Majestic

by Whitley Strieber

  Mildly perplexed at his odd behavior, Will watched him stride out of the car. He finished his drink while the Baltimore passengers were boarding, then went to the library at the end of the car and picked up a best-seller. He believes it was The Story of Mrs. Murphy. It proved to be a study of a woman's life rendered in the most meticulous detail. Normally he would have turned away from such a book, but he found himself desperately eager to participate in another, more normal life. Her loves, pregnancies, hopes, her happiness and sadness—he drank of it all like a thirsty man at a mirage.

  The Story of Mrs. Murphy took him through the late supper of eggs and bacon. He followed it with a brandy Alexander and a cigar.

  He sipped his Alexander and nursed his cigar through the midnight hour. Finally he returned to his room. The porter had opened the bed and laid out his pajamas, slippers and robe. He called for a final cognac and retired with the book.

  In the distance the whistle wailed and the bells of guarded crossings sounded through the rolling, muted night.

  He awoke in a vague way while they were stopped in New York and his sleeping car was being attached to the "Broadway."

  As they pulled out of Penn Station the porter woke him. He shaved and went to the dining car, where he had breakfast as morning light glimmered on the Hudson.

  He left the train in Poughkeepsie, a troubled man in a freshly pressed linen suit. He knew it would only be a matter of a day or so before Hilly found him and called him back. But he needed this time, had to have it.

  Even at nine-thirty the day was already steel-blue and hot. As he walked up the hill to Van Alter's Garage to get his rented Ford, he felt himself sweating into the suit.

  He guided the car down to the Hudson ferry and crossed to the country side of the water. There was a yacht flying up the river, and a couple of excursion steamers were dashing along with flags snapping and ladies holding down their summer dresses.

  West of the river the hills rose wild. "Dad," he said into the throbbing privacy of the car.

  "Never attack your enemies, Wilfred. Confuse them." So his father would say. "If a man accuses you of a crime of which you are innocent, you may be sure it is what he would do in the same circumstances." He was wise. "Never sign a contract with any man with whom a handshake would not suffice."

  Silent tears appeared in the corners of Will's eyes when he talked about his father. I could never find out quite why his grief had stayed with him for all these years. Their relationship must not have been complete. I suppose that Herbert Stone lived on in his son.

  After he died Will had discovered that his father had done undercover work for the Treasury Department for years. He was flabbergasted. It was his father's contacts in the secret intelligence community that had led to Will's OSS appointment.

  To Will's knowledge his father had never kissed him.

  Will arrived in Roscoe at eleven-thirty, passing the Roscoe Inn, the scene of many a fisherman's evening, then turning off onto the narrow road that led up the kill to the home of the Trout Valley Club.

  The club was housed in a rambling Catskills mansion with enormous porches. In those days Ann and Jack Slater ran the place for the membership, keeping it open from March through October.

  Before writing this chapter I took Will's journey. I will pass over without comment my experience on Amtrak -

  not because it was bad, but because it made me long for the wonderful rail journey Will had so casually described.

  I rented a Taurus in Poughkeepsie and drove to Roscoe. I found the former location of the Trout Valley Club, and even the place where Will had fished—and had himself been so deftly caught.

  The club has been torn down, but its view of the Beaverkill was unparalleled. From that hill one can see at least three miles of water, and each of those miles can tell a thousand stories.

  This place, this stream, was the birthplace of American fly-fishing. I am no fisherman, but when I went to Roscoe and saw that dancing water, I was captured a little by the romance of it.

  Will lived that romance. "Mr. Stone," said Ann Slater as he climbed the steps. "Mr. Stone, I can hardly believe my eyes. I thought you'd moved away."

  "You can't move away from the Beaverkill."

  "I know that and you know that. But people do try."

  He found that his gear had been kept in perfect condition. His fine Orvis rod was supple and his reel oiled. His lines and flies were ready for him. His heart ached when he looked into his tackle box. All of his father's best flies had been moved in, and some of his older or less successful ones discarded. The rest of his father's gear had been discreetly removed from their cabinet.

  "Mr. Dette came in and rearranged your flies," Ann said. This man was one of the most famous flytiers in the Catskills, and a longtime personal friend of Herb Stone. His daughter still runs Dette's Flies.

  Will walked back to the kitchen where Jack was preparing lunch for the four club members who were there.

  Upon entering this place he really felt as if he had left the outside world and all of its difficulties behind. "I hope there's a good hatch," he said as he entered the kitchen.

  "My Lord, Wilfred Stone. I thought this place was getting toney at last. Guess I was mistaken."

  "What's for lunch, Jack—rat stew?"

  "Well, the other fellas are having a little beef stew. But I can fry you up a couple of rats if you want to catch them. I think there are some living in the bottom of your cabinet."

  "I'll take beef stew."

  "As far as hatches are concerned, we had quite a big hatch last night, and they took some fish this morning with caddis."

  "How's the evening action been?"

  "Well, if there's a hatch going its pretty good just after sunset. Nine would be about right tonight."

  "That suits me. I'm going to spend the day loafing and then I'll fish."

  After lunch Ann put the radio on the porch and brought Will a pitcher of lemonade and the Herald Tribune. The club had a good aerial, so he was able to pick up many of the New York City stations. He remembered only that he used to listen to WQXR. I looked up an old radio log in the library and found that he would have heard a program called Tom Scott Songs at that hour.

  The Trib was full of Truman and the Russians and the Marshall Plan. Will found it strangely thrilling to read the public doings of the President, knowing so much of his most secret affairs.

  It was also extremely painful. He finally turned to the "Thronton Burgess Nature Story." I also looked that up.

  Will had read about the summer habits of the martin.

  Nobody disturbed him, which was as well; he could not have spoken without sobbing aloud. He was a man without emotional resources.

  Exactly in the state the visitors wanted him, in other words.

  Once a large, black sedan drove slowly past the house. The other fishermen appeared. They were nobody Will knew and he has forgotten all but the idiotic nicknames by which they introduced themselves: Whisker, Pootie and Boy. They had no fish, and the luncheon talk was of throwbacks, big ones hanging under logs and better days.

  As far as Will was concerned, he had left the others in Los Alamos He could not have been more wrong.

  Part Four

  THE FLOWER

  Except a corn of wheat fall into

  the ground and die, it abideth alone;

  but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

  - John, 12:24

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Chronicle of Wilfred Stone

  The Beaverkill at the turn of evening: mist rising, the rocky bed muttering with the water's many voices. I had gotten well into an isolated stretch and was just making my first cast when I saw a figure standing on the bank.

  I was astonished because of who it was: a largish blond in a white dress printed all over with yellow primroses. She could have been the twin of the oddball I'd seen on the train.

  She hung back in the bushes, her hands flittering nervously along her sides. Was she emb
arrassed by her dowdy outfit?

  She had distracted me enough to ruin my firstrcast. The fly dropped into swift water.

  "Hello," I said. Her heavy jaw made her unattractive, but she had nice skin. She did not reply.

  I pulled back my line and started preparing another cast. All the while I was aware that she was watching me.

  It really wasn't very polite; nobody local would stand on the riverbank and stare at a fisherman.

  Finally I waded out of the stream. "May I help you?" I asked as I clambered onto the bank. I had absolutely no premonition of danger.

  When I straightened up from my climb I found myself face to face with her.

  Why had she come so close? She was taller than me and her eyes were pools of shadow. Her lips were set in a mean line. I was suddenly aware that I was alone on the stream and far from help.

  Her muscles rippled; she was obviously strong. I got the idea that she might be an inbreed from back in the hills. There were said to be a few pockets of such people in the Catskills.

  Then I smelled something awful. I was thunderstruck. A familiar and terrifying odor of sulfur clung to her.

  I threw my rod aside and leaped down the bank into the water. Fighting my hip boots I plunged across, keeping to the rocky shallows. I grabbed brush and tugged myself up the other side. There were fallen logs and brush tangled in the rocks, and beyond them huge cypresses. I ran into the darkness, limbs slapping my face, roots tripping me.

  That smell, that smell! It was a woman, though, an ordinary woman!

  A vision of that face came into my mind as I struggled toward the bluff beyond the woods. If I could get up there I could circle back and cross the Beaverkill on the covered bridge, and from there make my way back to the clubhouse.

  The boots were never meant for this kind of activity. I could barely keep my balance, let alone move quickly.

  I soon noticed that she wasn't behind me. Finally I stopped. I was well into the stand of cypress, which was so dark that I risked colliding with a tree trunk if I didn't feel my way.

  Obviously I'd lost her. But I didn't relax. That smell—I could never mistake that smell again if I lived to be a hundred. She had to be connected with them. I started up the bluff.

  Then I saw behind me a brief flicker of light.

  I didn't waste an instant. That flicker told me everything I needed to know. She was herding me away from the stream. I had to move fast or I'd never turn her flank.

  She was one of their things, like the gnomic man I'd encountered at Los Alamos. I was literally dizzy with fear.

  I dragged myself up the cliffs, tearing my fishing vest on the granite, lacerating my hands.

  Behind me she seemed to glide through the trees like a ghost, her blue light flickering from time to time. I thought I heard her making a sound, a faint whistling.

  Farther and farther up I went.

  Soon she was behind me. She was climbing easily and she was very close. I pressed myself against the rocks. Now I could hear her breathing, could hear the sound of her dry skin scraping on the rocks. The beam of blue light flashed above me.

  Then I smelled damp air, cave air. There was a hole to my left. I pressed myself back into it.

  An instant later I saw a hand, then the top of her head. She was right here. As soon as her eyes appeared she was going to see me.

  I forced myself back into the cave. I intended to go as deep as I could, to press myself against the stone until I blended with it.

  The tunnel was low. I had to go on my stomach. Moss and damp earth got into my mouth. Creeping insects fouled my hair and went down my neck.

  Finally the walls spread and I was able to rise to my hands and knees. I was breathing hard now. My eyes were tightly closed; there was no reason to open them, not in this dark.

  I began to be able to stoop, finally to run with my head tucked into my chest and my arms out to feel for jutting stones.

  Then I heard it again, that strange cooing sound. Only it was in front of me, down deep in the cavern.

  Three short, soft cries. They resonated with a tenderness of some sort, but to my ears it was the love of the leopard for the deer, of the snake for the frightened mouse.

  I pulled out my lighter, flicked it but couldn't get fire. In the glimmer of the flint I saw huge shapes, old Indian paintings on the walls perhaps, and seething, glittering movement in the tunnel ahead of me.

  They were here, deep in the cliffs, in the ground. God, what were they? Where had they come from?

  The three cries were repeated, closer now. They were urgent, sweet sounds.

  Behind me I heard her pushing herself along the tunnel. I was trapped, caught. All around me I could hear whistlings and rustles.

  I couldn't run, could hardly move. A hand closed around my ankle. I yanked myself away and shrieked.

  And suddenly I was falling. Wind rushed around me. I flailed and screamed. I didn't hit, I just kept falling and falling and falling.

  There was light. My eyes flew open and I was staring with total incomprehension at a magnificent view. I didn't understand. Where was the cave? Where was I?

  I had risen above the sunset and was in the light that ascending larks strive to reach.

  The horror of dislocation so overwhelmed me that I was reduced to a primitive state. My humanity collapsed. I felt the man falling away like a flimsy costume, bits and tinsel fluttering in the sun.

  My cries disappeared into the sky.

  Below me the world was a purple shadow bisected by a glowing line of sunlight. Westward evening spread across the fields, and farther west the land rested in spreading day.

  Nothing was holding me up or restraining me in any way. I gritted my teeth and moaned. The impression was strong that I was about to fall. Why did they keep doing this to a man afraid of heights?

  The lights of Roscoe disappeared into the general shadow of the globe. When I tried to breathe it simply didn't work. I was freezing cold. There was no wind around me. My skin began to feel tight, my eyeballs as if they were working their way out of my head.

  It must feel like this for the trout to be dragged from his lair. He gasps and gulps, his eyes bulge from his head. And the fisherman, chuckling to himself over the cleverness of the capture, tosses him into his creel.

  They were treating me exactly as I treated the trout, and in that there was a lesson I have never forgotten.

  Now the world was glorious below me, half of it in sunlight and half blue with night. I had been pulled from out of the shadow line. It was an appropriate moment to grab me: my life was lived in that deceptive edge.

  There was a heave within me. My stomach knotted, my knees came up to my chest, I retched. White foam flew from my mouth, and in that instant I felt myself lying on a floor. I gagged; I couldn't help it. The combination of shock, cold and oxygen starvation had caused the reaction. I was having a fit, flopping and spitting and choking—exactly like a fish Hupping in a creel. By slow degrees my body recovered from the punishment it had received. I pulled myself to my feet. I was in an absolutely dark room, inky black.

  Experimentally I put my hand in front of my face. I couldn't see it, not even with my palm touching my nose.

  I went for my lighter, flipped it open and struck the flint.

  For a moment I didn't understand what I was seeing in its shaky flame. Then the rows of glistening objects resolved themselves. There were dozens of pairs of huge, black eyes around me.

  With a bellow of horror I threw the lighter at them. I jumped back but their long arms encircled me in an instant. I felt their black claws pressing into my skin.

  I knew what these creatures were. I had seen one autopsied. "More vegetable than animal." I fought like what I was, a trapped beast.

  The sentry's screams returned to my ears. He'd yelled "No, no, no" his voice rising to an absolute pitch of hysteria.

  I would lash out and they would withdraw into the dark. Then there would be silence for a while.

  I would hear
stealthy movement. When they touched me it felt like the skin of a frog.

  I fought with the strength of the mad. They twined themselves around me, grasped me with their wiry fingers, scratched me with their claws. I kicked, I hit, I bit, around and around I turned, lashing out with my fists whenever I felt their wet, soft touch.

  Again and again they came and I fought them off. I didn't think, I didn't hope, I just fought. Finally, though, I started to tire. My breath burned my lungs, my legs wobbled. All around me they were cooing and whispering, and I heard in my head a woman singing a gentle song. One of them came up to me and put its skeletal hands on my shoulders. Although I could not see I remembered from the autopsy how those hands looked: three long fingers and black, sharp claws.

  I could feel the hands sliding around my back. The thing was drawing me closer. I was so exhausted that I could no longer raise my arms.

  Another one was behind me now, grasping me, holding me, twining itself around me.

  I screamed and screamed and screamed and they cooed and finally a voice spoke. It was like a machine talking. "What can we do to help you stop screaming?"

  There wasn't a darned thing they could do! I screamed until my voice cracked and my shrieks became ragged blasts of air.

  Then I could scream no more.

  They were all around me, caressing me with their soft hands, their smell thick in my nostrils.

  I sank to my knees.

  "Can you take off your clothes or do you want us to help you?" The voice was breathless and strangely youthful, like a child of about fourteen.

  Suddenly I was on the porch at home, playing with a toy when—hadn't they carried me, then?

  I was a little boy then, and they had carried me, had carried me!

  "You—you—"

  They were touching buttons, scrabbling at zippers. There was rapid breathing and little snapping sounds. My fishing vest and shirt went off, my trousers opened.

  And then there was a great deal of prodding and poking at my hip boots. Finally it stopped.