“Aren’t there some letters?” Warren’s mother asked.
“Letters?”
“Between his father and mother. I remember Alice showed them to us. According to her, Edward treasured anything to do with his father because he was just a toddler when his father disappeared,” she said. “Some of the letters came from France during the First World War. They mentioned something about lights.”
“Yes, I remember now. Where did we put Dad’s stuff?”
After a twenty-minute search, they found the letters in the bottom of a box in a closet. They took them into the living room and clustered around the white-bearded figure in his rocking chair.
“Yep, look at this,” Warren’s father said. “‘I dream about the lights. I can’t wait to come back and find them.’ January twentieth, 1918. Wow. Dad, what do you know about this?”
But Warren’s grandfather was again catatonic.
The next afternoon, as Warren played the video game, his grand- father pointed toward the floating, drifting lights and began to tell a story that he’d kept locked within him since 1945-about a secret facility under a remote airbase in Texas and a weapon of unknown power.
Spellbound, Warren felt as if electricity straightened the hairs on his arms. From then on, he told his friends that his father had chores for him to do after school. He hurried home and put on the video game. As the floating, drifting balls of light appeared, his grandfather talked increasingly about the lights.
But one day, when Warren rushed home, his mother met him out- side and told him to be quiet because his grandfather was asleep in the bedroom. This disappointed Warren because he wanted to hear more about the lights and what had happened that terrible morning in 1945.
He played a video game, got bored, and decided to see if his grand- father was awake. Opening the door, he found that the bed was empty. A window was open.
He called his mother, who hurried home. Although the two of them drove along every street on Fort Bragg, they couldn’t find him. Military policemen widened the search. The police outside the base widened the search even farther.
Hospitals, shelters, churches, parks. Warren’s grandfather wasn’t at any of them.
“How the hell can an old man disappear?” Warren’s father demanded.
“I think I know where he went,” Warren said.
“Maybe he figured out where Alice is buried and decided to visit her,” Warren’s mother suggested.
“No. He went to Rostov,” Warren said.
“Rostov? Texas?”
“The airfield where he got hurt. He’s always talking about it. I think that’s where he went.”
“How could an old man get to Texas?”
“I’m not saying he got there. I’m just saying I bet that’s where he went.”
The police sent a missing-person bulletin to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, all the states between North Carolina, where Fort Bragg was located, and west Texas.
Three days later, the Rostov police chief phoned. Yes, Warren’s grandfather had managed to get there. He’d been found at the old airfield.
He was dead.
78
Raleigh felt the table beneath his head begin to vibrate. In the darkness, he straightened. The room seemed warmer, enough to make him sweat.
Of course it’s warmer, he thought. The generator failed. The air conditioner isn’t working.
But if that’s the case, then the air-circulation pump isn’t working, either, he realized. The only oxygen I can get is in this room.
The darkness made him imagine that the room was smaller than it was.
Relax. Take slow, calm breaths. There’s plenty of air.
The ringing in Raleigh’s ears persisted, aggravated by the earplugs. The noise-reducing headphones pinched the sides of his head. Sweat trickled from under them. He wiped the sweat away with his hands.
Thirst made him wish that he’d thought to put bottles of water on the table while the light was dimming. When he came to his feet, the darkness intensified the scrape of the chair. He turned to the left, ex- tended his arms, and shuffled across the floor, pawing the empty space. Sooner than he expected, his fingers touched the smooth metal of the filing cabinet.
No problem.
The bottles of water were in the top drawer. He groped inside and tucked three of the bottles under his left arm. He gripped two energy bars with his right hand and shuffled back toward the desk.
He bumped a sharp corner. Cursing, he quickly set down what he carried and rubbed his throbbing hip.
The accumulating humidity made his nostrils moist. After wiping them with a handkerchief, he felt his way around the table to where his chair again made a screeching sound. He took three long swallows from a bottle of water, wiped moisture from his lips, tore open the wrapping on an energy bar, and suddenly felt queasy.
The water he’d swallowed had an aftertaste, as if there were metal in it. Was it starting to turn bad?
Will it make me throw up?
The metallic taste became stronger.
Sweat trickled down his face. As the table continued vibrating, the darkness seemed less absolute, perhaps because his eyes were adjusting. He could almost see the water bottles.
Of course. I’ve always had great eyesight.
The blackness developed shades of gray. He definitely saw the outline of the bottles. That was the good news. The bad news was that the ringing in his ears was sharper, and the metallic taste almost made him gag.
The bottles were coming into view, but a haze surrounded them.
Damned sweat’s getting in my eyes. He wiped them with the back of a hand, but the bottles remained blurred, even though the gray of the room was now so pale that he could see a hint of the table.
And the energy bars.
And his hands.
The effect was similar to the way night fades just before dawn. Through blurred vision, Raleigh was able to distinguish the filing cabinet. He saw walls and the metal door across from him, every- thing still hazy.
Again he rubbed his eyes to clear them of sweat. The room was now light enough that he could see colors, the orange wrappers on the energy bars, the blue labels on the water bottles, the red on his hands.
Red?
Drops of blood covered the table. His shirt was blotched with it. In dismay, he realized that the metallic taste hadn’t come from the water and the moisture on his face hadn’t been sweat. It was blood running from his tear ducts and his nose.
He screamed.
The illumination came from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
Raleigh lunged toward the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open. A glare made him shield his eyes.
The team lay before him. Covered with blood, those who were still alive groaned. One man had the strength to aim his M4 at him.
Raleigh stooped to grab the carbine with the grenade launcher but didn’t need to use it-the man with the M4 passed out, his gun clattering to the concrete floor.
Raleigh charged over the bodies, yanked open another door, and raced into the chamber where the now useless Suburbans were parked. The glare was even brighter as he hurried toward the stair- well that led to the surface.
If I run fast enough, maybe I can go far enough.
I wasn’t exposed as long as the rest of the team. Maybe I won’t bleed out.
Chest heaving, he pounded up the stairs. He reached the door to the outside, turned the knob, rammed his shoulder against it, but couldn’t make it budge. He jabbed numbers on a pad next to the door, entering the unlock sequence, but the door still wouldn’t budge.
Of course! Raleigh thought. Without electricity, the code pad can’t work!
Wailing uncontrollably, he hurried down the steps, raised the carbine, and fired a grenade at the door. The explosion threw him off balance. When the smoke cleared, he saw that the door hung askew. A glare showed beyond it.
As blood dripped from his face, he rushed up the stairs, entered the ruins of the hangar
, and sprinted outside. Behind him, a massive light intensified, but straight ahead lay the darkness of the road.
Keep running!
He managed only three long, frenzied strides before something bounded from the darkness and struck his chest, knocking him onto his back. Jaws snapped at his neck. The German shepherd. Its face was bloody. In a frenzy, the dog drove its teeth toward Raleigh’s neck.
He grabbed its throat, trying to push it away. It clawed and writhed. He couldn’t keep hold of its blood-slicked fur.
About to tear into his throat, it suddenly stopped and stared be- yond his face. The blood on its muzzle reflected churning lights. With a yelp, it spun and raced into the darkness.
Raleigh struggled to his feet and staggered forward. The impact of falling had knocked his headphones off. The flow of blood had loosened his earplugs. Without their protection, he heard a hiss-crackle- hum behind him.
And something else.
The motor of an airplane.
Of all the stories his grandfather had told him, the one that haunted him the most was about how Raleigh’s great-grandfather had flown a World War I biplane toward the dark horizon in an effort to learn the origin of the lights. As a boy, Raleigh had imagined that biplane going farther and farther away, getting smaller, receding into the distance, becoming only a speck.
Vanishing.
My great-grandfather.
Turning, he was nearly blinded by a wave of lights speeding toward him. In the distance, grassland was ablaze, the flames adding to the glare, the smoke reflecting it. He gaped toward the twisting colors, the dominant hue of which was orange and reminded him of the sun.
Something moved inside them.
A biplane swooped into view, its orange at first indistinguishable from that of the flares around it. The biplane had two seats, one behind the other. In the rear seat, a young man worked the controls. He wore a uniform and goggles. Even at a distance, it was obvious that he was handsome.
He had a mustache. The tail of a scarf floated behind him.
Before Raleigh understood what he was doing, he started along the old airstrip. He knew he ought to run toward the road, but ever since the age of thirteen, all of his thoughts had been about the lights and their secrets.
When he was eighteen, he’d come to this airbase and searched it, finding a way into the underground facility. Like his grandfather, he’d joined the Army with the purpose of rising through military intelligence. At last he’d gained the authority he needed to track down his great-grandfather’s reports about the lights, to follow clues that led him to his grandfather’s reports about the lights.
The biplane swooped nearer.
Without warning, the engine stopped.
The biplane disappeared. It was instantly replaced by a small, single-wing aircraft, a Cessna, the engine of which was silent, its propeller fluttering uselessly. Raleigh saw a man and a woman through the canopy. Their faces were twisted with fear.
The plane was about to crash.
79
One moment, Page was trying to guide the Cessna over the Badlands and onto the murky grass. The next, swirling colors enveloped the plane. If time had seemed prolonged during the gliding descent, it became even more so now.
The Cessna appeared not to be moving.
A beam of light shot from the colors that pulsed on the right side of the aircraft. It produced so much illumination that he could see the collapsed hangars of the old airfield. The beam of light streaked into one of them and angled toward the northwest in the direction of the observatory.
In the distance, the beam surged into the sky, deflected off something-a satellite, Page guessed-and rocketed toward the ground even farther northwest.
“I hear an engine!” Tori shouted.
“It isn’t ours!”
A shadow passed through the colors on his left.
“Another plane!” Page yelled.
Not just another plane. A biplane of a type that dated back to World War I. A young man with a mustache and goggles was behind the controls in the rear seat, the tail of a scarf fluttering behind him.
Other images swirled within the colors: a man herding cattle, a woman on horseback riding along a dark road…
A handsome young man-James Deacon-leaning against a fence, staring toward darkness.
A teenager on a motorcycle racing across a murky field.
Soldiers holding their heads as if they feared their skulls would explode.
Edward Mullen shooting toward the lights, then firing into a crowd.
Tori sitting on a bench at the viewing area, gazing spellbound toward the shadowy distance.
At once all the images vanished, including the biplane. Its engine could no longer be heard.
The Cessna resumed its glide. The lights, which were now behind it, provided enough illumination for Page to see the weeds and dirt on the old runway.
“We’re coming in short!”
The ground rose swiftly.
“Someone’s ahead of us!” Tori yelled.
“What?”
“There’s a man staggering along the runway!”
Page saw him then. Wavering, a man gaped at the Cessna, his head and clothes soaked with what had to be blood.
“Tori, get your door open!” Page yanked up the lever on his own door and pushed. He saw rocks among the weeds before the runway.
The Cessna couldn’t stay in the air any longer. He pulled the controls back, raising the nose, hoping to keep the front wheel above the rocks. The left wheel struck and collapsed. He felt the plane drop on that side. The left wing dragged along the ground, then buckled. Snagging, it caused the fuselage to twist to the left.
The propeller struck earth, a blade breaking off and flipping away, the torque yanking the engine out of its housing. Dust billowed over the canopy. As the fuselage kept tilting violently to the left, Page found that he was lying on his side. The snapping and grinding of metal was matched by the crunch of the plane skidding over dirt. The shock of stopping would have slammed Page’s chest against the controls if his seat belt and shoulder harness hadn’t been tight, but even so, the snap of his chest against the harness made him feel as if he’d been punched.
He had trouble breathing.
“Tori,” he managed to say, “are you all right?”
She didn’t answer.
“Tori?”
“I think I’m okay.”
Thank God, Page thought. “We need to get out in case there’s a fire.”
His door was wedged against the ground. In pain, he managed to free his seat belt and harness.
“Climb through your door!”
With the fuselage on its side, Page was able to half stand and help Tori unbuckle her harness. He pushed at her hips, helping her get through the door on the right. Wincing, he pulled himself up, squirmed through the open door, crawled over the side, and dropped to the ground.
His chest ached, but the pain hardly mattered when he smelled aviation fuel.
“Run!” he shouted. But Tori didn’t need encouragement. She charged forward onto the old runway. Flanking her, Page ran as hard as he could.
Ahead, the man they’d seen on the runway had collapsed. Without hesitation they knelt beside him, turning him onto his back. Even with all the blood, Page knew he’d seen this man before. On the previous night, he and Tori had driven past the abandoned airbase. A man in his forties, bald and sinewy, with rigid shoulders and an air of authority-he’d been unlocking the gate.
“Can you stand? Page asked. “We need to get you out of here.”
The man mumbled something that sounded like “great-grandfather.”
Page and Tori lifted him to his feet, guiding him along the old run- way. The beam of light continued radiating through one of the hangars, streaking toward the northwest, soaring into the sky, then angling down toward something on the far horizon. The air was filled with a hiss-crackle-hum that smelled like an electrical fire. Page felt his hair standing up.
St
ruggling to get the man to the road, Page looked over his shoulder, and was stunned by how much brighter the lights were. Explosions tore up ground in the distance: bombs from long ago. The grass fire spread toward the runway. When the flames reached the Cessna, the fuel tanks erupted, sending a fireball into the sky.
The hiss-crackle-hum became unbearable. As heat from the beam of light threatened to set Page’s clothes on fire, the sky was abruptly filled with what seemed a gigantic skyrocket, higher and farther away than any fireworks could reach. It sent huge trails of sparks flying in every direction.
“What the hell is that?” Tori asked in amazement.
The sparks radiated high and low, far and wide across the heavens. Blazing tendrils showed every color imaginable, so massive a display that Page was stopped in his tracks, awestruck.
The sky seemed on fire.
At once the ray of light ceased.
It vanished at the same time as a blast lit the horizon, off in the direction of the observatory. The colors drooped in the sky. The sparks fell, their luster fading. As the hiss-crackle-hum went silent, the only illumination came from the grass fires.
Coughing from smoke that drifted over him, Page found that he was able to move again. He and Tori urged the man through the darkness. They reached a fence, lifted the man over it, passed between parked cars, and sank onto the road.
A new sound filled the night. The sound of hundreds of people crying.
“Great-grandfather,” the man said.
People stumbled past them. Some got into cars, but the vehicles wouldn’t start. Others called the names of loved ones. Pleas for help from God or somebody, anybody, blended with moans. A crowd gathered on the road, plodding along it, people looking like refugees from a war zone as they made their way toward Rostov. Sirens wailed from the direction of the town.
The fires showed Medrano climbing onto a pickup truck.
“Everybody stay calm!” he yelled. “We’ll take care of you! Help’s on the way!”
Page looked at the stranger they’d set on the road. His face was dark with blood.
“Hear those sirens? Just hang on, and you’ll be okay,” Page tried to assure him.
The Shimmer Page 31