CHAPTER 19

WAKE CAREFULLY WORKED his way down the slope to the red taillights of the wrecked car. He was making pretty good progress when he slipped on some wet leaves, tobogganed down the ravine on his ass, banging off rocks and bushes before finally coming to a stop at the edge of a cliff. He sat up, spitting blood. His boots oozed mud and rainwater, his hair was crusted with muck, his ears filthy. It would make a perfect photo for his next book jacket, the rugged outdoorsman at play. The storm had slacked off, the moon and stars just starting to peek out.

“Al? ”

“Barry! You’re alive! ”

“Thank God! ” Barry stood next to the red glow of the taillights. “Barry was worried. I heard you crashing down the mountain and thought you were a Taken coming to get Barry. ”

“You refer to yourself in the third person again I’m going to strangle you. ” Wake could see him at the bottom of the ravine. The wrecked car was nearby, front end down, lights in the dirt, steam escaping from the burst radiator. Barry was probably fifty feet below, but the cliff walls were steep and sheer. There was no way to reach him without breaking his neck.

“Are you okay, Al? ”

“I’m alive. ”

“Another close call, huh? ” said Barry, sounding giddy now. “I’m starting to think the two of us are invulnerable. ”

“Famous last words, ” said Wake. “Right along with ‘Hey, look at this! ’”

“Can you get down here? ”

“Not a chance. ” Wake picked dirt out of his ears. “You need protection, Barry. Go into the trunk of the car and look around. Rental cars usually carry road flares. Maybe there’s a flashlight. ” He waited while Barry searched the trunk. Lightning flashed, and he could see the stark outline of the farm’s barn and silo in the distance, surrounded by flat fields.

“Found the flashlight! ” shouted Barry, playing the beam across the trunk. “Jackpot! ” He held something up.

“What is it? ”

“A flare gun! Now we’re talking! Five flares and one in the chamber. The rental agency must figure that city slickers get lost in the back country and need to shoot up a signal flare for help. ”

“That’s great. ” Wake watched Barry caper around the car, going into various action-star poses with the flare gun. “Why don’t you turn off the flashlight? Save the batteries. ”

Barry turned off the flashlight. “Now what? ”

“Same plan as before, ” said Wake. “The Anderson farm is due east. ”

“What are you, Magellan? ”

Wake laughed. Barry’s good humor was infectious.

“I see it, Al! It doesn’t look that far, but how are you going to get there? ”

Wake looked around. There was a trail nearby that gradually wound down the ravine. He didn’t know how far it went, but there was no other way to work his way down to Barry.

“Al? ”

“I’ll get there, don’t worry. ”

“Who’s worried? Do I look worried? ” Barry beat his chest. “I’m the king of the world! ”

“Barry… did you hit your head, or something? ”

“I hit my head, my arms, my legs—”

“I’m surprised you’re not scared, ” said Wake. “You may have a concussion. ”

“I just decided to quit worrying and enjoy the adventure, ” called Barry. “You’re writing the story, remember? It’s like being in a dream. We’re the heroes. We can’t die. ”

“Barry? Barry, I want you to listen to me. It’s not a dream, not the way you think. The Dark Presence changes everything. Neither of us are safe—”

“Hey! Is that you, Al? ”

“Barry… I’m still up here. ”

“Damn. Al… I take b-b-back what I said about not being scared. ” Barry turned on the flashlight. “Get back! ”

Far below, Wake could see a Taken edging away from the light, a Taken in jeans and a red hunting vest brandishing a tire iron.

“Al? ” quavered Barry as the Taken circled in. “What do I do? ”

“You kill it, ” said Wake.

“I… I don’t like this, Al. ”

“We’re the heroes, remember? ” said Wake. “Use the flare gun! ”

The Taken charged, moving quickly, the tire iron raised.

Barry fumbled with the flare gun and it fell to the ground. He shrieked and scrambled to retrieve it.

The Taken rushed in, swinging the tire iron at Barry’s head.

Barry shot the Taken in the chest with the flare gun and it immediately burst into a thousand dying sparks.

“Yes! ” cheered Barry, doing a jig on the forest floor. “Did you see that, Al? Did you see that? ”

“I saw it, ” said Wake.

“I’m not scared of them; they should be scared of me, Barry Wheeler, the Taken Killer. ”

Wake smiled.

“One shot, one Taken, ” said Barry, waving the flare gun. “That’s the way we do it. That’s what happens when you piss off a guy from New York City! ”

“Don’t get cocky, ” said Wake. “I don’t want to have to pull an ax out of your forehead. ”

“I don’t appreciate that mental image, Al. ”

“Just get moving before more of them show up, ” said Wake. “I’ll meet you at the farm. ”

Barry stopped dancing. “More of them? ”

“They never seem to show up solo, ” said Wake.

Barry started running. Due east.

Wake started down the path. He limped at first, but in a few minutes he had settled into a steady trot, his eyes straining to follow the trail in the moonlight. After about fifteen minutes, he slowed, walking now, his side aching. His boots squished with every step, and mud crackled off his jacket as though he were a reptile shedding its skin. He was almost to the forest floor. Still no sign of any Taken.

Suddenly, a bright light bloomed just ahead of Wake. The light dimmed, and a creature floated above the path, a man in a space suit… no, a man in a deep-sea-diving suit with a round copper bell and faceplate. He dropped a manuscript page on the path. It glowed as it fluttered.

Wake stared at the page.

“I’m trying to deliver each page to the right time and place, ” said the Diver, his voice crackling.

“Why? ” said Wake.

“I’m trying to show you how the story goes, ” said the Diver.

“You owned the cabin Alice and I were in… the one on Diver’s Isle, ” said Wake. “You’re… you’re a writer too. You’re Thomas—”

The Diver disappeared in a blink of light.

“…Zane. ” Wake stood over the page on the ground. He had seen the Diver in his dreams before. Seen him in the first dream, when Wake had run over the hitchhiker. It had been the Diver who had saved him from the hitchhiker Taken. The Diver who had been placing the pages on his path. Thomas Zane. Wake bent down and picked up the page. Turned on the flashlight so he could read it.

Thomas Zane knew he had to remove all that had made this horror possible, including himself. That was the only way to banish the dark presence he had unleashed and now looked at him through the eyes of his dead love. But he also knew that despite his best efforts, it might someday return, so even as he wrote himself and his work out of existence, he added a loophole as insurance, an exception to the rule: anything of his stored in a shoebox would remain.

Wake read the page twice before putting it into his jacket with the rest of the manuscript. He turned off the flashlight, then looked around, hoping the Diver would return and explain to him what it meant. Zane must have written a manuscript for the Dark Presence, but how did he write himself out of it? And what was this loophole? This insurance that fit into a shoebox? Wake shook his head and started toward the farm. He had figured out a long time ago that the most dangerous thing in Bright Falls was standing around in the dark, thinking.

Another half hour and Wake was on flat ground, the outskirts of the farm. A gravel road led directly to the main buildings and he made good time. Just ahead Wake saw a blue pickup truck off to the side of the road. He hurried toward it. “Anybody there? ” He slowed as he saw the front end jacked up, a flat tire next to the spare on the grass. The driver wasn’t coming back. The darkness had seen to that. Wake looked inside the truck and saw a picture, taped to the dash, of a man standing beside a small boy, the man wearing a bright orange hunting hat, the skinny kid wearing a Seahawks football jersey.

Wake rested his head against the window, his thoughts too heavy to hold. Barry hadn’t killed the man, he had killed the Taken that the driver had become. Wake had told himself the same thing about Stucky. It didn’t make it any easier. He started to walk away, stopped, and came back to the truck. He found the shotgun behind the front seat, a pump shotgun and four boxes of shells. Wake took them without hesitation, grateful for the firepower. One more glance at the photo on the dash, and he headed toward the farm, the shotgun over one shoulder.

Lightning flashed around the silo, a writhing blue light twisting down the sides. The storm had blown away the clouds, but the air seemed filled with static electricity, lightning crackling across the dry fields. In the moonlight, a solitary scarecrow stood in the midst of an expanse of stubbly cornstalks, and Wake felt queasy looking at it. Barry might joke about taking up residence in a tanning bed, but Wake was probably going to sleep with a nightlight on for the rest of his life.

The gravel road ended at a locked gate leading onto the Anderson property. A gigantic, rusting harvester stood in the shadows nearby, its treads deep in the mud. Wake scrambled nimbly up the gate. Just as he jumped to the other side, the harvester roared into life.

Wake backed up against the gate. He had gotten sloppy and stupid. The harvester wasn’t in the shadows, it was shadows.

The harvester snorted diesel smoke from its top pipes, grinding gears, lurching forward. The treads groaned, trying to move in the thick mud.

Wake turned on the flashlight, played it across the surface of the harvester. It glowed faintly, shadows sliding off.

The harvester revved its engine, oily black smoke filling the air. The treads grabbed for purchase, spinning up chunks of mud, almost free now.

Wake held his ground, keeping the flashlight on the harvester until it flared up and dissolved without a trace. In the sudden silence, Wake heard Barry’s voice. Barry was shouting.

An aerial flare burst with a pop over the field, then another and another. In the searing light, Barry stood on a stage in the middle of the field waving a flare gun. As the flares slowly drifted down, Wake saw a dozen Taken climbing onto the stage, caught in the light, huge ones holding rakes and axes and shovels. The Taken dissolved into embers. The flares drifted lower, getting dimmer, the darkness returning.

Wake ran to Barry.

Barry popped a highway flare, held it up in his hand like the Statue of Liberty.

“This way, Al! ”

As he got closer, Wake could see the stage had been decorated with Viking-themed heavy-metal motifs, old guitars and shields and swords and battleaxes stuck along the edges, left to the mercy of the elements. The top of the stage was carved with an OLD GODS OF ASGARD logo. A rusted heavy-duty generator stood near the side of the stage, power cables running to the lights and the mixing board. The Andersons must have had regular concerts out here when they were in their heyday, before the Dark Presence drained their minds. Wake ran to the stage, taking the rickety wooden stairs two and three at a time. He got to the top just as Barry tossed aside the spent highway flare.

“Al! ” called Barry, clapping him on the back. “Glad you could make it. ”

“I wouldn’t have missed it, ” said Wake.

The aerial flares drifted slowly lower.

Taken shambled from the shadows, grunting.

“Here we go, ” said Wake.

Lightning crackled across the sky

“Al? ” Barry held up the flare gun, tossed it aside. “I’m… I’m out of flares, buddy. ”

Wake watched the Taken start up the stairs at either end of the stage, six, seven… eight of them, Taken wearing hard hats and dirty denim jumpsuits with HAYES LOGGING stitched on the front. All of them carried double-bladed axes except the biggest one, who hefted a chainsaw.

“I’ve seen this movie before, ” said Barry, looking for a way out. “I don’t like the way it ends. ”

Wake thought of the hunter snatched by the darkness as he changed a tire, and Stucky, and Rusty, wishing he had told Rose how he felt about her. He thought about Alice alone in the dark.

The flare died and there was only the moonlight illuminating the stage.

The big Taken fired up the chainsaw as it reached the top of the stairs.

“Al? What do we do? ” said Barry.

Wake tossed Barry the flashlight, then racked the slide of the shotgun, the sound more comforting than a lullaby. “We fight. ”

The big Taken revved the chainsaw as it advanced on them.

Barry caught the Taken with the flashlight beam and Wake shot it with the shotgun. The Taken dodged out of the light, swung the chainsaw, the teeth chewing up the wooden deck at Wake’s feet. Wake shot it again and again as Barry tried to keep the light on it.

Shadows slid off the Taken and Wake stepped closer, close enough to feel the wind from the spinning chainsaw as he shot it in the face. The Taken dissolved in a flash of light.

The other Taken moved at them from both sides of the stage as Wake reloaded the shotgun. Barry kept close to Wake, right at his side.

Lightning crashed on a nearby barn and blew the weather vane to pieces.

In the moonlight, Wake saw more Taken approaching from across the fields, staggering closer in twos and threes, carrying pickaxes and shovels and sledgehammers, dozens of Taken, thick with shadows.

“Oh, shit, ” said Barry.

“Just stay cool, ” said Wake.

“Sure, sure, stay cool, no problem, ” said Barry, teeth chattering.

“On your left, ” said Wake.

Barry turned right.

“Left! ” said Wake. Barry shined the flashlight on the Taken as it scooted up the steps on the left side of the stage.

Wake moved closer, shot it to moonbeams.

“Yes! ” shouted Barry.

Wake hurried back to Barry as three Taken rushed the stage from the right. One of them hurled an ax, and it spun lazily, end over end, spun past Wake’s head, close enough that he could have kissed it. He blew the Taken apart as Barry pinned him with the flashlight beam.

Wake and Barry were doing better than anyone could have expected, a killing two-step on the Andersons’ stage. The real gods of Asgard couldn’t have done any better, but the real gods had lost their final battle. Tor and Odin and the rest of them, heroic as they had been, had died where they made their last stand, and the Frost Giants, their mortal enemies, had overrun Asgard at the end of days, slaughtering the gods, every one of them. Wake and Barry were surviving for now, but they weren’t going to make it either. Wake would finally run out of shotgun shells. Barry’s flashlight batteries would fade, and the Taken would overwhelm them, a dark wave of axes and mallets and all the sharp, cutting things they carried.

Here, ” said Barry, giving the flashlight back to Wake. “I’ve got an idea. ”

“Where are you going? ” shouted Wake as Barry ran off the back of the stage. “Barry! ”

The Taken rushed the stage, coming up the stairs on both sides, clawing their way over the front apron.

Wake fed fresh shells into the shotgun, wondering if Barry’s idea involved running away as fast as he could. Wake wouldn’t blame him.

A lumberjack Taken wielding a crosscut saw scrambled onto the stage, and Wake caught it in the beam of the flashlight, then blasted it apart.

“Almost got it! ” shouted Barry from the side of the stage.

“Almost got what? ” yelled Wake, spotlighting two other Taken, destroying both of them with one round from the shotgun.

More Taken swarmed the stage, too many of them, way too many.

Black diesel smoke poured from the exhaust of the generator as the power came on. The stage lights flared, and the Taken onstage disintegrated around Wake.

“Let there be light! ” said Barry, scooting back onstage.

Taped music blared from the speakers lining the stage, the Andersons’ heavy metal anthem booming out across the farm.

“You did that? ” said Wake.

“Barry Wheeler, total service agent at your service! ” bellowed Barry above the din. He ran to the mixing board at the back of the stage, started playing with the switches. Skyrockets shot off the top of the stage. Spotlights popped on, shone across the field, disintegrating the approaching Taken. “Rock and roll! ”

The power died. The lights went out. The music stopped.

“That was a short concert, ” Wake said quietly.

Barry tore into the mixing board, pulling out the cables. “Looks like mice have been chewing at these things. ” He started twisting bare wires together. “I never told you I managed a punk band in college. Kind of the roadie, too. We did a U. S. tour in a Dodge van with no spare tire. ” He reconnected the cables. “Let me see… see if I still remember how to patch an amp. ”

More Taken charged across the open field.

Wake took back the flashlight from Barry, then picked up a roll of gaffer’s tape lying on the mixing board. He taped the flashlight to the barrel of the shotgun, winding the metallic tape round and round. “That’s it, take your time, Barry. ” Wake turned on the flashlight, racked the slide of the shotgun as the Taken got closer, moonlight glinting on their axes. “No need to hurry. ”

“Quit pushing me! ” said Barry, plugging more wires into the board. Sparks erupted and he jumped back.

Lightning forked across the field, making the shadows of the Taken enormous, like gigantic scarecrows in motion.

“Any luck there, Edison? ” Wake said to Barry, trying to keep his voice steady.

Barry bent over the mixing board, ignoring him.

Wake shot the first Taken that made it onto the stage, the combination of the flashlight and shotgun devastating, the light slaking off their protective shadows as the shotgun blasted them to atoms. Wake moved quickly across the stage, firing constantly, blowing the Taken apart. He scampered back to Barry, reloading, got there just in time to disintegrate a Taken in a silvery hard hat about to drive a pickax into Barry’s skull.

Barry looked up as the Taken sparkled into dust, the pickax the last to disappear. He nodded at Wake, and then went back to work.

The Taken swarmed up the far side of the stage, but Wake didn’t have time to stop them; he was too busy keeping the immediate area cleared. An ax whizzed past his head, buried itself in the wooden framework at the back of the stage. He kept firing, always in motion, trying to draw the Taken away from Barry, giving him time.

The front stage lights came on, disintegrating the nearest Taken.

“Way to go, Barry! ” cheered Barry. “A few more minutes and I’ll get the rest of them on, Al. ”

Wake moved into the light, using it as protection while he reloaded. Heat radiated from the barrel of the shotgun as he slipped shells into the port on the side.

The lights went out. Then came back on again.

“Damn circuit-breakers have been out in the weather for years, ” complained Barry, bent back over the mixing board, working frantically.

“How am I supposed to…” He cried out as the lights went out again.

Three slender Taken came at Wake, splitting up before he could shoot them all with one blast. They were quick, zigzagging in and out, each of them wearing gray mechanics coveralls, wielding heavy wrenches. A county work crew caught by the darkness, lost forever now. He blasted one of them as it darted in. Then another, but the third one… the third one managed to get close enough to bring down the wrench on Wake’s shoulder before he shot it. Wake could barely hold the shotgun up now, his right shoulder numb, his right hand tingling.

“Barry! I’m losing it here! ” Wake shifted his grip on the shotgun, firing with his left hand, but his aim was off. More and more of the Taken made it onto the stage. The gaffer’s tape holding the flashlight to the barrel of the shotgun was smoldering. Any moment now the adhesive was going to dissolve and the flashlight would slip off. “You have to hurry! ”

The Taken moved toward them from both sides of the stage, thundering up the stairs and over the front apron.

Wake dodged a thrown sickle, the blade barely missing his face, when the flashlight fell off onto the stage. The light went out. He shot the nearest Taken, but it had no effect.

The Taken rushed in just as the stage lights popped on, blue and red stage lights, hot white spotlights, even the large rotating searchlight at the top of the stage. Waves of Taken fluttered apart like dead flowers in the searing lights, flaring into dust across the stage. The heavy metal soundtrack kicked in, a mega-decibel guitar duet blaring into the night, and dozens of skyrockets launched from behind the stage, exploding above the field, perfectly synchronized with the music, beat for beat. The field, which had been thick with Taken a moment earlier, was empty now.

Barry played air guitar as the music reached a frantic crescendo, strumming away as Wake stared at him.

“Al! This may be the most awesome moment of our entire lives! ” called Barry as he duck-walked across the stage, still grinding out phantom power chords.

Exhausted, Wake lay down on the stage, watching the fireworks overhead, a shower of stars falling slowly though the night.

Nightingale eagerly examined the stack of papers Wake had been carrying. It was incomplete, a collection of random pages, disjointed and strange. But there was enough: he saw his own name in there, among others. His hands shook. Finally, it was proof. He had been right all along. He didn’t understand even half of the manuscript, but somehow it all rang true, impossibly true. He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask. It wasn’t the booze that made his mind reel.

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