Shadowfires

by Dean Koontz

  The thought of suicide flickered only briefly through his mind and then was gone, for the opportunity presented to him was even more important than the certain physical, mental, and emotional anguish that he would endure henceforth. His future would be a strange landscape, shadowed by fear, lit by the lightning of pain, yet he was compelled to journey through it toward an unseen horizon. He had to find out what he would become.

  Besides, his fear of death had by no means diminished due to these incredible developments. If anything, because he now seemed nearer the grave than at any time in his life, his necrophobia had an even tighter grip on him. No matter what form and quality of life lay ahead of him, he must go on; though his metamorphosis was deeply depressing and bloodcurdling, the alternative to life held even greater terror for him.

  As he stared into the mirror, his headache returned.

  He thought he saw something new in his eyes.

  He leaned closer to the mirror.

  Something about his eyes was definitely odd, different, but he could not quite identify the change.

  The headache became rapidly more severe. The fluorescent lights bothered him, so he squinted to close out some of the white glare.

  He looked away from his own eyes and let his gaze travel over the rest of his reflection. Suddenly he thought he perceived changes occurring along his right temple as well as in the zygomatic bone and zygomatic arch around and under his right eye.

  Fear surged through him, purer than any fear he had known thus far, and his heart raced.

  His headache now blazed throughout his skull and even down into a substantial portion of his face.

  Abruptly he turned away from the mirror. It was difficult though possible to look upon the monstrous changes after they had occurred. But watching the flesh and bone transform itself before his eyes was a far more demanding task, and he possessed neither the fortitude nor the stomach for it.

  Crazily he thought of Lon Chaney, Jr., in that old movie, The Wolfman, Chaney so appalled by the sight of his lupine metamorphosis that he was overcome by terror of—and pity for—himself. Eric looked at his own large hands, half expecting to see hair sprouting on them. That expectation made him laugh, though as before, his laugh was a harsh and cold and broken sound, utterly humorless, and it quickly turned into a series of wrenching sobs.

  His entire head and face were filled with pain now—even his lips stung—and as he lurched out of the bathroom, bumping first into the sink, then colliding with the doorjamb, he made a thin high-pitched keening sound that was, in one note, a symphony of fear and suffering.

  The San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy wore dark sunglasses that concealed his eyes and, therefore, his intentions. However, as the policeman got out of the patrol car, Ben saw no telltale tension in his body, no indications that he recognized them as the infamous betrayers of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, of whom the radio newsman had recently spoken.

  Ben took Rachael’s arm, and they kept moving.

  Within the past few hours, their descriptions and photographs had been wired to all police agencies in California and the Southwest, but that did not mean they were every lawman’s first priority.

  The deputy seemed to be staring at them.

  But not all cops were sufficiently conscientious to study the latest bulletins before hitting the road, and those who had gone on duty early this morning, as this man might have done, would have left before Ben’s and Rachael’s photographs had been posted.

  “Excuse me,” the deputy said.

  Ben stopped. Through the hand he had on Rachael’s arm, he felt her stiffen. He tried to stay loose, smile. “Yes, sir?”

  “That your Chevy pickup?”

  Ben blinked. “Uh … no. Not mine.”

  “Got a taillight busted out,” the deputy said, taking off his sunglasses, revealing eyes free of suspicion.

  “We’re driving that Ford,” Ben said.

  “You know who owns the truck?”

  “Nope. Probably one of the other customers in there.”

  “Well, you folks have a nice day, enjoy our beautiful mountains,” the deputy said, moving past them and into the sporting-goods store.

  Ben tried not to run straight to the car, and he sensed that Rachael was resisting a similar urge. Their measured stroll was almost too nonchalant.

  The eerie stillness, so complete when they had arrived, was gone, and the day was full of movement. Out on the water, an outboard motor buzzed like a swarm of hornets. A breeze had sprung up, coming in off the blue lake, rustling the trees, stirring the grass and weeds and wildflowers. A few cars passed on the state route, rock and roll blaring through the open windows of one of them.

  They reached the rental Ford in the cool shadows of the pines.

  Rachael pulled her door shut, winced at the loud chunk it made, as if the sound would draw the deputy back. Her green eyes were wide with apprehension. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You got it,” he said, starting the engine.

  “We can find another place, more private, where you can unpack the shotgun and load it.”

  They pulled out onto the two-lane blacktop that encircled the lake, heading north. Ben kept checking the rearview mirror. No one was following them; his fear that their pursuers were right on their tail was irrational, paranoid. He kept checking the mirror anyway.

  The lake lay on their left and below them, glimmering, and the mountains rose on their right. In some areas, houses stood on large plots of forested land: Some were magnificent, almost country-style mansions, and others were neatly kept but humble summer cottages. In other places, the land was either government-owned or too steep to provide building sites, and the wilderness encroached in a weedy and brambled tangle of trees. A lot of dry brush had built up, too, and signs warned of the fire danger, an annual summer-autumn threat throughout southern California. The road snaked and rolled, climbed and fell, through alternating patches of shade and golden sunlight.

  After a couple of minutes, Rachael said, “They can’t really believe we stole defense secrets.”

  “No,” Ben agreed.

  “I mean, I didn’t even know Geneplan had defense contracts.”

  “That’s not what they’re worried about. It’s a cover story.”

  “Then why are they so eager to get their hands on us?”

  “Because we know that Eric has … come back.”

  “And you think the government knows, too?” she asked.

  “You said the Wildcard project was a closely held secret. The only people who knew were Eric, his partners in Geneplan, and you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But if Geneplan had its hand in the Pentagon’s pocket on other projects, then you can bet the Pentagon knew everything worth knowing about the owners of Geneplan and what they were up to. You can’t accept lucrative top-secret research work and at the same time hold on to your privacy.”

  “That makes sense,” she said. “But Eric might not have realized it. Eric believed he could have the best of everyone, all the time.”

  A road sign warned of a dip in the pavement. Ben braked, and the Ford jolted over a rough patch, springs squeaking, frame rattling.

  When they came through to smoother blacktop, he said, “So the Pentagon knew enough about Wildcard to realize what Eric had done to himself when his body disappeared from the morgue. And now they want to contain the story, keep the secret, because they see it as a weapon or, at least, as a source of tremendous power.”

  “Power?”

  “If perfected, the Wildcard process might mean immortality to those who undergo treatment. So the people who control Wildcard will decide who lives forever and who doesn’t. Can you imagine any better weapon, any better tool with which to establish political control of the whole damn world?”

  Rachael was silent awhile. Then she said softly, “Jesus, I’ve been so focused on the personal aspects of this, so intent on what it means to me, that I haven’t looked at it from a
broader perspective.”

  “So they have to get hold of us,” Ben said.

  “They don’t want us blowing the secret till Wildcard’s perfected. If it were blown first, they couldn’t continue research unhampered.”

  “Exactly. Since you’re going to inherit the largest block of stock in Geneplan, the government might figure you can be persuaded to cooperate for the good of your country and for your own gain.”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t be persuaded. Not about this. For one thing, if there’s any hope at all of dramatically extending the human life span and promoting healing through genetic engineering, then the research should be done publicly, and the benefits should be available to everyone. It’s immoral to handle it any other way.”

  “I figured that’s how you’d feel,” he said, pulling the Ford through a sharp right-hand turn, then sharply to the left again.

  “Besides, I couldn’t be persuaded to continue research along the same avenue the Wildcard group has been following, because I’m sure it’s the wrong route.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” Ben said approvingly.

  “Admittedly, I know very little about genetics, but I can see there’s just too much danger involved in the approach they’re taking. Remember the mice I told you about. And remember … the blood in the trunk of the car at the house in Villa Park.”

  He remembered, which was one reason he had wanted the shotgun.

  She said, “If I took control of Geneplan, I might want to fund continued longevity research, but I’d insist on scrapping Wildcard and starting fresh from a new direction.”

  “I knew you’d say that, too,” Ben told her, “and I figure the government also has a pretty good idea what you’d say. So I don’t have much hope that they just want a chance to persuade you. If they know anything about you—and as Eric’s wife, you’ve got to be in their files—then they know you couldn’t be bribed or threatened into doing something you thought was really wrong, couldn’t be corrupted. So they probably won’t even bother trying.”

  “It’s my Catholic upbringing,” she said with a touch of irony. “A very stern, strict, religious family, you know.”

  He didn’t know. This was the first she had ever spoken of it.

  Softly she said, “And very early, I was sent to a boarding school for girls, administrated by nuns. I grew to hate it … the endless Masses … the humiliation of the confessional, revealing my pathetic little sins. But I guess it shaped me for the better, huh? Might not be so all-fired incorruptible if I hadn’t spent all those years in the hands of the good sisters.”

  He sensed that these revelations were but a twig on an immense and perhaps ugly tree of grim experience.

  He glanced away from the road for a second, wanting to see her expression. But he was foiled by the constantly, rapidly changing mosaic of tree shadows and sunlight that came through the windshield and dappled her countenance. There was an illusion of fire, and her face was only half revealed to him, half hidden beyond the shifting and shimmering curtain of those phantom flames.

  Sighing, she said, “Okay, so if the government knows it can’t persuade me, why’s it issuing warrants on a bunch of trumped-up charges and putting so much manpower into the search for me?”

  “They want to kill you,” Ben said bluntly.

  “What?”

  “They’d rather get you out of the picture and deal with Eric’s partners, Knowls and Seitz and the others, because they already know those men are corruptible.”

  She was shocked, and he was not surprised by her shock. She was not unworldly or terribly naive. But she was, by choice, a present-focused person who had given little thought to the complexities of the changing world around her, except when that world impinged upon her primary desire to wring as much pleasure as possible from the moment. She accepted a variety of myths as a matter of convenience, as a way of simplifying her life, and one myth was that her government would always have her best interests at heart, whether the issue was war, a reform of the justice system, increased taxation, or anything else. She was apolitical and saw no reason to be concerned about who might win—or usurp—the power flowing from the ballot box, for it was easy to believe in the benign intentions of those who so ardently desired to serve the public.

  She gaped in astonishment at him. He did not even have to see that expression through the flickering light and shadow to know it held tenancy of her face, for he sensed it in the change in her breathing and in the greater tension that suddenly gripped her and caused her to sit up straighter.

  “Kill me? No, no, Benny. The U.S. government just executing civilians as if this were some banana republic? No, surely not.”

  “Not necessarily the whole government, Rachael. The House, Senate, president, and cabinet secretaries haven’t held meetings to discuss the obstacle you pose, haven’t conspired by the hundreds to terminate you. But someone in the Pentagon or the DSA or the CIA has determined that you’re standing in the way of the national interest, that you pose a threat to the welfare of millions of citizens. When they weigh the welfare of millions against one or two little murders, the choice is clear to them, as it always is to collectivist thinkers. One or two little murders—tens of thousands of murders—are always justifiable when the welfare of the masses is at stake. At least, that’s how they see it, even if they do pretend to believe in the sanctity of the individual. So they can order one or two little murders and even feel righteous about it.”

  “Dear God,” she said with feeling. “What have I dragged you into, Benny?”

  “You didn’t drag me into anything,” he said. “I forced my way in. You couldn’t keep me out of it. And I’ve no regrets.”

  She seemed unable to speak.

  Ahead, on the left, a branch road led down to the lake. A sign announced: LAKE APPROACH—BOAT LAUNCHING FACILITIES.

  Ben turned off the state route and followed the narrower gravel road down through a crowd of immense trees. In a quarter of a mile, he drove out of the trees, into a sixty-foot-wide, three-hundred-foot-long open area by the shore. Sequins of sunlight decorated the lake in some places, and serpentine streams of sunlight wriggled across the shifting surface in other places, and here and there brilliant shafts bounced off the waves and dazzled the eye.

  More than a dozen cars, pickups, and campers were parked at the far end of the clearing, several with empty boat trailers behind them. A big recreational pickup—black with red and gray stripes, bedecked with gobs of sun-heated chrome—was backed up near the water’s edge, and three men were launching a twenty-four-foot twin-engine Water King from their trailer. Several people were eating lunch at picnic tables near the shore, and an Irish setter was sniffing under a table in search of scraps, and two young boys were tossing a football back and forth, and eight or ten fishermen were tending their poles along the bank.

  They all looked as if they were enjoying themselves. If any of them realized the world beyond this pleasant haven was turning dark and going mad, he was keeping it to himself.

  Benny drove to the parking area but tucked the Ford in by the edge of the forest, as far from the other vehicles as he could get. He switched off the engine and rolled down his window. He put his seat back as far as it would go in order to give himself room to work, took the shotgun box on his lap, opened it, withdrew the gun, and threw the empty box into the back seat.

  “Keep a watch out,” he told Rachael. “You see anybody coming, let me know. I’ll get out and meet him. Don’t want anybody to see the shotgun and be spooked. It’s sure as hell not hunting season.”

  “Benny, what’re we going to do?”

  “Just what we planned to do,” he said, using one of the car keys to slit the shrink-wrapped plastic in which the shotgun was encased. “Follow the directions Sarah Kiel gave you, find Eric’s cabin, and see if he’s there.”

  “But the warrants for our arrest … people wanting to kill us … doesn’t that change everything?”

  “Not much.” He disc
arded the shredded plastic and looked the gun over. It came fully assembled, a nice piece of work, and it felt good and reliable in his hands. “Originally we wanted to get to Eric and finish him before he healed entirely and came looking to finish you. Now maybe what we’ll have to do is capture him instead of kill him—”

  “Take him alive?” Rachael said, alarmed by that suggestion.

  “Well, he’s not exactly alive, is he? But I think we’re going to have to take him in whatever condition he’s in, tie him up, drive him someplace like … well, someplace like the offices of the Los Angeles Times. Then we can hold a real shocker of a press conference.”

  “Oh, Benny, no, no, we can’t.” She shook her head adamantly. “That’s crazy. He’s going to be violent, extremely violent. I told you about the mice. You saw the blood in the trunk of the car, for God’s sake. The destruction everywhere he’s been, the knives in the wall of the Palm Springs house, the beating he gave Sarah. We can’t risk getting close to him. He won’t respect the gun, if that’s what you’re thinking. He won’t have any fear of it at all. You get close enough to try to capture him, and he’ll take your head off in spite of the gun. He might even have a gun of his own. No, no, if we see him, we’ve got to finish him right away, shoot him without any hesitation, shoot him again and again, do so much damage to him that he won’t be able to come back again.”

  A panicky note had entered her voice, and she had spoken faster and faster as she strove to convince Ben. Her skin was powder-white, and her lips had acquired a bluish tint. She was shivering.

  Even considering their precarious situation and the admittedly hideous nature of their quarry, her fear seemed too great to Ben, and he wondered how much her reaction to Eric’s resurrection was heightened by the ultrareligious childhood that had formed her. Without fully understanding her own feelings, perhaps she was afraid of Eric not merely because she knew his potential for violence, and not merely because he was a walking dead man, but because he had dared to seize the power of God by defeating death and thereby had become not simply a zombie but some hellborn creature returned from the realm of the damned.