The Shimmer

by David Morrell

  A third and fourth shot dropped him to his knees.

  A fifth shot blew a hole through his head.

  The man dropped face down, embracing the gravel, his broiling flesh spreading across it.

  Page staggered away from him, staring toward his left. The shooter was Tori. She held Costigan’s pistol with two hands, her arms ex- tended, her wrists and elbows locked the way Page had taught her. Her face was twisted with fury. She squeezed the trigger again, shooting into the flames that covered the man.

  “Bastard!” she screamed. “Bastard!”

  The door to the bus banged open. A half-dozen people surged out from the smoke. They sobbed and coughed, running toward the cold darkness and away from the bus, which was little more than a flaming coffin now.

  Page hurried around the car and approached Tori from the back. As heat swept over them, she shot again toward the flames that consumed the man.

  “Now you’re the one who’s going to hell!” she screamed.

  “Tori,” Page said. He came up next to her, reaching for the gun. “It’s okay now. He can’t hurt anybody anymore. Give me the pistol.”

  She fired again at the burning corpse’s back.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “He’s dead,” Page told her. “You don’t need the gun anymore.”

  He put his right hand on the pistol and pressed it down, encouraging her to lower her arms.

  “Give it to me.”

  Gradually the tension in her hands relaxed. Slowly she released the weapon.

  Page’s cheeks felt raw from the heat. He guided her in a wide arc around the front of the bus, away from the fire. As the air became darker, it cooled his skin.

  The people who’d escaped from the bus slumped near the fence, sobbing. Bodies lay everywhere. He counted twenty but knew there were more. A few squirmed in pain. Most had the stillness of death.

  “Tori, don’t look.” He guided her to the Saturn, where he hoped she’d feel sheltered, but the car was locked, and when he felt the front pockets of Tori’s jeans, he didn’t find the keys. They must be in her purse, he thought.

  He led her to the bench on the observation platform. He looked around but couldn’t find the purse in the darkness. After sitting her down, he promised, “I’ll be right back.”

  He ran to Costigan. The chief’s cowboy hat lay beside him. The left side of his head was covered with blood. Page touched his wrist and felt a pulse.

  “Hang on,” he told him.

  He found the car keys in Costigan’s pants and ran to the cruiser, pressing the unlock button on the key fob. Inside, he grabbed the radio’s microphone.

  “Officer down! Officer down!”

  “Who’s this?” a man’s angry voice demanded. “How’d you get on this radio?”

  “Officer down!” Page had trouble keeping his voice steady enough to identify himself and describe what had happened. “I was with the chief! He’s been shot!”

  “What?”

  “At least twenty other people were hit. At the observation platform outside town. A bus is on fire, and…” As he supplied more details, the enormity of what had happened struck him. “The assailant’s dead, but we need all the help you can bring.”

  “If this is a joke-”

  “Look at the horizon east of town. You ought to be able to see the glow of the fire.”

  “Just a…” The pause was suddenly broken. “Holy… I’ll get help as quick as I can.”

  Page sat numbly in the cruiser and stared toward the devastation that lay beyond the windshield. The light from the flames rippled over the bodies. His side aching, he got out of the car and stepped around pools of blood, approaching the people who’d escaped the burning bus.

  “Help’s on the way,” he promised them.

  “Thank you,” a woman told him through her tears. “Thank you for saving us.”

  “I was sure I was going to die,” a man said, trembling. “… Never been so scared.”

  “Why did he do it?” someone demanded. “Why?”

  Amid the roar of the flames, Page noticed that more survivors were warily emerging from their hiding places. Some had crawled under vehicles. Others had run across the road and concealed them- selves in the darkness of a neighboring field.

  An elderly man wavered among the corpses. Smoke drifted over him.

  “Where’s Beth? Where’s…?” The old man stopped and groaned. Grief made him sink to his knees. He cradled the head of one of the bodies.

  Heartsick, Page went back to the observation platform.

  Tori no longer stared toward the grassland. Instead she bent despairingly forward, her face in her hands.

  She shivered.

  Page noticed the windbreaker on the bench. He got it and draped it over her shoulders. He finally saw her purse on the floor, where she must have dropped it when the shooting had started. He placed it next to her. Numb, he sat beside her, put an arm around her, and listened to the blare of the approaching sirens.

  TWO – THE DARKLING PLAIN

  21

  Brent Loft gave his most amused, sympathetic look to the camera, saying, “Near Arroyo Park, a tearful ten-year-old girl waved for a police car to stop and pointed to where her cat had climbed to the top of a high-voltage utility pole. Workers from El Paso Electric arrived with a crane and very carefully rescued the feline, which, as you can see, was more afraid of being rescued than of staying on top of the pole. The thick, insulated gloves of the man on the crane protected him from more than just the electrical lines.”

  Next to Loft, his coanchor, Sharon Rivera, chuckled and read the next paragraph on the teleprompter: “The girl and her pet were finally reunited, but apparently this isn’t the only time the cat has been rescued. Last month two city workers had to free it from a storm drain.”

  “Seven more lives to go,” Brent said, trying not to gag on the line. He turned toward the man on his left. “Frank, what’s the final weather recap?”

  “Tomorrow’ll be another hot, sunny day with a chance of thunder- storms during the night.”

  “We can always use the rain,” Sharon said.

  “Sure can,” Brent agreed. “Well, that’s it for El Paso’s First-on-the- Scene News at 10. Be sure to watch our morning report from 6 to 7. We’ll see you tomorrow night at 5, 6, and 10. Thanks for joining us.”

  With big smiles, they listened to their program’s pulsing theme music. The red lights on the cameras stopped glowing. The harsh overhead lights dimmed.

  Like the other newscasters, Brent took off his lapel microphone and removed the earbud radio receiver through which the show’s producer could give him instructions to cut an item, add a late- breaking story, or make a joke.

  Sharon’s earbud got caught in her voluminous hair.

  “I hate reports about rescued pets,” Brent complained.

  “Yeah, but people like to go to sleep with a cozy feeling,” sports re- porter Tom Montoya said as he stood from behind his desk. Tom wore a jacket and tie for the camera, but what viewers at home couldn’t see was that-hidden by the desk-the rest of his ensemble consisted of shorts, sweat socks, and sneakers. He’d played basketball between the 6 and 10 newscasts, barely returning to the station in time to refresh his makeup.

  Sharon wore an elegant navy blazer and a pale-blue blouse, the tightness of which accentuated her breasts. When she stood from the news desk, her mismatched jeans became visible. Because she had chronic sore feet, she didn’t wear shoes. Her socks were thick wool because her feet were sensitive to the cold that came off the studio’s concrete floor.

  In contrast, Brent wore a full suit, an expensive calfskin belt, and de- signer shoes that he always buffed before he went on the air. The shoes were the most important feature-he felt that their shine radiated upward and added to the substance of his delivery. From bottom to top, everything counted. He would no more go on the air with scuffed shoes than he would with hair that wasn’t carefully blow-dried.

  But it had taken all
his skill to sound sincere when he’d read that item about the damned cat. The next time the producer wanted a cute story, Brent promised himself he’d make Sharon read all of it.

  “Want to go out for a drink?” he asked her.

  “Brent, how many times do I need to tell you I’m dating someone?”

  “Hey, it never hurts to ask. If you’re serious about this guy, why don’t you bring him around sometime so we can see what he looks like?”

  “He?” She looked at him strangely.

  “Very funny,” Brent said.

  “You’ve been working here three months, and no one told you I was gay?”

  “Yeah, right. Quit kidding around.”

  “What makes you think I’m kidding?”

  “Okay, okay, I can take a joke.” At that moment, the producer entered the studio, rescuing him from Sharon’s ridiculous act.

  “Brent, I need to talk to you.”

  Brent didn’t like his tone. Something’s going to hit the fan, he predicted.

  He had risen through the broadcast markets from a small television station in Oklahoma to a modest-sized one in Kansas to this bigger one in El Paso. Every newscaster’s goal was to work for the premium cable news channels-like CNN or Fox-or the network stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, and New York. Better yet, at the top-to go national on the evening news at ABC, NBC, or CBS.

  Brent had rocketed through the lower-level stations, but he was forced to admit that he hadn’t gained the momentum he needed to get out of El Paso a year from now, as he’d planned. For one thing, he hadn’t managed to bond with the rest of the news team. Perhaps they sensed his determination not to stay in the area any longer than necessary. As a consequence, he hadn’t been given any career-advancing stories. Also, he had the sense that the news director regretted hiring him. Presumably he’d decided that Brent looked a little too white- bread for this market.

  Shit, he’ll probably come down on me for the way I read that piece about the damned cat.

  “Sharon, I need to see you, also,” the producer said. A somber expression on his face, he looked down at his tennis shoes as if he wanted to avoid eye contact.

  “Listen, I can explain about the cat story…” Brent said.

  The producer peered up, looking distracted. “What are you talking about?”

  Sharon padded across the concrete floor on her thick socks. “Has something happened?”

  “There’s been a mass shooting.” The producer’s somber expression was replaced with a look of grim resolve.

  “What?”

  “Outside a town called Rostov. That’s about two hundred miles southeast of here. Our contact with the Highway Patrol says as many as twenty people were hit, most of them fatally. It happened at some kind of roadside tourist attraction they have down there.”

  Brent stepped closer. Even in today’s weird world, a mass shooting with five or six victims was news. But twenty?

  “Who did it?” Sharon asked.

  “The gunman hasn’t been identified. Apparently a woman on the scene shot and killed him.”

  “A woman?” The story’s sounding better by the minute, Brent thought.

  “The details are still coming in, but I don’t want our viewers to get all their information about it from CNN or Fox. This is a west Texas story. We call ourselves ‘First-on-the-Scene,’ and by God, we’ll prove it. Sharon, go back on the air for ‘breaking news.’ Our contact with the Highway Patrol agreed to an on-air telephone interview. Brent, the chopper’s waiting for you. Fly to Rostov immediately. Find out what’s happening. Hopefully you’ll be up to speed when Sharon and the broadcast truck reach there in the morning.”

  As Sharon hurried toward the news desk, the producer called after her, “Sharon, at Rostov you’ll give live updates throughout the day. Tomorrow evening, you’ll anchor the show with a view of the place where the shootings occurred. This’ll be a special broadcast, and we’ll make a big deal about it. Squeeze in as much rest as you can. I don’t want you looking tired.”

  “So Sharon and I will be coanchoring there?” Brent asked, already imagining how impressive that would look on his resume.

  “No, Sharon’s the anchor. You’ll contribute background. If you do research all night and all day tomorrow, by the time the broadcast starts tomorrow evening, you’ll look like something the cat dragged in.” The producer seemed to emphasize the word “cat,” but Brent hoped it was just his imagination. “Now, hurry out to the chopper.”

  “But I need to go home and get some fresh clothes,” Brent said. “This suit’ll be a mess by tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have time. I want you on the ground before those damned CNN reporters show up.” With that, the producer turned to- ward the three camera operators. “Who wants some serious overtime?”

  “I do,” a woman said. “The brakes on my car need replacing.”

  When she stepped from behind the equipment, Brent recognized the cute Hispanic camerawoman who’d recently joined the staff. Her name was Anita something. In her early twenties, she was short and trim, with shiny dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore hiking boots and pants that had twice the usual number of pockets. Her shirt had ample pockets as well.

  “Grab a camera and take one of the vans,” the producer responded. “Start for Rostov right away. This time of night, you can probably reach there in two and a half hours.”

  “Less,” Anita said confidently.

  “Whatever-I don’t care how many speeding tickets you get. Just don’t crash the van. By the time Brent’s done getting overhead shots of the crime scene and providing commentary, you’ll need to be close to the area.”

  “Wait,” Brent said, “you want me to operate the chopper’s camera, too?”

  The producer ignored him and kept talking to Anita.

  “There’s a good possibility the bodies won’t have been removed yet. After the chopper sets Brent down, you and he will start interviewing the police and any witnesses you can find. Brent, I told you to get moving. If we cover this from enough angles, maybe CNN won’t bother sending their people. Maybe they’ll pay to have Sharon supply live updates. Our competition won’t stand a chance in the ratings.”

  22

  The eerie music drifted and dipped, hovered and sailed. Coming from instruments Halloway still couldn’t identify, the languid, sensuous melody settled into a lower register. He imagined that he was slow dancing with the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. He smelled cinnamon in her hair and tasted orange juice and vodka.

  By now there were seven people in the room: Halloway and his partner, Taggard, another pair of guards who’d kept leaving the surveilance room to listen to the music, and the researcher-Gordon- who’d been joined by two others.

  Transported by the sounds, no one spoke. Halloway imagined the woman he danced with pressing against him. She breathed softly into his ear.

  Abruptly the music became silent. The woman disappeared.

  “Hey, what happened?” Halloway demanded.

  Static came from the speakers: harsh, crackly, loud, and aggravating.

  “Gordon, what did you do?” he exclaimed. “Where’s the music?”

  But Gordon looked as surprised-and annoyed-as everyone else.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he protested, holding up his hands as if that would prove it.

  “Then what happened? Why did the music stop?”

  A researcher pressed buttons and twisted knobs on several of the consoles. “Maybe we have a phasing problem,” he offered.

  The static’s brittle echo rebounded off the walls.

  “Phasing, my ass.” Halloway clamped his hands to his ears. “Damn it, that hurts. Do something.”

  Another researcher flicked a switch, disengaging the speakers. The static all but disappeared, coming only from headphones on a desk. When Gordon put them on, Halloway couldn’t hear the static at all.

  What he did hear, though, was the hum of the many electronic devices that were c
rammed into the room-and the deeper vibration, almost undetectable, that the facility’s electrical generator or the huge dishes aboveground sent through the walls.

  The music had distracted him from his increasing headache, but now the pain intensified through his skull.

  “Where did it come from?”

  The researchers gave each other guarded looks, as if hiding something.

  “Bring it back!”

  “We don’t know how we received it in the first place,” Gordon explained too quickly, “let alone how to find it again.”

  “Just bring it back!” Halloway demanded.

  “You’re not even supposed to be in here,” Gordon realized, now that the music no longer occupied his attention. “This area’s strictly off-limits. You belong in the surveillance room.”

  “Like hell. My job’s to protect this place. I can go anywhere I want.”

  “Well, how about protecting it by checking the security monitors? While you’ve been hanging around in here, a terrorist assault team might have surrounded us.”

  Buddy, if you hear that music again and you don’t let me know, Halloway silently vowed, terrorists will be the least of your worries.

  23

  Dozens of emergency lights flashed in the darkness. Their chaos of orange, blue, and white contrasted starkly with the shimmering colors Page had thought he’d seen earlier. An engine rumbled as firefighters sprayed foam on what was left of the burning bus. Eight Highway Patrol cars were parked next to three police cars from Rostov. Law enforcement officers and medical personnel seemed everywhere. Page heard the wail of a departing ambulance and the roar of a medevac helicopter as it rose from a nearby field, its takeoff lights painfully intense.

  From his vantage point a short distance down the road, he watched a patrolman interviewing Tori in her car next to the viewing platform. Page had already spoken to several officers and took for granted that they’d have more questions. Right now he was grateful for the chance to step back from the commotion and try to adjust to the trauma of what had happened.