Tor slapped Wake’s back. “Zane! You’re all right, Tom. Hey, we like him, don’t we, bro? He’s gotta go to the farm.”
They thought Wake was Thomas Zane, confusing one writer with another one. He went along with it. Tor was strong for an old man; his slap on the back almost knocked the wind out of Wake.
“The Anderson Farm!” grunted Odin. “Valhalla!”
“We wrote it all down lest we’d forget,” Tor whispered to Wake. He glanced over at Birch. “A crash course. All you need to know to get your head right. You need to find the message.”
Odin reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here, sonny,” he said, handing it to Wake. “Here’s something for you. Gave me a rash, but I kept it safe from these bastards.”
Wake unfolded the piece of paper. It was a manuscript page. One of his manuscript pages. He looked into Odin’s bright blue eye.
Tor nodded. “Don’t let Hartman find it.” He leaned closer to Wake. “Hey, Tom, you got any booze on you?”
Wake shook his head. “Wish I did. Does Hartman—?”
“You’re in luck, Tom,” said Odin. “We have a stash of the special stuff at the farm. Our own formula. Local ingredients. Medicine. Clears your head right up… makes you remember, like… moonbeams, on the brain…”
Tor flicked the leather patches on Wake’s sport coat. “Leather patches on the elbows? That’s not very rock and roll,” he grumbled.
“Tom’s just lost, is all,” said Odin. “Baba Yaga got to him too, the damn witch!”
Wake looked from one to the other. “Baba Yaga? The woman in black.”
Odin spat on the floor. “Barbara Jagger, that’s her.”
“She took my thunder, the witch,” said Tor. “She took something from you too, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” said Wake. “She did.”
“This place, the lake, it gives you power,” said Odin. “If you’re an artist!” His face darkened. “Musician, writer, poet, painter, she doesn’t care. But she makes sure everything you create comes out twisted and wrong. Just ask the Lamp Lady. She knows what happened to that other writer.”
Tor glared at Wake. “She’s been using you, boy. And you let her. You went and opened the door for her, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Wake.
“Now, now,” said Odin, “it was already open a crack.”
“What door?” said Wake.
“Doesn’t mean he had to open it all the way, goddammit!” Tor said to his brother.
“What exactly are you talking about?” demanded Wake.
“We… we built the farm close to the lake,” said Odin, beating on the table again with the toy hammer. “A place of power. That’s what we wanted.”
“The parties we had there, man,” said Tor, raking his fingers through his wispy white beard. “You… you should go there. Have a party of your own.”
“See you later,” said Wake.
“I’m serious,” said Tor. “You should go there.”
He could hear the Anderson brothers shouting behind him, bellowing at each other, but he kept walking. Wake needed to get into the Staff Only wing. Hartman had the manuscript pages that Wake had collected. They would be in his office. Wake just needed a key.
Lightning crashed outside.
Birch intercepted him by the door. “You going to give the writing a shot, Wake? The typewriter’s in your room.”
A female nurse walked over, a thickset woman with wiry brown hair and big hands. Her nametag read: Sinclair. “Hey, Birch,” she said. “We may need to put a lid on the Anderson brothers. You know how storms send them off the edge.”
Lightning flashed again, froze the room for an instant with hot light.
Odin howled.
Tor joined him.
Birch looked past Wake toward the brothers. “You stay here, Wake. We got to take care of this.”
Wake looked back, saw the two nurses moving quickly toward the brothers.
“Children of the Elder God!” cheered Odin. “Scourge of light upon the dark!”
“Everybody calm down,” said Sinclair. “You boys need to go to your rooms.”
“Do it, fellas,” ordered Birch.
“Children of the Elder God!” shouted Tor, bringing the hammer down. A chunk of wood flew off the table.
Wake stared, moved closer, not believing what he had seen.
Outside the storm was rising, the lake a sea of whitecaps, the wind shaking the windows of the hall.
“Put the hammer down, Tor,” said Sinclair.
“Why don’t you come here and take it from me?” said Tor, hefting the hammer. It wasn’t a plastic hammer anymore. It was a small sledge with a wooden handle. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
“Where the hell did he get a damn hammer?” demanded Birch.
“I don’t know… Mister Anderson, would you please put down the hammer before someone gets hurt?” said Sinclair.
Tor waved the hammer. “Oh, it’s Mister Anderson now.”
“Put it down,” ordered Sinclair. “I’ve had enough of your foolishness.”
“Oh, I’ll put it down, all right,” said Tor, shaking the hammer at her head.
“Afraid of the crazy brothers, are ya?” shouted Odin, capering wildly around the table as the lightning crackled.
Tor slammed the table again with the hammer. “Rock and roll!”
“Tor, you put that thing down right now or I’m gonna beat your wrinkly adult-diapered ass,” said Birch.
“Give him a shot,” said Sinclair.
“A shot?” said Tor. “Here’s a friendly poke from Mjöllnir, wench!” He suddenly jumped forward and bashed Sinclair in the head. Wake winced at the sound it made.
Sinclair crumbled to the floor.
“Down she goes!” cheered Odin. “Down for the count!”
Tor charged Birch, who fled across the room.
“Bye bye!” shouted Odin. “Thank you, come again!”
Tor raised the hammer into the air, gave a triumphant shout to his brother. “We’re on a comeback tour, baby!”
Wake bent down over Sinclair and checked her pulse. She was still breathing but she already had a lump on the side of her head. He rifled through her pockets and pulled out her keys.
“Tom Zane’s making a jailbreak!” called Tor.
“Tom?” Odin stared at Wake, shaking trying to hold himself together. “You get out of here… go to the farm. Have yourself a party.”
“Jailbreak! Jailbreak!” shouted Tor.
Wake ran to the door of the Staff Only office wing. The first key didn’t work, but the second one did. He closed the door behind him, raced down the hallway. Dr. Hartman’s door was ornate, his name in nameplate bronze. Wake unlocked the door. First key he tried.
The lights in the office flickered, went out, then came back on. They didn’t seem as bright as they had been.
Thomas Zane knew he had to remove all that had made this horror possible, including himself. That was the only way to banish the dark presence he had unleashed and now looked at him through the eyes of his dead love. But he also knew that despite his best efforts, it might someday return, so even as he wrote himself and his work out of existence, he added a loophole as insurance, an exception to the rule: anything of his stored in a shoebox would remain.
CHAPTER 17
“SO HOW DID you end up here—?” started Wake.
“The cops released me after they picked me up at the trailer,” said Barry, brushing off his Hawaiian shirt, a psychedelic, yellow silk print featuring pineapples and exploding volcanoes. “The sheriff was all apologies, but that FBI agent was a real ass.”
“I’d have arrested you just on the basis of that shirt,” said Wake.
“It’s a classic,” said Barry. “Anyway, after the cops let me go, I get a call from that son of a bitch Hartman, who told me that you were here and I should come pick you up. When I got here, two goons clobbered me and locked me up.”
&
nbsp; “I’m trying to find Hartman’s office,” said Wake.
“Knowing the right answers is my business.” Barry pointed. “Two doors… Hey, wait up!”
As Wake unlocked the door to Hartman’s office, the lights in the whole building flickered, went out, and then came back on. They didn’t seem as bright as they had been.
“We should get out of here,” whispered Barry. “I’m not a fan of darkness.”
“Soon,” said Wake.
Hartman’s office was elegant and spacious, but too precise and neatly arranged for Wake’s taste. The two brown leather chairs were at the exact same angle from the end table between them. The pictures on the wall exactly horizontal. The long desk bare of anything except a fat Mont Blanc fountain pen lying diagonally across a prescription pad. A control freak’s paradise.
The large windows looked out onto the stone terrace and Cauldron Lake. Wake could see the darkness rolling across the choppy water, the sky boiling with storm clouds.
“What… are you looking for, Al?” said Barry as Wake rifled through the desk drawers.
Wake pulled open the bottom drawer. He picked up his gun and flashlight, tucked them into his jacket. “This,” he said, picking up the pile of manuscript pages. Some of them were dirty, mud smeared, some had been crumpled and smoothed out, and some of them seemed to have come fresh from the typewriter. Most were damp. He flicked a thumb through the pile. All the pages he had on him when he was thrown into the lake were here, all of them and more. Much more. He couldn’t wait until he had a chance to read through them.
“When this is all over, and we’re back home in the city, you might be able to turn those pages into a book,” said Barry, wandering over to the bookcase that ran along one wall. One whole shelf contained multiple copies of Hartman’s book. “Might even be able to get a movie deal out of this mess.”
“I just want to find Alice,” said Wake. “Let’s go.”
“Hang on…” Barry pawed through a whole shelf of tiny audiocassettes with the names of patients on them. “Hey, check this out.” He handed Wake a cassette with the name Alice Wake written on it, the script prim.
Wake held the tape in the palm of his hand. It felt as light as a dandelion, but weighty somehow. Had Alice been a patient of Hartman’s? Wake felt light-headed. Not for the first time he wondered if he might be having a psychotic breakdown. Or if he was lying in a hospital bed somewhere after an accident, lost in a coma and dreaming this whole thing up. Wake examined the date written on the cassette case, saw that it had been recorded prior to him and Alice leaving New York. Wake felt relieved by the simple notation. Alice hadn’t been a patient; Hartman had simply recorded her phone calls to him, building a file before he ever met Wake.
The lights flickered again.
Wake saw another familiar name on the shelf: Agent Nightingale. The FBI agent who had chased him at the trailer park, the man who had tried to shoot him.
“There’s a guy who needs to see a headshrinker,” said Barry, seeing the cassette. “Nightingale wanted to put me in prison just for knowing you.”
Wake tucked both cassettes into his jacket, along with a microcassette player, which lay on top of the bookcase. Time enough to listen to the tapes later. He had his hand on the doorknob when he noticed the framed photo on the office wall: the staff of the lodge, all of them standing near the sundial outside the lodge, the lake behind them.
“What’s wrong, Al?”
Wake tapped the man standing next to Hartman. “I know this guy.” He checked the names below the photo, left to right. Ben Mott. He was the kidnapper. The one who pretended to have Alice. The one who had been carried away by the Dark Presence. Mott had been working for Hartman all along. Wake remembered him pleading with the darkness, telling it that they never had Alice, that the whole thing had been a trick to get Wake to cooperate.
“Yeah?” said Barry. “Talk to me.”
“Nothing,” said Wake. “Just starting to figure things out. I’ll tell you later.”
The door opened, and Hartman hurried in, cried out as he saw them. “You… you startled me, Mr. Wake. Lovely to see you too, Mr. Wheeler.” He had regained control of his voice, but the doctor was still trembling. Wake didn’t think it was because of the sight of him and Barry.
“You really shouldn’t be in here, Alan. Not only is it a privacy violation, an ethical and legal breach, but it’s going to set back your recuperation. We need to trust each—”
“I know what you did,” said Wake, so angry it felt like his skin was on fire. “I know about Mott.”
“Mott?”
Wake pulled out the pistol, shoved it into Hartman’s bland face, backing him up against the desk. “Tell me one more lie. Go ahead, do it.”
Hartman’s face glistened with sweat, but he tried to shrug off the threat.”No need for histrionics, Alan. Let’s work together on this.”
“No, we can’t,” said Wake, the gun steady in his hand.
“You’re too emotional,” said Hartman. “Don’t you see? With your creative ability”—he plucked at the collar of his shirt—“and my own rather unique skillset, we can create something absolutely wonderful—”
Lightning flashed, and the thunder rumbled right behind it, seeming to shake the very foundations of the lodge. The overhead lights flickered and went out. This time they stayed out.
A roaring came off the lake now, louder than the thunder, beating against the windows of the office. Wake saw the glass dripping with shadows, darkening, the Dark Presence working its way inside now.
Wake pushed Barry toward the door, followed him into the hallway, and slammed the door behind them, leaning against it with his full weight.
Hartman beat against the door, screaming, trapped inside as the roaring in the office grew louder and louder. Wake recognized the sound Hartman was making, the high-pitched keening, that mix of absolute pain and absolute terror… he had heard the exact same cry from Mott at Mirror Peak as he was carried away by the Dark Presence.
Just as suddenly the roaring stopped, and there was only silence on the other side of the door.
Barry dragged Wake down the darkened hall. The sunset through the windows was the only light in the lodge now, turning the hallways and rooms red, as though the whole place was bleeding. Every few seconds the generator kicked in, the interior lights flickering before going dark again. Glass shattered downstairs. It sounded like furniture was being hurled against the walls. Voices cried out, some cursing, some praying, some… grunting, the sounds no longer human. Thunder rocked the lodge, rumbling the windows.
“Next year… next year you got to go someplace else for vacation,” said Barry.
“Watch out for that stuff,” said Wake, pointing at the black goo puddling on the landing, slowly trickling down the stairs, its surface slick and shiny in the sunset.
“What is it?” said Barry.
“I don’t want to find out,” said Wake, carefully going down the stairs, keeping to the edges. He tried the flashlight, then switched it off as they started down the stairs. Barry didn’t argue; he knew why Wake was saving the batteries.
The Lodge Hall was a raucous carnival in the dying light, shadows rippling across the ceiling, patients milling around while furniture floated in the air, heavy sofas and armoires drifting past as though made of cotton candy.
“Al…” said Barry, gawking as a table rose into the air. “Al, tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”
The Anderson brothers capered in the middle of the room, long, white hair flying in the darkness. They were singing something with great gusto, but Wake couldn’t make out the words.
Wake saw Birch, the beefy male nurse, howling as he stood in a pool of the black goo. Caught. He fell to his knees, blood leaking from his ears. Wake couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the goo rose slowly, creeping up the man’s legs.
Barry tried to open the double doors to the veranda, but a love seat slithered across the room, knocking him aside and blocking the
way.
Wake scampered away as a marble-topped end table hurtled toward him, crashing to chunks where he had stood.
“This way,” Wake said, nodding at a door on the other side of the room.
Barry crossed toward him, then stood frozen as a file cabinet tumbled down the stairs and flew right at him.
Wake turned on the flashlight, the beam hitting the file cabinet, slowing it until it stopped a few inches from Barry’s nose.
“Al?” Barry stared at the file cabinet, rotating slowly in the faint red light. “Al?”
Wake kept the flashlight on the file cabinet until it flared and disintegrated.
Barry sagged, breathing deeply as he walked toward him.
“I don’t like it here, Al. I didn’t like it when I was locked up… I like it even less now.”
The television was on, the picture flickering. It was the man in the cabin again, still typing, the same one Wake had seen at Stucky’s gas station. Wake recognized him clearly now. It was himself.
“Al, what are you staring at?”
Wake reached out, turned the sound up so he could hear over the noise in the room.
“There’s a shadow inside my head. I can only focus on writing, everything else is a blur,” the man on TV said, his back toward Wake. “I’m trapped in this cabin… always dark outside.”
“Al, we got to move!”
“I think I’ve made a horrible mistake,” said the man, his frantic typing half-drowning out his words. “It’s been lying to me, using me to get the story it wants.”
“Hey!” Barry jerked Wake aside as a heavy ceramic umbrella stand flew past the spot where Wake had been standing.
The TV fizzled to black.
“Thanks… thanks, Barry,” said Wake, shaking off a strange lethargy. He was himself again. Right here, right now.
The furniture moved more rapidly now, as though the Dark Presence had been stirred into awareness of them. Couches and armchairs, tables and bookcases, swirling around the room, tumbling end over end, a vortex of shadows.
Wake used his flashlight twice more on their way to the other side of the room, disintegrating a cast-iron plant stand and a floor lamp that threatened to pierce him like a cocktail weenie. Barry had just slipped out the door when a huge china cabinet crashed in front of the doorway, blocking it. The roaring in the room was louder now. Wake turned the flashlight on the china cabinet, but a sofa dropped onto it, making the barrier even more impassible.
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