CHAPTER 26

“TAKE IT, YOUNG man, ” said Cynthia Weaver, pressing a flare gun into Wake’s hand as he stepped out of the power plant. “Where you’re going, you’ll need a bright light. ”

Wake nodded his thanks as Weaver slid the heavy door to the outside slowly shut. Through the narrowing gap, he could see Breaker and Barry watching him. Breaker was still upset, but Barry tried to make the best of it, waving at Wake as the door clanged shut.

Wake turned around, stopped and checked his watch. He held it to his ear and shook it. Checked again. Didn’t make sense. It was still hours before dawn, but the sun was already up. It wasn’t daylight, not exactly, but the sun glowed through a clotted haze somewhere between light and darkness. Had switching on the Clicker for that brief instant inside the Well-Lit Room actually caused the sun to rise? Not for the first time… not for the last, Wake wondered if he was insane, still lying in a hospital bed at Hartman’s clinic, or slumped over the wheel after the car crash, head bleeding, or worse, lost with Alice at the bottom of the lake.

Wake turned up the collar of his coat and started walking toward Cauldron Lake. When in doubt, keep walking. If he started trying to make sense of everything that had happened to him in the last week he’d never get anywhere. Keep walking. The lake was miles away, but if he hurried he might get there before nightfall. Even the dim sunlight would be a huge advantage against the Dark Presence. He started toward an access road that led to the power plant, moving down the rocky slope, the loose shale cracking under his boots. He put the flare gun away. He could see the wreckage of the helicopter, the rotor snapped off, the windscreen spiderwebbed with cracks. They had been lucky, and Breaker had been good. He was on the access road now, making better time.

Wake kept walking. It seemed like he had been walking for days, walking ever since he lost Alice, crisscrossing the woods from the logging camp to Stucky’s to the silver mine. He had looked for her every place but where she was. That ended tonight. That ended now. He touched the Clicker in his jacket pocket. The Clicker was the key to the cabin, the way to save Alice.

“I’m going back to the lake, ” Wake had said in the Well-Lit Room. “I’m going to write an ending to the story. An ending on my own terms. ”

“Why can’t you just write it here? ” Barry had said.

“It doesn’t work that way, ” Wake had said.

Breaker had stepped forward. “I’m ready when you are. ”

Wake had shaken his head.

“Don’t be ridiculous, ” said Breaker. “You can’t do it alone. ”

“I’m sorry, Sarah, ” Wake had said, “it’s the only way it can be done. ”

Breaker had seen his face and backed off. She still didn’t agree with him, but she wished him luck anyway. Barry had hugged him, then wiped away tears, embarrassed, said Wake better come back alive, he needed the commission. Cynthia Weaver hadn’t tried to stop him or dissuade him. She knew.

Barry had surprised Wake with his toughness. Probably surprised himself too. “Come to Bright Falls! ” said the tourist brochure that Alice had brought home. “Discover Nature! Discover Yourself! ” The tourist bureau was going to have to come up with a new campaign. If there still was a Bright Falls when this was over.

Wake slowed. Something was wrong. Something else. He kept glancing up at the sky and it seemed that he could actually see the sun moving, the murky light noticeably fading. He trotted down the access road, pushing himself, trying to outrace the day. He caught a break as he rounded a turn, a big break in the form of a Bright Falls Dam maintenance truck. No one in it of course, the keys still in the ignition. The Dark Presence must have gathered Taken from all over the area, the dam maintenance man, hunters, miners, loggers, sending all of the Taken in on last night’s assault of the town. Or was it this night’s assault. It was hard to know anymore.

Wake started the truck and floored it, the vehicle slewing across the access road, kicking up gravel as he sped toward the lake. Every few minutes he peeked up through the windshield to check the progress of the sun as it roared across the sky. Even driving flat out, he wasn’t going to make it to the lake before nightfall. It was already dusk, shadows creeping across the trees, the road… the world.

In the distance, Wake could see Bright Falls already in darkness. Perhaps it had always been in darkness, the false daylight unable to reach it. Lights flickered in the town, generators dying, running out of fuel as the shadows gathered around it, blacker than the night.

A sharp pain lanced through Wake’s head as the darkness howled over the town. He rubbed his temples as the storm raged down the abandoned streets, the winds so powerful that the suspension bridge over the river actually seemed to be swaying. The Dark Presence was busy with the town, had kept the sunlight away, and maybe, just maybe it was too busy to be aware of him approaching the lake. That’s the way he would have written it anyway. Wake smiled to himself. He was counting on a book he didn’t remember writing, a book without an ending. Well, Wake was always quick at the typewriter once he tapped into the words.

Wake touched the Clicker in his jacket for reassurance, but was afraid to try it out again. The light it gave off might alert the Dark Presence, and he needed the element of surprise. You played your ace in the hole too soon, you lost. Simple as that.

It was dark now, dark as it should have been, the sunlight just a memory. The lake was close. Wake kept the headlights off. The stars had come out, but he didn’t need starlight or moonlight to navigate. Like Weaver had said, once the darkness touches you, it lingers, it leaves a stain. Wake felt the pull of the lake and could have found his way there with his eyes closed.

Wake turned the truck off to the side of the road, walked the last few yards onto a rocky promontory above the lake. He had to remind himself to breathe. The lake was black and dead, perfectly calm, but there was a low resonance to it, a humming, so that the stars reflected on its flat surface looked like they were being torn apart, scattered and lost to the darkness. Wake could see Bright Falls in the distance, the town nearly covered in shadows now, the lights going out one by one. Soon there would be nothing left to distract the Dark Presence, and it would turn its attention back to Wake. If it hadn’t already.

He had to write the ending, his ending, but the only way to do that was to get to the ghost island, walk into Bird Leg Cabin, and start typing. That’s what Thomas Zane had done, but he had made a profound mistake—Zane didn’t realize that a writer couldn’t just write whatever he wanted. There were rules that had to be followed. After Zane’s girlfriend, Barbara Jagger, drowned in the lake, Zane thought he could simply write her back into existence. It didn’t work that way. Zane brought something back, something that wore Jagger’s face, but it wasn’t her. Wake knew better. The writer wasn’t God. He couldn’t create something out of nothing—he had to continue the story.

Clouds drifted over the lake, black and ominous, bringing on a cold wind that whipped Wake’s jacket, set it flapping on his frame. The shadows would be coming soon. He touched the Clicker in his pocket again, his talisman, the hairs on the nape of his neck prickling. The Dark Presence was stirring, had become aware of him. The time to fix things, the time to make things right was running out. He shivered on the shore of the lake as the wind cut through him, wondering if he had the courage to do what needed to be done.

Wake took out the page from the Bright-Lit Room, the page from the book that Thomas Zane had written.

With the Clicker firmly in his hand, Alan finally slept like a baby, safe from harm. Now, almost thirty years later, Alan thought of this, as he stood on the rim of Cauldron Lake, the Clicker in his hand. He took a deep breath and jumped.

The surface of the lake hummed louder, crackling with black energy. A whirlwind howled across the lake, a black vortex of wrecked cars and pickups, uprooted trees and billboards twisted beyond recognition. The whirlwind grew larger, rising higher and higher into the sky as it hovered above the lake, the sound deafening now. The stars were going out, one by one.

Wake took out the flare gun that Weaver had given him. She was right about him needing it, like she was about so many things. A light to guide him into the darkness. He shot the flare gun skyward, saw it burst in the whirlwind, causing the blackness to recoil. The flare descended slowly, illuminating the lake. He took a last look around, inhaled deeply… then did just what the page said he had done.

He jumped into the water, sinking down, down, down. His breath ran low and the light from the flare faded overhead, but he kept going, allowing himself to sink deeper and deeper into the black depths, and when his breath ran out he ignored it, shivering as he fell through the icy water. The island was down here someplace, hidden deep below Cauldron Lake, far beyond the reality of sun and trees, of diners with friendly waitresses and sheriffs who kept the peace. There was no peace under Cauldron Lake, no law, no order.

He saw a light of the Diver, the spaceman. Thomas Zane floated beside him now, his face through the glass windows of his copper helmet surrounded by light. Wake basked in the radiance, strengthened by it.

“It wasn’t my Barbara, ” said Zane, speaking between deep breaths of his respirator. “I cut its heart out when I realized it wasn’t her, but I didn’t stop it. It has no heart. ”

“I know. ” Wake could see another Wake at the edge of the light, the man dressed identically to him, same trousers, same hoodie, same coat. Wake’s doppelg& #228; nger, the Wake he had seen typing away in the cabin while Jagger urged him on. The Wake he had been unable to warn, unable to dissuade from writing.

“Don’t mind him, ” said Zane, the sound of the respirator louder now.

The other Wake smirked at Wake.

“He’s Mr. Scratch, ” said Zane. “Your friends will meet him when you’re gone. ”

“What does that…? ” started Wake, looking into the other Wake’s eyes, feeling as though he were floating.

The other Wake reached out for Wake, their fingertips almost touching, and then Wake was falling slowly. He could see the cabin below him now as he drifted down, leaving Zane and Mr. Scratch behind. He was walking toward the cabin now. Bird Leg Cabin, that ugly warren built on twisted sticks and misery. Wake was on the island again, Diver’s Isle, and whether he was still underwater or back on the surface, he couldn’t say.

The lake raged now, whitecaps churning the surface. The island shook, groaned, as the wind howled around him, beating against him so hard that he had to lean forward to stand. The landscape of the island was distorted, the surfaces tilted unnaturally. On the island, the trees were inverted, gnarly roots reaching upward, a perfect mirror image of the cabin’s foundation of branches. Wake watched as enormous rocks floated past his face, sent them skittering away with a slap of his hand. The island was like the toy chest of a deranged child, where nothing obeyed the rules of reality… nothing save the cabin. The cabin didn’t need to play with tricks of nature, its very essence was unnatural.

Wake clutched the Clicker in his hand as he started up the worn steps of the cabin.

A black geyser exploded from the lake, a black rain drenching Wake, chilling him to the bone.

Wake entered the cabin. All the furniture downstairs was gone, washed away, except for a large rocking horse, its paint peeling, face decayed, the red yarn mane rotting. It rocked slowly back and forth as Wake carefully approached. The floors of the cabin were cracked, plaster slaking off the bare walls. At the bottom of the stairs, blocking his way up, stood Barbara Jagger.

“All you had to do was write what I told you to write, ” said Jagger, and her voice was like the cawing of the ravens. “But you were disobedient. ”

“Very disobedient, ” said Wake.

“I don’t like the tone of your voice, ” said Jagger. “Not one little bit. ”

The rocking horse rocked faster.

“You’re never going to get your Alice back, now, ” said Jagger.

“You were never going to give her back, ” said Wake.

The door to the cabin slammed shut.

Wake could see the hole where her heart had been cut out, just as Thomas Zane had said. Her eyes were filled with dark water, the hole in her chest ringed with tiny gray snails. She had drowned decades ago; the Dark Presence didn’t have to hide the fact now, not in the cabin.

“Do you think you’re the only creator in the world? ” sneered Jagger. “I’ll find a new face to wear. Someone else who can dream me free. ”

The rocking horse rocked back and forth, faster and faster, the floor creaking, bits of its rotted mane floating away.

Wake wasn’t afraid now. For the first time in years, he wasn’t afraid.

“I don’t need you, ” snarled Jagger.

Wake stepped toward Jagger, put one arm around her, holding her close. She was colder than the lake, but he held on as she resisted. He thrust the Clicker into the hole in her chest and flipped the switch.

Shrieking, Jagger threw back her head. Light burst from her chest, hot, white light, brighter than the sun. Light boiled out of her eyes, shot from her agonized, open mouth, burning away the darkness.

Wake held the Clicker in place while Jagger shuddered, her black lace veil rough against him as she disintegrated.

The rocking horse had fallen over. One of its glass eyes rolled slowly across the wood floor, coming to a stop against Wake’s boot.

Dust motes floated down around on Wake, glinting in the light

He took the steps two at a time, hurrying upstairs and into the study. The typewriter waited on the desk for him, his familiar manual typewriter, a half-written page in the roller. The last page of the manuscript for Departure. He could sense Alice’s presence close by, almost close enough to touch. He understood what he had to do. He knew the ending he had to write. There was light and there was darkness. Cause and effect. Guilt and atonement. The scales always had to balance. The price must be paid. That’s where Zane had gone wrong. He had thought it would be easy.

Wake sat down and started typing.

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