker. “This is how Mott fooled me in the sheriff’s station. I wasn’t listening to Alice on the phone; Hartman cut up her conversation with him and Mott played it back to me. They never had her. ”

The storm whipped the trees around them, sent leaves across the road, dancing in the headlights. Barry cursed softly, wiped condensation off the inside of the windshield.

Wake waved the manuscript at him. “These new pages, they connect a lot of the dots, the random details. Listen to this, ” he said, holding up a page.

In spite of its human mask, to describe the Dark Presence as intelligent would have implied human qualities on something decidedly inhuman. Nonetheless, it found the one spot in the diner that was dark enough. Some light spilled into the corridor, ravaging it, but it took the pain, horrible as it was. The writer would soon fix that. He would be coming to the one place where it still had power.

“Get it? ” said Wake. “Alice and I were supposed to rent the cabin from Stucky, but the woman in black met me at the diner instead. She gave me the key to the Bird Leg Cabin instead. A cabin that doesn’t even exist anymore. That’s the one place the darkness still has power. It’s like I said, Hartman and Mott never had Alice, but the darkness… the darkness does. ”

“Sure, I get it. ” Barry watched Wake out of the corner of his eyes. “Tell me again, who’s the woman in black? I thought that was the woman who betrayed John Dillinger to the cops. ”

“That was the lady in red, ” said Wake. “Are you messing with me? Because I’m not in the mood, Barry. ”

“Relax, Al, I’m just trying to take the edge off. This hasn’t been a stroll in Central Park for me either. ”

“I know. ” Wake shrugged. “The woman in the black veil didn’t just send Alice and me to the wrong cabin. She was the one I saw standing over me in Rose’s trailer… the same one who snatched Mott at Cauldron Lake. Her name is Barbara Jagger. ”

“Barbara who? ”

“Thomas Zane, the writer… Barbara Jagger was the woman he loved, ” said Wake.

“I remember now, ” said Barry. “The locals told me about her. They said she drowned in Cauldron Lake forty years ago, just before the island sank. ”

Wake nodded. “She did… but she’s back now. Sort of. ” He pulled out one of the mud-smeared pages, started reading.

For decades, the darkness that wore Barbara Jagger’s skin slept fitfully in the dark place that was its home and prison. Hungry and in pain, it dreamed of its brief nights of glory when the poet’s writing had called it from the depths. The two rock stars had momentarily stirred it from the deep sleep again, but when it sensed the writer on the ferry, the darkness opened its eyes.

“That’s some good stuff, ” said Barry. “There’s a book in there somewhere. Departure though, I’m not sure about that title. Maybe… The Dark Place. How about that? ”

“You’re missing the point, ” said Wake, exasperated. “The darkness wore Barbara Jagger’s skin. It’s not really her. It’s the way the Dark Presence interacts with our world. The poet who had called it up before… I think that’s Thomas Zane, and the two rock stars…” Wake had to force himself to talk slowly. “The two rock stars, that’s got to be the Anderson brothers, the heavy metal rockers that Hartman kept at the lodge—”

“You said they were nuts, Al. ”

“Can you blame them? ” said Wake. “If you had been touched by the Dark Presence, wouldn’t you be nuts afterwards? ”

Lightning flashed behind them.

“Look, the pages are more than a book, ” insisted Wake. “They’re… real. They’re actually happening. Alice was never kidnapped. She’s trapped in the darkness at the bottom of the lake, but she’s not dead. ” He pulled out another page.

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.

Barry glanced over at him, then back at the road. The thunder from the lightning flash caught up with them, shaking the car.

The terror would have burned her mind out, read Wake, his voice too loud, 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. He looked up at Barry. “I can bring Alice back, I can find her. ”

Barry lightly tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Al… I love you, buddy, you know that, and nobody respects your work more than me, but do you ever think, maybe… you give yourself too much credit? ”

“It’s all about the work, ” said Wake, “it always has been. ” He leaned closer, as though the surrounding darkness might overhear them. “There’s something special about this place. The lake does something to the works of art created here. It makes them come true, but there’s a catch: whatever this Dark Presence is, it twists the work to its own malignant purposes. That’s why Hartman specialized in treating creative types—he wanted them to come here so he could control them, so he had the power. ”

“That didn’t work out so well for him, did it? ” said Barry. “The sounds that poor bastard made on the other side of his office door…” He shuddered.

“Save your pity, ” said Wake. “Hartman and Mott made me waste time thinking they had Alice. And he’s been using everyone at that clinic for years. They got what they deserved. ”

“He fished you out of the lake when the darkness was pulling you under, ” said Barry. “He bragged to me about it, trying to make me think he was a hero or something. ”

“Hartman saved me because he thought he could use me, ” said Wake. “He knew a lot about the Dark Presence, but he didn’t understand how strong the darkness was, how greedy. ” He felt his face flush, his skin burning. “The darkness… it’s using my manuscript to take over everything, people, things, the lodge itself. I just read it to you, Barry. The darkness used Thomas Zane. It used the Anderson brothers. Now it’s using me. The Andersons tried to tell me, but with all the drugs Hartman pumped into them, they were too far gone to say it clearly. But they wrote it down. They said they left me a message at their farm. Odin told me at the lodge. We… we just need to go there and find it. ”

“When did the Andersons get a chance to go to the farm and leave you a message? ” said Barry.

“Hartman gave them almost free rein, ” said Wake. “They were by themselves in the diner when Alice and I first came to town. They didn’t have anything that Hartman wanted; the Dark Presence had squeezed them dry years earlier. ”

“Just give me directions, ” sighed Barry. “Always wanted to go to a farm. See where bacon and eggs come from. ”

“You still think I’m crazy? ” said Wake.

“Oh, I’m sure of it, ” said Barry, “but then I’m going along for the ride, so I guess that makes me crazy too. ”

“Oh, yeah. Certifiable. ”

The headlights caught something in the middle of their lane, an unrecognizable smear of hair and blood on the blacktop. Barry veered over to avoid it, his jaw tightening. “I just want to state for the record, that you owe me big time for this. ”

“The record? ” teased Wake. “Is this a legal proceeding? Should I have an attorney present? ”

“I’m just saying that my fifteen percent doesn’t cover this kind of thing, ” said Barry, trying to hide a smile. “When this is over, you’re going to buy me a tanning bed, and I’m gonna turn it up to Supernova and live inside it. No more Dark Presence. No more Taken. It’s going to be high noon in Barry’s world 24/7. ”

“You’ve got a deal. ” Wake hesitated. “Thanks, Barry. Thanks for sticking with me. ”

“Just tell Alice what a good guy I am when we find her, okay? Maybe she won’t get that look on her face when I show up at the apartment. ”

“Thanks for the when, not the if, ” said Wake.

“Don’t go all Oprah on me, ” said Barry. “It doesn’t suit you. ”

“I know, ” said Wake.

“I was kidding, ” said Barry. “Don’t go beating up on yourself. ”

“I don’t have to, ” said Wake. “It’s on tape. ” He held up the microcassette player.

Alan’s more out of control all the time, doctor, said Alice. The parties, he’s so angry all the time— Wake fast-forwarded the tape. Alan doesn’t really sleep, and the work… well, he’s not writing, at all. He sits there for hours and just gets more and more frustrated. He fast-forwarded it again. You need to be careful with him, doctor. Alan’s not just going to listen to you and cooperate. He’s the most stubborn man I’ve ever met. Wake stopped the tape.

Barry kept his eyes on the road. “Okay, so you’re not the Husband of the Year, what else is new? Still, what she said about you being stubborn, that’s a good thing. I mean, if you weren’t so thickheaded you would have given up looking for Alice a long time go. You would have listened to me and handed off the job to somebody with a badge. Then you could sit around drinking coffee, waiting for the phone to ring. ” He looked over at Wake. “You’re here. You’re in the game. We both are. That’s what matters. ”

“You’re right. ” Wake listened to the rain beating steadily against the roof of the car, the sound soothing. They were almost at the turnoff to the Anderson farm. “I’m just tired—”

“Whoa! ” Barry slammed on the brakes, his hands white on the wheel, as a mass of boulders rolled down a steep slope and cascaded onto the road. “Hang on! ”

Wake grabbed hold of the door as the car hydroplaned across the rain-slick road, tires squealing. The car sideswiped the safety railing, spitting sparks, then crashed through as the supports for the railing gave way.

“Al! ”

Wake felt himself violently tossed around the front seat as the car rolled down the ravine. He made sure the manuscript pages were safely tucked away into his jacket, felt around to make sure he still had the revolver and flashlight. He cried out as the car slammed broadside into a tree, the windshield cracking, the flashlight slipping from his grasp. The car kept rolling down the slope.

“Ow! ” yelped Barry as they smacked against each other.

Wake’s door flew open, branches scraping against him, clawing at him as the car seemed to pick up speed. He grabbed the flashlight as it rolled across the floor. “Barry, jump! ”

“Jump… where? ”

“Anywhere! ” Wake felt the seat belt release, and the next instant he was tumbling out into the darkness, falling end over end through the bushes, finally coming to rest against the trunk of a tree. His face was in the mud. It felt like he had plowed his way down the ravine with his nose. He sat up, moved his fingers and toes. Rain trickled from his hair and down his neck. He could hear the car still falling, but the ringing in his head was louder still.

“Barry? ”

No response.

Thunder rumbled across the valley.

Wake stood up slowly, winced. Everything hurt. “Barry? ” He looked around as the storm beat against his face and soaked his clothes. “Barry? You here? ”

Still no response.

Wake heard the sound of the car’s horn blaring. He walked to the edge of the ravine, pushed aside the branches. The trees were thick, but far below he could see the faint glow of the taillights. “Barry! ”

The horn stopped beeping.

Toby knew the smell: it was the man, the nice man who always gave him treats and never got tired of playing with him. Toby wagged his tail, barking happily. Yip, yip, yip! Then there was another smell—a wrong smell—and it stopped Toby in his tracks. He growled deep in his throat. The wrong smell came from the nice man. Blind terror pierced the dog’s brain an instant before the axe crushed his skull.

⇐ Предыдущая 17 18 19 20 212223 24 25 26 Следующая ⇒