Alan Wake

by Rick Burroughs

  He checked his watch, folded the map, and put it in his pocket. He had time, even if he had to walk all the way. His feet were tired and blistered, but he’d make it there by noon. He’d make it if he had to crawl there on his belly.

  He touched the 9mm tucked away in his jacket. He didn’t have a manuscript for the kidnapper, just the few pages he had found scattered around Bright Falls. It didn’t matter. The kidnapper wasn’t going to get away without handing over Alice. Not this time.

  Wake started down the stair of the tower. He hung on to the railing as he descended, his legs wobbly. The sun was coming up.

  Bill rocked on the porch of his cabin as the last of the light faded, listening to his stomach growl. When his little brother, Timmy, disappeared playing hide and seek, at least Bill got dinner. Folks traded tales of screams in the night, and nothing but a smear of blood left behind, but Bill had insisted the brat must have gotten lost or fallen down a well. Timmy was always careless. Always sticking his nose in places it didn’t belong.

  Clara was the same way. Bill’s wife. Clara never liked the cabin, always worried about being so far from other folks, always seeing things in the trees, always asking him dumb questions. Now, Clara had disappeared too. Snatched away an hour ago leaving a pan of meat loaf fixings on the table.

  The night deepened, but Bill maintained the same unhurried rocking. He liked the gathering darkness, the way the shadows piled up on each other. All these years and he never missed his little brother and he wouldn’t miss Clara either. He would miss her meat loaf though.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE BRIGHT FALLS Power Co. pickup ran out of gas within sight of the coal mining camp, a cluster of broken-down wooden buildings at the top of a hill. The truck started to roll backwards, but Wake put on the emergency brake. He tried to turn the engine over, but just ground the starter.

  He had found the truck about ten miles back, found it in the weeds beside a dirt logging road and looked around for the owner without success. The keys were in the ignition, as though the driver had stepped out for a leisurely piss in the tall grass and never came back. He had waited around for fifteen minutes, resting, but the owner never showed. Wake drove off toward the coal mine. He was tired of walking, exhausted from lack of sleep, and at this point, a car theft charge was the least of his worries.

  Wake sat in the front seat, restless, lightly tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He had over an hour before the kidnapper was supposed to show so he spent some of it searching the truck. He found a more powerful light behind the passenger seat, a searchlight with what seemed to be fresh batteries. He hoped he wouldn’t need it, hoped he would have Alice back before the sun went down.

  In an hour, Wake was going to meet the kidnapper, and the man was going to return Alice. He flicked the safety of the 9mm off and on, off and on. One way or the other, the kidnapper was going to release her. Unharmed. Wake hefted the pistol. Eleven bullets in the magazine; more than enough. The man was going to do it, because Wake wasn’t going to give him a choice.

  Little by little, without realizing it, Wake had come to believe that the story in the manuscript was coming true, the current of its narrative dragging him deeper and deeper into dark waters. Alice had been taken from him. Barry was probably in jail. Wake was a fugitive from the FBI. The Taken roamed the night, murderous and mindless, fearing only the light. It felt real, it was real… but to anyone on the outside, anyone who hadn’t seen what Wake had seen, done what he had done, it would be grounds for involuntary commitment.

  Wake stared through the windshield, watching as a metallic-green dragonfly darted past, then hovered over the hood of the pickup, lacy wings shimmering in the light. The dragonfly dipped in the breeze, blown backwards, then veered through the open window. Wake didn’t move, didn’t breathe, watching it as it floated inches from his face, beautiful and alien, the dragonfly’s glittering, faceted eyes fixed on him. Just as suddenly, the dragonfly flew off, wings rustling. Wake shook his head. He imagined a local saying, You don’t see things like that in New York City, mister. It was true. Hard to believe how quickly he had adapted to this new reality, how rapidly the veneer of civilization had peeled away. Wake thought flowers were only found in a florist shop and bugs were for swatting, but here he was watching a dragonfly as though it was a miracle, something that belonged in an art gallery.

  Before coming to Bright Falls, he had never been mugged, never fired a gun except on a firing range. Now he fought with a kidnapper beside a raging waterfall, exchanging kicks and punches under the stars. Now creatures cloaked in darkness attacked him with axes and shovels, and he had been grateful to kill them first… even the ones wearing familiar faces, like Rusty.

  Come to the great Northwest! Get back to nature! The tourist brochures didn’t mention that the nature you were getting back to was tooth and claw, blood on the floor, kill or be killed.

  Wake turned on the radio, hoping to catch some news about last night.

  “—is Pat Maine, the ol’ night owl, taking over the morning show, because our regular host, Jimmy Eagan, hasn’t shown up yet. Call the station, Jimmy, let us know where you are. Anyway, folks, I’m continuing our talk with Dr. Nelson.”

  “Jimmy’s a rascal, isn’t he?” said the doctor.

  “That he is, doc. Now listen, we were talking about life and finding that special someone, that soul mate…”

  “Well, you were talking about that, Pat. I was saying I don’t buy it! You’re a romantic, but the idea that there’s that one special person out there for you, and if you miss that chance, it’s gone forever and you’re forever incomplete… I mean, isn’t that depressing? Or, heck, childish, even? There’s plenty of fish in the sea—”

  Wake switched off the radio. There might be plenty of fish in the sea for the doctor, but not for Wake. There was only Alice for him.

  He checked his watch, got out of the truck and started up the narrow path to the coal mine. It wouldn’t hurt to be early, maybe surprise the kidnapper as he approached.

  The sun was hot, nearly directly overhead, and Wake was glad for his sunglasses. His boots kicked up tiny puffs of dust with every step, sent crickets hopping away from him in blurs of brown. He was sweating by the time he got to the top of the slope, his shirt sticking to his back, but he kept his jacket on.

  The mining camp was a ghost town, long abandoned, dead for decades. Nothing left but bleached wooden shacks, buildings in various states of disrepair, and a dangerously tilted water tower. A railroad track had run past at one time, but only the ties remained, the steel rails pulled for scrap. A windmill creaked steadily on the edge of the camp.

  Wake stopped beside a rusted jalopy whose tires had rotted away. Nothing and nobody home. A couple of derelict railroad cars had been tipped over, whatever coal they had carried long since gone. He walked around, looking for a place to wait for the kidnapper, some place where he could see but not be seen. He kicked over a barrel, watched it roll away, as much to break the oppressive silence as anything else.

  The entrance to the mine was at the end of the railway line, a large opening cut into the mountain, edged with heavy wooden beams. He surveyed the camp, tried to imagine it as it had once been, bustling with activity, men digging into the earth, loading up the coal cars.

  The best-preserved building had a sign on it that read THE BRIGHT FALLS COAL MINE MUSEUM. Wake walked over to read the fine print.

  While there were some earlier residents in the area, the true genesis of the town of Bright Falls came with the founding of the Bright Falls Mining Company and the opening of the mine in 1878. In 1970, a volcanic eruption below Cauldron Lake caused most of the deep mining tunnels to collapse or flood. Thirty-two miners lost their lives and all mining came to a stop. Now many of the remaining buildings are protected as historical landmarks.

  Wake started up the stairs of the museum, thinking it would give him the best vantage point to spot the kidnapper, but he stopped halfway up, turned toward the mine entrance
. He had definitely heard something coming from the mine shaft. He put his hand in his jacket, gripped the butt of the 9mm as he walked toward the entrance.

  “You’re early,” said Wake, slipping the safety off.

  No response.

  “Couldn’t wait, huh?” said Wake, his footsteps crunching over the gravel. He felt remarkably calm, ready for anything. “Do you have Alice with you?”

  “Alan?”

  Wake hadn’t been prepared for that. It was Alice’s voice. He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. It had to be a trap.

  “Alan? It’s so dark… so dark in here.”

  Her voice sounded… wrong, but it had to be her, the whisper echoing off the walls of the mine, desperate. The sound faded as he stood there in the daylight, just outside the darkness. A trap. Had to be. A trap meant to lure him into the mine. A million places for the kidnapper to hide in there, a million places to wait for him. Wake stayed where he was. Outside in the light, where he had the advantage.

  Wake stood there, the 9mm out now. He could still hear her voice saying his name, his name a question, as though she wasn’t sure he was really here. He was listening so hard that his head pounded. He imagined Alice in the dark. Terrified. Alice with her hands bound behind her back as the kidnapper dragged her deeper into the tunnel. Out of reach.

  “Alice!” Wake stepped into the mine shaft. “Alice!”

  No answer.

  It was cool in the mine, much cooler than outside, but much darker. Hand shaking now, he played the searchlight beam across the walls. It didn’t do much good; the raw rock seemed to absorb the light, the uneven floor of the tunnel littered with shards of coal. He nudged a crumpled gum wrapper with the toe of his boot. They hadn’t made that brand of gum in twenty or thirty years. Graffiti on one wall glowed in the light, as though daubed on with phosphorescent paint: DANGER! NO POWER, NO LIGHT. TUNNELS GO TO CAULDRON LAKE.

  The tunnel sloped down, as he made his way deeper into the mountain. The walls dripped moisture that pooled on the floor.

  “Come on out,” called Wake. “I’ve got the manuscript.”

  He waited. Finally heard a sound from deep within the mine, beyond the reach of his light, and the sound tore at his heart, gave him chills. It was the sound of a woman softly sobbing.

  Wake followed the sound into the tunnel, following the searchlight, splashing through puddles of oily black water. If the kidnapper was armed, so was Wake. If it was a trap, it didn’t matter. Alice was in there, that was all that mattered.

  The tunnel narrowed, slippery now, twisting around, and then slowly widening out into a larger area with several tributary tunnels leading off from it. His headache was worse now, like something sharp and jagged was working itself into his brain. He stood there, the taste of metal in his mouth. An overturned ore cart lay near the entrance to one of the smaller tunnels.

  Wake approached the pool of standing water, shined his light over the surface. For a moment he thought he saw… he thought he saw Alice falling away from the light, sinking into the darkness, which was flat-out insane, even he knew that.

  Wake rubbed his eyes, feeling a wave of nausea roll through him. He needed to get out of here. Now. Still he hesitated, not wanting to go yet. Not without Alice. His mouth was foul; it wasn’t metal he was tasting. It was the darkness itself.

  Something moved behind the cart.

  “Alice?”

  A Taken rose from behind the cart, a man wearing a miner’s hard hat and dusty overalls, carrying a pickax. It blinked in the beam from the searchlight, sidled off into the shadows.

  “Alice, I’m here!”

  Wake’s shout was still echoing when a flood of bats flew out from deep within the mine, startled and squealing, bringing a rush of colder air with their beating wings.

  Another Taken emerged from the darkness of a tunnel. Then another. And another. Big miners, all of them, sheathed in shadow, their faces streaked with coal dust, their clothing worn and patched. They shuffled toward Wake, picks and shovels and sledgehammers in their scarred hands, mumbling and muttering something about putting up more braces and rich seams of coal below. Wake preferred the chittering of the bats.

  Wake retreated, playing the searchlight over them as he backed up, trying to keep them at bay. The shadows sizzled, but the Taken kept coming, darkness boiling off them. More Taken lumbered from the tunnels, their silhouettes huge and menacing in the dim light. He stumbled back on the uneven floor of the tunnel, caught himself. He turned and ran.

  Something whistled past his head. A pickax bounced off the wall, sent sparks crackling into the air. Wake kept running, the beam of light small in the darkness. Something heavy hit him in the back and knocked him down, the searchlight flying from his grasp and into a pool of water.

  In the dying light, Wake saw an enormous, grease-stained crescent wrench on the floor of the tunnel. He got up, his clothes soaked, one whole side of his body numb. Then the searchlight went out.

  Wake inched forward in the darkness, one hand in front of him, the other hand fumbling for his own flashlight. He could hear the Taken getting closer, their guttural voices louder now, eager.

  Wake flicked on the flashlight.

  A Taken swung a sledgehammer at him, and Wake ducked, the hammer striking the wall of the tunnel so hard the rock splintered.

  Wake shined the light in the Taken’s face, tearing away the darkness that protected it. Wake shot it once, twice, three times in the head, so close that he couldn’t miss. The third shot killed it, the Taken disintegrating.

  The other Taken swarmed after him, but Wake was already running, splashing through standing water, breathing hard and not looking back.

  Wake raced full-tilt out of the tunnel and into the sunlight, skidding on the loose gravel and falling onto the ground.

  Raising the gun, Wake looked back to the mine entrance. There was nothing there. He sat slowly up, trying to catch his breath. His back ached from where the crescent wrench had struck him. His cell phone rang.

  “What was that all about, Wake? You born clumsy or did you work on it?”

  Wake listened to the kidnapper’s laughter. He looked around, trying to see where the man was.

  “You’re a good boy, Wake, you do what you’re told,” said the kidnapper. “No cops, no buddies tagging along. Good thing for Alice you did.”

  Wake craned his head, imagining the kidnapper hunkered down in the woods, watching him through a pair of high-powered binoculars. “Where are you? Is Alice with you?”

  “You got the manuscript?”

  “Right here.” Wake pulled the folded manuscript pages out of his jacket, waved them around. There were only a few dozen random pages, but the kidnapper didn’t know that. “You’re not getting it until I have Alice.”

  Silence.

  Wake resisted the impulse to talk, to barter. Anything he said would be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

  “Okay. I can live with that.”

  Wake put the pages back into his jacket. “So show yourself.”

  “You look tired, Wake.” The kidnapper had a dirty laugh. “Were you up late writing?”

  “It’s the best thing I ever wrote. Come and get it.”

  “Not now,” said the man. “I got business to take care of. We’ll make the exchange tonight, midnight—”

  “I don’t want to wait,” said Wake. “I want Alice now.”

  “You’re just a writer, Wake, you ain’t God. Midnight. Mirror Peak. Bring a bouquet of flowers for the missus and the manuscript for me.”

  Wake started to argue but the phone went dead. He resisted the impulse to smash it to pieces on the hard ground.

  The moon was just coming out as Wake slowly started up the winding trail to Mirror Peak, a scenic outlook half a mile ahead, offering “some of the most breathtaking views in the area,” according to the sign. It must be true, because Wake could barely breathe. He was glad for the moonlight; it meant he could save the batteries in his flashlight.

&
nbsp; It had been a long day. Too many long days. After the phone call from the kidnapper, Wake had checked the map he had taken from the ranger’s tower, worked out the route he needed to take, then curled up in the sun and slept for a few hours. More hours than he had anticipated, awakening only when the day cooled into evening.

  Wake had been hiking through the forest for five hours now; he was dizzy and hungry, but he was almost there. A few miles back he had scooped handfuls of cold water out of a mountain stream—it tasted coppery and was probably crawling with parasites and bacteria, but he didn’t care. All the things that used to concern him: his inability to write, problems with his publisher, his rage at the idiocy of the world, none of these things meant anything now. The loss of Alice had focused his mind on one thing only. Getting her back. If he had to threaten the kidnapper, if he had to shoot the man to get her back, he wouldn’t think twice. Barry could get him a good lawyer and he’d deal with the consequences.

  Wake was hurrying now, almost to the top. As he crossed a footbridge over a narrow ravine, a roaring sound exploded out of the woods, splintering trees, smashing boulders into powder. Wake didn’t even slow down.

  A few minutes later, he rounded a bend in the trail, exhausted, allowing himself to acknowledge it finally. He had reached the lookout, a rocky ledge fifty feet above the lake.

  He moved toward the very edge of the lookout, transfixed. Cauldron Lake lay stretched out below like a gigantic black mirror. He stared at the flat surface of the lake, saw stars reflected in the water. In the distance was the spot where the island and the cabin had been. Diver’s Isle. He was sure of it.

  There was a red light near the spot. A light from a boat, moving toward him. He was sure of that too. The night was dead calm. Even the smallest noises were amplified, echoing from the cliff faces around the lake.

  “Wake? Is that you?”

  The voice came from the trail up ahead. It was the kidnapper. He sounded scared.