by Brian Harmon
It did. Peering down this path, he was sure that, like the barn, he had seen it in his dream.
“That’ll be a clue. I’m betting that dream of yours was showing you what you were going to do if you got up that first night and came straight here. But it’s two days later now and it looks like that other guy’s trying to slow you down. Things are different. And where they’re different, things are going to get dangerous.”
“Like in the house.” Eric remembered realizing at the last moment that he didn’t recall seeing the house in his dream. The realization gave him pause and he decided to leave. He wondered now if making this decision before the wardrobe flew open might have bought him an extra second or two, perhaps making all the difference in his escape.
“That’s right. And just like in the house, watch out for those residual ghosts. They’ll probably be trying to lead you into trouble.”
“Right.”
“And you’ll have your cell phone signal back, too.”
Eric checked his phone and saw that he did, in fact have a couple of bars. He also had nine missed calls and a text message.
“That’ll be useful too. You don’t want to stray too far off the path. If you lose your way, use your phone. When you go too far into that border world, it’ll cut out. As long as you have a signal, you’re still home.”
“Good to know.”
“I can’t come with you. But you’ll meet Taylor up ahead. He’ll take care of you.”
Eric nodded. “Taylor. Cool. Listen, though. Can I really catch up to this guy if he has almost a whole day’s lead on me?”
It was impossible to miss the deep look of concern on Grant’s face. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I sure hope so.”
“Well then…” Unable to think of anything more to say, Eric gave Grant a wave goodbye and then started down the path.
With each step, the signal on his cell phone grew stronger. According to Grant, this meant he was still on earth.
And to think he came here with the intention of proving he wasn’t crazy.
He checked the text message. It was from Karen, of course, and simply read: CALL ME.
He didn’t like using the cell phone. He didn’t even want to carry the stupid thing. He just wanted to throw it away. He rarely called her and almost always let her call him. He didn’t want to call her now, either. And if the nine missed calls were any indication, he wouldn’t have to.
And he was right. He had walked less than twenty paces when it began to vibrate in his hand.
“Eric!”
“Hi.”
“I’ve been trying to call you!”
“Yeah. I just got your text. Didn’t have a signal for a while there. But I’m okay.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s…um…” He glanced back the way he’d come. He expected Grant to be gone, but he was still standing there, staring after him. He waved. Eric waved back. “It’s complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… It’s a little crazy, so… I really need you to open your mind for this, okay?”
Karen was quiet for a moment. He knew he had her attention now. Finally, she said, “Okay.”
Eric told her everything that happened after he disconnected their last call and approached the barn, beginning with finding the eagle mounted over the doors. He told her about the impossible interior of the barn and the freaky chickens. He described the pitiful monstrosities he’d seen in the stalls. And he told her about the farmhouse and the monster that came out of the wardrobe. Finally, he told her about his conversation with Grant.
He couldn’t say how he expected her to react to these absurd things he was telling her, but she only listened patiently. And when he was done, she only said, “So you’ve really got to find this cathedral, then.”
“Yeah. I do. So you believe me, then? You don’t think I’ve gone nuts?”
“You’re no liar, Eric.”
“I didn’t ask if you thought I was lying. I asked if you thought I’d gone crazy.”
She didn’t answer.
“Of course you think I’ve gone crazy,” Eric answered for her. “I’d think you’d gone crazy if you didn’t.”
“Well, that sounds sensible enough, I guess.”
“Let me hang up and I’ll send you the pictures I took.”
“You have pictures?”
“I had to prove I wasn’t nuts, didn’t I?”
“Let me see them.”
Eric disconnected the call and sent the pictures to her, exactly the way he’d sent her the picture of the barn last time. He didn’t have any pictures of the wardrobe monster, but he wasn’t remotely sorry he didn’t stop to ask it to say cheese. However, he was beginning to wish he’d snapped pictures all the way through the barn so he could show her how much bigger it was on the inside than the outside, and a picture of the farmhouse both with and without the addition of Grant’s tractor would have been helpful in validating his story also. But he was simply going to have to make do with what he had.
After only a moment, Karen called him back. “Remind me not to have you bring home milk and eggs.”
“Freaky, right?”
“That is definitely some ugly livestock.”
“So I’m not crazy?”
“Apparently not. These things are disgusting. What are they? They look dead. This is…”
“Crazy?”
“Well…yeah.”
“I know it is.”
“Do you really think you’ve gone fifty miles?”
“I don’t know. I only have Grant’s word on that. But the first barn was gone when I came out the other end and so was the cornfield. I can’t say it’s actually fifty miles, but I definitely went farther than I should have.”
“That’s so weird.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“But why you? I mean, if all this stuff is real, then why you of all people?”
“I can’t even begin to tell you that.”
The trees began to crowd the path around him. The road was less defined here, just as Grant had described. Soon he’d have to start looking for the other path, the one that was difficult to see.
“This is all really crazy.”
“I know. But I think Grant was right. I feel like if I don’t do this now, I may never stop getting up in the middle of the night and rushing out the door. And that’s a pretty lousy way to live a life.”
“I guess it would be.”
He reached the end of the visible road and stopped. “Hey, I’m going to get off of here again so I can find this path. I’ll talk to you in a little bit.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
“I will.”
Eric pocketed the phone and turned slowly around, searching the forest. At first, he saw nothing but trees and brush. There was no sign of another path. But then he spotted it. It was to the right, almost completely overgrown, virtually invisible. From where he stood, however, he could see the way the trees lined up on either side of it, like a seam in a quilt.
He pushed through the brush and made his way along this secret path.
This was all familiar. He remembered this place from his dream. According to Grant, this meant he was on the right path. In the dream, it was two days ago. That explained the discrepancies in the barn, why the chickens weren’t in the same places. They were wherever they would have been two days ago. On the other hand, the other creatures hadn’t moved, justifying his hunch that the bloated things were incapable of moving around even within their own stalls.
He could hardly believe he was accepting this nonsense.
He pushed on, shoving through the dense foliage, thinking about his dream. He’d been drawn all the way to Annette’s field by his peculiar urge to get in the car and drive (and then later get out of the car and walk) until he arrived at the gate in her back yard. But the dream didn’t begin until he stood at the edge of the cornfield, looking up at the barn. He wondered how it was that he knew the way to the barn when it d
idn’t seem to be a part of the dream. Was it simply a part of the dream that remained forgotten? Or had there been other forces at work in guiding him here?
He would probably never know for sure.
When the brush had thinned enough that he no longer needed both hands to push through it, Eric withdrew his phone again and fumbled through the address book Karen programmed into it for him until he found his brother’s number.
“What’s up?” answered Paul.
“Hey. I need a huge favor.”
“How huge?”
“Pretty damn inconvenient.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to go pick up my PT Cruiser for me.”
“Okay. Where is it?”
Eric gave him directions on how to find it as he followed the faint trail up the side of a hill.
“What the hell’s your car doing way out there?”
“It’s a real long story.”
“If you say so. Where are you?”
“About fifty miles northwest of where I parked. I think.”
“What are you driving?”
“Didn’t say I was driving.”
“Wait…what?”
“I’m out in the woods right now. Don’t worry about it. I just need you to pick up the Cruiser. I think I’m going to have to find another ride when I’m done here.”
“What the hell are you doing in the woods?”
“Like I said, it’s a really long story. Will you do it?”
“Sure. Yeah. I can do it.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“Yes you do. Does Karen know where you are?”
“Yes, Karen knows where I am.”
“You’re seriously acting weird today.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The phone crackled as he approached the top of the hill and he took it away from his ear long enough to look at the display and see that he was again losing the signal. When he put it back to his ear, Paul was saying something. His voice stuttered through the static.
“What was that?”
“I said it’ll be a couple of hours before I can drive out there.”
“That’s okay.” He hadn’t expected him to leave immediately. Paul owned his own construction business. He had the freedom to leave work to run errands, which was why Eric called him instead of having Karen take care of it, but he didn’t expect him to drop everything and go. “There’s no huge rush. Listen, my phone’s cutting out so…I’m…” He trailed off as he crested the top of the hill and looked down off the other side. “Whoa.”
“What?”
Before him lay a landscape vastly different from the cornfields and forests he’d seen so far. The path continued down the other side of the hill, widening as it went. The trees thinned. Rocks jutted up from the ground. About two hundred yards in front of him, the earth was split by a wide gorge.
“Eric? What’s going on? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. But I’ve got to let you go. I’m losing my signal.”
“Okay. Call me later, though, okay? Let me know what’s going on.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Eric disconnected the call and stood staring at the gorge that blocked his path. The road led right up to the ledge, where a dangerous-looking rope bridge waited to carry him to the other side.
Chapter Eight
Eric made his way down the hill and stood at the end of the bridge. It was a simple suspension bridge, with old, wooden slats that he wasn’t sure would hold his weight. But at least the bridge was supported with thick cables and not flimsy ropes, as he’d first thought. Still, it inspired very little confidence as a means of safe crossing.
Was he really expected to use this thing? Grant never said anything about risking his life on a terrifying deathtrap. That seemed like something that should come up.
Several fat crows were perched along the cables of the bridge, a murder of bad omens.
He looked down into the gorge. There was water at the bottom, but if it was a hundred feet deep or only a few inches, he couldn’t tell. Either way, he had no desire to test his high diving abilities.
The terrain here was strikingly different from the farmland he’d become familiar with. Was this the gray area Grant was talking about? Or was he looking at some of Wisconsin’s natural glacial features. The cell phone remained dead, and that odd chill was in the air again, suggesting that he was no longer in the Wisconsin he knew. At least not entirely. But the sun still shined brightly in the sky and nothing more sinister than the architectural deathtrap waited to claim him.
Eighty feet above the surface of the water, the bridge was clearly the product of an evil and deranged mind.
Gingerly stepping out onto the planks, he felt it immediately begin to sway beneath his weight. The crows took flight, apparently smart enough to know the makings of a disaster when they saw it.
It was frightening as hell. Yet even as he eased his weight out onto it, he realized he had done this all before.
In his dream.
At least he knew he was going the right way. Now he only hoped that he wouldn’t get out over the middle of this gorge and suddenly recall that his dream ended with him plummeting to his death.
Although heights generally didn’t bother him much, it was already clear that he was going to make an exception in this case.
Not feeling any giddy urges to run out and jump up and down, he stalled a moment by studying the transformed landscape around him. But this turned out to be a poor decision as he had barely surveyed the trees behind him when he caught sight of a creature watching him from the cover of the brush.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Eric breathed.
The thing was still too far away to see clearly, but it resembled a cross between a coyote and a deer. It had short, powerful-looking legs, a long neck and a blunt tail. Its head looked too large for the rest of its body and it appeared to be covered in blotchy, gray fur. It was clearly far more agile than the nightmare livestock he’d observed while passing through the barn. Even as he watched, it stalked closer to him, one paw after the other, oversized head low to the ground.
The thing was not even remotely familiar. For some reason, it had not been there in his dream. He’d set out across the bridge without seeing anything more frightening than the bridge itself.
He didn’t like that the creature was new. New was bad. New was unpredictable. New meant that he couldn’t rely solely on his dream to get him through this ordeal.
Obviously, he was done procrastinating. He turned back to the unpleasant task at hand, gripped the thick cables and began making his way across.
Almost immediately, he was impressed by how utterly terrifying the experience was. The whole structure swayed beneath him, tilting him left and right with each step, threatening to tip him over the edge and send him speeding toward the water below with far less poise and grace than an Olympic high diver and at least as much noise as a terrified teenage girl in a Halloween haunted house.
About a third of the way across, he risked a look back.
The creature had advanced, but it wasn’t stalking him across the bridge. Instead, it was busily sniffing the path where he’d walked, studying his scent.
Maybe it wasn’t interested in a snack. Maybe it was only curious about him.
Or maybe it just liked to smell its food before every meal.
He sensed that this was neither the time nor the place for reckless optimism. He turned his eyes back to the planks in front of him and continued across the bridge. The closer he crept toward the middle, the more the bridge moved beneath him. He could feel every faint breeze that blew past.
Glancing back again, he saw that the creature was sitting at the end of the bridge, watching him.
It was probably waiting for him to fall. That would save it the trouble of catching him. And the impact would likely tenderize his flesh nicely. Yummy.
; Or perhaps it was just waiting for his clumsy ass to reach the other side so it could cross without him shaking the bridge to pieces from under them both.
Carefully and far too slowly, Eric made his way past the middle of the bridge. He could hear the planks creaking, threatening to snap.
He didn’t like this at all. His heart was racing. His hands ached from gripping the cables with all his strength. His body was tense, his teeth clenched. Afraid that the mere sight of the chasm beneath him would freeze him with fright, he kept his eyes fixed on the path at the far side of the bridge.
He could feel himself trembling. It wouldn’t have surprised him if his very heart gave out before he could reach the safety of the far side of the gorge. But with one step after another, he made his way steadily across.
When he was nearly at the end, he realized that he was muttering curses and couldn’t quite remember when he started doing that.
Finally, he stepped onto solid ground again and turned to face the creature, convinced that it would be charging toward him.
But it remained where it was, watching him, apparently uninterested in eating him, but perfectly content to watch his amusing antics as he fled.
Wondering if it would eventually come after him or if it would simply wander off again, but not waiting to find out for sure, he hurried along the path, up the next hill and into the next valley, where the trees grew thinner still and the jagged rocks jutted even more prominently from the ground.
The forest that had mysteriously appeared from cornfields was itself quickly giving way to what looked like the foothills of a mountain range. The hills grew taller and steeper and rocky bluffs broke the earth like great, yawning grins.
Behind him, the creature had not yet followed him over the hill and he could see no other signs of life to give cause for concern, but he kept his optimism reigned well in.
The path wound to the bottom of the valley, followed it down for about a hundred yards and then jutted up and over the next rise. Eric followed it step-by-step. Grant had warned him not to leave the path, and he intended to obey him to the letter. He did not even dare to cut the corners for fear that he might find himself rapidly and unexpectedly plunged into an even stranger and more hostile landscape.