by Brian Hodge
Outside there was a series of brilliant flashes. The storm that had threatened earlier was hanging on the higher elevations, lurking back in the Jumper Mountains above the little town of Towayda. Right now it could go either way, stomping off into New Hampshire or coming back here to give Oscola a predawn pounding.
He swilled the last of the beer, tossed the bottle toward the trash can. It hit the floor with a sullen clunk. So much for any nascent Scottie Pippen fantasies. The living room clock bonged three times. He sat staring, wishing he had a fire to watch.
It was long after the crickets had stopped and the bats had gone to bed that his eyes shut for a final time, and a tired, uneasy man slept.
2
It only lasted a moment. When he woke up he found himself sitting in a very different sort of a seat. There was a sensation of electricity going through his body.
Then he realized that he couldn’t open his eyes. He heard familiar rattling. Sounded like he was in his truck. And why couldn’t he move? Muscle spasm? Stroke?
He realized that he wasn’t in bed at all. He was in a seat, his hands were on a steering wheel.
He was in his truck!
No, this couldn’t be. How could he be driving his truck with his eyes closed?
This was crazy. No matter how it felt, how real it seemed, he had to be dreaming. He wasn’t in his truck at all, he was still sitting in the easy chair in the living room.
There was a bump, followed by the rattle of the passenger door that had been bothering him for weeks.
Light flashed on the other side of his closed lids. Thunder rumbled.
He tried to open his eyes, tried again, raising his eyebrows until his forehead was deep with furrows.
Suddenly they popped open—and he was dead stunned by what he saw.
He was in the truck all right. His hands were on the wheel, his foot on the gas, he was driving down Kelly Farm Road in the direction of Mound. “What the hell?” The dashboard clock said it was five-fifteen.
He was going…was it to Ludlum, back to the campus, back to the facility?
He had a vivid memory of his old facility with its walls covered by the blue PVC pipe that contained the vacuum-sealed cables.
He was out of control. He was heading down Kelly Farm Road toward Mound and he couldn’t stop himself.
He fought. He willed his hands to move off the wheel, willed it until he groaned with the effort. His hands shook, his neck throbbed, he grimaced with effort—and suddenly his right hand did as it was being ordered. Struggling mightily, he managed to get the shaking, quivering fingers around the key, to turn it.
The truck stopped. For a moment he slumped over the wheel.
Then a tickle started down between his legs. For a moment he thought a rat was on him. Before he could even panic, though, the sensation blossomed into one of electrifying pleasure. It was a needle, hot, vibrant, incredible, stabbing deep into his solar plexus. He hadn’t felt such a sensation in years, not since he was first touched there by a girl. He still remembered that pleasure, how it had stripped him of his will. Now it drew him out of the truck, into the woods.
Like magic he was walking somewhere, being drawn, being pulled. On some level the pleasure made him sick, made his heart weep. He wasn’t going to the campus, not back to the facility, not at all. He was going somewhere else, to a house, a familiar house…
He thought he could feel something wrapped around him, threads that he couldn’t see, hair-thin but wildly active, tickling as they raced about under his clothes.
He grimaced, shut his eyes—and the pleasure disappeared. He became aware that there had been purple light, deep almost to black, shining in his eyes.
When he opened them again, the purple light came back. He moved like a robot, or a puppet controlled by strings that gave him pleasure down to the depths of his soul.
Then he burst into the meadow beside the mound, and before him was an extraordinary scene: a burning woman with her arms over her head, followed by a long, swinging stream of white fire. It was something from another version of the world.
The vision of the burning woman was so bright that it left red ghosts in his eyes after he turned away from it. He saw Mary burning again, Mary in a flower of popping, blurry flames, moving fast, her hair a spreading blossom of fire.
He was close to her, only a few feet away, and he saw that the supposedly heavenly glow was actually coming from thousands of busy winged worms.
Her face was pale fire, her hair flying sparks. Behind her was the dark shape of the mound. He could also see the judge’s house—which was bizarrely transformed. Its windows were pouring electric purple light so bright that silhouettes were visible behind the closed curtains, gyrating as if some sort of maniacal dance was taking place inside. But it wasn’t a fun dance, he could see that.
Cars jammed the driveway, spilled over into the front yard.
He was being drawn here.
And he was in a fight for his life. He’d fought like this before in the burn wards at Ludlum Community and Midstate Catholic in Albany.
The pleasure drew him, dragged him, made his hands shake as he tried to untangle the threads, weakened his arms when he sought to tear them away. Still, he lurched forward.
Desperate now, he concentrated all that was left of his willpower. Ahead of him the front door began to open, letting out a shaft of pure purple light. A silhouette stumbled past, horribly contorted. Long legs and arms as thin as sticks swam in the light. Inside, screaming mixed with caws and whoops and the continuous sizzling of a gigantic skillet.
It felt so good that he wept. He was aware that he was marching across the yard like a mechanical toy. The threads were all around him now, enclosing him like a deadly web.
His will was a single dot of white light in the center of his being, and that dot wanted to live, to be free. It wanted to live so badly that it began to grow, to get brighter.
Higher the pleasure rose, higher and higher, to greater and greater intensity. He groaned, he yelled, his skin quivered with it.
But it was death, he knew that, he could taste it, feel it in the coldness of their touch.
His mind fixed on Loi and the baby. On his son. He would never get to see his son.
No!
He was being dragged now, toward the open door, toward the angry purple flashes and the capering, twisted figures inside.
He tensed his muscles, stiffened his legs until his heels were digging into the ground, and he pushed. He fought, tearing at the threads, he flailed and yanked and ripped, he threw himself back against their strength.
A tall, angular shadow came onto the judge’s porch. He could not see the face, but he felt watched, carefully watched.
Spittle flew from his mouth as he twisted and shook, his muscles strained to their limits as he fought the threads. All the while the purple light pulsed into him, causing his deepest soul to cry out in the agony of the pleasure.
The grave figure on the judge’s porch gracefully tossed what looked like a thick cable in his direction. It fell before him with a dense thud and began scrabbling at the earth, trying to get closer. But it was stretched to its limit.
The tickling threads disappeared, the purple light went out, the figure withdrew from the porch.
He ran away like a frightened child. He kept running until he reached the woods at the far end of the meadow that surrounded the mound. Then he stumbled into Coxon Kill, lurched through it and collapsed on the opposite bank.
He felt as if every aching muscle had been pulled awry. He was soaked and cold and miserable.
A crow raised its voice in raucous anger. He could taste the sourness of its inhuman rage. He whirled around, looking for it. The tall, strange figure from the porch had followed him. It extended a long, thin arm toward him.
Absolute panic. A man running. Leaves whipping past. Little sounds, half-made screams. A man running, running and the blaze of dawn striping the horizon with perfect colors: long gold lines of cloud tin
ged with the black of the departing storm, the sky going from green to soft pure blue. Beneath this grandeur, a man running.
A brace of pheasant rose before him, their wings shining. When he first noticed the glow in among the trees he stopped, shrinking back like a terrified deer. But then he saw that it was a cabin with lit windows and smoke coming out its chimney. The logs were dark and old, the lights in the windows were dim.
It looked like something from a sinister fairy tale.
3
A miserable Ellen Maas was waiting for the percolator to stop coughing when she again heard footsteps.
Nobody ought to be around here at this hour.
She grabbed the biggest knife.
“Who’s there?” she asked. It came out as a thin, ineffectual whine.
A man’s face appeared in the living room window.
It was waxy green, the eyes staring, the mouth slack. The eyes went to the knife she was brandishing, then the face reared back into the dark.
She threw down the knife, reeled away from the window. She was biting her knuckle to keep from screaming. It was Dr. Kelly out there and he looked as if he’d been in a wreck or worse. She dashed out into the living-dining room and threw open the front door.
“Dr. Kelly…” Her voice died away. The expression on his face was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. His eyes were wide, his lips open, his skin wet with sweat. He shuffled toward her. Instinct made her step back. All sorts of unspoken dreads began to rise.
Then he stopped, buried his face in his hands, trying to wipe away a thickness of sweat and grime. His hair was full of pine needles, his T-shirt was ripped almost to shreds, he was wet. “I’m sorry. I’ve had—had—” The hollow eyes met hers. They pleaded.
“Dr. Kelly?”
“Help me.” As if the two small words had drained the last of his strength, he slumped forward. Big though he was, she had to catch him or he was going to fall. She reached out, was staggered by his full weight.
She was just strong enough to get him in the door, to aim him at the couch. He toppled down, hitting its old springs with a squealing crash. She didn’t want that door left open; she slammed and locked it. What had happened to her was bad enough, and now look at this poor man.
Then she saw him fully in the light. His scars were clearly visible and she was surprised at how extensive they were. His chest looked… molten. She’d never seen such deep burns.
Her old percolator went from coughing to wheezing, indicating that the coffee was finally brewed. Looking back at him, she moved quickly across to the kitchen. The man had to be helped, but the damn thing would explode if it wasn’t turned off. That taken care of, she rushed into the bathroom.
What should she get? What did she have? Alcohol and cotton balls, a tube of Mycitracin, some Kaopectate, lots of Mylanta. Obviously, her first-aid capabilities were a disaster.
“May I have some of that coffee?” he asked in a beaten voice. At the hospital he’d been cruel to her. Now his eyes were anguished.
Brian couldn’t get over how good the brew smelled, so rich and strong and familiar. Dimly, he remembered struggling through the woods, seeing the gingerbready little cabin, coming up to the door…
There’d been a beautiful woman in the doorway, wearing a fluffy white robe. Now she had a percolator in her hand and was filling a big mug.
In amazement he reached out, touched the terry cloth of the robe. He no longer felt able to verify reality merely by looking.
The green eyes blinked, regarded him. “Are you hurt?”
Her voice was as pure and refreshing as the water of Coxon Kill.
“Hey, listen up, Dr. Kelly! Are—you—hurt?”
He didn’t know how to explain his pain, what to say that would identify the cause of his wounds.
“Please tell me!”
“I—I don’t know…” He tried to remember what he’d just been through, but it all seemed so impossible, it was just a crazy jumble. He was exhausted, but he didn’t think he was actually hurt. “I’m fine,” he said. He realized that the woman was Ellen Maas. He’d come all the way to her cabin.
He didn’t understand at all.
“You don’t look fine.” She thrust the mug of coffee into his hands. Beneath her tone of concern was a much sharper note. She was afraid of him, he decided. That wasn’t too surprising.
He took the coffee, drank gratefully, deeply. “I’m sorry, I know it’s early.”
He got only a guarded shift of the eyes from her. She definitely wasn’t happy to have him here, and he couldn’t blame her. “Dr. Kelly, what the hell is going on around here?”
“I don’t know!”
She watched him with increasing wariness. He appeared mad. But after what had happened to her out there, she was willing to give him a little latitude. But only a little. “Why are you here?”
He tried to explain himself. “I’ve had—an experience. Something happened to me that I can’t explain.”
He was surprised to see that this made her less uneasy. “I had a bad night, too.”
They regarded each other.
“I’m sorry I burst in on you.” He noticed for the first time that his scars were visible. Ashamed, he covered his chest with his arms.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You got them trying to save your family.”
She went into the kitchen and began preparing her breakfast.
He followed her. “Will you give me something to eat, Miss Maas?”
“If you like.”
The smell of coffee and bacon, the sound of butter being spread on toast, the clink of spoon against cup—these familiar things allowed him to do what he so desperately wanted to do, and that was imagine that life would return to normal. For her part, the familiar rhythms of cooking the meal and setting the table were what enabled her to return to the ordinary.
The terrors of the night sifted into memory.
Brian and Ellen were like deer that have glimpsed the hunter and run, and think themselves safe, and pause to crop the stems of autumn.
Chapter 5
1
He ate mechanically, his eyes on his food. She hadn’t wanted anything after all; she wasn’t sure how long it would be before she cared to eat again. Instead she sat and smoked and watched him. He had the rangy build of a hard-working farmer, but his eyes betrayed the complexity of his intelligence.
“I think I’m feeling separation anxiety,” he said.
“From your wife?”
“In the sense that I want to stay here. I want to hide.”
A silence fell. She wanted to talk about what had happened to her, but she didn’t know how to do that. There was no simple way to explain something so weird, not without sounding deranged.
Unless the same thing had happened to him. To find out, she would try an indirect approach. “What are those insects that come out at night—the glowing ones?”
“Lightning bugs.”
“I mean that attack you. Like wasps.”
He looked up from his food. His eyes now held a question. “None.”
“Not anywhere? Not back in the mountains?”
“No.”
She smoked, watching him carefully. So that wasn’t what had happened to him.
So what had? Why had he come staggering out of the woods at six a.m.?
He wondered what she’d been driving at with her questions. Had something happened to her, also? No, he’d had a nightmare of some sort. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“Do you know any entomologists at Ludlum?”
“Bug boys? Nah. I’m a physicist. Worked on esoteric particles.”
“Star wars?”
“We were going to harness a new sort of particle. If we could find it.”
“I want to talk to an entomologist.”
“But not to a particle man.” He cut across the second of his two eggs, dipped some toast into the yolk. “Thanks for this. I neede
d it.”
She smiled a little. “My breakfast usually consists of cereal and a half grapefruit. I didn’t even know I had those eggs. What kind of particle were you studying?”
“Generating. I was trying to generate it. A particle that would have moved backward in time. It sounds esoteric, but it would have been a very powerful particle. Capable of great things.”
She went to the window and looked out a long time. He watched the shoulders of the shabby terry-cloth robe. Perhaps he should leave. Probably should. But he found himself pouring another cup of coffee.
“What happened to it?” she asked suddenly.
“It?”
“Your project.”
He shook his head.
She came back to the dining table and sat down across from him. “So, have you figured out why you came walking out of my woods at six in the morning?”
He watched her movements, hasty, nervous. She was very tired, still wary of him. Still angry, he suspected. “Please don’t put it in the paper.”
“No, I won’t hurt you. It’s not my style.” She smiled then, and it was quite wonderful to see, a sudden, fierce brightening of her tense features. But the smile disappeared abruptly. “You didn’t answer my question, Doctor.”
He had to explain more fully, he saw that. “I had a waking dream,” he said carefully. “It’s called hypnogogia. A commonplace of psychology. Apparently I walked in my sleep.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, that’s the explanation.”
She laughed in his face, but the laughter was gentle, it wasn’t mean. In simple, straightforward language, she told him the craziest story he had ever heard, about killer insects that glowed.
“I can understand your interest in entomology,” was the best response he could think of. It was a most curious story, though. “But you’re talking about a nightmare, not a real experience.”
She went into her kitchen, came back with a pickling jar, held it out to him.