The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  Grant nodded without turning around.

  “See you in a week, Bill.”

  Grant opened the door, stepped out, and closed the door behind him.

  Without looking at anyone, he walked out of the station and to his car and drove off, heading toward River Road.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Corrie marked their second day of walking with an admittedly inaccurate system he had devised. But he decided it would drive him crazy if he couldn’t somehow mark the passage of time, as well as distance, so he melded the two and came up with a way to count their progress. He picked out a distant landmark — a clump of bushes, a particular rock, an albedo feature darker than the surrounding landscape — and when they reached it he counted off an hour.

  At first he knew he was off — the first landmark, a tall, willowy tree, proved to be much farther away than he thought — but by the end of the second “day” he felt pretty comfortable with his estimations.

  At what Corrie determined to be “8 o’clock,” he and Reggie stopped to eat and rest for the “night.” There had been, as Corrie had guessed, absolutely no change in the sky indicating a solar source of light since they’d arrived here. The sky stayed a uniformly sickly yellow, with gray clouds that never seemed to move. The only change of any kind Corrie had noticed was that the dark smudges at the horizon seemed to be growing in number and height. Once he thought he heard a distant rumbling sound, but it had quickly disappeared into the eerie silence that prevailed.

  They had picked up plenty of the scallion roots along the way, and Corrie had tried to fashion a crude water carrier from his leather wallet, which hadn’t worked but hadn’t been needed. They discovered that wherever the scallion bushes were, there was water, too.

  Corrie couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though the wall in front of the structure they had seen their first day was a little higher in the sky, and therefore closer. But it still looked to be days away.

  “So how you feeling, Reggie?” he asked, trying to be cheerful.

  She turned her huge black eyes on him; with her gray hair she resembled a miniature little old lady.

  “I’m more tired today, Corrie. When are we going to get there?”

  He could tell by the fact that she didn’t run her sentences on that she really was tired.

  “I don’t know. We’re just going to have to keep going, I guess. I can’t see anything else to do.”

  She was staring blankly at the huge wall in the distance. “What will we do when we get there? How will we climb it?”

  He stared at it himself. Instead of telling her the truth he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be just fine.”

  “Are we dead, Corrie?” She was looking straight at him now.

  This time he didn’t lie. “I don’t know, Reggie.”

  He noticed that there were tears on her cheeks. “I miss my mom and dad,” she said.

  “I know. There are people I miss, too. But John said this was what we had to do, so I guess we have to do it.”

  She covered her eyes with her balled fists. “I don’t want to be here!”

  He suddenly remembered how young she was, and how much less time she had to get used to the terrible things that had happened to him since he was young.

  He sat down beside her and hugged her to him.

  “It’s all right, Reggie. We’re in this together. I have to tell you that I’d be a lot more scared and lonely right now if you weren’t with me.”

  She sniffled and looked up at him. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Doesn’t it help a little just to have someone else with you?”

  “Yes.” She buried her face in his side and soon was asleep.

  When he was sure she wouldn’t wake he lay her gently down and stood up. Sleep was far away for him. He felt restless and angry. They had been here two days and nothing had happened. Supposedly a battle for control of two worlds was raging and there was no evidence of it. It was like the two of them had been dropped on a far planet and forgotten.

  Still, he believed what John had told him, that this was the way things had to be done.

  He stared at the far, high wall.

  How will we get up it—

  He blinked — something had detached itself from the near distance and flashed against the yellow-red of the wall in the distance. It was moving sideways and toward him, kicking up a slight trail of dust—

  Someone — or something — was approaching.

  Marking Reggie’s sleeping spot in his mind by memorizing the shapes of the scallion bushes nearby, Corrie set out to meet the approaching figure.

  He still could not make it out clearly — either it was too far away or blended too well into the background. If not for the trail it left he would have lost it altogether a half dozen times.

  But then it was close enough to resolve into something huge and square, and bearing down on him with great speed.

  Fear took hold of him. He almost turned to run back to Reggie, but the thing was already nearly at him. It grew larger, a good twenty feet tall and almost perfectly square. Corrie could not see its form of locomotion, but it suddenly reared up in front of him and stopped dead.

  It looked like a slab of stone, perfectly square, a foot or so thick. The dust it had driven up by its flight settled around its base. There were no visible wheels or legs.

  Corrie walked around behind it — it was as smooth and flat in back as in front.

  “Hello?” Corrie said tentatively.

  The slab of stone — it looked something like pink granite — said nothing.

  Corrie reached out and touched it.

  His hand sunk to the wrist in something as soft as cotton.

  Corrie waited for a yelp of pain, but there was only silence from the thing.

  “Can you talk?” Corrie asked.

  “I can speak,” the thing answered suddenly; the voice was so deep and booming that Corrie took a step back. “You are to sleep, and then we will go.”

  “Who sent you?”

  The thing was stone silent.

  “Why should we go with you?”

  Corrie began to retrace his steps to where Reggie lay sleeping; the thing followed, keeping a constant distance, and stopped a good ten yards from the spot by the scallion bushes.

  Corrie lay down on the ground, and found that he was suddenly extremely tired.

  He closed his eyes.

  His last vision was of the thing suddenly upon him, looming over him—

  Corrie awoke. Reggie was already awake, yelping with glee like a puppy. Corrie remembered for a moment the strange dream he had had, the huge stone slab which had come rushing out of the desert at him—

  He looked up to see Reggie twenty feet in the air, on top of the pink square stone, howling with laughter, bouncing high and then landing on the stone, sinking into it like sponge before being tossed up again.

  “He’s soft like a stuffed bear!”

  The stone said in its booming low voice. “Good morning. Are you ready to travel, or do you need to eat or excrete first?”

  Corrie blinked. “Wha—?”

  “We should leave soon, if possible.”

  “I—” Corrie shrugged, went to the clusters of scallion bushes and extracted a fistful of roots, which he stuffed in his pocket. He found the water spot and drank, then returned to stand before the soft monolith.

  “Climb up my side, or I will assist you if needed.”

  “I—” Corrie hesitated, then reached out, grabbing a handful of the soft matter on the smooth side of the stone. It bunched in his hand, allowing him to grip. He did the same with his other hand, and then sank his feet into the matter and climbed up.

  Near the top he hesitated. The entire stone convulsed, throwing him up and over. He found himself on top, Reggie still bouncing happily beside him. He sank down. It was like resting in foam.

  “We will proceed,” the monolith announced.

  They took off at terrific speed toward the distant wall. And t
hen they accelerated to even greater speed. Corrie found himself clutching the foam to either side of him and digging his heels down into the foam. He looked at the wall, which now was visibly growing closer and taller. Reggie had stopped bouncing, and sat clutching the foam herself, sitting up and staring in disbelief at the wall.

  “Hey!” Corrie called.

  There was no answer from their vehicle, only a further acceleration.

  “Reggie, hold on as tight as you can!”

  The wall rose, and now Corrie could see striations in it, fissures and cracks that towered above them.

  It must be at least a mile high, Corrie thought.

  As the wall towered, their carrier increased his speed yet again.

  “Reggie!” Corrie threw one arm out to cover the girl as the wall rose up impossibly high above them.

  Then suddenly there was a huge gap in front of them.

  They drove through it.

  Without slowing down, they were out the other side, rushing down a gentle, impossibly long slope toward the massive structure in the near distance. Their speed decreased. The structure looking naturally manmade — as if a pile of huge stones had dropped into place randomly but made a building that looked planned. There were sheer walls and what looked like parapets and a single massively tall tower with a jagged top.

  They grew closer. Their speed lessened even more. Corrie took his arm from Reggie and began to breathe again. He sat up.

  He studied the area around the stone building. It was swarming with shapes. They were now into the outer reach of the crowd. Something that looked like a thin, very tall balloon turned to regard them as they went past. There were other shapes of all kinds, twists of cotton candy, boxes, some of them massive, solid looking balls, the cardboard cutout he and Reggie had seen in their mutual dream, which had something resembling eyes.

  Their vehicle stopped before this creature abruptly.

  “You may get down,” it boomed, in a voice more command than request.

  Corrie helped Reggie climb down, then followed.

  The cardboard cutout — up close he looked to be made of something more rough surfaced than cardboard, more like a bubbled sheet of dark glass — regarded them silently for a moment from the great height of his three flat eyes, like the eyes of a flounder fish, then said simply, “Follow.”

  Their small procession made its way through the silent crowd of strange shapes. Corrie stared up at a pale pink string that rose like a magician’s trick rope into the pale gray clouds above. Next to it a squat ovoid resembling a huge blood-red bean, pulsing dully with some hidden heartbeat, crawled along the ground on encircling yellow cilia.

  There was a rough gap in the side of the building similar to the one in the rock wall, and they approached it.

  The cardboard cutout abruptly announced, “On Earth, I was an African prince.” He seemed as startled by the announcement as Corrie. After a pause he appended: “I haven’t thought of that since I’ve been here.”

  “Yes?”

  The cutout stopped and glared down at the two humans with its three blank eyes. “You don’t understand. When we arrive here we don’t remember those things. We start over. Strange …” He stared over their heads into his own thoughts for a moment, then turned around.

  “Please come with me.”

  “What is this place?” Corrie asked.

  “It is Samhain’s abode, when he is here. Since this battle began we have taken it for our own purposes.”

  “Doesn’t he mind?”

  “There is nothing he can do. We are as dead as he is.”

  They went through the wide gap in the wall; Corrie expected to feel the temperature cool but, as when they had passed through the rock wall, the air, the temperature, were exactly constant.

  “You okay, Sniffles?”

  Reggie was breathing a little shallowly, but she nodded. “Like a weird dream.”

  “Yes,” Corrie agreed.

  On the other side of the gap was a wide flat space, which they traversed before coming to a huge set of steps. Without comment the cardboard cutout began to mount them. They were so large that Corrie had to pull Reggie up each step, which slowed them down to the point where their host stopped and turned around.

  “I apologize, I hadn’t realized the difficulty—”

  In a blur, they were on the landing next to the cardboard cutout, who bent towards them, scooped them up and deposited them beside him in one smooth motion.

  There was another landing and then another, which they climbed in similar fashion, followed by a final long corkscrew of steps. Then they were out in the open.

  The cardboard cutout retreated, leaving them on a flat deck which proved to be the top of the tower. On one side a jagged wall rose up, but on this side, facing the far, blackened horizon, the deck led to a precipice.

  Corrie thought they were alone. But when he approached the ledge a singular figure resolved out of the sour light: a tall, thin wisp of smoke. It hung in the air as if it might dissipate at any moment.

  He had the feeling it was studying the far vista. As he approached the trail of smoke shifted, rotated toward him —

  The smoke figure gasped.

  Corrie stopped, Reggie behind him.

  “I’m … sorry,” the figure said. Its voice was strong but faint, like the voice of someone vibrant heard from far away. Corrie couldn’t help but notice the shock in the voice.

  “Is …?”

  “It’s nothing,” the wisp of smoke said. “A memory. Let me see the girl, please.”

  Corrie stepped aside and motioned Reggie to come stand beside him. The wisp of smoke hung motionless, but there was the faintest sound of approval.

  “Yes, we were right to include her.”

  The smoke rope twisted, turning back toward the vista before them, and whispered, “The two of you, please. Come stand beside me.”

  Corrie edged up next to the smoke rope, drawing Reggie after him. He stopped her a yard from the edge of the deck, but moved a little closer himself, staring over—

  He nearly swooned at the height — it was like being on a mountaintop.

  “Be careful—” the rope cautioned, and Corrie felt the thinnest of touches as he was urged back.

  The rope regarded the horizon.

  “That is where it will all end,” it said. There was regret and anticipation in the words. “Getting the two of you here was half the battle. The other half has yet to be fought.”

  “What is it you want us to do?” Corrie asked.

  The rope ignored the question. Instead, a thin tendril snaked out from its middle, as a pointer. “That is where the battle rages now. Many have been lost in the last weeks, in anticipation of you getting here.” Corrie studied a darker smudge against the low sky; he remembered the black bite out of the sky of his dreams.

  Again he asked, “What can we do?” but again the rope creature ignored him.

  “We will travel after you rest,” the rope said. “The sooner the better. There is water and food below for you. You must be as strong as possible.”

  The rope creature’s thoughts seemed to wander as its words trailed off. Again it turned to regard first Reggie, and then Corrie. Corrie became uncomfortable under its gaze.

  “Such a long time …” the rope said.

  Corrie looked at the horizon, and then at the creature. Something like impatience filled him. “Yes, a long time,” he said. “You’ve been plotting to get me here for twenty years, ever since I was ten.” He pointed at Reggie. “She’s only seven years old, and look what you’ve done to her.”

  “We know that. It was necessary.”

  “Where’s John?”

  The smoke shifted. “I am John. In your world, you saw me as a familiar creature, which was the only way I could appear to you. In this world, this is how your eyes perceive me.” He regarded Corrie for a long moment. “Truly remarkable …”

  Corrie’s tone softened, but he was adamant this time, “What is it you need
us to do?”

  The smoke that was John regarded him for a very long time. Then it shifted back to view the battle at the horizon.

  “We need you to die,” it said, in a whisper.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Corrie Phaeder’s house was empty and unguarded. There was crime scene tape across the front entry, but Grant ignored it. He deftly used a credit card to open the door and entered.

  Would have made a good criminal, he thought, and smiled grimly.

  The house was quiet as midnight. Grant’s shoes on the creaky stairs were the only sound as he climbed to the second floor.

  Corrie’s room was pretty much untouched. It had probably been lightly tossed by a uniform who didn’t know what he was doing or looking for.

  Grant stood in the middle of the floor.

  He didn’t know what he had expected to feel — some energy, some force, some indication that Phaeder and the little girl were safe and alive.

  Halloween was a memory. The front of Corrie’s house had been well egged, since Phaeder had been busy with other things rather than giving out candy. The weather today, on November 1st, was anything but beautiful. The deep blue sky and perfect chilled temperature of yesterday had been replaced by low gray clouds and chilly dampness. It looked as if it might rain any minute.

  Grant did a routine search of the room, if for no other reason than to keep busy. There was little of interest. In the adjacent room he found the camera and tripod which he had knocked aside yesterday in his haste to keep the hornets out.

  Grant noticed that the window in the room looked out on a cornfield across Sagett River. A scarecrow hung on a post in the middle of it.

  Grant picked up the camera and looked through it. The telephoto lens was sharply focused, without his adjustment, on the scarecrow.

  It had the head of a pumpkin.

  As he watched the head moved, the eyes lit up and seemed to look straight at him—

  He blinked, looked away, then looked back through the camera’s viewfinder.

  The pumpkin was inert, guarding late golden corn.

  Grant put the camera down on the floor and left the house.