The Shimmer

by David Morrell

  “Nobody knows. Chameleon lizards are famous for being able to assume the colors of objects around them. Spiders can do it, too. But nothing’s as good at it-and as quick at it-as cuttlefish.”

  “Magic,” Page said.

  “Nature,” Page’s father corrected him.

  19

  Page remembered that long-ago afternoon as he strained to look at the darkness beyond the fence while the crowd of strangers before him marveled at things he didn’t see. Some complained that they didn’t know what the others were getting so excited about, and Page understood their frustration. Was he witnessing a mass hallucination, some kind of group delusion in which people convinced one another that they were seeing something that wasn’t there?

  But Tori hadn’t been with a group when she’d first seen it, and she hadn’t been with a group when she’d come here alone after so many years of remembering and dreaming. If there was a delusion, she’d brought it on herself.

  Or maybe I’m the one who’s deluded, Page thought. Hell, all those years and I couldn’t even get my wife to share something so important that it brought her back to the middle of nowhere.

  But he had to stay calm.

  Remember the cuttlefish, he told himself. Remember what your father told you. “Sometimes we see only what we expect to see. Sometimes we need to learn to see in a new way.”

  Lord knows, I need to learn to see in a new way.

  The reality Page thought he knew had been turned inside out. The marriage he’d thought he had, the life he’d prized-nothing was what it had seemed to be.

  Why? Page shouted inwardly. How could I not have seen this coming?

  He rose from the bench and stepped to the edge of the observation platform. Vaguely aware of Costigan leaning against the post near him, he stared over the heads of the people in the excited crowd and concentrated on the darkness.

  Again he noticed the specks of distant headlights approaching along the road from Mexico. But that couldn’t be what the people in the crowd were thrilled about. They were pointing in a different direction altogether.

  He studied the brilliant array of stars, surprisingly much brighter and more varied than he was accustomed to in Santa Fe, which was renowned for the clearness of its night sky. Maybe they were why the government had built the radio telescopes nearby. But the people in the crowd weren’t pointing toward the stars-their rapt attention was focused entirely on the horizon.

  What do they think they’re seeing? Page wanted to know.

  Remember the cuttlefish, he urged himself.

  He focused on the darkness across the grassland.

  And saw an almost imperceptible movement, hardly enough to be noticed…

  Except that he was sure he had noticed it. Either his eyes had shifted focus or his mind had. It wasn’t only movement-it was a change in the darkness.

  Without warning, there were tiny lights. Some of what he’d thought were stars weren’t in the sky-they were hovering over the grassland. At first he suspected they might be distant fireflies, about a dozen of them, but they were brighter than fireflies, and as he began to notice them, they increased in size.

  They could have been miles away, yet they seemed close, as if he could reach out and touch them, which he tried to do. That was when he realized the people in the crowd weren’t just pointing-they, too, were reaching out.

  As he gazed, the distant lights acquired colors-red, green, blue, yellow, and more-all the tints he’d seen on houses and stores in town. Pairs of them merged, becoming larger and brighter. They rose and fell. At the same time, they drifted back and forth across the horizon, as if they floated in a gentle current. They bobbed and pivoted hypnotically.

  What am I seeing?

  Confused, Page turned toward Costigan, looking for confirmation that his eyes weren’t tricking him, but all the police chief did was spread his hands again.

  Page turned back, redirecting his attention to what he saw-or thought he saw-on the horizon. Some of the lights drifted apart, while others continued to merge. They shimmered, gentle and soothing, almost seeming to beckon.

  I’ve never seen anything like them, he thought. What are they? Without warning, doubt surged through him. Why didn’t I see them a minute ago? They’ve got to be an optical illusion.

  Or maybe I’m so eager to see something out there that I strained my eyes until I saw spots before them. Or else I concentrated until I imagined them. How do I know they’re what Tori sees-or thinks she does?

  What do the others think they’re seeing?

  Not only seeing, he realized. There was something else associated with the lights, something he couldn’t quite identify. It was just on the edge of his perceptions, a sound that hovered at the limit of his ability to hear it.

  As Page stepped off the platform, intending to approach and question a teenaged girl who pointed in delight at the grassland beyond the fence, he became aware of a commotion somewhere in the crowd. A single voice rose above the others.

  “Don’t you see how evil they are?” someone demanded.

  Page stopped and tried to determine the direction of the voice. It was deep, strong, and angry. It belonged to a man.

  “Don’t you realize what they’re doing to you?”

  To his right, Page saw sudden movement, people being jostled aside, a tall, heavy man sweeping through them.

  “Stop pushing!” someone complained.

  “Get your hand off me!” someone else objected.

  The voice just sounded angrier. “Don’t you understand that you’re all going to hell?”

  “A gun!” a woman wailed. “My God, he has a gun!”

  As the word sent a wave of alarm through the crowd, Page responded instantly and crouched. Reaching for the pistol that he almost always carried, he realized with dismay that he’d let Costigan talk him into leaving it in his suitcase back in the rental car, which was parked outside the courthouse.

  His palms became sweaty.

  Crouching lower, feeling his pulse race, he scanned the panicking crowd and flinched at the loud, ear-torturing crack of a rifle. He saw the muzzle flash among fleeing men and women, revealing what looked like the barrel of an assault weapon.

  Crack. The man fired again, aiming beyond the fence. The muzzle flash projected toward the horizon, toward whatever was out there, toward whatever Page had thought he’d seen.

  “Go back to hell where you came from!” the man shouted into the distance, and he kept firing.

  Page saw enough of the rifle’s silhouette to identify a curved ammunition magazine projecting from the bottom. The profile was that of an AK-47.

  Urgently he glanced behind him, toward Costigan, seeing that the police chief had drawn his pistol and was crouching tensely, just as Page was.

  The chaos of the crowd now shielded the man with the rifle, and for a moment, he was lost from sight.

  Crack. Another muzzle flash projected toward the darkness.

  “You’re all damned!” But the gunman was no longer yelling toward whatever had entranced them. Instead he turned and began yelling at the crowd. Page had the sickening realization of what was about to happen.

  No!

  The man fired directly into the crowd. People screamed and smashed against one another, desperate to escape.

  A man tripped.

  A woman wailed.

  Then Page realized that the man hadn’t tripped. A bullet had dropped him.

  The gunman fired yet again.

  Page had seldom felt so helpless. Even if he’d had his pistol, the darkness and the commotion would have prevented him from get- ting a shot at the man with the rifle.

  Crack. A woman fell.

  Crack. A teenaged boy toppled. The crowd’s frightened shouts became so loud that Page almost couldn’t hear the rifle. He saw the barrel swing in his direction.

  Tori! he thought desperately. Pivoting, he ran toward the observation platform. Costigan was no longer in sight, but Page didn’t have time to figure out wha
t the police chief was doing.

  Tori!

  She was on her feet, so overwhelmed that she didn’t have the presence of mind to react. Page had taught her about firearms and had asked her to keep a handgun in her purse. He’d worried about her taking clients out to remote locations where she’d be alone with them, but Tori never carried the gun he’d given her. The truth was, although she was a police officer’s wife, her attitudes were those of a civilian.

  He put an arm around her and gripped her tightly, rushing her off the platform. Behind him, a bullet hit a board in the back wall. When she cried out in alarm, he pushed her head down, making her stoop as he rushed her around the corner. This was the side opposite from where Costigan had parked the police car, but Page was relieved to see that vehicles were parked here as well, and he tugged her behind a murky pickup truck.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, examining her as best he could in the starlight.

  She was too disoriented to answer.

  A shot echoed from beyond the observation platform.

  “Tori, answer me. Are you hurt?”

  His abrupt tone made her flinch, bringing her to awareness.

  “I… No. I’m okay. I’m not hit.”

  “Thank God. Stay here. Keep behind the engine. Bullets can go through the truck’s doors, but not through the engine. If you think the shooter’s coming in this direction, fall down and pretend you’re dead.”

  In the shadows, she stared at him.

  “Tori, tell me you understand.”

  Beyond the observation deck, two shots were followed by a scream.

  She blinked repeatedly. “Keep behind the engine,” she said, swallowing. “If he comes this way, I’m supposed to fall down and pretend I’m dead.”

  Crack. The gunman fired again.

  “I can’t stay with you,” Page said. “I need to help stop him.”

  “Why is he doing this?”

  “I don’t know why people do anything.”

  The next shot Page heard was a loud pop rather than a crack. A pistol. Costigan must be returning fire, he decided.

  He squeezed Tori’s shoulder and ran from the cover of the pickup truck. At once he heard another pistol shot, then a rifle shot.

  And a groan. Its raspy edge left no doubt that it came from

  Costigan.

  20

  The turmoil of his heartbeat contrasted with the slowness he forced upon himself when he reached the corner of the wall. His hands trembled. He fought to control them.

  The wooden planks of the wall couldn’t protect him from an AK-47’s high-powered bullet, but at least they concealed him as he crouched beneath the shooter’s eye level and peered around the corner.

  The faint light from the opposite side of the observation platform showed him a nightmare. Bodies lay all around. Some twitched, but most remained still.

  The shooter stalked among them.

  “Came from hell!” He fired down at a head, his rifle’s muzzle flash casting him in a grotesque silhouette. “Going back to hell!”

  Where’s Costigan? Page wondered frantically.

  He inhaled sharply when he saw the police chief’s body sprawled on the ground halfway between the observation platform and the crowd. Costigan’s pistol lay near his outstretched right hand.

  The gunman fired at a twitching body, the muzzle flash revealing a spray of blood. He dropped an empty magazine and inserted a fresh one so quickly that Page didn’t have the chance even to think about charging across the parking lot and tackling him.

  The man aimed down, about to shoot at another squirming body, but suddenly stopped and lowered the rifle. He turned as if something had caught his attention. Page followed the direction of his gaze.

  What the shooter looked at was conspicuous, even in the dark. It was white, so big that it couldn’t be ignored. Inside it, people whimpered and wailed.

  The tour bus.

  My God, Page realized, before he started shooting, some of the passengers went back to their seats.

  The gunman walked toward it. With his back to Page, he faced the dark windows of the bus. He stood straighter, as if energized, and took long steps over bodies, approaching his new target. As he rounded the front, disappearing toward the door, Page was tempted to hurry from the side of the observation platform, wanting desperately to reach Costigan’s pistol. But the sound of his footsteps on the gravel would almost certainly attract attention. There was little chance that he could reach the pistol before the gunman heard him coming and reappeared, shooting.

  A fist banged against the opposite side of the bus.

  “Open the door!” the gunman demanded.

  Page backed along the sidewall of the observation platform and headed toward the dark road.

  “Open the damned door!”

  Page got to the road and hurried along it, his sneakers hushed on the pavement.

  Shots clanged through metal. The gunman was firing into the side of the bus. The AK-47’s bullets were capable of penetrating the metal, passing straight through, and going out the other side. A human body would barely slow them.

  After the next shot into the side of the bus, someone screamed.

  Page reduced speed as he came along the road and neared the back of the bus.

  The next shot was followed by a cry of pain. Bullets shattered windows. The sound of terrified wailing intensified.

  Page was troubled by another sound he began to hear: that of liquid spilling onto the gravel.

  “Came from hell!” the man screamed.

  The smell of gasoline drifted into Page’s nostrils.

  “Going back there!”

  Page’s training had taught him that only in the movies did a shot to a vehicle’s fuel tank cause a fire, let alone an explosion. This guy could shoot at the bus’s fuel tank all night, but unless he had incendiary ammunition, the only effect would be a lot of holes.

  And more leaking fuel. The gasoline fumes smelled stronger.

  He moved warily, hoping the darkness behind him would conceal his outline. Peering around the back of the bus, he saw the gunman, who was so intent on shooting at the gas tank that he didn’t notice anything else. He stepped back from a pool of gasoline that was spreading on the gravel.

  Oh, God-surely he isn’t…

  The man set down his rifle and pulled a book of matches from a shirt pocket.

  Page charged.

  The man tore a match from the book and struck it along the abrasive strip. The match flared.

  Then he heard Page coming and turned. The light from the match cast shadows up his face, exaggerating its harsh angles. His eyes reflected the flame, emphasizing their intensity.

  He lit the entire book.

  Page ran faster, yelling obscenities as fiercely as he could, trying to startle the man, to distract him from what he intended to do.

  The shooter dropped the burning matches an instant before Page crashed into him. As they hit the gravel, Page could only pray that they would go out, but instantly he heard a whoosh behind him. Flames dispelled the darkness. Heat rushed over his back.

  Outraged, he slammed the man’s head against the gravel. Hair and bone crunched against the stones. But the man simply roared and swung his arm with such force that he cast Page aside. Even given the man’s height and muscular build, his strength was amazing. He had to be on some kind of psychosis-inducing drug.

  The flames roared upward, enveloping the rear of the bus. Page squirmed backward to escape them.

  Snap, snap, snap.

  The heat broke windows. The wails of the people trapped inside became hysterical. Seeing the gunman reach for his rifle, Page came to his feet and charged again. The impact of striking him was so great that it sent both of them farther from the bus.

  They hit the gravel and skidded. Landing on top, Page tried to drive a fist into his opponent’s larynx, but the man abruptly twisted, and Page connected only with the side of his neck. The man swung his arm again and struck Page’s shoulder so h
ard that he knocked Page off him. The blow jolted Page almost to the point of paralyzing him. Groaning, he stuck out a foot and tripped the man as he ran to- ward his rifle. The man landed heavily, grunting loudly.

  The flames spread along the bus, their heat radiating toward Page’s face.

  “Open the door! Get off the bus!” he yelled to the people inside.

  He grabbed the gunman from behind and clamped his left arm around the man’s neck, straining to choke him. Simultaneously he drove his right fist into the man’s right kidney, punching him again and again.

  The man lurched backward, ramming Page against a car behind him. As he groaned from the impact, the man twisted away from the car and deliberately fell back. Page groaned again when he struck the gravel. He felt crushed by the man’s considerable weight landing on him.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  His arm loosened around the man’s neck.

  In a rush, the man came to his feet, kicked Page in the right side, and lunged again for his rifle. All the while, the flames roared upward from the rear of the bus and spread toward the front. Page felt the heat through his shirt.

  Pumped by adrenaline, he forced himself to his feet.

  The man picked up the rifle.

  Page charged, struck the man from behind, and propelled him into the flames. The fire was so thick that Page couldn’t see the rear of the bus, but he heard a thump when the man struck it.

  The man’s clothes caught fire. His hair blazed.

  Turning, he seemed to smile-or maybe it was the effect the flames had on his facial muscles. The rifle fell from his burning hands.

  He held out his arms and stepped forward.

  Page stumbled away from him.

  Ablaze, the man kept lurching toward him, his flaming arms out- stretched, his mouth spread in a grotesque smile.

  Page jolted back against a car. He squirmed along it, trying to get away from the fiery nightmare that kept stalking toward him. The man’s smile wasn’t defined any longer as flesh shrank away from his teeth. He was terribly close, and the smell of his burning flesh was sickening.

  About to give Page a fiery embrace, he abruptly twisted to the side. The sound of a shot was almost absorbed by the roar of the flames. A second shot made him stagger. His face tilted skyward, for the first time showing anguish.