~ * ~
Jason staggered out of the trees and into the road a little after noon, bleary-eyed and haggard. His legs and feet ached, and the sweat cooling on his skin had brought uncontrollable shivers. He clutched his arms tightly to his chest and stared down the road toward Random. Nothing in sight. Cursing softly, he began to stumble back toward town.
He’d only moved a short distance when the roar of an engine sounded in the distance. Jason stepped to the side of the road and leaned on a tree, waiting.
The truck bore down on him quickly. Jason couldn’t make out the driver’s features. Sunlight was glinting off the windshield, and the tires were churning up a cloud of dust that half-obscured the vehicle from view.
When it pulled along side him, he could see that it was Lizzy behind the wheel. The passenger side seat was empty. Jason breathed a sigh of relief. He was in no condition for showdowns.
He slipped around and dragged himself into the truck carefully, barely stifling a groan as his tortured muscles protested the effort.
“Thank god,” Lizzy said quickly, leaning over to wrap her arms around him. The truck lurched and she cried out, righting herself and putting it in park before returning to the embrace.
“Easy,” he said softly. “I feel like I’ve been the ball in a two hour soccer game.”
“What happened in there?” she asked?
“I’ll tell you when we get back. How’s Ronnie?”
“He’s at the hospital. They said the burns will heal, but he’s in for observation. They tried to keep me, but I told them I had to get back out here.”
“Frank?” Jason said softly.
“He’s at Mae’s,” Lizzy answered. “He won’t come out of his room. Mae says he’s in shock.”
Jason nodded. “Let’s get back there then. I’ve about had it with all of this. It’s time to put it to rest.”
Lizzy looked far from ready to let it all drop, but she turned, put the truck in gear, and started back toward town. Jason watched her for a few moments. Somehow she must have gotten a few moments of rest. He could barely keep his eyelids parted, but Lizzy was glaring at the road, as if daring it to throw anything else her way.
The miles passed in silence. Jason slid his hand to Lizzy’s thigh, letting it rest there as he leaned back into the seat. The multi-colored leaves of the trees blurred to a surreal flash of color and the next thing he knew, there was a sudden jerk, and Lizzy was shaking him by the shoulder.
“Jason, Jason wake up. We’re back.”
Jason shook his head to clear away the darkness. No dreams. He’d been sleeping, maybe the first time in his adult life, with no dreams.
Lizzy was already hopping down from the truck, and Jason reached for the handle, popping the door open and sliding tiredly to the ground.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Lizzy asked softly.
Jason stepped closer, drawing her against his chest.
“I will, but you have to trust me. What I have to say—I can’t say it to just you. I need to have Ronnie, and Frank– everyone who was there. Okay?”
She pulled back, as if she might turn away, and then stopped. Nodding quickly, she fell into his arms.
They turned toward the door then, together. It opened before they could mount the top step. Mae stood, watching them approach with a worried frown.
“You’ll want to know Ronnie is here,” she said. “They told him to stay put, but he wouldn’t hear it. Said you had his truck.”
Jason almost laughed.
“Come on,” he said softly, drawing Lizzy closer and up the stairs in a single motion. Suddenly his mind was clear, the fatigue dropping away. “Let’s do this and be done with it.”
They stepped through the hall and into the dining room to find Ronnie propped in a soft, upholstered chair off to one side of the table. His face was tightly wrapped in bandages, as were his hands. He was sitting so stiff and still that for a moment Jason thought he was asleep.
“You get my truck back in one piece, Lizzy girl?” Ronnie asked. He didn’t move. The words floated out from the figure in the chair as if it were a recording, amplified through speakers.
“The truck is fine,” Jason cut in. “Where’s Frank?”
“He won’t come out of his room,” Ronnie answered. “Frankie boy got scared, Jason. Can’t say I blame him.”
Jason didn’t answer, but he tugged gently free of Lizzy’s embrace and moved off down the hall.
“Jason, don’t…”
Lizzy stopped. Something in the set of Jason’s shoulders must have tipped her off that it was a pointless plea.
Jason banged on Frank’s door. Nothing.
“Frank, come out of there,” Jason said. His voice was louder than he’d meant, and he softened it. “I’m not kidding Frank.”
Nothing.
Cursing, Jason tried the door. It was locked.
“Mae!” he called out. “Mae, you got the key? Quick.”
The sound of hurried footsteps, a door closing and Mae was beside him, pushing him to one side and sliding the big brass key into Frank’s bedroom door.
“What is it Jason?” Mae asked.
He ignored her. As the lock clicked, Jason turned the knob and opened the door quickly, stepping past a startled Mae and making straight for the bed, where Frank’s form was clearly visible beneath the blankets.
Jason shook his friend by the shoulder.
“Frank. Frank wake up.”
Nothing.
Jason cursed and yanked the blanket back. Frank’s face was pale, his features slack.
Mae had moved up beside the bed, and after one quick glance, she gasped and ran from the room.
“Call for an ambulance,” Jason instructed unnecessarily. “Hurry.
There was nothing he could do for Frank, so Jason turned away and moved past the bed, toward the small desk along the wall. There was a laptop open on the wooden surface, the cursor blinking slowly on a white background. Text covered the screen. Jason watched that blink, standing very still. A moment later, Lizzy was at his side.
Gripping her arm tightly, Jason led her to the desk.
“What is it, Jason?” she asked? Lizzy was turning, watching Frank. Already the sound of sirens ripped through the night. Beside the laptop, a small bottle lay open. Jason reached out and snagged it, trying to read the label and unable to focus on it. It didn’t matter. Whatever they were, Frank had taken all of them.
“Give this to Mae,” Jason whispered, sliding the bottle into Lizzy’s hand.
“But…”
“Go,” Jason said. “Then come back.”
As she moved to comply, Jason was already leaning in to study the screen of the laptop.
“Jesus,” he said softly. “Jesus fucking Christ, Frank...”
Jason slid the red button that moved the cursor to the “save” icon and clicked once, then, when the machine had stopped whirring, he hit the power button and closed the top.
Without a word, he turned toward the door. Several men in white suits moved about behind him, working over Frank’s body. Jason knew he was gone. He’d been listening through the haze that was the remnant of thought. He’d heard the words, registering them only now that his mind was returning to the world.
Lizzy was waiting just outside the door, and Jason slipped his arm around her waist.
“Let’s get some rest,” he said softly.
They stopped long enough to help Ronnie to his feet, and then into a room. There was no way the big man was driving, and it was getting late. Mae fussed around them all, wanting to cook, or to talk, or to make coffee, anything but to see them all disappear, as they did, into separate rooms.
Later, when Frank’s body was carried from the house, the sheet pulled up and tucked tightly over his head, the others slept.
ENDINGS
The services were spectacular. Once the press got hold of the news, famous horror writer returns to his hometown—to die—Halloween weekend—there was no keep
ing them away. Random had never seen anything like it, nor had Jason, Lizzy, or Ronnie. They stood, silent and grim, as a world-famous preacher spoke words about some man none of them had ever known for a world-wide audience. The words washed over and away. The reality of Frank’s body, peaceful, as if sleeping the first real sleep of his life, filled their sight.
Then it was over, and the trucks rolled out. The press packed up, tired of asking the same questions to the same people and satisfied they had all they needed to provide the “true story” to the world. They stowed their cameras and notepads and drove off, heading for the closest airport.
Jason watched as one after another of them disappeared without a backward glance. He was leaning back in one of the chairs on the porch of Macomber’s General Store. Bob held down one of the other chairs, Lizzy sat beside Jason, and Ronnie was perched on the rail, a bit of his cockiness returned to him as the burns had begun to heal.
“Not sorry to see ‘em go,” Bob said slowly. “Not a bit of that boy Frank in any of it.”
Jason nodded, then reached down beside his seat for a yellow envelope he’d set on the floor.
“You got that right, Bob, but there’s more to the story.”
“‘Bout time you said so,” Ronnie growled. “I knew you didn’t wander off into the woods like a crazy man with no reason.”
“Not crazy,” Jason said, agreeing. He opened the envelope slowly.
“I wanted to share this with you before,” he said, “but I thought maybe we’d be sharing it with Frank too.” Jason took a deep breath. “When he was gone, well, I guess I figured they just didn’t need to know.” He waved toward the fleet of cars leaving town. “Nobody did.”
They were all quiet. Lizzy moved closer so she could lean her head on his shoulder, and Ronnie popped the top on a Budweiser, holding it awkwardly in his bandaged hands. Bob just rocked, waiting quietly.
Jason shuffled the papers for a moment, then spoke.
“Frank was writing while he was here. He was working on a new novel, but it ended up— something else. You’ve all read his other books, so you know the characters—you know the story. Most of it, anyway. I wanted to just tell you. I wanted to tell you what I found…but when I saw this, I knew Frank could tell it better. He could always tell the stories better.
“Before I go on,” he reached into his jacket pocket slowly, “I’ll tell you what I found…what I guessed. You remember, Ronnie, what I said about that dock? The one that shouldn’t have been there?”
Ronnie nodded.
“Well, it was back for a reason. When I went back, I found a boat there. Frank’s boat. I ran the license number just to be certain.”
“Why would Frank have had a boat?” Lizzy asked. “Why there? He hasn’t been here. He hasn’t…”
”You know the answer to that if you think about it,” Jason said softly. “Frank has been coming back here for years. He has a lot of money. Sometimes I forget just how much, and just what one can do with that sort of money.
“Frank told us that he got through his nightmares by writing the story. By telling the world, he exorcized his demons. We never were very good at telling when Frank lied.”
“The boat, Jason,” Ronnie cut in, sipping his beer. “What about the damned boat?”
“Figured you would have guessed,” Jason replied. “You asked us yourself how someone could have gotten all that stuff in there and rebuilt that shack without anyone knowing. Someone did. He brought in the materials from across the lake at in Pendleton, and he worked fast. He counted on you to return there. Probably figured you went every year. He couldn’t get the images out of his head, no matter how many times he wrote them, so he brought it back to life.”
“Holy shit,” Ronnie whispered.
Jason began to read.
“He watched Ronnie stagger from the shack, hands to his face to clutch his burned flesh. He wanted to call out, to go to his friend and help him, but he could not. If he did, it wouldn’t work.
He turned and watched as the old woman danced, cackling the words he’d scripted so carefully from memory. She was nearly perfect. If he closed his eyes, he could see the clearing of years past, could see his friends, young, their lives ahead of them, wide-eyed and frightened.
The walls were collapsing, and he moved away. No sense being trapped in the flames. Enough flames in his dreams. Enough flames for a lifetime of nightmares.
The images were already reforming in his mind. The story, shifting, changing just enough that he could put it—again—in words, that he could drive it into the shadows and keep it there, hold it all at bay.
It was supposed to end now. All of it. He heard the crashing steps of his friends, rushing through the woods. He saw, again and again, the burned, ruined flesh of Ronnie’s face. He heard Jason, crying out, calling for him. He heard the anguish in their voices. He ignored it. The words called him back. The bones spoke to his soul.
He had never been able to forget the pattern. The intricate, bone on bone on ground symmetry of the universe. The pattern swirled, the plot rewrote itself in his mind. It didn’t end. None of it ended, ever. Nothing ended but the relief, and that ended all too quickly.
He moved off into the woods, not toward the camp, but toward the road. He knew a car would be waiting. Everything had been planned. Everything had been staged and scripted and rehearsed. No good. It was all no good.
He still saw that pattern, dancing behind his eyelids, denying sleep...denying rest. The words whirled and spun, dancing through his mind and begging for release. The story was there, and he could follow that line, write it out. Share it. Bare another piece of his soul, and of those who mattered most, but all it would do was spawn the next story.
The woman, and the others he’d hired and trained, would find their way out. The boat was waiting to ferry them across the lake and out—out of his life, out of the story. The old woman’s cackling voice remained. He heard her words, not the words being spoken, but the words he couldn’t forget.
Frank saw his mother’s face, and his father’s, strobing. Tears slid down his cheeks, and the too-bright, maddened eyes of the old woman rose to blur the vision.
Lot of things your Daddy didn’t tell you.
“No,” he whispered. The pattern ate at his soul.
And so he drove, parking just outside Random and wandering into town on foot. No explanation—no words. A quick stagger into Mae’s and disappearing into his room. To the keyboard. To the words. To the bottle and the pills.
I know you’ll find this Jason. Read carefully. The pattern is just a scramble of bones. Your life is your own—and Lizzy’s, now. You know the story, I’ve written it before. No reason to finish this one.
Ronnie, you surprised me. In the end, you almost saw through it all to me. I couldn’t let that happen, you know? You were the bully. The evil one. You couldn’t be my friend, I never would have allowed it. Not in the script.
Money is good for a lot of things. Some people use it to forget their past. I used the money I built up rewriting my past to bring it to life. I don’t think I’ve slept in ten years. Not real sleep. I won’t dream those dreams. I wish I could. Wish I had your strength. I write them. Late at night, early morning. Her voice dictates and I transcribe.
Nothing left now, nothing but lights that flicker too brightly and words that are blurring so I can barely type. The pills do that.
I wanted to fix it. I wanted to write it and play it out so we could all be free. I wanted to be the hero.
Not in the cards—not in the bones. Can’t type, so I will say…goodbye. She was right, you know. She was right. No deed atones.
I hope you find your futures.”
Jason let the papers drop to his lap and fell silent.
“Jason?” It was Lizzy, her voice very quiet, yet carrying through the silence.
“Jason, what did you see at the lake? How did you know?”
“I found the boat,” Jason replied quietly. “I didn’t know for sure whose i
t was. I still thought it might be Ronnie at that point. No way I could believe that after this.”
He drew his hand from his pocket. He held a copy of a novel. The novel was not one any of them had read, but a new work. The cover was marked “Advance Reading Copy.” The title read “You Can Go Back Again.”
Jason tossed it on the wooden floor, and reached once again into his pocket. He drew that hand forth in a slow arc, tossing the bones he’d grabbed in the forest, what had once been a bird, and he tossed them into the air. They tumbled, spinning in white, gleaming arcs toward the cover of the book, rebounding and bounding in patterns, spreading over the floor.
Without a word, Jason rose, taking Lizzy by the hand, and walked toward Mae’s. The night was drawing over them like a cloak, and for the first time in years, he believed he might sleep.
About the Author
David Niall Wilson has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer's Association and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award, his novels include Maelstrom, The Mote in Andrea's Eye, Deep Blue, the Grails Covenant Trilogy, Star Trek Voyager: Chrysalis, Except You Go Through Shadow, This is My Blood, Ancient Eyes, On the Third Day, The Orffyreus Wheel, and Vintage Soul – Book One of the DeChance Chronicles. The Stargate Atlantis novel “Brimstone,” written with Patricia Lee Macomber is due in of 2010. He has over 150 short stories published in anthologies, magazines, and five collections, the most recent of which were "Defining Moments" published in 2007 by WFC Award winning Sarob Press, and the currently available “Ennui & Other States of Madness,” from Dark Regions Press. His work has appeared in and is due out in various anthologies and magazines. David lives and loves with Patricia Lee Macomber in the historic William R. White House in Hertford, NC with their children, Billy, Zach, Zane, and Katie, and occasionally their genius college daughter Stephanie.
You can find more about David and his work at his website:
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