Soulstorm

by Chet Williamson

  Renault nodded. "Very good."

  "Would you stay for breakfast, Simon?" Gabrielle offered.

  "Thank you, Madame, but it's going to be a full day."

  Neville rose. "We understand, Simon. You'll send me copies of the letters."

  "I'll drop them by this evening."

  "We'll be out. Leave them with Peter."

  "I shall." Renault snapped his briefcase shut and turned to go. At the solarium door he looked back at the young couple surrounded by plants, looking like primal gods. "M. Neville, do you . . . are you certain you wish for me to proceed? Once the letters are written you can hardly turn back." His tone was apologetic, and he slouched as if expecting a reprimand.

  But instead, Neville's words were calm, and there was the trace of a smile on his face. "I have no intention of turning back, Simon. I intend to keep walking forward, right up to the point where the locked windows and doors of The Pines make it impossible for me to retreat."

  Renault looked desperately at Gabrielle for support. "Madame, I—"

  "Please, Simon," she said. "My husband's fate is of his own choosing, and I have chosen to be with him."

  "I don't want to speak of this again, Simon," Neville said. "Do you understand?" There was no weakness in his voice, no chink in which Renault could wedge an objection.

  "I am sorry," the older man said. "I apologize." Neville's upraised hand signified both forgiveness and dismissal. Renault left the room.

  Gabrielle sighed. Her muscles relaxed as if exhausted from a display of strength she did not truly feel. "We shouldn't have been so short with him," she said, her eyes on the floor. "He's concerned only about us."

  Neville sat beside her, taking her hand. "I know. I think perhaps that if I act firm and unafraid in front of him, that I'll actually begin to feel that way." He cupped her chin in his free hand and turned her face toward his. "I still don't want you to come."

  "If you go, I go."

  He shook his head, a sad smile on his face. "I love you so. I simply don't want anything to happen to you.”

  “Nor I you."

  "It's too late for that."

  They sat in silence for a moment. "I have . . . so much fear," Gabrielle said, "that The Pines will destroy you."

  "It may destroy me," Neville whispered, "but at the same time, it may make me immortal."

  Part I

  Midway upon the journey of our life

  I found that I was in a dusky wood;

  For the right path, whence I had strayed,

  was lost.

  —Dante Alighieri

  (Lawrence Grant White, translator)

  Chapter One

  What a crazy world, thought Kelly Wickstrom as he drove through the cool fall air in the rental Fairmont. A month ago he'd been ready to declare bankruptcy, and today, here he was about to start out on what could be a completely new career. Jesus, but didn't God take care of fools though?

  As he pulled around a curve in the road, something brown merged with the trees in front of him, leaving a flicker of white that sparkled for a second in the headlight's beams. He recognized it gleefully as a deer. God, he hadn't seen a deer outside of a zoo since he was a kid, when he and his mom had visited his Uncle Harry in Connecticut for a week. Wickstrom slowed the car and rolled down the window, listening. But there was no sound of it moving through the dry brush, only the night noises of crickets and frogs singing their loudest before winter finally quieted them.

  He drove on, wondering if there would be any deer at The Pines. There would have to be, he decided. If there weren't any deer on the top of a mountain in northern Pennsylvania, where the hell would they be? He turned on the radio, but got only static. Too hilly, he supposed. After a while he found himself wishing that there was something he could listen to beside the hum of the radials on the asphalt. Even that twenty-four-hour religious station he'd had before but lost was better than nothing. Funny that he should be getting spooked driving at night through the woods.

  Or maybe it wasn't so funny at that. All his life he'd lived in cities. If he hadn't been surrounded by steel and neon, at least he'd been surrounded by brick and streetlamps. Out here you could drive for twenty miles and never see another car, let alone a town of any size. He wondered what it was like in the daytime, if the road was filled with cars and semis hauling ass up the steep grades, if in the light he could see hundreds of houses set back from the road, invisible in the thick forest dark.

  No. Probably not. There was nothing here but trees, never was anything and never would be anything but trees.

  As he thought about trees, he noticed the black landscape ahead was shifting again. The broadleaves were thinning out and giving way to evergreens. It was almost as if the two couldn't get along, couldn't live in peace except in clumps of their own kind. A lot like people, Wickstrom thought, except maybe trees were a little harder to talk to.

  He rolled up the window all the way. The wind was blowing more briskly, making the Fairmont shimmy the few times the road passed over open ground, mostly cleared strips where the big power lines crossed the highway. Wickstrom wondered where the hell the electricity was going to since he hadn't seen a house for over an hour. It got stuffy with the window closed, so he opened the dash vent. Damned if he was going to listen to that wind in those branches. He laughed at himself for the thought. Tough up, Kelly. But there was no denying the discomfort he felt. There was a difference between the wind's voice in the broadleaves and its manifestation in the evergreens. The maples and the oaks just rustled like trees, like he'd heard on quiet nights when he had the Central Park beat. But the pines were another story. In them the wind was weepy and whispery like some sad girl (or her ghost, he thought) crying for her lost lover. Would it be like that in The Pines, he wondered, and suddenly he remembered a song that his mother used to sing at night to put him to sleep. He couldn't recall all the words. Something about a black girl…

  Tell me where did you sleep last night?

  In the pines, in the pines,

  Where the sun never shines…

  He couldn't remember how it ended.

  It was too cool now with the vent open, so he closed it, wondering what kind of people he was going to find at The Pines. It had all been so damned secretive, like one of those spy novels he used to borrow from Daniels, his partner. The letter had been properly enigmatic:

  Mr. Wickstrom:

  Enclosed find a cashier's check for ten thousand dollars payable to your account. It is yours to do with as you wish, provided you follow the instructions in this letter, which will also serve as a letter of agreement between the parties involved. Your cashing of the check constitutes your acceptance of the following terms:

  1. You hereby agree neither to seek nor accept any employment between September 14, 1986, and October 1, 1986.

  2. You hereby agree to attend a meeting to be held at a private home called The Pines in Potter County, Pennsylvania, at 6:00 A.M. October 1, 1986. A car will be supplied for your transportation.

  3. You hereby agree to carefully listen to and consider the proposal of employment to be presented to you and two other applicants at that time. The proposal will be completely legal. If, after due consideration, you do not wish to accept it, you may leave immediately, and the ten thousand dollars is yours to keep.

  4. You hereby agree, in the possibility that you should accept the proposal, to bring with you enough personal items for a period of thirty-one days. Food, toiletries, and linens will be provided.

  5. You hereby agree to tell no one of the contents of this letter or of your destination.

  6. Any deviation from the above items of agreement will result in confiscation of the ten thousand dollars.

  (signed) Simon Renault

  Also attached were maps and directions showing how to reach The Pines, as well as a rental car receipt for September twenty-eighth pickup. And, of course, the check.

  At first Wickstrom had thought it was a come-on, a lure intended to get him
to buy a lakeside lot in some Pocono village development. But the check made it very different. He had read the letter over and over again, looking for the catch, for the small print that said, "Ten thousand dollars negotiable only as down payment on a Pocono Pines lot of $100,000 or more," but there was no small print, no catch at all. It was a check made out to his name, with no strings attached. Wickstrom had never seen a cashier's check before, and was astonished at how easily it slipped into his terribly depleted account. Once he had assured himself of the check's legitimacy, he had every intention of doing exactly what the letter said, especially the part about the money being "yours to do with as you wish." He paid his overdue bills, his back rent, two months advance on the alimony to Cynthia (just in case he decided to accept whatever offer would be made), and enough new clothes so that he'd look at least presentable when he arrived at The Pines. All that, and he still had seven thousand dollars left in his checking account, enough to see him through for a few months if the offer was unacceptable.

  Jesus, but what could it be, he wondered for the hundredth time in the past few weeks. Nothing illegal, the letter had said. Then why all the secrecy?

  He looked at the glowing numbers on the dashboard clock. Four forty-five. Flipping on the map light, he skimmed over the directions once again. Good. He'd be there in plenty of time. He glanced in the rearview mirror and thought he saw the black sky turning dark gray with the approach of dawn, but decided it was just his imagination.

  And then out of the blue he remembered the last line of that song his mother had sung—

  In the pines, in the pines,

  Where the sun never shines,

  And I shivered the whole night through.

  He couldn't hear the wind in the evergreen needles, but he saw the branches dance and sway as he drove under them.

  ~*~

  George McNeely drove his BMW up the dirt road. It was rough, but he'd been over worse. At least there were no limbs in his path. The tracks in the road ahead told him that others had been on the road that morning before him. His prospective employers perhaps, or maybe the other applicants the letter had mentioned. He'd smiled when he'd read the part about there being nothing illegal, for he suspected that something highly illegal was about to be proposed to him. In a way, he hoped it might be a kill. He'd never performed an assassination, and wondered if he'd be able to accept it as easily as he thought he might. A man's got to do something, he told himself, and if all a man knows how to do is fight and kill, then that's what he does.

  There was another switchback in the road, and he pulled the wheel to the right. The mountains were higher than he'd expected to find in a state he'd associated mostly with steel mills and the Liberty Bell, and he swallowed to relieve the pressure on his eardrums that the change in altitude had caused. The darkness was less oppressive now as he drove upward toward the east, and he felt sure that once he was free of the encroaching trees, the morning sky would be seen in its full brightness.

  Suddenly there was a flashing red light ahead of him. As he drove closer, he saw that it was attached to a large iron gate across the road. A small single-story cabin squatted several yards away, and on its rustic porch stood a tall burly man holding a .12-gauge shotgun loosely in his arms. He was not uniformed, but wore a pair of worn denims and a gray checked wool shirt with a red hunting cap. McNeely rolled down his window and stopped his car several feet in front of the gate. The man walked toward the car and mumbled something McNeely couldn't make out.

  "Sorry?"

  "What's your name? Sir." The "sir" was an afterthought, as if he'd been coached.

  "McNeely."

  "You got a letter? Sir?"

  McNeely handed it to the man. He glanced at it, then pulled some photographs out of his shirt pocket. He looked at McNeely, then at one of the photos, and back at McNeely again, then nodded. "Okay. You can go in."

  "Wait a minute," McNeely said. "You have my photograph there?"

  The man looked at him hostilely. "Yep."

  "Where did you get it?"

  The man didn't answer.

  "May I see it please?" This didn't feel good, not at all.

  The man shook his head. "Sorry."

  "I'm afraid I'll have to insist."

  "I said no."

  "Then I turn around and drive right back to New York."

  The man's hand went farther up the stock of the shotgun in an unmistakable warning. "I don't think you'd better."

  "I think," said McNeely calmly, "that you'd be a fool to try and stop me . . ."

  "You . . ."

  ". . . because I can have the Colt in my armpit down your throat a whole lot faster than you can step back and bring up that twelve gauge."

  Though he had no pistol, McNeely felt perfectly safe. He could tell that the shotgun was for show by the way the yokel held it. The man was no bodyguard, probably just a local hired to take tickets. "Now let me see the photograph."

  The man hesitated for a moment, then handed it slowly over. McNeely focused his full attention on it, knowing that the effort expended to get him this far precluded his being blown away by the man. It was a recent photo, which surprised him. That it had been taken surreptitiously he was certain. It was a black and white three-quarter profile. Only the upper portion of his body was visible, and he was wearing a T-shirt. There were trees in the background, and he knew it had to be the park during one of his morning workouts. These people were good despite the pitiable guard they'd chosen. He should have known it when they took his picture, but he hadn't. It was a good shot, slightly grainy, but he was easily recognizable. Telephoto, he thought, or a Minox in the bushes. Either way, it showed him that these people knew what they were doing, and convinced him more than ever that the proposition would not be on the up and up.

  McNeely handed the picture back to the man, who scowled at him and walked to the gate, which he wrenched open violently, gesturing for McNeely to drive through. He did so, tipping an imaginary hat at the man, who only scowled all the more.

  The road went a mile higher, winding back and forth and hugging the side of the mountain with just enough room for two cars to pass. Then on his left the trees were gone, and a large lawn stretched up to the house.

  It was much lighter there at the mountain's top, without the covering shadows of the thick evergreens, and his breath caught in his throat at the sight of the building in the sudden morning glow. It was shaped like a huge stone T, the arms serving as two long wings off the thick upright which jutted out to the road. The stones of which it was built were massive, irregularly cut gray granite blocks, which gave it the solidity of a medieval castle. But it had none of a castle's architectural fillips. No turrets pierced the crisp fall air, no cupolas curved skyward. Indeed, the lack of ornamentation gave the impression of a great stone block, a monolithic slab forgotten by a race of titans. Even the roof allowed no relief from the stiff horizontals and verticals. From McNeely's viewpoint it seemed perfectly flat, so that he could not see its surface. The only evidence of the roofs existence were foot-wide eaves that surrounded the house, jutting sharply outward as if embarrassed to cause a line that did not meet another.

  As McNeely drove nearer, he could see that many of the windows were stained glass, and here and there dim gleamings of color shone from rooms inside, where lamps were lit. He pulled up to the front door at the base of the T and stopped. A short stocky man in a black windbreaker opened the car door for him. "You can leave your car here, Mr. McNeely. I'll take it around the back."

  McNeely nodded and got out. "Feel free to go in," said the stocky man, climbing into the driver's seat and wheeling the BMW to the left behind the house. McNeely stood alone for a minute, looking up at the house that towered three stories above him, then at the wings that stretched away from the rear of the house to either side. Large lawns lay within the two areas between the wings and the trunk of the T, but trees were everywhere else, pines mostly, though McNeely noticed a good many broadleaves as well—mostly oak, maple,
and a few poplars. From the front of the house across the road to where the trees begin was less than thirty feet. It was disquieting, thought McNeely, oppressive. He looked across the lawn at the right-hand wing and grunted appreciatively at the size of the place. Each wing had to be at least sixty feet long, and it looked to be sixty feet from the front back to the wings. He wondered if there was another extension lost to his view that would make the T a cross.

  Then he noticed, high in a third-floor window near the end of the right-hand wing, a dim glow. At first he thought that it was the reflection of sunlight in the windowpane, but realized immediately that the sun was still far behind the eastern trees. Within a few seconds it became too bright to be an electric light, and the whiteness of it made him think of burning magnesium. When it flared even higher, dazzling his eyes with its white fury, he started to cross quickly to the front door to alert the occupants.

  Then, even faster than it had burst into being, the light faded until the eye of the window was dark once again.

  McNeely stood there, confused. He wondered if it had been an illusion, or if something had reflected the sun's low rays off several surfaces until it touched the glass of the window. Or perhaps an acetylene torch . . . a workshop.

  The man who had parked his car appeared around the end of the wing, walking across the yellow lawn. When he noticed McNeely, he called to him. "You can go in, Mr. McNeely."

  McNeely nodded, but waited for the man to draw nearer. "I thought I saw a fire," he said, "in that window up there."

  The man looked up at the window and nodded. "Real bright light'" he asked. "Almost white?"

  "Yes."

  "I've seen that already," said the stocky man. "Some sort of illusion from the clouds or somewhere. That room's empty. Not a thing in it."

  "I thought it might be a workshop," McNeely said. "Acetylene torch, maybe."

  The man shook his head. "No such thing. Pretty peculiar though." He gestured to the door. "Like to go in?"