Andrea’s wearing him down. It’s funny, here’s Dad finally showing some signs of life, and here’s me showing signs of death.
Not so funny.
I close my door, crack the window open and strip down to my boxers and T-shirt.
Outside, the late afternoon is starting its deep blue fade into night. I take in a deep breath to cool my lungs.
This is it.
If you try real hard to fall asleep, it ain’t gonna happen. But I am deliriously drowsy.
I stretch out on top of the covers. The only light comes from the blue of the winter sunset. Blue like the glow in the beast’s cave.
Deep breaths. I try to slow my heart, making an effort to release the tension in my muscles.
I give it ten minutes. Lying still. Breathing easy. And another ten.
No good. I’m weak with exhaustion, but my brain just won’t let go and fade to black. Maybe because it knows what’s waiting when it does.
Giving up, I open my eyes—
And see myself reflected in the ceiling above. I gasp. The water-stained ceiling is now a mirrored surface. I sit up, blinking in confusion. The whole place is mirrored—walls, floor, my bedroom door.
I go to swing out of bed. The desk, the lamp and the pile of school books all shine with a metallic silver smoothness. The bed under me too. I touch the sheets, the reflected image of my hand meeting the real thing. I half expect the sheet to crinkle up like tinfoil. But it still feels soft.
Any move I make is thrown back at me from every surface in the room.
I’m in the dream. On the beast’s turf.
And I remember why. I’m here for Howie.
Move fast! Before it catches my scent. If it hasn’t already.
I look out the window. The world outside is still caught in a blue twilight. The Cove is the same. Snow and ice, and skeleton trees.
I brace myself with a breath of frosty air. Then I call out: “Howie!” My voice carries over the empty landscape. No answer. This dreamscape is as stiff and lifeless as an unshaken snow globe.
He’s gotta be here somewhere. We shared the nightmare before, and I found him. So I can find him again.
I hope.
Pulling my head back in, I listen hard. There’s a hush of sound, like a breeze drafting through the house. But it’s something more—
Whispers. Coming from somewhere on the other side of my bedroom door.
I go over to it, keeping my eyes on the knob so I won’t get distracted by the images bouncing back at me from every direction, imitating every little move I make. Reflections of reflections.
The door opens on a hall of mirrors lit by winter blue. The whispering rises. Too many voices talking at the same time.
“Howie!”
Nothing.
“It’s me. Danny.”
Moving into the hallway, I make the mistake of looking down. The floor seems to drop out from under me, with nothing solid to support me but my own reflection.
I take a step, watching the sole of my bare left foot meet its twin rising up on the flipside. I get the weirdest sensation that I won’t fall as long as I have the reversed images of my own feet to walk on.
I take baby steps while the whispers rise and fall as if they’re wandering the house. Searching.
“Howie!”
The murmur goes quiet. Something heard me. Then it hits me—maybe I’m what the voices are searching for.
I look up from my strange balancing act to see steam pouring out of the open bathroom door ahead. I glance in. The condensation has fogged up the silvered walls. Something’s been scribbled in the steam.
DANNYBOY DANNYBOY DANNYBOY DANNYBOY DANNYBOY.
Over and over, in rows reaching from floor to ceiling.
What Mom called me.
I forget to breathe. The beast has been dissecting my memories, finding out where it hurts.
I force myself to break away.
But there’s nowhere I can look that I don’t see myself looking back, wide-eyed and desperate. These mirrors are like the beast’s eyes. If I stare into them too deep, or stay in here too long, they’ll swallow me up.
Focus!
This dead silence is electric, like the moment between the flash of lightning and the thunder.
If I was Howie, where would I hide? He’s just too good at hiding out, been doing it half his life. So the only way I’ll find him is if he comes to me.
“Howie!”
As I step into the living room, the silver surfaces trick me with my own reflections staring back.
There! Something moving in the corner. I swing around and find a girl, maybe thirteen, in pink pajamas. She’s hunched over, hugging herself. Her eyes lock on to mine. The girl’s lips move, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Whispers.
I step closer, straining to hear. Then I realize she’s standing inside the wall. I see my own reflection behind her. There’s two of me but only one of her. She’s trapped in the wall.
Her lips move again, her voice barely a whimper: “Show me. Show me the way out.”
And she reaches her hand to me, as if I’m going to take it and lead the way.
I can’t help flinching back, scared what might happen if she touched me.
She’s one of them. The missing.
“Show me.”
“I don’t … I can’t.”
Then I catch more movement. Over there, staring out from the silvered curtains, two guys lean together. They look familiar. Where have I seen them? Then it comes to me. Their pictures were in the Examiner archives. Runaway brothers from half a century ago.
“Take us with you,” the older brother’s voice echoes, calling from a deep place.
Every second, more kids rush into the living room, racing along the walls. I jump when I see an Indian girl appear beneath my feet, staring up like she’s looking through a glass-lidded coffin. She’s got on an animal-hide dress and speaks in a language that sounds something like Ash’s Ojibwa.
These ghost reflections crowd in. Dozens and dozens. Voices begging, desperate—
Take me. Save me. Show me.
So many. The mob keeps growing. They shove and push each other, trying to get my attention.
They want me to take them out of here. Howie said they don’t know they’re dead. He’s got a living, breathing body to return to. There’s nothing for these lost souls to go back to but a pile of bones.
I stumble around, expecting to feel hands grabbing at my ankles, pulling me under. I duck my head at the figures swooping across the ceiling like diving bats.
“Danny?”
I stop cold.
“Danny, over here.”
I track the voice to a corner. Howie’s crouched low, in his hospital pajamas. Knees hugged up against his chest, he’s making himself small to avoid the crush.
I run over to him, ignoring the rest.
“Howie! I came to get you. Let’s go.”
I bend next to him.
“Can’t,” he says from the other side of the mirror. “I’m stuck in here.”
“It’s just a dream.”
He shakes his head. “It’s more. It’s where the beast keeps … them.”
The others press in closer now, but he keeps his eyes on mine.
“Forget them,” I say. “Just focus on me. Think! Use your brain. What—what do I do? Can I use something to break you out of this?”
The wall looks like a mirror. It should shatter if I hit it hard enough.
“Won’t break,” he says. “But maybe …”
“Maybe what?”
Howie presses his palm against the inside of the wall. “Try to grab my hand.”
He kneels there, waiting for me as the crowd gathers to watch.
Okay. Here goes. I tap the wall with my fingertips. The contact makes ripples in the surface, as if it’s almost liquid. I pull back, startled.
“I felt that,” Howie gasps. “Push. Push on through.”
I take a shaky breath, then lean
forward, shoving my hand wrist-deep into the silver. So cold it burns. I jump back, but Howie’s got hold of my wrist now and I have to pull his weight too. My fingers stiffen into icicles. The others kids crush in, clawing at my wrist, trying to grab on. Screaming faces shove forward, their features twisted with fear and desperation. Their weight threatens to drag me in deeper.
Straining against it, I crash backward on the floor. Something lands on top of me.
I roll out from under it.
Howie lies on the floor beside me, shaking like he’s having a seizure.
The whole place shudders. Earthquake, or dreamquake. Like something just woke up.
I scramble over to Howie. “Just breathe. Breathe.”
It takes an effort to get him to sit up.
“We gotta get out of here,” I say. “Gotta wake up.”
He pushes himself to his knees. “How?”
I feel a shudder in the floor beneath me. Something’s pounding up the stairs.
“Get up!” I grunt, heaving Howie onto his feet.
His legs are shaky, but we gotta go. Now!
“Where …?” he says.
I have no idea. I mean, no matter how far we run, we’re still in the nightmare, right?
But then I flash on the last time we got stuck together, on that moonlit ice field.
I aim him toward the hall. “Go!”
I half shove, half drag him. I don’t look back. The ghosts trapped in the walls scatter like fish smelling a shark in the water. The beast is closing in on us.
We race down the hallway toward my room. The floor seems to stretch out in front of us. It’s like we’re running in place. But I put on a burst of speed to close the distance.
A thunderous roar hits me from behind with a shock wave. We skid the last few feet into my room.
I kick the door shut. Like that’s going to stop anything.
“Out the window,” I gasp.
Howie stares back at me.
“Don’t think. It worked before. Jump!”
It’s only a two-story drop to the ground. That’s got to be enough to break us out of this. I grab his wrist and pull him over to the window.
I’m ready to heave him out if I have to. But Howie climbs onto the frame. He leans out and takes one last look at me before letting go.
The door explodes inward.
I scramble onto the frame, whacking my head on the sill. Without thinking, I throw myself out into the blue twilight.
As I lunge forward, something grabs my ankle. Claws rake my skin, trying to get a grip. My momentum breaks me free and I’m falling fast.
I wake convulsing on my bed, gasping for air. I’m fear-blinded for a moment, not sure where I am. In the dream or out. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there, shaking until my head starts to clear.
I check my ankle, expecting claw marks and blood.
Not a scratch.
The voices are gone. Those lost souls begging me to show them the way out. They don’t know there’s nothing for them to come back to. Just scattered bones.
I think Howie got out okay. He should be waking up in his hospital bed right about now.
One tiny victory.
I just bought us a little time. Maybe another day. If I can make it through the night. It’ll have to be enough. We need to make some plans. Gotta think.
What’s next is going to be hell.
THIRTY-ONE
“Can you hear me?” Pike says, leaning in close to the speakerphone.
“You don’t have to yell.” Howie’s voice comes through. “Just talk normal.”
“Okay, so everybody’s here,” Pike tells him, sitting down in the swivel chair at Howie’s desk.
We’re all in his room while he’s lying in a hospital bed in Barrie. He snapped out of the coma the same time I was waking up in my room. And after a long, sleepless night we’re both still breathing.
“So, what’s the plan?” Ash wants to know. “And don’t say let’s nuke the thing. Stick to reality.”
“This is the plan.” Pike holds up two sheets of paper. “Me and Howie worked it out at the hospital.”
They show some basic drawings scribbled in pen.
“What’s it supposed to be?” I ask.
He hands one page over. “A map of the area around the tunnel entrance.”
Ash leans in to take a look. I can see Howie’s handwriting marking the points on the map. It shows the stretch of shoreline from the abandoned ice factory to the bluffs. There’s the clearing hidden between the rock walls. The tunnel entrance is marked as a little door at the base of one wall. A small circle indicates the boulder we hid behind. At the top is the lake, with the gap between the bluffs opening onto it.
“We’re gonna set a trap,” Pike says. “And slaughter it.”
“How?” Ash asks. “That thing’s got some heavy-duty body armor. Take a lot to bring it down. I’ve got my deer rifle, and maybe I can get hold of my dad’s shotgun. But is that gonna even dent it?”
“Way ahead of you.” Pike’s got a crazy gleam in his eyes. He hands over the second page of scribbles. “This is the plan.”
It’s a map of the tunnel, from the entrance at the base of the bluff down to the cave.
Two black “X”s are drawn just past the last sharp turn before the tunnel opens onto the cave.
“What do the ‘X’s mean?” I ask.
“That’s where I’m gonna leave a couple Christmas presents.”
“What kind of presents?” I say.
“Show them.” Howie’s voice comes out of the speaker.
“Right, bro,” Pike calls back.
He grabs something small off of Howie’s desk and tosses it to me. It looks kind of like a little metal firecracker, but with wires sticking out of the top instead of a fuse.
“What’s this?” I jiggle it on my palm.
“A blasting cap.”
I stop jiggling.
“We needed some serious ordnance,” Pike says.
“What’s ordnance mean?”
“Stuff that goes boom.”
I try to keep my hand from shaking, try not to breathe on the thing.
Pike takes it back. “Don’t worry. It’s harmless. Not hooked up to anything. Yet.”
“Where’d you get that?” Ash asks.
“Same place I got this.” Pike goes over to Howie’s closet and pulls out a duffel bag. He’s more gentle this time, making me even more nervous. Setting it on the floor in front of us, he unzips it.
Holy crap!
Resting on a cushion of towels at the bottom of the bag, sealed in bright orange wrappers that are covered in warnings and skull-and-crossbones symbols, are about two dozen sticks of dynamite.
“Where did you …?” I whisper, trying not to make a sound. My heart’s beating so hard it feels like it’s going to crack a rib.
“You know how they’ve been clearing land for those new greenhouses up north of the Cove? The quickest way to clear stumps is to blow them. Lot of stumps around here.”
Through the end of summer and into fall we’d hear the distant booms of the clearing going on, echoing like thunder. Felt like living on the edge of a war zone.
“They quit clearing for the winter but left the goodies behind in storage. The security’s a joke—one old guy in a trailer watching TV.”
Howie’s voice speaks up. “It’s the only way, guys.”
“Anybody got a better idea?” Pike zips the bag up.
This is nuts. But me and Howie are out of time, and this is all we’ve got.
“Okay. I’m in.”
Ash nods. “Me too. So what’s the deal?”
Pike taps the tunnel map I’m holding. “The ‘X’s show where I’m going to plant my IEDs.”
“Your what?” I ask.
“IEDs,” Howie says. “Improvised Explosive Devices.”
“I’m gonna rig up a couple land mines. I’ve been thinking it through.” Pike warms up to the subject. “There’s differen
t ways to go—a trip-wire mine, a remote detonator or a pressure mine. Trip wires are tricky, and they take time to set up. With remotes you can set them off with cell phones, but our target lives underground, and I doubt a signal could get through all that rock. So that leaves pressure mines—you just need to plant and activate them.”
I look from the map to the duffel bag holding enough explosives to maybe level the house. Then I meet Pike’s eyes. This is his dream. He knows they’re never going to let him in the army. He’s just too psycho. This is it for him. His shot. His war.
“Tricky,” Ash says. “This isn’t blowing up pumpkins on Halloween.”
He shakes his head. “It’s just a bigger pumpkin. On Halloween I used timers made from cheap digital watches to set the charges. Worked beautiful. But a pressure mine is the way to go here. Nobody screws with my bro. I don’t care if you are a killing machine from hell. You’re going down. Right, bro?” he says, leaning over the speakerphone.
“Right,” Howie replies, sounding very far away.
“Why set the mines there?” Ash asks.
“Remember how just before you get to the cave, there’s a sharp turn in the tunnel? Then you see that blue light? When the beast comes home, it’ll take that bend, and before it knows what hit it, it’s blown to bits. Won’t even see it coming.”
She nods. “Okay. But time’s running out on Danny and Howie. If we’re gonna do this, it’s gotta be tonight. How are you supposed to get in there to set this all up?”
Pike scratches his Mohawk. “That’s where you guys come in. Everybody’s got a part to play. I’m demolitions, of course. Ash is the lookout, guarding my back. And Danny …”
I brace myself.
“Danny’s the bait.”
THIRTY-TWO
The sun disappears behind the cliffs on the far shore. I watch the sunset, even though the light hurts my eyes, because it might be my last.
We’re waiting for dark. Won’t be long. The winter night comes on fast. No clouds tonight, and no moon. Not a problem for me. I can pretty much read in the dark now.
What is a problem are my driving skills. Or lack of them. I failed my test twice at the DMV back in Toronto.
Which is why I’m real nervous about my part in the plan.
Pike’s junker is parked by the old ice factory. Sitting beside it is my ride for tonight, a Yamaha snowmobile I borrowed from the marina. It can do sixty miles an hour. Better be enough.
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