Double Threat

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Less than a year.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Daley’s heart went out to this poor guy. Probably a real hard case with the bad guys but his daughter’s illness had reduced him to a blubbering wreck.

  We must do something!

  (“Absolutely. Get me in there.”)

  “Wait here,” she told the deputy.

  Keeping it as casual as she could, Daley ambled over to where Araceli played with the stones.

  “Find one you like?”

  She smiled at Daley—a totally different child than the one who’d been here Saturday—and held up a pink palm stone.

  “This one.”

  “Pink? You like pink?”

  Vigorous nodding.

  “Well, good. Do you want to know a trick to make this stone special? Make it yours and nobody else’s?”

  More nodding.

  “Okay, here’s what you do. Hold the stone with this hand on the bottom and this hand on top.” She arranged Araceli’s hands above and below the stone. “Now you have to press real hard on it.”

  She sensed Alvarez slipping up behind her to watch.

  “Here,” she said. “Let me help you.” With that she pressed her hands over Araceli’s and held them there. “Now, we’ll just stay like this for a minute. And you know what? I’m going to ask your daddy to time it.” She glanced at him. “Would you mind?”

  He lifted his wrist and checked his watch. “Not a bit.”

  “Old-school timepiece there,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t believe how often during a workday I have to note the time.”

  Back to Araceli: “And after a minute this pretty pink stone will be yours and no one else’s.”

  The child grinned, definitely into the idea.

  She’s all yours, partner.

  (“Going in…”) He disappeared.

  They held their positions and waited. Araceli became restless, squirmy.

  Daley said, “A minute can seem like a long time when you’re standing like this, but it’ll be over soon.”

  “Halfway there,” her father said. “Thirty seconds to go.” Shortly thereafter he began counting down from ten. “… nine … eight…”

  (“Okay,”) Pard said, reappearing. (“Done.”)

  For a while I was afraid we’d run out of time.

  (“Nasty little growth. Very aggressive.”)

  All good?

  (“Yes. I cut off its blood supply, like I did with Lynn’s lung tumor.”)

  Thank you. I wanted this one.

  (“My, my, I guess you do have a heart.”)

  You had doubts?

  (“Well, where a dollar is concerned, you can be, shall we say, all business.”)

  We’ll discuss this later.

  As the countdown ended, she released Araceli’s hands.

  “There! Now the stone is yours forever.”

  She grinned. “Yay!”

  “How much do I owe you?” Alvarez said, reaching for his wallet.

  “No-no-no. It’s on me.”

  He shook his head. “Being with the sheriff’s department, and with that complaint against you, I can’t accept anything.”

  “It’s not for you. It’s for her. I insist.”

  “And I insist on paying. How much.”

  She could see this going on and on, so …

  “Okay. A dollar.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “They’re on special today.” She accepted a dollar bill from him. “Okay, deputy, we’re even.”

  “It’s Sam, and I doubt we’ll ever be even. If you hadn’t beat me over the head about getting her scanned, I still … I never…” He shook his head and swallowed, looked like he was going to puddle up again. “Thank you … hey, I don’t know your first name. I remember seeing it on the papers from Consumer Affairs, but I’m blanking.”

  She ran through her I-go-by-my-last-name routine.

  “Okay, Daley. Thank you for the stone and thank you for your intuition.”

  She found she couldn’t let him leave thinking his daughter had a death sentence. She had to offer at least a smidgen of hope.

  She put an arm around Araceli. “She’s going to be all right.”

  (“Careful … careful…”)

  He shook his head. “I wish I—”

  “Trust me.”

  “Your intuition again?”

  “Yep. This little girl is going to bust the statistics. You heard it here.”

  (“That’s enough, Daley.”)

  Gotcha.

  Sam pointed toward the ceiling. “Your lips to God’s ear.” He lifted his daughter off the chair. “Come here, mijita. Time to go home.”

  Daley followed them to the door, then watched them drive off.

  I think we done good, partner.

  (“We did.”)

  I’m feeling better about this.

  (“Healerina?”)

  Yeah … in fact, I’m feeling kinda good.

  (“You mean the sun has risen and brought the dark, featureless plain of your meaningless life into full bloom?”)

  Let’s not get carried away here. I haven’t become Forrest Gump. I’m still me.

  But … good to feel good about something. She could get used to this.

  The downside—could she ever get away from dwelling on the downside?—was the enormous responsibility.

  Are we up to this, Pard?

  (“I hope so. We’d better be.”)

  Seriously, how do we know if we’re going about this the right way?

  (“We don’t know. That’s the problem. We’re treading new ground here. It’s not like we can Google it to find out how so-and-so handled it. Nobody’s been here before. We’re on our own, Daley. That’s why we have to be careful what we say.”)

  You’re going to tell me I’ve got a big mouth, right?

  (“Eventually we’re going to attract a lot of attention. That’s inevitable. But I think we should try to delay that as long as possible. We have to explore our limits, first. I can’t cure everything. I have to learn what I can and cannot do, what works and what doesn’t.”)

  You think I said too much to Sam?

  (“If you didn’t, you came damn close. When he learns up at Children’s Hospital that the tumor is gone, he’s going to remember the woman who told him his daughter was going to be all right—‘bust the statistics’ was the grammatically dubious quote, I believe.”)

  And what’s so bad about that? Besides, I think he’s kind of hot.

  (“He’s married.”)

  Maybe not. He never once said “my wife”—always “her mother.”

  (“I would call that flimsy evidence or, more appropriately, wishful thinking.”)

  We’ll see, we’ll see.

  WEDNESDAY—MARCH 4

  1

  The plan was to meet in the Lodge’s main meeting room at midnight and head out together from there. Rhys arrived at two minutes after.

  “You’re late,” his father said.

  “Hardly.”

  He’d told Rhys to dress for the desert and he’d done the same: windbreaker, jeans, and boots.

  “My car or yours?” Rhys said.

  “Mine. It’s got some items we’ll need. But first we leave our phones.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “You’ll understand when we get down to business.” He pulled his from a pocket and placed it on a table. “There’s mine. Now yours.”

  Reluctantly, Rhys laid his next to his father’s.

  “Next stop,” Dad said, “the Nofio pool.”

  Odd …

  “What for?”

  He held up a plastic half-liter water bottle. “We’ll need a sample.”

  And so it begins, he thought as he followed his father into the cave below: nonsense compounding nonsense. He’d come expecting weirdness, but this was starting off in a direction he hadn’t anticipated.

  When they reached the steaming pool, his father handed him the bottle and said, “If you
’d be so kind?”

  “What?”

  “Fill it.”

  So Rhys filled it with the hot mineral water. From there to the Land Rover and down the hill. His father sat in the passenger seat holding the water bottle and a paintbrush.

  “I can’t tell you how bizarre this all is,” Rhys said.

  “Oh, we’re just beginning, Rhys. Just beginning. ‘There are more things between Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.’”

  “You’re quoting Shakespeare now?”

  “You don’t like Shakespeare? How about the carnival barker: ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’”

  “That’s anything but comforting.”

  “Hush, now,” his father said as they entered the town. “Ease up before her shop and stop. Stay in the car while I tend to business.”

  … Tend to business … What was going on here?

  Rhys had barely pulled to a stop in front of Healerina before his father was out the door and stepping up to the front window. Rhys watched him pour the spring water over the brush bristles and then start painting some sort of design on the big pane. He couldn’t make out the design itself because the water didn’t show up against the glass, but it seemed to involve a circle and a number of squiggly lines through it and around it. That done, he sprinkled some water on the door frame before rushing back to the car.

  “Go!” he whispered as he jumped into his seat.

  But he didn’t close the passenger door. Instead he held it open a few inches until they were well away from the shop, then he slammed it.

  “Tell me this will all make sense eventually.”

  “I guarantee it.”

  “What did you draw on her window?”

  “A symbol from the Scrolls.”

  Rhys felt a twinge of alarm. “This is taking on a Passover vibe.”

  His father looked at him. “What would you know about Passover? I’ve never allowed a Bible in the house.”

  Right. No contamination by false religions.

  “It’s always mentioned on the news when the season comes. And I took a comparative religions course in college. Splashing that water on the lintel…” He bit back a hysterical laugh. “Are you expecting the Angel of Death?”

  “It marks the place for the porthors.”

  The porthors again …

  “Marks how?”

  “For a visit.”

  “Why so coy, Dad? What are they going to do?”

  “Mess up the place. A little wanton destruction.”

  “A ‘little’?”

  “Enough to make her consider another venue.”

  Shit.

  “I’m not sure I like this, Dad. In fact, I’m sure I don’t like this.”

  “No worry. They won’t harm her. Just the things in her shop.”

  “‘They’ … meaning the porthors?”

  “Exactly.”

  Okay. Daley was in no real danger because the porthors weren’t real. But Dad believed they were. And that meant …

  “You really want to do that to a harmless, defenseless woman—a young woman? What if she were your daughter? What if Aerona had survived? Would you want her treated that way?”

  “She’s not my daughter. And my daughter would never pose a threat. And don’t forget: The porthors appeared to her. They never allow themselves to be seen, but they revealed themselves to her. That means she’s involved. No matter what her age, Rhys, this woman is a threat. And she might only appear young. Who knows how old she really is, or where she came from? If you turn your back on a threat, you invite it to bite you in the ass.”

  No reasoning with this man.

  Rhys hesitated. No, he had to say this.

  “Dad, you’re not going to like hearing this, but I think you need help—I mean, like, counseling, medication.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “You know? They why don’t—?”

  “No, I mean I know you think that, but it’s not true. And I’m about to prove it. Find a spot out here where you can go off road to the right.”

  I can’t believe I’m playing along with this.

  But he didn’t see how he had much choice.

  “Anywhere?”

  “Anywhere.”

  By now they’d left the pavement, passed the trailer parks and the Welcome to Nespodee Springs sign. The desert stretched away to either side. Rhys slowed, left the road, and headed south. The going became bumpier, but not by much.

  After about two miles, his father said, “This looks like as good a spot as any. Stop here and turn out the lights.”

  Rhys did as he was told. Handing off the water bottle, his father got out and opened the rear hatch.

  “Come on, Rhys. Time to make a believer out of you.”

  Biting his tongue—which he seemed to be doing an awful lot lately—Rhys walked around to the rear of the Rover and watched his father unwrap a strange oblong object from a blanket.

  “What’s that?”

  “It has a difficult-to-pronounce name that wouldn’t mean anything to you, so let’s just call it a ‘horn.’”

  A horn, he thought. Just when I thought the weirdness had maxed out.

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “It’s been in the family for generations.”

  “How come I’ve—?”

  “Enough questions, Rhys. It’s time for a demonstration. Follow me.”

  So he followed his father. All around them starlight and moonlight etched the desert and the sparse, low-lying clumps of sage in sharp relief. His father stopped a couple of dozen paces away from the car, placed one end of the horn against his lips and blew.

  At least Rhys thought he blew. His cheeks puffed out and he seemed to be putting some effort into it, but Rhys heard no sound beyond the breath rushing through the instrument. Certainly nothing even remotely musical.

  His father took a deep breath and blew again. And then again.

  Okay, this had gone far enough.

  “Dad…”

  Movement to his right caught his eye. Seemingly from nowhere, a roundish object had appeared on the ground. And then another—this time he saw it pop out of the sand. And another and another until the ground before them was studded with headlike objects.

  What the—? This was just what Daley had described. It hadn’t been her imagination or a trick of the light.

  And then hands and arms appeared as between twenty and thirty humanoid creatures began pulling themselves out of the sand. Reflexively, Rhys backed away.

  “Dad, what … what…?”

  “No worry. They won’t harm us.”

  Eventually the creatures stood before them. They looked like naked early humans, shorter and slighter than Rhys and his dad. As they began milling around, moonlight glinted from their eyes but Rhys could make out no genitalia.

  His father gestured back and forth with his free hand. “Rhys, the porthors … porthors, my son Rhys.”

  Making introductions … so fucking surreal …

  “They’re real? Really real?”

  “Of course. You shouldn’t doubt me, Rhys. Never doubt your father.”

  “But where did they come from?”

  “You just saw for yourself: the desert.”

  “You mean they hibernate there until you blow that horn or whatever it is?”

  “They seem to move around under the surface.”

  “How is that possible?”

  His father shrugged. “I have no idea. Does it matter? They come when I call.”

  “What are they, Dad? And don’t tell me ‘porthors.’ What the fuck are the porthors?”

  “You know the legends from the Scrolls.”

  Yeah, he did: The Visitors created them to tend to them while they were here, and left them behind when they departed. Rhys had dismissed it all as primitive bullshit, but here he was in the middle of a moonlit desert, staring at a couple dozen very real and very solid examples of that primitive bullshit.

  “My g
uess?” Dad added. “They modified some early hominids into these things.”

  “But that … that would make them millions of years old.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that can’t…”

  “Right,” his father said in a snarky tone. “Tell me that can’t be. They don’t breed—at least not as far as I can tell—so we have to assume these are the same creatures the Visitors left behind.”

  The Visitors … Holy hell, if the porthors were real, then chances were good the Visitors were too.

  “It’s all true? What the Scrolls say … it’s all true?”

  “I’m sure there’s a certain amount of confabulation involved. Stories are told and repeated and repeated and what finally gets written down is far from what started, but in the case of the Void Scrolls, not too terribly far, as you can see before you.” He raised the horn to his lips. “Time to set the wheels in motion.”

  He blew again. The same note? A different one? Rhys couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, the porthors stopped moving and simply stood there, as if waiting.

  His father held out his hand and said, “Open the bottle.”

  After removing the top, Rhys handed him the bottle, whereupon he began to swing it back and forth, spraying its contents into the air like a priest anointing his flock with holy water. He tossed the bottle back to Rhys and then blew another imperceptible note on his horn.

  Suddenly the creatures—the porthors—began moving, first in a shuffle, then in a trot, all in the same direction … all toward town.

  Toward Healerina.

  “Call them back, Dad.”

  “Now why would I do that?”

  “I don’t want this, not any part of it. It’s wrong, it’s crazy wrong. Please, call them back.”

  He slapped Rhys on the back. “It’ll be over in an hour. Less, I’m sure. Get in the car. I’ll drive.”

  Just as well. Rhys didn’t feel like driving. He didn’t feel like getting in the car either, but he felt like being left miles out in this haunted desert even less.

  His father drove them back toward the road in silence, but when they reached it, he turned east instead of toward town.

  “Where are we going?”

  “El Centro. I need some gas and the local station’s closed.”

  “No-no-no! We’ve got to go back!”

  “To do what? Warn the Duad?”